PHILIPPINES
Duterte critic acquitted
A former opposition senator and justice secretary was acquitted of drug charges yesterday after key witnesses recanted and said they had lied about her involvement in narcotics trafficking. However, Leila de Lima, 63, remained jailed, as she has one outstanding charge against her. De Lima has been detained since 2017 on drug charges she says were fabricated by the administration of former president Rodrigo Duterte in an attempt to muzzle her criticism of its deadly crackdown on illegal drugs. The campaign left thousands of mostly petty suspects dead and sparked an International Criminal Court investigation as a possible crime against humanity. Duterte, who has insisted on De Lima’s guilt, left office last year.
THAILAND
Army head pledges no coup
Army Commander-in-Chief General Narongpan Jitkaewthae has pledged not to stage a coup, as political parties geared up for final campaign rallies yesterday ahead of an election tomorrow that could see the military-backed government voted out. Narongpan made the pledge despite the army seizing power a dozen times in Thailand in the past century, most recently in 2014. Voters are predicted to deliver a heavy defeat to the military-backed administration of prime minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, fueling fears that the military might seek to cling on to power. Narongpan told reporters on Thursday that there would be no return to military rule, saying that the coups of the past were “very negative... There shouldn’t be [a coup] any more.”
TURKEY
Candidate pans Russia
Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the main election rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, issued a warning to Russia, accusing it of responsibility for the release of fake material on social media ahead of tomorrow’s election. Kilicdaroglu, who has a slight lead over long-time leader Erdogan according to opinion polls, did not specify to which material he meant. A third presidential candidate, Muharrem Ince, withdrew from the race on Thursday citing a faked “character assassination.” Kilicdaroglu accused Turkey’s “Russian friends” of responsibility for “the release in this country yesterday of montages, plots, deep fake content.” He said that “if you want to continue our friendship after May 15, withdraw your hand from the Turkish state. We are still in favor of cooperation and friendship.”
ASIA
Cyclone to make landfall
Authorities in Bangladesh and Myanmar prepared to evacuate hundreds of thousands of people yesterday, warning them to stay away from coastal areas as Cyclone Mocha churned in the Bay of Bengal. The storm is expected to roar in tomorrow with sustained wind speeds of up to 160kph, gusting to 175kph between Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh and Kyaukpyu in Myanmar, the India Meteorological Department said. Bangladesh is a delta nation of more than 160 million people and is prone to natural disasters such as floods and cyclones. Evacuation of nearly 500,000 people is expected to start today with 576 cyclone shelters ready to provide refuge to those moved from their homes along a vast coast. “This is the first cyclone system in the north Indian Ocean this year,” department senior scientist Rajendra Kumar Jenamani said. “The cyclone is severe and will likely affect millions of fishers and coastal communities in Bangladesh and Myanmar.”
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) greetings with what appeared to be restrained rhetoric that comes as Pyongyang moves closer to Russia and depends less on its long-time Asian ally. Kim wished “the Chinese people greater success in building a modern socialist country,” in a reply message to Xi for his congratulations on North Korea’s birthday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday. The 190-word dispatch had little of the florid language that had been a staple of their correspondence, which has declined significantly this year, an analysis by Seoul-based specialist service NK Pro showed. It said
On an island of windswept tundra in the Bering Sea, hundreds of miles from mainland Alaska, a resident sitting outside their home saw — well, did they see it? They were pretty sure they saw it — a rat. The purported sighting would not have gotten attention in many places around the world, but it caused a stir on Saint Paul Island, which is part of the Pribilof Islands, a birding haven sometimes called the “Galapagos of the north” for its diversity of life. That is because rats that stow away on vessels can quickly populate and overrun remote islands, devastating bird
‘CLOSER TO THE END’: The Ukrainian leader said in an interview that only from a ‘strong position’ can Ukraine push Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘to stop the war’ Decisive actions by the US now could hasten the end of the Russian war against Ukraine next year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday after telling ABC News that his nation was “closer to the end of the war.” “Now, at the end of the year, we have a real opportunity to strengthen cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” Zelenskiy said in a post on Telegram after meeting with a bipartisan delegation from the US Congress. “Decisive action now could hasten the just end of Russian aggression against Ukraine next year,” he wrote. Zelenskiy is in the US for the UN
A 64-year-old US woman took her own life inside a controversial suicide capsule at a Swiss woodland retreat, with Swiss police on Tuesday saying several people had been arrested. The space-age looking Sarco capsule, which fills with nitrogen and causes death by hypoxia, was used on Monday outside a village near the German border. The portable human-sized pod, self-operated by a button inside, has raised a host of legal and ethical questions in Switzerland. Active euthanasia is banned in the country, but assisted dying has been legal for decades. On the same day it was used, Swiss Department of Home