PHILIPPINES
President drops holiday
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr dropped a public holiday marking the anniversary of a revolution that ousted his father as president, an official document showed yesterday. A military-backed “People Power” revolt in February 1986 ended the rule of Ferdinand Marcos Sr and forced the family into exile in Hawaii. Feb. 25 was declared a “special national holiday” in 2000 by then-president Joseph Estrada. Rights advocates typically hold rallies on the day to commemorate the restoration of democracy. A presidential proclamation declaring holidays for next year makes no mention of the anniversary. Rights group Karapatan said that the removal of the holiday showed the administration’s contempt for “meaningful social actions that pursue justice, truth and accountability.”
UNITED STATES
Senator linked to Egypt
Senator Bob Menendez on Thursday was accused of conspiring to act as an agent of the Egyptian government in a new indictment. The superseding indictment, filed in Manhattan federal court, accuses Menendez of contravening the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which requires people to register with Washington if they act as “an agent of a foreign principal.” As a member of Congress, Menendez is prohibited from being an agent of a foreign government.
UNITED NATIONS
Torture tools ban urged
A top UN expert on Thursday urged law enforcement agencies around the world to ban 20 “modern-day torture tools,” such as spiked batons, electric shock bands and caged beds. “They are as horrifying as the racks and thumbscrews favored by medieval torturers,” special rapporteur on torture Alice Edwards said at the UN. “They have no place in human rights-compliant law enforcement.” On the list of “inherently cruel, inhuman” tools compiled by Edwards were “spiked batons that literally just rip through the skin,” knuckle cuffs and finger cuffs with serrated edges, and electric shock bands worn by defendants in court. Other torture devices include “caged beds so people are literally constrained in those places,” Edwards said. “We’re talking about tiger chairs and metal chairs where people cannot move and are held in stress positions for hours while they are being interrogated,” she said.
HAITI
Border kept closed
The nation on Thursday declined to join the Dominican Republic in reopening a key commercial border crossing, leaving some trade at a standstill and prolonging a diplomatic crisis over the construction of a canal on its soil. Dominican President Luis Abinader had closed all borders, including the crossing at the Dominican city of Dajabon for nearly a month to protest the construction of the canal, which he says contravenes a treaty and would take water needed by Dominican farmers. Haiti says it has the right to build the canal. Abinader’s government partially reopened the borders on Wednesday, including the one at Dajabon, but allowed only limited trade and kept a ban on Haitians entering the Dominican Republic for work, school, tourism or medical issues. Haiti declined to follow suit at its gate in the nearby community of Ouanaminthe. President Moise Charles Pierre told reporters that the Dominican side needed to apologize and resume full border operations. “Abinader needs to respect the Haitian people and apologize publicly,” Pierre said.
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