PHILIPPINES
Three hurt in China standoff
Three navy personnel were injured in the latest China Coast Guard water cannon attack on a Filipino supply vessel near a South China Sea reef, National Security Adviser Eduardo Ano said yesterday. The government said that Saturday’s confrontation caused severe damage to the Unaizah May 4 vessel while it was on its way to deliver troops and provisions to a Philippine navy ship grounded atop the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙). The extent and nature of the injuries to the navy personnel was not disclosed, but the military said they were treated aboard a coast guard escort ship.
MEXICO
Search continues for missing
Authorities were on Saturday searching for two dozen people in Sinaloa state reported to have been kidnapped along with more than 40 others who have since been found alive. “In total, 66 people were allegedly deprived of their freedom ... of which 42 [24 adults and 18 children] have been located,” Sinaloa Governor Ruben Rocha Moya wrote on X. The local government has not reported any possible motives behind the kidnappings. On Friday, an emergency hotline received reports of abductions from several homes in a working-class neighborhood of Culiacan, Sinaloa Department of Public Security Secretary Gerardo Merida said in a brief statement. On Thursday, an armed clash left three people dead in Badiraguato, the birthplace of Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, who is serving a life sentence in the US.
UNITED KINGDOM
China targets lawmakers
Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden is today to report to parliament on a string of cyberattacks launched by China targeting a group of lawmakers, the Times reported. Meanwhile, members of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) have been called on to attend a briefing from Parliament Director of Security Alison Giles, the newspaper said, without saying where it obtained the information. The attacks are part of a wave of state-backed interference aimed at undermining British democracy, the Times said. “About a year ago the Belgian and French foreign ministries publicly confirmed [Chinese state] sponsored cyberattacks against our members, IPAC executive director Luke de Pulford said on Friday. “Other countries have done the same privately. Beijing has made no secret of their desire to attack foreign politicians who dare to stand up to them.”
LAOS
Bear cubs found in home
Sixteen undernourished Asiatic black bear cubs have been found in a home in Vientiane by a conservation charity, the largest rescue of the year. Free the Bears said they found 17 cubs in the private home in Laos early last week, but that one of them had already died. “When we arrived at the house there were bear cubs everywhere,” said Fatong Yang, animal manager with the charity. The group found 10 males and six females, weighing between 1.3kg and 4kg and believed to be about two to four months old. “Cubs this small are extremely vulnerable. In the wild their mothers would never leave them and we suspect the mothers were killed by poachers,” Fatong said in a statement over the weekend. Police were alerted after a neighbor heard the cries of one of the cubs, the group said. Thousands of the animals are kept as pets or farmed to extract their bile for use in costly traditional medicine. “This is the most bears we’ve rescued in a single year and we’re only three months into 2024,” he said.
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
CONFIDENT ON DEAL: ‘Ukraine wants a seat at the table, but wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have a say? It’s been a long time since an election, the US president said US President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and added that he was more confident of a deal to end the war after US-Russia talks. Trump increased pressure on Zelenskiy to hold elections and chided him for complaining about being frozen out of talks in Saudi Arabia. The US president also suggested that he could meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before the end of the month as Washington overhauls its stance toward Russia. “I’m very disappointed, I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when asked about the Ukrainian
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