PHILIPPINES
Kidnapping suspect arrested
A second suspect in the kidnapping of an American man, who police say was likely killed by his captors, has been arrested, police said yesterday. Elliot Eastman was snatched from his home on Mindanao island on Oct. 17 last year. Police said his kidnappers shot him dead that day when he tried to escape. Jakaria Jamani, a resident of Sibuco, was arrested at sea on Tuesday and was being held without bail while awaiting trial for the kidnapping, police said in a statement. The statement described him as the “mastermind/planner” of the abduction.
Photo: EPA-EFE
VIETNAM
Court critic’s trial begins
Tran Dinh Trien, former deputy head of the Hanoi Bar Association and a former lawyer, yesterday went on trial over Facebook posts in which he criticized court officials. Charged with “abusing democratic freedoms to infringe upon state interests,” the 65-year-old faces up to seven years in jail if found guilty by the court in Hanoi. Prosecutors accused him of posting Facebook articles “without verified evidence ... undermining the prestige of the court,” Tuoi Tre newspaper said. The Facebook posts over which he is charged were uploaded in April and May last year. In them, he criticized the chief justice of the Supreme Court, who he said prevented defendants’ family members from attending trials, and journalists and lawyers from recording video during open trials, Human Rights Watch said.
Photo: AFP
INDIA
Six killed in stampede
At least six people were crushed to death on Wednesday at a Hindu religious gathering, with several more injured, officials said yesterday. A huge crowd had gathered to collect entrance tokens to visit the Sri Venkateswara Swamy Temple in Andhra Pradesh when the stampede broke out. “The unfortunate incident ... has claimed the lives of six devotees. I pray to god to give peace to the departed souls,” said Prem Kumar Jain, spokesman of the state’s ruling Telugu Desam Party.
MEXICO
Sheinbaum mocks Trump
President Claudia Sheinbaum responded sarcastically on Wednesday to US president-elect Donald Trump’s proposal to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America.” Standing before a global map at a news conference, Sheinbaum proposed dryly that North America should be renamed “America Mexicana,” or “Mexican America,” because a document from 1814 that preceded the constitution referred to it that way. “That sounds nice, no?” she added with a sarcastic tone. She also said the Gulf of Mexico had been named that way since 1607.
UNITED STATES
Greenland’s value backed
Greenland is important for national security, Representative Mike Waltz told Fox News on Wednesday, following comments by president-elect Donald Trump suggesting that Washington should take control of the island. Waltz, who was tapped to be Trump’s national security adviser, was asked about Trump wanting control over the arctic island. “You have Russia that is trying to become king of the arctic, with 60-plus icebreakers, some of them nuclear powered,” he said. “We have two and one just caught on fire.” Waltz added: “This is about critical minerals. This is about natural resources. This is about, as the polar ice caps pull back, the Chinese are now cranking out icebreakers and pushing up there as well. So it’s oil and gas. It’s our national security.”
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
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