The Philippines yesterday braced for retaliatory strikes by communist insurgents after their party leader was arrested in the Netherlands on suspicion of ordering the murders of former allies.
Security forces were placed on heightened alert to thwart attacks from the 7,000-strong New People's Army (NPA), the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), officials said.
While there was no direct threat against Philippine President Gloria Arroyo, her elite security unit was also on full alert as militant groups sympathetic to the insurgents protested in Manila's Makati financial district.
"It is better to be on the cautious side rather than be sorry later," armed forces chief General Hermogenes Esperon told reporters.
He said the arrest on Tuesday of CPP chief Jose Maria Sison in the Netherlands was a "big boost for our internal security operations" because it would cut him off from communicating with his forces on the ground.
News of Sison's arrest broke on Tuesday as Arroyo was meeting with her top security advisers and senior Cabinet officials.
Arroyo said the arrest was a "giant step toward peace."
Dutch police arrested Sison for allegedly giving orders from his residence in the Netherlands to have two of his former associates killed.
The two men, Arturo Tabara and Romulo Kintanar -- who had split with Sison's NPA for ideological reasons -- were gunned down in separate gangland-style attacks in 2003 and last year.
The NPA has been waging a Maoist rebellion against the authorities in Manila since 1969, in one of Asia's longest running communist insurgencies.
It is classified as a foreign terrorist organization by the US and the EU.
Sison's arrest comes one month after the CPP rejected an offer of a three-year ceasefire to pave the way for the resumption of peace talks stalled since August 2004.
Chief communist negotiator Fidel Agcaoili condemned Sison's arrest, adding that Dutch police also raided the office of the party's political front.
"The arrest of professor Sison and the raids conducted are bound to terminate the ongoing peace negotiations," he said.
He said NPA cadres would "continue to intensify their resistance against the illegitimate, unjust, corrupt and barbaric Arroyo regime."
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
CHINA REACTS: The patrol and reconnaissance plane ‘transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,’ the 7th Fleet said, while Taipei said it saw nothing unusual The US 7th Fleet yesterday said that a US Navy P-8A Poseidon flew through the Taiwan Strait, a day after US and Chinese defense heads held their first talks since November 2022 in an effort to reduce regional tensions. The patrol and reconnaissance plane “transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,” the 7th Fleet said in a news release. “By operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law, the United States upholds the navigational rights and freedoms of all nations.” In a separate statement, the Ministry of National Defense said that it monitored nearby waters and airspace as the aircraft
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique