Two town councilors were shot dead in an ambush in Mindanao, police said yesterday, adding the violence could be linked to May national elections.
Corazon Florida and Dindo Ligawan were killed by 10 armed men on Saturday, regional police director Chief Superintendent Jake Cataluna said.
The ambush came as the pair was inspecting a palm oil plantation in President Quirino town.
Police spokesman Chief Inspector Jomar Yap said the attack could be related to the upcoming elections, with the two councilors planning to run for re-election. Police also stressed that they were looking at other motives.
In other developments, four communist insurgents and a government militiaman were killed on Saturday in clashes between armed forces and rebels in Mindanao, the military said yesterday. One rebel and one soldier were wounded in the clash.
Former British prime minister Rishi Sunak on Wednesday urged so-called middle powers to become a “poisonous shrimp” to carve out strategic economic leverage in a more turbulent global environment. Sunak drew from a metaphor by former Singaporean prime minister Lee Kuan Yew (李光耀): A big fish will eat a smaller fish, and the smaller fish will eat the shrimp. Lee made the point a year after the Asian nation’s independence in 1966 that the city-state needed to build up its defense mechanisms — like a shrimp that stings — so it would be left alone by predators. “He was thinking about what Singapore’s
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A Rhode Island pumpkin grower appears to have broken the world record for the heaviest pumpkin, with his giant squash topping the record by nearly 136kg. Ron Wallace of Greene, Rhode Island, weighed his pumpkin on Saturday at a contest in New England and is waiting for the Guinness World Records to confirm he smashed the record, set about a week earlier by a grower in England. Wallace said he has been in contact with Guinness officials who say his record is on track to be verified. “It’s truly massive, it was a pleasure to grow,” Wallace said on Monday. Guinness World Records lists
BUILDUP: The report comes as Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi boosts defense spending in the face of China’s military expansion and the North Korean threat French defence contractor Thales will establish a maintenance and operational support base in Japan in what is seen as the first such move by a foreign firm in the country, a report said yesterday. Thales chairman and CEO Patrice Caine told the Nikkei business daily that the base “will mark a milestone toward Thales’ long-term engagement in Japan.” It is believed to be the first time a foreign defense company has established a dedicated base in Japan for the maintenance and operation of Japanese defense equipment, the Nikkei said. It added that Thales might also expand its Japan-based business to
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