PHILIPPINES
Ambush kills Pacquiao ally
A mayor and political ally of boxing superstar-turned-legislator Manny Pacquiao has died after being ambushed by unknown gunmen in a violence-wracked town in the south, police said on Saturday. Maitum Mayor George Perrett suffered a fatal cardiac arrest early on Saturday as he received treatment in hospital for a gunshot wound to the thigh, said Superintendent Jomar Yap, the deputy chief of police of Sarangani Province. Perrett was shot by unknown gunmen as he drove home with his wife and an aide late on Friday, Yap added. His companions were unhurt. Police said no suspects had been arrested and the authorities did not know if the attack was politically motivated. Maitum has a blood-spattered recent political history, losing two other sitting mayors in as-yet-unsolved gun attacks. Pacquiao has urged the police to bring the unknown suspects to justice. “I urge our law enforces to expedite the investigation of the case and do everything to identify and arrest those responsible,” Pacquiao said.
MYANMAR
MSF to resume work
Officials has allowed Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) to resume work in parts of the country, days after it ordered it to close its clinics, but not in the western strife-torn state of Rakhine, the medical aid group said. It did not give a reason for Thursday’s suspension, but media reported government officials had been angered by the charity’s public comments on Rakhine. The group has been giving care there to both ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims, a mostly stateless minority who live in apartheid-like conditions and who otherwise have little access to healthcare. The UN and human rights groups say at least 40 Rohingya were killed by security forces and ethnic Rakhine Buddhist civilians in a restricted area of the state in January. The government denies that any massacre took place. Government spokesman Ye Htut on Friday accused MSF of falsely reporting that it had treated victims near the scene of the alleged mass killing. MSF said in a statement on Saturday it had been allowed to resume work in Kashin and Shan states, as well as the Yangon region.
UNITED STATES
Pedophile captain jailed
A former marine captain will spend the rest of his life in prison for the violent sexual abuse of young girls in Cambodia, officials said. Michael Pepe was convicted in 2008, but was only sentenced by a federal court in Los Angeles on Friday after a delay following allegations of an affair between a US investigator and a Cambodian interpreter. Federal Judge Dale Fischer handed Pepe a 210-year sentence after stating the former soldier had shown “absolutely no remorse.” “He went to Cambodia because it was easy to molest little girls there,” Fischer said. “He raped and tortured them ... while maintaining the facade of being interested in the education of Cambodian children.” Fischer said he was imposing a maximum 30 years in jail for each of Pepe’s seven convictions, to run consecutively. Fischer awarded restitution of US$247,000 to organizations that house and cared for the victims. The judge said money from Pepe’s military pension would be used to pay for the award. “As far as I’m concerned, every last dime of it should go to the children,” Fischer said. Pepe, from Oxnard, California, was working part-time as a professor at a university in Phnom Penh when he was arrested by the Cambodian National Police in June 2006.
IRAN
Confusion over hostages
Five Iranian border guards reportedly seized and held captive in Pakistan for three weeks have been freed, a military official has been quoted as saying, although Pakistani authorities said they had no knowledge of the incident. News agency IRNA said the five, abducted by Sunni Muslim militants on Feb. 6 in the restive Sistan-Baluchistan Province, were among 11 foreign hostages freed in an operation by Pakistani forces. Fars news agency on Saturday also quoted General Massoud Jazaerisemi as saying: “Five Iranian troops who had been kidnapped on our eastern borders and transferred to Pakistan were freed.” He did not elaborate on the circumstances of the release, only saying that “the country’s entire police and security apparatus were involved in this matter.” However, Pakistani authorities appeared to have no knowledge of the operation. The government-run paramilitary Frontier Corps, which has primary responsibility for security in Baluchistan, said they had freed three Africans kidnapped by drug traffickers in Baluchistan on Saturday, but had not recovered the Iranians.
SOUTH AFRICA
Cops probe baby’s death
Police are investigating whether a three-month-old baby’s death was caused by tear gas fired by officers at a nearby protest, a spokesman said on Saturday. Police intervened when residents barricaded streets during a strike in the Majakaneng community near the town of Brits, northwest of Johannesburg on Friday, Thulani Ngubane said. “Some things like tear gas and stun grenades were fired,” the spokesman said. “According to the family, the child was with the father in a house and the child died instantly in his room. They allege it was because of tear gas.” The family claimed an empty canister was found in their yard, Ngubane said.
IRELAND
Notorious crime boss shot
Authorities say the nation’s most notorious crime boss — widely blamed for the murder of an investigative reporter — was shot in a Dublin ambush, but may have survived because he wore body armor. John Gilligan has been at risk of assassination by rivals since his parole from prison last year. A gunman narrowly missed him in December last year. Police said 61-year-old Gilligan was shot three times at close range when he answered the door at his brother’s west Dublin home on Saturday night. He was hospitalized in critical condition. While serving 17 years in prison on drug trafficking charges, he was acquitted of the murder of journalist Veronica Guerin, who wrote several exposes on Gilligan — and was beaten up by him — before her 1996 killing by members of Gilligan’s gang.
GREECE
Right-wing doctor arrested
Police said a 57-year-old neurologist has been arrested for inciting racial hatred and weapons possession. The doctor, who has not been named, has acknowledged he is a member of the extreme right Golden Dawn party. Police intervened when informed that the doctor had put a plaque outside his office which said, in German, “Jews Not Welcome.” A search of the doctor’s house retrieved 12 knives and three daggers, two inscribed with Nazi symbols, as well as pills without a prescription. Golden Dawn, a formerly marginal Nazi-inspired party, entered parliament at the last election in 2012 on an anti-immigrant platform. About 95 percent of Thessaloniki’s almost 50,000-strong Jewish community at the start of Germany’s World War II occupation perished in extermination camps.
BOLIVIA
Bridge collapses over parade
Four people were killed and more than 60 injured on Saturday, when a bridge collapsed onto spectators and marching musicians in the opening carnival parade in the Oruro highlands. Minister of the Interior Carlos Romero said three of the dead were musicians from the Poopo band, while the other was walking on the temporary footbridge, which collapsed due to overload. President Evo Morales, a band musician in his youth, “has sent his condolences and sympathy, and expressed solidarity with the families of the victims and the people of Oruro as a whole,” Romero said. Despite the tragedy, the local folklore association vowed to keep the festival running.
BRAZIL
Carnival cleaners teargassed
Police used tear gas to disperse several hundred Rio carnival cleaners demanding better pay and conditions, media reported on Saturday. As revelers prepared for evening parties after more than 1 million attended a morning parade, the cleaners — known as garis — headed for the Sambadrome, the fulcrum of the five days of festivities. Before they could get there, they found military policemen barring the way, Globo’s G1 Web portal and Agencia do Brasil reported. Agencia do Brasil said the police used tear gas as the group reached the central artery of President Vargas Avenue, near the city prefecture. The cleaners, with their highly visible orange bibs, are a part of the scenery in Rio during Carnival as mountains of trash pile up by the hour during hundreds of street parades.
ECUADOR
Prison workers fired
Two female prison workers have been fired for compelling inmates at the facility to give them massages, officials said on Friday. The women, employees at a men’s prison in the port city of Guayaquil, were found out when security cameras captured one of them reclining, receiving a foot and shoulder massage from an inmate. The two employees, an educator and a social worker, made a habit of pressing inmates to give them massages, according to officials, who said a wider investigation is underway.
UNITED STATES
‘Dead’ man wakes up
A 78-year-old man who was declared dead and taken to a funeral home dramatically woke up as he was about to be embalmed, media reported on Friday. Walter Williams was registered dead on Wednesday evening after medics failed to find his pulse. He was transported to the Porters and Sons Funeral Home in Lexington, Mississippi. However, a few hours later, when workers were about to prepare his corpse, they noticed Williams moving in his body bag. A coroner said Williams’ pacemaker may have stopped working and then started up again.
UNITED STATES
Boy accidentally kills brother
Authorities say an eight-year-old Ohio boy has been shot in the chest and killed while one of his brothers was playing with a loaded handgun he thought was a pellet gun. Cincinnati Police Lieutenant Don Luck tells the Cincinnati Enquirer that the three boys were visiting an uncle when one pulled the trigger of a handgun and hit Sammy Lorenzo in the chest on Saturday. The boy was taken to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and rushed into surgery, but later died. One of the brothers “kept telling the story of how it happened, over and over again,” Luck said. “It’s so sad.” Luck says no charges are expected against the children and that it is too early to tell whether charges will be filed against any adults.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was