PHILIPPINES
Military ready for war
The government is prepared to go to war if military personnel are harmed in disputed waters, a top security official said yesterday, firing back at criticism the government was going soft on China and allowing it to militarize the South China Sea. President Rodrigo Duterte has taken flak for not confronting Beijing following news that China had installed missile systems on artificial islands in the region. National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon said the nation would always try to pursue talks to defuse tension, but war could not be ruled out as a last resort if its military was provoked or aggrieved. “The other night, the president said if his troops are harmed, that could be his red line,” Esperon told reporters.
PAKISTAN
Ceasefire deal struck
Military officials and their Indian counterparts, in a rare move, have agreed to avoid artillery exchanges in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, where several troops and civilians have died this month. The military on Tuesday said in a statement the understanding was reached between the sides during a special hotline contact involving the director-generals of military operations. It said both sides “agreed to undertake sincere measures to improve the existing situation, ensuring peace and avoidance of hardships to the civilians along the borders.” It said both sides agreed to fully implement the 2003 ceasefire agreement “in letter and spirit forthwith, and to ensure that henceforth the ceasefire will not be violated by both sides.”
JAPAN
North Korea talks mulled
The government is weighing high-level, direct talks with North Korea, potentially an August meeting between the two nations’ foreign ministers, the Mainichi Shimbun said yesterday. The talks could take place on the sidelines of the ASEAN Regional Forum in August in Singapore, the newspaper said, citing unnamed government sources. Kyodo News agency, also citing unnamed sources, said Tokyo has sounded out Pyongyang on a proposal for Minister of Foreign Affairs Taro Kono to meet his North Korean counterpart, Ri Yong-ho. However, Japanese officials would first evaluate the outcome of the expected US-North Korea summit, the reports said.
SOUTH AFRICA
Minimum wage bill passed
Parliament on Tuesday passed a national minimum wage bill in a landmark step aimed at bridging one of the world’s highest income inequality gaps. The bill attempts to ensure that the lowest paid workers receive a minimum of 20 rand (US$1.60) an hour. Although President Cyril Ramaphosa still has to sign the bill into law, the unprecedented piece of legislation is expected to improve the livelihoods of an estimated 6 million people.
SAUDI ARABIA
Harassment law approved
The Cabinet on Tuesday approved a measure criminalizing sexual harassment, Saudi Press Agency reported, weeks before a decades-old ban on women driving is set to expire. The legislation still needs a royal decree to become law. The bill introduces a jail sentence of up to five years and a 300,000 riyals (US$80,000) fine. “[The legislation] aims at combating the crime of harassment, preventing it, applying punishment against perpetrators and protecting the victims in order to safeguard the individual’s privacy, dignity and personal freedom which are guaranteed by Islamic law and regulations,” a Shura Council statement said.
BRAZIL
Oil workers to start strike
Oil workers yesterday planned to start a 72-hour strike, despite a court order, in a new blow to President Michel Temer and an economy reeling from a truckers’ protest that has strangled the economy for more than a week. The planned oil strike was declared illegal by the nation’s top labor court on Tuesday. The FUP, the nation’s largest oil workers’ union, said it had not been informed of the ruling and planned to go ahead with the stoppage. State-led oil firm Petroleo Brasileiro, commonly known as Petrobras, said any such disruption would not have an immediate major effect on its production or overall operations, but the planned strike raised the specter of stoppages and protests spreading to other sectors.
MEXICO
Journalist beaten to death
A journalist with national newspaper Excelsior has been killed in the border state of Tamaulipas, the state prosecutor’s office said on Tuesday. The body of Hector Gonzalez Antonio was found on Tuesday morning in Ciudad Victoria, the state capital. Authorities responded to call about a dumped body and only identified Gonzalez later. He was beaten to death, prosecutors said in a statement. Gonzalez is the second journalist killed in Tamaulipas this year.
UNITED STATES
Hacker gets five-year term
A man accused of taking part in devastating cyberattacks on Yahoo for Russian intelligence agents was on Tuesday sentenced to five years in prison in a plea bargain with federal prosecutors in San Francisco. The deal struck by 23-year-old Karim Baratov, who immigrated to Canada from Kazakhstan, also resulted in a fine that “encompasses all his remaining assets,” the Department of Justice said in a statement. Authorities have alleged that Russian intelligence agents hired Baratov and another hacker to carry out attacks on Yahoo from 2014 to 2016. The hack compromised 500 million Yahoo accounts and is one of the largest cyberattacks in history.
UNITED STATES
CNN asked to retract report
Morgan Freeman’s lawyer on Tuesday demanded that CNN retract a story accusing the 80-year-old movie star of multiple cases of sexual harassment. “We presented CNN with objective evidence, including videotapes and on-the-record denials by the claimed ‘victims,’ that the alleged incident that gave rise to the story never happened,” Robert Schwartz said in a statement. In a letter sent to CNN, the lawyer accused it of “malicious intent, falsehoods, sleight-of-hand, an absence of editorial control and journalistic malpractice.” Tyra Martin, one of the TV journalists cited in the CNN report, denied that she was one of the accusers and said that the news network “totally misrepresented” a video in which she had interviewed Freeman.
UNITED STATES
Bostonian finds goat head
A Massachusetts woman early on Tuesday morning woke up to find a bloody goat head on the hood of her car with a photograph of herself tucked under the windshield wiper blades in Boston. The woman was walking her dog up at about 6am and noticed the head of the animal. She drove her car about 800m to the Hyde Park branch of the Boston Police Department with the grisly scene still intact, police said. Animal control removed the head and officers are searching for more evidence. Police asked the public for surveillance video in the neighborhood. No suspects have been arrested.
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
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
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