PHILIPPINES
Maria Ressa bailed
A court yesterday granted bail to the top executive of a news Web site critical of President Rodrigo Duterte’s policies after she was indicted on tax evasion charges, a case she said was “politically motivated.” The Department of Justice in October charged Maria Ressa, and her online news platform Rappler, with attempting to evade taxes by not reporting gains of almost US$3 million in the company’s 2015 tax returns. “I will continue addressing the charges with nothing other than to show they are politically motivated, and they are manufactured,” Ressa told reporters after posting bail of 60,000 pesos (US$1,148.33). The court set her arraignment for Friday. “I think the end goal of government is to try to make our team lose focus, affect morale, but in the end the mission of journalism, especially Rappler, has never been stronger,” Ressa said. “We know we are doing something right, we know that what we are doing is critically important right now.” She returned to Manila on Sunday under the threat of an arrest warrant.
Photo: AP
CAMBODIA
Political crackdown to ease
Banned opposition politicians might be allowed back into political life and shuttered media outlets could reopen, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday. In the spirit of national reconciliation and to broaden democratic space, parliament was reviewing legislation allowing “individuals who were banned from politics to resume their political activities,” the ministry said. US-backed Radio Free Asia was welcome to reopen its office, it said. The announcement comes after the EU threatened to suspend trade benefits over the controversial general elections in July, a move that would cripple the billion-dollar garment industry.
GAZA STRIP
Six sentenced to death
A military court in the Hamas-run territory yesterday sentenced six people, including a woman, to death by hanging for “collaborating” with Israel, authorities said. A total of 14 people were sentenced for “collaborating with the occupation,” with six sentenced to be hanged, they said.
INDONESIA
Papuan activists arrested
More than 500 pro-Papuan independence activists were arrested nationwide over the weekend, police and rights group said yesterday. More than 230 people, including Australian Ronda Amy Harman, were detained late on Saturday in Surabaya, an East Java police spokesman said. The crackdown coincided with rallies on Saturday to mark the Dec. 1, 1961, declaration of Papua’s independence from the Dutch.
KAZAKHSTAN
Space launch successful
Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, NASA astronaut Anne McClain and David Saint-Jacques of the Canadian Space Agency yesterday blasted off aboard a Soyuz from Baikonur for a six-and-a-half-month mission on the International Space Station. It was the first manned launch for the Soviet-era Soyuz since Oct. 11, when a rocket carrying Russia’s Aleksey Ovchinin and US astronaut Nick Hague failed just minutes after blast-off, forcing the pair to make an emergency landing.
GERMANY
Official questions pipeline
The government must answer urgent, growing political concerns about the planned Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project given Russia’s seizure of three Ukrainian ships and their crew off the coast of Crimea, a senior conservative said on Sunday. Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, a top candidate to replace Chancellor Angela Merkel as leader of the Christian Democratic Union party, told public broadcaster ARD that it would be “too radical” to withdraw political support for the project, but Berlin could reduce the amount of gas to flow through the pipeline. She told ARD on Sunday that it was time to draw a firmer line against Russian actions, including its annexation of Crimea and its support for separatists in eastern Ukraine.
SPAIN
Rightists win in Andalusia
A far-right party won seats in the Andalusian parliament for the first time since the country returned to democracy following the death of dictator Francisco Franco in 1975. With more than 99 percent of the votes counted late on Sunday, the small Vox party took 12 seats, handing a majority to right-wing parties in the region governed by socialists for more than three decades. The result means that Vox, which opposes illegal immigration and Catalan independence, has exceeded even the most optimistic poll predictions, which had forecast a possible five-seat win.
EGYPT
Police officers not charged
The government refuses to accuse police officers suspected by Italy of involvement in the grisly murder of an Italian student because of a lack of evidence, the authorities said. Giulio Regeni, a 28-year-old doctoral researcher at Cambridge University, disappeared in Cairo in January 2016 while on a trip to research local trade unions. “Charges should be based on evidence and not suspicions,” the State Information Service said in a statement released late on Sunday.
UNITED KINGDOM
Connolly to stop performing
Comedian Billy Connolly has announced that after a half-century career in stand-up, music, film and TV he is retiring from live performing. The news came in an interview where he also said that he had tried medicinal cannabis to treat his Parkinson’s disease, likened US president Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler and rebutted Michael Parkinson’s claim that his illness had “dulled” his brain. “He thought I’d lost track, mentally, but I never remember what year anything was,” Connolly told the Radio Times. “I haven’t a clue. I’ve always been about going forward, not the past. Plus, we were doing the GQ event, I was Inspiration of the Year, and I blew everybody away. He should have remembered that.”
BRAZIL
Indigenous take entry exams
The University of Campinas on Sunday organized its first entry exams reserved for members of indigenous tribes, with 610 people vying for 72 spots. The applicants for the five-hour tests included people from 13 states, 350 of them from Sao Gabriel da Cachoeira, a city of 44,000 on the northern tip of Amazonas State. Last week, university staff traveled 3,500km to administer the test in that municipality, where 76 percent of the inhabitants are from indigenous tribes. “The number of registrants surprised us,” Jose Alves de Freitas Neto, the exam’s coordinator, said on the university’s Web site. “They showed a great interest for courses in the fields of health and humanities, management and education,” he added.
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
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