PHILIPPINES
Duterte hospital visit denied
President Rodrigo Duterte is in his residence at the presidential office in Manila signing papers, his spokesman said, denying that Duterte was confined at a hospital. “I just talked to him,” spokesman Salvador Panelo said in a statement. “He’s neither confirming nor denying that he went to the hospital.” ABS-CBN News said in a report citing social media posts that Duterte had been confined at a hospital in Manila since Friday and that the medical center was under tight security. Duterte’s former aide Bong Go shared a photograph of the leader sitting at a table and holding yesterday’s copy of the Philippine Star newspaper. Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte said she had not received any report that her father was ill, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported. The 74-year-old president has long complained of Barrett’s esophagus — an inflammation of the tube connecting the mouth to the stomach.
SYRIA
Defenses intercept missiles
The nation’s air defenses targeted projectiles fired from the direction of Israel for the second night in a row, state media said on Saturday. The projectiles came from “occupied territory” into its airspace in the south, the Syrian Arab news agency said, referring to Israel. Residents said loud blasts echoed across Damascus late on Friday.
SOUTH AFRICA
Schwarzenegger kicked
Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger was apparently assaulted during a public appearance in South Africa on Saturday, but the 71-year-old quickly recovered and said: “I’m just glad the idiot didn’t interrupt my Snapchat.” Video showed the former California governor standing and filming children at a sporting event in Johannesburg when a man makes a flying kick into his back. Schwarzenegger stumbles forward and the man is grabbed by security personnel. Off camera a man shouts several times: “Help me!” The video shortly afterward shows Schwarzenegger smiling and shaking hands with bystanders before walking out ringed by security. Schwarzenegger later posted on Twitter: “Thanks for your concerns, but there is nothing to worry about. I thought I was just jostled by the crowd, which happens a lot. I only realized I was kicked when I saw the video like all of you. I’m just glad the idiot didn’t interrupt my Snapchat.” Schwarzenegger also tweeted a second video of the incident “without whatever he was yelling so he doesn’t get the spotlight.” Schwarzenegger had been attending his Arnold Classic Africa event, which features dozens of sports and fitness activities. In a separate Twitter post, the event blamed a “crazed fan” for the assault. The statement cited organizer Wayne Price as saying that the assailant was “known to the police for orchestrating similar incidents in the past.”
ZIMBABWE
Central bank secures loan
The central bank has secured a US$500 million loan from unspecified international banks to support interbank currency trading from today and ease a cash crunch that has brought fuel and medicine shortages, Governor John Mangudya said. The central bank introduced a new local currency in February, the RTGS dollar, and launched an interbank trading platform where businesses and individuals could buy and sell US dollars. However, dollars have been scarce on the official market, where a US dollar fetches 3.4 RTGS dollars compared with 6.3 RTGS dollars on the black market.
FRANCE
‘Yellow vests’ dwindle
“Yellow vest” protesters on Saturday turned out nationwide to mark six months of rallies against President Emmanuel Macron’s policies, but with their numbers dwindling, a government tally showed. The count from the Ministry of the Interior — routinely dismissed by yellow jackets — put the numbers at 15,500, of whom 1,600 marched in Paris. That was down again from last week’s count of 18,600, while the yellow jackets’ own tally put the total at 41,000. However, many of those who turned out on Saturday were determined to keep going. “When I hear Macron say that he has done his bit, I can’t agree, and that motivates me even more,” said Virginie, an executive secretary who took part in a march in the southern city of Montpellier.
UNITED KINGDOM
March for marriage equality
Thousands of people on Saturday marched in Belfast to demand that the province’s leaders permit same-sex marriage. They want same-sex couples to be treated the same way in Northern Ireland as they are in the rest of the nation, where same-sex marriage is legal. However, the socially conservative Democratic Unionist Party, an ally of Prime Minister Theresa May’s government, is opposed to a redefinition of the law.
UNITED STATES
Republican says impeach
Representative Justin Amash on Saturday that he believed President Donald Trump has engaged in “impeachable conduct,” becoming the first Republican Party politician to call for removing Trump. He also accused Attorney General William Barr of “deliberately” misleading the public over the actual content and tenor of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference aimed at tipping the 2016 election to Trump. In a series of tweets, the lawmaker from Michigan — a member of the ultra-conservative Freedom Caucus — said “few members of Congress even read Mueller’s report,” which identified “multiple examples of conduct satisfying all the elements of obstruction of justice.” “Undoubtedly any person who is not the president of the United States would be indicted based on such evidence,” Amash added. “Contrary to Barr’s portrayal, Mueller’s report reveals that President Trump engaged in specific actions and a pattern of behavior that meet the threshold for impeachment.” Amash’s comments went even further than those by most Democratic leaders in Congress.
BELGIUM
The mullet lives
Hundreds of people on Saturday gathered in the little western town of Boussu to celebrate the mullet, an iconic 1980s hairdo. For some it is a throwback to a simpler time, for others an anti-fashion statement or simply a bit of a laugh. “This cut is a state of mind, a declaration of independence. It carries symbolic weight as an affirmation of self,” organizer Damien Hubert said as he told reporters how the festival evolved from a music video film shoot. “To be honest, I’m not sure that many people ever found the cut very attractive. We’re not kidding ourselves about that.” Many of those who turned out for a beer and a bold trim were 30 and 40-somethings. “When I was little, I was in love with MacGyver, this is like a return to my childhood,” 31-year-old Marie Vandeville said as she went under the razor, referring to the US television series MacGyver, in which the lead character sports a mullet. “I’ll only leave it a few days, afterward we’ll even it up.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing