The Philippines’ top judge, who walked out of an appearance at his own impeachment trial, was later rushed to hospital after suffering an apparent heart attack, his spokesman said yesterday.
Chief Justice Renato Corona checked into a hospital on Tuesday night after his three-hour appearance before the Senate, during which he denounced the landmark corruption proceedings as a personal vendetta by Philippine President Benigno Aquino III.
“The diagnosis is possible heart attack,” Corona’s spokesman, Midas Marquez, said during several radio interviews.
The development could delay resolution of the trial, which analysts warn has caused deep political divisions in one of Southeast Asia’s most free-wheeling democracies.
Corona is accused of failing to declare up to US$12 million in bank accounts and Aquino has alleged the judge sought to protect former Philippine president Gloria Arroyo, who is being tried separately for vote-rigging.
Aquino won a landslide election victory in 2010 on a platform to end pervasive corruption blamed for massive poverty, and his congressional allies impeached Corona in December, the first such move ever against a chief justice of the Supreme Court.
Corona’s Senate trial to decide whether or not he should be removed from office began a month later and has since gripped the nation with millions watching the drama live on TV.
The judge, a diabetic who previously had a heart bypass operation, stunned the Senate when he abruptly walked out following his testimony on Tuesday.
He was later brought back in a wheelchair, after his lawyers said he had fallen unwell.
However, Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile ordered him to take the stand again yesterday for cross-examination and warned his testimony would be struck off the record if he failed to do so.
Corona denied the allegations and accused Aquino of a personal vendetta after a landmark Supreme Court verdict last year that ordered the president’s clan to break up a sprawling sugar plantation and hand plots over to farmers.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS