PHILIPPINES
Environment chief rejected
A panel of the Commission on Appointments yesterday rejected the appointment of Environment Secretary Gina Lopez on the recommendation of the Committee on Environment and Natural Resources. Lopez had locked horns with the mining industry and members of President Rodrigo Duterte’s Cabinet after ordering the closure and suspension of 23 mines she said harm the environment and residents. She also canceled 75 mining contracts after an audit showed the mines were harming the environment, damaging watersheds and causing siltation in coastal waters and farms.
ISRAEL
Hamas’ detentions criticized
Human Rights Watch yesterday said that Hamas’ detention of two Israeli citizens with a history of mental illness was “cruel and indefensible.” The New York-based group said in a report that Avera Mangistu and Hisham al-Sayed had likely wandered into Gaza on foot and had no connection to hostilities with Gaza’s Hamas rulers. Hamas has indirectly acknowledged holding them, but has said it would not provide confirmation until Israel releases dozens of its jailed members. The group called on Hamas to release them, and to treat them humanely and allow them to communicate with family.
CHINA
UN rights envoy followed
A UN envoy on human rights said he was followed by security officers during an official trip to the nation and that some civil society representatives he met with were intimidated and faced reprisals. UN special rapporteur Philip Alston said the Chinese government’s conduct was at odds with the need for UN experts to have the freedom to assess situations and preserve source confidentiality. He details difficulties in a final report on his mission to China in August last year, which was e-mailed to The Associated Press on Tuesday. It is to be delivered to the UN Human Rights Council in June.
JAPAN
Flight brawl leads to arrest
Police have arrested a drunken American man over a punch-up with another passenger on an All Nippon Airways (ANA) flight, which caused a delay, officers said yesterday. The man, whose name has not been released, was pulled off the Boeing 777 that was due to fly from Narita International Airport to Los Angeles after the brawl erupted before takeoff. “I will kill you!” a male passenger wearing a red Hawaiian shirt, is seen yelling in video footage filmed by another passenger. He is seen throwing punches at another male passenger, as other people on the flight try to escape the area, until ANA staff separate the two men. “The suspect, a US citizen, was drunk and arrested after he injured an ANA official following the fight,” a member of the airport police said. The man’s arrest was formally over his injuring the airline official, not the onboard brawl, an airport police spokesman said.
NORTH KOREA
US citizen detained
The government has confirmed the detention of a US citizen for alleged acts of hostility aimed at overthrowing the government. The Korean Central News Agency says officials “intercepted” Kim Sang-dok at Pyongyang International Airport on April 22 and a detailed investigation into his alleged crime is under way. Kim had been in the country to teach accounting at Pyongyang University of Science and Technology.
A deluge of disinformation about a virus called hMPV is stoking anti-China sentiment across Asia and spurring unfounded concerns of renewed lockdowns, despite experts dismissing comparisons with the COVID-19 pandemic five years ago. Agence France-Presse’s fact-checkers have debunked a slew of social media posts about the usually non-fatal respiratory disease human metapneumovirus after cases rose in China. Many of these posts claimed that people were dying and that a national emergency had been declared. Garnering tens of thousands of views, some posts recycled old footage from China’s draconian lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic, which originated in the country in late
French police on Monday arrested a man in his 20s on suspicion of murder after an 11-year-old girl was found dead in a wood south of Paris over the weekend in a killing that sparked shock and a massive search for clues. The girl, named as Louise, was found stabbed to death in the Essonne region south of Paris in the night of Friday to Saturday, police said. She had been missing since leaving school on Friday afternoon and was found just a few hundred meters from her school. A police source, who asked not to be named, said that she had been
VIOLENCE: The teacher had depression and took a leave of absence, but returned to the school last year, South Korean media reported A teacher stabbed an eight-year-old student to death at an elementary school in South Korea on Monday, local media reported, citing authorities. The teacher, a woman in her 40s, confessed to the crime after police officers found her and the young girl with stab wounds at the elementary school in the central city of Daejeon on Monday evening, the Yonhap news agency reported. The girl was brought to hospital “in an unconscious state, but she later died,” the report read. The teacher had stab wounds on her neck and arm, which officials determined might have been self-inflicted, the news agency
ISSUE: Some foreigners seek women to give birth to their children in Cambodia, and the 13 women were charged with contravening a law banning commercial surrogacy Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday thanked Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni for granting a royal pardon last year to 13 Filipino women who were convicted of illegally serving as surrogate mothers in the Southeast Asian kingdom. Marcos expressed his gratitude in a meeting with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet, who was visiting Manila for talks on expanding trade, agricultural, tourism, cultural and security relations. The Philippines and Cambodia belong to the 10-nation ASEAN, a regional bloc that promotes economic integration but is divided on other issues, including countries whose security alignments is with the US or China. Marcos has strengthened