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.
‘GREAT OPPRTUNITY’: The Paraguayan president made the remarks following Donald Trump’s tapping of several figures with deep Latin America expertise for his Cabinet Paraguay President Santiago Pena called US president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming foreign policy team a “dream come true” as his nation stands to become more relevant in the next US administration. “It’s a great opportunity for us to advance very, very fast in the bilateral agenda on trade, security, rule of law and make Paraguay a much closer ally” to the US, Pena said in an interview in Washington ahead of Trump’s inauguration today. “One of the biggest challenges for Paraguay was that image of an island surrounded by land, a country that was isolated and not many people know about it,”
DIALOGUE: US president-elect Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform confirmed that he had spoken with Xi, saying ‘the call was a very good one’ for the US and China US president-elect Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) discussed Taiwan, trade, fentanyl and TikTok in a phone call on Friday, just days before Trump heads back to the White House with vows to impose tariffs and other measures on the US’ biggest rival. Despite that, Xi congratulated Trump on his second term and pushed for improved ties, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The call came the same day that the US Supreme Court backed a law banning TikTok unless it is sold by its China-based parent company. “We both attach great importance to interaction, hope for
‘FIGHT TO THE END’: Attacking a court is ‘unprecedented’ in South Korea and those involved would likely face jail time, a South Korean political pundit said Supporters of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol yesterday stormed a Seoul court after a judge extended the impeached leader’s detention over his ill-fated attempt to impose martial law. Tens of thousands of people had gathered outside the Seoul Western District Court on Saturday in a show of support for Yoon, who became South Korea’s first sitting head of state to be arrested in a dawn raid last week. After the court extended his detention on Saturday, the president’s supporters smashed windows and doors as they rushed inside the building. Hundreds of police officers charged into the court, arresting dozens and denouncing an
‘DISCRIMINATION’: The US Office of Personnel Management ordered that public DEI-focused Web pages be taken down, while training and contracts were canceled US President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday moved to end affirmative action in federal contracting and directed that all federal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) staff be put on paid leave and eventually be laid off. The moves follow an executive order Trump signed on his first day ordering a sweeping dismantling of the federal government’s diversity and inclusion programs. Trump has called the programs “discrimination” and called to restore “merit-based” hiring. The executive order on affirmative action revokes an order issued by former US president Lyndon Johnson, and curtails DEI programs by federal contractors and grant recipients. It is using one of the
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