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.
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
Russian hackers last year targeted a Dutch public facility in the first such an attack on the lowlands country’s infrastructure, its military intelligence services said on Monday. The Netherlands remained an “interesting target country” for Moscow due to its ongoing support for Ukraine, its Hague-based international organizations, high-tech industries and harbors such as Rotterdam, the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) said in its yearly report. Last year, the MIVD “saw a Russian hacker group carry out a cyberattack against the digital control system of a public facility in the Netherlands,” MIVD Director Vice Admiral Peter Reesink said in the 52-page
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
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