PHILIPPINES
Shooting orders given
President Rodrigo Duterte gave authorities the green light to shoot dead protesters who attempt to riot or disrupt food distribution during a lockdown prompted by the COVID-19 outbreak. “My orders to the police, the military and the village officials: if there’s a commotion, if they fight back and your life becomes at risk, shoot them dead,” Duterte said in a televised address on Wednesday. He also warned groups against causing food riots. However, police are not going to shoot people dead, and they understand that Duterte “just overemphasized” following the law during a crisis, police chief General Archie Gamboa told ABS-CBN News Channel yesterday. The Department of Health yesterday announced 11 deaths and 322 new cases from the outbreak. That brings the total death toll to 107 and infections to 2,633, Department of Health Secretary Francisco Duque told a news conference.
INDIA
Faked death dodge fails
A Kashmiri villager faked his death and traveled more than 106km in an ambulance with four others in a desperate bid to circumvent the nation’s COVID-19 lockdown and return home, police said on Wednesday. Hakim Din was being treated for a minor head injury at a hospital in Jammu when an ambulance driver suggested that the 70-year-old fake his death to get past checkpoints, police said. Din and three other men wanted to return to Poonch, close to the de facto border with Pakistan. Poonch Superintendent of Police Ramesh Angral said that the four men and the driver passed many checkpoints using a fake death certificate from the hospital. “The ambulance was stopped at the last checkpoint before they could reach home,” Angral said. “A policeman there immediately figured out that the man lying covered inside the ambulance could not be dead.” The men were arrested and quarantined separately, Angral said, adding that they faced charges of “cheating and defying the government’s prohibitory orders.” The government imposed a 21-day nationwide lockdown on Wednesday last week.
NEW ZEALAND
Virus testing tent stolen
Thieves who stole a COVID-19 testing tent outside an Auckland hospital have put themselves at risk of contracting the virus and should get tested, police said. The tent had been set up to test people for COVID-19, police said in a video posted on Facebook on Tuesday. East Health Trust head Loretta Hansen said that staff discovered the tent was missing when they arrived on Tuesday morning to begin a day of testing. “Some fool, idiot, come and stole our tent — our COVID-19 testing tent,” she said in the video. “They chopped it off at the ground level. It was bolted in by concrete, and they just chopped it off.” Counties Manukau police sergeant Brett Meale appealed for the thieves to return the tent and submit themselves to testing for the virus, which is thought to survive on surfaces for several days. “If you have got that tent, or you know where it is, we’re quite happy if you could just let us know anonymously where we can pick it up from. You might save yourself a bit of trouble, but if you have been in contact with that tent, I’d suggest you get yourself along here and get yourself tested for COVID-19,” Meale said. Clinic staff had to “race round” to replace the tent, which they managed, Hansen said. “We’re back up and running. We certainly don’t want to be out of action.”
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
RARE EVENT: While some cultures have a negative view of eclipses, others see them as a chance to show how people can work together, a scientist said Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning. The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa. The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color. This is because the
Romania’s electoral commission on Saturday excluded a second far-right hopeful, Diana Sosoaca, from May’s presidential election, amid rising tension in the run-up to the May rerun of the poll. Earlier this month, Romania’s Central Electoral Bureau barred Calin Georgescu, an independent who was polling at about 40 percent ahead of the rerun election. Georgescu, a fierce EU and NATO critic, shot to prominence in November last year when he unexpectedly topped a first round of presidential voting. However, Romania’s constitutional court annulled the election after claims of Russian interference and a “massive” social media promotion in his favor. On Saturday, an electoral commission statement
Chinese authorities increased pressure on CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd over its plan to sell its Panama ports stake by sharing a second newspaper commentary attacking the deal. The Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office on Saturday reposted a commentary originally published in Ta Kung Pao, saying the planned sale of the ports by the Hong Kong company had triggered deep concerns among Chinese people and questioned whether the deal was harming China and aiding evil. “Why were so many important ports transferred to ill-intentioned US forces so easily? What kind of political calculations are hidden in the so-called commercial behavior on the
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