PHILIPPINES
Fire at COVID-19 hospital
Firefighters early yesterday put out a blaze at one of the Philippines’ largest hospitals that had prompted the evacuation of dozens of patients from the facility, which also treats people with COVID-19. No casualties were reported in the fire at the government-run Philippine General Hospital in Manila, which was extinguished at dawn. Its cause is not known. Vice President Leni Robredo made an appeal on Twitter for “big, industrial fans” to clear the smoke caused by the fire. Some patients were transferred to nearby hospitals, including two who needed surgery and 12 babies from the neonatal intensive care unit, CNN Philippines said, citing hospital officials. Hospital staff said the fire started in an operating room supply area soon after midnight.
IRAN
Cleric to run for president
The Chief Justice Ebrahim Raisi, a hard-line cleric linked to mass executions in 1988, on Saturday registered to run in the Islamic Republic’s presidential election next month, a vote that comes as negotiators struggle to resuscitate Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers. Raisi is among the more prominent hopefuls — he garnered nearly 16 million votes in the 2017 election. He lost that race to the relatively moderate President Hassan Rouhani, whose administration struck the atomic accord. Raisi’s close ties to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his popularity — due partly to his televised anti-corruption campaign — could make him a favorite in the election. Raisi said that if he wins the June 18 vote, corruption would be “dried up... Those who founded and partnered with the current situation can’t claim they can change it.”
GREECE
Far-right MEP extradited
Ioannis Lagos, a Greek far-right member of the European Parliament (MEP), was on Saturday extradited to Greece to begin serving a 13-year prison sentence. Authorities said Lagos was to spend his first night in isolation in the high-security prison of Domokos before being assigned to a regular cell yesterday. Lagos’ request that he be held at a prison in Athens, ostensibly to keep up with his work in the European Parliament, was rejected by authorities. Lagos had been living in Brussels since a Greek court in October last year convicted him and 17 other former Greek lawmakers from the extreme-right Golden Dawn party of leading a criminal organization, or being members in it.
CHILE
Key constitution vote held
People yesterday headed to the polls in a second day of voting to elect 155 people who are to rewrite the country’s dictatorship-era constitution in a bid to address deep-seated social inequality that gave rise to deadly protests in 2019. Some 14 million people were eligible to vote over the weekend in what many consider to be Chile’s most important election since its return to democracy 31 years ago. More than 3 million people, or approximately 20.4 percent of the electorate, cast their ballot on Saturday, the Electoral Service reported. “I hope that we have a constitution that captures the soul of our nation,” President Sebastian Pinera said after casting his ballot in the capital Santiago. Silvia Navarrete, a 35-year-old economist, said she had voted for a system that “works for everyone, allowing all voices to be heard” and ensuring “that rights and duties are really fair for all human beings.” Chile’s constitution dates from 1980, enacted at the height of former president Augusto Pinochet’s 1973-1990 rule.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion