SINGAPORE
Lee to step down on May 15
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) is to relinquish his office on May 15 and hand the post to his deputy, Lawrence Wong (黃循財), his office said yesterday. Lee, 72, is to formally advise the president to appoint Wong, who is currently deputy prime minister and finance minister, to succeed him, his office said in a brief statement. Wong, who has the unanimous support of People’s Action Party (PAP) lawmakers, is to be sworn in at the national palace later the same day, it said. Lee has served as prime minister and head of the PAP since August 2004. He announced in November last year that he would retire this year and has already named Wong as his designated successor.
PHILIPPINES
Marcos limits US access
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday said the US would not be given access to more Philippine military bases. “The answer to that is no. The Philippines has no plan to open or to establish more EDCA [Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement] bases,” Marcos said in response to a question at a forum with the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines. Manila last year announced the locations of four more military bases it is allowing the US military to use on top of the five agreed on under the 2014 EDCA. The deal allows US troops to rotate through and store defense equipment and supplies. The four additional bases include sites near the disputed South China Sea and another not far from Taiwan.
UNITED STATES
Girl killed in shooting
Eleven people standing outside a family gathering on Saturday night were shot, including a young girl who was killed in what Chicago police believe was gang-related violence on the city’s South Side. Four victims were children, police said on Sunday. An eight-year-old girl was fatally shot, while a one-year-old boy and an eight-year-old boy were each shot multiple times and listed in critical condition. A nine-year-old boy also was injured with a graze wound to his finger and hospitalized. The department’s Sunday statement updated the number of shooting victims to 11 from eight and gave new ages for the victims. As of Sunday, no one was in custody. “This was not a random act of violence. It was likely gang-related,” Department Deputy Chief Don Jerome told reporters. “The offenders’ actions, make no mistake, are horrific and unacceptable in our city.”
AUSTRALIA
Magpie, dog reunited
Authorities yesterday issued a license allowing a magpie called Molly to reunite with a pet dog, after sparking public outrage by keeping the unlikely friends apart. A Queensland couple’s pictures of the bird cozying up with their Staffordshire bull terrier Peggy drew an audience of hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram. However, the Gold Coast couple, who took the magpie in as a nestling in 2020, had to surrender the bird more than six weeks ago to the Queensland Department of Environment, Science and Innovation. Under state law, magpies and other protected wildlife can only be cared for by people with a license to show they have the needed skills. The couple’s Instagram page was deluged with outraged reactions to the separation, and an online petition titled “Don’t Break Their 4-Year Bond” garnered more than 150,000 signatures. The department said it has issued a “specialized license” to the couple after they agreed to undergo wildlife carer training and make no commercial gain from the bird or its image. The bird was returned home, it said.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
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