PHILIPPINES
China maneuvers slammed
The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) yesterday accused a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) helicopter of performing dangerous flight maneuvers when it flew close to a Philippine aircraft patrolling a disputed shoal in the South China Sea. “This reckless action posed a serious risk to the safety of the pilots and passengers,” the PCG said in a statement. The government fisheries aircraft was conducting what it called a maritime domain awareness flight over the Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island, 黃岩島). The Chinese Ministry of National Defense did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The PLAN helicopter flew as close as 3m to the aircraft, which the PCG said was a “clear violation and blatant disregard” for aviation rules.
JAPAN
Emissions target revised
The nation will aim to cut greenhouse gas emissions 60 percent by 2035 from 2013 levels under a revised climate target, a policy seen as falling short of action required to meet Paris Agreement goals. The Cabinet has approved the new strategy and submitted it to the UN, the Ministry of the Environment said yesterday. The world’s fifth-biggest carbon dioxide polluter has an existing target to reduce emissions by 46 percent by 2030. “Achieving our next emissions reduction goals will require not only existing efforts, but innovative solutions that lead to deeper cuts in emissions,” Minister of the Environment Keiichiro Asao told a news conference. Japan, which remains heavily reliant on natural gas and coal, has struggled to shift to cleaner energy sources or to achieve major progress in industrial decarbonization. To reach net zero by 2050 and meet the Paris targets, it would have to cut emissions 73 percent by 2035, BloombergNEF said in November.
TURKEY
282 PKK suspects detained
Police detained 282 suspects accused of ties to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militant group, Minister of the Interior Ali Yerlikaya said yesterday, among them journalists, politicians, and academics. The raids over the past five days came as the government continues to remove elected pro-Kurdish mayors from their posts over militant ties in a crackdown coinciding with hopes for an end to a 40-year conflict between the PKK and authorities. Jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan is expected to make a statement on such efforts, four months after an ally of President Tayyip Erdogan urged him to call on the militants to lay down their arms. The Journalists’ Union of Turkey condemned the detention of three journalists. “We do not accept that they are detained through house raids instead of being summoned to the police station,” it said on social media.
THAILAND
Singers spur protest
The government has formally protested to Cambodia after a group of Cambodian women was filmed singing a nationalist song at a disputed Khmer temple in a sensitive border area. The clip, filmed at Prasat Ta Muen Thom in eastern Thailand, shows a group of Cambodian women in traditional dress singing “all Khmer people are happy to sacrifice their lives when the nation is at war and shedding blood.” Thai soldiers guarding the temple then usher the women away from the 11th-century temple, which lies right on the border, to the Cambodian side. “We are worried that history will repeat itself,” Deputy Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai told reporters on Monday, in an apparent reference to the bloody military clashes that erupted about 15 years ago between the two nations over the Preah Vihear temple.
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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