JAKARTA: The leaders of ASEAN countries and Australia reiterated on Sunday their commitment to combat borderless violent extremism and to work more closely to prevent the flow of foreign terrorist fighters into the region.
The leaders were concluding the ASEAN-Australia special summit, held for the first time in Sydney over the weekend.
In a joint statement dubbed the “Sydney Declaration” issued at the end of the special summit, the 11 leaders said they “unequivocally condemn in the strongest terms terrorism in all its forms and manifestations.”
They also said they would enhance regional cooperation to address the root cause of conditions that contribute to the growth and spread of violent extremism and radicalization.
To cement their commitment, the 10 ASEAN member states and Australia agreed on Saturday to a joint counterterrorism pact which marks a deepened and expanded cooperation. The memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed by the bloc’s Secretary General, Lim Jock Hoi, and Australia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Julie Bishop, and witnessed by the 10 ASEAN and Australian leaders at the end of the ASEAN-Australia counterterrorism conference.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo said in his speech at the forum that he appreciated Australia’s active cooperation with ASEAN in combating terrorism, citing Australia’s role in co-hosting with Indonesia in July the sub-regional counterterrorism forum involving Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei, Singapore and New Zealand to address borderless terrorism and the adverse impact of then-besieged Marawi in the southern Philippines.
According to a statement from the presidential palace press bureau, Widodo also welcomed the MoU signing, saying: “Based on my observation, the MoU underscores a balance between hard and soft approaches” in fighting violent extremism.
Chief of Indonesia’s counterterrorism agency, Commissioner Gen. Suhardi Alius, said Indonesia shared at the forum its experience in counterterrorism efforts such as amending the anti-terrorism law to include provisions that would criminalize Indonesian citizens’ involvement in plotting, training and traveling for terror-related purposes.
In a press release, Alius said he also shared the agency’s recent efforts to reconcile 124 former convicts with 51 survivors and family members of those who died in terror attacks in the country.
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said Australia sees ASEAN as an essential security partner and called for unity in the face of terror, which he said was carried out by a small minority of people who defame and blaspheme against Islam.
“They have sought to sow discord by their perverted and nihilistic interpretation of Islam, to provoke hatred between Sunni and Shia Muslims and to drive a wedge between Muslims and non-Muslims,” Turnbull said, according to a transcript.
“Our best allies in the war against this scourge are the vast majority of Muslims — around the world, around the region, here in Australia — and their leaders,” he added, mentioning Widodo, Malaysian PM Najib Razak and Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah of Brunei, all of whom are leaders of Muslim-majority ASEAN nations.
Turnbull also highlighted the possible threats of Asian-origin Daesh fighters who are returning to the region “battle-hardened and trained.”
“It is vital for Australia and our ASEAN partners to collaborate across borders to ensure that our counterterrorism legal frameworks are robust enough to provide effective investigation, prosecution and punishment, while being flexible enough to adapt to the changing and uncertain security environment,” Turnbull said.
The counterterrorism pact includes cooperation to develop and implement counterterrorism legislation, an ASEAN-Australia workshop on using electronic evidence in terrorism and transnational crime-related investigations and prosecutions, and exchange programs for financial intelligence analysts.
Australia and the ASEAN countries will also establish regional dialogues and forums with law enforcement partners, aimed at combating the threat of Daesh-affiliated terrorists. Australia will provide a capacity-building program for ASEAN law enforcement partners on technology-enabled crime to assist in detecting and disrupting terrorist activity.
Australia, ASEAN vow to combat Daesh
Australia, ASEAN vow to combat Daesh
Top Philippine senator to seek dismissal of Duterte impeachment case
- Resolution was drafted by Senator Ronald dela Rosa, a staunch ally of Duterte and a former police chief under her father’s 2016-2022 presidency
- The Senate’s current session ends next week, which the draft resolution said was insufficient time to act on the impeachment case
Sara Duterte faces a lifetime ban from office if convicted in a Senate trial. She has repeatedly denied wrongdoing.
The resolution was drafted, according to his office, by Senator Ronald dela Rosa, a staunch ally of Duterte and a former police chief under her father’s 2016-2022 presidency. A Senate source, who declined to be identified, confirmed the draft was circulating among senators.
The draft seen by Reuters says the Senate did not act promptly to begin proceedings upon receipt of the impeachment article, so the case was “de facto dismissed” as 100 days had already passed.
It was not immediately clear when the resolution would be filed or how much support it would have. If it succeeds, it could intensify an escalating battle for power between Marcos and former ally Duterte ahead of a 2028 presidential election that she is widely expected to contest, with Marcos limited to a single term and unable to run again.
At stake is the legacy and future influence of Marcos, who has waged a decades-long campaign to defend his family’s name from what he says are false historical narratives of plunder and brutality during the 1970s and 1980s rule of his strongman father and namesake. The effort to dismiss the case comes after a stronger-than-expected showing for allies of Duterte in last month’s midterm elections, demonstrating her popularity and unswerving influence, despite the row with Marcos, humiliating legislative enquiries and the arrest and transfer to the International Criminal Court of her father in March.
The Senate’s current session ends next week, which the draft resolution said was insufficient time to act on the impeachment case. A new Senate will convene in late July.
“The matter cannot cross over to the incoming 20th Congress,” the draft said.
Marcos has called for unity among all political camps and has distanced himself from the impeachment of Duterte, which was backed overwhelmingly by a lower house controlled by his allies. His office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Dela Rosa’s proposed resolution.
Ukraine invited to Hague NATO summit, Zelensky attendance unclear
- NATO chief: ‘I invited Ukraine to the summit. We will as soon as possible bring out the program with more details’
BRUSSELS: Ukraine has been invited to a NATO summit in The Hague this month, Mark Rutte, the military bloc’s chief, said on Wednesday, without specifying whether this meant Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky would attend.
“I invited Ukraine to the summit. We will as soon as possible bring out the program with more details,” Rutte told reporters before a meeting with defense ministers in Brussels.
Asked whether Zelensky personally had been invited, Rutte only said the program would be published in due course.
India’s Modi to visit Kashmir to unveil strategic railway
- The Muslim-majority Himalayan region of Kashmir is at the center of a bitter rivalry between India and Pakistan
- Indian leader set to visit on Friday to open the Chenab Bridge, a 1,315-meter-long steel and concrete span that connects two mountains
SRINAGAR, India: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to make his first visit to contested Kashmir since a conflict between India and Pakistan last month, inaugurating a strategic railway to the mountainous region, his office said Wednesday.
The Muslim-majority Himalayan region of Kashmir is at the center of a bitter rivalry between India and Pakistan, divided between them since independence from British rule in 1947.
Modi is set to visit on Friday to open the Chenab Bridge, a 1,315-meter-long (4,314-foot-long) steel and concrete span that connects two mountains with an arch 359 meters above the river below.
“The project establishes all-weather, seamless rail connectivity between the Kashmir Valley and the rest of the country,” the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement.
Modi is expected to flag off a special train.
Last month, nuclear-armed India and Pakistan fought an intense four-day conflict, their worst standoff since 1999, before a ceasefire was agreed on May 10.
More than 70 people were killed in missile, drone and artillery fire on both sides.
The conflict was triggered by an April 22 attack on civilians in Indian-administered Kashmir that New Delhi accused Pakistan of backing – a charge Islamabad denies.
Rebel groups in Indian-run Kashmir have waged a 35-year-long insurgency demanding independence for the territory or its merger with Pakistan.
The 272-kilometer (169-mile) Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla railway – with 36 tunnels and 943 bridges – has been constructed “aiming to transform regional mobility and driving socio-economic integration,” the statement added.
Its dramatic centerpiece is the Chenab Bridge, which India calls the “world’s highest railway arch bridge.”
While several road and pipeline bridges are higher, Guinness World Records confirmed that Chenab trumps the previous highest railway bridge, the Najiehe in China.
Indian Railways calls the $24-million bridge “arguably the biggest civil engineering challenge faced by any railway project in India in recent history.”
The bridge will facilitate the movement of people and goods – as well as troops – that was previously possible only via treacherous mountain roads and air.
The train line could slash travel time between the town of Katra and Srinagar, the region’s key city, by half, taking around three hours.
The bridge will also revolutionize logistics in Ladakh, the icy region in India bordering China.
India and China, the world’s two most populous nations, are intense rivals competing for strategic influence across South Asia.
Their troops clashed in 2020, killing at least 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers, and forces from both sides today face off across contested high-altitude borderlands.
The railway begins in the garrison city of Udhampur, headquarters of the army’s northern command, and runs north to Srinagar.
Trump administration rescinds Biden-era guidance on emergency abortions
- The Biden-era memo was issued in July 2022, weeks after the US Supreme Court struck down the constitutionally enshrined right to abortion
WASHINGTON: The Trump administration has revoked a Biden-era health guideline that protected emergency abortions when medically required, even in states that ban the procedure.
The Biden-era memo was issued in July 2022, weeks after the US Supreme Court struck down the constitutionally enshrined right to abortion.
As health providers suddenly found themselves embroiled in legal uncertainty over abortion, the memo provided an interpretation of the 1986 Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA), arguing it supersedes state abortion laws when needed to stabilize a pregnant patient.
The directive was fiercely contested by anti-abortion advocates.
In a letter Tuesday, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said the EMTALA guidance did not reflect the current administration’s policy.
“CMS is rescinding this memo ... effective May 29, 2025, consistent with Administration policy,” it said.
Offering its own interpretation, CMS said EMTALA provides the right for any hospital patient to receive “either stabilizing treatment or an appropriate transfer to another hospital.”
It said the US Health and Human Services would no longer enforce the Biden-era guidance.
The pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute said the Trump administration’s revocation of the EMTALA guidelines showed “callous disregard for the law and people’s lives.”
Lawrence O. Gostin, a health law expert at Georgetown University, wrote in the New York Times that the CMS letter “basically gives a bright green light to hospitals in red states to turn away pregnant women who are in peril.”
According to Guttmacher, 13 US states, mostly in the south and east of the country, have “a total abortion ban” as of May 28.
While these states generally provide narrow exceptions in the event of a threat to the mother’s life, it is unclear what constitutes a life-threatening condition in the eyes of the law.
Since returning to office, US President Donald Trump has taken a series of moves to restrict abortion access.
In his first week back in the White House, Trump revoked two executive orders protecting access to a pill widely used to terminate pregnancies and the ability to travel to states where the procedure is not banned.
Cologne starts its biggest evacuation since 1945 to defuse WWII bombs
- Even 80 years after the end of the war, unexploded bombs dropped during wartime air raids are frequently found in Germany
COLOGNE: More than 20,000 residents were being evacuated from part of Cologne’s city center on Wednesday as specialists prepared to defuse three unexploded US bombs from World War II that were unearthed earlier this week.
Even 80 years after the end of the war, unexploded bombs dropped during wartime air raids are frequently found in Germany.
Disposing of them sometimes entails large-scale precautionary evacuations such as the one on Wednesday, though the location this time was unusually prominent and this is Cologne’s biggest evacuation since 1945. There have been bigger evacuations in other cities.
Authorities on Wednesday morning started evacuating about 20,500 residents from an area within a 1,000-meter (3,280-foot) radius of the bombs, which were discovered on Monday during preparatory work for road construction.
They were found in the Deutz district, just across the Rhine River from Cologne’s historic center.
As well as homes, the area includes 58 hotels, nine schools, several museums and office buildings and the Messe/Deutz train station. It also includes three bridges across the Rhine — among them the heavily used Hohenzollern railway bridge, which leads into Cologne’s central station and is being shut during the defusal work itself. Shipping on the Rhine will also be suspended.
The plan is for the bombs to be defused during the course of the day. When exactly that happens depends on how long it takes for authorities to be sure that everyone is out of the evacuation zone.
