MANILA: A Philippine court has ordered the arrest of Japanese pachinko billionaire Kazuo Okada, about a month after the country’s Department of Justice recommended the filing of charges against him over three counts of fraud.
The DOJ has found cause to indict Okada for three counts of swindling after he acquired “through mistake or fraud” $3.15 million in salary and consultancy fees during his tenure as chief executive of Manila casino operator Tiger Resort.
Okada had filed a motion for reconsideration at the DOJ, dismissing the accusations against him as baseless.
Judge Rolando How of the Paranaque City Regional Trial Court Branch 257 ordered the National Bureau of Investigation and the Philippine National Police to present Okada to court. The warrant of arrest was issued on Friday and made public on Sunday.
The bail was fixed at 348,000 Philippine pesos ($6,627) for all three charges.
Tiger Resort previously said the payments were facilitated by its former president and were not authorized by its board.
Reody Anthony Balisi, Okada’s legal counsel in the Philippines, did not reply to Reuters’ requests for comment on the arrest warrant.
Okada last year was ousted as chairman of Tiger Resort’s parent, the Japanese gaming group Universal Entertainment Corp. , after Universal’s board accused him of misappropriating $20 million. He denied wrongdoing.
It was unclear if Okada was in the Philippines when the court issued the arrest warrant.
He was arrested in Hong Kong in August in relation to multiple corruption-related charges and is currently on bail.
Philippine court orders arrest of Japanese casino mogul Okada
Philippine court orders arrest of Japanese casino mogul Okada
- Okada had filed a motion for reconsideration at the DOJ, dismissing the accusations against him as baseless
- Okada last year was ousted as chairman of Tiger Resort’s parent, the Japanese gaming group Universal Entertainment Corp. , after Universal’s board accused him of misappropriating $20 million
India probes mystery illness after 17 die: reports
SRINAGAR: Authorities in India-administered Jammu and Kashmir were investigating a mysterious disease that has claimed the lives of 17 people, local media reports said Saturday.
The deaths, including those of 13 children, have occurred in the remote village of Badhaal in Jammu’s Rajouri area since early December.
The village was declared a containment zone earlier this week with around 230 people quarantined, the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency reported.
All of the fatalities had damage to the brain and nervous system, Amarjeet Singh Bhatia, who heads Rajouri’s government medical college, said.
“The winter vacations have also been canceled to deal with the medical alert situation,” PTI quoted Bhatia as saying.
The victims were members of three related families.
The federal government has launched an investigation with health minister Jitendra Singh saying an initial probe suggested the deaths were “not due to any infection, virus or bacteria but rather a toxin.”
“There is a long series of toxins being tested. I believe a solution will be found soon. Additionally, if there was any mischief or malicious activity, that is also being investigated,” PTI quoted Singh as saying.
In a separate medical incident, authorities in the western city of Pune recorded at least 73 cases of a rare nerve disorder.
Those infected with Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS) include 26 women and 14 of the patients are on ventilator support, PTI quoted an official as saying.
In GBS, a person’s immune system attacks the peripheral nerves, according to the World Health Organization.
The syndrome can impact nerves that control muscle movement which may lead to muscle weakness, loss of sensation in the legs of arms and those infected can face trouble swallowing and breathing.
Apartment building collapses in central Turkiye, trapping 2 people
ISTANBUL: Rescuers were battling to reach two people trapped under a collapsed apartment building in central Turkiye on Saturday, officials said, with three others had already been rescued. No deaths were reported.
The collapse comes as there is renewed focus on building safety following the deaths of 78 people in a hotel fire Tuesday.
Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said 79 people were registered as living in the four-story apartment block in the city of Konya, some 260 kilometers (160 miles) south of the capital Ankara.
TV images showed emergency workers sifting through a large pile of rubble Saturday morning following the building’s collapse Friday evening.
Those remaining under the debris were Syrian nationals, Yerlikaya said, adding that the cause of the building collapse was not immediately known. “If there is a fault, negligence or anything else, we will learn it together,” he told journalists.
The incident occurred just three days after a fire ripped through a 12-story hotel at a ski resort in northwestern Turkiye, killing 78 people. The investigation into the blaze is examining whether proper fire prevention measures were in place.
Questions over building safety have resurfaced two weeks before the second anniversary of an earthquake that hit southern Turkiye and north Syria, killing more than 59,000. The high death toll was due in part to building safety regulations being ignored.
In 2004, a 12-story apartment building collapsed in Konya, claiming the lives of 92 people and injuring some 30 others. Structural flaws and negligence were blamed for the collapse.
Nearly 250 million children missed school last year due to extreme weather— UNICEF
- Heatwaves, cyclones and other extreme weather interrupted schools in 85 countries in 2024, says report
- Around 74 percent of the total children affected in 2024 were in middle- and low-income countries, says UNICEF
CAPE TOWN, South Africa: At least 242 million children in 85 countries had their schooling interrupted last year because of heatwaves, cyclones, flooding and other extreme weather, the United Nations Children’s Fund said in a new report Friday.
UNICEF said it amounted to one in seven school-going children across the world being kept out of class at some point in 2024 because of climate hazards.
The report also outlined how some countries saw hundreds of their schools destroyed by weather, with low-income nations in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa hit especially hard.
But other regions weren’t spared the extreme weather, as torrential rains and floods in Italy near the end of the year disrupted school for more than 900,000 children. Thousands had their classes halted after catastrophic flooding in Spain.
While southern Europe dealt with deadly floods and Asia and Africa had flooding and cyclones, heatwaves were “the predominant climate hazard shuttering schools last year,” UNICEF said, as the earth recorded its hottest year ever.
More than 118 million children had their schooling interrupted in April alone, UNICEF said, as large parts of the Middle East and Asia, from Gaza in the west to the Philippines in the southeast, experienced a sizzling weekslong heatwave with temperatures soaring above 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit).
“Children are more vulnerable to the impacts of weather-related crises, including stronger and more frequent heatwaves, storms, droughts and flooding,” UNICEF executive director Catherine Russell said in a statement. “Children’s bodies are uniquely vulnerable. They heat up faster, they sweat less efficiently, and cool down more slowly than adults. Children cannot concentrate in classrooms that offer no respite from sweltering heat, and they cannot get to school if the path is flooded, or if schools are washed away.”
Around 74 percent of the children affected in 2024 were in middle- and low-income countries, showing how climatic extremes continue to have a devastating impact in the poorest countries. Flooding ruined more than 400 schools in Pakistan in April. Afghanistan had heatwaves followed by severe flooding that destroyed over 110 schools in May, UNICEF said.
Months of drought in southern Africa exacerbated by the El Niño weather phenomenon threatened the schooling and futures of millions of children.
And the crises showed little sign of abating. The poor French territory of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean off Africa was left in ruins by Cyclone Chido in December and hit again by Tropical Storm Dikeledi this month, leaving children across the islands out of school for six weeks.
Cyclone Chido also destroyed more than 330 schools and three regional education departments in Mozambique on the African mainland, where access to education is already a deep problem.
UNICEF said the world’s schools and education systems “are largely ill-equipped” to deal with the effects of extreme weather.
US migrant deportation flights arrive in Latin America
- A total of 265 Guatemalans arrived on three flights – two operated by the military, and one a charter
- Donald Trump promised a crackdown on illegal immigration during the election campaign
GUATEMALA CITY: US military planes carrying dozens of expelled migrants arrived in Guatemala, authorities said Friday, as President Donald Trump moved to crack down on illegal immigration.
A total of 265 Guatemalans arrived on three flights — two operated by the military, and one a charter, the Central American country’s migration institute said, updating earlier figures.
Washington also sent four deportation flights to Mexico on Thursday, the White House press secretary said on X, despite multiple US media reports that authorities there had turned at least one plane back.
The Mexican government has not confirmed either the arrival of flights or any agreement to receive a specific number of planes with deportees.
But Mexico’s foreign ministry said Friday it was ready to work with Washington over the deportation of its citizens, saying the country would “always accept the arrival of Mexicans to our territory with open arms.”
The flights came as the White House said it had arrested more than a thousand people in two days with hundreds deported by military aircraft, saying that “the largest massive deportation operation in history is well underway.”
Some 538 illegal immigrant “criminals” were arrested Thursday, it said, followed by another 593 on Friday.
By comparison, under Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden deportation flights were carried out regularly, with a total of 270,000 deportations in 2024 — a 10-year record — and 113,400 arrests, making an average of 310 per day.
The Guatemalan government did not confirm whether any of the migrants arrested this week were among the deportees that arrived Friday.
“These are flights that took place after Trump took office,” an official in the Guatemalan vice president’s office said.
A Pentagon source said that “overnight, two DOD (Department of Defense) aircraft conducted repatriation flights from the US to Guatemala.”
Early Friday the White House posted an image on X of men in shackles being marched into a military aircraft, with the caption: “Deportation flights have begun.”
And Trump told reporters that the flights were to get “the bad, hard criminals out.”
“Murderers, people that have been as bad as you get. As bad as anybody you’ve seen,” he said.
Friday’s deportees were taken to a reception center at an air force base in Guatemala’s capital, away from the media.
Trump promised a crackdown on illegal immigration during the election campaign and began his second term with a flurry of executive actions aimed at overhauling entry to the United States.
On his first day in office he signed orders declaring a “national emergency” at the southern border and announced the deployment of more troops to the area while vowing to deport “criminal aliens.”
His administration said it would also reinstate a “Remain in Mexico” policy under which people who apply to enter the United States from Mexico must remain there until their application has been decided.
The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said Friday on X that program had been reinstated, and that Mexico had deployed some 30,000 National Guard troops to its border.
The Mexican foreign ministry did not confirm either claim in its statement.
The White House has also halted an asylum program for people fleeing authoritarian regimes in Central and South America, leaving thousands of people stranded on the Mexican side of the border.
Philippines accuses China’s forces of harassing fisheries vessels in the South China Sea
- The Chinese coast guard and navy’s harassment of the Philippine vessels took place Friday near Sandy Cay
- China has repeatedly asserted sovereignty over most of the South China Sea and accused rival claimant states
MANILA: Chinese coast guard ships and a Chinese navy helicopter harassed a group of Philippine fisheries vessels conducting a scientific survey in a hotly disputed area of the South China Sea, forcing them to cancel the operation, the Philippine coast guard said Saturday.
The Chinese coast guard and navy’s harassment of the Philippine vessels took place Friday near Sandy Cay, three small uninhabited sandbars planked by an artificial island base of Chinese forces and a Philippines-occupied island in the Spratlys archipelago, the coast guard said.
The coast guard ships approached two larger vessels, which maneuvered to avoid a collision, and a Chinese navy helicopter flew low over two smaller boats deployed by the ships, forcing the survey to be called off.
Videos released by the Philippine coast guard show a Chinese coast guard ship sailing very close to a ship officials identified as one of the Philippine vessels. Another video shows a Chinese military helicopter hovering low over the rough seas near a vessel flying a Philippine flag.
There was no immediate response from Chinese officials, but China has repeatedly asserted sovereignty over most of the South China Sea and accused rival claimant states, including the Philippines, Vietnam and Malaysia of encroachment. China has demarcated its territorial claims with a 10 dashed-line printed in maps but has not provided the exact coordinates.
The latest flare-out of the long-simmering territorial disputes in one of the world’s busiest trade and security passageways could test President Donald Trump’s commitment to maintain America’s role as a counterweight to China, which has increasingly carried out assertive actions in the disputed waters.
His predecessor, Joe Biden, strengthened an arc of security alliances in Asia while in office in a bid to curb China’s aggressive actions in the South China Sea, East China Sea and around Taiwan, a self-governed island which Beijing has vowed to take by force if necessary.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a telephone call on Wednesday with his Philippine counterpart, Enrique Manalo, discussed issues of mutual concern, including “the People’s Republic of China’s dangerous and destabilizing actions in the South China Sea,” State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said.
Rubio “conveyed that that the PRC’s behavior undermines regional peace and stability and is inconsistent with international law,” Bruce said in a readout of the call.
Rubio “underscored the United States’ ironclad commitments to the Philippines under our Mutual Defense Treaty,” Bruce said.
Biden and his administration had repeatedly warned China that the US is obligated to help defend the Philippines, its oldest treaty ally in Asia, if Filipino forces, ships and aircraft come under armed attack including in the South China Sea. China has warned the US to stay away from what it says is a purely Asian dispute.
