MANILA, Philippines: Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said Thursday that China should define its “so-called ownership” in the disputed South China Sea so other claimant countries can start to gain benefits from the resource-rich waters.
Mahathir stressed the importance of freedom of navigation in the busy waterway, saying in an interview with ABS-CBN News Channel in Manila that if there were no restrictions and sanctions, “the claims made by China will not affect us very much.”
Malaysia, the Philippines, China and three other governments have been locked in long-simmering territorial disputes in the South China Sea. China has claimed virtually the entire sea but has refused to define the extent of its claims except for a vague line with nine dashes on its maps, complicating the disputes.
Efforts by the Philippines, for example, to explore for undersea deposits of oil and natural gas in Reed Bank west of its Palawan island province have been stymied for years by Chinese protests and claims to the offshore region. The Philippines has declared a moratorium on exploration in the area in the past because of Chinese threats.
“We have to talk to China on the definition of their claims and what is meant by their ownership or so-called ownership they claim to have so that we can find ways of deriving some benefits from them,” Mahathir said.
“I think that whatever may be the claim of China, the most important thing is that the South China Sea in particular must be open to navigation,” Mahathir said. “There should be no restriction, no sanction, and if that happens, then I think the claims made by China will not affect us very much.”
During talks in Manila between the visiting Malaysian leader and President Rodrigo Duterte, the territorial conflicts were high in the agenda.
“We emphasized the importance of maintaining and promoting peace, security, stability, safety and freedom of navigation and overflight over the South China Sea,” Duterte said after the meeting, adding that force or the threat of it should not be resorted to.
Duterte thanked Malaysia for brokering peace talks between the Philippine government and Muslim guerrillas in the south, homeland of minority Muslims in the largely Roman Catholic nation. The rebels have become leaders of a new Muslim autonomous region in the country’s south under a peace deal.
The Malaysian leader, who at 93 is the world’s oldest prime minister, visited the Philippines as his country’s leader in 1987 and 1994.
“I’m glad to see that, at last, peace has come to the southern Philippines. Development cannot take place in war. In war, we destroy but in peace we build,” Mahathir told a business forum in Manila before meeting Duterte.
With enormous economic opportunities opening up in the former battlefields, Mahathir said Malaysia is looking forward to investing in the region and pledged that his country will continue to back Philippine peace efforts. Philippine Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez said the two countries plan to resume the ancient practice of barter trading between Malaysia and the southern Philippine towns of Jolo, Siasi and Bongao to ease poverty that breeds criminality and terrorism.
A Malaysia-led team of 28 international peace monitors will remain in the south until all Muslim guerrillas have demobilized under the peace deal, Malaysian officials said. The European Union, Japan and Brunei also have contributed personnel to the peacekeeping contingent.
Moro Islamic Liberation Front chairman Murad Ebrahim, the former Muslim rebel leader who now heads the five-province autonomous region called Bangsamoro, attended a state banquet hosted by Duterte for Mahathir. Officials were trying to arrange a meeting between Mahathir and Murad.
The Philippines and Malaysia, along with Western governments and the guerrillas, see effective Muslim autonomy as an antidote to nearly half a century of Muslim secessionist violence which the Daesh group could exploit to gain a foothold in the region.
Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia agreed in 2017 to carry out sea and aerial patrols to confront a wave of abductions along their sea border by Abu Sayyaf militants and allied gunmen from the southern Philippines. The sea abductions have eased but ransom-seeking Abu Sayyaf militants are still holding a Malaysian and two Indonesians captive in their jungle hideouts.
“Malaysia is committed to take the necessary steps to address the serious issue of terrorism and violent extremism” through the accord, Mahathir said.
Mahathir: China should define claims in South China Sea
Mahathir: China should define claims in South China Sea
- Malaysia, the Philippines, China and three other governments have been locked in long-simmering territorial disputes in the South China Sea
- China has claimed virtually the entire sea but has refused to define the extent of its claims
Trump says his intel chief was ‘wrong’ to believe Iran was not building a nuclear weapon
- Also says Israeli strikes could be ‘very hard to stop’ now that they are “winning”
- After Trump's remark, Tulsi Gabbard says her statement was taken out of context
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said Friday that his director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, was “wrong” when she previously said that the US believed Iran wasn’t building a nuclear weapon, and he suggested that it would be “very hard to stop” Israel’s strikes on Iran in order to negotiate a possible ceasefire.
Trump has recently taken a more aggressive public stance toward Tehran as he’s sought more time to weigh whether to attack Iran by striking its well-defended Fordo uranium enrichment facility. Buried under a mountain, the facility is believed to be out of the reach of all but America’s “bunker-buster” bombs.
After landing in New Jersey for an evening fundraiser for his super political action committee, Trump was asked about Gabbard’s comments to Congress in March that US spy agencies believed that Iran wasn’t working on nuclear warheads. The president responded, “Well then, my intelligence community is wrong. Who in the intelligence community said that?”
Informed that it had been Gabbard, Trump said, “She’s wrong.”
In a subsequent post on X, Gabbard said her testimony was taken out of context “as a way to manufacture division.”
“America has intelligence that Iran is at the point that it can produce a nuclear weapon within weeks to months, if they decide to finalize the assembly,” she wrote. “President Trump has been clear that can’t happen, and I agree.”
Still, disavowing Gabbard’s previous assessment came a day after the White House said Trump would decide within two weeks whether the US military would get directly involved in the conflict between Israel and Iran. It said seeking additional time was “based on the fact that there’s a substantial chance of negotiations that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future.”
But on Friday, Trump himself seemed to cast doubts on the possibility of talks leading to a pause in fighting between Israel and Iran. He said that, while he might support a ceasefire, Israel’s strikes on Iran could be “very hard to stop.”
Asked about Iran suggesting that, if the US was serious about furthering negotiations, it could call on Israel to stop its strikes, Trump responded, “I think it’s very hard to make that request right now.”
“If somebody is winning, it’s a little bit harder to do than if somebody is losing,” Trump said. “But we’re ready, willing and able, and we’ve been speaking to Iran, and we’ll see what happens.”
The president later added, “It’s very hard to stop when you look at it.”
“Israel’s doing well in terms of war. And, I think, you would say that Iran is doing less well. It’s a little bit hard to get somebody to stop,” Trump said.
Trump campaigned on decrying “endless wars” and has vowed to be an international peacemaker. That’s led some, even among conservatives, to point to Trump’s past criticism of the US invasion of Iraq beginning in 2003 as being at odds with his more aggressive stance toward Iran now.
Trump suggested the two situations were very different, though.
“There were no weapons of mass destruction. I never thought there were. And that was somewhat pre-nuclear. You know, it was, it was a nuclear age, but nothing like it is today,” Trump said of his past criticism of the administration of President George W. Bush.
He added of Iran’s current nuclear program, “It looked like I’m right about the material that they’ve gathered already. It’s a tremendous amount of material.”
Trump also cast doubts on Iran’s developing nuclear capabilities for civilian pursuits, like power generation.
“You’re sitting on one of the largest oil piles anywhere in the world,” he said. “It’s a little bit hard to see why you’d need that.”
Columbia protester Mahmoud Khalil freed from immigration detention
- Khalil, a Columbia University student, who became a leader of pro-Palestinian campus protests has been in custody since March facing deportation
- District Judge Michael Farbiarz ordered Khalil’s release on bail allowing him to return to New York while his case proceeds
JENA, Louisiana: Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil was released Friday from federal immigration detention, freed after three months by a judge’s ruling after becoming a symbol of President Donald Trump ‘s clampdown on campus protests.
The former Columbia University graduate student left a federal facility in Louisiana on Friday. He is expected to head to New York to reunite with his US citizen wife and newborn son.
The Trump administration sought to deport him over his role in pro-Palestinian protests
“Justice prevailed, but it’s very long overdue,” he said outside the facility in a remote part of Louisiana. “This shouldn’t have taken three months.”
Khalil was released after US District Judge Michael Farbiarz said it would be “highly, highly unusual” for the government to continue detaining a legal US resident who was unlikely to flee and hadn’t been accused of any violence.
“Petitioner is not a flight risk and the evidence presented is that he is not a danger to the community,” he said. “Period, full stop.”
Later in the hourlong hearing, which took place by phone, the judge said the government had “clearly not met” the standards for detention.
The government filed notice Friday evening that it’s appealing Khalil’s release.
Khalil had to surrender his passport and can’t travel internationally, but he will get his green card back and be given official documents permitting limited travel within the country, including New York and Michigan to visit family, New Jersey and Louisiana for court appearances and Washington to lobby Congress.
Khalil was the first person arrested under President Donald Trump ‘s crackdown on students who joined campus protests against Israel’s devastating war in Gaza. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said Khalil must be expelled from the country because his continued presence could harm American foreign policy.
Farbiarz had ruled earlier that the government couldn’t deport Khalil on those grounds, but gave it leeway to continue pursuing a potential deportation based on allegations that he lied on his green card application. Trump administration lawyers repeated that accusation at Friday’s court hearing. It’s an accusation Khalil disputes.
In issuing his ruling Friday, the judge agreed with Khalil’s lawyers that the protest leader was being prevented from exercising his free speech and due process rights despite no obvious reason for his continued detention. The judge noted that Khalil is now clearly a public figure.
Khalil’s lawyers had asked that he either be freed on bail or, at the very least, moved from Louisiana to New Jersey so he can be closer to his wife and newborn son, who are both US citizens.
Khalil’s wife, Dr. Noor Abdalla, said she can finally “breathe a sigh of relief” after her husband’s three months in detention.
“We know this ruling does not begin to address the injustices the Trump administration has brought upon our family, and so many others,” she said in a statement provided by Khalil’s lawyers. “But today we are celebrating Mahmoud coming back to New York to be reunited with our little family.”
The judge’s decision comes after several other scholars targeted for their activism have been released from custody, including another former Palestinian student at Columbia, Mohsen Mahdawi; a Tufts University student, Rumeysa Ozturk; and a Georgetown University scholar, Badar Khan Suri.
Khalil was detained on March 8 at his apartment building in Manhattan over his participation in pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
The international affairs graduate student isn’t accused of breaking any laws during the protests at Columbia. He served as a negotiator and spokesperson for student activists and wasn’t among the demonstrators arrested, but his prominence in news coverage and willingness to speak publicly made him a target of critics.
The Trump administration has argued that noncitizens who participate in such demonstrations should be expelled from the country as it considers their views antisemitic.
Violence against children hit ‘unprecedented levels in 2024’
- The UN kept Israeli forces on its blacklist of countries that violate children’s rights for a second year, citing 7,188 verified grave violations by its military, including the killing of 1,259 Palestinian children and injury to 941 others in Gaza
- UN chief cites warfare strategies that included deployment of destructive and explosive weapons
NEW YORK: Violence against children caught in multiple and escalating conflicts reached “unprecedented levels” last year, with the highest number of violations in Gaza and the West Bank, Congo, Somalia, Nigeria and Haiti, according to a UN report.
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ annual report on Children in Armed Conflict detailed “a staggering 25 percent surge in grave violations” against children under the age of 18 from 2023, when the number of such violations rose by 21 percent.
In 2024, the UN chief said children “bore the brunt of relentless hostilities and indiscriminate attacks, and were affected by the disregard for ceasefires and peace agreements and by deepening humanitarian crises.”
FASTFACT
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he is ‘appalled by the intensity of grave violations against children in the occupied Palestinian territories and Israel,’ and ‘deeply alarmed’by the increase in violations, especially the high number of children killed by Israeli forces.
He cited warfare strategies that included attacks on children, the deployment of increasingly destructive and explosive weapons in populated areas, and “the systematic exploitation of children for combat.”
Guterres said the UN verified 41,370 grave violations against children — 36,221 committed in 2024 and 5,149 committed earlier but verified last year.
The violations include killing, maiming, recruiting and abducting children, sexual violence against them, attacking schools and hospitals, and denying youngsters access to humanitarian aid.
The UN kept Israeli forces on its blacklist of countries that violate children’s rights for a second year, citing 7,188 verified grave violations by its military, including the killing of 1,259 Palestinian children and injury to 941 others in Gaza.
The Gaza Health Ministry has reported much higher figures, but the UN has strict criteria and said its process of verification is ongoing.
Guterres said he is “appalled by the intensity of grave violations against children in the occupied Palestinian territories and Israel,” and “deeply alarmed” by the increase in violations, especially the high number of children killed by Israeli forces.
He reiterated his calls on Israel to abide by international law requiring special protections for children, protection for schools and hospitals, and compliance with the requirement that attacks distinguish between combatants and civilians and avoid excessive harm to civilians.
The UN also kept Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad on the blacklist.
Israel’s UN Mission did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In Congo, the UN reported 4,043 verified grave violations against 3,418 children last year.
In Somalia, it reported 2,568 violations against 1,992 children.
In Nigeria, 2,436 grave violations were reported against 1,037 children. And in Haiti, the UN reported 2,269 verified grave violations against 1,373 children.
In the ongoing war following Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the UN kept the Russian armed forces and affiliated armed groups on its blacklist for a third year. The secretary-general expressed deep concern at “the sharp increase in grave violations against children in Ukraine” — 1,914 against 673 children.
He expressed alarm at the violations by Russian forces and their affiliates, singling out their verified killing of 94 Ukrainian children, injury to 577 others, and 559 attacks on schools and 303 on hospitals.
In Haiti, the UN put a gang, the Viv Ansanm coalition, on the blacklist for the first time.
Gangs have grown in power since the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in July 2021.
They are estimated to control 85 percent of the capital and have moved into surrounding areas.
In May, the US designated the powerful coalition representing more than a dozen gangs, whose name means “Living Together,” as a foreign terrorist organization.
Secretary-General Guterres expressed deep “alarm” at the surge in violations, especially incidents of gang recruitment and use, sexual violence, abduction, and denial of humanitarian aid.
The report said sexual violence jumped by 35 percent in 2024, including a dramatic increase in the number of gang rapes, but stressed that the numbers are vastly underreported.
“Girls were abducted for the purpose of recruitment and use, and for sexual slavery,” the UN chief said. In Haiti, the UN reported sexual violence against 566 children, 523 of them girls, and attributed 411 to the Viv Ansanm gang.
In Congo, the UN reported 358 acts of sexual violence against girls — 311 by armed groups and 47 by Congo’s armed forces. And in Somalia, 267 children were victims of sexual violence, 120 of them carried out by Al-Shabab extremists.
According to the report, violations affected 22,495 children in 2024, with armed groups responsible for almost 50 percent and government forces the main perpetrator of the killing and maiming of children, school attacks, and denial of humanitarian access.
The report noted a sharp rise in the number of children subjected to multiple violations — from 2,684 in 2023 to 3,137 in 2024.
“The cries of 22,495 innocent children who should be learning to read or play ball — but instead have been forced to learn how to survive gunfire and bombings — should keep all of us awake at night,” said Virginia Gamba, the UN special representative for children and armed conflict.
“We are at the point of no return,” she said, calling on the international community to protect children and the parties in conflict “to immediately end the war on children.”
Italy grapples with mass exodus and foreign influx amid economic fears
- Ukrainians made up the biggest national group among those who arrived in 2023-2024, Istat said, followed by Albanians, Bangladeshis, Moroccans, Romanians, Egyptians, Pakistanis, Argentines, and Tunisians
ROME: The number of Italians leaving their country and foreigners moving in has soared to the highest in a decade, official data showed on Friday, fueling national concerns about brain drain, economic decline, and immigration.
Italy has a right-wing government elected in 2022 on a mandate to curb migrant arrivals, but also has a shrinking population and growing labor shortages, highlighting the need to attract foreign workers.
Meanwhile, the country’s stagnant economy and low wages — salaries are below 1990 levels in inflation-adjusted terms — have been blamed for pushing many Italians to seek better fortunes abroad.
FASTFACT
Ukrainians made up the biggest national group among those who arrived in 2023-2024, followed by Albanians, Bangladeshis, Moroccans, Romanians, Egyptians, Pakistanis, Argentines, and Tunisians.
Last year, 382,071 foreigners moved to Italy, up from 378,372 in 2023 and the highest since 2014, the statistics agency Istat said.
In the same period, 155,732 Italians emigrated, up from 114,057 in 2023 and also the highest since 2014. The immigration figure beat the previous high for the last decade of 301,000 in 2017, and was well above that period’s low of 191,766 from 2020 — the height of the COVID pandemic.
The figure of almost 270,000 nationals emigrating in the two-year period from 2023 to 2024 was up around 40 percent compared to the previous two years.
The two-year immigration figure for that period, around 760,000, was up 31 percent from 2021-2022.
The figures are derived from town registry offices, so are unlikely to reflect undocumented migration.
Ukrainians made up the biggest national group among those who arrived in 2023-2024, Istat said, followed by Albanians, Bangladeshis, Moroccans, Romanians, Egyptians, Pakistanis, Argentines, and Tunisians.
As for the high number of emigrants, “it is more than plausible” that a significant number were “former immigrants” who moved abroad after acquiring Italian citizenship, Istat said.
The agency also said Italy’s poorer south was continuing to depopulate, noting that almost 1 percent of residents in Calabria, the region with the lowest per capita income, moved to central or northern areas during 2023-2024.
Russia might try to take Ukrainian city of Sumy, Putin says
- Ukraine said Putin’s comments showed “disdain” for the peace process
- “We have no objective to take Sumy, but in principle I do not rule it out... They pose a constant threat to us, constantly shelling the border areas,” Putin said
SAINT PETERSBURG: Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday he did not “rule out” his forces attempting to seize the northeastern Ukrainian city of Sumy, casting fresh doubt over the prospect of peace talks between Moscow and Kyiv.
Ukraine said Putin’s comments showed “disdain” for the peace process.
Diplomatic efforts to end the three-year conflict have stalled in recent weeks and Kyiv has accused Moscow of deliberately sabotaging a peace deal to prolong its full-scale offensive on the country.
Russia currently occupies around a fifth of Ukraine and has claimed four Ukrainian regions as its own since launching its assault in 2022, in addition to Crimea, which it captured in 2014.
The Sumy region is not one of the regions Moscow has formally annexed, although Russian forces have recently made inroads there for the first time in three years.
At Russia’s flagship economic forum in Saint Petersburg, Putin suggested Moscow could take Sumy as part of the creation of a “buffer zone” along the border and repeated his denial of Ukrainian statehood.
“We have no objective to take Sumy, but in principle I do not rule it out... They pose a constant threat to us, constantly shelling the border areas,” Putin said.
“I consider Russians and Ukrainians to be one people. In that sense, all of Ukraine is ours,” he told attendees, when asked why his army was entering areas Moscow did not claim as its own.
“There is a saying: wherever a Russian soldier sets foot, that is ours.”
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga described Putin’s comments as “deranged” and called for Kyiv’s allies to slap “devastating sanctions” on Russia.
“The only way to force Russia into peace is to deprive it of its sense of impunity,” he wrote in a post on X.
Putin’s widening territorial ambitions are likely to roil Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky,
who has accused Moscow of not wanting to end the fighting.
The two sides held rounds of direct talks in Istanbul in May and in June, but Kyiv accused Moscow of sending “dummy” negotiators with no real power to enact a peace deal.
Putin has declined to take part in the peace talks in person and on Thursday said he would only meet Zelensky during a “final phase” of negotiations on ending the three-year conflict.
He has also insisted Ukraine give up territory it already controls for peace.
Kyiv says it cannot and will not accept Russian occupation of any part of its land.
In his address Friday, Putin denied he was calling for Ukraine to “capitulate.”
“We are not seeking Ukraine’s surrender. We insist on recognition of the realities that have developed on the ground,” the Russian leader said.
Putin repeated that Moscow was “advancing on all fronts” and that his troops had penetrated up to 12 kilometers (seven miles) into the Sumy region.
He also accused Kyiv of “stupidity” by launching an incursion into Russia’s Kursk region last August.
“They are creating problems for themselves,” he said.
Russia has for months been rejecting calls for an unconditional ceasefire, launching deadly attacks on its neighbor.
