Duterte rapped for flip-flop orders over virus lockdown

In this Friday, April 3, 2020, photo provided by the Malacanang Presidential Photographers Division, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte speaks during a late night live broadcast in Malacanang, Manila, Philippines. (AP)
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Updated 05 April 2020
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Duterte rapped for flip-flop orders over virus lockdown

  • Philippine president denies issuing ‘shoot-to-kill’ instructions for those violating curfew

MANILA: To shoot or not to shoot, that is the question — one that has left experts and human rights groups in the Philippines perplexed.

The confusion follows President Rodrigo Duterte’s statement late Friday night wherein he denied issuing “shoot-to-kill” orders for anyone violating a Luzon-wide lockdown to contain the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the country.
Experts, however, say it is imperative to read between the lines.
“He must have seen the strong negative reaction from the people. You never issue a shoot-to-kill order publicly,” Fr. Eliseo Mercado of the think tank Institute for Autonomy and Governance told Arab News on Saturday.
Duterte’s instructions follow a protest staged by residents of a village in Quezon City on Wednesday to demand food aid, claiming they had not received relief items since the government placed the entire island under enhanced community quarantine starting March 17. Mercado says the protesters had no choice.
“Those people are hungry because of the lockdown,” he said.
The protests led to Duterte issuing an impromptu order to police, military and village officials to shoot those who “cause chaos during the lockdown.”
“Shoot them dead. Do you understand? Dead. Instead of causing trouble, I’ll send you to the grave,” Duterte said at the time.
However, on Friday night, Duterte took a U-turn in an address to the nation.
“I am a lawyer. I never said in public ‘shoot-to-kill.’ Period,” the president said, emphasizing that he told state forces to use force only if their lives came under threat while making an arrest.
“If they resist ... If they fight back ... if they put (your life) in danger ... shoot them. Kill them. That’s the law,” he stressed.
Human rights groups have since condemned the president’s remarks.
In a statement released on Saturday, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Duterte’s latest threats cannot be ignored.
“At the very least, Duterte gives the police all the justification they need to commit human rights abuses against people who may be violating these COVID-19 regulations because they need to find work or food,” Carlos Conde of HRW said.
Instead of threatening the poor, he argued that the government should extend the necessary assistance during the outbreak.

FASTFACT

The confusion follows Duterte’s statement wherein he denied issuing ‘shoot-to-kill’ orders for anyone violating a Luzon-wide lockdown to contain the spread of COVID-19 in the country.

“Duterte may feel exasperated by incidents of people breaking curfew regulations, but he has to understand that, for the poor affected by this crisis, it is a matter of survival,” Conde said.
On Friday, presidential legal adviser and Malacacang spokesperson Salvador Panelo said that the president “minced no words” in warning of deadly consequences for those who continue to “create unrest, panic, confusion, fear and foment hate against the government.”
“He warned them that if they want trouble and bloodshed, he will accommodate them and give them hell,” Panelo said, referring to Duterte’s previous remarks.
“The president is tasked by the constitution to enforce it and the laws of the land. Transgressors will suffer the consequences of their violations as imposed by law,” he added.
Panelo explained that threatening violators and enemies of the state with deathly violence is “not a crime.”
“The law allows the use of lethal violence when someone’s life depends on it. That is a universal law anchored on the principle of self-preservation,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Department of the Interior and Local Government has urged local government units to hasten the process of assisting the Department of Social Welfare and Development to distribute Social Amelioration Program Bayanihan funds to low-income families.
Interior Secretary Eduardo M. Aco said all LGUs must expedite the distribution, collection, and encoding of the SAP forms of qualified beneficiaries for immediate submission to the DSWD field office in their locality.
Aco added that the government released the first wave of financial assistance to low-income Filipino families on Friday.
 Under the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act, a total of P200 billion  ($3.9 billion) was allocated toward the SAP Bayanihan Fund to 18 million low-income families affected by the crisis across the country.


India’s Naga separatists threaten to resume violence after decades-long truce

Updated 17 sec ago
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India’s Naga separatists threaten to resume violence after decades-long truce

  • “The violent confrontation between India and Nagalim shall be purely on account of the deliberate betrayal and breach of commitment by India and its leadership to honor the letter and spirit of Framework Agreement of 2015,” he said

GUWAHATI, India: An armed separatist group in a remote northeast Indian state on Friday threatened to “resume violent armed resistance” after nearly three decades of ceasefire, accusing New Delhi of failing to honor promises in earlier agreements.
The Naga insurgency, India’s oldest, is aimed at creating a separate homeland of Nagalim that unites parts of India’s mountainous northeast with areas of neighboring Myanmar for ethnic Naga people. About 20,000 people have died in the conflict since it began in 1947.
A ceasefire between the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Isak-Muivah), a leading separatist group, and Indian security forces has held since it was enforced in 1997 and the group signed an agreement with New Delhi in 2015 toward striking a resolution on their demands.

BACKGROUND

A ceasefire between the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Isak-Muivah), a leading separatist group, and Indian security forces has held since it was enforced in 1997.

But talks have stagnated since and in a statement Friday, the group’s chief, Thuingaleng Muivah, accused India of “betrayal of the letter and spirit” of the 2015 agreement.
India’s Interior Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Muivah’s remarks.
In a statement, Muivah urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s federal government to “respect and honor” the 2015 agreement, which he said “officially recognized and acknowledged” the right to a sovereign flag and constitution for the separatists.
Muivah proposed a “third party intervention” to resolve the impasse, threatening that it would resume violence if “such a political initiative was rejected.”
“The violent confrontation between India and Nagalim shall be purely on account of the deliberate betrayal and breach of commitment by India and its leadership to honor the letter and spirit of Framework Agreement of 2015,” he said.
“India and its leadership shall be held responsible for the catastrophic and adverse situation that will arise out of the violent armed conflict between India and Nagalim,” he said.

 


Comoros arrests suspected key smuggler

Comoros Police officers and Comoros soldiers patrol in Moroni on January 17, 2024. (AFP)
Updated 15 min 20 sec ago
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Comoros arrests suspected key smuggler

  • The International Organization for Migration said on Monday that at least 25 people died after the boat was “deliberately capsized by traffickers”

MORONI, Comoros: Police in the Comoros said on Friday they had arrested the alleged leader of a smuggling network involved in the capsizing of a migrant boat that claimed around two dozen lives.
The boat sank on a well-known smuggling route between the Comoros island of Anjouan and the French Indian Ocean archipelago of Mayotte on Nov. 1.
“The smuggling ringleader who owned the capsized boat was arrested on Thursday in Anjouan,” Col. Tachfine Ahmed said.
“He admitted that he owned the boat and bought all the material needed for the trip,” he added, saying the 37-year-old suspect was a resident of Mayotte.
The International Organization for Migration said on Monday that at least 25 people died after the boat was “deliberately capsized by traffickers.”
The Comoros police said they knew of 17 deaths.
Fishermen rescued five survivors who said the boat was carrying around 30 people, including women and young children, the IOM said.
A survivor said the smugglers sank the vessel before fleeing on a speedboat.
Police confirmed the survivor’s account, saying the two smugglers escaped.
“We are actively looking for the two smugglers who got on another boat,” the colonel added.
In addition to homicide charges, the arrested suspect faces up to 10 years imprisonment for belonging to an organized criminal group as well as three years for illegal transport of passengers.
Anjouan is one of three islands in the nation of Comoros, located around 70 km northwest of Mayotte, which became a department of France in 2011.
Despite being France’s poorest department, Mayotte has French infrastructure and welfare, which makes it attractive to migrants from Comoros seeking a better life.
Many pay smugglers to make the dangerous sea crossing in rickety fishing boats known as “kwassa-kwassa.”

 


UK court awards Manchester bomb victims £45,000 over hoax claims

Updated 38 min 44 sec ago
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UK court awards Manchester bomb victims £45,000 over hoax claims

  • Martin Hibbert and his daughter Eve sued Richard Hall over claims made in videos and a book that they were “crisis actors“
  • Judge Karen Steyn called Hall’s behavior “a negligent, indeed reckless, abuse of media freedom”

LONDON: Two survivors of the 2017 bomb attack at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, on Friday won £45,000 ($58,000) in damages from a former TV producer who claimed the attack was a hoax.
Martin Hibbert and his daughter Eve sued Richard Hall over claims made in videos and a book that they were “crisis actors” employed by the state as part of an elaborate deception.
Hibbert sustained a spinal cord injury in the attack, and his daughter suffered severe brain damage.
Hall argued that he was acting in the public interest by filming Hibbert’s daughter outside her home, but the High Court in London agreed with Hibbert’s claim for harassment.
Judge Karen Steyn called Hall’s behavior “a negligent, indeed reckless, abuse of media freedom” and on Friday ordered him to pay Hibbert and his daughter each £22,500 in damages.
Hall must also pay 90 percent of their legal costs, currently estimated at £260,000.
“The claimants are both vulnerable. The allegations are serious and distressing,” said the judge.
Jonathan Price, lawyer for the claimants, said that Hall “insisted that the terrorist attack in which the claimants were catastrophically injured did not happen and that the claimants were participants or ‘crisis actors’ in a state-orchestrated hoax, who had repeatedly, publicly and egregiously lied to the public for monetary gain.”
Hibbert welcomed the ruling, adding: “I want this case to open up the door for change, and for it to protect others from what we have been put through.
“It proves and has highlighted... that there is protection within the law, and it sends out a message to conspiracy theorists that you cannot ignore all acceptable evidence and harass innocent people.”
Islamic extremist Salman Abedi, aided by his brother, Hashem Abedi, killed 22 people and injured 1,017 during the suicide bombing at the end of the concert by the US singer.


US charges Iranian man in plot to kill Donald Trump

Updated 08 November 2024
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US charges Iranian man in plot to kill Donald Trump

  • Shakeri told the FBI he didn’t plan to propose a plan to murder Trump
  • The plot reflects what federal officials have described as ongoing efforts by Iran to target US government officials

WASHINGTON: The Justice Department on Friday disclosed an Iranian murder-for-hire plot to kill Donald Trump, charging a man who said he had been tasked by a government official before this week’s election with assassinating the Republican president-elect.
Investigators learned of the plot to kill Trump while interviewing Farhad Shakeri, an Afghan national identified by officials as an Iranian government asset who was deported from the US after being imprisoned on robbery charges.
He told investigators that a contact in Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard instructed him this past September to put together a plan within seven days to surveil and ultimately kill Trump, according to a criminal complaint unsealed in federal court in Manhattan.

Two other men who the authorities say were recruited to participate in other assassinations, including a prominent Iranian American journalist, were also arrested Friday. Shakeri remains in Iran.
“There are few actors in the world that pose as grave a threat to the national security of the United States as does Iran,” Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in a statement.
The plot, with the charges unsealed just days after Trump’s defeat of Democrat Kamala Harris, reflects what federal officials have described as ongoing efforts by Iran to target US government officials, including Trump, on US soil. Last summer, the Justice Department charged a Pakistani man with ties to Iran in a murder-for-hire plot.


Russia says summoned Canadian diplomat to reject Western sabotage accusations

Updated 08 November 2024
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Russia says summoned Canadian diplomat to reject Western sabotage accusations

  • Moscow said the Canadian diplomat “was told that these speculations” were being spread in a “coordinated manner, in the context of the hybrid war” being waged against Russia
  • Russia blasted the allegations as “false,” “unacceptable” and part of a “provocation” being led by the US

MOSCOW: Moscow summoned a Canadian diplomat on Friday to rebut Western allegations that Russia’s secret services had orchestrated a campaign to mail explosive packages to addresses in NATO countries, including Canada.
After a series of fires at DHL depots in Britain and Germany this summer, Russia was accused of being behind a brazen plot to ship explosive parcels via commercial airliners.
Ottawa expressed its concern earlier this week to Russian officials after Poland and Lithuania announced several arrests as a result of a probe into attempts to send parcels packaged with explosives on cargo flights to the United States and Canada.
“The deputy head of the Canadian diplomatic mission in Moscow was summoned and handed an official note in connection with the false accusations of alleged planned ‘Russian sabotage’ against NATO countries,” Russia’s foreign ministry said.
Moscow said the Canadian diplomat “was told that these speculations” were being spread in a “coordinated manner, in the context of the hybrid war” being waged against Russia by the West.
Russia blasted the allegations as “false,” “unacceptable” and part of a “provocation” being led by the United States.
Canada’s public safety ministry said Ottawa is “aware of and deeply concerned with Russia’s intensifying campaign, from cyber incidents and disinformation operations to sabotage activities.”
It confirmed the Canadian government had “expressed this concern directly to Russian officials and unequivocally stated that any threat to the safety and security of Canadians is unacceptable.”
The ministry added there was “no imminent threat” to the public but said Canada “will continue to monitor the situation very closely.”
Canada’s Transport Minister Anita Anand told reporters on Wednesday that she required “more information” on the alleged plot but said she would taking “additional steps” to ensure the safety of passengers and packages, without providing details.
The reported plot, involving civilian airlines, comes amid growing concern in the West at what it sees as Russia’s increasingly reckless espionage and sabotage operations inside NATO countries.
“Russian intelligence services have gone a bit feral, frankly,” Richard Moore, head of Britain’s MI6 secret intelligence service said in September in rare public remarks.