MANILA: Family and supporters of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte rallied Friday to mark his 80th birthday and protest against his detention in The Hague on a charge of crimes against humanity.
Duterte could spend the remainder of his life in jail if convicted at the International Criminal Court (ICC) of the charge tied to his “war on drugs” in which thousands were killed.
Police told AFP they had blocked a convoy of at least 100 motorcycle riders near the Philippine presidential palace, brandishing posters that read “Bring Him Home.”
In the southern city of Davao, thousands of the ex-president’s supporters massed for a candle-lit rally, one of more than 200 birthday gatherings demanding his release.
“Almost all Filipinos love him and are very sad for him now,” 44-year-old supporter Darbie Bula said.
Presidential palace spokeswoman Claire Castro said that protesters had the right to assemble, but warned against acts that “sow fear (or) promote hatred toward the government, bordering the line of inciting to sedition.”
Castro told reporters that Philippine officials wished Duterte “good health, good fortune” — adding that “he needs that.”
Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte, his eldest daughter, who has been in the Dutch city since shortly after his arrest, said the support “makes the challenges he is facing today more bearable.”
Another of the ex-president’s daughters, 20-year-old Veronica Duterte, said her father had “always been a force to be reckoned with, even in his sunset days,” in a post on social media.
Outside the detention center in The Hague, hundreds gathered with a sound system blasting music, punctuated by calls for Duterte’s release.
“We hope that he will be back in the Philippines as soon as possible,” organizer Aldwin Villarta said.
“I don’t think that he has a case to answer. I think it’s very unfair for him to be here.”
Nicholas Kaufman, Duterte’s lead defense lawyer, said his client had been made aware of the events in Davao and The Hague.
“He was touched by the huge presence of supporters on this milestone birthday and we will work to ensure that he will celebrate future birthdays in their company,” he said via email.
The ICC chief prosecutor’s application for his arrest said Duterte’s alleged crimes were “part of a widespread and systematic attack directed against the civilian population” in the Philippines.
“Potentially tens of thousands of killings were perpetrated,” the prosecutor alleged of the campaign that targeted mostly poor men, often without proof they were linked to drugs.
But Sara Duterte has said that the once wildly popular president is convinced that what the ICC did “was wrong and there is no case to begin with.”
Duterte’s arrest on March 11 and rapid handover to the international tribunal came on the heels of his family’s bitter falling out with his successor, President Ferdinand Marcos.
Cracks began to appear in their alliance soon after Marcos teamed up with Sara Duterte to sweep the presidential and vice presidential elections in May 2022.
The vice president quit her cabinet post as education secretary after being denied the defense portfolio, while Duterte himself began calling Marcos a drug addict.
Last month, Sara Duterte was impeached by a pro-Marcos House of Representatives on charges that include an alleged assassination plot against the president.
The outcome of her Senate trial will likely depend on the number of seats her allies win in May 12 mid-term elections.
The ex-president will next appear in court on September 23.
Pro-Duterte rallies as former Philippine leader marks 80th birthday in jail
https://arab.news/pbdjf
Pro-Duterte rallies as former Philippine leader marks 80th birthday in jail
- Duterte supporter: ‘Almost all Filipinos love him and are very sad for him now’
- The former president will next appear in court on September 23
Trump says US kids may get ‘2 dolls instead of 30,’ but China will suffer more in a trade war
- The US president has tried to reassure a nervous country that his tariffs will not provoke a recession
- “Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls. So maybe the two dolls will cost a couple bucks more than they would normally,” Trump said
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump on Wednesday acknowledged that his tariffs could result in fewer and costlier products in the United States, saying American kids might “have two dolls instead of 30 dolls,” but he insisted China will suffer more from his trade war.
The US president has tried to reassure a nervous country that his tariffs will not provoke a recession, after a new government report showed that the US economy shrank during the first three months of the year.
Trump was quick to blame his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden, for any setbacks while telling his Cabinet that his tariffs meant China was “having tremendous difficulty because their factories are not doing business,” adding that the US didn’t really need imports from the world’s dominant manufacturer.
“You know, somebody said, ‘Oh, the shelves are going to be open,’” Trump continued, offering a hypothetical. “Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls. So maybe the two dolls will cost a couple bucks more than they would normally.”
His remarks followed a defensive morning after the Commerce Department reported that the US economy shrank at an annual rate of 0.3 percent during the first quarter. Behind the decline was a surge in imports as companies tried to front-run the sweeping tariffs on autos, steel, aluminum and almost every country. And even positive signs of increased domestic consumption indicated that purchases might be occurring before the import taxes lead to price increases.
Trump pointed his finger at Biden as the stock market fell Wednesday morning in response to the gross domestic product report.
“This is Biden’s Stock Market, not Trump’s,” the Republican president, who took office in January, posted on his social media site. “Tariffs will soon start kicking in, and companies are starting to move into the USA in record numbers. Our Country will boom, but we have to get rid of the Biden ‘Overhang.’ This will take a while, has NOTHING TO DO WITH TARIFFS.”
But the GDP report gives Democrats ammunition to claim that Trump’s policies could shove the economy into a recession. Democrats’ statements after the GDP report noted how quickly the economy, which still has a healthy 4.2 percent unemployment rate, appears to lose momentum within weeks of Trump returning.
“Trump has been in office for only 100 days, and costs, chaos and corruption are already on the rise,” said Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon “The economy is slowing, prices are going up, and middle-class families are feeling the pinch.”
The report landed as Trump is trying to put the focus on new corporate investments in the US as he spends the week celebrating his 100th day in office. He planned remarks later in the day on the subject.
Trump’s economic message contains some clashing arguments and dismisses data that raises red flags.
He wants credit for an aggressive first 100 days back in the White House that included mass layoffs of federal workers and the start of a trade war with 145 percent in new tariffs against China. He also wants to blame the negative response of the financial markets on Biden, who left office months ago. He’s also saying his tariffs are negotiating tools to generate trade deals but at the same time banking on hundreds of billions of dollars in tariff revenues to help cover his planned income tax cuts.
Trump highlighted the positive aspects of the GDP report at the Cabinet meeting. But that session revealed how his administration is also trying to take credit for policies that involve the Biden administration.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick talked about his recent trip to Arizona to see the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.’s computer chip factories. The company notes on its website that it announced plans in May 2020, during Trump’s first term when the coronavirus pandemic disrupted the global economy, to build its first plant in Arizona. The company announced a second factory in December 2022, when Biden was in office. After getting up to $6.6 billion in commitments in 2024 from the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act, TSMC announced plans for a third plant.
Trump dismissed the importance of the government support that Biden made possible for computer chip factories to open domestically.
“They’re building because of the tariffs,” Trump said.
Yet Democrats are quickly to say that Trump inherited an economy on a steady course of low unemployment and declining inflation that his tariff plans have almost immediately disrupted.
“In just 100 days, President Trump has taken the US economy from strong, stable growth to negative GDP,” said Heather Boushey, a former member of Biden’s White House Council of Economic Advisers. “This astonishing turn of fortune is directly due to the incoherence of his economic policy and his mismanagement of federal policy more generally.”
But White House trade adviser Peter Navarro told reporters that the GDP drop was a “one-shot deal” because of the increased imports, which mathematically subtract from the measure of economic activity. Navarro said that the individual and business income tax cuts planned by Trump would help growth in the months ahead.
“All we’re seeing is good, strong news,” Navarro said. “So the idea that there’s a recession coming should be heavily discounted.”
Trump says Canada’s Carney to visit ‘in next week’
- “I spoke to him yesterday, couldn’t have been nicer and I congratulated him,” Trump told reporters
- “I think we’re going to have a great relationship”
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said Wednesday that Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney would visit Washington in the coming week, hailing him as “very nice” despite tensions over Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats.
“He’s a very nice gentleman and he’s going to come to the White House very shortly, within the next week or less,” Trump said after the leader of Canada’s Liberal Party secured election victory in part by vowing to stand up to the US president.
“I spoke to him yesterday, couldn’t have been nicer and I congratulated him,” Trump told reporters in a cabinet meeting.
Pierre Poilievre’s Conservative Party had been on track to win the vote but Trump’s attacks, combined with the departure of unpopular former premier Justin Trudeau, transformed the race.
Carney, who replaced Trudeau as prime minister just last month, convinced voters that his experience managing economic crises made him the ideal candidate to defy Trump.
Trump however downplayed any possible tensions with the Canadian — despite repeatedly calling for Carney’s country to become the 51st US state.
“I think we’re going to have a great relationship. He called me up yesterday, he said ‘Let’s make a deal’,” Trump said.
“They both hated Trump, and it was the one that hated Trump, I think, the least that won. I actually think the Conservative hated me much more than the so-called Liberal.”
Five Indians kidnapped in attack in Niger
- The victims were working for an Indian company providing services to Niger’s Kandadji dam project
- The armed men who carried out the kidnapping have not been officially identified
NIAMEY: Five Indian citizens were kidnapped in western Niger during an attack last week by armed men that also killed a dozen soldiers, according to two Nigerian security sources and a statement by Indian state authorities seen by Reuters on Wednesday.
Reuters reported on Saturday that 12 soldiers had been killed in the attack a day earlier near the village of Sakoira in the tri-border region, where the West African Sahel countries of Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali meet.
The victims were working for an Indian company providing services to Niger’s Kandadji dam project, the two security sources said.
The local government of the Indian state of Jharkhand said in a statement that the five citizens had been working in the Tillaberi region.
It said all five were from Jharkhand and that the Indian embassy in Niger had approached Nigerian authorities for support in securing their release.
The armed men who carried out the kidnapping have not been officially identified, but last month Niger blamed the EIGS group, a Daesh affiliate, for an attack on a mosque near the tri-border area in which at least 44 civilians were killed.
Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso are fighting a jihadist insurgency linked to Al-Qaeda and Islamic State that spun out of a Tuareg rebellion in northern Mali in 2012 and later spread to its neighboring countries.
Kidnappings appear to have intensified this year, with an Austrian woman kidnapped in January and a Swiss citizen earlier in April, both in Niger. Also in January, four Moroccan truck drivers went missing on the border between Niger and Burkina Faso.
Head of Pakistan-administered Kashmir calls for international mediation
- Head of Pakistan-administered Kashmir says Gulf states could help
- Calls for attention on Kashmir’s long-term future
ISLAMABAD: The head of the Pakistan-administered region of Kashmir called for international mediation and said on Wednesday that his administration was preparing a humanitarian response in case of any further escalation between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan.
Pakistan’s government has said it has “credible intelligence” that India intends to launch military action soon after days of escalating tensions following a deadly attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir.
India blamed Pakistan for the April 22 attack that killed 26 people, which Islamabad has denied.
“There is a lot of activity going on and anything could happen so we have to prepare for it. These few days are very important,” president of Pakistan-administered Kashmir Sultan Mahmood Chaudhry told Reuters in an interview, calling for rapid international diplomacy to de-escalate the situation.
“We expect some mediation at this time from some friendly countries and we hope that that mediation must take place, otherwise India would do anything this time,” he said. Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates could be in a position to mediate, he added.
Chaudhry also said he hoped major players like the United States and Britain might also get involved.
He said activity along the Line of Control (LoC) that divides the two portions of Kashmir was “hot” and that Pakistan had shot down two Indian drones in the last few days.
There had been regular firing by Pakistani and Indian soldiers day and night, though so far there had been no casualties, he said.
Pakistan had also detected Indian Rafale fighter jets flying near the LoC, though they had not crossed, he added.
The Indian Air Force did not respond to a request for comment, though an Indian military official said Rafale jets were doing their usual training and drills along the LoC.
Chaudhry said he had not received intelligence on when and where India was expected to strike, but his administration was working with groups such as the Red Crescent Society to prepare extra medical and food supplies in case of any conflict.
“Red Crescent are working on it and we are working on displaced people in affected areas,” he said.
He said that the international community also needed to pay more attention to Kashmir’s long-term future.
“I think this is the right time for the international community as a whole and the UN to play some mediating role in Kashmir,” he said.
“It’s been a very long time and the people of Kashmir have suffered a lot.”
Pakistan-administered Kashmir has its own elected government but Pakistan handles major issues like defense and its residents hold many of the rights of Pakistani citizens.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres spoke to Pakistan and India on Tuesday, stressing the need to avoid confrontation. The US and Britain have also called for calm.
China to lift sanctions on EU Parliament members, official says
- China has grown keen to forge closer economic and political ties with Europe
- The sanctions China is lifting, according to the official, were imposed in 2021
BRUSSELS: China has decided to lift sanctions on four members of the European Parliament as well as on its subcommittee on human rights, a parliament official told Reuters.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said European Parliament President Roberta Metsola is expected to announce the change on Wednesday. The official initially said sanctions would be lifted for four current members and one former member but later said the decision applied only to four current members.
China has grown keen to forge closer economic and political ties with Europe to limit the damage from tariffs on most of its exports to the United States.
The sanctions China is lifting, according to the official, were imposed in 2021 in response to Western measures against Chinese officials accused of the mass detentions of Muslim Uyghurs.
In response to the Chinese sanctions on its members, the European Parliament halted the ratification of the EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment, which had aimed to put EU companies on an equal footing in China.
Asked about reports that Beijing would lift sanctions, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun told a news conference on Wednesday that “the economic and trade cooperation between China and Europe is complementary and mutually beneficial.”
“The legislative bodies of China and the EU are an important part of China-EU relations, and we hope that the two sides will meet each other halfway and strengthen exchanges,” he said, adding that “members of the European Parliament are welcome to visit China more often.”
