0ARAB TIMES, MONDAY, APRIL 24, 2017
INTERNATIONAL
15
Philippines
50 times more brutal: Duterte
Abu Sayyaf behead
kidnapped ‘soldier’
MANILA, April 23, (Agencies): A Filipino soldier
kidnapped last week in the southern Philippines by
Abu Sayyaf militants was found beheaded, the military said on Sunday, hours after government troops
killed three more members of the Islamic State-linked
group in a clash elsewhere.
The head of Sergeant Anni Siraji of the Army’s
32nd Infantry Battalion was found 50 metres away
from his body in Patikul town in Sulu, Brigadier General Cirilito Sobejana, commander of the Joint Task
Force Sulu, said.
Sobejana said Siraji was probably abducted and executed because of his involvement in peace initiatives
in Sulu.
“He is involved in peace efforts. He is not actually
a combatant. We are using him
to engage stakeholders because
he is a Tausog (like most Abu
Sayyaf militants),” he said.
Earlier on Sunday, the military said government troops
had killed three more Abu
Sayyaf militants on the resort
island of Bohol where they
were hiding after a failed attempt to kidnap tourists.
The military was pursuing
two or three more militants
still at large in Bohol, a long way to the north of their
strongholds in the far south of the predominately
Christian country.
“We have reports indicating that they were also
wounded and running out of supplies,” Colonel Edgard Arevalo, chief of the military’s public affairs office, said.
A group of about 10 militants infiltrated Bohol this
month. Western countries have issued travel warnings
about visiting the island.
Six of them were killed in a clash on April 11 and
one last week.
Among those killed was their leader, who had been
involved in the kidnap and execution of Canadian and
German nationals in recent months, the Philippine
military has said.
The military has been struggling to wipe out Abu
Sayyaf, which originally had Muslim separatist aims
but now engages mostly in banditry and piracy.
The group has been holding more than two dozen
captives, most of them Vietnamese sailors, who are
easy prey for militants equipped with small, fast boats.
Meanwhile, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte
warned Sunday that he could be “50 times” more brutal than Muslim militants who stage beheadings and
said he could even “eat” the extremists if they’re captured alive by troops.
Duterte has repeatedly threatened drug suspects
with death, but he raised his shock rhetoric to a new
level as president when he said in a speech during the
opening of a national sports tournament what he could
do to terrorists who have staged beheadings and other
gruesome attacks.
Duterte ordered troops to kill fleeing Muslim militants behind a foiled attack in the central resort province of Bohol and not bring them to him alive, calling
the extremists “animals.”
Terrorist
“If you want me to be an animal, I’m also used to
that. We’re just the same,” Duterte said. “I can dish
out, go down what you can 50 times over.”
The foul-mouthed president said that if a terrorist
was presented to him when he’s in a foul mood, “give
me salt and vinegar and I’ll eat his liver.”
The crowd broke into laughter, but Duterte cut in,
“It’s true, if you make me angry.”
Duterte, a longtime city mayor who built an image
as a deadly crime-buster, won the presidency in May
last year on a promise to battle illegal drugs, corruption and terrorism. Thousands have died under his
anti-drug crackdown, which has alarmed Western
governments and human rights groups.
He has warned he may place the southern Philippines, scene of a decades-long Muslim separatist rebellion, under martial rule if terrorism threats spin out
of control.
He recently offered a reward for information leading to the capture of Abu Sayyaf and other militants
behind a foiled attack in the central province of Bohol.
Eight militants, three soldiers, a policeman and two
villagers have died in clashes in Bohol, which lies far
from the southern jungle bases of the militants.
❑ ❑ ❑
If the Filipinos on the remote South China Sea island of Thitu had binoculars, they might just be envious of how their neighbours on the next island live.
Just 15 miles (24 km) across the shimmering sea
from this rundown outpost of the Philippines lies a different world shown by an unbroken line of new, fourstorey white buildings. Radar towers and a lighthouse
complete Subi Reef, a mini city China has raised from
the sea at an astonishing pace since 2013.
Subi symbolises China’s increasingly assertive
claim to most of the South China Sea, a claim it reinforces in building manmade islands from dredged
sand and equipping them with runways, hangars and
surface-to-air-missiles.
For the 37 Filipino families who call Thitu their
home, however, life is basic with just a few buildings,
no television or internet, and no shops or street-side
eateries.
There isn’t even a street, just a dirt track used by the
island’s one vehicle - a small truck.
At only 37 hectares (0.37 sq km) the coral-fringed
Thitu, known to Filipinos as Pagasa, is the biggest
of the eight reefs, shoals and islands the Philippines
occupies in the Spratly archipelago, 280 miles away
from the mainland.
But Thitu’s inhabitants have a strategic purpose preserving a Philippine claim of sovereignty in the
face of a resurgent China.
According to the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, China will soon be capable of deploying fighter
jets on three reefs, including Subi.
By comparison, Thitu’s military muscle is a few
dozen rotating troops with small arms, and a dirt runway through a patch of grass.
Jenny May Ray, 24, has taught for one year at the
island’s school. She says Thitu’s residents are heroes.
“We should be thankful for their sacrifices for staying on an island far away from civilisation, away from
their loved ones and families and I hope some day,
something can be written about them in our history,”
she said.
“Pagasa will see progress one day and they will not
be forgotten because they have a big role in protecting
the island.”
But the islanders want more in return. Ray said the
school needed improvements, the childrens’ diets are
poor, and they are short on books.
In this April 22, photo, boys and girls dressed in Japan’s traditional warriors’ costumes participate in a human shogi, a Japanese strategy board game similar to
chess, as the main event of the annual cherry blossoms festival in the northern Japanese city of Tendo in Yamagata Prefecture. Local high school students wearing
armors, headbands and helmets played the roles of the 40 pieces of shogi in games between professional players on the summit of Mount Maizuru at Tendo Park
where about 2,000 cherry trees reached full bloom. (AP)
North Korea
Australia, NZ hit back at NKorea threat
China urges Korea denuclearisation
In this March 15, 2017, file photo, US
Navy aircraft carrier, the USS Carl
Vinson, approaches Busan port in
Busan, South Korea, to participate in
an annual joint military exercise called
Foal Eagle between South Korea and
the United States. The American aircraft carrier heading toward the Korean peninsula is conducting a joint
exercise with Japanese naval ships in
the Philippine Sea. (AP)
Asia
N. Korea detains US citizen: A US citizen has been arrested as he tried to fly out of
North Korea, becoming the third American
to be detained there, South Korea’s Yonhap
news agency reported Sunday.
There was no immediate official confirmation of the reported arrest, which would
come at a tense time in relations between
Pyongyang and Washington.
Yonhap quoted sources as saying the man,
identified only by his surname Kim, was arrested last Friday at Pyongyang International
Airport on his way out of the country.
It said Kim, aged in his late 50s and a
former professor at China’s Yanbian University of Science and Technology, had been
involved in aid programmes for the North.
He reportedly was in the North for about
a month to discuss relief activities, Yonhap
said. The reason for his arrest was unclear.
South Korea’s National Intelligence Service
and the unification and foreign ministries
said they could not confirm the report.
But the director of a Seoul-based group
called the World North Korea Research
Center said his sources in Pyongyang had
confirmed the arrest. (AFP)
❑
❑
❑
S. Korea outrage over comment:
Buffeted by the currents of diplomacy, South
Korea is sometimes described as a “shrimp
between two whales”, and US president
Donald Trump has touched nerves with
remarks that the peninsula “used to be part
of China”.
The comments came after Trump hosted
Chinese President Xi Jinping at his Mar-aLago retreat in Florida.
As the pair discussed ways to curb North
Korea’s nuclear ambitions amid mounting
tensions, Trump told the Wall Street Journal,
Xi “went into the history of China and
Korea. “And you know, you’re talking about
thousands of years... and many wars. And
Korea actually used to be a part of China,”
Trump went on.
Beijing is Pyongyang’s sole major ally
and Washington wants it to do more about
the North’s nuclear and missile programmes,
while the US has a security alliance with
Seoul and stations more than 28,000 troops
in South to defend it. (AFP)
❑
❑
ATHENS, April 23, (AFP): China’s
foreign minister called Sunday for the
complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula amid rising tension over
North Korea’s missile and nuclear programmes.
“China is firmly supporting the denuclearisation of the area in the name of
stability and peace”, Wang Yi told reporters in Athens after meeting Greek
counterpart Nikos Kotzias.
“China may not have the key to this
solution ... but we are happy that more
sides are accepting our point of view”,
he added.
US President Donald Trump has
urged China to take stronger steps to
press the North to curb its nuclear and
missile programmes.
During a regional tour last week,
Vice-President Mike Pence warned that
“all options are on the table” to curb the
North’s nuclear ambitions, as fears grow
it may be planning another atomic test.
Pyongyang has ramped up its rhetoric
in recent weeks, threatening to hit back
against any provocation.
It has also renewed threats against
regional US allies, including Japan and
South Korea, which both host large
American military contingents.
Even Australia has received a warning from Pyongyang.
“If Australia persists in following the
US’s moves to isolate and stifle North
Korea ... this will be a suicidal act,” a
North Korean foreign ministry spokesman said after Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop called the nation a
“serious threat”.
On Sunday, South Korea’s Yonhap
news agency reported that a US citizen
had been arrested as he tried to fly out of
North Korea, becoming the third American to be detained there.
“It is important for them to hold a US
citizen hostage at this point to prevent
Washington from carrying out a decapitation of Kim Jong-Un,” Ahn Chan-il, a
former defector, told AFP, referring to
the North’s fears that the US plans a secret military strike to topple its leader.
“It’s also a resolve to point a double-action revolver against the US and
China because he is a US citizen who
worked in China.”
Also:
SYDNEY: Australia and New Zealand
stiffened their rhetoric against North
Korea Sunday after the isolated state
threatened Canberra with a nuclear
strike, urging it to think twice before
“blindly and zealously toeing the US
line”.
North Korea says ready to
strike US aircraft carrier
SEOUL, April 23, (Agencies): North
Korea said on Sunday it was ready to
sink a US aircraft carrier to demonstrate its military might, as two Japanese navy ships joined a US carrier
group for exercises in the western
Pacific.
US President Donald Trump ordered
the USS Carl Vinson carrier strike group
to sail to waters off the Korean peninsula in response to rising tension over the
North’s nuclear and missile tests, and its
threats to attack the United States and its
Asian allies.
The United States has not specified
where the carrier strike group is as it
approaches the area. US Vice President
Mike Pence said on Saturday it would
arrive “within days” but gave no other
details.
North Korea remained defiant.
“Our revolutionary forces are combat-ready to sink a US nuclear powered
aircraft carrier with a single strike,” the
Rodong Sinmun, the newspaper of the
North’s ruling Workers’ Party, said in a
commentary.
The paper likened the aircraft carrier
to a “gross animal” and said a strike on
it would be “an actual example to show
our military’s force”.
The commentary was carried on page
three of the newspaper, after a two-page
feature about leader Kim Jong Un inspecting a pig farm.
North Korea will mark the 85th anniversary of the foundation of its Korean
People’s Army on Tuesday.
It has in the past marked important
anniversaries with tests of its weapons.
Meanwhile, the US aircraft carrier
Carl Vinson and other warships started
joint exercises with Japan on Sunday,
the American navy said, as regional tensions rise over North Korea’s missile
and nuclear programmes.
The exercises -- also involving a
US guided-missile cruiser and guidedmissile destroyer -- are being held in the
Philippine Sea, the navy said, as the naval strike group “continued its northern
transit in the Western Pacific”.
Confusion has clouded the carrier
group’s whereabouts in recent days after
President Donald Trump suggested the
“armada” was steaming towards North
Korea when in fact it was sent towards
Australia.
On Saturday US Vice President Mike
Pence said in Sydney the strike group
would arrive in the Sea of Japan (East
Sea) “in a matter of days”.
Pence has vowed an “overwhelming
and effective” response to any North
Korean attack as fears grow it may be
preparing for another nuclear test.
Pyongyang reacted defiantly.
State newspaper Minju Joson quoted
what it called military sources as saying
Washington plans to station “several nuclear carrier task forces” off the Korean
peninsula this week.
“The army of the DPRK (North Korea) already declared it will deal merciless destructive blows at the enemies so
that they would not come back to life
again should they make reckless provocation,” the paper said.
The move comes as US Vice-President Mike Pence wraps up an Asia
tour, which has included visits to South
Korea, Japan and Australia partly to reassure allies amid fears that Pyongyang
may be readying for a sixth nuclear test.
“If Australia persists in following the
US’ moves to isolate and stifle North
Korea ... this will be a suicidal act,” a
North Korean foreign ministry spokesman said after Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop called the hermit state
a “serious threat”.
The spokesman, speaking to the
North’s official KCNA news agency,
warned Bishop to “think twice about the
consequences”.
Australia’s close ally New Zealand
has since accused North Korea of having “evil intent”.
Defence Minister Gerry Brownlee
told Television New Zealand Sunday
people knew little about Kim JongUn’s regime but “you would assume
that underneath him there is a very big
machinery of people who have equally
evil intent”.
“It’s North Korea that is sending
the missiles into the Sea of Japan and
making the various outrageous threats
including the threats overnight to Australia,” he added.
❑
Lawyer denied own defence: Prominent Chinese lawyer Xie Yang will not be
allowed to pick his defence at his upcoming
trial, his former attorney said, in a move
rights groups called a breach of international
standards.
Xie, who has worked on numerous cases
considered politically sensitive by the ruling
Communist party including defending Hong
Kong pro-democracy activists, has been
detained since July 2015.
He has claimed police have used “sleep
deprivation, long interrogations, beatings,
death threats, humiliations” on him while in
custody, and the EU has voiced concern over
his case.
“The court has designated a defence
lawyer,” Xie’s former lawyer Chen Jiangang
told AFP.
“Everything has been done according to
the will of the judiciary — not the interests
of Xie and his family,” Chen said. (AFP)
❑
❑
❑
Pyongyang drivers scramble:
Xi
Trump
Car users in Pyongyang are scrambling to fill
up their tanks as gas stations begin limiting
services or even closing amid concerns of a
spreading shortage.
A sign outside one station in the North
Korean capital said Friday that sales were
being restricted to diplomats or vehicles used
by international organizations, while others
were closed or turning away local residents.
Lines at other stations were much longer
than usual and prices appeared to be rising
significantly. (AP)