05/02/2025

WEDNESDAY | FEB 5, 2025

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Sri Lanka president vows to transform national image

Philippines, US hold joint air patrols MANILA: The air forces of the Philippines and the United States were holding joint patrols over the South China Sea yesterday, a spokesperson for the Philippine Air Force said, as Manila said it was monitoring three Chinese vessels in its maritime zones. The one-day exercise was being carried out in the West Philippine Sea, Philippine air force spokesperson Maria Consuelo Castillo said, using Manila’s term for waters in the South China Sea that fall within its exclusive economic zone. Castillo said the two Philippine FA-50 fighter aircraft and two US B1-B bombers were taking part in the exercises, which included flying over Scarborough Shoal, a disputed maritime feature in the South China Sea which China controls. “This is not in relation to any particular issue. This is just part of the usual training we have,” Castillo told a media briefing. Security engagements between the two treaty allies have ramped up under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, against a backdrop of rising tensions between Manila and Bejing due to their overlapping claims in the South China Sea. At the briefing, the Philippine navy said it was “closely monitoring” three Chinese navy vessels within Manila’s maritime zones, including a Jiangkai class guided missile frigate. “The presence of PLA-N (People’s Liberation Army-Navy) reflects the People’s Republic of China’s complete disregard for international law and undermines the peace and stability in the region,” navy spokesperson John Percie Alcos said. Xinhua news agency reported on Monday the passage of the Chinese fleet was consistent with international law, quoting a spokesperson from the PLA’s Southern Theatre Command. – Reuters 56 arrested at Jakarta ‘sex party’ JAKARTA: Police arrested 56 men at a “sex party” here, three of whom could face up to 15 years in jail on charges of breaching pornography laws. “The men were arrested on Saturday at a South Jakarta hotel,” said police spokesperson Ade Ary Syam Indradi late on Monday. Three of those arrested were named as criminal suspects for organising the event. Homosexuality is not illegal in most of Indonesia, including the capital, but it is generally considered a taboo subject. “The event was ... merely based on pleasure that they wanted to seek,” Indradi said, adding authorities found condoms and HIV medications at the party. The three named suspects were accused of facilitating “pornography” services, which carries a maximum jail term of 15 years, Indradi said. Activists have said the anti pornography laws are often misused. Hundreds were arrested in police raids of a club, a hotel, and a spa in 2017. A survey by the think-tank Pew Research Centre in 2020 showed that 80% of Indonesians believe homosexuality “should not be accepted by society”. – Reuters

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s leftist president marked the anniversary of independence from Britain yesterday with a pledge to change the impoverished island nation’s image as a “corrupt” country. Self-avowed Marxist Anura Kumara Dissanayake dispensed with the usual elaborate military pageantry of jet flyovers and horse parades to mark the 1948 handover of power. His government instead staged a scaled-down military march in keeping with his pledge to pare lavish spending on government officialdom. “We are committed to transforming Sri Lanka’s global image from a country known for corrupt governance,” he said in a message to the nation. “Despite countless obstacles and the deep-rooted flaws of the past corrupt political system, the people’s government, built by the collective will of the citizens, is steadily progressing forward.” His government concluded a long-delayed debt restructuring with both bilateral and private creditors late last year, ending Sri Lanka’s status as a bankrupt nation. Sri Lanka had defaulted on its o Celebrations scaled down to reduce government spending

Dissanayake prepares to hoist the national flag at Independence Square in Colombo yesterday. – AFPPIC

His Ranil Wickremesinghe, secured a US$2.9 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund. Dissanayake, who defeated Wickremesinghe in elections last September, is maintaining the tough austerity measures introduced successor,

under his predecessor and has vowed to continue the four-year IMF bailout programme. “As the new government, over the past four months, we have laid the foundation for a stable economy and introduced a new political culture,” Dissanayake said. – AFP

US$46 billion (RM205 billion) external debt in April 2022 after running out of foreign exchange to finance the import of food, fuel, medicines and other essentials. The unprecedented economic meltdown forced then-president Gotabaya Rajapaksa to step down.

Indonesia repatriates Frenchman on death row JAKARTA: A Frenchman on death row in Indonesia since 2007 for drug offences left prison yesterday ahead of his transfer to France. prosecutors “and most likely detained while awaiting a decision on the adaptation (of his sentence)”, his lawyer Richard Sedillot said. they had decided not to execute Atlaoui and authorised his return on humanitarian grounds because he was ill. Atlaoui has been receiving weekly medical treatment at a hospital.

suspicious (about the factory),” Atlaoui said in 2015. Initially sentenced to life in prison, his sentence was reviewed by the supreme court and changed to death on appeal. He was due to be executed alongside eight others in 2015, but was granted a reprieve after Paris applied pressure and the Indonesian authorities allowed an outstanding appeal to proceed. There are at least 530 inmates on death row in Indonesia, according to the human rights organisation Kontas, referencing official figures. – AFP control of a key region along the Bangladesh border in December, piling further pressure on the government battling opponents elsewhere. The human rights organisation Fortify Rights has called on the International Criminal Court to investigate war crimes committed by the AA. Khaing Thu Kha said the AA had identified and punished all those involved in the incident. He said the group did not accept unlawful killings. – AFP

Jakarta has left it to the French government to grant Atlaoui clemency, amnesty or a reduced sentence. “Serge is happy and calm,” said Sedillot, “but he is going to need a little time to reorganise himself.” His return was made possible after an agreement between the French Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin and his Indonesian counterpart Yusril Ihza Mahendra on Jan 24. In the agreement, Jakarta said

Indonesia, which has some of the world’s toughest drug laws, has in recent weeks released half a dozen high-profile detainees, including a Filipina mother on death row and the last five members of the so-called “Bali Nine” drug ring. Serge Atlaoui, 61, was driven from Salemba prison in Jakarta to the city’s main airport where he will be handed over to French police officers before boarding a commercial flight to Paris. In France, he will be presented to

He was arrested in 2005 at a factory in a Jakarta suburb where drugs were discovered, and accused of being a “chemist”. A welder from Metz in northeastern France, the father of four has always denied being a drug trafficker, saying that he was installing machinery in what he thought was an acrylic factory. “I thought there was something

Myanmar rebel group admits killing two prisoners YANGON: A Myanmar rebel group said its members killed two prisoners in a rare admission of deadly violence as it fights to maintain control of the country’s western borderlands. arrested, tortured and killed family members,” he said. A two-minute video clip showed seven men – some wearing AA uniforms and holding firearms – kicking and beating two shirtless men on the ground. is riven with ethnic and religious divisions. It came under the global spotlight after a bloody 2017 army crackdown that forced some 740,000 Rohingyas over the border into Bangladesh.

The incident occurred in February last year during an Arakan Army (AA) offensive on Kyauktaw township in Rakhine state, according to the group’s spokesman Khaing Thu Kha. “Our local militias were unable to control their anger and committed crimes. “They retaliated against the actions of the soldiers who had

The military took control of the country in a 2021 coup against Aung San Suu Kyi’s civilian government. The AA says it is fighting for more autonomy for the ethnic Rakhine people, a population that is also accused of aiding the military in their expulsion of the Rohingya. The group claimed complete

In another video, the alleged killers were seen cutting the captives’ throats with machete-like knives. Khaing Thu Kha admitted that the videos were authentic and the perpetrators were members of the AA group. Rakhine state in Myanmar’s west