Foreign News
Taiwan elects William Lai as president in historic election
Taiwanese voters have chosen William Lai as their president in a historic election, cementing a path that is increasingly divergent from China.
The result is likely to anger Beijing, which calls Lai a “troublemaker” for his views on independence.
China claims self-ruled Taiwan as its own. While it has called for “peaceful reunification”, it has also not ruled out the use of force. It had cast the Taiwan election as a choice between “war and peace”.
Beijing’s communist government also reviles Mr Lai’s pro-sovereignty Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) which has ruled Taiwan for eight years. China has ramped up its military presence around the island, heightening fears of a possible conflict.
By winning an unprecedented third consecutive presidential term for his party, Mr Lai has broken new ground. In his first remarks after his opponents conceded, he signalled that this was an irreversible trajectory.
“The country will continue to walk the right path forward. We will not look backwards,” he told the world’s media in a press conference.
Later while addressing tens of thousands of ecstatic supporters on the streets of Taipei, Mr Lai characterised his win as a triumph of democracy. “We’ve done it. We didn’t let external forces influence our election. That’s because we decided that only we can choose our president,” he said. In the lead-up to the polls, Taiwan had accused China of attempting to interfere with the process.
But Mr Lai also had a message for China. He told reporters he favoured more exchanges and dialogue over obstructionism and conflict, and called for peace and stability with Beijing. At the same time, he added, he would “maintain the cross-strait status quo” – neither seeking independence nor unification with China – and pledged to “safeguard Taiwan from threats from China”.
Mr Lai in the past said he supports Taiwanese independence – a red line for Beijing – though in recent months he stressed he would not pursue it if he became president.
Mr Lai’s 40% of the vote put him comfortably ahead of Hou Yu-ih from the main opposition Kuomintang (KMT) party. Since 2000, Taiwan has alternated between the DPP and the KMT which is friendlier to Beijing.
Maverick politician Ko Wen-je from the Taiwan People’s Party, a newcomer to Taiwan’s political scene popular with young voters, gained a quarter of the vote.
Voters on Saturday also chose their legislature. The DPP has lost its majority with the opposition gaining ground, though no one party has enough seats to control parliament, according to Taiwanese media reports.
Observers say that an opposition-dominated legislature with a DPP president could mean the process of governing Taiwan would become more fraught.
(BBC)
The Philippine House of Representatives has voted to impeach Vice-President Sara Duterte for a second time, threatening her plan to run for president in 2028.
Monday’s vote moves the impeachment process to the Senate for trial, where if convicted, the daughter of former President Rodrigo Duterte will be disqualified from holding public office.
The 47-year-old is leading early surveys to replace her ally-turned-bitter foe, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
The case against the vice-president stemmed from her alleged misuse of public funds and public threats against Marcos, his wife and his cousin, the former House speaker.
Duterte was impeached on the same grounds in 2025, but the Supreme Court blocked it on a technicality before the
senate trial could start.
The case was revived this year. Last week, a House committee that looked into the evidence against the vice-president ruled that there was sufficient grounds to impeach her.
Duterte described the case as “nothing more than a scrap of paper” in a formal written response. She refused to appear in the committee hearings which she said had been politically motivated.
After the impeachment vote on Monday, Duterte’s defence counsel said in a statement that “the burden now rests on the accusers to substantiate their claims” according to the law.
Monday night’s impeachment vote served as a barometer of Marcos’ support in the House. 257 of the 290 lawmakers in attendance voted to impeach Duterte, more than the one-thirds required to advance the case to trial.
But unlike in the House, a conviction in the Senate is uncertain, if a trial does start and runs its course.
In Philippine politics that is dominated by patronage and dynastic alliances, House members, who are elected per legislative district are friendlier to the incumbent president, compared to senators.
The country’s 24 senators are elected on the national level and the Senate is a traditional springboard for those hoping to run for president or vice-president in the future.
In the 2025 mid-term vote, where half of the Senate was elected, candidates allied with Duterte fared better than those who ran under Marcos’ coalition.
But the outcome of an impeachment vote will be difficult to predict under the country’s multi-party system with shifting alliances.
Duterte announced her intention to run for president in February, much earlier than expected. Marcos is limited by the constitution to a single six-year term.
She holds a 17-point lead over her nearest rival based on a survey in March by Manila pollster WR Numero.
In the 2022 elections, Duterte was the survey frontrunner to succeed her father, but she formed an alliance with Marcos and ran for vice-president instead to consolidate their support bases and fend off a reformist wave. The pair won by a landslide.
But the alliance soon unravelled as they pursued divergent political agendas.
Marcos’ allies in the House, led by cousin, then speaker Martin Romualdez, investigated allegations of fund misuse in Duterte’s office.
At the height of public scrutiny, Duterte hosted a late night online press conference, where she said she told one person that “if I get killed, go kill BBM [President Marcos], [First Lady] Liza Araneta, and [House Speaker] Martin Romualdez”.
Then in March last year, Marcos allowed theInternational Criminal Court to arrest Rodrigo Duterte and detain him at The Hague, where he now awaits trial for crimes against humanity over the hundreds who died in his so-called war on drugs.
[BBC]
A car bombing at a police post, followed by an intense firefight, has killed at least 21 officers in northwestern Pakistan, according to police and security sources.
An alliance of armed groups known as the Ittehad-ul-Mujahideen Pakistan has claimed responsibility for the attack in Bannu, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, late on Saturday.
[Aljazeera]
A person has died after jumping an airport perimeter fence in the US state of Colorado and being struck by a Frontier Airlines plane, according to authorities.
Denver International Airport said the unusual incident occurred late Friday, after the unidentified individual gained access to the tarmac.
It said the “pedestrian jumped the perimeter fence and was hit just two minutes later while crossing the runway”.
A brief engine fire followed the collision, which was put out by emergency responders, according to the airport.
It said that 12 of the 231 people on board suffered minor injuries, with five hospitalised.
The airport said investigators had examined the fence line where the individual entered and “found it to be intact”.
It added that the struck individual “is not believed to be an employee of the airport”.
“We are extremely saddened by this incident and express our sympathies to those involved,” the airport said.
Both local authorities and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) were investigating the incident.
Airport safety in the US came under renewed scrutiny earlier this year amid a prolonged shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which temporarily left both Transportation Security Agents (TSA) and air traffic controllers working without pay.
While instances of people being killed on airport tarmacs are rare, Friday’s incident came a day after a Delta employee was killed after an airport vehicle struck an airbridge at Orlando International Airport.
In March, two pilots were killed after an Air Canada Express plane crashed into a fire-rescue vehicle at LaGuardia Airport in New York.
About 225,000 people travel through Denver International Airport a day.
[Aljazeera]
Philippine VP Sara Duterte impeached for a second time
US and French nationals test positive for hantavirus after leaving ship
Thailand’s divisive ex-PM is out of jail, but is the Thaksin era over?
Andy Flower fined for ‘use of an audible obscenity’ during Mumbai Indians clash
Royal Challengers Bengaluru eliminate Mumbai Indians and go top after tense finish
Car bomb attack and ambush in northwest Pakistan kill at least 21 police
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