MANILA: As night falls in Manila, the Philippine capital, few of the 700 families living in the sprawling portside shanty town known as Market 3 dare to venture out of their homes.
The crime-ridden maze of sheet metal, crumbling cement and wooden boards has become a frontline of the bloody war on illegal drugs that has defined Rodrigo Duterte’s presidency since it was unleashed in June 2016.
Dozens of Filipinos who lived along the slum’s narrow dirt-floor alleys have wound up dead. The community lives in fear of masked or mystery men dragging away slum dwellers, or police and their notorious “Tokhang” operations, where officers are required to knock on doors of suspected dealers to urge them to surrender. But those visits have been fatal.
“Many people have left. They leave because of Tokhang,” said Nenita Bravo, a 56-year-old Market 3 resident.
“We can’t really count them anymore,” she said, referring to those killed, adding that she had witnessed many killings in the area. “We can’t really count them because there’s been so many.”
Bullet-ridden corpses are found hours or even days later, often just a few minutes away, although police say there have been no illegal killings in their anti-drug campaign.
Yet the frequent police operations and shadowy murders have hit the slum hard and those who live there say more blood has been spilled since he was elected president on the promise to wipe out drugs and crime in six months.
“Since Duterte came, that’s when there was a rise in killings. It was pitiful, especially so for the many women killed,” said Visitacion Castellano, 73, a long-time resident of Market 3.
“They should have given them years. Put them in jail. But not kill.”
In Spanish colonial times, Navotas, as the area was known before the patchwork of shanty communities emerged, was the home of a middle class that lived off the sea, either as owners of fishing boats or shipbuilders.
Now employment is in short supply, with men jumping from one informal job to the next, such as scavenging or unloading fish from returning trawlers.
Although life is hard, people get by, but there is never enough.
Scarcity fuels desperation and the desperate turn to petty crime, or dealing and using drugs, mostly “shabu,” the methamphetamine Duterte says could destroy a generation of Filipinos.
One 28-year-old man who spoke to Reuters was among those who sold and used shabu. During one of the deadliest chapters of the drugs war in August 2016, he said his partner and mother of his five children was murdered, her body found riddled with bullet wounds in the head and chest.
The former drug user, who refused to give his name for fear of reprisals, then fled Market 3 and says many of his friends did the same, or are now dead. He even tried, unsuccessfully, to take his own life, he said, by hanging himself with his belt.
The man is in poor health, skinny and coughing frequently due to tuberculosis. Nuns now take care of his youngest children.
Too weak to work, he spends his days at the port waiting to beg for scraps of fish from returning boats.
His dream, he says, is to regain strength so he can work, and build a home for himself and his children in the Market 3 shanty town where they can live, free of drugs and the fear of police raids.
“My only concern now is for my four kids to have a different life,” he said.
One woman in the community told Reuters that four of her seven children are in prison, three on drugs charges and one accused of murder.
Her youngest son was killed in June 2016 in what police said was a sting operation in which he was armed, and refused to go quietly, a typical description of the almost 4,000 cases in which police say a suspected drug dealer was killed.
Police in Navotas could not be reached for comment on the killings during their anti-drugs operations.
The woman, who asked for anonymity, is certain that police killed her son in cold blood while he was asleep, adding that she even heard them joke about it.
Nightfall in Philippine slum revives spectre of deaths in drugs war
Nightfall in Philippine slum revives spectre of deaths in drugs war
Send us Patriots: Ukraine’s battered energy plants seek air defenses against Russian attacks
- Ukraine's foreign minister has said half of the country’s energy system has been damaged by Russian attacks
- Russian President Vladimir Putin has framed the attacks as retaliation for Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries
KYIV, Ukraine: At a Ukrainian power plant repeatedly hit by Russian aerial attacks, equipment department chief Oleh has a one-word answer when asked what Ukraine’s battered energy industry needs most: “Patriot.”
Ukrainian energy workers are struggling to repair the damage from intensifying airstrikes aimed at pulverizing Ukraine’s energy grid, hobbling the economy and sapping the public’s morale. Staff worry they will lose the race to prepare for winter unless allies come up with air-defense systems like the US-made Patriots to stop Russian attacks inflicting more destruction on already damaged plants.
“Rockets hit fast. Fixing takes long,” Oleh said in limited but forceful English.
The US has sent Ukraine some Patriot missile systems, and said last week it would give more after entreaties from President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The Associated Press on Thursday visited a plant owned by DTEK, the country’s biggest private energy supplier, days after a cruise-missile attack left parts of it a mess of smashed glass, shattered bricks and twisted metal. The coal-fired plant is one of four DTEK power stations struck on the same day last week.
The AP was given access on the condition that the location of the facility, technical details of the damage and workers’ full names are not published due to security concerns.
During the visit, State Emergency Service workers in hard hats and harnesses clambered atop the twisted roof of a vast building, assessing the damage and occasionally dislodging chunks of debris with a thunderous clang.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told Foreign Policy magazine that half of the country’s energy system has been damaged by Russian attacks.
DTEK says it has lost 80 percent of its electricity-generating capacity in almost 180 aerial attacks since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. It estimates that repairing all the damaged plants would take between six months and two years — even if there are no more strikes.
Shift supervisor Ruslan was on duty in the operations room when the air alarm sounded. He sent his crew to a basement shelter but remained at his post when the blast struck only meters (yards) away.
He rushed out to darkness, dust and fire. He said he wasn’t scared because “I knew what I needed to do” – make sure his team was OK and then try to help put out the flames.
Russia pummeled Ukraine’s energy infrastructure to devastating effect during the “blackout winter” of 2022-23. In March it launched a new wave of attacks, one of which completely destroyed the Trypilska power plant near Kyiv, one of the country’s biggest.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has framed the attacks as retaliation for Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries.
Oleh said the Russians are “learning all the time” and adapting their tactics. Initially they targeted transformers that distribute power; now they aim for the power-generating equipment itself, with increasing accuracy. The Russians also are sending growing numbers of missiles and exploding drones to exhaust Ukraine’s air defenses, and striking the same targets repeatedly.
DTEK executive director Dmytro Sakharuk said in March that out of 10 units the company had repaired after earlier strikes, two-thirds had been hit again.
More Russian missiles have been getting through in recent months as Ukraine awaited new supplies from allies, including a $61 billion package from the US that was held up for months by wrangling in Congress. It was finally approved in April, but it could be weeks or months before all the new weapons and ammunition arrives.
Ukraine’s energy firms have all but exhausted their finances, equipment and spare parts fixing the damage Russia has already wrought. The country’s power plants urgently need specialist equipment that Ukraine can no longer make at sufficient speed and scale.
Some 51 DTEK employees have been wounded in attacks since 2022, and three have been killed. Staff say they keep working despite the danger because they know how crucial their work is.
Machine operator Dmytro, who was on shift during the recent attack and took shelter in the basement, said that when he emerged, “my soul was bleeding when I saw the scale of the destruction.”
He thought of the many people who had poured heart and soul into building the mammoth power plant.
“This was destroyed in a few seconds, in an instant,” he said.
Dmytro, who worked at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant before it was seized by Russia, said he would continue to show up for work every day, “as long as I’m able.”
“It’s our duty toward the country,” he said
Biden says ‘order must prevail’ during campus protests over the war in Gaza
- “Dissent is essential for democracy. But dissent must never lead to disorder,” the president said at the White House
- The Democratic president broke days of silence on the protests with his remarks amid mounting criticism from Republicans
WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden on Thursday rejected calls from student protesters to change his approach to the war in Gaza while insisting that “order must prevail” as college campuses across the country face a wave of violence, outrage and fear.
“Dissent is essential for democracy,” Biden said at the White House. “But dissent must never lead to disorder.”
The Democratic president broke days of silence on the protests with his remarks, which followed mounting criticism from Republicans who have tried to turn scenes of unrest into a campaign cudgel. By focusing on a law-and-order message while defending the right to free speech, Biden is grasping for a middle ground on an intensely divisive issue in the middle of his reelection campaign.
He largely sidestepped protesters’ demands, which have included ending US support for Israeli military operations. Asked after his remarks whether the demonstrations would prompt him to consider changing course, Biden responded with a simple “no.”
Biden said that he did not want the National Guard to be deployed to campuses. Some Republicans have called for sending in troops, an idea with a fraught history. Four students were shot and killed at Kent State University by members of the Ohio National Guard during protests over the Vietnam War in 1970.
Tensions on college campuses have been building for days as demonstrators refuse to remove encampments and administrators turn to police to clear them by force, leading to clashes that have seized widespread attention.
Biden said he rejected efforts to use the situation to “score political points,” calling the situation a “moment for clarity.”
“There’s the right to protest, but not the right to cause chaos,” Biden said shortly before leaving the White House for a trip to North Carolina. “People have the right to get an education, the right to get a degree, the right to walk across campus safely without fear of being attacked.”
The White House also maintained its focus on combating antisemitism. Doug Emhoff, husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, spoke to Jewish students and Hillel leaders on Thursday to hear about their experience with threats and hate speech, according to a White House official.
Biden will make his own visit to a college campus on May 19 when he’s scheduled to deliver the commencement address at Morehouse University in Atlanta.
His last previous public comment on the demonstrations came more than a week ago, when he condemned “antisemitic protests” and “those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians.”
The White House, which has been peppered with questions by reporters, had gone only slightly further than the president. On Wednesday, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that Biden was “monitoring the situation closely” and that some demonstrations had stepped over a line that separated free speech from unlawful behavior.
“Forcibly taking over a building,” such as what happened at Columbia University in New York, “is not peaceful,” she said. “It’s just not.”
Biden’s latest remarks weren’t well received in some corners of the Democratic Party.
“We need to prevent lawlessness in society. We need to have protections against hate speech,” said a social media post from Patrick Gaspard, president of the Center for American Progress and a former White House political director under President Barack Obama. “But we need to be able to hold space for active dissent and activism that is discomforting without blanket accusations of hate and violence against all activists.”
But Biden’s team has expressed confidence that his stance appeals to the widest array of voters. It also echoes his approach to nationwide unrest after the murder of George Floyd by a police officer four years ago, a politically volatile situation in the middle of his campaign against then-President Donald Trump.
“I want to make it absolutely clear rioting is not protesting, looting is not protesting,” Biden said then in remarks that his team turned into an advertisement. “It’s lawlessness, plain and simple, and those that do it should be prosecuted.”
Biden has never been much for protests of any kind. His career in elected office began as a county official when he was only 28 years old, and he’s always espoused the political importance of compromise.
As college campuses convulsed with anger over the Vietnam War in 1968, Biden was in law school at Syracuse University.
“I’m not big on flak jackets and tie-dyed shirts,” he said years later. “You know, that’s not me.″
The White House has also maintained its focus on combating antisemitism. Doug Emhoff, husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, spoke to Jewish students and Hillel leaders on Thursday to hear about their experience with threats and hate speech, according to a White House official.
Despite the administration’s criticism of violent college protests and Biden’s refusal to heed demands to cut off US support for Israel, Republicans blame Democrats for the disorder and have used it as a backdrop for press conferences.
“We need the president of the United States to speak to the issue and say this is wrong,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, said on Tuesday. “What’s happening on college campuses right now is wrong.”
Johnson visited Columbia University with other members of his caucus last week. House Republicans sparred verbally with protesters while speaking to the media at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday.
Trump, who is running for another term as president, also criticized Biden in an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News.
“Biden has to do something,” he said. “Biden is supposed to be the voice of our country, and it’s certainly not much of a voice. It’s a voice that nobody’s heard.”
He repeated his criticisms on Wednesday during a campaign event in Waukesha, Wisconsin.
“The radical extremists and far-left agitators are terrorizing college campuses, as you possibly noticed,” Trump said. “And Biden’s nowhere to be found. He hasn’t said anything.”
Kate Berner, who served as deputy communications director for Biden’s campaign in 2020, said Republicans already had tried the same tactic during protests over Floyd’s murder.
“People rejected that,” she said. “They saw that it was just fearmongering. They saw that it wasn’t based in reality.”
Apart from condemning antisemitism, the White House has been reluctant to directly engage on the issue.
Jean-Pierre repeatedly deflected questions during a briefing on Monday.
Asked whether protesters should be disciplined by their schools, she said “universities and colleges make their own decisions” and “we’re not going to weigh in from here.”
Pressed on whether police should be called in, she said “that’s up to the colleges and universities.”
Asked on Thursday why Biden chose to speak on the matter after police had arrested protesters at the University of California, Los Angeles and at universities in New York City, Jean-Pierre stressed instead the importance of any protests being nonviolent.
“We’ve been very consistent here,” she said. “Americans have the right to peacefully protest as long as it’s within the law and violence is not protected.”
Students erect pro-Palestinian encampments across major Canadian universities
- “If public disruption is the only way to get our voice heard, then we are willing to do that,” says University of Toronto protest leader
- Some Jewish groups have accused protesters of being antisemitic, but organizers said some protesters are Jewish
TORONTO: Quebec Premier Francois Legault said on Thursday the encampment at Montreal’s McGill University should be dismantled as more students erected pro-Palestinian camps across some of Canada’s largest universities, demanding they divest from groups with ties to Israel.
The Canadian protests come as police have been arresting hundreds on US campuses and the death toll in Gaza has been mounting.
While McGill had requested police intervention, law enforcement had not stepped in Thursday to clear the encampment and said in a statement Thursday evening it was monitoring the situation.
Students also set up encampments at Canadian schools including the University of Toronto, the University of British Columbia and the University of Ottawa.
“We want the camp to be dismantled. We trust the police, let them do their job,” a spokesperson for Legault said.
There was also a pro-Israel counter-protest in Montreal Thursday. The two sides were kept separate.
On Thursday morning, students at the University of Toronto set up an encampment in a fenced-off grassy space at the school’s downtown campus where some 100 protesters gathered with dozens of tents.
According to a statement from organizers the encampment will stay until the university discloses its investments, divests from any that “sustain Israeli apartheid, occupation and illegal settlement of Palestine” and ends partnerships with some Israeli academic institutions.
Israel says it does not participate in apartheid and that its assault on Gaza does not constitute genocide.
A university spokesperson told Reuters it was “in dialogue with the protesters” and that, as of midday, the encampment was “not disruptive to normal university activities.”
University of Toronto graduate student and encampment spokesperson Sara Rasikh told Reuters they will remain until their demands are met.
“If public disruption is the only way to get our voice heard, then we are willing to do that,” she said.
Some Jewish groups have accused protesters of being antisemitic. Organizers deny that charge, noting that some protesters are Jewish.
Asked to comment on the encampments, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s office pointed to a statement he made on Tuesday, saying “Universities are places of learning, they’re places for freedom of expression ... but that only works if people feel safe on campus. Right now ... Jewish students do not feel safe. That’s not right.”
The protests follow the deadly Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel by Hamas militants from the Gaza Strip, which killed 1,200 people and saw dozens taken hostage, and an ensuing Israeli offensive that has killed about 34,000 and created a humanitarian crisis.
India deports Myanmar refugees who fled 2021 coup
- At least 38 refugees were deported on Thursday by the border state of Manipur
- ndia is not a signatory to the1951 UN Refugee Convention and has no law protecting refugees
GUWAHATI, India: India on Thursday deported the first group of Myanmar refugees who had sought shelter after a 2021 military coup, a top state minister said, following weeks of efforts that were hampered by fighting between Myanmar’s rebel forces and the ruling junta.
Thousands of civilians and hundreds of troops from Myanmar have crossed the border to India after the coup. This has worried New Delhi, which has announced plans to fence its border with Myanmar and end a visa-free movement policy.
At least 38 refugees were deported on Thursday by the border state of Manipur, which plans send back a total of 77 people as it copes with sporadic violence that has killed at least 220 people since ethnic clashes broke out in May last year.
“Without any discrimination, we have completed the first phase of deportation of illegal immigrants from Myanmar,” Manipur Chief Minister N. Biren Singh said in a social media post. “The state government is continuing the identification of illegal immigrants.”
One Indian national was also repatriated by Myanmar, Singh added.
New Delhi has not signed the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, which spells out refugee rights and states’ responsibilities to protect them, and it does not have its own laws protecting refugees.
Singh, who is from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, said in March deportations had begun, but Indian security officials said the efforts were held up by fighting in Myanmar.
Modi is seeking a rare third straight term in ongoing national elections and his government has blamed the refugee influx as one reason for violence that has roiled Manipur.
Britain’s foreign secretary, in Kyiv, promises Ukraine aid for ‘as long as it takes’
- Cameron said Ukraine had a right to use the weapons provided by London to strike targets inside Russia
- 8 children injured in Russian strikes in Kharkiv region amid Cameron's visit
KYIV: British Foreign Secretary David Cameron promised three billion pounds ($3.74 billion) of annual military aid for Ukraine for “as long as it takes” on Thursday, adding that London had no objection to the weapons being used inside Russia.
“We will give three billion pounds every year for as long as is necessary. We’ve just really emptied all we can in terms of giving equipment,” he told Reuters in an interview on a visit to in Kyiv, adding that the aid package was the largest from the UK so far.
“Some of that (equipment) is actually arriving in Ukraine today, while I’m here,” he said.
Cameron said Ukraine had a right to use the weapons provided by London to strike targets inside Russia, and that it was up to Kyiv whether to do so.
“Ukraine has that right. Just as Russia is striking inside Ukraine, you can quite understand why Ukraine feels the need to make sure it’s defending itself,” Cameron told Reuters outside St. Michael’s Cathedral.
Cameron, who led the UK from 2010 and 2016 as prime minister and only returned to frontline politics several months ago, met Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and President Volodymyr Zelensky on his second visit to Kyiv as foreign secretary.
Britain’s top diplomat celebrated the release of a long-delayed $60 billion aid package by the US Congress.
“It’s absolutely crucial, not just in terms of the weapons it will bring, but also the boost to morale that it will bring to people here in Ukraine.”
Cameron did not answer directly when asked how he thought the possible re-election of Republican frontrunner Donald Trump to the White House could affect US support for Ukraine.
Trump and hard-line Republicans in Congress oppose further aid to Ukraine, with the possible exception of a loan.
“It’s not for us to decide who the Americans choose as their president — we will work with whoever that is,” Cameron said, adding that the strategy for Ukraine’s allies ought to be to ensure Ukraine is on the front foot by the time of the US elections in November.
Cameron met Ukraine’s FM Dmytro Kuleba and President Volodymyr Zelensky on his second visit to Kyiv as foreign secretary
Britain’s top diplomat celebrated the release of a long-delayed $60 billion aid package by the US Congress.
Russian strike injures 8 children
While Cameron was in Ukraine, Russian guided bombs struck a site close to a sports complex in Ukraine's northeastern Kharkiv region, injuring at least eight children, local officials said.
The town of Derhachi where the incident occurred is a frequent target of Russian aerial strikes. Police said the bombs had landed on premises near the sports centre, sparking fires.
"The air raid siren didn't sound, there was no siren at all," Yana Korobets, head of the sports complex, told Reuters Television.
"I was outside when... I heard a missile fly by. I understood it landed behind our sports complex. It blew out the windows, and because the children are barefoot in our class they suffered cuts in their legs and their hands."
Debris from shattered glass was strewn about the complex. Blood stains were spattered on a wall and on the floor. Outside, the ground was pocked with large craters.
Four of the children suffered moderate injuries and the others minor ones, regional governor Oleh Synehubov said on the Telegram messaging app. An elderly man was also wounded.
"The consequences could have been more tragic," Synehubov told national TV.
Derhachi is near the border with Russia. The Kharkiv region where it is located has long been targeted by Russian attacks but the strikes have become more intense in recent months, hitting civilian and energy infrastructure.
Moscow denies deliberately targeting civilians but thousands have been killed and injured in the war that began with the full-scale invasion of Moscow troops in February 2022.
