MANILA: Formal peace talks between the Philippine government and communist rebels may resume in July, President Rodrigo Duterte said on Thursday night.
Speaking before newly elected village officials in Central Visayas, Duterte said that the government is talking to self-exiled Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founder Jose Maria Sison about the resumption of peace talks.
“I’m talking to Sison. We will start the talks maybe mid-July,” the president said.
Earlier reports said that discussions might resume in July after the two parties agreed on a preliminary peace agreement. This came as the government peace panel chair, Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III, disclosed that there were ongoing backchannel talks and “forward movement.” Sison said that the peace talks could start within the month.
In an online interview, Sison said that if the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) negotiating panel “agrees to a stand-down agreement” with the government (GRP) negotiating panel, the CPP and its armed wing, the New People’s Army (NPA), “also agree and will follow the terms of the stand-down agreement.”
“The stand-down agreement creates a favorable atmosphere for the resumption of the formal peace negotiations and the interim peace agreement to be signed in Oslo, hopefully on June 28,” he said.
Sison said that it was premature for the government or anyone to suggest that the negotiations be held in the Philippines.
“A foreign neutral venue as mutually agreed upon in JASIG (Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees) is the best. A Philippine venue at this time would make the peace negotiations vulnerable to control by the GRP or to sabotage by ultra-reactionary elements,” Sison said.
The communist leader said that the exact date would be known only from the joint announcement to be made by the GRP and NDFP on or about June 9.
“The peace talks shall have begun on June 28 in Oslo as far as the panels are concerned. That is close to July anyway but not in Manila,” he said.
Sison had previously said that the government “has not yet removed the hindrances to the participation of six NDFP consultants in back-channel talks and bilateral discussions of the Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ARRD) and the National Industrialization and Economic Development (NIED).” He said that it was therefore necessary to reset the start of the stand-down to June 21.
Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, meanwhile, said that he had yet to talk with Bello and the presidential adviser on the peace process, Secretary Jesus Dureza, about the stand-down.
“We have to consult with our negotiators before we have a stand-down, and what they mean about a stand-down.” Lorenzana has expressed apprehension about whether the communist rebels would halt their operations, particularly the recruitment of new members and attacks.
The president in April ordered Dureza to work on the resumption of the stalled peace talks with communist rebels. In his directive, the president emphasized the importance of forging a cease-fire agreement to stop mutual attacks and fighting while talks were underway.
And last month Duterte announced that he had invited Sison to come home for “make or break” peace talks. He said that Sison agreed.
“I gave him a window of two months, very small,” the president said, adding: “I will see to it and will personally maybe escort him to the airport if nothing happens within that two months. I will allow him to go out. I will not arrest him because that’s a word of honor.”
Sison, in response, set some conditions for him to return.
“I have consistently declared that I will return home when substantial progress is already achieved in the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations and my comrades and lawyers are satisfied with the legal and security guarantees,” he said in May.
“For my soonest possible interface with Duterte, the NDFP has considered my meeting at the signing of the Interim Peace Agreement, packaging the cease-fire agreement, amnesty proclamation and the ARRD and NIED sections of CASER (Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms) either in Oslo or Hanoi,” Sison said. He added that Duterte had insisted that the meeting be held in the Philippines.
Sison pointed out certain important considerations against prematurely returning to the Philippines.
First, he would be “going against the established mutual agreement to hold the peace negotiations in a foreign neutral venue in accordance with The Hague Joint Declaration and JASIG.”
Second, he would be placing himself and the entire peace negotiations “in the pocket of Duterte and at his mercy.”
And third, “any peace spoiler or saboteur would be able to destroy the entire peace negotiations by simply abducting or harming any NDFP panelist or consultant.”
Duterte eyes resumption of talks with rebels
Duterte eyes resumption of talks with rebels
- A foreign neutral venue as mutually agreed upon in JASIG is the best
- President Duterte emphasized the importance of forging a cease-fire agreement to stop mutual attacks and fighting while talks were underway
Russian missile attack kills Ukrainian servicemen in training
- Moscow’s forces have inflicted casualties in attacks on Ukrainian military educational institutions and various formal outdoor gatherings
KYIV: A Russian missile attack on a Ukrainian military shooting range killed six servicemen and wounded at least 10 more during training on Tuesday, Ukraine’s national guard said on Wednesday, adding that the commander of the unit had been suspended.
Russia’s defense ministry had said on Tuesday that the missile attack on the training camp in the Sumy region in northeastern Ukraine near the Russian border killed up to 70 Ukrainian service members, including 20 instructors.
The Ukrainian national guard statement said an internal investigation was underway and the necessary information was shared with law enforcement agencies.
“The investigation will provide a legal assessment of the actions of all persons who made the relevant decisions,” it said about the attack on the military unit’s shooting range.
After previous deadly strikes on military training camps, Ukraine launched investigations into possible negligence.
During more than three years of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Moscow’s forces have inflicted casualties in attacks on Ukrainian military educational institutions and various formal outdoor gatherings.
Four children killed in school bus attack in southwestern Pakistan: government officials
- At least four children were killed on Wednesday and over 30 wounded in a suspected suicide bombing that targeted a bus carrying students from a military run school in southwestern Pakistan, officials
QUETTA: At least four children were killed on Wednesday and over 30 wounded in a suspected suicide bombing that targeted a bus carrying students from a military run school in southwestern Pakistan, officials said.
“A bus carrying children of the APS (Army Public School) was targeted with a bomb, the nature of which is still being determined,” Yasir Iqbal Dashti, a senior local government official in Khuzdar district of Balochistan province, told AFP.
“The initial probe suggests it was a suicide bombing,” he added.
A senior police official confirmed the death toll to AFP on condition of anonymity, as he was not authorized to speak to the media, adding that it could rise.
The school caters to the children of army personnel and civilians living in the area.
In 2014, the Army Public School in Peshawar in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province was attacked by gunmen who killed more than 150 people — mostly students.
The horrific attack sparked a massive crackdown against militancy that had thrived for years in the border regions.
Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi offered his “heartfelt sympathy” to the families of the victims, adding that “beasts who target innocent children deserve no mercy.”
Flood victims stranded on roofs as downpours lash eastern Australia
- Storms have already dumped more than four months of rain in just two days in parts of New South Wales
- Authorities say that water levels of a river in Taree surged past a previous record in 1929
SYDNEY: Fast-moving floodwaters rose Wednesday in eastern Australia, inundating homes and leaving residents stranded on their roofs overnight, as authorities warned more rain was expected in coming days.
Storms have already dumped more than four months of rain in just two days in parts of New South Wales, engulfing homes, businesses and roads in muddy waters, authorities said.
“We have a situation where the rain has been falling quite heavily and hard and it has not been moving away. Part of that is because the ground is saturated and the rivers are swollen,” the state’s emergency minister Jihad Dib told reporters.
Taree, about 300 kilometers (180 miles) north of Sydney, is a key area of concern for emergency services after 415 millimeters (16.34 inches) of rain lashed the town since Monday – more than four times the mean monthly rainfall for May.
Authorities said that water levels of a river in Taree surged past a previous record in 1929, reaching 6.3 meters (20.6 feet) on Wednesday.
The rising floodwaters left locals stuck on roofs overnight, with rescuers unable to reach them due to the bad weather.
Taree resident Holly Pillotto, who was among those stranded on an upper level of her home, said she was desperate for assistance as floodwaters continued to rise.
“Our neighbors on the back verandah here are also stranded,” she told Australia’s Channel Nine. “It’s a really dangerous spot to be.”
Dib said that emergency services were “throwing everything we have into” reaching those affected.
State Emergency Service Chief Superintendent Dallas Byrnes said the situation was “incredibly dynamic and escalating,” with more than 150 flood rescues conducted overnight.
“We’ve got a lot of people getting rescued from rooftops and from upper levels of houses,” Byrnes told the national broadcaster ABC.
However, he warned that “conditions are quite treacherous and it may be that those aviation assets are unable to fly throughout the day.”
The agency said that about 16,000 people, or 7,400 dwellings, would remain isolated until at least Thursday.
More heavy rain is expected in the coming 48 hours – with some locations to receive 200 millimeters (7.87 inches) – before conditions begin to ease, authorities said Wednesday.
Scientists have warned that heatwaves and other extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and more intense as global temperatures rise because of climate change.
WHO says vaccine-derived poliovirus detected in Papua New Guinea
- Wild polio is only endemic in Pakistan and Afghanistan but vaccine-derived polio continues to cause outbreaks in wider range of countries
- This is first polio outbreak in Papua New Guinea since 2018 when an outbreak was reported in the same area as the new detections, Lae city
The World Health Organization said on Tuesday that circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 (cVDPV2) had been detected in stool specimens of two healthy children in Papua New Guinea on May 9.
The detection of wild poliovirus or vaccine-derived poliovirus, including from samples taken from healthy children, is considered a serious public health event, WHO said in a statement.
It added that the detection of circulating type 2 poliovirus was classified as a “polio outbreak.”
Wild polio is only endemic in Pakistan and Afghanistan, but vaccine-derived polio continues to cause outbreaks in a wider range of countries. For example, this year, countries including Nigeria and Ethiopia, among others, have reported tens of cases of paralysis caused by polio.
This is the first polio outbreak in Papua New Guinea since 2018, when an outbreak was reported in the same area as the new detections, Lae city in Morobe province.
Vaccination protects against all forms of polio, but coverage rates in Papua New Guinea are only around 44 percent for the third dose needed for protection, the WHO said. Efforts are now underway to detect further transmission and boost vaccination coverage in the affected area.
Poliomyelitis, which is spread mainly through the faecal-oral route, is a highly infectious virus that can invade the nervous system and cause paralysis and death in young children, with those under 2 years old most at risk. In nearly all cases it has no symptoms, making it hard to detect.
US expects Russia offer soon as Zelensky sounds warning
WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday he expected Russia to present a Ukraine ceasefire outline within days that will show if it is serious, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Moscow of buying time.
President Donald Trump spoke separately by telephone on Monday to Zelensky and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, after Russian and Ukrainian officials met in Istanbul on Friday for their first direct talks on the conflict in three years.
Putin has consistently rejected proposals for a 30-day truce put forward by Kyiv and its Western allies.
But Rubio said that Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov indicated they would present their own terms “maybe in a number of days, maybe this week hopefully.”
The Russians will offer “just broad terms that would allow us to move toward a ceasefire, and that ceasefire would then allow us to enter into detailed negotiations to bring about an end of the conflict,” Rubio said.
He said that the presentation will “tell us a lot about their true intentions.”
“If it’s a term sheet that’s realistic and you can work off of it, that’s one thing. If it makes demands that we know are unrealistic, I think that will be indicative.”
Putin after Trump’s call said he was ready to work with Ukraine on a “memorandum” outlining a possible roadmap and different positions on ending the war.
And Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Tuesday said that Pope Leo XIV was willing “to host upcoming discussions between the parties at the Vatican,” according to her office.
Rubio insisted to critical lawmakers that Putin “hasn’t gotten a single concession” from Trump. But Russia has also not indicated any new flexibility since Trump took office in January with vows to end the war through dialogue.
“It is obvious that Russia is trying to buy time in order to continue its war and occupation,” Zelensky said in a post on social media.
Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told Rubio that Putin’s refusal to go to Istanbul despite the stated willingness of both Zelensky and Trump to meet showed “he believes it’s in Russia’s interest to carry out this war as long as possible.”
The European Union formally on Tuesday adopted its 17th round of sanctions on Moscow, targeting 200 vessels of Russia’s so-called shadow maritime fleet.
Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia’s Direct Investment Fund and lead economic negotiator with Washington, attacked the move, saying: “Western politicians and the media are making titanic efforts to disrupt the constructive dialogue between Russia and the United States.”
Rubio said that Trump for now opposed new sanctions for fear that Russia would no longer come to the table.
Moscow appears confident, with its troops advancing on the battlefield and Trump ending Western isolation of the Kremlin.
The memorandum mentioned by Putin “buys time for Russia,” Russian political analyst Konstantin Kalachev said.
“The cessation of hostilities is not a condition for it, which means that Russia can continue its offensive,” he added.
Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 and has since destroyed swathes of the country’s east, killed tens of thousands and now controls around one-fifth of its territory.
People who spoke to AFP both in Kyiv and Moscow were skeptical about peace prospects and thought the Putin-Trump call had not brought them closer.
“I never had any faith in him and now I have none at all,” retired teacher Victoria Kyseliova said in Kyiv, when asked if she was losing confidence in Trump.
Vitaliy, a 53-year-old engineer from Kyiv, said Trump was no “messiah” and that his flurry of diplomacy has changed little.
Ukrainian political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko said Trump’s latest calls had only added to the uncertainty.
“This conversation not only failed to clarify the future of the negotiations but further confused the situation,” he said.
He said Trump had fallen for Putin’s tactics of trying to use talks “as a cover to continue and intensify the war.”
In Moscow, there was defiance and confidence.
“I believe that we don’t need these negotiations. We will win anyway,” said Marina, a 70-year-old former engineer.
