International
Philippines postpones self-rule vote in restive Muslim region
AFP
The Philippine government said Friday it will postpone elections key to ending decades of sectarian bloodshed in a troubled Muslim region, with the pandemic and a stalling peace process blamed for the delay.
The vote was a key provision in a 2014 peace agreement aimed at ending a conflict estimated to have claimed 150,000 lives and was due to take place next May in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
But former rebels from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) group appointed to lead a transitional government have said they needed more time before elections to a local legislature can go ahead and the vote will instead be held in 2025.
“President Rodrigo Roa Duterte signed… (the bill) yesterday resetting the elections in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao to 2025,” his spokesman Harry Roque told reporters.
The law grants Duterte the authority to appoint members of the 80-member transition authority whose terms would end with the 2025 election, Roque said.
Former MILF rebels have warned that the failure of the peace process would likely draw disillusioned Muslim youths in the region towards the more hardline Islamists still waging an armed campaign in the southern Philippines.
But restrictions imposed because of the pandemic and the transitional government’s inability to draw up an election code had left them with little choice but to delay the poll, Georgi Engelbrecht, senior analyst for the Brussels-based peace monitor International Crisis Group, told AFP last month.
“The extension is not the most perfect solution but nonetheless it’s a start,” he said.
A report by the monitor warned in April that the process of decommissioning the MILF’s 40,000 fighters was “sputtering”, with fewer than a third having laid down their weapons.
And the Duterte government “has been slow to distribute to them the economic packages meant to entice them to cooperate”, it added.
Violence has also persisted despite the peace deal, with radical Islamic groups setting up shop in what remains the poorest part of the country.
In May 2017, hundreds of pro-Islamic State foreign and local gunmen seized Marawi, the country’s largest Muslim city.
The Philippine military wrested back the ruined city after a five-month battle that claimed more than a thousand lives.
An insurgency first emerged in the mainly Catholic Asian nation in the early 1970s as a bid to set up a separate Muslim state in the Mindanao region, though the rebels later scaled down their goals to autonomy.
An earlier peace treaty between Manila and a rival Muslim rebel faction had created a self-ruled area in 1996, but it was hampered by a lack of funding and corruption while the MILF fought on.
The new entity is better-funded and slightly larger. The national government retains police powers.
International
Chile enters runoff campaign with Kast leading and Jara seeking a last-minute comeback
Chile’s presidential runoff campaign for the December 14 election kicked off this Sunday, with far-right candidate José Antonio Kast entering the race as the clear favorite in the polls, while left-wing contender Jeannette Jara faces an uphill scenario, hoping for a comeback that some experts describe as “a miracle.”
The final polls released in Chile—published before the mandatory blackout on survey dissemination—give Kast, an ultraconservative former lawmaker running for president for the third time, a lead of between 12 and 16 points. His opponent, the communist former minister in Gabriel Boric’s current administration, is weighed down not only by the government’s low approval ratings but also by a fragmented electorate.
Although Jeannette Jara received the most votes in the first round with 26.9%, her lack of alliances beyond the left makes it difficult for her to expand her support. Kast, who secured 23.9%, has already brought key figures on board: ultralibertarian Johannes Kaiser (13.9%) and traditional right-wing leader Evelyn Matthei (12.4%), both now backing his candidacy.
Analysts note that although Kast’s support base consolidates more than 50% of the electorate, it does not guarantee an automatic transfer of votes. Populist economist Franco Parisi, who placed third with 19.7%, emerges as the major wildcard. His party, the People’s Party (PDG), is set to decide this Sunday through an internal consultation whether to endorse one of the two finalists.
International
Trump says asylum decision freeze will remain in place “for a long time”
U.S. President Donald Trump warned on Sunday that the suspension of decisions on asylum applications—implemented as part of his order to “halt” immigration from third-world countries following Wednesday’s shooting in Washington—will remain in effect “for a long time.”
The president declined to specify how long the freeze, imposed last Friday by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), would last. The suspension affects individuals waiting for an asylum ruling from that agency, though it does not apply to cases handled by U.S. immigration courts.
The delay is part of a series of measures enacted by the Trump Administration after a shooting on Wednesday in which an Afghan national allegedly opened fire on the National Guard in Washington, D.C., killing one officer and leaving another in critical condition.
Trump has ordered a permanent halt to immigration from 19 countries classified as “third-world.” He also indicated on Sunday that “possibly” more nations could be added to the list.
“These are countries with high crime rates. They are countries that do not function well… that are not known for success, and frankly, we don’t need people from those places coming into our country and telling us what to do,” Trump said, adding: “We don’t want those people.”
USCIS had already announced on Thursday a “rigorous review” of green cards held by migrants from 19 “countries of concern,” including Afghanistan, Cuba, Venezuela, and Haiti.
International
Sri Lanka and Indonesia deploy military as deadly asian floods kill over 1,000
Sri Lanka and Indonesia deployed military personnel on Monday to assist victims of the devastating floods that have killed more than a thousand people across Asia in recent days.
A series of weather events last week triggered prolonged torrential rains across Sri Lanka, parts of Indonesia’s Sumatra island, southern Thailand, and northern Malaysia. Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto said Monday in North Sumatra that “the priority now is to deliver the necessary aid as quickly as possible.”
“There are several isolated villages that, with God’s help, we will be able to reach,” he added. Subianto also stated that the government had deployed helicopters and aircraft to support relief operations.
Floods and landslides have claimed 502 lives in Indonesia, with a similar number still missing.
This marks the highest death toll from a natural disaster in Indonesia since 2018, when an earthquake and subsequent tsunami killed more than 2,000 people.
The government has sent three military ships carrying aid and two hospital vessels to the hardest-hit regions, where many roads remain impassable.
In the village of Sungai Nyalo, located about 100 kilometers from Padang, the capital of West Sumatra, floodwaters had receded by Sunday, leaving homes, vehicles, and crops coated in thick mud.
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