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Philippine president’s feud with Duterte gets worse
An escalating feud between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and his predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, boiled over Sunday, when Marcos said the former president’s threat to lead a secession movement would be met with force.
Secession, you say? The Philippines has seen multiple secessionist movements over the years, but the most militant ones today are aligned with the Islamic State group, and it’s unclear how Duterte would carry out his threat.
Really, it’s just the latest outburst in their rhetorical scrum and a step up from their mutual accusations of drug abuse.
The beef? Marcos is rolling back Duterte's signature pro-China policies and has threatened to rejoin the International Criminal Court, where Duterte faces human rights charges over the war he launched against drug traffickers during his presidency.
Power moves. Term limits prevent Duterte from being president again, but he still leads the PDP-Laban party, which was stymied in the 2022 elections but is positioning for a comeback. Duterte wants to knock Marcos off balance in the short term to run up numbers in the midterm elections next year. That makes even more sense when you consider that Duterte’s daughter is – believe it or not – Marcos’ VP… and a front-runner for the 2028 presidential race. For now, she’s staying out of it and reaffirming her support for Marcos.
Hard Numbers: Imran Khan faces new sentence, Russia gets economic upgrade, Philippines and Vietnam join hands in South China Sea, Germany makes big Bitcoin seizure
10: Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan and former Foreign Minister ShahMahmood Qureshi were sentenced Tuesday to 10 years in prison for leaking state secrets. While Khan is already serving a three-year term on corruption charges, this is Qureshi’s first conviction. The new ruling comes just a week before general elections on Feb. 8. Khan’s political party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, called it “a sham case” and plans to challenge the decision in a higher court.
2.6: Is President Vladimir Putin’s military spending spree paying off? Russia’s GDP is expected to grow 2.6% in 2024, according to the International Monetary Fund, which is 1.5 percentage points higher than its October forecast. For 2025, the IMF sees GDP growth for Russia easing to just 1.1%.
2: Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. signed two memorandums of understanding with Vietnam on Tuesday to boost cooperation on maritime security in the South China Sea. Vietnam also agreed to a five-year trade deal to supply up to two million tons of white rice to Manila. China, which is less than thrilled by such agreements between its neighbors, launched military drills in the disputed waters earlier this month as the US and Philippines initiated their exercises in the region.
50,000: German authorities on Tuesday seized 50,000 Bitcoins worth nearly $2.17 billion in Saxony. While no charges have been filed yet, police suspect that two men who purchased the cryptocurrency did so with profits from a piracy website. Police are investigating unauthorized commercial exploitation of copyrighted works and money laundering.
Hard Numbers: Deadly terror attack in Paris, troubled South China Sea waters, migrants in English Channel, COP28 methane plans, twins for 70-year-old mom
3: A 26-year-old French national who had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State attacked three people near the Eiffel Tower in Paris late Saturday, killing a German tourist and leaving two others, including a British man, wounded. President Emmanuel Macron called the incident "a terrorist attack."
135: More than 135 Chinese vessels “swarmed” the Julian Felipe reef off the coast of the Philippines in the South China Sea on Sunday. China and the Philippines have been involved in an increasing number of such incidents, as China aggressively asserts its claim to the sea under its so-called nine-dash line.
190: French authorities rescued 190 migrants off the coast of Calais in northern France over the weekend. The migrants were trying to cross the English Channel on dinghies to reach Britain, but authorities did not specify from which country the migrants had originally come.
30: At this week’s COP28 meeting in the UAE, the Biden administration unveiled final rules aimed at reducing the US oil and gas industry’s release of methane to help in the fight against climate change. Nations attending the summit had to detail how they will cut methane emissions by 30% from 2020 levels by 2030.
70:A 70-year-old Ugandan woman has become the oldest woman in Africa to give birth. Safina Namukwaya delivered a boy and a girl on Wednesday by cesarean section after conceiving through IVF. Born at 34 weeks' gestation, the babies are healthy and weigh 2 kilograms each. They were Namukwaya’s second delivery in three years, following the birth of a girl in 2020.Japan looks south to bolster its security
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is in Manila Friday for a summit with Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. as Tokyo attempts to draw closer to partners in Southeast Asia to hedge against China.
Tokyo already has extensive economic and diplomatic ties to the Philippines, and has strategically cultivated strong relations in Southeast Asia since the late 1970s. However, during this visit, along with a stop in Malaysia this weekend, Kishida hopes to deepen military ties, opening up Japanese defense exports to both countries, and setting up cross-training programs.
Adding a military dimension is an important change for Tokyo. In the wake of World War II, instead of a collective security strategy à la NATO, the United States pursued a “hub and spoke” system in Asia. Countries like Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines were all allies of the US, but not of one another, in part to maximize US leverage but also because each country faced diverging threats. What concerned Manila in the 1950s wasn’t necessarily an issue for Tokyo.
Now there’s one problem everyone in the region cares about: the Chinese military. Tokyo is well aware it can no longer rely on technological superiority to protect itself from China — nor can Washington. What it can do is fall back on those longstanding ties and give a boost to partners in Southeast Asia, says Eurasia Group’s Japan Director David Boling.
“Kishida’s visit to the Philippines to strengthen defense cooperation is Japan’s way of reminding China of this: You may be bigger than we are, but we have more friends than you do,” he said.
Hard Numbers: Iceland’s women stop cold, Zimbabwe faces fresh epidemic, China-Philippines high seas crash, oil majors keep betting on oil, moon gets older overnight
48: For the first time in 48 years, the women of Iceland are going on strike. The one-day work stoppage on Tuesday — which the country’s PM, Katrín Jakobsdóttir, will take part in — will spotlight unequal pay between men and women, as well as gender-based violence. Although Iceland tops the list for global gender pay equality among countries, women still earn 21% less than men in some jobs.
5,000: Zimbabwe is struggling with its worst outbreak of cholera in years, with more than 5,000 infections of the deadly waterborne illness recorded since February. A shortage of functional water wells and water purification programs has contributed to the outbreak.
2: The Filipino government has summoned the Chinese ambassador in Manila after Chinese ships collided with two Filipino boats on Sunday in disputed waters. The Philippines is one of half a dozen nations that — with backing from international courts — reject China’s sweeping claims to their territorial waters. The US on Monday reiterated its treaty-bound commitment to defend the Philippines.
53 billion: US Energy giant Chevron on Monday agreed to buy smaller rival Hess for a whopping $53 billion. The move, which comes just weeks after Chevron's rival ExxonMobil snapped up Pioneer Natural Resources, a West Texas shale oil producer, for more than $60 billion, sends a signal: Climate change or not, the two US companies believe that strong demand for oil and gas isn’t going anywhere.
40 million: Who among us wants to learn that we are actually older than we assumed? Well, spare a thought for the moon which, it turns out, is 40 million years older than previously believed. The finding, which puts the age of the moon at 4.46 billion years, is based on a new analysis of rocks collected from the lunar surface in the 1970s.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article misidentified Pioneer Natural Resources as a Canadian company. In fact, it is a shale oil producer that focuses on the Permian basin in West Texas. We regret the error.
Rough waters in the South China Sea
Philippine officials say a Chinese coast guard ship and an accompanying vessel rammed a Philippine coast guard ship and a military supply boat in the South China Sea on Sunday. The incidents took place near the Second Thomas, or Ayungin, shoal in the Spratly Island chain near a Philippine naval outpost in an area Beijing claims as its territorial waters.
The outpost was built atop a World War II-era warship that was purposefully grounded in 1999 to serve as a bulwark against China’s expansionism in the area. Situated 200 kilometers off the Philippine coast, its personnel rely on regular resupply deliveries from the mainland. The Chinese coast guard claimed the Philippine vessels “trespassed” “without authorization” despite several radio warnings and blamed the Philippines for the collisions. In response, MaryKay Carlson, US ambassador to Manila, posted to X that “the United States condemns the PRC’s latest disruption of a legal Philippine resupply mission to Ayungin shoal, putting the lives of Filipino service members at risk.”
The confrontations follow a near-miss earlier this month when a Chinese coast guard vessel came within three feet of colliding with a Philippine coast guard ship. In the past few months, Chinese vessels have also reportedly sailed dangerously close to Philippine government ships at which they fired water cannons and deployed “military-grade lasers."
China has long attempted to enforce the “nine-dash line” by which it claims ownership of 90% of the South China Sea. Analysts believe Beijing’s increased belligerence is designed to test the limits of the US-Philippine defense treaty, by using “gray zone” tactics just below the threshold that would trigger US engagement. Should China overstep either by accident or design, however, America could be drawn into yet another armed conflict – when it is already supporting allies on two other fronts, in Ukraine and Israel.The geopolitics of "Barbie"
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi everybody. Ian Bremmer here, and a special update, Quick take, I know you need to hear about this. The geopolitics of "Barbie".
"Barbie" is coming out. No, not in that way. Next week in the United States and the United Kingdom, massive launch. You've seen the dreamhouse, you've seen the buses, you've seen the excitement, and now you've seen the geopolitical backlash. It was not what you were expecting. I certainly don't remember there ever being a political science Barbie. Uh, there is a campaign manager Barbie that they made. That's, that's pretty much the opposite when you think about it. And there's also a Chief Sustainability Officer Barbie, that was of course, made of plastic naturally. But never a geopolitical analyst Barbie. Well, maybe that was a mistake, turns out there's a problem.
In the movie, there's a world map behind Barbie. Unclear why Barbie requires a scene with the world map. I'm sure we're all gonna learn this in a couple of weeks or maybe not. But there it is. World map in crayon. And you can see Greenland that's in yellow of course, and sort of a nine-dash line. Might there be a nine-dash line around Southeast Asia? Well, that's the big question. Vietnam banned the movie from its market saying that that indeed was what was being depicted. The upside is that China has not, it's the largest global movie market at the box office. And Hollywood Studios, of course, very frequently tailor movies to ensure that they get approval from the sensors. Now, the Philippines was also going to ban "Barbie." They've now decided against it as long as the map is blurred. So here's the map. Take a look again. Is Barbie supporting Chinese Neocolonialism? And would Ken approve?
Of course critical question here. Warner Brothers says that "this is a child-like crayon drawing" and it was not intended to make any type of statement that alleged nine-dash line is neither clearly located in the South China Sea region, nor does it have nine dashes. We look carefully. It's only eight. Only eight dashes. That's one fewer dash. Heck it's not even the only dashed line on the map. If you look closely, you'll also see that there's a Cambodia-sized turtle that's located nearby, right on the Asian landmass. And I'm pretty sure that that's already been eaten. But I do think the Warner Brothers folks did know what they were doing. I mean, you know, you're trying hard to get access to the Chinese market, but you don't wanna alienate anyone. So by putting these eight dashes off of Asia, it's an effort to get favor from the Chinese sensors, but also not antagonize the Southeast Asians.
Barbie, you think you're so clever. But this has happened before in 2022. Vietnam and the Philippines both banned Sony Pictures action movie "Uncharted" over their nine-dashed depiction. And that was pretty clear. It was very brief, it was very clear depiction. Also, they stopped screenings both countries of Dreamworks animated film "Abominable" in 2019 due to a scene that showed the nine-dash line. Malaysia made the studio cut the scene from "Abominable," and that's no joke. What the hell are all these people doing with nine-dash lines? Well, you know, all we can say, Fox News had a host that asked, is Barbie a communist? You be the judge. Pics on the spectrum, but it should help "Oppenheimer" at the box office.
That's it for me. Talk to you real soon.
The Graphic Truth: Perspectives on the US and China
The US and China are competing for influence around the globe, but tensions are particularly high in East Asia, where China is the dominant power and the US is working to stop the region’s drift toward Beijing. The Eurasia Group Foundation surveyed 1,500 people across Singapore, South Korea, and the Philippines – three countries caught in the middle of the US-China rivalry with significant historical, economic, and diplomatic ties to both superpowers – for their views.
“We found that the US is still held in high regard in the countries we surveyed, much more so than China, but that most think increasing tensions between the two countries will negatively impact their country's national security and domestic political environment” says Caroline Gray, a senior EGF researcher.
We took a look at the data to see how the US and China are faring in their competition for influence in East Asia.