Daily News Highlights – May 5, 2016 Edition

Though a bank controversy hurt support for Rodrigo Duterte in some areas, he still managed to snatch a clear lead from his rival presidential candidates, according to the latest The Standard poll. Duterte garnered 32% of respondents’ support in the survey, conducted by Laylo Research Strategies and first published in The Standard on Thursday, May 5. It is the newspaper’s last survey before the May 9 elections. Conducted from April 27 to May 1, it covers the period when Senator Antonio Trillanes IV accused Duterte of hiding P227 million in a Bank of the Philippine Islands account.

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Billionaire Donald Trump pledged Wednesday, May 4, to unify the fractured Republican Party following a bruising primary season. Trump’s path to the GOP presidential nomination is clear after his command victory in Indiana’s primary Tuesday pushed remaining challengers Ted Cruz and then Ohio Governor John Kasich out of the race. With unfavorability ratings among the highest of any modern presidential candidate and concern within his own party about his temperament, however, the real estate mogul swiftly sought to assuage concerns about how he would govern.

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The Canadian city of Fort McMurray remained under threat from catastrophic wildfires Wednesday, May 4, authorities warned, after more than 80,000 residents were forced to flee the raging inferno sweeping through Alberta’s oil sands region. No casualties have been reported from the monster blaze, which lashed at residences and motor home parks, causing traffic chaos as people scrambled to safety. But authorities warned that the next 24 hours would be critical.

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Under pressure from Russia and the United States, the Syrian army agreed on Wednesday, May 4, to respect a two-day truce in the war-ravaged city of Aleppo. The Syrian climb-down came after Washington said the US and Russia had agreed to push the warring parties to extend their shaky ceasefire. “A truce will be in place in Aleppo for 48 hours from 1:00 am on Thursday (May 5) (2200 GMT Wednesday),” Syrian army command said, according to state media. The Russian defense ministry said its ceasefire monitors had agreed with their US counterparts to oversee this truce until midnight on May 6.

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Iraq’s premier sacked the commander of special forces in Baghdad’s Green Zone after protesters breached the fortified area, a military statement said on Wednesday, May 4. The removal of Staff Lieutenant General Mohammed Ridha may indicate that security forces will take a harder line against demonstrators who are expected to protest later this week. Angry demonstrators, most of them supporters of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, broke into the Green Zone and stormed parliament on Saturday, April 30, in an unprecedented security breach.

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Former foreign secretary Domingo Siazon Jr has died, his family announced on Wednesday, May 4. He was 76. “Domingo L. Siazon, Jr– Statesman, career diplomat, but more importantly, a loving husband, father and grandfather. 1939-2016,” his son, Dan, posted on Facebook. Siazon served as foreign secretary of the Ramos and Estrada administrations.

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Brazilian prosecutors have filed a US$43.4 billion lawsuit against BHP Billiton and Vale over the Samarco mine dam burst that killed 19 and wreaked environmental havoc. The authorities “estimate the preliminary value for repairs to be 155 billion reals,” the public prosecutor’s office in the state of Minas Gerais said in a statement. The accident on November 5 last year near Mariana in Minas Gerais began when a tailings dam at Samarco’s mine failed, unleashing a flood of polluted water and mud into the River Doce, one of the biggest in Brazil. A village was destroyed and drinking water supplies for hundreds of thousands of people were severed.

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Germany is to legalize cannabis for medicinal purposes early next year, the health minister said on Tuesday, May 3. “Our goal is that seriously ill patients are treated in the best possible way,” said Hermann Groehe, who will present draft legislation to the German cabinet on Wednesday. The draft bill comes as many parts of the world are relaxing laws on cannabis use and medicinal marijuana is gaining popularity to ease suffering from cancer, glaucoma, HIV or AIDS, Hepatitis C, Parkinson’s disease and other serious conditions.

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Millions of Yahoo, Microsoft, and Google accounts are part of a trove of 272.3 million stolen accounts being traded in the Russian underworld. Alex Holden, founder of Hold Security, noted that while the majority of compromised accounts were from Russian email service Mail.ru, smaller fractions of the affected accounts were from the 3 big email providers. Hold Security’s discovery came after researchers found a young Russian hacker bragging in an online forum about stolen credentials totalling around 1.17 billion records.

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Daniel Padilla has been actively campaigning for Liberal Party standard-bearer Manuel Roxas II, and he has some strong words for netizens questioning his support for the former interior secretary. Among his statements is an admonishment against non-voters who are outspoken, telling people to ‘shut up’ if they aren’t a voter.

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