Author: Gulf News Week
The Philippine House of Representatives has voted to impeach Vice-President Sara Duterte for a second time, threatening her plan to run for president in 2028.Monday’s vote moves the impeachment process to the Senate for trial, where if convicted, the daughter of former President Rodrigo Duterte will be disqualified from holding public office.The 47-year-old is leading early surveys to replace her ally-turned-bitter foe, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.The case against the vice-president stemmed from her alleged misuse of public funds and public threats against Marcos, his wife and his cousin, the former House speaker.The case was revived this year. Last week, a…
Moments after Austria overtook Israel to win last May’s Eurovision Song Contest and in doing so won the right to host this year’s event, UK viewers heard commentator Graham Norton say organisers “will be breathing the largest sigh of relief that they’re not faced with a Tel Aviv final next year”.Anti-Israel protests had built ahead of the contest. At a demonstration of several hundred people in Basel, Switzerland, where the final was held, protesters wore the Palestinian flag and smeared themselves with fake blood to symbolise the killings in Gaza. During the grand final the Israeli singer Yuval Raphael was…
Pop star Dua Lipa has filed a $15m (£11m) lawsuit against Samsung, alleging it used her image on packaging for its televisions without permission.Lipa alleges that Samsung prominently used a photograph of her face without consent on various television models sold across the US, according to a lawsuit filed on Friday in the US District Court for the Central District of California.Samsung’s packaging was “designed to improperly capitalize on Ms. Lipa’s hard-earned success to promote and sell Samsung’s products”, the filing said.The BBC has contacted to Samsung for comment.US District Court for the Central District of CaliforniaSamsung’s TV packaging featuring…
The Israeli attack on part of our flotilla has convinced us we must continue with our mission.Imagine the following scenario: you are scheduled to board a sailing boat as part of a large fleet carrying humanitarian aid. Some boats in the fleet had already departed ahead of you, yet days before you are scheduled to join them, the boats are violently intercepted in international waters by a foreign power acting 600 nautical miles (1,100km) from its own coast in flagrant violation of international maritime laws.At least 30 of your fellow sea travellers were injured, and at least four have since come…
It feels like the prime minister has to give the speech of his life today.Those within the Labour Party who want to see him succeed acknowledge that you can’t change everything in one speech.But it is clearly imperative for Sir Keir Starmer to try to calm down a party that is hurting and anxious.Many Labour MPs have spent the weekend observing the politically scorched earth around them locally – their friends and colleagues in local and devolved government wiped out. There are fraught emotions and there is anger.With every one, a little more of the prime minister’s authority drains away.Incidentally,…
Beijing has confirmed that US President Donald Trump will travel to China this week to meet Xi Jinping.The visit, from the 13 – 15 May, will be the first to China by a US president in nearly a decade – and comes at a pivotal moment for ties between the world’s two largest economies.Executives from some of America’s biggest companiess – including Boeing, Citigroup and Qualcomm – are expected to travel with Trump, potentially to make deals with Chinese firms. It will also mark a key test in the fragile trade truce between Washington and Beijing.In April 2025, Trump unveiled…
Sir Keir Starmer is to promise bolder action to tackle “big challenges” facing the country, as he battles to persuade his MPs not to ditch him as Labour leader.The prime minister will seek to reset his premiership in a speech on Monday, after heavy election losses left him facing renewed calls to quit.Growing numbers of Labour MPs went public with calls for him to go over the weekend, with potential challenger Angela Rayner saying the party needed to do more to appeal to voters whose living standards had been squeezed. It comes as backbencher Catherine West said she could try…
For a man who spent most of the past 20 years in exile, and the past eight months in jail, the figure of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra still looms large over Thailand.His release from prison, at the age of 76 and wearing an electronic ankle bracelet, after serving part of a one-year sentence for corruption and abuses of power during his terms as prime minister from 2001 to 2006, was headline news in Thailand.Hundreds of supporters wearing red cheered as Thaksin emerged from Bangkok’s Klong Prem jail on Monday, wearing a white shirt, ankle bracelet and cropped hair.”I was…
Mohammed Asasa had only just returned home after burying his 80-year-old father Hussein when several children ran into the house shouting, “the settlers are digging up the grave!”In the small village of Asasa, near Jenin in the West Bank, from which the family patriarch took his name, Hussein had been a highly regarded figure before his death last Friday from natural causes. In keeping with Islamic custom, the old man – a former livestock trader and father of 10 children – was laid to rest in a simple plot in the graveyard, on a small hill on the other side…
Iranian human rights campaigner Narges Mohammadi has been transferred from jail to a Tehran hospital amid concern over her deteriorating health. Iranian authorities granted Mohammadi “a sentence suspension on heavy bail”, a foundation run by her family said on Sunday.Last week Mohammadi’s family and supporters warned she could die in prison after suffering two suspected heart attacks earlier this year. Mohammadi, 54, was awarded the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize for her activism against female oppression in Iran and promoting human rights.She had spent 10 days hospitalised in Zanjan in northern Iran, where she had been serving her sentence. Mohammadi’s Paris-based…