VP Robredo hits police for ‘tokhang for ransom’
CEBU CITY—Vice President Leni Robredo expressed alarm Saturday over an Inquirer report that linked a policeman to the kidnapping of a South Korean national, stressing that rogue officers had taken advantage of the government’s war on drugs.
“They’re using drugs as a reason. Lately, it hasn’t been just killings, but also kidnapping, a sort of ‘tokhang for ransom,’” Robredo told a news conference after visiting Cebu City Jail’s female dormitory and the Operation Second Chance Center for children in conflict with the law.
Robredo was reacting to a spate of killings the past week. On Friday, two were killed by motorcyle-riding gunmen in Plaridel town while a man was killed in a drug bust in nearby Malolos city.
Last week, the wife of a South Korean kidnap victim missing since October came forward and linked a policeman to the crime.
“This has become alarming. Alarming in the sense that the rule of law is being disregarded. It’s as if anyone can just take the law into their hands. They no longer follow procedures that need to be followed,” Robredo said. “The message being projected here is giving people the license to resort to violence and that is what we want to stop.”
President Rodrigo Duterte has vowed to protect policemen from prosecution in his bloody war against narcotics. More than 6,000 drug suspects have been killed since he took office in July, more than half of whom blamed on unknown vigilantes.
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A South Korean captain and a Filipino crewman abducted by suspected Islamist militants off the southern Philippines were released on Saturday, authorities said, ending a three-month ordeal where they endured beatings and hunger. The Philippine military said armed men identifying themselves as Abu Sayyaf militants kidnapped the pair from a South Korean cargo ship in October last year, the first such attack on a large merchant vessel. Jesus Dureza, a senior aide to President Rodrigo Duterte, fetched the freed hostages in Sulu, a remote archipelago known as a militant hideout, and brought them to Davao, a city about 600km from Sulu. The two seafarers were beaten by their captors and forced to sleep in the jungle while eating dried fish and drinking unclean water, Dureza said. “We were almost hopeless but I am thankful we were able to come home safely,” Filipino crewman Glenn Alindajao, 31, said in a news briefing. South Korean captain Park Chung-hung, 38, did not speak with reporters but like Alindajao, appeared weak and grew a beard while in captivity. The abduction on board the 11,400-tonne heavy load carrier Dong Bang Giant 2 occurred just off the southern entry of the Sibutu Passage, a 29km wide channel used by merchant shipping in transit between the Pacific Ocean and the South China Sea. The cargo ship was heading for South Korea from Australia. The freed captives were flown to the capital Manila on Saturday afternoon to undergo debriefing and a medical examination. “They were physically maltreated without any provocation,” Dureza said. “They have been very stressed out. They were moved from one place to another, sometimes sleeping in forests, different houses, eating just dried fish and drinking water from brooks.” Dureza said the Muslim rebel group the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), which is in peace talks with the government, helped in facilitating the hostages’ release. The ship’s owners also negotiated for their freedom, according to Dureza, adding that he was not aware if a ransom was paid to Abu Sayyaf, which does not normally free hostages without huge sums of money. The Abu Sayyaf is a loose network of militants formed in the 1990s with seed money from Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network, and has earned millions of dollars from kidnappings-for-ransom. Abu Sayyaf militants beheaded two Canadian hostages last year after demands for millions of dollars were not met, and released a Norwegian man along with a number of Indonesian and Malaysian sailors after ransoms were believed to be paid. This week the group released a video showing an elderly German sailor abducted at sea late last year was alive. The Abu Sayyaf began kidnapping sailors in border waters between Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines last year, taking several dozen hostages. The spike in abductions sparked Indonesian warnings that the region could become the “next Somalia” and pushed the three neighbours to pledge coordinated patrols. Dureza said he would recommend that ships have armed security. Duterte, who took office last year, vowed to destroy the Abu Sayyaf and deployed thousands of extra troops to defeat them. But the militants have defied more than a decade of similar US-backed offensives, surviving in their mountainous and jungle-clad strongholds in the poverty-plagued southern Philippines. “The two hostages even planned to escape but they could not. They discovered that the community around is very supportive,” Dureza said. “They are able to benefit from [the kidnappings].”
MANILA – Islamist militants in the Philippines allied with Islamic State freed on Saturday a South Korean cargo ship captain and a Filipino member of his crew held captive for more than three months on a southern island, an army spokesman said. 
写真特集：北朝鮮の貨物船が沈没 
写真特集：中国軍の新型電子偵察船 
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【シリコンバレー＝兼松雄一郎】米宇宙開発ベンチャー、スペースＸは14日、昨年９月の試験中の爆発で止まっていたロケットの打ち上げを再開し、成功させた。所定の軌道に10基の小型人工衛星全てを配備。ロケットの海上回収にも成功した。現行のロケット「ファルコン９」の打ち上げは30回目で、成功率は９割に戻った。事故による打ち上げ中止期間を約４カ月にとどめ、失注が増えるのを回避した。 
Maybe you picked up a Raspberry Pi for the holidays, or you’ve been sitting on one of the super versatile, palm-sized computers for a while now. If you’ve been wondering how to get started with yours , or what you could build that’s worthwhile, here are ten great ideas. 
Two curved Samsung LED monitors , the Ninja Coffee Bar , a back-saving cushion and more lead Saturday’s best deals. 
