A Philippine court orders the arrest of Sarah Duterte and security incidents in Pakistan and Nepal

A Philippine court issued an arrest warrant for Sarah Duterte, the country's vice president, today (Friday), on charges that she threatened to assassinate the president and two other people.

The House of Representatives actually impeached Duterte last May over the same charges and alleged financial irregularities, according to what the Associated Press reported.

A conviction would hamper Duterte's plans to run in presidential elections scheduled for 2028, when President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.'s six-year term ends.

The vice president's lawyer, who denied the accusations, indicated that she will post bail to avoid detention, while she faces trial before the Quezon City Provincial Court.

“She has no intention of evading the law, and will continue to pursue all available means,” her lawyer, Paul Lawrence Lim, said in a statement, without further details.

The accusations come against the backdrop of a threat made by Duterte, during an online press conference in 2024, to Marcos, his wife, and then Speaker of the House of Representatives, Martin Romualdez, that she had hired an assassin who would assassinate them if she was killed, while political disputes between them escalated.

The Vice President pointed out that her threat was not a joke. But she later said that her threat to Marcos was only to express her fear for her safety.

It is noteworthy that the Vice President is the daughter of former President Rodrigo Duterte, Marcos' predecessor.

Intelligence sources said on Friday that gunmen ambushed a Pakistani military convoy in the troubled Balochistan province, southwest of the country, killing at least 16 soldiers.

The convoy was traveling in the town of Ziart, near the provincial capital, Quetta, when it was attacked during the night, two intelligence sources told the German News Agency.

One source said that at least 11 militants were killed in the clash that followed the attack.

In a separate operation, Pakistani soldiers carried out an operation in the town of Qalat in Balochistan province, resulting in the killing of at least 12 militants.

The Balochistan Liberation Army, a nationalist armed group demanding the independence of Balochistan, claimed responsibility for the attack on the soldiers.

Armed groups, including the Pakistani Taliban and the Balochistan Liberation Army, regularly launch attacks on the army and police in the troubled province, which borders Afghanistan and Iran.

Much of the violence is seen as a response to massive Chinese investment in the region, where China, an ally of Pakistan, has built a deep sea port in Balochistan and a network of roads to reach the Middle East, Africa, Europe and beyond.

On Friday, rescue teams recovered two workers alive who were trapped in a tunnel filled with mud and rubble in northern Nepal, more than a week after floods that swept the region on August 26, two ministers announced.

Energy Minister Biraj Bhakta Shrestha wrote on a chat group in which the press participated: “We have just received news that a person has been safely recovered from the Trishuli 3 tunnel,” according to Agence France-Presse.

A short while later, Interior Minister Sudan Gurung wrote to a similar group: “We have just learned that a second person has been rescued.”

Dozens of rescue personnel are racing against time in harsh geographical and climatic conditions in an effort to rescue workers in the hydropower sector who are believed to be trapped inside tunnels at the sites of power plants and dams under construction, while drilling, bulldozing and blasting operations continue non-stop, with the help of teams from China, India and South Korea.

Immediately after the disaster, the Nepalese authorities estimated the number of workers detained in the Trishuli 3 tunnel alone at about one hundred workers.

Until Friday, rescue teams had only found a number of bodies in tunnels flooded with water and mud in the area, after they had difficulty opened a passage using explosives and bulldozers.

The wall of water, ice and debris that swept through several valleys in the region on the border between Nepal and China left at least 1,280 people dead and more than 5,600 missing, according to the latest official figures.

Among the missing are more than 900 employees and workers in Nepalese hydroelectric stations.

On Friday morning, the Nepalese government published pictures of the two workers, Sanjay Shah and Kabir Maharjan, being taken out into the open air by rescue personnel and transported on two stretchers.

The brother of one of them, Amir Maharjan, told Agence France-Presse: “I am very happy, my heart is at peace now.”

The two workers will be transferred to the capital, Kathmandu, according to the Energy Minister.