Controversial Rodrigo Duterte wins Philippine presidential election: monitor
Anti-establishment firebrand Rodrigo Duterte secured a huge win in the Philippine presidential elections, according to a poll monitor, after an incendiary campaign dominated by his profanity-laced vows to kill criminals.
Duterte, the longtime mayor of the southern city of Davao, hypnotised millions with his vows of brutal but quick solutions to the nation's twin plagues of crime and poverty, which many believed had worsened despite strong economic growth in recent years.
And after a record turnout of voters in Monday's elections, Duterte scored a commanding victory, according to data released by the PPCRV, a Catholic Church-run poll monitor accredited by the government to tally the votes.
Indonesia frees vessel captured by suspected pirates: navy
Indonesia on Monday freed a Singapore-flagged vessel captured by pirates off the coast of Borneo island, and detained nine suspects involved in the hijacking, a navy spokesman said.
The 20 crew and one passenger who were aboard the captured boat were unharmed during the operation, navy spokesman Edi Sucipto said in a statement.
The vessel had disappeared from radar inside Indonesian waters before reappearing some distance away under a different name, arousing suspicion.
ISIS leader of Iraq's Anbar province killed in air strike: Pentagon
A US-led coalition air strike has killed a senior ISIS leader in Iraq's Anbar province, along with three other Islamic State in Iraq and Syria extremists, the Pentagon said on Monday.
Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said the May 6 strike near the town of Rutba - deep in the Anbar desert - targeted Abu Wahib, IS's "military emir" for the vast western province.
Wahib was "a former member of Al-Qaeda in Iraq who has appeared in ISIL execution videos," Cook said, using another acronym for ISIS.
Panama Papers database on shell companies goes online
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists on Monday published online detailed data from the Panama Papers trove on more than 200,000 secret offshore companies.
The searchable database built on just a portion of the documents leaked from the Panama law firm Mossack Fonseca reveals more than 360,000 names of individuals and companies behind the anonymous shell firms, the ICIJ said.
Reports already published in April based on the explosive dossier linked some of the world's most powerful leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, British Prime Minister David Cameron and others to unreported offshore companies.
Bomb sweeps, bag checks as terror threat looms over Cannes Film Festival
Bomb experts will carry out daily sweeps at the Cannes film festival, opening this week under maximum security as France faces its highest ever terror threat, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said Monday.
The glitterati, set to descend on the resort town as the festival opens Wednesday, will also have to tip open expensive handbags for inspection after climbing the red carpet into the main venue, the Palais des Festivals, which is to be secured by some 400 private security agents.
Hundreds more police officers and specialised units will be on duty in the city, whose lure for the rich and famous makes it equally attractive to jewellery thieves and robbers.
