Philippine National Police (PNP) chief DirectorGeneral Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa announced yesterฌday the entire PNP would be on full alert to address contingency deployment for the international event.

A total of 40,877 personnel from 21 different government agencies – 27,425 from the police – were mobilised for the security of the summit from tomorrow until Saturday.

“We are putting our best foot forฌward in this historic national event,” dela Rosa said in a prepared stateฌment he read during a press conferฌence in Camp Crame.

“We have rehearsed and finetuned all our systems and proceฌdures for this event, such that we have established a full backup sysฌtem that will address any unforeseen situation that may arise,” he said.

“We are not leaving anything to chance in our preparations and we have drawn contingencies for every foreseeable scenario,” dela Rosa said.

The personnel to be deployed will provide security and assistance to the delegates from the Aseanmemฌber nations, dialogue partners, observer states and their respective delegations.

Meanwhile, Ambassador Marciano Paynor Jr, directorgeneral for operaฌtions of the Asean 2017 National Organising Council, said the governฌment did not want a repeat of the terฌror attacks in Western capitals in recent years to happen in Manila durฌing the regional summit.

“We can no longer consider only domestic security issues. As we all know, European capitals – London, Paris, Brussels – they all have had very serious terrorists attacks,” Paynor said.

“We have been lucky thus far. We would not want any of these things happening here, especially if we have guests and especially as we are hostฌing these Asean meetings throughฌout the year,” he said.

‘Paid to be paranoid’

Undersecretary Catalino Cuy, the officer in charge of the Department of Interior and Local Governments, said authorities were not aware of any specific threat so far against the summit but were taking general preฌcautions to be safe.

“There is no specific threat but we are paid to be paranoid. In our preparations, we consider all possiฌble threats to activities,” Cuy said.

“As we said earlier, this is only meeting number 56. There are a total of 139 meetings, so we have twothirds more to come and every sinฌgle one of these meetings we treat the same,” he added.

The likely result clears the way for a straight two-way fight between the pair in a second and final round on May 7, with opinion polls saying Macron is the favourite.

Here are some of the first reactions to sunday’s vote:

European Union

European Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker congratulated the pro-EU Macron after projections showed him ahead in the first round and wished him “good luck” in the run-off.

“To see the flags of #France and the EU greet the result of @emmanuelmacron, it’s the hope and future of our generation,” tweeted EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, a former Italian foreign minister.

Michel Barnier, the European Commission’s chief negotiator on Britain’s withdrawal from the EU, hinted at concerns that Le Pen could lead France away from the bloc.

“Patriot and European, I will put my trust in Emmanuel Macron on May 7. France must remain European,” the Frenchman tweeted.

Germany

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman wished Macron “all the best for the next two weeks”.

“It’s good that Emmanuel Macron was successful with his course for a strong EU and social market economy,” Steffen Seibert said in a tweet.

Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel predicted that the 39-year-old Macron would be the next president of France.

“I’m sure he will sweep away the far-right, right-wing populism and the anti-Europeans in the second round,” Social Democrat Gabriel said in a video posted on Twitter during a trip to Jordan’s capital Amman.

Writing on Twitter, he added: “I’m glad that @EmmanuelMacron is leading the field. He was the only truly pro-European candidate.”

Britain

Former Conservative finance minister George Osborne, recently appointed editor of London’s Evening Standard newspaper, hailed a good result for the centre.

“Congratulations to my friend @EmmanuelMacron. Proof you can win from the centre. At last, the chance for the leadership that France needs,” he tweeted.

Denmark

Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen expressed cautious optimism that former banker Macron would emerge victorious over Le Pen.

“Congratulations @EmmanuelMacron. We should await the final election, but Europe needs an openminded and reform oriented France => Good luck!”

Norway

Norwegian Foreign Minister Borge Brende, whose country is not a member of the European Union, tweeted: “We need more not less cooperation in #Europe. Positive that @EmmanuelMacron is projected to win first round of #franceelections.

The Netherlands

Geert Wilders, Dutch MP and leader of the anti-Islam anti-immigrant Freedom Party, swung behind Le Pen, welcoming the result as a “bright day for patriots in France and elsewhere who want more national sovereignty and less EU and immigration.

“I have just sent her my sincere congratulations. Now on the way to a vigorous second round, I am hoping for a President Le Pen.”

In an interview with Italian daily La Stampa, Sicily-based prosecutor Carmelo Zuccaro made his most specific claims yet over NGO activities off Libya, which the EU border agency Frontex recently described as tantamount to providing a “taxi” service to Europe.

Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) active in the rescue effort include long-established groups such as Doctors without Borders and Save the Children, and smaller, newer operations such as the Malta-based MOAS.

They have all dismissed suggestions of de facto collusion with smugglers as a baseless slur on volunteer crews whose only mission is to save lives in the absence of EU governments acting effectively to do so.

Over 1,000 migrants are feared to have died in waters between Libya and Italy so far this year, according to the UN refugee agency. Nearly 37,000 have been rescued and brought to Italy.

“We have evidence that there are direct contacts between certain NGOs and people traffickers in Libya,” Zuccaro was quoted as saying by La Stampa.

“We do not yet know if and how we could use this evidence in court, but we are quite certain about what we say; telephone calls from Libya to certain NGOs, lamps that illuminate the route to these organisations’ boats, boats that suddenly turn off their (locating) transponders, are ascertained facts.”

Libya deal in doubt

Zuccaro is the head of a five-strong pool of prosecutors investigating criminal aspects of the migrant crisis, from trafficking to illegal exploitation of migrants on Italian farms and via prostitution to rackets in the provision of reception facilities.

La Stampa reported that prosecutors were looking into whether some of the newly-established NGOs may be financed by the traffickers as a way of making it easier to guarantee their human cargoes get to Italy.

The organisations involved have all dismissed the charges against them. They fear they are being targeted by a smear campaign designed to get them out of the way.

One group, SOS Mediterranee, told AFP last week it had “never, not once” been put in touch with a migrant boat via smugglers.

Under an EU-backed strategy, Italy is currently trying to beef up Libya’s coastguard in the hope more boats can be prevented from getting out of Libyan territorial waters and the migrants returned to holding camps in the troubled country.

The strategy has been described by rights groups as a breach of Europe’s obligations under international refugee conventions.

And it has so far made little headway towards closing down the Libya-Italy migrant route.

Rome said Friday it would be providing Libya with ten new coastguard boats but a cooperation deal covering holding camps and repatriations is in limbo after it was suspended by Libya’s Court of Appeal.

Food ban lifted

The number of people leaving Libya in the hope of starting a new life in Europe is up nearly 50 percent this year compared with the opening months of 2016.

With most departures coming in the warm summer months, the trend points to around 250,000 people arriving over the course of 2017 – a forecast Zuccaro described as “an under-estimate”.

Some 500,000 migrants were registered in Italy in the three years spanning 2014-16.

And pressure on the country’s reception facilities has increased in the last year as a result of neighbouring countries tightening border controls, making it harder for migrants to move further north.

Tensions at bottleneck border points were underlined when Ventimiglia, a town on the Riviera border with France, issued an order banning locals from distributing food to migrants.

The order, similar to one issued in Calais in northern France, was withdrawn on Sunday in a move welcomed by aid groups who hope it will have a bearing on a court case against French activist Felix Croft.

Prosecutors have asked for a prison term and 50,000 euros fine for Croft, 28, for trying to help a Sudanese family from Darfur to cross the border into France in July 2016.

“This is excellent news. You cannot use the law to persecute solidarity, however it is expressed,” said Patrizio Gonnella, president of Antigone, a civil rights group. Croft is due to learn his fate on Thursday.

“They are committed to build 300 hotel rooms in a span of one year and 100 villas on 100 hectares of land,” Darmono said at the Calendar of Event Wonderful Morotai Island Festival (CoE WMIF) 2017 event on Friday.

The first stage of investment is valued at around 100 million dollars, equal to 1.3 trillion rupiah. The investor, a company said to have 60 hotels in China, has made a deal to gradually increase the investment to one billion dollars.

Meanwhile, the Tourism Ministry promises to renovate the airport’s runway to accommodate 130-passenger planes.

“As one of ten prioritized tourism destinations, we are targeting 11,000 tourists to visit Morotai this year, and we’re hoping for an increase to 500,000 by 2019,” said Tourism Minister Arief Yahya. (asw)

It said the decision to raise prices was within the cabinet’s powers.

Ali al-Ali, one of several lawyers who filed the suit against the government, said on Twitter the group intends to challenge the latest ruling in Kuwait’s supreme court, whose decisions are final.

Like other Gulf states that are heavily dependent on oil revenues, Kuwait has been hit hard by a sharp drop in crude prices since June 2014.

The OPEC member recorded a budget shortfall of $15 billion in the fiscal year to March 2016.

It was the first deficit since the fiscal year to March 1999.

In response, the government adopted austerity measures including hikes in the prices of electricity, water and fuel.

In September, it raised the cost of fuel by up to 80 percent depending on its grade, the first such increase since 1998.

The action was met with stiff opposition by lawmakers, who this month filed motions to question the prime minister in parliament over the price hike and other issues.

South Korea-based Yonhap reported that the US citizen, identified only by his surname Kim, was arrested by North Korean authorities on Friday at Pyongyang International Airport on his way out of the country.

The sources said Kim, a former professor at the Yanbian University of Science and Technology in his late 50s, has been engaged in aid and relief programs to North Korea.

He reportedly was in the North for about a month to discuss relief activities. The reason for his arrest was not clear, Yonhap online reported.

The detainment is the latest in a series of American nationals being arrested in North Korea. Two other U.S. citizens — college student Otto Warmbier and Korean-American pastor Kim Dong-chul — are also currently detained in the North after being sentenced to long prison terms for what Pyongyang calls subversive acts against the country.

Ahn Chan-il, director of the World North Korea Research Center in Seoul, said that the North “seems to be intending to use professor Kim as leverage in negotiations” amid the current bad relations between the two countries.

According to Yonhap, the National Intelligence Service, South Korea’s spy agency, said it “was not aware” of Kim’s arrest.

Since 2009, over 10 U.S. citizens have been detained in North Korea on charges of anti-state and other unspecified crimes. The widespread view has been that Pyongyang uses the detentions as bargaining chips in its negotiations with Washington.

Narcotics Crime Investigation Department (NCID) director Comm Mohd Mokhtar Mohd Shariff said Thai authorities have informed the department of Mr T’s arrest, which took place at the Haadyai airport at about 3.30pm on Wednesday.

“We will be sending a team to Thailand to work together with them (Thai authorities). “Our priority is to obtain intelligence on the suspect’s operations in both countries as well as his network,” he told The Star.

Thai police on Wednesday scored a major success in their battle against an international drug syndicate with the arrest of “Mr T”, who they believed played a key role in smuggling hundreds of kilogrammes of “ice”, also known as methamphetamine, and syabu into Malaysia.

The suspect had gone to Chiang Rai to place an order for a consignment of drugs, and was also responsible for a failed attempt by two accomplices to smuggle 282 kilograms of “ice” worth millions of ringgit into Malaysia via the Sadao border in March last year, Thai police said.

The two henchmen also told authorities that the suspect, who is from Johor, had facilitated four to five successful drug smuggling attempts into Malaysia, each time carrying about 100kg of “ice” to undisclosed locations in the country.

Thai police also nabbed a Thai woman and a Taiwanese man in Chiang Rai as well as a Thai woman in Chiang Mai. They are believed to be members of the international syndicate and were arrested in follow-up operations on Wednesday. Comm Mohd Mokhtar commended the Thai police on the successful arrest

“It is proven again that international cooperation and sharing of intelligence is the key to win the war on drugs. “The suspect’s arrest may be just the beginning. We will work closely with our Thai counterparts to take down this syndicate,” he said, adding that the drug menace was borderless.

Police also recorded a recent success after busting a syndicate in Malaysia that imported designer drugs from Taiwan, including Ecstasy and Erimin 5. Collaborating with Taiwan’s Criminal Investigation Bureau, the NCID and Special Tactical Intelligence Narcotics Group (Sting) uncovered the drug-trafficking ring and raided four of their strongholds here, resulting in RM2.5mil ($568,052) worth of drugs seized and nine men detained.

Between January and April 17, the NCID and Sting have seized drugs worth RM81.9mil (US$18,609,410) and assets of RM49.16mil ($11,170,190) belonging to syndicates, while 57,872 people were arrested for drug-related offences.

The strike group is in the region as tensions spike over North Korea’s rogue arms programme and concerns that Pyongyang is planning a sixth nuclear test as it pursues its goal of a weapon capable of reaching the US mainland.

The Carl Vinson drills are expected to last several days and involve two Japanese warships, Japan’s defence ministry said.

It is the third time the Japanese navy has held exercises with Carl Vinson after two such drills in March.

Washington has sought to clarify the aircraft carrier’s whereabouts in recent days after President Donald Trump suggested it was steaming towards North Korea when in fact it was sent towards Australia.

US Vice President Mike Pence on Saturday said it would soon arrive in the Sea of Japan, days after vowing an “overwhelming and effective” response to any North Korean attack.

He has also renewed calls for China to use its “unique” position to bring Pyongyang to heel.

US officials have repeatedly warned that “all options are on the table” including military strikes to curb the North’s nuclear ambitions.

Pyongyang has ramped up its rhetoric in recent weeks, threatening to hit back against any provocation.

It has also renewed threats against regional US allies, including Japan and South Korea, which both host large American military contingents.

“Seeing the threats we are facing now, it is no surprise that Japan and the United States conduct joint exercises,” a senior lawmaker of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s ruling party told Japan’s NHK public broadcaster, adding the exercises would send a “strong message”.

Washington is sending a senior envoy on the nuclear stand-off with North Korea to Tokyo this week for talks with his Japanese and South Korean counterparts.