Poe approved to run for president
Poe approved to run for president
PHILIPPINE: Election officials in the Philippines affirmed on Friday an earlier ruling that movie icon Fernando Poe is qualified to run for president, throwing out a petition to disqualify him on citizenship grounds.
The Commission on Elections voted unanimously to deny a motion alleging that Poe, the front runner in opinion polls ahead of the May 10 election, is a U.S. citizen and thus barred by the constitution from standing.
Lawyer Andres Fournier, brother of the petitioner Manila lawyer Victorino Fournier, told reporters they would appeal the decision at the Supreme Court.
Poe's lawyer Estelito Mendoza thanked the election body for its swift ruling. The case had threatened to hamper Poe's momentum, with campaigning set to start next week.
Meanwhile, the head of the electoral board, Benjamin Abalos, on Friday ordered President Gloria Arroyo, Poe and two other presidential candidates to explain why they had violated a rule against early campaigning.
Arroyo, Poe, independent Raul Roco and opposition Senator Panfilo Lacson were all cited by electoral authorities for putting up posters even before the campaign period officially starts. -- AFP
;AFP;APS; ANPAu..r.. Aglance-Vietnam-accident 11 killed in Vietnam bus crash JP/12/ASEAN
11 killed in Vietnam bus crash
VIETNAM: Eleven people were killed and 10 injured when a minibus collided head-on with a speeding truck in central Vietnam, police said on Friday.
The high-speed crash happened in Binh Thuan province when the truck encroached onto the other side of the road while trying to overtake, a police spokesman from the province's Tuy Phong district said.
Seven people, including the driver of the 15-seater bus, were killed instantly while four other passengers died in the hospital.
The truck driver sped off after Thursday's accident but turned himself in later that day.
More than 11,800 people were killed in traffic accidents in Vietnam in 2003. -- AFP
;AFP;APS; ANPAu..r.. Thailand-south-unrest Policeman killed in Thailand JP/12/ASEAN
Policeman killed in Thailand
THAILAND: Motorcycle gunmen shot dead a police officer on Friday in restive southern Thailand, where a series of attacks have killed at least 14 security, government and religious figures since early January, police said.
Sgt. Maj. Panya Darahim, a district police investigator, was gunned down by two attackers on a motorcycle in southern Narathiwat province. He was pronounced dead at the hospital, a police commander said.
"He was shot at around 8 a.m. by two attackers on a motorcycle as he was getting into his car after dropping off his wife at a nursery school in Sungai Padi district," Maj. Gen. Khamronwit Thoopkrajang told AFP.
The attack appears part of a pattern of attacks that have rattled the deep south, a Muslim-majority region where a separatist movement has rumbled on for decades and until recently was considered too fractured to conduct well-coordinated attacks.
The spate of violence erupted on Jan. 4 with a raid on an army depot in Narathiwat that killed four soldiers, and simultaneous attacks on 18 schools and two police checkpoints. -- AFP