US TO OPEN JERUSALEM EMBASSY IN MAY FOR ISRAEL’S 70TH ANNIVERSARY

WASHINGTON, D.C.: The United States said on Friday (Saturday in Manila) it will relocate its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem in May, bringing forward the contested move to coincide with the Jewish state’s 70th birthday. Until now, the US embassy has been located in Tel Aviv with a separate consulate general located in Jerusalem that represents US interests in the Palestinian territories. The new embassy will be initially located in a US consular building in Jerusalem’s Arnona neighborhood while Washington searches for a permanent location. The interim embassy will contain office space for the ambassador and “a small staff,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said. By the end of next year, US intend to open a new embassy Jerusalem annex on the Arnona compound that will provide the ambassador and his team with expanded interim office space, Nauert added.

TAIWAN SEEKS ‘ NEW PHASE’ OF CHINA TIES IN RESHUFFLE

TAIPEI: Taiwan replaced its China affairs chief on Friday, promoting a minister associated with pro-independence politics in what it said was a bid to forge a “new phase” in relations with rival Beijing. Chen Ming-tong will take over the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) which oversees Taiwan’s relations with China. He previously served as head of the MAC from 2007 to 2008 under Taiwan’s former president Chen Shui-bian. Cabinet Spokesman Hsu Kuo-yung said that Chen “is familiar with cross-strait exchanges and he can also create a new phase and a new vision in cross-strait affairs by returning to the job.” Presidential secretary-general Joseph Wu, a confidant of Tsai with expertise in international and cross-strait relations, also became the new foreign minister. Analysts said the move, part of a major reshuffle, signaled a push by President Tsai Ing-wen to take a more assertive stance as ties with the Chinese government grow increasingly frosty. China still sees Taiwan as part of its territory to be reunified and has cut off official communications with Taipei as Tsai refuses to acknowledge the self-ruling, democratic island is part of “one China.”

INDONESIAN WOMAN MAULED TO DEATH BY CROCODILE

JAKARTA: A 66-year- old woman was mauled to death by a huge crocodile on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, police said on Saturday. The Indonesian woman’s family and neighbors launched a search after she failed to return home from a riverside garden near the remote village of Teluk Kuali in Jambi province earlier this week. Locals became suspicious she had been attacked after seeing a huge crocodile near a boat containing her belongings, police said. Jambi Police Spokesman Kuswahyudi Tresnadi said that the residents found the victim’s lifeless body floating on the edge of the river. The crocodile had eaten the lower half of her body and both hands, Tresnadi said. The Indonesian archipelago is home to a vast array of exotic wildlife, including several species of crocodile that regularly attack and kill humans. In April 2016, a Russian tourist was killed by a crocodile in the Raja Ampat islands, a popular diving site in the east of the archipelago.