More than a year after a mysterious group of hackers infiltrated the SWIFT system for interbank payments and stole $100 million from the Central Bank of Bangladesh’s custody account at the New York Fed, Filipino authorities have been unable to recover $81 million that seemingly disappeared into the Manila air.
Update: According to Site Intel Group, an Islamic State operative has indicated IS is responsibile for the Resorts World Manila Attack.
IS Operative Indicates IS Responsibility for Resorts World Manila Attack https://t.co/El4GWUHE3s
— SITE Intel Group (@siteintelgroup) June 1, 2017
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A 70-year-old German sailor caught in the conflict in southern Philippines has been beheaded by ISIL affiliated Islamist militant group Abu Sayyaf. A video posted online by the terrorism monitoring group SITE shows the German pensioner being beheaded after a ransom deadline set by his captors expired.
The Philippines President issued a scathing attack on the Catholic Church, calling it corrupt, “full of sh*t,” and accusing priests of sexual abuse. Rodrigo Duterte said on Tuesday that he had been abused by a priest when he wasa student of Ateneo de Davao University and also said three Cabinet secretaries had been molested. RT reports: Speaking to the families of Special Action Forces who died in Mamasapano in 2015, Duterte advised the crowd to read “Altar of Secrets” by Aries Rufo to discover the truth about church officials, saying he would resign if its allegations were untrue.
On Tuesday, in a surprising move confirming the ongoing pivot by the Philippines away from the US sphere of geopolitical influence, and toward the China-Russia axis, the Russian destroyer Admiral Tributs and sea tanker Boris Butomato unexpectedly arrived in the Philippines to conduct military training exercises in what the Russian media described as "an unprecedented navy-to-navy contact between the two nations."
Russian destroyer Admiral Tributs has docked at the Manila South Harbor