Second Philippine mayor shot dead
Manila, July 4 : A second Philippines town mayor has been shot dead by an unknown assailant, a day after another mayor was assassinated by a sniper in a brazen daylight attack, police said on Wednesday.
Mayor Ferdinand Bote of the town of General Tinio in Nueva Ecija province was gunned down by a motorcycle-riding suspect in nearby Cabanatuan City on Tuesday afternoon, the police told CNN Philippines.
Bote was struck multiple times while riding in his SUV.
He was declared dead on arrival at a hospital and an investigation has been launched.
"We assure everyone that we would discharge the state obligation for every murder. We will spare no effort in getting to the bottom of this latest violent crime," presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said.
The killing comes just over 24 hours after Tanauan City Mayor Antonio Halili was killed by a single shot to the chest while attending a flag-raising ceremony.
Halili was a controversial ally of President Rodrigo Duterte who gained notoriety for his policy of parading people arrested for drug offences, reports CNN.
It was revealed on Monday that Halili had been stripped of his authority over local police in October 2017 on an order from the Department of Interior, according to Police Chief Superintendent Renato Mercado.
It remains unclear if the two deaths are linked.
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India's Koneru Humpy grabs historic Rapid chess world title for the second time
New York (PTI): India’s Koneru Humpy bagged an epochal second World Rapid Chess Championship title, beating Irene Sukandar of Indonesia here on Sunday.
Humpy had won the event back in 2019 at Georgia and the Indian No 1 is only the second player after China’s Ju Wenjun to clinch the title more than once.
The 37-year-old Humpy finished the tournament with 8.5 out of 11 points.
“I’m very excited and I feel very happy. In fact, I expected it to be a very tough day, like some sort of tie-break. But when I finished the game, I only got to know when the arbitrator told me, and it was a tense moment for me,” said Humpy, who began with black pieces, after her victory.
“So, this is quite unexpected because the whole year I have been struggling a lot and I had very bad tournaments where I just ended up in last place. So, this came as a surprise,” she added.
Humpy’s achievement capped a sensational year for Indian chess after D Gukesh defeated China’s Ding Liren to emerge champion in the classical format World Championship recently in Singapore. In September, India had won its first-ever gold medals in Open and Women's categories in the Chess Olympiad in Budapest.
The seasoned Humpy admitted that she was not thinking about the title after her first-round defeat here.
“I think, after the first round loss, I was nowhere thinking about the title, but things turned out well, especially yesterday winning the four games in a row helped me,” she said.
However, Humpy faced some challenges off the board too as well because of the big time-gap between India and the USA.
“Yeah, off the board, it was very difficult for me because of the time difference. I was lacking sleep. Literally, I haven't slept properly since coming here. So, it wasn't easy to play restlessly, but I'm happy that I managed to do it,” she added.
Humpy has always excelled in the Rapid worlds as she had won a bronze medal in the 2012 edition of the event held in Moscow, while finished with a silver last year at Samarkand, Uzbekistan.
Humpy said her victory will now prompt other Indians to take up chess.
“I think it's high time for India. We also have Gukesh as world champion and now I got the second world title in the rapid event. So, I think this will motivate a lot of youngsters to take up chess professionally,” she concluded.
Murzin wins men’s title
Later, the 18-year-old Volodar Murzin of Russia bagged the corresponding title in the men's section.
Murzin is the the second-youngest FIDE World Rapid Champion, after Nodirbek Abdusattorov, who claimed the title at 17.
