“You are doing great. Go ahead!”

This was what United States President-elect Donald Trump told President Rodrigo Duterte during their phone conversation on Dec. 2.

Duterte on Wednesday recalled that Trump told him to just focus on his war against illegal drugs because America had its own problems.

“President Duterte, you are doing great,” he recalled Trump telling him.

The Philippines had a strained relationship with the US after President Barack Obama criticised Duterte on his brutal war against illegal drugs.

Duterte did not like that Obama was interfering with the Philippines’ domestic affairs.

MANILA – Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Wednesday defended police officers who killed a detained mayor on a list of top drug suspects even after another law enforcement agency concluded the death was an extrajudicial killing.

The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) on Tuesday disputed a police account that the mayor from central Leyte Province, Rolando Espinosa, was killed in a shootout in a jail when police came to search for guns and drugs last month.

The bureau described Espinosa’s killing as a “rub out”. “I will have to defend them,” Duterte said during a ceremony at the main army base in the capital, Manila, referring to the police officers. “I will listen to the story and I will take it as the true version … because they are under me, I should believe them.” Earlier, Duterte had put Espinosa’s name on a list of top drug suspects. The mayor, who denied involvement in narcotics, was arrested on Oct. 5 on drugs and firearms charges.

Police said Espinosa and a fellow prisoner, Raul Yap, fired at a police team that had come to search their cells. Police returned fire and killed them.

Police say 2,004 people have been shot and killed by officers in self-defence during anti-drug operations since the president took office on July 1.

Espinosa’s killing was also investigated by senators, who doubted the police version of events because they said there were many inconsistencies in the official report and witness accounts.

Duterte said he did not believe the investigation done by the NBI because they had no credible witnesses. “As a matter of fact, I’m ready to go to jail for them, no problem,” he added.

Investigators have filed murder cases against 21 police officers in connection with Espinosa’s death.

MEUREUDU, Indonesia – The death toll from a powerful earthquake that struck western Indonesia Wednesday has nearly doubled to 97, the military said, as more bodies were pulled from the rubble of scores of shattered buildings.

The shallow 6.5-magnitude quake struck Pidie Jaya district in Aceh province at dawn as many in the mainly Muslim region on Sumatra island were preparing for morning prayers.

The death toll has steadily climbed as rescue crews search, often by hand, through the homes, mosques and shops reduced to ruins.

The earlier figure of 52 dead was revised up significantly by the Indonesian military, which has taken over responsibility for the search and rescue operation.

“So far 97 people have been killed and the number keeps growing,” Aceh military chief Tatang Sulaiman told AFP.

“When we retrieve bodies sometimes there’s five, sometimes 10 corpses.” More than 1,000 soldiers and about 900 police have been deployed to the worst-hit areas to set up shelters and evacuation points, he added.

Hundreds of houses and shops had been levelled by the quake, leaving countless people homeless and in need of basic supplies like food and water, officials said.

“The electricity is still off. Some places have generators, but there are not many,” local disaster agency head Puteh Manaf told AFP.

“If it rains there will be disease.” .

The sole hospital in Pidie Jaya was quickly overwhelmed, with patients treated on the grass out front or sent to neighbouring districts with better facilities.

The district health office chief Said Abdullah said nearly 200 injured had arrived since the quake, but many would not enter the hospital for fear of aftershocks.

“We are treating people outside. We took the beds out because nobody is daring enter the hospital,” he told AFP.

Another regional hospital had suffered serious damage in the quake, along with schools and other key infrastructure, a national disaster agency spokesman said.

In the hard-hit town of Meureudu, terrified residents rushed outside as their homes buckled and crumbled.

“Everything was destroyed,” said Hasbi Jaya, who pulled his two children unconscious from the rubble of their home.

“It was pitch black because the electricity was out. I looked around and all my neighbours’ homes were completely flattened.” An AFP correspondent said dazed residents were wandering debris-strewn streets, unable to return to their damaged homes in fear of aftershocks.

Some fled to higher ground for fear of a tsunami although no alert was issued.

A huge undersea earthquake in 2004 triggered a tsunami that engulfed parts of Aceh and other countries around the Indian Ocean, killing more than 170,000 people in Indonesia alone.

Indonesian seismologists said the latest earthquake was felt across much of Aceh province, with many aftershocks following the initial tremor.

The US Geological Survey upgraded the magnitude to 6.5 from an initial reading of 6.4 and issued a yellow alert for expected fatalities and damage.

Indonesia experiences frequent seismic and volcanic activity due to its position on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, where tectonic plates collide.

Aceh lies on the northern tip of Sumatra island, which is particularly prone to quakes.

In June a 6.5-magnitude quake struck off the west of Sumatra, damaging scores of buildings and injuring eight people.

ISLAMABAD – A Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) plane with about 47 people on board crashed in the mountainous north of the country on Wednesday, police and the civil aviation authority said.

PIA said a plane bound for the capital, Islamabad, from the northern town of Chitral lost contact with the control tower en route.

The aircraft was carrying “around 40 people”, the airline said in a statement, but the civil aviation authority said 47 people were on board. It is not clear if there were any casualties.

Laiq Shah, a senior police official in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, said the plane had crashed in the province’s Havelian area. “Rescue teams are reaching the scene of the crash, and then we will know more,” Civil Aviation Authority spokesman Pervez George told Reuters.

Geo News and Dawn News TV stations, citing civil aviation sources, said the plane lost contact with civil aviation authority at around 4.30 p.m. (1130 GMT).

MANILA/HONG KONG – Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has ordered the arrest of Jack Lam, one of Asia’s top casino kingpins, on charges of economic sabotage and bribery, according to the country’s police chief.

Philippine authorities said they have also shut down two properties in the country that are owned by Lam, a Chinese citizen and head of Hong Kong-listed Jimei International .

Lam is not in the Philippines currently, national police chief Ronald Dela Rosa told reporters on Wednesday.

Last month, Philippine immigration authorities detained about 1,200 Chinese men working in call centre-like facilities for running suspected online gambling operations out of a former US air base, Clark Field.

Dela Rosa said in a radio interview on Saturday that an associate of Lam tried to secure their release. He said Duterte then ordered Lam’s arrest.

On Wednesday, Dela Rosa said Lam had indicated to the authorities that he was willing to return to the Philippines and assist in any investigations. “The feelers were to me,” the police chief said.

Lam’s casino operations in the cities of Laoag, which is in northern Luzon, and Clark, just north of Manila, have been shut down, according to local authorities and the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp.

Jimei said in a statement on Tuesday that Lam’s gaming operations in the Philippines were personally owned and not part of the group’s business. “As at the date of this announcement, so far as the company is aware, Dr. Lam has not been held by the Philippine authorities,” it said.

Jimei did not respond to requests for comment.

Lam, who used to bring high rollers to Macau’s top casinos including Sands China and Wynn Macau, has faded from prominence over the past few years as Beijing’s crackdown on corruption has crippled so-called junket operations.

At the same time, Lam’s operations in the Philippines have grown, including a rise in Chinese nationals gambling online at his gaming site.

SEOUL – Friends and associates of the woman at the heart of a corruption scandal engulfing South Korean President Park Geun-Hye told a hearing Wednesday her influence extended to everything from Park’s wardrobe to senior appointments.

The impeachment-threatened Park has been accused of letting long-time confidante Choi Soon-Sil meddle in a wide range of state affairs, and of ordering aides to leak confidential documents to Choi, who has no official title or security clearance.

The president is also suspected of colluding with Choi in strong-arming major conglomerates into donating funds to two dubious foundations Choi controlled.

The scandal has sparked mass rallies across South Korea, with hundreds of thousands of protesters calling Park a “puppet” of the Choi family and demanding she resign immediately.

A major parliamentary hearing on the scandal has summoned the country’s most powerful business tycoons as well as Choi’s close associates, including a prominent K-pop video director and a fashion designer.

Cha Eun-Taek, who once made videos for “Gangnam Style” star Psy, said Choi had once asked him to recommend potential candidates for culture minister and for a presidential adviser on culture.

The names he put forward to Choi, including one of his uncles, ended up getting the jobs.

“So I thought…’What kind of person could possibly do something like this?'” Cha told lawmakers, describing Choi’s ties with Park as “extremely close”.

Cha also said Choi had often sought his written opinions on cultural issues. These were later included word-for-word in some of Park’s speeches.

Choi, whose influence over Park has led to her being called “Korea’s Rasputin”, has refused to testify to the investigative parliamentary committee despite warnings from lawmakers that she could be jailed for contempt.

Another member of her inner circle, a young designer named Koh Young-Tae whose relationship with Choi has been the subject of lurid media gossip, testified to the power Choi appeared to wield over senior administration officials.

He particularly noted her treatment of Kim Chong, a former vice sports minister who is now under arrest on charges of awarding lucrative contracts to Choi and trying to help her meddle in preparations for the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.

“Choi constantly gave orders to Kim… as if he was her personal assistant,” Koh told the televised hearing.

He also suggested Choi had controlled the president’s wardrobe choices, saying he provided Choi with about 100 items of clothing and up to 40 bags that he saw Park wearing in public for years.

At the start of Wednesday’s hearing, the chair of the parliamentary committee issued orders compelling Choi and members of her family to appear or face possible jail for contempt.

Choi had been slated to answer questions on Wednesday but refused the summons, citing health reasons and the need to prepare for her pending trial.

But Choi’s niece, seen as her close aide, made an appearance and was grilled for allegedly using Choi’s power to squeeze money from Samsung.

Samsung is accused of giving 1.6 billion won ($1.4 million) to a dubious sports foundation controlled by the niece, Jang Si-Ho, who was arrested last month for allegedly embezzling some of the funds.

Jang denied all accusations against her, saying she had only followed orders from her powerful aunt to whom she could not say no.

Samsung was the single biggest donor to Choi’s foundations, and also sent Choi millions of euros to fund her daughter’s equestrian training in Germany, in what critics describe as a bid to win policy favours.