A whale that ran aground was saved Monday in the city of Zhanjiang, south China’s Guangdong Province.

Local villagers found the five-meter-long grey-colored whale lying on the beach 20 meters away from the shoreline, breathing feebly due to dehydration and prolonged exposure to the scorching sun. More than 50 villagers, policemen and fishery officials joined in the rescue operation.

But the whale flapped its tail every time the rescuers tried to come near it.

People had to spray water onto the whale and called the fishery department and the border guards for help. Rescuers dug a ditch to channel the sea water to the side of the whale to help watering it before they moved it into the sea.

It took the rescuers more than an hour to help the whale swim deeper into the sea.

Jakarta – Southeast Asia faces a growing risk of extremist violence as Islamic State group supporters increasingly work together, but law enforcement agencies are unprepared for the new threat, a report warned Tuesday.

The main danger lies in the strife-torn southern Philippines, where a handful of Islamic extremist groups have sworn allegiance to IS, according to the report from think-tank the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC).

The groups have links to other parts of the region, particularly Indonesia and Malaysia, and IS has endorsed a Philippines-based militant as “amir”, or leader, for Southeast Asia, the report said.

“ISIS has deepened cooperation among extremist groups in Southeast Asia,” said the report, using another name for IS, adding the trend had widened the “extremist recruitment pool” and opened new channels for international funding and communication.

“More deadly violence in the Philippines involving alliances of pro-ISIS groups is a matter of when, not if. It may also increase the possibility of cross-border extremist operations.” However it noted that “most law enforcement agencies retain a strongly national orientation, without in-house expertise on groups outside their own borders”.

While IS is rapidly losing territory in Iraq and Syria, the effect may be to increase the risk of revenge attacks in Southeast Asia, said the report by Jakarta-based IPAC, headed by terrorism analyst Sidney Jones.

The warning came as the United States ambassador to Manila, Philip Goldberg, said Tuesday that America wants to remain involved in the campaign to quell Islamic militancy in the southern Philippines, after President Rodrigo Duterte threatened to kick out US forces.

Parts of Southeast Asia have long struggled with Islamic militancy and hundreds of radicals from the region have flocked to join IS.

Southeast Asians fighting for the jihadists have formed their own unit in the Middle East, called Katibah Nusantara, and are believed to be in regular contact with militants back home.

The region suffered its first IS attack in January when extremists launched a deadly suicide bombing and gun assault in Jakarta.

The IPAC report examined four pro-IS groups in the southern Philippine region of Mindanao and their links to neighbouring countries.

It said the Maute group, which is accused of carrying out a bombing in Duterte’s southern home town of Davao in September that killed 15 people, had the “smartest, best-educated and most sophisticated members”.

BANGKOK – Ousted Thai prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra can appeal a 35 billion baht (S$1.39 billion) fine imposed on her in connection with a rice-subsidy scheme, the junta chief said on Tuesday in his first public comment since the government ordered the fine.

Critics say the scheme, which paid farmers above-market rates for their rice, haemorrhaged billions of dollars.

Yingluck, whose government was ousted in a May 2014 military coup, was charged with criminal negligence over the rice scheme, a flagship policy of her administration, and is now fighting the charges in court.

She told reporters on Friday that she had received a notice ordering her to pay the $1 billion fine.

Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, who is also head of the junta, said that Yingluck can appeal the order and denied that the military government was singling her out. “If there is anything to clarify, then do that in court,”Prayuth told reporters. “Don’t do it through the media,” he said, referring to comments given by Yingluck to reporters about the fine. “I’m only responsible for bringing it into the justice system. I’m not one to say it is right or wrong, though there was a lot of damage caused,” Prayuth said.

Yingluck has repeatedly denied negligence and vowed last week to use “every channel available” to fight the fine.

She has 45 days to appeal the order.

The rice scheme was a populist policy engineered by Yingluck’s brother, former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was toppled in a 2006 coup and is living abroad to avoid a two-year prison sentence handed down in 2008 for graft in a land purchase case.

Supporters of Yingluck and Thaksin say the case against Yingluck is part of a military plan to wipe out the influence of the Shinawatra family.

The Shinawatras have dominated Thai politics for more than 15 years and still command loyalty in the largely agrarian north and northeast of the country.

SEOUL – South Korean President Park Geun-hye made a rare public apology on Tuesday for showing a friend drafts of speeches, as she sought to refocus attention on a proposal to amend the constitution so that presidents can serve more than one term.

Television network JTBC reported late on Monday that drafts of Park’s speeches from 2012 to early 2014 had been found in the computer used by the friend, Choi Soon-sil. The drafts were received hours and days before the remarks were publicly delivered.

During recent weeks, media reports have alleged that Choi wielded inappropriate influence over Park and that she used her acquaintance with the president to benefit her family and business partners.

Park said in a televised address from the presidential Blue House that she had received feedback from Choi early in her term over how well she was communicating ideas, but said she had stopped seeking this advice once her office was fully staffed. “I had done it out of the sincere intention to be more meticulous in looking over things, but whatever the intention was, I am sorry I have caused concern among the people and caused alarm and heartache,” she said, bowing deeply.

The reports of the speeches came hours after Park delivered proposals for constitutional amendment to allow presidents to serve multiple terms or establish a parliamentary system, saying the single-term presidency has served its purpose.

The reports suggesting Choi had early access to Park’s speeches and personnel decisions before they were made public immediately dominated the news cycle, however, overshadowing the president’s major reform proposal.

The controversy has led some opposition members of parliament to question Park’s motive for making a sudden proposal as significant as constitutional reform, although it was welcomed by her Saenuri Party.

Currently, South Korean presidents are barred from serving more than one five-year term.

Choi was seen in photographs with Park from 1979 when the president, as eldest daughter of then-President Park Chung-hee, was filling in for her mother who had been killed five years earlier by an assassin who had meant to kill her father.

Her father, who took power in a military coup in 1961, was shot dead by his disgruntled spy chief later in 1979.

Choi was someone “who gave me help when I was going through a difficult time,” Park said in her brief televised address.

Park, whose term ends in February 2018, is suffering her lowest public support ratings since she took office in 2013.