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Ferdinand Marcos Jr will be sworn in as the Philippines' next president on Thursday, succeeding the outgoing leader Rodrigo Duterte, BBC reported.

Mr Marcos Jr - nicknamed Bong Bong - won 60% of the vote over rival Leni Robredo in a highly-watched election.

His win marks a stunning comeback for the Marcos political dynasty, which was ousted after a popular revolt in 1986. 

The daughter of the incumbent president, Sara Duterte, will be sworn in as vice-president.

Mr Marcos Jr will take his oath of office at midday local time (0400GMT) at the National Museum in Manila.

Hundreds of local and foreign dignitaries will attend and some 15,000 security personnel will be deployed across the Philippines capital for the event.

It comes just a few days after the Supreme Court in Manila ruled that convictions for tax evasion did not disqualify the new president from taking office.

The 64-year-old leader is inheriting a country still on the road to recovery from a years' long pandemic, and an economic outlook clouded by skyrocketing inflation and rising debt, according to BBC.

Critics say his sweeping promises to boost jobs and tackle rising prices have seen little discussion on actual policy reform. 

Some are also looking to Mr Marcos Jr to rehabilitate the country's image in the wake of Mr Duterte's term, which has been characterised by a bloody war on drugs policy and a tightening grip on press freedom. 

However a day before his inauguration, a Philippines regulator announced it was standing by its decision to shut down investigative news site Rappler - one of the few media outlets in the Philippines that is critical of Rodrigo Duterte's government.

Mr Marcos Jr's inauguration marks the culmination of a decades-long struggle by the Marcoses to reclaim their political glory. 

His father Ferdinand led the country from 1965 until 1986, imposing martial law and presiding over a period of widespread human rights abuses, corruption and poverty.

That rule ended in 1986, when a mass uprising saw millions of people take to the streets and the Marcos family - including a 28-year-old Bongbong - fled the country for Hawaii.

The long-time politician, who returned to the Philippines in 1991, has since sought to paint his father's presidency as a "golden period" of growth and prosperity.

Mr Marcos Jr's popularity was buoyed by an aggressive social media drive, which proved especially appealing to voters not old enough to have experienced the years of dictatorship first-hand.

Meanwhile, critics levelled accusations that his social media campaign was rife with misinformation and whitewashed atrocities under his father's rule. He has denied these allegations, BBC reported. 

His election campaign was also boosted by having Sara Duterte as his running mate, merging two political dynasties' strongholds - the Marcoses in northern Philippines and the Dutertes in the southern Mindanao island.

Lumbini Province State Minister for Health Bimala Kumari Oli resigned from her post on Wednesday.

Chief Minister Kul Prasad KC informed the Province Assembly meeting that Oli tendered her resignation on Sunday.

The Chief Minister said that her resignation has already been approved.

Earlier on June 14, police arrested Oli after a complaint was lodged against her for misbehaving with the wife and daughter of YCL leader of Dang Ek Raj Basnet.

Later, the province government formed a three-member committee to investigate the incident.

As political parties mull over the possibility of parliamentary elections in the second week of November, talks of a left alliance are also gathering momentum. And there is a murmur in the political circles that China, once again, is striving to unite Nepal’s communist forces.

It is no secret that Beijing desires a favorable government in Kathmandu—one led by the left, that is. India, the US and the Western countries, meanwhile, want to curtail China’s influence over Nepal. 

A Maoist leader tells ApEx that the bitter experience of dealing with the present Congress-led government may have prompted the Chinese to revive the idea of broad left unity and communist government in Kathmandu. 

Chinese policymakers believe Sher Bahadur Deuba’s Nepali Congress-led government has deviated from Nepal’s long-standing policy of balanced ties with neighbors.

Beijing also wants to implement all the agreements signed between China and Nepal, which will be possible only with a communist government in Kathmandu. If the current five-party coalition remains intact, the Congress could lead the government again, an outcome that won’t be to China’s liking. 

Foreign policy analyst Rupak Sapkota says key external forces are keenly watching ongoing debates on possible alliances. Some of them, according to him, are in favor of giving continuity to the current coalition.   

“China obviously wants communist parties to come together and is encouraging the same. That said, our own political forces will have the decisive role in whether that happens,” he says. 

Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal has of late hinted at the possibility of allying with the UML. However, Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba believes that the Maoist leader is playing the ‘left alliance card’ just to roil political waters. The prime minister is not ready to sign a power-sharing agreement with the Maoist party in a hurry, unlike in 2017 when Dahal ditched him to side with the UML. 

The acrimonious breakup of the erstwhile Nepal Communist Party (NCP), which was born out of merger between Dahal’s CPN (Maoist Center) and Oli’s UML, is reason enough for Deuba to not give in to the Maoist demand. 

Still, there are leaders in both the Maoist party and the UML who continue to push for a left alliance, never mind the lack of trust between Dahal and UML chairman KP Oli. A Maoist leader says Dahal suspects Oli of working behind the scenes to break the current alliance and force the Maoist party to contest elections alone. 

“Dahal’s suspicion emanates from the fact that Oli didn’t adhere to the power-sharing agreement before. Dahal is worried that he could be betrayed again,” says the Maoist leader. 

He adds that Dahal would this time agree to a left alliance or unity only if there is “a clear deal on government and party leadership”. 

Bishnu Rijal, UML Central Committee member, says the time is not ripe for the left bonhomie, with the Maoist party still in a formal alliance with the NC.

“Any talk of a left alliance now increases the Maoists’ bargaining power,” Rijal says. “At the same time, there is a strong opinion in the Maoists that alliance and cooperation among communist forces will be easier and more natural than with the Congress.” 

Rijal says there can be meaningful talks on the left alliance only after the Maoist party pulls out of the current coalition.

The Maoists and the UML have not stopped exploring the possibility of an alliance though. In recent months, their leaders have been in constant communication. Just a few days back, senior Maoist leader Narayan Kaji Shrestha met Oli to discuss the possibility of a left alliance. Pradeep Kumar Gyawali and Barsha Man Pun, close confidants of Oli and Dahal, respectively, also held similar talks. 

The Maoists are better placed to bargain with both the NC and the UML after the party increased its seat number in the local elections in May. Perhaps for the same reason the UML leaders seem more amenable to the idea of a left alliance these days than they were before the local polls. 

Oli himself said recently that anything was possible but that the party should also be ready to contest polls alone. There are also strong voices inside the UML that argue that the party could find itself out of power for the next five years without the left alliance. 

In order to strengthen his bargaining power, Dahal too is in consultations with the breakaway factions of the mother Maoist party he leads. He has reached out to the splinter parties led by Netra Bikram Chand and Mohan Baidya, offering the carrot of Maoist reunification.  

Dahal’s own rank and file are putting pressure on him on left unification. He is said to have delayed the process of appointing party’s office-bearers with the possible unification with other Maoist outfits in mind.

Amid the intrigue surrounding the left alliance, China seems to be making a gentle push.

Beijing is more circumspect about pushing communist leaders to come together because of the backlash it faced in the past. The close engagement between the CPC and Nepal’s communist party had left an impression that China was interfering in Nepal’s internal affairs. This is also one of the reasons ties between Congress and China soured. This time, China is not in a mood to make enemies in Kathmandu.   

On June 24, Liu Jianchao, Minister of the International Liaison Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, held separate video conversations with Dahal and Oli. 

According to a readout issued by the Chinese Communist Party (CPC), all bilateral issues including Belt and Road Initiatives were discussed. The Chinese leader said Beijing was willing to work with Nepal to implement the important consensus reached between the leaderships of the two countries, deepen political trust, promote major projects, cooperate in various fields under the framework of the Belt and Road, and push friendship across. He also talked about “enhancing the party-to-party relations”.

Last time, China had failed to convince the Maoists and the UML to stay together. And after the two parties split, it tried to unsuccessfully convince the Congress that it would not deal with Nepal on the basis of ideology. 

Beijing does not want to repeat that mistake. This time, it has taken a more cautious approach on the left unity. Most notably, China’s ambassador in Kathmandu has not been seen making the rounds of the houses of top communist leaders, ‘urging’ them to mend fences.

Donald Trump rebuffed his own security’s warnings about armed protesters in the Jan. 6 rally crowd and made desperate attempts to join his supporters as they marched to the Capitol, according to dramatic new testimony Tuesday before the House committee investigating the 2021 insurrection, Associated Press reported.

Cassidy Hutchinson, a little-known former White House aide, described an angry, defiant president that day who was trying to let armed protesters avoid security screenings at a rally that morning to protest his 2020 election defeat and who later grabbed at the steering wheel of the presidential SUV when the Secret Service refused to let him go to the Capitol.

And when the events at the Capitol spiraled toward violence, with the crowd chanting to “Hang Mike Pence,” she testified that Trump declined to intervene.

Trump “doesn’t think they’re doing anything wrong,” Hutchinson recalled hearing from her boss, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.

Hutchinson’s explosive, moment-by-moment account of what was happening inside and outside the White House offered a vivid description of a president so unwilling to concede his 2020 election defeat to Joe Biden that he acted out in rage and refused to stop the siege at the Capitol. It painted a damning portrait of the chaos at the White House as those around the defeated president splintered into one faction supporting his false claims of voter fraud and another trying unsuccessfully to put an end to the violent attack.

Her testimony, at a surprise hearing announced just 24 hours earlier, was the sole focus at the hearing, the sixth by the committee this month. The account was particularly powerful because of her proximity to power, with Hutchinson describing what she witnessed first-hand and was told by others in the White House, according to Associated Press.

Hutchinson said that she was told Trump fought a security official for control of the presidential SUV on Jan. 6 and demanded to be taken the Capitol as the insurrection began, despite being warned earlier that day that some of his supporters were armed.

The former aide said she was told of the altercation in the SUV immediately afterward by a White House security official, and that Bobby Engel, the head of the detail, was in the room and didn’t dispute the account. Engel had grabbed Trump’s arm to prevent him from gaining control of the armored vehicle, she was told, and Trump then used his free hand to lunge at Engel.

That account was quickly disputed. Engel, the agent who was driving the presidential SUV, and Trump security official Tony Ornato are willing to testify under oath that no agent was assaulted and Trump never lunged for the steering wheel, a person familiar with the matter said. The person would not discuss the matter publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

As the events of Jan. 6 unfurled, Hutchinson, then a special assistant to Meadows, described chaos in White House offices and hallways. Trump’s staff — several of whom had been warned of violence beforehand — became increasingly alarmed as rioters at the Capitol overran police and interrupted the certification of Biden’s victory.

Trump was less concerned, she said, even as he heard there were cries in the crowd to “Hang Mike Pence!” Hutchinson recalled that Meadows told aides that Trump “thinks Mike deserves it.” The president tweeted during the attack that Pence didn’t have the courage to object to Biden’s win as he presided over the joint session of Congress, Associated Press reported.

The young ex-aide was matter-of-fact in most of her answers. But she did say that she was “disgusted” at Trump’s tweet about Pence during the siege. 

“It was unpatriotic, it was un-American, and you were watching the Capitol building get defaced over a lie,” Hutchinson said, adding that, “I still struggle to work through the emotions of that.” 

Trump denied much of what Hutchinson said on his social media platform, Truth Social. He called her a “total phony” and “bad news.” 

Members of the panel praised Hutchinson’s bravery for testifying and said that other witnesses had been intimidated and did not cooperate.

“I want all Americans to know that what Ms. Hutchinson has done today is not easy,” said Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, a Republican who led questioning.

Some of Hutchinson’s former colleagues, too, dcfended her account. Mick Mulvaney, who preceded Meadows as Trump’s chief of staff, tweeted that he knows Hutchinson and “I don’t think she is lying.” Sarah Matthews, a former Trump press aide who has also cooperated with the committee, called the testimony “damning.” 

As she described the scene in the White House after the election, Hutchinson depicted a president flailing in anger and prone to violent outbursts. Some aides sought to rein in his impulses. Some did not.

At one point on Jan. 6, Hutchinson said, White House counsel Pat Cipollone barreled down the hallway and confronted Meadows about rioters breaching the Capitol. Meadows, staring at his phone, told the White House lawyer that Trump didn’t want to do anything, she said, Associated Press reported.

Earlier, Cipollone had worried out loud that “we’re going to get charged with every crime imaginable” if Trump went to the Capitol after his speech at the rally, Hutchinson recalled. 

Before the crowd left for the Capitol, Hutchinson said she also received an angry call from House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, who had just heard the president say he was coming. “Don’t come up here,” McCarthy told her, before hanging up. 

Hutchinson told the panel that Trump had been informed early in the day that some of the protesters outside the White House had weapons. But he responded that the protesters were “not here to hurt me,” Hutchinson said.