Duterte prepared to cut ties with US, Australia

Trash-talking Philippine presidential favorite Rodrigo Duterte has warned he is prepared to cut diplomatic ties with the United States and Australia after their ambassadors criticized his joke about the jailhouse rape of a missionary. Duterte also told the ambassadors to “shut their mouths,” as controversy continued to rage over his comments in which he said he wanted to have been the first to rape the Australian woman who was brutalized and murdered in a 1989 prison riot. “If I become president, go ahead and sever it (diplomatic ties),” Duterte, 71, said on the campaign trial on Wednesday night, referring to the relationships with the United States and Australia, two of the Philippines’ closest allies. Duterte, who while campaigning has called the Pope a “son of a bitch” and promised to kill thousands of criminals, recounted at a recent rally the riot events as part of his tough-on-crime pitch to voters. [...]