Container ship M/V Bavaria, with tonnes of garbage on board, has left Subic Bay on a 20-day journey to Vancouver
The Philippines has made good on a threat by President Rodrigo Duterte and put 69 containers of what its officials called illegally transported garbage on a ship that is heading to Canada.
The nation is one of two in south-east Asia that have protested being treated like dumpsites by wealthier countries.
Continue reading...Jeepneys are being phased to help ease city congestion, but the move will also cause unemployment for experienced drivers – and higher fares for commuters
Continue reading...Region begins pushback against deluge of plastic and electronic waste from UK, US and Australia
For the past year, the waste of the world has been gathering on the shores of south-east Asia. Crates of unwanted rubbish from the west have accumulated in the ports of the Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam while vast toxic wastelands of plastics imported from Europe and the US have built up across Malaysia.
But not for much longer it seems. A pushback is beginning, as nations across south-east Asia vow to send the garbage back to where it came from.
Continue reading...Loyalists’ victories in midterm elections will hand populist president more power
The architect of Rodrigo Duterte’s brutal campaign against illegal drugs in the Philippines has almost certainly won a senate seat in the country’s midterm elections, prompting concerns among victims’ groups.
Former police chief Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa is among Duterte’s allies who were on track to take nine of 12 open seats in the upper house, with 95% of ballots counted. The senate has previously been a bulwark against some of the president’s most controversial proposals.
Continue reading...Unofficial results show president’s allies have won nine key upper house seats, traditionally a bulwark against his controversial policies
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s allies were poised for victory in midterm polls, according to unofficial results on Tuesday, signalling firm approval of his policies and clearing a path for his most controversial plans.
Duterte’s deadly drug war has drawn international censure, but is central to the populist appeal that has buoyed his remarkable popularity among Filipinos since taking the presidency in 2016.
Continue reading...At least six widows are taking up the political fight in this year’s midterm elections
At least six widows of slain male politicians are standing in the Philippines’ midterm elections, extending a decades-long tradition of women in the country refusing to let their murdered spouses’ agendas die with them.
“I have a lot of things to do for Rodel, for the people of Daraga,” said Gertrudes Batocabe, who took over her late husband Rodel’s mayor candidacy in the central Philippines city of Daraga when he was shot dead in December. “It’s not really automatic that the wife takes over, but in this case I cannot see my opponents sitting down,” she told AFP.
Continue reading...Election seen as referendum on president’s policies, with critics of the government fearing president’s grip on power will tighten
Filipinos have started voting in midterm polls that are being seen as a crucial referendum on Rodrigo Duterte’s brutal crackdown on illegal drugs, unorthodox style and contentious embrace of China.
The poll is expected to strengthen the controversial president’s grip on power, paving the way for him to deliver on pledges to restore the death penalty and rewrite the constitution.
Continue reading...Top official condemns lack of focus on record 41 million people left homeless in their own countries after fleeing violence
Record numbers of people have been forced from their homes by conflict in a crisis that has received “pitiful” international attention, the head of the Norwegian Refugee Council has said.
A total of 41.3 million people were living in a state of internal displacement by the end of 2018 due to violence, researchers for the organisation found, with increasing numbers unable to return home for protracted periods. This is a rise of more than a million on the previous year.
Continue reading...Rumour-mongers in Binalonan face £3 fines and three hours litter-picking if they indulge in local tittle-tattle
When the lethargic heat of summer set in, the residents of Binalonan, a small town in the Philippines, used togather under the trees and share stories about their neighbours, swapping titbits about rumoured scandals, affairs, bankruptcies and divorces.
But no longer. In local law imposed on the town, which is north of the capital Manila, such gossip, or “chismis’” as it is known in the Philippines, is now illegal.
Continue reading...The fight for communism is alive in the mountains of the Philippines, where the New People’s Army is celebrating 50 years since it took up arms. The armed wing of the Communist party of the Philippines is the oldest fighting communist guerrilla force in Asia
Continue reading...Homo luzonensis fossils found in Luzon island cave, dating back up to 67,00 years
A new species of ancient human, thought to have been under 4ft tall and adapted to climbing trees, has been discovered in the Philippines, providing a twist in the story of human evolution.
The specimen, named Homo luzonensis, was excavated from Callao cave on Luzon island in the northern Philippines and has been dated to 50,000-67,000 years ago – when our own ancestors and the Neanderthals were spreading across Europe and into Asia.
Continue reading...One Indonesian captive survives, one drowns and a Malaysian shot dead during military rescue attempt
An Indonesian hostage held by Islamist militants in the southern Philippines has swum his way to freedom but another drowned, while a Malaysian captive was shot in the back while escaping.
The two Indonesians and the Malaysian separately escaped while Philippine marines were attempting to rescue them on Simusa island in southern Sulu province in the past two days, regional military spokesman Lt Col Gerry Besana said.
Continue reading...Court dismisses solicitor general’s claim that national security could be undermined
The Philippine supreme court on Tuesday ordered the release of police documents on the killing of thousands of suspects during the president’s drug crackdown, in a ruling that could shed light on allegations of extrajudicial punishment.
Supreme court spokesman Brian Keith Hosaka said the court ordered the solicitor general to hand the police reports to two rights groups which had sought them. The 15-member court, whose justices are meeting in northern Baguio city, has yet to rule on a separate petition to declare President Rodrigo Duterte’s anti-drug campaign unconstitutional.
Continue reading...At dawn, Reymark Cavesirano makes a perilous journey out to sea to meet the fishing boats in a bid to help his family survive
Photographs: Ted Aljibe/AFP/Getty Images
Continue reading...Global policy on drug control is unrealistic, and has taken a harsh toll on millions of the world’s poorest people
Drug control efforts across the world are a threat to human dignity and the right to life.
In 2017, more than 70,000 people died from a drug overdose in the US. Among the reasons for these deaths are the lack of access to health and harm-reduction services, as well as the fear of legal repression, which often dissuades people who use drugs from asking for help.
Continue reading...Iran reforms drive 90% fall in death penalty worldwide, but report warns hardline approach to minor cases violates human rights
Global efforts to abolish the death penalty are in danger of being undermined by anti-drug governments that use capital punishment to enforce a zero-tolerance approach, experts have warned.
The caution comes even though the number of people sentenced to death for drug offences around the world has actually fallen by nearly 90% over the past four years, according to a study by Harm Reduction International, with 91 known deaths last year compared with 755 in 2015.
Continue reading...Regional trend sees criminal law repeatedly weaponised to target journalists and muzzle free and fair reporting
Standing on the court steps earlier this month after spending a night in detention, Philippine journalist Maria Ressa spoke defiantly to the dozens of gathered cameras. This was, she pointed out, the sixth time she had posted bail in the space of 18 months. “I will pay more bail than convicted criminals,” said Ressa. “I will pay more bail than Imelda Marcos.”
Ressa, the editor and founder of Rappler, a Philippine online news outlet which has been highly critical of president Rodrigo Duterte, has borne the brunt of a targeted crackdown on opposition media in the Philippines, a country which just two years ago was considered something of a beacon of free press in south-east Asia.
Continue reading...Philippines president Duterte government accused of shameless persecution
The editor of an online newspaper in the Philippines has been arrested on charges of cyber-libel as part of what the country’s journalists’ union said was a campaign of intimidation against voices critical of President Rodrigo Duterte.
Speaking from the headquarters of news website Rappler on Wednesday before she was taken away by four plainclothes officers, Maria Ressa said she was not intimidated. “These legal acrobatics show how far the government will go to silence journalists, including the pettiness of forcing me to spend the night in jail,” she added.
Continue reading...Pope Francis’s visit to the United Arab Emirates this week will be greeted enthusiastically. Some 120,000 people are expected to turn out for his mass in a sports stadium in Abu Dhabi – as many as turned out in Dublin when he travelled to historically Catholic Ireland last year. The first visit by a pontiff to the Arabian peninsula, the birthplace of Islam, highlights the complications of the religious situation in the Middle East, and more widely the issues of Christian-Muslim relations.
There may be as many as 2 million Christians in the Middle East today. Despite nearly 16 years of war and sometimes brutal persecution in the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq, many remain in the lands that were the cradle of Christianity. In part this is because it is still made as hard as possible for them to leave the region. The Christians of Iraq have largely been driven from their homes by persecution, as have some of the Christians of Syria, where a number have taken the side of the Assad dictatorship. But they have ended up in refugee camps rather than reaching notionally Christian Europe.
Continue reading...South-east Asia has three countries in the top five, while Japan comes in last
South-east Asia is one of the most internet-addicted regions on the planet, with the Philippines topping the global list with an average 10 hours and 2 minutes of screen time every day.
The country was joined in the top five by Thailand and Indonesia, according to findings in a new report on online habits released by HootSuite and We Are Social.
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