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carolinehayter

He Killed a Transgender Woman in the Philippines. Why Was He Freed? - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...nes-marine-pardon-duterte.html

transgender politics LGBTQ+ law

shared by carolinehayter on 21 Sep 20 - No Cached
  • And she died shortly after 11 p.m. on Oct. 11, 2014, in a motel room in Olongapo, a port city about 100 miles north and west of Manila in the Philippines, at the hands of an American she had met earlier that evening at a nightclub, a Marine who was in the country for joint military exercises.
  • After discovering that Laude was transgender, Lance Cpl. Joseph Scott Pemberton, who was 19 at the time, choked her and pushed her head into a toilet bowl until she drowned. Then he took a taxi across town to Subic Bay, where his ship was docked, and, according to a shipmate who later testified in court, admitted what he had just done.
  • found guilty of homicide, a charge downgraded by the judge from murder, and was sentenced by the Olongapo Regional Trial Court to six to 12 years in prison, which was later reduced to a 10-year maximum on appeal.
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  • It marked a major victory in the eyes of human rights advocates in the country who have been fighting to hold American service members accountable for violence against Filipina women — which they see as a byproduct of the U.S. military’s 120-year presence
  • With the Pemberton conviction, it seemed that justice was finally moving in the right direction.
  • But on Sept. 13, Pemberton was put aboard a U.S. military cargo plane and flown out of the Philippines, a free man. A week earlier, President Rodrigo Duterte made the bombshell announcement that he had granted Pemberton an absolute pardon, nullifying the Marine’s sentence after less than six years served.
  • After the guilty verdict was announced, the judge ordered Pemberton to start serving his sentence at New Bilibid Prison, the largest detention facility in the Philippines, where more than 26,000 convicted men sleep in crowded cell blocks, disease festers and temperatures can reach over 100 degrees in the summer. But that detention order was revised just hours later
  • the presidential pardon came just hours after Duterte’s own administration filed a motion to block a court order that would have freed the Marine on other grounds.
  • the recent developments have seen the case deteriorate into an apparent tool for political leverage rather than justice
  • “This should give us a lesson that the U.S. has no respect for our sovereignty,” Virginia Lacsa Suarez, the attorney for the Laude family, told The New York Times in response to the court order to release Pemberton that was issued even before the pardon. “It shows that the U.S. looks down on us, that the U.S. does not even respect our laws.
  • From the beginning, the United States maintained an influence over the Pemberton case, despite the Philippines’ jurisdiction over crimes committed by U.S. service members. In 2014, Pemberton was first questioned by the United States Naval Criminal Investigative Service instead of Philippine police, and he was initially held onboard his ship, the U.S.S. Peleliu, anchored in Subic Bay, and then under U.S. guard at a Philippine military base, instead of in a Philippine jail. After he was arrested, the Marine Corps hired an attorney to represent him and paid all his legal fees, which had exceeded $550,000 by this fall
  • The pardon is the final chapter of a polarizing, high-profile case that has cost the U.S. Marine Corps more than half a million dollars and provoked debate over decades-old defense treaties between the two countries.
  • brought back bitter memories for Filipinos of another case in which a U.S. Marine was accused of rape. In 2006, Lance Cpl. Daniel Smith received a 40-year prison sentence for raping Suzette Nicolas
  • The agreement grants the United States considerable privileges toward determining where convicted American personnel will be detained, and Pemberton remained in a private air-conditioned cell fashioned from a shipping container at Camp Aguinaldo, a Philippine military base where he was monitored by two guards from the Philippine Bureau of Corrections and a steady rotation of U.S. service members. Pemberton’s rank remained unchanged and he continued receiving his monthly salary of about $2,300, totaling more than $160,000 since the killing.
  • Smith was held briefly in a Philippine jail, but after the United States canceled a joint military exercise in the Philippines, he was handed over to the U.S. Embassy. Smith remained at the embassy for more than two years, until Nicolas unexpectedly recanted her accusation and Smith was acquitted and returned home.
  • Duterte was always likely to take a pragmatic approach to Pemberton’s release. “He’s willing to engage with us, but it’s not his first preference in most situations,” Schaus says. “But when an opportunity presents itself to advance his priorities in a way that is palatable to him, he’s willing to entertain it
  • From the get-go, it was fishy,
  • Garcia-Flores had submitted a motion under the Philippines’ Good Conduct Time Allowance law, and Judge Roline Ginez-Jabalde, the same official who convicted Pemberton in 2015, ruled that the Marine was free to go, on the grounds that he had already served almost six years and had earned four years off his sentence for good behavior while in custody.
  • “A crime happened, and Pemberton paid for it under the Philippine law without any special privileges,” Garcia-Flores says. “If people think that he’s being given some special treatment, they are wrong.”
  • Suarez immediately moved to oppose Pemberton’s release, and so did the Department of Justice, arguing that only the Bureau of Corrections, not the Philippine courts, had the authority to determine whether Pemberton deserved time off his sentence for good conduct
  • Duterte met with Secretary of Justice Menardo Guevarra to discuss his constitutional right to grant an absolute pardon. At 4:51 p.m. the same day, Duterte’s secretary of foreign affairs, Teodoro Locsin Jr., announced the pardon in a tweet. “If there is a time when you are called upon to be fair, be fair,” Dutuerte said later in a televised address.
  • The news drew protests as the president’s critics took to social media and the streets, organizing demonstrations in Manila to voice their anger at Duterte’s decision. Many members of the L.G.B.T.Q. community thought the president was sending a signal that the Philippine government doesn’t believe that the lives of transgender women are important.
  • Beyond the question of whether the pardon was an anti-trans reaction by Duterte, it may have also been a strategic move to gain an advantage in relations with the United States
  • In February, Duterte gave notice that he was terminating the Visiting Forces Agreement, a move that many interpreted as a response to the U.S. State Department revoking the visa of Senator Ronald dela Rosa, the former National Police chief widely regarded as the architect of the administration’s notoriously violent war on drugs. Then in June, Duterte confirmed that he wouldn’t be canceling the agreement for at least another six months, and in July, dela Rosa announced that the United States would be reinstating his visa.
  • Despite Duterte’s outwardly critical stance toward the United States, relations between the two countries remain strong.
  • It’s the latest in more than $1.5 billion in arms that Duterte’s administration has moved to purchase from the United States this year, despite calls from Human Rights Watch for Congress to block the sales, citing the Philippine armed forces’ lengthy history of military and human rights abuses
  • “In both cases, there are many forces trying to undermine the testimonies of the victims, or the witnesses or their families,
  • necessary precautions in countries where the United States wants to maintain a strategic presence — including the Philippines, a key player in responding to China’s rising power in the western Pacific.
  • The Visiting Forces Agreement ensures that the two countries have a predetermined process to be followed if a service member is arrested and charged with a crime, when tensions are likely to be high.
  • Upon leaving the Philippines on Sunday, Pemberton was brought to Camp Smith in Hawaii. “The Marine Corps is taking appropriate administrative action,” Perrine said. He was unable to indicate whether Pemberton will be demoted, or if he will be given a less-than-honorable discharge.
mimiterranova

Powerful Typhoon Goni Slams The Philippines, Leaving At Least 10 Dead And 3 Missing : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...g-at-least-10-dead-and-3-missi

philippines storm dead missing

shared by mimiterranova on 02 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • Recovery efforts are underway in the Philippines after Super Typhoon Goni brought flooding, mudslides and strong winds to its largest island early Sunday morning. The storm, whose maximum wind speeds earned it the distinction of the year's most powerful cyclone, left at least 10 people dead and three missing.
  • Ahead of the storm, the international airport in Manila closed for 24 hours starting on Sunday. And nearly one million residents were preemptively evacuated, a process further complicated by the coronavirus pandemic — Johns Hopkins University puts the number of confirmed cases in the hard-hit Philippines at more than 383,000.
  • The storm intensified rapidly on Friday, adding 80 miles per hour to its maximum sustained winds in just 24 hours. Peak winds were estimated at 195 mph prior to landfall, which is equivalent to a Category 5 hurricane.
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  • Goni was the 18th tropical cyclone to hit the country this year, which faces an average of 20 typhoons annually. And number 19 could come later this week: Tropical Storm Atsan, officials said, entered the Philippine Area of Responsibility early Sunday.
  • Citing local officials, Reuters reported that the 10 recorded fatalities and three people reported missing were all in the region of Bicol, which encompasses the southern part of Luzon. Nine of those deaths were in the province of Albay.
  • The AP reports that in one Albay community, the typhoon triggered volcanic mudflows that "engulfed" about 150 houses.
  • Philadelphia officials issued a citywide curfew on Wednesday after consecutive nights of protests — which at times turned violent — following the fatal police shooting of a 27-year-old Black man, Walter Wallace Jr. He was holding a knife when police shot him.
  • "By looting, people are not only hurting retail businesses that have struggled in the midst of the pandemic, but they're doing a great disservice to the many others who want to exercise their First Amendment rights by protesting,"
  • City officials said Wednesday afternoon that 81 people had been arrested during the previous night's demonstrations, including 53 for burglary, seven for disorderly conduct and eight accused of assaulting police.
  • Police will soon release 911 tapes, body camera footage
  • City officials urged residents in certain districts to remain indoors Tuesday night due to "widespread demonstrations that have turned violent with looting."
  • A racially diverse crowd came together Tuesday evening at Malcolm X Park, not far from the West Philadelphia neighborhood where Wallace was killed.
  • The gathering featured speeches and preceded a march, Philadelphia member station WHYY reported, adding that one speaker noted there were "far too many comfortable white people here tonight."
  • "Stop this looting and stop and stop burning our city down," the elder Wallace told CNN. "It's not going to solve anything," he said. "I don't want to leave a bad scar on my son and my family with this looting and chaos stuff." Wallace's killing was captured on cellphone video and posted to social media, where it went viral.
  • Family reportedly called for an ambulance, not police
  • A police spokesperson said Monday that officers were responding to a report of a man with a knife. They ordered Wallace to drop the weapon, saying that he "advanced towards officers." Both officers fired their guns at Wallace. He was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
davisem

U.S. Halts Aid Package to Philippines Amid Drug Crackdown - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...philippines-us.html

shared by davisem on 16 Dec 16 - No Cached
  • The United States said on Thursday that it had deferred giving economic aid to the Philippines because of concerns about the rule of law as the brutal campaign on drugs under President Rodrigo Duterte appears to show no signs of slowing down
  • The Millennium Challenge Corporation, set up by the United States government to reduce poverty around the world
  • The United States has been openly critical of the Philippines’ bloody crackdown on narcotics, in which over 2,000 people have been killed at the hands of the police since Mr. Duterte assumed office in June. An additional 3,500 killings remain unsolved, but about a third of those have been identified as drug-related
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  • The initial grant, approved in 2010, helped modernize the internal revenue bureau, expanded programs under the social welfare department intended to alleviate poverty and rehabilitated a major road network
  • The president’s embrace of violence has shocked other countries and brought condemnation from human rights groups, but Mr. Duterte remains popular among a large segment of Filipinos weary of crime and enthusiastic about his pledge to rid the country of drug dealers
  • davisem on 16 Dec 16
     
    The United States normally send packages to the Philippines, but w halted economic aid because we are worried about the law about drugs
katyshannon

'Glad we are back to the supersonic age': Philippines gets first fighter jets in a deca... - 1 views

www.scmp.com/...nic-age-philippines-gets-first

philippines fighter jets decade sea south china morning post politics culture crisis history

shared by katyshannon on 14 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • Philippine President Benigno Aquino has approved the purchase of 44 billion pesos (US$932 million) worth of military equipment to help boost maritime security capability as tensions simmer in the South China Sea.
  • Defence Undersecretary Fernando Manalo made the announcement Saturday after the government received the first two of a dozen new South Korean-made light fighter jets to enhance the country’s air defence capabilities.
  • Aquino authorised the multi-year contract to purchase two frigates, eight amphibious assault vehicles, three anti-submarine helicopters, two long-range patrol aircraft, three aerial radars, munitions for the fighters and close support planes, Manalo said.
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  • The FA-50 fighter trainers from South Korea were acquired by the Philippines for 18.9 billion pesos. Seoul has committed to deliver 10 more light fighters until 2017.
  • Weapons for the FA-50s, including bombs and rockets, will be purchased later.
  • The Philippines has had no fighter capability since it mothballed its Vietnam War vintage F-5A/Bs in the mid-2000s. It has a few S-211 Italian trainer jets, acquired in the late 1980s.
  • “With these aircraft, our capability to guard maritime borders will be enhanced,” an air force general said, declining to be identified because he was not authorised to speak to the media. “Our response time will be quicker but we would need radar and communications to fully integrate our air defence systems.”
  • The Philippines’ ill-equipped armed forces are no match for those of China, despite receiving two cutters and coastal radar stations from the United States in 2011. Washington promised to deliver late next year another cutter and two C-130 planes.
  • In January 2013, the Philippines brought its disputes with China to international arbitration, but Beijing refused to participate and pressed for one-on-one negotiations.
  • An international tribunal in The Hague, however, dismissed China's legal arguments last month and ruled that it has authority to hear the Philippines' case.
  • It said it expects to hand down a decision next year on several issues raised by the Philippines, including the validity of China's sweeping territorial claims under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
  • China has built seven artificial islands in the Spratly Islands and is constructing military facilities, including airfields, ports and lighthouses.
  • Still, the Philippines has ruled out a military solution to the territorial conflicts with its limited defence capabilities.
  • China claims 90 per cent of the South China Sea’s 3.5 million sq km waters. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan also have claims to at least parts of the area.
anonymous

Chinese Ship Deployment Roils South China Sea : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...ployment-roils-south-china-sea

shared by anonymous on 27 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • China has provoked international alarm by massing ships in the South China Sea near a reef claimed by both China and the Philippines. This week, Manila formally protested what it called a violation of "its sovereignty, sovereign rights, and jurisdiction." The United States and Western allies backed the Philippine call for China to immediately withdraw what appears to be a flotilla of fishing vessels.
  • Satellite imagery obtained by NPR from Maxar Technologies shows Chinese vessels moored in the crook of the boomerang-shaped coral bar known as Whitsun Reef — also called Julian Filipe Reef in the Philippines and Niu'e Jiao in China. It lies 175 nautical miles west of the western Philippine province of Palawan, well within the country's 200-mile exclusive economic zone.
  • The images show Chinese boats, some lashed 10 abreast together, lingering in the waters of the reef that lies just beneath the surface. The Philippine coast guard reported spotting 220 vessels on March 7
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  • China claims much of the South China Sea for itself and has built several artificial islands, as have some of the other claimants to the contested waters. But the scale of China's building far exceeds that of other countries, and this latest move has drawn international concern. It's raised fears that China perhaps aims to occupy and reclaim Whitsun Reef while intimidating its regional rivals.
  • Gregory Poling says that's suspicious. Poling runs the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. He says the boats, tied up "with military precision" beside each other, "are not fishing," they're parked.
  • The reef where the Chinese ships are massed lies on the northern edge of a larger atoll known as Union Banks, inside the sprawling Spratly Islands chain, known for its disputed ownership. Historically Union Banks has been a fishing ground for Filipino fishermen.
  • Poling says Whitsun Reef lies within a mile of two of existing Chinese bases and four small Vietnamese outposts. "So, it's a pretty congested area," he says. "And for China, it seems like they are now using Whitsun Reef as an anchorage, a safe place to harbor around this bigger area called Union Banks."
  • The Chinese have denied they are up to anything unusual and said that its "fishing vessels" were merely sheltering from "rough seas." Batongbacal says there have been no "adverse weather conditions" in the area in the weeks the Chinese have been there.
  • Today the reef is China's biggest outpost in the South China Sea. Mischief sits on the eastern edge of the seven artificial islands China has built in the Spratly archipelago.
  • Batongbacal says back then, China said that it was using the reef to shelter fishermen. By 2015, he says the Chinese had built one of the world's largest artificial islands, which "now hosts a full-blown military base," all protected by "missile emplacements."
  • Whitsun is unlikely to become another artificial island, believes Poling. "China's goal is to control the water, the seabed, the airspace. And so they don't really need an eighth outpost to do that. What they need is an overwhelming dominance when it comes to the number of vessels in the Spratlys," he says.
  • Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan also claim parts of the South China Sea. China's claims to nearly all of the waters were rejected by a ruling in a tribunal at the Hague in 2016.Poling says to assert its vast claim, Beijing increasingly uses its fishing fleet as a maritime militia.
  • A statement released Monday by Beijing's Embassy in Manila said, "There is no Chinese Maritime Militia as alleged. Any speculation in such helps nothing but causes unnecessary irritation."
  • Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has gone out of his way to not irritate Beijing, and Batongbacal says Duterte has been "very, very accommodating" to China in the South China Sea. "The Chinese are emboldened."
  • Indeed, Poling says China's maritime intimidation is discouraging oil and gas exploration, and jeopardizing fishermen. It's getting "harder and harder," he says, not to see this an "implicit threat" that carries the added risk of miscalculation.
  • This week, Philippine National Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana called the Chinese move a "clear provocative action" of "grave" concern. "We call on the Chinese to stop this incursion and immediately recall these boats violating our maritime rights and encroaching into our sovereign territory," his statement read.
  • Poling says the Chinese are not likely to disperse. "Once China moves in, it doesn't leave. It might decrease the number. It might play nice for a little while, maybe it ratchets down the tension for short term political gain, but it is unlikely to vacate this reef," he says.
  • In a statement, the U.S. embassy in the Philippines waded into the controversy: "The PRC uses maritime militia to intimidate, provoke, and threaten other nations," adding, "We stand with the Philippines, our oldest treaty ally in Asia." Japan, Australia, the U.K. and Canada expressed support for the Philippines as well, saying the Chinese flotilla was threatening regional security.
  • Poling says the unified call for China to withdraw shows "a realignment of international fears and anxieties about Beijing's maritime claims." He says that if the international community is going to draw a line in the sand, or try to "compel or cajole" China into compromise, "it has to do so now." The "space for compromise," Poling says, "is getting worrying small."
katherineharron

US and China deploy aircraft carriers in South China Sea as Philippines prepares for jo... - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

taiwan

shared by katherineharron on 12 Apr 21 - No Cached
  • Military activity in the South China Sea spiked over the weekend as a Chinese aircraft carrier entered the region and a US Navy expeditionary strike group wrapped up exercises.
  • the US and Philippines were preparing for joint drills as the US secretary of defense proposed ways to deepen military cooperation between Washington and Manila after China massed vessels in disputed waters.
  • China's state-run Global Times on Sunday said the country's first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, steamed into the South China Sea on Saturday after completing a week of naval exercises around Taiwan.
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  • There was no official announcement of the Liaoning's position
  • The Liaoning's reported arrival in the South China Sea came after a US Navy expeditionary strike group, fronted by the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt and amphibious assault ship USS Makin Island, conducted exercises in the South China Sea a day earlier.
  • The ships also carried hundreds of Marine ground forces from the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit as well as their supporting helicopters and F-35 fighter jets.Read More
  • "This expeditionary strike force fully demonstrates that we maintain a combat-credible force, capable of responding to any contingency, deter aggression, and provide regional security and stability in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific,"
  • Exercises by the Chinese carrier "can establish wider maritime defensive positions, safeguard China's coastal regions, and keep US military activities in check," the report said, citing Wei.
  • US analyst described the Liaoning's presence in the South China Sea as normal for the spring when weather conditions are conducive to training.
  • On Monday, more than 1,700 US and Philippines troops were beginning two weeks of military exercises, Reuters reported, citing Philippine military chief Lt. Gen. Cirilito Sobejana.
  • The proposals included ways of "enhancing situational awareness of threats in the South China Sea" and come after "the recent massing of People's Republic of China maritime militia vessels at Whitsun Reef," in the Philippines' exclusive economic zone in the Spratly Islands, the statement said.
  • Philippine Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. on Saturday tweeted he will work to have any attack on Philippine civilian craft trigger mutual defense aid, CNN Philippines reported.
  • Beijing accuses Washington and other foreign navies of stoking tensions in the region by sending in warships like the current expeditionary group led by the carrier Roosevelt.
  • Tensions extend to the northeastern edges of the South China Sea, where the island of Taiwan sits
  • Beijing claims the democratic, self-governed island of almost 24 million people as its territory
  • the two sides have been governed separately for more than seven decades.
  • Chinese President Xi Jinping has vowed that Beijing will never allow Taiwan to become formally independent
  • Before moving into the South China Sea at the weekend, the Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning had been putting on a show of military muscle around Taiwan for a week, according to Chinese state media. At one point the People's Liberation Army flanked Taiwan, with the Liaoning and its escorts operating in the Pacific Ocean to the east and PLA warplanes making forays into Taiwan's self-declared air defense identification zone to the west.
  • Analysts said the exercises were a warning to Taipei and Washington that Beijing would not brook any moves for Taiwanese independence
  • "What is a real concern to us is increasingly aggressive actions by the government in Beijing directed at Taiwan," Blinken said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
  • "We have a serious commitment to Taiwan being able to defend itself. We have a serious commitment to peace and security in the Western Pacific. And in that context, it would be a serious mistake for anyone to try to change that status quo by force," Blinken said.
julia rhodes

Philippines and China in Dispute Over Reef - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...nila-in-dispute-over-reef.html

philippines china dispute reef

shared by julia rhodes on 01 Apr 14 - No Cached
  • China accused the Philippines on Monday of illegally occupying Chinese territory after a Philippine vessel outmaneuvered the Chinese Coast Guard and resupplied a ship that has been stranded for 15 years on the Second Thomas Shoal, a tiny reef in the South China Sea.
  • Chinese ships prevented the Philippines from resupplying the boat and its eight-man military crew in early March, but on Saturday a Philippine vessel manned by troops managed to keep the Chinese at bay by going into shallow waters and lifting food onto the stranded ship.“This is a political provocation,” the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman, Hong Lei, said at a regular briefing on Monday, adding that the Philippines was “hyping” its “illegal occupation” by filing a case on Sunday with the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague.
  • The cat-and-mouse maneuvers between the Philippines, an American ally with little naval capacity, and China, which has a fast-expanding navy, have captured attention for what they might foretell about future rivalries in the South China Sea.China claims about 80 percent of the South China Sea, a vital waterway for world trade.
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  • Philippines invited reporters on board the government vessel that was sent to resupply the Sierra Madre, a rusted warship that has been grounded on the reef since 1999.
  • The Global Times, a Chinese state-run newspaper with nationalist views, said in an editorial on Monday that the “small and weak” Philippines had become the vanguard force of “provoking China.” It warned that China had the ability to force Filipino soldiers off the reef at any time, “like taking thieves away.”
katyshannon

Philippines' Typhoon Koppu brings severe floods - BBC News - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...world-asia-34568596

philippines typhoon floods bbc news crisis

shared by katyshannon on 19 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • Heavy rain and floods are affecting dozens of villages, after Typhoon Koppu swept through the northern Philippines.The slow-moving weather system has killed at least two people and forced tens of thousands from their homes.
  • Koppu has now been downgraded to a severe tropical storm by the Japanese Meteorological Agency, which is responsible for naming and tracking it.However, the Philippines' own weather agency, which calls the weather system Lando, is still characterising it as a typhoon.
  • Despite weakening, Koppu is expected to keep dumping rain on the country for a considerable time to come. Some forecasts suggest it may not be until Wednesday that it moves past the Philippines and on to Taiwan.
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  • Unlike previous tropical cyclones, the threat from typhoon Koppu is not so much from the wind but from the massive amount of rain. More than a metre of rainfall is forecast in just a few days in Luzon province. That is double what London gets in an entire year. In the south of Luzon, it has brought severe flooding with whole villages under water. But perhaps more dangerous are massive landslides. The fear is that with the ground heavy and saturated with water, whole hillsides could collapse.
  • Typhoon Koppu made landfall near the town of Casiguran on the main island of Luzon on Sunday morning, bringing winds of close to 200km/h (124mph) and cutting power to vast areas.
  • A teenager was killed by a fallen tree in Manila which also injured four others. A concrete wall also collapsed in the town of Subic, northwest of Manila, killing a 62-year-old woman, officials said.
  • dawn on Monday, wind speeds were down to 150 km/h (93 mph) in the northern town of Santiago, according to the state weather service.But floodwaters are preventing even military vehicles reaching many of the worst-hit villages, and rescuers report a shortage of boats."We haven't reached many areas. About 60% to 70% of our town is flooded, some as deep as three metres," said Henry Velarde, vice mayor of Jaen, a town in Nueva Ecija province."There are about 20,000 residents in isolated areas that need food and water."
  • katyshannon on 19 Oct 15
     
    Philippines' Typhoon Koppu flooding endangers thousands
grayton downing

U.N. Appeals for $301 Million for Typhoon Response in the Philippines - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...s-typhoon-haiyan-response.html

appeals typhoon response philippines crisis

shared by grayton downing on 13 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • The United Nations appealed Tuesday for $301 million in emergency assistance to help millions of people in the Philippines affected by the typhoon that struck on Friday.
  • Hampered by impassable roads, obliterated seaports and severely damaged airstrips, international aid groups mobilized to rush food, water and sanitation equipment to the region.
  • United Nations officials in Geneva said more than 11 million people were in need of assistance and around 670,000 people had been displaced.
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  • “There are still many places that are not accessible yet,”
  • The $301 million appeal is to meet projected needs over six months, but disaster relief experts estimate the damage to the Philippine economy at between $12 billion and $15 billion, equivalent to about 5 percent of its gross domestic product.
  • “This is the worst typhoon in the modern history of the Philippines,” said German Velasquez at the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction in Geneva.
  • Ms. Amos, the United Nations under secretary general for humanitarian affairs and the emergency relief coordinator, released $25 million from a special fund to help pay for immediate assistance and was beginning what aides called a flash fund-raising drive. At least $35 million in additional aid was pledged by other governments on Monday.
  • The George Washington, which carries 5,000 sailors and more than 80 aircraft, was ordered to depart from a port visit in Hong Kong, and the crew was recalled from shore leave immediately. Mr. Hagel also reiterated the American intent to help the Philippine government determine “what, if any, additional assets may be required.”
johnsonma23

With Impounding of Ship, Philippines Set to Be First Enforcer of New North Korea Sancti... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ations-cargo-ship-seizure.html

north korea sanctions new york times

shared by johnsonma23 on 06 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • With Impounding of Ship, Philippines Set to Be First Enforcer of New North Korea Sanctions
  • The Philippines will become the first country to enforce tough new United Nations sanctions on North Korea
  • The MV Jin Teng, which is suspected of being a North Korean ship, arrived Thursday at Subic Bay, a commercial port about 50 miles northwest of Manila
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  • impounded, its crew deported
  • The vessel is registered and flagged under multiple countries, but it is one of 31 listed as being owned by North Korea, Philippine
  • . The sanctions are the result of a United Nations Security Council resolution passed Wednesday, following a North Korean nuclear test on Jan. 6 and a long-range rocket test on Feb. 7.
  • One component of the new sanctions requires countries to inspect all cargo passing through their territory to or from North Korea
  • “The world is concerned over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and as a member of the U.N., the Philippines has to do its part to enforce the sanctions
  • North Korean citizens and was in the Philippines to unload a shipment of agricultural byproducts often used as livestock feed.
  • and found no prohibited items
redavistinnell

Typhoon Melor Slams the Philippines, Sends 725,000 Fleeing - NBC News - 0 views

www.nbcnews.com/...-sends-725-000-fleeing-n479396

typhoon philippines

shared by redavistinnell on 14 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • Typhoon Melor Slams the Philippines, Sends 725,000 Fleeing
  • Known locally as typhoon Nona, it made landfall Monday morning on tiny Batag Island in the eastern Philippines.
  • Initial reports from Red Cross chapters in areas affected by the typhoon indicated "minimal impact so far," but some buildings were damaged, according to International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies spokeswoman Kate Marshall.
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  • said 724,839 residents of three eastern provinces were evacuated Sunday and early Monday before the storm's arrival.
  • About 20 storms and typhoons hit the Philippines each year. In November 2013, Typhoon Haiyan, the strongest typhoon on record to make landfall, left more than 7,300 people dead and missing as it leveled entire villages and swept walls of seawater into parts of the central Philippines.
clairemann

Powerful Typhoon Lashes Philippines, Killing At Least 10 | Time - 0 views

time.com/...ppines-killing-numerous-people

crisis world Culture typhoon

shared by clairemann on 01 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • MANILA, Philippines — A super typhoon blew into the eastern Philippines with disastrous force Sunday, killing at least 10 people and triggering volcanic mudflows that engulfed about 150 houses before weakening as it blew away from the country, officials said.
  • Goni barreled through densely populated regions and threatened to sideswipe Manila, which shut down its main airport, but shifted southward Sunday night and spared the capital, the government weather agency said.
  • Ricardo Jalad, who heads the government’s disaster-response agency, had feared that the typhoon could wreak major damage due to its enormous force.
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  • Residents were warned of possible landslides, massive flooding, storm surges of up to 5 meters (16 feet) and powerful winds that can blow away shanties. But after hitting a mountain range and repeatedly slamming into coastal provinces, the typhoon gradually weakened, although it remained potentially deadly as it blew out into the South China Sea, forecasters said.
  • One of the most powerful typhoons in the world this year, Goni evoked memories of Typhoon Haiyan, which left more than 7,300 people dead or missing, flattened entire villages, swept ships inland and displaced more than 5 million in the central Philippines in November 2013.
  • In a Manila gymnasium that was turned into an emergency shelter, COVID-19 outbreaks were an added worry of displaced residents. The Philippines has had more than 383,000 cases of the virus, the second-most in Southeast Asia behind Indonesia.
  • The Philippines is lashed by about 20 typhoons and storms each year. It’s also located on the so-called Pacific “Ring of Fire,” where earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are common, making it one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries.
maddieireland334

With Impounding of Ship, Philippines Set to Be First Enforcer of New North Korea Sancti... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ations-cargo-ship-seizure.html

Philippines South Korea UN policy

shared by maddieireland334 on 06 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • The Philippines will become the first country to enforce tough new United Nations sanctions on North Korea when it initiates formal procedures on Monday to impound a cargo vessel linked to the reclusive nation, a government spokesman said on Sunday.
  • The MV Jin Teng, which is suspected of being a North Korean ship, arrived Thursday at Subic Bay, a commercial port about 50 miles northwest of Manila.
  • The sanctions are the result of a United Nations Security Council resolution passed Wednesday, following a North Korean nuclear test on Jan. 6 and a long-range rocket test on Feb. 7.
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  • “The world is concerned over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and as a member of the U.N., the Philippines has to do its part to enforce the sanctions,” Manuel L. Quezon III, a member of the president’s communications team, told a government-run radio station on Saturday.
  • The Philippine Coast Guard searched the vessel on Friday and found no prohibited items. Only minor safety violations, including missing fire hoses and exposed wiring, were discovered.
  • In 2008, the police seized 700 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine, with an estimated value of more than $100 million, in Subic Bay that drug enforcement officials at the time said was produced in North Korea.
malonema1

Marawi siege: US special forces aiding Philippine army - BBC News - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...world-asia-40231605

war crisis trump

shared by malonema1 on 10 Jun 17 - No Cached
  • Militants have been under siege since rampaging through the southern city on 23 May. The latest fighting has claimed the lives of 13 Philippine marines.
  • undreds of militants, who have been flying the black flag of so-called Islamic State and are led by the self-styled IS emir of the southern Philippines, Isnilon Hapilon, and the Maute brothers Omar and Abdullah, are still holed up in the city.
  • The latest casualties bring the number of Philippine troops killed in the fighting to 58.
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  • At least 138 militants and 20 civilians have also been killed, the government says.The BBC's Jonathan Head says there are several reports that the Maute brothers, who lead the Maute group, are among the dead, with intercepted communications from jihadist groups suggesting this.
  • Marawi is on the southern island of Mindanao, which has a significant Muslim population in the majority Catholic country and has seen a decades-long Muslim separatist insurgency.
  • The US has had a small logistical military presence in the Philippines, although a programme to advise the Philippine army on fighting the Abu Sayyaf militant group was discontinued in 2015.
  • But he had what the White House described as a "very friendly" phone call with President Donald Trump in April, and has since said his differences with the US were with President Barack Obama's administration.
  • "The world of terrorism inside the city is growing smaller by the day," he said.Officials say that foreign nationals are among the militants in Marawi, with the list of countries and territories including Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Yemen, India and Chechnya.
cjlee29

Philippine Leader Affirms US Alliance but Wants Troops Out - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ap-as-japan-philippines.html

shared by cjlee29 on 27 Oct 16 - No Cached
  • The leaders of Japan and the Philippines agreed to cooperate in promoting regional peace and stability and acknowledged the importance of their alliances with the U.S
  • free of visiting American troops possibly within two years.
  • important part of maritime security in the region, including the South China Sea
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  • reassured Abe that he has no intention to sever diplomatic ties with the U.S., Hagiuda said.
  • Manila's relationship with Washington has quickly become strained.
  • Japan is a staunch U.S. ally and hosts 50,000 American troops, while Duterte has repeatedly spoken of distancing his country from Washington, often in crude terms.
  • The presence of U.S. troops in five Philippine military camps was established under a security deal signed under Duterte's predecessor as a counter to China's growing military assertiveness in the region.
  • "I want to be friends to China,"
  • "The South China Sea issue is directly linked to the region's peace and stability and a matter of interest for the entire international society,"
  • canceling planned joint military exercises with the United States, and preparatory meetings for next year's joint combat exercises between American and Filipino forces
  • Officials declined to provide details of their second round of talks, in which Abe was expected to ask Duterte specifically about his foreign policy. Their joint statement focused largely on Japan's contribution to Philippine maritime security and other projects totaling a 21 billion yen ($210 million) loan.
grayton downing

BBC News - Mardell: US pivots to the Philippines - 0 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...world-us-canada-24915818

philippines politics policy

shared by grayton downing on 12 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • President Obama's much debated "pivot to Asia" can often seem like an abstract diplomatic desire.
  • Yesterday two transport planes and a group of marines were sent to Tacloban.
  • The aircraft carrier George Washington and cruisers Antietam and Cowpens, the destroyers Mustin and Lassen, and the supply ship Charles Drew are also heading to the area.
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  • They've offered a measly $100,000. OK, they are locked in a bitter dispute over who owns the Spratley Islands.
  • At the same time there are some who want their country's ever-growing economic might to be matched with a bigger influence in the world, starting in their own region.
  • The US aid may not just be motivated by a good heart and a love of liberty - altruism is good diplomacy too.
lindsayweber1

Duterte says Philippines could join sea exercises with Japan, again vents anger at U.S.... - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...apan-philippines-idUSKCN12R0V6

japan philippines diplomacy u s

shared by lindsayweber1 on 27 Oct 16 - No Cached
  • Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said on Thursday his country could join naval exercises with Japan, but repeated there would be no more war games with long-time ally the United States and again gave vent to his anger against Washington.
  • I had told the prime minister some of my sentiments against the Americans. They are treating us like dogs on a leash," he said. "The prime minister understands that."
grayton downing

Once-Thriving City Is Reduced to Ruin in Philippines - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ves-scenes-of-devastation.html

city reduced philippines crisis

shared by grayton downing on 11 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • The largest storm surge in modern history in the Philippines sent walls of water over half a mile inland along a crowded coastline when Typhoon Haiyan came ashore here last Friday, erasing villages and towns and leaving thousands of people dead or missing.
  • Decomposing bodies still lie along the roads, like the corpse in a pink, short-sleeved shirt and blue shorts facedown in a puddle 100 yards from the airport
  • “It was a tsunami-like storm surge, it is the first time,”
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  • “Our home was destroyed, there is no food in this town, so we have to flee,” she said, standing with her teenage granddaughter who held their only drinking water, a nearly empty plastic bottle that even when full would only hold perhaps two cups.
  • Rosemary Balais, 39, said that a very large proportion, possibly more than half, of the 5,000 people in her hometown Tanauan, near Tacloban, seemed to be missing. “My sister and their children were there and we have not heard from them since last Thursday,
  • In a country cursed with a succession of natural disasters, from earthquakes to violent storms to volcanic eruptions, the typhoon has emerged as especially deadly and destructive. “It’s going to be classified as one of the worst, if not the worst, in decades,”
Javier E

A Comic Novel Asks Who Gets to Write the History of the Colonial Philippines - The New ... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...gina-apostol-insurrecto.html

history historiography philippines

shared by Javier E on 31 Dec 18 - No Cached
  • It’s a bravura performance in which war becomes farce, history becomes burlesque. Apostol thrusts us into a vertiginous narrative of “stories within stories within stories,” as the novel itself, in one of countless meta moments, has it. Another: “It will be set in 1901, or maybe 1972, or maybe 2018. … There will be unapologetic uses of generic types, actors with duplicating roles. Anachronisms, false starts, scarlet clues, a noirish insistence on the pathetic pursuit of human truths will pervade its miserable (quite thin) plot, and while the mystery will seem unsolved, to some it will provide the satisfaction of unrelieved despair.”
  • The novel’s structure reflects how history comes at us in scattered shards, the way voices are amplified or silenced, story lines invented or forgotten. “We enter others’ lives through two mediums, words and time, both faulty,” one character observes.
  • But a third medium — image — is a powerful recurring motif. Apostol is obsessed with the lens, the gaze, the way victim and victor, good and evil are identified based on who holds the camera and who consumes its product
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  • “Photographs of a captured country shot through the lens of the captor possess layers of ambiguity too confusing to grasp,” she writes. Her characters marvel at photography’s mechanisms and denounce its propagandistic effects
  • The novel’s title may be read as describing the Filipinos who rose up against their colonizers; the translator bent on destabilizing the narratives imposed on her country; or Apostol herself, whose explosion of formal novelistic conventions is its own kind of uprising
  • Though ambiguity and the unknowable drive and derange this novel’s characters, I don’t believe Apostol is arguing against the existence of demonstrable fact. “Insurrecto” underscores how excruciatingly difficult it can be to interpret, to verify. But it never underrates the obligation to try. It heaps disdain and punishment on characters who would go at the task lightly, oblivious of their own biases, assumptions and mistranslations
  • Apostol does draw one straight line: from the Philippine-American War to the “latter-day outbreaks of imperial hysteria in Southeast Asian wars, which are a blip in the infinite human spiral of human aggression,” appearing now in the kind of environmental destruction wrought by super-typhoons like the one that pulverized Eastern Samar in 2013.
  • Balangiga, no matter how you count the bodies, was “a crime of history that no single vision can redeem.” In confronting that crime, Apostol has written a novel of multitudinous vision, one that dares to ask: In the face of so much tragedy, what can one do after the crying … but laugh?
Javier E

China to U.S.: It's your fault we are in the South China Sea - The Washington Post - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...7-93f5-53a3a47824e8_story.html

china philippines sea crisis history foreign policy

shared by Javier E on 22 Jan 18 - No Cached
  • This was the first so-called Freedom of Navigation Operation (FONOP) in months and the first such passage near the Scarborough Shoal. It also took place on the eve of the release of the National Defense Strategy — a document replete with warnings about China.
  • In the wake of the operation, China showed no sign of changing or softening its stance. Over the weekend, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said Beijing was “strongly dissatisfied” with the Hopper’s passage and China will stake necessary measures to “firmly safeguard its sovereignty.”
  • China claims nearly all of the South China Sea, including Scarborough Shoal, a feature just off the coast of Luzon, not far from the former U.S. base at Subic Bay. In 2016, an international tribunal ruled China’s expansive claims had no legal basis, a finding welcomed by much of the region, but largely ignored by Beijing. In the years since, China has pressed ahead with land reclamation and building in the area.
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  • The Philippines, a longtime U.S. ally, used to challenge Chinese claims to the South China Sea. Since coming to power in 2016, however, President Rodrigo Duterte has taken a softer line with Beijing. 
  • “We have reached a point where we have independent foreign relations, and a problem of America is no longer a problem of the Philippines,” he said. 
  • Jay L. Batongbacal, director of the University of the Philippines’ Institute for Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea, said the Duterte government’s response could help China and hinder the U.S. by lending credence to Beijing’s claims.  
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