April 9, 2013 Edition

Former UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher, the controversial “Iron Lady” who dominated a generation of British politics and won international acclaim for helping to end the Cold War, died following a stroke in London on April 8. She was 87. A towering yet divisive figure, Thatcher rose from humble grocer’s daughter to become the woman who changed Britain with her free-market economics and was recognized around the world as a fearsome “Cold Warrior” in the 1980s. Her free-market reforms were controversial but they fundamentally changed the British economy and still provide a yardstick against which her successors are judged. Thatcher overhauled the British economy but also triggered a cultural revolution by igniting a creative burst of anger at her policies, including slashing arts funding. With flowers from admirers piling up outside Margaret Thatcher’s London home but left-wingers planning jubilant parties, the former premier is as divisive in death as she was in life.


Read an obituary on Thatcher

Read about Thatcher’s life and legacy

Read about Thatcher’s top quotes

Read about reactions of world leaders on the passing of Thatcher

Read Philippine President Benigno Aquino’s statement on the Thatcher’s death

Only a few months after a US minesweeper hit the protected Tubbataha reef park, another vessel ran aground the Unesco World Heritage site almost midnight Sunday, April 8. The 12 persons onboard that Chinese fishing boat are now being questioned by Philippine officials. A US salvage ship and others overseeing the removal of the USS Guardian that damaged about 2,345.67 square meters of the reef when it ran aground are still in the area. Tubbataha is near Palawan, which is a region located next to South China Sea (also West Philippine Sea), a mineral rich body of water claimed by various countries, including China and Philippines.


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The Philippines’ top government officials remain popular in March, registering gains in their trust ratings, based on survey of Pulse Asia. Out of the 5 top officials, 4 got significant bumps in their approval ratings — Vice President Jejomar Binay (+6 percentage points to 76); Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile (+7 to 53); House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr (+6 to 33); and Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno (+6 to 32). President Benigno Aquino III is back in the 70’s level with a rating of 72, up 4 points. Enrile had the most to gain, after his 27-point drop in January that saw his approval ratings go down from majority to near-majority ratings when he figured in a Senate controversy where he excluded 4 critics from receiving additional Senate funds.


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The incessant filing of tax cases against celebrities in entertainment and sports has led the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) to be more proactive in dealing with the tax bureau. About 145 professional players — including Jim Olmedo Alapag and Jared Ryan Dillinger who are facing tax cases — attended the two-hour forum at the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) where tax officials spoke about how to pay and how much taxes to pay. The awareness campaign is an effort to start with a clean slate with the tax bureau that is keen on its name-and-shame campaign. The celebrities, restaurant and retail owners and scores of others who are facing tax charges may learn a thing or two from the PBA’s initiative.


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Syria will not accept a chemical weapons team, as proposed by UN chief Ban Ki-moon, to probe the alleged use of chemical weapons in the country’s conflict, the foreign ministry said on Monday, April 8. Ban has “suggested a supplementary mission allowing the mission to deploy throughout Syrian territory, which is contrary to the demand Syria made to the United Nations,” a ministry official said, cited by state news agency SANA. He said “Syria can not accept such maneuvers on the part of the UN secretariat general, bearing in mind the negative role that it played in Iraq and which cleared the way to the American invasion” of that country in 2003.


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Whistleblowing website WikiLeaks is at it again. This time, Julian Assange’s team publishes more than 1.7 million US diplomatic and intelligence documents from from 1973 to 1976, when Henry Kissinger was secretary of State and national-security adviser. The website has collated a variety of records including cables, intelligence reports and congressional correspondence and is releasing them in a searchable form. Assange, who is still avoiding arrest by hiding in the Ecuadorian embassy in Britain, says the documents hint at the scope of U.S. intelligence activity around the globe at the time.


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Two of the Philippines’ biggest business groups — Metro Pacific Investment Corp. and San Miguel Corp. — are at it again. For the nth time, they are both vying for the same infrastructure project the government is bidding out. This time, it’s the 7.75-km NAIA Expressway project, the first infrastructure project to be bid out in 2013. The two are also up against each other in Mactan-Cebu Airport expansion project, the LRT-1 Cavite Extension project, previously the NLEx-SLEx Connector Road (which became two projects, instead of one), and a whole lot more big-ticket government projects.


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Filipinos continue to flee Sabah even as the tension appears to have eased. A consolidated report by the Crisis Management Committee shows a total of 6,609 Filipinos or 2,133 families have fled Sabah as of April 7. Out of the total, 3,841 arrived in Sulu; 2,616 arrived in Tawi-Tawi, and 152 arrived in Basilan. The military has shifted its focus to humanitarian assistance. Tension began when followers of the Sultanate of Sulu sailed to Lahad Datu in February to stake their claim on Sabah.


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Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) are being deployed over Kaziranga National Park in the northeastern part of India to safeguard the rare one-horned rhino from poachers, the first time the country has employed aerial technology to protect wildlife. The drones gives patrols a new strategic advantage with an eye in the sky, allowing access into previously unreachable areas and a safe view of illegal activities on the ground. Kaziranga has been fighting a long battle against rhino poachers who kill the animals for their horns, which fetch huge prices in some Asian countries. The main market for the horn is China where it is used for making medicine and jewellery while in Vietnam many believe it has cancer-curing and aphrodisiac qualities.


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Facebook has been testing charging users to send messages to celebrities and other people outside their circle of friends. Since it started charging at its US operation in December, the trial has now been extended to 36 more countries, including the UK where fees ranging from as much as £10.68 are charged to contact a celebrity such as Olympic swimmer Tom Daley, and a standard 71 pence to contact less well-known figures, such as Prince Harry’s girlfriend Cressida Bonas, who do not have an official army of fans or followers. Iain Mackenzie, a spokesman for Facebook Europe, said the charging structure should not be mistaken for a fame barometer.


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