August 16, 2012 Edition

Senate Majority Floor Leader Tito Sotto gives a passionate speech against the Reproductive Health Bill last Monday, citing personal loss and first-hand experience.  Shortly after, Filipino Freethinkers’ Alfredo Melgar writes parts seemed lifted from a blogger who also wrote several pieces against vaccination.  On Thursday in an interview on ANC, Sotto answers the charge: did he plagiarize his speech? Take a look at the passages.

Read more on Rappler.   

Last week, he focused on the evils of contraception.  On Wednesday, Tito Sotto again takes the Senate floor and rails against an international conspiracy of big money for an abortion agenda.  While many criticize the points Sotto presented as facts, Rappler looks at the seven deadly sins of the RH bill, according to Tito Sotto.  We also fact-check along the way.  Over at the House of Representatives, anti-RH legislators continue a second day of filibuster in an attempt to delay the passage of the bill.

Read about the Senate and the House on Rappler.

Violence sparks more uncertainty in the Middle East.  More shelling, killing at least 20 people in a rebel stronghold in Syria, and kidnappings in neighboring Lebanon ignite fears the nearly 18 month old rebel uprising against Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad is spreading.  The Organization of Islamic Conference, a 57 member grouping is the world’s largest Islamic bloc.  During an emergency meeting, it censures the al-Assad regime and suspends Syria because of “the massacres and inhuman acts suffered by the Syrian people.”  On Thursday, the United Nations Security Council, highly polarized on Syria, meets to formally end the UN observer mission in the country, even as violence spreads.

Read more about the kidnappings in Lebanon on the New York Times, the OIC suspension and the UN Security Council meeting – on Rappler.

Shortly after the atom bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan surrendered and ended World War II.  On Wednesday, Japan commemorated that surrender with annual “private” visits of legislators to Yasukuni Shrine.  Among the two million war dead enshrined there are controversial war criminals.  It’s a flashpoint for most countries in Asia, which suffered violence from Japanese atrocities.  China and South Korea called on Japan to acknowledge and face its history.  Forced prostitution, the “comfort women,” was a major issue in many countries occupied by Japan, including Indonesia and the Philippines.  China said it would protest the detention of 14 Hong Kong activists, 7 of whom slipped through military defenses and landed on a disputed island claimed by Japan, China and Taiwan.

Read more on the Wall Street Journal.  

 

After pulling out of the London Olympics, Rafael Nadal announces he will not compete in the US Open.  The third-ranked Spaniard who won the title in 2010 wrote on his Twitter account: “I am very sad to announce that I am not ready to play the US Open in NY.  Thanks to my fans for their support and specially, the new yorkers.”  Knee tendinitis has sidelined him after a stunning loss in Wimbledon in late June.

Read more on ESPN  

It’s the new bayanihan: when disaster strikes, civic duty kicks in, and Filipinos volunteer for action – whether it’s in the virtual world or the real world.  In the case of the Department of Social Welfare and Development, it’s both.  An online appeal through social network sites Facebook, YouTube and Twitter bring in the volunteers the DSWD needs to help with relief operations.  “I am overwhelmed by the enthusaistic response of FIlipinos from all walks of life to my call for volunteers through the social networking sites YouTube, Facebook and Twitter,” said Social Welfare Secretary Dinky Soliman.  More than 3,000 volunteers responded by Monday, most of them students.  

Read more about the DSWD’s relief operations on the Inquirer and about other online efforts during the floods on Rappler.  

Vogue says she combines her father’s magnetism and her mother’s discipline.  The only child of former US President Bill Clinton and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Chelsea Clinton is now 32 years old, married and a special correspondent for NBC.  Long fiercely private, Chelsea said she has been asked about whether she’d go into politics since she was 4 years old.  She said “before my mom’s campaign, I would have said no.”  Others, however, including an aide to Sec. Clinton, said it is “Chelsea’s responsibility to carry that torch.”  Chelsea also says she and her husband are thinking of having children in a few years and “hopes my mother can wait that long.”  

Read more on Vogue