May 15, 2014 Edition

Two years after an impeachment trial found him guilty of violating the Constitution and removed him from office, ex-Chief Justice Renato Corona is served an asset freeze order. In a May 5, 2014 decision that was released on May 14, the Sandiganbayan ordered the temporary seizure of the estimated P131-million worth of properties and bank deposits of Corona and his wife Cristina, who face forfeiture cases filed by the Ombudsman last March 2014. The order is meant to protect the “victim,” in this case the government, in case the court decides in the Coronas’ favor. The couple is accused of using their government positions to enriched themselves.

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The Philippines released photos May 15 to prove China’s “destabilizing” moves in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) involving the rising superpower’s suspected airstrip construction in the disputed area. The move followed Manila’s protest, which Beijing snubbed, over ongoing reclamation in Mabini ((Johnson Reef) in the Spratly Islands. Asked if China was building an airstrip there, Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario said: “That’s one possibility.” Manila maintained that the recent activities of China in the disputed islands reinforces its case against Beijing before a United Nations arbitral tribunal.

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China issued a warning to tourists planning trips to Vietnam, as state-media on May 15 blamed Hanoi for encouraging the country’s worst anti-Beijing riots in decades, in which one Chinese worker was killed. Anti-China protesters set more than a dozen factories on fire in Vietnam, looted goods and attacked offices in a rare outburst of public unrest over China’s deployment of an oil rig in contested waters. The two countries are locked in long-standing territorial disputes in the South China Sea over the Paracel and Spratly islands, which both claim. There have been repeated skirmishes near the oil rig in recent days involving vessels from the two countries, with collisions and the use of water cannon.

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As far as alleged pork barrel mastermind Janet Lim Napoles’ camp is concerned, there’s only one list of government officials involved in the scam, and it’s the list that they gave to Justice Secretary Leila de Lima. Counsel Bruce Rivera said the lists that have been made public through the media are either incomplete or inaccurate. The biggest corruption scandal in the country in recent years has reached a new narrative, with Napoles suddenly deciding to tell all in an affidavit that could pin down some of the allies of President Benigno Aquino III. But how credible is Napoles at this time?

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Conglomerate San Miguel Corporation on May 14 presented to President Benigno Aquino III a proposal to build a $10-billion airport that will replace the congested and 3-decade-old Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA). SMC would build an airport with 4 runways on an 800-hectare property along the Manila-Cavite coastal road, which is owned by Cyber Bay Corporation. This will be double the 400 hectares being occupied by the decrepit NAIA, which has a single runway. SMC owns 49% of legacy carrier Philippine Airlines; the rest is owned by tycoon Lucio Tan.

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Writing in the Wall Street Journal on May 14, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak called on international aviation regulators to implement real-time tracking of airliners to prevent a repeat of the mysterious disappearance of flight MH370. The International Civil Aviation Organization held a special meeting earlier this week in Montreal to discuss growing calls for real-time tracking of aircraft by satellite, cloud storage of “black box” data and other innovations. Najib said regulators should change crucial communications systems to prevent them being manually shut off. “One of the most astonishing things about this tragedy is the revelation that an airliner the size of a Boeing 777 can vanish, almost without a trace,” Najib wrote.

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Thousands of people fled raging wildfires in southern California which destroyed homes and triggered evacuations at a nuclear power plant, a military base and a Legoland amusement park on May 14. The blazes, which also closed a major north-south highway, come amid record temperatures in the western US state, where the annual wildfire season typically starts much later in the year. At least 15 buildings have been destroyed, including 3 homes. About a dozen non-essential staff at the San Onofre nuclear power plant were evacuated “as a precaution” due to a nearby brush fire, the plant said on its Twitter feed.

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The New York Times abruptly replaced its first female executive editor, Jill Abramson, on May 14, and named managing editor Dean Baquet as the first African American at the top editorial post. The sudden departure left many questions unanswered both inside and outside one of the nation’s most prestigious news organizations. The 60-year-old Abramson, a former investigative correspondent and Washington editor who was appointed to lead the newsroom in 2011, was the first woman to serve in the top job. The paper’s own report on her departure said: “The reasons for the switch were not immediately clear.” Baquet will become the first African-American executive editor at the New York Times.

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Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s children are keen to help their Hollywood A-list parents plan their long-awaited wedding – and would organize a Disney or paintball party if they had their way, Jolie says. The actress also revealed that she is doing well a year after she revealed that she had had a double mastectomy to reduce her high risk of breast cancer. Jolie and Pitt are engaged, but he has often stated that they will not wed in the United States so long as same-sex marriage equality is not the law of the land. The celebrity power couple officially announced their engagement in 2012.

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It’s the ultimate selfie compilation shot in major tourist sites and exotic locations from all over the world. And this was how it came to be: A GoPro camera mounted on a stick, carried by traveler Alex Chacon. Combine a camera and one adventurer traveling to more than 36 countries for 600 days and you get this epic selfie, a 360º snapshot of all the places Chacon visited. Chacon covered over 200,000 kilometers on his motorcycle, crossing borders just to get to the most remote places on earth.

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