November 14, 2013 Edition

The national government will be able to reach all 40 municipalities of Leyte by Thursday, November 14, defense chief Voltaire Gazmin said. The secretary of national defense gave this assurance Wednesday night, November 13, after a closed-door meeting of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) in Camp Aguinaldo. In a related event, Secretary to the Cabinet Rene Almendras acknowledged the difficulties the national government was facing – even admitting it needs help – but also defended its efforts. Almendras also admitted that despite current efforts it is “not within the national government’s control how effectively we can hit the ground.”

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Read the story on Secretary Almendras’ statement on Rappler.
Read about Almendras’ statement on the BBC.

Some 300 Filipinos have been camping outside their consulate in Jeddah for weeks waiting for documents and help to leave Saudi Arabia, as a crackdown on illegal migrants intensifies. As amnesty expired on November 4, authorities have been rounding up foreigners who have stayed behind illegally and are holding them in special centres until their deportation papers are sorted. Another roughly four million were able to find employers to sponsor them. There are around one million Philippine workers in Saudi Arabia. Expatriates account for a full nine million of the oil-rich kingdom’s population of 27 million.

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The farthest islands in Guiuan, Eastern Samar have gone 4 days without food. With all their boats damaged by Super Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan), locals from these islands remain totally cut off from Guiuan town proper and much needed aid, said Annaliza Gonzales-Kwan, sister of Mayor Christopher Gonzales, who is in Manila to ask for more help. “There are 19 island barangays in Guiuan. The ones hardest to reach haven’t received relief goods. These are Homonhon, Manicani, Suluan and Calicoan,” she told Rappler. The island barangays have not benefited from the two waves of food distribution intended to alleviate the situation in Guiuan town proper. As of November 13, about 390 bags of relief goods from the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) have arrived in C130 planes.

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Damage to agriculture caused by Typhoon Yolanda (international name Haiyan) now stands at P6.9 billion. Rice cultivation and fisheries areas suffered the most damage. Rice losses amounted to P2.23 billion, and fisheries, P1.16 billion as of Wednesday, November 13, the Department of Agriculture (DA) reported. The DA recorded a total of 137,225 metric tons (MT) of rice crops lost. It said 81,056 hectares of rice fields were affected, and only half them can be recovered. The volume of damage to fisheries was placed at 23,191 MT. The government is using DA-supported food trading terminals in Visayas to avoid a spike in food prices in the island, the DA chief said. Main commodities such as rice, chicken, vegtables and potatoes are now being moved to local government food trading centers from production areas to prevent price increases.

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Australia’s new conservative Prime Minister Tony Abbott Wednesday, November 13, moved to abolish a carbon tax designed to combat climate change as his first major economic reform since taking office. The carbon tax charged the country’s biggest polluters for their emissions at a fixed price and was due to transition to an emissions trading scheme. Scrapping the tax was a central election promise of Abbott who had argued the cost of the levy was passed on to consumers, resulting in higher utility bills and day-to-day costs. The new government instead favors a “direct action” plan that includes an incentive fund to pay companies to increase their energy efficiency, a controversial sequestration of carbon in soil scheme, and the planting 20 million trees.

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Anthropologists are on the trail of “Little Red Riding Hood” in hopes that the popular tale, along with other folk tales, could shed light on ancient human migration patterns. Researchers created an “evolutionary tree” that shows where and when variations of the folk tale emerged across the world. Anthropologist Jamie Tehrani of Durham University used phylogenetic analysis on 58 variants of the stories, focusing on 72 variables such as the gender of the main character, whether the villain was a wolf or tiger or something else, what tricks were used, and whether the story ends happily or not. Scores were given to variables based on whether they have shared origins. For instance, researchers have found that the Chinese version of “Little Red Riding Hood” actually came from European oral tradition, and not vice versa.

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For the very first time, NASA released an image that captures not only Saturn – with its moons and rings – but also Earth. The Cassini-Huygens spacecraft caught a snapshot of the two planets on July 19, when the Saturn blocked the sun. It is a rare treat because with the sun so close to Earth, targeting an image of it would damage the sensors of the spacecraft. NASA released the image of the blue planet seen on Saturn’s lower right, with Venus on the upper left, and Mars as a faint red dot to the left of Venus. NASA said this is the first time that all 4 planets are visible. It was made possible by the July solar eclipse.

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The death of 31-year-old Gareth Williams, the M16 code-breaker whose body was found “in a padlocked sports bag” was most likely an accident, the BBC reported. His naked body was found in his apartment in August 2010 and authorities then said he had been killed. The police, according to the BBC, found his body inside a zipped-up red sports holdall in the empty bath of his bathroom. The Metropolitan Police said a review of evidence showed “it was more probable” no one else was present when Williams died. It was “theoretically possible” Williams padlocked the bag from the inside, police said, although there was no evidence he intended to take his own life or that his death was connected to his work.

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More information is on Rappler.
More details are on CNN.

From Pink Star to Pink Dream. An extraordinarily rare diamond mined by De Beers in Africa in 1999 was sold at an auction for a record price of US$83 million. The Pink Star was sold to Isaac Wolf, a well known New York diamond cutter, who renamed the gem the Pink Dream. Sotheby’s auctioneer David Bennett announced after the winning bid, “Ladies and gentlemen, 68 million is the world record bid for a diamond ever bid and it’s right here.” The bid smashed the previous world record of $46.2 million for the Graff Pink diamond, half the size of the Pink Star. It took two years to cut and polish the diamond which in its present state is 59.6 carat.

Read the full story on the BBC.

Ralston Jover’s latest film, “Bendor” sketches the life of a woman wasted to routine. Actress Vivian Velez plays the role of Blondie who tries to hold together an almost dysfunctional family. She deals with abortionists and corrupt policemen, as she engages in shouting matches with her husband. She has stalls that are near Quiapo Church, and which sell a variety of items, including abortifacients. Blondie herself assists a woman who wants an abortion and narrowly escapes when she brings the bleeding woman to a hospital. Her illegal trade is temporarily halted when Quiapo vendors are rounded up but are eventually freed. Realizing that her life has been her own prison, Blondie opts to stay behind bars.

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