April 26, 2012 Edition

Antonio Oposa, one of Asia’s leading voices on environmental law, has asked President Benigno Aquino III to initiate a move to declare the entire Spratly Islands and the South China Sea (West Philippine Sea) an international marine reserve and nature park. This should change the dimension of the debate, Oposa says in his April 25 letter to the President, and would benefit all claimant-countries. “There is no limit to the benefits of cooperation when people understand that no one really owns anything, and that we are all just passing through,” he says. The proposal comes amid a continued standoff between Manila and Beijing in the Scarborough Shoal.

Read the full story on Rappler

 

 

The UN-brokered peace plan in Syria isn’t holding, with at least 100 more people killed across the country. A Damascus suburb was shelled heavily on Wednesday, April 25. France is impatient, saying the world cannot allow the Assad regime to “defy us.” French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe is proposing the deployment of 300 more UN monitors to the country. And if this still doesn’t work out, the UN Security Council should consider using force to “stop this tragedy,” Juppe said. Other members of the Security Council however believe the plan needs to be given time.

Read more about it on BBC

Read more about the continuing violence in Syria here

 

No less than the European Union president has expressed alarm at the “winds of populism” in Europe, which he said is proving to be an obstacle to the free movement of people in the zone. The success of France’s anti-euro National Front party in the first round of presidential elections has once again thrust the far right into the headlines. In the Netherlands, the refusal of the rightist Freedom Party to supposed proposed austerity measures led the Dutch government to collapse. Nationalists and extremists are taking advantage of Europeans’ growing discontent over the financial crisis. 

 

Read more about the EU president’s concerns on Rappler

Read about the emergence of the far right in Europe here

The Internet giant is bringing former one-time violent extremists and their victims to a common online space. They have launched a social network aimed at controlling gang culture via shared experiences in the Against Violent Extremism. The network, which includes activists, policymakers, entrepreneurs and business leaders, proposes to allow onetime extremists from Pakistan to discuss how to fight the scourge of terror with former gang members from El Salvador. It has the backing of a consortium including Google Ideas and the Institute for Strategic Dialogue.

Read the full story on Rappler

The United States’ influence in countries with territorial claims in the South China Sea has convinced Chinese leaders of the value of a “moderate” stance toward these disputes, the think tank International Crisis Group said in an April 23 report. But internal politics and the conflicting interests of its power players are making it difficult for China to exercise this, it added. Philippine Sen Francis Pangilinan agreed with this assessment as he cautioned Manila against turning into an “unwitting” pawn in Beijing’s current political problems. “China is currently embroiled in a leadership scandal at the highest levels of the Communist Party. The current tension in the West Philippine Sea could become a very convenient diversion by fanning the flames of nationalist fanaticism in China,” Pangilinan said.

Read the full story on Rappler

Read more about China’s corruption woes here

The Philippine military’s Northern Luzon Command (Nolcom) has its hands full. Eleven of its troops, including a captain, were killed by suspected New People’s Army guerrillas, in an ambush in the mountain province of Ifugao Wednesday, April 25. Nolcom is also tasked to track movements in the disputed Scarborough Shoal, which is off the coast of Zambales, because the province falls under its jurisdiction. The guerrillas’ attack is the worst in the area in recent history – and a big surprise since communist strength in the Cordilleras has been waning. Two other soldiers and one civilian was wounded in the ambush. 

Read the full story on Rappler

 

 

The economic costs of over 400 natural and man-made disasters in the Philippines in 2011 reached over P26 billion, a report of the Citizen’s Disaster Response Center showed.  This is equivalent to almost 3% of the total tax collections of the Bureau of Internal Revenue and almost 1.5% of the overall budget of the national government. The Philippines is the most disaster-hit country in 2011, according to the report, with the number of disasters increasing by 50%. This has tremendous impact on the economy, it added.

Read the full story on Rappler

Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch faced a media ethics inquiry April 26 in relation to his News Corp’s phone-hacking scandal, denying he ever sought favors from British leaders. On the same day, an advisor of a British Cabinet Secretary quit over fresh revelations he relayed crucial business information that benefited the Murdoch media companies. But the 81-year-old chairman declared: “I’ve never asked a prime minister for anything,” Murdoch said after questions about his New York-based company’s political ties going back 30 years. “I took a particularly strong pride in the fact we’ve never pushed our commercial interests in our papers.”

Read the full story here

There’s one boxer on Forbes’ ‘America’s Most Influential Athletes’ list and it isn’t Floyd Mayweather Jr. He isn’t even an American. World boxing champion Manny Pacquiao is 4th on the list of 10 compiled by the magazine, that ranks active professional athletes on their likeability and whether or not they are influential. This is that the first year the Filipino fighter made the list, with a 20% influential score and 59% on likeability — factors that are important to marketers.

Read the full story on Rappler

 

 

PEOPLE magazine has dubbed the 30-year-old, 16-time Grammy winner the world’s most beautiful woman. It comes at a perfect time for Beyoncé, who’s enjoying life as a new mom to a three-month-old girl named Blue. “I feel more beautiful than I’ve ever felt because I’ve given birth,” she told PEOPLE. “I have never felt so connected, never felt like I had such a purpose on this earth.”

Read more about it here