May 31, 2012 Edition

About 12 billion bullets are made each year, “enough to kill nearly every man, woman and child on the planet twice,” Oxfam said in a  report released Wednesday, May 30, ahead of new talks on arms trade treaty in New York. The aid group said the world trade in ammunition now tops US$4-B a year, growing at a faster rate than the global trade in firearms. Oxfam lamented that only a minority of countries report on ammunition exports, noting that the biggest information gaps were found in war-torn countries. The aid group is calling for greater regulation of the trade. 

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In a landmark decision, the Philippine Supreme Court ordered justices and judges nationwide to release to the public their Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth, ending more than two decades of secrecy. The High Court issued the resolution on the first day it met without its former chief, Renato Corona, who was removed from office through impeachment. Acting Chief Justice Antonio Carpio, the most senior of the justices, presided over the special en banc session. He will be heading the Court in the meantime while the Judicial and Bar Council interviews nominees to the post and eventually submits a short list to President Benigno Aquino III. The President himself said he sees no need to rush the appointment of a new chief justice. He has 3 months to fill up the vacancy.

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President Aquino says no need rush choice. Read story here

Is there reason to celebrate Renato Corona’s removal from the Supreme Court? None yet, says human rights lawyer and law professor Theodore Te in his Thought Leaders piece on Rappler. The government must pursue civil, criminal and administrative cases against the disgraced justice, he said. This will show that the impeachment process was “not simply an exercise in substitution of faces but a decisive step towards addressing impunity and bringing about closure.” Te cited the cases of resigned Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez and ousted President Joseph Estrada as proof of impunity in the country. Gutierrez quit before any charges could be filed against her, while Estrada was pardoned after being convicted for plunder – and even managed land second in the 2010 presidential race.

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It’s been the bane of travelers. And relief is finally in sight. Starting June 15, Philippine domestic airlines face suspension and fine if they bump off passengers from an overbooked flight and disallow refunds and re-booking of airline tickets. Airlines will be slapped with a P5,000 fine (from the previous P150), multiplied by the number of passengers bumped off or denied boarding. For the bumped off passengers, the compensation for denied boarding will be increased to P5,000 for domestic flights and P10,000 for international flights. The Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) issued this order following numerous consumer complaints against local airlines that have been aggressively expanding flight frequencies and offering promotional fares in the past years. 

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The Philippines’ Commission on Appointments has confirmed the posting of career diplomat Sonia Brady as the new ambassador to Beijing, and she is expected to be traveling soon to China. The government said Brady’s knowledge of China, which spans almost 4 decades, will come in handy as Manila seeks to find a diplomatic solution to the Scarborough Shoal standoff that is now approaching its second month. Brady served as the Philippines’ ambassador to China from 2006 and 2010, and received her first foreign posting also in China from 1976 to 1978. Manila’s previous ambassador to Beijing, a businessman who has close ties to the family of President Benigno Aquino III, resigned after failing to convince the lawmakers that he was qualified for the job.

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In a show of force, about 5,000 anti-Thaksin protesters marched on the streets of Bangkok Wednesday, May 30, to denounce a bill they fear will open the door for the ousted premier’s return to Thailand. The People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) is protesting a plan by Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, Thaksin’s sister, to grant a sweeping amnesty. Reconciliation proposals pending in parliament have threatened to further polarize politics in the country, which has been repeatedly shaken by civil unrest since Thaksin was ousted by royalist generals in 2006.

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A UN-backed war crimes court sentenced Liberia’s former president Charles Taylor to 50 years’ jail Wednesday, May 30, for arming Sierra Leone rebels in return for “blood diamonds.” The former president was convicted on April 26 on all 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for aiding and abetting Sierra Leone’s Revolutionary United Front during the country’s 1991-2001 civil war. In return, the court said, Taylor was paid in diamonds mined by slave labor in areas under control of rebels who murdered, raped and kept sex slaves while hacking off limbs and forcing children under 15 to fight.

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The Vatican’s official newspaper is for the first time in its more than 150-year history printing a special supplement for women. The four-page color supplement, which will appear in Italian every last Thursday of the month in the L’Osservatore Romano, aims to promote better understanding of the “under-appreciated treasure” of women in the Church, the paper’s director Giovanni Maria Vian told reporters. The Church counts among its members 740,000 nuns and 460,000 monks and priests. Pope Benedict XVI supports the project, Vian said.

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The Philippine economy grew 6.4% in the first quarter of 2012, higher than expected, thanks to a strong showing by the services and industry sectors. This piece of good news comes amid a worsening eurozone crisis and the Philippine government’s own underspending. It’s also a huge jump from a dismal 4.9% growth in the same period last year. The economy seems to be gaining speed with the Philippines Stock Exchange outpacing benchmark indexes in Malaysia and Indonesia. Moody’s Investor Service has also revised the country’s outlook to “stable,” citing fiscal improvements.

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High-profile entrepreneurs and investors said mobile-focused Internet startups will shine despite the dim stock market debut by leading social network Facebook. They said Internet companies today are different from those in the late 1990s. The leaders of career-oriented online social network LinkedIn, which has seen its stock price double since its initial public offering a year ago, stressed that the success of failure of a startup’s stock market debut means little to the viability of an enterprise.

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