August 22, 2014 Edition

A senator has pointed out how Philippine government offices’ expenses on electricity and water consumption have been continuously increasing in the last few years, and now urges them to install solar panels to help reduce not just their bills but their carbon footprints as well. “When it comes to use of renewable energy, government must practice what it preaches,” said Senate President Pro-Tempore Ralph Recto. Through the Renewable Energy Act of 2008, the Philippine government is tasked with developing renewable energy options in the country. For 2015, the proposed allocation for electricity and water bills is P12.9 billion ($294 million). Experience shows, however, that actual expenses on these items always exceeds the allocation, Recto said.

Read the full story on Rappler.

The administration of President Benigno Aquino III has changed its mind on the train project that his predecessor entered into with China but which Aquino scrapped due to lingering legal issues and corruption allegations. The economic and development board told the Senate they have attained significant progress in negotiations to revive the 80-kilometer Northrail project meant to connect Manila to the Clark International Airport. During the Arroyo administration, the project was awarded to China National Machinery and Equipment Corporation for $421 million, which the company increased to $593 million; the Philippine government agreed to shoulder the difference.

Read the full story on Rappler.

Ethics experts urged the “fair selection of participants” in the testing of ZMapp, which is eyed as a possible cure to the Ebola virus that has killed some 1,350 people in African countries. Ezekiel Emanuel of the University of Pennsylvania and Annette Rid of Kings College London wrote in a medical journal that the limited doses of the trial drugs must not be reserved for the well-off or well-connected, referring to “health-care workers.” They made this statement as two American missionary doctors who caught the killer virus in Liberia were pronounced cured after being administered the treatment.

Read the full story on Rappler.

An open-source Diaspora is struggling with the legal implications that those connected to it will face after jihadists started posting propaganda on the social network. This was after Twitter and YouTube clamped down on Islamic State imaged, video, and text. The network, which has some 1 million users, is “powerless to stop them,” according to a report in The Guardian. Meanwhile, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country, said the scale of the slaughter wrought by the extremists in overrunning large swathes of Iraq and Syria and the level of violence being used was appalling. He branded the actions of Islamic State militants “embarrassing” to the religion and urged Islamic leaders to unite in tackling extremism.

Read the story on Indonesia’s call against ISIS here.

After a 7-hour reading of the verdict, Indonesia’s Constitutional Court completely rejected the electoral protest case filed by former general Prabowo Subianto in connection with the recent presidential election. The 9 justices unanimously rendered a final and binding ruling that Prabowo failed to prove his allegations of massive, structural, and systematic electoral fraud. The court said the election commission’s implementation of the special voter’s list for unregistered voters was legal, and that the use of Papua’s traditional noken voting system, where leaders vote on behalf of the entire tribe, was valid.

Read the full story on Rappler.

The military’s hold on power in Thailand has been reinforced, as the national assembly hand-picked by the junta chose coup leader General Prayut Chan-O-Cha as prime minister. The junta took over on May 22 after the ouster of elected PM Yingluck Shinawatra, sister of another ousted PM Thaksin Shinawatra, whom Prayut considers a staunch opponent. The junta has ruled out holding new elections before around October 2015, despite appeals from the United States and the European Union for a return to democracy.

Read the full story on Rappler.

Studying the from the Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, researchers at Harvard University found that women who eat instant noodles at least 2 times a week face a greater risk of high blood pressure, elevated blood sugar, and high cholesterol. “The consumption of instant noodles was associated with increased prevalence of metabolic syndrome in women, independent of major dietary patterns,” said the study in the Journal of Nutrition. “In other words, it didn’t matter if women ate a largely traditional diet of rice, fish and vegetables, or a diet heavier in meat and fried foods – if they ate instant noodles twice weekly, they were at higher risk of health problems.”

Read the full story on Rappler.

American diplomats are not about to join the bandwagon where people either pledge $100 to Lou Gehrig’s disease research or record themselves getting drenched by frigid water, then post the stunt online and challenge others to do the same. “Federal government ethics rules prevent us from using our public offices, such as – high public offices such as ambassadors – for private gain, no matter how worthy the cause is,” said State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf. Meanwhile, one of those who helped popularize the charity stunt, 27-year-old Corey Griffin, died in a diving accident. Griffin jumped into the water from a building on a wharf that was a popular diving spot in Nantucket Island, Massachusetts.

Read the full story on the ban for US diplomats on Rappler.

Twenty companies – 10 junior startups and 10 existing companies – pitched ideas for possible funding by venture capitalists and entrepreneurs at the first Elevation Pitch event in Manila recently. Rappler was there and made its own picks of tech ideas worth looking at. They ranged from a video game to new energy saving technology to a social media tracking system.

Check out the full Rappler list.

The song “Loca” popularized by Colombian pop star Shakira in 2010 is an illegal copy of a tune written by a Dominican musician in 1998, a United States judge ruled. It was a replication of a song written by singer and composer Ramon Arias Vasquez, known as Arias, who testified he wrote the song between 1996 and 1998 and presented as evidence a cassette on which it was recorded. The song became a hit in the Dominican Republic when it was performed by another singer, Eduard Edwin Bellou Pou, also known as “El Cata,” in 2007. This other singer, who works for Sony, also claimed he had composed the song.

Read the full story on Rappler.