Daily News Highlights – March 17, 2015 Edition

Supporters of Makati Mayor Jejomar Erwin Binay Jr continue to camp out at the city hall compound even after the appellate court temporarily stopped the 6-month preventive suspension of the local chief executive. The Department of the Interior and Local Government – headed by the political rival of the mayor’s father, Vice President Jejomar Binay – said Monday night it wouldn’t recognize the temporary restraining order because it came a couple of hours after the DILG had already served the suspension order on the mayor and his vice mayor had been installed as acting chief executive. The DILG, however, said it would ask the justice secretary what to do.

Regularly check out Rappler Nation for updates on the country’s richest city.

Soldiers and policemen jointly arrested Ali Mohammad Tambako, the man said to have been protecting terrorist Abdul Basit Usman, the bomb maker who escaped the secret January 25 mission in Maguindanao that left 65 people dead, including 44 police commandos. Tambako was arrested and questioned in General Santos City, then brought to Manila for inquest. His arrest makes the authorities confident that they will soon catch up with Usman. Tambako was also the one allegedly coddling international terrorist Zulkifli bin hir alias “Marwan” before he was killed by elite cops.

Read the full story on Rappler Nation.

It was ironic that President Baldwin Lonsdale of Vanuatu was in Japan, attending an international conference on disaster preparedness, when his archipelago of 80 islands and 270,000 people was devastated by Severe Tropical Cyclone Pam. “The humanitarian need is immediate, we need it right now…. We need international funding to [rebuild] all the infrastructure,” he said, as he prepared to fly home to his country in the Pacific. “There are more than 100,000 people likely homeless, every school destroyed, full evacuation centers, damage to health facilities and the morgue,” a humanitarian worker said. He said everything his country built in two years had been destroyed.

Read how the people of Vanuatu are picking up the pieces on Rappler World.

Since hundreds of thousands of people fled their homes after Islamic State group fighters occupied their villages and government security forces responded to retake the ground, some 5 million Iraqis have not received health services because the needed funds are not coming in. World Health Organization regional director Ala Alwan, who visited Iraq, found it “alarming” that only 30% of the funding required by the health sector in the conflict-torn country had been received, leaving a gap of $218.7 million (206 million euros).

Read the full story on Rappler World.

Robert Durst, the scion of a wealthy New York real estate family, was arrested at a New Orleans hotel – where he registered with an alias, paid cash, and was carrying fake documents – for the 2000 murder of his friend, who was then about to testify on the 1982 murder of Durst’s wife where the tycoon was also a suspect. In 2003, Durst was also charged in the murder and dismemberment of his neighbor in Texas but was found not guilty after he said he acted in self-defense. The tycoon’s arrest came a day before HBO was to release a documentary, where he was recorded muttering to himself in the bathroom, “What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course.” 

Read the full story on Rappler World.

In a move to counter the foreclosure proceedings initiated by creditor STI Holdings against the Philippine Women’s University, the school’s chairperson and long-time creditor Dr Helena Benitez filed a petition before a Manila court seeking the rehabilitation of the property. The 100-year-old Benitez proposed a rehabilitation plan that will allow for the sale of assets to cover part of the debts of PWU, while the rest will be paid in accordance with projected cash flow over a 10-year period. These will be done without disrupting the school operations. 

Read the full story on Rappler Business.

Dubbed “solar lolas (grandmothers),” 4 Aeta women from Central Luzon in the Philippines recently returned from India, where they were trained – along with other women from indigenous communities around the world – the skills to install solar-powered lanterns in their home villages. “Now I am not just a woman or a grandmother or a mother. I am a solar engineer. What men can do, I can do and do it better,” said one of them. She not only knows how to install the solar panels, she can fabricate, maintain, and repair them. The 4 women will help power 200 households in their villages in Zambales and Tarlac provinces. Each pair of Aeta grandmothers will be installing solar panels in 100 households.

Read the full story on Rappler Science.

There was a time that animals that Filipinos only read in books or see in foreign documentaries actually roamed across the Philippines. There were elephants, rhinoceros, and giant tortoises in Cagayan Valley in the north. There were tigers in the jungled ridges of Palawan in the south. But they got extinct as humans rose to dominate life on Earth. It happens everywhere, but the turbocharged rate it is happening now is alarming – over 200 species are now disappearing daily – and it threatens the mind-boggling menagerie of plant and animal life in the Philippines, like the Tamaraw, Philippine Eagle, Philippine Crocodile, and the Philippine Cockatoo.

Read how you can help save these species on Rappler Science.

It’s better to be clear about certain things – such as what is okay and not okay to post on Facebook. Thus, the social networking site updated – “not changing” – its community standards page just to specific about the types of nudity, graphic images, and discussions that are banned from the service. Facebook gives examples of what can be shared according to the following categories: helping to keep you safe, encouraging respectful behavior, keeping your account and personal information secure, and protecting your intellectual property.

Read the full story on Rappler Technology.

For Italian fashion designer Domenico Dolce, who has been in a gay relationship with business partner Stefano Gabbana, babies should be born to fathers and mothers. His Catholic faith makes him “not convinced by children from chemistry, synthetic babies, uteruses for rent, semen chosen from a catalogue.” That enraged British songwriter Elton John, who, along with husband David Furnish, have two sons born via a surrogacy arrangement. “How dare you refer to my beautiful children as ‘synthetic,’” John said in an Instagram post. “Shame on you for wagging your judgemental little fingers at IVF…. Your archaic thinking is out of step with the times, just like your fashions. I shall never wear Dolce and Gabbana ever again. #BoycottDolceGabbana.” The Italian duo said it was Elton John who was being judgmental, accusing him of being authoritarian, ignorant, and hypocritical.

Read the full story on Rappler Entertainment.