July 17, 2014 Edition

Typhoon Glenda (Rammasun), passing through 4 regions in Luzon with maximum sustained winds of 140 km/h, left at least 38 dead and thousands still in the dark. The youngest casualty was an 11-month-old girl who died after she was pinned down by a concrete wall. Most of the deaths were caused by fallen trees and debris. The typhoon, which first hit the Bicol region July 15, cut power supply in most of Luzon, with more than 80 percent of Meralco consumers in Metro Manila and 77 Luzon towns suffering from power outage. By the evening of July 16, Meralco had restored power in only 24% of its area.

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A new weather disturbance could soon enter the country, according to independent weather monitoring agency Weather Philippines. It said an active low pressure area, about 155 km west northwest of Yap Islands, is consolidating rapidly and could develop into a Tropical Cyclone within the next 24 hours. State weather bureau PAGASA earlier said another weather disturbance may form within the weekend. If the system does develop into a storm, it will have the international codename Matmo, and the Philippine codename Henry, once it enters the Philippine Area of Responsibility.

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Armed Forces chief of staff Emmanuel Bautista is stepping down on Friday, July 18, and replacing him is his classmate at the Philippine Military Academy, Army Lieutenant General Gregorio Pio Catapang Jr. Currently the AFP vice chief of staff, Catapang was a former commander of the military’s Northern Luzon Command based in Tarlac, the home province of President Benigno Aquino III. He barely has a year in office since he is scheduled to retire in July 2015. Catapang will be the 5th chief of staff named under the 4-year-old Aquino administration.

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The United States and Europe strengthened sanctions on Moscow over Ukraine, further escalating the worst standoff between the Kremlin and the West since the Cold War. The American package of sanctions packed the most punch and drew an angry threat of serious retaliation from Moscow. President Barack Obama took his first direct swipes in the finance, military and energy sectors of the Russian economy. These came after fighting between the Western-backed Kiev government and pro-Russian separatists took another dangerous turn, with 55 civilians killed since the weekend alone.

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The leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa have created a Shanghai-based development bank and a reserve fund seen as alternatives to Western-led institutions. The New Development Bank will mirror the Washington-based World Bank while the reserve is seen as a “mini-IMF.” The BRICS group of emerging powers agreed to launch the institutions to finance infrastructure projects and head off future economic crises. Russian President Vladimir Putin hailed the agreements as “a very powerful way to prevent new economic difficulties.”

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Is there hope to beat the killer disease soon? There is, gauging from trends, according to the United Nations. Global AIDS-related deaths and new HIV infections have fallen by over a third in a decade. It’s the sharpest annual decline since the epidemic’s peak in 2004 and 2005, and marked a 35% drop from the 2.4 million deaths seen in both those years. New infections also fell to 2.1 million last year, down 38% compared to the 3.4 million in 2001. But with more than half of the 35 million people living with HIV unaware they are infected, the battle is far from over.

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A dengue vaccine tested in the Philippines and 4 other Asian countries showed promising overall efficacy and will be available in the health department’s vaccine program by July 2015. The vaccine called CYD-TDV was devised by the French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi Pasteur. It produced lukewarm results two years ago, but after wider trials has now shown 56.5% protection against dengue. Dengue, a disease common in tropical and sub-tropical countries in the world, is transmitted through the bite of an Aedes mosquito, according to the World Health Organization.

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They include doctors, teachers and care workers. They allegedly downloaded or distributed child abuse images. British police have arrested 660 suspected pedophiles in a 6-month operation targeting people watching indecent images online. The country-wide investigation identified 431 children who were in the “care, custody or control” of the suspects, including 127 who were deemed to be at immediate risk of harm. Britain has been rocked by a series of pedophile scandals in the past 2 years, since revelations that late BBC television host Jimmy Savile was a serial sex offender. The unprecedented operation involved searches of 833 properties and more than 9,000 computers, phones and hard drives.

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After years of political debate, Australia axed a divisive carbon tax imposed on major polluters, handing the government a key win after it went to the polls last year vowing the levy would go. Under the carbon tax, the country’s biggest polluters paid for the emissions they produced, giving them an incentive to reduce them. The upper house Senate voted 39-32 to scrap the charge. Prime Minister Tony Abbott went to the polls in September vowing that the pollution levy would go, arguing the cost was being passed to consumers, resulting in higher utility bills. Australia is among the world’s worst per capita polluters due to its reliance on coal-fired power and mining exports.

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“Archie: The Married Life Book Three” has been banned by Singapore after a complaint from a member of the public triggered a content review, the Media Development Authority (MDA) said. The comic series’ depiction of same-sex marriage was deemed to breach local “social norms,” MDA added. The volume, made up of 6 issues of the Life with Archie series, features the marriage of Kevin Keller, a friend of the iconic Archie Andrews character, and his African American boyfriend Clay Walker. Prior to this, judges of a top literary prize quit over the national library’s plans to destroy 3 children’s books deemed to be pro-homosexual. Nearly 400 people had gathered on Sunday in protest, while local writers also condemned the move as an exercise in “book burning” and censorship.

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