March 10, 2014 Edition

With no debris and no trace of the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, Malaysian aviation officials are left mystified. “Unfortunately ladies and gentlemen, we have not found anything that appears to be objects from the aircraft, let alone the aircraft itself,” civil aviation chief Azharuddin Abdul Rahman told a press conference Monday, March 10. The “unprecedented missing aircraft mystery,” he said, is “mystifying” and pushing them to increase efforts to do what they have to do. Authorities are looking at all angles, including terrorism or a hijack. The aircraft had 239 passengers on board and went missing early Saturday, an hour after leaving Kuala Lumpur bound for Beijing.

Read the full story on Rappler.

Just a month away from the scheduled visit of UP President Barack Obama, the Philippine panel negotiating a military-to-military agreement with the US, has presented its version of a full draft text. A statement released Sunday, March 9, by the defense department said both sides have made progress in the following areas: preamble, purpose and scope, definition of terms, ownership of constructed infrastructure, coordination of security, contracting procedures, and resolution of disputes. The draft agreement has also been titled “Enhanced Defense Cooperation.” Contentious issues include access of Filipino troops to facilities that the US will build and the length of time US troops will be given “temporary” access to the bases.


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During the East-West Center’s international media conference in Yangon, Myanmar, Nobel Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi described the importance of a free press in a country undergoing political transition. “Greater freedom demands greater responsibility and this freedom is not to be misused,” she said. She added, “The press must teach us to understand what democratic responsibilities are by themselves exercising the responsibility…Without a free press we cannot really lay the foundations of a democracy.” Her country’s democracy icon, Suu Kyi spent more than 15 years in detention. She is now a member of parliament after her party won by a landslide in April 2012.

 
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President Barack Obama will meet with Ukraine’s interim Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk in the White House on Wednesday, March 12. The meeting is seen as a demonstration of support, US Deputy National Security Adviser Tony Blinken said. Obama has been rallying world support for Kiev and against Russia’s incursion into the Crimean Peninsula in Ukraine. Blinken said the international effort to isolate Russia is “exacting a real cost and a real consequence.”

 
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Outgoing Technology Research Center chief Dennis Cunanan, the latest to be considered a “provisional witness” in the pork barrel scam case, is causing worry among whistleblowers and their lawyers. Cunanan contradicted the testimony of principal witness Benhur Luy that he (Cunanan) received kickbacks from alleged scam mastermind Janet Lim Napoles. He also slipped during the Senate blue ribbon committee hearing on Thursday, March 6, when he said he had visited the office of Napoles in the process of inspection, when none of the NGOs he was supposed to inspect listed the Napoles office. One of the whistleblowers’ lawyers said he did offer anything new in his testimony.


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Vice President Jejomar Binay’s new party will have the same personality but will carry a new brand. Navotas Representative Toby Tiangco, among those tasked by Binay to form the new party, said the brand “cannot remain the same because the voters, the demands of the voters change so you have to meet those demands.” Tiangco and Binay’s spokesman Joey Salgado also said the party will highlight the services Binay was known for as Makati mayor – free health care, education, housing, Overseas Filipino Workers. With Binay expected to run for president in 2016, the party, still with no name, will be among the major contenders.

Read the full story on Rappler.

Pope Francis on Sunday, March 9, left the Vatican for a 6-day spiritual retreat as the holy season of Lent began on Ash Wednesday last week. He will not be in the Vatican when he marks his first anniversary as pope this Thursday, March 13. Instead he will be in the village of Ariccia southeast of Rome until Friday. Pope Francis gave the traditional Sunday Angelus blessing in Saint Peter’s Square before leaving the Vatican. He left with 82 members of the Vatican Curia in a coach and mini-bus.

Read the full story on Rappler.

The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) is looking into the case of Cadet First Class Aldrin Jeff Cudia who was dismissed for lying. CHR chair Loretta Rosales said they will investigate whether his right to be heard and his right to due process was violated. Cudia, who would have graduated salutatorian and at the top of the Navy class, also has a right to education, she added. Chances of Cudia graduating with his classmates on Sunday, March 16, are said to be slim, as his name is not on the graduating cadets list. Rosales said the CHR will look into the academy’s honor system and see if there is a need to reform it.


Read the full story on Rappler.

A related story on Cudia not being on the graduating cadets list is also on Rappler.

Researchers have found new evidence of new gases that can destroy the ozone, 3 of them chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) and one hydrochlorofluorocarbon. The ozone layer blocks harmful ultraviolet rays that cause cancers in humans and reproductive problems in animals. The exact source or origin of these new gases remains a mystery. “Possible sources include feedstock chemicals for insecticide production and solvents for cleaning electronic components,” lead researcher Dr Johannes Laube said. A global ban on the production of CFC gases was put in place in 2010 after a large “hole” in the ozone was discovered over Antarctica in 1985, the BBC reported.


Read the full story on the BBC.

The World Wide Web marks its 25th birthday on March 12, as this was the time in 1989 when Tim Berners-Lee presented his paper that outlined a way to access files on linked computers. “There was a tremendous amount of hubris in the project at the beginning,” Marc Weber, creator and curator of the Internet history program at the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley said. The colleagues of Berners-Lee at the CERN lab in Switzerland “completely ignored” his proposal but he won them over when he demonstrated the usefulness of his system by compiling a lab phone book into an online index.


Read the full story on Rappler.