October 8, 2013 Edition

Concerns over the United States’ building financial crisis is gathering steam. The weeklong shutdown is also getting nearer the October 17 deadline on the government’s borrowing limit, creating jitters in the stock market and in China, with Beijing warning that the United States must act quickly to establish the credibility of the dollar, the world’s major reserve currency. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.90% to 14,936.24 on worries about the debt ceiling showdown that could trigger a disastrous default and shred Washington’s prized credit rating. The US government will be barred from borrowing after October 17 unless the current $16.7 trillion debt ceiling is lifted. In the resultant chaos, Washington would begin defaulting on its debts, global stock markets could plummet and the fragile world economy could take a hit it can ill afford. President Barack Obama is refusing to negotiate and enter into a compromise over his trademark health care law with Republican House Speaker John Boehner.

Read more on Rappler.

Fresh from the recently concluded weeks-long firefighting between government forces and members of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), Zamboanga faces another crisis: floods. Among the areas affected by flooding are some evacuation centers, housing thousands of people who were displaced by the fighting. Classes and work in government offices were suspended on October 8 and residents living near riverbanks and low-lying areas were advised to seek safer ground. An intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) is bringing rain to the area, as well as to the rest of Mindanao and the Visayas, state weather bureau PAGASA said.

Read more on Rappler.

As President Benigno Aquino III entered a meeting of APEC business leaders on Sunday, October 6, reporters from Hong Kong demanded to know whether he would meet Hong Kong leader Leung Chun-ying in Bali and apologize to the families of the victims of a previous bus hostage crisis in Manila. He did not answer the questions and APEC staff then intervened to admonish the journalists whose access to the gathering of leaders were eventually withdrawn. Some were also detained for hours, according to reports. The journalists slammed the stifling of their press freedom, while the Hong Kong Journalists’ Association said the Aquino’s government had “yet to provide a satisfactory explanation” for why the 8 Hong Kongers had died in a botched police rescue. Malacañang said the journalists “crossed the line.”

Read more on Rappler.

US aircraft manufacturer Boeing has lost its firm grip on the Japanese aviation market, its single biggest customer for the Dreamliner. Japan Airlines’ ordered 31 Airbus A350 planes in a deal valued at $9.5 billion, challenging Boeing’s dominance in the Japanese market. The deal marks the first time JAL has bought Airbus planes with the slate of new aircraft expected to come into service from 2019, the carrier said October 7. The push by the European plane maker comes as JAL and domestic rival All Nippon Airways — whose fleet is also dominated by Boeing — have been sideswiped by problems with the Dreamliner. The fuel-efficient Boeing aircraft was grounded globally in January after lithium-ion batteries overheated on two different planes, with one of them catching fire while parked.

Read more on Rappler.

Shaking the graft-ridden Bureau of Customs from top to bottom has caused September collections to slow down. Already missing its collection targets in the past months, the bureau collected only 87% of its September goal of over P29 billion. Customs chief Ruffy Biazon attributed this to the months-long effort to revamp the agency from top to bottom. On October 7, the 5 recently appointed deputy commissioners put a united front and told a press briefing they will work together to implement reforms meant to eventually improve the collection performance of the government’s second biggest source of revenues.  

Read more on Rappler here and here.

Unprecedented funding cuts in the US are making it difficult for potential new generation scientists to break through as the 3 winners of the Nobel Prize for Medicine did. Funding is “in danger,” leaving enormous hurdles to overcome in solving the main mysteries of the brain, according to James Rothman who, with Randy Schekman of the United States, were honored for their work on how cells organize their cargo and move molecules – a process that contributes to normal body and brain function but is also at the root of neurological diseases, diabetes, and immune disorders. They said the shrinking budget for the National Institutes of Health, the largest funder of US research, has left funding for only 17% of applications for grants. They shared the Nobel prize with Thomas Suedhof of Germany.

Read more here and here.

Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto is asking what he had asked before: Where and how has the huge discretionary fund from the Malampaya gas project been spent by the executive? Amid the hullabaloo about the Malampaya fund being misused like the lawmakers’ pork barrel, Recto said he would ask the current budget department to account for the P130 billion cash it claimed does not exist but which, to the senator’s reckoning, is what remains of royalties from the natural gas operations off Palawan island province. The estimated P30 billion-a-year proceeds from the Malampaya operations – currently allocated according to the sole discretion of the President – had amounted to P170 billion over the years, he said. The former Arroyo government spent P25 while the current Aquino administration P15 billion. Recto, a former budget secretary, said he was told “there is no P130 billion in cash.”

Read more on Rappler.

The stories of the men who bring the casualties of the recently ended Zamboanga fighting between government authorities and members of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) to their resting place are featured in a documentary film by Rappler’s Patricia Evangelista and Paolo Villaluna. The burying men have spent days in a cemetery since Zamboanga City went up in smoke after 200 armed men seized the city to declare independence. It features Ustadz Jamad, a translator of Arabic text to English from the National Commission for Muslim Filipinos, Ariel Malicay from the City Engineer and who operates the backhoe to dig graves, and Sunny Boy who ferries the dead to the cemetery where he has helped bury in days more than what he has in years. “They admit they know little about the battle that raged in the city, only that Zamboanga City is at a standstill and people are dead.”

Watch and read their stories on Rappler.

Argentina’s President Cristina Kirchner, 60, underwent surgery on October 8 to drain a brain hematoma following an August 12 fall. The surgery was triggered by her complains of tingling and a temporary loss of muscle strength in her left arm late on October 6. Its a risky but a “straightforward” medical procedure that couldn’t have come at a worse time. Her party faces uncertainty in the congressional elections to be held in 3 weeks. Kirchner’s ruling Victory Front coalition faces the prospect of losing its majority in the midterm elections on October 27.

Read more on Rappler.

Space disaster movie “Gravity” soared to the top of North America’s box office in its debut weekend making $55.8 million, a record for a release in October, traditionally a slow month. The film, directed by Oscar-nominated Alfonso Cuaron and starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney – both Oscar winners – as astronauts adrift in space after a devastating accident, has already been winning rave reviews and Oscars buzz. It has beaten the $52 million scared up by “Paranormal 3” in 2011, according to the IMDb movie industry website.

Read more on Rappler here and here.