The Manila Times 144 20100810

news The Manila Times TUESDAY

Philippine Coast Guard rescues three in Quezon

BY JOVEE MARIE N. DELA CRUZ REPORTER

members and recovered the body of another on the shores of Barangay Otso and Barangay Mangyaw in General Luna, Quezon province as they continue searching for the remaining 12 passengers of a cargo ship that disappeared over the weekend.

G

Baguio City eyeing bulk water supply for study

BAGUIO CITY: Mayor Mauricio Domogan of Baguio City disclosed recently the need to forge a partner- ship with the Baguio Water District (BWD) to ensure that the city’s water supply, which he warns is in danger of being depleted because of population increase, remains sufficient. In his weekly forum with the media,

Domogan said that though existing BWD deep wells remain to be Baguio’s main sources of water, increases in the city population has persuaded him to consider having bulk water supply beyond the city. “Benguet Corporation [had earlier]

offered bulk water supply to the city, [which they] pegged at P42 per cubic meter,” he said. “Unfortunately . . . this [price] is no longer feasable.” He added that a fund amounting to P10 million has been earmarked for Barangay Irisan. This was later realigned after a water source, which now supplies the residents there, was found and developed. Regarding the Santo Tomas reservoir,

the mayor sees evaporation and seepage as reasons for its loss. He said that evaporation occurred there because the catch basic area was open. Citing United Nations and World Health Organization studies that predicted water shortages in the next 15 years, Domogan says that the search for additional water sources has consequently become more urgent. He vowed that city hall shall sit

down with the BWD as soon as possible to discuss the matter. The official added that another

factor that may contribute to the possible depletion of the city’s water supply is the reported illegal drilling being privately done in the different barangays (villages). He said that he’s now cooperating with the BWD and the newly created City Water Resources Board to tackle this particular problem. THOM F. PICAÑA

ENERAL LUNA, Quezon: The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) on Monday rescued three crew

Their identities remain un-

known as of press time. According to the PCG, the Cebu- bound MV SF Freighter contacted its owner, Seaford Shipping, on Satur- day to report of engine trouble while being battered by huge waves before it lost communication. The 498-ton vessel carried 16 crew members and was loaded with steel. Initial search-and-rescue opera- tions conducted at the ship’s last- known location—the central island of Dos Hermanas in Romblon province—yielded nothing. Despite the rescue, efforts to find the vessel and the rest of its

SUBIC BAY Freeport, Zambales: Stung by a Commission on Audit (COA) report that named him as the government official who took home the fattest paycheck—P26.865 mil- lion—last year, Subic Bay Metropolitan Au- thority (SBMA) adminis- trator Armand Arreza calls the agency’s find- ings as “unfair.” The administrator, who

has yet to see the report, told journalists that only his basic and take-home pay should count if the basis is one’s wages. Arreza said that though he receives a gross salary of P130,888.77, he only takes home P95,449.00, plus P8,700 for representations. “[The COA report is] unfair be- cause [it includes] the extra ordi- nary and miscellaneous expenses, which is about P18 to P19 million, [but these do not] directly go to me,” he said, adding that “[these] only goes through my office, and then gets reimbursed.”

The official cited promotional

costs, sponsorships, newspaper ad- vertisements, and SBMA events as classified under those expenses.

August 10, 2010

A 7

worldinbriefs

■ SYDNEY: Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard has snatched back a narrow election-winning lead from her rival Tony Abbott, but next week’s vote remains on a knife edge, two new polls showed on Monday. The latest Newspoll survey for The Australian newspaper ahead of the August 21 election showed the country’s first woman prime minister had turned around her vote to outpace the conservative opposition leader by 52 percent to 48 percent.

crew continue and the PCG has already alerted other ships in the area for assistance.

In a similar incident, Coast Guard-Bicol commander Elson Hermogino said that they have res- cued 12 teachers after their motor- ized banca (boat) capsized off San Miguel Island in Albay province. Adonis Collantes, a teacher at

the Fatima Elementary School, had previously reported their disap- pearance soon after they boarded a boat en route to Barangay Maliktag in the island.

WITH REPORT FROM AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

SBMA head disputes audit findings

■ TOKYO: The Japanese city of Nagasaki on Monday commemorated the 65th anniversary of its destruction by a United States atomic bomb, with representatives from Britain and France attending for the first time. Nagasaki was flattened in an atomic inferno three days after Hiroshima, twin nuclear attacks that rang in the nuclear age and gave Japan the bleak distinction of being the only country to be struck by atomic weapons.

■ KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s first female Islamic court judges will have the same powers as their male counterparts, an official said on Monday, dispelling concerns their role would be curtailed. The government announced the appointment of two women to the Sharia bench last month as proof of its commitment to transforming the Islamic legal system, which runs parallel to civil courts in the Muslim-majority country.

■ WENXIAN, China: Soldiers and rescuers battled on Monday through an avalanche of sludge and debris as they raced to find survivors of mudslides that killed at least 127 people and left 1,300 missing in northwest China. At least one village was entirely engulfed by a torrent of mud and rocks triggered by heavy rains in a remote area of Gansu province—the latest deadly disaster in a summer that has seen China’s worst flooding in a decade.

■ TORI BAND, Pakistan: Landslides have worsened Pakistan’s grim flood death toll, cutting off roads and hampering aid efforts as critics of the absent and unpopular president liken the disaster to Hurricane Katrina. The entire Swat valley was cut off at the weekend as washed-out roads in the northwest made ground access to many of the country’s 15 million flood victims impossible, and many helicopters were unable to fly as heavy rains persisted.

■ Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority Administrator Armand Arreza displays his July 2010 pay slip, showing the amount of P95,449.00, to reporters on Monday. PHOTO BY ANTHONY BAYARONG

He also explained that an addi- tional P10 million, which also be- longed to the aforementioned ex- penses, went to the local anti-smug- gling group Task Force Subic for its intelligence fund. Another P5 mil- lion, which he says he shares with SBMA Chairman Feliciano Salonga, was given to the SBMA Law Enforce- ment Department.

Besides Arreza, other officials who also received fat paychecks and

are mentioned in the report include: Benigno Ricafort of the Clark Devel- opment Corp. with over P14 mil- lion, Edgardo Garcia of the Devel- opment Bank of the Philippines (DBP) with over P12 million, Amando Tetangco Jr. of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas [Central Bank of the Philippines] with over P10 million, and Benedicto Ernesto Bitonio Jr. of the DBP with over P9 million.

ANTHONY BAYARONG ARMM assures protection for media

COTABATO CITY: The leadership of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) assured full protection on Monday to local jour- nalists covering for both national and local media after a news corre- spondent employed by a Manila newspaper received a death threat. Manila Bulletin news correspond- ent Ali Macabalang told The Manila Times that he received a letter, which was sent last week through a local cafeteria that served as a hangout for newsmen after work, with a 9-mm bullet attached to it. A waiter at the Dateliners Restau-

rant saw the letter, dated July 31, tucked at its grill stand on the morn- ing of August 3.

Ali Macabalang’s wife, Nora, who is concurrently the executive director of the ARMM’s Bureau of Public In- formation, runs the establishment. Part of the letter, which was writ-

ten in Pilipino and addressed to Mayor Japal Guiani Jr. of Cotabato City, said it would like to use the me- dia in conveying their disgust to the mayor over his recent drive to rid the city’s major roads of illegal, um- brella-equipped tricycles locally known as payong-payong. “Mayor, we know that you are the brains behind the series of seizure and impounding of payong-payongs here. You are inflexible to us but it takes only one bullet to kill you,” the letter also added in the vernacular. The letter writer, a certain Badrudin, also warned of carrying out separate bomb attacks along Gov. Gutierrez Street leading to the main gate of Shariff Kabunsuan Complex, the provisional seat of the ARMM situated here, and the Cotabato City Hall.

The letter came with a live 9-mm bullet inside a white mail envelope

and addressed “To the media.” As police looked deeper into the threat, ARMM officials quickly prom- ised protection to the correspondents. This pledge came in light of the Maguindanao Massacre, which took place on November 23, 2009. Thirty- one of the 57 massacred were members of the local media. One of them, Bong Reblando, was Macabalang’s colleague. Lawyer Naguib Sinarimbo, ARMM executive secretary, later as- sured that the present administra- tion of the regional government “will use its power and resources” to safeguard journalists. “We will not allow a [repeat] of the Maguindanao Massacre. We will do our share to prevent its recur- rence,” Sinarimbo told the Tapatan sa ARMM, a weekly media forum attended by majority of the journal- ists here on Wednesday.

JULMUNIR I. JANNARAL US remains ‘open to engagement’ with Iran

WASHINGTON, D.C.: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the United States remains “open to engagement” with Iran amid tensions over its nuclear aims, according to an interview tran- script released on Sunday. “We remain open to engage-

ment. But they do know what they have to do. They have to reassure the international community by words and actions as to what their nuclear program is intended for,” she said in an interview with The New York Times. “And so whether it would take six months, a year, or five years, it’s that deep concern about Iran acquiring nuclear weapons that is the preoccupation of our friends and partners,” she said. But Washington, she added,

would pursue the sanctions path “regardless of any issue of timing, because we think it’s got the best potential for changing Iranian behavior.” Clinton’s comments were

released by the State Department on Sunday, a day after brief quotes from her 20-minute Times inter- view appeared in the newspaper. Earlier this week, President Barack Obama cautiously wel- comed the effects of new sanctions on Iran but said he remained willing to talk with Tehran about its nuclear program, in a meeting with a small group of journalists at the White House. “It is very important to put

before the Iranians a clear set of steps that we would consider sufficient to show that they are not pursuing nuclear weapons,” Obama said, according to The Washington Post. “They should know what they

can say ‘yes’ to.” Reports said Obama left open the possibility that the United States would accept a deal allowing Iran to maintain its civilian nuclear program, so long as Tehran provides “confidence- building measures” to verify that it

is not building a bomb. Clinton did not specifically address such a deal, but said Tehran had been provided a “pathway” in order to “demon- strate that they are not attempt- ing to obtain nuclear weapons.” The top US diplomat also said the sanctions packages “surprised Iran by the scope and reach of what the international community was prepared to do on the pressure front,” and that the economic effects of the sanctions were “beginning to bite.” “We are hearing from many

different sources around the world that this is having an impact on Iran’s thinking, and they’ve undertaken dramatic diplomatic and commercial maneuvers to try to prevent the sanctions from being levied on them . . . and are falling short.”

The US-Iran nuclear showdown

has proven to be one of the most intractable problems facing Obama in his 18 months in office,

and top aides including Defense Secretary Robert Gates have consistently refused to rule out a possible US military strike on Iran. But Clinton sought to down-

play suggestions that the Obama administration may be drawing a line under the latest efforts to get Tehran to curtail its nuclear ambitions. “The president’s been very clear

that Iran should understand that he is leaving all options on the table and that they should take him at his word, but I don’t think it benefits our efforts to go much further than that.” Earlier in the week, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs rebuffed a proposal from Iran’s hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for face-to-face summit talks with Obama. Ahmadinejad meanwhile urged Obama on Wednesday to join talks on a nuclear fuel swap deal, saying Tehran was ready to begin discussions.

AFP

■ WASHINGTON, D.C.: United States officials on Sunday urged further study of the damage to sea life wreaked by British Petrole- um’s broken well in the Gulf of Mexico, and warned that the energy giant would face a “large financial penalty.” White House energy chief Carol Browner declined to say if criminal charges could be brought, as the US Justice Department continues to investigate the causes of the spill that unleashed the worst maritime oil disaster in history.

■ PHNOM PENH, Cambodia: Cambodia wrote to the United Nations on Sunday in an escalating war of words over a border spat with Thailand, saying it was ready to defend its territory. Prime Minister Hun Sen accused neighbouring Thailand of threatening to use its armed forces to settle the dispute.

■ KUPANG, Indonesia: At least 10 people were killed and dozens are missing after a passenger boat went down in waters off eastern Indonesia on Monday, police said. “The mishap happened this morning at 9 a.m. (Manila time) as it only sailed for two miles from the seashore,” Abdul Rahma Aba, the police chief in Adonara Timur district, told the national TV One station.

■ ANKARA: Turkish police detained on Sunday 15 people with suspected links to the al-Qaeda network who were allegedly trying to win supporters to their cause, the Anatolia news agency reported. The suspects, rounded up in the town of Gebze and Darica in western Kocaeli province, included three men who had received weapons and bomb-making training in camps in Afghanistan, the report said.

■ TEHRAN: Iran rejected on Monday charges of spying for the Islamic republic brought by a Kuwaiti court against six men and a woman, saying the defendants have been falsely accused. “What has been said is absolutely false and they have been unable to prove anything,” Iranian Intelligence Minister Haydar Moslehi was quoted as saying by ISNA news agency.

■ OSLO, Norway: The lawyer for a woman sentenced to death by stoning in Iran for adultery has fled to Norway where he is consider- ing seeking asylum, he said in Oslo on Sunday. “In a way you can say that I have asked for asylum,” Mohammad Mostafaie told Agence France-Presse on the sidelines of a press conference in Oslo shortly after arriving in Norway after fleeing his country by way of Turkey.

■ MANAMA: Bahrain’s King Hamad on Sunday called parliamen- tary and municipal elections for October 23, the state news agency BNA reported. The king, who chaired a cabinet meeting attended by Prime Minister Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa and Crown Prince Sheikh Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa, urged voters to turn out in large numbers for the polls.

■ HONG KONG: A Hong Kong woman with a history of mental illness decapitated her elderly mother before leaping to her own death from the family’s 11th floor flat, local media reported on Monday. The woman stabbed her septuagenarian mother repeatedly on Sunday and then hacked off her head with a kitchen chopper, before police arrived to find their apartment engulfed in flames, The Standard reported.

■ MOSCOW: The daily mortality rate in Moscow has nearly doubled amid record temperatures, an official said on Monday, breaking a silence over the effects of a heatwave and smog which show little sign of abating. The acknowledgment came after media reports earlier accused authorities of covering up the scale of the disaster that affects millions of Muscovites and forced many to flee the Russian capital.

■ BOGOTA: The presidents of Colombia and Venezuela will meet on Tuesday in a new high-level bid to calm a row between the two neighbors that has sparked concerns of a regional military conflict. Juan Manuel Santos and Hugo Chavez will hold their summit at a yet-to-be- decided location in Colombian territory to discuss their bilateral relation, Colombian Foreign Minister Maria Angela Holguin announced after a meeting in Bogota Sunday with her Venezuelan counterpart, Nicolas Maduro.

■ THE HAGUE, Netherlands: United States actress Mia Farrow said on Monday that Naomi Campbell named Liberia’s Charles Taylor as the man who sent a “huge diamond” to the supermodel’s room in 1997, during testimony at a war crimes trial. “She said that in the night she had been awakened. Some men were knocking at her door. They were sent by Charles Taylor and they had given her a huge diamond,” Farrow told the Liberian former president’s trial in The Hague.

AFP

Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3 | Page 4 | Page 5 | Page 6 | Page 7 | Page 8 | Page 9 | Page 10 | Page 11 | Page 12 | Page 13 | Page 14 | Page 15 | Page 16