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SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2016
Opinion
Adelle Chua, Editor mst.daydesk@gmail.com
EDITORIAL
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POP GOES THE WORLD JENNY ORTUOSTE
HOW COULD HE NOT HAVE KNOWN? P
67TH US NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS WINNERS A FEW days after the National Book Development Board announced the winners of the 2016 Philippines N at i o n a l B o o k Awa rd s ( w h i c h I mentioned in my column last Thursday), the US National Book Foundation released its counterpart list, both bodies giving much-needed and much-appreciated recognition and incentives to writers. The US National Book Awards nominates twenty works in four categories each year, five nominees per category. This year’s winners are March: Book Three by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell (Young People’s Literature); The Per formance of Becoming Human by Daniel Borzutsky (Poetry); Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi (Nonfiction); The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (Fiction). The writers over at Vox.com have read all 20 nominated books. Here are their reviews of the winning works: Constance Grady on March: Book Three —Congress member John Lewis, who led the House sit-in for gun regulation this summer, is the last living member of the Big Six of the civil rights movement. That makes him more or less the closest thing America has to a real live superhero, and March is his origin story...Book Three, the final volume, is the darkest of the March trilogy, starting with the Birmingham church bombings and climaxing with Bloody Sunday itself. “I thought I was going to die,” says Lewis in one unforgettable panel, in a pool of his own blood, as police officers swing their batons around him. Constance Grady on The Performance of Becoming Human— The second most bleak thing about The Performance of Becoming Human is the way it renders our world as an Orwellian dystopia, all tortured political prisoners and corrupt capitalist bureaucrats. The most bleak thing is that it considers itself to be complicit in that dystopia… Borzutsky’s language is purposefully rough, even ugly; he stays away from anything that might be described as lyrical. That deliberate roughness gives lines like this their force and power… [This] is not an easy book to read, but it is a powerful one. Aja Romano on Stamped from the Beginning—A scholar of African-American history, Ibram X. Kendi kicks off this fiery book with equally fiery words from the past: an 1860 indictment from then-Sen. Jefferson Davis, later president of the Confederacy, that “this Government was not founded by negroes nor for negroes … but by white men for white men.” Kendi admits that he is not writing to change the minds of those who produce and espouse racist ideas. Rather, in his honesty about how deeply he himself had held multiple racist ideas before embarking on the historical odyssey
resident Rodrigo Duterte is in Peru, attending a meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation. When he left, the issues at the top of mind of Filipinos were the war on illegal drugs here at home and what jarring—embarrassing—pronouncements he might make again on the international stage.
It’s either one of two things. If it is true Mr. Duterte was clueless, then he is a weak commander-in-chief, left in the dark by the people under his authority. Friday’s interment was not just a family event; it was a ceremony with personalities and protocol. Government resources, funded by taxpayers’ money, were used at every step. But if he knew about what was going to happen Friday beforehand, then it was also sneaky on his part. There can never be any mistake as to the Marcos family’s loyalties and priorities. Mr. Duterte, however, is president of all Filipinos, whether or not they voted for him, whether or not they think the Libingan is an apt place for Marcos, and whether or not they think he should even be considered a hero. We cannot help imagining then: Perhaps the date of the burial was specifically set for a time when the President was scheduled to be out of the country, so it would be easy to say that he had nothing to do with it. A clear intent to deceive and mislead, or at best to feign innocence, is not encouraging from somebody who styles himself as a strong and decisive leader.
But news came Friday morning that the remains of the late President Ferdinand Marcos would be buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani at noon that same day, unleashing a wave of protests across social media and on to some streets in Metro Manila. The move was derided by the public as a sneaky act despite the fact that the Supreme Court had already ruled, 9-5-1, in favor of the burial. Many did not believe that the ruling was immediately executory because there had yet to be a decision on the appeal. The Marcos family, meanwhile, prepared for the burial in tandem with the Armed Forces and the Philippine National Police, bringing their patriarch to his final resting place 27 years after his death. At the outset, the family has made no secret of its desire to inter the former president in the Libingan despite the more homogeneous reception they enjoy in their northern province of Ilocos Norte. Amid the shock and indignation, people now ask: What was the extent of Mr. Duterte’s participation in the surprise burial? It could not have been last minute. As early as the campaign season, Mr. Duterte had promised to put closure to the issue by ordering the burial—and he won, and by a significant plurality, anyway. When he mentioned the burial again after being sworn into office, several groups took their petition to the Supreme Court, submitting themselves to its jurisdiction. When the court rendered, after deferring twice, a ruling, people complained but again recognized the High Court’s authority over the issue. They said they would ask the court to reconsider. What makes the burial stealthy, suspicious and galling in the eyes of many is its timing. How convenient, then, for the President to be away at this time and to avoid the fallout of what had just happened. And even now, his own officials cannot agree on whether he knew this was going to happen at all, or not. Typically themselves, they utter conflicting things: some are obviously trying to shield the President from what could be an underestimated reaction from the people by saying he did not know it would happen, while some, notably the chief of the police, Ronald dela Rosa, said Mr. Duterte knew about Friday’s surprise all along.
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WHAT CHILDREN KNOW AND SAY ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE LONG STORY SHORT ADELLE CHUA
I RECENTLY had the opportunity to get into the minds of high school students— campus journalists all—from a region in Luzon and ask them what they thought the Filipino youth can do in the fight against climate change. The resulting essays, 60 of which
were written in English and another 60 in Filipino, were instructive. Assuming that the children were representative of other adolescents in the country, then the work is cut out for those whose job it is to educate the young—and perhaps move them enough to act.
Climate change is more than fickle weather. Not a few kids described climate change as fickle weather. “One day it is warm; the next day it is cold.” Some pinpointed the source of the problem with absolute certainty: “Usok” —smoke that comes from vehicles and the burning
of garbage. These are not necessarily wrong but they are not all right. A more accurate description of climate change would be the general warming of the globe because of gases that are trapped in Turn to B2
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SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2016 mst.daydesk@gmail.com
EVERYMAN
THE ART OF THE MEAL
By Robert Harland
UNLIKE Bill Clinton, a committed vegan, Donald Trump is a junk food aficionado, all set to become America’s fastfood president. Whether it’s a Big Mac, Quarter Pounder or a Wendy’s Baconator, to the Donald “they’re all great.” In an age of fine dining and lots of pretentious restaurants boasting of “heritage tomatoes” or “line-caught red snapper” Trump is a throwback to an earlier, more carefree time in American eating, when nobody gave a monkey if the tomatoes were locally grown or shipped in from Peru. He is a lover of diner fare—eggs, bacon, hash browns and, naturally, welldone steaks. He goes for burgers and meatloaf, Caesar salads and spaghetti, candies and Diet Coke. But his image of a man of the people who eats buckets of KFC fried chicken on his multi-million dollar private plane is also a carefully crafted strategy to appeal to the blue collar workers who voted him into the top job. “There’s nothing more American and more of-the-people than fastfood,” said Russ Schriefer, a Republican strategist and ad maker. “It is the peculiarity of the brand that he’s able to be on his multimillion-dollar jet with the gold and black branding and colors, and at the same time eat KFC, and what makes it perfect is he does it all with a knife and fork, while reading The Wall Street Journal.” Or, as Kellyanne Conway, a senior adviser and pollster on the Trump campaign, put it, “It goes with his authenticity.” But there is another side of Trump’s personality that links to his love of fast food. Like the late Rumanian dictator Nicolae Ceauescu, Trump is a cleanliness freak. He says he suffers from “germophobia”and hates shaking hands. His germophobia extends to food. “One bad hamburger, you can destroy McDonald’s. One bad hamburger, you take Wendy’s and all these other places and they’re out of business,”Trump told CNN. “I’m a very clean person. I like cleanliness, and I think you’re better off going there than maybe someplace that you have no idea where the food’s coming from. It’s a certain standard.” Though he often orders from the Trump Grill when working out of Trump Tower in New York, he eats fast food several times a week while on the road because “it’s clean, it’s quick and it’s consistent.” And, he added, “I think the food’s good.” Trump has even suggested doing away with state dinners, in the interests of cost and time savings. “We could be eating a hamburger on a conference table, and we could make better deals with China and others and forget the state dinners,” he said. The president-elect’s food choices keep his team on its toes. “There’s never any real planning for food,” said one, “It’s always just whatever he is craving, which is more often than not McDonald’s.” Trump’s diet would certainly seem to be a tad unhealthy, but last December his personal doctor, Harold Borstein, said in a letter that in the past 39 years, “Mr. Trump has had no significant medical problems.” Robert Harland is a British national based in Bacolod and Makati.
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the atmosphere. Furthermore, young people need to grasp the link between the warmer global temperature and the occurrence of severe weather patterns— with the danger and disruption it brings to people’s lives. It is never as easy as “either or.” Industrialization and technology, per se, are not the enemies, and it is not more virtuous to reject them just to profess one’s love for the environment. In fact, as some of the children pointed out, technology can be used to study renewable energy sources, help transfer knowledge, and for their part, amplify the voice of the youth in demanding action from the people who are supposed to speak for and act on behalf of them.
IN THE POST-TRUTH ERA, SCIENCE IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVER By Pecier Decierdo MANY say that we live in the era of post-truth politics, the era when political discussions are largely about appeals to emotion rather than to accurate facts. In post-truth politics, facts are seen as “dry.” Statistics are “boring.” Accuracy does not go viral. In fact, the opposite of accuracy is what goes viral. In this era, we need science more than ever. As a species, we’ve always needed science. While other animals have talons or fangs, we had our big brains to help us make weapons. While other animals can fly or swim, we made things that flew for us and floating things we can ride on. While other animals had senses that helped them navigate, we used oursmarts and the stars to find our way. But our understanding of the world was, for tens of thousands of years, primitive. It was still mixed with myth, and the inborn flaws in our ways of thinking still dominated how we understood the world. That’s why the rise of modern science was a revolution. In fact, the word ‘revolution’ gained its meaning as an “overthrow in the established system” only then. Before, it simply meant ‘turning
around,’ as in the revolution of the planets around the Sun. The discovery that our Earth is not the center of the universe overthrew the established system. The discovery was revolutionary. The revolution was not just about our place in the universe, either. It was also about how we know what’s true. Before then our greatest philosophers just thought about reality. They used their intelligence to reason, and they reasoned really well. However, during the scientific revolution, G alileo, Kepler, and others discovered that simply thinking well was far from enough. In order to really understand how the world works, and in order to beat the defects of our thinking, we need to test our ideas against the results of observations and experiments. Themethods of science entered their maturity. Ever since then ideas, no matter how beautiful or whoever said them, had to pass the strict tests of science. And they had to pass it over and over again. Even if they passed it for hundreds of years, as the ideas of Newton had, they still had to be tested to their limits. In their limits, we see that they break and had to be replaced. Einstein had to replace Newton in the area of the very large. Quantum
mechanics did the same in the area of the very small. In science, there is no authority. There are experts, scientists who dedicate their lives to understanding one aspect of the world. But even the experts are not exempt from the tests of science. No matter who you are, your ideas never become immune from the same tests, even from harsh criticism. The scientific revolution and its twin, the Enlightenment, ushered in a culture where even the most powerful people had to answer to the truth just like everybody else. It didn’t matter if you were king or the pope or an influential imam. Your ideas were never immune from scrutiny and criticism. Politicians have always lied. But before the scientific revolution, the ruler’s word was taken as fact, as law, as unquestionable. The Enlightenment introduced the idea of holding politicians to the truth. If caught lying, that could spell the end of their political career. All of a sudden, it pays to be truthful and to have a command of the facts in the political arena. This should still be the case. If it’s not, we must make it so. Now more than ever, the survival of the human race depends on our accurate understand of how the world works.
CONSIDER THIS: TRUMP MIGHT BE A GOOD PRESIDENT By Clive Crook THE idea that Donald Trump might be a good president seems as unlikely as the idea that he would win the election. Yet, as we see, strange things sometimes happen. Actually, I wasn’t as stunned by his win as many other observers. If he proves to be a good president, that will surprise me more. One always comes back to his character. What happens when such a vain, impulsive, bullying and proudly ignorant man meets resistance, or has to deal with a crisis? That’s certain to happen. The risk with such a leader isn’t so much that he will be a routinely disappointing president, but that he might be a disastrous one. Nonetheless he has one or two things going for him. The first is expectations. His supporters are said to be in for a colossal disappointment. Yet they might be less crestfallen than you’d think. After all, how many will really be surprised that Trump can’t and won’t keep his promises to them? For many of his supporters, the biggest benefit of electing Trump has already been banked: They told Washington what they think. His critics, on the other hand, have been so harsh that it won’t be difficult for Trump to prove them wrong. Respectable opinion has declared itself so violently against Trump that he’ll be held to a very low standard. Small acts of civility and moderation will seem like remarkable achievements. The view that he’s a farright racist zealot, a 21st-century Hitler, shouldn’t be hard to refute: He just needs to avoid dressing his supporters in paramilitary uniforms, declaring martial law in the inner cities, and building a network of concentration camps. President Obama and Hillary Clinton tapered their denunciations of Trump once he was elected, choosing to be
Contribution can range from the big to the little things, from the general to the specific. The old examples of using electricity wisely, throwing candy wrappers and pieces of paper in the trash bin—even avoiding refrigerators and hairspray!—were cited often. But some expressed preference for advocacy through the different media forms available, in an attempt to reach out to actual decision-makers and demand tangible action. It is also not enough to describe climate change in general terms as “the exploitation of Mother Nature.” The main dilemma among developing countries is balancing energy needs (greenhouse gas-spewing coal-fired power plants are arguably a lower-cost source) with the obligation to cut back on emissions. Renewable sources are available but still costly and it will take
gracious and open-minded. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have both said that, much as they detest Trump, they’ll work with him if he comes forward with policies to advance the people’s interests. Of course they’re right to do so—but only because a lot of what they said about Trump before was over the top. If they were right last month about the evil Trump is bent upon, what they’re saying now would be wrong. In that respect, I have to give credit to Slate’s Jamelle Bouie. He wrote recently that all Trump supporters (not just half of them) are just plain bad people, because they’ve put an irredeemably evil man in power. And he says Sanders and Warren shouldn’t do business with Trump, issue by issue, because this will help him advance his vile whitesupremacist purposes. Bouie is the crazy zealot here, obviously—but at least he’s consistent. If Trump were indeed a Hitler for our times, you would be right to refuse any and all cooperation, and to stop him by any means necessary. It makes no sense to call him evil and then start making deals, as some Democrats now propose. The question is whether these deals will be any good. It’s possible—because, again, the orthodox line of attack on Trump is wrong. He isn’t “far-right.” In the agreements he’ll aim to reach with Republicans in Congress, he’ll often be a moderating influence, pulling to the left. “Congressional Democrats,” writes the New York Times, “divided and struggling for a path from the electoral wilderness, are constructing an agenda to align with many proposals of President-elect Trump that put him at odds with his own party.” Trump has said he wants to cut taxes and increase spending on infrastructure. A big fiscal stimulus is exactly what many liberal economists have been calling
It’s throwing a candy wrapper in the trash —and so much more. time for countries like the Philippines to adopt them at a level where they can replace the more traditional sources. It is, after all, by knowing the specifics that people are able to find concrete solutions. Clichés and motherhood statements just do not cut it anymore. Yes the problem of climate change is all encompassing, but it does not mean it
This understanding is our only answer to the challenges of climate change, a fast-growing population, the threat of pandemics, resources that are running out, and other problems associated with living together in a connected world. More importantly, science now arms us with the tools to understand the flaws in our thinking. Through science, we begin to see why we tend to be susceptible to the preaching of demagogues and why emotions hold so much sway on even the smartest of us. We also understand how our bad tendencies such as racism, fundamentalism, greed, or apathy can be replaced by our good tendencies such as empathy, critical thinking, and altruism. They say we have entered an era of politics when emotional impact rather than truth is what counts. In the end, however, reality kicks in. It always does. Unless we are prepared for its challenges, we are doomed. The politicians who act as if facts and truth do no matter will eventually have to face the music. If we can make them face the music sooner, maybe we can yet save the human race from self-destruction. Decierdo is resident astronomer and physicist for The Mind Museum.
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for these past several years. Today, as you might expect, they’re no longer so sure. Some damn-the-torpedoes Keynesians now see the merit in fiscal conservatism. They’re right about the need to make fiscal policy sustainable and get value for public money in infrastructure programs, points not hitherto emphasized. In the short run, though, a Trump presidency could give them a macroeconomic policy that’s closer to the one they’ve been advocating than anything they’ve seen so far. And in the short run, it would boost growth. In economic policy, the biggest danger is that Trump’s idiotic views on trade will start a cycle of protection and retaliation, maybe even a full-scale trade war. (I’ll be interested to see whether Trump’s victory produces an adjustment in expert opinion like the one we’re seeing on fiscal policy—from “We’re all trade skeptics now” to “Liberal trade is vital for our prosperity.”) Yet trade, so central in his campaign, is apparently not among the three things he wants to address right away. Those would be tax reform, immigration and health care. In each case, to be sure, a Trump administration could easily do more harm than good. We’ll see. On all these matters, bear one more thing in mind. It will help that Trump has no ideology. This could be his biggest asset. His views, expressed with total conviction, are lightly held, insofar as they even exist. His goal isn’t to drive through, at any cost, some radical transformation of America’s society and economy, or to reorder international relations and remake the world. It’s to prove his critics wrong, and keep on winning. I’m betting he won’t. For the reasons I mentioned, I’m worried he’ll fail spectacularly. But you never know. Bloomberg
of this book, he gives the reader permission to accompany him on that eye-opening journey…Kendi leaves plenty of room for self-questioning, and for drawing connections between the racist apologetics of the past and those of the present. The process makes for a compelling, thoroughly enlightening, unsettling, and necessary read. To d d V a n D e r W e r f f o n T h e Underground Railroad—What’s most surprising about The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead’s hugely acclaimed novel about slaves seeking their freedom along the titular route, is what a page turner it is… [ The book] takes the form of a 19th-century picaresque—a vignette-strewn travel novel, featuring one character’s visits to several unlikely locales (think Gulliver’s Travels for an early version of the form)… Whitehead …[explores] the ways that white Americans could know—can still know—that slavery was a moral abomination, but also benefit from its existence, how they could keep from noticing the double exposure that was their lives by cropping out the unpleasant information. Three of these four books explore issues of race in America, a timely topic given Donald Trump’s win of the US presidency and the post-election rise of hate crimes against non-whites. Do these books sound interesting to you? Add to these the PH National Book Award-winning books, and those of the 2016 Man Booker Prize (winners announced last month), and you have a mighty list of works to choose from for holiday buying, for your own burgeoning library and as gifts. Happy Tsundoku!
has to be communicated in nebulous language. Terms like “Mother Nature” or a recitation of Jose Rizal’s statement that “the youth is the hope of the nation” are stuff we’ve heard and used for years. We have to find other compelling ways to communicate the message. That message needs to be decisive and powerful without bordering on the dramatic. Depictions such as “the door of the living hell” trivializes the situation and reduces it to science fiction. But this is not science fiction—this is reality. The Paris Agreement will not defeat climate change. It is not likely climate change will ever be defeated at all. We just have to minimize its consequences and prevent it from getting worse. The agreement is a pact undertaken by the nations of the world. They set for themselves targets for cutting emissions
—out of the recognition that everyone has a stake and a responsibility. Finally, climate change is a global issue. The devastating effects of climate change know no borders or nationalities, and the solutions can be effected by no single nation or personality. This is not about the Philippine president, environment secretary, energy secretary, the president-elect of the United States or even the secretary general of the United Nations. This is about taking our place in the community of nations, influencing what we can in our own sphere. It is important that the youth understand what the world is facing. They will be here longer than we will, and will have to contend with more adverse conditions. It’s their elders’ job to ensure they know what they’re up against.
Dr. Ortuoste is a California-based writer. Follow her on Facebook: Jenny Ortuoste, Twitter: @jennyortuoste, Instagram: @jensdecember.
adellechua@gmail.com
World TWO SWEDISH JOURNALISTS DETAINED IN TURKEY ISTANBUL—Police on Saturday detained two Swedish TV journalists in the sensitive Kurdish-majority province of Diyarkabir in southeastern Turkey after they filmed near a military zone, a local news agency reported. The pair, identified only by their initials as L.N.B. and R.A.S., were arrested after they filmed in an area near where a military headquarters is located, the private Dogan news agency reported. After questioning, the two were transferred to the foreigners department, a section of the police service that deals with deportations, according to Dogan. There were no immediate other details. Turkish authorities this month expelled a French reporter after being detained near the Syrian border in the southeast. Olivier Bertrand from online news media Les Jours was detained in Gaziantep province, where he was working on planned stories on post-coup Turkey. French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault called his detention “deeply shocking, unacceptable.” AFP
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DONALD TRUMP LOOMS OVER FUTURE OF CLIMATE ACTION
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arrakesh— From across the Atlantic, Donald Trump eclipsed a UN conference which fought valiantly in Marrakesh to preserve momentum on curtailing climate change amid fears the mogul will fragment the global effort and starve it of cash.
UK LAWMAKERS APPROVE ‘MOST SWEEPING’ SPY POWERS LONDON—The British parliament this week gave the green light to new bulk surveillance powers for police and intelligence services that critics have denounced as the most far-reaching of any western democracy. The Investigatory Powers Bill would, among other measures, require websites to keep customers’ browsing history for up to a year and allow law enforcement agencies to access them to help with investigations. Edward Snowden, the former US National Security Agency contractor turned whistleblower, said the powers “went further than many autocracies.” “The UK has just legalized the most extreme surveillance in the history of western democracy,” he tweeted. The bill, the first major update of British surveillance laws for 15 years, was passed by the House of Lords and now only needs rubber-stamping by Queen Elizabeth II. Prime Minister Theresa May introduced the bill in March when she was still interior minister, describing it as “world-leading” legislation intended to reflect the change in online communications. AFP
THOUSANDS PROTEST AGAINST SCANDAL-PLAGUED MALAYSIAN PM KUALA LUMPUR—Thousands of yellow-clad Malaysians flooded the capital Saturday to demand Prime Minister Najib Razak resign over a corruption scandal, as feared clashes with pro-government rightists failed to materialize. Leading reformist group Bersih, whose colour is yellow, turned out huge crowds for the second time in 15 months to vent anger over allegations that billions of dollars were looted from Najib’s brainchild investment fund, 1MDB. Tensions in the Muslim-majority country had spiralled in recent weeks following threats by the “Red Shirts” ethnic-Malay rightist group to disrupt the demonstration. The government arrested the leaders of both sides in the hours leading up to the rally. That did little to stop Bersih’s momentum, but the Red Shirts turned out in far smaller numbers and began dispersing early. No clashes were reported. Bersih’s demonstration shut down much of Kuala Lumpur, with riot police fencing off large areas at its symbolic heart. Rivers of yellow flowed downtown as Bersih marchers blew vuvuzelas, carried caricatures of Najib and other 1MDB figures, and chanted “Catch the Thief in Chief,” and “Hidup Rakyat!” (“Long live the people!”). “We want a clean government. We want fair elections,” said Derek Wong, a 38-year-old real estate agent. AFP
Alexandra Stepanova and Ivan Bukin of Russia perform during the ice free dance at the Cup of China ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating in Beijing on November 19. AFP
World leaders, CEOs, negotiators and activists at the two-week meeting, which closed Friday, were clearly unsettled by the pending White House takeover of Trump, who has vowed to withdraw the US from a hard-won global agreement on climate change. Analysts say a US exit would make it harder to achieve the 196-nation pact’s goals to limit planet warming, and likely result in a shortfall of billions of dollars promised to help developing countries fight against climate change and cope with its impacts. “The biggest impact, I think, is on financing... the US federal government’s commitment to continue to finance clean energy,” Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists told AFP. “The thing that people seem to be most concerned about is: will the US fulfil the remaining $2.5 billion of the $3 billion pledge President Obama made to the Green Climate Fund (GCF)?” The fund supports projects to make the shift away from greenhouse gasemitting fossil fuels to renewable sources. Trump, who has described climate change as a “hoax,” remained mum for the duration of the conference on whether he will execute his pre-election threats. Amid the uncertainty, delegates to the 22nd UN climate conference put on a brave face. Heads of state and cabinet ministers attending a “high-level segment” from Tuesday to Thursday this week reaffirmed their countries’ determination to push ahead, with or without Washington. But no-one could ignore the elephant in the room. “The process has taken a huge hit following the US election results,” said climate activist Mohamed Adow of Christian Aid, which represents the interests of poor countries at the UN negotiations. “There is a lot of uncertainty about what’s going to happen next.” Trump’s election has recalled the shock of 2001, when George W. Bush refused to ratify the Paris Agreement’s predecessor, the Kyoto Protocol. His action was a major blow to the global effort to rein in planet warming that scientists warn threaten the human way of life. AFP
POPE CREATES 17 CARDINALS, ‘PRINCES OF THE CHURCH’ VATICAN CITY—Pope Francis will create 17 new cardinals from across the globe Saturday in a time-honored ceremony, elevating them to an elite body that advises and elects popes. Three of them are from the US, while others come from corners of the world where the Catholic Church needs a boost. Dressed in red robes, these “princes of the Church” will kneel before the pontiff to pledge their allegiance in a solemn ceremony known as a consistory. Thirteen of them are under 80 and therefore eligible to take part in the next secret conclave to elect or become the head of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics. They are known as cardinal electors. History’s first Latin American pope is famed for wanting to reach out to far-flung dioceses often overlooked by Rome and he has shunned European candidates almost entirely, favouring low-key, pastoral figures or men he knows. The cardinal electors come from Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Central African Republic, Italy, Mauritius, Mexico, Papua New Guinea, Spain, the United States and Venezuela.
The pope will give each man a three-cornered red hat, telling them that the colour symbolises “your readiness to act with courage, even to the shedding of your blood” for the Catholic Church. They will also be handed a gold ring of their high office. The unexpected pick of three Americans reverses a trend that saw Francis pass over US candidates in his first two consistories. By choosing archbishops Blase Cupich of Chicago, Joseph Tobin of Indianapolis and Bishop Kevin Farrell of Dallas, Francis has “engineered what may prove to be a seismic shift in the Catholic hierarchy in the United States,” wrote expert John Allen on the US Catholic website Crux. The three, from Church’s “progressive wing,” may help counterbalance a strong conservative presence among US cardinals, particularly at a moment when the authority of reform-minded Francis is being challenged by US-led traditionalists. The youngest of the new cardinals is 49-year old Dieudonne Nzapalainga, the archbishop of Bangui, who organised the pope’s 2015 visit to Central African Republic, where Fran-
cis opened the first “Holy Door” outside of Rome. Others from developing countries are Sergio da Rocha, archbishop of Brasilia,
Patrick D’Rozario, archbishop of Dhaka, Baltazar Porras Cardozo, archbishop of Merida in Venezuela, and Maurice Piat, bishop of Port-Louis in Mauritius. AFP
Tinkerbelle The Dog, who took the internet by storm with her series of YouTube cover versions of pop hits by artists such as Carly Rae Jepsen and Taylor Swift, attends her birthday party over the weekend in New York City. AFP
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SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2016 mstdaydesk @gmail.com.ph
World
PROTESTS CONTINUE AGAINST SOKOR’S PARK
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EOUL—Tens of thousands of protestors gathered in Seoul on Saturday for the fourth in a weekly series of mass protests aimed at forcing President Park Geun-Hye to resign over a corruption scandal. The demonstration— among the largest seen in South Korea since the pro-democracy protests of the 1980s—have provided a stark challenge to Park’s authority, but the president has defied calls to step down. After claiming a turnout of around one million for last week’s protest, organizers said they expected some 500,000 people on Saturday, while police predicted one-tenth that number. So far the candlelight protests have been largely peaceful, with many families participating, but there was still a heavy police presence, with buses and trucks blocking access roads to the presidential Blue House. “We want to have a peaceful protest,” Nam Jeong-Su, spokesman for the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, told AFP. Nam said he expected the ranks of protestors to be swelled by thousands of students who sat the national college entrance exam earlier in the week. And this being South Korea – with the world’s highest smartphone penetration rate – many had downloaded a special app showing a burning candle to hold aloft during the rally. Hours before Saturday’s protest was scheduled to start, a crowd of around 50,000 had already gathered along Seoul’s ceremonial Gwanghwamun boulevard, south of the presidential Blue House. “We’re here to show my children the site where history is being made”, said Kim Myung-Hee, 30, who came with her husband and two daughters. “Park simply doesn’t feel ashamed of the wrongs she and her friend did. She must go,” Kim said. The anti-Park rallies have continued despite two televised apologies from the president over a scandal linked to her friendship with long-time confidante Choi Soon-Sil, who has been arrested for fraud and abuse of power. Prosecutors said they would formally indict Choi and two other alleged accomplices on Monday, prior to trial. They have been investigating allegations that Choi, 60, leveraged her relationship with Park to coerce donations from large companies like Samsung to non-profit foundations which she set up and used for personal gain. AFP
ACAPULCO, Mexico—Gunmen have kidnapped at least 12 people, including two children, in a southern Mexican region where gangs have perpetrated a series of mass abductions, authorities said over the weekend. The van that was used to transport the group was found burnt on a road between the hamlets of San Jeronimo and San Cristobal, Guerrero state security spokesman Roberto Alvarez said, citing witnesses. He spoke of around 30 armed people who abducted “a group of between 12 and 14 people.” Some of the relatives of the missing have received phone calls from kidnappers demanding ransom money. The abduction may have been perpetrated by a criminal group known as Los Tequileros, Alvarez said. The mass kidnapping took place in a region known as Tierra Caliente, or Hot Land, where 21 men were kidnapped in January and found alive days later. AFP
YEMEN ADOPTS 48-HR TRUCE
A protester wearing a mask gestures during an anti-government protest at Seoul city hall plaza on November 19. Up to half-a-million protestors were expected to take to the streets of Seoul for the fourth week in a row, demanding President Park Geun-Hye resign over a corruption scandal. AFP
SALE OF TINTIN DRAWINGS SET TO BREAK RECORDS
Tintin, a fictional hero of the comics series of Belgian cartoonist Hergé, is a reporter and an adventurer who travels around the world with his dog Snowy.
GUNMEN KIDNAP 12 IN MEXICO
PARIS—Two original Tintin comic strips are expected to break records Saturday when they go under the hammer in Paris. The first from “Explorers on the Moon,” widely regarded as one of the two best Tintin adventures, could fetch up to up to $1 million. The page, entitled “We walk on the moon,” has the boy reporter, his dog Snowy and blundering sidekick Captain Haddock making their first moon walk from their red and white rocket. With the 1954 book viewed as one of the artist Herge’s masterpieces, the Paris auction house Artcurial values it at least 900,000 euros ($950,000). The late Belgian artist already holds the world record for the sale of a comic strip. A double-page ink drawing that served as the inside cover for all the Tintin adventures published between 1937 and 1958, sold for $3.7 million to an American fan two years ago.
Saturday’s sales are expected to break records for single strips. Rival auction house Christie’s is putting drawings from another rare Herge strip up for sale later in the day in Paris. It said the page from the unfinished story “Tintin and the Thermozero” – estimated at 250,000 euros – was the first ever to come to market. Why the artist never finished the tale of espionage and a terrifying secret weapon set against the backdrop of the Cold War, is one of the great mysteries for Tintin-ologists. Herge wrestled with it for years, “starting it at the end of the 1950s,” said Christie’s, but never got further than eight pages. Artcurial’s comics expert Eric Leroy described the “Explorers on the Moon” as “a key moment in the history of comic book art... it has become mythic for many lovers and collectors of comic strips.” AFP
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia—A Saudiled coalition supporting Yemen’s government against Iran-backed rebels declared a 48-hour ceasefire to begin in Yemen Saturday, it said in a statement on the kingdom’s SPA news agency website. “It has been decided to begin a 48-hour ceasefire from 12:00 noon in Yemen’s timing (0900 GMT) on Saturday,” the coalition statement said, adding that the truce could be renewed if the Huthi rebels and their allies abide by the deal and allow aid deliveries to besieged cities. The coalition announcement followed a request for a ceasefire by Yemen’s President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi – himself based in Riyadh – to Saudi King Salman, the statement said. “Coalition forces will abide by the ceasefire,” it said, but warned that should the rebels or troops loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh make any military moves in the area the coalition would respond. The naval and air “blockade” will also remain in place and surveillance jets will continue to fly over Yemen, it added. AFP
US CONVICTS NEPHEWS OF VENEZUELA FIRST LADY NEW YORK, United States—A jury on Friday convicted two nephews of Venezuela’s first lady of plotting to smuggle 800 kilograms of cocaine into the United States, with Caracas saying the pair were essentially framed. Efrain Antonio Campo Flores, 30, and Francisco Flores de Freitas, 31, were arrested in Haiti in November and flown to New York by US Drug Enforcement Administration agents. Their week-long trial in federal court in New York resulted in the guilty verdict for conspiracy to import cocaine into the United States as well as manufacturing and distribution with the intent to import. Lawyers for both defendants tried to argue that the nephews were not crafty enough to plot or carry out the scheme and that they had fallen into a trap set by the DEA, in a covert operation in which $20 million was offered for the drugs. AFP