Ms sect b 20170402 sunday

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SUNDAY, APRIL 2, 2017 Adelle Chua, Editor

Opinion

Joyce Pangco Pañares, Issue Editor

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STILL WAITING FOR THAT ‘ASIAN CENTURY’

EDITORIAL

By A. Gary Shilling

REACHING HIGHER

T

HAT things are how they are does not make them necessarily right, or at least acceptable.

When a separated woman admits to being “frail” and engaging in a years-long affair with a man whom she knows to be married, she is pilloried on the streets, in media, and even in the halls of Congress.

She is deemed loose and ridiculed for her immorality.

When a married man admits to having a girlfriend, it is taken for what it is. He feels comfortable bringing her to social and official functions. When he is threatened with an ethics complaint and possible disbarment, he taunts his critics. “Who doesn’t have a girlfriend,” he asks.

Then again, it seems farfetched that he would stray from the example set by his friend and boss, who once said he should have been first in raping a beautiful foreigner, bragged about having multiple wives and girlfriends and unabashedly ogles the legs of female officials if they happen to show up in skirts.

There are champions, but we must be wary of fake ones—or those who waver when their political futures are on the line. Case in point: a female senator who championed women’s reproductive rights but speaks forgivingly, even fondly, about how her colleagues would “talk about boy things and that’s how boys are.”

Some female officials of the Executive Department called on the people to view sexist remarks “with a forgiving heart.” One even said a person can get away with such tasteless remarks so long as one is not married.

To date, the President has not uttered anything about the predicament of the Speaker of the House of Representatives who faces disbarment for having a girlfriend while still married. It’s good to keep quiet, we think. Whatever he says will not be credible—if he supports him he would be living up to his reputation; if he criticizes him he would be a hypocrite.

Standards exist to guide people how to live and how not to live. There are norms for relationships, as there are norms for conducting oneself in public, for not engaging in corruption, for neither profiting from the drug trade nor tolerating it. There, too, are standards for ordinary citizens and higher ones for those who lead them and make decisions for them.

A few manage to live up to these standards; many fail, or struggle. It should remain even, however.

Whether it’s a man or woman reaching for it is immaterial. Clearly this is not happening now, but it’s something to demand of ourselves.

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ALL OVER THE WORLD IN AN UBER POP GOES THE WORLD JENNY ORTUOSTE

SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA— Everyone’s got their own story.

The other day, my sister Aileen shared an article on my Facebook timeline. Posted on Mashable, the title neatly summed up the article’s

gist: “Stunning art blog tells the stories of immigrant cab drivers from around the world.”

The blog, says writer Katie Dupere, is called “Riding Up Front” and was created by a Singaporean immigrant

to the US, Wei-En Tan. The “non-profit art gallery blog” collects stories from immigrant passengers, “recapping real conversations they’ve had with their drivers, and then illustrated by

PEOPLE in the West, certainly Americans, have long had a fascination with the East, with many predicting an inevitable “Asian century” marked by economic and market dominance. I have long disagreed with the consensus on China and other Asian Tigers, and others are beginning to agree.

Many problems stand in the way of the “Asian century.”

Japan dazzled Westerners with the speed of its recovery from the ashes of World War II. Japanese purchases of US trophy properties such as the Pebble Beach golf resort in California and Rockefeller Center in Manhattan in the 1980s, on top of the leaping property and equity prices in Japan, convinced many in the West that Japan would soon take over the world.

Japan’s economic decline in the early 1990s did not curb fascination with Asia. It simply shifted to the rapidly-growing developing economies, the Asian Tigers. The original four, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan, were later augmented by the likes of Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and, of course, China—and more recently, Pakistan, Vietnam, Indonesia and Bangladesh.

The late-1990s Asian financial crisis only temporarily disrupted Western fascination with the East and the prospects for an “Asian century.”

The 2007-2009 Great Recession and financial crisis ended rapid economic growth in Western countries and, therefore, the robust demand for exports that were the mainstay of developing economies.

Still, Western zeal for Asia persisted and many, for no logical reasons, believed emerging countries could independently continue to grow rapidly and, indeed, support economic activity in the sluggish US and Europe.

Chinese real economic annual growth rates nosedived from double digits to a recessionary 6.3 percent during the worldwide downturn, but then revived due to the massive 2009 stimulus program. Easy credit fueled a property boom and inflation, and excessive infrastructure spending replaced exports as the growth engine. As with the Asian Tigers earlier, many thought Chinese growth was self-sustaining and unrelated to ongoing sluggish economic performance in North America and Europe, especially after Chinese GDP topped Japan’s in 2009.

There are five main reasons why it won’t get any easier for Asia: 1. Globalization is largely completed. There isn’t much manufacturing in North America and Europe left to be moved to lower-cost developing economies.

At the same time, the West is basically saturated with Asian exports, and those countries are competing fiercely among themselves for limited total export demand. Also, exports are shifting among those countries as lowend production moves from China to places such as Pakistan and Bangladesh, much as they shifted Turn to B2

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out of Japan in earlier decades.

2. The shift from being exportled economies to ones driven by domestic spending, especially by consumers, has been slow. Chinese leaders want this transition, but it is moving at glacial speed.

3. There are government and cultural restraints. Almost all developing Asian economies are tightly controlled by governments.

Top-down regimes stoutly resist reform and often persist until they’re overthrown by revolutions.

The current Mao dynasty in China, as I’ve dubbed it, seems seriously worried about popular unrest due to the lack of promised economic growth and is reducing what little political liberty was previously allowed. President Xi is now the Big Brother with lots of little brothers insuring proper thoughts and actions, even at the local level. In Malaysia, Prime Minister Najib Razak is enmeshed in a multibillion-dollar investment scandal. In the Philippines, crime and drug trafficking are so rampant that President Rodrigo Duterte was elected on a platform of eliminating drug dealers, even by murderous vigilante squads. South Korea’s former president Park Geun-hye was thrown out over corruption.

4. Population problems endure.

Despite the need for new workers in Japan as its population falls and ages, women are still discouraged from entering the labor force, and Japan continues to be unwelcoming toward newcomers. There’s no such thing as an immigration visa despite the fact that 83 percent of Japanese hiring managers have difficulty filling jobs, versus a global average of 38 percent in the last five years. China also has a looming labor shortage and severe limits to economic growth due to its earlier one-child policy, which resulted in about 400 million Chinese not being born. Low fertility rates are also destined to reduce the populations of Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea. At the other end of the population spectrum are Asian countries like Indonesia and India, whose population is expected to exceed China’s by 2022.

5. Military threats are growing in Asia, and could severely disrupt stability and retard economic growth if they flare up. China is exercising its military muscles by challenging US military influence in the region by, among other actions, building military islands on reefs in the South China Sea. Japan is abandoning its postWorld War pacifism and shifting from defensive to offensive capabilities. The Russians are also making military threats. The region contains five nuclear-armed countries: China, India and its rival Pakistan, Russia, and—most troubling—North Korea, which is testing long-range missiles.

There may well be an “Asian century” in the future, but don’t hold your breath. It took about a millennium for the West to develop meaningful democracy, the rule of law, large middle classes that support domestic economies and all the institutions that are largely lacking in developing Asian lands.

Bloomberg

ALL...

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artists.”

Some of the art is colorful and intense, and most show some form of vehicle, roads, urban landscapes, and people wearing all sorts of expressions—sad, happy, blank.

“Many of us,” says Dupere, “slide into the back seat of taxis and quickly bury ourselves in our phones to avoid conversation. But [Riding Up Front] is encouraging you to call shotgun and start chatting—especially with drivers of immigrant backgrounds.”

The reason Aileen told me to check it out is because she, too, collects stories of cab drivers—not to illustrate for a blog, but because it’s her way of connecting with people.

The bonus is that she learns a thing or two along the way.

For safety reasons, my sister takes an Uber to and from the BART station each workday. That’s twice a day,

WHY THE HUMANITIES PLAY AN IMPORTANT ROLE IN STEM EDUCATION

By Pecier Decierdo IN A world where the value of science, technology, engineering, and math subjects is increasingly appreciated, how much value do people place on the humanities?

For many, this question was put to the test last month when the University of the Philippines voted to adopt a new Generation Education program. Under the new program, students will be required to take somewhere between 21 to 36 units of GE subjects.The current program requires students to take 45 units of GE subjects.

What happened in UP reflects a broader change happening in colleges across the country, where fewer GE subjects are required in the new curriculum proposed by the Commission on Higher Education.

The rollout of the new K-to12 curriculum motivated these changes. Under K-to-12, students entering college would have two additional years of schooling. Proponents of the new GE programs said that a reduction in the number of required subjects addresses two things.

First, it avoids potential redundancies in subject matter already covered in senior high school (Grades 11 and 12). Proponents also point to the fact that many of the educators responsible for draft-

ing the senior high curriculum are themselves GE professors at top universities. It is thus argued that sticking with the current GE program will result in the needless repetition of subjects.

Second, proponents say that such redundancies threaten the opportunity to introduce interdisciplinary subjects that apply different disciplines to real world situations. For example, CHEd’s new GE curriculum includes subjects like ‘Understanding the Self’ and ‘The Contemporary World’. Meanwhile, UP’s new GE program includes courses entitled ‘Ethics and Moral Reasoning in Everyday Life’ and ‘Mathematics, Culture, and Society’.

On the other hand, critics of the new programs lament the drop in the number of GE subjects. One way the issue has been framed is as a debate on the relative value of humanities subjects compared to STEM subjects. Indeed, the incoming changes will result in fewer humanities subjects in the curricula of STEM majors. But it can also result in fewer STEM subjects in the curricula of humanities and social sciences majors, which is also unfortunate.

Another, related way of framing the issue touches on the very purpose of universities. Is it to train diploma-bearing specialists who will add to the pool of highly-skilled in-

dividuals who can contribute to the country’s development? Is it to cultivate well-rounded persons who will become active and critical members of society and the republic? Is it possible to have both as equal priorities, or are there fundamental tensions between the two goals?

Critics of the new GE program see it as a move toward the corporatization of higher education. For my part, I think that if our universities focus on cultivating students to become critical members of society, they will also end up training highly-skilled individuals as a result. A good liberal education can result in an excellent technical education. I am doubtful if the reverse is true.

An education that includes substantial exposure to the humanities has positive effects on students, including STEM majors. Let me give a few examples to support this claim.

In a study by researchers from The New School in New York City, it was found that close reading of literary fiction might increase the readers’ capacity for empathy. It can thus be argued that STEM graduates, from clinicians to field researchers, can greatly benefit from a course on Shakespeare or Balagtas.

Another study, this time by researchers from North Carolina State University, suggests that the critical thinking exercises done in humanities classes can decrease belief in

pseudoscience. In an age when so-called ‘fake news’ can spread like virus, such a potential benefit from taking humanities courses is needed even by STEM specialistsin-training who, after all, cannot be experts at everything outside their field of specialization.

Training in the humanities will also help STEM specialists to effectively communicate their work to policy makers and the broader public. It will also allow them to know the context of their work in the larger scheme of things and give them tools to see the ethical, political, cultural, and economic implications of what they are doing. In other words, the humanities will allow scientists and engineers to tell their story well, and to tell it in such a way that it makes it part of the larger story that includes all of us.

With the new GE programs taking into effect soon, I hope the people in charge find a way to make it work so that all incoming students will still get that liberal education that is not only the hallmark of good higher education but is also indispensable in training good scientists, engineers, citizens, and whole human beings.

Pecier Decierdo is resident physicist and astronomer of The Mind Museum.

BEAUTY TAKES ON THE BEAST

By Delil Souleiman ARBIL—When I photograph the women fighters fighting Daesh, it reassures me that there is justice in this world. Daesh, as the Islamic State group is known around here, has mercilessly killed and raped women, children and the elderly.

And here you have girls leaving everything to go and fight them. It gives me faith that there is some justice in the fight between good and evil, between light and darkness.

I love focusing on the women fighters and photographing them, recording for history how brave these women are. When you see a woman fighting, it’s a very enjoyable thing to photograph because it gives your picture beauty and shows that they can fight as well as men. There are only subtle differences between women and men fighters. When I shoot male fighters, power features more prominently in the photos. With women, there is more delicacy and beauty. I guess that’s also why I focus on them more. It makes for a more beautiful picture, adds depth to the story, and records for history how women are on the front lines taking on the Islamists.

Female fighters have their own companies. From what I’ve seen, they are cleaner and seem more organized than their male counterparts. When you visit their quarters, you know right away that women live there, even if it’s on the battlefield, because the quarters are much cleaner and nicer. The men’s quarters are much messier.

five times a week, and sometimes on weekends if she goes out. Some ninety percent of the time, the Uber drivers are immigrants. They come from all over the world, and they each have their own story.

There was Raj, an older man who looked Arab but played Bollywood music in his car. He was well-spoken, and said that he had moved to the US five years ago to work in IT. Instead of music, a young man from Ethiopia played a CD from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services. It was a sample naturalization quiz, and he was studying so that he could pass the citizenship exam and claim the coveted blue passport. We tried answering the quiz along with him (he knew all the answers) until Aileen started asking him about himself. He told his tale, and after some time shushed my sister. “Let’s listen! Now, how many US senators are there?”

A Kurdish female fighter of the Women’s Protection Units who smiled a lot. She was killed by a Daesh sniper in Manjib. AFP

Women and men can work together in the battlefield. Every once in awhile, you’ll of course have men joking with the women fighters, saying that women snipers aren’t as good as men at killing Daesh fighters. This usually bothers the women a lot, because they are very proud of their fighting abilities.

There is no one single reason the women give for having decided to take up arms. I have met Yazidi fighters in Sinjar, who told me that they started fighting after losing homes and siblings to the jihadists. Daesh has been so horrible to the Yazidis, raping and killing. These women said they took up arms to regain their dignity and to take vengeance against the terrorists.

Steve was Hispanic, with a large family over here from Mexico.

“You speak English so well!” he told us, and said that English was not taught in Mexican schools to the extent that it is in the Philippines, where it is a medium of instruction.

Javier had come over from Madrid three years ago. “It is hard to understand the Spanish speakers from other countries,” he said. I mentioned that I was trying to become more proficient in the language. “Learn Castilian—Spain Spanish,” he advised. “Like British English, the original version.”

Bernie, a Filipino, has had partygoers puke in his car. A female passenger of his was so wasted she forgot where she lived; Bernie had to go through her mobile phone and call her friend so that he could drop off his inebriated fare at her home, safe and sound.

All of them said the same

From what I have seen, there has been very little opposition within Kurdish society to the women fighters. For one thing, among Kurds, women play a more prominent role that among some Arab societies.

Women are part of discussions with men in the majority of households and most families will not force their women to do anything, unlike in some other parts of Syria. I personally don’t know of any families where the girls are forced to wear the hijab.

Women go to universities. And girls are often spoiled within families more than boys. So I don’t know of many who would oppose women fighters. As a general rule, Kurdish society respects women fighters.

I don’t have any women in my

family or friends who are fighting.

The closest I got was one female fighter that I saw on the front at alHawl, who told me that she knew my family. I took some pictures of her. She laughed a lot. It was the first and the last time that I saw her. She laughed a lot. It was the first and the last time that I saw her.

Afterwards, I heard that she was killed by a Daesh sniper in Manbij.

That was really disheartening. My photographs are my world and to see heroes of that world die, one after the other, is very sad. I still remember that photo that I took of her, the details of it.

When this war ends, it will be difficult for everyone, but I think especially for the women who fought on the battlefield. There is the obvious pain of having memories of the moments spent with your comrades in a war that claimed so many lives, a war in which they saw so much pain.

But I’m also not sure most of the female fighters will be able to just go back to the lives they had before. I have met some who had stopped fighting, but they can’t remain at home much after they get back to their ‘normal’ life. They say they miss the military life, and the freedom that they had there from society and traditions. They say that on the front they were freer, they were masters of their own fate. Some whom I’ve met refuse to get married after laying down their weapons. They say they prefer to remain their own masters. AFP

things when it came to Uber and their lives. They drove Ubers to make more money on the side, in addition to their income in their day jobs. One fellow had a new baby, a woman from Singapore was taking nursing, a Filipino was trying to pay off his mortgage faster—all incentives to take on a sideline. Steve said his income had improved with Uber—“We used to eat chicken. Now we eat steak! Every night!”

Aileen says another theme she’s noticed that runs through all these stories is that of perseverance. To make money doing this, they said, you have to be willing to make one more trip even when you’re beat, go up to the city (San Francisco) on Friday nights to bring home the drunks from the clubs even when it’s risky, or go out on a weekend even when you’d rather stay home and rest.

One of the things that the Riding

Up Front blog and my sister’s penchant for chatting up drivers have in common is the gathering of narratives that might otherwise remain unspoken. Through such means, these stories are documented.

Even if the stories are told to only one person, those tales may still get passed on. My sister tells us her Uber stories at the dinner table; here I am now telling them to you; and perhaps you might mention it to someone, somewhere.

As Aileen says, Everyone has a story. Everyone’s story has a theme in common with the rest of humanity.

The more stories you know, the more you will realize that we have more that unites us than separates us.

Listen. Listen to the stories, and find your own.

Dr. Ortuoste is a California-based writer. Follow her on Facebook: Jenny Ortuoste, Twitter: @jennyortuoste, Instagram: @jensdecember

World EX-S. KOREAN PRESIDENT PARK IS PRISONER 503 OUSTED South Korean president Park Geun-Hye is now just prisoner 503, incarcerated in a spartan cell while prosecutors decide whether to indict her over a corruption scandal that precipitated her fall from grace.

The former head of state spent her first night in solitary confinement at Seoul Detention Centre after a court Friday ordered her to be held pending charges.

She had her mugshot taken and was given a prison kit including toiletries, a meal tray and a quilt, reports said.

After being processed like any other prisoner, Park, 65, was assigned a 10.6 square metre (114 square feet) solitary cell, larger than the average 6.5 square metre cell, Yonhap news agency said.

“After taking a bath, she changed into green-coloured winter-season prison garb” an official of the Justice Ministry was quoted as saying by the Joongang Ilbo daily.

The chest of Park’s uniform was emblazoned with her prison number -- 503 -- by which she will be known during her incarceration.

Park burst into tears as guards showed her to her cell, TV Chosun said, quoting unidentified sources.

Prosecutors have yet to specify the formal charges against her, but have previously said she is suspected of bribery, abuse of authority, coercion, and leaking government secrets. AFP

NY MAYOR VOWS TO CLOSE DOWN RIKERS ISLAND RAMPANT violence, aging jails: The notorious Rikers Island prison complex could fade into history after New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, in a political aboutface, backed a plan Friday to close it.

“We had to do a lot of work to figure out a path that actually could achieve this goal,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio as he announced the commitment, which he was previously reluctant to make.

“For a long time I have said publicly it was a noble idea but I did not see how it was attainable under the conditions we were facing,” he said at a news conference.

The Democratic mayor, who is running for re-election this year, said it became clear that “we that had to adjust the time line if we were going to be honest about it -- that a decade was the minimum in which it could be done.

That was the breakthrough.”

For years many New York officials and legal experts have been calling for the closure of the huge complex, which shares its name with the island in the East River where it is located.

The site sits between the city’s boroughs of Queens and the Bronx. The first jail there dates back to 1935.

Rikers Island is one of the best-known prisons in the United States, along with Sing Sing in New York state and San Quentin in northern California. AFP

IVANKA TRUMP, HUBBY, BENEFIT FROM BUSINESS EMPIRE DONALD Trump’s daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner have held on to real estate and business investments valued in the hundreds of millions while working government jobs, according to ethics filings released late Friday by the White House.

The disclosures came in a mass document release showing the wealth and financial assets of scores of senior White House staff members at the time they began government work.

Ivanka Trump’s stake in the Trump International Hotel, located blocks from the White House, is one source of income that could represent a conflict of interest.

Critics have noted that interest groups or foreign governments could stay at the luxury hotel to get in the administration’s good graces.

The White House documents show that Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, who are both officially close advisers to the president, are still getting income from holdings valued at between $240 million and $740 million.

Ivanka Trump -- who just days ago announced she would officially enter a federal role as an unpaid adviser to the US president -- will hang on to her stake in the Trump International Hotel. AFP

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SUU KYI’S GOVT FACES ACID TEST IN POLLS A

UNG SAN Suu Kyi’s government faced its first test at the ballot box on Saturday in by-elections around Myanmar seen as a barometer for growing disillusionment with her party’s first year in power.

The euphoria that surrounded the democracy icon’s landslide electoral win in 2015 has ebbed as her party struggles to push through promised reforms.

Discontent is particularly acute in ethnic minority areas where many see Suu Kyi as working too closely with the military, which ran the country for 50 years and still controls key levers of government.

With only 19 seats up for election, the poll is unlikely to alter the balance of power in a government firmly dominated by Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy.

But the voting may offer a glimpse of the public’s view on the NLD’s first year in office -- a rocky 12

months marked by a surge in border unrest and disappointing economic gains.

Hundreds of voters lined up outside polling stations on the outskirts of Myanmar’s commercial capital Yangon Saturday, though the scenes lacked the fanfare and enthusiasm of the historic 2015 election.

Chit Min, from Dagon Seikkan suburb, told AFP many of his friends decided not to vote this time around.

“But I am sure the NLD will win again,” he added.

The party will face its toughest challenge to the north in Shan State, where tens of thousands

have been displaced by recent fighting between the army and ethnic insurgents.

“There are many victims of war here and other ethnic areas now,” said Sai One Leng Kham, an upper house MP from the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy.

“Sometimes (the NLD) works without any understanding of what’s going on on the ground.”

In strife-torn Rakhine State on Myanmar’s western coastline, the party will face a strong challenge not only from the local Arakan National Party but also the militarybacked USDP. The USDP led the transitional government that took over from the junta in 2011, but was trounced in elections four years later that swept the NLD to power.

To the south in Mon, the NLD is facing a backlash over the naming of a new bridge after Suu Kyi’s father that many see as a symbol of the party’s disregard for minorities.

Myanmar’s economic and po-

litical elite, including the NLD, have long been dominated by the majority Bamar ethnicity.

“Now more people think MPs from ethnic parties should be in parliament,” said local Nyan Soe, who was among tens of thousands who protested over the bridge.

“The NLD has not been good for ethnic people since it took power.”

Suu Kyi herself is constitutionally barred from campaigning while in office.

But she came out to defend the NLD’s record -- while also conceding that progress in some areas had been slow -- in a rare national address to mark her administration’s one year anniversary on Thursday.

“We have had to face many daunting challenges,” she said, admitting the NLD had “not achieved the level of development that people have expected”.

But she stressed that her party was dedicated to rebuilding the impoverished nation and that this process would take time. AFP

A man casts his vote in a by-election in a polling station in Dagon Seikkan township, eastern Yangon on April 1, 2017.

Aung San Suu Kyi’s government will face its first test at the ballot box on April 1 in by-elections around Myanmar seen as a barometer for growing disillusionment with her party a year after it took office. AFP

VENEZUELA PRESIDENT REJECTS COUP CLAIMS AMID CRISIS VENEZUELA’S President Nicolas Maduro on Friday rejected accusations that moves to consolidate his power in the crisis-hit country violated the constitution, after a sign of division emerged in his camp.

Maduro’s opponents and political analysts alleged a coup after the Supreme Court took over powers from the legislature and removed lawmakers’ immunity.

International powers condemned the moves, which gave the socialist president control over the only major state institution that still had been out of his grasp.

But Maduro said in a speech to cheering supporters late Friday: “In Venezuela, the constitution, civil, political and human rights and people power are in full force.”

The court’s measures earned the government public condemnation for the first time from a senior member of Maduro’s own camp, Attorney General Luisa Ortega, who broke ranks with him on Friday.

She branded the rulings a “rupture of constitutional order,” in a surprise declaration on state television which drew applause from the crowd.

Coming from a staunch supporter of Maduro’s late predecessor Hugo Chavez, it was the strongest sign of divisions in the government camp since its standoff with the center-right opposition started in January 2016.

Maduro responded to Ortega in his

speech by vowing “through dialogue and the constitution, to resolve the impasse” between the attorney general and the court.

He also said he had called a meeting of security chiefs to “deliberate and draw up a resolution.”

The Supreme Court, which has staunchly backed Maduro through an economic and political crisis, assumed the powers of the National Assembly on Wednesday.

The legislative speaker, Julio Borges, called on the military and other institutions to follow Ortega’s example and speak up against Maduro.

“Now is the time to obey the orders of your conscience,” he saStreet protests erupted for a second day Friday in Caracas. Students marched on the Supreme Court, where they scuffled with soldiers.

Protesters also blocked streets in the working-class Petare neighborhood, and opposition lawmakers clashed with Maduro supporters downtown.

Two students and a journalist were arrested, activists said.

International condemnation continued pouring in, adding to the criticism already voiced by the United States, the European Union, Spain, Germany and a host of Latin American countries.

Many observers have said the Supreme Court’s move amounts to a coup. The government rejected that accusation Friday, lashing out at its critics as “imperialists.” AFP

A Venezuelan pro-government supporter scuffles with police personnel in riot gear during a protest in front of the Supreme Court in Caracas on March 31, 2017. Venezuela’s attorney general Luisa Ortega surprisingly broke ranks with President Nicolas Maduro on Friday, condemning recent Supreme Court rulings that consolidated the socialist president’s power as a “rupture of constitutional order.” AFP

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World

/ Joyce Pangco-Pañares, Issue Editor

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JAPAN’S CHERRY BLOSSOM FEVER KICKS OFF

This file photo taken on September 20, 2016 shows then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump (L) looking on as Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi speaks during a meeting at the Plaza Hotel in New York.Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is expected to meet on April 3, 2017 with US President Donald Trump, who has made no secret of his admiration for the ex-army chief who overthrew his Islamist predecessor and cracked down on his supporters. This is Sisi’s first state visit to Washington after almost four years of tense relations during the tenure of Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama. Trump had met with Sisi earlier before his election in 2016 on the sidelines of the 71st UN General Assembly, his first meeting with a leader from the Muslim world. Sisi was also reportedly the first leader to congratulate Trump upon his election in November 2016. AFP

EGYPT’S SISI TO MEET DONALD TRUMP

A

fTER four years of tension with the United States, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi now has a fan in the White House and on Monday he meets President Donald Trump.

The American former reality television star and tycoon has made no secret of his admiration for the ex-army chief who overthrew his Islamist predecessor and cracked down on his supporters.

Mohamed Morsi’s ouster in 2013, a year after he had won Egypt’s first democratic election, and the ensuing crackdown on Islamists prompted then US president Barack Obama to suspend military aid tbo Cairo temporarily.

But when Sisi meets Trump on Monday during his first state visit to Washington, he will see a counterpart who better appreciates his “mission” to fight Islamists and jihadists, without Obama’s handwringing over human rights.

“As a matter of fact Presidentelect Trump has shown deep and great understanding of what is

taking place in the region as a whole and what is taking place in Egypt,” Sisi, who met Trump in September before his election, said in an interview.

A senior White House official said Friday that Trump wants to “build on the strong connection the two presidents established” then.

Trump has been gushing about Sisi.

“He’s a fantastic guy. Took control of Egypt, and he really took control of it,” he told Fox Business of the period after Morsi’s overthrow which saw hundreds of Islamist protesters killed and thousands detained.

And he really took control of it,” he told Fox Business of the period after Morsi’s overthrow which saw hundreds of Islamist protesters killed and thousands detained.

Over the past three years, Sisi has met a trickle of delegations from American think-tanks and other groups, drumming home the importance of supporting him.

“He made a passionate and convincing case for why all nations should stop working with Islamists,” said a member of one delegation who requested anonymity.

Sisi often speaks of himself as though he were a Cassandra whose warnings go unheeded.

“We warned two years ago our European friends, the foreign fighters in Syria will return and commit terrorism in Europe,” he said during a 2016 visit by French President Francois Hollande.

Cairo is pleased by signals from Trump’s administration and Congress that they may consider blacklisting Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood movement, a move which also has its critics in Washington.

“America prepares to confront the Brotherhood,” read a banner headline in red in the official AlAhram newspaper.

“Beyond Sisi being thrilled that

Trump replaced Obama, and the opportunity to turn a page, this is Egypt trying to reassert itself in a more central way to US Middle East strategy,” said Issandr El Amrani, the International Crisis Group’s North Africa director.

Egypt—one of two Arab countries to have a peace treaty with Israel—had traditionally played a central role in US regional alliances, in return receiving $1.3 billion in annual military aid.

Cairo has also mediated between Israel and the Palestinians.

Sisi’s office said he will broach the issue with Trump, who has confusingly suggested that he is fine with either a two-state or a onestate solution to the conflict.

Sisi had already made a goodwill gesture on that front in January, retracting a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements after a call from the then president-elect who opposed it.

The resolution was reintroduced after objections by other Security Council members, and passed with the US abstaining. AFP

AUSTRALIA FLOODS RISING WITH 2 DEAD, 4 MISSING FLOODED rivers were still rising Saturday in two Australian states with two women dead and four people missing after torrential rains in the wake of a powerful tropical cyclone.

Queensland police warned that the Logan River, which runs through Beenleigh south of Brisbane, would only hit peak flood levels during the afternoon while further north the city of Rockhampton was also facing a serious threat.

Commissioner Ian Stewart warned there was “still a major risk to the community around Logan and further south caused by that flooding situation.”

Rockhampton, with a population of over 80,000 on the Fitzroy River, was expected to suffer flood levels not seen for a century and Stewart urged residents in low-lying areas to leave.

“By Wednesday, we will be at peak flooding in Rockhampton,” he said.

“It will be a gradual rise, so I encourage people to move now.”

Queensland police tweeted “we currently have four people missing... that we have serious concerns about,” including a 77-year-old man.

Tens of thousands of people have been evacuated from a string of towns in Queensland and New South Wales as the floods move south towards Ballina, cutting roads.

Others have tried to stick it out to save their properties.

The scene was grim along the Logan river.

Casey Bently, a 47-year-old mechanic from North Maclean appeared visibly upset as she looked at her house, submerged to the roof.

“We got as much out as we could in the short time that we had,” she told AFP. “People have lost everything. I’d only just finished renovating the house, and it is all gone again now.”

Nearby a calf was stuck in a tree as a man in a kayak paddled out to see if it was alive. Dozens gathered to watch but by the time two people on jet skis arrived to help the calf only to discover it was dead.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull called on residents in affected areas to exercise caution. AFP

SPACE LAUNCH. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from space launch complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center, Florida with an SE communications satellite. SpaceX blasted off a recycled rocket for the first time on, using a booster that had previously flown cargo to the astronauts living at the International Space Station. AFP

JAPAN’S cherry blossom season kicks off boozy parties across the country and draws tourists from far and wide, but the annual coming-of-spring ritual isn’t official until inspectors like Hisato Nishii sign off on it.

Over the past few weeks, local weather offices have been sending civil servants like Nishii out to so-called barometer trees that signal when sakura—cherry blossom in Japanese—have bloomed.

It’s no small matter. Millions of Japanese celebrate the explosion of white and pink flowers heralding the change of season, with the Tokyo area expected to hit full bloom this week.

Parks are full, restaurants are packed, and companies get in on the action with sakura-branded merchandise, from pink beer cans to flower-motif candy.

The festivities come at a time when Japan kicks off a new business year, many university graduates start their first full-time jobs, and older colleagues shift into new positions. AFP

SRI LANKA STOPS JUMBO FLYING TO NEW ZEALAND A SRI LANKAN baby elephant gifted to New Zealand has been prevented from leaving the South Asian island after animal activists said it was cruel to separate her from her family.

Six-year-old Nandi was bequeathed to former New Zealand Prime Minister John Key by President Maithripala Sirisena at a meeting in Colombo in February 2016 to mark “excellent bilateral relations” between the two countries.

New Zealand vets had visited Sri Lanka last year to prepare Nandi for the journey to Auckland Zoo. But animal rights activists have since intervened, arguing against moving the elephant to a foreign country where she will likely find it difficult to be separated from her family and adapt to the new climate.

The group of 18 secured a temporary victory Friday when a Sri Lankan court was assured by the state that Nandi would not be flown out of the country pending a final decision on the case next month. AFP

BOKO HARAM KIDNAPS 22 GIRLS, WOMEN BOKO Haram Islamists have abducted 22 girls and women in two separate raids in northeast Nigeria, residents and vigilantes told AFP Friday.

In the first attack on Thursday, the jihadists raided the village of Pulka near border with Cameroon where they kidnapped 18 girls.

“Boko Haram fighters from Mamman Nur camp arrived in pickup vans around 6:00 am and seized 14 young girls aged 17 and below while residents fled into the bush,” a Pulka community leader told AFP by phone.

“They picked four other girls who were fleeing the raid they came across in the bush outside the village,” said the community leader who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals.

According to the official, the attackers were loyal to the faction headed by Abu Musab AlBarnawi, the son of Boko Haram founder Mohammed Yusuf.

Barnawi was appointed last year by the Islamic State group to replace leader Abubakar Shekau, who had pledged allegiance to the Middle East jihadist group in 2015. AFP