#Philippines - Bangalore and Manila world's worst cities for traffic

As everyone knows, driving would be much more fun if there weren't so many cars on the road. Urban areas are bad for traffic but have you ever wondered where the worst ones are?

The 2019 edition of TomTom's Traffic Index, which ranks the world's most congested cities, has all of the answers. Asia has most of the biggest scores.

At the top of the list, Bangalore, India has the most distressing conditions for motorists, who spend up to 71 percent more time in their cars than they might on a normal journey. Manila in the Philippines is just as bad.

The Colombian capital Bogota, which had the dubious privilege of finishing first in the 2018 table, comes in third in the latest ranking. It should be noted that India has four of the 10 most congested cities in the world. TomTom also reports that the average level of congestion around the globe in 2019 was 29 percent.

The top 10 most traffic-choked cities in the world:

1. Bangalore (India), 71%
2. Manila (Philippines), 71%
3. Bogota (Colombia), 68%
4. Bombay (India), 65%
5. Pune (India), 59%
6. Moscow (Russia), 59%
7. Lima (Peru), 57%
8. New Delhi (India), 56%
9. Istanbul (Turkey), 55%
10. Jakarta (Indonesia), 53%

In the US, the worst city was Los Angeles, with 42 percent, followed by New York at 37 percent.

The TomTom Traffic Index covered 416 cities in 57 countries. The percentages correspond to the level of congestion, i.e., the additional travel time measured for each driver on the entire network, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Source - TheJakartaPost

Katarina Rodriguez takes Miss World PH crown

Katarina Rodriguez was crowned Miss World Philippines 2018 Sunday night at the Mall of Asia Arena.

The Davao beauty bested 39 other aspirants to succeed Laura Lehmann.

Rodriguez also won a number of special awards such as Miss Blue Water Day Spa, Miss Cosmo Skin, Miss Resorts World Manila and Best in Long Gown.

During the question and answer portion, Rodriguez was asked how she could change the perspective of feminists who think that beauty pageants are a form of women exploitation.

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 The 26-year-old stunner admitted that she too was “one of those” feminists before, but later changed her mind upon learning the true meaning of beauty pageants.

“One thing I can tell you is that you may think this is very competitive, but in fact, you’ll understand beauty pageants when you know that it is actually not competitive towards the other women, it’s competitive towards yourself, and it’s all about women empowerment, and you can feel that in this group of girls, each girl knows that we are all individually beautiful,” she said,” she said.

Among the judges in this year’s competition were reigning Miss World Manushi Chillar from India, and 2016 Miss World Stephanie del valle from Puerto Rico.

Miss World Organization Chair Julia Morley also flew in from London to witness the national pageant.

Prior to competing in the pageant, Rodriguez was already hailed as 1st runner up in the Miss Intercontinental 2017 beauty tilt.

Source - TheNation 

#Philippines - 'End of the world': terror in the path of #Typhoon Mangkhut

Bebeth Saquing has seen dozens of storms in her lifetime, but nothing prepared her for the terror of Super Typhoon Mangkhut as it roared over her Philippines home Saturday packing winds of more than 250 kilometres (155 miles) per hour.

The most powerful storm to hit the region so far this year left a trail of battered homes, landslides and fallen trees in its wake.

At least four people were killed as the typhoon smashed across the rural north of the country, a farming area home to millions.

"It felt like the end of the world... that was stronger than Lawin", said Saquing, 64, referring to a powerful super typhoon which hit the region in 2016.

"I did not sleep," she told AFP by phone from her home on Luzon, which withstood Mangkhut's pounding.

Evidence of the massive storm's passage was everywhere on Saturday.

Wind-struck power poles bent from the ground at odd angles, while uprooted trees blocked roads. Corrugated steel roofs shivered and bounced in the continuing gusts.

Authorities were just beginning their surveys of the damage on Saturday afternoon.

Convoys were heading out on the winding roads of the rural area, which produces a significant portion of the nation's corn and rice.

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 'Twice as strong'

Fear was widespread among many of the estimated four million people in the storm's path long before it made landfall.

Thousands of people evacuated high-risk areas following major flooding and landslide warnings.

Myrna Parallag and her two young grandchildren fled their home a day before Mangkhut struck.

"I'm afraid that the floodwaters will be high and will reach our house," the 53-year-old told AFP on Friday as she looked for shelter near the city of Tuguegarao.

This was not her first storm. Parallag survived Lawin, also known as Super Typhoon Haima, but it destroyed her house.

"The newscaster said the typhoon now is twice as strong," added Parallag, who makes money selling street food.

Her worries and those of thousands of others were well founded.

The storm claimed its first victims on Saturday, including two women who were buried when a rain-soaked hillside collapsed.

"As we go forward, this number will go higher," said Ricardo Jalad, head of the national civil defence office, referring to the death toll.

An average of 20 typhoons and storms lash the Philippines each year, killing hundreds of people and leaving millions in near-perpetual poverty.

Source - TheNation

#Philippines - Palace defends investors’ entry into Lumad land

The President’s plan is designed to protect indigenous peoples in the highlands from being exploited by communist rebels 

 President Rodrigo Duterte’s plan to develop ancestral domain lands with the help of investors would protect the indigenous peoples from being exploited and influenced by communist rebels, Malacañang assured on Saturday.

Defending the idea, presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said “all of the data” show that the New People’s Army (NPA) was exploiting the Lumad by turning them into insurgents.

Mr. Duterte was aware that the biggest problem that the Lumad face was poverty, Roque said.

 

“That is why (the President) said we could allow investors to enter (ancestral domain lands) so that there would be jobs, and hunger would be reduced in Lumad communities,” he said in a press briefing in Ilocos Norte.

“If the number of jobs increases in Lumad communities, the NPA’s influence over them would wane. This means the NPA would no longer forcibly take them and turn them into fighters,”  he added.

Mr. Duterte had earlier threatened to bomb Lumad schools for supposedly spreading subversive ideas and teaching students to rebel against the government.

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 Risk of displacement

 As for concerns that the Lumad communities run the risk of being displaced if investors were allowed to develop their ancestral lands, Roque said there were laws covering ancestral domains.

He said the plight of the Lumad had attained some urgency because of the assertion of the UN special rapporteur on indigenous communities that the government was violating their rights.

The President broached the idea of developing ancestral domain lands with the help of investors at a summit of indigenous peoples’ leaders on Thursday in Davao City.

During the event, he also vowed to provide P100 million to fund agriculture development in Lumad areas.

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Philippines' President Duterte threatens to expel EU ambassadors

President Rodrigo Duterte on Thursday told ambassadors of European Union countries to leave the Philippines after he slammed the EU for being critical towards his administration.

“You leave my country in 24 hours. All of you,” Duterte said in a speech during the inauguration of the newly-renovated press briefing room in Malacañang.

  “Just like that you tell us: ‘You will be excluded in the UN’. Son of … go ahead,” Duterte told reporters, adding European nations were taking advantage of the Philippines being poor.

“You give us money then you start to orchestrate what things should be done and which should not happen in our country. You bullshit. We are past the colonization stage. Don’t f… with us.”

Duterte said he was prepared to kick European ambassadors out of the country if their governments tried to expel the Philippines.

 

“You think we are a bunch of morons here. You are the one. Now the ambassadors of those countries listening now, tell me, because we can have the diplomatic channel cut tomorrow. You leave my country in 24 hours, all, all of you.”

The EU had no statement calling for the Philippines’ removal from the UN but a seven-member delegation from the Progressive Alliance and the Party of European Socialists visited the country and called on the Duterte administration to stop killing suspected drug addicts and silencing its critics.

 

It was the New York-based Human Rights Watch that warned the Philippines would be at risk of being removed from the UN Human Rights Council because of alleged human rights violation in the country.

In a statement, the EU said it never called for the ouster of the Philippines from the UN.

“The recent visit of the delegation of the ‘International Delegates of the Progressive Alliance’ to the Philippines on 8-9 October was not a ‘European Union mission,’ as falsely reported by some media outlets,” the EU said.

The EU said it “was not part of the organization or planning of that visit – neither the Delegation of the European Union in the Philippines nor the European Union institutions in Brussels.”

“The statements made by the Progressive Alliance during its visit to the Philippines were made solely on behalf of the Progressive Alliance and do not represent the position of the European Union,” it said.

The EU and the Philippines, it said, both “work constructively and productively together in a close partnership in many contexts and areas, including, of course, in the UN context.”

 

“The cooperation covers a very wide range of subjects, including trade, where this year the Philippines made extraordinary progress on its exports to the EU,” it said.

Sought for comment, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said there was no instruction from the President yet as of posting time.

“I was informed that as far as our relevant offices are concerned, at this time, DFA has not received any instructions on the matter,” DFA spokesman Robespierre Bolivar said.

President’s expression of outrage

In a statement, presidential spokesperson Ernesto Abella clarified Duterte’s remarks.

“The President’s expression of outrage is in reaction to statements by a 7-member delegation of the International Delegates of the Progressive Alliance which has falsely portrayed itself as an EU mission,” Abella said.

He said the “delegation’s irresponsible statements protesting the alleged killings under the Duterte administration demean our status as a sovereign nation.”

“The call of the President for EU ambassadors to leave the country in 24 hours must be taken in this light,” he said.

“For so long has our President tolerated these undue interferences in our domestic affairs, and he has decided that these must stop if only to preserve the integrity and dignity of our State as a sovereign nation,” he added.

Source - TheNation 

#Philippines - Duterte says IS battle in 'final stages.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said Wednesday a three-month battle against Islamic State group supporters occupying parts of a southern city was in its "final stages".

Duterte gave his assessment shortly after government troops secured a vital bridge in Marawi city, allowing them easier access into areas being held by the militants.

"We are in the final stages. So let us send immediately, even air-lift, the police," to Marawi, Duterte said in the capital Manila, about 800 kilometres (500 miles) to the north of the battle zone.

Pro-IS gunmen occupied parts of Marawi, the Islamic capital of the mainly Catholic Philippines on May 23, triggering a battle that the military says has left almost 800 people dead.

The fighting, which has included a US-backed air campaign against the militants, has destroyed large parts of Marawi.

Duterte and security analysts have said the militants carried out the assault in an effort to establish a Southeast Asian base for IS. 

Duterte on Wednesday warned that, even with the Marawi battle over, the militants could still launch attacks elsewhere in the Philippines, particularly in the strife-torn south where the country's Muslim minority is based.

The southern regions of the Philippines have long been troubled by armed Muslim bands including separatist guerrillas and outlaws, some of whom have gravitated towards IS.

Duterte said other southern cities with large Muslim populations, including his hometown of Davao, were vulnerable. He said Manila might also be a target.

Duterte imposed martial law across the southern third of the Philippines immediately after the militants occupied parts of Marawi to combat the security threat.

Hours before Duterte spoke, soldiers in Marawi secured the Mapandi bridge, a vital supply route which had once been menaced by militant snipers and rocket-propelled grenades.

Source - TheJakartaPost

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Military says 89 gunmen killed during #Philippine urban battle.

A Philippine Marines armoured personnel carrier speeds away as black smoke billows from burning houses after military helicopters fired rockets at militant positions in Marawi on the southern island of Mindanao on Tuesday.

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MARAWI, Philippines - Philippine security forces have killed 89 Islamist militants during more than a week of fighting in a southern city but the gunmen are still offering strong resistance and holding hostages, the military said Wednesday.

Attack helicopters fired rockets repeatedly on Wednesday morning into the pockets of Marawi city where the militants were hiding among trapped residents, according to an AFP reporter who was following troops searching houses.

The clashes erupted on Tuesday last week when gunmen waving black flags of the Islamic State (IS) group rampaged through the mostly Muslim-populated city in response to an effort by security forces to arrest a Filipino on the US government's list of most-wanted terrorists.

That militant leader, Isnilon Hapilon, escaped but he was still believed to be in Marawi, military spokesman Brigadier-General Restituto Padilla said Wednesday.

Eighty-nine militants had been killed in the efforts to reclaim the city and find Hapilon, Padilla told reporters.

He said the military was making "very positive" progress towards ending the crisis, which had also seen 21 security forces and 19 civilians killed.

However Padilla acknowledged there were many residents still trapped in the 10 percent of the city that the gunmen were controlling, and that troops would likely meet increasingly strong resistance there.

"That 10 percent is most likely the area that is heavily guarded and defended by any armed men if they are protecting any individual of high value," Padilla said.

Padilla said he did not know how many militants remained.

He said they had been reinforced by prisoners who escaped from two jails during the initial rampage, and "sympathisers" of the militants.

 There were more than 2,000 residents still trapped in areas of Marawi held by the militants, Zia Alonto Adiong, spokesman for the provincial crisis management committee, told AFP.

The militants also took a priest and up to 14 other people hostage at the start of the crisis.

A video of the priest appeared on social media on Tuesday in which he repeated the militants' demands to withdraw, and said the militants were holding 240 people hostage.

"The video may seem to be authentic," Padilla said, although he cautioned military technology experts were still verifying it.

Padilla also emphasised the video was being used for propaganda, that the priest was speaking under duress and he did not know if the figure about the number of hostages was correct.

President Rodrigo Duterte declared martial law across the entire southern region of Mindanao, home to roughly 20 million people, in response to the crisis.

He said the Marawi violence showed that local militant groups were uniting behind IS and becoming a major security threat across Mindanao.

Source - TheNation