MANILA: Metro Manila is going to recycle tons of campaign posters and election paraphernalia, the administration said on Friday, as a cleanup campaign got underway in the Philippine capital region after the recent vote.
Tens of millions of Filipinos cast their ballots on Monday to elect a new president, vice president, around 300 lawmakers, and 18,000 local government officials, including provincial governors and town mayors.
The election period has left the streets of Philippine cities littered with campaign materials — both paper and plastic. In Metro Manila alone, authorities have been collecting tons of election litter a day.
Tens of millions of Filipinos cast their ballots on Monday to elect a new president, vice president, around 300 lawmakers, and 18,000 local government officials, including provincial governors and town mayors.
“We have already collected a lot of campaign materials. In one day, we get to collect around 18 to 20 tons of campaign paraphernalia,” Metro Manila Development Authority chair Romando Artes told reporters on Friday.
For the cleanup, the development authority teamed up with the EcoWaste Coalition, a zero-waste advocacy group.
“The EcoWaste Coalition met with our personnel the other day so they can make ecobags out of the thick and good quality tarpaulins. The thin ones that can’t be turned into eco-bags, we will take them to our waste granulator. They will be ground and used as materials to make hollow blocks and ecobricks that will be used in the pocket parks we are developing in Metro Manila.”
The EcoWaste Coalition has been calling on candidates who contested the election to help prevent the paper and plastic waste generated by their campaigning from ending up in landfills, furnaces, or the ocean.
“Dumping and burning campaign materials will be a huge waste of resources,” Aileen Lucero, EcoWaste Coalition coordinator, said in a statement on Thursday. “It will further result in environmental pollution.”
At an event in Quezon City, the group showed how paper-based campaign materials could be reused and turned into notepads and other stationery. Plastic posters were turned into book and notebook covers.
SEOUL: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said on Saturday that the spread of COVID-19 had thrust his country into “great turmoil” and called for an all-out battle to overcome the outbreak, while 21 new daily deaths were reported among people with fever. North Korea made an unprecedented admission of its first COVID-19 outbreak this week and imposed a nationwide lockdown, after reporting no cases since the start of the pandemic two years ago. But there was no sign a rigorous testing or treatment campaign was under way. “The spread of the malignant epidemic is a great turmoil to fall on our country since the founding,” state news agency KCNA quoted Kim as telling an emergency meeting of the country’s ruling Workers’ Party. “But if we don’t lose focus in implementing epidemic policy and maintain strong organization power and control based on single-minded unity of the party and the people and strengthen our epidemic battle, we can more than overcome the crisis.” Given North Korea’s limited testing capabilities, the numbers probably represent a fraction of total cases and could lead to thousands of deaths in one of only two countries without a vaccination campaign, experts have said. The outbreak could also deepen an already dire food situation in the country, with the lockdown hampering anti-drought efforts and mobilization of labor. The Workers’ Party meeting heard reports of about 280,810 people being treated and 27 deaths since a fever of unidentified origins was reported starting in late April, KCNA said. State media did not say whether the new deaths were due to COVID-19. KCNA said on Friday that one death had been confirmed to be due to the omicron variant of the coronavirus. The meeting also heard a report from epidemic control officials that “in most cases, human casualties were caused by negligence including drug overdose due to lack of knowledge of treatment methods,” KCNA said. Since late April, 524,440 people have shown signs of fever including 174,440 new cases on Friday, KCNA said. About 243,630 have been treated but KCNA has not said how many people have been tested nor confirmed the total number of COVID-19 cases. North Korea has been testing about 1,400 people a week, according to Harvard Medical School’s Kee Park who has worked on health care projects in the country, not nearly enough to survey the hundreds of thousands of people with symptoms. Leader Kim said the health crisis had been caused by the incompetence and irresponsibility of party organizations, but transmission was not uncontrollable and the country must have faith in its battle to overcome the crisis in the shortest possible period, KCNA said. Kim offered to donate medical supplies, which had been kept in his household, to be used by families that are experiencing particular hardship “with his resolution to always share the destiny with the people,” KCNA said. Kim also said health officials must learn from the experience of other advanced countries, including China’s accomplishments in fighting the epidemic, KCNA said. There was discussion on urgently distributing medicine and adopting scientific treatment for people with fever and other symptoms to minimize casualties, KCNA said. North Korea said that party officials, workers and youth continued to be mobilized for work to prevent drought damages and for rice-planting in different parts of the country, the KCNA reported separately. Kim had ordered for economic and farm activities to continue when declaring a nationwide lockdown on Thursday. North Korea has not reported on the possible source of the outbreak. But a Seoul-based website that reports from sources in North Korea said late on Friday some students of a university in Pyongyang had tested positive after participating in an event on May 1. Leader Kim had also attended the event. The students had relatives who worked in trade with China and may have spread the virus when they subsequently visited their hometowns outside Pyongyang, the Daily NK website said citing a source in Pyongyang. Reuters could not independently verify the report. North Korea’s border with China was reopened for trade early this year, but in April China suspended freight services between its Dandong city and the North Korean town of Sinuiju due to the COVID-19 situation on its side.
SYDNEY: Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Saturday he will “empathize” much more if he wins May 21 elections but was accused by the opposition of making a desperate political maneuver. Morrison, whose conservative government lags in the opinion polls a week before the vote, admitted a day earlier that he had been a “bulldozer” to get things done during the Covid-19 pandemic. “I know there are things that are going to have to change with the way I do things because we are moving into a different time,” he added. On Saturday, Morrison renewed his promise of personal change. The Australian leader said he would seek to “explain my motives and my concerns and empathize a lot more — but I tell you what, at the end of the day what matters is I get the job done.” Morrison said he had to make unpopular decisions and act quickly during the pandemic, adding: “I am looking forward to changing the gears of our government.” It is a change from the campaign stump message he has delivered to voters until now: “You may not like me,” coupled with a summary of his plans and achievements, notably fighting the virus and boosting the economy. A Newspoll released Friday showed the opposition Labour Party leading the ruling Liberal-National Party coalition by 54-46 percent on a two-party basis — barely changed from a month ago. “I don’t believe this prime minister can change. That’s a desperate statement that he made,” opposition Labour Party leader Anthony Albanese told reporters. The opposition leader also reacted angrily to a Sydney Morning Herald report that he had been kept out of the loop during Australia’s negotiations to obtain nuclear-powered submarines in an alliance with the United States and Britain. US President Joe Biden’s administration had repeatedly asked Morrison’s team to ensure bipartisan support in Australia for the alliance, dubbed AUKUS, the paper said, citing White House officials. Instead, Morrison reportedly waited more than four months before briefing the opposition on the deal. After being informed, Labor supported the agreement. “It is extraordinary that the prime minister broke that faith and trust with our most important ally by not briefing Australian Labor on these issues,” Albanese said, adding that he was briefed by officials less than 24 hours before the public announcement. “This prime minister is always interested in the wedge, always interested in the division and that’s why when he says that all can change, he can’t be trusted,” he added. “This is a prime minister who always plays short term politics — isn’t interested in the national interest.” Though both parties have been unofficially campaigning since long before the election date was announced over a month ago, Morrison was due to officially launch his ruling coalition’s campaign in Brisbane on Sunday.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern tested positive for COVID-19 with moderate symptoms, her office said in a statement on Saturday. She will not be in parliament for the government’s emissions reduction plan on Monday and the budget on Thursday, but “travel arrangements for her trade mission to the United States are unaffected at this stage,” the statement said. Ardern had been symptomatic since Friday evening, returning a weak positive at night and a clear positive on Saturday morning on a rapid antigen test, it said. She has been in isolation since Sunday, when her partner Clarke Gayford tested positive, it said. Due to the positive test, Ardern will be required to isolate until the morning of May 21, undertaking what duties she can remotely. Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson will address media in her place on Monday. “This is a milestone week for the Government and I’m gutted I can’t be there for it,” Ardern said in the statement. “Our emissions reduction plan sets the path to achieve our carbon zero goal and the budget addresses the long-term future and security of New Zealand’s health system,” she said. “But as I said earlier in the week isolating with COVID-19 is a very kiwi experience this year and my family is no different.” Ardern also said on Saturday that her daughter Neve had tested positive on Wednesday. “Despite best efforts, unfortunately I’ve joined the rest of my family and have tested positive for COVID-19,” Ardern posted on her official Instagram page.
KYIV, Ukraine: Russian forces suffered heavy losses in a Ukrainian attack that destroyed a pontoon bridge they were using to try to cross a river in the east, Ukrainian and British officials said in another sign of Moscow’s struggle to salvage a war gone awry. Ukrainian authorities, meanwhile, opened the first war crimes trial of the conflict Friday. The defendant, a captured Russian soldier, stands accused of shooting to death a 62-year-old civilian in the early days of the war. The trial got underway as Russia’s offensive in the Donbas, Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland, seemed to turn increasingly into a grinding war of attrition. Ukraine’s airborne command released photos and video of what it said was a damaged Russian pontoon bridge over the Siversky Donets River in Bilohorivka and several destroyed or damaged Russian military vehicles nearby — the Ukrainians said they destroyed at least 73 tanks and other military equipment during the two-day battle earlier this week. The command said its troops “drowned the Russian occupiers.”
Britain’s Defense Ministry said Russia lost “significant armored maneuver elements” of at least one battalion tactical group in the attack. A Russian battalion tactical group consists of about 1,000 troops. “Conducting river crossings in a contested environment is a highly risky maneuver and speaks to the pressure the Russian commanders are under to make progress in their operations in eastern Ukraine,” the ministry said in its daily intelligence update. In other developments, a move by Finland and, potentially, Sweden to join NATO was thrown into question when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country is “not of a favorable opinion” toward the idea. He accused Sweden and other Scandinavian countries of supporting Kurdish militants and others Turkey considers terrorists. Erdogan did not say outright that he would block the two nations from joining NATO. But the military alliance makes its decisions by consensus, meaning that each of its 30 member countries has a veto over who can join. An expansion of NATO would be a blow to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who undertook the war in what he said was a bid to thwart the alliance’s eastward advance. But in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine, other countries along Russia’s flank fear they could be next. With Ukraine pleading for more arms to fend off the invasion, the European Union’s foreign affairs chief announced plans to give Kyiv an additional 500 million euros ($520 million) to buy heavy weapons. Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov welcomed the heavy weapons making their way to the front lines but admitted there is no quick end to the war in sight. “We are entering a new, long-term phase of the war,” he wrote in a Facebook post. “Extremely difficult weeks await us. How many there will be? No one can say for sure.” The battle for the Donbas has turned into a village-by-village, back-and-forth slog with no major breakthroughs on either side and little ground gained. In his nightly address Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said no one can predict how long the war will last but that his country’s forces have been making progress, including retaking six Ukrainian towns or villages in the past day.
Fierce fighting has been taking place on the Siversky Donets River near the city of Severodonetsk, said Oleh Zhdanov, an independent Ukrainian military analyst. The Ukrainian military has launched counterattacks but has failed to halt Russia’s advance, he said. “The fate of a large portion of the Ukrainian army is being decided — there are about 40,000 Ukrainian soldiers,” he said. The Ukrainian military chief for the Luhansk region of the Donbas said Friday that Russian forces opened fire 31 times on residential areas the day before, destroying dozens of homes, notably in Hirske and Popasnianska villages. He said Russian troops have taken nearly full control of Rubizhne, a city with a prewar population of around 55,000. In the ruined southern port of Mariupol, Ukrainian fighters holed up in a steel plant faced continued Russian attacks on the last stronghold of resistance in the city. Sviatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of Ukraine’s Azov Regiment, said his troops will hold out “as long as they can” despite shortages of ammunition, food, water and medicine. Justin Crump, a former British tank commander who is now a security consultant, said Moscow’s losses have forced it to downsize its objectives in Ukraine. He said the Russians have had to use hastily patched-together units that haven’t trained together. “This is not going to be quick. So we’re settled in for a summer of fighting at least. I think the Russian side is very clear that this is going to take a long time,” he said. In the first war crimes case brought to trial, Russian Sgt. Vadim Shyshimarin, 21, could get life in prison if convicted of shooting a Ukrainian man in the head through an open car window in a village in the northeastern Sumy region on Feb. 28, four days into the invasion. Ukrainian Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova said she is readying war crimes cases against 41 Russian soldiers for offenses including bombing civilian infrastructure, killing civilians, rape and looting. It was not immediately clear how many of the suspects are in Ukrainian hands and how many would be tried in absentia. In a small Kyiv courtroom, scores of journalists witnessed the start of the wartime proceedings, which will be closely watched by international observers to make sure the trial is fair. The defendant, dressed in a blue and gray hoodie and gray sweatpants, sat in a small glass cage during the proceedings, which lasted about 15 minutes and will resume on Wednesday. Shyshimarin was asked a series of questions, including whether he understood his rights and whether he wanted a jury trial. He declined the latter. His Ukraine-assigned attorney, Victor Ovsyanikov, has acknowledged that the case against Shyshimarin is strong and has not indicated what the soldier’s defense will be. Shyshimarin, a member of a tank unit that was captured by Ukrainian forces, admitted that he shot the civilian in a video posted by the Security Service of Ukraine, saying he was ordered to do so. As the war grinds on, teachers are trying to restore some sense of normalcy after the fighting shuttered Ukraine’s schools and upended the lives of millions of children. In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, lessons are being given in a subway station that has become home for many families. Children joined their teacher Valeriy Leiko around a table to learn about history and art, with youngsters’ drawings lining the walls. “It helps to support them mentally. Because now there is a war, and many lost their homes. ... Some people’s parents are fighting now,” Leiko said. In part because of the lessons, he said, “they feel that someone loves them.” An older student, Anna Fedoryaka, monitored a professor’s online lectures on Ukrainian literature, admitting: “It is hard to concentrate when you have to do your homework with explosions by your window.”
TRINCOMALEE: The appointment of a new prime minister has failed to appease Sri Lankan protesters, who vowed on Friday to continue their campaign to oust President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, whom they blame for the country’s worst economic crisis in decades.
Rajapaksa appointed politician Ranil Wickremesinghe as the island nation’s premier on Thursday after days of violent clashes left at least nine people dead and hundreds injured.
The president’s elder brother, Mahinda Rajapaksa, quit as prime minister on Monday as the violence broke out and has been hiding in a naval base in Trincomalee, a port city on the northeast coast of Sri Lanka.
“Sri Lankans from different political backgrounds, opinions, races and religions go together with one aim: ‘Go Home Gota,’” Methsara Benaragama, a long-time protester at the main demonstration site in front of the presidential office in the capital, Colombo, told Arab News.
“Gota” is a popular reference to President Rajapaksa. For over a month, protesters across the country have been demanding that he leave office.
They see the appointment of Wickremesinghe as part of attempts by the president and his allies to “change heads in order to protect themselves,” Benaragama said.
Wickremesinghe, a lawyer, comes from a family of politicians and businessmen. Although currently sitting in the opposition ranks of the Sri Lankan Parliament, he is seen as being close to the Rajapaksa family.
It is the sixth time Wickremesinghe has held the prime minister’s post. He has never completed a full term.
“The appointment of Wickremesinghe raises questions as to whether there will be any changes at all, because he is perceived as being close to the Rajapaksa family,” Bhavani Fonseka, a constitutional lawyer and human rights activist attached to the Center for Policy Alternatives in Colombo, told Arab News.
“It also remains to be seen if he can bring in the reforms and stability Sri Lanka needs,” she said. “And there is also the question of whether he enjoys the confidence of the parliament.”
An alliance led by the Rajapaksas holds about 100 out of 225 parliamentary seats. The opposition has 58, while the rest are independent.
A day before Wickremesinghe’s appointment, the main opposition alliance, Samagi Jana Balawegaya, nominated opposition leader Sajith Premadasa to form a new government.
Premadasa is the son of Ranasinghe Premadasa, who served as the country’s president from 1989 to 1993. He contested the 2019 presidential election, in which he lost to Rajapaksa.
The Rajapaksas are Sri Lanka’s most influential political dynasty and are credited with ending the country’s 30-year civil war in 2009.
But their support has plummeted in recent months amid accusations of mismanagement of the economy and corruption as the country of 22 million people has been facing skyrocketing inflation, stalled imports of fuel, shortages of medicines, food and hours of power cuts a day, and is about to default on its foreign debts.