MikeLigalig.com

POSTED 11:22 AM, AUGUST 28, 2015, BY AP WIRE






PORTSMOUTH, R.I. (AP) â€" A Benedictine monk who works at a private Rhode Island school has discovered that finding solitude is no easy feat, even 175 feet in the air.

Brother Joseph Byron was recently relaxing atop the Portsmouth Abbey School’s wind turbine â€" as he often does â€" when a drone zoomed in.

Video taken by the drone, owned by a Californian on vacation, shows Byron sprawled across the turbine’s flat surface, with views of Narragansett Bay in the background. The footage was posted online this week.

Byron said Friday that alumni he hadn’t heard from in years are contacting him after seeing the video.

He says he found the drone interesting at first but was annoyed after it zoomed by a second time.

Byron says he climbs the turbine, which was installed in 2006, because he enjoys the view.

Texas teen dies of rare brain-eating amoeba infection
[igg]http://l.yimg.com/a/p/us/news/editorial/d/0c/d0c3eb8ca18907492a4b337b5cec5193.jpeg[/img]
12 hours ago


(Reuters) - A Texas teenager who contracted a rare brain-eating disease after swimming in a lake about 70 miles (110 km) north of Houston has died, according to his family and local media.

The 14-year-old Michael Riley Jr., a junior Olympian and honor student, seemed to have contracted the disease after he went swimming on Aug. 13 with his track team, his father Mike Riley told KTRK earlier this week.

"It is with a heavy heart, that we let everyone know that Michael John Riley Jr. lost his battle on this earth but won a victory for his place in the arms of our Lord Jesus Christ," the family said in a statement on their Facebook page late on Saturday night.

A spokeswoman for Texas Children's Hospital, where Riley had been listed as a patient, declined to provide information when reached on Sunday, citing patient confidentiality.

The disease is caused by exposure to a single-celled organism known as Naegleria fowleri, often referred to as the brain-eating amoeba.

It is commonly found in warm freshwater such as lakes, rivers and hot springs, as well as soil. It usually infects people when contaminated water enters the body through the nose, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Contracting the brain disease is rare, it said.

The organism is most commonly encountered in the southern United States during the summer, when temperatures are highest, the CDC said. Of 133 people known to have been infected with it in the United States since 1962, only three have survived, the CDC said.

(Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

Muslim pilgrims gather on Mount Arafat near Mecca as they perform one of the Hajj rituals on October 3, 2014 (AFP Photo/Mohammed al-Shaikh)

- Threats -

Most of the film focuses on him. But he also includes two of more than 50 interviews he said he conducted.

An Arab man in the film complains that his wife was touched by other men, and a man from Lahore, a city in eastern Pakistan, confesses to seeking atonement for taking part in a so-called "honor" killing.

It has been shown at film festivals in Britain and North America, and goes on cinema release in New York on Friday before being aired on European television and Netflix in coming months.

"Sharma's constant filming of his own face and his reactions to what he's seeing give the film a sometimes annoying 'selfie' perspective," wrote reviewer, David Savage, in Cut Print Film.

But he called it "an important and rare film" given "the threats of violence and death that have suppressed many of his fellow Muslim gays into hiding."

Sharma says much of the response has been positive. But he has received a torrent of hate mail and online death threats coming from servers in countries like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

He says the Iranian government has denounced it. He tells of being accosted by yelling Saudi women at a festival in Britain.

"I hope that Muslims will eventually react positively," he told AFP.

"Early on," he explains, "my iPhone was taken away by the religious police and they deleted initial early footage," he said.

"These guys walk around with sticks and hit you if you're doing something they consider un-Islamic, and I was on the wrong end of the stick several times."

He captures the crush encircling the Kaaba, the sacred site in whose direction Muslims pray, the giant shopping mall next door where you can get a Starbucks coffee and the discomfort of standing on a bus an entire night to go to Mount Arafat.

"There is nothing kind about this process," Sharma says in the film.

He calls his first experience at the Kaaba "probably the most violent night of my entire life." He says he strung his iPhone around his neck and just let the camera roll.

"The change needs to happen with Wahhabi Islam -- that is the root of all the problems," he said.

Sharma associates with the Sufi branch of Islam common in his homeland India, which unlike Wahhabism embraces music and a more mystical -- and less dogmatic -- approach to faith.

- Wrong end of the stick -

He performed hajj in 2011, four months after Al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden was killed and seven months after the Arab Spring began. He says the timing was deliberate.

"I felt that it would be the most interesting time to go with all this churning going on in the Muslim world."

Most striking is his footage, filmed on a mobile phone and two tiny cameras without permission from Saudi authorities, then smuggled out of the country.

From that perspective which includes footage of his wedding to his American husband in New York, millions of Muslims will likely find "A Sinner in Mecca" provocative if not offensive.

But director and pilgrim, Indian-born New Yorker Parvez Sharma, sees it as a wake-up call for a faith followed by nearly a quarter of humanity which he believes has been hijacked by a violent minority.

"Islam is imploding upon itself right now and there's a huge crisis," Sharma told AFP.

"It (a reformation) is happening, but it is happening too slowly and we're running out of time."



Indian-born director Parvez Sharma's new documentary "A Sinner in Mecca" is a rebuke of Saudi Arabia and its strict Wahhabi form of Islam, but it is also deeply personal -- a man trying to reconcile his faith with his sexuality (AFP Photo/)

By Jennie Matthew
9 hours ago



Muslim pilgrims arriving for the evening prayer at Mecca's Grand Mosque, home of the cube-shaped Kaaba or "House of God", on September 29, 2014 during the annual hajj pilgrimage (AFP Photo/Mohammed al-Shaikh)


New York (AFP) - The confession of a Pakistani murderer. Overzealous religious police. An Arab angered after his pregnant wife was molested in the holiest site known to Islam.

A new film made by a gay Muslim pilgrim offers a English-speaking Western audience a warts-and-all view of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca in a documentary that has attracted death threats and an online hate campaign.

It is a rebuke of Saudi Arabia and its strict Wahhabi form of Islam, but it is also deeply personal -- a man trying to reconcile his faith with his sexuality.

                     





                 

28 August 2015





Brazil has entered recession after official figures showed the country's economy contracted by 1.9% between April and June compared with the previous three months.

Analysts had expected a contraction, but the number was worse than expected.

First quarter output was also revised down to show a 0.7%, rather than a 0.2%, contraction.

The country, the seventh-largest economy in the world, has seen economic growth fall sharply in recent times.

This is due in part to low commodity prices and sluggish global growth.

High interest rates - currently 14.25% - have also affected consumer spending, an important element of Brazil's economy, while this year, the government has introduced stringent austerity measures designed to tackle high levels of debt.

Government spending, including on unemployment benefits, has fallen sharply, while taxes have risen.

Naungo sa unggoy-unggoy

The large-scale deportation he envisions would be impractical to enact, due to the extent that Mexican immigrants have integrated into U.S. society, said Columbia University history professor Mae Ngai.

U.S.-born children of immigrants have been automatically considered American citizens since the adoption of the Constitution's 14th Amendment in 1868. A Supreme Court ruling in 1898 halted previous attempts to limit the birthright of Chinese-American citizens after the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act.

The ruling upheld the clause for all U.S.-born children, Ngai said, and there have been no successful challenges to the clause since.

In the 1930s, Chicano studies professor Balderrama said, officials skirted the issue of birthright citizenship by saying they did not want to break up families.

"But they did break up families and many children never saw their parents again," said Balderrama, co-author of a book about Mexican repatriation in the 1930s with the late historian Raymond Rodriguez, who testified before a California state committee about seeing his father for the last time at age 10, before the father left for Mexico.

That legacy lingers in songs, often played on Spanish-language radio stations, that allude to mass deportations and separation of loved ones, said Lilia Soto, an American studies professor at the University of Wyoming.

For example, the lyrics to "Ice El Hielo," by the Los Angeles-band La Santa Cecilia, speak of a community afraid that federal agents are about to arrive and launch deportations raids at any moment. The ballad "Volver, Volver," sung by Mexican ranchera performer Vicente "Chente" Fernandez, speaks of someone vowing to return to a lover despite all obstacles.

"They're about families being apart," Soto said. "The lyrics are all indirectly linked to this past."

Amid his comments on immigration, polls show negative impressions of Trump among Latinos. A Gallup poll released Aug. 24 found that Hispanics were more likely to give Trump unfavorable ratings than favorable ones by 51 percentage points.

Some immigrant advocates pointed to the removal of prominent Latino journalist Jorge Ramos from an Iowa news conference last week as a metaphor for the candidate's desire to remove Latinos from the United States.

"Mr. Trump should heed the following warning: Our Latino and immigrant communities are not going to forget the way he has treated them," the Washington, D.C.-based Fair Immigration Reform Movement said in a statement.

Ramos, an anchor for Univision, was escorted out by a Trump aide after Ramos, who had criticized Trump previously, tried to question Trump about his immigration plan. Trump interrupted Ramos, saying he hadn't been called on, and ultimately told Ramos: "Go back to Univision."

Ramos was saying: "You cannot deport 11 million people," as he was escorted away. He was later allowed to return.

Trump has provided few details on how his proposed deportation effort would be carried out. The conservative-leaning American Action Forum concluded in a report it would cost between $400 billion to $600 billion and take 20 years to remove an estimated 11.2 million immigrants living in the country illegally.

During that time, immigrants were rounded up and sent to Mexico, sometimes in public places and often without formal proceedings. Others, scared by the threat of violence, left voluntarily.

About 60 percent of those who left were American citizens, according to various studies on the 1930s repatriation. Later testimony showed families lost most of their possessions and some family members died trying to return. Neighborhoods in cities such as Houston, San Antonio and Los Angeles became empty.

The impact of the experience on Latinos remains evident today, experts and advocates say.

"It set the tone for later deportations," said Francisco Balderrama, a Chicano studies professor at California State University, Los Angeles.

Two weeks ago, Trump said that, if elected president, he would expand deportations and end "birthright citizenship" for children born to immigrants who are here illegally. Under his plan, American-born children of immigrants also would be deported with their parents, and Mexico would be asked to help build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

"They're illegal," Trump said of U.S.-born children of people living in the country illegally. "You either have a country or not."

Associated Press
By RUSSELL CONTRERAS
1 hour ago


This 1932 photo from the Los Angeles Herald Examiner Collection of the Los Angeles Public Library shows hundreds of Mexicans at a Los Angeles train station awaiting deportation to Mexico. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s call for mass deportation of millions of immigrants living in the U.S. illegally, as well as their American-born children, bears similarities to a large-scale removal that actually happened to many Mexican-American families 85 years ago. During the Great Depression, counties and cities in the American Southwest and Midwest forced Mexican immigrants and their families to leave the U.S. over concerns they were taking jobs away from whites despite their legal right to stay. The traumatic impact of the experience on Latinos remains evident today, experts and advocates say.(Los Angeles Herald Examiner Collection/Los Angeles Public Library via AP)


ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) â€" Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's call for mass deportation of millions of immigrants living in the U.S. illegally, as well as their American-born children, bears similarities to a large-scale removal that many Mexican-American families faced 85 years ago.

During the Great Depression, counties and cities in the American Southwest and Midwest forced Mexican immigrants and their families to leave the U.S. over concerns they were taking jobs away from whites, despite their legal right to stay.

The result: Around 500,000 to 1 million Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans were pushed out of the country during the 1930s repatriation, as the removal is sometimes called.

Having taken interest rates to the extreme and then well beyond, the most visible effects have been a series of asset price bubbles from property to shares and bonds, but precious little real investment in productive activity.

Late last year, China's Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang went all funky and unveiled "The New Normal"; a strategy to shift growth in the world's second biggest economy from massive state-led and debt-funded infrastructure programs to a more market oriented, consumer led model for growth.

It was a great plan on paper and the slogan was infinitely more hip than the Cultural Revolution's brutal campaign of "Thinking in New Ways".

But the implementation appears to be going off the rails.

Central to the plan was to develop the stock market, not just to encourage new entrepreneurs but to enable state owned or controlled enterprises to raise private capital in an effort to wean them off state funding.

Borrowing restrictions were lifted, an historic link forged with the Hong Kong exchange as both The People's Daily and the official Xinhua news agency published articles linking a rising market to a buoyant economy.

Ordinary citizens heeded the call as the number of regular retail investors soared to 90 million, many of them borrowing heavily to get a slice of the government endorsed action as margin loans grew to $360 billion.

No, China's economic crisis hasn't been averted
By Ian Verrender
http://www.abc.net.au/
Updated about 10 hours ago


The recent volatility on the share markets is symptomatic of gnawing doubts about the broader health of China's economy - and this "new normal" doesn't bode well for Australia, writes Ian Verrender.

Crisis averted. Situation normal. If only.

After a week of chaotic trading on global share markets, with days of dramatic plunges followed by huge gains that clawed back a large proportion of the stunning falls, global investors have been left substantially poorer and horribly confused.

Normal looks to have taken on an entirely new meaning.

The gyrations are symptomatic of a sudden rise in volatility that's been driven, not so much by the spectacular crash of the Shanghai and Shenzen stock exchanges, but by gnawing doubts about the broader health of China's economy.

Even more worrying, almost eight years on from the beginning of the worst financial crisis in modern times, concerns are emerging about the ability of monetary policy to generate growth in the real economy.

Could this be the beginning of the end of the reign of central bankers?

The bubbleologist, home entertainment version...

Poe (and Binay and Escudero) wants the DOJ to finish first its probe into the Mamasapano incident wherein 44 elements of the Special Action Force of the Philippine National Police (PNP) were killed. That is not how the justice system works. Whatever the case is filed, you deal with them. If the DOJ, or any of our law enforcement agencies or even the courts, won’t do that, what will happen to the non-sensational cases that also need attention?

Besides, the Iglesia protest is jumping the gun on de Lima and the DOJ. Expelled Iglesia minister Isaias Samson filed charges for the crime of serious illegal detention against members of the Sanggunian whom he alleged to have detained him when the rift within the religious group erupted. Here’s how his lawyers, Trixie Cruz-Angeles and Ahmed Paglinawan, described the Iglesia’s protest action and the status of the case in a statement:

“Instead of answering the allegations at preliminary investigation, they immediately call out the Department of Justice officials as being biased, based solely on their perception that the mere docketing of the case at the main office is already proof of said ‘selective’ justice…

“The investigation has not begun, no evidence has been adduced and neither side has been heard. The complaint was filed on Tuesday 25 August, and no notices for hearings have been sent out. What are they complaining about?”

With that clarification, what does it make of the statements of Poe, Binay and Escudero? And since I have friends in the Iglesia ni Cristo, I also hope its leadership would listen to the voice of reason. Or of this expression of the democratic principles that guide our society’s existence: We are a government of laws and not of men. (khanwens@gmail.com)


Published in the Sun.Star Cebu newspaper on August 31, 2015.

Grace Poe is becoming a trapo
CANDID THOUGHTS
By BONG O. WENCESLAO


SEN. Grace Poe seems to be taking us for a ride. She has continued to make the people believe that she is still mulling about running for a higher post in next year’s elections. Yet, she has already drafted a platform of government and this: she has been going the rounds of the country shaking hands like declared presidential candidates Mar Roxas of the Liberal Party (LP) and Jejomar Binay of the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA).

That is why the more I look at her and her body language the more I realize that my initial perception of her was wrong. In just more than two years in an elective position (senator), Poe is fast becoming a traditional politician (trapo). She is manipulating our perception of her.

Her being trapo showed in her stance on the recent protest action of the Iglesia ni Cristo against Justice Secretary Leila de Lima and the Department of Justice (DOJ), which is hearing the criminal charges that a former Iglesia ni Cristo minister is filing against the religious group’s leadership, called the Sanggunian. Iglesia members are in Edsa in a “show of force.”

Instead of helping to ease tensions by clarifying how the judicial process works, Poe (and Binay and even her supposed running mate Sen. Chiz Escudero) didn’t.

Here’s Poe:

“Magtataka ka rin, bakit ang tutok doon, samantalang halimbawa ang ibang mga kaso ng gobyerno wala naman silang mga witnesses pa na naka-hold (You would wonder why the focus is there while for other government cases they have not held witnesses yet).”

There is nothing statesmanlike in that statement. Rather, it is intended to woo the Iglesia ni Cristo, which is known to vote as a block, into supporting her candidacy. That line is not only ill-informed, it is misleading and illogical.

Ni STEPHANIE V. BERGANIO


GIINGONG upat ka mga wala maila nga lalaki ang mitabang og luba sa usa ka lalaki niadtong Domingo sa kaadlawon sa Barangay Balulang, siyudad sa Cagayan de Oro.

Giila ang biktima nga mao is Emmanuel Beren, 34, minyo, taga Balongis, Cagayan de Oro.

Sa inisyal nga imbestigasyon sa Police Station 4 sa Carmen pangulohan ni Police Senior Inspector Jopet Paglinawan, nasuta nga ang biktima nakig-inom sa balay sa higala niini niadtong tungora dihang kalit nga miabot ang upat ka mga lalaki nga gitouhang mga Muslim ug gitabangan og luba ang biktima.

Nakaangkon ang biktima og nagkadaiyang samad dinunggaban sa lawas, hinungdan sa iyang hinanaling kamatayon.

Ang mga suspetsado yano lang dayon kaayong nanglakaw nga gihulagway pa sa mga nakasaksi nga gawas sa armado og kutsilyo ug kahoy, aduna pay bitbit nga kalibre 45.

Gibutyag ni Paglinawan nga usa sa anggulong ilang giimbestigahan ning panahona ang kalambigitan sa ginadili nga druga.

Ang asawa sa biktima nga mao si Emily nakurat pag-ayo sa nahitabo sa iyang bana tungod kay nananghid man kini niadtong tungora nga adunay lakwon, hinungdan nga mitugot siya hilabi na anaa raman sa palibot.

Gibutyag usab niini nga wala kini mga kaaway sa dapit ug gani wala gyod gikalambigitan niini nga problema sa dapit.

Ang kaso padayon pa nga giimbestigahan sa kapolisan ning panahona hilabi na usab ang pag-ila sa upat ka wala mailang suspetsado.


Gipatik sa mantalaang SuperBalita Cagayan de Oro Agosto 31, 2015.

LAAK, Compostela Valley -- Usa ka dalaga ang namatay human nagsabot nga magpakamatay uban sa laing usa ka babaye didto sa Purok 7, Poblacion, alas 6:30 sa buntag, Miyerkules.

Ang namatay giila sa kapulisan nga mao si Lanie Ongao Baquino, 17, dalaga, ug residente sa Purok 2, Poblacion, Laak.

Segun sa imbestigasyon sa Laak Municipal Police Station, nasayran nga ang biktima kauban sa iyang higala nga si alyas Jean, 16, saleslady ug residente sa Purok 10, Barangay Mabuhay sa maong lungsod, nagkasinabot nga magpakamatay sa wala pa matinong rason.

Gamit ang twine nga gihigot sa liog, nagpakamatay ang biktima sa punoan sa narra, apan giingong wala makaako sa paghunos sa kinabuhi si alyas Jean.

Ang patay'ng lawas sa biktima gihaya karon sa ilang panimalay.

Giimbestigahan na sa Laak Municipal Police Station kon aduna bay foul play sa insidente ug sayron sab ang tinuod nga hinungdan sa ilang pagpakamatay. (RSC)


Gipatik sa mantalaang SuperBalita Davao Agosto 28, 2015.

ONCE the soundtrack to a financial meltdown was the yelling of traders on the floor of a financial exchange. Now it is more likely to be the wordless hum of servers in data centres, as algorithms try to match buyers with sellers. But every big sell-off is gripped by the same rampant, visceral fear. The urge to sell overwhelms the advice to stand firm.

Stomachs are churning again after China’s stockmarket endured its biggest one-day fall since 2007; even Chinese state media called August 24th “Black Monday”. From the rand to the ringgit, emerging-market currencies slumped. Commodity prices fell into territory not seen since 1999. The contagion infected Western markets, too. Germany’s DAX index fell to more than 20% below its peak. American stocks whipsawed: General Electric was at one point down by more than 20%.

Rich-world markets have regained some of their poise. But three fears remain: that China’s economy is in deep trouble; that emerging markets are vulnerable to a full-blown crisis; and that the long rally in rich-world markets is over. Some aspects of these worries are overplayed and others are misplaced. Even so, this week’s panic contains the unnerving message that the malaise in the world economy is real.


More at: http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21662544-fear-about-chinas-economy-can-be-overdone-investors-are-right-be-nervous-great-fall

Pastilan, subo intawon palandongon...

KIDAPAWAN CITY -- Patay na nga nakaplagan ang usa ka mag-uuma human naghikog sa alas 6:20 sa buntag niadtong Miyerkules.

Giila ang biktima nga mao si Erward Cedenio, 37, minyo, ug molupyo sa Barangay North Manuangan, Pigcawayan, North Cotabato.

Matud ni Pigcawayan Municipal Chief of Police Donald Cabigas nga misinggit og pakitabang ang duha ka menor de edad nga anak sa biktima sa diha nga ilang nakit-an nga nagbitay na ang ilang amahan sulod sa ilang kuwarto gamit ang pisi sa kabaw nga maoy gihigot sa liog.

Gidali siya og tabang sa mga silingan ug gihatud ngadto sa Pigcawayan District Hospital apan gideklara siya nga dead on arrival.

Nasayran nga una naghikog ang biktima, namatikdan siya sa ilang mga silingan nga subo kaayo. Usahay sab magsulti nga siya rang usa didto sa iyang uma.

Daghan ang nagtuo nga wala na maka-antus si Cedenio sa iyang problema ilabi na nga gibiyaan siya sa iyang asawa gumikan sa personal nga problema sa ilang pamilya, hinungdan nga gikutlo ang iyang kinabuhi.

Kapulisan sa Pigcawayan Municipal Police Station padayon nga nag-imbestiga aron maseguro nga walay foul play sa kamatayon sa mag-uuma. (Edgar E. Fuerzas)


Gipatik sa mantalaang SuperBalita Davao Agosto 28, 2015.

Ni JEEPY P. COMPIO


DAVAO CITY - Dead on arrival sa Davao Doctor's Hospital ang usa ka lalaki kinsa gipusil-patay sa giingong iyang kasusyo sa negusyo tungod sa siopao alas 9:30 sa gabii, Huwebes didto sa #91 Canada Street, Executive Homes, Barangay Matina Aplaya.

Ang biktima giila nga si Roel Nicolas Marañon, 43, nagpuyo sa Barangay Panacan; samtang ang suspek mao si Evans Nicolas Tumalip, 45, minyo, residente sa Diamond Street, Liwayway Village.

Sa inisyal nga imbestigasyon ni Senior Police Officer 1 Arnel Iriarte nasayran nga subay sa giingon sa saksi nga si Bernard Ansugan Calixto, 21, panadero, iyang nadungog nga naglalis ang duha labot sa ilang negusyo nga siopao.

Giingon nga dihang mitaas ang tensyon sa panaglalis, kalit mibunlot sa iyang pusil ang suspek ug gipusil sa duha ka higayon ang biktima ug human sa hitabo daling misibat ang suspek padung sa wa matino nga direksyon.

Ang biktima daling gidala sa iyang kapuyo nga si Judith Almosera Dumali sa hospital apan gideklara kini sa mga doktor nga dead on arrival.

Dugang ni Dumali nga daan nang naglalis-lalis ang biktima ug suspek sa ilang negusyo nga siopao.
Ang kapulisan padayong naghimo og imbestigasyon labot sa krimen.


Gipatik sa mantalaang SuperBalita Davao Agosto 29, 2015.

Wa na jud tay mahimo ani...

Members of the influential Iglesia Ni Cristo (INC) are accusing Justice Secretary Leila de Lima of using religion as a “stepping stone” toward her supposed political ambitions.

During the second day of INC’s protest near the Department of Justice (DoJ) compound on Padre Faura Street, Manila before trooping to Edsa, program hosts repeatedly said De Lima’s alleged priority for the illegal detention case filed by dismissed INC minister Isaias Samson against the church leadership was related to her plans for the 2016 elections.

“Mali ang kinalaban nila dahil hindi tayo papatalo (They picked up the wrong enemies because we’re not going to let them win),” one of the hosts said.

“Hindi tayo nandito para manggulo. Nandito tayo dahil ginulo nila tayo (We’re not here to create chaos. We’re here because we’re the ones they’re trying to destroy),” the host said.

While the justice secretary has yet to formally declare her plans for next year’s polls, she previously said she was already 80 percent sure of pursuing a senatorial bid. She also announced during her 56th birthday celebration on Thursday her journey from “point J” to “point S.”

Reacting to De Lima’s statement that she was just doing her job, one of the hosts said listening to hearsay was not part of a justice secretary’s job.

“DOJ dapat pansinin niyo ‘yung mga naulila sa Mamasapano. Nakakainip naman ang hustisya (DoJ you should mind the survivors of the Mamasapano [massacre]. We can’t wait anymore for justice to be done),” he said, referring to the botched police operation that caused the death of 44 commandos, two of which were INC members.

Calling for separation of church and state, INC members said De Lima should focus on “more important issues” instead of “prioritizing” the illegal detention case filed by Samson against the church leadership. Yuji Vincent Gonzales, TVJ

@inquirerdotnet
05:28 AM August 29th, 2015


Iglesia Ni Cristo (INC) protesters who flocked to Edsa-Shaw Boulevard on Friday night have nothing but harsh words for Justice Secretary Leila de Lima, whom they are accusing of meddling with church affairs.

INC members, who were repeatedly shouting “hustisya” (justice) in unison, suddenly changed their chants to “hostess siya, De Lima.”

Hostess is being colloquially referred to as prostitute in the Philippines.

Some protesters shouted “Isakay si De Lima” when an ambulance passed by the area.

INC members also chanted “Leila, Leila Labandera” to the tune of Battle Hymn of the Republic.

When a Higantes festival-themed effigy of the justice secretary arrived at the Edsa-Shaw intersection, protesters were heard shouting “pabebe, De Lima!”

Matod niya nga si Berto nipadayag nga ipasaka niya ang kaso kay di siya makatugot sa gihimo sa iyang asawa ug sa iyang igsuon.

“Naghagok pa ang lalake dihang naabtan namo. Kita ang bana (Berto). Kami nalay nagpukaw didto sa kwarto. Wala na sila mosukol, malinawong mitahan,” dugang ni Villarin.

Kagahapon sa alas 9:00 sa buntag, si Berto, uban sa iyang kabanay ug kapitan sa barangay, nipatim-aw sa Dumanjug Police Station kay mihangyong pabuhian ang iyang asawa.

Gusto niyang iatras ang kasong iyang ipasaka batok sa iyang asawa ug maguwang human siya gi­tambagan sa ilang kapitan ug kabanay.

“Pwerting hilak ni Berto, Sir. Hasta ang iyang asawa. Loving kaayo silang duha diri sa selda dihang miduaw maong pabuhian nalang niya,” sumala pa ni SPO1 Raymundo Sala, desk officer.

Apan ilang gibalibaran kay gikinahanglan mag-estorya pa sila sa ilang hepe ug sa WCPD sanglit silay nahibawo sa pagpreparar sa kaso sa duha.


Gipatik sa mantalaang SuperBalita Cebu Agosto 30, 2015.

Niadtong Agusto 27 sa gabii, ni-report siya sa kapulisan sa Dumanjug kay ipadakop niya ang iyang asawa ug maguwang aron mataral sa husgado.

Si Buena niingon nga milarga silag kaadlawon niadtong Biyernes ug mga alas 6:30 sa buntag naabot sila sa Malabuyoc.

Ilang naabtan ang duha nga nagdulog sa lawak sa panimalay sa babaye.

Si Niel niangkon nga uyab silang duha ug natintal lang siya niini samtang ang babaye nanghimakak nga uyab silang duha bisan kon naabtan nga nagdulog sa pagpangatulog.

“Natingala ang mama sa babaye kay dili na man bana maoy kuyog nga mipauli unya gisultihan daw nila nga gikuyogan lang kay naggubot sa Dumanjug,” dugang ni PO3 Buena.

Kasong adultery ang ilang gitakdang kasong ipasaka batok sa duha karong Lunes, kini bisan di mokiha si Berto.

Si Sr. Insp. Jose Rovic Villarin, hepe sa Dumanjug Police Station nga nahinabi sa Sun.Star Superba­lita, nagkanayon nga gihimo na nila ang affidavit sa kaso batok sa mga dinakpan.

Ang duha giingong nagtaban inay magbuwag human masakpi sa manghod nga nagromansa ang iyang asawa ug iyang maguwang sulod sa ilang balay.

Bisan pa sa hitabo, gipatigbabaw ni Berto ang iyang gug­ma, iyang gigakos ang iyang asawa sulod sa bilanggo­an kay di na lang siya modayon pagpasaka og kasong adultery.

Si PO3 Irish Buena, chief sa Womens' and Children's Protection Desk (WCPD) sa Dumanjug Police Station nga nahinabi sa Sun.Star Superbalita, nagkanayon nga sila si Lia ug Niel nagka-uyab human sa kasal nilang Berto niadtong Enero 26, 2015.

Si Berto nitug-an kanila nga nabantayan niya nga dunay relasyon ang iyang asawa ug iyang maguwang human siya mismo nakakita sa duha nga nagromansa sa ilang panimalay.

Tungod niini, niaslom ang relasyon sa magsuon.

Matod ni Buena nga si Berto nitug-an kanila nga nilakaw ang iyang asawa niadtong Agusto 26.
Iyang nahibaw-an nga nilarga kini sa Malabuyoc kuyog ang iyang maguwang.

Ni GUAM P. LOGROÃ'O





ASAWA nasakpan sa akto sa bana nga nidulog sa iyang maguwang sulod sa usa ka kuwarto sa balay sa babaye niadtong Biyernes sa alas 6:30 sa buntag sa Barangay Lumbo, lungsod sa Malabuyoc, Sugbo.

Si Lia (di tinuod niyang ngan), minyo, katabang, gipusasan uban sa giingong iyang kabit nga si Niel, 27, ulitawo, mag-uuma, taga Barangay Bulak, Dumanjug, Sugbo.

Gipadakop sila ni Berto (di tinuod niyang ngan), manghod ni Niel.

Na hala, let's meet halfway...

'Malicious controversies'

Ahead of the hearing, Binay's spokesman Joey Salgado said that the Senate inquiry involved “recycled allegations,” “outright lies,” and “dubious if not falsified documents.”

Binay's daughter, Senator Nancy Binay, also issued a statement on Triforce Security Services, which got P680 million ($14.57 million) or 29% of the security service contracts.

Senator Binay said her brother-in-law Jose Emmanuel Angeles divested his shares from the firm back in 2006, and should not be dragged into “maliciously manufactured controversies.” Angeles was an incorporator and president of Triforce Security.

“Nakakalungkot lang na tuwing magsasalita ako sa mga issue ay sinasabayan ng mga alegasyong katulad nito, na iisa lamang ang motibo (It saddens me that every time I speak up about this issue, they raise these allegations with only one motive) â€" to destroy my credibility as a senator and lawmaker, and as a public servant,” she said.

The Senate plans to continue the inquiry until authorities are able to find Limlingan. â€" Rappler.com

Binay earned P2 billion

Senator Antonio Trillanes IV said that Binay and his alleged dummies supposedly earned roughly P2 billion ($40 million) from the Makati contracts, up from his initial estimate of P1 billion ($20 million).

Without providing specifics, the senator said 20% of the cost of IT projects went to salaries and taxes, while 80% or P700 million ($15 million) was Binay's kickback.

Trillanes then added this figure to the amount that former Makati city bids and awards vice chairman Mario Hechanova provided. Hechanova testified that Binay supposedly got a kickback of P1.26 billion ($30 million) from the janitorial and security services.

Hechanova said the amount included the money given to ghost personnel, and profits. He presented a computation on a Powerpoint slide but without supporting documents.

Trillanes also questioned the expenses for the services. He said he could not understand why Makati spent P2.38 billion just for janitorial services.

“This only covers the offices of the city hall, not the whole Makati, for people to grasp the magnitude of the corruption,” Trillanes said. The amount covered contracts for 9 years.

The senator also asked why Makati needed 600 security guards, when it could have hired just 400. Hechanova responded that the number included those assigned to Binay's house, and to his supposed secret Batangas estate, the so-called Hacienda Binay.

The hearing is the 24th in the year-long Senate inquiry into corruption allegations against Binay and his family. The opposition standard-bearer, Binay rejects the investigation as a tool of his political detractors to derail his presidential bid.

The Vice President faces various plunder complaints and investigations over alleged bid rigging, and overpricing of Makati projects when he was mayor of the financial center for 21 years. Binay was Makati mayor until 2010 while his son, Makati Mayor Jejomar Erwin "Junjun" Binay Jr took over but was suspended in July for alleged plunder and graft.

LEAKED INFO? Janitorial services contractor Corporate Solutions allegedly knew of the bidding a month before it was announced. Slide from Lazo's Powerpoint presentation

It was the same case for janitorial services worth P2.3 billion ($50 million) from 2005 to 2014. Only two companies got 83% of the contracts: Omni with P1.3 billion ($30 million) or 58%, and Corporate Solutions with P570 million ($12.22 million) or 25%.

Lazo cited a secretary's certificate to show that Corporate Solutions had a board meeting about participating in the bidding for the East Rembo Multi-Purpose Hall and Cembo Health Center on October 17, 2013, or a month before the invitation to bid was published on November 13, 2013.

“The prospective bidder was given advanced information,” Lazo said.

'Advanced info given'

For security services, the cost was P2.38 billion ($50 million) from 2005 to 2014. Of this amount, Omni Security cornered P1.7 billion ($40 million) or 71%.

Lazo said that in the bidding, Omni often competed with Vican Investigation and Security Agency Inc. Her department found that Omni director Aida Alcantara was also the corporate secretary of Vican. She called this a “clear case of collusion.”



SAME OFFICER? Lazo says Omni Security and its supposed competitor in the bidding Vican had the same officer, Aida Alcantara. Slide from Lazo's Powerpoint presentation

TWO WINNERS. Makati's Violeta Lazo, acting head of the general services department, says two firms cornered 92% of the IT services in 6 years. From Lazo's Powerpoint presentation

Lawyer Renato Bondal, a political rival of the Binays in Makati, identified the incorporators of the two firms as supposed dummies of the Vice President linked to past anomalies raised in the Senate inquiry. He said the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) froze their bank accounts along with Binay.

Codeworks incorporators

1. Marguerite Lichnock â€" wife of alleged Binay bagman Gerardo “Gerry” Limlingan, director of the Meriras Realty and Development Corporation linked to the alleged Comembo land scam, chairman of Omni Security

2. Lily Crystal â€" Limlingan's assistant, who had a joint account with Limlingan and Binay's personal secretary Eduviges “Ebeng” Baloloy, administrator of Agrifortuna Incorporated, which owned the so-called “Hacienda Binay”

3. Mitzi Sedillo â€" assistant treasurer and director of Agrifortuna, Limlingan's secretary

Powerlink directors and officers

1. Gerardo Limlingan â€" Binay financial adviser, president of JC Binay Foundation, director and major stockholder of Meriras, missing since Senate hearings began

2. Edgardo Lacson â€" director and treasurer of JC Binay Foundation, consultant on trade and finance of the Office of the Vice President, Board of Trustees of Pag-IBIG Fund

3. Hirene Lopez â€" Omni treasurer, corporate secretary of Agrifortuna, wife of University of Makati President Tomas Lopez

Calling the group "Binay syndicate," Bondal said: “It's just the same names. Their papers just go around in circles. Sometimes, the person would be a chairman, treasurer, or president.”

In a Senate hearing on Wednesday, August 26, Lazo said she spotted the following “red flags” in the projects:

1. The same companies always won the bids.
2. The winning companies had common owners or stockholders.
3. Only two companies bid for security services, and Omni Security Agency Incorporated kept winning.
4. Janitorial services contractor Corporate Solutions knew of the Makati project one month before it was publicly announced.

Lazo said that, for IT services, the cost was P926.4 million ($19.86 million) for 2008 to 2014. Of this amount, two contractors bagged 92% of the contract: Codeworks with P526 million ($11.27 million) or 57% of the contract, and Powerlink with P322 million ($6.90 million) or 35% of the contract.

The acting head of Makati's general services department found interlocking stockholders and signs of collusion in contracts alleged Binay dummies bagged


Ayee Macaraig
@ayeemacaraig
Published 4:34 PM, August 26, 2015
Updated 9:49 PM, Aug 26, 2015



INTERLOCKING OWNERS. Lawyer Renato Bondal presents this illustration of the supposed 'Binay syndicate' of interlocking owners of companies that won Makati contracts. From Bondal's Powerpoint presentation


MANILA, Philippines â€" Alleged dummies of Vice President Jejomar Binay cornered the bulk of Makati's IT, janitorial, and security services worth P5.6 billion ($120 million) by running the same companies that won bids in the span of almost a decade.

This is the “initial finding” of a review of Makati's service contracts that the leadership of Acting Makati Mayor Kid Peña ordered.

Violeta Lazo, acting head of Makati's general services department, told the Senate that her office found interlocking stockholders and signs of collusion in the contracts.

Balik ta sa unggoy bi, nia na man lang jud...

Laing nasikop mao ang iyang mga sakop nga sila si Ethel S. Intong, umagad ni Secretaria, Marcelo Intong, Regino Cabaluna, Jr. ug Albert Greg Delantar.

Ang operasyon pinasikad sa search warrant nga giluwatan ni Executive Judge Soliver Peras, matod ni Sr. Inspector Delfin Bontuyan.

Nakuha gikan sa mga suspek mao ang 235 ka gagmay nga mga putos ug usa ka medium nga putos nga motimbang og 20 gramos nga dunay Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB) value nga P236,000.

Laing nasakmit mao ang usa ka kalibre .38 nga revolver, usa ka kalibre .22 nga black widow, upat ka balas a .22 caliber, ug tulo ka balas a .38 kalibre ug P6,500 cash.
Kagahapon sa alas 5:25 sa hapon, nadakpan usab nila ni Bontuyan ang laing duha ka gikatahapang mga drug pusher nga sila si Ernesto Enero Monterola ug Joniel Carungay Ornopia sa ilang operasyon sa Hillside, Brgy. Talamban, dakbayan sa Sugbo.

Nasakmit gikan sa duha ang tulo ka gagmay nga putos, tulo ka dagkong putos sa gituohang shabu nga gibana-banang motimbang og 35 gramos nga dunay gibana-banang DDB value nga P413,000. Lakip sa nasakmit ang P400 nga gituohang halin.


Gipatik sa mantalaang SuperBalita Cebu Agosto 29, 2015.

Samtang usa ka sling bag, upat ka medium pack sa shabu ug kalibre .38 nga armas usab nga may duha ka bala ang nakuha gikan ni Esmalin.

Saysay ni Noserale moabot sa tulo ka buwan ang pagpaniid nila sa suspek tungod kay lisod kini palitan.

Ang duha ka mga suspek kinsa kasamtangang gibalhug sa detention cell sa Lapu- Lapu City Police Office (LLCPO) gikatakdang pasakaan ug kasong paghupot ug armas ug kalapasan sa pagpamaligya ug iligal nga drugas karong Lunes, ni Noserale.

Samtang usa ka 75 anyos nga lola nga drug pusher nadakpan sa operation sa Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) 7 uban sa Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) 7 ug kapulisan sa dakbayan sa Carcar kagahapon sa alas 10:45 sa buntag sa Bolinawan, dakbayan sa Carcar.

Ang suspek giilang si Beatriz F. Secretaria, taga Sityo Cambuntan.

Gitataw ni P/SInsp. Verniño B. Noserale sa City Anti- Illegal Drug Special Operating Task Group (CAIDSOTG) nga si Singson nga maoy target sa operasyon makapalusot og daghan pas 200 gramos nga shabu matag semana.

“Although nagbase ni siya sa Looc, silay adtuon sa ilang costumers kay di man siya mobaligya og ginagmay,” butyag ni Noserale sa dihang nahinabi sa Sun.Star SuperBalita kagahapon.

Dugang niya nga ang labing gamay nga ilang ibaligya motimbang og singko gramos nga maoy sagad timbang sa usa ka medium pack nga shabu.

Paambit ni Noserale nga sa gidaghanon nga ma-dispose ni Singson nga drugas matag semana, mahimo ining suplayan ang tibuok dakbayan.

Atol sa operasyon, pito ka dagkong pakete, usa ka medium- sized nga pakete sa gituohang shabu ang nakuha gikan ni Singson lakip na ang boodle money nga P6,000, P5,000 nga gituohang kinitaan sa suspek, usa ka KG9 sub machine gun nga may 10 ka buhing bala ug mga drug paraphernalia.

Ni JOHN PAUL V. PEPITOROGER E. VALLENA



Naminghoy ang nawong ni lola Beatriz F. Secretaria (naglingkod), 75, taga Bolinawan, Carcar City dihang siya ug uban pang mga dinakpan gipresentar ni Supt. Marlon Tayaba (wala) sa Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CDIG) 7. (Allan Defensor)


MOKABAT sa labing minos P3 milyunes ang balor sa illegal nga drugas nga nasakmit sa kapulisan sa managlahing mga operasyon sa Metro Cebu sa miaging gabii ug kagahapong adlawa.

Mokabat sa P2.5milyones nga shabu ang nasakmit sa kapulisan sa dakbayan sa Lapu- Lapu atol sa buy- bust operation sa Sitio Locatha, Brgy. Looc, sa dakbayan niadtong Huwebes sa gabie.

Moabot sa 205 gramos ang nakuha sa mga operatiba nga giubanan usab sa mga sakop sa Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) 7 mga alas 6:30 sa gabii.

Nasikop sa operasyon ang gitumbok nga level 2 drug pusher nga si Brian Mori Singson, 34, minyo, way trabaho, ug ang sidekick nga si Reynan Berdon Esmalin, 33, minyo, way trabaho, parehong lumolupyo sa maong barangay.

At some point in our ancestral history, our ears moved directionally. Like a horse’s, we could move them around to be able to hear things better. While that ability is mostly gone, we all still have the auriculares muscle which surrounds the outer ear. -- http://thechive.com/

In October of 2008, once-powerful crime boss Tadamasa Goto was expelled from the Yamaguchi-gumi for insubordination, failure to attend meetings, and for making a deal with the FBI in which he traded organization secrets in exchange for a visa into the United States so that he could obtain a liver transplant at UCLA. Three of his other yakuza associates also were able to obtain liver transplants at the hospital.

Goto responded to his expulsion by gathering supporters and made an attempted rebellion that resulted in several top bosses being dismissed.  The conflict ended with no shots being fired and ironically sealed the Kodo-kai faction’s lock on power.

Authorities and underworld figures speculate that with the Yamaguchi-gumi split, Goto, who has exiled himself to Cambodia, may also seek a return to power. No one is sure this time the conflict will be peaceably resolved.

As a police source in Hyogo Prefecture put it, “The last major split in the Yamaguchi-gumi resulted in five years of violent disruptive gang warfare. We are on full alert in case history repeats itself. It would seem likely that it will.”

Other sources of gang discontent are increasingly odious restrictions on the use of gang business cards and the emblem. The Yamaguchi-gumi is a franchise; lower ranking groups pay to belong and use the symbol under what amounts to a license. If the lower ranking gangs can no longer use the symbol to strike fear into the hearts of ordinary citizens and extract cash from their wallets, they are reluctant to pay money up the food chain.

A rebellion within the Yamaguchi-gumi is not unprecedentedâ€"and the precedents are ugly.

The Yamaguchi-gumi has a history of splits and divisions. The most well known was the Ichiwa-kai rebellion in 1984, when almost half the organization seceded. The resulting conflict dragged on five year with gang warfare erupting all over Japan, and nearly 30 deaths. Bombs were thrown, trucks were driven into houses, and guns were fired in the streets.

(Guns being fired in the streets may seem trivial in to people in the U.S. but Japan has incredibly strict gun control laws. Last year in this nation of over 120 million people there were fewer than 10 gun-related homicides.)

Why is the group splitting apart?

Police sources and individuals associated with the Yamaguchi-gumi say that the Yamaken-gumi faction first split from the group and convinced other factions to follow. The response of the ruling council of the Yamaguchi-gumi has been to sever ties with the Yamaken-gumi and their backers, including the Takumi-gumi, which may be a severe blow. The head of the Takumi-gumi, Tadashi Irie, is well respected in the underworld for his financial savvy and loyalty to his men.

There have long been other elements within the Yamaguchi-gumi unhappy with the reign of Shinobu Tsukasa. Yamaken-gumi members feel the sharing of power has been unfair and that the aggressive actions of the Kodo-kai towards the police resulted in provoking major crackdowns. Indeed in September of 2009, the head of the National Police Agency declared war on the Yamaguchi-gumi Kodo-kai factionâ€"not the Yamaguchi-gumi itself, just the Kodo-kai factionâ€"vowing that “we will remove them from public society.”

In October of 2011, ordinances which criminalized paying off the yakuza or working with them for mutual profit went into effect with a devastating impact on gang revenue and lifestyles. Some elements in the Yamaguchi-gumi expressed frustration with the puritan rules of Shinobu Tsukasa who returned the gang to its roots and forbade dealing in drugs and other moneymaking activities that seem attractive to those gang members who put quick profits before honor.

One middle-ranking member jokes, “You can’t make a dishonest living if you’re following the old rules.”

If you do survive until retirement, the pension plan is generous. In 2013, the final bonus and severance check was 50 million yen, according to a retired boss. That’s almost half a million dollars. The retirement policy was begun decades ago when the Yamaguchi-gumi split into two factions. The Yamaguchi-gumi HQ offered the pension plan as a means of wooing people back. It worked well.

They may have to offer a better pension plan now to quell the current rebellion.

The current leader of the organization, Shinobu Tsukasa, heralds from the Kodo-kai faction, which numbers between 2,000 and 4,000 members. He assumed power in 2005, taking over from Yoshinori Watanabe, who hailed from the Yamaken-gumi, which was once the most numerous and powerful faction.

Watanabe was affectionately known as “Goro-chan,” ie. Mr. Gorilla, for his simian appearance. While many yakuza in Japan are naturalized Koreans or children of Japan’s former outcaste class, burakumin, and thus were subject to discrimination, the Yamaken-gumi tends to have more outcaste class members while the Kodo-kai has a larger Korean-Japanese make-up. That has helped create tension between the factions.

If there were a pamphlet to recruit young college graduates for the yakuza, it would read like this:

The Yamaguchi-gumi Corporation, with large comfortable headquarters in the international city of Kobe and lovely branch offices, complete with swimming pools and gyms in Nagoya and other major cities in Japan, has a proud history of over 100 years of serving the Japanese people. Our construction, real estate, IT, banking, and entertainment businesses are still thriving in a poor economy, and thanks to one of the best R & D sections in any Japanese company, we have a treasure trove of personal data on the elite in Japan’s business and political world that can be judiciously used for blackmailing such individuals and maintaining maximum leverage in the money markets. We not only offer lifetime employment* but we also offer a generous pension plan.

The asterisk would serve for the following disclaimer, which is important:

*A lifetime in the Yamaguchi-gumi does not preclude the possibility of early death. A ‘lifetime’ may also include time served in prison not necessarily for a crime that you actually committed but as a designated fall-guy. However, all members serving time in prison can be assured that we will maintain your family’s living standards until you return. Family may include wives, children, mistresses, and sometimes all of the above.

The Yamaguchi-gumi isn’t only Japan’s largest organized crime group; it’s also a well-known Japanese corporation, founded in 1915 by former fisherman Harukichi Yamaguchi. It engages in a wide array of business activities, some of them legit and some not, and may treat competitors with, as the saying goes, extreme prejudice. Robert Feldman, an analyst at Morgan Stanley Japan Securities, once called it Japan’s second largest private equity group and he was not incorrect. They are Goldman Sachs with gunsâ€"not to mention knives, bazooka launchers, sniper rifles, and assassins.

The group is divided into over 30 factions, some with over a thousand members, and some with fewer than a hundred.

It owns auditing firms, several hundred front operations, and network management and database companies. It controls Japan’s entertainment industry even now, and over the years its people have sneaked quietly into the backbone of several high-profile IT operationsâ€"only getting caught once in 2007, when a member of the Kodo-kai faction was revealed to have taken over the equivalent of Japan’s “classmates.com”â€"gaining access to the personal data of 3.2 million people. The group owns a chain of private detective agencies and keeps tabs on its enemies and their friends better than any intelligence agency in Japan.

The Yamaguchi-gumi has also had a hand in Japanese politics. The Minister of Education and Science has received donations and political support from Yamaguchi-gumi associates and front companies. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was photographed with a consigliore of the group.

Japan’s organized crime groups, known collectively as the “yakuza,” i.e., “Losers,” or “Gokudo” (the ultimate path), are different from the mafias we know about in the West. They are treated as if they were some sort of controlled substance, dangerous but accepted within certain parameters.

They are Goldman Sachs with gunsâ€"not to mention knives, bazooka launchers, sniper rifles, and assassins.

So, in Japan, there are 21 designated organized crime groups that are regulated and policed by the Japanese government, and the yakuza themselves are not outlawed. Many yakuza pay taxes and declare their income. There are yakuza fan magazines; the upper echelon carry business cards. If you go to the webpage of the National Police Agency, you can find a listing of all the major yakuza groups, their headquarters, and their emblems (PDF).

The Inagawa-kai, Japan’s second largest yakuza group, has its offices across from the Ritz-Carlton Tokyo. The Sumiyoshi-kai is located in opulent Ginza.

The groups are all structured as pseudo-families with lower members pledging allegiance to their surrogate fatherâ€"the oyabunâ€"and their “brothers.”

Of the yakuza groups, the Yamaguchi-gumi is the largest and most powerful. It had over 23,000 members and associates at the end of 2014, accounting for over 40 percent of those affiliated with gangs in Japan. However, even the Inagawa-kai, due to blood-brother relations between its leader and a senior member of the Yamaguchi-gumi, is essentially under the Yamaguchi-gumi umbrella, giving it a majority stake in the underworld.

Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast
Jake Adelstein
HOSTILE TAKEOVERS
08.28.151:13 AM ET


The biggest Yakuza group is celebrating its 100th year in operation, but it’s splitting into factions that may soon go after each other with bloody consequences.


TOKYO â€" This year should have been a good one for Japan’s largest organized crime organization, the Yamaguchi-gumi, the one yakuza group that just about ruled them all. But as it marks its 100th year in business, internal squabbles may split the organization apart; it could also result in the kind of large-scale gang warfare that hasn’t been seen in decades.

The Japanese police are on full alert. Thursday (Japan time), the sprawling Yamaguchi-gumi headquarters in Kobe was besieged by a fleet of black Mercedes-Benzes and high-end Toyota Lexuses, transporting the top dogs of the Yamaguchi-gumi, dressed in their finest black suits, for emergency meetings.

The Yamaguchi-gumi is expected to splinter into factions with some gangs supporting current top boss Kenichi Shinoda aka Shinobu Tsukasa, 73, and others supporting a rival group, primarily based in Western Japan, that opposes him and his parent faction, the Kodo-kai.

Quote from: jorgeanna on April 26, 2013, 07:59:50 PM

The Pope met with his Cardinals to discuss a proposal from Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of Israel. "Your Holiness," said one of his Cardinals, Mr. Netanyahu wants to challenge you to a game of golf to show the friendship and ecumenical spirit shared by the Jewish and Catholic faiths."

The Pope thought this was a good idea, but he had never held a golf club in his hand. "Don't we have a Cardinal to represent me?" he asked. "None that plays very well," a Cardinal replied. "But," he added, "there is a man named Jack Nicklaus, an American golfer who is a devout Catholic. We can offer to make him a Cardinal, then ask him to play Mr. Netanyahu as your personal representative. In addition to showing our spirit of cooperation, we'll also win the match."

Everyone agreed it was a good idea. The call was made. Of course, Nicklaus was honored and agreed to play. The day after the match, Nicklaus reported to the Vatican to inform the Pope of the result. "I have some good news and some bad news, your Holiness," said the golfer.

"Tell me the good news first, Cardinal Nicklaus," said the Pope.

"Well, your Holiness, I don't like to brag, but even though I've played some pretty terrific rounds of golf in my life, this was the best I have ever played, by far. I must've been inspired from above. My drives were long and true, my irons were accurate and purposeful, and my putting was perfect. With all due respect, my play was truly miraculous.

"There's bad news?" the Pope asked.

"Yes," Nicklaus sighed. "I lost to Rabbi Tiger Woods by three strokes."


http://www.backwoodshome.com/

At the Vienna summit, Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann had just finished telling other European leaders that there was an urgent need to crack down on human traffickers when news came of the grisly discovery on the highway.

Participants fell silent for a minute in tribute, and Faymann invoked the tragedy as showing the need for quick solutions to deal with the torrent of migrants.

"Today, refugees lost the lives they had tried to save by escaping, but lost them in the hand of traffickers," Faymann said.

Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz floated elements of a five-point plan that foresees setting up safe havens in the migrants' home countries where those seeking asylum in the EU could be processed and â€" if they qualify â€" be given safe passage to Europe.

Beyond safe havens, possibly protected by troops acting under a U.N. mandate, the Austrian plan to be submitted to EU decision-makers foresees increased controls on Europe's outer borders and coordinated action against human smuggling. It also calls for refugee quotas for each of the EU's 28 members â€" something that many countries have opposed.

"Never before in history have so many people fled their homes to escape war, violence and persecution," German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said. "And given the large number of unresolved conflicts in our neighborhood, the stream of refugees seeking protection in Europe will not abate in the foreseeable future."

Amnesty International alleged that EU indecisiveness was partly to blame for the latest migrant tragedy.

"People dying in their dozens â€" whether crammed into a truck or a ship â€" en route to seek safety or better lives is a tragic indictment of Europe's failures to provide alternative routes," the rights group said a statement. "Europe has to step up and provide protection to more, share responsibility better and show solidarity to other countries and to those most in need."

On Wednesday, the bodies of 51 migrants were found in the hull of a wooden boat off Libya by a Swedish rescue crew. The Swedish ship Poseidon was already rescuing 130 migrants from a raft when it got a call to assist the nearby wooden boat. The Swedes rescued 439 survivors from the boat and then found the bodies below deck.

___

David Rising and Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin, Pablo Gorondi in Budapest, Hungary, Shawn Pogachnik in Roeszke, Hungary, Karel Janicek in Prague and Alison Mutler in Bucharest, Romania contributed.

The truck apparently used to belong to the Slovak company Hyza, which sells chicken meat and is part of Agrofert Holding, owned by Czech Finance Minister Andrej Babis. Agrofert Holding, in a statement, said it had sold the truck in 2014. The new owners did not remove Hyza's logos, and the company said it had nothing to do with the truck now.

News of the tragedy spread quickly to the thousands of migrants traveling on foot and by vehicle from Serbia into Hungary, a major entry point for EU asylum-seekers. They said they had heard stories before of smugglers lying to clients and dropping them far short of their promised destination or of abandoning them, sometimes still locked in trucks.

But they felt there often was little choice but to take such risks, given the physical toll of walking many miles on challenging â€" often guided only by a map on a smartphone.

Hassan El Ali, from the Syrian city of Aleppo, said smugglers can easily be contacted "face to face, but also through Facebook and Twitter." The 31-year-old who was camped on Serbia's border with Hungary said migrants used word of mouth to find "hidden pages and forums about how to cross the border between Hungary and Serbia."

Hungary on Thursday deployed more police on its porous border, but refugee activists said the effort appeared futile in a nation whose migrant camps are overloaded and barely delay their journeys into the heart of the EU.

Police reported a single-day record of 3,241 detentions Wednesday, 700 more than the previous day, as they launched a new initiative to channel migrants to one of the country's five camps using special trains. Under police escort, about 600 asylum- seekers boarded a train to be delivered directly to at least two migrant camps.

Others continued to cross Hungary's 109-mile (174-kilometer) border with Serbia on foot.

The state of decomposition made establishing identities and even the exact number of dead difficult. Senior police official Hans Peter Doskozil said that "20, 30, 40 â€" maybe 50" corpses were inside.

The truck was towed to an air-conditioned location near the border with Hungary where authorities would open it once temperatures had cooled enough to begin removing the bodies, said Doskozil, the chief of police in Burgenland province east of Vienna.

Autopsies would be conducted in the capital later, he said.

Officials found the driverless truck shortly before noon on the highway shoulder about 25 miles (40 kilometers) east of Vienna, near the town of Parndorf, and they originally believed it had mechanical trouble, said police spokesman Helmut Marban.

Then they saw blood dripping from the cargo area and noticed the smell of dead bodies, he said.

Police quickly realized there were no survivors, Doskozil said.

Information from Hungarian police indicated the truck was east of Budapest early Wednesday and entered Austria overnight before being abandoned, he told reporters in Eisenstadt, the provincial capital.

The condition of the bodies indicated the victims may have died before the truck entered Austria, he added.

Associated Press By GEORGE JAHN
5 hours ago


VIENNA (AP) â€" As regional leaders met Thursday to tackle Europe's refugee crisis, a gruesome discovery unfolded a short drive from the Austrian capital: An abandoned truck was found with at least 20 â€" and possibly up to 50 â€" decomposing bodies of migrants piled inside.

It was the latest tragedy in a year that has seen tens of thousands of people risking all to seek a better life or refuge in wealthy European countries. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said at the Vienna conference she was "shaken by the awful news," and summit participants held a minute of silence.

"This reminds us that we in Europe need to tackle the problem quickly and find solutions in the spirit of solidarity," Merkel said.

Migrants fearful of death at sea in overcrowded and flimsy boats as they flee turmoil and war in the Middle East have increasingly turned to using a land route to Europe through the Western Balkans. But the discovery of the bodies in the truck on the main highway connecting Vienna to the Hungarian capital of Budapest showed there is no truly safe path.

Thousands cross from Greece daily with the help of smugglers, aiming to reach European Union countries like Germany, Austria or Sweden and apply for asylum. The human traffickers may charge thousands of dollars per person, only to stuff them into trucks and vans so tightly that they often cannot move â€" or breathe.

Austrian police declined to say what killed those found in the truck, pending an investigation.

Quote from: hubag bohol on July 03, 2013, 05:34:12 PM
Apil sa nasunog mao ang mortuary sa maong punerarya ug samtang adunay usa ka patay nga gisulod na sa lungon ug kamulo gihaya gibalhin an lamang kini sa daplin sa dalan sa mga hingtungdan niini.

Kon wa pa masalbar ang lungon, imbis burial cremation ang resulta...

2-anyos gigulgol sa lola
Ni Raymond D. Abarcas/EIM (Banat) | Updated August 28, 2015 - 12:00am


CEBU, Philippines - Patay  ang usa ka sa 2-anyos nga batang babaye human gigulgol ang liog niini sa iyang 50- anyos nga lola diha sa Brgy. Tubod sa dakbayan sa Toledo alas-4:30 kagahapon sa sayong buntag.

Giila ang biktima nga si Jemigan Basalo, 2, samtang ang apohan niini nga gidala na sa Psychiatric Ward sa Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center giila nga si Melianida Macapaz Pelarca kinsa gituohang adunay deperensiya sa pangisip.

Base sa imbestigasyon ni Senior Police Officer 2 Benedicto Bobiles, imbestigador sa Toledo City Police Station, napalgan na lang ang bata nga wala na maglihok ug dunay dakong laslas sa liog.

Gidala kini sa Toledo City Hospital apan patay na ang maong bata bisan giunsa pagtabang ni Dr. Clyde Vincent Bequilla  tungod sa kalawom sa samad diha sa ubol-ubol niini.

Dihang nangabot ang kaparyentihan, ilang naabtan ang apohan nga nagkupot og mahait nga hinagiban ug misuway kini pagdunggab sa iyang tiyan pagkakita kanila apan ilang napugngan.

Dihang nahinabi ang maong lola nagkanayon kini nga adunay gustong mokuha sa iyang apo aron dad-on sila sa Ormoc, apan taud-taod miingon na usab kining adunay gustong mopatay kanila.

Tungod kay di niya gustong mawala kaniya ang apo iyang gigulgol ang liog sa bata ug maghikog usab kini.

Ang suspek gidala usab sa tambalanan niadtong Agosto 21 human naglaslas kini sa iyang pulso ug buot untang moambak sa Toledo City Port Terminal, apan Agosto 26 nakagawas kini sa tambalanan.  (BANAT NEWS)

Nibalik na lang siya sa pagkatulog kay lapoy ang iyang lawas gumikan sa ilang biyahe gikan sa dakbayan sa Sugbo.

Wa siya maghuna-hunag dautan kay nagtuo siyang gipahilom sa suspek ang apo kay nihilom man usab dihang nibangon siya.

Apan sa pagmata niya pagka alas 4:30 sa kaadlawon, nakugang siya sa nakita nga samad sa liog sa bata nga naglunang sa dugo.
Si Bobilles nagtuo nga kadtong kusog nga hilak sa bata mao na ang paglaslas sa suspek sa liog sa bata.

Di pa igo, hayan gituok ang bata aron mahilom base sa paglagom sab sa liog.

“Among gipangutana ngano man intawong imong gigulgol ang bata, magsige naman lang sa pagyawyaw nga magkita daw sila sa heaven,” sumala pa ni Bobilles.

Gipasabot niya nga bisan paman sa gihambin sa suspek, ila gihapong ipasaka ang tukmang kaso batok kaniya inabagan sa DSWD.


Gipatik sa mantalaang SuperBalita Cebu Agosto 28, 2015.

Ang suspek gikatahong nibutyag nga didto pa lang sa Ormoc, ingon man sa pagsakay nila sa barko paingon sa Sugbo dunay tawo o dautang espirito nga nagsigeg sunod kanila kay patyon siya.

Si Bobilles nibutyag nga ang suspek gikatahong naguol og maayo human nahibaw-an niini nga ang iyang bana dunay laing babaye nga gikatipon.

Si Melianida gikatahong dunay depression nga nisangko sa pagkaliso sa pangisip, apan nilarga dinhi sa Sugbo dala ang iyang apo.

Ang mga ginikanan sa bata toa sa dakbayan sa Ormoc nanginabuhi.

Niadtong Agusto 21, ning buwana ang suspek gikatahong nisuway sa pagpakamatay pinaagi sa pag­laslas sa iyang walang pulso ingon man pag-inom og pesticide.

Sa kabalaka, si Corazon nidala sa suspek sa Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC) aron matambalan.

Nakagawas sila sa VSMMC niadtong Miyerkules sa hapon.

Wa sila magdahom nga mahimo niini ang pagpatay sa bata kay nagtuo silang maayo na ang giham­bing sakit.

Si Bobilles nipadayag nga si Corazon nibutyag nga kagahapon sa kaadlawon, nakamata siya sa grabing paghilak sa bata samtang silang tulo nangatulog.

Siya nibangon aron pagkuha sa lampara kay pahilumon ang bata.

Sa iyang pag-iwag, nakita niya ang suspek nga nagkugos sa iyang apo.

Ni GUAM P. LOGROÃ'O


BATANG babaye namatay human laslasa ang iyang liog sa iyang lola nga gituohang nalisoan sa pangisip sulod sa ilang balay kagahapon sa alas 4:30 sa kaadlawon sa likod sa Gawad Kalinga Village, Barangay Tubod, dakbayan sa Toledo.

Si Jemigan Basalo, 2, gideklarar nga dead-on-arrival (DOA) sa mga doktor sa Toledo District Hospital tungod sa dakong samad nilaslasan sa liog.

Ang suspek nga giilang si Melianida Pelarca, 50, taga Ormoc City, apuhan sa bata, gidakop sa mga kabanay ug barangay tanod ug gi-turnover sa kapulisan sa Toledo.

Si PO3 Carlos Baluado, desk officer sa Toledo Police Station, nagkanayon nga ang nakadiskubre sa krimen mao si Corazon Macapaz, 73, inahan ni Melianida.

Si Corazon na-shock sa pagkakita niya sa bata nga nagkadugo nga wa na magginhawa samtang ang iyang anak nagsige og yawyaw.

Tungod sa iyang kahadlok, siya nisinggit nga na­ngayog panabang sa iyang mga kabanay ug silingan.

Dali nilang gidala ang bata sa tambalanan apan gideklarar sa mga doctor nga DOA.

Ang suspek gidakop sa mga kabanay ug Barangay tanod dayon gi-turnover sa kapulisan nga ubos na karon sa pag-abag sa mga sakop sa Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).

Si SPO2  Benedicto Bobilles, imbestigador sa Toledo Police Station nga nahinabi sa Sun.Star Superbalita, nagkanayon nga ang biktima niadtong lang Hulyo niabot  sa Toledo City kay gidala sa suspek gikan sa Ormoc City.

Apan nabantayan ni Corazon ug mga kabanay nga nalisoan sa pangisip si Melianida kay kanunay na lang magyawyaw ug mahadlok.

Tingali. Pero pwede pud mangangin...

The study was published last Thursday in the journal Diversity and Distributions. The researchers analyzed what the natural distribution of large mammal species would be if not for the impact of humans.

The study expands on the scientists' previous research, which showed that the mass extinction of large mammals during the last ice age and in subsequent millennia was largely linked to the spread of modern humans, not to climate change.

Based on their most recent analysis, the researchers concluded that sub-Saharan Africa is virtually the only place on Earth with the naturally high diversity and population of large mammals that would be seen elsewhere if not for humans.

"Most safaris today take place in Africa, but under natural circumstances, as many or even more large animals would no doubt have existed in other places," Dr. Søren Faurby, a postdoctoral fellow in bioscience at Aarhus and lead author of the study, said in a press release. "The reason that many safaris target Africa is not because the continent is naturally abnormally rich in species of mammals. Instead it reflects that it’s one of the only places where human activities have not yet wiped out most of the large animals."

The natural diversity of large mammals as it would appear without the impact of humans. The figure shows the variation in the number of large mammals (45 kilograms or larger) that would have occurred per 100 x 100 kilometer. The numbers on the scale indicate the number of species. CREDIT: SØREN FAURBY



The current diversity of large mammals. It can clearly be seen that large numbers of species virtually only occur in Africa, and that there are generally far fewer species throughout the world than there could have been. CREDIT: SØREN FAURBY

Jacqueline Howard
Associate Science Editor, The Huffington Post
Posted: 08/27/2015 10:33 AM EDT



DARYL BALFOUR VIA GETTY IMAGES
Wildebeests in the Serengeti.


If humans had never existed, the whole world would look strikingly similar to the Serengeti of Africa. There would be lions in America, and elephants and rhinos roaming Europe.

That's the conclusion of a new study that details how human-driven animal extinctions have influenced the distribution and populations of large mammals around the world.

"The study shows that large parts of the world would harbor rich large mammal faunas, as diverse as seen in protected areas of eastern and southern Africa today, if it was not for historic and prehistoric human-driven range losses and extinctions," Dr. Jens-Christian Svenning, a biologist at Aarhus University in Denmark and a co-author of the study, told NBC News.

Associated Press
4 hours ago


MANILA, Philippines (AP) -- Property, retail and banking tycoon Henry Sy whose conglomerate owns the chain of SM Supermalls in his country and China has retained the title of the Philippines' richest person for the eight consecutive year, with his net worth up $1.7 billion from last year to $14.4 billion.

Forbes Philippines, which puts together the list, said Thursday that the value of Sy's publicly traded conglomerates SM Investments rose 17 percent and SM Prime Holdings 20 percent over the past year. His companies announced record income from banking and retail businesses and two new mall partnerships in 2014. Sy also has a stake in privately owned power supplier National Grid Corp.

John Gokongwei Jr. of JG Summit conglomerate that owns SM's rival, mall chain Robinsons, is the second richest with a net worth of $5.5 billion. Forbes said he moved up three spots after his company's stocks rose 30 percent, boosted by revenue growth in its petrochemical business and investments in Meralco, the Philippines largest power distributor. JG Summit also has interests in food and beverage, airlines, telecoms, property development, banking, retail, and hotels.

Forbes compiles the net wealth of the Philippines' richest based on stock prices and exchange rates, with the value of private companies based on similar companies that are publicly traded.

Alliance Global's Andrew Tan climbed a notch to the third place despite a drop in his net worth to $4.5 billion from the previous $5.1 billion. His company's stock price is 11 percent lower due to a drop in income from its resort and casino operations.

Lucio Tan of LT Group whose businesses include stakes in beverages, tobacco, distilled spirits, banking and property was fourth with a net worth of $4.3 billion. Tan is also chairman of Philippine Airlines.

Fifth was International Container Terminal Services' Enrique Razon Jr., who is worth $4.1 billion.

Rounding out the top 10 are are George Ty, the Abotiz Family, Jaime Zobel de Ayala, David Consunji, and Tony Tan Caktiong.

DAVAO CITY -- Wa nay kinabuhi nga naglutaw sa dagat ang usa ka security guard kinsa giingong nalumos atol sa ilang pagpangaligo alas 11:00 sa buntag niadtong Lunes didto sa Ernesto Rabel Pinazo sa Bonguyan Beach, Barangay Matina Aplaya, dakbayan sa Davao.

Ang biktima nailhang si Arnie P. Amoy, security guard, ug nagpuyo sa 123 McArthur Highway, Barangay Matina Crossing.

Base sa inisyal nga imbestigasyon sa Talomo Police Station, nasayran nga ang biktima uban sa iyang mga higala nangaligo sa dagat.

Taud-taod wala na nila makita ang biktima maong ila na kining gipahibalo sa kapulisan.

Alas 12:00 sa udto Martes, nakit-an nalang ang biktima sa lapyahan sa Jade Resto Bar duol sa Bonguyan Beach kinsa positibo nga giila sa iyang kauban nga naligo nga si Arlou Bungaos.

Dungang nasayran sa Sun.Star SuperBalita nga di kaayo kabalo molangoy ang biktima kinsa daling gianod sa dagkong mga balod niadtong higayona.

Ang patay nga lawas sa biktima anaa gidala sa Angel Funeral Homes sa dalang Torres ning siyudad kinsa ipailawom sa autopsy. (JPC)


Gipatik sa mantalaang SuperBalita Davao Agosto 27, 2015.