Duterte-critic journalist convicted in Philippine libel case

Philippine journalist Maria Ressa was convicted Monday of cyber libel and faces up to six years behind bars in a case that watchdogs say marks a dangerous erosion of press freedom under President Rodrigo Duterte.

Ressa, 56, and her news site Rappler have been the target of a series of criminal charges and probes after publishing stories critical of Duterte's policies, including his drug war that has killed thousands.

The award-winning former CNN journalist was sentenced to up to six years' jail in the culmination of a case that has drawn international concern.

It was not immediately clear how long she would actually have to serve if the conviction becomes final, and Judge Rainelda Estacio-Montesa allowed Ressa to remain free on bail pending an appeal.

"We are going to stand up against any kind of attacks against press freedom," a defiant Ressa told journalists after the conviction in Manila.

"I began as a reporter in 1986 and I have worked in so many countries around the world, I have been shot at and threatened but never this kind of death by a thousand cuts," she said.

Monday's verdict decided a trial that stemmed from a businessman's 2017 complaint over a Rappler story five years earlier about his alleged ties to a then-judge on the nation's top court.

Ressa, who Time magazine named as a Person of the Year in 2018, did not write the article and government investigators initially dismissed the businessman's allegation.

But state prosecutors later filed charges against her and Reynaldo Santos, the former Rappler journalist who wrote it, under a controversial cyber crime statute aimed at online offences such as stalking and child pornography.

Santos was also found guilty on Monday and allowed to remain free on bail.

The law they are accused of violating took effect in September 2012, months after the article was published.

But prosecutors say Rappler's typographical correction to the story in 2014 to change "evation" to "evasion" was a substantial modification and the article was thus covered by the law.

- 'Assault on independent media' -

Duterte's spokesman Harry Roque said the president backs free speech and has never filed a libel case against a journalist while in government.

"The president supports freedom of expression and freedom of the press. I hope that's clear," Roque said.

But rights groups and press advocates say the libel charge along with a series of tax cases against Rappler, and a government move to strip the news site of its licence, amount to state harassment.

"Ressa... and the Rappler team are being singled out for their critical reporting of the Duterte administration," Amnesty International said.

"With this latest assault on independent media, the human rights record of the Philippines continues its free fall."

Human Rights Watch said the case "will reverberate not just in the Philippines, but in many countries that long considered the country a robust environment for media freedom".

The Philippines has fallen in the Reporters Without Borders press freedom index to 136 out of 180 nations and territories.

Ressa's verdict comes just over a month after government regulators forced off the air the nation's top broadcaster ABS-CBN, following years of threats by Duterte to shut down the network.

Both Rappler and ABS-CBN have reported extensively on Duterte's anti-drugs campaign in which police have gunned down alleged dealers and users in operations condemned by rights groups.

Some of the crackdown's highest-profile critics have wound up behind bars, including Senator Leila de Lima, who is serving three years in jail on drug charges she insists were fabricated to silence her.

In 2018, Duterte denounced Rappler as a "fake news outlet" and subsequently banned Ressa and her colleagues from his public engagements.

Agence France-Presse

Trump to unveil immigration, visa restrictions — reports

President Donald Trump will sign executive orders starting Wednesday restricting refugees, visas and immigration, making good on his signature campaign pledges, US media reported.

Trump is due to speak Wednesday to employees at the Department of Homeland Security — which handles immigration — and sign orders there on refugees and national security, according to The Washington Post and CNN.

“Big day planned on NATIONAL SECURITY tomorrow. Among many other things, we will build the wall!” Trump tweeted late Tuesday.

Trump launched his presidential campaign with a promise to build a wall along America’s long — and porous — southern border with Mexico, coupled with a tough immigration stance.

He also called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States” until authorities can better screen those who come into the country.

What remains unclear is how the orders would be implemented by Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, who told his confirmation hearing that the border wall might not “be built anytime soon.”

On Thursday, Trump is expected to sign executive orders on immigration and on so-called sanctuary cities, where local officials refuse to cooperate with federal immigration authorities on such things as handing over illegal immigrants for deportation.

The orders would restrict immigration and access to the United States for refugees and visa holders from Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, according to the Post, which noted that citizens from many of these countries already face big obstacles in obtaining US visas.

Immigration experts told the newspaper that the orders would stop all admissions of refugees for 120 days, including those seeking shelter from Syria’s brutal civil war, and a 30-day halt to issuing immigrant and non-immigrant visas to people from some countries with Muslim majorities.

The Post cited people familiar with the matter as saying that Trump’s chief strategist Steve Bannon, his attorney general pick Jeff Sessions and other senior advisers were heavily involved in discussions about the orders.

Trump has also controversially vowed to scrap the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which his predecessor Barack Obama instituted in 2012.

The program allows more than 750,000 undocumented immigrants who came to the country as young children to live and work in the United States without fear of deportation.

But whether, and how, Trump addresses DACA this week was unclear.

“Many options are being worked through on DACA,” the Post quoted a White House official as saying.

In addition to the border wall, Trump also wants to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Mexico and Canada, warning last week that he would abandon the pact unless the United States gets “a fair deal.”

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto vowed on Monday that there would be “neither confrontation nor submission” in the negotiations, which will include trade, immigration and other issues.

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

‘Nasty’ women swarm in support of Clinton after Trump insult

WASHINGTON—Suddenly, it seems America is crawling with nasty women.

Female unpleasantness as a tongue-in-cheek rallying cry is on T-shirts, in memes and in tweets galore — a furious backlash mocking Donald Trump’s latest insult of Hillary Clinton.

Trump’s dis — “such a nasty woman” — came during one of his interruptions of his Democratic rival in Wednesday’s final presidential debate.

Social media lit up as women came to Clinton’s defense.

T-shirts emblazoned “Nasty Woman” went up for sale on e-commerce website Etsy.

“Nasty Woman” took off on Twitter, with actress Lena Dunham, who has campaigned for Clinton, spreading the word.

“RT if you’re a nasty woman and it’s made your life a freakin’ pleasure,” Dunham tweeted.

Trending were #ImANastyWoman, #ImANastyWomanBecause, #NastyWomenVote and #NastyWomanUnite.

Trump’s comment immediately called to mind for many Janet Jackson’s 1986 “Nasty” video, where the singer champions “nasty boys.”


A new video mashing up Jackson’s hit and Trump and Clinton debate clips quickly went viral.

Spotify streams of Jackson’s song soared 250 percent after Trump’s remark, CNN reported Thursday.

A CNN clip of Trump’s “nasty” remark quickly garnered almost 27,000 views on YouTube.

News site Vox.com said that “calling Hillary Clinton a ‘nasty woman’ may have been the best thing Donald Trump has ever done for her campaign.”

It noted the Clinton campaign purchased the web domain nastywomengetshitdone.com, which automatically links to the candidate’s website, www.hillaryclinton.com.

Trump’s comment came in response to a dig from Clinton to the effect that the Republican nominee — who has bragged about his savviness in avoiding paying taxes — might also try to get out of chipping in toward the nation’s pension and health insurance programs.

In their third and final debate before the November 8 election, Trump accused Clinton and her campaign team of drumming up allegations that he has groped almost a dozen women.

“I believe,” Trump said, “she got these people to step forward,” accusing Clinton of running a “very sleazy campaign” and adding of the claims aired by several women dating back decades: “It was all fiction.”

“Donald thinks belittling women makes him bigger,” Clinton said.

“He goes after their dignity, their self-worth, and I don’t think there is a woman anywhere who doesn’t know what that feels like.”

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Daughter of Whitney Houston still on life support - family source

The only child of the late singer Whitney Houston has not been taken off life support or declared brain dead, a family source said on Thursday, five days after Bobbi Kristina Brown was found face down in a bathtub at her Georgia home.

The source, who asked not to be identified, said media reports that Brown, Houston's daughter with singer Bobby Brown, had no brain activity were incorrect.

Few details about the 21-year-old aspiring singer's condition have been released. Her family has said only that she was fighting for her life after being rushed to a hospital in the Atlanta suburb of Roswell on Saturday.

Police said they responded to Bobbi Kristina Brown's home in reference to a drowning. Her partner and a friend found her unresponsive in the tub and performed CPR until help arrived, police said.

Houston, a six-time Grammy Award winner and actress who battled substance abuse, drowned in a hotel bathtub in Beverly Hills, California, on Feb. 11, 2012. Authorities said cocaine use and heart disease contributed to her death at age 48.

Her daughter is receiving treatment at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, according to CNN and other media outlets. The hospital would not confirm she was a patient there, but the hospital in Roswell that initially provided treatment said she was no longer under its care.

Family friend and gospel singer Kim Burrell told "Access Hollywood" this week that doctors had put the young woman in a medically induced coma to stop brain swelling.

Roswell police and an attorney for Bobby Brown have said they were investigating the circumstances that led to Bobbi Kristina Brown's hospitalization.  — Reuters

Shooter kills student at Oregon high school

PORTLAND - A gunman walked into an Oregon high school and fatally shot a student on Tuesday before authorities found him dead a short time later.

Reynolds High School in the northern Oregon city of Troutdale was on lockdown after the shooting and students were being evacuated from the school room by room, police said."

A gunman entered the high school this morning, shot one student. Unfortunately, that student has died," Troutdale Police Chief Scott Anderson said at a news conference.

He said the gunman was also found dead.

Anderson gave no further details and did not say whether the gunman was killed by police or took his own life.

CNN said earlier that some injuries had been sustained in the shooting, but neither of two fire departments that responded to the scene nor a private ambulance service, American Medical Response, reported taking any patients from the school.

Police said 30 to 40 Troutdale officers were on the scene. Multnomah County Sheriff's deputies also responded, police said.

Television footage showed police officers in helmets and tactical gear, leaving armored vehicles and running near the school’s perimeter with long rifles. Students were seen streaming out of the school with their hands raised.

"I do know that the students are being evacuated room by room by the police. The shooter is confirmed dead. They're evacuating students that were on lockdown one room at a time," Troutdale Mayor Doug Daoust told CNN. "We do have a huge police presence in front of the school."

The violence in Oregon was the latest in a string of U.S. shootings in recent weeks, including one at a Christian college in neighboring Washington state last week, that have renewed a protracted debate over gun regulations.  — Reuters

source: gmanetwork.com

3 PHL beaches on CNN's top 100 list

Puka Beach in Boracay, El Nido in Palawan, and Palaui Island in Cagayan Valley are among the world's top 100 best beaches, according to CNN.


“We’ve scoured the planet, demanded answers from our most well-traveled friends, colleagues and cohorts, absorbed passionate pleas from readers, researched, investigated and examined the evidence then finally tipped the sand from our shoes, washed the brine from our eyes and put together a pretty good guide to the best beaches on the planet,” said CNN on how it came up with the list.

With over 7,000 islands, it’s not surprising that beaches are big tourist attractions in the Philippines.  “Whatever your mood, there’s something to suit: from kilometers of fine white sand with not a soul in sight, to party strands, to specialist water-sports beaches, to tiny, sandy isthmuses in the lee of tropical islets,” wrote Lindsay Bennett in her globetrotter island guide, “Philippines.”




However, CNN handpicked only three beaches. Puka Beach – named for its puka shell, which means “the sand here is coarse” – is ranked 84th on the list.  Among Puka's amenities Puka has are “powdery beaches, water sports and spas.”

On what makes Puka Beach special, CNN notes: “Puka is the second-longest beach on Boracay Island and relatively empty most times, with no resorts and a limited number of restaurants.”

Number 14 on the list was El Nido, which was featured in the Hollywood movie “The Bourne Legacy.” CNN said it has “powder-fine beaches and gin-clear waters,” which “complement the stunning views of karst limestone formations, empty lagoons, marble cliffs, prehistoric caves and waterfalls.”

“Surrounding waters contain more than 50 species of coral and attract whales, whale sharks, sea cows, manta rays, dolphins and endangered turtles,” CNN noted.

On another list of “The Philippines’ best beaches and islands,” CNN’s Candice Lopez-Quimpo wrote: “If Palawan is indeed ‘the last frontier’ of the Philippines, as it’s been dubbed, the coastal town of El Nido is the gateway to wild adventure.”

Ranked No. 10 was Palaui Island, which is noted for its “glorious white sands (that) meet volcanic rocks and blue-green waters topside.”  Likewise, its “coral gardens and a rich marine reserve meet divers under the surface.”

“Palaui is all about raw beauty,” CNN said, but cautioned, “Treks to get there require battling thorny grass, muddy ground and a mangrove forest.”

For those who want to be far from the madding crowd, CNN has good news: “With no resorts or hotels, Palaui has only two real options: camping under the stars or home stays.” — LBG/HS, GMA News

source: gmanetwork.com