Filipinos Trash Stephen Harper

I couldn't have said it better myself.

"Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government is an embarrassment to the civic-minded and environmentally conscious Canadians."

That's the assessment of Filipino priest and environmentalist, Father Robert Reyes, speaking on behalf of environmental and public health activists protesting 50-cargo containers full of hazardous waste that have been sitting in Manila for the past 600-days.

Philippine customs impounded the containers in June, 2013.  They were designated as plastic waste for recycling but were found to contain, instead, hazardous waste.

Canada says it can't force the exporter to re-export the hazardous materials but the Filipinos say our government is obliged by the Basel Convention to deal with the waste.

The Basel Convention prohibits illegal toxic waste trade and requires the exporting country, in this case Canada, to take back illegally seized shipments and pay the costs for the return.

Both Canada and the Philippines are parties to the Basel Convention, but Canada has yet to respond to calls for the re-exportation of the shipment under its obligation under international law.

"Canada's refusal to take back the illegal shipment is a blatant violation of its obligation under Basel," Gutierrez added. "Toxic waste trade is also not simply an issue of trade or business among private individuals or companies. At its very core is the respect for human dignity. It is about protecting the right to life and health. Dumping of toxic waste is anathema to human rights."

Once again the Harper government disgraces Canada on the world stage.

America Urges Philippines to Combat Inequality

Yeah, I know, I know.  Me too.  Then again, the Philippines is a good long way away from Main Street, U.S.A.

American officials are urging the Phillipines to see to fair distribution of the country's new found wealth.

Despite having Asia’s second highest growth in gross domestic product (GDP) last year, the Philippines still has a lot of catching up to make the growth felt and enjoyed by the rest of the country’s population.

“We all know that the Philippines has now outpaced all the countries in the region in terms of economic growth,” said Gloria Steele, mission director of the United States Agency for International Development in the Philippines.
Steele, however, said the bigger challenge is how the 42 percent of Filipinos who earn just US$2 a day can benefit from the economic growth.

But she also said the government must institute measures that will “reduce the cost of doing business in the Philippines.”
She also added that the Philippine government has “to address issues of lack of transparency and lack of integrity both in the government and private sector.”

So, let's see - Wage inequality, check; lack of transparency, check; lack of integrity, check.   Sounds awfully familiar, doesn't it?   And, please, do something about the cost of doing business.  Maybe you can just cut wages.

Climate Change Petri Dish

It's not a couple of low-lying islands about to sink under a risking sea.   It is the 7th-most populous country in Asia, 12th in the world.
Its 92-million people are scattered throughout the 7,100 islands that make up their country and cover 300,000 sq.kms.  And, right now, they're reeling from the savage impacts of climate change.   The Philippines may have become the poster child for global warming.

The Philippines experiences an average of 20 typhoons a year (including three super-typhoons) plus numerous incidents of flooding, drought, earthquakes and tremors and occasional volcanic eruptions, making it one of the most naturally disaster-prone countries in the world.

But more disturbing than [Typhoon] Bopha's size was the fact that it appeared to reflect rapidly deteriorating climatic trends.
The five most devastating typhoons recorded in the Philippines have occurred since 1990, affecting 23 million people. Four of the costliest typhoons anywhere occurred in same period, according to an Oxfam report. What is more, Bopha hit an area where typhoons are all but unknown.

The inter-governmental panel on climate change says mean temperatures in the Philippines are rising by 0.14C per decade. Since the 1980s, there has been an increase in annual mean rainfall. Yet two of the severest droughts ever recorded occurred in 1991-92 and 1997-98.

Scientists are also registering steadily rising sea levels around the Philippines, and a falling water table. All this appears to increase the likelihood and incidence of extreme weather events while adversely affecting food production and yields through land erosion and degradation, analysts say.

Mary Ann Lucille Sering, head of the Philippine government's climate change commission, is in no doubt her country faces a deepening crisis that it can ill afford, financially and in human terms. Typhoon-related costs in 2009, the year the commission was created, amounted to 2.9% of GDP, she said, and have been rising each year since then.

"Extreme weather is becoming more frequent, you could even call it the new normal," Sering said. "Last year one typhoon [Bopha] hurt us very much. If this continues we are looking at a big drain on resources." Human activity-related "slow onset impacts" included over-fishing, over-dependence on certain crops, over-extraction of ground water, and an expanding population (the Philippines has about 95 million people and a median age of 23).

"Altogether this could eventually lead to disaster," Sering said. Unlike countries such as Britain, where changing weather has a marginal impact on most people's lives, climate change in the Philippines was "like a war". Opinion surveys showed that Filipinos rated global warming as a bigger threat than rising food and fuel prices, she said.

 What the Philippines reveals is how climate change interacts with and magnifies other challenges, turning moderate problems into major threats.  If you're an archipelagic nation, excessive reliance on limited groundwater resources combined with rising sea levels is a formula for disaster.  It's a candle burning from both ends.  Getting hammered by severe storm events of increasing frequency and intensity worsens the impacts of over-population.

The Philippines have already taught us much about now climate change impacts societies but the Philippines also have much left to teach us in coming years.

Oooh, This Could Get Nasty

China has provoked outrage in the Philippines by deploying this oil platform, the country's first deepwater drilling rig, into the South China Sea.

The rig, CNOOC 981, began drilling operations yesterday in disputed waters 320 km from Hong Kong.

According to Reuters, civil society and political groups with links to Philippine President Benigno Aquino III's political allies plan to take to the streets on Friday to "protest the Chinese presence" in waters near Huangyan Island.

The Chinese embassy in Manila has issued a safety alert, advising Chinese nationals to enhance safety awareness, avoid going out and stay away from protesters.

Ctrip.com International Ltd, a leading online travel service provider in China, decided to suspend trips to the Philippines Wednesday, citing safety risks of tours as tensions over Huangyan Island escalate.

A Global Times correspondent in Manila said the Chinese communities there are calm despite Friday's looming protest.

"Issues concerning sovereignty are non-negotiable for China. The Philippines took China's restraint for granted and kept staging provocations," a researcher surnamed Ma with the Southeast Asian Institute of the Guangxi Academy of Social Sciences, said.

"The planned global protest against Chinese embassies has shown Manila's intention to internationalize and complicate the issue. Beijing will lose its patience if Manila doesn't back off," Ma said.

Hard as this may be for Canadians to believe, the BBC is reporting that the Chinese do seem to be spoiling for a military confrontation.

War talk, it seems, is all the rage in China at the minute.

Yes, there are serious people in serious publications seriously advocating war.

...At the heart of the issue is what is called Scarborough Shoal by the Philippines and Huangyan Island by China, a little more than 100 miles (160km) from the Philippines and 500 miles from China.

...The odd thing here is that the Philippine navy consists of just one proper ship and that is an ancient US Coast Guard cutter which is hardly a match for China's navy, as this online commentary by "The Comparativist" makes clear.

The Comparativist writes: "I think this is happening because the Philippines is so weak. The Chinese government can beat the war drums all they want, and as loud as they want, and no war is going to happen. It's akin to bullying someone in a wheelchair that you know can't punch back."


But there are dangers here too. The president of the Philippines has tweeted this statement this week, making clear that the Philippines believes America will help protect it from any Chinese aggression. So a dispute could lead to a very tense situation.

China's policy in the South China Sea is not a simple matter, directed clearly from the top as the International Crisis Group has detailed, but affected by many different players.

It's a dangerous dynamic that could escalate much further yet.
A few other things to consider.   The United States recently conducted Operation Chimichanga, a stealth bomber, fighter live-fire exercise simulating a first strike against China.   There are escalating tensions developing between an ascendant China and a U.S. is slow decline that could quickly transform into a new Cold War. And last month The Guardian reported on recent war games between US and Chinese military leaders during which Chinese hostility toward the United States seethed to the surface.