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SUNDAY, APRIL 9, 2017 Adelle Chua, Editor

Opinion

Joyce Pangco Pañares, Issue Editor

mst.daydesk@gmail.com

EDITORIAL

POP GOES THE WORLD JENNY ORTUOSTE

OF ‘KUTO,‘ ‘KILI-KILI,‘ AND ‘ASWANG‘

tend to take whatever we see online at face value.

It may be good faith—but these days good faith can lead to bad results.

Remember a supposed study by the Harvard Institute of Socio-Political Progression (HIS-PP) that said Filipinos were the

LYNDA Barry is a writer and cartoonist, who is almost unknown in the Philippines, a condition I shall attempt to rectify with this column.

She is hailed in the US for her groundbreaking, reality-based works.

Her “Ernie Pook’s Comeek,” was published in the late ‘70s by Matt Groening (of The Simpsons fame) and comedian John Keister in their college newspapers, without Barry’s knowledge. Later the comic strip was carried by some 70 alternative publications over the years until it was discontinued in 2008.

Among the books she has authored are collections of her comic strips, graphic novels, and workbooks-slashtutorials-slash-memoir. At first glance her art looks crude, gross, and childish, channeling Mad magazine if anything, but her drawings are authentic and sincere. They are warm, like something your granddaughter drew, and in their innocent enthusiasm they succeed in charming the reader and making relation easier to achieve.

What deserves deeper perusal is her writing. The language flows, it is conversational but capable of lyrical turns and gestures. The tone is melancholy; most, if not all, of her work, is based on real life, and by her own account her childhood was not happy.

Lynda Barry’s work is relevant to Filipinos because she has Filipino heritage and grew up with a Filipino grandmother. Her mother was halfFilipino, half-Irish, her father Norwegian and Irish.

In One! Hundred! Demons! (2002), Barry tackles some of the monsters that haunted her life. She begins the book by saying, “Please note: This is a work of autobifictionalography.” She asks, in carefully written cursive: “Is it autobiography if parts of it are not true? Is it fiction if parts of it are?” This is the dilemma of the memoirist.

Inspired by the art of 16th century Japanese Zen monk Hakuin Ekaku, Barry took up ink stick, ink stone, and an Asian brush. Then “the demons began to come.” They were not the ones she expected, but “then she started to love watching them come out of her paintbrush.”

Her first demon is head lice. When she was fifth grade, Barry went to “visit relatives in the Philippines.” The kids there were fascinated by her red hair and white skin. They surmised she must have white “kuto” even as theirs were brown like their skin. “Even the Holy Virgin had kuto,” her friend Pilar tells her. When Barry repeats this to her mother, she gets smacked. “N’ako!

If Pilar said diamonds fell out of her armpits, would you believe her? [sounds better in Tagalog].”

Her mother is tormented and tyrannical, and her grandmother is often her shield, not out of fondness for Barry but because of her antagonism against her daughter, Barry’s mother. (Barry does not fully understand why.)

It is Grandma who encourages Lynda and her baby brother to dance in the kitchen (“Segie-segie-na baby!), and who encourages her to get her groove back when adolescent embarrassment drives it away (“Aie n’ako! Dancing is never stupid, my dear.”), pointing to the gleeful joy of her baby brother (“N’ako! Look at him! Segie na baby! What is he doing!?! Ha-la! Segie! Only God knows the name of that dance!”). It is a coming-of-age piece, of peer pressure and family, and of later coming to terms with what matters most.

In “Common Scents”, Barry tells of a neighbor whose air fresheners and candles made her house stink worse than fried fish and cigarettes made Barry’s own reek. The chapter is about the power of smell to bring

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THE SUFFERING OF MANY

I

T HAS become fashionable on social media to find various ways to express solidarity with people who have become victims of violence and strife.

For example, when 10 journalists and two cops were killed in an attack on the newsroom of the French magazine Charlie Hebdo in January 2015, many draped the French flag over their profile pictures. Je suis Charlie, many said—I am Charlie, one with those who were killed and the community that was attacked.

Countless other places and thousands of other people have suffered attacks and injustice in many forms. The fortunate ones survive and live to tell about what they went through. Some live but lose their homes, families and all hope. Others pass on without even being known. Their families cannot grieve them, much less the outside world who are only made aware of them through the media.

This week, it was Syria. The government of Bashar al-Assad launched a chemical attack on rebel forces. Alas, most of the casualties were civilians—children, specifically. In reaction, the United States launched a missile strike on Syria.

It’s war, and there are political and diplo-

matic consequences especially since the latter attack could not have pleased US’ newfound friend, Russia’s Vladimir Putin. But we leave that to high-level, foreign policy experts.

War takes many prisoners, and many of them do not have to be taken by the other party and put behind bars. Often, out of sheer randomness of birth, people are in the wrong place at the wrong era, strangers to many things that people in other parts of the world take for granted.

We the fortunate did not have to do anything to be spared from this kind of trouble.

This is exactly why it is foolhardy to be indifferent to the suffering of others. Then again, we do not have to look far or look hard to witness others’ ordeal in the name of some ideology, or campaign.

Expressing oneness through social media is one form, but is not an end in itself.

Be aware of the issues and their underlying causes. Follow developments. Make a mental note of the people affected and as many individual stories as possible. Ponder how the world could be better and if there were one tiny deed one can do to make the slightest dent.

The world is far from perfect, but it does not mean people should stop trying to empathize with those who bear the brunt of its imperfections. And then perhaps indiscriminate killing, conspicuous spending and hateful language will at least be diminished.

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FIGHTING FAKE NEWS LONG STORY SHORT ADELLE CHUA

FAKE news is a concern that we did not have 10, 20 years ago. At least, not at the alarming levels that we see it now.

It’s technology, or the ease and speed in which information spreads. In the past you did not have to worry about whether the news story in front of you was legitimate, satirical, or downright fake. You were just

grateful to have that piece of information at all.

These days, however, we see all sorts of articles being shared online. Perhaps in our desire to show that we are passionate about the subject matter, or whether we sincerely just want to spread what we think is important information to our friends, we

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SUNDAY, APRIL 9, 2017 mst.daydesk@gmail.com

LAWMAKERS CONFUSE THEMSELVES

WHAT IS CLIMATE CHANGE?

By Faye Flam LAST week, the day after President Trump signed an executive order to undo

his predecessor’s efforts to fight climate change, the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology held a hearing that encapsulated everything that’s wrong with the way US lawmakers handle science.

Global warming is a time-sensitive threat; greenhouse gases are accumulating in the atmosphere, threatening a sharp increase in heat waves, droughts, and floods by mid-century (and eventually, the melting and collapse of the ice sheets at the Earth’s poles). But last week’s hearing, titled “Climate Science: Assumptions, Policy Implications, and the Scientific Method” and chaired by Texas Republican Lamar Smith, meandered from one tangent after another. A good chunk of time was spent questioning whether Penn State University climatologist Michael Mann called a colleague who disagreed with him “a carnival barker” and “a denier pundit.” Some evidence was presented that he had. But does this diminish the evidence that carbon dioxide emissions pose a threat?

The Republicans dwelled on distractions that have bogged down policy for years, like a mangled historical factoid about scientists previously predicting an ice age, and an unrealistically optimistic interpretation of a temporary flattening in the global temperature curve. The latter, sometimes called “the pause,” was hailed as a sign that global warming was over. It isn’t.

But few lawmakers seemed interested in exploring the subtleties of the scientific method as it applies to climate research.

The Democrats directed nearly all their questions toward Mann, who, of the four scientists called as expert witnesses, was the only one to clearly express mainstream views about the connection between human-generated greenhouse gases and climate change. The Republicans gave most of their attention to the other three, and expressed mostly innuendo, suggesting that Mann and his fellow climatologists were untrustworthy.

It wasn’t until the tail end of the nearly three-hour hearing that the one physicist in Congress, Bill Foster of Illinois, spoke up: “Does everyone on this panel agree,” he began, “that the temperature of the earth is set in general terms by radiative balance, and that the infrared absorption spectra of carbon dioxide is a very relevant driving term, and that the uncertainty really is in the other positive and negative feedback terms that may or may not be present, changes in the convection…?”

Foster rambled on about albedo and Siberian swamps, and most people in the room appeared to have no idea what he was asking about. But his was the only pointed question any Democrat had aimed at the three contrarians. In essence, Foster was asking if they agreed that well-established physics underlies the mechanism by which carbon dioxide causes global warming, and that the only remaining uncertainties are due to feedbacks that can damp down or amplify warming.

Even the contrarians agreed he was right. They also agreed that cutting climate research was a mistake. This rendered most of the previous squabbling irrelevant.

Anyone following the mainstream science journals would see that while politicians debate whether carbon dioxide really causes climate change, most scientists have moved on to the details—charting Arctic sea ice, examining the repercussions of warming oceans, and investigating the influence of climate change on human health.

I noticed a similar divide a few years ago when I wrote a series of columns about evolution. While certain members of the public and politicians were arguing that Darwin’s theory wasn’t well-established enough to teach in school, the mainstream science community had moved on to figuring out how fish evolved proto-limbs and crawled onto the land, how and why some dinosaurs sprouted feathers, and where in Africa non-human primates first evolved into us. Those trying to keep evolution out of school would often misrepresent these detail debates as threats to the whole scientific paradigm.

Some of the congressmen at the hearing similarly misrepresented a disagreement over whether surface temperatures had flattened out for a few years in the early 21st century. In 2015, a group led by Tom Karl, director of the National Centers for Environmental Information in Asheville, North Carolina, published a paper in the journal Science saying temperatures during the so-called “pause” weren’t as flat as people thought. The next year, a team led

by Canadian climate scientist John Fyfe offered new evidence that the pause was real. But in a phone conversation, Fyfe said the pause is easily explained as a temporary effect of El Niño and La Niña. With three years of record-setting warmth behind us, the pause is over—but some lawmakers won’t let it go.

Republicans also harped on the notion that scientists in the 1970s forecast a coming ice age. A few did worry about global cooling because they’d discovered that some of the constituents of smog block sunlight. And a few did use the term “ice age.” As Mann explained at the hearing, scientists also knew about greenhouse warming, but weren’t yet sure what would have the biggest impact— smog or carbon dioxide.

What we know now is that smog eventually dissipates and gets rained out. Carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for centuries. Some scientists compare the situation to a bathtub with a badly clogged drain.

You might turn down the spigot, but the tub will keep getting fuller. Bloomberg

By Pecier Decierdo WHILE you are reading this, you are probably in a room powered by electricity. You might be reading this on a piece of paper, and you read it by the light of a lamp. You might be reading this from the screen of a computer. Either way, you are reading this thanks to electricity entering your home or office probably from the power grid.

Depending where you are, the energy that powers your devices probably comes from the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil, and natural gas. According to a 2013 statistics, around 73 period of the energy produced in the Philippines comes from fossil fuels.

The modern, industrial world we live in was built using energy from burning fossil fuels. From the clothes we wear to the electronic gadgets we use, many of the things surrounding us were made using fossil fuel energy. Even most of the ways we go from one place to another, from buses to airplanes, burn fossil fuels to do their work.

When fossil fuels are burned, they release heat, carbon dioxide, and other materials. In power plants, this heat is converted to electricity, which is then fed to the grid to power our homes and businesses. The

carbon dioxide and other materials, meanwhile, get released into the atmosphere.

Carbon dioxide is a natural component of air. It is transparent and allows sunlight to pass through. However, when solar radiation bounces off the Earth’s surface, carbon dioxide can trap this reflected energy and keep it in the atmosphere as heat. Because of this ability to trap heat, carbon dioxide is called a greenhouse gas (GHG). Methane is another example of a GHG. Without GHGs in the atmosphere, all of the sunlight bouncing off the Earth’s surface would go out into space. GHGs keep our planet warm and livable.

However, the burning of fossil fuels that people have been doing since the Industrial Revolution has caused the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to increase.

This increase in carbon dioxide has lead to more heat becoming trapped in the atmosphere. As a result, the Earth is warming up, a phenomenon known as global warming.

But global warming does not mean that all parts of the Earth will experience a rise in temperature. It simply means that the average temperature of the Earth over an entire year is increasing.

The increase might seem slight.

Compared to temperatures before

the Industrial Revolution, the average global temperature of 2016 is higher by almost 1 degree Celsius.

We experience changes in temperature far greater than this in the span of a year. Temperatures in Manila, for example, can range from 22 degrees during some nights in January to 37 degrees during some days in April.

An increase of almost 1 degree in the average temperature of the entire planet should not be compared to the rise and fall of temperature due to weather and seasonal changes. Even a slight increase in the average global temperature leads to a major disruption of the systems that make Earth livable for people and many other forms of life. The average global temperature during the last ice age was only 5 degrees lower than today’s. And yet the world was a very different place back then.

The disruption in the Earth’s delicate balances because of global warming is what we call climate change. While the Earth’s climate has changed many times in the past, there is plenty of evidence that the present climate is changing really rapidly, and the cause of this change is human activity, especially the burning of fossil fuels.

This is where the arc of this story bends back to you and your possible descendants.

Because of the warming of the Earth’s surface, there’s more heat energy stored in the oceans. The world’s oceans then release this energy in the form of typhoons and monsoons.

More energy means stronger and more frequent typhoons. More energy also means heavier rainfall during monsoon season. The effect: more super typhoons and freak monsoons headed our way. But also, they’ll be less predictable. They’re not the typhoons and monsoons we’re used to for thousands of years. They’re the manifestation of a new climate.

The changing climate also brings about radical changes in the pattern of rainfall. Rains might now arrive too early, too late, or not at all. When they arrive, they might be too much of it, or too little. Farmers, fisherfolk, crops, and wildlife are all caught off guard.

We’ve barely scratched the surface of the impact of climate change. In succeeding articles, I will write in greater detail about those impacts, how it affects you directly, and what we can do as ordinary people to adapt to climate change and possible mitigate some of its most extreme effects.

Pecier Decierdo is resident physicist and astronomer of The Mind Museum.

HOW SPOTIFY GREW UP BEFORE GOING PUBLIC

By Leonid Bershidsky IT’S UNCONSCIONABLE in 2017 that the only publicly traded music streaming company is still Pandora Media Inc., an Internet radio provider which went public in 2011 and is trading below its initial public offering price. Hopefully, Spotify Ltd. will rectify the situation this year, even if that means it has to use a back door to an exchange listing. It’s an interesting back door for others in the tech industry, too.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the London-based company is considering a direct listing instead of an IPO. This is a path usually reserved for small firms looking to save money on investment bankers and keep more of the company’s value for the existing shareholders.

Instead of selling shares to major investors the night before going public at an “initial” price, companies that directly list themselves on an exchange usually buy a smaller firm that already has a listing. Then, the company’s owners can immediately get the full market price if they want to sell some of their stock.

It’s often seen as a risky path since no money is raised before the market enters the equation, and there are no bankers to stabilize the stock for the first few—sometimes shaky—months of trading. The advantages, apart from not paying bankers, include not leaving any money on the table, as companies almost always do in an IPO to give the first investors an upside when the stock “pops” in early trading.

In Spotify’s case, this approach makes symbolic, not just pragmatic sense.

Spotify’s story is that of a typical tech disruptor: It developed a cool technology that allowed it to give away for free something that people used to sell, in this case recorded music. At the end of 2011, its third full year of operation, the company had 32.8 million registered

FIGHTING...

From B1 first among the world’s gullible races? A journalist felt compelled to write about it in her column after reading the article in a web site called The Mosquito Press.

“This is a serious allegation we should not ignore,” the journalist wrote, citing that the study involved content analyses of over 500,000 historical documents from 300 different societies. “...We better take it seriously.”

Turns out, there was no such study, and she became the prime example of what she herself warned the public about. This was in 2011 and things have definitely become more challenging since then.

It was meant to be a joke—there are sites that were specifically set up as satire. Even reputable news organizations have them— the New Yorker, for example, has the Borowitz Report that once said President Trump fired acting attorney general Sally Yates for downloading a copy of the Constitution into her office computer. This was not true, of course. Yates was fired because she told Justice Department officials not to defend Trump’s temporary ban on immigrants from seven Muslim countries. Satire is an old form of humor, and quite an effective

users and only 2.8 million paying subscribers, who provided 80 percent of the company’s revenue. The rest of the money came from advertising pushed to the free riders. To avoid the fate of Napster, the peer-to-peer music sharing service killed by intellectual property litigation, Spotify paid large fees to record companies that owned rights to music catalogs, resulting in a seemingly endless stream of losses. Spotify won the hearts and minds of music fans without figuring out how to monetize either.

Spotify probably still is not profitable—it hasn’t released its 2016 financials yet but 2015 saw strong top line growth and expanding losses—but at least appears to have figured out what to do. It’s committed to paying subscribers, not scaling its advertising base.

At the same time, it wants better deals with music labels. In both respects, its recent licensing deal with Universal Music Group is a trailblazer. It allows the record company to release new music to paying subscribers only for the first two weeks, and it makes royalties dependent on the number of streams: The higher it is, the smaller percentage of revenue goes to the rights owner.

Universal has the highest share of music streams, about 30 percent. Now, Spotify needs to make similar deals

tool for criticism and dissent.

What we need is the ability to distinguish real news from fake ones that are being portrayed as real.

And if adults of sufficient intelligence can fall prey to fake news, where does that leave our children? In a vulnerable place, that’s where. And we need to do something about it. *** To be sure, some things are being done.

Facebook itself, where we see many examples of fake news (and heartbreaking displays of gullibility among our friends), has launched a page because “we want to stop the spread of false news...” so goes the intro.

Be skeptical of headlines, it warns. Look closely at the URL. Investigate the source.

Watch for unusual formatting. Consider the photos. Inspect the dates. Check the evidence. Look at other reports. Ask yourself— is the story a joke? And remember: Some stories are intentionally false.

Meanwhile, an American fifth-grade teacher writes in vox.com about his experience when he taught his students how to spot fake news. “Now they won’t stop factchecking me!” says Scott Belley, in an article published March 29.

Among his guidelines: Check the copyright of the Web page. Verify with multiple sources. Compare the credibility of the

with the other two majors, Sony Music and Warner Music, responsible for another 41 percent of the market. Once that happens, the lead time to free release will probably grow longer, and the labels will be more amenable to sharing revenue with Spotify since they, and artists, will be reassured it’s not giving away their wealth and their work. Spotify now reports 50 million paying subscribers -- up 10 million since September 2016, and about half the number of its registered users.

Spotify worked diligently on its business model, going from unrealistic expectations of ad revenue and volume growth to an understanding of how to convert free users to subscribers and what to ask of record labels. When Snap IPO’d with its advertising-based business model that’s not even close to covering costs, it was selling hype. Spotify’s selling a product that has matured through hard times.

There’s a lot of pressure on Spotify to go public this year. Financing its $1 billion of debt grows more expensive if it delays, and equity investors stand to increase their shares. It’s a credit to Spotify that it’s looking for the cheapest instead of the flashiest way to avoid these traps.

Whether that yields a high valuation—more than the $8 billion at which Spotify was valued in 2015—remains to be seen. Having fought off a powerful challenge from Apple Music with its practically captive installed base, Spotify has at least a 43 percent share of the paid music streaming market. (Apple holds 21 percent.)

If Spotify goes the non-traditional route and all works out well, it’ll be an example for other tech firms still full of illusions about their business models.

Giving away as little as possible may not sound romantic, but it’s usually sustainable, and it motivates a business to offer the best possible product. Bloomberg

In this age of deluge, we need to be critical consumers of information. sources. Check the date of publication.

Know the author’s expertise and background with the subject. And then, ask yourselves: Does it match your prior knowledge? Does it seem realistic?

For its part, Germany has taken the fight against fake news to legislation. The Washington Post reports that the social-media bill “could quickly turn this nation into a test case in the effort to combat the spread of fake news and hate speech in the West.”

“If passed, as now appears likely, the measure would compel large outlets such as Facebook and Twitter to rapidly remove fake news that incites hate, as well as other ‘criminal’ content, or face fines as high as 50 million euros ($53 million),” the Post reports. “Depending on how obviously false or illegal a post is, companies would have as little as 24 hours to remove it. In addition to fake news and hate speech, the draft bill would target posts

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back memories. It’s also about familial loyalty. Grandma is in fine fettle here, talking back to the TV during a commercial for an air freshener: “Aie n’ako, lady. I tried it. It smells worse than the pueet of a vampire!”

And there’s the chapter, “The Aswang.” Grandma told Barry the sort of spooky stories that we might remember from our own childhood. “Aie, Lynda!” she says, “If the aswang hears you, lagoot ka na! She will come tonight!” The creature was described as “a strange dog watching you very hard and the back legs is more longer than front legs and the tongue is sticking out—that is the aswang in the day time!”

Barry examines her love-hate relationships with her mother and grandmother in the light of the aswang story. “Who was the first aswang in the world? I’m 44 years old but I still don’t know the answer.” This is true for many of us as well, who are negotiating our own relationships with our relatives, tiptoeing around the minefields that surround certain questions, certain secrets.

If you will read one book by Lynda Barry, make it One! Hundred!

Demons! It’s about love, hate, family, growing up, taking drugs, childhood trauma, and race. It’s funny, witty, and sad, but also hopeful and optimistic. Her demons are familiar.

This book is extra because it shows us how to identify, release, and conquer our own demons.

Dr. Ortuoste is a California-based writer. Follow her on Facebook: Jenny Ortuoste, Twitter: @jennyortuoste, Instagram: @jensdecember

seen as inciting terrorism or spreading child pornography.”

The bill is said to have a high chance of approval in the German parliament before September elections. Apparently, it’s precaution so that what happened in last year’s elections in the US would not happen there, as well.

Others try to view the trend positively— and rightly so. Nausicaa Renner, writing for the Columbia Journalism Review, says fake news has inspired great reporting. Again reference is made to the US elections in November when too many facts were cited erroneously, deliberately, when people had no opportunity to check if the numbers were even true or existent. And indeed when we doubt the information that surrounds us, would it not prompt us to dig deeper and get to the real story?

All these guides and measures are helpful, but in the end the best precaution is the simplest one: We must tell ourselves, and tell our children, to walk around with a healthy dose of disbelief. Don’t believe everything we see or hear or read. Don’t be part of a hype. Don’t share something for the sake of sharing or appearing informed.

Instead, be informed. Be informed the right way. adellechua@gmail.com

World 102 CHILDREN AMONG 314 KILLED IN COLOMBIA MUDSLIDE BOGOTA, Colombia—More than 102 children were among 314 people killed in the giant mudslide that slammed into the southern Colombian town of Mocoa last week, the government said Friday.

The mudslide hit a week ago after heavy rains caused three rivers to flood, sending a sea of mud, boulders and debris crashing into the town.

In the latest toll report on Friday, the National Disasters Risk Management Unit said 332 people were injured and at least 4,506 had been made homeless.

The disasters unit said it had received information on 127 people still missing, among them three foreigners: a Spaniard, a German and an Ecuadoran.

Mocoa, the capital of the department of Putumayo, was home to 70,000 people, about 45,000 of whom were affected by the disaster, according to the Red Cross.

In an effort to speed up reconstruction, the government formally declared a 30-day state of economic, social and ecological emergency in Mocoa.

The measure will allow direct contracting of services without the need for formal, more time-consuming procedures. AFP

MEXICO INFLATION HITS NEW 7-YEAR HIGH

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US WARNS OF MORE AIR STRIKES VS SYRIA U

NITED NATIONS, United States—The United States warned Friday it is ready to hit Syria again after a missile strike that infuriated Moscow and fueled calls for a push to end the six-year war.

US Ambassador Nikki Haley delivered the warning at an emergency session of the UN Security Council called after the US strikes, which were launched to punish an alleged chemical weapons attack

by Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

Assad’s ally Russia, meanwhile, declared President Donald Trump’s first strike against the Damascus regime a violation of international law and an “act of aggression.”

“The United States took a very measured step last night,” Haley told the council. “We are prepared to do more, but we hope it will not be necessary.”

Haley said the strike destroyed an air field from which Washington believes Damascus launched the attack on rebel-held Khan Sheikhun, where 86 people including 27 children died this week.

Rights monitors warned, how-

ever, that Syrian jets were already flying sorties from the base again as night fell Friday.

The United States fired 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles from warships in the Mediterranean at the Shayrat airfield near Homs in central Syria.

Assad’s office called the strike “foolish and irresponsible,” and Moscow announced a series of retaliatory steps including plans to strengthen Syrian air defenses.

“The United States will no longer wait for Assad to use chemical weapons without any consequences,” Haley said. “Those days are over.”

The United States did not seek UN Security Council authorization for the military action that followed days of global outrage at images of dead children from the suspected sarin gas attack.

It was Trump’s biggest military decision since taking office and marked a dramatic escalation in American involvement in Syria’s protracted war.

“The United States attacked the territory of sovereign Syria,” Russian Deputy Ambassador Vladimir Safronkov told the council, denouncing a “flagrant violation of international law and an act of aggression.”

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, in Florida to attend a summit between Trump and China’s Xi Jinping, is due in Moscow next week for talks with President Vladimir Putin.

“I’m disappointed in that response from the Russians because it indicates their continued support for the Assad regime,” said Tillerson.

“In particular,” he said, the response showed the Kremlin’s “continued support for a regime that carries out these kinds of horrendous attacks on their own people.

“I find it very disappointing but -- sadly, I have to tell you -- not all that surprising.”

In Washington, a senior US offi-

cial said Syria may have had help carrying out the alleged chemical attack, but stopped short of accusing Russia of complicity.

“We are carefully assessing any information that would implicate the Russians knew or assisted with this capability,” he said.

While threatening further strikes, Haley also said it was time to press on with diplomatic efforts to achieve a political solution to end the war.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres urged restraint and a renewed push for peace in Syria, saying “there is no other way to solve the conflict than through a political solution.”

Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Israel, Japan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey all supported Washington, with Ankara also calling for a nofly zone in Syria.

The Kremlin warned the US military action would inflict “considerable damage” on US-Russia ties.

It immediately suspended a deal with the United States aimed at avoiding clashes in Syrian airspace, though the foreign ministry did not scrap Tillerson’s visit. AFP

MEXICO CITy, Mexico—Mexico’s inflation rate hit a new seven-year high in March, official data showed Friday, adding to the case for more interest rate hikes by the central bank.

The annual inflation rate reached 5.35 percent last month, its third month above the central bank’s target ceiling of four percent, according to national statistics institute INEGI. Latin America’s second-largest economy is facing instability unleashed by the arrival of US President Donald Trump, whose vows to build a border wall and overhaul Mexico’s privileged trade relationship with the US are causing jitters.

The peso plunged when Trump took office in January, hitting record lows as investors dumped Mexican assets.

That in turn caused consumer prices to rise as imported goods became more expensive.

Adding to the inflationary pressure, President Enrique Pena Nieto’s government raised gasoline prices by more than 20 percent as part of a sweeping energy reform.

Last month, the central bank raised its key interest rate to its highest level in eight years: 6.5 percent. AFP

SEATTLE MAYOR DENIES SEXUALLY ABUSING A MINOR LOS ANGELES, United States—The mayor of Seattle in the US state of Washington is accused of sexually abusing a minor in a case that dates back three decades, allegations he vehemently denied Friday.

The lawsuit was filed in King County Superior Court under the man’s initials “D.H.” The plaintiff, who is now 46, alleges that Seattle Mayor Ed Murray paid him for sex when the man was a 15-year-old drug-addicted, homeless teenager.

According to the lawsuit, Murray met and befriended D.H. on a bus, invited the teenager to his home and propositioned him for sex in exchange for money.

Because the adolescent was addicted to drugs, the complaint said, he was “willing to do whatever Mr Murray asked for as little as $10-20.”

Court documents say that encounters between the two “continued for an extended period of time.”

Murray, a progressive and openly homosexual Democrat who is running for re-election this year, told journalists that the accusations were “simply not true,” saying that they were “painful for me, for my husband.”

“I understand the individual making these allegations is troubled,” said the mayor, who is 61 years old. “To be on the receiving end of such untrue allegations is very painful for me.” AFP

This image released by the US Department of Defense, shows the Shayrat airfield in Syria on October 7, 2016.US President Donald Trump ordered a massive military strike on a Syrian air base on Thursday in retaliation for a “barbaric” chemical attack he blamed on President Bashar al-Assad. The US military fired dozens of cruise missiles at the Shayrat Airfield at 8:45 pm Eastern Time (0000 GMT), officials said. AFP

US SENDS MESSAGE TO N. KOREA, CHINA WITH SYRIA STRIKE SEOUL, South Korea—The US missile strike on Syria contained a clear message for North Korea and its main ally China, but not one strong enough to push Pyongyang off its nuclear weapons path, analysts said Saturday.

While the timing was largely coincidental, the fact that US President Donald Trump ordered the strike while hosting a summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping carried particular resonance given that the North’s nuclear ambitions – and how best to thwart them – was among the top agenda items of their meeting.

And exercising the military option added some extra weight to Trump’s recent threat of unilateral action against Pyongyang if Beijing fails to help curb its neighbour’s nuclear weapons programme.

Kim Yong-Hyun, a professor at Dongguk University said the strike against Syria was a statement of intent that was meant for a wide readership.

“It signals to Pyongyang that the US has a new sheriff in town who isn’t hesitant about pulling his gun from the holster,” Kim said.

But while the move might give the North pause, it is unlikely to deter a leadership that views nuclear weapons as the sole guarantee of its future survival.

“In the long term, US military actions

overseas won’t help curb the North’s nuclear pursuit”, Kim said.

The North has carried out five nuclear tests -- two of them last year -- and expert satellite imagery analysis suggests it could well be preparing for a sixth.

And Pyongyang has shown no sign of reining in a missile testing programme ultimately aimed at securing the capability to deliver a nuclear warhead to the continental United States.

If Thursday’s strike was a warning to other countries, it was one that Pyongyang, which regularly cites US hostility as the driving force behind its nuclear weapons development, is quite familiar with.

“Trump’s attack on Syria is unlikely to have any significant effect on a North Korea that is already well versed in the threat posed by the United States,” said Joel Wit, a senior fellow at the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University.

At the time of the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the then North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il disappeared from public view for around six weeks -- and was widely believed to have gone into hiding for fear of a US attack.

Chang Yong-Seok, a senior researcher at the Institute for Peace and Unification at Seoul National University, said Kim’s son, current leader Kim Jong-Un, had no reason to take such precautions. AFP

SLIPPERY HAUL. Palestinian fishermen pull out a catch of stingrays onto a beach overlooking the Mediterranean sea, in Gaza City.

Hamas allowed fishermen out to sea again on April 6, 2017 after having previously barred exits by sea following the March 24 assassination of leader Mazen Faqha, which it blamed on the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad and its Palestinian “collaborators”. AFP

B4

SUNDAY, APRIL 9, 2017 Cesar Barrioquinto, Editor

World

/ Joyce Pangco-Pañares, Issue Editor

mst.daydesk@gmail.com

VENEZUELA BANS OPPOSITION LEADER FROM PUBLIC OFFICE CARACAS, Venezuela—Venezuelan authorities on Friday banned a top opposition leader from public office for 15 years, the latest move in an increasingly tense power struggle in the crisis-hit country.

Henrique Capriles was one of the leaders of mass demonstrations this week against socialist President Nicolas Maduro that led to clashes with police. One protester died.

State comptroller Manuel Galindo imposed a “sanction of disqualification from exercising public office for a period of 15 years,” his institution said in a ruling made public by Capriles himself.

The ruling said the sanction was due to “administrative irregularities” by Capriles in his post as governor of the northern state of Miranda.

Capriles rejected the move and insisted he would retain his post as governor, branding Maduro a dictator. AFP Well wishers place flowers at a makeshift memorial outside a department store in Stockholm on April 8, 2017, the day after a hijacked truck plunged into a crowd in a pedestrian shopping area. Swedish police said Saturday that a man arrested on “suspicion of terrorist crime” was likely to be the driver of a truck that ploughed into a crowd of people in central Stockholm a day earlier. AFP

TRUCK DRIVER HELD FOR TERROR ATTACK

S

tockholm, Sweden—Swedish police said Saturday that a man arrested on “suspicion of t errorist crime” was likely to be the driver of a truck that ploughed into a crowd of people in central Stockholm a day earlier.

“We suspect that the man who The attack on Friday killed four was arrested is the perpetrator,” people and injured 15, nine of Stockholm police spokesman Lars them seriously.

Bystrom told AFP. Police had earlier said they had

detained a man who “matched the description” of a photo released of a suspect wearing a dark hoodie and military green jacket.

Bystrom said the arrested man “could be the same person in the picture”.

According to the newspaper Aftonbladet, the individual in the photo is a 39-year-old man of Uzbek origin and a supporter of the Islamic State (IS) group.

If confirmed as a terror attack,

it would be Sweden’s first such deadly assault.

The attack occurred just before 3 p.m (1300 GMT) when a stolen beer truck slammed into the corner of the bustling Ahlens store and the popular pedestrian street Drottninggatan.

Friday’s attack was the latest in a string of similar assaults with vehicles in Europe, including in London, Berlin and the southern French city of Nice. AFP

TRUMP DROPS CHINA BASHING DURING WARM XI SUMMIT PALM BEACH, United States—US President Donald Trump ditched his trademark anti-China bombast, hailing an “outstanding” relationship with counterpart Xi Jinping at the end of a superpower summit Friday overshadowed by events in Syria.

“We have made tremendous progress in our relationship with China,” Trump said effusively at the close of a high-stakes but studiously familiar first meeting between the pair at his Mar-aLago resort in Florida.

“I think truly progress has been made,” Trump said, declaring his relationship with Xi as “outstanding.”

The friendly tone was a far cry from Trump’s acerbic campaign denouncements about China’s “rape” of the US economy and his vow to punish Beijing with punitive tariffs.

Xi reciprocated Trump’s warm words, saying the summit had “uniquely important significance” and thanking Trump for a warm reception.

Beijing’s most powerful leader in decades also invited the neophyte US president on a coveted state visit to China later in the year. Trump accepted, with a date yet to be determined.

We “arrived at many common understandings,” Xi added, “the most important being deepening our friendship and building a kind of trust.”

The bonhomie extended behind closed doors, where the US president’s grandson and granddaughter sang a traditional Chinese ballad -- “Jasmine Flower” -- and recited poetry for their honored guests, earning praise from

their “very proud” mother Ivanka in a tweet.

“Both the atmosphere and the chemistry between the two leaders was positive, the posture between the two really set the tone,” said Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

“All of us are feeling very good about the results of this summit.”

The start of the meeting came on a night of high drama as Trump not only met his nearest peer in economic world power for the first time but also launched his first military strike on a state target.

Trump informed the Chinese leader personally of the strike as the 59 Tomahawk missiles were winding their way to the Shayrat airbase.

Although China is not implicated in the Syrian war, Trump’s actions resonate widely, not least in the debate over how to tackle North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

China and the United States agree Pyongyang’s programs are a serious problem, but have not seen eye-to-eye on how to respond. AFP

BURST OF COLORS. Orange, yellow and purple wildflowers paint the hills of the Tremblor Range, April 6, 2017 at Carrizo Plain National Monument near Taft, California. After years of drought an explosion of wildflowers in southern and central California is drawing record crowds to see the rare abundance of color called a ìsuper bloom. AFP

DALAI LAMA’S MONASTERY VISIT ANGERS CHINA TAWANG TOWN, India – The Dalai Lama will Saturday address devotees at the monastery near India’s border with China where he took shelter on his flight from Tibet, drawing protests from Beijing which claims the Himalayan area as its territory.Huge crowds are expected to turn out for the 81-year-old monk on what may be his last ever visit to Tawang, a remote, high-altitude corner of northeast India that is home to one of the holiest sites in Tibetan Buddhism.

But even before he arrived at the monastery in the disputed state of Arunachal Pradesh on Friday evening, the exiled spiritual leader was at the centre of a diplomatic row between China and his adopted homeland, India.

Beijing this week lodged an official protest with the Indian ambassador, accusing New Delhi of arranging a platform for the Dalai Lama to “hold anti-China and separatist activities”. AFP

RUSSIA CHARGES 8 IN METRO BOMBING SAINT PETERSBURG, Russia— The Russian authorities on Friday charged eight people with terrorism offences following the bomb attack on the Saint Petersburg metro which killed 13 people on Monday.

A court in Saint Petersburg said six suspects, aged 20 to 39, would be held until June 2 while the investigation into the attack continued.

They were arrested Thursday, and investigators said they found in one of the suspects’ residences an explosive device “identical” to the one found at a metro station that was discovered shortly before another device exploded in a tunnel.

They also recovered firearms and ammunition from the suspects’ residences, according to Russia’s Investigative Committee. They face charges of terrorism and accessory to terrorism.

Two other suspected accomplices, a man and a woman, were arrested in Moscow on Thursday and have also been charged with terrorism, the TASS news agency said. AFP