Pain, anger as horrific Hawaii fire death toll climbs up to 89

LAHAINA, United States—Anger was growing Saturday (Sunday in Manila) over the official response to a horrific wildfire that levelled a Hawaiian town, killing at least 89 people as it consumed everything in its path.

Over 2,200 structures were damaged or destroyed as the fire tore through Lahaina, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) said, wreaking $5.5 billion in damage and leaving thousands homeless.

Hawaiian authorities said they were opening a probe into the handling of the inferno as a congresswoman from the state acknowledged that officials had underestimated the danger, and as residents

Anwar stops opposition challenge in state polls

KUALA LUMPUR—Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s ruling coalition thwarted a challenge by an opposition alliance in state elections, official results showed Sunday, with analysts saying the win would buy him time to consolidate power in the largely Islamic Southeast Asian nation.

Saturday’s vote in six states had been the toughest political challenge yet to Anwar, who was appointed prime minister in November last year to head a unity government after an indecisive general election.

The election of state assembly members does not affect Anwar’s current two-thirds majority in parliament.

It was, however, widely seen as a barometer of support for Anwar, including his push for a more inclusive society in which minority ethnicities could be allowed greater participation in the largely Malay Muslim nation, which also has large Chinese and Indian populations.

Results released by the Election Commission showed that Anwar’s Pakatan Harapan coalition retained three states: Selangor, Penang and Negeri Sembilan.

The opposition alliance Perikatan Nasional -- whose key member the PAS party aims to create a theocratic state in Malaysia -- kept its hold on Kedah, Terengganu and Kelantan.

Retaining Selangor, which hosts the country’s biggest port, and Penang, home to Malaysia’s thriving semiconductor industry, are prized wins for Anwar, analysts said.

The ruling coalition, however, lost its two-thirds majority in Selangor, as the opposition made strong inroads. AFP

Russia evacuates 2,000 in Far East; In Myanmar 48,000 waiting to go home

said there had been no warnings.

“The mountain behind us caught on fire and nobody told us jack,” Vilma Reed told AFP.

“You know when we found that there was a fire? When it was across the street from us.”

Reed, whose house was destroyed by the blaze, said they had fled the flames with what they had in their car, and were now dependent on handouts and the kind- ness of strangers.

“This is my home now,” the 63-yearold said, gesturing to the car she has been sleeping in with her daughter, her grandson and two pet cats.

In the ashy ruins of Lahaina, Anthony Garcia told AFP how the fire had gutted his apartment.

“It took everything, everything! It’s heartbreaking,” the 80-year-old said. “It’s a lot to take in.” The town of more than 12,000, once the proud home of the Hawaiian royal family, has been reduced to ruins, its lively hotels and restaurants turned to ashes.

A majestic banyan tree that has been the center of the community for 150 years has been scarred by the flames, but still stands upright, its branches denuded of green and its sooty trunk transformed into an awkward skeleton.

‘Underestimated the lethality’

Hawaii Attorney General Anne Lopez said her office would examine “critical decision-making and standing policies leading up to, during and after the wildfires on Maui and Hawaii islands this week.”

Governor Josh Green told reporters Saturday that the number of confirmed dead would continue to grow.

“There are 89 fatalities that have been measured,” he said. “It’s going to continue to rise. We want to brace people for that.”

Hawaii congresswoman Jill Tokuda told CNN that officials had been taken by surprise by the tragedy. AFP

China vows ‘forceful’ response over Lai’s US visit

BEIJING—China on Sunday vowed

“resolute and forceful measures” over a weekend trip by Taiwan Vice President William Lai to the United States it said it was closely monitoring.

Lai -- the frontrunner in Taiwan’s presidential elections next year——is officially making only transit stops in the United States en route to and from Paraguay, where he will attend the inauguration of president-elect Santiago Pena.

Taiwan is claimed by China, which has vowed to take the island democracy one day—by force, if necessary—and ramped up political and military pressure.

“China is closely following the de-

Gang boss who threatened assassinated Ecuador bet transferred to max security

GUAYAQUIL, Ecuador – Ecuador transferred a powerful gang leader, accused of threatening a presidential candidate before he was slain, to a maximum security prison via a massive military and police operation on Saturday, officials said.

At dawn some 4,000 heavily armed agents entered Prison 8 in Guayaquil in southwestern Ecuador, where the head of the powerful Los Choneros criminal group, Jose Adolfo Macias, alias “Fito,” was being held.

Images shared by security forces showed a bearded man in his underwear, with his hands on his head in some shots and lying on the floor with arms tied in others.

Ecuadoran President Guillermo Lasso reported on social media site X, formerly

Regional

TOUR. Cambodia’s Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn (left) and China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi shake hands at the Cambodian Ministry of Foreign A airs and International Cooperation in Phnom Penh last weekend, his last stop in a threenation swing that included Malaysia and Singapore. AFP known as Twitter, that “Fito” had been transferred to La Roca, a 150-person maximum security prison that is part of the same large penitentiary complex he was already in. velopment of the situation and will take resolute and forceful measures to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity,” an unnamed spokesperson for the foreign ministry said in a statement published online.

The gang leader had controlled at least one cellblock in the prison from which he was removed.

Ecuador has been under a state of emergency after the shock assassination Wednesday of journalist and anti-corruption crusader Fernando Villavicencio.

Lasso has blamed the murder on organized crime, and Villavicencio had complained of receiving death threats from Macias.

A week before the 59-year-old was killed, he had said that “Fito” was threatening him.

Lai has been far more outspoken about independence than Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, to whom Beijing is already hostile as she refuses to accept its view that Taiwan is a part of China. The Harvard-educated doctor-turnedpolitician has previously described himself as a “pragmatic Taiwan independence worker”, and reiterated this week when speaking with a local television channel that Taiwan was “not part of the People’s Republic of China (PRC)”.

“The Republic of China and PRC are not subordinate to each other,” he said, using Taiwan’s official name.

On landing in New York on Sunday, Lai said on Twitter, now rebranded as X: “Happy to arrive at the Big Apple, icon of liberty, democracy and opportunities,” adding that he was greeted at the airport by representatives of the American Institute in Taiwan, the United States’s de facto embassy for the island.

“Looking forward to seeing friends and attending transit programs in New York,” he wrote. AFP

MOSCOW/BAGO—Russia has evacuated more than 2,000 people from flooded areas in its Far East, emergency officials said Sunday, after Tropical Storm Khanun brought heavy rains to the region.

“More than 2,000 people, including 405 children, have been evacuated in Primorye,” the Russian emergency situations ministry said on Telegram.

The ministry said nearly 5,000 buildings had been flooded in the Primorye region, which borders China and North Korea.

Rescuers had set up 13 temporary accommodation centres in the region, the ministry said.

Flooding in the city of Ussuriysk was the worst in a decade, according to staterun TASS news agency.

In Bago, Myanmar, a baby slept peacefully under a mosquito net oblivious to hundreds of evacuated flood victims lined up for food at a monastery in Myanmar during the weekend, all waiting for water levels to recede before they can return home.

Floods and landslides caused by monsoon rain have killed five and forced around 48,000 people to flee their homes, the relief ministry said.

On Saturday in Bago city, northeast of Yangon, children floated on rubber tyres squealing with joy, while adults paddled wooden canoes with supplies through the murky brown and yellow water to evacuation shelters.

Hundreds of families sat fanning themselves in an open-air hall at a monastery as volunteers distributed meal packs of rice and egg curry.

Parents and children curled up on mats surrounded by bags of their meagre possessions—clothes strung up on makeshift washing lines above.

Tin Win, 52, said although the conditions at the shelter were cramped and people were only receiving two meals a day, she was thankful to be safe and dry.

“The space is tiny and there is not much space to sleep. We have to lie down next to each other,” she told AFP. AFP

Blasts rock pro-Iran missile stocks in Syria—war monitor

BEIRUT—Violent explosions were heard from missile stockpiles of proIran militias east of Syria’s capital Damascus before dawn on Sunday, a war monitor said.

Residents of the Damascus region heard the blasts which came from “the warehouses of pro-Iran militias” in a mountainous area east of the capital, said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a wide network of sources inside Syria.

“We don’t know if it was from an air strike or ground operation,” Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

During more than a decade of war in Syria, neighboring Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes on Syrian territory, primarily targeting Iran-backed forces and Hezbollah fighters, as well as Syrian army positions.

Syria’s official news agency SANA said during the night that “the sounds of explosions” had been heard on the outskirts of Damascus.

Four Syrian soldiers and two Iran-backed fighters were killed last Monday in pre-dawn Israeli air strikes near Damascus, the Observatory said at the time, in the latest deadly Israeli air raid to hit wartorn Syria’s capital.

The air strikes targeted Syrian regime forces, as well as military positions and weapons depots used by armed groups supported by Tehran, the monitor said. AFP

Detained Niger president seen by doctor, says entourage

NIAMEY, Niger—Niger’s detained president was seen by his doctor on Saturday, his entourage said amid mounting concern for his condition, while Nigerian religious leaders met the officers who seized power last month to try to defuse the crisis.

The Muslim leaders visited the capital Niamey with the blessing of Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, head of the West African regional bloc ECOWAS, a source close to the delegation told AFP.

ECOWAS has approved the deployment of a “standby force to restore con- stitutional order” in Niger as soon as possible, but scrapped a Saturday crisis meeting on the coup that deposed Mohamed Bazoum.

Bazoum, 63, was toppled on July 26 by his presidential guard, which has since held him and his family at his official Niamey residence.

The European Union, the African Union and the United Nations joined others in sounding the alarm for Bazoum on Friday after reports described worsening detention conditions.

Bazoum “had a visit by his doctor to- day”, a member of his entourage told AFP, adding the physician had also brought food for Bazoum, his wife and son.

“He’s fine, given the situation,” the source added.

Human Rights Watch said it had spoken with Bazoum earlier this week.

The ousted leader had described the treatment of himself, his wife and their unwell 20-year-old son as “inhuman and cruel,” HRW said.

“My son is sick, has a serious heart condition, and needs to see a doctor,” the group quoted him as saying. AFP

By Julito G. Rada

THE Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas is expected to keep the key policy rates unchanged on Thursday despite the lower-than-expected economic growth of 4.3 percent in the second quarter, according to a British bank.

Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corp. said in a report over the weekend while inflation continued to ease, risks remained that could put rate hikes back on the table.

It noted the rising rice export prices that increased 20 percent since the middle of July and reached their highest level since 2011.

“We think the BSP is comfortable

Brief

Shares to move sideways as investors turn cautious with where monetary policy is now at 6.25 percent. Yes, the peso depreciated by 2.7 percent against the US dollar in a span of just 10 days, but at 56.3, the USD-PHP is still within the DBCC [Development Budget Coordinating Committee] assumption parameter of 54-57,” it said. HSBC said to some extent, the growth cooling in the second quarter

PHILIPPINES stocks are expected to move sideways this week, as investors turned more cautious after the disappointing second-quarter gross domestic product data.

Philstocks Financial Inc. senior analyst Japhet Tantiangco said the market’s three straight weeks of decline could lure bargain hunters back to the market.

Tantiangco said, however, a market rally could be challenging because of the tempered confidence towards the economy following the recent GDP data release.

“With our second-quarter real GDP coming in below expectations, cracks in the confidence towards the economy could already be present which in turn would make building of market momentum harder,” he said. Jenniffer B. Austria

Diokno unfazed by slower growth

FINANCE Secretary Benjamin Diokno said the lower end of the 2023 growth target range of 6 percent to 7 percent “remains achievable.”

Diokno said in a message over the weekend an aggressive catch-up plan would do the trick for the second half of the year.

“[The] 6.0 percent GDP growth target for 2023 remains achievable… An aggressive catch [up] plan for infrastructure projects [roads, bridges, airports, seaports, power, water, irrigation, telecommunications facilities, digitalization, school buildings, housing and others], quicker response by GOCCs [government-owned and -controlled corporations], and strong and deliberate spending by resource-surplus local governments are essential parts of the solution to the relatively weak second-quarter growth performance of the Philippine economy,” Diokno said.

He said one of the advantages of the Philippine economy was its less dependence on exports, as some of its ASEAN neighbors and its growth for the past several years was mainly consumption based. Julito G. Rada

Globe’s pro t down 27% to P14.37b in six months

GLOBE Telecom Inc. said over the weekend net income dropped 2 percent in the second quarter.

The telecom unit of the Ayala Group said net income amounted to P7.1 billion from April to June, down from P7.3 billion in the same period last year.

This brought the first half net income to P14.37 billion, down by 27 percent from last year’s P19.68 billion.

Globe blamed the decline to the increased depreciation expense and the 78-percent decline in total non-operating income, which was due to the one-time net gain of P8.5 billion (post-tax) reported last year from the partial sale of Globe’s data center business.

Excluding this one-time gain, normalized net income would have been P10 billion, or down by 11 percent compared to the previous year.

Darwin G. Amojelar

Aboitiz studying 150-MW

Cebu coal plant expansion

ABOITIZ Power Corp. is studying a 150-megawatt expansion of Therma Visayas Inc.’s 350-MW Toledo circulating fluidized bed coal plant in Cebu.

Aboitiz Power president and chief executive Emmanuel Rubio said the proposed expansion is excluded from the coal ban imposed by the Department of Energy as it has an existing environmental compliance certificate.

Rubio said they were weighing their options whether to pursue the coal plant or put up a 150MW liquefied natural gas plant in Cebu as they would have different costs and financing options.

“Cebu needs capacity. On a day-to-day basis, a number of diesel plants are still running in Cebu. So that means that baseload capacity is short,” Rubio said.

“We’re looking at a baseload of 150 MW to add to our current 300 MW in TVI. We’re looking at LNG at 150 MW, looking at what’s going to cost, and what if we actually expand TVI with another unit of coal? And compare the cost,” Rubio said. Alena Mae S. Flores

Retailers told to prepare on migrating to 2D scan

RETAILERS should prepare for the migration to the 2D scanning format as the global retailing industry is poised to integrate the QR code system into the retail point of sales system by 2025, a top executive said over the weekend.

Philippine Retail Association president Roberto Claudio said the government was giving retailers enough time to prepare and jump into the new system by 2027, two years after the rest of the world adopted the 2D scanning system.

“It will be difficult for small retailers to migrate to the QR reader format that’s why the government is giving us until 2027 to upgrade our machines and systems. The adoption of the QR format is a good thing even for consumers.

Consumers can now appreciate what they are buying,” he said. Othel V. Campos might also support macroeconomic stability and domestic balance. It said the national saving rate had not normalized to pre-pandemic levels, while investment continued to be robust.

“This imbalance may then require a tight monetary stance to help rein in demand, incentivize saving and bring the domestic economy back to balance,” it said.

“Despite the challenges in growth, we continue to expect the BSP to maintain the policy rate at 6.25 percent and only cut rates after the Fed cuts its own,” HSBC said. It said since its baseline view is for the Fed to cut interest rate in the second quarter of 2024, “we expect