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SUNDAY, JULY 2, 2017 Adelle Chua, Editor
Opinion
Joyce Pangco Pañares, Issue Editor
mst.daydesk@gmail.com
A PLANET IS FOUND
EDITORIAL
By Stephen L. Carter JUST in time for summer movie season comes news that something huge is lurking out there at the edge of the solar system. It’s really big. It’s never before been detected. It’s warping gravity fields. No, it’s not the latest Michael Bay disaster-fest or the mothership from “Independence Day.” It’s not the hypothesized Planet 9 that everyone was talking about a little over a year ago. Probably it’s another planet. Or maybe that mothership. Back in 2016, the internet was all atwitter with the news that astronomers believed they had located another planet at the edge of the solar system. Planet 9, as they called it, was discovered through a study of disturbances in the orbits of Sedna and other less-than-planet-size objects out there in the vicinity of Pluto (which was a planet when most of us were kids and now isn’t). This area is known as the Kuiper Belt. Astronomers, who don’t like to waste mental energy deciding what to call things they study, have a name for objects in the Kuiper Belt: Kuiper Belt Objects. It is through modeling the movement of these KBOs (see what I mean?) that the search for Planet 9 has proceeded. Nobody has seen Planet 9 yet, even with the most powerful telescopes, although with the help of millions of citizen astronomers, researchers have narrowed the field of possible suspects. Anyway, it turns out that Planet 9 is not the only massive object out there warping the orbits of the KBOs. According to soon-to-be-published research by Kat Volk and Renu Malhotra of the University of Arizona, there’s another one. It’s called ... well, it doesn’t have a name yet, but we can make a good guess. Malhotra has such a nice way with an explanation that she could play the scientist in the movie version: Imagine you have lots and lots of fast-spinning tops, and you give each one a slight nudge. ... If you then take a snapshot of them, you will find that their spin axes will be at different orientations, but on average, they will be pointing to the local gravitational field of Earth. She continues: We expect each of the KBOs’ orbital tilt angle to be at a different orientation, but on average, they will be pointing perpendicular to the plane determined by the sun and the big planets. Only the angles are wrong. They’re warped in a slightly different direction, as they would be if the gravity of another planet were affecting them. But Planet 9, wherever it is, would be too far away to have the effects they have found. So there is almost certainly another mass out there. (The researchers estimate only a 1 percent to 2 percent possibility that the measurements represent a statistical fluke.) You don’t have to be a science nerd to be fascinated. You can be a gardenvariety sci-fi fan. Or you could just happen to like disaster movies. The researchers tell us that these unseen planets are rogues. At some point they wandered into the solar system, and were captured by the gravity of Sol, our puny little sun. Now they’re stuck in orbit, messing with our calculations. Maybe. But maybe not. Let’s sit back and don our 3-D glasses and grab a handful of popcorn (or perhaps don our foil hats) as we take a moment to consider a more sobering possibility. Here’s the thing to remember about rogue planets: They’re not just wanderers; they can be destroyers, too. Simulations tell us that some 60 percent of rogue planets that enter the solar system would bounce out again. But in 10 percent of cases, the rogue will take another planet along as it departs. Just like that, Neptune is gone. Or Mars. Or, you know, us. Tell me that’s not a weapon of interstellar war. (Okay, fine, the capture of another planet would take hundreds of centuries. So it’s a weapon of war for a very patient species. Or one that perceives time differently. But how do we know it’s not already happening? Anyway, never mess with the narrative!) Turn to B2
MESSENGERS
O
NE of the more unfortunate things that stood out during the first year of the Duterte administration was the series of blunders committed by its communications team.
This is the group that is supposed to make the President’s message clearer and more palatable to the people. But no—it only succeeded in confounding a presidential image that is already difficult to begin with. The pressures, we imagine, are immense. Imagine having to speak for a president whose colorful language matches no other, and whose speech is winding and emphatic more than it is sober and organized. The communication team itself gauged that just two of every five statements Mr. Duterte makes must be true—all the others are hyperbole. They also told the public to apply creative imagination in determining what the President really means. Hardly encouraging, and even more hardly productive given all the things that need our direct attention.
And now this communications team counts, as one of its high officials, a social media “influencer” with millions of followers who claims her job is to fight fake news. Unfortunately, “fake news” is as yet loosely defined. And her boss, instead of telling her it is unacceptable for their office to spread inaccurate information or yield to symbolism, just came up with the brilliant idea of hiring editors to manage her personal blog. This same communications team also supervises a news agency that has passed off a false story, and a misleading picture, as part of the news. Finally, it has elevated text messaging as an acceptable form of official communication, as what happened when an employee of the government television network learned about her dismissal through SMS, curiously punctuated with a “God bless.” God bless this nation, indeed, if we have to endure five more years with communicators who bungle the job and do the opposite of what they were hired to do.
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MUSINGS ON SKETCHBOOKS
POP GOES THE WORLD JENNY ORTUOSTE I’VE written before about the importance of keeping a sketchbook, and why everyone ought to have one. If they’re not into drawing, they should at least
seriously consider taking it up. We usually associate sketchbooks with artists and art students, something they need to keep for school or for their work. It would be helpful to the person who is neither a student nor professional artist to think of sketchbooks as a visual diary, a document or record executed in pictures.
We might think it is easier to start a journal with words, and for many that is often a New Year’s resolution. We start out grandly with paragraphs on facts and thoughts and feelings, but that later that peters out into a terse declaration of events: “Department meeting 9 a.m. Birthday lunch with family.” and so on,
until, gradually, it is abandoned. But think of how valuable those brief jottings could be to future you or your loved ones, if only for nostalgic reasons. Sometimes the value is in the activity recorded; a note about a visit to the doctor might be a piece of information that sets your medical record right.
It is boring to keep a diary, some say. That’s because the written word is not in everyone’s comfort zone. But for a great many, before writing comes drawing. As children, we drew in kindergarten. The motions made with crayons and chalk help develop motors skills. It is in Turn to B2
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SUNDAY, JULY 2, 2017 mst.daydesk@gmail.com
A PLANET...
LISTENING TO THE RUMBLINGS OF THE UNIVERSE
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And there’s something else for the scifi paranoiac to chew on along with the popcorn. The sequence. In early 2016, astronomers find a disturbance in the Kuiper Belt Objects and think “planet.” Fine, natural phenomenon. Then this year, they find another disturbance and think “another planet.”Fine, natural phenomenon. Then how is it that we never noticed before? Maybe the disturbances are ... recent. So if by chance we’re soon told of a third disturbance, then by the James Bond theory of conspiracy, it’s enemy action. Cue heavy overdone music. Cue our most powerful weapons having no effect. Cue a broken family trying to reunite. Cue Roland Emmerich. I mean, somebody’s got to make this movie, right? I’ll be there on opening day. Bloomberg
MUSINGS...
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elementary and high school that the passion for drawing surfaces; some draw anime characters and superheroes, and thereby hone their techniques. Others drop visual art in favor of other pursuits more to their inclinations. The challenge is in taking it up again as adults. The popularity of sketching has exploded in recent years, aided by social media. Platforms such as Instagram have made it easy for artists all over the world to share their work, and thus provide instruction and inspiration for others. Good quality materials—paints, colored pencils, markers, drawing pencils, pens of varying nib sizes, sketchbooks—are now more readily available than before. The chain bookstore of our youth used to carry only Guitar, Prang, and other student-grade watercolors. Now there are many different brands on the market. Savvy and passionate entrepreneurs are also importing materials from overseas. With the availability as well of raw materials that can be purchased online, some artists are now creating their own handmade watercolors from dry pigments and gum arabic. One artist— Kat Gosengfiao (IG: @pinta.ph) has gone a step further and is creating paints from Philippine rocks, soils, and charcoal. Her Bataan Brown, Sta. Rosa Ochre, Abra Red, and Uling colors are rich and earthy, perfect for illustrating a local landscape. Haven’t drawn since childhood? Start your journey by keeping a visual diary, also known as a sketchbook journal. This format combines text with sketches. You needn’t have a sketchbook and paints; you can draw in your existing planner or even in a simple composition notebook with a ballpoint pen or a pencil. For technical guidance, buy books, get coaching from someone you know, take a class, or scour that greatest of information resources, the internet. Now, what to draw? Anything you see. Waiting for your flight at the airport? Draw the passengers and porters, the luggage, the planes, anything that catches your eye. At home? Set yourself a challenge to draw what is in front of you right this moment. There are always subjects for drawing. What you need to do is translate what you see into marks on paper, marks that convey your impression, your idea. Drawing forces you to take deeper notice of things. Months or years later you will flip through your sketchbook and remember those objects and moments with great clarity. In learning or relearning how to draw and paint, you master a skill and tap into your inner creativity and artistry. It gives you something worthwhile to do during idle moments. And because it is soothing, it can also be a form of psychological therapy. Don’t let yourself be paralyzed by selfdoubt—“I’m not good enough.” Your drawing doesn’t have to be perfect— nothing is. It only has to be yours. And practice will make you better. I promise. Dr. Ortuoste is a California-based writer. Follow her on Facebook: Jenny Ortuoste, Twitter: @jennyortuoste, Instagram: @jensdecember, @artuoste
By Megan McArdle
By Pecier Decierdo AFTER centuries of looking at the universe, we are finally listening to its rumblings. Sound does not travel in outer space. It needs molecules and atoms to move around, and outer space does not have a lot of that stuff. In fact, outer space has so little of that stuff it is very nearly empty. We call it the vacuum of space. But space, at least in Einstein’s view of it, seems to be a “thing.” That is, space is not just this passive background where things happen. Rather, space is a dynamic thing. It can expand, stretch, get compressed, and twist. It can even ripple. And it is these ripples in the very fabric of space and time that we have now been “listening” to. We call the ripples in space and time gravitational waves. Our newfound ability to detect gravitational waves can transformed space from this void of incomparable silence to an arena violent explosions. We’ve been seeing those explosions for centuries now. That’s because humans have been peering into the depths for as long as there were humans. But the depths peered back at us in silence. That’s because light is an electromagnetic wave whereas sound is a mechanical wave. What that means is that sound needs stuff, such as air, to move around. When someone talks to you, that person is making ripples in the air around her vocal cords. As ripples tend to do, the sound waves that person is making radiates out of her and finally reaches your ears, makes your eardrums vibrate, and gets sent to the brain as
electrical signals. Light, as I have written in last week’s column, is a ripple in the electric and magnetic field, which is why it’s called an electromagnetic wave. The electric and magnetic field are force fields—they’re not stuff. That is, they are not made of matter. They can exist in a vacuum. They’re everywhere. That’s why light can travel through outer space. The light of distant stars can travel for unimaginable distances before they reach us hear on Earth to be collected by our eyes (although more often than not they just fall off blind matter). In some nights, you can look up in the direction of the constellation Andromeda and look at light from the Andromeda Galaxy. That light, which flies at the speed of more than 1 billion kilometers per hour, took more than 2.5 million years to reach us. In our curiosity, we wanted to know more. We wanted to see more. So we invented telescopes augment our eyes. Now we can see farther. Today, our most powerful telescopes allow us to see as far as the metaphorical eye could see—into the very beginning of time. Or at least as close to the beginning as light would allow us. After all, when the universe was young it was not transparent. When we peer into the depths of space and time we hit a wall beyond which any kind of eye, even ones that can see in the microwave, cannot see through. But like actual walls here on Earth, we can “listen” through that wall. Gravitational waves pass through that wall easy. If we could hear those sounds that pass through that wall, we could listen to the very birth cries of the universe.
We are not there yet. We have only begun “listening” to the universe. We started less than a couple of years ago, when the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) detected space-time ripples for the first time. Ever since then, we’ve “heard” three rumblings from deep in space, all coming from pairs of black holes spiraling into each other, violently shaking the fabric of space and time as they perform their gravitational synchronized ballet. Many times the mass of the Sun, these black holes have enough mass to cause some spacetime noise that we can pick up with LIGO, which serves as our hearing aid. But we want to hear more of the universe. That’s why we’re building better hearing aids. The next one, the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), will be so big it has to be in space. It will be composed of several spacecraft moving in precise formation. Their precise formation is what will allow us to detect the very slight changes in space-time, thereby allowing us to listen to the rest of the universe. In the meantime, we also want to be better at using the hearing aid we have. Scientists at LIGO are expecting to detect more gravitational waves from different sources soon. Right now, much of the cacophony of the cosmos is falling on deaf matter. Soon we won’t be deaf matter. Soon, we will begin to hear the sounds of space in all their glorious violence. Pecier Decierdo is resident physicist and astronomer of The Mind Museum.
MERKEL’S GAY-MARRIAGE PIVOT MAKES HER HARDER TO BEAT By Leonid Bershidsky A CONTENTIOUS issue that wasn’t part of the German election campaign has now taken center stage: gay marriage. Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose Christian Democratic Union party has always opposed it on religious grounds, has acted deftly to defuse the crisis. At the risk of angering some of her conservative voter base, she’s letting same-sex marriage get through parliament as soon as this week. The CDU enjoys a big poll lead over all other parties. Given a booming economy and a widespread perception that Merkel has successfully managed the refugee crisis, few lines of attack are available to her rivals. As large pride parades rolled through German cities in late June, they pounced. All three potential members of the CDU’s ruling coalition after the September election—the Greens, the pro-business Free Democrats and the Social Democrats (SPD)— have announced that they wouldn’t rule with Merkel’s party unless it agreed to allow “marriage for all,” as the policy is known in Germany. Gay couples have gained the right to marry in 11 European Union countries; two more countries, Estonia and Malta, recognize the unions if they are sealed elsewhere. Germany, however,
is among the 10 EU nations that only recognize “partnerships” between people of the same sex. The legal consequences of a “life partnership” are almost the same as for marriage, but not quite: For example, a samesex couple is not allowed to adopt children; there are also dozens of less significant differences. Polls have long shown that an overwhelming majority of Germans support full equality. But CDU politicians have still hesitated. As recently as 2012, with polls already in favor of gay marriage, Merkel wasn’t even in favor of giving same-sex partnerships the same tax status as married couples, because the German constitution—while not directly defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman, as in seven East European EU members—links the notion of marriage and family. But in 2017, as soon as rivals found a promising campaign topic, Merkel deftly wrong-footed them. She carefully discussed the matter with Horst Seehofer, the conservative leader of the Christian Social Union, the CDU’s Bavarian sister party, which has to win elections in a predominantly Catholic part of the country. Then she talked it over with a close circle of party colleagues. Finally, she went public with a measured response to the other parties’ demands. At an event organized by the women’s magazine
Brigitte on Monday night, she recalled meeting a lesbian couple in her constituency that was taking good care of eight foster children. She said she realized she could no longer argue against gay marriage on the grounds of children’s health and well-being. But she avoided directly endorsing “marriage for all,” saying it was a personal matter, a matter of conscience. This cautious formula was fine with Seehofer, and it allowed Merkel to declare that CDU legislators were free to vote their conscience on the subject. Resistance continues, with Guenter Krings, a senior CDU member, arguing that a constitutional amendment would be necessary to change the definition of marriage and that the life partnership status did not discriminate against gay couples. But in practical terms, Merkel’s refusal to enforce party discipline means that the marriage equality bill, promptly put on the parliament’s agenda for Friday by leftist parties, will likely pass. Merkel has spent most of the campaign playing to her conservative base, trying to keep it from defecting to the populist Alternative for Germany party. Unlike in the runup to the previous election, she has brought the national flag into the campaign and stressed patriotism as a key value. She’s also toughened her
stance on immigration and backed a ban on Muslim full-face covering for women. The tactics have worked, depressing AfD performance in the polls. But at heart, Merkel is more of a progressive than a compassionate conservative. At key moments, she has made decisions her base has never fully accepted, vowing to phase out nuclear energy, ending conscription and letting in more than a million refugees. On the gay marriage issue, she has clearly made up her mind, too, skillfully picking a moment for the controversial move when it could be dressed up in the robes of political expediency. As he criticized Merkel during a recent party event, Martin Schulz, the SPD candidate for the chancellorship, called the CDU “a party devoid of content.” He was wrong: The CDU’s conservative, Christian, mildly nationalistic credentials are real. Merkel, however, has played a somewhat subversive role in her 17 years of party leadership. A proven winner, she has subtly persuaded the conservative membership to come along on major issues with the privileges of government as a carrot. This will be her lasting legacy, and if the Friday vote goes as expected, the recognition of gay marriage in Germany will be part of it: The opposition parties’ role will soon be forgotten. Bloomberg
THE PARABLE OF THE PURPLE RASPBERRY PIE
I DON’T like to brag, but I haven’t had a slice of purple raspberry pie today. Normally, this is not a brag, but a tragic summation of life’s bittersweet realities. On the one hand, this past week the universe provided us with purple raspberries, which, when baked between two pastry crusts, become the most perfect foodstuff known to man. Firmer and less sweet than the red raspberry, less aggressively tangy than its cousins in the blackberry family, it has a subtle perfection that no other berry pie can match. I cannot claim to know much about heaven, but I can be sure of one thing: if there is such a place, purple raspberry pie will be on the menu every day. On the other hand, while the universe has provided, it has not provided adequately. The purple raspberry is unsuited to commercial cultivation, because it is not a good traveler.
You eat purple raspberries close to where they are grown, or you do not eat them at all. Thus, this sublime creation is available only a few weeks out of the year, and only if you—lucky creature!—happen to know someone with a purple raspberry bush. I was lucky enough to know such a person in my childhood: My grandfather, who having spent the first half of his life fighting his way off of the dirt farm on which he was raised, decided at the age of 50 to go into gardening on an Olympic scale. In July every year, my family drove to upstate New York to visit my grandparents, and we picked fruit, and preserved it, and had purple raspberry pie every night. To this fact, I attribute my basically sunny disposition. But herein lies the tragedy: Having known purple raspberries, I knew what I lost when I could no longer have them. My grandfather’s garden is no longer, and I live in Washington
DC, even farther from upstate New York than the city where I grew up. I haven’t had purple raspberry pie in close on a decade, and yet it remains, most decidedly, my favorite food in the world. So when I discovered two pints of purple raspberries at our local farmer’s market on Sunday—well, I believe I mentioned heaven? Yes, I see I did. There we are. Heaven. My mother made them into a pie yesterday, and I ate a big slice, and then I ate a little slice, and then someone—I am naming no names—may have licked the plate to ensure that none of our precious purple raspberries were wasted on the dishwasher. My mother earned a shining place of honor in the annals of motherhood by leaving the rest of the pie with me. Which I have saved for after dinner like a sensible adult, and not devoured in its entirety, even though it is haunting me, calling to me from the kitchen. Yet already I am contemplating its
end. There are three quarters of a pie left, which can, at most, be stretched for six more days. After that … perhaps there will be more purple raspberries at the farmer’s market this weekend. But even so, that will last just a few short weeks, and who knows if they will have them next year? But then, perhaps this is part of what makes purple raspberry pie such sweet perfection. When I moved to Washington from New York City, I missed a lot of foods—bagels, pizza, decent Chinese food. I yearned for those things, too. On any jaunt to New York, I gorged myself on them even when I wasn’t particularly hungry, because who knew when I’d be able to get them again? Over the years, the local market started to supply those favorites; we got a credible New York-style pizza place, Washington’s first acceptable bagels, and better Szechuan food than I’d been able to enjoy back home. Now
that I can enjoy all those things at will, procuring them no longer seems so urgent; I can let months pass between visits to one of these eateries, and when I do visit, I eat reasonable amounts. Social science research tells us that much of the pleasure in a vacation isn’t in the going but in the anticipation. And isn’t something similar true of food? Hunger may be the best sauce, but it is closely followed by specialness—hence the mania for the elusive cronut, the rare spirit, the hardto-get reservation for which you pore over the menu for a month before you actually sit down and take fork in hand. I think I want purple raspberries to be available everywhere and all the time. But on further reflection, if they were, maybe those everyday pies wouldn’t be quite as tasty as the almost-never ones. On even further reflection, however: Universe? If you’re listening, I’m willing to take that chance. Bloomberg
World REVELRY AT RECAPTURED MOSQUE CUT SHORT MOSUL, Iraq—Iraqi soldiers snapped victorious “selfies” and posed with a captured Islamic State group flag at the Mosul mosque where jihadist chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi once spoke. “Where is Baghdadi?” they say, taunting the absent jihadist leader at the site of his triumphal 2014 appearance, the only time he is known to have appeared in public as the head of IS’s now-crumbling cross-border “caliphate.” They hold the jihadists’ flag upsidedown because “this is the flag of the defeated” IS, and declare that the special forces will remain—a play on one of the group’s slogans. The euphoria, however, is short-lived, with incoming fire putting an end to the celebrations. There is a burst from a Kalashnikov assault rifle, followed by a shot from a sniper that strikes the entrance of the mosque, then another shot, and another burst. The members of Iraq’s elite CounterTerrorism Service (CTS) return to the safety of their armored vehicles and soon leave the area, where one of their own was killed and three more wounded by an IS sniper the evening before. After seizing Mosul in June 2014, a black-robed Baghdadi appeared at Friday prayers at the Grand Mosque of alNuri and called on Muslims to obey him, making the site a potent symbol of the jihadists’ rule. AFP
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CHINA’S XI DRAWS ‘RED LINE’ IN HK
H
ONG KONG—China’s President Xi Jinping said Saturday Hong Kong was freer than ever before but laid down an uncrossable “red line” for any challenge to Beijing’s authority as the city marked 20 years since it was handed back by Britain. Xi spoke in a televised address after swearing in new Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam as pro and antiBeijing protesters clashed close to the ceremony. Lam was selected by a pro-China committee, as were her predecessors, and is already being cast by critics as a China stooge in a city where many are angry at Beijing’s tightening grip on the freedoms of its nearly eight million people. A huge security operation shut down large parts of Hong Kong for
Xi’s three-day visit, reflecting Beijing’s concern that there should be no embarrassment ahead of a key Communist Party congress later this year, which is expected to cement his position as the most powerful Chinese leader in a generation. The trip was his first since becoming president in 2013 and comes three years after mass pro-democracy rallies crippled parts of the city for months. Xi said Saturday that any threat to China’s sovereignty and security or to the power of the central gov-
ernment “crosses the red line and is absolutely impermissible”. He also warned against anyone endangering Hong Kong’s constitution or using the city “to carry out infiltration and sabotage activities against the mainland.” The message comes as young activists have emerged calling for self-determination or even full independence for Hong Kong, which has infuriated Beijing. Xi insisted that Hong Kong had “more extensive democratic rights and freedoms than at any other time in its history” and pledged to uphold its semi-autonomous status. But Beijing’s foreign ministry declared Friday that the document signed by Britain and China which initiated the handover “is no longer relevant.”. The Sino-British Joint Declaration gave Hong Kong rights unseen on the mainland through a “one coun-
try, two systems” agreement, lasting 50 years. There are growing fears that freedoms guaranteed by the handover deal are now under threat, with Chinese authorities accused of abductions and interfering in a range of areas, from politics to media and education. Xi cautioned that political conflict would “severely hinder” Hong Kong’s economic and social development and called upon Hong Kong to enhance education to promote China’s culture and history. A proposal to include patriotic education in Hong Kong schools met with huge protests in 2012 and has since been shelved. Pro-China protesters targeted a small peaceful march by activists in memory of the victims of Beijing’s 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown Saturday morning as officials gathered for the swearing in. AFP
DEATH TOLL IN OIL TANKER FIRE RISES TO 190 ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—The death toll from an oil tanker explosion in central Pakistan has risen to 190, hospital and government officials said Friday as 16 more people succumbed to their injuries. The tanker overturned early Sunday on a main highway from Karachi to Lahore while carrying some 40,000 liters of fuel. It exploded minutes later as crowds from a nearby village gathered to scavenge for fuel, despite warnings by the driver as well as motorway police to stay away. “The death toll from the tanker fire incident is now 190 after expiry of more injured people,” Tahira Parveen, medical superintendent of Bahawalpur Victoria hospital, told AFP. A senior local administration official confirmed the toll. Motorway police spokesman Imran Shah has said that a government inquiry into the incident had found at least five police officials guilty of hiding information. AFP
NIGERIA MENINGITIS OUTBREAK ENDS AT 1,166 DEATHS ABUJA, Nigeria—Nigeria’s health minister has declared that the outbreak of meningitis in the country is over, but only after it killed 1,166 people, most of them children. “We have formally declared the meningitis outbreak over,” Isaac Adewole told reporters in the capital of Abuja on Wednesday. Earlier in the week the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control said that emergency operations responding to the epidemic had been wound down following a decline in new cases. “A total of 14,518 suspected cases of meningitis were reported from 25 states, with 1,166 deaths,” said the centre in a statement. Vaccination campaigns were carried out in Zamfara, Sokoto, Yobe and Katsina states, the worst affected by the outbreak. A new strain of meningitis C was first reported in Zamfara last November and spread to 22 other states in northern Nigeria. Meningitis is caused by different types of bacteria, six of which can cause epidemics. It is transmitted between people through coughs and sneezes, close contact and cramped living conditions. The illness causes acute inflammation of the outer layers of the brain and spinal cord, with the most common symptoms being fever, headache and neck stiffness. AFP
LEADER TO LEADER. China’s President Xi Jinping (right) meets with Hong Kong’s new Chief Executive Carrie Lam (left) in Hong Kong on Saturday. AFP
CHINA CENSORS ‘ABNORMAL’ ONLINE VIDEOS
BEER WEATHER. A man holds a can of beer as he walks in the rain in Tokyo on Saturday. The Japanese capital goes to the polls on July 2 in a local election that could have national consequences as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s popularity slumps. AFP
BEIJING—China issued new regulations on Friday around online video content, directing streaming platforms to eliminate a range of programs in yet another tightening of controls on the Chinese Internet. Among the films, dramas and cartoons targeted by the China Netcasting Services Assocation’s (CNSA) rules are those “demonstrating ‘abnormal’ sexual relations or acts, such as... homosexuality.” Online video platforms must hire at least three “professional censors” to watch every program from beginning to end and remove those that do not adhere to “correct political and aesthetic standards,” the regulations said. Providers are called upon to produce programs that “center on the people and promote socialist values and Chinese culture.” The new rules come just one week after China ordered a halt to video streaming on three major websites. According to China’s media oversight body, the platforms – including the massively popular Sina Weibo microblogging platform, iFeng. com and ACFUN – did not possess the permits required for providing their audio-visual streams. Authorities were directed to shut down offending audio-visual
services “so as to create a cleaner cyberspace,” China’s State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television said in a statement last Thursday. Earlier this month, authorities also closed dozens of celebrity gossip blogs which were described as “catering to the public’s vulgar taste.” Freedom House, a US-based nonprofit that advocates human rights and democracy, deemed China the world’s “worst abuser of internet freedom” in 2016, pointing to the steady diminishment of online freedom of expression under President Xi Jinping’s “information security” policies. The country’s heavy web censorship—which blocks sites such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter—is notoriously known as the “Great Firewall.” The regulations introduced Friday order the cutting or removal of videos that “damage national image, derogate revolutionary leaders, propagate military conquests of ancient emperors or spread religious extremism.” Violent and pornographic content, as well as those depicting extramarital affairs, prostitution, drug addiction or superstitious behavior such as “conjuring spirits,” are also banned. AFP
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SUNDAY, JULY 2, 2017 Cesar Barrioquinto, Editor / Jimbo Gulle, Issue Editor
World
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GUNMAN KILLS DOC, THEN SHOOTS SELF IN NY HOSPITAL
FOR HERR KOHL. The German flag flies at half-mast at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, eastern France, on Saturday before a ceremony in tribute to former German chancellor Helmut Kohl. Kohl, who oversaw German reunification and was a driving force in Europe’s integration, died on June 16 at age of 87. AFP
GERMANY JOINS EURO GAY MARRIAGE TREND
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ARIS, France—Germany legalized gay marriage on Friday, which now is authorized in about 20 nations around the world, the majority of which are in Europe.
In April 2001 the Netherlands became the first country in the world to allow gay and lesbian couples to marry in a civil ceremony. Twelve European countries followed: Belgium, Britain (except Northern Ireland), Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Norway, Portugal, Spain and Sweden. In Germany, the upper house had already approved the bill, and the measure is now expected to enter into force before the end of the year. Some European countries only
allow same-sex couples to enter into civil partnerships, including Austria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Malta and Switzerland. In October 2014, Estonia became the first former Soviet republic to authorize this type of civil union. Many eastern European countries – including Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia – deny homosexuals the right to marry or enter into unions. In December 2015, Slovenians voted in a referendum against ef-
forts by their national parliament to legalize gay marriage. About 15 western European countries allow same-sex couples to adopt children, whether within marriage or civil partnerships. They include Belgium, Britain, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Spain, and Sweden. Other countries, including Finland, Germany and Slovenia, let gay people adopt the children of their partners. Canada led the way in North America, authorizing same-sex marriage and adoptions in June 2005. In the United States, a Supreme Court decision in June 2015 legalized gay marriage nationwide. Mexico’s federal capital led the way in Latin America, authorizing civil unions in 2007 and full marriages in 2009.
Same-sex marriages are also legal in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Uruguay. Chile’s civil union law recognizes same-sex couples, and Costa Rica allows them to share health and pension benefits. On the African continent, where around 30 countries ban homosexuality, only in South Africa can gays legally marry and adopt children. In the Middle East, Israel leads in terms of respect for homosexual rights, recognizing gay marriages performed elsewhere even though such marriages are not performed in Israel itself. Gay couples can jointly adopt children. In the Asia-Pacific region, the only country that allows gays to marry is New Zealand, which passed a law in April 2013. AFP
TRUMP: ‘PATIENCE IS OVER’ WITH NORTH KOREA WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump declared that the United States had run out of patience with North Korea over its nuclear drive Friday as he welcomed South Korea’s new leader Moon Jae-In to talks at the White House. While Moon has been arguing for greater engagement with Pyongyang as the best way to put the brakes on its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, Trump made clear that he was in no mood to pursue diplomacy with a regime he accused of having no respect for human life. And while Moon announced that Trump had accepted an offer to visit Seoul later this year, the leaders failed to map out any kind of joint strategy on how best to deal with the threat posed by the North Korean leadership. “Together, we are facing the threat of the reckless and brutal regime in North Korea. The nuclear and ballistic missile programs of that regime require a determined response,” said Trump. “The North Korean dictatorship has no regard for the safety and security of its people, for its neighbors and has no respect for human life.” The Trump administration has been growing increasingly exasperated with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un’s re-
gime which has staged a barrage of missile tests in recent months. There was also deep anger in the United States after Otto Warmbier, an American student who was detained in North Korea on a tourist trip around 18 months ago, was returned home in a coma earlier this month. He died several days later. Trump had been pinning his hopes on China – North Korea’s main diplomatic ally – to bring pressure to bear on Pyongyang but declared last week that their efforts had failed. “The era of strategic patience with the North Korean regime has failed, many years it has failed. Frankly, that patience is over,” Trump said at a press briefing in the Rose Garden. And while he avoided criticizing his guest’s approach, Trump made clear he was in no mood to enter dialogue with North Korea but rather saw sanctions as the best way to proceed. “The United States calls on other regional powers and all responsible nations to join us in implementing sanctions and demanding that the North Korean regime choose a better path and do it quickly and a different future for its long suffering people,” he said. AFP
NEW YORK—A man opened fire in a busy New York hospital on Friday afternoon, killing a female doctor and wounding six other people before turning his weapon on himself, according to officials. The shooter was himself a doctor and former employee of the hospital, according to Mayor Bill de Blasio and police chief James O’Neill, who ruled out a connection to terrorism. He entered the building in a white coat with an automatic weapon concealed under his shirt, officials said. The incident occurred at the 1000-bed Bronx-Lebanon hospital just before 3 pm (1900 GMT) as many patients were receiving consultations. Police quickly cordoned off the area and encircled the hospital, placing officers on rooftops as they conducted a floor-byfloor search for the assailant. The shooter, whose identity has not been officially disclosed, was eventually found dead in a pool of blood on the 17th floor of the building after apparently killing himself, according to O’Neill. AFP
UN OKAYS $600M BUDGET CUT TO PEACEKEEPING NEW YORK—The United Nations on Friday approved a nearly $600 million cut to its peacekeeping budget following pressure from the United States to reduce funding to the world body. The General Assembly approved by consensus the annual budget expected to total $7.3 billion, down from the current $7.87 billion spent on peace missions worldwide. UN member-states agreed to $6.8 billion to finance 14 missions, but an additional $500 million earmarked for peacekeeping in Haiti and in Sudan’s Darfur region will get final approval in December. The United States, the biggest financial contributor to peacekeeping, had sought a nearly $1 billion cut to the bill and the European Union had also pushed for savings to bring costs down to $7.3 billion. The budget, however, fell short of what UN SecretaryGeneral Antonio Guterres had sought from member-states. UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the financing is “meaningfully smaller than what we had last year” but that the world body will “make every effort to ensure that the mandates are implemented.” AFP
US RETURNS LOOTED ROYAL SEALS TO SOUTH KOREA
PERFORMER. Singer-songwriter John Legend performs onstage at the 2017 Essence Festival at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome on Friday in New Orleans, Louisiana. AFP
SEOUL—South Korean President Moon Jae-In is returning from an official visit to Washington with two ancient royal seals looted during the Korean War, reports said Saturday. The repatriation of the Chosun dynasty antiques, dating from the 16th and 17th centuries, comes after years of campaigning by the South Korean government, which said they were stolen during the turbulent 1950-53 war. Moon received the seals during a ceremony in Washington during a visit to the US Friday and was due to arrive in South Korea with them on Sunday, Yonhap news agency said. The Chosun dynasty, who cultivated a ruling philosophy drawn from Confucianism, governed from 1392 to 1910, when Japan colonized the country. One of the seals was made in 1547 to honor Queen Munjeong (1501-1565), the third wife of Chosun Dynasty’s 11th king, Jungjong. AFP