Canadian shoots dead 2 people in Philippine court before being killed by officers

By The Associated Press - Tuesday, January 22, 2013 at 5:07 AM - 0 Comments

MANILA, Philippines – A Canadian man facing charges of illegal possession of firearms opened fire in a Philippine courtroom Tuesday, killing two people and wounding a prosecutor before police fatally shot him, officials said.

The suspect, John H. Pope, appeared in court in central Cebu city, where he resided, to face the charges when he pulled out a gun and shot a lawyer and a physician who filed a case against him, police said. He then fired at a prosecutor in the hallway of the building before responding police fatally wounded him, said Cebu police chief Mariano Natuel.

Regional police director Marcelo Garbo said Pope ignored orders to surrender and tried to fire at police.

Police said they were investigating Pope’s background.

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A global tour of carbon pricing

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, November 6, 2012 at 1:24 PM - 0 Comments

As noted yesterday, Stephen Harper is presently in India, a country that has a carbon tax. After India, he will visit the Philippines, where pig farmers are currently selling carbon credits.

In June, Mr. Harper visit France, which previously abandoned plans for a carbon tax, but is part of the European Union’s emissions trading system.

In March, Mr. Harper visited Thailand, South Korea and Japan. Thailand is reportedly moving towards a cap-and-trade system. Japan has now introduced a carbon tax, while Tokyo has had a cap-and-trade system for the past year. South Korea passed cap-and-trade legislation in May.

In February, Mr. Harper visited China, which is now experimenting with a carbon market.

In January, Mr. Harper delivered a speech in Switzerland, which has both a carbon tax and a trading system.

(In September, Mr. Harper visited Russia, which is maybe (?) thinking about cap-and-trade.)

Do doctor bonuses actually improve health care?

By Julia Belluz - Thursday, April 5, 2012 at 1:18 PM - 0 Comments

Erik K Veland/Flickr

You get what you pay for, right? It’s taken for granted that this holds true when it comes to using financial incentives to improve the quality of physician care. For example, if a GP gets a smoker to quit or a doctor at the hospital treats a heart-attack patient with the best medicine, they’ll be paid extra.

Intuitively, this makes sense: rewarding physicians for providing better care should, theoretically, boost quality and lead to improved health outcomes. That may be why “pay-for-performance” schemes have been touted by policymakers around the world. The Affordable Care Act in the U.S. advocates the use of pay-for-performance programs at hospitals. Britain and Australia have already ushered in these compensation models at the primary-care level. And here in Canada, health-care observers have long argued that rewarding and incenting quality among doctors is the way forward.

But what about the evidence?

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Invasion of the Filipino robots

By Tom Henheffer - Thursday, January 27, 2011 at 11:00 AM - 0 Comments

Korea has a shortage of affordable English teachers, but the Philippines have plenty, so the South Korean government instituted a $1.3-million pilot program to bring instructors to the classroom through robotic avatars called Engkeys (a portmanteau of English and jockey). The robots, at just over three feet tall, are being used in 29 classrooms across the southeastern city of Daegu. They’re preprogrammed to dance and play games, and are remotely controlled by the Philippines-based teachers. “The kids seemed to love it,” Kim Mi-Young, an official at Daegu’s city education office, told news agency AFP. The robots also feature a flip-up LED screen that bears the image of a Caucasian woman that, through motion-detection technology, mimics the facial expressions of instructors a country away. The government is still planning to send a $9,000 Engkey to every one of the country’s kindergartens over the next two years.

Don't mess with the anthem

By Claire Ward - Thursday, October 21, 2010 at 4:40 PM - 0 Comments

Getty Images

Charice Pempengco, the 18-year-old Filipina starlet who recently landed a role on Glee with her powerful singing voice, could soon be violating her home country’s laws if she’s not careful. The Philippine Congress voted unanimously last week in favour of a bill proposing a $2,000 fine or jail time for the improper singing of the national anthem, Lupang Hinirang (Beloved Land). Pempeng­co, like many pop stars, opens sports events with a crooning interpretation of the national song—a trend that prompted the government to put a stop to the corruption of a patriotic symbol traditionally set to the beat of a military march.

Included in the bill is a ban on clothing displaying the country’s flag. “It’s basically and principally for Filipino citizens to instill more love of country, by explaining to them how the symbols of government, led by the flag, should be treated, including the proper way of singing the national anthem,” said Rep. Salvador Escudero, the bill’s principal author. The proposal must still be approved by the country’s senate and President Benigno Aquino before it can be passed into law.
But this concern isn’t unique to the Philippines. Another Asian country, Bangladesh, has made “insulting the national flag or anthem” a punishable offence.

Manila: scales of justice

By Claire Ward - Thursday, July 22, 2010 at 9:40 AM - 0 Comments

Aaron Favila/AP

When you think of music in prisons, you might think of inmates playing harmonicas or strumming guitars alone in their cells—not top hats, a brass section, and a lively rendition of Everything’s Coming Up Roses. But that’s what journalists got when they visited New Bilibid prison in Manila in June to observe the inaugural performance of a 100-member Bureau of Corrections Grand Orchestra and Chorale—made up of convicted thieves, kidnappers, and murderers.

The room was decked out almost like a dinner theatre, with tables and refreshments for visiting families and prison staff, a stage skirted with ruffled curtains, and a smoke machine. Fidel Rana, who is serving two life terms for double murder, played his father’s old trombone. “Before this we used to sit around inside with our thoughts,” he told Al Jazeera. “Now we practise, and the days go by quicker.”

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Granny nannies

By Katie Engelhart - Thursday, January 14, 2010 at 11:40 AM - 19 Comments

When Esther Heckbert told her mother she wanted to leave the Philippines to work as a babysitter abroad, her mother was leery. “She said, ‘babysitter? You’re done university!’ ” The two were folding laundry at their home in Isabela. Esther, who has a degree in business administration, had high hopes. “I said, a babysitter abroad can make a lot of money. From there, you can upgrade yourself: you can get citizenship.” For decades, thousands with the same profile—young, female, Filipino—have come to Canada to work as babysitters. Twenty-five years since arriving, Esther has helped rear dozens of Canadian tots: first as a nanny and then as the owner of a nursery school. But a few years ago, she sensed a changing wind.

She left babysitting behind, sought retraining, and now works under a more whimsical title: granny nanny.

She joins a growing rank of babysitters-turned-eldercare workers: a nod to shifting demographics. In 2008, just under 14 per cent of the Canadian population was over 65; it will be more than 25 per cent by 2044. At the same time, seniors are increasingly shunning the option once pressed on them: nursing homes. Now, most care to frail, older adults is provided outside facilities, says Norah Keating, human ecology professor at the University of Alberta. As more seniors stay home, we’re racing to import and train professionals to care for them. That dash has created a new class of caregivers, many of whom are undertrained, unregulated and unprotected—and with this a new set of problems. Continue…

Top 5 spooky places

By Bruce Parkinson, Takeoffeh.com - Wednesday, October 28, 2009 at 2:04 PM - 2 Comments

Every experienced traveller has stories of places or experiences that left them feeling strangely unsettled. Memories like these provide an illuminating counterpoint to the pure pleasures of many travel experiences. Here are my five personal travel recollections that return frequently, always accompanied by a shiver.

1. The Riverside Hotel, Clarksdale, Mississippi
   “Y’all will wanna stay in the room where Bessie died,” was the greeting from the octogenarian proprietor Mrs. Hill as we entered the modest building that was once an African-American hospital in the Mississippi Delta. It was here that the Empress of the Blues, Bessie Smith, died after a car accident in 1937. A story that Smith died at this hospital after being turned away from a ‘white’ hospital was later debunked, but our experience in Clarksdale that day in the late 80s suggested that the wounds of slavery were still raw. After closing the extra-wide door to our roach-killer scented room (and former hospital operating room), there was little sleep to be had.

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