The Philippines, a tiny developing country, has joined the colossal world of space technology, building its second microsatellite that it plans to launch late this year or in early 2018 -- not to study other planets, but to monitor weather patterns and climate change to protect the country’s natural resources and improve disaster risk management.
Jun* is in chains, tied to a post in the small house that resembles a fragile nipa hut. His brother did this to prevent him from hurting their neighbours or other strangers he meets when he’s in a ballistic mood. Jun has been like this for three years now, but since Typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines two years ago, his symptoms have worsened.
December 2015 will define the course of humanity’s survival at the crunch U.N. climate conference in Paris, known in technical jargon as the 21st Conference of Parties (COP21).
After surviving the storm surge wreaked by Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines in November 2013, women in evacuation centres found themselves again fighting for survival … at times from rape. Many became victims of human trafficking while many more did anything they could to feed their families before themselves.
My country, the Philippines, is one of the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Even though we are among those countries that hardly contributed emissions and benefited least from burning fossil fuels, we find ourselves at the frontline of the climate crisis.
I live on a crowded, subtropical island nation in the Western Pacific, on the opposite side of the "Pacific Pond" from North America. And just south of Taiwan is the many-splendored island nation of the Philippines. We are neighbours. You can fly there in one hour, it's that close.
People covered their bodies with mud to protest against government ineptitude and abandonment; others lighted paper lanterns and candles and released white doves and balloons to remember the dead, offer thanks and pray for more strength to move on; while many trooped to a vast grave site with white crosses to lay flowers for those who died, and to cry one more time.
As the cyclonic storm Hudhud ripped through India’s eastern state of Andhra Pradesh, home to two million people, at a land speed of over 190 kilometres per hour on Sunday, it destroyed electricity and telephone infrastructure, damaged the airport, and laid waste to thousands of thatched houses, as well as rice fields, banana plantations and sugarcane crops throughout the state.
When she talks about the forests in her native Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo, Maridiana Deren’s facial expression changes. The calm, almost shy person is transformed into an emotionally charged woman, her fists clench and she stares wide-eyed at whoever is listening to her.
Since Typhoon Yolanda made landfall in the Philippines on Nov. 8, the country has sent holders of its debt close to one billion dollars, surpassing, in less than two months, the 800 million dollars the U.N. has asked of international donors to help rebuild the ravaged central region of the archipelago.
Last Sunday, I bought a bouquet of 45 small fresh yellow chrysanthemums. They cost me three dollars – not cheap for these parts. They were in a bucket in front of a tiny shop crammed with workers and customers in the heart of Tacloban City.
Cleopatra is the name chosen for the younger sister of Haiyan, the cyclone that wreaked havoc in the Philippines last week. This latest storm caused massive floods and left 16 dead and hundreds displaced in Sardinia, Italy.
Nearly two weeks after Typhoon Haiyan devastated parts of the central Philippines, experts and activists here are warning that post-disaster reconstruction needs to be more transparent than past such efforts, while also focusing on a long-term assistance strategy that goes beyond immediate emergency relief.
Even as Washington has mounted a strikingly robust response to the humanitarian crisis in the Philippines, the ongoing effort is highlighting important gaps in the United States’ emergency relief capability – gaps that could start to be addressed through legislative reforms currently under debate in the U.S. Congress.
Relief operations in typhoon-devastated parts of the Philippines picked up pace Wednesday, but still only minimal amounts of water, food and medical supplies were making it to increasingly desperate survivors in the hardest-hit places.
Despite the government’s early warnings and evacuation of up to 800,000 people from vulnerable areas, the category 5 - the highest level - Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda to Filipinos) has left some communities and coastal zones in the central Philippine islands of Visayas in complete ruins.