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Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) vice chairman Ghazali Jaafar passed away on Wednesday at the age of 75.

Jaafar’s passing was confirmed by his son Cotabato City Councilor Butch Abo, former Tawi-Tawi governor Al Tillah said in a text message sent to The Manila Times

Jaafar was the chairman of the Bangsamoro Transition Commission.
MILF Chairman Al Hadj Murad Ebrahim also confirmed the passing of Jaafar.

“We are officially announcing the passing away of our brother Ghazali Jaafar, the first vice chairman of the MILF, at the same time the recommended speaker-to-be of the parliament of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. Kanina pong 1 a.m., dinala siya sa isang [at 1 a.m., he was brought to a] hospital sa Davao City…he has been suffering from some internal illness for a few months already,” Ebrahim said.

Jaafar was the head of the BTC that drafted what is now known as Republic Act 11054, the charter of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).

Jaafar was a member of the Bangsamoro Transition Authority, the body that oversees BARMM.

In a statement, Presidential peace adviser Carlito Galvez Jr. expressed condolences to Jaafar’s family.

“Despite his deteriorating health condition, Vice Chair Jaafar still proceeded and joined the massive campaign for the passage and eventual ratification of BOL (Bangsamoro Organic Law). May the Almighty and Merciful Allah bless his soul,” Galvez said. CATHERINE S. VALENTE and JAVIER JOE ISMAEL

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BAGHOUZ, Syria: Around 3,000 Islamic State members have surrendered from the group’s last holdout in Syria, Kurdish-led forces said Tuesday, as air raids and shelling resumed after a brief lull.

A ragged tent encampment in the eastern Syrian village of Baghouz is all that remains of a once-sprawling IS group’s “caliphate” declared in 2014 across large swathes of Syria and neighbouring Iraq.

The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) has been trying to crush holdout IS fighters for weeks but the mass outpouring of men, women and children from the riverside hamlet has bogged down its advance.

Backed by the US-led coalition, the SDF renewed its assault Sunday after warning remaining IS fighters their time was up.

Air strikes and shelling have since pummelled Baghouz three nights in a row, killing scores of fighters and prompting hundreds of jihadists and their relatives to surrender.

Thousands handed themselves over Tuesday, after a deluge of fire hit the IS encampment the previous night.

“Number of Daesh (IS) members surrendered to us since yesterday evening has risen to 3,000,” Syrian Democratic Forces spokesman Mustefa Bali tweeted in English on Tuesday evening.

Three women and four children of the Yazidi minority were also rescued, he added.

The SDF and the US-led coalition resumed shelling and air strikes on the last IS bastion Tuesday evening, interrupting a brief lull in fighting that had taken hold during the day to allow for people to surrender.

An Agence France-Presse correspondent near the front line heard warplanes rumbling overhead, as the sound of mortar fire and explosions rang from the IS encampment.

Dozens of SDF fighters massed at the entrance of the village of Baghouz on Tuesday evening.

Sherif, the unit commander, said his force was preparing to storm the jihadist redoubt.

“We readied ourselves today and our spirits are high,” he told Agence France-Presse.

“We will enter with full force and we will be at the forefront” of the advance, said the fighter who has been battling jihadists for years.

‘Terrorizing IS fighters’

Earlier Tuesday, Ali Cheir, an SDF unit commander, said his force and the coalition were pummelling the IS enclave at night to flush out jihadists.

“The objective of our advance is to terrorise IS fighters so they surrender, and for the civilians to come out,” said the 27-year-old.

Coalition warplanes Monday pounded the jihadist redoubt with 20 air strikes, destroying armoured vehicles and arms caches, SDF spokesman Mustefa Bali said.

He said US-backed forces clashed with jihadists on several fronts, killing nearly 40 IS fighters.

Since December, around 60,000 people have left the last IS redoubt, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, around a tenth of them suspected jihadist fighters.

The United Nations said the numbers from Baghouz arriving in one Kurdish-run camp further north for the displaced were smaller than in previous weeks.

It said they were reaching the camp in a worse state than before.

The UN’s food agency said it is concerned about their wellbeing.

“On Sunday night more than 3,000 people, mostly women and children in a poor state, reached the camp,” the WFP said.

“WFP is deeply concerned about the welfare of tens of thousands of people recently arriving at the Al-Hol camp,” it said Tuesday.

Around 113 people — two-thirds of them children under five — have died en route to the camp or shortly after arriving since December, the UN’s humanitarian coordination office OCHA says.

‘Battles not over’

At the height of its brutal rule, IS controlled a stretch of land in Syria and Iraq the size of the United Kingdom.

The total capture of the Baghouz camp by the SDF would mark the end of the cross-border “caliphate” it proclaimed more than four years ago.

But beyond Baghouz, IS retains a presence in eastern Syria’s vast Badia desert and sleeper cells in the northeast.

The jihadists have continued to claim deadly attacks in SDF-held territory in recent months, and the US military has warned of the need to maintain a “vigilant offensive”.

The group released a video late Monday allegedly showing jihadists in Baghouz, quietly defiant in the face of the advancing SDF.

“If we had thousands of kilometres and now we only have some kilometres left, it is said we have lost — but God’s judging standard is different,” said a man named Abu Abdel Adheem.

“The battles are not over,” he said, sitting on the ground in a circle with two men and a young boy in a hooded jacket.

Baghouz is the latest front on Syria’s complex civil war, which has killed more than 360,000 people since 2011. AFP

AFP/CC

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Water levels of various dams continue to recede, with La Mesa inching closer to its lowest since 1998, the weather bureau said on Wednesday.

The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) recorded La Mesa water level at 68.79 meters, 0.06 meter lower than Tuesday’s reading. It is just a tad away from the lowest recorded level of 68.75 meters in 1998.

Angat dam, which supplies La Mesa and Ipo dams, has not reached critical level. As of Wednesday, it was at 199.94 meters, 0.34 meter lower than Tuesday’s level. Angat’s critical level is 180 meters.

Pagasa hydrologist Elmer Caringal said the declining water levels may be attributed to the low amount of rainfall the country had since September 2018.

The water levels in other dams have also dropped — 101.02 meters for Ipo dam, 749.15 meters for Ambuklao dam, 572.40 meters for Binga dam, 265.03 for San Roque dam, 204.39 meters for Pantabangan dam, 168.97 meters for Magat dam, and 287.46 meters for Caliraya dam. DIVINA NOVA JOY DELA CRUZ

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NEW YORK: New Jersey political leaders have reached a deal to legalize recreational marijuana, which will make the northeastern US state the 11th to take the step.

The accord “will bring marijuana out of the underground market so that it can be controlled, regulated and taxed, just as alcohol has been since the end of Prohibition,” state senate president Steve Sweeney said in a statement.

He has agreed on the broad outlines of legalization legislation along with the state assembly and Governor Phil Murphy — all Democrats.

“Legalizing adult-use marijuana is a monumental step to reducing disparities in our criminal justice system,” Murphy said.

Each year, New Jersey authorities make tens of thousands of police stops for cannabis possession, arrests that often lead to criminal charges.

African Americans are three times more likely than a white person to get arrested for having marijuana, even though their average consumption of the psychotropic drug is the same, according to the ACLU rights group.

In addition to the 10 states besides New Jersey that have already legalized recreational consumption of the drug, its possession — but not sale — is also legal in the capital Washington.

In New York state, which borders New Jersey, several political leaders have shown support, but Governor Andrew Cuomo said it is unlikely a law on the matter will be voted on this year.

Marijuana for adult consumption will face an excise tax of $42 per ounce, imposed when marijuana is cultivated, under the New Jersey deal.

There will also be a one to three percent tax for municipalities home to a wholesaler, cultivator or retailer of the drug.

The bill’s text is expected to be released in the coming days.

“The prohibition on marijuana has long been a failed policy,” said state senator Nicholas Scutari.

“This plan will bring an end to the adverse effects our outdated drug laws have had on the residents of our state. As a regulated product legalized marijuana will be safe and controlled.” AFP

AFP/CC

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LONDON: British MPs resoundingly rejected Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal for a second time on Tuesday, plunging the country into further uncertainty just 17 days before it is due to split from the European Union.

The House of Commons voted 391-242 against the divorce deal, even after May secured further guarantees from Brussels over its most controversial elements.

The move risks unleashing economic chaos, as Britain is scheduled to end ties with its biggest trade partner after 46 years on March 29, no matter what.

Appearing before MPs in a voice half-breaking due to a cold, May defiantly vowed to fight on, saying she “profoundly” rejected the outcome.

“The deal we’ve negotiated is the best and indeed the only deal,” she told the hushed chamber moments after the vote.

May promised to allow MPs to vote on a “no deal” option on Wednesday and, if that is rejected as expected, to decide on Thursday whether to ask the EU to delay Brexit.

She said parliament faced “unenviable choices” if it voted for an extension, including revoking Brexit, holding a second referendum or leaving with another deal.

However, euroskeptics believe the current deal is so bad that it is worth the risk of leaving with no plan.

The latest vote comes two years after Britain set the clock ticking on its departure from the EU following a highly divisive referendum in 2016.

Michel Barnier, the EU chief Brexit negotiator, said Brussels had nothing more to offer and must now brace for the possibility of a messy divorce.

“The EU has done everything it can to help get the Withdrawal Agreement over the line,” Barnier tweeted.

“The impasse can only be solved in the #UK. Our ‘no-deal’ preparations are now more important than ever before.”

But a spokeswoman for European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker said EU members would consider a “reasoned request” for a Brexit delay.

Germany’s foreign minister said Tuesday that it was becoming increasingly likely that Britain would crash out of the bloc with no deal in place, accusing the country of “gambling carelessly with the well-being of citizens and the economy.”

“Unfortunately, I can only say that at the moment Germany has prepared for all the worst cases as well as possible,” Heiko Maas said.

Not a single change

Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the main opposition Labour party who has been trying to force snap elections, said May must now admit that her government’s overarching strategy had failed.

“Their deal, their proposal, the one the prime minister’s put, is clearly dead,” Corbyn said, calling on her to negotiate for a softer Brexit to keep close economic ties with the EU.

After MPs first rejected the 585-page Brexit deal in January, May promised changes to the hated backstop plan which is intended to keep open the border with EU member Ireland.

She announced she had secured the promised “legally binding changes” to the backstop — which would keep Britain in the EU’s customs union if and until a new way was found to avoid frontier checks — after a last-minute trip to Strasbourg to meet EU leaders on the eve of the vote.

Hours later, however, Attorney General Geoffrey Cox said the additions would not completely allay MPs fears of being trapped in the arrangement forever.

It did not take long for Brexit-supporting MPs in May’s Conservative party, and her allies, Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), to declare their opposition.

Some eurosceptics did change their mind, urging their colleagues not to risk everything.

Former minister Edward Leigh said: “You may not like the deal, it’s not perfect, but it delivers Brexit and let’s go for it.”

But the margin of Tuesday’s defeat was not substantially smaller than the 230-vote thumping the plan suffered on January 15.

The pound, which has been highly volatile since the 2016 referendum, initially rose after the vote but then sank against both the euro and dollar.

‘No third chance’

The backstop is designed to protect the peace process in Northern Ireland, which involved the removal of border checks with the Republic of Ireland.

Brexit supporters wanted a unilateral way out of it, or a time limit to the arrangement, but the EU said this would make it worthless.

Leaders across Europe also united behind a message that this was the best and final offer Britain could expect.

“There will be no third chance,” Juncker said after his talks on Monday with May.

If MPs vote against a no-deal exit on Wednesday, and want to postpone Brexit, the other 27 EU nations would need to agree.

Their leaders will meet in Brussels for a summit on March 21-22.

But any postponement may have to be short-lived.

Juncker on Monday said Brexit “should be complete before the European elections” at the end of May. AFP

AFP/CC

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SEOUL: A burgeoning K-pop sex scandal claimed a second scalp as a singer who rose to fame after coming second in one of South Korea’s top talent shows admitted secretly filming himself having sex and sharing the footage.

Jung Joon-young, 30, announced his immediate retirement from showbusiness amid allegations he shot and shared sexual imagery without his partners’ consent.

“I admit to all my crimes,” he said.

“I filmed women without their consent and shared it in a chatroom, and while I was doing so I didn’t feel a great sense of guilt,” he added in a statement released late Tuesday.

Jung was one of three male artists in a group chat room where some members shared secretly filmed footage of a sexual nature of at least 10 women, according to local broadcaster SBS.

K-pop singer Seungri, a hugely successful member of boy band BIGBANG who announced his retirement from show business on Monday amid a sex-for-investment criminal investigation, was also a member of the chatroom, the broadcaster said.

K-pop stars generally cultivate clean-cut images — and are actively promoted by the South Korean government as a key cultural export — making the scandal even more shocking.

In 2016, Jung was charged with filming a video with a sexual partner without her consent and knowledge, but prosecutors dropped the case for lack of evidence after she withdrew her accusation.

Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency will question him later this week, an officer told Agence France-Presse.

Seungri — who has multiple business interests — was interviewed at the weekend over accusations he lobbied potential investors by offering them the services of prostitutes at nightclubs in Seoul’s posh Gangnam district.

The 29-year-old is also linked to a police investigation into Burning Sun, a nightclub where he was a public relations director, where staff are alleged to have used hidden cameras to film women and used alcohol and drugs to sexually assault them.

South Korea has been battling a growing epidemic of so-called “molka” — spycam videos which largely involve men secretly filming women and sharing the illicit content with others.

“This case just shows that male K-pop stars are no exception when it comes to being part of this very disturbing reality that exploits women,” women’s rights activist Bae Bok-ju told Agence France-Presse. AFP

AFP/CC

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NETIZENS worldwide woke up on Thursday without Facebook, as well as photo sharing and instant messaging applications Instagram, and WhatsApp.

Facebook users may experience little to no access on the app and on the browsers. Similarly, Instagram users either could not log in or may be slow to loading on the browsers or apps.

Outage Report, a website tracking down outages in networks and apps, tallied 18,513 reports of Facebook being down worldwide on Wednesday, with 454 on Thursday. Instagram tallied 26,015 downtime reports on Wednesday worldwide, with 902 on Thursday.

In a statement on Twitter, Facebook said it was working to resolve the problem.

“We’re aware that some people are currently having trouble accessing the Facebook family of apps. We’re working to resolve the issue as soon as possible,” Facebook tweeted.

“We’re focused on working to resolve the issue as soon as possible, but can confirm that the issue is not related to a DDoS [Distributed Denial of Service] attack.”

Instagram also posted a similar statement, amidst the downtime.

“We’re aware of an issue impacting people’s access to Instagram right now,” the photo sharing app said on Twitter. “We know this is frustrating, and our team is hard at work to resolve this ASAP.”

Google Mail had a similar outage on Wednesday, with 582 downtime reports, according to Outage Report.

Social media giant Facebook has around 2.32 billion users worldwide, according to digital marketing group Zephora.

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PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte has signed into law a measure that would make agricultural land freely tradeable, thereby unlocking their value as capital assets.

Republic Act 11231 or the “Agricultural Free Patent Reform Act” was signed by the President on February 22, but was released to the media only on Thursday, March 14.

“It is the declared policy of the State to remove the restrictions on free patents to allow the efficient and effective utilization of these lands in order to contribute to wealth creation, entrepreneurship, and economic development,” the new law read.

RA 11231 removes the Commonwealth-era restrictions on agricultural free patents imposed under the Commonwealth Act 141 or the Public Land Act.

These restrictions prohibit land owners to sell and mortgage the land within the first five years of the patent grant and gives the option to the original owner of buying back the property within five years from the date of sale.

“Agricultural free patent shall now be considered as title in fee simple and shall not be subject to any restriction on encumbrances or alienation,” the law said.

The new law also has a “retroactive effect and any restrictions regarding acquisitions, encumbrances, conveyances, transfers or dispositions imposed on agricultural free patents issued under Section 44 of Commonwealth Act 141, as amended, before the effectivity this Act shall be removed and hereby immediately lifted.”

“If any provision or part of this Act is declared invalid or unconstitutional, the remaining parts or provisions not affected shall remain in full force and effect,” the law said.

“All laws, decrees, orders, rules, regulations, circulars and other issuances or parts thereof which are inconsistent with this Act are hereby repealed, amended, or modified accordingly,” it added.

The new law will take effect 15 days from its publication in a newspaper of nationwide circulation.

Sen. Richard Gordon, who authored the bill in the Senate, had said that the measure would help boost development in the agricultural sector, as it was expected to “unleash about two to three million agri-free patents, equivalent to at least P387 billion up to P1 trillion worth of agricultural land.”

“More importantly, we will empower the farmer. We will give him options about what he can do with the land—options such as borrowing against the land to develop it, or selling the land to a more productive farmer,” he said.

Gordon said that the bill could also help attract younger generations of Filipinos back into farming, noting that according to the Department of Agriculture, the average age of farmers now is 57 years of age.

“Young people are turning away from farming because they do not see any future in it. It is not hard to see why. It is so hard for farmers to obtain credit. It is also hard for them to expand and buy more land if they are successful. If enacted into law, this bill will help solve the problems our young generations face with farming,” he added.

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WASHINGTON, D.C.: The US Senate on Wednesday dealt a stinging bipartisan rebuke to Donald Trump’s foreign policy and his alliance with Riyadh, voting to end support for the bloody Saudi-led war effort in Yemen.

Lawmakers in the Republican-controlled chamber approved a historic curtailment of presidential war powers that directs Trump “to remove United States Armed Forces from hostilities in or affecting the Republic of Yemen” within 30 days.

The Senate vote was 54 to 46, with seven Republicans defying the president and aligning with Democrats.

The text now heads to the Democrat-led House of Representatives, which approved a similar measure that stalled earlier this year, and which is likely to pass the latest effort.

The White House has threatened a veto, calling the measure “flawed” and saying it would harm bilateral relationships in the region and hurt Washington’s ability to fight extremism.

But its full passage would set a historic marker. It would be the first measure passed by Congress to invoke the 1973 War Powers Resolution to directly curtail a president’s use of military powers.

“Today, we begin the process of reclaiming our constitutional power by ending US involvement in a war that has not been authorized by Congress and is clearly unconstitutional,” Senator Bernie Sanders, who is running for president in 2020 and is a sponsor of the measure, said on the Senate floor.

Republican Senator Mike Lee concurred, saying Saudi Arabia “is not an ally that deserves our support or our military intervention.”

The Saudis, he said, “are likely using our own weapons… to commit these atrocities of war. That’s not OK.”

The war in Yemen is the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with an estimated 14 million people at risk of famine.

The World Health Organization says about 10,000 people have been killed in the war between forces loyal to the Yemeni government, backed by the Saudi-led coalition, and the Iran-aligned Huthi rebels. Rights groups say the death toll is far higher.

The United States provides weapons and refueling to the Saudi coalition.

Two days, two rebukes?

The resolution is a reminder that Congress has the legal ability to compel the removal of US military forces, absent a formal declaration of war.

Should it pass Congress, it could force Trump to issue the first veto of his tenure.

The vote may well be the first of two congressional rebukes of Trump in as many days.

On Thursday, the Senate is expected to vote on a resolution — already passed by the House — to reverse Trump’s emergency declaration on border security, after the president went around Congress in a bid to secure more funding for his wall between the United States and Mexico.

In that case too, he has promised to use his veto.

Wednesday’s Yemen vote, and the rare bipartisanship at the heart of it, came as US lawmakers have escalated their opposition to Saudi Arabia after the October murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul.

Republicans and Democrats alike have bristled over the White House’s apparent embrace of the kingdom and its leadership.

Some members of Congress have publicly stated that they suspect that powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was directly responsible for the killing, based on the CIA’s conclusions.

Sanders, using unusually blunt language about an American ally, said the United States should not “simply follow the despotic lead of a government in Saudi Arabia.”

“We will determine our military and foreign pol and not be led around by a murderous regime,” he said. AFP

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SAO PAOLO: Two former pupils shot dead eight people, most of them students and staff, at a high school near Sao Paulo, Brazil, on Wednesday before turning their weapons on themselves, authorities said.

The two assailants burst into the school grounds in the early morning, armed with a .38 caliber revolver and a “medieval weapon that looked like a bow and arrows,” military police Colonel Marcelo Sales said.

After shooting at students in the yard, the killers headed to the language center where several pupils were hiding and “committed suicide in a corridor,” he said.

Brazil is one of the most violent countries in the world, and the victims in this case were five students aged 15 to 17, two school officials aged 38 and 59, and a 51-year-old carwash owner who was shot by the attackers before they arrived at the school, said Sao Paulo’s Public Security Secretary Joao Pires de Campos.

Eleven other people were wounded in the shooting at the Raul Brasil public school in Suzano, on the outskirts of Sao Paulo in southeast Brazil.

“It’s the saddest thing I’ve ever seen,” said Sao Paulo State Governor Joao Doria.

Tearful residents later held a street mass near the school, where flowers and candles commemorated the dead.

President Jair Bolsonaro expressed his sympathies on Twitter to “the families of this inhumane attack,” describing it as “a monstrosity and enormous cowardice.”

The two assailants, who wore hoods, were identified as former pupils aged 17 and 25. The reasons for the attack are unknown.

Screams of terrified pupils

Worried family members quickly arrived at the school alongside firefighters and security services.

“I found out when my daughter called me and said: ‘Mommy, come quickly, there are injured people, dead people’,” said the mother of one pupil, who gave her name only as Rosa.

The attack took place at around 9:30 am (1230 GMT) during a recess period for some students, authorities said.

Website UO1 said the two killers “entered the school shooting with their heads covered by a hood.”

Another website, G1, published a grainy video purportedly taken inside the school in which the screams of terrified pupils can be heard as they come across dead classmates.

“We locked ourselves in a classroom,” said Milene Querren Cardoso.

“We tried to help each other until the door opened and we thought it was the criminals coming for us; but no, it was the police… and we ran out.”

GloboNews showed video images of pupils fleeing the scene after escaping over a wall.

Education Minister Ricardo Velez published a statement offering “solidarity with the parents, families and staff at the school in this moment of shock, mourning and pain.”

‘Encouraging violence’

It is not the first mass school shooting in Brazil’s history.

In April 2011, a former pupil killed a dozen school children and injured many more before turning his gun on himself at a school in the suburbs of Rio de Janeiro.

Brazil had 64,000 murders in 2017 — a rate of almost 31 per 100,000 inhabitants, or three times higher than the level the United Nations classifies as endemic violence.

Far-right leader Bolsonaro controversially passed a law relaxing gun ownership rules soon after assuming power in January, delivering on a campaign promise. He has also spoken out in favor of allowing people to carry weapons on the streets.

Politicians and social media users were quick to debate whether Bolsonaro’s measures, or images from similar such mass shootings on US school and university campuses, were to blame for this attack.

Gleisi Hoffmann, president of the opposition Workers Party, said: “Tragedies like this are the result of encouraging violence and the liberation of the use of weapons.”

But Vice President Hamilton Mourao dismissed any suggestion Bolsonaro’s policy was to blame.

“Are you suggesting the gun those guys had was legal? It’s got nothing to do with it,” he said, although acknowledging that the subject would be discussed. AFP

AFP/CC

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SIX police officers, including a former Philippine National Police spokesman, were promoted based on the National Police Commission’s recommendation and Civil Service Commission’s endorsement.

Chief Supt. Benigno Durana Jr., current Directorate for Police Community Relations, was promoted to Police Director, according to a Malacañang letter to Interior Secretary Eduardo Año.

Durana was spokesman from June 2018 to January 2019.

He was replaced by Senior Supt. Bernard Banac.

Promoted with him to the rank of Police Director were Chief Supts. Mariel Magaway, Jonas Calleja, and Reynaldo Biay.

Meanwhile, Senior Supts. Joselito Salido and Ronaldo Ylao were promoted to the rank of Chief Supt.

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WASHINGTON, D.C.: The ban on the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft became worldwide on Wednesday after US President Donald Trump joined Canada and other countries in grounding the aircraft amid mounting global fears for the jets’ airworthiness.

US authorities said new evidence showed similarities between Sunday’s deadly crash of an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 and a fatal accident in Indonesia in October.

The Federal Aviation Administration said findings from the crash site near Addis Ababa and “newly refined satellite data” warranted “further investigation of the possibility of a shared cause for the two incidents.”

An FAA emergency order grounded 737 MAX 8 and MAX 9 aircraft until further notice.

Trump told reporters at the White House the “safety of the American people and all peoples is our paramount concern.”

Mexico late Wednesday suspended MAX 8 and 9 operations, after Canada and Chile also joined the long list of countries to ban the plane from flying in their airspaces. Many airlines have voluntarily taken it out of service. Brazil, Costa Rica and Panama followed suit.

Ethiopia said it would send the black boxes from Flight ET 302 to France for analysis, which could provide crucial information about what happened.

“Hopefully they will come up with an answer but until they do the planes are grounded,” Trump said.

FAA acting chief Daniel Elwell said the agency has been “working tirelessly” to find the cause of the accident but faced delays because the black box flight data recorders had been damaged.

The new information shows “the track of that airplane was close enough to the track of the Lion Air flight… to warrant the grounding of the airplanes so we could get more information from the black boxes and determine if there’s a link between the two, and if there is, find a fix to that link,” Elwell said on CNBC.

Boeing chief Dennis Muilenburg said he supported the US decision “out of an abundance of caution” but continued to have “full confidence” in the safety of the plane.

The company continues its efforts “to understand the cause of the accidents in partnership with the investigators, deploy safety enhancements and help ensure this does not happen again,” Muilenburg said in a statement.

The accounts of the recent crashes were echoed in concerns registered by US pilots on how the MAX 8 behaves.

Pilots concerns

At least four American pilots made reports following the Lion Air crash, all complaining the aircraft suddenly pitched downward shortly after takeoff, according to documents reviewed by Agence France-Presse on the Aviation Safety Reporting System, a voluntary incident database maintained by NASA.

In two anonymous reports on flights just after the Lion Air crash, pilots disconnected the autopilot and corrected the plane’s trajectory.

One said the flight crew reviewed the incident “at length… but can’t think of any reason the aircraft would pitch nose-down so aggressively.”

It was unclear if US transportation authorities review the database or investigate the incidents. However, the FAA said this week it had mandated that Boeing update its flight software and training on the aircraft.

Questions about the Lion Air crash have honed in on an automated stall prevention system, the MCAS, designed to automatically point the nose of the plane downward if it is in danger of stalling.

According to the flight data recorder, the pilots of Lion Air Flight 610 struggled to control the aircraft as the MCAS repeatedly pushed the plane’s nose down following takeoff.

The Ethiopian Airlines pilots reported similar difficulties before their aircraft plunged into the ground as they tried to return to the airport.

Boeing was criticized after the Lion Air crash for allegedly failing to adequately inform 737 pilots about the functioning of the stall prevention system.

Ethiopian Airlines CEO Tewolde GebreMariam on Sunday said the captain on the flight, Yared Mulugeta Getachew, 29, was an experienced aviator with more than 8,000 flight hours.

Andrew Hunter, a defense industry expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said that, while Boeing and the FAA had good track records on addressing safety concerns, sometimes the combination of automated systems and humans did not work smoothly.

“It is hard to get a system to work seamlessly with human beings,” he told Agence France-Presse.

“The fact the system was fighting the pilot was not an unintended consequence,” because it should counteract a pilot error and correcting this is “challenging.”

Banned from the skies

In Ethiopia, distraught families wept and lit candles as they visited the deep black crater where the plane smashed into a field, killing 157 passengers and crew, an Agence France-Presse correspondent said.

The Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX 8 was less than four months old when it went down six minutes into a flight from Addis Ababa to Nairobi on Sunday, disintegrating on impact.

Families of the victims from Kenya, China, the United States and Canada, as well as diplomatic staff from embassies, were visiting the crash site.

A dozen airlines have grounded the plane, while Nigeria, Lebanon, Egypt, Serbia, Vietnam, New Zealand and Hong Kong on Wednesday also joined the list of countries to ban it from their airspace.

The European Union and major hubs such as the United Arab Emirates and Australia had already done so.

American Airlines said it had 24 aircraft affected by the US ban, while Southwest Airlines said it was still confirming the move.

The MAX series is Boeing’s fastest-selling model.

There are 74 of the planes registered in the United States, and 387 in use worldwide with 59 carriers, according to the FAA.

Low-cost airline Norwegian Air Shuttle has said it would demand financial compensation from Boeing as the implications of the mass grounding for the airline industry remained unclear.

Shares in the company rose Wednesday on Wall Street despite the US order but were still down 10.6 percent since before Sunday’s crash. AFP

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BREST, France: An oil slick was heading towards the French coastline on Thursday after an Italian cargo ship sank in the Atlantic carrying 45 containers of “dangerous materials,” authorities said.

The sheet of oil, 10 kilometers (six miles) long and one km wide, could hit parts of the country’s southwest region near the port city of Bordeaux this weekend.

“According to our forecasts, fragments could reach some areas of the coast in Nouvelle-Aquitaine by Sunday or Monday owing to bad weather, which also risks making the anti-pollution operation more difficult,” environment minister Francois de Rugy said Wednesday.

France will deploy four ships to help battle the oil slick at sea and will prepare for a clean-up operation on land, he added.

The Grande America was en route from Hamburg in Germany to Casablanca in Morocco when a fire broke out late on Sunday.

All 27 people on board were evacuated the following day as the fire worsened, before the ship sank some 300 km west of the town of La Rochelle on Tuesday.

“For now the possible pollution risk consists mainly of the 2,200 tonnes of heavy fuel oil on board,” Jean-Louis Lozier, head of the regional maritime authority, told reporters in Brest on France’s Brittany coast.

Lozier said the hybrid ship’s Italian owner Grimaldi had indicated that 365 shipping containers were onboard, “of which 45 are carrying dangerous materials”, as well as around 2,000 vehicles.

The fire is thought to have broken out on the car deck before spreading to a container, however the cause is unknown, Lozier said.

“Around forty containers fell into the sea before the ship sank,” he said. “Most of them where badly damaged by the fire.”

The contents include a hundred tons of hydrochloric acid and 70 tons of sulphuric acid.

The pollution risk posed by the chemicals “would be very localised”, Lozier said, adding most of it would have already burned in the fire.

“Dilution in the ocean would not have serious consequences for the environment.”

But French environmental campaign group Robin des Bois (Robin Hood) said the group intends to file a complaint at Brest district court over the environmental damage.

“Two thousand vehicles — it’s a car crash at the bottom of the sea, representing hundreds of tons of toxic materials in an area very rich in fish, plankton and marine animals,” said Jacky Bonnemains, spokesman for the NGO, adding he also feared possible coastal pollution.

Local authorities have opened an investigation and the ship’s owner has been warned to “take all necessary measures to contribute to the fight against pollution”, the environment minister said. AFP

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SHAH ALAM: A Vietnamese woman suspected of assassinating the North Korean leader’s half-brother lost her bid for immediate release Thursday as Malaysian authorities refused to drop a murder charge, days after her Indonesian co-accused was freed.

Doan Thi Huong broke down in tears as a prosecutor announced the attorney-general had rejected a request to free her and her trial would continue. She has been on trial for a year and a half over the 2017 assassination of Kim Jong Nam at Kuala Lumpur airport.

On Monday a murder charge was unexpectedly withdrawn against the Indonesian woman accused alongside her, Siti Aisyah, raising hopes that Huong might also be freed imminently.

The Vietnamese defendant, who had to be helped out of court by two police officers following the shock announcement, tearfully told reporters: “I am depressed. I am innocent… I want my family to pray for me.”

Huong’s lawyer said he would make a second bid to get the charge against her dropped, and said failing to free her following Aisyah’s release “does not bring confidence to our criminal justice system.”

The pair had always denied murder, saying they were tricked by North Korean spies into carrying out the Cold War-style hit that shocked the world using a highly toxic nerve agent, and believed it was a prank for a reality TV show.

Their lawyers presented them as scapegoats and said the real killers were four North Koreans, who were suspected of being the masterminds behind the plot but fled Malaysia shortly after the assassination.

The prosecutor did not give any reason why charges were not being dropped for Huong, 30, who is now the sole defendant on trial for Kim’s murder and could face death by hanging if convicted.

Indonesia had mounted a sustained diplomatic offensive to get Aisyah freed, while Vietnam had only stepped up pressure since the Indonesian woman’s release this week.

During the trial, the court was shown airport CCTV footage showing Huong approaching Kim, placing her hands on his face and then running away. Aisyah was only seen as a blurred figure fleeing the scene of the crime.

Vietnamese pressure

The trial began in October 2017 but there had been no hearings since August last year when the prosecution finished presenting its case.

Proceedings were scheduled to resume Monday with Huong testifying — but the unexpected release of Aisyah led to the trial being adjourned so the Vietnamese suspect could also seek her freedom.

But on Thursday, lead prosecutor Muhammad Iskandar Ahmad told the High Court in Shah Alam, outside Kuala Lumpur, that the attorney-general had ordered the case against Huong to proceed.

The judge said Huong was not well enough to continue with the trial on Thursday, and adjourned proceedings until April 1.

Huong’s lawyer said that “the public prosecutor has not acted fairly to Doan.”

“Both the accused have said they were made scapegoats by North Korea, both of them said they were doing video pranks — very obviously there is discrimination,” added Hisyam Teh Poh Teik.

A murder conviction carries a mandatory penalty of death by hanging in Malaysia. The government vowed last year to scrap capital punishment but has indicated recently it may water down the plan and only do away with the mandatory death penalty.

Vietnam had increased pressure on Malaysia to release Huong since Aisyah was freed, with the country’s foreign minister this week pressing his Malaysian counterpart on the issue and the justice minister writing to the attorney-general.

In the first stage of the trial that ran until August last year, prosecutors presented their case.

Witnesses described how the victim — who was once seen as heir apparent to the North Korean leadership until he fell out of favor — died in agony shortly after being attacked.

Prosecutors said Aisyah and Huong were well-trained assassins but their lawyers argued the four North Koreans were the masterminds.

South Korea has accused the North of ordering the hit, which Pyongyang denies. AFP

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ACCESS to social media giant Facebook and its photo-sharing application Instagram have returned after an outage that started throughout the night.

In a tweet, Instagram marked its return by posting a GIF of Oprah Winfrey with an accompanying caption, “And, we’re back!”

The cause of the outage is yet to be determined but an internet engineer suggested to technology website Tech Crunch that it may have been caused by an accidental border gateway protocol (BGP) leak.

No other details are available as of posting time.

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The Philippines is expected to continue posting strong growth but a slowdown in remittances will likely contribute to a widening current account deficit and make the country vulnerable shifts in investor sentiment, a London-based consultancy said.

“Remittance growth to the Philippines has slowed steadily over the past decade and looks set to remain subdued over the next few years. While weak remittance growth is likely to act as a drag on consumption and investment, overall GDP (gross domestic product) growth should continue to hold up pretty well,” Capital Economics said in a report on Thursday.

“We are more concerned that the slowdown in remittance growth will contribute to a further widening of the current account deficit, and make the Philippines more vulnerable to sudden shifts in global risk appetite,” it added.

Money sent home by overseas Filipino workers hit an all-time high last year. Personal remittances amounted to $32.21 billion, up by 3.0 percent from a year earlier, while cash remittances likewise grew by 3.1 percent to $28.94 billion.

Capital Economics, however, said last year’s growth was the “weakest pace since 2001.”

The think tank attributed the decline to the “improved performance” of the local economy, which it said “made it easier for people to find employment at home and reduced the need for them to go overseas in search of work.”

“A second has been the economic downturn in the Middle East. The region is the source of 30 percent of remittances to the Philippines, and there has been a marked slowdown in remittances from the region over the past few years,” it added.

These factors are expected to continue weighing on remittances and Capital Economics said it expected growth to average 3 percent yearly over the next few years.

“Remittances to the Philippines are equivalent to around 10 percent of GDP and weak remittances are likely to act as a drag on consumption and investment. However, with fiscal and monetary policy set to be loosened this year, economic growth should remain fairly strong,” it said.

With regard to the balance of payments, Capital Economics noted that “the current account has gone from a surplus to a deficit over the past couple of years and is likely to widen further over the next couple of years. While the main driver of the shift has been a surge in imports of capital goods and raw materials as the government’s infrastructure drive has gathered pace, weaker remittances (which are included as part of the current account) have also been a factor.”

“The large current account deficit, which is now equivalent to around 3 percent of GDP, makes the currency more vulnerable to sudden shifts in global risk appetite,” it said.

“This is a big worry given that foreign currency debt in the country is equivalent to around 25 percent of GDP. It is also one of the reasons why we think the central bank is likely to tread cautiously when it starts to ease monetary policy later this year.”

The country’s current account hit a deficit of $6.471 billion in the first three quarters of 2018, a reversal from the $968-million surplus posted a year ago. Full-year current account data is scheduled to be released today, March 15.

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San Miguel Corp. (SMC) saw recurring profit grow by just 1 percent last year even as revenues breached the P1-trillion mark.

In a statement on Thursday, the Ramon Ang-led conglomerate said 2018 revenues jumped 24 percent to P1.02 trillion from the previous year’s P828 million.

Consolidated recurring net income, however, came in at just P55.18 billion from the year-earlier P54.65 billion. San Miguel said growth had been tempered by sharp oil price drops during the fourth quarter, which resulted in inventory losses for its fuel and petrochemical businesses, and foreign exchange losses.

On a stand-alone basis, San Miguel Food and Beverage Inc. (SMFB) saw an 8-percent increase in net profit to P30.5 billion from P28.2 billion on account of higher volumes and revenues, which at P286 billion were higher by 14 percent year on year.

SMFB’s beer unit San Miguel Brewery Inc. saw net income rise by 15 percent to P23.8 billion from P20.7 billion. Revenues grew 14 percent to P129.2 billion from P113.2 billion.

Liquor subsidiary Ginebra San Miguel Inc., meanwhile, posted a 75-percent climb in net income to P1.05 billion from only P602 million in 2017, while revenues increased by 19 percent to P24.8 billion.

Only San Miguel Pure Foods Inc. out of SMFB’ businesses posted a profit drop: P5.88 billion from P6.9 billion a year earlier despite a 13-percent increase in revenues to P132 billion.

SMC did not explain the decline but said Pure Foods’ revenue growth was driven by increased volumes and better selling prices.

Packaging arm San Miguel Yamamura Packaging Corp., meanwhile, posted 2018 revenues of P37.3 billion, higher by 16 percent than the P32.1 billion registered in 2017.

Power subsidiary SMC Global Power Holdings Corp. was said to have registered a 45-percent revenue increase to P120 billion on the back of additional power generation from plants.

Petron Corp., the conglomerate’s petroleum unit, reported a 50-percent plunge in net profit to P7.07 billion from 2017’s P14.09 billion, mainly due to inventory losses incurred in November and December.

SMC noted that global oil supplies increased during the fourth quarter of 2018, causing a nine-week fall in international oil prices.

SMC Infrastructure, meanwhile, saw revenues of P24.5 billion, up 9 percent from last year due to growth in vehicular volumes on all operating toll roads.

SMC shares finished down 40 centavos or 0.23 percent to P172 each amid a 0.20-percent drop for the benchmark Philippine Stock Exchange index.

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