Ditmaal een bericht over toerisme in de Filipijnen. Als er al 650.000 toeristen in Boracay alleen kwamen opdagen, om dan nog niets te zeggen over de honderdduizenden die elders in de Filipijnen hun logement zochten, dan stel ik mij de vraag waarover zovelen in Belgie klagen dat zij geen geld hebben om hun maandelijkse leefomstandigheden te bekosteigen... Uiteraard waren die 650.000 in Boracay niet alleen Belgen. Europeanen in het algemeen komen niet zo vaak naar de Filipijnen. Omdat er geen georganiseerd sex-toerisme is zoals dat wel het geval is in Thailand, omdat het al met al vrij duur uitvalt om vanuit Europa naar de Filipijnen en terug te vliegen en omdat er, bij gebrek aan georganiseerd toerisme, weinig te ontdekken valt tenzij men, goed en degelijk gedokumenteerd, bereid is om op eigen houtje rond te trekken. De meeste toeristen komen uit andere Aziatische landen, uit de USA, Canada en Australie.
Wat die allemaal komen doen op een strand zoals Boracay is natuurlijk vanzelfsprekend: zonnekloppen, surfen en wat aan andere strandsporten doen. Zedelijk gekleed in strandkledij en geen naakzonnen, want dat is verboden in de Filipijnen.

"In a candid interview with AFP, Tourism Secretary Alberto Lim suggested it was time tourists visited equally beautiful beaches in the country other than Boracay, which the government said drew 650,000 tourists last year. "If you go to Boracay you'd love the beach, you'd love the night life and the good restaurants. But it's so dense, it's so dense," Lim said. "It is now, you know, too commercial. It's become Phuket," he said, referring to the much larger Thai beach resort island. Lim, who joined President Benigno Aquino's cabinet when it took power on June 30, said the 10.3-square-kilometre (four-square-mile) central Philippine island of Boracay was a different place a generation ago. The sprawl that followed the tourist dollars caused the seawater off the four-kilometre (2.5 mile) white-sand beachfront to sprout algae, which was fed by sewage from the hotels and restaurants, he said. "Thirty years ago they tried to set the rules but they were not successful. The local government did not cooperate... so people started overbuilding," Lim said. "Of course, bad sewage -- that's why (you are seeing) algae at certain times of the year. It's green. It's the result of the sewage seeping out. The algae there is not yucky, it's moss. Maybe fish eat it. But it's an indication that there's a problem below the surface." Asked if the problem, which first made world headlines in the mid-1990s, had been solved, Lim said: "I'm not sure. I don't think so, that's why at certain times of the year the algae forms." Lim said environmental and zoning regulations were not being enforced, leading to structures even being built inside the high-water mark. "And they continue to build. They're building huge hotels in the mountains." Lim suggested the government may in the end be unable to halt overdevelopment. "We have world-class laws but nobody follows them," he said, adding tourists may just have to look elsewhere. "The thing about Boracay is the quality of the sand. But there are other places that have better quality sand, but (they are) very expensive," Lim said. Lim also voiced concern about a project approved by the previous government under then president Gloria Arroyo to extend Caticlan airport, just across a small strait from Boracay, so that it can take international flights.

"It will compound the problem because it is meant to lengthen the airport, bring in more tourists and there are too many tourists (already)," he said. Environmentalists oppose the seven-year, 54-million-dollar project, which would more than double the runway length to 2.1 kilometres, because they believe it will damage the area's ecosytem and lead to sand erosion on Boracay. Local lawyer Augusto Macam, who represents a number of Boracay tourist establishments, told AFP Lim was not giving the complete picture about the situation on Boracay. "Maybe the secretary should take a look at the place first," Macam said. "The responsible stakeholders are addressing the sewage problem and other environmental concerns," he said. The problem, he said, was that the local government had allowed certain businesses to flout the rules. "It's a problem of regulation and that is the duty of the government."

Het is weer een probleem van enerzijds te veel toeristen op 1 plaats en anderzijds een behoefte om toeristen aan te trekken en dus inkomsten voor het arme land binnen te halen. Hoe die toeristen te verspreiden over het land is een vraagstuk, want weliswaar zijn er ontelbare stranden in de Filipijnen maar zelden met een fijn wit zand als in Boracay (daaraan dankt het dan ook zijn faam). Een ding is zeker: het zal nog lang duren vooraleer men Boracay zal aanduiden met een spotnaam zoals Benidorm: het Spaanse Antwerpen.

Although food prices have dropped since the height of the global food crisis in 2008, the problem of malnourishment is worsening and governments are not investing enough in agriculture, they warned.

Over 60 million Asians became malnourished last year, raising the regional total to 642 million, Jacques Diouf, head of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation, told an international food security conference in Manila.

"The sheer magnitude of food insecurity is the result of the low priority that has been given to agriculture in economic development policies," Diouf said in a video address to the conference.

Food prices in Asia remain between 20 and 30 percent higher than 2007 levels, FAO Asia Pacific director Hiroyuki Konuma told reporters on the sidelines of the conference.

The world as a whole needs annual farm investments of 200 billion dollars over the next 40 years to feed the world's human population, which is expected to grow to 9.1 billion by 2050, Konuma said.

In Asia alone, 120 billion dollars are needed every year, according to Konuma.

"We have a shortfall of 40 billion dollars for this region," he said.

Konuma said governments had been lulled into complacency by farm-yield breakthroughs from the 1960s that gave rise to the "Green Revolution" and raised farm outputs three-fold, lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty.

But he said in the decade leading to the 2007-2008 global food crisis, annual output growth around the world stagnated for rice and wheat -- two of the most important cereals.

"We have to triple the pace of production (for rice and wheat) in the next 20 years," Konuma said.

Asian Development Bank president Haruhiko Kuroda, the forum's host, said global food prices were still 85 percent higher than 2003 levels.

More than 25 percent of Asian children aged five or younger are moderately to severely underweight, more than a third are moderately or severely stunted, and 18 percent of infants are born with a low birth weight, he said.

"These statistics belie a crisis that will only get worse in the years to come unless immediate action is taken," he said.

"Add to this rapid population growth, climate change and water shortages, and the need for action is blindingly apparent."

Intussen gaan de Verenigde Staten van Anerika en bondgenoten door met oorlog voeren in Irak, Afghanistan en Pakistan. Biljoenen dollars zijn er al aan besteed en nog meer biljoenen dollars zullen er nog aan besteed worden. Hoe langer die troepen daar blijven, hoe meer het kost.
Anderzijds stuurt ook de nieuwe administratie van kersverse president van de Filipijnen Noynoy Aquino een bericht in de wereld:

"Philippine celebrities targeted in new tax campaign

Philippine celebrities are to be leaned on by inland revenue officials who said Tuesday they will begin targeting stars as part of a new crackdown on tax evasion.

Although the campaign will cover other high earners, there will be a special focus on celebrities to set an example to the showbiz-crazed Philippine public.

"For celebrities, it's easier (to check) if they are reporting (earnings) or not. You just watch the TV, look at billboards or the magazines," tax commissioner Kim Henares said in an interview with ABS-CBN television.

A staffer from Henares' office told AFP they would focus on "those in the media who are earning quite a big amount".

"They will be used as examples to highlight the activities the bureau of internal revenue is undertaking in this area," said the staffer who asked not to be identified.

The details of the campaign are still being thrashed out as part of a wider effort to cut down on rampant tax evasion, said aides of Henares.

President Benigno Aquino, who took office on June 30, has said the government will control its ballooning deficit with improved collections rather than resorting to new taxes.

Celebrities like movie and sports stars are held in high regard in the Philippines, with many being elected to high office"

Uiteraard betaalt niemand graag belastingen. Het is een noodzakelijk kwaad. Als het belastinggeld in de Filipijnen zal worden aangewend voor het lenigen van de nood van velen, is het goed besteed. Als het belastinggeld in de USA aangewend wordt om oorlogen te financieren, dan is dat zonder meer schandalig.

On his second day in office Aquino ordered his driver to stop for red lights and declined to use lanes set aside for public buses and as a result arrived 40 minutes late for a military parade.

"He refused to go into the yellow (bus) lane. We got stuck in traffic," a journalist who was part of the official convoy from Aquino's northern Manila home, five kilometres (three miles) away, told AFP.

Police escorts were also barred from using their sirens, and members of his security detail jumped out of their vehicles to secure the presidential car every time the heavy mid-morning traffic stopped the limousine, he said.

Aquino, son of the late democracy icon and former leader Corazon Aquino won a landslide election victory in May on a pledge to fight corruption and end a culture of impunity enjoyed by many Filipinos in positions of power.

At his inaugural speech on Wednesday he brought the crowd of half a million people to their feet when he declared: "No sirens, no counter-flow (driving on the wrong lane), no bribes."

Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda admitted on Thursday that Aquino's insistence that he be treated like every other Filipino in traffic was causing a massive headache for his bodyguards.

"That's a concern. Either he wakes up earlier and just observe all these traffic rules or, since he's allowed to use sirens, he can use the sirens," Lacierda said.

"I don't think anybody will fault him for using the sirens."

Under the law, only the president, the vice president, the heads of the two chambers of parliament, the Supreme Court chief justice, police, military and emergency vehicles can use sirens and drive through."

Supertanker skims oil as spill now worst accident on record

Rough seas and strong winds continued to delay clean-up efforts, displace protective booms and push the oil deeper into fragile coastal wetlands, endangering wildlife preserves and the thousands of birds nesting there.

"This is going to be a very long and arduous clean-up operation in the days to come," said Coast Guard Admiral Paul Zukunft. Wat voor toekomst die nog heeft mag Joost weten..."I'm especially concerned with some of the wildlife habitats."

An estimated 35,000 to 60,000 barrels of oil per day has been gushing out of the ruptured well since the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon drilling rig sank on April 22, some 50 miles (80 kilometers) off the coast of Louisiana.

Related Article: Florida Keys, Miami at high risk for oil pollution: US agency A containment system has captured about 557,000 barrels of oil, but rough seas have delayed the deployment of a third vessel which is set to increase capacity from 25,000 barrels to 53,000 barrels a day.

That means an estimated 1.9 to 3.6 million barrels -- or 79.5 to 153 million gallons -- of oil has now gushed into the Gulf.

Using the high end of that estimate, the spill has now surpassed the 1979 Ixtoc blowout which took nine months to cap and dumped an estimated 3.3 million barrels (140,000 million gallons) into the Gulf of Mexico.

It is topped only by the deliberate release of six to eight million barrels of crude by Iraqi troops who destroyed tankers and oil terminals and set wells ablaze in Kuwait during the 1991 Gulf War.

And it will likely be mid-August at the earliest before the Gulf well is permanently capped by injecting mud and cement with the aid of relief wells.

The Taiwanese supertanker dubbed "A Whale" could radically increase the amount of oil crews are able to recover.

"It ingests oil and oily water and then separates out the oil and expels the water," BP spokesman Toby Odone told AFP.

The giant ship, which has cuts in its sides, is some 300 yards (275 meters) long and can suck up 21 million gallons of oily water a day.

The small skimming boats which have been patrolling the Gulf for the past 10 weeks have only collected 28.2 million gallons of oily water to date.

The tanker began initial skimming operations Friday, with crews testing whether it could safely handle and dispose of the oil, but it will take several days before a final deployment decision is made, Odone said.

Rough seas caused by the first hurricane of the Atlantic season have kept the thousands of ships hired to skim oil, lay boom, carry out controlled burns, and move equipment in harbor since Tuesday.

Skimmers had been collecting about 12,000 barrels of oil a day before they were sent back to port while about 8,000 barrels of oil was being burned off the surface.

Around 450 miles (725 kilometers) of US shorelines have now been oiled as crude spews into the sea at an alarming rate, 73 days into the worst environmental disaster in US history.

A third containment ship aimed at doubling the amount of oil captured from a rupture well in the Gulf of Mexico should hopefully be working by Wednesday, said Admiral Thad Allen, who oversees operations.

The deployment of the Helix Producer is set to increase capacity from about 25,000 to 53,000 barrels of oil per day.

Officials will have a better estimate on the actual flow rate once the Helix Producer is attached "just by the visual evidence of how much oil is actually coming out around that cap," Allen said in a conference call Friday.

A key advantage of the new system is that it would greatly reduce the amount of time oil would be gushing freely into the sea if crews had to evacuate the spill site due to a bad storm.

Meawhile, a US government agency warned the Florida Keys and resort beaches of Miami and Fort Lauderdale were at high risk from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration used a computer model to estimate the likelihood that toxic crude will ride the Loop Current into the Gulf Stream, which whips around the southern tip of Florida and up the eastern US seaboard.

The study found that much of Florida's western coastline along the Gulf "has a low probability (one to 20 percent) for impact," while the Florida Keys, Miami, and Fort Lauderdale areas "have a greater probability (61 to 80 percent)."

"Science-based probabilities like these help ... communities understand the current threat of oil reaching their shores and will help ensure full preparedness," said Democratic Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey.

Wat betekent dit nu voor het modale aandeel van BP op de beurs ?

Koers BP naar laagste stand in 14 jaar

LONDEN - De aandelenkoers van de Britse oliemaatschappij BP kelderde vrijdag 25 juni 2010 op de beurs in Londen naar het laagste niveau in veertien jaar. Het fonds stond op een verlies van ruim 7 procent op iets boven de 300 pence.
Beleggers vrezen dat BP nieuwe aandelen moet gaan uitgeven of onderdelen moet verkopen om de kosten voor de bestrijding van de olieramp in de Golf van Mexico te dekken.

BP maakte vrijdag bekend al 2,35 miljard dollar (1,9 miljard euro) kwijt te zijn. De totale kosten van de opruiming, boetes en compensatie van gedupeerden van de olieramp kunnen volgens analisten oplopen tot tientallen miljarden dollars. Door de koersval van het aandeel BP over de afgelopen tijd heeft het olieconcern al bijna 90 miljard dollar aan beurswaarde in rook zien opgaan.Er doen zelfs geruchten de ronde dat BP faillissementsbescherming wil aanvragen, maar dat ontkende het concern. ''We hebben voldoende slagkracht om alle kosten op te vangen'', aldus BP. Dan is er dus niets aan de hand en hangt er eigenlijk niets aan de fiets.
De beschadiging aan vis- en vogelbestanden is bijkomstig. Iedereen (met name woordvoerders van BP) doen daar wel spijtig over maar liggen er niet echt van wakker. Een merkwaardig feit is (nog maar eens) dat deze ramp zich voordoet aan het begin van de zomer in Europa en de USA, wanneer de vraag naar olie relatief laag is. Tegen de tijd dat het weer herfst of winter wordt en de vraag naar olie stijgt, zal het lek op zich waatschijnlijk wel gedicht zijn, maar de olieprijzen zullen wel de hoogte ingaan.
Wat heeft dit nu allemaal te maken met het leven op de Filipijnen, vraagt u zich wellicht af. De ramp doet zich niet voor in die kontreien. Dat is juist. Als de olieprijzen evenwel later dit jaar weer stijgen (o.a. tengevolge van de ramp en tengevolge van minder aanvoer van olie) draagt iedereen daar de lasten van. Ook (of zelfs vooral) derdewereldlanden. Minder aanvoer ? Saoudi-Arabie, de Verenigde Arabische Emiraten enz. zullen wel wat meer oppompen en dan is er geen schaarste. Zolang er genoeg kan worden opgepompt zal er nooit schaarste zijn. Maar het prijskaartje moet altijd worden betaald. De Filipijnen en andere derdewereldlanden ondervinden daar onveranderlijk de gevolgen van, nog meer materieel realistisch dan eerstewereldlanden.
O ja, zijn er wat vis- en vogelsoorten uitgestorven daar in de Golf van Mexico ? Dat is jammer, maar niets aan te doen... Als er zich in de Filipijnen iets dergelijks voordoet is de ramp, behalve aan het natuurlijke vis- en vogelbestand , aan de visvangst waarvan tallozen hier leven nauwelijks te overzien... In Noord-Ameika is de ramp eveneens nauwelijks te overzien, maar de (menselijke) slachtoffers die plotseling geen werk meer hebben kunnen een andere job zoeken of naar een andere staat verhuizen om daar te proberen werk te vinden.

"The Philippines' once pristine island of Boracay has become extremely overdeveloped, with its famous beach now choked by sewage and too many bars, the country's new tourism minister said Friday".

De Verenigde Naties hebben enkele dagen een nieuw bericht de wereld ingestuurd:
"Big investments needed to halt new Asia food crisis: UN

Koers BP naar laagste stand in 14 jaar

"The Philippines' once pristine island of Boracay has become extremely overdeveloped, with its famous beach now choked by sewage and too many bars, the country's new tourism minister said Friday".

De Verenigde Naties hebben enkele dagen een nieuw bericht de wereld ingestuurd:"Big investments needed to halt new Asia food crisis: UN

Koers BP naar laagste stand in 14 jaar

De Verenigde Naties hebben enkele dagen een nieuw bericht de wereld ingestuurd:
"Big investments needed to halt new Asia food crisis: UN