Inuka, the first polar bear born in the tropics, has reached the grand old age of 27 — well into his 70s in human years and two years older than the average lifespan of the creatures in captivity.

Zoo operator Wildlife Reserves Singapore said an April 3 examination revealed that the health of Inuka, who has been receiving treatment for arthritis for some time, had declined markedly.

The bear’s activity levels have fallen over the past three months and he now prefers resting over interacting with his keepers, a statement said.

Inuka — who was born at the zoo, which describes him as their “most prominent senior resident” — had been popular with visitors due to his playful antics in his pool enclosure.

But he has now cut back on swimming, his walking is stiffer, and he is less interested in his daily playing sessions involving traffic cones, balls and ice blocks embedded with his favourite food, the zoo said.

Veterinarians have ramped up the bear’s daily care regimen and are administering medication, and a second health check will take place in late April.

“If results indicate that Inuka’s welfare is not improving with these intensive treatments, his care team may have to make the very difficult decision not to allow him to recover from anaesthesia on humane and welfare grounds,” said the statement.

Inuka’s annual birthday celebration is one of the high points for visitors in the zoo’s calendar, and last year he celebrated with a special jelly and salmon cake.//AFP

In a letter to 32 Chilean bishops, released by the Vatican, Francis said that he intended to summon them to Rome to discuss an investigation into the abuse carried out by Archbishop Charles Scicluna.

The probe involves an alleged cover-up by Bishop Juan Barros of abuse by paedophile priest Fernando Karadima during the 1980s and 1990s.

Francis made no specific mention of Barros in his letter, but he expressed his “shame” and “pain” for the suffering of the victims and pledged to meet them.

“I have made grave mistakes in the assessment and my perception of the situation, especially due to a lack of truthful and balanced information,” Francis wrote.

The 2,300-page report sent to the pope includes testimony gathered from 64 people in New York and Santiago.

The pope has asked for the bishops summoned to Rome to discuss the findings and for their “collaboration and assistance” in finding measures that can “repair the scandal as much as possible and restore justice”.

“The present difficulties are also an opportunity to restore confidence in the Church, a confidence broken by our mistakes and sins,” Francis wrote.

Convinced of Barros’ innocence

During a trip to Chile in January, the pontiff had strongly defended Barros, who was appointed Bishop of Osorno in Chile, despite being accused of concealing and even witnessing abuse carried out by Karadima.

The presence of Barros at public masses celebrated by the Pope in three different Chilean cities caused a public outcry during Francis’ visit at the start of the year.

Karadima was convicted by the Vatican in 2011 of abusing teenage boys and sentenced to a life of penitence.

At the time, Francis said that he was convinced of Barros’ innocence and demanded “proof” of abuse before he would speak out against him.

“There is not a single piece of proof against him. Everything is slander. Is this clear?” Francis said.

However, he later apologised to the victims and dispatched Archbishop Charles Scicluna, a renowned Vatican investigator, to Chile to collect evidence. Scicluna returned at the end of February.

Scicluna, Archbishop of Malta, was until 2012 a prosecutor in the Vatican Court to investigate cases of paedophilia among priests, making a name for himself with his determination.

He allowed the opening of an investigation into Father Marcial Maciel, Mexican founder of the congregation of the Legionaries of Christ and the perpetrator of numerous cases of paedophilia.

The Global Firepower Military Strength Index measures the countries’ military strength based on 50 parameters, including military resources, diversity of weapon systems, natural resources, industry and geographical features and available manpower.  It rates countries according to these factors with 0.0000 being perfect rating.

China’s armed forces have been ranked 3rd out of a list of 133 countries based on their capability on land, sea and air, as well as their financial dexterity and diversity of weapon systems. It has more aircraft and naval ships than Russia but is hugely outnumbered in total tanks in service. China’s Armed Forces have scored 0.0945 and it is preceded by Russia and the USA.

While USA has the strongest army in the world with the cutting edge technology and extremely well trained human force, China leads in the Asian region. China has made fast strides in modernising military programmes and it also has the longest standing army in the world. The country upped its military budget this year to better equip its army. Currently it possesses second largest tank fleet and second largest submarine fleet in the world.

India has managed to maintain its position among the top five military powers in the world on the GFP list. India leads China in terms of total armed personnel with  4,207,250 personnel against China’s 3,712,500. China, however, leads in terms of active personnel with 2,260,000 troops compared to India’s 1,362,500.

Both China and India are nuclear power. However the index didn’t count nuclear stockpiles for the ranking but gave points for nuclear capability.

Japan is ranked seventh globally out of 133 countries and rated 0.2137. Although Japanese military is small it possesses advanced weapon systems. With a sustainable defense budget the country has strengthened air power, navy power and military man power.

South Korea is ranked 12th in the world with a rating of 0.2741. The country has been facing a potential threat of aggression from North Korea and has been increasing its military strength on various fronts.

Pakistan is ranked 13 globally and maintains a rating of 0.3287. The country has 301 fighter aircraft, 394 attack aircraft, and 316 helicopters, 52 of those which are attack choppers. Added to its basket of weapons is the access to nuclear weapons that makes it a formidable force.

It is followed by Indonesia that is ranked 14th with a rating of 0.3347. Vietnam is ranked 16th globally with a rating score of 0.3587. Taiwan is ranked 18th globally with a rating score of 0.3756. The country has been bolstering its navy strength to fight any attack on its shores, especially to keep China away from claiming the Taiwanese territory.

Thailand is ranked 20th globally with a score of 0.3892.

Customs director-general Datuk Seri Subromaniam Tholasy said the suspect, a Malaysian man aged 47, was nabbed as he was driving from Thailand at the border security post at about 9.30am.

“Customs officers suspected something amiss and asked the driver to open the car boot.

“Officers conducted a thorough inspection and found a secret compartment there,” he told a press conference at the Immigration, Customs and Quarantine (ICQS) complex here on Wednesday (April 11).

Inside the compartment, officers found 70 packages of drugs weighing a total of 70kg.

“We believe the drugs are methamphetamine and were manufactured in Thailand for the Malaysian market.

“The suspect has been remanded for 14 days pending investigation under Section 39B of the Dangerous Drugs Act, which carries the death penalty upon conviction,” said Subromaniam.

He added that this was the biggest drug bust for Customs in Kedah this year.

Subromaniam said Customs would be working with police in the case and the suspect will also be charged under the Customs Act and id needed, the Anti-Money Laundering, Anti-Terrorism Financing and Proceeds of Unlawful Activities Act.

Algiers, AlgeriaAt ข  least 257 people, mostly soldiers and members of their families, were killed in an Algerian military plane crash Tuesday, the defence ministry said.

The II-76 crashed shortly after take-off from the Boufarik airbase, about 25 kilometres (15 miles) southwest of the capital Algiers.The dead include the plane’s 10 crew and 247 passengers, most of them members of the armed forces, the ministry said in a statement.

According to an AFP photographer at the scene, thick black smoke rose from the wreckage of the plane which crashed in a field near the base.

Hundreds of ambulances and dozens of fire trucks with their sirens wailing rushed to the scene.

The aircraft is an Ilyushin II-76, the military source told AFP, asking not to be named.

In February 2014, 77 people died when a military plane carrying army personnel and family members crashed between Tamanrasset in southern Algeria and the eastern city of Constantine.

The C-130 Hercules transport aircraft came down in the mountainous Oum El Bouaghi region.

In July 2014 an Air Algerie passenger plane flying from Burkina Faso to Algiers crashed in northern Mali, killing all 116 people on board including 54 French nationals.//AFP

If you are among the 65,000 Facebook users in Singapore whose data was shared improperly with Cambridge Analytica, you are in the process of being told about it.

Facebook has started reaching out to all its account holders – including the 87 million worldwide whose data was shared improperly – to let them know whether they were affected.

This marks the first time users will know if their account information was shared improperly or not, almost three weeks since news of the scandal first broke.

Those with affected accounts will see a notification at the top of their Facebook News Feed, informing them how they are affected.

The social media website had told tech news site The Verge in a report that ran early yesterday morning that “the notification is rolling out over the course of today”.

Affected users will see one of two notifications, with both saying that the thisisyourdigitallife app was banned by the company for misusing Facebook information.

Users could have had their data compromised either because they logged into the app on their own account, or one of their friends did so.

“We did this because the app may have misused some of your Facebook information by sharing it with a company called Cambridge Analytica,” the notifications read.

Furthermore, all of Facebook’s 2.2 billion users will also see a prompt at the top of their News Feed that gives them quick access to check which apps and websites they are currently sharing data with.

Users can then choose to remove these apps and websites from their account, which stops them from accessing further data from the users’ profiles.

These notifications are part of Facebook’s attempts to deal with the global scandal where information about its users was accessed improperly by third-party companies.

The process seems to be taking its time. A mock-up of the notification being sent to users was first posted on a blog post by Facebook’s chief technology officer Mike Schroepfer last Wednesday, which stated that Facebook users would start seeing it on Monday.

However, according to international reports, most Facebook users had not received the notifications even on Monday night.

The social media company revealed last week that 65,009 Facebook users here had their information shared inappropriately with Cambridge Analytica, which exploited the data for commercial and political use.

The thisisyourdigitallife app was a personality quiz administered by data scientist and academic Aleksandr Kogan from Cambridge University, who paid hundreds of thousands of users to take it for academic research purposes.

However, the app also collected information on the test-takers’ Facebook friends, leading to a data pool of more than 80 million users.

Facebook banned the app in 2015, but the data collected was not destroyed, in violation of Facebook’s personal data policy.

Ernesto De Jesus San Juan, a 95-year-old Filipino of Gapan, Nueva Ecija, has been staying there, at 958/423b Sukhumvit Rd., Soi 71, since 2008 as his document says. But it was only on March 1, that his Filipino neighbors knew his name and his desire to go home for good. He started knocking on doors, asking for food. His mental faculties are fading.

A video of Lolo Ernesto was posted on the Facebook page “Kababayan at Kapamilya sa Thailand (KKT)” on March 1. In the video, Lolo Ernesto is seen talking about the Golden Triangle, and Pasig City. He doesn’t mention where in the Philippines he can go home to. He has no family and has been living alone for many years, the longest resident in the Tower said.

Jane Cabaya, the administrator of KKT and a leader in the Filipino community, sought my attention in the hope of understanding Lolo Ernesto.

I was surprised to see him as barely 5 feet tall, although age may have bent him. Lolo Ernesto immediately told me stories that happened long before all of us in the room were born, a story of the changing political landscapes of the Indochina region, and of gold in the Mekong region.

Golden Triangle is gold

Ernesto started his journey at Gapan, Nueva Ecija. “Bukana,” he said, was an entrance to the town he helped build as a young man. “Nueva Ecija is the entrance to Northern Luzon. That’s where I started. But I don’t know them anymore,” he said.

Lolo Ernesto De Jesus San Juan today. INQUIRER/Eunice Barbara C. Novio

After the WWII, he worked for Jacobo Zobel de Ayala, a Spanish Filipino industrialist and philanthropist. (Jacobo Zobel de Ayala was the only name he mentioned.)

“I was sought by many people for advice. I don’t know, I may be an expert,” he said.

The ability to speak four languages gave him an advantage in working with the locals in Laos. He was assigned to Pakse, Luang Prabang and Vientiane. He stayed in the country for more than 10 years but constantly moved within the countries that surrounded the Golden Triangle and also in Vietnam.

“Golden Triangle is not just opium. It is literally gold. But you got more money from opium,” Ernesto claimed.

He insisted that no one sent him there but his “friends.” He expressed his dismay in America and all other nations involved in the Golden Triangle. “They used the people, like the Hmong tribe, to gain wealth. I could have been wealthy today, but I would never meet you,” he smiled.

Who sent Ernesto to these missions? What are the organizations that operated in the turbulent region at the time?

MAAG Laos

Based on his Registration Booklet, Ernesto was sent to Laos in November 1958-1963. His employer was the Military Assistance Group (MAAG Laos). Highly decorated WWII veteran Reuben Tucker was one of MAAG Laos’ commanders.

MAAG became a key force during the anti-communist campaign in French Indochina during the ‘50s. President Harry Truman signed the National Security Council (NSC) Memorandum 64 in March 1950 proclaiming that Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos “could not be allowed to fall to the communists and that the United States would provide support against the communist aggression in the area.”

MAAG personnel reached to 685 personnel, all US citizens who had served during in WWII. They had an “advisory” role. They assisted in training local soldiers and facilitating military aid in the countries where they were sent.

In the account of William G. Bowles, a Special Forces US Army Sergeant sent to Laos, (the-wanderling.com/white_star.html), an operation called “Operation Hotfoot,” later called Operation White Star, was not clandestine. It trained and advised the Royal Laotian Army, which also included the Hmong and other hill tribes. It has began in 1959 and ended in 1962 as a result of the Geneva Accords that established Laotian neutrality.

“Late in 1958 and early 1959 our political and military leaders decided to put a highly trained military force into the Laotian Kingdom (Laos) with the mission to organize, train, and develop their military forces so they could control, suppress, and eliminate the growing communist forces in the country.”

Ernesto’s document says that he worked as a “trainer which is military in nature” in Pakse, Luang Prabang and Vientiane provinces of Laos. He mentioned the Hmong tribe as the one used by the Americans in fighting the “opium trade” and the communists.

Air America 108

Presumably, after MAAG, Ernesto worked job at Air America in December 1963. His job occupation was described as “teaching soldiers how to fly.” His job locations were Laos, Vietnam, and Thailand.

General Vang Pao (center, in camouflage),  his staff, and American advisers, Laos 1969. Was Lolo Ernesto one of them? https://sofrep.com/58394/58394white-star/

Dr. Joe F. Leeker in his book History of Laos, he describes Air America:

“Air America looks like an operator whose flights had purely humanitarian objectives, it was another aspect of Air America’s activities in Laos that first became notorious and then famous: military and paramilitary support to pro-western forces said to have been done at the will of the CIA. Yet, it was not the CIA who came to Laos first, but the US military.”

According to the CIA’s public website, Air America in Laos from 1955-1974 was secretly owned by the CIA, and was vital component in the Agency’s largest paramilitary operations in the country.

“For more than 13 years, the Agency directed native forces that fought major North Vietnamese units to a standstill. Although the country eventually fell to the Communists, the CIA remained proud of its accomplishments in Laos. As Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) Richard Helms later observed: ‘This was a major operation for the Agency. It took manpower; it took specially qualified manpower; it was dangerous; it was difficult.’” The CIA, Helms contended, did “a superb job.”

Mystery surrounds

After his work at Air America, Lolo Ernesto said “friends” brought him back to Thailand. His document showed that he worked as an English teacher and his office was also his home. It is registered as turakij suantuameaning, his own business.

If Lolo Ernesto was indeed employed by the CIA, he could have received a pension from the US government, according to a Dr. Sakt, a Thai historian and expert on ASEAN. Sakt also explained that Lolo Ernesto only needed to renew legal paper every five years. This type of documentation is issued as a sort of “diplomatic passport” where the holder can freely move in any country.

Lolo Ernesto said a woman, a “kind of official” supported him until she stopped visiting him in late February, prompting him to ask his neighbors for food.

In an email, Vice-Consul Jim Minglana said that the Philippine Embassy already sought the assistance of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) “on procedures in handling the repatriation of elderly abandoned Filipino nationals upon their return to the Philippines.”

Lolo Ernesto could have told me more despite his dimming memory, but it all ended up with him asking me to bring him home. Where to? He only said “the Philippines,” where he wanted to rest.

Still, many unanswered questions linger

    The bloody incident in Inn Din village on 2 September is the only atrocity to which the military has admitted during its violent crackdown in northern Rakhine state, which has forced some 700,000 Rohingya to flee over the border into Bangladesh since August last year.

Two Reuters journalists, Myanmar nationals Wa Lone, 31, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 27, were investigating the massacre when they were arrested in December on the outskirts of Yangon for possessing classified documents that could land them up to 14 years in jail if convicted.

A month after their detention, the military issued a statement in a rare admission of wrongdoing that some of its security forces had been involved in the killing and pledging to take action against those responsible.

However, the army has repeatedly claimed the Rohingya men were “terrorists”, but has not presented any evidence to back up the allegation.

“Four officers have been purged (from the army) and given a 10-year prison sentence with hard labour. A further three soldiers were purged and given a 10-year prison sentence with hard labour in a criminal prison,” read the post from Senior General Min Aung Hlaing.

The tribunal took place behind closed doors, ignoring international calls for an independent inquiry.

The arrest of the Reuters journalists has provoked global outrage with calls for the pair’s release echoing around the world as they wait to hear whether the court will throw out their case on Wednesday.

Their report, based on testimony from Buddhist villagers, security officers and relatives of the slain men, described how Myanmar troops and Buddhist villagers executed the 10 men before dumping their bodies into a mass grave.

It included photographs of the victims, hands bound and kneeling on the floor prior to the killing — and of their bodies in a pit afterwards.

Myanmar’s civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi has welcomed the army admission as a “positive step”.

– ‘Hallmarks of genocide’ –

The country’s military has a grim track record of rights abuses over 50 years of rule.

Many had hoped Suu Kyi’s new democratic government that swept to power in 2016 would see the army step back from its notorious “scorched earth” approach to rebellion and conflict, but the crackdown on the Rohingya in Rakhine state banished those hopes.

Amnesty International called the summary killings at Inn Din “the tip of the iceberg” in terms of atrocities carried out since August and has repeatedly urged a wider, impartial probe.

The UN has accused Myanmar’s army of ethnic cleansing, saying there are even possible “hallmarks of genocide” with refugees bringing with them consistent testimony of murder, rape and arson.

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) estimate that at least 6,700 Rohingya were killed in the first month of the military crackdown alone.

Myanmar denies the allegations, justifying its campaign in Rakhine as a legitimate response to Rohingya militants and blaming the international media and aid agencies for spreading false information fuelled by a pro-Rohingya bias.

After decades of discrimination and propaganda against them, the Rohingya are widely viewed as “Bengalis” – or illegal immigrants from Bangladesh – in the Buddhist-majority country.

Northern Rakhine state has largely been in lockdown since the campaign began eight months ago with access to media, observers and most aid groups tightly controlled.//AFP

    Made famous by the 2000 movie “The Beach” starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Maya Bay on the western Thai island of Koh Phi Phi Ley is now a case study in the ruinous costs of runaway tourism, swamped by up to 4,000 daily visitors.

“There is too many people here, it’s bad,” lamented Saad Lazrak, a 61-year-old from Morocco, as crowds around him swallowed the stretch of sand encircled by an amphitheatre of limestone cliffs.

Across the region, Southeast Asia’s once-pristine beaches are reeling from decades of unchecked tourism as governments scramble to confront trash-filled waters and environmental degradation without puncturing a key economic driver.

Thailand’s Maya Bay will be off limits for four months from June to September, officials announced last month, in a bid to save its ravaged coral reefs.

In the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte ordered this month the Boracay beach resort closed to tourists for up to six months from April 26, describing the destination as a “cesspool” tainted by sewage dumped directly into the sea.

Indonesian officials, meanwhile, declared a “garbage emergency” last year swamping a six-kilometre stretch of coast along the island of Bali.

The island’s grim coastal pollution was highlighted in March by British diver Rich Horner’s viral video of swimming through a dystopia of trash swirling off shore.

“Plastic bags, more plastic bags, plastic, plastic, so much plastic!” Horner said in a Facebook post that has been viewed more than a million times.

– Breathing space –

Conservationists and governments are worried about the health of coral reefs, which are in a dire state globally due to climate change and rising sea temperatures.

When exposed to warmer waters, they shed the algae that dazzle the eye and are vital to marine eco-systems, leaving the corals diseased or bone-white in a process called bleaching.

Environmental stress, including pollution, human contact and exposure to plastics that comes with mass tourism are also major threats to reefs that are part of the draw for snorkellers and scuba-divers.

“Tourism has a series of detrimental effects on coral health,” said Eike Schoenig, a Thailand-based marine biologist at the Center for Oceanic Research and Education.

Countries in Southeast Asia are looking to stem the threats without cutting off the cash flow of a regional tourism boom, led by China, the top source market for travellers to the region.

Thailand received 35 million tourists last year, of whom nearly 10 million hailed from China, according to official data.

But what is good for business can be bad for beaches.

Songtam Suksawang, Thailand’s National Park Office Director, told AFP he personally inspected the beach at Maya Bay and said it “must definitely be (temporarily) closed” in order to rehabilitate it.

He said authorities are discussing new rules once the shut-down is lifted, such as restrictions on the number of daily visitors, better regulation of boats and a higher entrance fee.

 – Tourism costs – 

Thailand is also conducting studies on six other marine parks, while the Philippines is weighing action on other top destinations buckling under mass tourism.

But governments are wary of curtailing an industry that creates jobs and buoys economies.

Spending on travel and tourism contributed nearly $136 billion to the region’s GDP in 2017, a figure forecast to rise to $144 billion this year, according to the World Travel & Tourism Council.

The cost of the closures is already being felt in the Philippines, where hundreds of Boracay hotels and tour companies are facing steep losses from cancelled rooms, flights and other bookings.

But some countries are not taking such dramatic steps.

In Indonesia, the tourism ministry said there were no plans to close Bali or any other holiday destination in the archipelago, although it acknowledged that pockets of the tropical paradise were under strain from heavy tourism.

“Shut down Bali? I don’t think we will need to do that yet,” said ministry spokesman Guntur Sakti. “Bali is the centre of Indonesian tourism.”

In fact, Indonesia has identified 10 other destinations where it is trying to boost visitors and replicate Bali’s success, including neighbouring island Lombok and Lake Toba in Sumatra.

Experts are also sceptical that short shut-downs will have lasting effects.

“Bottom line is that temporarily closing the beach is probably not the optimal solution to these problems. It only take a day for a bunch of incompetent snorkellers to trash a small reef,” said Andrew Baird from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies in Australia.

In Thailand, the government hopes to draw people to lesser known beaches.

“We are working very hard to spread people out, not to go to one condensed area,” said Thon Thamrongnawasawat, a marine expert working with the parks and tourism authorities.

Travellers to Maya Bay might like the idea.

“It’s very touristy. There wasn’t a patch of sand that didn’t have people laying down on it, taking photos,” Oliver Black, a 22-year-old tourist, said of his afternoon at the destination.

As for his thoughts on the looming closure?

“It would not really upset me if I wasn’t able to go to (back to) Maya beach,” he told AFP.

“A man’s body has been recovered” at the site of the landslide in a mountainous area of Nakatsu city, a municipal official said.

Local officials said the body had not yet been identified, but Japan’s NHK television said the man was among six people who had been reported missing by a local resident.

The landslide hit in the early hours of Wednesday, and rescuers were searching for five women and one man reported missing after dirt engulfed three local homes.

Rescue and police personnel work as the scene of a landslide that hit residential homes in Nakatsu, Oita prefecture on April 11, 2018. At least six people were unaccounted for April 11 after a landslide hit their houses in southern Japan, local police said. // AFP PHOTO

Local television footage showing rescuers and a digger clearing rocks and mud more than 10 hours after the disaster.

Landslides are not uncommon in Japan during the country’s rainy season, when heavy rain can dislodge earth.

But there was no indication that bad weather had preceded the landslide on Wednesday.