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(Free Radio Asia) Rice crops in Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar have taken a hit from flooding and conflict this year, casting a shadow on a mostly sunny outlook for Southeast Asia’s output of the key grain as the region deals with other potential longer term supply troubles, farm officials and researchers say.

Poverty and hunger are stalking some rural communities in peninsular Southeast Asia, also called Indochina, as a result of lost crops, hitting populations still struggling to recover from lost income and other fallout from widespread economic disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, the poorest Southeast Asian nations, are not major players in rice production in a sector dominated by Thailand and Vietnam, which lead the world in exports of the grain. Southeast Asia accounts for 26 percent of global rice production and 40 percent of exports, supplying populous neighbors Indonesia and the Philippines, as well as Africa and the Middle East, according the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization… Read More

(Interaksyon) MANILA — The death toll from flooding and rain-induced landslides in the Philippines has climbed to 48, the country’s disaster agency said on Sunday, with 22 others recorded missing after tropical storm Nalgae inundated many parts of the archipelago.

Some 40 people were reported injured, while nearly 170,000 were sheltering in evacuation centres, government data showed, as the storm exited land areas after barrelling across the country over the weekend, including the capital, Manila.

Most of the casualties were recorded in the southern autonomous region of Bangsamoro, where 40 died due to landslides, with 10 still missing, the disaster agency said.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr on Saturday ordered urgent aid distribution in hard-hit areas.

Nalgae, which made landfall five times, is this year’s second-most deadly cyclone to hit the Philippines, which sees an average of 20 tropical storms annually… Read More

(News Australia) At least 45 people are dead and around 20 are missing after the Philippines was hit by a severe storm overnight.

Tropical Storm Nalgae (called Paeng in the Philippines) made landfall on Saturday, with wind gusts of up to 160km/h unleashing on the Pacific nation throughout the weekend, leading to flash flooding and landslides.

Rescuers using rubber dinghies and canoes attempted to access villages that were submerged as they searched for people stranded in the deluge and pulled bodies from the water.

The Philippines Department of Social Welfare and Development has estimated that more than 409,000 people had been affected by the storm, with at least 61,000 displaced – including in capital Manila, The New York Times reports.

The hardest hit region has been in the south of the country in Bangsamoro, where at least 40 people were killed as a result of the flash flooding, the Social Welfare Department said.

The area is fairly impoverished, with Cotabato City mayor Bruce Matabalao saying 330,000 people in his city alone had been affected by the severe storm event. On Saturday, Bangsamoro was declared under a state of emergency… Read More

(Inquirer Ph) MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) on Sunday said it has yet to receive reports of Filipino victims in the Halloween stampede in the Itaewon District in Seoul, South Korea which resulted in at least 149 deaths and scores of injuries.

Two of the fatalities were foreign nationals, the DFA said in a statement Sunday. “The Embassy is closely monitoring the situation and is in coordination with local authorities in case any Filipino national has been affected. To date the Embassy has yet to receive reports of any Filipino victim in the stampede,” the DFA said.

“The Embassy continues to remind all Filipinos in Korea to observe precautions during large events,” it added.

The DFA said that according to Korea’s National Fire Agency, 76 persons were injured, including 15 foreigners,… Read More

(Manila Bulletin) In the spirit of bringing Global Filipinos closer to home and as part of building on the #StrongerTogether campaign, GMA Pinoy TV visited various Fil-Am communities and offices in the United States to celebrate Filipino American History Month (FAHM) this October.

Introduced by the Filipino American National Historical Society in 1992 and officially recognized in 2009 by the U.S. Congress, FAHM commemorates the first arrival of Filipinos in the country in Morro Bay, California on Oct. 18, 1587.

With the coinciding FAHM and GMA Pinoy TV’s 17th-anniversary celebrations, the GMA Pinoy TV team took every opportunity to visit different Fil-Am communities, embassies, and consulates during its US trip… Read More

(Manila Times) PRESIDENT Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. met with officials of the Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development (DHSUD) and representatives from top banks in the country to discuss the government’s housing program.

A social media post by the Office of the President (OP) said the President met Wednesday night with DHSUD Secretary Jose Rizalino Acuzar, representatives of different banking institutions, officials from government financial institutions (GFI), and representatives from BDO, Metrobank, Union Bank, Ayala Corp., and China Bank to discuss the Framework for Resilient Housing and Shelter Programs in the Philippines turned over by the World Bank (WB) earlier the same day.

The framework lays down strategies “to direct the coordination and identification of housing strategies and programs of national government agencies, local government units, and government partners in all phases of disaster management,” according to the OP… Read More

(Manila Times) WASHINGTON D.C.: The United States government has offered to upgrade at least 12 of the 36 Sikorsky helicopters that the Philippines bought so that these can be used for disaster response, Philippine Ambassador to the US Jose Manuel Romualdez said.

The money used to acquire heavy-lift Sikorsky choppers will come from the $100 million military grant from the US government, he said on Tuesday.

“First of all, we wanted to buy heavy lift helicopters for disaster management,” Romualdez told a group of visiting Filipino journalists.

“The $100 million can give us an upgrade. That is the offer. If we decide huwag na lang (not to go for the upgrade] and we will get something else, puwede rin (it is also allowed),” he said.

The ambassador clarified that the US does not want to dictate on how the Philippines will use the military grant. It merely suggested upgrading several of the Sikorsky choppers. “The DND (Department of National Defense) is considering it,” he said… Read More

(PuertoricoReport) The United States acquired both Puerto Rico and the Philippines from Spain following the Spanish–American War in 1898.

In 1946, the Philippines ended its status as a territory of the United States and became an independent nation.

During the roughly 50 years in which the Philippines was a territory, U.S. law recognized Filipinos as U.S. nationals, granting them special immigration privileges.

This ended when Congress passed the Tydings–McDuffie Act of 1934, the law that guided the Philippines toward its independence. The new law ended the status of Filipinos as U.S. nationals and explicitly established that Filipino American nationals were to “be considered as if they were aliens.” Immigration quotas for the new nation of the Philippines would be limited to 50 individuals a year.

Today, there is speculation as to what would happen to U.S. citizenship currently granted to the people of Puerto Rico under a 1917 law if the U.S. territory were to become independent… Read More