The Philippines Is Still Pissed Off That Canada Is Using It as a Giant Garbage Bin

October 15, 2015

By Manisha Krishnan

http://www.vice.com/read/the-philippines-is-still-pissed-off-that-vancouver-is-using-it-as-a-giant-garbage-bin-vgtrn?utm_source=vicetwitterus
Read: Montreal Is Going to Dump Two Billion Gallons of Raw Shit into the St. Lawrence River
Vancouver, a city known for its borderline self-righteous waste disposal policies, is being called out by the Philippines for essentially using the island nation as an enormous trash bin.

In 2013, the Ontario-based company Chronic Inc. sent 50 shipping containers, or 2,500 tons, of "plastic for recycling" to the Philippines, but closer inspection by that country's Bureau of Customs revealed the bins were filled with regular old trash, including rotting food and adult diapers.

The Philippines has not taken kindly to this nasty surprise, with politicians and environmentalists arguing that Canada violated international hazardous waste laws by shipping its crap overseas. To date, the pile of trash is still festering in a Manila port.

"Canada should take back its waste," Philippine Senator Loren Legarda told fellow senators at a hearing last week, while Leah Paquiz, a member of the country's House of Representatives is demanding Canada "show us the decency that we so rightfully deserve as a nation. My motherland is not a garbage bin of Canada." At a protest staged outside of the Canadian Embassy in May, one person even reportedly dressed as a garbage-filled shipping container. Now, there's a Change.org petition calling for a congressional inquiry into "imported Canadian garbage."

Chronic Inc. owner Jim Makris has said he purchased the recyclables from a Vancouver firm. But earlier this week, Malcolm Brodie, chair of Metro Vancouver's Zero Waste Committee, denied the city's involvement in the literal mess.

"It sounds like it's come from... Whitby, Ontario, where there's a company called Ontario Chronic Inc. It may have gone through the Port of Vancouver but it's not Metro Vancouver waste, for sure," he told local talk radio station CKNW.

Shipping waste to developing countries is such an issue, the United Nations banned the practice through the Basel Convention, which Canada is a part of.In an interview last year with the Toronto Star, Makris said sending garbage abroad doesn't make sense because it's more expensive than getting rid of it domestically.

At the time, Makris characterized the controversy as "the stupidest thing I've heard of in my entire life."

A spokesman for Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development told VICE there was nothing hazardous in the material shipped and that no laws exist to force Makris to recall the shipping containers.

Send Coconut Oil, Not Vaccines, to Typhoon Victims in the Philippines

By Brian and Marianita Shilhavy
As we have recently reported here at Health Impact News, UNICEF is taking advantage of the tragedy in the Philippines to advance their mass polio vaccination program, in spite of the fact that there have been no cases of polio in the Philippines since 1993. (See: No Polio in the Philippines Since 1993, But Mass Polio Vaccination Program Targeted for 500,000 Typhoon Victims Under Age 5).
Unfortunately, this is the live oral polio vaccine, which is known to cause polio and paralysis. It is a strong possibility that a similar mass vaccination program in Syria resulted in recent cases of polio showing up there. (See: Are UNICEF Live Polio Vaccines Causing Polio Among Syrians? 1.7 Billion Polio Vaccines Purchased by UNICEF).
The need in the Philippines is still enormous. Helping Traditions is committed to working with local national leaders (as opposed to western aid agencies like UNICEF) in providing relief, which includes coconut oil. We might be the only organization in the Philippines currently supplying coconut oil, which is a traditional product with tremendous health benefits.

A local brand of coconut oil be loaded for distribution in the typhoon hardest hit areas.

To help supply coconut oil and other needed supplies, please visit the Helping Traditions website.
http://healthimpactnews.com/2013/send-coconut-oil-not-vaccines-to-typhoon-victims-in-the-philippines/

 

Typhoon Haiyan death toll rises to 5,200 in Philippines

November 22, 2013 – PHILIPPINES – The number of people killed when a super typhoon devastated the Philippines has surpassed 5200, making it one of the country’s deadliest natural disasters. The official death toll from the storm jumped by nearly 1200 to 5209, with another 1611 people still missing, the spokesman for the government’s disaster management council, Reynaldo Balido, said on Friday. Super Typhoon Haiyan flattened dozens of towns across the central Philippines on November 8, bringing some of the strongest winds ever recorded and generating tsunami-like storm surges. Balido said the death toll rose sharply on Friday, increasing from 4015, after officials reported body counts from communities outside the worst-hit areas. “If you notice, there was not much movement in the death toll for the past few days. This was because the reporting rules required a casualty report signed by the city mayor and his health officer,” he said. “Now, the reports are coming in from the entire typhoon area.” The Philippines endures a seemingly never-ending pattern of deadly typhoons, earthquakes, volcano eruptions and other natural disasters. 

It is located along a typhoon belt and the so-called Ring of Fire, a vast Pacific Ocean region where many earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur. But Haiyan now stands as one of the deadliest natural disasters ever recorded in the country, and the worst typhoon. The only other natural disaster to rival Haiyan was a tsunami triggered by a magnitude 7.9 earthquake in 1976 that killed between 5000 and 8000 people on the southern island of Mindanao. The latest disaster has triggered a giant, international relief effort, with dozens of countries and relief organizations rushing to deliver food, water and health services to isolated communities. The US military has performed the highest-profile role, while Japan has sent more than 1000 troops in its biggest deployment since World War II. China, which is embroiled in a long-running territorial dispute, has also sent a 300-bed hospital ship and relief supplies. -News

http://theextinctionprotocol.wordpress.com/2013/11/22/typhoon-haiyan-death-toll-rises-to-5200-in-philippines/

More cadaver bags sent to Philippines, as toll climbs to 3,633 dead

November 16, 2013 – PHILIPPINES - More than a week after Typhoon Haiyan laid waste to much of the central Philippines, the toll is overwhelming: entire communities flattened, thousands dead and nearly 2 million people displaced. The arrival in recent days of hundreds of aid workers and military troops has seen a flood gate of humanitarian aid -- food, water and medical supplies -- open, albeit sporadically, in the hard hit provinces. Crews continued Saturday to collect bodies from streets, with the death toll raised to 3,633, according to the national disaster agency's official death count. The number of injured stood at 12,487, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council reported. At least 1,179 were missing. For some who survived the monster storm, the aid came too late. Richard Pulga, 27, died Friday, seven days after surviving the massive storm surge and fierce winds that flattened large portions of Tacloban City, a city of more than 200,000 people.  Pulga initially suffered an “open fracture of his shin bones,” according to doctors working at a damaged clinic. He then contracted a “terrible infection” that left him in need of a blood transfusion. But with the clinic out of blood and antibiotics, he eventually died, the doctors said. The death toll could still climb higher, with an additional 1,000 cadaver bags sent to provinces, the disaster council announced as search-and-rescue operations continued in Tacloban City.

The national disaster council's executive director, Eduardo Del Rosario, said the bags would be placed on stand-by, given that most of the bodies had already been buried in mass graves or claimed by relatives. Used cadaver bags are cleaned before being reused, he said. The nation's disaster agency said more than 9 million people were affected in 44 provinces, 536 municipalities and 55 cities. Nearly 2 million were displaced, with about 400,000 of them finding shelter inside evacuation centers. In Tacloban City, sickness, hunger and thirst have settled in with the sticky, humid heat and the stench of rancid flesh hanging over the apocalyptic scene. Survivors in improvised shelters have kept watch over the bodies of their dead relatives. Cadaver collectors in debris-removal crews uncover some of the dead, while heaving away wreckage from the roads. But the bodies that initially seemed ubiquitous are becoming a rarer sight, as collections continue. PNA reported Friday that five-person teams that include a forensic expert and photographer would begin Saturday using a “quick system” for the bodies. “Under the system, the public will not be allowed to view the identification process but relatives will be asked to participate in the final identification of corpses at an appointed time,” it reported, citing the Department of Health. Each team will be required to handle 40 corpses per day, it said. Health Secretary Enrique Ona said that photos will be taken, identifying marks will be documented, and belongings and tissue samples for possible use in DNA testing will be collected, when practical. –CNN

Typhoon death toll tops 1,700, likely to soar much higher

Bloated bodies lie in the streets, in front of houses, on bridges, in the water, wherever the giant wall of water happened to dump them when Typhoon Haiyan hit.

The desperate survivors scrounging for food amid the mountains of debris use cloth to shield their noses from the overpowering stench of rotting corpses. Some relatives have been trying to bury their dead, but in too many cases, there is no one to cart away the corpses littering the city of Tacloban, which was all but decimated by one of the most powerful storms to ever make landfall.

"Those are dead people in front of our house and the smell is awful," a woman told a reporter from The Guardian newspaper.
"The sister of the dead man came to see her brother, but she couldn't take him away, she just cried. What else can she do?" the woman asked. "There is nowhere to take him, nothing to do."

The typhoon struck Friday with 147-mph winds and a 20-foot fall of seawater. Authorities estimate the storm killed 10,000 or more people, but so far no one has been able to count all the bodies.
And with shattered communications and transportation links, the final count was likely days away. Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda said "we pray" it does not surpass 10,000.

The government raised the official death toll Tuesday to 1,744, with the final number expected to be much higher.
The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council also said 2,487 people were hurt.
Both figures are expected to climb drastically.,/p>
Authorities estimated that the storm displaced about 660,000 others.
"I don't believe there is a single structure that is not destroyed or severely damaged in some way - every single building, every single house," U.S. Marine Brig. Gen. Paul Kennedy said after taking a helicopter flight over Tacloban, the largest city in Leyte province. He spoke on the tarmac at the airport, where two Marine C-130 cargo planes were parked, engines running, unloading supplies.

Play Video

Red Cross official describes "complete devastation" in Tacloban

Authorities said at least 9.7 million people in 41 provinces were affected by the typhoon, known as Haiyan elsewhere in Asia but called Yolanda in the Philippines. It was likely the deadliest natural disaster to beset this poor Southeast Asian nation.
"Help. SOS. We need food," read a message painted by a survivor in large letters on Tacloban's port.
more info at - http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57611701/philippines-typhoon-survivors-plead-for-help-as-scale-of-devastation-becomes-clear/

Traumatized City in the Philippines Begins to Bury Its Dead

TACLOBAN, the Philippines — Pausing occasionally to dodge driving rains by hiding under loose scraps of plywood, a group of firefighters lowered unidentified bodies into a mass grave here Thursday, six days after the city was largely destroyed in Typhoon Haiyan.  or days, the bodies had sat in public. First they were uncovered on roadsides; then they were placed in body bags. After that, they were collected, and nearly 200 were stored at the biggest site, a government office. In the nearby City Hall, the center of local government relief efforts, the stench from the bodies could be powerful when the wind blew off the harbor.

“What we are doing is a little bit late,” said Alfred S. Romualdez, the mayor of Tacloban. He blamed the national government for widespread delays of burials and the distribution of food, water and basic relief supplies.

“I appreciate the boats coming in, the planes coming in,” he said. “But what we need are foot soldiers, times 10 of what you see now.”

The official death toll for Tacloban City rose to 2,000 on Thursday, but that covers only bodies that have been collected or visually confirmed by authorized officials. The visually confirmed bodies are those readily visible from roadsides, as relief crews have yet to start digging through towering piles of debris, much of it studded with nails.More info and pics - http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/15/world/asia/tacloban-philippines-typhoon-haiyan.html?hpw&rref=world&_r=0

8 killed storming rice warehouse in typhoon-ravaged region of Philippines

 

November 13, 2013 - Manila, PHILIPPINES - Struggle for survival has killed eight people in Tacloban in Philippines today. A huge crowd stormed into a rice warehouse in the city and as a result, a wall collapsed, killing 8 people instantly. There is a shortage of food, safe drinking water, clothes and everything necessary in the Haiyan-devastated Philippines. Police and security agencies guard malls, shops, warehouses and camps to stop angry people from attacking them. There are also reports of armed gangs looting the shops and malls. The crowd took away almost 1 Lakh bags of rice, each bag weighing 50 kgs, authorities reported. According to United nations data, more than 10,000 people have died in the typhoon. Haiyan was described as one of the most powerful storms ever in the world. UN says it has a huge amount of job to be done in Philippines and Vietnam where the wind caused maximum destructions. “We have not been able to get into the remote communities,” UN humanitarian chief Valerie Amos said in Manila. More than 11 million people are said to be affected by the storm.  “Even in Tacloban, because of the debris and the difficulties with logistics and so on, we have not been able to get in the level of supply that we would want to. We are going to do as much as we can to bring in more,” she said. –One India

Chaos, fear, and desperation in Philippines, as society in island nation begins to unravel

Thousands of bodies are being piled up on the streets after the devastating Typhoon Haiyan and aid agencies have warned the death toll will ‘rise sharply.’ Police and soldiers have the grim task of searching through the wreckage for bodies after entire villages and parts of cities were flattened. Makeshift mortuaries, set up in remaining intact buildings like churches, are overrun and body bags are being left outside in rows.

Soldiers were forced to hold back thousands of desperate Filipinos as they rushed to board to military planes that could only evacuate a few hundred people from the typhoon-ravaged region. About 3,000 Tacloban residents walked for miles to queue for help at the airport but just two planes arrived to take survivors to Manila, the capital of Philippines. There were scenes of chaos and devastation as families, many of whom containing young children or elderly people, were held back by soldiers. When the two Philippine Air Force C-130s arrived, people surged forward past a broken iron fence, witnesses said. But only a few hundred made it aboard and the rest were left to wait in the rain, with few supplies.

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