Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo ordered a crackdown on rice hoarders on Tuesday as her administration tried to blunt the impact of rice shortages that could fuel public unrest.
Arroyo also appealed to traders not to artificially raise the price of rice, the country's staple food. The price had risen by nearly 50 percent since January, official statistics indicated.
Prices for prices of oil and basic household commodities have also soared.
In her directive, Arroyo ordered Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap to "go all out against rice hoarders to ensure that cheap government rice ends up on the tables of the intended consumers -- the country's poor."
Yap "is staking out all NFA [National Food Authority] warehouses so he can follow the big 10-wheeler trucks and see where they are bringing rice," the president said.
The NFA runs the government's rice subsidy program. It buys rice from farmers locally and abroad and sells it to the public at a cheaper price.
But officials said some traders had been buying the subsidized rice and stockpiling it to sell months later at higher prices. This practice has made shortages worse as demand has grown, they say. The government estimates that the country's population, 85 million, will reach 94 million by 2010.
The Philippines, once Asia's leading rice producer, is now its leading rice importer, economic research group the Ibon Foundation said. Last year, the Philippines imported 1.8 million tonnes of rice, or 16 percent of its requirement -- mainly from Vietnam and Thailand.
Earlier this month, Arroyo asked Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung to commit to export 1.5 million tonnes to the Philippines. Vietnam pledged only 1 million tonnes, officials said.
And last week, amid reports that government rice inventories were thinning, Yap suggested that fast-food restaurants cut rice servings in half to limit consumption and waste. The government said 25,000 bags of rice were wasted daily.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
RSS