SM Mall of Asia Shooting (Martilyo Gang)

Report says that "Martilyo Gang" victimize a jewelry counter at the SM Mall of Asia in Pasay City Sunday evening March 30, 2014.

Steven Tan, SM Vice President for Operations, tweeted: "At around 7:14pm Sunday the Martilyo Gang had struck a jewelry counter at The SM Store in MOA."

The gang are called "Martilyo Gang" because of their use of hammers to break open jewelry display cases.

"The police are already present in the area to conduct a thorough investigation. The mall is working closely with the PNP (Philippine National Police) to resolve this," Tan continued.

There were no casualties reported but there are unconfirmed reports that said one person was injured during the incident. It said that a male employee of Spike's Frozen Treats has a gunshot wound.

A witness said that, he heard 3 to 5 gunshots and people panicked. A suspect was arrested in a nearby restaurant.

China-Philippines navy Altercation captured on camera

Philippine soldiers aboard a civilian vessel that engaged last Saturday in spat for nearly 2 hours standoff with Chinese Coast Guard ships near the disputed Ayungin (Second Thomas) Shoal that is claimed by both China and the Philippines.

The incident was caught on camera by journalists on board a Philippine ship. The Chinese coast guard vessel tried to block access to a disputed shoal in the South China Sea. They even radioed the Filipinos, ordering them to stop encroaching in “Chinese territory” and turn around or "take full responsibility" for their actions.

But the Filipino captain was able to maneuvere to shallow waters where the Chinese vessel cannot follow due to a larger displacement that could risk running aground. The Philippine boat is ferrying food to troops stationed on the Second Thomas Shoal.

The latest incident involves the Second Thomas Shoal, known as Ayungin in Manila and Ren'ai Reef in Beijing.

Philippine troops are stationed on a beached, rusting military ship on the shoal that analysts say has become a symbol of the country marking its territory.

3 MRT Trains Abruptly Stops, 10 Hurt

MANILA – At least 10 people were injured when 3 trains of the Metro Rail Transit (MRT 3) simultaneously stopped Wednesday, policed said.

Makati Police chief Senior Superintendent Manuel Lucban said that there were 10 passengers were injured after 3 successive northbound trains from MRT Taft Avenue, Magallanes and Ayala Stations abruptly stopped.

5 people were hurt at the Ayala station, 4 at Magallanes, and 1 at Pasay-Taft.

The 4 injured passengers were taken to the Makati Medical Center while 1 was sent to the Ospital ng Makati.

MRT Commuters Stranded Due to Glitch

MANILA, Philippines - The Metro Rail Transit (MRT) had a glitch on their communication and signalling system Monday morning that caused hundred commuters stranded. It started at past 7 a.m.

MRT General Manager Al Vitangcol said they implemented a "provisional service," meaning the take passengers only from North Avenue station to Shaw station and vice versa.

Vitangcol said the same problem caused the MRT sytem failure last Saturday. They were able to fixed the problem and regular MRT operations resumed at 9:20 am.

Meanwhile, a man injured himself after jumping off the Kamuning station of the Metro Rail Transit Line 3 (MRT3) also on Monday about 9:90AM.

Witness said they saw the a man who was later known as Cristobal Delia of Frisco 26, Quezon City, jump off the MRT station to the south-bound. The man appeared to have mental illness and was immediately taken to East Avenue Medical Center in Quezon City. He suffered a broken arm, as well as soreness in his lower extremities.

Malaysia Airlines Missing Presumed Crashed

KUALA LUMPUR/HANOI (Reuters) - Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200ER VANISHED AFTER REACHING 35,000 FEET, 227 passengers and 12 crew were on board. It went missing over the South China Sea on Saturday. Ships from multiple countries around the area are searching for crash wreckage.

Malaysian Transport Minister Hishamuddin Hussein told reporters at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport: "We are doing everything we can to ensure every possible angle has been addressed. We are looking for accurate information from the Malaysian military. They are waiting for information from the Vietnamese side."

Vietnam's state-run Tuoi Tre news also quoted Admiral Ngo Van Phat as qualifying his earlier remarks about a crash site having been identified, saying he had been referring to a presumed crash site beneath the plane's flight path using information supplied by Malaysia.

This would be the U.S.-built Boeing 777-200ER airliner's deadliest crash since being in service 19 years ago, if indeed it crashed.

The plane just dissappeared there were no distress signal just like the Air France flight that crashed into the South Atlantic on June 1, 2009 that killed all 228 people on board. It vanished for hours without issuing a distress call.

Flight MH370, operating a Boeing 777-200ER aircraft, last had contact with air traffic controllers 120 nautical miles off the east coast of the Malaysian town of Kota Bharu, Malaysia Airlines chief executive Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said in a statement read to an earlier news conference in Kuala Lumpur.

Flight tracking website flightaware.com showed the plane flew northeast over Malaysia after takeoff and climbed to an altitude of 35,000 feet. The flight vanished from the website's tracking records a minute later while it was still climbing.

Malaysia and Vietnam were conducting a joint search and rescue, he said but gave no details. China and the Philippines have sent ships to the South China Sea to help in any search and rescue.

"We are extremely worried," Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told reporters in Beijing before the initial Vietnamese report that the plane had crashed. "The news is very disturbing. We hope everyone on the plane is safe."

The flight left Kuala Lumpur at 12.21 a.m. (11.21 a.m. ET Friday) but no trace had been found of the plane more than eight hours after it was due to land in the Chinese capital at 6.30 a.m. (5.30 p.m. ET Friday) the same day.

"We deeply regret that we have lost all contacts with flight MH370," Jauhari said.

Malaysia Airlines said people from 14 nationalities were among the 227 passengers, including at least 152 Chinese, 38 Malaysians, 12 Indonesians, six Australians and three Americans. It also said a Chinese infant and an American infant were aboard.

If it is confirmed that the plane has crashed, the loss would mark the second fatal accident involving a Boeing 777 in less than a year and by far the worst since the jet entered service in 1995.

An Asiana Airlines Boeing 777-200ER crash-landed in San Francisco in July 2013, killing three passengers and injuring more than 180.

Boeing said it was aware of reports that the Malaysia Airlines plane was missing and was monitoring the situation but had no further comment. The flight was operating as a China Southern Airlines codeshare.

An official at the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV) said the plane had failed to check in as scheduled at 1721 GMT while it was flying over the sea between Malaysia and Ho Chi Minh city.

source: http://news.yahoo.com/malaysia-airlines-loses-contact-beijing-bound-flight-carrying-010217680--finance.html

Philippine Universities fail to make global top 100 Ranking List

Not one Philippine university or college made it in the top 100 university of Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings 2014. Philippine universities have failed to impress the academic opinion survey magazine.

Harvard University got the top spot, followed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Stanford University is placed third, the University of Cambridge at fourth, the University of Oxford comes fifth and the University of California, Berkeley sixth.

"The Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings 2014 employ the world's largest invitation-only academic opinion survey to provide the definitive list of the top 100 most powerful global university brands."

"A spin-off of the annual Times Higher Education World University Rankings, the reputation league table is based on nothing more than subjective judgement - but it is the considered expert judgement of senior, published academics - the people best placed to know the most about excellence in our universities", posted on their website.

The National University of Singapore (NUS) moved up to 21, that makes it the third highest ranked Asian university behind Tokyo University and Kyoto University. Only the top 50 schools are given a specific rank and has an overall score.



1 Harvard University United States 100.0
2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) United States 90.4
3 Stanford University United States 74.9
4 University of Cambridge United Kingdom 74.3
5 University of Oxford United Kingdom 67.8
6 University of California, Berkeley United States 63.1
7 Princeton University United States 35.7
8 Yale University United States 30.9
9 California Institute of Technology (Caltech) United States 29.2
10 University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) United States 28.8
11 The University of Tokyo Japan 27.7
12 Columbia University United States 21.6
13 Imperial College London United Kingdom 20.9
14 University of Chicago United States 20.8
15 University of Michigan United States 18.9
16 ETH Zürich – Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zürich Switzerland 17.4
17 Cornell University United States 16.9
18 Johns Hopkins University United States 16.8
19 Kyoto University Japan 15.1
20 University of Toronto Canada 14.9
21 National University of Singapore (NUS) Singapore 13.5
22 University of Pennsylvania United States 12.8
23 University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign United States 12.7
24 London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) United Kingdom 11.8
25 University College London (UCL) United Kingdom 11.5
26 Seoul National University Republic of Korea 10.9
27 New York University (NYU) United States 10.3
28 University of Wisconsin-Madison United States 10.2
29 Carnegie Mellon University United States 9.6
30 Duke University United States 9.4
31 University of Washington United States 9.0
32 University of California, San Francisco United States 8.7
33 University of British Columbia Canada 8.6
33 McGill University Canada 8.6
33 University of Texas at Austin United States 8.6
36 Tsinghua University China 8.4
37 Northwestern University United States 8.3
38 Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) United States 7.6
39 Pennsylvania State University United States 7.5
40 University of California, San Diego United States 7.2
41 Peking University China 7.0
42 Delft University of Technology Netherlands 6.3
43 The University of Hong Kong Hong Kong 6.2
43 King's College London United Kingdom 6.2
43 University of Melbourne Australia 6.2
46 University of Edinburgh United Kingdom 6.1
46 Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München Germany 6.1
48 Purdue University United States 6.0
49 École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne Switzerland 5.8
50 Osaka University Japan 5.7

51-60

University of California, Davis United States
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Hong Kong
Karolinska Institute Sweden
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) Republic of Korea
University of Manchester United Kingdom
University of Minnesota United States
Lomonosov Moscow State University Russian Federation
Ohio State University United States
National Taiwan University Taiwan
Tokyo Institute of Technology Japan

61-70

Australian National University Australia
University of California, Santa Barbara United States
University of Massachusetts United States
Michigan State University United States
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill United States
Universität Heidelberg Germany
University of Southern California United States
University of Sydney Australia
Technische Universität München Germany
Tohoku University Japan

71-80

University of Amsterdam Netherlands
Boston University United States
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin Germany
Indiana University United States
KU Leuven Belgium
Middle East Technical University Turkey
Université Paris-Sorbonne France
University of Pittsburgh United States
Texas A&M University United States
Washington University in St Louis United States

81-90

Brown University United States
Chinese University of Hong Kong Hong Kong
Freie Universität Berlin Germany
Leiden University Netherlands
University of Maryland, College Park United States
Mayo Medical School United States
University of Queensland Australia Australia
University of São Paulo Brazil
Utrecht University Netherlands
Yonsei University Republic of Korea
University of Arizona United States
University of Florida United States
London Business School United Kingdom
London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine United Kingdom
Nanyang Technological University Singapore
University of New South Wales Australia
Université Pierre et Marie Curie France
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey United States
RWTH Aachen University Germany
Technion Israel Institute of Technology Israel

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2014/reputation-ranking/range/01-50

Half Filipina News Anchor quits: I can't be part of network 'that whitewashes' Putin's actions

Reported on CNN news Russia state-funded RT has been trending because one of its anchor chair, Liz Wahl resigned on her show while on the air, she posted it on Twitter. She said that she did it because of "ethical and moral challenges" working with Russia Today (RT).

She said that her family escape to the US from  Soviet forces during the 1956 Hungarian revolution. She is a daughter of a U.S. military veteran and being the partner of a physician who works at a U.S. military base.

"And that is why, personally, I cannot be part of a network funded by the Russian government that whitewashes the actions of Putin," Wahl said.

"I'm proud to be an American and believe in disseminating the truth," she added. "And that is why, after this newscast, I'm resigning."

The network replied: "When a journalist disagrees with the editorial position of his or her organization, the usual course of action is to address those grievances with the editor, and, if they cannot be resolved, to quit like a professional."

"But when someone makes a big public show of a personal decision, it is nothing more than a self-promotional stunt."

On her Twitter account, she posted that she is a "Filipina-Hungarian-American. Correspondent at RT America."

Well, I agree with the network since CNN, MSNBC and Fox News are all bias with their reports also and I haven't seen any of their anchors resign on air with that kind of drama.    

US Criticize the Philippines on human rights and extra-judicial killings

The US government report indicate the faults of the Philippine government for not being able to address or eliminate the extra-judicial killings and improve human rights safeguards.

The US State Department’s global annual human rights stated:

“The (Philippine) government continued to investigate and prosecute only a limited number of reported human rights abuses, and concerns about impunity persisted. The most significant human rights problems continued to be extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances undertaken by security forces."

The report also said “Philippine has a dysfunctional criminal justice system notable for poor cooperation between police and investigators, few prosecutions, and lengthy procedural delays,” along with “widespread official corruption and abuse of power.”