Archive for May 30th, 2008
PAGASA: Typhoon ‘Enteng’ strengthens but still far away
MANILA, Philippines — Typhoon “Enteng” (international codename: Nakri) strengthened further as it hovered off the northeastern coast of Luzon, but was too far to affect the country, the Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) said.
At 10 a.m., the eye of the storm, which packs maximum sustained winds of 195 kilometers per hour near the center with gusts of up to 230 kilometers per hour, was located 1,180 kilometers east of northern Luzon, the state weather bureau said.
Moving northwest at nine kilometers per hour, the storm was forecast to be at 1,050 kilometers east of northern Luzon by Saturday morning, 970 kilometers east northeast of northern Luzon by Sunday morning, and 530 kilometers east southeast of Okinawa, Japan by Monday morning, PAGASA said.
Earlier this month, tropical storm “Cosme” (international codename: Halong), ravaged northern Luzon, leaving 58 people dead, 29 others injured, and causing P4,058,592,290 in damage to property, the National Disaster Coordinatig Council (NDCC) said.
View article as posted on INQUIRER.net
Zamboanga blast ‘isolated,’ city ‘safe’–military
MANILA, Philippines — The bomb explosion outside an Air Force base in Zamboanga City on Thursday that killed two persons and wounded several others was an “isolated” incident, and the city remains “safe and secure,” a military commander in the region said.
Nonetheless, Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. and Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) chief of staff Lieutenant General Alexander Yano ordered troops in the area to “strengthen” security measures, said Colonel Darwin Guerra, chief of the military’s Task Force Zamboanga.
Yano and Teodoro presided over a meeting of the Zamboanga City peace and order council hours after the blast. A joint military and police coordinating conference was set later Friday to “synchronize” their efforts, Guerra said in a phone interview.
“Zamboanga City is still safe and secured. This is an isolated incident,” Guerra said, adding there were no intelligence reports pointing to similar attacks.
“We have to strengthen our security; this is routine. We have a coordinating conference with the PNP [Philippine National Police] this [Friday] afternoon,” he said.
Initial investigation by police and military explosives experts showed that an improvised bomb triggered through a cellular phone was the cause of the explosion outside the Edwin Andrews Airbase, he said.
While Guerra acknowledged that mobile phone-triggered explosives have been used by the al Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf in the past, he refused to speculate on who could be behind Thursday’s explosion pending the results of an investigation.
“This is an act of terrorism. But it’s hard [to name suspects]. We need to give leeway to the investigation,” he said.
The blast, at the building of the Air Materiel Wing Savings and Loan Association (AMWSLAI), just across Gate 1 of the airbase, also damaged the offices of the Alliance for Mindanao Off-grid Renewable Energy (AMORE) Program of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Zamboanga Representative Ma. Isabele Climaco.
Among the injured were four engineers of AMORE and two members of Climaco’s staff.
View article as posted on INQUIRER.net
Deadline all the time 