Featured News

New Lease on Light: Earth Hour to Deploy Solar Lamps in Palawan

“This lamp contains crude oil,” says fisherman Joys Dominguez while raising a grimy, soot-caked gin bottle. We are inside a hut in Beton, an island community in Northern Palawan. Night has settled and our world is pitch-black, save for what the flickering flames illuminate. Outside is the sea and above it, a sea of stars. Around 15 million Filipinos lack regular access to electricity. Beton and its 300 fisherfolk families are no different, relying on […]

DENR urges public to help counter El Niño effects

QUEZON CITY, PIA – With the state weather bureau announcing that the country is now experiencing a mild case of El Niño, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) has appealed  for public support and cooperation in countering the adverse effects this phenomenon, mainly water shortages and forest fires. “Mild this El Niño may be compared to the past, its impacts will no less significant for everyone,” the DENR Secretary Ramon J.P. Paje explained. […]

Twin blasts at churches in Pakistan kill 14, wound 78

Bombs outside two churches in the Pakistani city of Lahore killed 14 people and wounded nearly 80 during Sunday (March 15) services, and witnesses said quick action by a security guard prevented many more deaths. A Pakistani Taliban splinter group claimed responsibility. The blasts went off minutes apart in a majority Christian suburb of the eastern city. Police said it seemed they targeted two churches, one Catholic and one Protestant, that are very close to […]

UNICEF: 14 million children impacted by conflict in Syria and Iraq

NEW YORK/AMMAN, 12 March 2015 – Some 14 million children across the region are now suffering from the escalating conflict sweeping Syria and much of Iraq, said UNICEF today. With the conflict in Syria now entering its fifth year, the situation of more than 5.6 million children inside the country remains the most desperate. That includes up to 2 million children who are living in areas of the country largely cut off from humanitarian assistance […]