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MANILA: The Philippine government has announced that attracting tourists from the Middle East and neighboring Muslim-majority countries is among its top priorities for 2023.
The Philippines, known for its white-sand beaches, diving spots, and rich culture, is heavily dependent, economically, on its hospitality sector. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly 8.3 million foreigners visited the country per year, and in 2019 — according to government data — the sector generated around $44 billion, about 13 percent of the country’s GDP.
But most tourism destinations in the country were forced to shut down when the pandemic started, and foreign arrivals slumped by 82 percent.
Tourism finally started to rebound this year, following the lifting of restrictions, and by Dec. 19, official data showed that nearly 2.5 million foreign tourists had visited the Philippines in 2022.
To increase the number of visitors further, the country is going to focus next year on facilitating tourists from Muslim-majority countries, especially in the Middle East and neighboring Indonesia and Malaysia, Tourism Secretary Christina Frasco told reporters during the tourism department’s year-end media briefing earlier this week.
“We won’t just focus on continuing to promote halal tourism among halal tourism-accredited establishments in Mindanao, but will be expanding accreditation to establishments across the Philippines,” she said, referring to the predominantly Catholic country’s southern region, where the majority of the Philippine Muslim community live.
“We are very conscious of developing opportunity markets where this type of tourism may be attractive and that includes Malaysia, Indonesia, (and) our friends in the Middle East,” Frasco continued.
She added that she had visited Saudi Arabia earlier this month, met key industry players, and pitched the Philippines’s viability as a tourist destination.
Frasco said she had met with Saudi Deputy Tourism Minister Haifa Al-Saud during her Riyadh trip, and had discussed potential areas of cooperation in training Arabic-speaking tour guides in the Philippines and developing halal tourism portfolios.
Saudi Arabia was the top Middle East tourist source market for the Philippines before the pandemic. Currently, it ranks 23rd, with slightly over 9,400 arrivals since the Southeast Asian nation reopened in February.
President Ferdinand Marcos has identified tourism as a priority under his administration, and Frasco said that the Department of Tourism is aiming to attract 4.8 million foreign visitors next year.
Last week, the government introduced the “Bisita (Visitor) Be My Guest” program to make Philippine nationals, especially overseas Filipino workers, their country’s tourism ambassadors.
As most OFWs live and work in the Middle East, the project is also expected to help increase arrivals from the region.
TAIPEI: Taiwan will announce on Tuesday a plan to extend compulsory military service to one year from the current four months, according to a senior government official, as the island deals with rising Chinese military pressure.
The office of Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen said she will call a national security meeting on Tuesday morning to discuss reinforcing the island’s civil defense, followed by a news conference on unspecified new civil defense measures.
Tsai’s security team, including high-level officials from the defense ministry and the National Security Council, has been reviewing Taiwan’s military system since 2020 amid fast-rising Chinese threats, according to the official, who declined to be named because the information was private.
“China’s various unilateral behaviors have become a major concern for regional security,” said the person, who took part in the high-level security discussion.
The military reform would also include boosting training for conscripts, such as introducing combat instruction used by US forces and strengthening shooting exercises, the official said, adding that the new system is scheduled to go into effect in 2024.
Taiwan’s defense ministry declined to comment.
The official Central News Agency, citing government and ruling party sources familiar with the matter, first reported late on Monday that her government would on Tuesday announce the plan to extend compulsory military service.
Taiwan has been gradually shifting from a conscript military to a volunteer-dominated professional force, but China’s growing assertiveness toward the island it claims as its own, as well as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, have prompted debate about how to boost defense. Russia calls the war a “special operation.”
Taipei, which rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims, on Monday reported the larges-ever Chinese air force incursion into the island’s air defense identification zone, with 43 Chinese planes crossing an unofficial buffer between the two sides.
China also staged war games near Taiwan in August following a visit to Taipei by then-US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Previous governments under the ruling Democratic Progressive Party and the main opposition Kuomintang cut compulsory service for men from more than two years to four months to please younger voters as tensions eased between Taipei and Beijing.
Tsai is overseeing a broad modernization program, championing the idea of “asymmetric warfare” to make the island’s forces more mobile, agile and harder to attack.
China has stepped up its diplomatic, military and economic pressure in recent years on the self-governed island to accept Beijing’s rule. Taiwan’s government says only Taiwanese people can decide their future and vows to defend itself if attacked.
JEDDAH: International aid agencies halted their work in Afghanistan on Monday after the Taliban regime banned them from employing female staff.
ActionAid, Christian Aid, Save the Children, the Norwegian Refugee Council, CARE and the International Rescue Committee — which employs 3,000 women in Afghanistan — have all suspended operations.
Christian Aid was “rapidly seeking clarity … and urging the authorities to reverse the ban,” head of global programs Ray Hasan said.
“While we do this, we are unfortunately pausing the work of our programs.
“Millions of people in Afghanistan are on the verge of starvation. Reports that families are so desperate they have been forced to sell their children to buy food are utterly heartbreaking.”
Hasan said that a ban on female aid workers would “only curtail our ability to help the growing number of people in need.”
ActionAid said that if women were banned from working with them it would “prevent us from reaching out to half of the population that are already reeling from hunger.”
The Organization of Islamic Cooperation voiced its concern over the ban and urged the Taliban to reconsider it.
It said: “ActionAid has made the difficult decision to temporarily halt most of its programs in Afghanistan until a clearer picture emerges.”
The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan urged the Taliban administration to reverse the ban.
“Millions of Afghans need humanitarian assistance and removing barriers is vital,” it said.
The Organization of Islamic Cooperation voiced its concern over the ban and urged the Taliban to reconsider it. Secretary-General Hissein Brahim Taha said it reflected a willful policy to further
limit Afghan women’s rights.
He said this “perplexing decision” would not only deprive Afghan women of a source of income for themselves and their families, but also seriously affect humanitarian and relief operations in Afghanistan.
The OIC chief described the ban as self-defeating and urged Kabul authorities to reconsider it “for the sake of social inclusion of women and the continuation of a much-needed international humanitarian safety net in Afghanistan.”
Last week the Taliban also banned women from attending university, prompting global outrage and protests in some Afghan cities.
BUFFALO, N.Y.: Emergency crews in New York were scrambling Monday to rescue marooned residents from what authorities called the “blizzard of the century,” a relentless storm that has left nearly 50 people dead across the United States and caused Christmas travel chaos.
Blizzard conditions persist in parts of the US Northeast, the stubborn remnants of a massive sprawl of extreme weather that gripped the country over several days, causing widespread power outages, travel delays and at least 49 deaths across nine states, according to official figures.
In New York state, authorities have described ferocious conditions, particularly in Buffalo, with hours-long whiteouts, bodies being discovered in vehicles and under snow banks, and emergency personnel going “car to car” searching for more motorists — alive or dead.
The perfect storm of fierce snow squalls, howling wind and sub-zero temperatures forced the cancelation of more than 15,000 US flights in recent days, including over 3,800 on Monday, according to tracking site Flightaware.com.
Buffalo — a city in Erie County that is no stranger to foul winter weather — is the epicenter of the crisis, buried under staggering amounts of snow.
“Certainly it is the blizzard of the century,” New York Governor Kathy Hochul told reporters, adding it was “way too early to say this is at its completion.”
Hochul said some western New York towns got walloped with “30 to 40 inches (0.75 to 1 meter) of snow overnight.”
Later Monday, Hochul spoke with President Joe Biden, who offered “the full force of the federal government” to support New York state, and said he and First Lady Jill Biden were praying for those who lost loved ones in the storm, according to a White House statement.
The National Weather Service forecast up to 14 more inches Monday in addition to the several feet that have already left the city buried in snow, with officials struggling to get emergency services back online.
Erie County executive Mark Poloncarz tweeted Monday afternoon that the blizzard-related death toll had climbed to 27 across the county, including 14 people who were found outside and three who were discovered in a car.
Speaking at a press conference earlier in the day, Poloncarz said Erie’s death toll would likely surpass that of Buffalo’s infamous blizzard of 1977, when nearly 30 people died.
With more snow forecast and most of Buffalo “impassable,” he joined Hochul in warning residents to bunker down and stay in place.
National Guard members and other teams have rescued hundreds of people from snow-covered cars and homes without electricity, but authorities have said more people remain trapped.
Erie County Sheriff John Garcia called the storm “the worst” he has ever seen, with periods of zero visibility and authorities unable to respond to emergency calls.
“It was gut-wrenching when you’re getting calls where families are with their kids and they’re saying they’re freezing,” he told CNN.
Hochul, a native of Buffalo, said she was stunned by what she saw during a reconnaissance tour of the city.
“It is (like) going to a war zone, and the vehicles along the sides of the roads are shocking,” Hochul said, describing eight-foot (2.4-meter) drifts against homes as well as snow plows and rescue vehicles “buried” in snow.
“This is a war with mother nature,” she said.
The extreme weather sent temperatures to below freezing in all 48 contiguous US states over the weekend, including in Texas communities along the Mexico border where some newly arriving migrants have struggled to find shelter.
At one point on Saturday, nearly 1.7 million customers were without electricity in the biting cold, according to tracker poweroutage.us.
That number has dropped substantially, although there were still some 50,000 without power mid-day Monday on the US east coast.
Due to frozen electric substations, some Erie County residents were not expected to regain power until Tuesday, with one substation reportedly buried under 18 feet of snow, a senior county official said.
Buffalo’s international airport remains closed until Tuesday and a driving ban remained in effect for the city and much of Erie County.
Road ice and whiteout conditions also led to the temporary closure of some of the nation’s busiest transport routes, including part of the cross-country Interstate 70 highway.
Drivers were being warned not to take to the roads — even as the nation reached what is usually its busiest time of year for travel.
KYIV: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov gave Ukraine an ultimatum on Monday to fulfil Moscow’s proposals, including surrendering territory Russia controls, or its army would decide the issue, a day after President Vladimir Putin said he was open to talks.
Kyiv and its Western allies have dismissed Putin’s offer to talk, with his forces battering Ukrainian towns with missiles and rockets and Moscow continuing to demand that Kyiv recognize its conquest of a fifth of the country.
Kyiv says it will fight until Russia withdraws.
“Our proposals for the demilitarization and denazification of the territories controlled by the regime, the elimination of threats to Russia’s security emanating from there, including our new lands, are well known to the enemy,” state news agency TASS quoted Lavrov as saying late on Monday.
“The point is simple: Fulfil them for your own good. Otherwise, the issue will be decided by the Russian army.”
Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, calling it a “special operation” to “denazify” and demilitarise Ukraine, which he said was a threat to Russia. Kyiv and the West say Putin’s invasion was merely an imperialist land grab.
As the war entered its 11th month, Russian forces were engaged in fierce fighting in the east and south of Ukraine, after embarrassing battlefield setbacks.
On Monday, a drone believed to be Ukrainian penetrated hundreds of kilometers through Russian airspace, causing a deadly explosion at the main base for Moscow’s strategic bombers in the latest attack to expose gaps in its air defenses.
A suspected drone struck the same base on Dec. 5.
Moscow on Monday said it had shot the drone down causing it to crash at the Engels air base, where three service members were killed. Ukraine did not comment, under its usual policy on incidents inside Russia.
The base, the main airfield for the bombers that Kyiv says Moscow has used to attack Ukrainian civilian infrastructure, is hundreds of miles from the Ukrainian frontier. The same planes are also designed to launch nuclear-capable missiles as part of Russia’s long-term strategic deterrent.
The Russian defense ministry said in a statement no planes were damaged, but Russian and Ukrainian social media accounts said several had been destroyed. Reuters was not able to independently verify the reports.
FORMER SOVIET STATES GATHER
Putin hosted leaders of other former Soviet states in St. Petersburg on Monday for a summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States group, which Ukraine has long since quit.
In televised remarks, Putin made no direct reference to the war, while saying threats to the security and stability of the Eurasian region were increasing.
“Unfortunately challenges and threats in this area, especially from the outside, are only growing each year,” he said.
“We also have to acknowledge unfortunately that disagreements also arise between member states of the commonwealth.”
The invasion of Ukraine has been a test of Russia’s longstanding authority among other ex-Soviet states.
Fighting has surged in recent months between CIS members Armenia and Azerbaijan in a conflict where Russia has sent peacekeepers, while a border dispute has flared between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Putin said such disagreements should be resolved through “comradely help and mediating action.”
NINE MILLION WITHOUT POWER
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly video address on Monday that the situation at the front in the Donbas region was “difficult and painful” and required all of the country’s “strength and concentration.”
He said that as a result of Russia’s targeting of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure nearly nine million people were without electricity. That figure amounts to about a quarter of Ukraine’s population.
Since the invasion, Ukraine has driven Russian forces from the north, defeated them on the outskirts of the capital Kyiv and forced Russian retreats in the east and south. But Moscow still controls swathes of eastern and southern land Putin claims to have annexed.
Tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians have died in cities Russia razed to the ground, and thousands of troops on both sides have been killed, forcing Putin to call up hundreds of thousands of reservists for the first time since World War Two.