Furious Philippines decries West’s joint stand on drug war killings

Philippines 'President Rodrigo Duterte stands at attention during a courtesy call with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Economic Ministers in Manila, Philippines, September 6, 2017. REUTERS/Pool/Mark Cristino

MANILA (Reuters) – The Philippines vigorously defended its human rights record on Friday, accusing the West of bias, hypocrisy and interference after 39 mostly European nations expressed concern about thousands of killings during Manila’s ferocious war on drugs.

More than 3,800 Filipinos have been killed by police in anti-drug operations since President Rodrigo Duterte came to office 15 months ago and launched what he promised would be a brutal and bloody crackdown on drugs and crime.

Human rights groups say the figure is significantly higher and accuse police of carrying out executions disguised as sting operations, and of colluding with hit men to assassinate drug users.

The authorities strenuously reject those claims and Duterte insists he has never incited police to commit murder, despite his frequent and animated speeches about killing drug dealers.

During the periodic review on Thursday at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva, 38 countries backed a statement by Iceland urging the Philippines to take “all necessary measures to bring these killings to an end”.

The signatories were mostly European countries as well as Australia, the United States and Canada.

Filipino diplomats in Geneva called it a “sweeping and politicized” statement, adding the country was willing to accept international help, but would not be lectured.

“Unfortunately, it still appears that some parties refuse to understand certain aspects of our human rights efforts,” Evan Garcia, head of the Philippine mission, in a statement issued by the foreign ministry on Friday.

“There is no culture of impunity in the Philippines.”

His deputy Maria Teresa Almojuela also weighed in by criticizing Western countries that allowed abortion, manufactured and sold arms and, she said, were a source of private militias for wars.

“It is ironic that many states joining the statement are the very same states that are the sources of arms, bombs, machines and mercenaries that maim, kill and massacre thousands of people all over the world, not only during their colonial past, but even up to today,” she said.

In Washington, Foreign Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano said the Iceland-led statement was “based on biased and questionable information”.

“Instead of engaging us constructively, some western countries would rather criticize and impose conditions as if they can do a better job than the Philippine government in protecting the Filipino people,” he said.

Opinion polls show Filipinos are largely supportive of the war on drugs as an antidote to crime the government says is fueled by narcotics.

The latest survey by Social Weather Stations, however, suggests that Filipinos are not convinced of the validity of official police accounts of the killings, with about half of 1,200 people polled doubtful that victims were involved in drugs, or had violently resisted arrest as police maintain.

John Fisher, Human Rights Watch director in Geneva, said the UNHRC should do more to stop the Philippine killing, now that there was a “growing chorus of condemnation” of Duterte’s signature campaign.

(Reporting by Manuel Mogato; Editing by Martin Petty & Simon Cameron-Moore)

Exclusive: Philippines police plan new phase in drugs war – sources

Police holding a tag for a man who was killed by a gunman

By Tom Allard and Clare Baldwin

MANILA (Reuters) – Signaling a shift in strategy in its blood-soaked war against drugs, Philippines police aim to reduce the killing of suspects and put more resources into arresting prominent people tied to the trade, two sources with knowledge of the matter said.

Project Double Barrel Alpha will put a stronger focus on arresting politicians, military, police, government officials and celebrities allegedly involved in narcotics, the sources said.

The new approach will be outlined on Tuesday at a meeting of police chiefs from each of the Philippines’ 18 regions at Camp Crame, the police headquarters north of the capital Manila, Philippines National Police spokesman Dionardo Carlos confirmed to Reuters.

The operation will be launched within days, Carlos said, adding he did not have further details of the new operation.

The meeting comes after what one of the sources familiar with details of the plan described as “intense” discussions among law enforcement officials about the wave of killings of drug suspects.

“We will give emphasis [to] arrests rather than neutralization,” said one of the sources.

Asked why the new approach is being taken now, he said: “It is related to the EJK issue. We are doing our best to address that … It was a collective decision after an intense discussion of the implications of the EJK issue.” He did not elaborate on who was involved in the decision-making.

“Neutralization” is a euphemism for the killings that have characterized the anti-drugs drive. EJK refers to extrajudicial killings.

A recent poll showed public unease over the deadly anti-drug campaign, with 94 percent of the respondents saying it was important for the police to take suspects alive.

Another component of Project Double Barrel Alpha will see police working with community leaders to clear neighborhoods of drugs and set up local rehabilitation programs.

‘NARCO STATE’

Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte had given police six months to suppress drugs and crime, warning the country was on the verge of becoming a “narco state”. He then extended the campaign, called “Project Double Barrel” another six months to make it a year.

In less than four months since taking office, almost 2,300 people have been slain in the crackdown, according to official figures, revised down from earlier estimates of 3,600.

The majority of the deaths – more than 1,600 – were during police operations, drawing sharp criticism from Western governments, the United Nations, human rights groups and some Catholic priests.

“If you know any addicts, go ahead and kill them yourself as getting their parents to do it would be too painful,” Duterte told supporters the day after he took office on June 30 this year.

Duterte’s comments were condemned by the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary executions Agnes Callamard. “It is effectively a license to kill,” she said.

At other times, however, Duterte has said he doesn’t endorse extrajudicial killings or vigilante murders of drug suspects.

“Who killed them? I don’t know but why are they pointing at me, blaming me for those deaths,” Duterte said earlier this month.

Presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella told Reuters:

“Everything that the president said was always in the context of sticking within the law.”

WAR ON POOR

For months, Duterte has also talked about cracking down on major drug dealers, government officials and prominent Filipinos who use drugs, take bribes from drug syndicates or are directly involved.

He has read out the names of 158 government officials with alleged links to illicit drugs. He has also boasted of a broader list of about 1,000 drug suspects.

Police have said they are compiling a list of celebrities accused of being drug users and peddlers.

Now Project Double Barrel Alpha will start going after the big names in the illegal drug trade, or “high value targets”, the sources familiar with the plan said.

Thus far, the counter-narcotics campaign has focused overwhelming on impoverished drug users and small-time dealers, prompting criticism that it’s a war on the poor.

In recent years, government officials who have been arrested for drugs are more likely to be set free than serve any prison time.

Data from the Philippines Department of Justice reviewed by Reuters shows that 715 officials were arrested between 2011 and 2016 on drug matters, including “law enforcers”, elected officials and government employees. Of those, 74 per cent had their cases dismissed, or were acquitted. The Department of Justice did not respond to a request for comment.

CLEARING BARANGAYS

Another element of Project Double Barrel Alpha, was what one source described as a “Barangay Clearing Operation”, where police will work more closely with local authorities and residents to “systematically” rid neighborhoods of drugs and place more emphasis on rehabilitation.

About 27 percent of barangays – the more than 42,000 districts or villages that comprise the lowest tier of government in the Philippines – were deemed drug-affected as of September 2016, according to police and anti-narcotics enforcement data.

Once community leaders declare an area drug-free, the chief of police will certify it as such.

The military will be involved in the clearing operation, providing what one source described as “perimeter security” and intelligence.

Philippines military spokesman Brigadier General Restituto Padilla would not comment directly on any greater involvement of the military in the anti-drugs campaign. He told Reuters the armed forces would step in where police numbers were “lean” and when they were asked to become involved.

If armed forces personnel did arrest people, it was only where “law enforcement officers are not in the locality,” he said.

(Additional reporting by Karen Lema and Manuel Mogato in Manila.; Editing by Bill Tarrant.)

Herpes Virus Based Drug Treats Skin Cancer

A new drug that is based on the herpes virus has been shown to be effective in treatment of aggressive skin cancer.

The tests are in phase 3 trials for cancer virotherapy.  The idea of the therapy is to use one disease to attack a different disease.

The drug, T-VEC, could become more widely available for cancer patients next year.

The drug is a modified form of the herpes simplex virus type-1 with two genes removed that keeps the virus from replicating in healthy cells.  The virus can infect cancer cells where it multiplies and then explodes the cells.  It also creates a molecule that will allow immune systems to attack and destroy tumors.

Over one in four patients in the trial showed response to the treatment including 1 in 10 of those patients having their tumors completely disappear.  Another 16% had partial remission that lowered tumor size by half.

“There is increasing excitement over the use of viral treatments like T-VEC for cancer, because they can launch a two-pronged attack on tumors — both killing cancer cells directly and marshaling the immune system against them,” said Kevin Harrington, U.K. trial leader and professor of biological cancer therapies at the Institute of Cancer Research in London.

“It’s like an unmasking of the cancer,” said Harrington. “The patient’s immune system wakes up and attacks the cancer cells wherever they are in the body.”

The treatment has a major upside in that the side-effects are much less severe than chemotherapy.

PharmaSea Project Seeks New Bacteria In Arctic Ocean

A European Union funded project is seeking to find new antibiotics using previously unknown bacteria from the ocean floor.

The project has ships in the Lyngen Fjord of northern Norway collecting soil and animals from the bottom of the Arctic Ocean hoping to find new bacteria that could be used for a new generation of antibiotics.

“If no one finds new antibiotics for common infections, what will happen is we will go back to the pre-antibiotic age in which a simple cut could turn into an infection that becomes deadly,” Marcel Jaspars told CNN.

Major drug manufacturers are not creating new antibiotics despite the rise of anti-biotic resistant bacteria because of the prohibitive costs for bringing a new drug to the marketplace.   Jaspars says that while bacteria have developed resistance to the antibiotics of the last 30 years, they can’t defend against something they’ve never seen.

“In the past, bacteria and fungi have been the main sources for new antibiotics,” Jaspars explained. “In fact, about 70% of our antibiotics still come from nature, normally from sediment samples and soil samples from land. But now, by looking at the ocean, we hope to find new life forms which give us new chemistry that might be able to treat bacterial infections.”

Researchers say that several of the new bacteria discovered on the ocean floor have shown promise for creating new antibiotics.

NY Man Forces Woman To Take Abortion Pill

A New York anesthesiologist is under arrest after police say he forced a woman to take an abortion pill.

Thomas Pfeiffer, 44, reportedly grabbed a woman by the throat, choking her until she opened her mouth.  When she did, he forced an abortion pill into her mouth and made her swallow it.

The woman had told Pfeiffer that she was pregnant because she had taken a home pregnancy test that returned a positive result.

Pfeiffer faces charges of strangulation, abortion and assault.  The strangulation and abortion charges are second degree felonies.  He was placed in county jail on $50,000 bond.

The woman was treated and released from an area hospital.  Police would not release if the woman suffered an abortion because of the drug.