JAKARTA (UCAN): “People should vote for candidates who care for the environment and are serious about tackling ecological problems,” said Kisworo Dwi Cahyono, executive director of the provincial branch of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (WALHI), as environmental concerns took centre stage in regional elections in South Kalimantan, Indonesia, when it emerged that the vast majority of mining and palm oil businesses in the province flout environmental laws.
 

MANILA (UCAN): Polluters of the environment, including big business and government officials, will be guaranteed to face criminal charges if advocates have their way and Philippine legislators pass a bill being prepared to grant rights to nature.
 
Church and environmental advocates ended a nationwide caravan in Manila on June 5, World Environment Day, to dramatise their call for the passage of a rights of nature law.
 

Vientiane (UCAN): Attapeu, a province in the southeast of Laos, is not a place that draws much attention. But a recent illegal logging incident in which a convoy of 27 trucks tried to cross into Vietnam, shone a light on the problem.
 
Illegal logging has been a major problem in the country for years so the scheme itself was far from unexpected. But the consequences were. 
 

VATICAN (CNS): A culture of peace “calls for unremitting efforts in favour of disarmament and the reduction of recourse to the use of armed force in the handling of international affairs,” Pope Francis said in his annual address to diplomats accredited to the Vatican on January 8. 
 

MANILA (UCAN): A decision of the Mining Industry Coordinating Council of The Philippines to lift the ban placed on open pit mining by the fired secretary for the environment, Gina Lopez, has drawn criticism from many quarters, especially indigenous peoples, areas heavily dependent on agriculture or the fish industry, as well as conservationists.
 
Father Edwin Gariguez, from Caritas Philippines, described the decision to end the ban as a backward step by government away from a policy designed specifically to protect the environment.
 

MANILA (UCAN): If people could be removed from The Philippines its natural environment would become a much more friendly place, as for several years now it has been the deadliest country in Asia and one of the most dangerous in the world for those who work to defend the land against human destruction.
 
A report titled Defenders of the Earth, released on July 14 by the London-based Global Witness, notes that at least 28 pro-environment advocates were killed in The Philippines during 2016.
 

HONG KONG (SE): Fake news is an art form, but while the expression may be new, the reality is far from a modern creation. It has travelled under various labels for centuries.

In 1906, Winston Churchill spoke of political inexactitudes in the parliament, a euphemism for circumlocution—or in plain language, a lie.