Month: October 2016

Clashes killed dozens of fighters across Yemen before a UN-brokered ceasefire was to begin Wednesday, as warring parties came under mounting pressure to end the two-year conflict.
The truce is the sixth attempt to end the bloodshed since a Saudi-led Arab coalition intervened in March 2015 to support the government of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi after rebels overran much of Yemen.
Civilians have paid the highest price in a country that was already the Arabian peninsula’s poorest.
Almost 6,900 have been killed — more than half of them civilians — while another three million are displaced and millions more need food aid.
A United Nations report said air strikes by the coalition were suspected of causing around half of all civilian deaths, while rebel-affiliated groups were responsible for about a quarter.
The UN special envoy for Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, on Sunday announced the truce from 23:59 (2059 GMT) for an initial three days, subject to renewal.
But clashes killed dozens of fighters across the country on Wednesday, including near the Saudi border and around the capital Sanaa.
At least 30 Huthi rebels and five pro-Hadi fighters died during heavy artillery bombardments near the Red Sea, in Hajja province, a loyalist statement said.
The last ceasefire attempt began in April alongside UN-brokered peace talks in Kuwait but both the rebels and the coalition accused each other of breaches.
After talks collapsed in August, fighting escalated until an October 8 coalition air strike which the UN said killed more than 140 people and wounded at least 525 at a funeral in Sanaa.
The United States announced an “immediate review” of its intelligence and refuelling assistance to the coalition, whose investigative team then released unusually quick findings from a probe of the incident.
It said a coalition aircraft “wrongly targeted” the funeral based on “incorrect information”.
In another major development, the US Navy for the first time targeted Huthi rebels directly.
On October 13 it hit radar sites which, the US said, were involved in missile launches against a US warship and other vessels.
Yemen’s Huthis are allied with members of the security forces loyal to ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh.
They control the capital Sanaa and other territory but coalition-backed forces earlier pushed them back from the southern port of Aden and adjacent areas.
Both the rebels and pro-government forces have come under increased international pressure to silence their guns.
On Tuesday, US Secretary of State John Kerry hailed the announcement of the new truce.
“We ask the parties to take all steps necessary to advance the implementation of this cessation, call on them to sustain it, and strongly encourage its unconditional renewal,” Kerry said.
Hadi’s government said it would agree to the truce if rebels also adhered to it, and also called for the insurgents to monitor the ceasefire and end their siege of Yemen’s third city, Taez.
The rebels, in a statement on Tuesday night, expressed readiness for a “lasting ceasefire, comprehensive and without conditions”.
But clashes rocked Yemen Wednesday ahead of the truce. As well as the Hajja fighting, rebel tanks and other reinforcements in the northern Saada province were bombed in coalition air strikes overnight, a military source said.
Three air strikes also hit a rebel convoy in Omran province, north of Sanaa, the source added.
At least two rebels and a pro-government fighter were killed during overnight fighting in Taez, according to witnesses and military sources.
And further south, three pro-Hadi fighters died in a rebel missile strike near the Bab Al-Mandab strait, a military official said.
In spite of Wednesday’s violence, Mustafa Alani, a senior adviser to the Gulf Research Centre, said the prospects for peace were growing.
“Both parties in the conflict are getting tired. The cost of the conflict — human, financial — is very high,” he told AFP. “Both parties believe they cannot win, they cannot settle it by military means.”
The UN’s humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, Jamie McGoldrick, told reporters he hopes the truce will provide a chance for aid workers to reach areas isolated by the fighting.
Saudi Arabia is spending billion of dollars on the war while imposing cutbacks at home.
Kerry said the international community “will continue to work with all parties to conclude a negotiated settlement” to the conflict.

Kenyan television lovers have something to smile about after Multichoice Kenya announced a price reduction of its TV packages.
In the new revised prices, Premium subscribers will now pay a fee of Sh8,180 per month from Sh9,400 representing a 13 percent drop.
Compact Plus subscribers will now pay Sh5,425 from the previous Sh6,400, a 15 percent cut while Compact rates will be Sh3,550 from Sh3,750, a drop of 5 percent.
According to MultiChoice Kenya Corporate Communications Manager, Philip Wahome, the move is aimed at rewarding its customers.
Compact Plus subscribers will also receive 11 new channels including Vuzu AMP, Lifetime, Discovery Channel, Crime and Investigation, History Channel and Africa Magic Showcase.
DStv Compact customers will get six new channels including ITV Choice, TCM, SS4 ROK, Eva Plus and B4U Movies while the DStv Family package will be boosted with five additional channels including B4U Movies, Eva, Eva Plus, SS4 and FOX.
DStv Access will also get a content boost of three new channels namely SS4, B4U Movies and Eva Plus.
 DStv said in a statement.

Whilst the strike call was observed in the capital, where most shops were closed, there were few signs of stoppages in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s second largest city Lubumbashi. in the south.
But central Mbuji-Mayi, which is an opposition bastion, did come to a standstill.
The opposition had called for a nationwide protest against a deal signed Tuesday which would keep President Joseph Kabila in power until April 2018 by effectively postponing the presidential vote scheduled for this year.
The country’s main opposition party, the UDPS, called the deal signed between the authorities and fringe opposition groups a “flagrant violation” of the constitution and said the strike would show Kabila “the yellow card”.
Braving teeming rain, gaggles of youths in Kinshasa did just that.
“Today is just a warning. We are going to step up our actions until we reach our goal of not giving a single minute more to M. Kabila after December 19,” said Jean-Marc Kabund, UDPS general secretary.
Kabila first took office in 2001, and in 2006 a new constitutional provision limited the presidency to a two-term limit which expires on December 20.
In Kinshasa — a city of 10 million people — roads were virtually deserted with public transport running empty and no sign of the many privately-run shared taxis that normally ply the city’s roads.
The only visible commercial activity taking place was women selling bread and petrol stations that were open but unused.
The upmarket Gombe district was unusually quiet, and in Kasa-Vubu, a district in the south of the city, the only people on Victories Square were some 50 police officers.
Officers were deployed in force at other locations including parliament and at several military bases.
Police reported several incidents of protesters stoning vehicles or burning tyres. But the city remained mostly calm unlike at last month’s protests in which 49 civilians and four police were killed during violence, according to the UN.
Authorities there had warned early this week that civil servants who failed to show up for work on Wednesday would face consequences.
Calls for a strike were also ignored in Bukavu, according to an AFP correspondent there, as well as in northeastern Kisangani and in the country’s sole deep water port, Matadi.
However in Goma, eastern Congo, the call to down tools was followed to some extent, with most shops remaining closed though traffic appeared normal, according to two AFP journalists.
In central Kananga, another big town, activity slowed in the morning while in the western town of Mbandaka people headed for work, albeit wearing yellow as a sign of protest.
At Goma on the Rwandan border traffic was about normal but most shops stayed closed while some 200 protesters urged Kabila to understand that “(your) mandate is finished! You must go!”
In Lubumbashi, however, Kyungu Kabulo, a money changer, told AFP that, while “we agree with opposition, I have a large family to support,” requiring him to carry on working.
This week’s controversial agreement to allow Kabila to serve into 2018 emerged after the EU threatened sanctions if the country did not hold elections in 2017.
It was concluded at “national dialogue” talks aimed at reducing tensions triggered by disquiet that the president wants to remain indefinitely.
But the main opposition coalition — “Rassemblement” (Gathering) — headed by veteran opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi boycotted the talks, branding them a ploy by Kabila to stay in power beyond the end of his term.

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin said Thursday he was ready to prolong a unilateral ceasefire in Aleppo, after tough talks in Berlin where the leaders of Germany and France refused to rule out sanctions against Moscow.
Putin said he told the European leaders that Russia was “intending to extend as far as possible” a halt to its air raids in Syria’s second city, in order to allow civilians and rebels to leave the devastated city.
The concession came as French President Francois Hollande starkly condemned the bombing as “a war crime” and German Chancellor Angela Merkel described it as “inhumane and cruel”.
The leaders of Europe’s two biggest economies also dangled the threat of sanctions, hours ahead of an EU summit where Russia’s role in Syria is set to be discussed.
A pause in Russian and Syrian strikes on Aleppo held for a second day Wednesday, ahead of the brief unilateral ceasefire due to start at 0500 GMT on Thursday.
Ahead of the talks in Berlin, Moscow announced it would prolong the truce from eight to 11 hours, and said Syrian and Russian warplanes were giving Aleppo a wide berth.
But its plan has stirred scepticism in the West and the United Nations said it would be insufficient to allow humanitarian aid to reach encircled Aleppo inhabitants.
Amnesty International released new satellite images Wednesday showing more than 100 sites were hit in two weeks of bombing raids in the city.
The rights group said there was evidence Russian-made cluster munitions, banned under international conventions, had been used in civilian areas of eastern Aleppo in recent weeks, “part of a deliberate military strategy to empty the city of its inhabitants and seize control”.
Meanwhile, the Syrian army said that a planned humanitarian truce beginning in eastern Aleppo on Thursday would extend to three days, the state news agency SANA reported late Wednesday.
Wednesday’s visit was Putin’s first to Berlin since Russia annexed the Crimea peninsula from Ukraine in 2014 and sent relations with the West to a low.
Moscow’s backing for President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in its war with a wide range of rebel groups, including with air strikes in the divided northern city, has furthered soured ties with Europe and the United States.
Describing the late night talks as “very tough”, Merkel said they “gave Germany the clear chance to define what constitutes a war crime. Bombardments are inhumane and a cruel experience for the people”.
Hollande told Putin bluntly that “what is happening in Aleppo is a war crime, one of the first demands is that the bombardments by the regime and its (Russian) backers must end”.
The European leaders also vowed to keep up the pressure, warning of possible sanctions.
“Everything that can constitute a threat can be useful,” Hollande said, as Merkel added that “we cannot remove this option”.
EU leaders meeting at a summit in Brussels on Thursday are expected to up the ante by condemning Moscow over the attacks on civilians in Aleppo, according to a draft statement obtained by AFP.
Thursday’s brief truce is expected to see all fighting stop to allow civilians and rebels to exit opposition-held districts via six corridors.
Senior Russian military official Sergei Rudskoi said Russian and Syrian planes were keeping 10 kilometres (six miles) from Aleppo, a city home to an estimated 250,000 people and which has been under near-continuous government siege since July.
AFP’s correspondent in east Aleppo said although clashes between rebels and pro-government forces involving heavy artillery continued in several neighbourhoods, the pause in air strikes held on Wednesday.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, said pro-regime fighters were pressing their ground assault in the Old City as they vied to shift the front line.
Russian and Syrian bombardment had been providing air cover for a government offensive that started on September 22 aimed at seizing the city’s east, held by rebels since 2012.
According to Moscow, once the pause begins six corridors out of the city would open for civilians with another two — via the Castello Road in the north and Souk al-Hal in the city centre — designated for rebels.
The UN dashed hopes however that a prospective Aleppo truce could allow humanitarian aid to reach civilians.
“Before we can do something really meaningful… we need assurances from all parties” over a lasting ceasefire, a spokesman for the UN’s humanitarian agency said in Geneva.
Rebel groups have indicated they will not abandon their posts and, with Aleppo encircled by pro-government forces, many civilians fear falling into the hands of the regime.
Syria analyst Thomas Pierret, of the University of Edinburgh, said the halt in Russian air strikes was about Moscow “managing international pressure”.
“Russia is periodically trying to mitigate tensions with the West on Aleppo through such initiatives. This is the continuation of war by diplomatic means,” he said.
Five years of diplomatic initiatives to put an end to Syria’s conflict have failed, but over the past week world powers have made new efforts to reach a lasting truce.
Besides the Berlin summit, talks were also held Wednesday in Geneva between Russian, US, Saudi, Qatari and Turkish officials on the efforts to distance Syrian opposition fighters from jihadists.

The recent case in Kwale where a mother was misdiagnosed for HIV and put on anti-retroviral drugs for three months ,brings again into focus the competence of health practitioners in the country.
The woman, Esther Mwakazi, 34, and her husband Fredrick Omondi, 40, have since gone on to demand compensation from the Diani Health Centre as they seek other legal options.
Haki Africa program officer Francis Auma said they will serve the health centre with a letter and wait for their response within 14 days, failure to which they will move to court.
Auma says that such cases are not rare and many medical practitioners across the country are negligent.
The Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Board earlier this year came out to defend themselves amid rising cases of negligence within their profession.
They highlighted various cases where medical practitioners in various counties have been penalised for negligence under the Medical Practitioners and Dentists Act.
By February, a total of 13 such cases had been determined while 115 others were pending under investigations.
Notable counties where negligence cases have been widespread include Nairobi, Kisumu, Kisii, Trans Nzoia, Kiambu and Nyeri.
According to the Law Society of Kenya, medical negligence, patients rarely get justice in court as medics are reluctant to testify against their own.
Prof. Kiama Wangai who is both a lawyer and medical doctor cited that lack of proper legislation ensured failure of medical negligence cases in court.

Hurry up and loot whatever you can find. The Kenyan music industry is about to be shut down… As there’s very little that’s left to be admired – or restored.
After several years of hanging limp, mediocre releases, infantile beefs, intelligible garbage and a whole lot of cringe worthy music videos, the Kenyan music industry seems to have breathed out – and seems headed to death, fast, head first.
What makes us arrive at this sad conclusion is the recent MAMA AWARDS that just glitzly went down in South Africa.
Sauti Sol won. And that’s a good thing. But it’s sad – even terrifying – that they were (and have been)our ONLY worthy contenders in all of the array of categories spread out across the table.
Just in case you didn’t know, Kenya has other musicians apart from Sauti Sol. No, seriously.

We have Nameless and Wahu and Redsan and Wyre and Nazizi and Willy Paul and a billion other acts most of who, to be brutally honest, are just a bunch of lyrically-challenged, girl-obsessed masters of illiteracy and mediocrity.
And that’s where we throw in Timmy Tdat and pretty much every other thing that records at to simply choke up the nightclubs with bland, perishable dance anthems.
Sauti Sol has been doing mighty things all these years, hence the flurry of nominations and wins, but for the love of God, where is the rest of the gang?
Besides the couple of stoned hip-hop heads who gather at Alliance France every Friday evening, Java cup in hand, who else is a fan of Wangechi?
Besides the 16,000 YouTube yobs who live for a couple wordplays and sleek punchlines who else is a fan of Rabbit?
Where can we even find authentic Redsan fans?
Who knows Kristoff beyond Thika Road?
Oh, Khaligraph? What about him again? He’s a big deal? Where else? Besides across the slummy circles that swear by a man who used to sell cigarettes?
Is Octopizzo even rapping anymore? Oh he is? I thought he moved into being a full time father, sleep – deprived Instagrammer and a caregiver of a couple Kakuma refugees.
Our acts are a joke. A bad, dry joke. And our DJs aren’t even helping.
I mean, we have Diamond Platnumz pushing collaborations with the likes of Neyo and then we have Wahu working with Sudi Boy – and DJ Creme de la Creme – to give us a totally pointless song we immediately forgot about.
Immediately.
There was a time we had Wahu and Amani and all these other big shots getting all these international nods and even plays. Actually,they even used to win.
But Amani moved on to raising rabbits. And we aren’t sure Juacali even knows what the hell he’s doing anymore.
Our entire music industry has been rundown by cheap, Pacho-inspired rotten bouncy beats meant to whip up ratchet girls and bummed out college kids. With torn backpacks and no real homes.
Besides Sauti Sol, who have been allover the place all these years, no one else seems to be getting it – or caring.
Our biggest names have all gone under or focused on raising their families and agriculture.
While our new kids on the block are like your younger brother who fell out of college to chase a career that’s defined by stupidity, trashy Instagram, lame collabos and funny pink online tuxedos.
While Nigeria is bursting at the seams with all this mighty talent (both old and new) we are stuck with some teenage kid who relishes sitting on the President’s chair and whining his day away…. For his little, teenage gang of losers.
For every Tekno, Rayvanny, Minz Korede Bello or Di’Ja what do we have to produce?
We’re stuck with an industry that’s so grossly inward looking, so limited, so fixated on simplicity and locality, so thin and so myopic we can’t even make an impact right across the borders – leave alone continentwide.
After all these years, our acts,  our industry and our talents have refused to hatch a dominant plan that makes them not just local artists but continental supernovae.
All this years, our talents have watched new acts from elsewhere come and take over their own industry.
We’ve allowed Tanzanian acts come and ravage our own soil, come and own our own spaces, steal our own fans, dominate our own airwaves and crow like royal cockerels in our own musical neighborhoods.
Our industry has been intimidated and swept clean – our best acts have been silenced and compromised as we continue churning out stuff of Bahati’s insipid calibre.
Stuff that cannot even compete with the lowest of Sudanese upstarts in downtown Juba.

For instance, who is our Yemi Alade? Our Tiwa Savage? Our Vanessa Mdee? Our Di’ja? Who among our female artists?
And please don’t even get me started on Akothee…. We all know we can do better. In fact, should do better.
What if (God forbid) Sauti Sol were to break up? Or move to Holland to start families and never have to sing again… Who would be left round to still fly our flag high? Who would always shine for us at those international award ceremonies? Would we even have an industry to talk of in the first place?
Suppose Sauti Sol were to retire and Fancy Fingers was forced to hang up his guitar? Who would still shine bright for us? For our little, ravaged country? Heck, who would we even send to the State House to entertain our dignified guests? Bahati? Again? Lord please.
The only Awards our local artist still look forward to and lust after are our locally assembled Awards that are normally so obscenely rigged,so noisy and marred in sophomoric beefs no one takes them seriously any more.
Actually,we don’t even have Awards outside of the Gospel realm.
That’s an industry that has died so much, crumbled so much, hurt so deep, I cringe at the very thought of it.
It’s time we let Sauti Sol rest and time we helped them shine on our behalf too.
One boy band cannot be the dominant sound of the nation for half a decade. One boyband cannot continue being the synonym to Kenyan Music for the next half a decade.
And one boy band cannot continue being the face of the crumbling industry for the next generation. Sauti Sol, like the Maasais and the Lions and the Savanah, has become the other face of Kenya.
And yet we have tons and tons of artists who hit the studio daily. And release new ‘songs’ daily.
If only these new singles had a more crossover appeal, if only these songs didn’t just confine their sound to the Nairobi City borders, if only our artists cared more than just the occasional concert at a William Ruto event, if only our talents had better songwriters, better visions, better management, better drive and if only we didn’t just do songs to get people all sweaty and sticky at crammed house parties in Buru Buru.
But as the rest of Africa (and Sauti Sol) continues sweeping away the continent, bagging award after award, driving markets wild and even getting nods from international music channels, the rest of our industry players will continue churning out baby class rhymes, house party anthems, William Ruto tunes and dreary, Jesus-ish mumblings for a half-drunk, half-broke Christian audience.
Kill the remaining part of the industry already. And I’ll announce the funeral – it’s this Friday.
Name a cemetery and I’ll be there!

International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach on Wednesday dodged questions over reports some Tokyo 2020 events could be held in South Korea, a move which would further embarrass beleaguered Games organisers.
The IOC is considering staging rowing and canoeing in the South Korean city of Chungju, according to Japanese media, as they try to slash a Tokyo 2020 budget which has skyrocketed to an estimated $28 billion — four times that of the initial bid.
But Bach was hurriedly ushered out of a scheduled press briefing in the Japanese capital after answering prepared questions from Tokyo Olympic officials that hinted at further friction between local organisers and city politicians.
With the Korean bombshell -? which cited unnamed sources — making headlines, a media gathering was quickly shut down as nervous Tokyo organisers refused to allow more than 100 journalists to question Bach about the reports.
Stripping Japan of events would be seen a major humiliation for Tokyo organisers, although a Seoul sports ministry official told AFP the reports came as a “surprise” to them.
Bach and Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike on Tuesday agreed to set up a four-party working group comprising Tokyo’s metropolitan government, the IOC, Games organisers and the Japanese government to try to rein in snowballing costs.
Koike, who became Tokyo’s first female governor in July after promising to slash wasteful spending, then proposed national and international sports federations be added to that working group, but Bach clearly felt otherwise.
“There was an agreement on a four-party working group,” insisted Bach.
“This was very well received by the Tokyo metropolitan government and the governor, and of course this happened in agreement with the organising committee. Therefore we will follow this agreement.”
The option of moving rowing and canoeing to South Korea comes after a panel of experts proposed moving the events to northeast Japan, several hundreds of miles away, instead of building a new venue in Tokyo Bay.
The panel also called for existing venues in Tokyo to be renovated to stage volleyball and swimming to help cut costs further, as it predicted the total cost for the 2020 Games would hit nearly $30 billion, almost three times higher than the 2012 London Olympics.
Tokyo organisers have lurched from one crisis to another since beating Madrid and Istanbul in the race to host the Games, with Abe forced to rip up initial plans for the Olympic stadium amid public anger at its $2 billion price tag.
The Tokyo Olympic logo was then scrapped after accusations of plagiarism before French prosecutors launched an investigation into $2 million in payments which they suspect were made to help Tokyo secure the Games.
Japanese Olympic officials have denied any wrongdoing.

But with the increased dating apps, you still end up enduring the cheesy one-liners and the f*kcboys that keep popping up, but with Pamoja dating app, that hurdle is slashed by half.
Pamoja is a revolution. Its main concept is to bring all Swahili speaking people across the world together. A platform where you get to discover exciting new people whether for a chat, flirting, dates or making new friends by location or interest and connect with them, impress them and eventually even plan a meet-up – all within the app! . And with around 10,000 people on board, you will always have a lot of people to choose from.
Pamoja App has been developed by a bunch of young Tanzanians who understand your expectations and behavior; it’s actually the Namba Moja Swahili Social Networking app in the whole world!
Its content has been designed carefully and strategically to ensure easy navigation.
You really ought to check it out! The Number of mammies and guys, who are there, is so HUGE plus it’s better in finding matches more than most apps. Click here to check it out; 

The joint, since its inception last year, has only hosted contemporary musicians such as Lady Maureen, and emerging various artists and deejays for its growing cosmopolitan audiences.
According to the organizers, the rhumba fiesta is scheduled for tonight plus every other Wednesday in the next coming weeks. Sky World has changed the entertainment scene by introducing variety but still keeping standards of the urbanite and mature crowds that frequent the joint.
Tonight’s audiences should expect a mixture of old popular and new tunes freshly released by rhumba artists in DRC and France, an entertaining night that will warm you the audience.
The themed night starts at 7pm till late, it is a strictly adults only affair. Sky World is located on Tom Mboya.

In the pictures, King Kaka can be seen trying to negotiate with the cops, putting up a fight and even looking dejected when he realised that his fate was sealed.
Once these photos hit the internet, entertainment websites and social media rung with photos of the ‘Adisia’ hit maker and people wondered how a man of such a high profile could be arrested like a common vagabond.
 
But as our sources revealed, this is not an actual arrest but a video shoot for From the pictures one can even spot , a popular fixture in many Kenyan videos.

A passenger was crushed to death Wednesday after getting stuck between a subway train and a platform screen door in South Korea.
The man was trying to get off the train during the morning rush hour while the screen door was closing at Gimpo airport subway station in Seoul.
The driver started the train without seeing him trapped there and the 36-year-old was crushed to death, Seoul Metropolitan Rapid Transit Corp. said in a statement.
“We’re deeply sorry for the incident,” Na Yeol, acting chief of the company, told a press conference, promising a thorough investigation.
Screen doors have been installed at all subway stations in Seoul, partly to prevent people from committing suicide.
But the doors sometimes cause casualties by malfunctioning or trapping people.
In May, a junior employee was killed by a subway train while fixing a screen door on a platform in Seoul.

A few months ago she started working with Samsung before Colgate roped in her beauty and voice for a TV and radio ad. But that is not all; she became the first Kenyan fashion blogger to have the cover of True Love magazine all to herself.
 
For this landmark cover decided to forego the dresses we usually see on the cover enlist the help of body paint artiste to create this look.
A look that one cannot really tell whether she is wearing a gold turtle- neck or body paint.
But her look is not only for high-fashion purposes but also because she wants to be comfortable in her own skin “I am obsessed with becoming a woman comfortable in her skin “stated while explaining why she decided to pull this look for her shoot.
 

A Philippine police van on Wednesday rammed and ran over baton-wielding protesters outside the US embassy in Manila.
Police used tear gas and truncheons to try to disperse hundreds of people who had gathered in support of President Rodrigo Duterte’s recent comments that he wanted to loosen his nation’s alliance with the United States.
A total of 23 protesters were arrested, said Chief Inspector Arsenio Riparip, one of the officers overseeing the incident.
He said the protesters broke through the line of police securing the embassy’s gates.
“We had to disperse them. They started it. They were trying to enter the embassy,” Riparip told AFP.
“We had to use tear gas. They overpowered our policemen.”
A police van reversed quickly back into a crowd of dozens of protesters and then forward, running over at least two people and banging into others, footage broadcast by local television network ABS CBN showed.
Photos showed a grey-haired man afterwards trapped underneath the stationary van, with his leg and hips under one of the back tyres.
Manila police chief Oscar Albayalde confirmed the police van hit protesters but insisted the driver was not at fault.
“They weren’t really run over,” Albayalde said in a statement, referring to the protesters.
“The rallyists were trying to flip over the patrol car. In the process, the driver extricated the patrol car and inadvertently hit some unruly protesters who sustained minor injuries.”
One of the protest leaders, Amirah Lidasan, accused the police of starting the violence.
“It was the police who attacked the protesters. First they rammed the police vehicle against the people. Then they released tear gas and hit us with truncheons,” she said.
While the Philippines is a defence ally of the United States, Duterte — elected president in May on a ruthless anti-crime platform — has said he wants to distance the country from America.
He has launched abusive tirades against US President Barack Obama and warned he may eventually cut ties altogether, after the US government raised alarm over thousands of people killed in Duterte’s anti-drug campaign.
Duterte is currently in Beijing on a mission aimed at improving ties with China and attracting billions of dollars of Chinese investment.

Czech police said Wednesday they staged a joint operation with the FBI to arrest a Russian citizen in Prague suspected of staging cyber attacks on the United States.
Washington last week formally accused the Russian government of trying to “interfere” in the 2016 White House race by hacking US political institutions, charges the Kremlin has repeatedly dismissed.
However, there was no indication from Czech police that the arrest in Prague was linked to the US claims.
“Czech police have successfully collaborated with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The aim of the operation was a Russian citizen suspected of hacking attacks on targets in the United States,” police spokesman David Schon said in a statement posted on the force’s website.
The arrest took place in a hotel in Prague city centre, the statement said, without identifying the man by name or indicating when the arrest took place.
The suspect collapsed in police custody, was given first aid and then hospitalised, it added.
Czech judicial authorities must now rule on his extradition to the United States, the statement said.
The Kremlin on Saturday slammed Washington for its “unprecedented” threats after US Vice President Joe Biden told NBC that Putin would receive a “message” over the alleged hacking.
Biden said Washington would respond to the alleged attacks “at the time of our choosing and under the circumstances that have the greatest impact.”
NBC later reported that the CIA was preparing a retaliatory cyber attack “designed to harass and ’embarrass’ the Kremlin leadership.”
The Kremlin was propelled to the heart of American politics in July after Hillary Clinton’s campaign blamed Russia for an embarrassing leak of emails from the Democratic National Committee.
Russia has been accused of favouring Republican candidate Donald Trump — who has praised Putin and called for better ties with Moscow — over the more hawkish Clinton.
Russia’s relations with the United States have fallen to their post-Cold War nadir over the conflict in Ukraine and stalled efforts to end the five-year Syrian war.

Jihadist leaders are fleeing Mosul, a top US general in the coalition battling the Islamic State group said Wednesday as Iraqi forces closed in on the northern city.
Mosul was where IS supremo Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared his “caliphate” two years ago but is now the group’s last major stronghold in Iraq.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who announced the launch of a broad offensive to retake the city on Monday, visited the front line on Wednesday.
In the biggest Iraqi military operation in years, forces have retaken dozens of villages, mostly south and east of Mosul, and are planning multiple assaults for Thursday.
“We are telling Daesh (IS) that their leaders are abandoning them. We’ve seen a movement out of Mosul,” said Major General Gary Volesky, who heads the anti-IS coalition’s land component.
He told reporters in a video briefing that the many foreigners among the 3,000 to 4,500 IS fighters would likely end up forming the core of the holdout jihadist force.
Volesky noted that the Iraqis would screen anyone leaving Mosul, and attempts by foreign fighters to blend in to an expected exodus of displaced people would be thwarted.
“It’s difficult for them to blend into the local population based on the number of different types of foreign fighters that there are,” he said.
Hundreds of thousands of civilians were still trapped in the city with dwindling supplies, many sheltering in basements as air strikes intensified on IS targets.
“We couldn’t sleep last night because of the air strikes. The explosions were huge,” said Abu Saif, a 47-year-old resident contacted by AFP.
“Many families are starting to run out of some basic food goods, there is no commercial activity in Mosul — the city is cut off from the world,” he said.
So far only a trickle of civilians have fled the fighting but aid organisations fear being overwhelmed by what could be Iraq’s biggest wave of displacement yet in nearly three years of violence.
“On the third day of operations, reports indicate that military activities remain concentrated in less populated areas, with no large-scale civilian displacement recorded at this stage,” UN aid chief Stephen O’Brien said.
East of Mosul, forces were poised for an assault on Qaraqosh, which lies about 15 kilometres (10 miles) away and was once Iraq’s largest Christian town.
News of the move to recapture Qaraqosh sparked jubilation among Christians who had fled the town, with many dancing and singing in the Iraqi Kurdish city of Arbil on Tuesday night.
Units from Iraq’s elite counter-terrorism service, which has done the heavy lifting in most recent operations against IS, were poised to flush jihadists out of the town, officers said.
“We are surrounding Hamdaniya now,” Lieutenant General Riyadh Tawfiq, commander of Iraq’s ground forces, told AFP at the main staging base of Qayyarah, referring to the district that includes Qaraqosh.
“There are some pockets (of resistance), some clashes, they send car bombs — but it will not help them,” he said.
Qaraqosh was the largest of many Christian towns and villages seized by the jihadists who swept across the Nineveh plain east of Mosul in August 2014.
The mass exodus it sparked displaced a large proportion of Iraq’s already dwindling Christian minority, sending most into the neighbouring Kurdish region.
Qaraqosh was home to around 50,000 people in 2014 and has at least seven churches, making it a key hub for the more than 300,000 Christians still in Iraq.
Kurdish peshmerga forces prepared to attack IS positions on several fronts north of Mosul while federal forces worked their way up the Tigris Valley.
The “caliphate” Baghdadi proclaimed in Mosul’s Great Mosque in June 2014 once covered more than a third of Iraq and parts of Syria.
But it has been shrinking steadily for more than a year and retaking Mosul would be a major setback for IS, all but ending its experiment in statehood.
“IS simply has too many enemies with the world arrayed against it,” said Aymenn al-Tamimi, a jihadism expert at the Middle East Forum.
Tens of thousands of personnel are involved in the operation to retake Mosul, far outnumbering IS fighters.
World leaders and military commanders warned that — despite signs that early progress in the Mosul offensive was faster than predicted — the battle could be long and difficult.
“Mosul will be a difficult fight. There will be advances and there will be setbacks,” Obama said on Tuesday.
After clearing towns and villages on the outskirts of Mosul with air support from the US-led coalition, Iraqi forces are expected to besiege the city before entering it.
Iraqi forces may allow fleeing IS fighters an exit to the west in a bid to minimise human and material losses.
But the chief of Russia’s general staff, Valery Gerasimov, argued it was “necessary not to drive terrorists from one country to the other but to destroy them on the spot”.
Russia, he said, was focusing on “possible attempts by fighters to break out of Mosul” and “freely leave the city in the direction of Syria”.
Many civilians have been able to flee the wider Mosul region to safer areas, with some desperate enough to seek refuge over the border in war-torn Syria.
“Thousands of desperate Iraqis are fleeing to a filthy and overcrowded Syrian refugee camp in an effort to escape the Mosul offensive,” Save The Children aid group said.
It said about 5,000 of them had reached the Al-Hol camp inside Syria near the Iraqi border in the past 10 days.

Iran said on Wednesday it would accept no US “interference” after Washington demanded the release of a dual national and his 80-year-old father given 10 year sentences for espionage.
The State Department demanded the immediate release of Siamak and Baqher Namazi, both Iranian-American dual nationals, after their sentences were announced on Tuesday.
But foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi told Iranian media: “The government and the Iranian people give no importance to the statements and interference of American officials and their efforts to divide the ranks of the Iranian people.
“The American threats only add to the wall of mistrust Iranians have regarding the United States.”
Washington expressed concern over the health of the elder Namazi, a former UN Children’s Fund employee who also served as the governor of an Iranian province before the Islamic revolution of 1979.
Both were jailed for 10 years for “espionage and collaboration with the American government”, Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolat-Abadi announced on Tuesday.
Three other Iranian-American dual nationals — Farhad Abd-Saleh, Kamran Ghaderi and Alireza Omidvar — were also sentenced to 10 years on the same charges, along with a US resident from Lebanon, Nezar Zaka.
Siamak Namazi, a well-connected business consultant who has supported Iranian reformists and sought to promote ties between Iran and the United States, was arrested as he arrived in Tehran a year ago.
His father was detained in February when he came to Iran to seek his son’s release.
Conservatives in Iran have criticised attempts by the moderate government of President Hassan Rouhani to improve ties with the West following a nuclear deal with world powers last year.

A pause in Russian and Syrian strikes on Aleppo held into a second day Wednesday, ahead of a brief ceasefire aimed at allowing civilians and rebels to quit the devastated city.
The halt came ahead of talks in Berlin between the Russian, French, and German leaders on Syria’s five-year conflict.
Moscow is backing President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in its war with a wide range of rebel groups, including with air strikes in the divided northern city of Aleppo.
Under growing international pressure over the devastation and civilian deaths caused by strikes, Moscow announced early Tuesday that Russian and Syrian warplanes would stop bombing rebel-held parts of the city to pave the way for a “humanitarian pause”.
That window, starting at 0500 GMT on Thursday and due to last eight hours, is expected to see all fighting stop to allow civilians and rebels to exit opposition-held districts via six corridors.
An estimated 250,000 people live in Aleppo’s eastern districts and have been under near-continuous government siege since July.
Moscow’s offer was initially met with scepticism, but the bombing halt held for its first 24 hours.
“There have been no air raids from yesterday morning until now,” Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, said as the pause entered its second day.
Russian and Syrian bombardment had been providing air cover for a government offensive that started on September 22 aimed at seizing the city’s east, held by rebels since 2012.
Despite the bombing pause, troops pressed their ground assault in the Old City on Wednesday as they vied to shift the front line in the heart of Aleppo, according to the Observatory.
According to Moscow, once the pause begins six corridors out of the city would open for civilians with another two — via the Castello Road in the north and Souk al-Hal in the city centre — designated for rebels.
Rebel groups have indicated they will not abandon their posts and, with Aleppo encircled by pro-government forces, many civilians fear falling into the hands of the regime.
But Russia has said the pause is an opportunity for mainstream rebels to disassociate themselves from jihadists in Aleppo.
Russia has responded to criticism of its air campaign in Aleppo by repeatedly pointing to the presence of jihadist groups in the city allied with other rebel forces.
Some of the rebels are backed by the United States, and Moscow has accused Washington of not doing enough to convince them to end alliances with jihadists.
“Each time, the Americans said it was impossible to perform the separation without the establishment of a ceasefire,” Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.
“The condition that has been asked for, especially by our American colleagues, is now filled.”
Ibrahim Abu al-Leith, a spokesman for the White Helmets rescue force in Aleppo, said there were no planes circling above on Wednesday but artillery and rocket fire continued.
“It’s better than before, but people won’t go out unless everything stops. They are still scared because they know that the regime and Russia are not trustworthy,” Abu al-Leith told AFP from the city.
Five years of diplomatic initiatives to put an end to Syria’s conflict have failed, but over the past week world powers have made new efforts to reach a lasting truce.
French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel were to meet with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Berlin later Wednesday to discuss the ceasefire plans.
Speaking of the “disastrous” situation in Aleppo, Merkel said she and Hollande would speak to Putin but that “we cannot expect miracles”.
The United States has expressed scepticism about Moscow’s most recent initiative.
“We’ve seen these kinds of commitments and promises before. And we’ve seen them broken. We’re watching this very carefully,” State Department spokesman John Kirby told CNN.
A US-led coalition is bombing jihadists in Syria including the Islamic State group and Russia accused member Belgium of killing six civilians in air strikes in the Aleppo region on Tuesday.
The Belgian defence ministry denied its air force was active in the area at the time.
Talks were also due Wednesday in Geneva between Russian, US, Saudi, Qatari and Turkish officials on the efforts to distance Syrian opposition fighters from jihadists, in particular the Fateh al-Sham Front, which changed its name from Al-Nusra Front after renouncing its ties to Al-Qaeda.

Two Russian cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut soared into orbit in a Soyuz spacecraft Wednesday at the start of a two-day journey to the International Space Station.
NASA’s Shane Kimbrough and Andrei Borisenko and Sergei Ryzhikov of Roscosmos blasted off at 0805 GMT from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan after their launch had been delayed by nearly one month because of technical issues.
The trio’s mission is expected to last just over four months with docking at the orbital laboratory taking place on Friday.
They will join Roscosmos’ Anatoly Ivanishin, NASA’s Kate Rubins, and Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), whose return to Earth is set for October 30.
The Russian Orthodox Church said it had provided the country’s space authorities with the relics of Seraphim of Sarov, a 18th-century saint, to be taken onboard the flight.
The local Church official who handed over the relics last month, Metropolitan Georgy, had called for the astronauts to receive “God’s help in this blessed and good work,” the Church said in a statement.
A few minutes after the launch, Roscosmos confirmed that it had been “successful” and that the three astronauts are scheduled to arrive at the space centre at 9:59 GMT on Friday.
The 49-year-old Kimbrough, who logged less than 16 days in space during a single mission aboard the US space shuttle Endeavour, will command the expedition aboard the orbital laboratory.
“All systems go!! 24 hours and counting until Soyuz MC-02 Expedition 49/50 launch!” Kimbrough, a father-of-three who served as a helicopter pilot in the 1990-1991 Gulf War, wrote on Twitter Tuesday.
Roscosmos flight engineer Borisenko spent 164 days in space for his first mission aboard the ISS in 2011, while Ryzhikov is entering the cosmos for the first time.
Wednesday’s launch is the second Soyuz space flight to be delayed this year after issues with software saw the launch of the newly upgraded Soyuz MS-01 postponed by two weeks over the summer.
Technical mishaps have complicated plans to extend the periods during which the ISS is fully staffed with six astronauts.
But the successful launch Monday of an Antares rocket carrying an unmanned cargo capsule to the ISS — the first time since a massive explosion after liftoff two years ago — came as a relief after a series of failures that have hindered travel to the ISS.
In addition to the 2014 Antares explosion, a Russian cargo spacecraft burned up before reaching the ISS in May last year.
The Antares rocket that blasted off from Virginia earlier this week is on course to bring 2,300 kilogrammes of food and equipment to the orbital laboratory and is scheduled to arrive by Sunday.
Space is one of the few areas of cooperation that has survived the crisis in relations between Moscow and Washington, which has see their bilateral ties plunge to their post-Cold War nadir over the conflicts in Syria and Ukraine.

Alastair Cook has admitted to questioning how much longer he can extend his record-breaking England career, torn between the pride of playing for his country and the wrench of being parted from his family.
Cook will become England’s most capped Test player on Thursday when he leads his side out against Bangladesh in Chittagong at the start of a two-match series — his 134th appearance in whites for his country.
Given that he is still only 31, remains at the top of his game and is remarkably injury-free, talk is growing that Indian legend Sachin Tendulkar’s all-time record of 200 Test appearances could be vulnerable.
Cook is already the only Englishman to score more than 10,000 Test runs and widely tipped to also overtake Tendulkar’s record of 15,921 runs.
But after flying back to rejoin the squad in Bangladesh only days after his wife Alice gave birth to their second daughter, Cook acknowledged that the prospect of many more years of touring was daunting.
“We play Tests so quickly nowadays so I could do (break Tendulkar’s appearances record)… The danger is looking at it,” he told journalists late Tuesday in Chittagong.
“Seventy-odd Test matches now seems a long way away and if I am brutally honest the more times you pack your bags to leave your family at home you do question how long you can keep doing it for.”
As one of the few countries that still draws packed houses for five-day matches, England play far more Test cricket than their counterparts and are due to play at least 14 Test matches within the next 12 months.
Cook at least will have a break from the international circuit between Christmas and July next year given that England have an extensive programme of one-day cricket in that period, including the Champions Trophy.
England’s selectors controversially axed Cook as limited-overs captain just two months before the 2015 World Cup, but he now admits that could have been a blessing in disguise.
“Noticeably not playing one day cricket has lightened my load up,” he said. “You get more substantial breaks which refresh you mentally a lot more than it has ever done.
“You can isolate each series or tour knowing that I have 10 weeks here but January, February, March are back at home and you can do your training block or get away from it and spend some quality time at home.”
Cook said being captain of the Test team was “something I am very proud of” and never dreamed when he made his debut 11 years ago that he was embarking on a record-breaking career.
“I would never have thought in 2006 when I made my debut I would get close to breaking that… It will be a very special moment.
“It doesn’t matter whether you are playing your first game or your 130th. It is a very proud moment to play for England and you should never ever forget that and I certainly don’t.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke by telephone with the leaders of Turkey and Iraq about battle for Mosul, where Iraqi forces are fighting to oust the Islamic State group, the Kremlin said Wednesday.
Putin “wished the Iraqi army and its allies complete success in their objectives,” the Kremlin said in a statement on his conversations with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.
He also informed the Iraqi leader about the “measures taken by Russia to defuse the situation” in the Syrian city of Aleppo.
Moscow announced on Tuesday that Russian and Syrian air forces had stopped bombing Aleppo ahead of an eight-hour “humanitarian pause” in the battered city on Thursday.
Putin is to attend a summit on Syria in Berlin later Wednesday with the leaders of France and Germany.
In a separate conversation, Putin also discussed the battle for Mosul with Erdogan, the Kremlin said, but gave no further details.
The long-awaited offensive against Iraq’s second city began Monday with air and ground support from a US-led coalition.
Turkey said Tuesday it will continue to take part in the air operation after Ankara agreed a deal with its coalition partners.
Plans for the offensive were marked by tensions between Iraq and Turkey, which insisted on being part of the operation despite objections from Baghdad.

The United Nations has urged Bangladesh to halt construction of a huge coal-fired power plant near the Sundarbans, warning of a serious threat to the delicate ecosystem of the world’s largest mangrove forest.
The UN’s culture and science agency UNESCO said there was a high chance pollution from the plant would “irreversibly damage” the Sundarbans, which straddles the border of India and Bangladesh and is home to endangered Bengal tigers and rare dolphins.
It also provides a defence against storm surges and cyclones that have killed thousands of people in impoverished coastal villages and islands in recent years, and was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997.
The planned 1,320 megawatt Rampal plant, a joint project by India and Bangladesh, would be powered each year by nearly five million tons of coal transported by boat along the ecosystem’s fragile waterways.
Scheduled to open in 2018, the plant would also discharge nearly 125,000 cubic metres a day of chemically-tainted water used to cool generators, according to design specifications.
In a report published late Tuesday, UNESCO said the plant’s construction would result in a substantial increase in shipping and dredging in the area.
It recommended that the plant be relocated “to a more suitable location, where it would not impact negatively on the Sundarbans”.
There was no immediate comment from Bangladesh authorities or from the joint-venture company behind the $1.7-billion power plant.
Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has defended the project and rejected concerns about it as politically motivated.
But it has sparked protests in Bangladesh, where hundreds of campaigners marched from Dhaka to the Sundarbans earlier this year to demand the project be cancelled.
The site is just 14 kilometres (nine miles) north of the Sundarbans.
On Tuesday dozens of people were injured when police fired tear gas at hundreds of campaigners who were marching to the Indian embassy in Dhaka with a letter asking the Indian prime minister to scrap the project.
“UNESCO has done a responsible job,” said Anu Mohammad, a university professor who has been leading the campaign against the power plant.
“The government should heed their call and scrap the project. The sooner it is scrapped, the better for the Sundarbans.”

Visiting Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte had praise for China on Wednesday, setting aside a maritime dispute as the combative leader reconfigures his country’s diplomatic alliances.
The Asian giant was “good”, he said.
“It has never invaded a piece of my country all these generations,” Duterte added in an apparent comparison to the Philippines’ former colonial ruler the United States.
“During the Cold War, China was portrayed as the bad guy,” he added. “And all of these years, what we have read in our books in school were all propaganda produced by the West.”
Duterte is in China for a four-day trip that is expected to confirm his tilt away from Washington and towards Beijing’s sphere of influence.
Foreign policy under Duterte has dramatically shifted from that pursued under predecessor Benigno Aquino, who took Beijing to an international tribunal over its extensive territorial claims in the South China Sea and won a resounding victory.
The move infuriated Beijing. But Duterte, who took office in June shortly before the tribunal ruling, has made a point of not flaunting the outcome, even though China seized Scarborough Shoal — a fishing ground within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone — in 2012.
The judgement, Duterte said, was “a piece of paper with four corners”.
“The arbitral award gives us the right. China has the historical right. And they’re insisting. In this situation, do we argue, or do we just talk? I would say, let us put it (off) to some other day.”
As Duterte has cosied up to Beijing, he has repeatedly denounced the United States and President Barack Obama for criticising his deadly war on crime.
He has also suspended joint US-Philippine patrols in the South China Sea, and has threatened an end to joint military exercises.
The South China Sea is of intense interest to Washington and it has repeatedly spoken out on the various territorial disputes between China and its neighbours over the strategically vital waters.
Tensions have risen between the US and China over Washington’s so-called “pivot” to the Asia-Pacific, a move that Beijing says is intended to contain it.
Duterte will meet top leaders including President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang during his stay.
Hours before he spoke, Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a regular briefing that Beijing was pleased to move towards resolving the territorial dispute “through consultation and dialogue”.
“This is how two friendly neighbours should treat each other,” she added.
“Anyone who truly wishes for peace, stability, development and prosperity in the Asia Pacific” should welcome Duterte’s visit.
In an editorial Wednesday, China’s nationalist Global Times newspaper said Washington had treated Manila “as a pawn”, adding Duterte was now “redesigning Philippine foreign policy based on Philippine interests”.
Duterte has said his China trip will focus on promoting economic ties.
The Philippines is hoping, among other things, that Beijing will repeal a ban on imports of its bananas — an economic sanction intended to punish Manila for its South China Sea stance.
Hua said Wednesday announcements on infrastructure cooperation and economic development projects could be expected during the Philippine leader’s visit.
Beijing has also enthusiastically endorsed Duterte’s war on drugs, which has seen more than 3,700 people killed and led the International Criminal Court to warn that those responsible could face charges.
Hua praised Duterte Wednesday for “rolling out policies to ensure social order and public security”, adding that the two sides were already in close communication about cooperating on drug control and anti-crime issues.

Millions of people in the Philippines were on high alert Wednesday for one of the strongest typhoons to ever hit the disaster-battered country, with authorities warning of giant storm surges and destructive winds.
Super Typhoon Haima was forecast to hit remote communities in the far north of the country about 11:00 pm (1500 GMT) on Wednesday, bringing winds almost on a par with catastrophic Super Typhoon Haiyan that claimed more than 7,350 lives in 2013.
“It’s not just heavy rain and strong winds that we are expecting. It’s also floods, landslides and storm surges in coastal areas. Those in these areas, you are in danger. Find safer ground,” Allan Tabel, chief of the interior ministry’s disaster and information coordinating centre, told a nationally televised briefing.
With Haima having a weather band of 800 kilometres (500 miles), more than 10 million people across the northern parts of the Philippines’ main island of Luzon will be affected, according to the government’s disaster risk management agency.
Haima was approaching the Philippines with sustained winds of 225 kilometres an hour and gusts of 315 kilometres an hour, according to the state weather bureau.
Authorities warned coastal communities to expect storm surges of five metres (16 feet) or higher.
“It’s already started. The wind is strong, the waves are big,” said Julie Hermano, manager of a small resort in Santa Ana, a coastal town of about 30,000 people that is in the typhoon’s direct path.
“Some residents have been panic-buying food in markets because we were told it’s going to be a super typhoon. We’ve already tied down our water tank and prepared our (power) generator set.”
The Philippine islands are often the first major landmass to be hit by storms that generate over the Pacific Ocean. The Southeast Asian archipelago endures about 20 major storms each year, many of them deadly.
The most powerful and deadly was Haiyan, which destroyed entire towns in heavily populated areas of the central Philippines.
“We are possibly dealing with a typhoon that is even stronger than Typhoon Yolanda (as Haiyan was known in the Philippines) in 2013. We must therefore brace ourselves for the possible effects of a typhoon of this magnitude,” government executive secretary Salvador Medialdea said in a statement.
“We call on all government agencies to be on highest level of preparedness and to take all necessary precautions.”
In the northern regions expected to be worst hit, tens of thousands of people sought refuge in schools and other makeshift evacuation centres as authorities raised the highest typhoon alert of “signal five”.
Flights to the north were also suspended and schools were closed.
The Philippine capital of Manila is about 450 kilometres south of where Haima is forecast to make landfall. Authorities said the city, with about 12 million people, was not expected to be badly hit although it would be hit with some rain.
Haima was forecast to exit the Philippines Friday, then track towards southern China.
Haima is the second typhoon to hit the northern Philippines in a week, after Sarika claimed at least one life and left three people missing.

Two Japanese cabinet ministers visited a controversial war shrine Wednesday, after a mass visit by lawmakers angered China and South Korea which see it as a painful reminder of Tokyo’s past aggression.
The ministers — internal affairs chief Sanae Takaichi and Katsunobu Kato, in charge of women’s empowerment — are close to conservative Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who did not visit the Yasukuni shrine during this year’s four-day autumn festival.
Abe, often criticised for what some see as revisionist views on Japan’s wartime record, sent a ritual offering to the shrine instead.
He has not gone to the site in central Tokyo since late 2013 in an apparent attempt to ease diplomatic tensions.
China on Wednesday lashed out at the cabinet ministers’ visit, saying the shrine “whitewashes” Japan’s past militarism and “reveals its wrong attitude towards history”.
“China firmly opposes that,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a regular Beijing press briefing.
“We urge Japan to own up to and reflect upon its history of aggression, make a clean break with militarism and use concrete actions to win back trust from its Asian neighbours and the international community.”
On Tuesday a group of about 85 legislators arrived at the leafy site for an annual pilgrimage, earning rebukes from Beijing and Seoul.
Yasukuni honours millions of Japanese war dead, but also senior military and political figures convicted of war crimes after World War II.
The indigenous Shinto religious shrine has for decades been a flashpoint for criticism by countries that suffered from Japan’s colonialism and aggression in the first half of the 20th century, including China and Korea.
Abe and other nationalists say Yasukuni is a place to remember fallen soldiers. They compare it to Arlington National Cemetery in the United States.
His visit in 2013 to mark his first year in power sparked fury in Beijing and Seoul and earned a diplomatic rebuke from close ally the United States which said it was “disappointed”.
Abe has since refrained from going, sending ritual offerings instead.

Wincing slightly as the tattoo gun punches holes in the nape of her neck, Ohm says getting inked in memory of Thailand’s King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who died last week, is the greatest tribute she can pay.
Tattoo studios across Bangkok are reporting a surge in clients asking for indelible reminders of the beloved king who died last Thursday, aged 88, after a reign spanning seven decades.
Most Thais have known no other monarch — a figure associated with stability and virtue in a kingdom scored by political violence, coups and corruption.
Ohm, whose full name is Kraipich Jarach, opted for “I was born during the reign of King Rama9” on her neck in the scrolls and flourishes of Thai script, referring to the monarch’s formal title.
“I might lose photos, but tattoos will stay with me even when I die,” the 32-year-old said.
Doubling up on the tributes, Kraipich also decided to have “King 9” — the first word in English and the numeral in Thai — tattooed on her forearm, a motif that has become increasingly popular.
Tattoos have a long lineage in deeply superstitious Thailand, where they are common among women and men as acts of Buddhist devotion, for protection and good luck.
“In case I am reborn… in the next life these tattoos might help me remember that I lived in the time of the best king in the world,” Ohm said.
Photos of people showing off new artwork, from large portraits of the king to elaborate maps of Thailand with his name across them, are doing the rounds of social media.
Celebrities have got in on the act, while parlours are offering free or cheap sessions as the kingdom mourns.
Petchy, the Thai owner of OD Tattoo Studio, says that since Bhumibol?s death he has had around 10 customers a day keen for an enduring mark representing their king.
“Thais love their king… tattooing is a kind of art. The king also loved arts, he painted, he played musical instruments, he composed songs,” the heavily tattooed 42-year-old said.
“So this is a way for many people to show respect. They don’t just have his photos at home but a tattoo that is part of their bodies,” he explained, adding he also planned some fresh ink in commemoration.
Most Thai households and companies have a portrait or photograph of the king on their walls.
Thais have donned black in a remarkable show of public grief, while everything from concerts to football matches have been cancelled out of respect.
But by late Tuesday Bangkok’s famed night scene was cautiously creeping back to life after a five-day hiatus.

The Taliban on Wednesday rejected reports of secret meetings with the Afghan government in a bid to resume long-stalled peace negotiations, insisting that their hardline policy remains unchanged.
Afghan officials on Tuesday said they held two meetings since September in Doha, where the Taliban maintain a political office, after the news was first reported by Britain’s The Guardian newspaper.
But Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid in a statement rejected any reports of talks or meetings.
Mohammad Masoom Stanekzai, Afghanistan’s intelligence chief, and National Security Advisor Mohammad Hanif Atmar had attended one of the Qatar meetings, local Tolo television said citing a presidential palace source.
“The representatives of the Islamic Emirate have not met with Stanekzai or any other officials. Our stance about the negotiations has not changed. Our policy is very clear on that,” Mujahid said, referring to the Taliban’s official title.
The Taliban have long insisted on the complete withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan as a precondition for peace talks with the government.
The Guardian said the talks were attended by Mullah Abdull Manan Akhund, brother of Taliban founder and long-time leader Mullah Omar who died in 2013.
A senior American diplomat was also present in the Qatar meetings, the newspaper said citing a Taliban official.
Pakistan — the Taliban’s historic backers — have hosted several rounds of international talks over the last year to jumpstart peace negotiations, which yielded little progress.
The dialogue process ground to a halt when the US killed former Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour in a drone strike in May.
The insurgency has shown stubborn resilience under new Taliban leader Haibatullah Akhundzada, attacking northern Kunduz city for a second time and threatening the capital of the southern opium-rich province of Helmand.

More than 50 bodies have been recovered from a ferry that sank in central Myanmar, a local official said Wednesday, warning the toll would keep rising as workers raise the capsized boat.
The overloaded vessel, whose passengers included scores of teachers and university students, went down early Saturday on the Chindwin River in the Sagaing region.
Some 150 people were rescued after the ferry sank on its way to Monywa, a city around 72 kilometres (45 miles) to the south.
But officials who believe up to 250 may have been aboard fear the death toll could top 100 as they search through the boat.
Bloated corpses floated to the surface as searchers hauled the top part of the brightly painted ferry out of the water with cranes on Wednesday.
“The total death toll has now reached 53,” Sa Willy Frient, the local director of social welfare and resettlement who is leading the operation, told AFP.
“We are not sure if we can lift the whole sunken boat tonight. There could be many more dead bodies downstairs.”
Local monks have held memorial services for the dead, most of whom are thought to be women.
At least four of the boat’s staff have been arrested and will face legal action, according to local authorities.
Shipwrecks are common in Myanmar, a mostly rural and poor country with rudimentary transport infrastructure.
Many living along the nation’s flood-prone river systems rely heavily on ferries, which are often overcrowded and poorly maintained.
The European Union said it was “deeply saddened” by the disaster, and expressed “heartfelt condolences” to the families and friends of the victims.

A multi-million-dollar racket that used fake Indian call centres to trick US citizens into paying bogus tax bills may be the tip of the iceberg, with police warning similar scams could be operating across the country.
School leavers or college dropouts would be trained to speak with an American accent, posing as US Internal Revenue Service officials and scare people into believing they owed the government cash, detectives said.
The scheme, which had been operating for over a year, netted more than 10 million rupees ($150,000) a day, they added.
More than 70 people have been arrested after police this month swooped on call centres in western India, from Mumbai to the Gujarat capital of Ahmedabad, but they suspect the network could stretch even further.
“We believe that the racket is spread across India, including in the north,” Parambir Singh, commissioner of police in the Mumbai suburb of Thane, told AFP.
Police from Thane, on the outskirts of India’s financial capital, rounded up at least 770 employees of bogus call centres on October 4.
Most were let go pending further investigations but 72 were arrested while another suspect was detained this week as police try to close in on the 23-year-old alleged mastermind.
It is claimed the accused would berate victims for falsely failing to pay taxes and then threaten them with jail if they did not cough up immediately.
The con artists would use an altered caller ID number that made it look like they were ringing from the United States and often quoted IRS badge numbers to make them appear legitimate.
The fraudsters would trick the victim into sending money, often through pre-paid debit cards that can be purchased at stores like Walmart, or even by buying Apple iTunes gift cards. In both instances transfers are made by the victim handing over the card’s registration number.
The iTunes scam has even led Apple to issue a global warning on its website urging people not to give the number to someone they do not know.
The IRS has been warning about identical scams for a few years with reports in US media that such schemes might have been operating out of India.
In January, the US Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration said it was aware of more than 5,000 victims who had paid a total of more than $26.5 million in such scams since October 2013.
“It is one of the biggest fraud cases to surface in recent times in Mumbai,” Parag Manere, Thane police deputy commissioner, told AFP, adding that the ringleaders found willing recruits.
“Hiring was easy. They just gave out pamphlets about job openings and received applications, mostly from school or college dropouts,” said Manere.
Commissioner Singh said ringleaders “lured youngsters with good working knowledge of English and trained them how to speak with an American accent”.
Police believe the recruits were paid 30,000-70,000 rupees a month, plus commission. Some made the initial calls while others were employed to “close” deals.
They would work through the night to catch Americans during their day and sometimes left threatening voicemail messages if their targets didn’t answer the phone, it is alleged.
A victim of a similar-sounding scam told NBC last year the caller had her “so frightened” but felt “embarrassed, guilty and ashamed” when she realised she had been swindled.
Singh said Thane police knew of 2,000 people suspected of involvement in the scam, but the force believes there are more, and is working with their counterparts in neighbouring Gujarat state and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Police in Ahmedabad raided more than half a dozen call centres following the Thane operation, a senior crime branch official told AFP, while searches were also carried out in the Gujarati cities of Bhuj, Surat and Vadodara.
Police are desperate to find alleged mastermind Sagar Thakkar, known as “Shaggy”, who is from Ahmedabad but may have fled India, possibly to Dubai.
Thakkar had half a dozen people working for him in the US and was preparing to expand operations, according to the Ahmedabad officer. “He was planning to set up five more call centres by December,” he said.