Paris Takes Global Earth Hour Capital 2016 Title

Wazzup Pilipinas!

Paris is this year’s Global Earth Hour Capital. WWF’s Earth Hour City Challenge recognizes the “City of Light” as a role model for climate action and awards Paris for its ambitious vision and successful engagement with business, civil society and other cities on its journey toward sustainability.

Paris hosted last year’s historic global climate summit and has shown strong climate leadership, creating a model for other city governments to replicate. In addition to setting up an effective centralized Climate Agency, ensuring clean vehicles, extending public transportation and developing waste-to-fuel conversion, Paris has also incorporated a regular review process to ensure that the city is on track to meet its sustainability goals as well as the current and future needs of its citizens.

“As the world works to bring the Paris climate agreement into action, the ‘City of Light’ is leading by example,” said Marco Lambertini, Director General of WWF International. “Winning WWF’s Earth Hour City Challenge reflects Paris’ commitment to inspire global action to reduce emissions and build environmental sustainability through green urban development.”

Selected from a shortlist of 18 national finalists, Paris impressed the international jury with its innovative actions, long-term vision and willingness to collaborate and share knowledge capital with cities around the globe.

Akbayan Youth Likens Pacquiao to Orlando Shooter

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This was the strong statement of Akbayan Youth against Senator-elect Manny Pacquiao on Friday as it recalled the shooting that happened in a gay club in Orlando in the United States last June 12. The shooting claimed 49 lives, many of which were members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender [LGBT] community.

The statement was released in commemoration of June as LGBT Pride Month.

According to the youth group, the celebrated boxer is guilty of committing hate speech against the LGBT that could potentially incite violence among his many supporters.

Early this year, Pacquiao came under fire when he called gays as “worse than animals” in an interview during the campaign for his bid to the Senate. Pacquiao also posted on his Instagram account a quote from Letivicus that prescribes that gays “should be put to death”. The said post has long been deleted after receiving flak from the online community.

Yesha Tolentino, Akbayan Youth’s spokesperson for LGBT concerns, claimed that Pacquiao’s “homophobic public pronouncements are loading the guns that will kill gays and lesbians”. She also said that sooner or later, Pacquiao’s hate speech will inspire others to take a violent stance against people who identify as LGBT.

International Coffee Expert Scott Rao Conducts Workshop for Henry & Sons

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Did you smell the coffee? World-renowned writer, consultant, trainer and author of coffee books Scott Rao was in town recently to conduct a brewing class and workshop with Henry & Sons, a total coffee solutions company.

In late May, Rao — the author of coffee books The Professional Barista’s Handbook, Everything But Espresso, The Coffee Roaster’s Companion, and Espresso Extraction: Measurement and Mastery — trained the Henry & Sons team in the art and science of coffee. Henry & Sons is a company that offers three kinds of goods to the local coffee market: premium roasted coffee beans, top-of-the-line expresso machines and training for coffee shops and companies.

The coffee expert shared a variety of topics ranging from improving roasting skills, manual brewing, espresso extraction and the finer points of coffee science. He mentored the staff, shared coffee secrets, taught them about coffee shop planning, layout and design, and shared trends, new standards and techniques, among others.

Michael Harris Conlin, Henry & Sons president, said he invited Rao to work with his staff to raise the bar of the coffee business in the Philippines. “We pioneered coffee technology in the Philippines in the early 1990’s, and we want to continue to be the leader in this business. We brought Scott Rao here as a longtime partner of our company. He is the best person to help bring us to greater heights as he’s the best in the industry. Nobody comes close to him,” Conlin said.