Philippine fishermen favour strong president to end China's blockade
By Roli Ng and Manuel Mogato
Reuters
May 6, 2016 Fishermen are pictured in Masinloc, Zambales in the Philippines April 22, 2015. REUTERS/Erik De Castro
More
By Roli Ng and Manuel Mogato
MASINLOC/MANILA, Philippines (Reuters) - A 30-foot trawler named "Marvin" lies beached on a grass bank overlooking the South China Sea, idle since China's coastguard began driving away Philippine fishermen after a fierce standoff four years ago.
Its 10-man crew once made their living off the abundant fish stocks of the disputed Scarborough Shoal some 124 nautical miles away. But since Beijing's patrol boats moved in, the fishermen of the west coast town of Masinloc said they had been forced to do odd jobs ashore, or become motorcycle taxi drivers.
The crews yearn to get back into their boats and hope that the Philippine election on May 9 will bring a new president bold enough to stand up to China's assertiveness in the disputed waters of the South China Sea.
It is something they say incumbent Benigno Aquino was hesitant to do, while the frontrunner to succeed him, the hard-talking mayor of Davao city, Rodrigo Duterte, has indicated he may take a tougher line with Beijing.
"We want a tougher president who would make China leave the Philippine Sea," said the Marvin's shirtless captain, Biany Mula, referring to the waters by their Philippine name.
"That area is not their property."
The sentiment is shared by fishermen from Vietnam and Malaysia, as China's fishing fleet and accompanying coastguard armada have expanded within a nine-dash line that denotes Beijing's claims to nine-tenths of the world's most contested waterway.
With a relatively small and under-equipped military, the Philippines wants no confrontation with China, but it has been vocal in asserting its claims to the Spratly islands and its rights to exploit its coastal waters.
It has also angered China by indirectly challenging its claims at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague. China has refused to recognise the court's authority or abide by the ruling, which is expected soon.
Some Filipino fishermen are optimistic a new leader can find a solution.
"I'll vote because somebody will resolve the issue in the Scarborough Shoal," said Alexander Manzano, fixing a boat moored on a makeshift dock.
"I believe someone will be able to do it. That's why I'll vote."
TOUGH TALK, MIXED MESSAGES
That someone could be Duterte, who is roaring ahead in opinion polls with talk of employing deadly methods to eradicate crime and corruption.
His position on the South China Sea is vague, however, in what has largely been a single-issue campaign.
When the topic came up in debates, Duterte promised not to put the Philippine navy in harm's way, but said he would personally challenge China by riding a jet-ski to the Spratlys to plant a Philippine flag.
For key ally the United States, a Duterte presidency brings much uncertainty. A Washington-based official closely following the election said Duterte's stance on the South China Sea appeared "contradictory", mixing both bellicose and conciliatory messages about dealing with Beijing.
Murray Hiebert, a Southeast Asia specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Duterte's comments did not seem well thought out, including pledging to negotiate with China but only after it agrees the Spratlys belong to the Philippines.
"That's not an opening position that will entice China to the negotiating table," Hiebert said.
Like Washington, Beijing has given no indication who it would prefer as Philippine president.
Its foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said ties between the two countries were "extremely difficult", but China hoped the next leadership "takes actual steps to improve relations."
The Philippine military is prohibited from discussing the election, but some senior officers privately say they are warming to the idea of Duterte as their commander-in-chief.
His talk of crushing Islamist insurgents behind a lucrative piracy and kidnap business has appeal, they say, as does his promise to take better care of troops and make national security a priority.
Others hope Duterte will pursue a more independent foreign policy through broader diplomatic alliances and new sources of defence hardware to avoid being over-dependent on Washington.
"We're no longer in the Cold War period. We could build our own capability with the help of many allies, not only the U.S." said one officer.
For Joy Topaz, a fish vendor in a Masinloc shanty town, the most pressing issue is to negotiate a deal to get Filipino fishermen back to the Scarborough Shoal.
"There has been talk here about war, but we are afraid of fighting," she said.
"Let us just fish. Let everyone be allowed to fish."
(Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom in WASHINGTON and Ben Blanchard in BEIJING; Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by Mike Collett-White)
This Is How To Catch Out Liars, According To Science
Rob Waugh's Yahoo Blog
April 29, 2016
View photos
Contrary to what you might have heard, liars can look you in the eye - and they’re often caught on camera in court doing exactly that.
Ponzi scheme con man Bernard Madoff was known for his steady, confident gaze - even as he defrauded his clients of billions.
Good liars can often cover up the well-known signs of deceit - such as covering their mouths.
So how do you catch a liar? Thankfully, there are tricks to wrong-foot liars - even very skilful ones.
Ask them for very precise, tiny details in their story
View photos
Sussex University researchers found that trying to ‘trip up’ liars with precise, detailed questions was 20 times more effective than looking for ‘liar’s tells’.
Instead of looking for physical signs, researchers tried to ‘trip up’ liars for instance, if
someone said they worked at the University of Oxford, they would ask them how they travelled to work.
The researchers say that interviewers should use ‘open’ questions to force liars to expand on their stories, such as ‘Can you tell me about your job’?
Small details - such as what bus number someone got - are also easily verifiable.
‘There are no consistent signs that always arise alongside deception,’ says Tom Ormerod of the University of Sussex. ‘I giggle nervously, others become more serious, some make eye contact, some avoid it.’
First, see how the liar looks when telling the truth - then spot the difference
View photos
Police often ask questions where they know the answers first - such as establishing a subject’s address.
Doing so helps observers see how someone looks when telling the truth, which helps to spot the moment they start to lie.
‘It’s really about how to observe very carefully,’ said Pamela Meyer, author of the book “Liespotting”.
What experts look for is change from truth-telling to deception, but not one specific change.
So they need a baseline, a sense of what people look and talk like when their guard is down and they are telling the truth.
Once a normal is established, the idea is to ask open-ended questions and look for cues, changes in verbal and nonverbal behavior, Meyer said.
Let the liar talk - and see how much they say
View photos
Liars often talk too much - in an effort to ‘flesh out’ the story, they’ll offer irrelevant details, and sometimes repeat themselves.
Dr. Lillian Glass author of The Body Language, says, ‘When someone goes on and on and gives you too much information - information that is not requested and especially an excess of details - there is a very high probability that he or she is not telling you the truth.
‘Liars often talk a lot because they are hoping that, with all their talking and seeming openness, others will believe them.’
Ask the liar to tell the story in the wrong order
Police interrogators often ask people to tell their stories backwards - in other words, asking, ‘And what happened before that?’
Liars who have rehearsed a ‘story’ will find it more difficult than someone who is telling the truth, according to David Matsumoto, a San Francisco State University professor of psychology. Get the liar to tell their story to a group
View photos
Relying on individual ‘hunches’ that someone is lying doesn’t often work, according to University of Chicago researchers - but if the liar is speaking to a group, that all changes.
In experiments using game show footage, groups could detect lies with 61.7% accuracy - thanks to sharing hunches and information about potential lies.
‘We find a consistent group advantage for detecting small ‘white’ lies as well as intentional, high-stakes lies told for personal gain,’ says Professor Nicholas Epley.
‘This group advantage seems to come through the process of group discussion rather than statistical aggregation of individual opinions.’
