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Coast Guard prepares for holiday influx at sea ports

THE PHILIPPINE Coast Guard (PCG) will place all units under heightened alert with its Oplan Biyaheng Ayos: Krismas 2017 program from Dec. 18 to Jan. 8 to ensure security and assist passengers traveling through the sea ports around the country for the holidays. In a statement released yesterday, Commodore Joel S. Garcia, the PCG officer-in-charge, said he has issued a directive to “maintain a high state of readiness and alertness in all port terminals nationwide,” as well as in beaches, coastal and island resorts. Mr. Garcia also ordered PCG units to “keep a keen eye on the trade and transport of illegal drugs and paraphernalia by sea.” Under the Krismas 2017 program, passenger assistance booths will be installed at the ports, to be manned jointly by teams from the PCG, Department of Transportation, Philippine Ports Authority, Maritime Industry Authority, Philippine Coast Guard Auxiliary and local government units, and the police.

Art Fair PHL adds photos to the art mix in an expanded exhibit space

HERE are two pieces of good news for art lovers: Art Fair Philippines 2018 will spread out in over six levels and will occupy all the available floors of Makati City’s The Link carpark, and, besides paintings, installations, and sculptures, the fair will now feature a new section on photography.

“With the record attendance of Art Fair Philippines 2017, we’ve seen how the interest in Philippine contemporary art has grown. Securing a bigger space is the natural next step for us not only to expand our reach but also to be able to shine the spotlight on more artists,” said Dindin Araneta, a cofounder of the Art Fair along with Trickie Lopa and Lisa Periquet.

The art fair will run from March 1 to 4, 2018.

“The expansion allows us to stay true to our mission of developing the audiences for contemporary art. And we are very excited to stage our biggest show yet,” said Ms. Lopa.

The carpark will house 51 participating galleries showcasing some of the best in modern and contemporary Philippine art.

The participating galleries and organizations are: 1335 Mabini, Asian Cultural Council Philippines/León Gallery, Altro Mondo Arte Contemporanea, Archivo, ARDNT, Art Cube, Art Lab, Art Underground, Art Verite, Artemis Art Gallery, Artery Art Space, Artinformal, Avellana Art Gallery, Blanc, Boston Art Gallery, CANVAS, Edouard Malingue Gallery, Finale Art File, Fost Gallery, Gajah Gallery, Galería Cayón, Galerie Anna, Galerie Stephanie, Galleria Duemila, Gallery Kogure, Gallery Orange, J Studio, Kaida Contemporary, Mind Set Art Center, MO_space, Nunu Fine Art, Paseo Art Gallery, Pinto Art Gallery, Salcedo Private View, Secret Fresh, Silverlens, SOKA, STPI, Taksu Gallery, The Crucible Gallery, The Drawing Room, Tin-aw Art Gallery, Underground Gallery, Vinyl on Vinyl, Viva ExCon, West Gallery, XuArtspace, Yavuz Gallery, YOD Gallery, and Ysobel Art Gallery.

The sixth edition of Art Fair Philippines is introducing a new section called ARTFAIRPH/PHOTO which aims to increase awareness of photography as a contemporary art.

“We feel that the time is right to do this, as the fair has opened up the exposure of Manila’s audience to various visual art practices. Hopefully, photography can finally find its place in our local art scene,” said Ms. Periquet.

Another highlight of the fair is ARTFAIRPH/PROJECTS, featuring new commissions by internationally established practitioners. The participating artists will be announced in February.

The fair’s educational programs — ARTFAIRPH/TALKS and ARTFAIRPH/TOURS — are organized in conjunction with the Ateneo Art Gallery and the Museum Foundation of the Philippines respectively.

Before the fair opens in March, there will be a series of events and museum openings around Metro Manila called 10 Days of Art, which aims to celebrate art beyond the carpark.

Art Fair Philippines 2018 is co-presented by Ayala Land, Inc., Bank of the Philippine Islands, Globe Platinum, Julius Baer, and Bench. For more information, visit www.artfairphilippines.com or follow Art Fair Philippines on Instagram (@artfairph) and Facebook (www.facebook.com/artfairph). — NFP de Guzman

BPO worries about tax status, Duterte’s anti-US stance seen receding in 2018

THE business process outsourcing (BPO) industry is expected to bounce back from the slowdown it experienced this year, as country risk worries recede and the tax reform program moves closer to implementation, boosting investor sentiment, according to property advisers Leechiu Property Consultants (LPC).

The expansion of BPO firms is thought to have stalled due to anti-Western sentiments expressed by the government, approval bottlenecks at the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA), and uncertainty over the success of tax reform.

At the end of November, BPO firms occupied 40% of office space in Metro Manila or 292,288 square meters,  against the 65% share it held in 2016.

“The BPO industry will have a resurgence, and they will come back and expand in a very big way in 2018 because many of these issues will go away,” LPC President David Leechiu told reporters in a briefing in Makati on Tuesday.

Mr. Leechiu said the government has since reaffirmed its positive relationship with the United States during US President Donald J. Trump’s visit to the Philippines for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Summit in November.

He noted that the tax reform program has also “come to be very friendly” to the BPO industry. The Department of Finance, which drafted the tax reform legislation, said in July that BPO companies within special economic zone (SEZs) will continue to be exempted from value-added tax, while those outside SEZs will retain their zero-rated status.

PEZA accreditation has further accelerated, with eight buildings covering a gross leasable area of 241,431.55 square meters in Metro Manila accredited by PEZA in November and December.

Meanwhile, the growth of online gaming firms compensated for the slowdown in the BPO industry this year, as LPC noted a 306% year-on-year increase in office space take-up from the industry in 2017 to 230,102 sq.m., from just 56,700 sq.m. last year.

Online gaming accounted for 32% of the 728,305 sq.m. of office space taken up at the end of November. Some 67% of these are located in the so-called Bay Area on the shores of Manila Bay, with the rest divided across the Bonifacio district of Taguig, Makati, and Alabang in Muntinlupa City.

“The velocity of the online gaming industry has been phenomenal. After the Bay, they will keep looking for new geographies to go to and that’s why we think that Alabang will be the next big hotspot for online gaming,” Mr. Leechiu said.

Asked about the projected take-up from online gaming firms in 2018, Mr. Leechiu said the sector can occupy around 280,000 sq.m., up over 21% from this year.

Expansion plans of online gaming firms however may be hampered as no space is available around Manila Bay until the end of 2018, where these companies prefer to locate. Alternatives are Alabang and the Pasig-Ortigas area.

“There’s very little real estate now in the Bay. They have to wait for some time. Because their priority is to expand in the Bay. And the pipeline in Alabang is not big enough, so they are looking for more space,” Mr. Leechiu said. — Arra B. Francia

Come together and reassess

The local football scene recently raised a howl after what it deemed to be a “poor” showing that the national men’s football team, or “the Azkals,” had in a recent pocket tournament in Chinese Taipei.

A four-nation tournament among the Philippines, host Chinese-Taipei, Laos and Timor-Leste, the Chinese Taipei Football Association International Tournament took place from Dec. 1 to 5.

Due to availability issues, most of the mainstays of the Azkals, including coach Thomas Dooley and manager Dan Palami, were not able to join the tournament, prompting the Philippine Football Federation (PFF) to send a team that featured young talents from the collegiate leagues and joined by some members of the national team and players from the Philippines Football League.

The Azkals got their campaign in Taiwan to a good start, beating Laos, 3-1, before dropping their last two assignments to Chinese-Taipei, 3-0, and Timor-Leste, 1-0, to finish with a 1-2 record.

Some fans and stakeholders viewed the result as unacceptable for it negated, they said, the significant headway that Philippine football has made in the last half decade.

They also said it also put the Azkals’ good standing in the world rankings to a bad light considering that of the four teams we had the highest ranking at 118.

The loss to 196th-ranked Timor-Liste was further magnified as it came on the seventh anniversary of the “Miracle in Hanoi” where the Philippines upset Vietnam in the AFF Suzuki Cup which pretty much set off the resurgence of football in the country.

On the other end, some sectors of the local football community downplayed the significance of the Azkals’ showing in Taiwan, choosing instead not to be an “alarmist” and take it in stride.

They argue that the team that competed was not the Azkals in full strength and that foremost it was used by the PFF to give young players the opportunity to compete in an international tournament in the hopes that they get to learn from it and use it when their numbers are called down the line.

This space is not out to dispute the differing trains of thought over the Azkals’ Taiwan tournament result for they make good cases from themselves.

Instead what I would like to see is that for the football community to use it as a rallying point to come together and reassess how affairs on the sport can be improved moving forward.

Bigger challenges obviously lie ahead for the Azkals and our football officials and if in such a case they cannot get their minds in concert, I do not know how we can expect them to really be one when things get further complicated.

So here is hoping that eventually this issue gets a positive ending with Philippine football as the winner.

 

Michael Angelo S. Murillo has been a columnist since 2003. He is a BusinessWorld reporter covering the Sports beat.

msmurillo@www.bworldonline.com

British double murderer appeals Hong Kong conviction

HONG KONG — A British banker jailed for life for the horrifying murder of two Indonesian women at his upscale Hong Kong apartment in a cocaine-fueled rampage appealed against his conviction Tuesday.

Cambridge University graduate Rurik Jutting tortured Sumarti Ningsih for three days — filming parts of her ordeal on his phone — before slashing her throat with a serrated knife and stuffing her body into a suitcase.

Days later, and with Ningsih’s corpse on his balcony, the former Bank of America worker picked up Seneng Mujiasih, intending to play out the same fantasies. He killed her when she started screaming.

Jutting, now 32, had pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility but was found guilty of murder with the judge at the time describing the killings as “sickening in the extreme.”

However, Jutting’s defense team Tuesday argued that judge Michael Stuart-Moore had repeatedly given wrong directions to the jury during the trial last year when explaining how they should determine whether his state of mind had impaired his responsibility for his actions.

Defense lawyer Gerard McCoy argued the judge had wrongly told the jury to look for mental “disorders” rather than the broader spectrum of “abnormality of the mind.”

“Abnormality of mind need not be a disorder,” Mr. McCoy told the court Tuesday.

“The judge has wrongly and prescriptively directed the jury that they should look for disorders because disorders are what is an abnormality of mind,” he added.

DIMINISHED RESPONSIBILITY
The defense team during the trial had argued that Jutting’s mental responsibility had been substantially affected by heavy alcohol and cocaine use as well as sexual sadism and narcissistic personality disorders.

Not all four medical experts who testified agreed that Jutting’s behavior met the criteria for a “disorder” in all four areas, said Mr. McCoy.

However, they did all find that Jutting was suffering from an abnormality of mind because he had impaired mental functioning, he added.

“The ground of appeal is the judge wrongly directed the jury as to the true meaning of abnormality of the mind,” Mr. McCoy argued Tuesday afternoon.

“All four experts agreed there were four concurrent abnormalities of the mind,” he added.

“That’s what the jury should have been asked: did those four functionings constitute an abnormality of the mind?”

Jutting was alert and taking notes in court Tuesday, dressed in a blue shirt and wearing dark-rimmed glasses, at one point smiling and talking with the guards in the dock.

In the grueling 10-day trial last October and November, the jury heard how Jutting became obsessed with slavery, rape and torture — fantasies he acted out on his first victim, Ningsih.

The jury was forced to watch iPhone footage of parts of the attack as well as Jutting’s own self-recorded descriptions of how he had used pliers, sex toys and a belt during the killing.

He then went on to murder his second victim, Mujiasih, slashing her throat in his living room.

At the end of the trial, Mr. Stuart-Moore said Jutting had known what he was doing and described him as an “archetypal sexual predator” who presented an extreme danger to women.

The hearing continued Tuesday. — AFP

GNPower Dinginin secures bank financing for second unit

GNPOWER DINGININ Ltd. Co. (GNPD) has secured financing for the second 668-megawatt (MW) unit of its two-unit super-critical coal-fired power plant in Dinginin, Bataan, the partners in the power generation project said on Tuesday.

“The estimated project cost of the GNPD Project is US$1.7 billion, with the debt component to be provided by Philippine banks,” said Aboitiz Power Corp. and Ayala Corp. in separate disclosures to the stock exchange.

The project is a limited partnership among AboitizPower unit Therma Power, Inc., Ayala Corp. unit AC Energy Holdings, Inc., and Power Partners Ltd. Co.

Therma Power houses AboitizPower’s investments in non-renewable energy projects. It has around 50% beneficial economic interest in the project.

AboitizPower also said GNPD had signed the amended engineering, design, procurement, and construction contracts with Shanghai Electric Power Construction Co., Ltd. and Power Construction Corporation of China on Dec. 5.

“The GNPD Project will support the increasing electricity demand of Luzon and Visayas. Construction of the first unit is scheduled for completion by 2019, with the second unit scheduled for completion by 2020,” the company said.

In a statement, John Eric T. Francia, AC Energy president and chief executive officer, said the project not only brings the company closer to its 2020 target capacity “but also addresses supply requirements in the 2020s, amidst medium term supply uncertainties in the power sector.”

Among these uncertainties, he said, include the delays faced by other major power plants as well as the future of Malampaya and liquefied natural gas. 

AC Energy placed its attributable capacity, including the Dinginin project, at more than 1,600 MW, or closer to its 2,000-MW target of power plants that are operational or under construction.

The Ayala Corp. unit is one of the fastest-growing local energy companies, having expanded its capacity from only 80 MW when it started in 2011. It marked its overseas expansion last year with its Sidrap wind and Salak-Darajat geothermal plants in Indonesia.

“The company expects to make investments in Vietnam in 2018 to further expand its geographic footprint in Southeast Asia,” AC Energy said. — Victor V. Saulon

Shopping for tanks

During the Battle of Marawi, many observers pointed to the lack of anything in the arsenal of the Philippine military that had the necessary heavy firepower to engage and eliminate strongly defended targets and adequate armor to protect against incoming enemy fire.

The military even lacked a decent tank. Almost nothing in the Philippine military’s inventory of armored vehicles matches the basic definition of a tank. There is, of course, the British FV101 Scorpion light tank, of which very few units remain in the army, but it is considered a reconnaissance vehicle more than a true tank. Turrets of decommissioned Scorpions have been married to M113 armored personnel carriers to create a fire support vehicle. However, the design is inadequate given the vulnerability of the M113’s vertical aluminum armor that can be penetrated by heavy machine gun fire or set ablaze by rocket propelled grenades. That explains all the add-on armor of wood and galvanized sheets or anything Filipino soldiers could mount on their armored vehicles to defeat RPG attacks. From among Filipino troops came remarks that perhaps there would be a need to acquire a real tank to increase firepower and survivability in future combat situations.

Acquiring a tank has been an elusive goal for the Philippine Army. Three reasons usually are made against proposals to acquire one. First, that tanks are not needed in counter insurgency. Second, that the Philippines is not tank country or not suitable for tanks. Third, that such vehicles are expensive.

However, these reasons fly against historical evidence.

During the Second World War, both the Japanese and American forces deployed hundreds of tanks during the 1941-1942 invasion campaign and the 1944-1945 liberation campaign. In fact, at least two tank battles were fought in the Philippines between these opposing armies, one at Bulacan and the other at Pangasinan. During the Battle for the Liberation of Manila in 1945, the Americans used Sherman medium tanks to eliminate Japanese defenses in built-up areas. These disprove the claim that the Philippines is ill-suited for tanks.

tanks

The postwar Philippine Army was an extensive user of left-over Sherman tanks against Huk rebels and in the 1960s the United States supplied a company of modern M41 Walker Bulldog light tanks to the Philippines. The M41, despite its light tank designation, was more of a medium tank and, with its high velocity dual 76-mm gun, was capable of destroying Russian and Chinese-made T-54 main battle tanks during the Vietnam War. The PA used that tank until the early 1980s.

The last tank ever purchased by the Philippines was the FV101 Scorpion in the mid-1970s, a response to the MNLF rebellion. This contradicts the argument that they are not needed in counter insurgency operations. Yet by some inexplicable phenomenon, despite voluminous texts and photographic evidences on the use of tanks in the Philippines, some entity deep within the bowels of the Philippine defense sector decreed that tanks are not useful in the country, and it has been that way in the past 30 years.

Once again there is a revival in interest within the Philippine military in acquiring tanks for the modernization program. The problem though is that, left to the devices of the Sisyphean momentum of the modernization program, an acquisition may only be realized many years from now, if at all. That being said, the threat exists, and there are rumors of Maute reorganizing, secessionist rebels posturing, and even possible future targets being cited, such as Cotabato City. In other words, the situation is very fluid.

An alternative solution is to acquire a stop gap tank and identify an affordable one that is available in surplus and easy to use. A possible candidate is again the M41 Walker Bulldog. It is still in the inventory of Thailand, Vietnam, and Taiwan, and in large numbers with many modernized or in storage to be used in emergencies. As these are considered as originally property of the US perhaps Washington can mediate for the quick transfer of a dozen units with logistical and maintenance lifelines following consultations and meetings. Thailand once turned over excess American supplied OV10 Broncos to the Philippines. These would not be expensive for the PA to operationalize within a short period to face any contingency in the near future.

There is a military axiom that goes like so: “Do not plan your next battle by fighting your last battle.” This means that your opponent would have adapted and would have come up with a means to defeat the methods you used to win. Hence, Philippine rebels and terrorists of whatever stripe and color would have taken down notes during the recently concluded Battle of Marawi and may just conduct their next assault in a different manner. It is then the defense sector’s responsibility to plan accordingly for any eventuality and not dismiss something on the basis of flawed assumptions.

 

Jose Antonio Custodio is a Non-Resident Security Fellow, Stratbase ADR Institute.

Honda recalls nearly 200,000 cars sold in PHL over air bag woe

HONDA Cars Philippines, Inc. (HCPI) is recalling select models of the Honda City, Jazz, Civic, CR-V, Accord and Pilot sold in the country between 2001 and 2015 because of a “suspected defect in the air bag inflator of the driver-side air bag.”

HCPI estimated 199,000 vehicles are “possibly affected” in the Philippines. It added customers can check if their vehicle is included in the recall through hondaphil.com/services/vin-search, where they would need to provide their vehicle’s chassis number (consisting of 17 digits) or vehicle identification number. Customers can also call 1-800-1000-HONDA (46632) or (02) 857-7240 between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., Mondays to Fridays, or e-mail update@hondaphil.com.

HCPI said no accident or injuries related to the air bag defect have so far been reported in the country. It added repairs are to be performed for free and will take about an hour.

“We urge affected customers to have their vehicles repaired in any Honda Cars dealership as soon as possible,” HCPI president and general manager Noriyuki Takakura said in a news statement.

Panglao mayor ordered suspended, to face charges for appointments

OMBUDSMAN CONCHITA Carpio-Morales has ordered the three-month suspension of Panglao Mayor Leonila P. Montero for simple misconduct as well as the filing of charges for graft and unlawful appointment. The Ombudsman, in a statement released yesterday, said Ms. Montero was found to have appointed four losing candidates in the 2013 elections as consultants earning P25,000 per month. Records showed that Ms. Montero hired Noel Homarchuelos as municipal administrator/consultant for administrative services; Danilo Reyes as public information consultant; Apolinar Fudalan as Public Employment Service Office Coordinator/IT consultant; and Fernando Penales as infrastructure/engineering consultant. The consultants were hired on a job order basis to serve the mayor without executing any contract of service or issuance of any appointment paper duly reviewed and approved by the Sangguniang Bayan. Upon investigation, the Ombudsman said it found that the contracts and daily time records of the four consultants were not available. “(T)he Local Government Code provisions prohibit and disqualify Hormachuelos, Reyes, Fudalan and Penales within one year after such election to be appointed to any public office in the government,” reads part of the ruling.

Tourism dep’t enlists Singapore Airlines to expand visitor numbers from India

THE Department of Tourism (DoT) and Singapore Airlines Ltd. on Tuesday signed a joint marketing agreement to promote the Philippines as a destination for Indian travelers, with the Singapore carrier providing the connecting flights.

Undersecretary for Tourism Development Benito C. Bengzon, Jr. said during the contract signing in Makati that the target is to double the number of Indian tourist arrivals via the marketing deal.

“It will involve tactical advertising; we will also be organizing familiarization tours both for agents in India, there will also be a product development component wherein we will customize the product offer to make sure that they suit the needs of the travelers from India,” he added.

Mr. Bengzon told BusinessWorld that while the Philippines is positioning itself as a “very strong island, beach holiday destination,” the department has also noted a trend of Indian wedding and honeymoon-related travel.

“Our estimate is that each foreign tourist coming into the Philippines spends an average of about $1,000 per visit so you can just imagine the revenue that we’re able to generate if we’re able to attract 100,000 Indian travelers by the end of the year,” he added.

Mr. Bengzon said that with Singapore Airlines finally having direct flights from Singapore to Cebu, Kalibo, Aklan, and Davao, tourists from second-tier and third-tier cities in India are more likely to visit secondary destinations in the Philippines.

Singapore Airlines senior vice president of sales and marketing Campbell David Mcgregor Wilson told BusinessWorld that the airline also plans to increase daily flights from Ninoy Aquino International Airport to five from the current four.

Mr. Wilson also said that if the airline cannot add more flights, it will use larger planes.

According to the DoT, India is one of the fastest-growing markets for outbound travel, with 27.12 million Indians who have traveled overseas in 2017, a number which is expected to rise to 50 million by 2020.

The number of indian visitors to the Philippines rose 23% this year, and is expected to hit 100,000 by year’s end. The total number of inbound tourists is expected to hit 6.5-6.6 million. — Anna Gabriela A. Mogato

How self-driving cars could change our world

If you haven’t been keeping tabs on the evolution of motor vehicles, you probably don’t know that we’re merely a few years away from actually seeing driverless cars bring people to their destinations. And when I say driverless, I mean fully autonomous. As in no human input in the vehicle operation — save perhaps for turning the power on and feeding some directional info so the car knows where it needs to go.

Obviously, there are several stages which automakers need to hurdle before their customers can get their hands on vehicles with full automation. As far as mass-market cars are concerned, we’re now on the level of electronic driving aids — tools that help make driving easier, safer and more convenient. These include the cruise control, the parking assist, the GPS navigation system, the lane-keeping monitor and the blind spot alert, among others. These constitute the first step toward autonomous driving. A Ford sedan, for example, is now able to parallel-park itself, although the driver still needs to operate the pedals and the gearshift. As these electronic and digital features evolve, we get closer and closer to being able to take our hands off the steering wheel and our foot off the throttle.

After this stage, the Society of Automotive Engineers in the US says cars will have partial automation, then conditional automation, then high automation, and finally full automation. The last one is the ultimate goal, where automobiles function and behave like they do in a Tom Cruise sci-fi movie: no human driver, no human assistance, no human recklessness.

And if you now think this scenario must still be decades from being completely realized, you can’t be any more removed from the facts, because car companies like BMW, Ford and Volvo are already citing 2021 as the year they will have self-driving cars on the highway. Japanese brands like Honda and Toyota have their timetable even earlier — in 2020, to be exact.

They’re most likely referring to the stages of conditional and high automation, which means that, yes, the cars will be able to drive themselves but only on specially designed pathways that are compatible with their advanced autonomous-driving technology. For instance, a thoroughfare needs to have universally recognizable signs that will prompt the vehicles to act in a certain way. Without uniformity and consistency, the cars might go bonkers. And now, imagine the enormity of the task just to modify all the streets and the expressways on the face of the earth.

Which is why I believe autonomous cars will be a slow roll-out, presumably commencing first in highly developed countries with excellent road networks and efficient traffic management systems. With these conditions in mind, self-driving vehicles may never see the light of day in the Philippines, where street signs and U-turn slots change with the frequency of a social-media influencer’s fake news output, and where traffic lights work only when the traffic marshals feel like switching them on.

But let’s say fully autonomous cars do eventually hit the roads of Metro Manila. How would they change our environment and the way we go about our daily affairs?

One, we will no longer see hotheaded cavemen throwing weak punches at each other after a stupid fender-bender. Road rage will be a thing of the past. There will be nothing to be upset about, because we’re not performing the driving.

Two, we will no longer have accidents (unless a car suffers a computer glitch and starts plowing into other vehicles). The cars will not weave in and out of lanes. They will not beat the red light. They will not go over the speed limit. They will not moronically insert themselves in impossibly small openings. And, perhaps most important, they will not drink alcohol.

Three, because we will have no accidents, we will no longer have to bring in our vehicles for costly repairs. Which the auto industry won’t like, but it is what it is.

Four, we will no longer have to insure our cars because there are no more risks involved in using one. Insurance companies will close, but millions of car owners will save money they can then spend on other things. Like a bigger life insurance policy.

Five, we will no longer have to deal with corrupt traffic officers. Because there probably won’t be any need for one in the first place. Self-driving cars, assuming they’re functioning the way they’re designed to, will never commit a traffic violation. And so, we will no longer have to encounter extortionists who hide behind trees and lampposts to victimize motorists.

Six, we will be able to catch up on our books or Netflix movies, something we can’t do if we’re driving the car ourselves. Better yet, we will be able to engage the spouse and the kids in a kinder and more gleeful manner because we won’t be seething in anger from all the idiotic driving humans would otherwise inflict on us.

Seven — and this one I particularly like — there will be no more politicians bullying their way through traffic. Their fully automated and artificially intelligent vehicles won’t let them. Come to think of it: Maybe then we’d be better off electing automobiles to Congress. I bet we’d have more sensible laws.

Bangladesh police looking for family, associates of NYC bombing suspect

DHAKA — Officials in Bangladesh are trying to track down the extended family and any known associates of Akayed Ullah, a Bangladeshi man US authorities say set off a homemade pipe bomb in a crowded New York City commuter hub on Monday.

“Police are looking for his family, but so far they’ve not been able to trace them,” said Abul Khair Nadim, the Chair of Musapur Union council, a local government body in the Chittagong division in southern Bangladesh, where Ullah’s family originally lived.

Bangladesh’s police chief told Reuters late on Monday that 27-year-old Ullah had no criminal record in his home country, which he last visited in September.

Ullah lived with his mother, sister and two brothers in Brooklyn and was a green card holder, said Shameem Ahsan, consul general of Bangladesh in New York.

Ahmad Ullah, a relative of Ullah, who Reuters tracked down on Tuesday, said his cousin’s father had moved to the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka with his family many years ago.

He said Ullah’s father had passed away about five years ago, and that Ullah had been through a normal public school education in Bangladesh before moving to the United States.

Ullah, who had a homemade bomb strapped to his body, set off an explosion in an underground pedestrian corridor between New York’s Times Square and the Port Authority Bus Terminal at rush hour, injuring himself and three others in what New York Mayor Bill de Blasio called an attempted terrorist attack.

A law enforcement official familiar with the investigation said investigators have found evidence that Ullah had watched Islamic State propaganda on the internet.

Bangladesh strongly condemned the attack in a statement saying, “A terrorist is a terrorist irrespective of his or her ethnicity or religion, and must be brought to justice.” — Reuters

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