PBBM, continues to help El Niño victims; now braces for looming La Niña;
Israeli officials seize AP equipment, stop live feeds of Gaza news coverage;
Brazil's floods displace more than half a million people
Israeli officials seize AP equipment, stop live feeds of Gaza news coverage;
Brazil's floods displace more than half a million people
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NewsTranscript
00:00 Good day, I'm Clayzol Fardella and this is PTV News Now.
00:04 President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. presided over the distribution of presidential assistance to farmers, fisherfolk and families in Maguindanao.
00:14 Pre-selected beneficiaries composed of farmers, fisherfolk and their families received P10,000 each.
00:22 The president said he wants to personally oversee the distribution of government assistance to communities in need as well as to assess the condition of the people at the local level.
00:33 With the imminent end of El Niño phenomenon approaching, the government is now preparing for the threats of a looming La Niña phenomenon.
00:40 The president pledged the government will continue to focus on long-term solutions such as flood control projects.
00:49 Israeli authorities seized equipment from the Associated Press and shut down the news outlet's live feed of Gaza, citing new law about foreign media.
00:59 Israeli officials accused the AP of violating Israel's new ban on Al Jazeera.
01:05 Al Jazeera is among the thousands of clients who receive live video feeds from the AP.
01:12 The outlet said AP called on the Israeli government to reverse the action. Press freedom groups, the US government and the United Nations expressed concern about the incident.
01:22 AP Vice President of Corporate Communications Lauren Easton urged the Israeli authorities to return their equipment and let them continue to provide important visual journalism to thousands of media outlets around the world.
01:38 As floodwaters recede in southern Brazil, a tragic scenario is unfolding with more than half a million people displaced, 160 people confirmed dead and nearly 100 still missing.
01:50 VOA's Jan Bouchot has this report from Rio Grande do Sul.
01:56 Hundreds of thousands of Brazilians still have their homes underwater more than two weeks after the rivers began to rise in southern Brazil, causing the region's worst flooding in record history.
02:10 In areas where the water is receding, mud, trash and destruction are everywhere.
02:18 Slowly the waters are also revealing the grisly reality of what were the last moments for many and the accounts of what was for others a lucky escape.
02:29 People will start to show up. A lot of people died while sleeping. I took my family in the dead of night. I was checking the water levels all the time, only at the last moment did we leave. A lot of people died sleeping.
02:47 Official lists had almost 100 people still missing on Wednesday. Rescue teams have been looking for bodies with the help of dogs.
02:58 This corpse was found on Monday, trapped inside his house in a city close to Porto Alegre, the capital city of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil's southernmost state.
03:11 By Wednesday, more than 160 bodies had been found.
03:16 Porto Alegre sits on the shore of a large lake that receives water from at least four big rivers flowing from mountain areas affected by historic rainfall volumes last week.
03:28 Upstream, the water swept many towns away, quickly and suddenly.
03:34 Here, at the mouth of the rivers, it happened at a slower pace, but the effects were also larger. Most of the 500,000 displaced people live around the state capital.
03:46 We have the basics. People are helping us with food, water, which is the most important, and clothes. We lost everything. We don't have anything in our house anymore. Nothing. The water went over the roof.
04:03 Poncio is living with his family in a makeshift hut not far from his damaged home, along with many of his neighbors.
04:11 He says they feared violence and a lack of privacy in a shelter. Now, he fears his son, Mauricio, may have contracted leptospirosis, a deadly infection from bacteria in contaminated waters.
04:27 More than 50,000 people are in shelters and the local government has announced it will build at least four refugee camps to accommodate them.
04:35 At the same time, thousands of dogs and cats that were left behind have been rescued. Many of them are living in shelters, waiting to be found by their owners.
04:47 It was a moment of despair. The water started to rise. My parents are old. We could not bring him. We left as we could. We have been looking for him since the first day.
04:59 Zu was found almost two weeks later in this shelter. He was scared, but seemed ready to start a new life, like so many people here.
05:12 In Amboixá, Rio Grande do Sul, VOA News.
05:17 This is Deyza. For Delhia, stay informed, get ahead, get the news, right here.
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