Monthly Archives: May 2009

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The global financial crisis is taking an increasing toll on Asia’s corporate sector with the region’s economies now among the world’s hardest hit, a senior IMF official warned Tuesday.

MANILA, Philippines—An alliance of Filipino worker groups in the Middle East Monday called on the government to come to the aid of a Filipino woman who had complained that she was raped by her employer’s son but who ended up being jailed for adultery in the United Arab Emirates.

MANILA, Philippines–The level of software piracy in the Philippines remains at 69 percent in 2008 but revenue losses increased to $202 million, according to a recent global report by the Business Software Alliance (BSA).

Brussels (ITUC OnLine): The ITUC has welcomed a new ILO Global Report on forced labour worldwide, which will be submitted to the ILO’s annual International Labour Conference in Geneva in June.

London – Being obese can take years off your life and in some cases maybe as dangerous as smoking, a new study says.

MANILA, Philippines–Several years after being mandated to set up websites, some government offices have yet to allow public to do transactions online, a National Computer Center (NCC) report showed.

BERLIN–The global economy has already passed the worst of the economic crisis and should soon pull out of its slump, led by Asia and China in particular, Hungarian-born US billionaire George Soros said on Monday.

MANILA, Philippines—The semiconductor industry may be on its way to recovery, as capacity utilization of manufacturing plants worldwide have started to pick up this quarter.

Private sector economists expect price increases to slow this year but noted upside risks to inflation, particularly from the peso’s depreciation and a possible recovery of major economies, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said.

FILIPINO consumers have brushed off the impact of the global financial crisis as spending remained resilient in the first quarter of the year, powering the earnings of consumer businesses.

TEN-YEAR-OLD Julian Carlo Miguel “Amiel” Alcantara, a Grade 4 student, died of severe head injuries on February 24 after being run over by a Toyota Hi-Ace in the parking lot of Ateneo Grade School in Quezon City.

MANILA, Philippines – Economists have lowered their projected average inflation rate for this year from 4.5 percent to four percent, falling within the government’s official target inflation of 3.5 to 5.5 percent.

CLARK FREEPORT, Pampanga, Philippines — Texas Instruments (TI) has announced that its new assembly and test facility is now fully operational here and is “ramping production with the latest packaging technologies.”  

MANILA, Philippines – “The country’s brisk tourism activity will secure the future of some three million Filipinos employed in this industry and even increase their number significantly to help tide the nation over the lingering global economic storm.”

MANILA, Philippines – As admitted by Agriculture Secretary Arthur C. Yap, agricultural output for the first quarter is showing mixed results with preliminary data gathered by The STAR indicating that while the fisheries sector managed to post a growth of four percent from January to March this year, corn production has posted a negative 2.56…

MANILA, Philippines – The Federation of Philippine Industries (FPI) is urging for   the country’s voluntary compliance with the Kyoto Protocol.

MANILA, Philippines – The PCs are hanging on marginally better than other products as the global recession mercilessly tears into every industry, including the hi-tech sector.

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines may need to spend about $1 billion should it decide to operate a nuclear power facility, an energy official said.

What you don’t know won’t hurt you” is an adage that we’ve all grown up and old with. Not many have challenged this counsel. Is one truly better off in idyllic ignorance, whether on purpose or unintentionally? Conversely, is peace of mind a lost cause for those who are aware, awake and well- informed?

MANILA, Philippines – The operation of the mothballed $2.3-billion Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) will substantially bring down the cost of electricity, Pangasinan Rep. Mark Cojuangco said over the weekend.

MANILA, Philippines – A total of 273 Filipina nurses and caregivers left yesterday for Japan as part of an agreement between the Japanese government and the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA).

MANILA, Philippines – Activists from various organizations called on foreign donors yesterday to stop giving military assistance to the Philippines in the wake of the findings of the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on Extra judicial Killings that President Arroyo failed to make “substantial progress” to stop unexplained killings in the country.

MANILA, Philippines – Fewer Filipino workers are now getting hired abroad contrary to the government’s claim, the recruitment industry said yesterday.

MANILA, Philippines—Hardly anybody believes that our economy will not continue growing this year. That’s good news. Even as Singapore and Thailand have already suffered severe contractions, we are among those in East Asia still expected to grow positively, albeit much more slowly. People may differ on how much they expect the Philippine economy to grow…

Questions were being raised over the Department of Trade and Industry’s (DTI) decision to allow into the country the initial shipment of cement imported from China despite the absence of an official document that would show compliance of the shipment to local quality and safety standards.

The Senate has approved on third and final reading a measure that will strike out vagrancy from the list of petty offenses in the criminal code, Sen. Francis “Chiz” Escudero said.

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel yesterday assailed Agrarian Reform Secretary Nasser Pangandaman for apparent disinterest in extending the lifetime of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) by at least another five years.

The government has parked $3.68 billion equivalent to a tenth of the country’s total foreign exchange reserves as contribution to the $120-billion so-called Asian Monetary Fund (AMF).

The country would have to shell out about half of what it spent for the Bataan nuclear power plant should it decide to revive the shuttered facility.

TALENT, broadly defined is typically a tendency, something a person is born with. Today people no longer see talent as simply intelligent quotient or logical intelligence. Talent now considers multiple intelligences.