Manila, Philippines (27 January 2010) — With the end of the official session of the 14th Congress on February 5, 2010 fast approaching, the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP), the Associated Labor Unions (ALU) and the Building and Woodworkers International (BWI) launched an email campaign urging the Senate to pass Senate Bill 741…

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The International Monetary Fund said Tuesday the global economy is rebounding better than anticipated after two years of crisis but warned the recovery remains fragile and fraught with risks.

GOODBYE, STICKERS: The stickers blocking the view of windshields of motor vehicles will be scraped off when all conveyances are finally equipped with a radio frequency identification (RFID) tag by November.

MANILA, Philippines – More than half of the country’s annual expenditures for health products ranging from P100 billion to P150 billion are unnecessary because they hardly provide any therapeutic effect, former health secretary Alberto Romualdez said yesterday.

MANILA, Philippines – Employment prospects appeared bleak for graduating college students and other young workers.

The 2010 Education for All (EFA) Global Monitoring Report, the annual EFA rating of each UNESCO Member State conducted by an independent team of UNESCO experts, stated that the Philippines trails the Republic of Tanzania and Zambia in education.

The Philippine Government Service Investment System (GSIS), a state-managed pension fund for government employees, has failed to reveal the extent of losses incurred by its Global Investment Program (GIP) in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, according to a top union official in the Philippines. Instead, Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) Secretary-General…

The Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP), the biggest labor center in the country calls on presidential candidates and political parties to come-up with a clear agenda to resolve the increasing numbers of unemployed workers in the Philippines. To date, there are 2.8 million unemployed Filipinos according to the latest NSO data.

CONGRESS on Monday approved the rules for granting full tax exemptions to cooperatives to allow them to serve their members and customers better and make more money, an official said.

MANILA, Philippines—The number of jobless worldwide reached nearly 212 million in 2009 following an unprecedented increase of 34 million compared to 2007, on the eve of the global crisis, the International Labor Organization (ILO) said in its annual Global Employment Trends report.

MANILA, Philippines—A coalition of environmental groups has called on President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to conduct a thorough review of the Copenhagen Accord, a widely criticized agreement crafted on the final day of the climate talks as the meeting faced collapse in December.

MANILA, Philippines— An official from the Commission on Elections’ (Comelec) technology partner Smartmatic-Total Information Management (TIM) announced Wednesday the successful field testing of the automation system to be used for the May elections in selected sites nationwide.

The government said the economy is expected to report a growth of between 0.7 percent to one percent for the whole of last year after an expansion in the fourth quarter of between 0.6 percent to 1.6 percent, acting National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) director general Augusto Santos said yesterday.

Consumers across the Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa regions are approaching the next six months with optimism, according to the latest MasterCard Worldwide Index of Consumer Confidence survey.

A youth group has filed a disqualification case against four party-list groups for allegedly using the party-list system to push their own ideological and political agenda.

The town hall of Cainta town in eastern Rizal province is talking about a complaint filed against the municipal health officer by the town’s former tax information officer and consultant. Dr. Olga Alegre Abellanosa, the Cainta municipal health officer, and three other doctors of Cainta’s Health Center, are named in the complaint filed with the…

COTABATO City: A party-list group that was accredited recently by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) was denounced as being “organized mainly for the benefit of the Ampatuans.”

The global unemployment is likely to remain high in 2010 as the number of jobless worldwide reached nearly 212 million in 2009 during the peak of the global financial crisis, according to the Global Employment Trends report of the International Labor Organization (ILO) on Tuesday.

Take a mul-tivitamin for insurance.” Until recently, that was the usual advice from physicians, scientists, and other experts. Now, it’s under scrutiny: That’s because if you’re looking for hard evidence that a multivitamin will lower your risk of heart disease, cancer, cataracts, or other major disease, you may be disappointed. In 2006, the US National…

Hear ye, all parents! Do your kids wear jewelry? Do you know what kind of jewelry they’re wearing? Now, read this: According to Health Canada, so reports CBC News, cheap children’s jewelry made in China has been found to contain cadmium, a heavy metal that is more toxic than lead.

Tagaytay City (27 January) — A 3-day project implementers’ monitoring and planning workshop on Reproductive Health (RH) and Family Planning was successfully conducted here recently.

MANILA, Philippines – The local property sector can take advantage of the growing demand for offshoring from recovering economies, commercial property and real estate services adviser CB Richard Ellis (CBRE) said.

MANILA, Philippines – The economy is estimated to have expanded from 0.7 percent to one percent last year, Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Augusto Santos said yesterday.

MANILA, Philippines – The National Union of Students of the Philippines (NUSP) has set up a hotline for students and their parents to report violators of a Commission on Higher Education (CHED) directive lifting the “no permit, no exam” policy in colleges and universities.

MANILA, Philippines – Caloocan City Mayor Enrico Echiverri said the city government will hold a mega job fair on Feb. 5 to celebrate the city’s 48th year.

MANILA, Philippines – Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman is optimistic that the next Congress would pass the Reproductive Health and Population Development Bill. “This is not the end of the road for the RH bill,” he said.

The economic crisis has had a major impact throughout the world on the level of employment as well as its quality. The ILO’s annual report on “Global Employment Trends 2010” says the share of workers in vulnerable employment worldwide may have increased by more than 100 million in 2009, and with it global poverty. ILO…

Urgent Action Needed on Financial Reform and Jobs Brussels, 26 January 2010 (ITUC OnLine):  Trade union leaders attending the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos this week will use the occasion to maintain pressure on governments to act urgently to tackle the deepening global employment crisis, and to move ahead with reform and restructuring…

Manila (26 January) — The Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) vowed to continue its services on Reproductive Health (RH) and Family Planning to all its union members and non-union members at the workplace.

The association of southeast Asian Nations (Asean) raised the signal during its summit in Cebu in 2007: Its member-nations would include nuclear power among the mix of energy to be able to sustain their increasing energy requirements as the countries are fast developing.