Claims of a breakthrough in the Doha round of global trade talks following last week’s ministerial in India appear to follow a familiar pattern for such meetings: namely, that such claims are a bit premature when you examine the details of what actually happened.

After saying there is no more time to pass a bill promoting population control, Speaker Prospero Nograles yesterday ordered Majority Leader Arthur Defensor to simplify the plenary debate to pave the way for the voting on the measure.

News that these last three years, the sixth graders of rural-area schools got higher National Achievement Test (NAT) scores than their city-school counterparts should buoy up our hopes. It is a sign that despite the corruption and deficiencies of the government the neglected rural areas are not as doomed to failure and unrelieved poverty as…

MANILA, Philippines – Consumers’ outlook on the economy improved in the third quarter of the year on the back of improving global conditions, declining inflation, easing interest rates and a relatively stable peso, results of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Consumer Expectations Survey showed.

UITBB Statement on the Rotterdam deadlock monodetrabajadorThe Rotterdam Convention talks in Rome have ended on the 31st of October 2008 in a deadlock.

The House Committee on Health approved to consolidate three bills banning the importation, manufacture, processing, use, or distribution in commerce of asbestos and asbestos-containing products in a hearing held on 9 September 2009. The House of Representatives is the Lower House of the Philippine Congress.

DESPITE the tax and credit reforms the Philippines instituted the past year, the country fell three ranks to place 144th in a list of 183 economies in the 2010 Doing Business Report as it remains one of 10 places in the world investors find most difficult to start and close a business.

Two hundred signatories from 44 countries, among them, noted scientists and health experts, have asked President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo “to end poison rain” or the aerial pesticide spraying of banana plantations in Mindanao.

PHILIPPINE AND TAIWAN labor authorities have agreed to extend their memorandum of understanding on the Special Hiring Program for Taiwan (SHPT) beyond March 30 next year, if no new agreement is approved and signed by Taipei and Manila before this date.

It is with great interest that I read Ceres Doyo’s column “Bad Bananas and Collateral Damage.” (Inquirer, 8/13/09) While my affiliation to Davao is limited to the fact that my wife and her two brothers were born in Davao City, my concern is in my sincere belief that somewhere, somehow, there is a better, safer…

MANILA, Philippines—A greener and more eco-friendly Asia for its teeming population.

AMID 400,000 JOBLESS NURSING GRADUATES FILIPINO nurses may opt to stay in the country to work as “digital medical butlers” for a medical knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) firm that will put up training facilities and a contact center to service clients abroad.

The Arroyo administration was seriously addressing concerns on corruption and human-rights abuses in the country, a Malacañang official said Wednesday, stressing that the government has made gains.

CEBU, Philippines – The management of SPC Power Corporation management is appealing to the employees’ union to be “reasonable with their demands” and to return to the negotiating table without having to threaten the company with a notice of strike.

MANILA, Philippines – Roxas Holdings Inc., the second biggest refiner of raw sugar in the country, will start running its ethanol plant by early next year, an official of the Ethanol Producers Association of the Philippines (EPAP) said.

MANILA, Philippines – The local automotive industry remains upbeat despite the 1.3 percent drop in overall sales during the first eight months of this year.

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines further slipped in the World Bank’s annual ranking of economies based on the ease of doing business in their respective domains.

MANILA, Philippines – Nurses who cannot be employed overseas due to lack of working visas can now serve foreign patients through the world’s first borderless healthcare knowledge process outsourcing (kpo) here in the country.

MANILA, Philippines – The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said there are already signs of economic recovery, indicating that demand for Philippine exports would soon pick up.

MANILA, Philippines – Twenty-one countries from the Asia-Pacific region agreed yesterday to promote “ecologically sustainable pattern of development” through cleaner production technologies and practices in the face of the growing concern over global warming and climate change.

MANILA, Philippines – Investigators from the International Labor Organization (ILO) are arriving in the next two weeks to look into the killing of 92 labor union leaders.

These are excerpts from the book, “Let Evening Come: Reflections on Aging” by Mary C. Morrison. Morris L. West wrote a beautiful Preface for the book, although he never met the woman who wrote it. “I cherish a faint hope that one day before we both move off the planet, we may meet and touch…

Couples should consider sleeping apart for the good of their health and relationship, say experts.

http://www.aa1car.com Though asbestos brake linings have been mostly phased out, contrary to popular misconception they have not disappeared altogether. According to one original equipment brake supplier, Ford was still using asbestos linings as recently as 1993 on the Crown Victoria to cure a brake noise problem. The same supplier also said asbestos linings are still…

MANILA, Philippines – An affordable, accessible and portable education pathway is available for Filipinos to study and be equipped to take advantage of work opportunities in Australia.

The International Conference on Green Industry opens today up to September 11, 2009 at the Philippine International Convention Center in Manila.

The World Health Organization on Wednesday urged Asian countries to prepare for a surge in swine flu cases as the northern hemisphere’s winter approaches.

Brussels: Even though the World Bank has endorsed improved social safety nets to protect the millions of workers who have lost their jobs due to the global economic crisis, the latest edition of the Bank’s highest circulation publication discourages countries from adopting social protection schemes by designating governments that do so as anti-business. Doing Business…

MANILA, Philippines—The high-level mission of the International Labour Organisation due to arrive on September 22 should investigate violations of the right to unionize at the export zones and industrial estates, Partido ng Manggagawa (Workers’ Party) said Wednesday.

Asks Supreme Court to improve Philippine jails MANILA, Philippines—Albert Wilson, a British national, was wrongfully sentenced to death for allegedly raping his stepdaughter in 1998, but was acquitted by the Supreme Court in 1999.