WASHINGTON (AFP) – US consumer confidence leapt in May to an eight-month high, the Conference Board said Tuesday in a report offering fresh hopes of an end to the prolonged recession.

MANILA, Philippines – With the signing of the implementing rules and regulations (IRR) of the Renewable Energy Act, the Philippines would be able to generate up to $10 billion in fresh capital from renewable energy development projects over the next 10 years, said Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes.

MANILA, Philippines – Malacañang has approved a P13 per kilo support price for yellow corn then ordered the National Food Authority (NFA) to purchase 300,000 metric tons of corn this main harvest season to encourage corn farmers to increase their production.

A United Nations official yesterday said there is an urgent need to raise awareness among Filipinos on the need to bring to “zero level” the problem of corruption which remains a serious problem in the country.

Before the end of 2009, St. Luke’s Medical Center will open the P9-billion 600-bed St. Luke’s Medical Center hospital at the Bonifacio Global City in Taguig.

(Editor’s note: The following is the Board of Investment’s faxed letter dated May 19 but sent on May 26. We publish it in toto and unedited but minus the barely legible “graphical representation” mentioned in paragraph 11.)

The Senate has passed the measure updating and upgrading the Salary Standardization Law, Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri said Wednesday.

The head of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) bids committee has called for vigilance in the 2010 polls, saying “nothing is fool proof” as he oversaw the transmission testing yesterday of the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines.

Private schools pursue demand for tuition hike Malacañang appealed to teachers not to push through with their planned strike on Monday, saying this would be another burden to the people.

MANILA, Philippines—With less than a year before the May 10, 2010 elections, the Commission on Elections is working on a tight schedule to procure the technology to automate the 2010 polls, as it comes to the final leg of the bidding process for the P11.2 billion automation project.

MANILA, Philippines—Saudi Arabia has released a new minimum age requirement for employment in several categories of Filipino workers to make sure they are mature enough to work in the kingdom.

MANILA, Philippines—Illegal recruiters have been “gate-crashing” job fairs and hiring job seekers on the spot, Pasay City Mayor Peewee Trinidad warned the public on Wednesday.

Speaker Prospero Nograles led some 60 lawmakers in withdrawing support for the bill pushing for the rehabilitation and opening of the mothballed Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) even as the House of Representatives is set to deliberate and is expected to approve the measure on second reading this week.

MANILA, Philippines – Nursing and Hotel and Restaurant Management (HRM) continue to be the top college degree courses that incoming college students prefer to take this school year, the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) said.

MANILA, Philippines – The country’s business process outsourcing (BPO) sector has notably been able to weather the impact of the global financial crisis, an industry survey indicated.

Following are some very funny spelling bloopers caught in local newspapers, publications and various emails. See if you can catch the errors. – From Laffaday

Johnson & Johnson Philippines continues to prove its leadership in community service not only in the country but in whole of Asia, as the company recently bagged the most coveted plums in two categories of the 2008 Asian Corporate Social Responsibility Awards.

One in every five students aged 13 to 15 is the current smoker in the Philippines, according to Dr. Agnes Segarra of teh Department of Health-National Epidemiology Center.

CEBU, Philippines – Lack of enforcement allows barangay officials to get away with the penalties for violating the Solid Waste Management Act, according to Environmental Management Bureau Solid Waste Management Division-7.

CEBU, Philippines – The labor dispute at the Keppel shipyard erupted again after its employees’ union filed a notice of strike the other day before the National Conciliation and Mediation Board.

Education Secretary Jesli Lapus yesterday ordered school heads to strictly prohibit the collection of any fees from public school students during the entire month of June.

Time was when only middleage and older patients were known to be suffering from complications of atherosclerosis, or the narrowing of arteries in the body.

The Fair Trade Alliance (FairTrade) is pushing for the government to suspend further tariff cuts on commodities such as corn, poultry, rice, sugar and swine and to review trade policies to keep local agricultural industry from being eroded.

Majority of local business process outsourcing (BPO) industry leaders said the global financial crisis had minimal impact on their operations, preliminary results of a recent survey showed.

Service. Passion. EXCELLENCE. Shattering records and breaking trends are not just about numbers and statistics. They speak out about something more relevant, something more important.

The electronics industry has again called on the government to bring down electricity rates to make the country’s exporters more competitive amid an expected recovery of global demand.

MANILA, Philippines—(UPDATE) Imports in March fell from a year earlier at a record pace, hit by weak demand for electronics parts largely used in export products, deflating optimism that global demand may be picking up.

SWINE flu is spreading more widely than official figures indicate, with outbreaks in Europe and Asia showing it has gained a foothold in at least three regions.

MADRID (Reuters) – World economic recovery will be slow and rising unemployment could bring the threat of social crisis and protectionism, World Bank President Robert Zoellick said in an interview with Spanish Sunday newspaper El Pais.

BACOLOD CITY, Philippines – “It is now almost 20 years since we received our lands under CARP but we are not better off than when we were still working with the previous landowner,” lamented Francisco Gevero, a 60-year-old agrarian reform beneficiary (ARB) from San Antonio Farms, Hacienda Caridad, Manapla, Negros Occidental.