MikeLigalig.com

Agence France-Presse

At least 12 Cambodians have died after drinking rice wine out of a bottle previously used for weed killer, police said Monday.

The incident happened during a religious ceremony in the country's eastern province of Kampong Cham on Saturday, provincial police chief Nuon Samin said.

He told AFP the cause of death had not yet been formally confirmed but the bottle used was for weed killer.

"After drinking from it, many people started to feel weak, and 12 of them have died so far," Nuon Samin said, adding that 20 villagers had to be rushed to hospital after the ceremony.

Cambodians often drink locally brewed rice wine, which is relatively inexpensive but can be dangerous if not mixed properly.

1: Sanctimommy
Definition:

a mother who points out perceived faults in the parenting of others

Example:

"Sanctimommies of the world, rejoice! You have a new spokesperson, and even though she is a super model, she's just like you: obnoxious, self-congratulatory and anxious to make all the other mommies feel bad." â€" Dr. Amy Tuteur, skepticalob.blogspot.com, Aug 6, 2010

source: Miriam Webster

The wind of change is blowing into the direction of Poblacion 2 as a power-packed team of dedicated civic leaders filed their certificate of candidacies Friday afternoon.

They will slug it out in the polls with another group reportedly backed by outgoing chairman Glorivic Dela Serna, who herself is sliding down as kagawad candidate, with her son as SK chair bet.

Three-term barangay kagawad Roberto “Batchoy” Alba leads the pack vying for the highest barangay post, the chairman’s seat.

Prominent personalities ready to give their unselfish service to the barangay joining Alba as his council line-up, include: former SK chairman Kenken Requeron, Dodong Pitao, Inday Sumaylo, Mercy Pernia Olaer, Leo Suico and Nonie Culajara.

John Clyde Pitao is the group’s Sangguniang Kabataan chairman candidate.

Alba said he will offer the best of his ability as a vigilant media to protect the taxpayers’ money for clean and transparent governance.

He is known in the airlanes as a hard-hitting, no holds-barred commentator and had always fought for the welfare of the ordinary people.

Alba is an awardee for Media Excellence given by the Bohol Tri-Media Association (BTMA) and is internationally recognized by the Filipino-Hawaii Chamber of Commerce for his unselfish service as broadcast journalist. - source: The Bohol Standard

The Commission on Appointments (CA) last week confirmed the appointment of Monina Estrella Callangan-Rueda as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Republic of Hungary and 59 officers of the Department of Foreign Affairs in its plenary session.

Ambassador Callangan-Rueda will also have concurrent jurisdiction over Bosnia and Herzegovinia, and Serbia and Montenegro. The CA also confirmed the promotional appointments of 59 other DFA officers:

Chief of Mission, Class I: Eduardo Pablo G. Maglaya, Virginia H. Benavidez, Luis T. Cruz, Romeo L. Manalo, and Elizabeth P. Buensuceso.

Chief of Mission, Class II: Evelyn D. Austria-Garcia, Meynardo L.B. Montealegre, Ma. Teresa L. Taguiang, Constancio R. Vingno Jr., Amelita C. Aquino, Ma. Lumen B. Isleta, Alex G. Chua, Joselito Jimeno, Jaime Victor B. Ledda, and Leah B. Ruiz.

Career Minister: Giovanni E. Palec, Rosario P. Lemque, Ma. Josefina V. Ceballos, Arvin R. De Leon, Ma. Elena P. Algabre-Misrahi, Marian Jocelyn R. Tirol-Ignacio, Ezzedin H. Tago, Alan L. Deniega, Paul Raymund P. Cortes, Raly L. Tejada, Jose A. Cabrera III, Marshall Louis M. Alferez, Anne J. Louis, and Zaldy B. Patron

Foreign Service Officer, Class I: Felipe F. Cariño III, Renato N. Dueñas Jr., Jose V. Jacob, Ma. Theresa S.M. Lazaro, Porfirio M. Mayo Jr., Ivan Frank M. Olea, Raymund G. Toledo, Marie Yvette B. Abalos, Iric C. Arribas, Victorio Mario M. Dimagiba Jr., Emmanuel R. Fernandez, Romulo Victor M. Israel Jr., Anthony Achilles L. Mandap, Ma. Antonina Mendoza-Oblena, Dinno M. Oblena, Enrique Voltaire G. Pingol, Rhenita B. Rodriguez, Rosanna Marie Villamor-Voogel, Patricia V. Barrera, Adrian Elmer S. Cruz, and Ma. Angela A. Ponce.

Foreign Service Officer, Class II: Gerardo P. Abiog, Jabbar M. Adiong, Rodillo R. Catalan, Leilani S. Feliciano, Ma. Elena Cristina D. Maningat, Gonaranao B. Musor, Arnel G. Talisayon, and Joseph Anthony A. Reyes.

Foreign Service Officer, Class III: Cassandra Karemaeh B. Sawadjaan. - PDI

Like fast-food meals, the scope of investing has gone super-sized. As an investor, you’re confronted with more and more types of investments, each with numerous options that usually require a magnifying glass to peruse the fine print.

read more at http://www.3makemoney.com/investing-tip-how-to-choose-the-best-investment/

By Ven Rebo Arigo
published by The Bohol Standard newspaper

A Boholana and her American husband died of what police suspected to be a murder-suicide inside their house near Lawrenceville in Georgia, USA.

Gwinnett Country police initially ruled that Tita Lacea Cayme-Hall could have likely been murdered by her husband, Charles, before he killed himself in a suicide last Tuesday.

The husband, 57, and his wife, 50, were facing divorce, according to an Atlanta Journals-Constitution (ACJ) report. In that report, she was not however identified as a Boholana.

Their dead bodies were found inside their home on Carriage Way near Lawrenceville by one of their two young children, a 12-year-old son, early Tuesday morning.

The boy and his nine-year-old sister ran outside their home and crossed the street to the house of a neighbor who quickly called the police.

The Boholana had lacerations on her neck, according to the Gwinnett County Medical Examiner’s Office, while her husband sustained gunshot wounds.

Authorities there ruled that the husband killed his Boholana wife, a native of Catigbian, by cutting her throat. He then also cut his and then shot himself dead, the police said.

It was not yet confirmed if the Catigbianon victim of the gruesome murder half a planet from home was a close relative of Catigbian Mayor Roberto Salinas, whose middle name is also Lacea.

A check was made yesterday with her family or near relatives in Catigbian thru one of their neighbors, Archie Lungay, if they already knew the incident.

Lungay, a top staff of First District Rep. Rene Relampagos who happened to be in his hometown of Catigbian yesterday when contacted, went to the victim’s kins and texted back that they were informed of “something bad happening” to her.

The murder-suicide was confirmed by a sister of the victim who posted about the tragedy on-line social networking Facebook, a victim’s former classmate yesterday said.

The sister also posted links to sources of police informations of the tragedy for the victim’s other classmates and friends to access.

The victim’s classmate said they had long not heard of “Tita” until she posted school memoirs on Facebook “just starting last month.”

The source, now a municipal government worker but who asked not to be named, said they became classmates when the Boholana studied and finished in 1980 her Bachelor of Science in Plant Protection with Specialization in Entomology at the then Visayas State College of Agriculture (VISCA) and now Visayas State University in Baybay, Leyte.

The source added that she had worked at the Xavier University in Cagayan de Oro City after graduation and then took up her master’s degree at the Asian Institute of Technology in Bangkok, Thailand.

Her school peers had since not heard of her---and her having settled in the US with her foreign husband and their children---until she lately posted their class fotos on Internet. On-line correspondence with former classmates then ensued.

Some three days to the tragedy, her classmates observed that she did no longer open her Facebook account or chat or respond to them.

It was not until her violent death was posted by her sister on the Internet social network that her classmates learned of her horrible fate. There have been no words yet if her remains will be flown here from the US.

Artificial Neural Network

The neural networks that are increasingly being used in computing mimic those found in the nervous systems of vertebrates. The main characteristic of a biological neural network, top, is that each neuron, or nerve cell, receives signals from many other neurons through its branching dendrites. The neuron produces an output signal that depends on the values of all the input signals and passes this output on to many other neurons along a branching fiber called an axon. In an artificial neural network, bottom, input signals, such as signals from a television camera’s image, fall on a layer of input nodes, or computing units. Each of these nodes is linked to several other “hidden’ nodes between the input and output nodes of the network. There may be several layers of hidden nodes, though for simplicity only one is shown here. Each hidden node performs a calculation on the signals reaching it and sends a corresponding output signal to other nodes. The final output is a highly processed version of the input. - source: Encarta

Kasparov v. Deep Blue

In 1997 Russian chess master Garry Kasparov lost a highly publicized series of matches to an IBM computer named Deep Blue. The computer used artificial intelligence to process 200 million chess moves per second in developing its strategy. This was the first time that an international chess grand master had lost a series to a computer, suggesting to some observers that advances in artificial intelligence may be surpassing human capacity in some areas. source: Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Welcome to the world of investing in the stock market. You are about to join the ranks of a
very elite group of people, namely those who have decided to actively manage their own
money and make it work for them. This is a big step, and not one that should be taken
without sufficient preparation. Before beginning with the more technical aspects of investing
in the stock market, then, you should first ensure you have dealt with any mitigating
circumstances that might otherwise distract you.

TIP
Many outside factors, such as lack of cash and preexisting fears, may affect your
investment abilities and decisions. Learn about your fears before attempting to
invest.

The most obvious confounding circumstance would be lack of cash with which to invest. The
effects of this situation would probably be limited, however, to a lack of opportunity for profit.
Also significant would be a lack of understanding of how stocks compare with other
investments. That is explained here sufficiently to neutralize that fear.

More insidious, however, are the preexisting fears many people bring with them. These fears
can affect investment decisions up to and including the decision whether to invest at all. Here
are some common ones:
Fear of technical-ese
Fear that your financial knowledge is insufficient
Fear that investing is only for millionaires
Fear of stock market crashes
Fear that investing in the stock market is a gamble
Fear that investing is too time-consuming

Because these fears have the potential for damage, it's best to meet them head on. Face
your fears of the stock market directly by learning the truths behind erroneous information
you may have heard. You will then be able to place any reservations you may have had in
their proper perspectives.

The current explosion of the stock market is unprecedented by any period in its history. Since the 1980s, the number of American households that own common stock has risen from below 20 percent to just under half. And, this does not include households that hold stock within their retirement plans or other indirect means. A significant portion of this growth is a direct result of the proliferation of information available to the public through such new forums as the Internet. Any information without explanation, however, is useless.

As a result, many people view the stock market as the domain of number crunchers who speak in a foreign language and do things the average person couldn't begin to understand. This lack of understanding often leads the person on the street into the arms of a financial professional to manage his or her money. This in itself is not necessarily bad. Many people, however, are surprised to discover that with a minimum of effort, they can become fully qualified to handle their investments themselves, much as they handle their other finances. In addition, people who have hired someone to manage financial matters for them place themselves in a particularly vulnerable position if they do not have even the most rudimentary understanding of how their money is being managed.

eToro's features:

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Trade: Enjoy immediate and accurate execution with all your trades. Low Spreads: Save a fortune on eToros super low spreads - as low as 2 pips.

And soon to come:
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eToro's Pro Insight: Get a look at what currency pairs eToro's top 100 traders are trading at the moment, and use the inside info to your advantage!

eToro is a forex trading platform developed to cater to the emerging retail segment of the forex market. With its simple style and exciting trade visualizations, eToro is the perfect platform for a novice trader to get his first forex trading experience. With its great array of professional forex trading and analysis tools, eToro is also the perfect platform for experts in the field who want to trade comfortably and reliably.
eToro has developed a truly intuitive interface that lets traders concentrate on trading instead of
messing around with bulky and overcomplicated software.

It's important to mention that eToro also offers an educational experience, so novices can gain knowledge of the forex market and eventually become pros if they're so inclined. eToro offers forex trading guides, forums and video tutorials to facilitate their traders' progress. eToro also offers an unlimited practice mode where both beginner and seasoned traders can sharpen their skills and test their strategies with real market rates.

Overall eToro have successfully designed a software that caters to a very wide segment of the forex trading public. eToro is bound to remain a leader in the forex industry for a long time to come.

The Forex market has quickly become the world's largest financial market, with an estimate daily turnover of $3.2 trillion. It is a market that has great appeal to a financial trader because of its volume which guarantees liquidity. High liquidity means that a trader can trade whatever currencies he feels like at all times, since there will always be someone to buy and sell any currency he wants. Another outstanding feature of the forex market is that it is active 24 hours a day and is closed only on the weekends.
This means that unlike the stock market for example, traders in the forex market don't need to wait for a bell to ring, but can make trading decisions around the clock.

Enter the internet into the equation. Now the forex market is literally at your fingertips. Most brokers offer online trading facilities which enable you to trade simply by clicking a button, instead of the traditional phone call. The internet has really revolutionized the industry, making the retail section of the market more dominant than ever.

By Sun Star

A six-year-old girl was found dead in Davao City with both feet tied together on Wednesday night.

The victim, Nicole Ann Linucalma, was a Kinder 1 pupil of the Project Hope Day Care and Learning Center at GSIS Heights in Matina Crossing, Davao City.

Based on investigations by Talomo police, the victim was naked from the waist down and her feet tied by a nylon cord when she was found at a vacant lot on Milky Way Street at GSIS Heights, around 8:15 p.m. Wednesday.

Felixberto Aguilar, a resident in the area, told police that the victim was with two young boys when he last saw her.

Police arrested one alias Kokey (name withheld for being a minor), 13, in relation to the crime.

As of posting on Friday, police are still conducting further investigation to locate the suspect's other companion.

Police recovered a piece of wood with a protruding nail allegedly used as a murder weapon.

Authorities believe the victim was raped before she was killed.

The victim's body was brought to Angel Funeral Homes while police are set to endorse the arrested suspect to the Department of Social Welfare and Development. (AD)

CEB promotes Bangkok as shopping destination in a seat sale as low as P1,499!

Zamboanga hub also on sale for as low as P499

Your Low fare pioneer Cebu Pacific (CEB) offers a seat sale to Bangkok as low as P1,499 from now until October 19 or until seats last, for travel this December 1, 2010-January 31, 2011.

Shop till you drop in Bangkok, every hour of the day, in places like the Platinum Mall, Panthip Plaza, Central World in Pratunam Areas, and the famous Chatuchak Weekend Market!

Guests traveling from Clark to Bangkok can avail of P1,499 ‘Go Lite’ seats, while those traveling from Manila to Bangkok can avail of P1,999 ‘Go Lite’ seats.

Aside from Bangkok, you can also avail of CEB’s Zamboanga hub seat sale with the same seat sale and travel period. There are P499 ‘Go Lite’ seats from Cebu and Davao to Zamboanga, and P999 ‘Go Lite’ seats from Manila to Zamboanga.

Absoluta sententia expositors non indiget

When language of law is clear, no explanation of it is required.

Actus me inuito factus non est meus actus

An act done by me against my will is not my act.

Actus non facit reum, nisi mens sit rea

The act itself does not make a man guilty unless his intention were so.

Cessante ratione legis, cessat et ipsa lex

When the reason of the law ceases, the law itself ceases. 

Garry Kasparov became the youngest world champion in chess history at the age of 22. Since that time in 1985 Kasparov has continued to be rated and recognized as the best chess player in the world. In the 1990s Kasparov competed in two highly publicized matches against Deep Blue, a supercomputer designed to play chess. In 1999 Kasparov challenged chess enthusiasts everywhere in an Internet project called “Kasparov Vs. The World.” In this September 1999 Encarta Yearbook interview, Kasparov discusses taking on the world, Deep Blue, and his future challengers in chess.

Interview with World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov

Encarta Yearbook: How did you get the idea for “Kasparov Vs. The World”?

Kasparov: The idea, I think, is quite natural because I was and still am a great believer in using new technologies to promote chess. I always believed that it would be great for chess to find the right match with computers, with the Internet.

And so I was always available for experiments such as playing against the IBM supercomputer or events like that. But even with the public relations generated around the Big Blue match, I still believed that we could do better if a way could be found to involve the public directly in the event, to make it more interactive.

I discussed different sorts of ideas with my friends and associates, and sometime in 1998 we came up with the plan: Kasparov Vs. The World, the world champion playing the rest of the world. And we made a few approaches, and to our pleasant surprise, Microsoft was fairly quick in grabbing the idea.

Encarta Yearbook: And how has the game gone?

Kasparov: I have to admit, I was surprised. I expected a difficult gameâ€"I was the only one who warned Microsoft and the press against considering the game just a cakewalk. And I've been saying from day one that the game would be a chess battle of a very high quality.

But I think even my expectations were set very much below the real level. At one point I realized that either I take it very seriously or I would face a real danger of defeat. So sometime in July, I had to very seriously spend a lot of time and attention and mobilize my resources to beat my opponents.

So the game has been very productive. I think it's a unique game for the history of chess. It's by far the best analyzed and the best quality of chess ever shown. It amazingly includes all the components of modern chess: a novelty in the opening, a sharp middle game with disturbed balance on both sides of the board, and a sharp endgame with six passed pawns that I've never seen in my life.

So I think everybody underestimated the ability of the chess community on the Internet to analyze information and virtually build a Deep Blue on-line. They have the command center, the Irina Krush bunch, but obviously there are much stronger grandmasters behind the scenes sending the signals all over the world indicating what positions have to be analyzed.

So what is most impressive is the management structure that has been created and that this structure has enabled hundreds of chess players of reasonable strength equipped by the computers and thousands of grandmasters to participate in producing very sophisticated analyses. The strategy and tactics used by the whole team deserve a lot of attention and studying, because it is the first time this kind of technique has been used.

Encarta Yearbook: When you took on Deep Blue, did you see that as kind of a novel experiment? What did it teach us about chess and artificial intelligence?

Kasparov: Well, unfortunately, it taught us much less than we could expect, because in my opinion the experiment could have produced great results. Chess is probably ideal for comparing human intuition vis-à-vis the brute force of calculation, because you can clearly see at what point the simple calculative process matches the results based on human intuition.

So it was a very interesting experiment, and that's why I didn't hesitate to make myself available. The problem was that in the second match IBM treated this event differently, as a win or lose proposition, not as an experiment. They had a totally different attitude than they had the first time. Without going into the details of the match, the major problem was that IBM refused to release printouts of the computer's analysis, and basically cut us off from any information that might have made this event very exciting.

And this is a great tragedy, because I believe this experiment could lead us to some new and interesting discoveries. Now everything is more or less stalled since no other corporation is willing to contribute money toward the experiment, because in the public eye the event is over. They say, the machine has won, so why do we have to invest?

So IBM communicated a very bad message: the machine has won, so there's no need to continue these studies, no need to continue investing money. Someone dismantled the machine because “We've accomplished it.” I mean, what did you accomplish? It's very, very questionable, because an accomplishment means that you can prove it and you can prove the pattern. So the public didn't realize the simple thing that if the machine has won, the machine should be able to do it again.

Encarta Yearbook: So you would do another computer match?

Kasparov: With great pleasure. With great pleasure. I'm always available for such experiments. But other corporations are not taking the challenge. If the machine is around, everybody may count on me.

Encarta Yearbook: What are some of the efforts you've made to get more young people involved in chess? Does chess need help, or is everything going great?

Kasparov: No, I don't think it's going great. I think we are very much behind schedule in making progress. I think chess missed some great moments in history and now the future of the game is lying with our success in the schools. And that, for me, is a top priority, and that's where I've been concentrating for quite a few years.

I think thousands of schools in America are already practicing chess, either as part of the curriculum or in after-school classes. And when I say thousands of schools, I'm not exaggerating. The problem is that everything is decentralized. You don't have a single, unified curriculum.

There is plenty of proof that teaching chess in schools helps improve results in testing, improves attitude, self-confidence, logical thinking, and responsibility. With chess kids are doing better in social behavior and in general education, so that's why there is little doubt that chess could be very effective as an important educational tool.

In Israel I've been working on establishing such a curriculum. We have reached an agreement with Israel's minister of education. We're making progress in some cities. We're starting pilot sessions, and I hope that within 18 to 24 months I'll be able to present to other countries that are interested in acquiring such a program a model that has been tested by a reliable educational ministry of a developed country.

What is crucial is to teach the teachers, because with in-school programs there is a very little hope that chess players by themselves could teach everyone. Chess players are not necessarily good chess teachers. Sometimes it's the contrary.

Encarta Yearbook: Players from the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and Russia have dominated chess for most of the 20th century. Why is that, in your opinion, and will this continue in the next century? Can the United States ever catch up?

Kasparov: I think the popularity of chess in Russia should be assigned to factors related to the totalitarian nature of the Soviet regime. Communism left very few options for kids to express themselves in the USSR. Chess was among the few choices. Chess, sports, some kind of science, ballet, or music were available, but more was available in the free world.

Also the Soviet system had a big interest in developing these talents in order to prove its superiority over the decadent West in intellectual games. So chess was one of the big priorities, and this attitude guaranteed that a big percentage of kids would go through the system.

In America you maybe had one percent of the kids who had a chance to show themselves in the competitions, probably fewer, because in America you have other sports, other attractive things.

Encarta Yearbook: Is the popularity of chess declining somewhat in Russia?

Kasparov: Yes. It's declining. And you may expect growth in America or somewhere else if chess is properly established. Just introduce chess scholarships in some U.S. universities and you will see the difference. So it's very simple. You give an incentive to play and, I believe, the talent in America is as good as anywhere else. It's just giving them the incentive.

Encarta Yearbook: How old were you when you started playing chess, and what are your earliest chess memories?

Kasparov: Thirty years agoâ€"a really long time.

Encarta Yearbook: So you started when you were six. Do you remember having one person who you wanted to be like, who you looked up to in chess?

Kasparov: Alexander Alekhine was, chess-wise, a big hero. Also Bobby Fischerâ€"when I was nine he was the hottest player. The way he played was quite amazing. So we all wanted to be like him.

Encarta Yearbook: How old were you when you made up your mind to try to be a world champion, when you first thought, “I want to go all the way to the top”?

Kasparov: I would think that at 14 I had no doubt I would be a professional player. So I knew I had a big chance, but at about age 16 it was clear that I was set to challenge [reigning champion Anatoly] Karpov.

Encarta Yearbook: Is there some advice you would give to a young player today, someone who says, “I want to be the next Garry Kasparov”?

Kasparov: No, but to become the world champion, you need a talent, you need a lot of talent first. And if you want to win in whatever, whatever sport, you have to make some sacrifices. To be a real big shot in the world of chess requires certain sacrifices as does any other sport or any other profession. Chess is to be taken seriously at the top level, as with everything else.

Encarta Yearbook: You were the youngest world chess champion in history. Did you, or do you, find it hard to stay motivated once you've reached that pinnacle?

Kasparov: Motivation is always a big issue. I've been staying at the top longer than any other sportsman in any sportâ€"14 years, that's quite a term.

So motivation, from time to time, has been a big issue, but I was able to solve this problem because at one point I realized that I could do many things quite well. I have quite a high general intelligence to work with other issues, but chess is still the turf where I'm most comfortable and where I could make a lot of difference for the world.

So I have motivated myself just to do more in this game. And also, due to the very quick development of the game, I don't have a lack of challengers. I always have new, young opponents going after me.

In the world of chess every five or six years you have a new group of talented players, and you can count on at least three of them having one goal: to beat Garry Kasparov. So it sets up some new challenges. Also I promised myself that my three-year-old son would see me fighting and winning the title. So I'm motivated to stay at the top for at least another three or four years.

Encarta Yearbook: So you feel like at that point you might step back, retire?

Kasparov: Maybe. I don't know. It depends on how I feel, because chess today is a matter of experience and energy. So if I maintain the same level of energy, if I keep up, you know, my physical and psychological shape, you never know. I'm a very good chess player. So far, all my younger opponents, they fail to find a crack in me.

Encarta Yearbook: It's almost as if you're waiting for someone to come along who's good enough to take your place and then you'll feel like maybe you can leave?

Kasparov: Maybe. Maybe. I have big goals. I want chess in education and I want chess on the Internet, in every household. So that's a goal, but in order to accomplish it I have to stay the world champion for quite a while.

Encarta Yearbook: You broke with FIDE, the chess organizing body, in 1993, and they stripped you of your title. They recently held a world championship tournament, in which you did not participate. Do you have any plans to reunite with FIDE again?

Kasparov: I am not going to reunite with anybody. I don't think there's any need for reunification. I won my title in 1985. I've been living without FIDE for six years. I do not think that the FIDE title today has anything to do with the tradition I represent, a tradition of champions that goes back more than 100 years, long before FIDE existed.

In 1993 it was Nigel Short's ideaâ€"he won a FIDE cycle to win the right to challenge meâ€"for us to play outside of FIDE [because of organizational disputes]. So here we come with a complicated legal issue. Nigel Short has won the FIDE competition. He was a legitimate challenger. I was a legitimate champion. So two players that had to play a championship match decided to play it outside of FIDE. So FIDE in our point of view was merely an organizer.

Does it mean that FIDE has rights to have another championship and say, “okay, we strip your title”? They say yes. I say no, because I believe that since I represent the tradition of world champions, the world champion has the final say, providing the world champion plays the strongest challenger. It's sort of a moral issue, because if I don't play the strongest challenger, if I try to avoid the match, if I disappear like Fischer did, I lose my rights.

But my argument for about six years is simple. I play the strongest challengers. I play Nigel Short, I play Vishy [Viswanathan] Anand. I play many tournaments. So the gap between me and number two is only increasing.

I'm sort of the defender of the tradition. I'm very proud of that. And I think it's important that the message is correctly communicated to the rest of the world that we have to make a clear distinction between organizational interestâ€"and I believe organization is very importantâ€"and the tradition, which is the main heritage of the game of chess.

And it should be very clearly explained that there's one lineage, and as long as this lineage exists, as long as there is a big matchâ€"and the big match is the only traditional eventâ€"the only chance to take the title is to win the real championship match.

Encarta Yearbook: How do you keep in “chess shape”?

Kasparov: I do up to six hours of chess at a training session, if it's before the big match. Normally it's in the summer. I also do some shorter training sessions during the year. In the meantime I'm trying to do some little chess work, by just looking at the computer screen, analyzing some new games. No matter whether I have an event coming up or not, I have to work hard because today in chess you can't stay behind developments. The moment you are losing the momentum, you could experience serious problems, very serious problems with your openings because your opponents are now ahead of you.

You have to invent. You have to invent things, you know. So one of the secrets of my success is that I'm always inventive, just trying to come up with new ideas regularly. And that's how I dominate most of the players.

Encarta Yearbook: Unlike basketball and football, women can compete on a level “playing field” with men in chess. Do you see women moving up at the world championship level of chess, becoming equal in numbers with men over the next 20 or 30 years?

Kasparov: It's a very provocative and dangerous question. You start the question with an assumption that women in chess are competing equally, unlike in basketball and football. If it's physical strength, yes, you don't argue. So if you talk about psychological warfare, here it should be equal? I don't know.

As a matter of fact, I think you can separate this issue into two sides. One is political correctness, and there are certain rules that now exist in U.S. society. The other side is to look at the merits of the facts: There's a clear dominance by men. [Hungary's] Judit Polgár is the only woman player who ever entered the top 10. She has now slid down. She's probably number 20 or 25.

But what's most important, there is no pattern, there is no demonstration that the gap is getting narrower. It's definitely not as big as 20 or 30 years ago, but with the same success I may argue that the gap between average players and top grandmasters is also getting narrower, because you have more information available, you have better training systems. So that's why everybody is playing better.

So that's why we do not see a very convincing pattern that should tell us otherwise. There is a gap [between men and women] and this gap will stay for quite a long time. I do not see in the near future women competing for the world championship. Whether somebody likes or doesn't like it, it's a mere fact.

Encarta Yearbook: Do you look down the road and see a chess player who's really young, say, in their teens, who you think you might have to worry about in four or five years?


Kasparov: The real danger could come from the players 20 years or so younger than myself. I don't think that I should expect real danger from players like [24-year-old Russian Vladimir] Kramnik or even [20-year-old Hungarian Peter] Leko.


There are players like [16-year-old World Team adviser Etienne] Bacrot, but I don't know. I mean, it's too early to make a final call. These players could create a danger, a potential problem, because time is on their side. Time is their biggest ally, and there's nothing I can do about it.


And there are also some very young players, 10, 11, 12 [years old], very talented, and most likely one of them will be next. So, I don't think that anyone who is older than 17 today is a danger from my point of view.


Source: Encarta Yearbook, September 1999.
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

For an actress to be a success she must have the face of Venus, the brains of Minerva, the grace of Terpsichore, the memory of Macaulay, the figure of Juno, and the hide of a rhinoceros.

Ethel Barrymore (1879 - 1959)
U.S. actor.

Everyone denies I am a geniusâ€"but nobody ever called me one!

Attributed to Orson Welles (1915 - 1985)
U.S. actor, director, producer, and writer.

Every actor should direct at least once. It gives you a tolerance, an understanding of the problems involved in making a film. In fact every director should act.

Clint Eastwood (1930 - )
U.S. film actor and director.

Directing her was like directing Lassie. You needed fourteen takes to get each one of them right.

Attributed to Otto Preminger (1906 - 1986)
Austrian-born U.S. film director and producer.
Referring to directing Marilyn Monroe.

But the Lear of Shakespeare cannot be acted...the play is beyond all art, as the tamperings with it show: it is too hard and stony; it must have love scenes and a happy ending.

Attributed to Charles Lamb (1775 - 1834)
British essayist.

Referring to Shakespeare's tragedy King Lear, and the late 17th-century and 18th-century trend to revise Shakespeare's tragedies by giving them happy endings. The most distinguished proponent of this was poet laureate Nahum Tate, whose widely performed Tate's Lear (a revision of King Lear), ended with Cordelia marrying Edgar.

"Blank face is fine. The computer works faster than the brain, don't forget. The art of acting is not to act. Once you show them more, what you show them, in fact, is bad acting."

Anthony Hopkins (1937 - )
Welsh stage and motion picture actor.
Knave

As an unperfect actor on the stage,
Who with his fear is put beside his part,
Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage,
Whose strength's abundance weakens his own heart;
So I, for fear of trust, forget to say
The perfect ceremony of love's rite.

William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616)
English poet and playwright.

Sonnet 23,

"An actor is something less than a man while an actress is something more than a woman."

Richard Burton (1925 - 1984)
Welsh-born British actor.

"An actor is never so great as when he reminds you of an animalâ€"falling like a cat, lying like a dog, moving like a fox."

Attributed to François Truffaut (1932 - 1984)
French film director and screenwriter.

All I need to make a comedy is a park, a policeman and a pretty girl.

Charlie Chaplin (1889 - 1977)
British actor and director.
My Autobiography

Acting, of course, is a good way to keep fit as you are on your feet walking around the rehearsal room all day.

Antony Sher (1949 - )
South African-born British actor.
The Sunday Times (London)

Acting is therefore the lowest of the arts, if it is an art at all.

George Moore (1852 - 1933)
Irish writer.
Impressions and Opinions, "Mummer-Worship"

Acting is the most minor of gifts. After all, Shirley Temple could do it when she was four. - Attributed to Katharine Hepburn (1907 - 2003)

"Acting is the expression of a neurotic impulse. It's a bum's life. Quitting acting, that's the sign of maturity." - Marlon Brando (1924 - 2004) U.S. actor.

Acting in English...I'm like a blind man. When you can't see, you develop other senses. In one sense I am blind, but other faculties develop by way of compensation: the sense of hearing, of morbid curiosity, of tolerance. These are the ways you communicate if you don't speak the language. - Gérard Depardieu (1948 - ) French actor. The Observer (London)

A character actor is one who cannot act and therefore makes an elaborate study of disguise and stage tricks by which acting can be grotesquely simulated. - Attributed to George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)
Irish playwright.

Agence France-Presse

SEOULâ€"Hackers in China have stolen secrets on South Korea's defense and foreign affairs by using bogus e-mails claiming to come from Seoul officials and diplomats, the intelligence agency said Friday.

The National Intelligence Service uncovered the hacking early this year and warned government offices about the danger of such e-mails, a spokesman told AFP.

Hackers sent e-mails in the names of South Korean diplomats, presidential aides and other people familiar to Seoul officials.

Attached files containing viruses were disguised as important documents, such as analyses on North Korea's economy.

When a recipient clicked on the attachment, the virus started downloading documents in his or her computer, the spokesman said.

Lawmaker Lee Jung-Hyun of the ruling Grand National Party told parliament Thursday that a "considerable volume of classified documents" was feared to have been leaked from the defense ministry and the foreign ministry.

The foreign ministry said it had asked overseas diplomatic missions to be extra alert to such hacking attempts.

The South's intelligence service in June investigated a major "distributed denial of service" cyber attack on the main government website by hackers traced to China.

The security ministry said at the time its cyber security team had been on alert for such attacks as tensions rose with North Korea.

The South's spy chief blamed North Korea for cyber attacks from China-based servers that briefly crippled US and South Korean government and commercial websites in July 2009. US officials were uncertain of the origin.

Microsoft has discontinued its Microsoft Encarta and Microsoft Student with Encarta Premium lines of products.
      Customers will receive product support for up to three years from purchase date or through January 10, 2012, which ever date is reached first.
      We understand that Encarta customers may have questions regarding this announcement, so we have prepared the following list of questions and answers below. Please keep reading if you would like more information about the changes to Encarta.
      Questions about the discontinuation of Microsoft Student and Encarta Premium software products
      Will this discontinuation affect the current version of Microsoft Student or Encarta Premium software that I have installed?
Will all my information be irrelevant next year? Although Microsoft will stop selling Student and Encarta Premium software by June 2009, Microsoft will continue to release updates to current versions of Encarta in the U.S. and international markets through October 2009 and in Japan through December 2009.
      When will Microsoft Student and Encarta Premium software products no longer be available for purchase?
By June 2009, Microsoft will stop selling all Encarta software products. MSN Encarta will remain online through October 2009 worldwide, except in Japan where it will remain online through December 2009.
      Will other Microsoft education software products be discontinued?
We’re not making any other announcements at this time. However, Microsoft remains committed to delivering the most effective technology offerings to help make teaching and learning more engaging and relevant in the 21st century.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Published 1980
I ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Douglas Adams was born March 11, 1952, the son of Christopher Douglas, a management consultant, and Jane Donovan, a nurse. Adams was a recipient of an honors degree in English Literature from St. John’s College, Cambridge, in 1974. He began his writing career as a scriptwriter for radio and television comedies. For a time, he supported himself with odd jobs ranging from cleaning chicken houses to guarding the royal family of Qatar. “I was lying drunk in a field in Innsbruck and gazing up at the stars,” he says of the inspiration for his most famous story. “It occurred to me that somebody ought to write a hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy.” His idea, first conceived as a radio series, was developed for the British Broadcasting Company. The 1978 series gradually won an enthusiastic following. Pan Books approached Adams to novelize his scripts. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy sold one hundred thousand copies the first month and eventually sold two million copies in England alone. Across the Atlantic Ocean, similar success followed with a radio series on National Public Radio and a television version of the book.
Adams added four books to “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” series: The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980), Life, the Universe and Everything, (1982), So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish (1984), and Mostly Harmless (1992). Tired of the series, Adams coauthored Last Chance to See with zoologist Mark Carwardine in 1990. In a departure from the “Hitchhiker” books, it recounts their journey to see seven endangered species. He also developed a detective series which includes Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency (1987) and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (1988).

II OVERVIEW

Moments before the earth is demolished to make way for a “hyperspacial express route,” Arthur Dent is rescued by Ford Prefect, an alien who is disguised as an out-of-work actor. Prefect, who has become Dent’s friend of several years, has been stranded on Earth while researching the planet for the revised version of the electronic book, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The pair’s misadventures as they ricochet from a Vogon spaceship, to the Heart of Gold state-of-the-art spaceship, to the planet factory, Magrathea, form the book’s prime focus: satire.

III SETTING

Though initially set in England, the majority of the story takes place in space, either in spaceships or on the planet Magrathea. Adams creates his own worlds, cultures, creatures, and vocabularies in satire that fillets science fiction cliches and the human condition.

Dent and Prefect find themselves in two ships very unlike the usual spare and futuristic spaceship of science fiction genre. Just as the earth is vaporized, they use a “transformational beam” to board the spaceship of a Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz. In the ship’s galley, Dent first sees dirty dishes and dirty alien underwear scattered about. Sitting on mattresses that have been grown and dried from the Sqornshellous Zeta swamps, Dent is not comforted by Prefect’s reassurance that “very few have ever come to life again.”

The Heart of Gold is the second ship to pick up the pair. In Adams’s world, this ultimate space-age transportation is shaped like a running shoe and has its own sales brochure. Giving it an Improbability Drive, which powers the ship through every point in the universe, Adams creates scenes within the ship that combine elements of an Andy Warhol painting with Walt Disney’s “Fantasia.”

Finding Magrathea had been a high priority of many previous space explorations. When the characters accidentally discover it, Prefect ranks its drab and desolate exterior somewhere below “cat litter.” They learn its interior is three million miles across and that Magrathea’s inhabitants used to make planets inside it.

IV THEMES AND CHARACTERS

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy includes five characters: Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Zaphod Beeblebrox, Trillian (Tricia MacMillan), Slartibartfast, and Marvin, the robot. Though all are likable enough, they are one-dimensional creations who merely react to circumstances rather than handle them.
Arthur Dent is hardly the customary space hero. He has no answers, no solutions, and exhibits no bravery. The only thing he actually does is lie down in the mud in front of bulldozers intent on demolishing his home. During crises in space, he curls up in the fetal position, screeches “Huhhhhgggnnnnn,” falls asleep, or asks for a cup of tea.

Adams has said, “Arthur Dent is to a certain extent autobiographical. He moves from one astonishing event to another without fully comprehending what’s going on. He’s the Everyman Characterâ€"an ordinary person caught up in some extraordinary events.”

Zaphod Beeblebox sums Arthur up quite well when other aliens propose to replace Arthur’s brain with an electronic one. “You’d just have to program it to say ‘What?’ and ‘I don’t understand’ and ‘Where’s the tea?’” he responds.

Arthur’s sardonic one-liners in the face of the catastrophe provide much of the humor in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. For example, after being told by Ford Prefect that they are safe in a Vogon Constructor Fleet spaceship, Arthur says, “This is obviously some strange usage of the word safe that I wasn’t previously aware of.”

Ford Prefect accepts Dent for what he is, and the two are good friends. Prefect is a roving researcher for the electronic book, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. After being stranded for fifteen years on Earth, he expands its guidebook description from “harmless” to “mostly harmless.” He spends his time crashing university parties, drinking, or trying to pick up girls. As Arthur mourns the loss of Earth and its inhabitants, Prefect tries to reassure him by saying, “You just come along with me and have a good time. The Galaxy’s a fun place.”

Prefect does not get very upset about any kind of peril, including his impending demise in the vacuum of space. As trouble appears, his first defense is to simply talk his way out of it. Ironically, Prefect cannot understand why humans talk so much, but decides if they do not continually exercise their lips, their brains start working. Zaphod Beeblebrox should be, as a space creature with three arms and two heads, a villain. Instead he turns out to be Ford Prefect’s semi-cousin, President of the Imperial Galactic Government, and mostly harmless himself. He is an adventurer, but is barely capable of piloting the spaceship he has stolen.

Trillian is an attractive human who Dent once tried to pick up at a party. As Zaphod Beeblebrox’s companion, she does little but fiddle with the spaceship’s controls and stand behind someone, anyone, during dangerous situations. Her most important contribution in the book is to bring two white mice (actually “hyperintelligent pandimensional beings” who first commissioned the creation of Earth) into the
Heart of Gold spaceship.

Marvin is a prototype robot. Zaphod Beeblebrox calls him “the Paranoid Android,” and Dent labels him “an electronic sulking machine.” The first thing he says is, “I think you ought to know I’m feeling very depressed.” Marvin is depressed, despairing, hopeless, abject, and wretched throughout the novel. Some reviewers credit him to be a satiric statement against the “me-first generation.”
Slartibartfast functions in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy to give information. An award-winning fjord designer, he fills in missing information for Arthur and the readers. He explains Magrathea’s history and also explains that space travelers commissioned the creation of the Earth in order to find the Ultimate Question for the Ultimate Answer.

Adams has said, “I’m not a science fiction writer, but a comedy writer who happens to be using the conventions of science fiction for this particular thing.” Adams quickly deflates the arrogant notion that Earth and human kind are somehow pivotal to the universe. Earth is so obscure in the largeness of space, its entry in Ford Prefect’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is just barely discernible, listed above “Eccentrica Gallumbits, the triple-breasted whore of Eroticon 6.”

The computer in science fiction is always in control by virtue of its unerring logic. On the other hand, the Heart of Gold’s computer is merely brash and cheery, and completely defenseless in protecting its ship. It can only sing “When You Walk through the Storm” as nuclear warheads approach. It wants a relationship with its programmers, and it possesses a matriarchal back-up personality which cautions Arthur and his companions to stay “all wrapped up snug and warm, and no playing with any naughty bug-eyed monsters.”
As a comedy writer, he turns the laugh toward religion, nonviolence, alcohol, dollar-a-day guide books, philosophy, science, and poetry in seeming random fashion.

source: Microsoft Encarta

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

I INTRODUCTION

The story of Chinua Achebe's novel Things Fall Apart takes place in the Nigerian village of Umuofia in the late 1880s, before missionaries and other outsiders have arrived. The Ibo clan practices common tribal traditionsâ€"worship of gods, sacrifice, communal living, war, and magic. Leadership is based on a man's personal worth and his contribution to the good of the tribe. Okonkwo stands out as a great leader of the Ibo tribe. Tribesmen respect Okonkwo for his many achievements.

Even though the tribe reveres Okonkwo, he must be punished for his accidental shooting of a young tribesman. The Ibo ban Okonkwo from the clan for seven years. Upon his return to the village, Okonkwo finds a tribe divided by the influence of missionaries and English bureaucrats who have interrupted the routine of tradition. Only when Okonkwo commits the ultimate sin against the tribe does the tribe come back together to honor custom.

Critics appreciate Achebe's development of the conflict that arises when tradition clashes with change. He uses his characters and their unique language to portray the double tragedies that occur in the story. Readers identify not only with Okonkwo and his personal hardships but also with the Ibo culture and its disintegration. Chinua Achebe wrote Things Fall Apart not for his fellow Nigerians, but for people beyond his native country. He wanted to explain the truth about the effects of losing one's culture. Published in 1958, the book was not widely read by Nigerians or by Africans in general. When Nigeria became independent in 1960, however, Africans appreciated the novel for its important contribution to Nigerian history.

II CHINUA ACHEBE

Chinua Achebe is a world-renowned scholar recognized for his ability to write simply, yet eloquently, about life's universal qualities. His writing weaves together history and fiction to produce a literary broadcloth that offers visions of people enduring real life. Critics appreciate his just and realistic treatment of his topics.

Achebe writes primarily about his native Africa, where he was born Albert Chinualumogu Achebe in 1930. He grew up in Ogidi, Nigeria, one of the first centers of Anglican missionary work in eastern Nigeria. His father and mother, Isaiah and Janet Achebe, were missionary teachers. Achebe's life as a Christian and member of the Ibo tribe enables him to create realistic depictions of both contemporary and pre-colonized Africa. He blends his knowledge of Western political ideologies and Christian doctrine with folklore, proverbs, and idioms from his native tribe to produce stories of African culture that are intimate and authentic.

Achebe left the village of Ogidi to attend Government College in Umuahia, and later, University College in Ibadan. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from University College in 1953. He worked first for the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation as a writer and continued radio work in various capacities until 1966, when he resigned from his post as Director of External Broadcasting. Dissatisfied with the political climate that would later prompt the Biafran War, he began traveling abroad and lecturing as the appointed Senior Research Fellow for the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

Continuing his teaching career, Achebe accepted a position with the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, in 1972. He was a visiting professor of English at that institution until 1976 and again in 1987-1988. He also spent a year as a visiting professor at the University of Connecticut. In the intervening years, Achebe returned to his native country to teach at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
Achebe has written extensively throughout his adult life. His numerous articles, novels, short stories, essays, and children's books have earned prestigious awards. For example, his book of poetry Christmas in Biafra was a winner of the first Commonwealth Poetry Prize. His novels Arrow of God and Anthills of the Savannah won, respectively, the New Statesman-Jock Campbell Award and finalist for the 1987 Booker Prize in England.

Marriage Proposal Through Texting - what do you think?

Winamp vs iTunes - what is your preference?

Authorities at Manila's airport found a newborn baby in a garbage bag that was apparently unloaded from an airplane that landed Sunday from the Middle East, officials said.

Security officials brought the baby boy, who was covered in blood and wrapped in tissue paper, to an airport clinic, where doctors and nurses examined him and cleaned him up, wrapped him in cloth and gave him a bottle of milk, airport officials said.

"After he was cleaned, he let off a soft cry," airport nurse Kate Calvo said. "He was healthy, his vital signs were OK according to our doctors."

A security officer noticed something moving in a garbage bag that was reportedly unloaded from a Gulf Air plane that arrived from Bahrain and found the baby inside, an airport statement said. The baby was later turned over to social workers posted at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport.

Gulf Air officials were not immediately available for comment.

Social Welfare Secretary Dinky Soliman said she was angered by what happened, adding that police have been ordered to search for the infant's mother, who could be criminally charged. - source: GMA News

by Christine F. Herrera
Manila Standard Today

LAWMAKERS at Tuesday night’s budget hearing sang If We Hold on Together to remind Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman how she led the Arroyo Cabinet in song as a sign of support for their chief executive, only to abandon her days later in 2005.

Soliman said she did not mind the humiliation.

“If this is what it takes so I can get the money, so be it,” she said after her budget came under attack for three hours by her former boss, now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Arroyo.

“Their motives for doing these to me is their lookout. I don’t mind as long as I get what is needed for the poorest of the poor. This is a flagship [project] of President Aquino.”

But Arroyo demanded that Soliman’s P21.9-billion budget for the conditional cash transfer programâ€"a dole to the poorest of the poorâ€"be redistributed to the agencies that lost funding in the 2011 spending plan.

The former President said it took her administration three years to establish the program for 1 million beneficiaries, and warned that the “undue haste” with which Soliman was pushing its expansion to 2.3 million recipients receiving P1,400 a month guaranteed failure.

“I am not against increasing the CCT beneficiaries. I started [the program], but a sudden and massive increase by more than double seems both ambitious and untimely,” Arroyo said.

Soliman, who stood beside the sponsor of the Social Welfare budget, Guimaras Rep. Joaquin Carlos Rahman Nava, said the program would add 300,000 beneficiaries every quarter starting January 2011.

The session was suspended several times to allow Nava, who was fielding the questions, to confer with Soliman.

At every suspension, lawmakers from the Liberal Party and Lakas-Kampi sang the 1991 song that Soliman had made famous again in 2005.

Arroyo’s dissection of Soliman’s budget took three hours, starting at 8:54 p.m. and ending at 11:47 p.m.

The longest suspension lasted more than an hour so Soliman could answer a question about the qualifications of the 1,760 people who would be hired to carry out the program.

Arroyo also questioned the P1.6 billion set aside for new staff, and appeared annoyed when Nava could not provide details on the program.

“It is irresponsible to allocate a budget for a program that is not yet fully prepared,” Arroyo said.

“The details may look very nice, but I’ve been there Mr. Speaker, the implementation is certainly not that simple.”

Arroyo also criticized the lump-sum funds in the 2011 national budget, including the P12 billion set aside for “basic educational facilities” under the Education Department without itemizing how many classrooms or children would benefit from the expense.

The Pampanga congresswoman also criticized the cuts in the National Food Authority’s P8-billion budget for rice procurement, the zero budgeting for state colleges and universities, and the 50- percent reduction in the Judiciary’s requested spending plan.

All these should be restored from funds taken from the Social Welfare Department, she said.

Nava said that of the P21.9-billion budget for the conditional cash transfer program, only P17 billion would actually be distributed to the poor families.

More than P3 billion had been set aside for operational expenses, including the P1.6 billion for training the 1,891 field, regional and central office personnel who would be hired to carry out the program.

Arroyo said that in her time, the department spent a year to recruit personnel before the program was rolled out in 2008.

By Ruben V. Nepales
Philippine Daily Inquirer

LOS ANGELESâ€"Mark Wahlberg plays boxer “Irish” Mickey Ward in the coming film “The Fighter.” Who did he study to come across as a convincing pugilist? Filipino boxing champ Manny Pacquiao.

“I would love for Manny to see the movie,” Mark said of the biopic drama about Mickey and his Rocky-like rise to the world light welterweight title in the mid-1980s. “The Fighter,” directed by David O. Russell, co-stars Christian Bale as Dickie Eklund, who helped train his brother.

As part of his research for the role, Mark, a friend of Manny’s, observed Pacman whenever he was training in LA. “I would go to the gym to study Manny all the time,” the actor said in an interview at the Ritz Carlton in Cancun, Mexico. “Every time he was training at Wild Card Gym, I watched him because my whole approach was, I wanted to look like a Manny Pacquiao-caliber fighter. I didn’t want to look like another actor who’s doing an okay job. Manny is the best in the world. Who better to learn from?”

Mark added that he wanted the film’s set to look like the real deal: “We used the HBO cameras that shoot pay-per-view events. We went in there and we really did it. We really fought and it was not fun. I still thank God to this day that I got out without any real injuries.”

“The Fighter” will not be shown until the awards season in December. But in the meantime, Mark took a break from dramatic roles by acting opposite Will Ferrell in “The Other Guys.” The two play mismatched, second-string New York cops (the city’s star police officers are portrayed by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Samuel L. Jackson).

Mark is a macho detective with a short fuse while Ferrell is nerdy, whose idea of action is doing paperwork on his desk. The two play it straight, resulting in amusing arguments about a lion fighting a tuna, for example. Not a few critics commented that Mark seems to be parodying his humorless detective in “The Departed.”

Will’s geeky Allen Gamble is totally oblivious of the seductive beauty of his wife, played by Eva Mendes who makes fun of her sexy image. Mark’s Terry Hoitz is incredulous that his partner is married to such a stunner and lusts after her.

“The Other Guys,” which has already grossed over $100 million at the box office, is Will’s first team- up with director Adam McKay since their “Talladega Nights,” “Anchorman” and “Step Brothers.”

Mark explained why it took so long for him to be in a comedy: “I’ve always wanted to do a comedy but coming from a dramatic background, if you do a comedy and you don’t do a good job or the movie’s not good, you won’t get a chance to do another one. So I was very patient in finding the right thing and very particular about which one I choose. Actually, it chose me. Will Ferrell and Adam McKay asked me to go to dinner with them. They said we want to do a movie with you. I said, ‘I’m in.’ They said, ‘Well, don’t you want to hear the idea?’ I said, ‘I don’t need to. I trust you guys completely.’

By Marinel R. Cruz
Philippine Daily Inquirer

The Kapatid network recently inked a co-production deal with the Philippine Children’s Television Foundation Inc. (PCTVF), which created the show in the ’80s to supplement the education of pre-school children and introduce them to local culture and heritage.

“Under the agreement, TV5 was granted broadcast and line production rights to air the show,” TV5 said in a statement sent to Inquirer Entertainment on Wednesday.

Bodjie Pascua, the show’s resident storyteller, is a theater and film actor. Sienna Olaso, who played everybody’s big sister, is now director for entertainment and marketing of the Araneta Coliseum.

“This is something that today’s youth needs,” said Olaso. “Socio-cultural values like pagmamano and the use of ‘po’ and ‘opo’ should be taught constantly.”

Olaso said the show’s production team is “very open” to using modern means of teaching. “Now, we can make use of animation. We want to adapt to the demands of today’s kids. I remember how extremely careful we were before because the attention span of kids were so short, paano pa kaya ngayon?”

Sadly, the show’s main muppets, Pong Pagong and Kiko Matsing, will not be seen in the new season due to licensing issues between PCTVF and Sesame Workshop, which co-produced “Batibot” until 1989.

Pong is the baseball cap-wearing clumsy turtle, while Kiko is a brown monkey inspired by Oscar the Grouch in “Sesame Street.”

“Some characters like (the forgetful fortune-teller) Manang Bola will still be around. We will also introduce new ones,” said TV5 executive vice president and COO Bobby Barriero at a recent media gathering in Mandaluyong City. “The new season will make use of virtual sets and artworks made by kids as backdrop. The teaching method will be different but will still be as interesting as before.”

Other popular human characters were Ate Isay (Isay Alvarez-Seña), Kuya Mario (Junix Inocian), Kuya Pilo (Teofilo Pili), and Kuya Ching (Ching Arellano), the resident jeepney driver.

By Pat Santos
Daily Tribune

The Manila Social Welfare and Development (MSWD) has ordered the filing of a rape case against its male ward who sexually molested inside the comfort room of the Reception and Action Center (RAC) along Arroceros Street a 16-year-old mentally retarded girl who is also a ward at the same facility.

MSWD head Jay de La Fuente also ordered the temporary relief of MSWD-RAC chief Gene Joaquin to give way to the investigation of the case.

Maria (not her real name) was raped by Nino de Guzman, 26, married, of no permanent address, who was arrested by Luneta Park security men and turned over to the MSWD. De Guzman is now detained at the Manila Police District (MPD) Integrated Jail for a case of rape in relation to Republic Act 7610 or the anti-child abuse law.

Upon receiving the report, De la Fuente immediately ordered the arrest and turnover of the suspect to the MPD and the immediate filing of a case against the RAC chief.

Maria was only brought to the RAC for shelter last October 1 after undergoing treatment at the National Center for Mental Health.

The suspect, on the other hand, was also taken to the place after he was rescued by operatives of the Manila Rescue Team for sleeping at Luneta Park in Ermita, Manila last Oct. 12 and was part of the 80 street dwellers who were rounded up by combined members of MPD Station 9 and MSWD personnel.

Romel Casiano, 36, married, watchmen on duty of the DSWD RAC along Arroceros Street said he was manning the gate of the office at 10:20 a.m. last Wednesday when a minor informed him that he saw a man and a woman inside the comfort room.

Casiano said he immediately went to the toilet to check the information.

“On my way to the hallway, I saw clothes of a man and a woman hanging inside the comfort room, and when I entered, I saw a naked man and a woman having sexual intercourse in a standing position,” the guard said in his sworn affidavit.

The watchmen said he immediately arrested De Guzman and informed Ella Mariz Repatacodo, Social Welfare Officer 1 of the DSWD.

The suspect was later turned over to the MPD for proper custody while a case of rape was filed against him before the Manila Prosecutor’s Office.

When asked, the victim told authorities the suspect forcibly undressed her and molested her inside the comfort room.

By GMA News

The Bureau of Immigration (BI) on Thursday said it will be terminating the services of a private contractor that included an advertisement of the Belo Medical Group in its printed arrival and departure cards routinely given to airline passengers.

Immigration Officer-In-Charge Ronaldo Ledesma said the cards, which double as discount coupons, will likewise be recalled because they were put in circulation without first getting the agency’s approval.

Airport immigration officials on Thursday order the recall of the departure and arrival cards bearing the ad of the Belo Medical Group. GMANews.TV
The card, which features popular celebrity dermatologist Dr. Vicky Belo, was produced by private contractor e.Xtend Inc., which has an office along Kamias Road in Quezon City.

"Gumawa po ng mga cards na walang consultation and approval namin kaya pinatigil ko na po ang paggamit," Ledesma told GMANews.TV in an interview. (I have ordered the use of the cards to stop because they were produced without consulting us and getting our approval.)

By Michael Lim Ubac
Philippine Daily Inquirer

After slamming President Benigno Aquino III’s proposed P21-billion fund to be doled out in cash to the poorest of the poor, Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo finds herself under scrutiny for what appears to be P2.2 billion in pork barrel going to her district in Pampanga.

“Before she left office, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo used the presidency to engineer perpetually high funding for the second district of Pampanga,” Akbayan party-list Rep. Walden Bello said in Thursday’s press conference at the House of Representatives.

Bello and another Akbayan representative, Kaka Bag-ao, said Arroyo had her own explaining to do.

Bello blamed Arroyo for the aggressive stance of the Aquino administration in reducing poverty incidence in the country.

“That, if you are in a position of having to fulfill your millennium development goals of halving the poverty rate by (year) 2015, and all the previous administration left you with, in fact, is an increased rate of poverty, then you have to be innovative and you have to devolve (the distribution of government subsidies) in the way that we have the CCT program at this point in time,” Bello said.

Bello said “GMA’s (Arroyo’s initials) highway robbery plunged Congress into a budget dilemma.”

He said the huge sum of taxpayer’s money going to Arroyo’s district contributed to the “crisis” in the on-going budget deliberations.

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Twice daily starting Dec. 01, 2010.

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Nigerian faces rape case
Written by: Castromayor , Emilord
Mindanao Times

THE CITY Procecution Office has filed a rape case against a 24-year-old Nigerian nursing student for allegedly molesting a classmate last Sept. 17.

Prosecutor Stella Esparagoza-Camino filed the case against Andrew Moudukwo based on the complaint of a 22-year-old first nursing student.

In ruling against the foreign student, Camino pointed out that the accused made an erroneous claim when he said that he did not threaten or intimidate the victim. The fact that the complainant was frightened during the incident and pushed his hand away when he started to undress her and pleaded him but he refused to stop are indications that she was intimidated at that time.

She felt helpless since he was superior in strength. She followed his orders for fear that he might kill her. Thus, it is improbable for her to shout at that time, the prosecutor added.

In her complaint, the woman claimed that she and the accused had been acquaintances since a year ago and that on the day of the incident, they talked about religion that when he invited her to his place to take lunch, she agreed.

She said that after their lunch, the foreigner forced her to sit on her lap and eventually raped her.

After that the woman went home and reported the incident to her sister and friends who accompanied her to the police station. This resulted in the arrest of the accused.

In his defense, the accused, who availed of his right to preliminary investigation, claimed that what happened between him and the woman was not sexual abuse because it was consensual. To support his claim, the accused submitted the affidavit of the neighbor who claimed that if there was rape, the victim could have shouted to attract the attention of the neighbors.

Camino also cited that the woman followed the order for she was afraid that Moudukwo might kill her.

No recommended for the accused and now detained at San Pedro Police Station.

The woman claimed that on Sept. 17 in the morning, they were exhanged of conversation regarding spiritual topics which she caught her interest for she was a former missionary in the school lobby. After many minutes of chatting, the accused invited her to check out of his rented house with P10,000 a month and also asked to have lunched with him. The woman nodded and they took a tricycle to his house.

She also claimed that she observed Moudukwo locked the gate. Afterwards, while Moudukwo was cooking to their food, the woman was busy wathing TV.

Moudukwo gave her an apple while watching TV then asked if she has a boyfriend bu the girl answered that she don’t have boyfriend and still fucos to her study. Moudukwo replied that he wanted to apply and started kissing her on face. The victim said that she started to feel uncomfortable but she managed to remain calm.

Moudukwo claimed that the missionary woman was amazed to his house and asked him if it is true that his father a prince? But did not answer the question.

During their lunch, he played a Nigerian music and held her hands and asked her to seat on his lap by force. Moudukwo assured the woman that he will not have sex with her. The woman was afraid and tried to divert the malicious act of Moudukwo.

The woman asserted that even she asked Moudukwo to stop of molesting her but not listened and she just follow the orders for she was afraid that Moudukwo might kill her if she resist. Moreover, the woman asserted that Moudukwo molested her twice and claimed that she cannot asked for helped for at the back of Moudukwo house is a wall and forgot to bring her cellphone.

Then, afterwards Moudukwo accompany the woman in the conveniece store while the victim was heading back to their school for a meeting said on the counter affidavit of Moudukwo.

The woman reported the incident to her cousin and friends about it to report in the police and went to hospital for treatment.

On Sept. 18, the police arrested Moudukwo together with the woman at 8;30 in the evening.

Moudukwo questioned the legality of the arrest since he was arrested more than 30 hours after the alleged incident. Moreover, Moudukwo also presented an affidavit of Maria Tionko saying that her house is just located on the right portion of the living room where the woman alleged incident happened. Tionko claimed that her husband and son were watching TV during that time. Moudukwo asserted that the allegation of the complainants are absurd since she could have shouted to attract the attention of others.

However, the resolution of the Camino stated that the accused was not legally arrested is defenseless for the Supreme Court upheld the validity of the arrest of the accused even if it was done more than 24 hours after the crime.

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Is It Wrong for Christians to Buy a Lottery Ticket?

(PNA) -- All preparations are set for the staging of the 15th University Games dubbed as Paugnat sa Negros Oriental 2010 on October 24-30 hosted by Silliman University and the province of Negros Oriental.

At least forty-five universities and colleges are expected to participate in the Unigames with the actual number of delegates to be confirmed during the registration deadline on October 15.

Philippine Sports Commission President Richie Garcia and Commissioner Chito Loyzaga will be giving their messages during the opening ceremony on October 24 at the Julio Sy grandstand/ Filomena Cimafranca ballfield at Silliman University.

According to Engr. Jojo Antonio, co-convenor of the UniGames Committee, 39 universities and colleges has so far confirmed participation in the Unigames.

A total of 2,278 delegates are already assigned to different accommodation venues. These include 119 officials, 286 coaches and 1,873 athletes from different universities and colleges.

Another co-convenor, Earl Jude Cleope, said they are targeting some 45 universities and colleges and at least 2, 500 athletes.

But, he said, some schools have sent information declining to join the games because of the limited transportation schedules. All flight schedules are already fully booked since last week because of the Buglasan Festival celebration set October 15 to 24.

Cleope said partner schools like Foundation University, Asian College of Science and Technology (ACSAT), Saint Paul Universityâ€"Dumaguete and Negros Oriental State University (NORSU) have pledged accommodation of the athletes.

Some delegations may prefer to stay in hotels but he said payment for the said accommodation shall be borne by the schools and not the University Games Corporation.

Engr. Antonio also assured that security preparations are already in place.

Some of the events include archery, athletics, badminton, basketball, chess, football, lawn tennis, sepak takraw, softball, swimming, table tennis, taekwondo, volleyball and beach volleyball. (PNA)
LOR/jfp/Maricar Aranas

Sales of distressed residential properties accounted for at least 34 percent of all attached and detached home sales reported in the metropolitan Chicago real estate market during 2009, according to the RE/MAX Northern Illinois real estate network.

RE/MAX found that in the metro market, distressed properties accounted for 35.8 percent of suburban home sales and 31.1 percent of sales in the City of Chicago in 2009.

RE/MAX examined home sales tracked by Midwest Real Estate Data, LLC (MRED), for the counties of Cook, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Lake, McHenry and Will. MRED asks agents to identify if a property they are representing is a foreclosure, short sale or court ordered sale, all of which can be considered distressed properties.

“In the last two to three years, distressed properties have gone from being a small portion of the residential marketplace to a significant one,” said Jim Merrion, regional director of the RE/MAX Northern Illinois real estate network. “The RE/MAX Northern Illinois real estate network had the foresight to see that trend emerging two years ago, and in early 2008 we put a distressed properties search tool on our www.illinoisproperty.com Web site.

Recently, RE/MAX International has done the same, and a distressed properties portal can be found on its international www.remax.com Web site. Buyers and investors can search at no charge more than 1.3 million foreclosed properties around the country using data provided by RealtyTrac and RE/MAX.”

No one won the P227-million jackpot in the 6/55 Grand Lotto draw on Wednesday night, the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office said Thursday.

The PCSO said on its Web site the prize reached P227,229,847.20 but no one was able to pick the winning combination of 13-19-26-54-44-22.

The next draw of the Grand Lotto is on Saturday evening.â€" Julie M. Aurelio

The Monetary Board has approved amendments to banking to allow the establishment of micro banking offices (MBOs).

This approval presents an opportunity for banks to deliver microfinance oriented banking services to areas that are hard to reach and remain underserved.

At present, about 37 percent, or 610 out of 1,635 of the country’s cities and municipalities do not have a single banking office, leaving its population wanting for much-needed financial services.

Establishing full-blown bank branches in these areas may not be economically justified. MBOs, on the other hand, allow an established bank to extend the reach of its services in a cost-effective manner to overcome such barriers.

“We anticipate that strong rural banks and thrift banks that have been focusing on microfinance will lead the way in taking advantage of this new opportunity to deliver a wide array of financial services to underserved and unbanked areas,” BSP Deputy Governor Nestor Espenilla, Jr. said.

Other banking offices, or OBOs, in general refer to a permanent office or place of business of a bank with less requirements to set up as compared to a head office, branch or extension office. The newly approved regulations now recognize two classifications of such OBOs.

A regular OBO is one that undertakes purely non transactional banking related activities such as marketing, customer care services, acceptance of loan applications, among others.

The other classification is a Microfinance OBO (MF-OBO) or Micro-banking Office (MBO) which provides a wide range of transactional activities which reflect the particular needs of the unserved and underserved market, particularly microfinance clients, overseas Filipinos and their beneficiaries.

This MBO is authorized to provide services that are appropriately designed for the target market such as to accept micro-deposits, disburse micro-loans and collect payments, sell, market and service micro-insurance products, receive and pay out authorized remittance transactions, act as cash in/out points for electronic money, receive utility payments, collect premiums and pay out benefits from social security institutions and other benefit systems including government conditional cash transfer programs, and purchase a limited level of foreign currency.

The MBO shall only perform the activities for which it has specifically applied for and had been authorized to perform.

Complementary to these amendments, the Monetary Board also broadened the scope and definition of microfinance to include micro-deposits, which is a simplified account that is appropriately designed and priced to fit the needs and capacity of the underserved market.

The features include a minimum balance requirement not exceeding P 100, non-applicability of dormancy charges and an average daily savings account balance not exceeding P15,000.

This is another significant enhancement to current regulations, which previously only rather narrowly defined microfinance as loans. This recognizes the importance and significant need for accessible and safe savings instruments especially for this market.

While the regulations have liberalized the scale and scope of OBO operations, it ascertains that the banks that apply and maintain such offices are strong and stable banks that have necessary processes and systems in place to ensure timely record keeping, adequate internal controls and security measures. Such requirements will be proportionate to the level of activities that the MBO will undertake.

In addition to these requirements MBOs must ensure that 50 percent of the total transactions generated shall be from the micro-deposits and micro-loans of microfinance clients. MBOs must also have a manual of operations and must be managed by a responsible officer with experience or training in microfinance activities.

Through these OBOs, the banks will now be able to break down the usual barriers to accessing financial services for the underserved and unserved market such as cost and distance. People who have been deprived of a banking presence in their areas need not travel far to be able to save, pay their loans or make simple financial transactions. This measure may also serve as an entry point for banks that may want to engage in microfinance operations by initially establishing an MBO instead of a full branch.

The Bureau of Immigration (BI) has sought the help of the Department of Justice to terminate the contract for the printing of the controversial airport arrival-departure (A/D) cards.

Immigration officer-in-charge Ronaldo Ledesma has recommended to Justice Secretary Leila de Lima to cancel the contract after they have found out that there was no bidding for its award and that it did not undergo review by the Justice department.

Ledesma said that the bureau would ask the Airline Operators Council (AOC) to re-assume the responsibility for printing the cards.

The AOC formerly handled the printing of the cards, for free, until the BI entered into an exclusive, 15-year contract with e.Xtend, Inc. to print the cards during the previous administration. The contract allowed e.Xtend, Inc. to solicit advertisements and print them on the cards.

“Today, I have ordered Atty. Arvin Santos, chief of the BI airport operations division, to immediately send a formal notice to the contractor that we are terminating the (A/D card) contract,” Ledesma said.

Last month, a review on the e.Xtend’s contract, which was signed by the previous Immigration commissioner in May 2009, did not go through competitive bidding, nor was it subjected to a DOJ review as required by law.

He also said that the contractor failed to seek permission of the bureau to place controversial images in the cards before their printing and distribution.

The Immigration chief cited two particular instances of e.Xtend’s failure to clear printed materials: President Benigno Aquino III’s picture, which the President ordered removed upon seeing them in September, and recently Dr. Vicki Belo’s advertisement for medical tourism. (PNA)

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is convinced that loose credit standards, rather than the absence of a credit rating agency, is the driving force behind the high incidence of loan defaults among credit card borrowers.

SEC chairman and former Monetary Board Secretary Fe Barin stressed this point in an interview late Wednesday at the Intercontinental Hotel.

The credit card industry’s penchant for charging card borrowers expensively for even the most innocent of purchases has raised the hackles of legislators like Senator Ramon Revilla, who has proposed capping the charges to no more than one percent a month.

But Barin said the continued lack of full implementation of the Credit Information System Act, or CISA, should not be blamed for the high interest charges on hapless credit card users.

“I beg to disagree. The reason for the high charges is because credit card issuers are too liberal and indiscriminate in the granting of cards,” Barin said.

Most banks and financial analysts and observers blame the high interest rate regime on the SEC’s continued failure to fully implement the CISA, which became a law in October 2008.

They said that credit card rates will fall dramatically once the credit history of anyone wanting the privilege to buy services or goods on credit is instantaneously available.

Today, credit card issuers deliberately jack up interest charges to compensate for double-digit default rates and still make a respectable margin for transactions essentially considered “clean” or unsecured loans.

Barin would not buy that argument, however.

According to her, the CISA was “designed to house the data for credit information. It is still incumbent upon the credit institution to decide on whether or not credit is granted.”

“I am saying the CISA may not be the reason for the high interest rate. When fully operational, the CISA may help in the sense that we now have a data bank and there is no need anymore to physically check on the credit history of borrowers. But again, the CISA may not automatically result in lower interest rates,” Barin said. (PNA)

South Korea's central bank froze the key interest rate for the third straight month on Thursday in the face of the flagging global economy and the local currency's sharp gain to the dollar.

Beating market expectations, Bank of Korea (BOK) Gov. Kim Choong-soo and his fellow policymakers froze the benchmark seven-day repo rate, dubbed the base rate, at 2.25 percent.

After the central bank's monthly rate-setting session, the top central banker raised concerns that rising currency volatility would likely serve as downside risks to the growth of the South Korean economy.

"Global financial market conditions are swiftly changing ... There is a possibility that heightened currency volatility is likely to work as a downside risk," Gov. Kim said at a press conference. "External economic conditions are important for (export-dependent) countries like South Korea."

The BOK said the rate freeze decision was not unanimous, indicating that there was heated debate over whether to hike the borrowing costs amid increasing economic uncertainty and the global currency row. The central bank said it plans to reveal whether a rate decision is unanimous or not starting from today's session.

Despite the rate freeze, the Korean currency climbed to a more than five-month high of 1,110.90 to the dollar. Prices of South Korean government bonds shot up with the December treasury bond futures jumping by as much as 64 ticks at one point.

Analysts said this month's rate freeze seemed to come amid concerns that a rate hike would add more upward pressure to the already-strong local currency, hurting the country's export growth.

South Korea's industrial output grew 17.1 percent in August from a year earlier, the 14th straight month of on-year expansion. But it fell 1 percent in August from July, marking the first on-month decline in 10 months.

As the global economy shows signs of easing, major advanced economies have embarked on further monetary easing or held fire on additional rate increases.

The Bank of Japan last week cut its overnight rate target to near zero and Australia left the interest rate unchanged.

Theoretically, a widening rate differential with other countries invites more foreign capital inflows in search of higher returns and gives strength to the currency.

The Korean currency has sharply gained ground to the dollar amid efforts by major economies to weaken their currencies and the growing prospects that the U.S. Federal Reserve is set to resume additional quantitative easing.

Amid robust exports and sustained inflows of foreign stock and bond funds, the Korean unit has risen about 5 percent per dollar so far this year. In September alone, the won gained more than 5 percent against the dollar.

But South Korea, which is facing mounting inflation risks, cannot escape some criticism that it might have lost a chance to normalize its exceptionally low rates.

The country's consumer prices shot up 3.6 percent on-year in September as vegetable prices surged due to bad weather, deviating from the median point of 3 percent for the central bank's inflation target.

Gov. Kim tried to emphasize that the BOK will continue to focus on price stability, saying that the central bank would closely monitor price movement as demand-pull inflationary pressure will mount.

"The BOK's policy normalization stance is still intact," the governor said.

Experts said as the BOK stood pat on the rate that there may be no hike within the rest of the year, given Kim's remarks that the policy normalization process would be modest and gradual.

"I think it may be difficult for the BOK to raise the key rate within this year unless the global currency dispute settles down," said Lee Chul-hee, a chief economist at Tongyang Securities Investment.

But others said the BOK still opened the door for a potential rate increase within this year, considering rising inflation risks.

"Given that policymakers were split over October's rate freeze, there is room that the central bank could raise the base rate in the remainder of the year," said Lim Ji-won, an economist at JPMorgan.

"Next month's rate setting meeting will be held after Korea chairs the G-20 summit. BOK policymakers might focus on domestic factors then." The next rate session will be held on Nov. 16. - PNA

Viet Nam's hosting of the first ASEAN Defence Ministers' Meeting (ADDM) Plus has made a significant contribution to enhancing co-operation, understanding and trust among ASEAN member countries and their partners, said Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung.

During receptions for visiting Indian Defence Minister Shri AK Antony and his South Korean counterpart Kim Tae-young, Dung stated that bolstering regional cooperation aimed to ensure peace and stability while fostering development in the region as well as around the world.

In separate meetings, he stressed that Viet Nam always wanted to make its strategic partnerships with India and South Korea practical and effective in all domains.

"The Viet Nam â€" India strategic partnership is a good model," he said. "Our traditional and friendly co-operation has always been consolidated by generations of the two sides' leadership."

Dung said he highly valued the results of earlier talks between the guests and their Vietnamese counterpart, General Phung Quang Thanh.

The Vietnamese Government would back the Vietnamese Ministry of Defence in working with Indian and Korean counterparts to realise all signed agreements, said Dung.

He also asked India for help in teaching English to Vietnamese army officers, while also sharing experiences on ways to develop the armed forces.

Antony confirmed India's active implementation of deals signed between India and Viet Nam, and said India would be willing to co-operate with Viet Nam in training naval officers, pilots and army medical staff.

Receiving South Korean Defence Minister Tae-young, Dung said Viet Nam and South Korea should enhance their defence relationship, following the memorandum of understanding signed between the two defence ministries.

"The two sides should strive to efficiently realise our commitments while accelerating dialogue at the deputy ministers' level and strengthening co-operation in personnel training, defence techniques and information sharing," Dung said.

"The defence ministries' agreements will make an active contribution to the two countries' strategic partnership."

Tae-young expressed his satisfaction with the development of bilateral relations.

He said South Korea would strive to further reinforce defence ties between the two countries. He expressed the hope that the government and people of both countries would continue sharing and further tightening ties as brothers and sisters for mutual development in the future.

Tae-young said the ADMM Plus was an important channel in settling matters of concern in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, and provided opportunities for participants to join hands for mutual development and prosperity.

Chairman's statement

The first ADMM Plus wrapped up on Tuesday with a 23-point Chairman's statement.

The statement highlights positive contributions by the "Plus" countries in enhancing peace, stability and development in Southeast Asia.

It affirmed the importance of ASEAN centrality in the ADMM Plus process, and that co-operation within the framework of ADMM Plus should follow the ASEAN principles of respect for independence and sovereignty, non-interference in internal affairs of member states, consultation and consensus, and moving at a pace comfortable to all parties.

The statement also affirmed that the ADMM Plus is a key component of a robust, effective, open and inclusive regional security architecture.

It further affirmed that peace, stability and development remained the prevailing trends in the Asia-Pacific region. However, it noted that there existed complex and trans-national security challenges that are beyond the scope of any country to handle alone, such as natural disasters, maritime security, terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, climate change, trans-national crimes and outbreaks of infectious diseases.

The statement said terrorism continued to pose a key challenge to the security of the region, thus ADMM-Plus had significant potential for member countries to share information, build vital networks and enhance capabilities to combat the threat of terrorism.

ADMM Plus appreciated the opportunity to have an open and candid exchange of views on the key security challenges faced by the region.

It agreed to establish an ASEAN Defence Senior Officials' Meeting-Plus (ADSOM-Plus), comprising senior officials from all the ADMM-Plus member countries. The ADSOM-Plus would be responsible for implementing agreements and decisions made at ADMM-Plus meetings, including exploring the various areas for practical co-operation. (PNA/VNS)

Singapore has been ranked third in Asia Pacific as a listing destination behind China's Hong Kong and Shanghai -- in a survey by law firm Norton Rose, local media reported Thursday.

China's Hong Kong stock exchange has attracted a number of high profile listings of late, local daily The Business Times reported.

But Singapore came out on top for having a regulatory environment that encourages financial institutions to do business.

The survey polled 314 bankers, insurers, fund managers and other professionals around the world between July and September to track market sentiment after the global financial crisis. Of these respondents, 62 were from Asia Pacific.

Asked to rank stock exchanges "in order of likely priority as a listing exchange in the Asia-Pacific" over the next five years, most respondents said that China's Hong Kong will be the most important, followed by Shanghai's. The exchanges of Singapore, Sydney and Tokyo rounded the top five.

Singapore's regulations won the support of a greater proportion of respondents - as the results show that 'strong regulation can be compatible with increased business dealings as long as the regulatory regime is clear, transparent and predictable". (PNA/Xinhua)

US company Exxon Neftegas, the operator of the Sakhalin-1 oil and gas project, has suggested that the Russian government double the project's capital and operating costs to US$ 47.9 billion and US$ 52.2 billion respectively, Vedomosti business daily reported on Thursday, quoting an unnamed authorized governmental body source and a ministry official.

The updated development and extraction project presented by Exxon to the authorized governmental body also stipulates delays in the development of the oil fields.

The project proposes shifting the Odoptu and Arkutun-Dagi deposit development deadlines for two years and the Chaivo field second stage for four years, one of the sources told the paper, adding however that the general deadline of the project had not been changed.

Exxon Neftegas was asked to prepare a new project by Russian government officials, the paper said.

According to the old document approved in 2003, Sakhalin-1 capital costs were expected to amount to US$ 20.6 billion but two years later Exxon altered the project's concept without any government approval, announcing the need to raise the costs to US$ 22.5 billion while its operating costs grew to US$ 25.8 billion from US$ 22.1 billion, the paper said.

As a result, the Russian government based its projections on one document while the operator referred to another document, an official familiar with the procedures told the paper.

In June 2010, Alexander Khoroshavin, the Sakhalin region governor, warned Exxon that the government would find another operator, while the authorized government body rejected the company's 2010 cost estimate, agreeing to approve only US$ 972.8 million out of the requested US$ 3.5 billion.

A source familiar with the authorized government body's stance said government officials were unhappy with the operator's new cost estimate. Exxon's evaluation is based on the industry inflation indicators provided by the CERA agency and gives no clear-cut idea on the causes for cost increases, the paper said.

An ExxonMobil spokesman declined to comment on the project's details, which could make Sakhalin-1 the most expensive project in the Russian oil sector, the paper said. Russian government officials also declined to comment on possible changes in the project's costs, the paper said. Exxon Neftegas is expected to summit a new economic model of the project to the authorized agency on Friday, the paper said. (PNA/RIA Novosti)

Singapore's economy in the third quarter grew slower than in the previous quarter but remained on track for the forecast growth of between 13-15 per cent for this year, the Ministry of Trade and Industry today said.

It said the decline in growth momentum was an expected correction from the exceptional growth in the first half of the year.

The country's gross domestic product grew by 10.3 per cent in the third quarter, said the ministry in a statement.

On a seasonally-adjusted quarter-on-quarter annualised basis, the economy contracted by 19.8 per cent, a reversal from the growth of 27.3 per cent in the previous quarter.

Contraction in manufacturing and construction sectors triggered the economic slow down. The manufacturing and construction sectors shrunk by 57 per cent and 12 percent after expanding by 67 per cent and 29 per cent, respectively, in the preceding quarter. (PNA/PTI)

The SN Aboitiz Power Group pursues the rehabilitation of its hydro power plants to add about 250 megawatts (MW) to the company's generating capacities, a ranking company official said Thursday.

SN Aboitiz Power chief executive officer Emmanuel Rubio said the consortium, composed of SN Power of Norway and Aboitiz Power Corp., will rehabilitate the 360-megawatt Magat hydro plant, 100-MW Binga hydro power plant and 75-MW Ambuklao plant.

The Ambuklao and Binga hydro plants are located in Benguet while the Magat plant is located in Ramon, Isabela and Alfonso Lista, Ifugao.

Rubio said the company planned to raise the capacity of the Ambuklao plant to 105 MW from 75 MW, "which is something that is much needed by the grid."

"We will also raise capacity of Binga from 100 MW to 125 MW and for Magat, we're looking at something from 90 MW to 180 MW (additional capacity)," the official said.

Rubio said the firm had not made a decision yet on when to start the expansion of the Magat plant capacity. SN Aboitiz, however, have started the rehabilitation

"The earlier we can finish it (rehab), the better for us because it will generate revenues for us and then contribute to the grid," Rubio said.

Rubio said the company hoped to secure financing for the rehab projects amid a renewed investor interest in the Philippines under the Aquino administration.

"We will do the model that we used for Magat and Binga and that's project financing. We have the same set of lenders for Magat and Binga. I think they're happy with that performance. They're happy with the industry. They're confident about how our economic managers are handling things," he said.

SN Aboitiz is also undergoing the rehabilitation of the Ambuklao hydropower facility and targets to bring its generating capacity to 105 megawatts by December. The Ambuklao power plant has been shutdown since 1999 when a massive earthquake struck the area.

SN Aboitiz acquired the Ambuklao-Binga plants in an auction on Nov. 28, 2007 after submitting the highest bid of US$ 325 million.

The company allocated US$ 280 million for the total rehabilitation cost and capital expenditure for the Ambuklao-Binga hydro power plants.

The group also acquired the Magat plant from the government in 2006 for US$ 530 million.

SN Aboitiz is a joint venture between SN Power of Norway and Aboitiz Power Corp. Aboitiz Power is the a holding company of the Aboitiz Group’s investments in power generation and distribution while SN Power is a global renewable energy company established in 2002 as a Norwegian limited company owned by Statkraft and Norfund.

Statkraft is Norway's public power utility and Europe’s largest generator of renewable energy while Norfund is a leading Norwegian risk capital investor in emerging markets funded by the Norwegian Government. SN Power currently operates hydropower plants in Latin America and Asia and is expanding into Africa through a separate subsidiary. (PNA)

Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani Wednesday emphasized the importance of upgrading rail and road links between Pakistan and Turkey and the running of fast speed cargo trains between Islamabad and Istanbul on regular basis.

Talking to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, he hoped that both countries will engage with Iran for the early upgrading of rail and road links to fast track this project, the PM's office said.

He also said that both countries should strive through concerted efforts to raise the level of present volume of trade to two billion by 2012 as had already been agreed.

The prime minister emphasized that the Turkish government should encourage its private sector to collaborate even more closely with their Pakistani counterparts in key sectors like construction, infrastructure, engineering, energy, agriculture, telecommunications, mining and textile etc.

He underlined the need for opening Turkish Banks' branches in Pakistan to facilitate the strengthening of the present trade and investment ties.

While discussing the measures for further strengthening of time-tested and exceptionally fraternal ties between the two countries, the Turkish Prime Minister invited his Pakistani counterpart to visit Ankara next month to participate in the Second High Level Cooperation Council Meeting with him to steer their unique partnership for expanded cooperation in multifaceted fields.

He hoped that international community will realize the magnitude of economic difficulties faced by Pakistan to meet this challenge of the flood disaster.

He reassured the Prime Minister that Turkey on its part would wholeheartedly support and participate in the rehabilitation and long term reconstruction phase particularly in construction of houses, road, rail and power infrastructure.

While dilating on the fraternal cordial ties between the two countries rooted in centuries old bound of history, culture and religion, the Prime Minister said that his government was determined to build upon on the existing excellent relations with Turkey on the geo-economic advantages and take them to unprecedented level.

The Prime Minister briefed his Turkish counterpart on the efforts being undertaken by the government in the rehabilitation and recovery phase in the wake of floods, the statement said.

The Prime Minister stated that the economic impact of the floods is colossal. 'Though the damage need and assessment report of the World Bank and the ADB is likely to be issued during this week, the cost of rehabilitation and long term reconstruction is expected to run into tens of billions of dollars,' he assessed.

He informed the Turkish Prime Minister that his government had devised a comprehensive strategy to carry on the residual relief activities in the flood affected areas and concurrently moved into early recovery phase.

The Prime Minister said Pakistan would be sharing its national strategy for rehabilitation and reconstruction with the development partners in the forthcoming meeting of Pakistan Development Forum scheduled in the next month.

He said that Pakistan would count on Turkey’s continued support to its national efforts to rebuild lives and properties of its people and was greatly encouraged by Turkey’s offer for getting involved in reconstruction of infrastructure in Pakistan.

Mr Gilani conveyed the prompt profound gratitude of his government to Prime Minister Erdogan over the very generous and substantial funds raised to the tune of US $ 200 million out of which around $ 126 million were donated by the Turkish business community and ordinary people into his fund for Pakistan’s flood affectees.

The Prime Minister noted with a profound sense of gratefulness that Madam Erdogan, soon after her visit to Pakistan, not only mobilized the international community by writing personal letters to the spouses of the other heads of states and governments but also donated her personal jewellery towards the relief efforts of Pakistan’s flood victims. - PNA

The Australian consortium operating the Gindara prospect in northwest Palawan is hoping to start drilling for oil and gas within the first half of 2011.

Kairiki Energy Ltd., which holds a 40 percent stake in service contract 54 B, reported that "Long lead items for the drilling campaign are being acquired and a search for drill rigs has commenced."

Nido Petroleum Ltd. holds the remaining 60 percent stake in SC 54 B, estimated to contain around one billion barrels.

Kairiki also disclosed to the Australian Stock Exchange that the consortium "is in advanced discussions with a significant oil and gas company for SC 54 B."

"The discussions whilst advanced remain confidential and incomplete. Kairiki stresses that there is no guarantee that any final agreement will be reached despite these ongoing discussions," Mark Fenton, Kairiki managing director said.

It was earlier reported that the consortium is in talks with Shell Philippines Exploration B.V. and Chevron Malampaya LLC for a possible farm-in agreement for SC 54 B.

A government source earlier said Shell and Chevron are among the many companies who expressed interest to partner with Nido and Kairiki for the Gindara prospect.

Shell and Chevron operate the Malampaya gas project north of the Gindara prospect. The Malampaya field is estimated to contain recoverable resource of around 600 million barrels of oil.

The consortium has been looking for partners to partly finance the drilling of the Gindara prospect estimated at around $ 30 million.

Jon Pattillo, Nido head of exploration said the Gindara has matured into an outstanding prospect and is now the highest ranked drilling candidate in Nido’s Northwest Palawan exploration portfolio "in terms of its excellent risk profile and potential significance to the company."  - PNA

By Mediatrix P. Cristobal

MANILA, Oct. 14 (PNA) -- Globe Telecommunications, Inc. continues to enjoy a wide chunk of the mobile postpaid segment pie with a higher revenue base and increasing SIM ownership.

Globe Telecoms, in a disclosure to the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC), said that its revenues from prepaid reached P6.8 billion in the first semester this year while Smart has P3.4 billion. Sun and its listed parent company, Digitel , have not disclosed any comparable figure.

Aside from having the highest mobile postpaid revenue share in the industry, recent results of a nationwide consumer tracking research conducted by research firm, The Nielsen Company (Philippines), Inc., show that Globe maintains a significant lead over its competitors in the same segment, in terms of SIM ownership.

Aggregated tracking data from April to August 2010 showed that Globe cornered 48 percent of the total base of all consumer postpaid owners nationwide, higher than Sun’s 28 percent and Smart’s 23 percent postpaid SIM share.

Globe president and chief executive Ernest Cu attributed the widening lead to its strategy of focusing on quality subscribers, recalibrating acquisition efforts with more innovative postpaid plans and giving higher value for loyalty.

“The results of the research affirm that we are on the right track in gaining market and revenue share. Our thrust towards customer-centricity is gaining momentum, as shown by strong market interest in our customizable ‘My Super Plan’ and ‘My Fully Loaded Plan’ offers. More importantly, it shows that our customers appreciate our commitment in giving them superior experience through our products and services,” said Cu.

My Super Plan is a buffet of services where subscribers can choose and pay for all-you-can call, text or web surfing, depending on their needs and usage. On the other hand, My Fully Loaded Plan is a new Globe postpaid offer that allows subscribers to choose a monthly consumable amount, up to nine bonus or free offers and a selection of handsets.

Cu earlier said that Globe would recalibrate its product and service offers to compete for market share.

“In the past two months, we have noted an increase in revenues and usage. We are inspired to continually find ways to improve our offers and our service via improvements in our network and equipment,” said Cu.

Globe has revolutionized postpaid with its attractive packages, including qwerty, touch-screen and android phones at more affordable rates.

Recently, Globe introduced the iPhone 4 in the Philippine market via its postpaid plans. Globe also offers its subscribers the most innovative loyalty rewards program in the industry. - PNA

The National Fisheries Research and Development Institute (NFRDI) in cooperation with the National Stock Assessment Project (NSAP) of Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) in South Cotabato, Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat, Sarangani and General Santos City (SOCCSKSARGEN) is conducting a one-year biological study of the three top export tuna species--yellowfin, big-eye and skipjack--in Philippine waters.

The biological study, which recently started will run until August 2011, is aimed to determine the length at first capture and spawning seasons of the three tuna species to include sexual maturity determination, sex ratios, age and length composition and length-weight relationship-- significant data in stock assessment.

NFRDI Marine Fisheries Research Division Project head Eunice Bognot said the one-year study is being conducted in 10 consecutive days every month both in municipal and commercial waters.

Bognot said they will conduct biological samplings, dissect species and measure the fish in order to determine the length, weight and sexual maturity stages of yellowfin, big-eye and skipjack tuna.

BFAR SOCCSKSARGEN Director Sani Macabalang said the one-year biological study is the commitment of the Bureau to the Western Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) on the proper regulations, protection and management of tuna resources.

The WCPFC has declared a two-year fishing ban, starting this year, on tuna purse seiners to allow the dwindling tuna stocks to regenerate.

Macabalang said that data gathered by the Regional Administrative Support and Product Certification Unit of BFAR SOCCSKSARGEN that 34 million kilograms of frozen whole round tuna, pouched and canned tuna products were exported to the European Union markets from January to June this year alone.

RASPCU in-charge Eugene Casas noted a 25 percent decrease in fishery products exported to the EU markets compared to the last five years.

Macabalang lauded the efforts of the tuna industry in SOCCSKSARGEN for their genuine cooperation especially in providing tuna samples such as gonads for the entire study.

“Our tuna resources are in a critical stage now. This is purposely the basis of this study. But the gain that we can get from this is beyond WCPFC’s two-year ban,” Macabalang said.

“This study is to strengthen our tuna industry that constitutes more than 2 million of the total Mindanao exports in 2009,” Macabalang added. (PNA)

South Korea's import prices climbed for the sixth straight month in September due to rising oil costs, the central bank said Thursday.

In local currency terms, import prices increased 7.8 percent last month from a year earlier, accelerating from a 5.7 percent on-year gain posted in August, the Bank of Korea (BOK) said in a statement.

It was the steepest import price advance in three months, the BOK noted. Compared with August, the country's import prices remained unchanged last month, the bank said.

The central bank said the September on-year increase is largely attributable to rising oil costs. South Korea relies entirely on imports for its oil needs.

The prices of imported raw materials, mostly oil, spiked 18.2 percent last month compared with a year earlier, the bank said.

The results came after the central bank froze its base interest rate at 2.25 percent for October earlier in the day, holding it unchanged for the third straight month. The decision went against analyst predictions that it would increase at least 0.25 percentage points. (PNA/Xinhua)

PNA: The Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI-Kalibo) is urging Kalibo Mayor William Lachica to consider promoting a new business hub in this Ati-atihan town.

PCCI-Kalibo President Jose Mari Aldecoa said that promoting a new business hub not only stirs new economic opportunities but also lessen the worsening traffic problems here.

"We suggest that the new business hub will be placed in Barangay Tigayon, Kalibo in order to lure more business investments in this town," Aldecoa said.

The PCCI-Kalibo earlier asked the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) to consider putting a bridge in Tigayon to connect with nearby Lezo town. The DPWH however said that it is still looking for funds for the project.

Noting the viability of Barangay Tigayon as new business hub in Kalibo, the Land Transportation Office (LTO) has already established an office in the said area. Because of this, new business buildings are starting to rise in the said barangay.

Aside from Barangay Tigayon, some businessmen are also looking at Barangay Pook and Barangay Old Buswang as possible sites for a new business center in this town.

Barangay Pook is the site of the current Kalibo International Airport and is the only barangay that engages in the production of angel wings, a much sought after seafood product.

The Barangay Old Buswang meanwhile houses schools and the Governor Corazon Cabagnot Tourism and Training Center.

Mall developer and operator SM Prime Holdings Inc. (SM Prime) has announced that it will be opening its SM City Calamba this coming Friday.

It is the company’s 39th shopping mall in the country and its third in Laguna, after SM City Sta. Rosa and the recently opened SM City San Pablo.

The brand new mall has a gross floor area (GFA) of 66,516 square meters (sqm) and occupies 55,102 sqm of land.

SM City Calamba has a leasable area of 44,740 sqm, 82 percent of which has already been awarded to various tenants.

The mall’s main tenants are SM Supermarket, SM Department Store, SM Appliance Center, Ace Hardware, Banco De Oro, and Watsons.

Other mall tenants include Jollibee, McDonald’s, KFC, Red Ribbon, Bench, Penshoppe, and National Bookstore.

SM City Calamba also offers a business center, a Cyberzone, and a food court that comfortably seats up to 340 diners.

The mall has four cinemas with a combined seating capacity of about 1,200 and parking slots for over 300 vehicles.

“We are pleased to open the doors of our newest shopping mall, SM City Calamba. It is SM’s third mall in Laguna, a clear testament to the robust progress and development that the province has sustained. Laguna offers a large and diverse market driven by trade and tourism. SM is here to fully support the growth of this beautiful and very promising province," SM Prime president Hans T. Sy said.

SM City Calamba followed the opening this year of SM City Tarlac and SM City San Pablo.

With 39 malls all over the country, SM Prime has developed a combined GFA of 4.8 million sqm.

Before the year ends, the company is set to open SM City Novaliches in Quezon City and its fourth mall in mainland China, which will be located in the city of Suzhou. (PNA)

Mall developer SM Prime Holdings Inc., in a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE), announced that it has raised P6.55 billion (equivalent to US$ 150 million) from an equity placement.

The equity placement comprised 569,608,700 common shares, with the placement price set at P11.50 per share following a successful overnight bookbuilding process which saw strong interest from high quality institutional investors in Asia, Europe and the United States.

SM Prime said that it was the first placement of its shares since its listing on July 5, 1994 on the PSE.

The proceeds raised from the placement will be used to finance its strategic expansion program in the Philippines and China, as well as for general working capital of the company.

“This placement is expected to broaden our shareholder base and increase trading liquidity. The strong uptake of the placement affirms investor confidence in SM Prime as one of the best property development companies in the Philippines,” SM Prime President Hans Sy said.

“The majority of the proceeds raised from the placement will be used to finance the development of shopping malls in the Philippines and China. The growth of our mall portfolio will further strengthen our geographical reach, increase market share, and thus create long-term value to all our shareholders. This equity fund raising, together with the proposed SM Prime REIT IPO which will be pursued as soon as the implementing rules are finalized, will put SM Prime in a very strong position to continue growing our businesses,” SM Prime executive vice president and chief financial officer Jeffrey C. Lim said. - PNA

South Korea's central bank left the key interest rate unchanged for the third straight month on Thursday in the face of the slowing global economy and the local currency's sharp gain to the dollar.

Bank of Korea (BOK) Gov. Kim Choong-soo and his fellow policymakers froze the benchmark seven-day repo rate, dubbed the base rate, at 2.25 percent.

The decision is not in line with a median forecast by Yonhap Infomax, the financial news arm of Yonhap News Agency. Only three out of 14 experts predicted a rate freeze.

"Industrial output numbers and export growth have shown signs of easing. And the global trend of easing monetary policy stances has strengthened, as the cases of Japan's rate cut and Australia's rate freeze indicated," Yoon Yeo-sam, a fixed-income analyst at Daewoo Securities Co. said before the decision.

Last month, the BOK unexpectedly froze the rate for the second month in a row, inviting criticism from market players that the central bank had given a muddled policy signal. Analysts said this month's rate freeze seemed to come amid concerns that a rate hike would add more upward pressure to the already-strong local currency.

South Korea's industrial output grew 17.1 percent in August from a year earlier, the 14th straight month of on-year expansion. But it fell 1 percent in August from July, marking the first on-month decline in 10 months.

As the global economy continues to falter, major advanced economies have embarked on further monetary easing or held fire on additional rate increases.

The Bank of Japan last week cut its overnight rate target to near zero and made pledges for asset purchases worth 5 trillion yen (US$ 60 billion).

Theoretically, a widening rate differential with other countries invites more foreign capital inflows in search of higher returns and gives strength to the currency.

The Korean currency has sharply gained ground to the dollar amid efforts by major economies to weaken their currencies and the growing prospects that the U.S. Federal Reserve is set to resume additional quantitative easing.

Amid robust exports and sustained inflows of foreign stock and bond funds, the Korean unit has risen about 4 percent per the dollar so far this year. In September alone, the won gained more than 5 percent against the dollar.

But South Korea is facing mounting inflation risks as the economic recovery and rising raw material costs are putting upward pressure on the consumer prices.

The country's consumer prices shot up 3.6 percent on-year in September as vegetable prices surged due to bad weather, deviating from the median point of 3 percent for the central bank's inflation target.

BOK Gov. Kim said earlier that the consumer inflation rate will likely surpass 3 percent from the fourth quarter as demand-pull inflationary pressure is expected to increase.

Finance Minister Yoon Jeung-hyun said Tuesday that the government is ready to take action to curb inflationary pressure as a spike in consumer prices is feared to hurt low- and middle-income families.

Experts said as the BOK stood pat on the rate, there may be no hike within the rest of the year, given Kim's remarks that the policy normalization process would be modest and gradual.

Australian consumers expect inflation rate to go up considerably in October, a survey showed on Thursday.

The Melbourne Institute Survey of Consumer Inflationary Expectations showed the median expected inflation rate rose to 3.8 percent in October, from 3.1 percent the month before.

"While we expect inflationary pressures to build up over the next 12 months, this month's jump in inflationary expectations ... came as a surprise," Melbourne Institute research fellow Michael Chua said in a statement on Tuesday.

However, the survey showed the inflationary expectations of managers and professionals decreased from 3.4 percent to 3.3 percent, suggesting not all respondents share the view that inflation will rise strongly.

"We are living in more uncertain times and this is showing up in the dispersion of views among the respondents," Chua said.

The official measure of inflation, the consumer price index (CPI), rose 0.6 percent in the June quarter, the latest data released from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

That was well below economists' expectations centred on a rise of 1.0 percent. (PNA/xinhua)
LOR/ebp

Japan's wholesale prices dipped 0.1 percent in September from a year earlier, the Bank of Japan said in a report on Thursday.

The reading of Japan's corporate goods price index (CGPI) stood at 102.8 in the recording period, marginally below economists expectations for a flat reading.

On month, the CGPI was largely unchanged, matching both expectations and the previous month's revised reading.

Export prices were down 0.5 percent on month and 5.0 percent on year, while import prices eased 0.1 percent on month but added 2.8 percent on year, the central bank's report stated.

On a quarterly basis, prices were down 0.2 percent on quarter and 0.1 percent annualized, also with an index score of 102.8, the BOJ said.

The central bank's overseas commodity index, a gauge of costs of materials including oil, steel, copper and wheat, rose 23.6 percent in September from a year earlier, compared with an 8.7 percent increase in August.

The index had been rising more than 50 percent in the first four months of 2010.

The CGPI measures prices for goods purchased by Japanese corporations and as prices for input materials and the overall cost of manufacturing change, Japanese companies adjust retail prices accordingly.

The CGPI in Japan comprehensively tracks these supply-side price pressures and decreases in the index often precede downward movement in the CPI.

If a decrease in the CGPI is followed by a fall in the CPI, concerns about deflation may prompt the BOJ to cut interest rates.

BOJ policy makers last week pointed to the yen's strength as a reason to expect a dip in producer prices, when it downgraded its economic assessment in its monthly report.

The central bank also cut the target for the benchmark interest rate for the first time since 2008 and created a 5 trillion yen ( 61 billion U.S. dollar) fund to buy assets and expand its balance sheet.

"It's too early to assume the BOJ's measures can work effectively to beat deflation and stop the yen's appreciation," Eiji Dohke, chief Japanese government bond strategist at Citi Group Global Markets Japan Inc. in Tokyo, said before the report. "The BOJ will probably implement additional action as early as November."

In addition the BOJ may forecast a fall in core consumer prices for the fiscal year from next April in its twice-yearly outlook report instead of a currently projected rise, local media reported recently.

In July, the BOJ said the core consumer price index (CPI) excluding fresh food prices is expected to rise 0.1 percent in 2011/12 -- the first increase in three years.

However the central bank is likely to revise down this forecast to flat or negative when it releases the semiannual report on Oct. 28, local media said, citing informed sources.

The BOJ is also likely to lower its growth forecasts to between 2 percent and 2.5 percent from 2.6 percent for the current year and to between 1 percent to 1.5 percent from 1.9 percent for 2011/ 12, sources familiar with the matter said.

The BOJ releases its price and growth forecasts in April and October and reviews them in July and January.

The BOJ has been prompted to revise down its forecasts as the slowing U.S. economy and the yen's rise have clouded the economy's outlook.

A delay in Japan's escape from deflation means the central bank will need to keep the policy rate virtually at zero percent for an extended period of time, local media said.

As the most important indicator of deflation, CPI figures are closely followed by the BOJ.

Sinking consumer prices may prompt the BOJ to lower interest rates in order to manage inflation and slow economic growth. - PNA

The London stock market closed higher on Wednesday with the leading FTSE 100 index up by 85.76 points, or 1.51 percent, to 5,747.35 points.

Mining stocks were among the biggest risers, bouncing back from falls earlier in the week as volatile metal prices rose once again.

Vedanta was the biggest riser, up 5.7 percent. Anglo American added 5.2 percent, while Xstrata gained 4.5 percent. (PNA/Xinhua)

Jordan's exports during the first eight months of 2010 rose by 16 percent compared to the same period of 2009, official figures showed Wednesday.

The figures released by Jordan's Department of Statistics indicated that the Arab kingdom's overall exports during the January-August period of 2010 stood at 2.721 billion Jordanian dinars (about 3.84 billion U.S. dollars) compared to 2.346 billion dinars during the same period of 2009.

The rise in exports was driven by a surge in exports of fertilizers, pharmaceuticals, garments and vegetables, the figures obtained by Xinhua indicated.

Exports of garments during the first eight months stood at 415. 2 million dinars, accounting for 15.3 percent of the overall exports, followed by raw potash with 9.7 percent of the exports, pharmaceuticals with 9 percent and fertilizers and chemicals with 8.8 percent.

The figures showed that the United States was ranked first in the list of countries importing from Jordan, followed by Iraq, India and Saudi Arabia.

Jordan's imports during the first eight months of 2010 also rose by 8.7 percent compared to the same period last year to reach 7.095 billion dinars, the figures showed.

According to the figures, about 11.7 percent of Jordan's imports were oil derivatives followed by machinery and equipment with 9.7 percent of the imports.

Imports from Saudi Arabia accounted for 18.3 percent of the overall imports, followed by China with 10.9 percent, Germany with 6.9 percent and the United States with 5.6 percent. (1 U. S. dollar = 0.7094 Jordanian dinar) (PNA/Xinhua)

American oil company, Kosmos Energy, might face prosecution if it failed to pay the fine imposed on it by the Ghanaian environmental authorities for oil spillage into the sea, a senior attorney general said here on Wednesday.

Ghana expected the Texas-based oil and gas exploration company to comply with the orders of the environmental authorities, Deputy Attorney General Kodjo Barten Oduro told the media here.

Kosmos discovered the Jubilee Oil Field in 2007 at the Gulf of Guinea's Tano Basin, 12 km from the Ghanaian coastline and 95 km southwest of the port city of Takoradi, and has been expecting an area of over 1760 square km ever since.

At the end of July, a ministerial committee, set up to probe into the alleged spillage of toxic substances into Ghanaian sea, announced a fine of 35 million U.S. dollars on Kosmos, which it said was responsible for the spillages in December 2009 and in March and May.

In a three-page strong-worded letter to the Ghanaian authorities last month, Kosmos made it clear that it would not pay the fine, referring to it as baseless and unlawful although the permit issued by the Ghanaian government indicated that fines were to be imposed in the event of negligence and violation of the permit conditions.

At the press briefing, the deputy attorney general insisted that "these are laws which must be obeyed by every company and so we expect them to settle the issues with the Ministry of Environment".  - PNA

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Wednesday proposed new rules intended to mitigate conflicts of interests, as the watchdog mulls over giving a cap to the stake that market players can hold in exchanges.

"Prior to passage of the Dodd-Frank Act, the over-the-counter derivatives market was largely unregulated. The new law fills a number of significant regulatory gaps and gives the SEC important new tools to better protect investors," the SEC said in a statement.

The new rules eyed to restrict an individual clearing agency participant from beneficially owning or voting more than 20 percent of any voting interest in the security-based swap clearing agency.

"The concern about conflicts of interest stems from the fact that the over-the-counter derivatives markets have a relatively high concentration of market activity through a limited number of dealers who earn significant revenues from their transactions," said SEC Chairman Mary L. Schapiro.

The U.S. government on Wednesday announced it is aligning cyber defense of critical military and civilian computer systems and networks, in an effort to enhance the country's capability against cyber threats.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano have signed a memorandum of agreement to that effect, the two announced in a joint statement.

The agreement embeds Pentagon cyber analysts within Homeland Security Department to "better support the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC)." It also sends a full-time senior Homeland Security leader to Pentagon's National Security Agency.

The effort is aimed at "building a new framework between our departments to enhance operational coordination and joint program planning." It formalizes processes in which personnel from the two departments work together on cyber networks and critical infrastructure protection, and "increases the clarity and focus of our respective roles and responsibilities," said the statement.

"The agreement will ensure both agencies' priorities and requests for support are clearly communicated and met," said the statement.

The United States has been claiming its computer networks were targeted by attacks. The statement said threats were posed by "a wide range of state and non-state actors that do not adhere to physical borders." (PNA/Xinhua)

Gold futures on the COMEX Division of the New York Mercantile Exchange reached new highs on Wednesday, lifted by a weaker U.S. Dollar and rising inflationary expectations, as investors flocked to the precious metal to hedge the weakening greenback and inflation. Silver and platinum both surged.

The most active gold contract for December delivery surged 23.8 dollars, or 1.8 percent, to finish at 1,370.5 dollars per ounce. Earlier, the price reached an all-time high of 1,375.7 dollars per ounce, easily surpassing its previous record of 1,366 dollars.

Although the bullion came under pressure on Tuesday as profit- taking emerged after successive days of gains, it found support and bounced off lows after the minutes of the Federal Reserve meeting emphasized their concerns that an already faltering economy could lose further momentum, indicating that the Fed is set to pump more money into the system.

Gold accelerated gains as the U.S. dollar index slid 0.38 percent to 77.07 on Wednesday, making dollar-priced gold cheaper for holders of other currencies.

A trader noted that the bullion's strong rally also triggered stop loss buying and attracted investors who dumped gold at record prices to jump back in the market.

December silver surged 78.5 cents, or 3.4 percent, to 23.932 dollars. January platinum climbed 24.1 dollars, or 1.4 percent, to 1,707.4 dollars per ounce. (PNA/Xinhua)

Crude prices rose on Wednesday after the International Energy Agency (IEA) raised demand forecast.

The IEA raised its forecast for global oil demand this year and next, based on stronger-than-expected economic growth.

The Paris-based agency expects global demand for crude to reach 86.9 million barrels a day this year, compared with its forecast last month of 86.6 million barrels a day.

Light, sweet crude for November delivery was up 1.34 U.S. dollars to settle at 83.01 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

In London, Brent crude climbed 1.14 dollars to settle at 84.64 dollars a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange. (PNA/Xinhua)

An official of a power generating firm advised Cebuanos to prepare for an increase in power rates once the contracts between the National Power Corp. and power distributors and cooperatives expire by the end of the year.

Edecio Satina, Cebu Energy Development Corp. (CEDC) assistant vice president for commercial operations, said the current power rate of P3.90 per kilowatthour (kWh) is still subsidized by the Napocor.

Satina said once Napocor’s contracts expire by the end of the year, the government will have to choose whether to continue the subsidy or to implement full privatization and impose the real cost of electricity.

He estimated the true cost of power, without the subsidy, to be around P5 per kWh.

This year, Napocor’s rate has gone up from P3.8 per kWh in January to P4.01 per kWh as of September.

Director Antonio Labios of the Department of Energy (DOE) 7 has confirmed Napocor contracts will expire by the end of 2010.

But he refused to comment on the power rates because that falls under the Energy Regulatory Commission’s (ERC) jurisdiction.

Lawyer Joel Bontuyan, officer-in-charge of ERC Visayas, confirmed all Napocor contracts with power distributors will expire by the end of December.

Under the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira), Napocor assets must be privatized. The disposal of Napocor assets was supposed to be realized in 2008, but was extended to 2010.

Bontuyan said once the private power producers operate independently the plants they have bought from Napocor, the true cost of power generation, plus profits, will naturally lead to higher rates.

The law, he explained, mandates that at least 70 percent of Napocor’s assets must be privatized. Granting that 30 percent of Napocor’s assets will not be disposed to private takers, Napocor’s contracts with power distributors will still expire by the end of the year.

During contract renewals, there will most likely be an adjustment of the power rates, he said.

The contracts that will be entered into by private power generators and distributors will be subject to ERC approval.

The Cebu City Treasurer's Office has granted the operator of Cebu City's new 400-room Radisson Blu Hotel Cebu a temporary permit valid for only 60 days after it declared a capital investment of only P5 million.

Cebu City Treasurer Ofelia Oliva said the permit issued to Hotel Specialist (Cebu) Inc. is valid only up to Nov. 23, 2010 and will be renewed after it submits documents proving it does not own the property and is just the operator of the newly opened Radisson Blu Hotel situated beside Shoe Mart City-Cebu at the north reclamation area.

She required Hotel Specialist to submit its lease contract with SM Investments Inc. (SMIC), the management contract with Radisson, receipts and purchase orders that would indicate that their capital investment is only P5 million.

Oliva found the amount “too small,” considering the hotel's size, with 400 rooms, several ballrooms and five-star amenities and services.

“The declared capital investment is too small. They are claiming that the owner of the property is SM Investment so we asked them to submit a copy of the lease contract. We also required copies of the purchase orders and receipts so we can peg the right amount of business taxes so for now, their permit is temporary” she said.

Since the declared capital investment is P5 million, the applicant paid only P26,097.50 in business tax, which represents 1/20 of one percent of the capital investment and other fees.

Oliva also compared the hotel to other five-star hotels in the city, which declared a capital investment of at least P210 million.

But SM City Cebu Manager Sherry Tuvilla explained that while Hotel Specialist operates the hotel, the land, building, machinery, equipment, furniture and fixtures of Radisson Blu are owned by SMIC, which also owns Hotel Specialist.

This is why Hotel Specialist did not declare these as their own capital investment in their application for a business permit, she said.

The investment for major purchases for the hotel's operation will be reflected in the business permit of SMIC, which will have a declared capital investment of P404 million.

Tuvilla, who spoke for SMIC and Hotel Specialist, said they are still applying for the permit and will pay some P202,000 in business tax for it.

“SMIC and Hotel Specialist are two separate entities. Hotel Specialist operates the hotel but everything is owned by SM Investments. Hotel Specialist enjoys a credit line with our suppliers that's why we don't have to put in so much capital,” she said.

Hotel Specialist's P5-million capital investment covers the salaries of Radisson's personnel and its minor purchases, she explained.

The Cebu City Tax Code defines capital investment as “the capital which a person puts in any undertaking, or which he contributes to the common stock of a partnership, corporation, or any juridical entity or association.”

SM Prime Holdings Inc., another company under SMIC, is the owner of a 30-hectare lot worth P2.7 billion in Cebu City's South Road Properties. It plans to build the biggest mall in the Visayas and Mindanao area, as well as a convention center on their lot.

Tuvilla said SMIC has applied for a business permit, but the CTO put it on hold until they can submit the documents required of Hotel Specialist.

She assured that SMIC and Hotel Specialist are working on the requirements. They do not intend to mislead the city with their declarations, and they are not avoiding paying the right amount of taxes, she said.

Moody’s Investors’ Rating (Moody’s) on Wednesday assigned Banco de Oro Unibank (BDO) planned US dollar-denominated senior unsecured notes due in 2016 a Ba2 rating and stable outlook.

This after BDO, in a disclosure with the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) today, announced its plan to once again tap overseas fund sources through the issuance of dollar-denominated fixed rate bond that has a tenor of five and a half years.

The disclosure said the unsecured notes would be sold through a book-building process both here and abroad.

“The transaction is expected to close within October 2010,” it said.

BDO said proceeds of the notes would be used for “business expansion and for general banking and re-lending purposes.”

It tapped Citi and UBS as Joint Lead Managers and Bookrunners for the issue while BDO Capital & Investment Corp. would serve as Co-Manager.

The bank’s other ratings by Moody’s include Ba1 with stable outlook for long-term local currency deposit rating, Ba3 with stable outlook for long-term foreign currency deposit rating, Not Prime and stable outlook for short term foreign currency deposit rating, and D with stable outlook on bank financial strength. (PNA)

Economic managers are considering an upward revision of the country’s growth target for this year following the higher-than-expected performance of the domestic economy as well as other economic indicators.

Reports quoting Finance Undersecretary Gil Beltran said the inter-agency Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) will meet once they are done in defending the 2011 proposed budget before Congress.

He said the possible upgrade in this year’s economic targets was boosted by the positive developments like the higher-than-expected growth of the domestic economy as measured by gross domestic product (GDP).

The country registered a 7.9 percent output in the first half of this year, after a 7.8 percent and 7.9 percent growth in the first and second quarter, respectively.

Economic managers have set a five to six percent full â€"year GDP target for this year.

Exports is also on the same path with the August 2010 figure rising by 36.6 percent to US$ 4.745 billion against the US$ 3.473 billion during the same period last year.

The government’s export growth target for this year was set at 15 percent.

"Eventually, we will revise the target to take into account the emerging actual," Beltran said.

Beltran, on the other hand, said this year’s budget deficit ceiling of P325 billion, which is about 3.9 percent of GDP, may be retained.

Last August, the budget gap reached P228.1 billion, lower than the previous month’s P229.4 billion after the government achieved a P1.3 billion surplus for the month.

Earlier, Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima said the surplus is “really in line with our effort to manage fiscal position of the government more responsibly by focusing more on revenues and expenditures.”

“On the expenditure side we’ll focus more on spending according to program and removing wastage and corruption by being more careful in spending hard-earned money of the government,” he said.

Purisima cited that because of the improving revenue collection, they are optimistic of below-ceiling budget deficit this year.

Vikram Singh Mehta, Chairman, Shell Companies in India, has been conferred the first Asian Business Leader award by 'Asia House', a leading pan-Asian organization in Europe.

The award will be presented to Singh at a function in London on October 14, the company said in a press statement here.

The other recipients of the awards are Stephen Green, ex-Chairman of HSBC and currently the Minister of Trade in the UK government and Jack Ma, Chairman and CEO of the Alibaba group.

"It is humbling to be recognized along with people who have led major global corporation and have made a significant contribution to world economics by a strong focus on the triple bottom line," the statement quoted Singh as saying.

Mehta has led Royal Dutch Shell in India since its return to the country in 1993. (PNA/PTI)
DCT/rsm

The United Coconut Planters Bank (UCPB) benefited from the continued strong growth of the economy as proven by among others the 53 percent rise in consumer loans to P10.4 billion in the third quarter this year from the P6.8 billion same period last year.

UCPB first vice president for consumer banking David Mercado said their consumer loan portfolio registered a 65 percent year-on-year expansion in real estate, auto and personal loans in the first nine months.

He cited the big demand for mid-range residential properties after real estate loan bookings jumped to P2.5 billion from P1.4 billion in end-September 2009.

He traced this to change in overseas Filipino workers’ (OFW) preference for townhouses, condominiums, and walk-up apartments with a price range of P3-5 million from their earlier choice of low-cost houses.

Relatively, the bank’s auto loans grew 64 percent to P2.3 billion as of end-September this year compared to the year-ago level of P1.4 billion.

The Chamber of Automotive Manufacturers of the Philippines, Inc. earlier reported the 34 percent year-on-year rise in car sales as of the end of the third quarter this year.

Also, the bank’s personal loans went up by 32 percent in the first nine months this year after it reached P473 million over year-ago’s P198 million.

“We’re bullish about our growth prospects in the last quarter of the year,” Mercado said citing as reason the over-all business and consumer confidence due to among others the strong growth of money sent home by overseas Filipinos, which in turn would enhance personal consumption.

Mercado said they would open five more branches before the year ends and these are expected to further boost their loan bookings since their branches contribute about 47 percent to their total consumer loans.

The five branches are located in Alabang, Global City and Malabon in Metro Manila and Bacoor and Dasmarinas in Cavite.

Budget airline Cebu Pacific on Wednesday slashed its fares by half for all its international and domestic destinations.

In a statement, the Gokongwei-led airline said the 50 percent off fares will be sold from October 14 to 16 or until seats last.

The travel period is from December 1 to 31.

“We decided to offer this big 50 percent off seat sale because of the demand for low fares this December. Even if this is Christmas peak travel period, we still aim to give everyone the chance to fly,” Candice Iyog, Cebu Pacific's vice president for marketing and distribution said.

The airline offers 50 percent off fare to its more than 70 routes, servicing 16 international and 33 domestic destinations.

These destinations include Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Taipei, Macau, Kota Kinabalu, Singapore, Hong Kong, Ho Chi Minh, Brunei, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Seoul (Incheon), Jakarta, Pusan, Osaka, Boracay (Caticlan), Cebu, Coron (Busuanga), Iloilo, Bacolod, Legazpi, Naga, Laoag, Tagbilaran (Bohol), Butuan, Cauayan, Siargao, Surigao, Tuguegarao and Zamboanga.

Cebu Pacific flew 5,096,887 passengers for combined domestic and international traffic in the first six months of the year.

The airline operates the youngest aircraft fleet in the country, and will take delivery of three brand new A320 aircraft in the last quarter of 2010.

From January to June, the airline’s net income amounted to P3.09 billion, up by 55.6 percent from the P1.99 billion in the same period last year.

Revenues reached P14.91 billion, a 30.9 percent increase over last year’s P11.39 billion brought about by an increase in number of passengers mainly as a result of additional flights. (PNA)

The Department of Energy (DOE) is asking Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM) to consider issuing peso denominated bonds for its fund raising activity slated next year.

"We were talking about PSALM situation... exploring how to be more efficient in borrowing if its throughput borrowing, what denominations to borrow, do we continue to borrow in US dollars or do we borrow Philippine peso," Energy Secretary Jose Rene Almendras told reporters.

Almendras said the department is coordinating with the Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima and PSALM president Emmanuel Ledesma regarding PSALM's planned onduct of its future fund raising activities.

"With the successful launch of the peso bonds, I was asking PSALM to consider that you might want to raise next year's fund raising in peso denomination. Hopefully they will consider that," Energy Secretary Jose Rene Almendras told reporters.

PSALM listed its P30-billion retail bonds at the Philippine Dealing and Exchange Corp. in April.

Finance Undersecretary Jeremias Paul said in August that PSALM may no longer have to resort to borrowings this year.

“I think they're already fully funded. If ever they're going to do it, it might be for next year but not this year,” the Finance official said.

“They're fully funded. Unless there's an opportunity, so it will be more of opportunistic borrowing for liability management purposes,” Paul said.

PSALM, created under Republic Act No. 9136, the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001 is mandated to manage the privatization of the state's power assets and to handle the liabilities of National Power Corp (Napocor).

PSALM incurred borrowings amounting to US$ 2.2 billion in 2009 and P30 billion in April to address Napocor’s debts that would mature in 2009 and 2010.

PSALM is scheduled to settle a total amount of US$ 4.5 billion in maturing obligations, including interest from 2009 to 2011.

“I prefer that they really focus on the universal charge, which Energy Regulatory Commission has yet to approve. I don't want them to incur more loans,” the official said.

PSALM has a pending petition with the ERC to recover about P470.8 billion worth of stranded debts and P22 billion stranded contract costs of the Napocor.

PSALM proposed to recover the P471 billion stranded debts by charging electricity consumers 30 centavos per kWh for 17 years or 22.5 centavos per kWh for 25 years.

Qatar Telecom has said it is in talks with San Miguel Corp. (SMC) to expand its telecommunications venture in the Philippines and wants to hike its stake in Liberty Telecom Holdings Inc.

"We are exploring more business with San Miguel in the telecom sector, not only in the mobile business but other techology. We should not limit our vision to voice only. We are in discussion. Hopefully, we see that this year," Sheikh Abdullah bin Saud Al-Thani, Qtel chairman, told reporters at the sidelines of the Philippine Business Conference at Manila Hotel on Wednesday.

Al-Thani said his company plans to invest more not only in broadband but also in Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) and Long Term Evolution (LTE).

LTE is the the next-generation network beyond 3G (third generation).

"My vision for the Philippines is not how big or how small. My understand for the Filipino market is that I know that it is a growing market. It is a market where I think its the future. The Philippines is one of the most important countrries in Asia," Al-Thani said.

QTel has presence in 17 countries and is committed to expand both in the Middle East and North Africa region and Southeast Asia.

Al-Thani also said that his company wants to increase its stake in Liberty Telecoms up to 40 percent.

At present, QTel, through its subsidiaries Wi-Tribe Asia Ltd. and QTel West Bay Holdings Inc., acquired 32.65 percent of Liberty Telecoms.

Wi-Tribe owns 5.9 percent of Liberty shares while QTel West Bay owns 26.75 percent shares.

"Whatever the rules allow us to own in the Philippines will work around that," Al-Thani said.

SMC, through Vega Telecoms Inc., owns 39.3 percent of Liberty and has disclosed that it would buy up to 49 percent.

Liberty, which is under rehabilitation, recorded a net loss of P411.28 million, higher than last year's P212.46 million.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the US’ Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) signed Wednesday an agreement aimed to further help the Philippine government in its bid to implement tax administration reforms.

In a statement, IMF said this is the first time it will team up with MCC for this purpose. IMF, through its Fiscal Affairs Department, will provide the technical assistance while MCC will provide US$ 4.6 million to help the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), enhance its revenue administration policies and procedures,

“The funding is part of MCC’s US$ 434 million poverty reduction compact with the Republic of the Philippines, which includes a US$ 54.3 million investment to computerize and streamline business processes in the BIR,” it said.

Under the agreement, MCC’s budget will pay for a resident advisor to the BIR as well as short-term technical assistance missions by IMF experts to address BIR’s technical tax administration issues.

The 40-month project aims to improve effectiveness of revenue collection and address corruption.

An IMF assessment mission will arrive in Manila in November while the resident advisor is expected to work with the BIR before the year ends.

“The IMF will submit an annual report to MCC on the BIR’s commitment to reform beginning in early 2012,” the statement said.

IMF Deputy Managing Director Murilo Portugal, who signed the partnership agreement in behalf of the IMF, said they “warmly welcome the United States as a donor to the Fund’s technical assistance program.”

“We are looking forward to working together for the benefit of the Philippines,” he said after the signing ceremony in Washington D.C.

The South Korean currency rebounded against the US dollar on Wednesday as the Fed's minutes bolstered expectations for its further quantitative easing, dealers said.

The local currency closed at 1,120.70 won to the greenback, up 10.80 won from Tuesday's close.

"Heightened prospects for US additional quantitative easing provided an excuse for dollar sales, making the won reverse the previous session's losses," said Byeon Ji-young, a currency analyst at Woori Futures Co.

The won's sharp ascent came as the minutes of the September 21 policy meeting by the Fed showed that more easing money policies may be needed "before long," upping market players' expectations that the Fed is poised to resume asset purchases.

The Korean unit fell by 14.8 won to the dollar on Tuesday, the largest daily loss since June 29, as foreign investors' appetite for risky assets waned and regulatory risks over a potential control of capital inflows increased.

The local currency strengthened to an intra-day high of 1,117.30 won to the greenback, but it trimmed earlier gains amid foreign stock sales, the dealers said.

The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index gained 0.43 percent to 1,876.15. But foreign investors unloaded a net 141.8 billion won (US$ 126.7 million) worth of local stocks on the main bourse.

Analysts said the won's rising trend is likely to continue amid competitive moves by advanced economies to drive down the value of their currencies and hopes for US monetary easing steps.

The currency dispute comes as sputtering growth and stubbornly high unemployment rates are luring them into relying more on exports as a way to boost growth.

Amid robust exports and sustained inflows of foreign stock and bond funds, the Korean unit has risen 3.91 percent per the dollar so far this year.

NTT Communications (NTT Com) announced on October 13 it will expand its Arcstar (TM) Global IP-VPN service in Europe by launching new points of presence (POPs) in Hamburg, Madrid, Munich, Stockholm and Warsaw through its subsidiary NTT Europe.

Applications will be accepted in Madrid and Stockholm from October 13 and in Hamburg, Munich and Warsaw from mid-November.

NTT Com has been offering network services to enterprise customers in Spain, Sweden and Poland through partnership with local companies. The launch of POPs in these countries' capitals, Madrid, Stockholm and Warsaw, will enable NTT Europe to enhance the quality and cost of its services for enterprises in and around these cities.

In Germany, the new POPs in Munich and Hamburg will join existing POPs in Dusseldorf and Frankfurt.

"These new POPs extend NTT Com's presence in some important areas in Europe," said Masaaki Moribayashi, Managing Director of NTT Europe. "We see the demand for data connectivity on a global scale continuing to grow as businesses are turning around in 2010. This announcement shows further commitment to network quality and driving costs down for our customers."

NTT Com's Arcstar Global IP-VPN, a managed network service for enterprise customers, is currently available in 159 countries worldwide.

About NTT Communications Corporation

NTT Communications provides a broad range of global networks, management solutions and IT services to customers worldwide. The company is renowned for reliable, high-quality security, hosting, voice, data and IP services, as well as expertise in managed networks and leadership in IPv6 transit technology.

NTT Communications' extensive infrastructure includes Arcstar (TM) Global IP-VPN and Global e-VLAN, as well as a Tier-1 IP backbone reaching more than 150 countries in partnership with major Internet service providers, and secure data centers in Asia, North America and Europe.

The Philippines’ banking sector again proved its strength in the first quarter this year after exceeding minimum requirement of both the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and the Basel Accord.

The BSP requires banks to have at least 10 percent capital adequacy ratio (CAR), a measure of bank’s solvency, while Basel Accord’s requirement is eight percent.

The BSP, in a report Wednesday, said the industry’s CAR as of end-March this year further rose to 14.9 percent on solo basis and 15.95 percent on consolidated basis.

“Similarly, Tier 1 (T1) capital ratios of 12.41 percent on a solo basis and 12.56 percent on a consolidated basis remained significantly high as T1 capital continued to comprise the major component of qualifying capital,” it said.

The central bank said the industry’s capitalization was boosted by the faster expansion of qualifying capital over risk weighted assets (RWA).

This, after qualifying capital rose quarter-by-quarter by 0.55 percent or P3.41 billion on solo basis and 1.62 percent or P11.09 billion on consolidated basis.

These figures are better than the 0.19 percent or P7.98 billion rise on solo basis of RWA and by 0.52 percent or P22.5 billion on consolidated basis “mainly due to increase in operational RWA during the quarter.”

In particular, universal and commercial banks’ (U/KBs) CAR remained strong although unchanged compared to end-December 2009 at 14.99 percent.

“Minimal movement in qualifying capital and RWA levels influenced the industry’s steady CAR for the period,” the BSP said.

However, it went up by 0.16 percentage points to 16.17 percent from 16.01 percent on consolidated basis during the same period due mainly to the “1.50 percent growth in qualifying capital, which surpassed the 0.52 percent increment in RWA.”

Thrift banks’ (TBs) CAR in the first quarter this year grew quarter-on-quarter by 0.19 percentage points to 12.25 percent both on solo and consolidated bases. “

“The strengthening of the TB industry’s CAR was on account of the 2.32 percent uptick in qualifying capital that far outpaced the 0.71 percent expansion in RWA,” the BSP said.

Also, CAR of the rural, cooperative (RB/Coop) banks jumped by 1.06 percentage points to 18.83 percent as of end-March this year.

The BSP said among the three groups, the RBs registered the fastest growth of 19.11 percent as against the 16.06 percent of coop banks.

The RB’s CAR increased by 1.15 percentage points quarter-on-quarter while it is 0.22 percentage point.

The Philippine Economic Zone Authority reported its registered enterprises in the first quarter this year went up 32.06 percent to P80.62 billion as against P61.05 billion in the same period last year.

In a report to Trade Secretary Gregory Domingo, PEZA Director General Lilia B. de Lima said these investments represent the combined project cost of 364 projects approved by the PEZA Board from January to September this year, including 324 new and expansion projects and 41 IT enterprises.

De Lima said these projects are expected to generate 63,519 jobs once they come on stream, higher by 12.48 percent 56,489 jobs from projects registered in the same period last year.

The approved investments are expected to generate $ 5.64 billion annual export sales.

One of the big ticket projects approved by PEZA in its Board meeting last Sept. 22 is the $-120 million (P6 billion) 11,000-hectare greenfield bioethanol project of Green Future Innovations Inc. in San Mariano, Isabela.

In approving the project, PEZA said the GFI project will support the Biofuels program of the government.

GFI, a joint venture of Japan’s Itochu Corporation and JGC Corporation, the Philippine Bioethanol and Energy Investments Corporation, and Taiwanese holding company GCO, aims to contribute to the domestic supply of renewable energy through a 54-million liter of ethanol and 85,000 megawatts annually.

This will translate to $ 27.5 million savings in annual foreign exchange from fuel importation once project will displace be fully operational by 2012.

GFI will employ 1,500 workers in the two year construction sector and another 500 when the plant goes on commercial operation.

To be able to source 700,000 tons of sugarcane per year, GFI shall be signing growership contracts with about 4,000 farmer families thus having direct impact on the lives of about 20,000 Filipinos.

GFI estimates it will need to spend about Php1.6 billion per year for its feedstock, which shall have tremendous impact on the local economy of San Mariano.

It will also convert bagasse or sugarcane residual to electricity in its 19-megawatt power plant, projecting a 13-MW contribution to the Luzon grid in the future.

Demand for bioethanol is expected to grow over the years.

The Biofuels Act of 2006 passed into law on January 12, 2007, mandates that at least five percent of the total gasoline sold in the country be blended with five percent bioethanol by February 2009 and upon the recommendation of the National Biofuels Board and the Department of Energy, increases this mandated blend to 10 percent by 2011.

The entry of diversifying San Miguel Cop. in the Tampakan copper-gold project in South Cotabato will fast-track the development of the $ 5.9 billion mining project, government officials said Wednesday.

The development of the Tampakan project was stalled due to opposition from the host local government unit citing environmental concerns.

"The entry of San Miguel (in Indophil), it changes the landscape in Tampakan. Since San Miguel is Filipino, this will probably address the issue about foreign participation... We have always advised foreign investors that the key to successful mining projects is having local partners," Leo Jasareno, Mines and Geosciences Bureau director told reporters.

San Miguel and Indophil Resources NL of Australia announced on Friday that the food and beverage giant will take in a 10 percent share in Indophil for $ 40 million.

Indophil entered into a binding exclusivity period with San Miguel until January 10, 2011 during which San Miguel will complete its due diligence.

San Miguel is reportedly contemplating additional stake in Indophil.

"It looks like yung 10 percent is an initial transaction. San Miguel is still doing due diligence. Indophil has reported that there is an indication that San Miguel will buy more of Indophil, there is speculation that eventually San Miguel will take the entire 37.5 percent of indophil in [Tampakan]," he added.

Jasareno said the San Miguel's entry is seen as an opportunity "to improve social acceptability" of the project.

Indophil owns 37.5 percent of the Tampakan copper-gold project. The remaining 62.5 percent is held by Xstrata Queensland Ltd., the copper unit of global miner Xstrata plc.

Ramon Paje, Environment Secretary said the Aquino administration is supportive of mining projects as it is a contributor to the country's economic growth.

"Local government units cannot issue orders that goes against national policy," he said.

Mining investments in the country hit $ 2.8 billion since 2003 and government is hoping to increase it to $ 13.5 billion by 2013.

Paje said the department has initiated talks with San Miguel how soon the project can be fast-tracked.

The Tampakan project has an Australian Joint Ore Reserves Committee mineral resource estimate of 2.4 billion tonnes at a grade of 0.6 percent copper and 0.2 grams per tonne gold.

The known deposit is one of the largest underdeveloped copper-gold deposits in the world. It is estimated to contain 13.5 million tons of copper and 15.8 million tons of gold.

The project management team for the Tampakan project is in the process if completing the Mine Environmental Impact Assessment and expects to submit it to the government in the first half of 2011.

Construction activities may start in 2012, subject to necessary community, government and shareholder approval. (PNA)

China's business climate index, a major measure of macro-economic outlook, rose by 2 points in the third quarter while the entrepreneur confidence gained 2.9 points over the previous quarter, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced Wednesday.

The quarterly business climate index, based on a survey of about 20,000 Chinese firms, advanced to 137.9 points from 135.9 points in the second quarter, the NBS said in a statement on its website.

The industrial business climate index rose 1.1 points to 134.7 from the second quarter.

The business climate index rose in construction, transportation and mail, wholesale and retail, property, social services, and hotels and catering.

The business climate index levels in information transmission computer services and software remained unchanged from the second quarter.

The index ranges from zero to 200. A reading above 100 shows economic expansion, while a reading below 100 indicates contraction. The survey began in 1998.

The entrepreneur confidence index, a gauge of the understanding, views and projections of business people, rose by 2.9 points from the previous quarter to 135.9 in the second quarter, said the NBS.

Entrepreneur confidence levels in industrial, construction, transportation and mail, wholesale and retail, property, hotels and catering all rose in the third quarter.

Confidence levels in information transmission computer services and software were unchanged compared with the second quarter.  - PNA

South Korea's signing of a free trade agreement with the European Union will help expedite the ratification of a similar deal by U.S. Congress, South Korean Ambassador Han Duck-soo said Tuesday.

"Negotiations for the FTA with the EU started after we signed the FTA with the U.S., but the implementation of the FTA with the EU is imminent," Han told South Korean lawmakers who were here for an annual parliamentary inspection of the embassy. "That shocked many Americans leading public opinion."

South Korea signed an agreement last week with the EU for the provisional implementation of the bilateral free trade deal from July.

U.S. President Barack Obama, however, has not yet submitted the Korea FTA, signed in 2007, to Congress due to rising protectionist sentiment in the worst recession in decades.

Obama presented a timeline in June when he ordered Trade Representative Ron Kirk to complete talks with South Korea over autos and beef before he flies to Seoul for the G-20 economic summit meeting in November.

"I think the Korea-EU FTA has impressed many Americans because we've shown our commitment to free trade despite many countries leaning toward protectionism in trade due to the ongoing economic crisis," Han said.

The envoy hoped that Seoul and Washington would soon produce an agreement acceptable to both sides for swift ratification of the Korea FTA.

South Korean Trade Minister Kim Jong-hoon met with Deputy Trade Representative Demetrios Marantis in Paris last week, but they failed to reach an agreement on how to address U.S. concerns over lopsided auto trade and restricted shipment of U.S. beef.

Kim has said that Seoul is ready to address any problems to be raised by the U.S. on non-tariff barriers or unfair trade practices, but added he would not accept the U.S. calls for "a balance in the trade of certain products."

Kirk said recently that he will sideline other issues aside from autos and beef to meet Obama's deadline, despite calls by a number of U.S. industries to revisit clauses on textiles, financial services, investment, labor provisions and even refrigerators.

The chief U.S. trade negotiator, however, has yet to put forth concrete proposals on the auto and beef issues.

The United Auto Workers have called on Congress to delay implementation of tariff reductions on autos and auto parts "until the domestic auto industry has fully recovered" and demanded it "be tied to measurable results in reducing the automotive trade deficit."

The United States exported 5,878 autos to South Korea last year, while South Korean auto shipments to the United States totaled 476,833, according to statistics by the UAW.

Some U.S. politicians want South Korea to allow shipments of beef from cattle of all ages.

The U.S. beef industry, however, has called for a cautious approach due to a possible backlash in the Korean market, which has emerged as the fourth-largest importer of U.S. beef products last year with shipments worth US$ 216 million.

The figure for the first six months of this year was US$ 225 million.

Seoul resumed imports of U.S. beef from cattle under 30 months old in 2008 amid weeks of street protests.  -PNA

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva on Tuesday asserted that his government did not intend to targeting a specific exchange rate, saying measures issued to curb the baht surge now are aimed at encouraging the private and public sectors to adjust to the currency direction.

Speaking after Tuesday's Cabinet meeting, Mr Abhisit said the main measures approved include a curb on foreign capital inflows, facilitation of capital outflows, enhancement of currency exchange liquidity, and assistance for people affected by the baht surge.

The prime minister affirmed the government had no plan to set the currency exchange target. Ongoing measures to contain the baht rise had been taken partly because it could make the private and public sector realize that they themselves should make adjustments if the baht continues strengthening.

“With implementation of the measures, we want to give small exporters a signal on how they have to adjust themselves to the situation. In particular, how they should manage debt and what they should do if they want to import new technologies,” he said. (PNA/TNA)

The Bank of Thailand (BoT) has no plan to provide new measures to contain the stronger baht since it believes it is premature to do that, according to Siri Karncharoendee, a member of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC).

Speaking after a special MPC meeting Tuesday, he said the committee discussed the continued baht appreciation and monitored progress on implementing government measures to curb the currency surge.

“The MPC must wait and see how effective previous state measures can rein in the continued baht rise. The panel believes that it is too early for the central bank to issue new measures to cope with the currency appreciation,” he said.

Amphon Kitti-amphon, another MPC member, said the Cabinet-endorsed measure proposed by the Finance Ministry to remove the exemption of the 15 per cent withholding tax on capital gains for fixed income investments for foreign investors as part of its effort to ease the stronger baht was justified as it could give both local and foreign investors equal and fair treatment in terms of tax collection.

In theory, he believed the move would be able to curb foreign capital influx to some extent, but it takes time to monitor whether the measure is effective.

Currently, he said, the baht is not the most extreme performer in the region, but had strengthened at a lower level than the Malaysian ringgit and the Indonesian rupiah. (PNA/TNA)

The Megaworld Group, in a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, announced that it has sold P36.6 billion worth of real estate projects from January to September this year.

This amount is more than 81 percent of the group’s reservation sales of P20.2 billion for the same period in 2009.

The Megaworld group comprises three brands catering to different market segments, namely, Megaworld, Empire East and Suntrust.

Megaworld Corporation contributed P29.7 billion to the group’s nine-month sales.

The amount came from Megaworld’s ongoing residential projects in Metro Manila including Eastwood City, McKinley Hill, Newport City and Manhattan Garden City.

Megaworld’s sister companies, Empire East Land and Suntrust Properties, posted combined sales of P6.9 billion during the same period.

Empire East and Suntrust are focused on medium-cost and affordable housing, respectively.

Both developers have ongoing projects in Metro Manila and in the nearby growth centers of Cavite and Laguna.

The Megaworld Group owes its phenomenal sales growth to its superior project portfolio and sterling track record in the Philippine property market.

Megaworld is a pioneering developer of integrated live-work-play-learn township communities in the country.

It has five such mega-community projects on the rise in the most strategic locations in Metro Manila, namely, Eastwood City in Quezon City; McKinley Hill, McKinley West and Bonifacio Uptown in Fort Bonifacio; and Newport City in Pasay City.

Once fully developed, these five mega-communities will be home to around 48,000 families and 202,000 BPO office workers.

In the last two decades, Megaworld and its affiliates have completed more than 200 residential and office buildings with a total floor area of approximately 5.4 million square meters.

The Megaworld Group has entrenched itself as the market leader and the most dynamic and innovative real estate company in the Philippines.(PNA)