Maniolas

BANGKOK (AP) — The father grimaced and wept as he struggled to contain his grief at the death of his two children in a grenade attack during a weekend trip to a mall in downtown Bangkok — the latest casualties in Thailand’s months of political crisis. “I’m asking and pleading to every side to let my children be the last case (of violence) on Thai soil,” Tayakorn Yos-ubon, 33, said, his voice shaking, before retrieving their bodies from the morgue Monday. KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Gaping holes in Afghanistan’s health care system are being obscured by misleading narratives of success ahead of the international troop withdrawal in 2014, aid organization Medecins Sans Frontieres warns in a new report published Tuesday. MSF — or Doctors Without Borders — said that while some progress has been made from the last decade of international investment, access to medical care in Afghanistan remains severely limited and poorly adapted to meet the needs of an ongoing conflict — partly because decisions about humanitarian aid have been influenced by political and military objectives instead of Afghans’ pressing needs. RAWALPINDI, Pakistan (AP) — Mohammed Aqeel spent weeks at home in Pakistan waiting for death after suffering a debilitating spinal cord injury in a car crash before friends suggested he come to St. Joseph’s Hospice on the outskirts of the capital, Islamabad. Now 13 years later, his life and those of some 40 others who live on its grounds might be changed forever as this hospital of last Read More …

The increase in the SWS joblessness rate in the last quarter of last year from 21.7 percent in September 2013 to 27.5 percent in December 2013 was reported to have sparked a full Cabinet meeting that took more than five hours. Last Monday, Economic Planning Secretary Arsi Balisacan called a press conference where he admitted that “growth is not denting poverty.” I like the honesty of Sec. Arsi who went on to explain why poverty is a tough nut to crack. High unemployment and poverty incidence, he admitted, will remain a big challenge for the government in the next 10 years or so even amid steady growth. Balisacan didn’t make a big thing of what he called a modest reduction of poverty incidence since 2009 – declining from 27 to 25 percent. Of course years of bad economic management and even squandered growth opportunities are responsible for our stubborn poverty situation. But past administrations are quick to resort to technicalities to highlight whatever little positive result they can squeeze out from the numbers. Indeed, it would have been easy for Sec Balisacan to say that journalists are being myopic for highlighting the single-quarter increase in joblessness. Arsi could have taken journalists like myself to task for failing to notice that the full-year data reveals a FALL in the SWS average from 2012 to 2013 as Malacanang apologists have always done. Arsi could have even castigated newspaper headline writers for disregarding the fact that the 21.7 was the lowest quarterly percentage Read More …

Agence France-Presse 4:28 pm | Wednesday, February 19th, 2014 This photograph taken on February 20, 2010 shows two sulpha crested cockatoos before being seized during a joint rescue operation by wildlife authorities and conservation groups at the residential compound of a local wealthy businessman in the Depok district outside Jakarta. Authorities had seized almost 100 exotic animals and birds, including cockatoos, echidnas and wallabies, that had been smuggled into the Philippines for sale to wealthy collectors. AFP FILE PHOTO MANILA, Philippines — Wildlife officers said Wednesday they had seized almost 100 exotic animals and birds, including cockatoos, echidnas and wallabies, that had been smuggled into the Philippines for sale to wealthy collectors. The cache, hidden in small containers in a van, was made up of wildlife from Australia, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, said Eric Gallego, spokesman for the local office of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. They included yellow-crested cockatoos and long-beaked echidnas, two species listed as “critically endangered” by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. They also included four wallabies from Australia and about 90 exotic parrots from Indonesia, said Gallego. Several of the birds or animals had died, possibly from the stress of long travel in harsh conditions, he told AFP. Law enforcers acting on a tip stopped a van with the wildlife and two attendants in the southern city of Surigao on Mindanao island on Saturday, just as the vehicle was about to board a ship heading north. The birds and animals Read More …

THE shortage of mining engineering graduates is adding to the burden holding back potential growth of the mining industry in the Philippines, said a top official of the Philippine Society of Mining Engineers (PSEM). PSEM president Caesar Lao-as said the country produces 60 to 70 mining engineers a year, which is way below the required number of 200 engineers annually on the average. He said the number is too small for the industry requirement. He said the organization is also alarmed by the exodus of these graduates and Filipino mining experts who are easily pirated byforeign mining companies for higher paying jobs mostly in Vietnam, Thailand, Australia and Canada. “The Philippines is now the hottest investment destination for mining operations, sadly, the industry is facing a shortage, we are losing some to foreign mining companies,” said Lao-as, who is president of Cebu-based Asia Pacific Energy Resources Ventures Inc. He said the industry needs “more mining engineers very badly.” High pay Although quite a risky job, Lao-as is encouraging college students to take up mining engineering as it is one of the highest-paid professions. The current entry-level salary averages from P40,000 to P50,000 a month. In other countries, licensed mining engineers are paid an average of $3,000 to $5,000 every month. The mining potential of the Philippines is one of the largest in the world, with estimated $1.4 trillion in mineral reserves, especially gold, copper, nickel, aluminum and chromite, according to the Arangkada Philippines, an advocacy group led by Joint Foreign Read More …

According to the country’s National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies subjects aged 15-19 slept just seven hours and 37 minutes per night on average. Nearly one third of the study’s participants had accumulated a “sleep debt,” while 17% said they were dissatisfied with their sleep. More troubling, 7% of the teenagers in the study reported taking sedatives to help them sleep. (Relaxnews) – It’s no secret that sleep is crucial during the intensive growth phase of adolescence. Yet studies have shown that teenagers’ average sleep per night has declined by 50 minutes over the past 25 years. While the causes of this decrease are often hard to pinpoint, sleep researchers at the Hôtel-Dieu Hospital in Paris have found one way to remedy the problem: newer, bigger mattresses. Professor Damien Léger, director of the Centre du Sommeil et de la Vigilance, the Parisian hospital’s sleep research center, partnered with the founder of the European Sleep Center, Doctor François Duforez, to study the effects of high-quality bedding on teenagers’ sleep. The two researchers were motivated by recent studies on the question, which show that French teenagers are not getting their recommended eight to nine hours of sleep per night. According to the country’s National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE), subjects aged 15-19 slept just seven hours and 37 minutes per night on average. Nearly one third of the study’s participants had accumulated a “sleep debt,” while 17% said they were dissatisfied with their sleep. More troubling, 7% of the Read More …