Archive for January, 2007
By Carlos H. Conde
International Herald Tribune
Published: January 28, 2007
PAJAK, The Philippines: For the past four years, Raul Umpad has been making guitars by hand. Working under the shade of a mango tree, often without a shirt because of the humidity and heat, he smoothes the wood using sandpaper.
It’s a dreary job, Umpad said. And the pay, about $4 a day, is not so good, but it supports his jobless wife and their four young children. “It would be so easy to complain about the low pay, but I count my blessings,” Umpad, 38, said, rubbing sandpaper briskly on a piece of pear-shaped plywood.
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Posted on January 28, 2007, and filed under International Herald Tribune, Stories |
By Carlos H. Conde
International Herald Tribune
Published: January 15, 2007
CEBU, Philippines: Leaders from 16 Asian nations signed an energy security accord Monday that they said would reduce the region’s dependence on fossil fuels and promote the use of alternative energy sources.
Leaders from 16 Asian nations signed an energy security accord Monday that they said would reduce the region’s dependence on fossil fuels and promote the use of alternative energy sources.
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Posted on January 16, 2007, and filed under International Herald Tribune, Stories |
Leader of Philippines praises China as region’s ‘big brother’
By Carlos H. Conde
International Herald Tribune
The New York Times
Published: January 14, 2007
CEBU, Philippines: China took center stage at the summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations here on Sunday, signing a new trade-in-services agreement with the 10 Southeast Asian countries and winning support for its initiative to reconvene negotiations with North Korea over its nuclear weapons program.
The trade and services deal, which emphasizes high-tech services, energy and construction, was billed by conference delegates as a major step forward in establishing a comprehensive free trade pact between Asean and China.
Asean leaders and China’s prime minister, Wen Jiabao, also reiterated a 2002 agreement pledging to resolve the dispute over claims by China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan to the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea.
“We are very happy to have China as our big brother in this region,” President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo of the Philippines said at the opening ceremony of the one-day summit meeting in Cebu, a central Philippine province.
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Posted on January 15, 2007, and filed under International Herald Tribune, Stories, The New York Times |
By Carlos H. Conde
International Herald Tribune
Published: January 13, 2007
CEBU, Philippines: The leaders of the 10 countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations approved several agreements on Saturday considered by many here to be remarkable in their scope and visionary in their ambition.
Among the agreements approved on Saturday, the first day of the meeting of the heads of state in this central Philippine province, were the drafting of a new charter that seeks to integrate Southeast Asia much like the European Union, establish a free-trade zone by 2015, intensify the war on terrorism, protect the region’s migrant workers, and improve the campaign against HIV/AIDS.
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Posted on January 13, 2007, and filed under International Herald Tribune, Stories |
By CARLOS H. CONDE
The New York Times
Published: January 13, 2007
CEBU, Philippines, Jan. 13 — The Association of Southeast Asian Nations made progress on its goal of economic and political integration at a summit meeting here on Saturday, but was sidetracked by tensions over how to deal with Myanmar, which has come under fire for its poor human rights record.
Leaders of the 10 members of Asean agreed to establish a free-trade zone by 2015, intensify their fight against terrorism, protect the region’s migrant workers and improve the campaign against HIV/AIDS. They also agreed to draft a new charter with broad enforcement powers — a break from the 40-year-old group’s tradition of consensus and noninterference.
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Posted on January 13, 2007, and filed under Stories, The New York Times |
By Carlos H. Conde
International Herald Tribune
Published: January 12, 2007
CEBU, Philippines: If there is one Southeast Asian leader who knows the value of integration, it is Lee Kuan Yew, the former prime minister of Singapore. He succeeded, after all, in harmonizing the disparate cultures and races of his country, then later transforming the city-state into an economic powerhouse that serves as a model for many others in the region.
But last May, Lee threw cold water on the idea that Southeast Asia could be integrated enough to become like the European Union. That goal, he told business executives in Tokyo, would be difficult to achieve.
“To have one currency, a borderless community, I don’t see that, not yet,” Lee was quoted by The Straits Times, a Singapore newspaper, as saying. “Maybe after 50, 70, 80 years, we can look at the matter again.”
Barely eight months after Lee said that, Southeast Asian leaders gathering in the central Philippine province of Cebu for the annual summit meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or Asean, may prove him wrong. They say that they are confident their dream of regional integration — to become the EU of this part of the world — may not be that difficult to attain.
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Posted on January 12, 2007, and filed under International Herald Tribune, Stories |
By Carlos H. Conde
International Herald Tribune
Published: January 11, 2007
CEBU, Philippines: A series of terrorist bombings in the southern Philippines on the eve of the annual summit meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations has highlighted a growing need to address terrorism in the region, officials said Thursday.
“The terrorists merely accomplished the opposite of what they wanted. The attacks only emphasized the need to address terrorism in Southeast Asia,” said Victoriano Lecaros, the Philippine spokesman for the Asean meeting. “There is now a renewed urgency to deal with terrorism.”
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Posted on January 12, 2007, and filed under International Herald Tribune, Stories |
By Carlos H. Conde
International Herald Tribune
Published: January 4, 2007
MANILA: The summit meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, postponed last month when Philippine officials said they feared an approaching typhoon, will finally get under way next week in Cebu.
The leaders of all 10 Asean countries will attend the conference, which will be the organization’s 12th annual summit meeting, the officials said. In addition, the leaders of Australia, China, Japan, India, South Korea and New Zealand are also to attend.
Among the key issues to be discussed is the drafting of a charter for the association, said Victoriano Lecaros, the summit meeting’s spokesman.
A proposal that is expected to draw the most attention is one for Asean to change its policy of noninterference in the domestic affairs of member countries. This policy prevented, for instance, Asean nations from at the very least criticizing Myanmar for its human rights record.
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Posted on January 5, 2007, and filed under International Herald Tribune, Stories |
Higher minimum pay would be ‘disastrous’
By Carlos H. Conde
International Herald Tribune
Published: January 3, 2007
MANILA: Business groups in the Philippines warned Wednesday that an increase in the country’s daily minimum wage would be “disastrous” to the economy and could result in what they called “the demise of enterprises.”
The House of Representatives passed a bill last month that would increase the daily minimum wage of Filipino workers by 125 pesos, or about $2.55, a day. Wages in the Philippines vary by region, but the present national daily average, according to the Labor Department, is 283 pesos.
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Posted on January 4, 2007, and filed under International Herald Tribune, Stories |
Her opponents call for suspension of pact
By Carlos H. Conde
International Herald Tribune
Published: January 1, 2007
MANILA: The Philippine government’s decision to turn over to U.S. authorities an American soldier convicted of rape has provoked an outcry among Filipinos, with critics warning of a constitutional crisis and the possible impeachment of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
Arroyo’s opponents, furious at what they see as an affront to Philippine sovereignty, have called for the suspension of the Visiting Forces Agreement with the United States, which specifies that U.S. soldiers convicted of crimes in the Philippines should be transferred into U.S. custody.
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Posted on January 1, 2007, and filed under International Herald Tribune, Stories |
