WORLD
Organic rice ‘better option than state payments’
Bunthiang Pholthongsathit, head of a farmer-development group in Khon Kaen. (The Nation) While the government’s controversial rice-pledging scheme has now been begrudgingly accepted by the majority ...
Oct 21, 2013
Philippine nurses in Tokyo hurdle gap in language
Philipino nurses at a hospital. (Inquirer) TOKYO ― It was hard enough being transplanted into a new culture. Being hobbled by a completely alien language was another burden on Joyce Paulino and hund...
Oct 14, 2013
Young Taiwanese start businesses
Web entrepreneur Jeff Yang has grand plans for his third business venture despite the failure of his first two efforts. His auction website, Sajawa, which he co-founded in 2009 with a university cla...
S. Korean fashion makes inroads in Japan
Firms are confident that Japan’s affection for K-pop, television and other forms of popular culture will translate into success in the fashion South Korean clothing, cosmetics and other brands are r...
Oct 7, 2013
Child marriages on the rise in Malaysia
In Malaysia, girls under the age of 16 cannot legally drive or buy cigarettes. They can’t even watch certain movies or go clubbing. But they can marry ― lawfully at that. And many are increasingly d...
Jakarta wants firms to hire locals before expats
Indonesia is looking at finding more ways to ensure that qualified locals land jobs that would otherwise go to foreigners, Manpower Minister Muhaimin Iskandar said. Last year, it listed 19 human res...
China migrant workers less insured
Less than 24 per cent of migrant workers in eight urban areas in China are covered by public health insurance in the cities in which they work, according to a recent study. Researchers who compiled ...
Huawei to create 5,500 new jobs in Europe
Huawei, China’s leading information and communications solution provider, has pledged to diversify its service portfolio in Europe, while the United States has offered no easy market access, its seni...
Sept 23, 2013
More children in China being homeschooled
Parents’ frustrations with public school system force rethink of kids’ education
Interest rate liberalization on way, says China adviser
China is actively developing rules to establish a deposit-insurance system and to manage financial institutions’ bankruptcies ― two steps widely believed to herald the final interest rate liberalizat...
Sept 16, 2013
Tents, makeshift shelters for 44,000 evacuees
ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines ― The white Philippine Air Force tent is in the middle of the city’s sports complex, ringed by rubber track and just a little off-center of the football pitch. It is surr...
Japan to conduct detailed cesium survey off Fukushima
Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority has decided to conduct a survey on about 600,000 spots on the seabed east of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant to check for radioactive contamination in the...
Japan PM's Fukushima remark backfires at home
TOKYO -- Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's reassurance to the International Olympic Committee that contaminated water leaks from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant are ``under control'' has back...
Sept 15, 2013
Philippine senate to expand probe of pork scam
Philippine Sen. Francis Escudero has raised the possibility that the heads of the government agencies that allowed their offices to be used as conduits for pork barrel to questionable nongovernment o...
Sept 9, 2013
More Koreans choose Laos for healing, retirement
The air is redolent of mouthwatering grilled meat at Hwang Hye-hun’s residence at Naxay village in Sisattanak district. He is hosting a dinner party for the opening of his consultation clinic, KMC Ce...