Nancy Reyes Lumen, Editor in Chief of Cook Magazine in her blog claimed that last week’s church sermons peppered the new government’s policy by making a clarion call – “No to Casinos, no to resorts, no to motels, no to Shabu (meth/illegal drugs).” While the Philippines Inquirer reported that “The lure of easy money is being promoted by some very powerful men”.

It is feared that these gambling centres may become focal point of other “shadow” industries common to casino culture. The blog added that illegal recruiters were on the prowl to lure hapless poor girls (and boys), offering jobs as maids or entertainers, eventually landing them in flesh trade.

Cristino Naguiat, chairman of the PAGCOR informed AFP on Tuesday “We are way behind Macau and Singapore in terms of the casino industry… (but) we would like to be positioned right at the top.” He also revealed that “Like other Asian gambling industries, the Philippines wants to tap into the vast mainland Chinese market.”

The new government of President Benigno Aquino, which took office on June 30, has suspended issuing fresh licenses to casinos giving free hand to existing operators in the country to monopolistically control the gambling industry. There are four licensees, and each is required to spend at least one billion dollars in developing the ambitious Entertainment City.

The four licenses to build the Entertainment City on reclaimed land along Manila Bay were awarded in 2008 under the former President Gloria Arroyo. The moment the government announced its decision to exploit revenue generation through gambling, the shares of the licensees hit new highs in the stock market.

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Myanmar and Viet Nam have similar history and share almost identical culture and religion. While Viet Nam suffered boycott by the West in the past Myanmar continues to be ostracized by the US and the EU as well.

Phung who is active in Myanmar for some time with humanitarian aid became confident about its market following the back to back success of two trade fairs held to promote Vietnamese products in Yangon last September and April. Although the two-way trade between both sides last year was a meagre $74mn, the first half of this year is showing an uptick by recording $58mn.

Viet Nam exports steel products, cement, processed foods, plastics, pharmaceuticals, and electrical goods and other appliances. On the other hand, Myanmar’s main exports to Viet Nam are wood and forestry products, natural rubber and seafood.

According to the Association of Vietnamese Investors in Myanmar, Vietnamese enterprises have pledged investments of nearly $1bn in Myanmar this year, well short of their investments in the neighbouring Laos and Cambodia of about $6bn each. But Phung believes that the coming years will witness a greater interest among Vietnamese businesses to tap the new market as there is huge demand for their products in Myanmar on account of their quality, range and reasonable prices.

Nevertheless, Phung admitted that the businesses would have to undergo challenges such as tortuous import licensing procedures and difficulties in getting payments, major reason being the US and the EU embargo against Myanmar. But he advised Vietnamese enterprises to strictly follow the guidelines of the Vietnamese embassy in Myanmar and the Ministry of Industry and Trade, and do financial transactions only through designated banks.

Under British colonial era, Myanmar was the second-wealthiest country in South-East Asia but the country is one of the poorest in the region today. Viet Nam aspires to make Myanmar as developed as itself through exchanges as the former too emerged from the shadows of prolonged sanctions from the West.

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According to the Efe, the leading Spanish language news agency, the project called “Casas de Botellas” (Houses of Bottles) is the brainchild of Ingrid Vaca Díaz from Bolivia. The ‘green’ houses which Ingrid has been promoting for the last seven years are believed to have natural temperature-control capabilities.

A cluster of glass and plastic bottles of 600ml, one and two litres interlaced with honey, sand, debris, linseed oil and milk have gone into the making of these low-cost homes. Ingrid told “Casas de Botellas is a group effort in which the poorest families, with a helping hand from their friends, relatives, neighbours and volunteer workers, learn to construct their own houses and give themselves and their families a decent place to live.”

The project began in Warnes, her hometown, when a little girl called Claudia told her that for a Christmas present she dreamt of a bedroom of her own, since in her 4-square-meter (43sq.ft.) dwelling she shared a bed with five other people.

Vaca said earlier she used to store the bottles for making handicrafts and chairs; and while her husband informed that he had plans of disposing them off she overheard Claudia’s dream, and conceived a home out of these bottles. The house that Ingrid built in collaboration with Claudia’s family, people of the community and volunteers went from 43 to 1,827sq.ft, and made use of 36,000 two-litre plastic bottles.

The standard is to use for each meter approximately 81 bottles stuffed with throwaway material like paper, plastic bags, batteries, sand and dirt to build the walls of the house. The bottles are stuck together with bricks, lime and cement, and are held with a kind of webbing to make completely sure the construction will be permanent.

Other materials such as rods, roofing tiles, bricks, gravel, window panes, ceramic tiles, wooden frames and accessories for bathrooms and kitchens are donated by companies, individuals and institutions. The finishing touch for the houses is a coat of paint in which the colours of the columns contrast with the walls, and the bottoms of the bottles remain subtly visible and are painted in the form of flowers.

Until now Casas de Botellas has built six homes in Bolivia, one in Argentina and two in Uruguay and Mexico. Twenty more houses are planned to be built in Argentina, and the project is expected to continue collaborating with other communities throughout Latin America.

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The world body should lay emphasis on reducing the growing divide between the rich and the poor rather than pushing for trade to please some of the business powerhouses. If increasing world trade through global action means prosperity for all, the WTO has to address problems of the workforces that comprise of about 70 percent excluding self employed involved directly or indirectly in global trade.

It has to press for regulations which will bring in all workforces under one umbrella of organized sector as majority, particularly in developing countries are forced to work incognito. The workers of unorganized sector are deprived of employment protection such as paid leave, sick leave, healthcare and other perks; and are almost enslaved by their employers.

Similarly, even workers of organized sector are exploited by overloading with work schedules that may go up to 20hrs per day without any rest or extra allowance. Especially the workforces from countries without minimum hourly wages have been largely put to this hardship by calibrating it as a day’s work.

At a glance, it may seem like how on earth the strengthening of organized sector of workforce will improve the living standards of the poor and marginalized workers without developing other key areas such as free right to education, healthcare and other civic amenities. But by elevating the dignity of workers by providing reasonable earnings for what they work is likely to boost their confidence, and thereby prod themselves to meet all immediate needs without any administrative influence.

As far as trade is concerned, the atrocities perpetrated on workforces should also be given equal care like that of other aspects of trade agreements to avoid social unrests stemming from socio-economic asymmetries. The absence of minimum wages for workers or potentially running unorganized workforces, perhaps even with the backing of governments, should be given serious re-look as it is implied in individual trade deals as grievous human rights violations.

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The US consumes nearly a quarter of the world’s oil production but just produces about 10 percent. It buys around $400bn worth of foreign oil or about the same as last year’s balance of payments deficit with its trading partners.

One of the companies that has established itself in used cooking oil energy domain is Minnesota-based Restaurant Technologies (RTI), the leading provider of bulk cooking oil management services to the restaurant industry. RTI has generated $240mn revenue by collecting used cooking oil, and more than 100mn gallons of used oil have been sold to biodiesel manufacturers, animal feed and other buyers.

Likewise, the Shakopee Mdewakanton Dakota Community has recently celebrated its first anniversary of producing bio-diesel from waste soybean oil used in frying chicken, French fries and other foods. The bio-diesel is used to fuel shuttle buses that transport guests and employees among properties around the community. The success of the tribal community on implementing the bio-diesel program indicates that it made economic and environmental sense virtually practical even for small communities to engage in such initiatives.

The Dakota community extracts bio-diesel by pumping 100 gallons into the BioPro 380 processor at a time. Twenty gallons of methanol (wood alcohol) and small amounts of potassium chloride and sulphuric acid are added to the machine with minimal usage of vinegar late in the process. About 48 hours later, around 95 gallons of biodiesel and 25 gallons of glycerine are produced.

Last week, East Ridge, Tennessee has decided to utilize a self-produced new biodiesel blend to fuel its city operations fleet. It is estimated that this clean alternative to conventional fuel not only would make the air cleaner in East Ridge but also expected to provide revenue, eventually helped to lower taxes.

As per the program, the residents may pick up or drop designated or non-designated collection containers at any East Ridge Swap Center. These containers, once full with cooled used cooking oil—may be exchanged for an empty one. By switching to a biodiesel blend, the city of East Ridge is expected reduce its operating costs on civic amenities such as garbage collection, mowing, roadway maintenance, fire/rescue and street sweeping.

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The Sultanate of Oman is conducting this workshop to enhance its interest and scientific advancement in the fields of architecture control, eco-tourism and environment protection. In the past few decades, Oman has been able to leapfrog various eco-friendly projects including renewable energy, management of waste, water resources and anti-pollution drive on marine world.

The study meet which is jointly organized by Ministry of Heritage and Culture and French Embassy is expected to promote sustainable development programs with emphasis on green architecture and eco-tourism. Oman industry heads would be primarily interested in technology transfer and other inputs from France to take their green industry to the next level of development.

French Ambassador to the Sultanate Malika Berak is of the opinion that the three-day event will prove to be an opportunity to expand bilateral ties as 10 leading architecture agencies with good number of experts from France have agreed to take part in the workshop. The event will target French and Omani architects, researchers, institutional representatives and officials in charge of sustainable development affairs to put accent on an eco-friendly comprehensive plan for all future developments in possible sectors.

According to sources, Jean Gautier, Director of Architecture at French Ministry of Culture and Communication, will give a presentation on the urban planning project ‘Grand Paris’. Besides, the Muscat municipality projects are also likely to be featured at the event to draw expert feedback.

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Whether the EU saves itself from present crisis or not, there are many things to be absorbed by the new unions in the making much before taking the plunge. Primarily the alert system, deliberated by the EU to give powers to the parent body to ‘semi-audit’ tasks to monitor budget discipline not only of national governments but also of regional and local bodies, would ensure better transparency. This could prevent governments from hiding grey areas of decentralised budget appropriations, which was partly the case with Greece that stands accused of having lied about its accounts for years.

Besides, periodical evaluation of state affairs including politics based on ground realities and pre-set stitch in time solutions should be in place to ward off the dangers of any of the member-state getting weakened beyond manageable proportions. Projections and goals have to be marked by success failing which should attract stringent punitive measures; something that Brussels is planning to impose on members whose public debt is running out of control.

Furthermore, the member-states should make constant efforts to bring down their debts, which have been proven possible by countries like Belgium and the UK in the past. Before the global meltdown, Belgium managed to reduce its debt to 84.2 percent of GDP in 2007, down from a peak of more than 130 percent in the early 1990s. Likewise, the UK had a debt peak of 300 percent of its GDP after the Second World War, which had been gradually reduced to 33 percent by 1990.

There is also much to be imbibed from the off-target response such as ‘Europe 2020′, which is looked at sceptically by the Eastern EU members and criticized by German Chancellor Angela Merkel for contrasting reasons. The objectives of ‘Europe 2020′ include fight against poverty, increase in education and employment rate.

The proposal unveiled by the European Commission in March highlighted on poverty alleviation calling for reduction in the number of Europeans living below the poverty line by 25 percent, lifting 20mn out of poverty from the current 80mn. However, such policies with progressive milestones should be included right from the beginning and should be modified time to time with ‘proper’ budgetary allocation.

The EU’s new strategy for sustainable growth and jobs, ‘Europe 2020′, comes in the midst of the worst economic crisis in decades. The new strategy replaces the Lisbon Agenda, adopted in 2000, which largely failed to turn the EU into “the world’s most dynamic knowledge-based economy by 2010.” Nonetheless, the new proposal puts innovation and green growth at the heart of its blueprint for competitiveness and proposes tighter monitoring of national reform programmes, one of the greatest weaknesses of the Lisbon Strategy.

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