PHILIPPINE DAILY INQUIRER – Grab Philippines has been barred from entering the motorcycle taxi business after the government’s motorcycle taxi technical working group (TWG) told it to permanently dissolve its partnership with Move It, months after it was suspended.
This leaves the three original players – Angkas, Joyride and Move It – to operate in the fast-growing segment.
The TWG, in a December 10 letter to Chief Executive Officer of Move It Francis Juan, said its members decided to “permanently terminate” their partnership with Grab Philippines.
Allowing the tie-up to continue will make Grab Philippines “the fourth de facto player, which is not allowed under existing conditions of the pilot study”, the TWG said in the letter.
The TWG ordered the suspension of the partnership on September 30 after a week of operations.
The taxi motorcycle TWG made references to satisfying other stakeholders in its letter.
A Grab motorbike-taxi rider waiting for customers. PHOTO: AFP
“Allowing the collaboration to proceed will only rekindle the issues that were raised by the complainants and will further put the MC Taxi TWG in a very tight and compromising position from both the House of Congress and Senate, the two other players and the stakeholders.”
Despite their short collaboration, the TWG acknowledged that Grab and Move it were successful in recruiting more drivers.
“The MC Taxi TWG was very pleased to know that you were able to onboard substantial numbers of riders that (were) enough to carry out Move It’s role in the pilot study,” it said in the letter.
“Nevertheless, the pilot study is now on its concluding stage, thus, onboarding new recruits may no longer be necessary at this point in time,” the TWG said.
It added that Grab Philippines may choose to enter the motorcycle taxi sector after a law legalising the segment is passed.
The letter was signed by retired Brigadier General Manuel Gonzales and retired Police Colonel Joel Pernito, who sit as Co-chairs of the TWG INQ.
THE JAPAN NEWS/ANN – Toto Ltd will build a new factory for faucets in northern Vietnam to meet growing global demand, the company has announced.
Toto will invest about JPY10 billion in the new plant, as awareness of hygiene has been increasing worldwide with the spread of the novel coronavirus. Construction was to start in January, with operations scheduled to begin in March 2024.
The plant will be built by a local affiliate on an about 100,000-square-metre site that Toto has acquired in Vinh Phuc Province. It is expected to produce up to about 1.2 million sophisticated faucets annually for use in washrooms and bathrooms. Toto plans to use this factory, which will be its largest overseas production base, to expand its exports to China and North America.
Overseas, more and more wealthy people are particular about the design of their faucets, and demand for automatic faucets is also booming amid the pandemic.
In its consolidated financial results for the first half of the business year ending September 2021, Toto increased its sales of faucets in China by 78 per cent compared to the same period in the previous year.
An artists impression of the new TOTO plant to be built in Vietnam. PHOTO: THE JAPAN NEWS/ANN
Applicants comprising ASEAN citizens with a doctoral degree are invited to participate in the 8th Underwriters Laboratories-ASEAN-US Science Prize for Women 2022.
The Asean Secretariat said the launch on Monday was co-organised by the ASEAN Committee on Science, Technology and Innovation (COSTI), together with the United States (US) government, through the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and Underwriters Laboratories.
The competition aims to raise awareness on cutting edge advancements by women in artificial intelligence (AI) research in addressing pressing issues in ASEAN communities.
Candidates working in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields will compete in two categories – Mid-career Scientist category for scientists aged 45 and below, and Senior Scientist category for scientists aged 46 and older, over the next several months.
Underwriters Laboratories, a non-profit organisation dedicated to the discovery and application of scientific knowledge, will award USD12,500 to each of the winners in both categories and USD5,000 to the runner-up finalists.
This year’s theme, AI in Health and Safety, was chosen for its importance in delivering better and more affordable healthcare services to over 660 million inhabitants of ASEAN.
In addition, robust AI applications can strengthen environmental safety in the workplace, bolster security of industry processing systems, and help address COVID-19 pandemic recovery efforts to deter future epidemics.
“Underwriters Laboratories continues to proudly support the work of women scientists in the ASEAN region through the science prize,’’ said Underwriters Laboratories senior vice president and chief research officer Dr Christopher J Cramer.
“We especially appreciate the opportunity to recognise these extraordinary scientists as they strive to harness the promise of AI to safely and equitably garner long-term health and economic benefits for communities in the region.”
“The US is proud to promote, along with ASEAN and Underwriters Laboratories, women scientists that capitalise on AI solutions to counter the region’s environmental, health, and safety challenges,” said Chargé d’Affaires of the US Mission to ASEAN Rachel Cooke.
“Through USAID’s continued support for this successful annual competition, the United States reaffirms its commitment to close gender gaps so that more women can help shape advancements in STEM fields.”
Chair of the ASEAN COSTI 2022 and Deputy Minister of Science and Technology of Vietnam Bui The Duy said, “Research and work in AI by talented women scientists of the region will not only benefit the local communities but will more importantly enable replication that will improve millions of lives within the region.”
Since 2014, the Science Prize for Women represents an ongoing successful US initiative in support of ASEAN and its 10 member states. As part of the US strategic approach to the Indo-Pacific, USAID partners with ASEAN to promote prosperity and security through economic inclusion, women’s empowerment, and good governance.
LONDON (AP) – British Prime Minister Boris Johnson faced a wave of public and political outrage on yesterday over allegations that he and his staff flouted coronavirus lockdown rules by holding a garden party in 2020 while Britons were barred by law from mingling outside the home.
Opposition politicians called for a police investigation after broadcaster ITV published a leaked e-mail invitation to “socially distanced drinks” in the garden of the prime minister’s Downing Street office and residence in May 2020. The e-mail from the prime minister’s Private Secretary Martin Reynolds was sent to dozens of people and urged attendees to “bring your own drink”.
The event was scheduled for May 20, 2020 – the same day the government at a televised news conference reminded people they could only meet up with one person outside their household. London’s Metropolitan Police force also published reminders about the rules that day.
The police force said yesterday it was “in contact with” the government over the party claims, which follow allegations of several other rule-breaking gatherings in Downing Street during the pandemic.
During Britain’s first lockdown, which began in March 2020 and lasted for more than two months, gatherings were banned with a few exceptions, including work and funerals.
Millions of people were cut off from friends and family, and even barred from visiting dying relatives in hospitals.
On the day of the garden party, 268 people with the coronavirus died in Britain, according to official figures, bringing total deaths to more than 36,000. The total now stands at over 150,000, the highest toll in Europe after Russia.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. PHOTO: AP
Lyndsay Jackson, whose mother died of COVID-19 in May 2020, said the government showed “contempt for ordinary people and for the difficulties we were all facing”.
“I wasn’t able to be with her when she died, I wasn’t able to hold her hand. I couldn’t even hug my brother after the funeral,” said Jackson, a member of the group COVID-19 Bereaved Families for Justice. She told Sky News that Johnson was “beneath contempt”.
Johnson’s Conservative government has repeatedly been accused of flouting the rules it imposed on others during the pandemic, which brought the most severe restrictions on Britons’ individual freedoms since World War II.
The Dental Clinic in Muara Health Centre and at the Pengiran Anak Puteri Hajah Muta-Wakkilah Hayatul Bolkiah (PAPHMHB) Health Clinic will resume service beginning today, the Ministry of Health through the Department of Dental Service said.
Screening will be conducted prior to any dental treatment in which dental service classified at none ‘aerosol generating will be prioritised for the morning session at the outpatient dental clinic. Meanwhile, for procedures classified as aerosol generating will be conducted for an appointment session in the afternoon.
Antigen rapid test (ART) will be carried out on all patients before dental treatment in line with COVID-19 infection control measures.
Consultation for dental patients via phone line and short message service (SMS) via WhatsApp application is still ongoing.
WASHINGTON (AP) — United States (US) Health Secretary Xavier Becerra on Monday ordered Medicare to reassess a big premium increase facing millions of enrollees this year, attributed in large part to a pricey new Alzheimer’s drug with questionable benefits.
Becerra’s directive came days after drugmaker Biogen slashed the price of its USD56,000-a-year medication, Aduhelm, to USD28,200 a year – a cut of about half.
“With the 50 per cent price drop of Aduhelm on January 1, there is a compelling basis… to reexamine the previous recommendation,” Becerra said in a statement about his directive to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
More than 50 million Medicare recipients who pay the USD170.10 monthly “Part B” premium for outpatient care will see no immediate change to their costs, but Monday’s move could open the way for a reduction later in the year.
The Department of Health and Human Services said it is reaching out to the Social Security Administration, which collects the premium, to examine options.
WARSAW, POLAND (AP) – Poland has become the latest European nation to reach the grim milestone of 100,000 deaths related to the coronavirus.
Nearly a quarter of those deaths – some 24,000 – occurred in the most recent wave of infection that began in October, a period in which vaccines have been widely available in the European Union (EU) nation.
Health Minister Adam Niedzielski said yesterday that 493 deaths of people with COVID-19 had been registered in the past day, pushing the death toll to 100,254 in the central European nation of 38 million people.
The bleak marker comes as the number of new infections has recently fallen following a peak in what officials call the country’s “fourth wave” of COVID-19 driven by the Delta variant, but as the Omicron variant is spreading and another large infection wave is looming.
The first two deaths from Omicron were reported on Monday, both of them in elderly and unvaccinated people. Niedzielski said there are now 18,000 hospitalisations, making this “the most difficult situation compared to other waves”.
Police guard a monument to the victims of the 2010 presidential plane crash during a protest of a group criticising government policies on fighting COVID-19 in downtown Warsaw. PHOTO: AP
Poland has struggled through the pandemic with a health care sector strapped by limited funding and the emigration of many medical professionals to Western Europe in past years.
According to OECD statistics, Poland is the EU nation with the lowest number of working doctors in proportion to its population – just 2.4 to 1,000 inhabitants compared with 4.5 in Germany. Poland also has only five nurses to 1,000 inhabitants, below the EU average of eight and far below richer countries like Germany, which has 14.
The vast majority of the deaths in the last wave – 83 per cent – are of the unvaccinated. Among younger people, those below 44, more than 90 per cent of those who died were not vaccinated.
The vaccination rate in Poland is 55.8 per cent – a much lower rate of vaccination than in the countries of western Europe but much higher than in some other central European countries, like Bulgaria and Romania.
The establishment of the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organisation (SEAMEO) in 1963 aimed at promoting cooperation in the fields of education, science and culture. In addition, it serves as a regional inter-governmental organisation among governments in Southeast Asia.
Southeast Asia has 26 SEAMEO centres with their various undertakings concentrating on training as well as research in education, science and culture.
The SEAMEO Regional Centre for Vocational and Technical Education and Training (SEAMEO Voctech) was established in Brunei Darussalam on August 28, 1990 and stands tall among SEAMEO centres.
In an interview with the Bulletin, SEAMEO Voctech Deputy Director of Administration Pengiran Haji Mohd Sufri bin Pengiran Ali said in line with its establishment, SEAMEO Voctech has been mandated to assist other SEAMEO member countries in identifying and solving common problems in Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET).
According to the deputy director, SEAMEO Voctech is committed to achieving its mandate, guided by its vision to be a leading regional centre in advancing TVET for Southeast Asia and beyond.
ABOVE & BELOW: SEAMEO Voctech Deputy Director of Administration Pengiran Haji Mohd Sufri bin Pengiran Ali; and SEAMEO Voctech Deputy Director for Professional Affairs Dr Paryono. PHOTOS: ADIB NOOR
At the same time, SEAMEO Voctech is also committed to meet its mission in assisting SEAMEO member states in advancing their TVET systems by providing relevant and effective programmes and services towards the sustainable development of the region.
In pursuing its role in promoting TVET, Pengiran Haji Mohd Sufri shared that SEAMEO Voctech was conceived and given the mandate of assisting and enhancing TVET systems of SEAMEO member countries through innovative services.
“Among the three major services offered at SEAMEO Voctech include training and professional development, research and consultancy services, and knowledge management and sharing,” he added.
In the fields of training and professional development, SEAMEO Voctech believes that delivering and promoting quality technical and vocational education as well as training is vital. Therefore, the centre provides four categories of training services by conducting regional, in-country, customised and special training programmes in the areas of curriculum development, management, teacher education, information and communications technology, research, and skills training. These programmes are often conducted in collaboration with SEAMEO Voctech’s or SEAMEO partners.
In the areas of research and development, SEAMEO Voctech prides itself on its expertise in research and research consultancy services with the core aim of elevating the quality of TVET in the region. The research programme is an important and built-in component in SEAMEO Voctech’s function as an international organisation.
For knowledge management and sharing, the centre also provides information services and disseminates information through print, digital and online pathways to reach the fast-increasing number of TVET clients in the region and beyond through its newsletter, social media, its website, e-library and SEA-VE.Net.
Apart from focussing on excelling in the field of research, consultancy as well as training, SEAMEO Voctech also plays its role in the community as part of their corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives, in particular when the country was hit by the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. The initiatives not only aim to ease the burden of those affected by the pandemic, but also students badly impacted and had to continue their studies via online learning.
For this purpose, aside from bringing their core business services online, for example in the conduct of SEAMEO Voctech’s training programme, SEAMEO Voctech has also actively taken part in a CSR initiatives showing their commitment and dedication as well solidarity responding to the national call to alleviate some of the challenges faced by the education sector due to pandemic.
One of the initiatives is to bridge the needy students in the country in terms of the digital divide and disparity by donating SIM cards and Internet top-up cards for continued Internet accessibility.
In another CSR initiative, SEAMEO Voctech provided staff with upcycled digital services such as desktop computers and laptops to help support the online learning of their children.
Meanwhile, in seeing the development of TVET amidst the demand of the fourth industrial revolution (IR4.0), SEAMEO Voctech Deputy Director for Professional Affairs Dr Paryono said in an effort to enhance the skills of workforce in the post-pandemic era and for SEAMEO Voctech’s aim to achieve its Five-Year Development Plan in ‘Preparing TVET for Industry 4.0’, the centre continues to strengthen its services to support the development of TVET in Brunei Darussalam and in the region.
This is especially in response to IR4.0 requirements through three main objectives: training and professional development; research and consultancies; as well as knowledge management and sharing.
“Under the training and professional development, SEAMEO Voctech offers capacity building to TVET trainers and academics in SEAMEO member countries and beyond as to identify and solve common problems in TVET through training and development initiatives on IR4.0 related topics.”
According to Dr Paryono, in collaboration with GIZ-RECOTVET, the centre has offered three topics of training programmes in the past two years. These include innovative teaching and learning for industrial changes due to IR 4.0; professional development training for TVET teachers in IR 4.0; and curriculum design for IR 4.0 work processes.
“In collaboration with the Institute of Technical Education Services (ITEES) Singapore and Temasek Foundation Singapore, we are running the third round of training programmes,” he said. “For this third round, we are offering four training programmes revolving around IR4.0 topics namely: online leadership training workshop for TVET leaders; skills upgrading course for TVET specialists in IR 4.0 on Robotics and smart systems; food processing andtechnology; and hotel management with IR 4.0,”
“Meanwhile, in the aspect of research and development, SEAMEO Voctech in collaboration with researchers from SEAMEO member countries representing ministries in charge for TVET and SEAMEO Centres conduct research on TVET Institutional Readiness for IR 4.0.
“In information and knowledge management and sharing, the centre brings together key TVET stakeholders to discuss pertinent TVET issues through various seminars, forums, conferences and meetings.”
He noted that a recent event was an E-Forum themed ‘Managing Pandemic Challenges and Opportunities of TVET in the Era of Digitalisation’.
“Most importantly, SEAMEO Voctech and its partner GIZ-RECOTVET gave developed a one stop-knowledge TVET platform (SEA-VET.net) which is gaining more and more traction in terms of usage and recognition from TVET providers, learners and researchers regionally and internationally. One of the features in these platforms is IR 4.0 and Digitalisation.
“In preparing TVET for IR 4.0 SEAMEO Voctech continues to engage with the global TVET community in understanding the changing economic and industry developments, to ensure that its practices reflect the new market demands and the centre’s services are in line with these requirements,” Dr Paryono added.
In strengthening the impact of the centre for young professionals, particularly those with vocational or technical careers with little awareness or knowledge about the establishment and functions of SEAMEO Voctech, Dr Paryono explained the centre continues socialising its programmes and services, especially in utilising the social media platforms.
Dr Paryono also shared that SEAMEO Voctech will continue working with TVET providers locally and in the region, for example in partnership with the Ministry of Education (MoE), to identify and provide industry-aligned training services, and offering training programmes that reach wider community by collaborating with the Lifelong Learning Centre (L3C), such as for industry players through Training of Trainers (TOT) and Training of Accessors (TOA) and offering both online and in-person training programmes and uploaded at SEA-VET.Net platform.
In sharing future plans and strategic initiatives of SEAMEO Voctech, Dr Paryono explained that SEAMEO Voctech’s future plans for the development of education in Southeast Asian countries include forward-looking innovations that could reshape the region in a post-COVID world and optimise the present of digitalisation and IR4.0.
“E-learning will be further enhanced as in augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technology in education bring about an official computer-generated world with the potential to help enhance the learning experience,” said Dr Paryono.
“With this in mind, SEAMEO Voctech’s future plan is to offer theoretical and practical courses by integrating innovative strategies and technologies such as simulation, AR and VR into its learning platform. To that end, SEAMEO Voctech recently signed a memorandum of agreement (MoA) with its strategic partner, Labtech International Ltd and agreement with ADE Finland,” he added.
The results on the registrations for Arabic schools’ entrance exam via short message service (SMS) begins today at 10am, the Ministry of Religious Affairs (MoRA) through the Examination Division at the Islamic Studies Department as the Secretariat for Brunei Religious Education Examination Board with the Information Technology Division announced.
SMS registration can be made by typing KHEU (space) REG (space) Exam Centre Number (space) Candidate Index Number and send it to 8885555 for DST customers and 38666 for Progresif customers.
Successful registration will be notified via SMS free of charge.
Exam results via SMS will only be sent to registered customers at a fee of BND1 for each SMS.
HARARE (XINHUA) – Early in the morning in Domboshava, a village near Harare, two women were gathering herbs in a lush green forest.
A branch at a time, the women carefully pruned the shrubs, making sure they leave the plants in good health.
Locally known as Zumbani, or Lippia Javanica by its botanical name, the plant is believed to possess medicinal value, and has become widely sought after during the COVID-19 pandemic, as it is believed to be helpful in treating flu-like symptoms.
A stone’s throw away, by a rocky mountain edge, two women could be seen plucking flowery plants from the ground.
As clouds gathered from a distance, they continued picking the herbs before dashing back home with their treasured collections.
At their workstation, two elderly women sorted dried plant roots from traditional handmade weaved baskets. Another woman effortlessly pounded some baobab fruit seeds using traditional handcrafted wooden mortar and pestle.
Tsitsi Machingauta pounds traditional herbs in Domboshava. PHOTO: XINHUA
The women are members of the Women’s Farming Syndicate (WFS), an organisation that aims to eradicate poverty among rural women through sustainable agribusiness and the use of traditional knowledge systems.
Their wide range of products include traditional herbs, tea, spices, traditional handicrafts and various products made from wild plants and fruits. The products are natural with no artificial additives and are handmade by rural women.
Founder and National Coordinator of WFS Tsitsi Machingauta said the goal of the organisation is to create value by harnessing resources widely available in the community.
“As the Woman’s Farming Syndicate we are using what is readily available within our environments to create products that are marketable both locally, and internationally to actually generate sustainable livelihoods for ourselves,” Machingauta told Xinhua.
Inspired by her grandmother, who had vast knowledge of plants, Machingauta said the idea to commercialise traditional knowledge systems came about out of a need to find a sustainable income.
While indigenous knowledge systems in treating diseases remain one of the most valuable intellectual resources owned by rural communities in Zimbabwe, Machingauta said it has been the least mobilised resource for sustainable development.
“So I realised that if we then leverage on these traditional knowledge systems to have sustainable livelihoods for women, it means that women can actually have decent lives where they are, with what they have within their communities, at their fingertips,” Machingauta said.
“Through this initiative, the women’s farming syndicate has enabled women to have decent livelihoods and to have a living wage, through the traditional knowledge systems, and through being able to commercialise it,” she added.
Local people have a long history of plant usage for medicinal purposes.
In most cases, practitioners, who are usually senior citizens, provide services based on traditional medicinal knowledge of local plants free of charge, or for a small fee.
Despite the increasing acceptance of traditional medicine, the rich indigenous knowledge is not adequately documented and is mostly passed on from generation to generation.
While the Zimbabwean government formally recognises traditional medicine, traditional healers have remained largely marginalised in most medical circles.
Machingauta said indigenous knowledge systems are a valuable national resource. Therefore, ensuring their protection should be a national priority.
She said China offers valuable lessons on how traditional knowledge systems can be used in the modern era, saying the Asian country has managed to preserve traditional knowledge for centuries.
