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05/04/2025

03/04/2025

Today marks a significant milestone in aviation as Air Canada proudly launches its inaugural flight AC17 from Vancouver to Manila aboard the state-of-the-art B787 Dreamliner!

This aircraft is not just a marvel of engineering; it represents a bridge connecting cultures, families, and adventures.

As we soar through the skies, we carry with us the spirit of Canada and the warmth of the Philippines. 🇨🇦🇵🇭

28/03/2025

Overseas Filipino Workers gathered outside the ICC Detention Facility to celebrate the 80th birthday of the former President Rodrigo Roa Duterte.
Most of them came from across European countries and from outside Europe to show support for the former president against the detention in the International Criminal Court.

📍 The Hague, Netherlands

📷SMNI News

28/03/2025

INTERNATIONAL| Central Myanmar struck by magnitude-7.7 earthquake, tremors felt in Thailand, Vietnam and China.

A strong earthquake has hit Myanmar, with the effects felt as far as Thailand and Vietnam.

The magnitude-7.7 earthquake hit near Mandalay in central Myanmar, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS), at a depth of only 10 kilometres.

The midday temblor was followed by a strong 6.4 magnitude aftershock.

There is no immediate information about the impact in the country, which is in the midst of a civil war, but it was felt strongly in the Thai capital, Bangkok.

At least one person was killed and dozens of workers rescued from under the rubble of a collapsed skyscraper in Bangkok, Thailand's National Institute of Emergency Medicine said.

USGS said the epicentre was about 17.2km from Mandalay, a city with a population of about 1.2 million. While the area is prone to earthquakes, it is generally sparsely populated and most houses are low-rise structures.

"We have started the search and going around Yangon to check for casualties and damage. So far, we have no information yet," an officer from the Myanmar Fire Services Department told to reporters.

28/03/2025

EVENTS| Filipinos gathered in New York City, USA to celebrate the 80th birthday of the former President Rodrigo Roa Duterte this Friday, March 28.

The group gathered in Times square, NYC for a program in celebration of the former President's birthday.

Along with their program, they called for the repatriation of the former President who is in the ICC detention facility in The Hague, Netherlands.

📸Rudymel Colmenares

27/03/2025

JAPAN| Wildfires have hit several regions in western Japan, injuring at least two people, forcing dozens of residents to evacuate and damaging a number of homes as hundreds of firefighters battled the widening blazes in the mountainous areas.

The fires in the western towns of Okayama, Imabari and A*o broke out on Sunday, quickly burning hundreds of hectares.

Six homes have been damaged in city of Okayama, where a fire started on Mount Kaigara and burned 250 hectares of the forest. In Imabari, in the Ehime prefecture on the main island of Shikoku, the fire left a firefighter slightly injured.

30/12/2024

27/12/2024

ENTERTAINMENT| Squid Game creator Hwang Dong-hyuk on killing off his characters and wanting to work with Jake Gyllenhaal.
South Korean director Hwang Dong-hyuk shares his thoughts on making the second season of Squid Game.
Viewers may gasp, cringe or cry out watching characters die on Netflix's Squid Game, but those simulated deaths have a different effect on its creator, writer and director. Instead, Hwang Dong-hyuk feels happiness seeing them go.
The show has a huge cast and Hwang says it was “really difficult” to manage everyone on set.
As characters would die, Hwang recalls saying to the actors on their last day: “‘Oh no! How sad! I won’t see you tomorrow,' but I was always smiling inside."
Squid Game season two premiered on Thursday (Dec 26). It once again stars Lee Jung-jae and centres around a secret competition in South Korea that targets people in debt and the winner gets a big cash prize. What they don't know is that losing the game is deadly.
Hwang originally conceived the show 15 years ago as a two-hour film but it failed to gain traction with financiers or even interested actors. He put it aside and worked on other films instead. He then had the idea to make it a TV series instead and took the project to Netflix. There, it could reach a wide audience.
“I never in my wildest dream thought it was going to be this huge,” said Hwang, who spoke with the AP about the show and what comes next.

26/12/2024

Dozens of people have survived a crash involving a plane carrying 67 people in Kazakhstan, local officials say.

Kazakh authorities said 38 people were killed in the crash.

The plane was en route to Grozny in Russia but it was diverted due to fog, the airline told the BBC. The Kremlin said on Thursday that it would not "put forward hypotheses" about the cause of the crash until the investigation was finished.

Azerbaijan Airlines flight J2-8243 caught fire as it attempted to make an emergency landing near the Kazakh city of Aktau.

Footage shows the aircraft heading towards the ground at high speed with its landing gear down, before bursting into flames as it lands.

The airline said the plane "made an emergency landing" about 3km (1.9 miles) from Aktau.

It took off from the Azerbaijani capital Baku at 03:55 GMT on Wednesday, and crashed around 06:28, data from flight-tracking website Flightradar24 showed.

Unconfirmed reports from Russian media said the aircraft might have collided with a flock of birds before crashing.

Azerbaijan's prosecutor general said "all possible scenarios" were being examined and President Ilham Aliyev said it was too early to say anything definitive.

Air defence experts have suggested that the pattern of damage inside and outside the plane indicates Russian air defence active in Grozny may have caused the crash.

Courtesy from BBC.COM

25/12/2024

The World Economic Outlook forecasts 3.2% growth for 2024-2025, with inflation dropping to 4.3% by 2025. With a smooth landing within reach, it is time for governments to rebuild buffers and boost long-term growth.
Global growth is expected to remain stable yet underwhelming. However, notable revisions have taken place beneath the surface since April 2024, with upgrades to the forecast for the United States offsetting downgrades to those for other advanced economies, in particular, the largest European countries. Likewise, in emerging market and developing economies, disruptions to production and shipping of commodities—especially oil—conflicts, civil unrest, and extreme weather events have led to downward revisions to the outlook for the Middle East and Central Asia and that for sub-Saharan Africa. These have been compensated for by upgrades to the forecast for emerging Asia, where surging demand for semiconductors and electronics, driven by significant investments in artificial intelligence, has bolstered growth, a trend supported by substantial public investment in China and India. Five years from now, global growth should reach 3.1 percent—a mediocre performance compared with the prepandemic average.

As global disinflation continues, services price inflation remains elevated in many regions, pointing to the importance of understanding sectoral dynamics and of calibrating monetary policy accordingly, as discussed in Chapter 2. With cyclical imbalances in the global economy waning, near-term policy priorities should be carefully calibrated to ensure a smooth landing. At the same time, structural reforms are necessary to lift medium-term growth prospects, while support for the most vulnerable should be maintained. Chapter 3 discusses strategies to enhance the social acceptability of these reforms—a crucial prerequisite for successful implementation.

Source: IMF, World Economic Outlook;
Policy Pivot, Rising Threats (Published on October 2024)

23/12/2024

Can you find the cat😺? Don't cheat.

Bayanihan. A true definition of every Filipino.

22/12/2024

TRIVIA| Did you know that the founder of the Rolex Brand was an orphan?

The idea of the Rolex brand was born in the mind of the visionary Hans Wilsdorf, was born in Bavaria, which is now part of Germany, Wilsdorf became an orphan at age of 12 and has a passion for watchmaking, he moved to England and decided to found the Rolex brand. Wilsdorf's uncles helped him become self-reliant early in life, which he believes contributed to his success. He began his career as an apprentice at an international pearl-exporting company.

In 1905, Wilsdorf and his brother-in-law established the Wilsdorf & Davis company, which specialized in exporting watches to the British Empire. In 1919 he moved the Rolex headquarters to Geneva, Switzerland where he continue more developments and patents, Wilsdorf's esoteric entrepreneurial spirit has outlived him, resulting in business practices that ignore trends and short supply.

However, as Hans Wilsdorf tells it in “The Story of Rolex” published in 1948, “In those days, a wrist-watch was considered a joke. The few who wore them were laughed at.” He further added, “People said a watch with such a tiny, delicate mechanism could never withstand the violent gestures of hand and arm. And, of course, it was too small to be accurate.”

Hans Wilsdorf ignored the criticisms; he was sure that “the wrist-watch had a brilliant future before it” and pushed on with his vision of wristwatches overtaking pocket watches as the go-to personal time-teller. He placed “the largest order for wrist-watches ever booked at that time” with Aegler in Bienne.

Photo by: zealand.com