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How much do you trust each institution to do what is right?
This is the question tackled by the annual trust survey conducted by Edelman, a leading global communications marketing firm. The barometer has been done since 2001. This year, it has observed the following as major points to ponder in the global scale. 1. Trust in crisis: Trust in all institutions dropped, with trust in media at an all-time low. 2. Trust inequality grows: Trust gap between the informed public and the masses widen. 3. Broken system: Only 15 percent agree that the system is working. 4. Concerns and fears: Corruption, globalization, immigration, and innovation are among the top concerns of society. 5. Populist action: Societal fears combined with unbelief in the system tend to cause populist actions. 6. Media echo chamber: People are more likely to ignore information which are contrary to their beliefs, and those who they usually disagree with. In addition, social media helped entrench many people to their own opinions, rather than expand their perspectives. 7. Highly credible peers: Credibility of experts and managers is at an all-time low, with people more likely to believe their peers as credible sources. 8. Business fears: The current pace of business, which includes foreign competition and automation, also fuels societal fears. 9. High expectations for business: Nevertheless, people expect businesses to treat both employees and customers well. 10. Demand for a new model: The crisis calls for a new operative model which listens to and engages all stakeholders. Despite overall decrease in global trust (minus 3 points in a scale of 100), the Asia-Pacific, the Middle East (West Asia), and Africa seem to be exceptions. For instance, Asian nations like India (+7), Indonesia (+7), and Turkey (+2) experienced a boost in the trust index. However, most Asia-Pacific and West Asia countries, which included Australia (-7), China (-6), United Arab Emirates (-6), Singapore (-4), Malaysia (-4), South Korea (-4), and Japan (-3) followed the worldwide trend of decreasing trust.
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President Rodrigo Duterte’s socioeconomic agenda was unveiled in his trip to the Middle East last week and will be called “Dutertenomics,” Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez said on Monday.
“Dutertenomics” aims to widen the gains of economic development, address inequality and uplift the quality of life of all Filipinos, the Cabinet official said in a statement. Lopez said the President’s visits to Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Qatar significantly strengthened diplomatic relationships, resulting in stronger commitments to enhance bilateral trade and investments. A dearth of coverage, competing global interests, and an omnipresent police state render violations largely unnoticed.
“It’s quite clear that Vietnam is getting much more of a free pass on human rights than their poor record deserves, partly because of the government’s resilience and willingness to push back on international criticism,” said Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia division. Amnesty International counted 91 prisoners of conscience in Vietnam in its 2016 yearly report, the highest number in Southeast Asia, while eight of the 13 journalists imprisoned in the region are in Vietnam, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Russia has sought the opportunity to expand its influence in Afghanistan at the expense of the US.
The Afghans have bitter memories of the Russians, given the Soviet invasion and occupation of their country for nearly a decade in the 1980s. During that period, more than a million Afghans were killed, hundreds of thousands injured, with some eight million becoming external and internal refugees, not to mention the extent of the country's physical destruction. However, times and conditions have changed. The inability of the United States, together with its NATO allies, to bring peace and stability to Afghanistan, following the US-led military intervention in response to the September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda attacks on the US, have opened a new window for a resurgent Russia. Most people agree that North Korea is a problem. Aside from its nuclear tests, it also stands accused of state-sponsored counterfeiting of foreign currencies, the industrial-scale manufacture and sale of illicit drugs, and even of assassinating its own citizens in foreign countries.
But why is North Korea China's problem in particular? China is North Korea's only major diplomatic ally, but the relationship is fraught with difficulties. How did China get saddled with such a troublesome partner? The history of the relationship runs much deeper than most people realise. The Bangladesh economy has been one of the top performers in Asia over the past decade, averaging annual growth of more than 6%. Much like Hong Kong (Special Administrative Region of China), Singapore, South Korea and the Taiwan (Province of China) during the industrialization of their economies, most of of the growth that Bangladesh has experienced has come from garment exports, which the CIA World Factbook says accounts for more than 80% of its exports.
In a note sent out to clients on Monday, Gareth Leather and Krystal Tan, Asia economists at Capital Economics, wrote that Bangladesh has picked up about two-thirds of China's low-end manufacturing market share in Europe. A ranking Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) official said the Finance department’s tax reform proposal will help ensure price stability in the country.
Last March, the House of Representative’s Ways and Means Committee approved in principle the first package of the Department of Finance’s (DoF) Comprehensive Tax Reform Program (CTRP) and decided to form a Technical Working Group (TWG) to study it further. Finance officials hope that lawmakers will give their thumbs up on the tax reform measure by the middle of this year. Human rights campaigners voice concern that the Constitutional Court's ruling to limit the government's authority in revoking regional bylaws will prompt regional administrations to issue discriminatory bylaws.
The Constitutional Court’s recent ruling curtailing the central government’s authority to revoke regional bylaws may embolden local politicians to issue more religiously-inspired regulations that are often discriminatory against women and minority groups, human rights activists have said. The Philippine government (GPH) and the National Democratic Front (NDF) peace panels on Wednesday finally agreed to declare a joint interim ceasefire, a key demand of President Rodrigo Duterte.
President Rodrigo Duterte earlier scrapped the peace negotiations with the NDF after attacks on soldiers by the communist armed wing, the New People’s Army (NPA), which ended its unilateral ceasefire with government last February. Peace negotiations were however revived following successful back-channel talks. The 16th session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII16) will take place at UN Headquarters in New York from 24 April to 5 May 2017. More than 1,000 indigenous participants are expected to attend the Session, making it not only one of the most culturally diverse United Nations meetings, but also one of the largest public gatherings at the United Nations Head Quarters every year.
The Special Theme this year is: “Tenth Anniversary of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: measures taken to implement the Declaration”. The Declaration, which was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 13 September 2007, was a historical achievement after more than 25 years of negotiations. |
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