When a tiny group of people in southern Philippines kicked Spanish, American, Japanese and Filipino butt for centuries

This is an extraordinary story of a war of independence stretching over 400 years. The Moro in Southern Philippines have been fighting for independence against the Spaniards, then the Americans, then the Japanese, then the Filipinos (whom the Americans also helped again) and it is still going on.

this is a photograph of American soldiers at the massacre of hundreds of Moro civilians and soldiers, including very large number of women and children in the early part of last century.

Surprisingly, I learnt that the Americans asked for the help from the last Caliph in Turkey to help manage the insurrection. Like what the Americans did in Afghanistan, asked for help from Saudi Arabia and then Saudi's went and killed thousands in Afghanistan and also in 9/11. People who forget the past are condemned to repeat it. And we are still sucking  up to the Saudi's. We dont learn do we?

but they are still fighting for their independence, these Moro's have tenacity. you have to give them that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moro_Conflict

My Summer at an Indian Call Center

Son

This is an interesting read of how call centres work in India. I have personally have experience of setting these up in a variety of countries such as USA, Canada, uk, Poland, Egypt, Malaysia, India, Sri Lanka, Philippines etc etc. this behaviour that the author describes is quite common across the world. It's not just in India. 

The kids who get here and work are starting their careers. And they have an hunger, son, which is sort of humbling to see. The job is sort of thankless, to sort out your phone issues, to sell you insurance or time share holidays or or or. But these things keep on happening. 

With the increase in globalisation and connectivity, we don't see the man who is delivering our services and that is a bit of a shame as we lose touch with an important part of the value chain. But as a person interested in economics and management, remember that these people are the face of the companies to our customers. Never forget them and pay extra special attention to them, they are very very important. 

Love

Baba

My Summer at an Indian Call Center
http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2011/05/indian-call-center-americanization

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My Summer at an Indian Call Center

Lessons learned: Americans are hotheads, Australians are drunks—and never say where you’re calling from. Read the story everyone’s talking about.

By Andrew Marantz on Tue. July 5, 2011 2:00 AM PDT

“We were asked to hate everything Indian,” said 26-year-old Arnab (shown in his Delhi flat). Photographs: Sanjit Das/Panos

I stand flush against the window of a Toyota showroom, trying to stay in a shrinking sliver of shade. We’re on the cusp of midday, which, in Delhi in June, lasts most of the day and drives everyone into a languid torpor. I am waiting for a company cab, now an hour and a half late, to drive me across town to a call center, where an Indian “culture trainer” will teach me how to act Australian.

A uniformed guard next to me dozes on a stool, his rifle slumped in his lap. Behind the showroom window, which would be clear if two boys would stop rubbing it down with rags, a dozen red sedans glisten on a waxy white floor. On the dirt shoulder of the road, children hold hands as they walk to school.

Call centers don’t trust Indian infrastructure, as well they shouldn’t, so the company cab—typically a white Toyota Qualis—has become a standard industry perk. This morning a class of 24 new hires, myself included, will be ferried from all corners of the city to the offices of a small firm named Delhi Call Centre. For three weeks, a culture trainer will teach us conversational skills, Australian pop culture, and the terms of the mobile-phone contracts we’ll be peddling. Those of us who pass the training course will graduate to the calling floor. Our first job at DCC will be to interrupt Australians at dinner and ask them to switch phone providers. In the Delhi area alone, maybe 100,000 call-center agents make their living selling vitamins to Britons or helping Americans troubleshoot their printers. I am almost certainly the only one who acquired his conversational skills accidentally—by being born in the United States.

My phone vibrates. By the time I get it to my ear, a husky male voice is shouting in Hinglish, a rapid-fire blend of Hindi and English. “Meet at Toyota showroom!” I shout back.

“Fine sir, 20 minutes,” he replies.

I know “20 minutes” is a Hinglish phrase meaning “30 minutes,” so I call back after 40. A woman answers this time. “No problem, sir,” she says, “20 minutes only.” A sweat-and-sunblock solution drips down my forehead and stings my eyes. Behind me, the boys continue toweling the glass. The streaks they create blur into the streaks they wipe away.

Religious Restrictions in the 25 Most Populous Countries

Bloody shameful, if you ask me. What on earth are these countries doing? Think about India, not only does it have high government restrictions but the people themselves are actively hostile to other religions. Disgusting.

For that matter, the UK correspondingly has room for improvement as well. It has to reduce the amount of government restrictions and also further educate its population on being more liberal to other religions. Not good.

Prices for girls…

Now I dont have any idea about the provenance of this image but looks like its a Chinese place. Now presuming that it is true, the rates are quite extraordinary and tells you about the demand and supply of various nationalities of girls and their relative costs. Now why on earth would a Malay girl be less than a Philippine girl, a china girl is the same as a HK girl and bloody hell, what’s going on with the Russian girls?

 

Technorati Tags: Women's rights,Prostitution,China,Malaysia,Philippines,Hong Kong

India receives $27 bn in remittances in 2007

Way to go, do more and more, get rid of this habit of getting monies from government bodies and multi-lateral bodies. Savings, investments and personal funds transfers are far more economic and effective than other flows and do more for the poor than all the gods, religious leaders, NGOs and governments combined. Read and applaud. I quote:

The top five recipients of remittances in 2007 were India ($27 billion), China ($25.7 billion), Mexico ($25 billion), the Philippines ($17 billion), and France ($12.5 billion), according to the report titled 'Migration and Remittances Factbook 2008'.

"In many developing countries, remittances provide a life line for the poor. They are often an essential source of foreign exchange and a stabilising force for the economy in turbulent times," said Dilip Ratha, senior economist with the World Bank, and co-author of the report.

But found that figure for France curious, why are people remitting money into France?

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!

Price of Rice through the roof

I keep on moaning about food prices here, guys, but nothing much seems to be happening on that front. National policies by restricting exports will not do much at all and actually might make the problem worse. Now see the problem with rice. I quote:

Rice prices surged to a fresh 34-year high on Tuesday as the Philippines awarded a tender for the staple at an average price of $708 a tonne, up almost 50 per cent from the price it paid in late January.
The sharp rise reflects a market suffering from tightening supply after key producers India and Vietnam this month both imposed further restrictions on rice exports. Supplies from Thailand are also low, traders said.
The jump in rice prices would exacerbate rising inflation in Asia and risks triggering social unrest, analysts said. The Philippines, one of the world’s biggest rice importers, is particularly exposed.
European brokers quoted an indicative price for high quality Thai rice, a global benchmark, of about $640 a tonne, up from $515 in late February. In the last three months, the price has surged about 72 per cent.
Ben Savage, managing director at Jackson Son & Co, the London-based rice broker, said that prices have also been boosted by poor weather in southeast Asia, where the grain is a staple for about 2.5bn people.
“It has been surprisingly cool both in Vietnam and Thailand and that has delayed the crop and reduced yields,” Mr Savage said.
He said that price should become a bit more stable in the comings weeks as more supplies are delivered to the market, but added: “We do not expect to see prices much lower in the short term, nor a return in 2008 to last year’s levels.”
Thai rice prices last year averaged $334 a tonne, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation.
Vietnamese traders quoted a price of $610 a tonne for the country’s high quality rice, up from $550 last week and $355 in December. The rise in Vietnam’s prices comes as the country this week halted signing new contracts for exports until May, extending a previous curb intended to keep its domestic market well supplied.
India has also further restricted foreign sales of rice raising the minimum export price for non-basmati rice to $650 a tonne, up from $500 a tonne. The measure has, de facto, closed the export market, industry executives said.
Vijay Sethia, president of the All India Rice Exporters’ Association said the step was aimed to restrict the outflow of rice from the country.


All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!

Suicide of an 11 year old because she did not have shoes

This kind of story frankly makes me tear up. Children are our most precious resource and to see them suffer and commit suicide for basic stuff makes me very emotional as well as very angry at the same time. I was talking to my father and he reminded me of a story. We were exceedingly poor, dirt poor. When he was growing up, he was walking down the road in Dacca and saw this car parked on the side of the road. He just touched it and the driver came out and slapped him. He vowed then to "show" them all. And he did. But this girl didnt, and she committed suicide.

All she wanted was a bicycle, a pair of new shoes and to be able to
finish her schooling. But her family was dirt poor, and eventually the
12-year-old Filipina girl grew so demoralised that she hanged
herself.
Mariannet Amper left a letter under her pillow describing her failed
hopes and aspirations. Her family also found a diary in which she described the
privations of a life with no money in Davao City, on southern Mindanao
island.
The night before she killed herself with a nylon rope in their modest
hut, which has no electricity or running water, Mariannet had asked her father,
Isabelo, for 100 pesos (about £1) for a school project. But he had no money. The
next day, he managed to get a 1,000-pesos cash advance for some building work on
a chapel. But when he got home to tell her, his daughter was already
dead.

Poor father. I have seen tears in my father's eyes because he didnt have sufficient money to purchase mango's for my baby sister. But we all have to chip in and do something for the kids. I am going to get heavily involved in a children's charity here in the UK and India so watch out for more of this same. Let us all make an effort to improve the lives of all these children and aim to provide education for all.

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!

Transfer Money via mobile phones back home

Mobile phones are about to become the simplest and quickest way to transfer money across borders, under a deal announced yesterday by Western Union and GSM Association, the main mobile phone operators’ body.

The agreement could have a big impact on global cross-border remittances, worth an estimated $300bn a year, and provide a springboard for mobile carriers and Western Union to offer other mobile banking services using “mobile wallet” technology.

Cross-border money transfers valued at up to $100 in countries such as India, the Philippines, Mexico and China – which have large volumes of remittances from migrant workers – will be an early priority of the deal.

Brilliant idea, see how it will work:

Under the scheme, mobile operators will connect to Western Union’s existing global money transfer system, which processed some 17 per cent of the world’s remittance volume in 2006.

Once connected to the Western Union service, mobile operators will be able to use their own “mobile wallet”’ software to enable person-to-person mobile money transfers over Western Union’s cross-border remittance network.

Very interesting news indeed!, I love it. But what do global banks do to cater for this? Between this and the hawala, they are missing out on the micro payments industry.

Mind you, this will have another very big impact on counter terrorism and will make it easier for the terrorists to transfer monies.

Technorati Tags: Mobile Communications , Financial Institutions , India , Philippines , Indonesia , Mexico , China , Terrorism Financing

Filipino Thieves falling out

Hmmm, so this is quite curious, Moro Islamic Liberation Front has suggested vacating some of its camps, so that the largely catholic Filipino army can go after the Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiyah groups.

Remember these two groups are suspected in a variety of terrorist offences, such as the Bali bombing of 2005, and the airline bombing of 1994. They also have deep links with Al Qaeda.

These groups are very amorphous, and members switch easily between the groups, so if I was the Philippines military and intelligence sources, I would agree totally in return for some intelligence on the other groups.

 

But why this offer? Are the thieves falling out? Did some personalities clash? Another alternative could be that the MILF is getting hammered so it wants to clear out, get protection for its own people and families and in return, get the army to knock the stuffing out of its enemies. Nothing like a spot of poking and prodding to get rid of these jihadi's.

 

Muslim separatists offer to vacate camps amid offensive
Posted September 16th, 2007 by Tarique Anwar
* Muslim World News
By DPA
Manila : The Philippines' largest Muslim separatist rebel group has offered to abandon some of its camps in the south to avoid hampering a military offensive against Al Qaeda-linked militants, a spokesman said Sunday.
Eid Kabalu, a spokesman for the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), said the rebel group's leadership has made the offer as a goodwill and confidence-building gesture ahead of the resumption of peace talks with the government.
He said MILF fighters were prepared to temporarily move out of their camps in Basilan province, 900 km south of Manila, to give way to the military's offensive against Abu Sayyaf rebels and Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) operatives.
"We are prepared to leave the area, on the consideration that the security and livelihood of the families of our fighters are taken care of," he said.
More than 50 soldiers have been killed in Basilan and nearby Jolo island -another stronghold of the Abu Sayyaf - since July.
While the military continues to have suspicion that some MILF members have ties with Abu Sayyaf or JI militants, the rebel group has denounced terrorism and has vowed to help the Philippine government's hunt down suspected terrorists.
Peace talks between the MILF and the Philippine government have been stalled since September 2006 over disagreements on what areas would be included in a proposed Muslim homeland.

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!

Technorati Tags: Philippines , Islamic Terrorism , Moro Islamic Liberation Front , Abu Sayyaf , Jemaah Islamiyah , Al Queda