MANILA: Overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) can be deployed again to Iraq and Yemen. Labour Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz said the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) governing board has approved a resolution allowing deployment to the two Arab countries. “The POEA governing board has issued three resolutions allowing deployment of Filipinos to Iraq, Yemen and Eritrea upon the recommendation of the Department of Foreign Affairs,” she added.
Fact-finding team for Tubbataha reef
MANILA: Several groups will hold a “sovereignty and environmental” mission next week in Palawan to get people’s version on the grounding of the US Navy ship USS Guardian in Tubbataha Reef last January 17. The mission’s organisers, including the fisherfolk group Pamalakaya, Anakpawis partylist and the International Fisherfolk and FishWorkers Coalition, said the mission will be held from March 11 to 14.
Japan denies reactor restart claims
TOKYO: Japan’s nuclear watchdog yesterday denied claims the country is planning to restart six reactors, just days before the second anniversary of the quake-tsunami disaster and nuclear crisis at Fukushima. “Nothing has been decided as it’s impossible for us to predict how many reactors can reopen this year before new safety measures are announced,” an official with Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority said.
Maldives opposition leader detained
MALE: Police in the Maldives detained opposition leader Mohamed Nasheed yesterday, defying pressure from regional power India which had called for him to be free to campaign for elections. Twenty masked policemen in riot gear arrested him at his family home in the capital Male and one of his security men was hurt in the melee, a spokeswoman for Nasheed’s Maldivian Democratic Party said. Police served no arrest warrant on the pro-democracy activist, who was the first freely elected president until last year, she said.
Myanmar leader offered EU help
BRUSSELS: Thein Sein, on the first visit to Brussels by a Myanmar president, received new pledges yesterday of EU economic assistance, coupled with calls to protect his country’s ethnic minorities. Sein met European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso, EU President Herman Van Rompuy, and foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton. “You have in the European Union a committed and long-term partner for the historic journey that Myanmar and its people have started,” Van Rompuy told Sein.
Nepal produces
first billionaire
KATHMANDU: The impoverished Himalayan republic of Nepal, where Maoist revolutionaries came to power in 2008, has produced its first billionaire, according to a new study by Forbes magazine. Binod Chaudhary, the 57-year-old head of the Chaudhary Group, owns popular noodle brand Wai Wai, exports herbal medicines to India and operates schools, retail outlets, banks, hospitals and telecoms companies in Nepal. The magnate, whose family has run businesses since the 1930s, was included among 1,426 billionaires from around the world in the latest list of the US-based business magazine. Agencies
