This has been a hell of a roller coaster ride year for Europe. First, financial crisis had spread across the European Union, and sporadic riots sparked in countries such as Greece. Now we have two–err–one new president in France and a familiar face taking the helm in Russia. A socialist by the name of Francois Hollande has clearly nabbed Nicholas Sarkozy’s job, after edging him in this year’s election in France.

Francois Hollande clinches French presidency.

Meanwhile, in Russia, Vladimir Putin is once again the president after much criticism and protest on the streets of Moscow preceding the election. Vladimir Putin was the president from 2000 to 2008, then served as prime minister after handing the seat over to Dmitry Medvedev, the hapless president sandwiched by Putin’s past and present terms. Medvedev was practically a bench warmer whilst Putin waited to be eligible to run for presidency again. Many people say that Medvedev was but a mere puppet of Putin, a sort of Manchurian Candidate. Conspiracy theories abound, but in post-Soviet Russia, theories and reality are separated by a thin, blurry line.

The future of these two nations will be both exciting and worrisome to watch unfold. Politically and economically speaking, the new French president, Francois Hollande, will be on the radar of the international community. I’m eager to know how much other socialist leaders, such as Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and Bolivia’s Evo Morales, rub elbows with Hollande. How will he react to such political flirtation? Will his actions deviate from his campaign promises? What will be his stance towards Iran and North Korea once France’s political allies ask him to go in their corner?

A more interesting question is if Putin will change or remain grounded in his stance towards Iran and North Korea, the latter a nation that also has a relatively new leader after the death of Kim Jong-il. Russia and China have a track record of going against the rest of the international community’s response towards the two “rogue states” with nuclear ambitions.

If Barack Obama doesn’t win in this year’s presidential election, Mitt Romney, the Republican Party’s nominee, will take over as Commander-in-Chief. How will his administration deal with a socialist Frenchman, since accusations of President Obama being a closet-socialist flew left from right during the Republican primaries?

The Mayan Doomsday prophecy regarding 2012 may not come true, but there are definitely major paradigm shifts this year that could very well affect the world beyond December 21st.

It was just recently when the highest grossing film of James Cameron, Titanic was converted into its 3D version and the excitement of the movie is now coming back.

Excitement not in the story of the movie but on the making of a similar ship. Yes you’re reading it right, someone who has the financial capability of building Titanic II is on its way of fulfilling it.

Mining magnate and Australian billionaire Clive Palmer announced Monday that he has signed a memorandum of understanding with state-owned Chinese company CSC Jinling Shipyard to build the Titanic II. The ship will take the same route of the first ship from England to New York on its maiden voyage in late 2016.

“It will be every bit as luxurious as the original Titanic, but … will have state-of-the-art 21st-century technology and the latest navigation and safety systems, a tribute to the spirit of the men and women who worked on the original Titanic,” says Palmer.

Palmer is a coal mining magnate who was once a real estate businessman on Australia’s Gold Coast tourist strip. He has been ranked 5th on Australia’s richest person last year with more than 5 billion Australian dollars ($5.2 billion).

Previous attempts were unsuccessful due to financial constraints but this time, Palmer assures that it will push through.

Titanic II will also have the four smoke stacks just like the old one but this time it would be purely decorative.

According to Brett Jardine, general manager for Australia and New Zealand in the industry group International Cruise Council, Titanic II is way way smaller than today’s modern luxury ships but can be luxurious as it can be.

It can accommodate 1,680 passengers compared to others that can carry more than for more than 2,000 passengers. Nevertheless, the fact that it is Titanic II which is based on the historic ship a century ago.

A cruise trip would be a nice way of diverting your busy business meetings like acquiring beach properties for sale in the Philippines. Before settling on your newly bought retirement homes in the Philippines, you might as well include riding the Titanic II before anything else.

Philippines is a huge catholic country wherein majority of its people are bounded by the rules and regulations of their church. Lesbians, Gays, Bisexual and Transgenders (LGBT) group is having a hard time fighting for their rights in this kind society since they are being seen as immoral and not living in accordance with the church’s teachings.

However, these group of people are crying out loud to the public that just like any other ordinary people who aren’t perfect, they have the right to live in the world with equal rights.

In the recent episode of a local TV show The Bottom Line hosted by Mr. Boy Abunda, he interviewed LadLad partylist representative Bems Benedito, a transgender woman. Among Abunda’s guests is MISS Universe 1999 1st Runner-Up Miriam Quiambao. Before Abunda started his interview with Benedito, he asked his guests some insights of the topic.

“I’m not a pastor, I’m definitely not an expert but the way I understand it homosexuality is not the one that makes you a sinner. Actually, sexual immorality is what makes you a sinner,” Quiambao said.

On her official Twitter account, she continued to air out her opinion by tweeting, “Hate the sin. Love the sinner. We have all sinned… Forgiveness comes from God. Grace comes to those who believe. Peace.” She also followed it up by saying, “Homosexuality is not a sin but it is a lie from the devil. Do not be deceived. God loves gays and wants them to know the truth.”

The latter tweet stirred the LGBT group and from then on, she received several bashes and condemned her for saying such thing. One user tweeted, “Most, if not all, homosexuals know wrong from right. So don’t say that we are gay because the devil dictated it to us.”

Another tweeted: “Wow I didn’t think @miriamq is a homophobe! She thinks were blinded by the truth. You’re the one who’s blinded gurl welcome to the 21st century!”

Quiambao has been firm in her beliefs and even asked apologies of her being insensitive and used harsh words.

These are just petty things that has been happening in the country. Nevertheless, the country is still a haven of beautiful things and beautiful people. In fact, a lot of foreigners are looking for beach properties for sale in the Philippines for them to start their business. Other expats and retirees are also looking for retirement homes in the Philippines so that when time comes, they will have a nice place to spend the rest of their lives.

There are several reasons why some countries are more developed than others. One of the factors is the interconnected relationships between colonialism, geography, culture, institutions, and the leadership in those institutions.

Through examination of examples throughout history, and the effect they had on the present day, I found that various political dynamics, such as physical and cultural colonialism, partly explains why many developing countries are buried in a mountain of poverty.

During the 16th and 17th century, European countries began to exert their control over larger parts of the world. The Spanish and Portuguese founded colonies in Central and Latin America. Britain and France, on the other hand, began to colonise North America, the Middle East. These countries–which make up the power players today’s European Union–also established colonies in Asia and Africa.

Colonialism gave European powers access to fund their own economic development by exploiting their colonies. This affected the growth of those very colonies long after they gained their independence.

Haiti is a prime example of exploitation by its colonial masters. In 1790, Haiti was recognized as one of the richest countries in the world due to its lucrative export of sugar. But most of its profits went to the French colonizers. After winning their independence in 1804, Haiti was forced to pay reparations to France, in which they had to shell out almost 80% of their national budget.

As a result, this impoverished Haiti and increased France’s income. European powers used lucrative forced labor to grow cash crops for the booming global market. Even though colonialism isn’t sufficient enough as causal proof as to why some countries are more developed than others, it’s quite evident that, in terms of GDP, more than 20 countries that were once colonies are amongst the world’s poorest.

Factors include: the draining of resources, exploitation, and the inevitable dependency these developing countries grew accustomed to, which in later years helped feed the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. These are two institutions that loaned large sums of money to developing countries, but with a high interest rate.

South Sudan celebration. Photo courtesy of Al Jazeera English.

Another factor is geography, which continues to explain why many less-developed countries cannot make as much progress as the more developed ones. Location is an important variable in explaining large gaps in economic development between nations. Some regions have more advantage than others in terms of wealth and power due in part because of their location. Good soil for agriculture is one example of this. Different regions, such as the Nile Delta and Fertile Crescent in North Africa and Iraq, respectively, have had the advantage early on to produce an abundance of grain products, because they had favorable soil. But these very regions were also exploited by many European nations by way of colonialism. In North Africa, the French and Italians divided the region amongst themselves, like pieces of a pie. Parts of the Middle East was under the control of the British Empire, such as Palestine and present-day Israel.

Civil wars and revolutions both pre- and post-colonial rule have also had its effects on the present-day inequality amongdeveloping nations, especially in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. Incidentally, many civil wars during post-colonlial rule stem from the effects of colonization itself from the re-mapping of traditional tribal lands and the installation of minority groups to rule over a rival majority, like Rwanda.

Speaking on inequality, Nancy Birdsall (1999) states:

”[…] the developing countries face special risks that globalization and the market reforms that reflect and reinforce their integration into the global economy, will exacerbate inequality, at least in the short run, and raise the political costs of inequality and the social tensions associated with it.”

Let’s take a look at two developing countries that have been both colonized, but whose trajectory, in terms of economy, have varied greatly: Brazil and Nigeria. The Portuguese colonized Brazil during the Atlantic slave trade and Nigeria was colonized by the English from 1861 to 1900. Many of Afro-Caribbean slaves ended up in Brazil, along with various European and Asian immigrants. Nigeria, meanwhile, stayed relatively heterogeneous.

Brazil has risen to become a member of BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China), while Nigeria developed well in its own right, but stayed relatively more impoverished. Having said that, let us not dodge the fact that the gap between the small percentage of the Brazilian population reaping the benefits of a booming economy and the lower-class is conspicuously wide. Both countries export agriculture, but Brazil was able to create an economic system that capitalized on this type of industry, whereas Nigeria couldn’t seem to find the right formula due to political corruption inherited from post-colonial fracturing.

There are many factors as to why both of these countries, though similar in political history, are on different levels. For one, Brazil has not only capitalized on their agriculture industry, but have also been business-friendly to many types of other industries, such as technology, architecture, livestock and Web-based entrepreneurship. Though Nigeria has the second largest film industry in the world (India has the largest), their market only caters to local and regional interests and the Nigerian diaspora, whereas India has made capital in its success of exporting Bollywood culture outside of New Delhi. Nigeria has also turned away many possible investors due to the notorious “African Prince Scam”, which has its origins in Nigerian internet cafes.

Economist Dambisa Moyo expands the big picture pertaining to inequality and poverty in sub-Saharan Africa by stating that a culture of dependency, by way of celebrity-endorsed charities, has harmed the growth of the continent. Millions of dollars are poured into Africa, but little evidence has shown that this type of system works in a practical sense. What happens is that these countries become reliant on donors, governments that don’t truly care about their interest and private institutions like the IMF and the World Bank. In turn, the debts of these countries skyrocket as poverty rates remain stagnant.

There are many variables that can be measured through a retrospective look at history, but since the economic and political systems vary, both in micro and macro levels, there is no absolute proof in a stable measurement tool in proving the cause of inequalities amongst different developing nations. For instance, during the height of the recent global economic meltdown, Nigeria, along with the Philippines, another impoverished country with a long history of colonization, maintained a strong currency, while the dollar and euro decreased in value.

What can’t be denied, on the other hand, is the fact that imperialism had tremendous long-term repercussions. Historians like to play the “What If” game. What if Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia were never colonized? What if Western nations hadn’t become the superpowers post-WWII, but instead countries like Malawi, Azerbaijan and Chile had? The fact is that it will take a handful of decades more to see if colonialism will continue to haunt the countries it touched, or if the inequalities will eventually balance out.

According to Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), about 207,754 people become victims of sexual assault each year. That’s just the figure in the United States that have been reported. Imagine the number of women, girls, boys, and even men who are sexually assaulted in developing countries.

Many of us have heard about women being raped and tortured by paramilitary groups in sub-Saharan countries, such as Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, but what about the voices that have been suppressed in other places–those that don’t receive as much attention from the mainstream media?

Though the U.S. and U.K. obviously have their share of sex crimes, at least there are governmental institutions and NGOs in the West that help support these women. In many oppressive countries, where machismo culture is still very much ingrained in society, women and girls don’t have the proper channels to report sexual abuse. In addition, laws in some developing countries are substantially more lenient toward rapists than the U.S.

Morocco recently came into the spotlight when a 16-year old girl, who was raped, swallowed rat poison and died. A law in Morocco, Article 475, states that someone who rapes a minor is able to escape punishment if he marries the victim. Many activists in the country have spoken loudly about abolishing this law, because it allows rapists to get away with their crime. The penal code wouldn’t have applied to the 16-year old victim, Amina Filali, anyways. The legal age to marry in Morocco was raised to 18 years old seven years ago.

International Women Day in Egypt. Photo courtesy of Al Jazeera English.

This case also sheds light on the most vulnerable victims of sexual assault: children. Though there have been progress, at least on paper, in combating child prostitution and international human trafficking, just recently a man in Washington, D.C. was busted by the FBI for forcing minors into prostitution. In Bangladesh human traffickers pay impoverished families $250 to give up their daughters to put them in the sex trade. The minors are then given a form of steroid to make them appear older.

Outside of the sex trade, minors who are sexually assaulted are usually victimized by those close to them, such as a member of the household. They are afraid to tell an adult, because they are afraid of physical repercussion and believe that they will be blamed for “breaking up the family”.

This is a factor you have to consider when dealing with victims. There is a tremendous psychological impact that comes with sexual abuse. In both developed and developing nations, victims are less likely to report assaults due to perceived negative social stigma. The key component in breaking this barrier of fear and silence is the availability of resources for the victims, and creating an environment of trust. You can only change a culture–defined in the Oxford dictionary as “the ideas, customs, and social behaviour of a particular people or society”–by stopping the cycle and implementing new ways of doing things. On top of that, the mentality has to change within both the victims and the society which they are a part of. Those who are sexually abused in any way should always keep in mind that they are the victim and not the one at fault; but also a victim that has a voice and a choice.

There needs to be a change in how the local and federal governments of all countries handle these cases. This is an urgent and worsening crisis that is not usually addressed by political revolutions sprouting around the world. Human rights and bringing justice to the invasion of those human rights, and I believe sex crimes fall into that category, is just has important as political freedom and economic opportunities.

I urge all victims to come forward–discreetly if you prefer–and not let the heavy weight of centuries of silence from past victims stop you from breaking the history of violence.

Philippines is an archipelago of more than seven thousand islands housing millions of social-networking-engaging population. In fact, as of January of 2011, Philippines rank 5th among the countries with most number of Facebook accounts with its 600 million users.

In a short span of time, Filipino Twitter users also soared high in numbers that even famous Filipino celebrities join the crowd. In fact the most followed Filipino Twitter user is the actress-host Anne Curtis with more than 2 million followers.

Twitter has become the common place of celebrities and their fans wherein the exchange of direct communication has become within reach. However, in the past few months, Twitter has also became a ground for bashers to reach these celebrities as well. Some of the much talked controversies among them also started in the site all because of their intriguing tweets.

There are also love affairs that started in the site while there are some that ended in the same place. These things clearly showed that the social networking sites has become a large part of the lives of the Filipino celebrities. Some decided to deactivate their accounts because they can no longer bare the negative comments sent to them and opted to keep their whereabouts private.

Some stayed and just didn’t mind the bashers and continued sharing their thoughts in the site. This somehow raised the question of whether being in the site is helpful to the celebrities or not. Some of them who chose to stay said that they value their fans more than the negative comments that they get from their haters.

If some are wasting their time looking for russian girls seeking men or perhaps busy on their mail order bride russian hobby, others are spending it following celebrities either bashing them or just simply following their whereabouts.

It’s been 3 years since the controversial ‘Chris Brown beating Rihanna” news and now both of them will be together again. Not as a couple though but with a recent album collaboration.

The news started to go viral in the internet world when the pair intentionally leaked it via social networking site, Twitter. Rihanna’s recent track “Birthday Cake” will be featuring Brown’s vocals. Her producers in fact tweeted that this would truly rocked the world.

Indeed it rocked the world, as who would have thought that after all the beating up 3 years ago, these two singers will be joining each other again.

If we’re going to use poker games as a comparison, it would be like collaborating with your immortal texas holdem poker opponent wherein you would be risking a lot and more than ready to be treated badly once again.

Sorry for the lame comparison but it is really odd. It’s not that Rihanna should not forgive Chris Brown but with this collaboration , there is a possibility that their romance will have a its ‘Part 2′.

Brown is currently serving five years’ probation for brutally assaulting Rihanna three years ago on the eve of the Grammy Awards.

Rihanna’s decision would always be hers and no one can ever tell her what to do. If she’s going to be happy with it then be it.

Investing on a stock market is like playing chess; isn’t just a game of luck but of surmountable strategy. With a fluctuating market and seemingly unpredictable trend of individual players and business entities, risks are equally as high as possible investment returns. Rookies therefore must learn more than just the basics.

One of the most precious secret in stock market investing is having intelligent stock picks. A player must be aware that the value of the investment is not in their own control. The value of the stocks depend on the company’s revenue and earnings; much less, is how much individuals are willing to pay the shares that you own at the current time. To outperform the market, one has to give in to fear and play with a strategy. Risky though, favorable returns come to those who know how to outwit the other traders. It is therefore advisable to know how to get in or out in order to lock in profits and/or save oneself from potential disaster of losing.

In the Philippines, improving economy and enforced fiscal investment policies have boost the business confidence of the local market. Investing in the Philippine Stock Exchange is one of the growing business avenue. The country’s stock market is now picking up and grows at par with other Asian equity market counterparts. People are more secured. In effect, more and more get interested and flock into trading with their own individual methodologies. Analysts are looking into a larger number of investors in the next quarter.

I remember the local bus stations, the restaurants I dined at and, more vividly, the faces of generous and easy-going people I had crossed paths with. What I don’t remember are the scenes of carnage, the decapitated heads and Mexican armed forces patrolling the streets in diesel-belching vehicles.

It was the end of Spring Break, in 2008, when I had crossed the Texas-Mexico border on foot at three in the morning. The streets were desolate and quiet except for the faint banter of taxi drivers trying to hustle lone travelers like myself. One guy offered me a lift to the consulate for my tourist visa, even though it was still closed, for an above-average rate. I declined. Another guy offered me hookers. I declined that as well. As seedy as that sounds, it was actually a peaceful time along the border. Nowadays, those taxi drivers are probably not faring too well, because no one wants to be out and about when the Zetas, Sinaloa and other drug cartels are splattering the streets with blood in the most gruesome fashion.

Photo by Michael Mira. Bridge connecting Brownsville, Texas and Matamoros, Mexico.

When the first major outbreaks of violence erupted along the Mexico-U.S. border, they were generally limited to certain hot spots, or stomping grounds of different drug cartel factions, but after an arson attack at a casino last August, in Monterrey–a city which hosts many large companies and a relatively low crime rate–the illusion of safety was shattered.

It also doesn’t help that corruption is rampant within the government, both local and federal levels. According to a report by the BBC, about 1,000 police officers in the state of Veracruz failed lie-detector tests. The average salary of men in uniform below the border are lower than their counterparts in the United States, making it enticing to bite money baits by criminal organizations. The government has also been criticized for plumping up the facts when it came to the statistics it used in victory declarations, claiming that most casualties in armed scrimmages with the cartels are criminals when the sobering figures actually show that civilians also make up a good percentage of casualties. They’re trying to show the citizens and, more importantly, the United States, that their war against the cartels is effective.

My friends and fellow writers in Reynosa tell me a different story, or rather the same old story: it’s still pretty bad over there.

This is not to take anything away from the armed forces of Mexico. I commend those who truly fight for their beautiful country’s future and resist corruption, but they are outgunned and outfunded by the various cartels, and this makes it more difficult for them to do their job. There have been major victories, such as the arrest of Jose Antonio Torres, an affiliate of the Sinaloa, and the capture of Louis Jesus Sarabia Ramon, a leader of the deadly Zetas cartel. But just as with the Taliban, when one leader goes down, another is appointed replacement almost immediately. The other problem with arresting leaders is that this creates a vacuum within the organization and thus can spark a power struggle, which of course will lead to more violence.

No. This is not the Mexico I remember. It has only been three years since I’ve stepped foot on to Mexican soil, but the changes have been drastic. I remember the taco vendor near the Matamoros park. My stomach and taste palette praised him like a god. I remember the hardworking man who gave me coins for a bus fare because I didn’t have Mexican pesos yet; giving me, an American from the suburbs, his hard-earned money with a smile, just because it was the decent thing to do for a stranger. I remember the bartender in Barrio Antiguo who lavished me with stories and enough salsa to send me to gastronomy heaven. That’s the Mexico I remember—the kind, tough, lively people who are unfairly caught between the bullets.

A man whose parents fought for the country’s democracy and now running the entire country Philippines as president, Benigno S. Aquino III has reached the age 52.

Normally, 52 is an age of a married man but President “Noy” Aquino is a bachelor to behold. Some are saying he chose to become one when he won the presidency and rather concentrated on how he would govern the entire nation.

President Noy is the third of five children of the martyred Senator Benigno S. Aquino Jr. and former President Corazon Cojuangco Aquino. After the death of his mom, he took over the presidential candidacy and gained the votes of the people.

His love life has been one of the most talked about topics since he stepped into office as the nation has been looking forward who’s going to be the lucky first lady.

His sister Kris Aquino who happens to be a media personality begged to the public to just spare the president from these things but she just can’t control it. Being the president of the country, having a private life is very impossible. People nowadays are well equipped with the technology that even cellphones can capture candid pictures and immediately share it to the social networking sites. The press are also utilizing multimedia reporting for faster transmission of news. Some are even looking for multimedia training school Philippines online for further studies. That’s why, every move of the President has been monitored.

The following are the significant legislation that he signed as listed by Manila Bulletins’s website.

1. Republic Act (RA) 10149, GOCC Governance Act of 2011, which seeks to curb abuses in government firms.

2. RA 10150, amending the Electric Power Industry Reform Act.

3. RA 10151, allowing the employment of night workers.

4. RA 10152, providing for mandatory basic immunization services for infants and children.

5. RA 10153, synchronizing the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao’s election with national and local polls.

6. RA 10154, to ensure the early release of retirement pay, pensions, gratuities of retiring government employees.

7. RA 10157, institutionalizing the Kindergarten education into the Basic Education System.