OFFBEAT MAIL

Engr. Aisa Mijeno meets with President Obama and Jack Ma of  Alibaba.com. at the APEC CEO Summit in Manila. Photo: philnews.ph Engr. Aisa Mijeno didn't have time to figure it out until she paid a visit to a remote village in Mt. Province in the Philippines. At the touch of dusk, she had noticed that all the homes in that upland community were engulfed in total darkness. Then, she promised to herself that she would invent a lamp that wouldn't use kerosene, a common fuel for unsafe traditional lamps in the hinterland areas in the country. But kerosene lamps can burn down houses made of light and native materials that are readily available in the uplands. When she went back home, Mijeno tried to polish her new invention. Voila, she made it. She thought her problem would end there. Instead, she was faced with the lack  of money to finance her new project, which is to mass-produce the saltwater-fed lamp intended for the homes in upland communities in the Philippines. It t...

American voters should try to weigh in the situation before hitting the polls to decide which president they wanted to choose. Both candidates were using all rhetorics they could think of to trade barbs and other negative accusations against each other at the height of campaigns. This is already a common tactics by most politicians. But stick to the truth and try to analyze things. If there were mistakes committed during the eight years of the previous administration, how can anyone expect the next elected president will be able to patch up all those mistakes in four years? No president is superman enough to clean up the garbage of the previousadministrations. As the national election closes in, the pulse of the  American voters will once again be tested. Unless they try to spare some of their time to reflect upon themselves what transpired in the past, they won't be able to come to terms with the real essence of who to choose for between the two presidential candid...

One of the sensitive issues that was taken up during the recent debates between presidential candidates incumbent President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney centered on how to tame the rate of unemployment in America. Unquestionably, the exchange of gangnam rhetorics between the two protagonists appeared to have satisfied the appetite of those who wished to hear something new as both of them articulated themselves on how to solve the massive unemployment, which put many Americans to rely on welfare funds to survive the dog-eat-dog competition. Surely, others may have just shrugged their shoulders but in their minds they knew who to vote for. Whether or not the rhetorics had worked to the advantage of both candidates, nobody knows. One thing sure, many corporations that are successfully operating in China and other Asian countries,  where labor is much lower, may be re-thinking on whether to take the bait or not. For sure, it won't be easy for them to decide yet at this point in ti...

President Obama's decision to allow young illegal immigrants to stay spawned a lot of mixed reactions from the citizenry. In a CNN discussion hosted by Don Lemon, he asked why he did it only this time when he could have done it three years ago. Is this because of national elections fast approaching? Or President Obama only wanted to comply to his campaign promise of fixing the obsolete immigration system in the United States? Well, the announcement Friday earned positive praises from the Latino communities, where a lot of children who were brought to the U.S, by their illegal immigrant parents who crossed the borders from Mexico to seek for a much better life in America. However, Republicans were caught by surprise with Obama's announcement  that the government would no longer deport young illegal immigrants who finished their high school studies in America, and are not more than 30 years old at the time of the president's new policy. Speaking at CNN, Maria Cardona said...

He might be struggling at home, but President Obama is rock-star popular Down Under. A nationally representative opinion poll conducted by the Sydney-based think-tank the Lowy Institute for International Policy has found Australians prefer Barack Obama to Mitt Romney to become the next President of the United States by more than an 8 to 1 ratio (80% compared with 9%). The President's numbers are even better than four years ago when Australians preferred Obama to his then-rival Sen. John McCain by around a 4 to 1 ratio (73% compared with 16%). The Lowy Institute's Executive Director Dr Michael Wesley said "the results suggest the alliance is about as rock-solid as you could get. For President Obama, I guess it's too bad Australians can't vote in US elections." But it's not only the President who is doing well in Australia: US Marines are just as popular. When asked about the new US military base that has recently been established in Australia's tr...