Philippines in the world news

Oil company BP will pay a measly 4 billion for destroying the Gulf coast due to being too cheap to fix a plug, but the latest news about a fire of another oil platform that killed 2 and injured 14 will probably get little press in the US. Why? Because most of those killed/injured were Filipinos.

Probably a million Filipinos work in Saudi/Persian Gulf region: and although most are probably health care workers, clerks or drivers, quite a few work in blue collar jobs, including in the oil fields. They also work in the petroleum industry in countries from Kazakhstan to Nigeria.

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StrategyPage has an article on piracy: most of the headlines is about Somalian pirates, but it is present in other areas.
Last time I check, over 100 of the mariners held hostage in Somalia are Filipino seamen, but piracy affects other  sea-lanes, including the South China sea and various Indonesian straits.

according to Wikipedia, 25 percent of the 1.5 million seamen are from the Philippines, and yes one of our relatives is a seaman.

University of Houston has a course on the history of Piracy if you are interested in the subject.

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Want to invest money? The only country who was upgraded by the IMF is the Philippines.

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StrategyPage reviews a book on the Buffalo soldiers.

The other half of the book is devoted to the service of black volunteers in the Spanish-American and Philippine Wars.  As these are largely overlooked subjects, the essays are often ground breaking. 

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