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Kidnapping is thriving in the Philippines, which last year had more such cases than any time since at least 1995, according to a business risk consultancy firm. Based on information gathered from the government, private organizations, the media, and kidnap victims themselves, at least 138 kidnapping cases occurred last year, according to Pacific Strategies & Assessments, which specializes in Asian risk.    

That was slightly up from the 135 cases recorded in 2008, and more than three times higher than the least number cases of 30 recorded in 2004, PSA said in a report titled ”Philippines Annual Kidnapping Report — Recapping 2009,” released recently.     ”Sometimes referred to as Asia’s kidnapping capital, the Philippine kidnapping threat continues to persist and evolve,” the report said.    

”Weak rule of law, rampant corruption, widening socio-economic gaps, and the presence of insurgent and terrorist groups are just some of the factors that perpetuate the kidnapping threat across the country,” it added.     PSA, which has offices in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Manila and Bangkok and is headed by a retired U.S. Central Intelligence Agency official, has began monitoring kidnappings in the Philippines in 1995.

Between then and the end of last year, it monitored a total of 1,293 kidnapping cases in the country, equivalent to an annual average of 86 cases or about seven incidents a month.  But the actual number of cases could be higher because not every single incident is reported ”due to a variety of reasons, including distrust of government security forces, possible retaliation, sensitive nature of the investigations, and protection of victim families and relatives,” the report said.    

The majority of last year’s incidents were kidnap-for-ransom or ”KFR” cases, the report noted. Some were terrorism or insurgency-related and others were politically motivated or elections-related.    

It said 60 percent of incidents happened in the southern island of Mindanao, which is home to separatist insurgents and Muslim extremist groups like the Abu Sayyaf, which has carried out a series of kidnappings, murders and bombings since the early 1990s. Out of the 143 victims in the 138 cases, 107 were Filipinos, 12 were Filipino-Chinese, while the remaining few were foreigners, mostly Indian nationals. 

It said that militant group’s kidnapping-for-ransom activities ”have proven to be a quite lucrative trade in Mindanao, notwithstanding three years of U.S.-backed counter terrorism operations” against it.

The report said kidnapping in the Philippines continues to be an attractive criminal money-making scheme in large part because ”a majority of the victims still opt to concede to ransom demands” despite the government’s ”no ransom, no negotiations policy” with groups like the Abu Sayyaf.

Kidnapping in the Philippines carries the capital punishment of lifetime imprisonment.

First Philec Solar Corp. (FPSC), a joint venture between SunPower subsidiary SunPower Philippines Manufacturing Ltd and First Philippine Electric Corp., announced that its 2010 expansion is expected to be completed by September 2010.

The expansion will increase capacity at the Philippine solar wafer manufacturing facility to about 540MW, with 87 wiresaws slicing silicon ingots to produce about 220 million wafers a year. The expansion adds 12,700m2 to the facility south of Manila, and doubles the workforce to about 860.

FPSC’s cutting-edge wiresaws are capable of producing micro-thin wafers with excellent surface quality, handling ingots with diameters from 150nm to 200mm and producing wafers 200m to 150m thick. It has fully automated inspection and cleaning systems that minimize manual handling. It offers quick cycle time with packaging, labeling and shipping tailored fit to customer requirements. Plus, strong R&D enables the company to optimize process conditions and materials consumption.

Two years down the road and the company is hoping this September to receive recognition as a member of the Palladium Balanced Scorecard Hall of Fame for Executing Strategy. Companies already in the hall of fame include Canon USA, Tata Motors, Volkswagen do Brasil, Korea East-West Power, Mobil North America Marketing & Refining, North Delhi Power Ltd, Dupont (Engineering Polymers), Ingersoll Rand, AT&T Canada, Korea Telecom and LG.Philips LCD.

Although FPSC’s largest customer is SunPower it also seeks to provide wafers to other companies, and in February, was qualified by a third party manufacturer of high-efficiency monocrystalline silicon solar cells and modules. Before the year ends, the company anticipates to be qualified by more customers to add to the growing roster of global clients.

Inmates at Cook County Jail are allowed three privileges: television, books, and food. The staff has no compunction about denying its most difficult residents either of the first two, but under the Constitution, correctional facilities can’t withhold food. Nothing in the Eighth Amendment, however, says the food has to taste good.

“This is not the Four Seasons,” says Tom Dart, the Cook County sheriff. “Inmates who are injuring people in jail will get their nutritional needs met, but we will not cater to their culinary desires.”

Nutraloaf, a thick orange lump of spite with the density and taste of a dumbbell, could only be the object of Beelzebub’s culinary desires. Packed with protein, fat, carbohydrates, and 1,110 calories, Nutraloaf contains everything from carrots and cabbage to kidney beans and potatoes, plus shadowy ingredients such as “dairy blend” and “mechanically separated poultry.” You purée everything into a paste, shape it into a loaf, and bake it for 50 to 70 minutes at 375 degrees.

Eat two a day and, boom, all your daily nutrients, right there. Get caught making homemade hooch in your cell toilet? You get Nutraloaf. Hurl food at a guard or stab someone with a spork? Nutraloaf. Of the jail’s 9,000 inmates, 21 have endured the Nutraloaf program since it began in June. One begged—No!

Anything but Nutraloaf!—and another went on a hunger strike. Both men, and virtually every other Nutraloafer, straightened up enough to get back to the usual diet of oatmeal and processed bologna.

Even though inmates in several states, including Illinois, have sued over Nutraloaf, alleging cruel and unusual punishment, correctional departments everywhere are introducing their own versions of the “disciplinary loaf.” None of the lawsuits have been successful. “We’re not trying to dump Tabasco sauce on their tongues or anything like that,” Dart says. “It just tastes like nothing.” In other words, they found a loophole: Nutraloaf is not cruel; it’s just unusual. Soon it may cease to be either.

4 Types Of Meetings

MORNING MIXERS
LEADERS LUNCHES
DYNAMIC DINNERS
NOBLE NIGHTS

MORNING MIXERS:
6:00am  -  Social (Relationship Building / Dating)
6:30am  -  Human Reource (Contracted Jobs / Profiles / Resumes)
7:00am  -  Business (Corporations / LLC / Partnerships / Sole Prop)
7:30am  -  Community Causes (EX: Optimists / Lions / Rotary / Jaycees)
8:30am  -  Social or Break (Relationship Building / Dating)
9:00am  -  Social Marketing Training (HWE Consultants)
10:00am -  Close

____________________________

LEADERS LUNCHES:
11:00am -  Social (Relationship Building / Dating)
11:30am -  Human Reource (Contracted Jobs / Profiles / Resumes)
12:00pm -  Business (Corporations / LLC / Partnerships / Sole Prop)
12:30pm -  Community Causes (EX: Optimists / Lions / Rotary / Jaycees)
1:00pm  -  Social or Break (Relationship Building / Dating)
1:30pm  -  Social Marketing Training (HWE Consultants)
2:30pm  -  Close

____________________________

DYNAMIC DINNERS:
4:30pm  -  Social (Relationship Building / Dating)
5:30pm  -  Human Reource (Contracted Jobs / Profiles / Resumes)
6:00pm  -  Business (Corporations / LLC / Partnerships / Sole Prop)
6:30pm  -  Community Causes (EX: Optimists / Lions / Rotary / Jaycees)
7:00pm  -  Social or Break (Relationship Building / Dating)
7:30pm  -  Social Marketing Training (HWE Consultants)
8:30pm  -  Close

____________________________

NOBLE NIGHTS:
OPTIONAL
6:00pm  – Social Marketing Training (HWE Consultants)

7:30pm  -  Social (Relationship Building / Dating)
8:00pm  -  Human Reource (Contracted Jobs / Profiles / Resumes)
8:30pm  -  Business (Corporations / LLC / Partnerships / Sole Prop)
9:00pm  -  Community Causes (EX: Optimists / Lions / Rotary / Jaycees)
9:30pm  -  Social or Break (Relationship Building / Dating)
?:??pm  -  Close

A 5-year-old boy was permitted to leave a Love Field-area elementary school with a stranger Tuesday, in a case of mistaken identity that was initially feared to be a child abduction.

The boy, a kindergarten student, was found safe and is back with his parents. Police said the man who picked him up from school inadvertently picked up the wrong child. Police say Roberto Paniagua, 40, was not charged with any offense related to the child. He was arrested on “minor unrelated warrants.”

The incident sparked panic among parents at Maple Lawn Elementary, who questioned how such a misunderstanding could occur. District officials said they’re reviewing campus dismissal procedures. Dallas police say Paniagua entered the school at 3120 Inwood Road about 12:30 p.m. and took the kindergartner. Paniagua had picked up the boy in what was described as a black or dark purple van.

School leaders realized the student was missing when a parent came to pick him up. City and school district police searched the neighborhood and found the boy and Paniagua shortly before 3 p.m. Lt. C.L. Williams, a police spokesman, said in a prepared statement that Paniagua was supposed to pick up a kindergartner at the school but got the wrong one.

Williams said that there was apparently a “lapse of judgment” by someone at the school but that he didn’t think the incident reflected any systemic weaknesses in the district’s procedures. “We’re still in the process of reviewing everything,” said DISD spokesman Jon Dahlander. “Those are questions we have, too.”

“To our understanding, the person did come into the school, and we had a student unaccounted for,” she said. It wasn’t clear whether Paniagua was mistaken for a parent. Guerrero noted that it was the second day of school and teachers are still getting to know the parents

SARATOGA SPRINGS – A 37 year old man will serve 30 days in Saratoga County Jail for punching Jupiter, one of the city’s police horses.

According to police, Jamison Johnson punched the horse in the face after Johnson was ejected from a Caroline Street bar. Lt. Sean Briscoe said Tuesday that Johnson started swearing and yelling at the bar’s staff and nearby police at 2:55 a.m. Aug. 15, then walked up to Jupiter and hit him in the face “with a closed fist,” according to city court documents.

The horse was not hurt. Johnson also hit a police officer, said his lawyer, Andrew Blumenberg, and suffered a black eye during a scuffle with police. Blumenberg said his client “doesn’t feel good” about the incident.

Johnson did not make a statement in court, Blumenberg said. Johnson pleaded guilty Aug. 17 to resisting arrest and pleaded guilty Tuesday to attempting to kill or injure a police animal, both misdemeanors.

He was sentenced to 30 days for both charges, and will serve the terms concurrently. He also was ordered to pay $200 in court surcharges. Two police horses, Jupiter and King Tut, patrol downtown and help with crowd control.

A Cincinnati man who was going to live in a Habitat for Humanity home in Westwood, will instead be a guest of the federal government in prison for the next ten years. Just last week, Maraill Miller pleaded guilty to federal drug conspiracy charges. A judge sentenced him to ten years in prison for his role in a cocaine distribution ring. But while Miller is in prison, the deal to provide his family with a low-cost home will proceed.

In May, Habitat kicked off the project to build this house for Brandi Miller, her husband Maraill, and their five kids. The Habitat for Humanity selection committee looked at everyone in the family and ran criminal background checks. They didn’t find anything that disqualified anyone.

To qualify, families have to go through a screening process and be willing to put in 500 hours of sweat equity, along with meeting criteria for low-interest loans. They also have to pass criminal background checks that look for local felony violations, going back five years.

The charity found Maraill Miller had drug charges and a domestic violence arrest in the past, but nothing to disqualify him. Residents of the family’s new neighborhood appreciate that. Walter Brater, Neighbor: “I would be kind of concerned, if we had the criminal element moving into our little group.”

What neighbors don’t appreciate, however, is one month after the kickoff for this project, Maraill Miller was arrested on federal charges for distributing pounds of cocaine in Kentucky.

“You would think if he’s doing things like this, with drugs and drug money, he’d be able to buy his own house and not have to rely on people building him one at a greatly reduced price.” Habitat officials say their deal with the Millers is actually with Maraill’s wife, not him … and she’s what the program is all about.

DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — Michelle Fonville said her experience at Natural Nails on Covington Highway in DeKalb County turned from pleasant to painful in a matter of moments.

After the salon manager gave Michelle the bill for her manicure, pedicure and eyebrow arch, Fonville realized that she had been overcharged by $5. “I said, ‘I’ve been overcharged. She may have made an error,’” said Fonville. “She broke it down, then told me she charged me $5 more because I was overweight.”

Fonville said she couldn’t believe what was happening and recounted the experience with Channel 2 Action News reporter Eric Philips. “I said, Ma’am, you can’t charge me $5 more. That’s discrimination because of my weight,” said Fonville.

Salon manager Kim Tran told Philips that the surcharge was due to costly repairs of broken chairs by overweight customers. She said the chairs have a weight capacity of 200 pounds and cost $2,500 to fix.

“Do you think that’s fair when we take $24 [for manicure and pedicure] and we have to pay $2,500? Is that fair? No,” Tran told Philips. Tran said she refunded the $5 surcharge, and told Fonville to take her business elsewhere.

“I didn’t want to argue with her about $5. I wanted to make her pleased with her service,” Tran said. “I whispered … I said, ‘I’m sorry, next time I cannot take you.’”

“The word has to get out there that these people are discriminating against us because of our weight. I mean come on, we’re in America. You can’t do that,” said Fonville.