What We Are Reading Today: Skills for the Labor Market in the Philippines
Updated 15 May 2023
Arab News
Authors: Emanuela Di Gropello, Hong Tan & Prateek Tandon
The Philippine economy has experienced overall growth over the last 20 years, but the growth of the manufacturing sector has been sluggish, and the country has lost innovation capacity.
Regaining momentum will depend on many factors, but skills have a key role to play in supporting the growing service sector, improving the competitiveness of the manufacturing sector, and enhancing the long-term ability of the country to innovate and adapt and assimilate new technologies.
“Skills for the Labor Market in the Philippines” analyzes the functional skills with which workers need to be equipped to be employable and support firms’ competitiveness and productivity, and evaluates the role of the education and training system in providing these skills.
Authors: ROBERT M. JOHNSON III, SHARON L. GILMAN, AND DANIEL C. ABEL
“Tooth and Claw” presents the world’s top predators as you have never seen them before, from big cats and wild dogs to sharks, reptiles, and killer whales.
Blending gorgeous photos and illustrations with spellbinding storytelling, this book is packed with the latest facts about these fearsome but often misunderstood animals.
It covers apex and other top predators in each major vertebrate family, discussing where and how they live, how they are faring in the modern world, and why they matter.
It is rare for life to change Earth, yet three organisms have profoundly transformed our planet over the long course of its history.
“Elemental” reveals how microbes, plants, and people used the fundamental building blocks of life to alter the climate, and with it, the trajectory of life on Earth in the past, present, and future.
Taking readers from the deep geologic past to our current era of human dominance, Stephen Porder focuses on five of life’s essential elements —hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus.
From the gregarious sea otter and playful dolphins to the sociable narwhal and iconic polar bear, sea mammals are a large, diverse, and increasingly precious group.
In this book, Annalisa Berta, a leading expert on sea mammals and their evolution, presents an engaging and richly illustrated introduction to past and present species of these remarkable creatures, from the blue whale and the northern fur seal to the extinct giant sperm whale, aquatic sloth, and walking sea cow.
The book features more than 50 individual species profiles, themed chapters, stunning photographs, and specially commissioned paleo-illustrations of extinct species.
Review: ‘No One Prayed Over Their Graves’ by Khaled Khalifa is a complex epic
Updated 21 September 2023
MANAL SHAKIR
CHICAGO: This epic work from award-winning Syrian novelist Khaled Khalifa, translated into English by Leri Price, spans several decades — from the late 19th century to the 1950s — and explores both friendship and tragedy.
In 1907, a flood wipes out the village of Hosh Hanna near Aleppo, Syria. The lives of those who survive forever change, especially those of close friends Hanna Gregoros (a Christian) and Zakariya Bayazid (a Muslim whose family took Hanna in as a boy when he fled a massacre). Both young men — until this moment — have lived as if they were invincible. They are now forced to spend the rest of their lives reflecting on a past that has been swept away in one morning.
Khaled Khalifa is a Syrian novelist. (Supplied)
We are introduced to Hanna and Zakariya at their lowest point: the flood has destroyed their homes, taken their families, and everything of their past, including the generation-long ties they have always relied on. Once wealthy — with land, horses, and a close-knit community of family and friends — Hanna and Zakariya took for granted an Aleppo that was religiously tolerant and thriving. United in their love for each other and their homes, the residents of Hosh Hanna had always helped one another. But the familiar routes are no longer familiar, and life dwindles for the two survivors.
The narrative shifts timelines regularly, giving us a clear portrait of Hanna and Zakariya’s carefree past and a present beset by challenges, which they attempt to navigate while surviving on memories. They recollect joyous moments, but also lament the times when they were only interested in themselves and their own desires, ignoring all the good things that were in front of them. The flood opens their eyes to their shortcomings, their losses, and to the love they never fully appreciated before it was too late. The lives of Khalifa’s characters are riddled with loss and coping mechanisms.
The novel delves into the complex layers of Aleppo’s history through stories that are born of revenge, friendship, oppression, love and loyalty. The pair’s relationship, and their adoration for their land, their neighbors and their villages cannot be erased by a flood, by war or by extremism. A similar love for his country comes through in Khalifa’s writing.
Moscow-born Sergey Brin and Midwest-born Larry Page dropped out of graduate school at Stanford University to, in their own words, “change the world” through a powerful search engine that would organize every bit of information on the internet for free.
“The Google Story” takes you deep inside the company’s wild ride from an idea that struggled for funding in 1998 to a firm that rakes in billions in profits, making Brin and Page the wealthiest young men in America, says a review published on goodreads.com.
