The Philippines: The world's budget English teacher

Much cheaper lessons and a convincing US accent are bringing an increasing number of students to learn English in the Philippines.

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The Philippines is fast becoming the world's low-cost English language teacher - with rapid increases in overseas students coming to learn English or study in English-speaking universities.

There might be other countries that people think about as a classic place to learn English, such as the UK, the US or Australia.

But there is one key reason that they are switching to the Philippines. It's much cheaper. And in the competitive market for language students, it means the Philippines is attracting people from countries such as Iran, Libya, Brazil and Russia.

"We have very competitive rates compared with other countries," says English teacher, Jesy King, citing her school's fees of $500 (£313) for a 60-hour class - about a third of the price of an equivalent course in the US or Canada.

Another major advantage is the accent.

Filipinos speak with a clear American accent - partly because the Philippines was a US colony for five decades, and partly because so many people here have spent time working in call centres that cater to a US market.

Call centres

These centres train their staff to sound indistinguishable from Americans, so callers never realise that the person they're speaking to is on the other side of the world.

Elizaveta is a Russian student taking courses taught in English in the Philippines - she says fees are a quarter of courses in Australia or Canada

"I have a background in call centres, so I've learnt to adopt an American accent - it's one of the pre-requisites when you join," says Jesy King.

Her school, the International Language Academy of Manila, attracts students from all over the world.

The majority are from Asia - especially Japan, Taiwan and Korea - but in the past few months she's also taught people from North Africa, South America and the Middle East.

Student numbers are growing rapidly. According to the Philippine Immigration Bureau, more than 24,000 people have applied for a study permit this year - compared to fewer than 8,000 just four years ago.

The government sees this sector as a golden opportunity for growth.

Increasing demand

"We're geared to accept more and more students," says Cristino Panlilio, the under-secretary for the Department of Trade and Industry. "I believe the country should come up with more marketing for this."

And it's not just English language students who are coming to the Philippines - there's also been a rapid increase in the number of foreigners applying for graduate and post-graduate courses in all kinds of fields.

Outsourced work being carried out at home in Manila: The Phillipines benefits from having one of the biggest English-speaking populations in the world

The main reasons that attract them are, again, the cost - and the fact that, in the country's top universities, all classes are held in English.

In order to study at a university here, foreigners need a full student visa, and immigration records show that three times as many foreigners applied for one in 2011 than they did just three years before.

Dr Alvin Culaba, the executive vice-president of De La Salle - one of the country's top universities - is confident that the level of teaching in his institution can compete with that found anywhere in the world.

"Our programmes are very comparable, or sometimes even better, than in the US and Europe," he says.

Driving a bargain

De La Salle already has a lot of students from China and Japan, but there's recently been an increase in Europeans.

Elizaveta Leghkaya, a Russian engineering student, is one of them.

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GLOBAL ENGLISH

• 1.55 billion learners of English around the world, says British Council
• 10.2 million English teachers
• Universities are increasingly using English as a medium for teaching
• Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands have the best English speakers, according to EF English Proficiency Index
• In China, Disney has become a major provider of English teaching lessons

She looked at courses in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, but the programme at De La Salle was a quarter of the price of the others.

"Here it's much cheaper, and I'm really confident that the qualification I'll get is just the same," she says.

She had found other benefits of studying in the Philippines too.

"It's a good experience, as it's a different style of life than I'd get in Europe. It's interesting to learn the culture. I like to travel here, and go to the beaches and museums."

But studying in the Philippines isn't for the faint-hearted.

Living here means coping with the bureaucracy and corruption, and if you're in Manila, the heavy pollution.

And then there's the fact that many Filipinos speak a rather different language than the rest of the English-speaking world.

The Philippines markets itself as being the third largest English-speaking nation - after the US and the UK - a fact proudly displayed on the Department of Tourism website. And in a way, that's true. Most people speak at least rudimentary English, and the well-educated speak it fluently.

Taglish speakers

But a lot of people speak Taglish - a mix of English and the local language Tagalog - which is often difficult for foreigners to understand.

English signs often have the wrong spellings and the way English words are used is sometimes uniquely Filipino, with confusing and occasionally unintentionally amusing results.

Ice block to ice bloke: The local Tagalog language can be mixed with English to create some unexpected outcomes

One of the national newspapers used the headline "Police Clueless" for a story about the police officers not having any specific clues about a case.

For a foreign student trying to learn English, this will undoubtedly present some challenges.

But for an increasing number of people, these are small obstacles compared with the benefits of studying in the Philippines.

The spiralling cost of education in many parts of the world, coupled with the ease of finding out about foreign courses on the internet, mean that more and more students are deciding to study abroad.

And English-speaking nations like the Philippines are primed to cash in on this trend.

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How are humans going to become extinct?

Prepare to meet your maker: Will humans become extinct at our own hand?

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What are the greatest global threats to humanity? Are we on the verge of our own unexpected extinction?

An international team of scientists, mathematicians and philosophers at Oxford University's Future of Humanity Institute is investigating the biggest dangers.

And they argue in a research paper, Existential Risk as a Global Priority, that international policymakers must pay serious attention to the reality of species-obliterating risks.

Last year there were more academic papers published on snowboarding than human extinction.

The Swedish-born director of the institute, Nick Bostrom, says the stakes couldn't be higher. If we get it wrong, this could be humanity's final century.

Been there, survived it

So what are the greatest dangers?

First the good news. Pandemics and natural disasters might cause colossal and catastrophic loss of life, but Dr Bostrom believes humanity would be likely to survive.

The femur of a dodo: An estimated 99% of all species that have existed have become extinct

This is because as a species we've already outlasted many thousands of years of disease, famine, flood, predators, persecution, earthquakes and environmental change. So the odds remain in our favour.

And in the time frame of a century, he says the risk of extinction from asteroid impacts and super-volcanic eruptions remains "extremely small".

Even the unprecedented self-inflicted losses in the 20th Century in two world wars, and the Spanish flu epidemic, failed to halt the upward rise in the global human population.

Nuclear war might cause appalling destruction, but enough individuals could survive to allow the species to continue.

If that's the feelgood reassurance out of the way, what should we really be worrying about?

Dr Bostrom believes we've entered a new kind of technological era with the capacity to threaten our future as never before. These are "threats we have no track record of surviving".

Lack of control

Likening it to a dangerous weapon in the hands of a child, he says the advance of technology has overtaken our capacity to control the possible consequences.

Nick Bostrom says there is a plausible threat of extinction in the next century

Experiments in areas such as synthetic biology, nanotechnology and machine intelligence are hurtling forward into the territory of the unintended and unpredictable.

Synthetic biology, where biology meets engineering, promises great medical benefits. But Dr Bostrom is concerned about unforeseen consequences in manipulating the boundaries of human biology.

Nanotechnology, working at a molecular or atomic level, could also become highly destructive if used for warfare, he argues. He has written that future governments will have a major challenge to control and restrict misuses.

There are also fears about how artificial or machine intelligence interact with the external world.

Such computer-driven "intelligence" might be a powerful tool in industry, medicine, agriculture or managing the economy.

But it also can be completely indifferent to any incidental damage.

Unintended consequences

These are not abstract concepts.

Seán O'Heigeartaigh, a geneticist at the institute, draws an analogy with algorithms used in automated stock market trading.

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“Start Quote

This is the first century in the world's history when the biggest threat is from humanity”

Lord ReesAstronomer Royal

These mathematical strings can have direct and destructive consequences for real economies and real people.

Such computer systems can "manipulate the real world", says Dr O'Heigeartaigh, who studied molecular evolution at Trinity College Dublin.

In terms of risks from biology, he worries about misguided good intentions, as experiments carry out genetic modifications, dismantling and rebuilding genetic structures.

"It's very unlikely they would want to make something harmful," he says.

But there is always the risk of an unintended sequence of events or something that becomes harmful when transferred into another environment.

"We are developing things that could go wrong in a profound way," he says.

"With any new powerful technology we should think very carefully about what we know - but it might be more important to know what we don't have certainty about."

And he says this isn't a career in scaremongering, he's motivated by the seriousness of his work. "This is one of the most important ways of making a positive difference," he says.

Chain reaction

This eclectic group of researchers talk about computers able to create more and more powerful generations of computers.

It won't be that these machines suddenly develop a line in sarcasm and bad behaviour. But research fellow Daniel Dewey talks about an "intelligence explosion" where the accelerating power of computers becomes less predictable and controllable.

There are fears of unintended consequences from biological engineering

"Artificial intelligence is one of the technologies that puts more and more power into smaller and smaller packages," says Mr Dewey, a US expert in machine super-intelligence who previously worked at Google.

Along with biotechnology and nanotechnology, he says: "You can do things with these technologies, typically chain reaction-type effects, so that starting with very few resources you could undertake projects that could affect everyone in the world."

The Future of Humanity project at Oxford is part of a trend towards focusing research on such big questions. The institute was launched by the Oxford Martin School, which brings together academics from across different fields with the aim of tackling the most "pressing global challenges".

There are also ambitions at Cambridge University to investigate such threats to humanity.

Lord Rees, the Astronomer Royal and former president of the Royal Society, is backing plans for a Centre for the Study of Existential Risk.

"This is the first century in the world's history when the biggest threat is from humanity," says Lord Rees.

He says that while we worry about more immediate individual risks, such as air travel or food safety, we seem to have much more difficulty recognising bigger dangers.

'Error or terror'

Lord Rees also highlights concerns about synthetic biology.

"With every new technology there are upsides, but there are also risks," he says.

Geneticist Seán O'Heigeartaigh warns of the uncertain outcomes of biological experiments

The creation of new organisms for agriculture and medicine could have unforeseen ecological side-effects, he suggests.

Lord Rees raises concerns about the social fragility and lack of resilience in our technology-dependent society.

"It's a question of scale. We're in a more inter-connected world, more travel, news and rumours spread at the speed of light. Therefore the consequences of some error or terror are greater than in the past," he says.

Lord Rees, along with Cambridge philosopher Huw Price and economist Sir Partha Dasgupta and Skype founder Jaan Tallinn, wants the proposed Centre for the Study of Existential Risk to evaluate such threats.

So should we be worried about an impending doomsday?

This isn't a dystopian fiction. It's not about a cat-stroking villain below a volcano. In fact, the institute in Oxford is in university offices above a gym, where self-preservation is about a treadmill and Lycra.

Dr Bostrom says there is a real gap between the speed of technological advance and our understanding of its implications.

"We're at the level of infants in moral responsibility, but with the technological capability of adults," he says.

As such, the significance of existential risk is "not on people's radars".

But he argues that change is coming whether or not we're ready for it.

"There is a bottleneck in human history. The human condition is going to change. It could be that we end in a catastrophe or that we are transformed by taking much greater control over our biology.

"It's not science fiction, religious doctrine or a late-night conversation in the pub.

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Greece and Cyprus EU-IMF bailout funds due

Eurozone finance minsters are due to meet in Brussels later to agree bailout payments for Cyprus and Greece.

There is still domestic opposition to the international bailout in Cyprus

Cyprus is expected to get approval for the first 3bn euros (£2.5bn; $3.9bn) of its bailout package, which was agreed earlier this year.

Ministers are also expected to sign off the latest instalment of Greece's bailout, as it continues to struggle to reform its economy.

The meeting will also take place amid continued concerns for Slovenia.

Slovenia is seen as potentially likely to follow Greece and Cyprus in seeking help from European authorities.

That is despite a plan, unveiled by Slovenia's government last week, that is designed to avoid a bailout.

The government plans to restructure the country's stricken banking system, raise taxes and privatise swathes of state-owned companies.

Meanwhile Greece is expected to receive as much as 7.5bn euros in the latest payment of its massive 240bn-euro bailout, first agreed in 2010.

It needs the money to pay wages, pensions and bondholders.

Earlier this month, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), one of the "troika" of international lenders behind the bailout, said Greece had made "progress" in tackling its budget deficit over the last three years.

But it also said structural reforms to the economy had been "insufficient" and problems of tax evasion had not been addressed.

Further austerity measures have been a condition of Greece receiving the latest instalments of its bailout.

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BP withdraws some Libya staff over security concerns

Oil giant BP has withdrawn some non-essential staff from operations in Libya following UK government advice about uncertainty in the country.

The BP move follows UK advice about uncertainty in Libya

BP described the withdrawal as a "precautionary measure", adding that it would monitor the security situation.

The Foreign Office withdrew British embassy staff from the capital, Tripoli, last week.

Gunmen have besieged the justice and foreign ministries recently, demanding that Gaddafi-era officials be expelled.

The gunmen blocked the buildings two weeks ago, parking pick-up trucks with anti-aircraft guns outside. The siege was lifted by Sunday and employees at both ministries were back at work.

Parliament passed a law last week barring Gaddafi-era officials from political office.

BP said in a statement: "Following FCO advice given to us by the British Embassy in Tripoli, and purely as a precautionary measure, we have brought non-essential overseas staff out of Libya for the time being in a phased reduction of numbers.

"Our Libyan staff remain and the office continues to operate. Fewer than a dozen people are affected.

"We will continue to monitor the security situation and move people back in to Libya when it is considered safe to do so."

On Friday, the Foreign Office said some embassy staff in Libya had been withdrawn in response to "ongoing political uncertainty".

It said it was temporarily withdrawing a "small number" who work with Libyan ministries, while the UK embassy remains "open as usual", including for consular and visa services.

The Foreign Office currently advises against all but essential travel to Tripoli and against all travel to other parts of Libya, such as the eastern city of Benghazi.

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Osborne: G7 agree to target tax evasion and avoidance

The G7 group of industrialised nations have agreed that there must be collective action against tax evasion and avoidance, the UK's finance minister has said.

George Osborne co-chaired the two-day meeting in Buckinghamshire with Sir Mervyn King

Chancellor George Osborne said after the talks that it was "incredibly important" that firms and individuals paid the tax they owed.

The members agreed on more policy issues than had been assumed, he added.

The G7 comprises the US, Germany, the UK, Japan, Italy, France and Canada.

In a news conference held jointly with Bank of England governor Sir Mervyn King, Mr Osborne said the finance ministers and central bank governors of the G7, meeting in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, had also agreed no bank should be "too big to fail".

Tax avoidance

"We must put regimes in place... to deal with failing banks and to protect taxpayers and to do so in a globally-consistent manner," he said.

The issue of tax avoidance had been raised by Britain, Germany and other countries earlier this year.

They asked the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) - which advises rich nations on tax policy - to examine possible changes to address the problem of multinational companies using transfer pricing rules to shift profits into tax havens.

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Analysis

Joe LynamBBC business correspondent

The G7 summit was an important stepping stone towards a global new standard on tax.

The overarching goal of Britain and the rest of the G7 is to have a new set of rules around the world to prevent tax evasion and avoidance.

That goal is fiendishly complex and to help achieve it a number of countries have agreed to share information on suspected law breaking in both areas of tax law.

Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the UK and US currently are in a pilot scheme where tax authorities share info with each other.

Britain wants the rest of the EU - including very low tax countries such as Luxembourg and Austria - to sign up to this pilot scheme at next Tuesday's Ecofin in Brussels.

Luxembourg said it would, but Austria is being vague.

On top of this, the OECD is doing a lot of work behind the scenes to come up with a framework to clamp down on evasion and make avoidance less profitable for big firms, such as Starbucks, Google and eBay.

The OECD will report into next months G8 in Fermanagh, but principally for Sept's G20 summit.

BBC business correspondent correspondent Joe Lynam said the latest talks were an important step towards a new global standard on tax.

Britain wants all EU countries to sign up to a pilot scheme where tax authorities share information with each other, including low tax countries such as Luxembourg and Austria, our correspondent said.

Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the UK and US are currently signed up to the scheme. Luxembourg has said it will join too, but Austria has yet to confirm if it will take part.

Mr Osborne also said that British territories, including the tax havens Jersey and the Cayman Islands, need to play more of a part in trying to put a stop to tax evasion.

"Of course you have to respect that many of these territories have important industries and we don't want to unnecessarily damage them," he said.

"But it is necessary to collect tax that is owed and it is necessary to reduce tax avoidance and the crown dependencies and the overseas territories need to play their part in that drive and they need to do more."

The chancellor said the discussions had "reaffirmed that there are still many challenges to securing sustainable global recovery, and we can't take it for granted".

But he added: "We are committed as the advanced economies in playing our part in nurturing that recovery and ensuring a lasting recovery so that we have prosperity in all our countries."

Prior to the meeting, Mr Osborne had said the group still wielded "major economic firepower" as they represented around half the global economy between them - although the larger G20 was now the "primary economic forum for setting the global rules of the game".

In other developments:

• Japan was not censured during the talks, despite talk ahead of the meeting it would be criticised for a massive stimulus plan that had pushed down the value of its currency, the yen. There are concerns Tokyo is engineering an export-led recovery that could hinder other regions' ability to grow.
• German Finance Minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble, said the eurozone crisis is no longer the main risk for the global economy. He said a "relatively high level of liquidity" could cause problems and that he had told Japan there are already consequences of its policy to pump money into its economy.
• European Central Bank President, Mario Draghi, said the G7 countries did not call on central banks to do more to boost the world economy.

The meeting came as the British chancellor faced pressure over the pace of the UK's austerity measures.

G7 conference participants "agree on more than people thought" said George Osborne

Last month, the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) chief economist, Olivier Blanchard, reiterated his belief that the chancellor should slow down the pace of the cutbacks.

But on Saturday, Mr Osborne said that while the UK's economic situation was difficult, "we are making progress and the economy is healing".

Shadow Treasury Minister Catherine McKinnell countered that it was "disappointing that this G7 meeting has failed to set out any concrete steps to promote economic growth or tackle tax avoidance."

She added: "George Osborne should reflect on why Britain is experiencing the slowest economic recovery of any G7 country other than Italy.

"With Britain's economy flatlining and living standards falling, it's no wonder even the IMF is saying the chancellor's failing policies need to change."

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