It's up, it's down. It's the future of commerce one day, just another Internet bubble the next. It's the end of government-controlled currency and banking ... but wait, the U.S. government's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network has something to say about that. It's Bitcoin, and you've almost certainly been hearing about it, even if you've never used it.

If I approached the Philippine Supreme Court's recent decision on the party-list system by way merely of a mechanical exercise in statutory construction, I might conclude that the Court has stripped the party-list system of its soul. The party-list system is not merely a restructuring of the membership of the House of Representatives.

If I approached the Philippine Supreme Court's recent decision on the party-list system by way merely of a mechanical exercise in statutory construction, I might conclude that the Court has stripped the party-list system of its soul.

It is said that the health of a city can often be judged by the quality of its sidewalks. In this modern world, where we assess society's progress by the size of malls, the height of the tallest building or the width of the roadways, this statement might come as a surprise to some.

When North Korea's latest round of bluster and threats subside, hopefully without a shot fired in anger across the Korean Peninsula, how should America and its allies proceed? For almost two decades, Pyongyang has been able to outwit and out-negotiate Washington because America holds on to the prospect that it is possible to persuade or else compel North Korea to give up its weapons of mass destruction.

There's a strong and welcome trend toward appointing the leaders of major international organizations through competitive processes — except in Asia.

I often hear the lament that we Filipinos are not as mindful as our neighbors appear to be of the impending closer integration of the Southeast Asian economies into the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), to culminate less than two years from now. I have heard none of our candidates for national office in the coming elections address the topic, for example, in the way it figures in public discussions within our neighboring countries. And yet, this move of the 10 nations that make up the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) promises to have profound implications within and across their respective economies.

It has been confirmed for the first time that humans have been infected with a new type of avian influenza, the H7N9 virus, in Shanghai, Jiangsu province, and neighboring areas in China.

It was one of those statistics in which one bland number stood for history. According to the latest data from the International Monetary Fund, central banks around the world have been dumping the euro from their official national reserves: Europe's single currency now accounts for only 24 percent of the money held in the reserve vaults of developing countries, the lowest such figure since euro banknotes first physically came into circulation back in 2002.

It's disappointing, especially after all the brouhaha over giving all Malaysians living abroad the right to vote.