“Your food will be served in 15 minutes. Please wait,” she said after taking her orders. A few minutes later, Andrew, 26, arrived. “Here’s your order, Ma’am. Enjoy your meal.”

Yasmin and Andrew are not ordinary servers at Special Hands Cafe. They are among the 20 student staff at the cafe who have congenital disabilities, including autism. But Yasmin, who has Down Syndrome; and Andrew, who has developmental disability, do their tasks like regular workers — taking and serving orders, cooking food and even issuing bills.

Special Hands Cafe looks like a regular cafe with neatly arranged tables topped with brown and white cloth, white chairs and handmade arts and crafts displayed on a shelf.

But it is a project of Stages Center Inc., a school serving students with special needs for more than two decades now.

Training venue

“We decided to open the cafe so our students will have venue for training,” said Marie Macasero, head of Stages Center. “Here, we can teach them how to work like other normal people do.”

The cafe, which opened on Aug. 17, offers sandwiches, pasta, cakes, chips and beverages. It caters to organizations, schools and the students’ families upon invitation.

Earnings go to the students, for their projects, for maintenance and for programs that benefit them, Macasero said.

“We always make sure that our students are ready when they work in the cafe, so we don’t open regularly,” she said. “We train them or do simulations for a week or two before letting them do the actual job.”

The cafe introduced students to the framework of a real workplace, with each student assigned to a specific task, depending on skill and talent.

Yasmin serves because she likes dealing with people.

Francis Ni๑o, 30, who sits inside a white kiosk, could become the cashier for his writing and math skills.

Surprisingly, he has good penmanship, too.

Macasero said the students had shown eagerness to learn how to cook and serve. Some do kitchen chores, such as dishwashing.

“These students prepare the ingredients of all our food products and they cook them. They also prepare the drinks and everything we offer,” she said.

They are guided by the center’s teachers to avoid accidents, especially in the kitchen.

Aside from being an avenue for the students to deal with people, the cafe also offers a chance to catch a glimpse of how people with special needs act, talk and work.

Customer feedback

Macasero said the center had been receiving positive feedback from organizations and schools whose staff members and students had dined in the cafe.

“It has even become a routine that after our customers eat, they ask for a group picture with the cafe staff, and we take that as a positive sign that our students did well,” she said.

Three architecture students from Cebu Institute of TechnologyUniversity were inspired by just looking at the cafe staff who served their sandwiches and juices.

“It really feels good to see that these people, even if they have limitations, are doing their best. I find it very touching,” said Mary Eunesse Montenegro, whose brother has special needs, too.

She and her two schoolmates are preparing a thesis on the appropriate forms and shapes of buildings and homes for people with special needs.

“After seeing the people here in Special Hands, we are getting more ideas on the outcome of our project,” Montenegro said. “And we want this project to be our contribution in helping these people have better living conditions.”

Real workplace

Stages Center is now coordinating with fastfood chains and hotels for the possible deployment of its students.

It also plans to tap the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority for more intensive training for the students.  It hopes that certificates the students get from the agency will help them get jobs.

“It is really our goal to let these students go out and be part of the working population,” Macasero said.

Police said it was a traffic incident and ruled out any terrorist link, after three attacks in the British capital this year in which vehicles were deliberately driven into people on the street.

Crowds in the area, which is popular with families and tourists, fled screaming in panic when the car veered onto the semi-pedestrianised Exhibition Road in South Kensington.

Witness accounts and footage posted on social media showed a man being pinned down on the ground by passers-by, next to a black car with a smashed bonnet.

“The incident is a road traffic investigation and not a terrorist-related incident,” London’s Metropolitan Police said in a statement.

“Whilst enquiries continue it is believed a car mounted the pavement and collided with a number of pedestrians.”

It said the arrested man was among nine people taken to hospital, while two others were treated at the scene.

No one is believed to have life-threatening or life-changing injuries, and the majority were discharged by late Saturday.

The suspect, in his forties, was taken to London police station where he was questioned on suspicion of dangerous driving, police said.

Armed police were deployed to the scene and much of the surrounding area, which includes the Science Museum and the Victoria & Albert Museum, was cordoned off.

Security is high in Britain after five terror attacks since March — four of them in London and one in Manchester — with the bloodshed claiming 35 lives.

Prime Minister Theresa May offered her thanks to the emergency services, adding: “My thoughts are with the injured.”

‘Everyone flew in panic’

London’s Metropolitan Police said they were called to the scene at 2:21 pm (1321 GMT) after reports of a collision.

One witness, identified only as Katy, told LBC London radio she had seen two people injured, including a young boy whose leg was hurt.

“We treated 11 patients, mostly for leg and head injuries, and took nine of them to hospital,” said Peter McKenna, deputy director of operations for the London Ambulance Service.

Another eyewitness who gave his name only as Leonard, told AFP: “I was near South Ken station and there were many police.

“Suddenly a police woman officer shouted at the crowd to run, and everybody flew in panic, many people screaming.”

Not far away, tens of thousands of football fans took part in a silent protest “against extremism”, walking from Park Lane past Downing Street and to parliament.

The Football Lads Alliance was formed after the London Bridge attack in June and brought together supporters of rival teams with military veterans.

Ahead of the march, founder John Meighan said the group wished to “show our concern at the recent upsurge in terror attacks taking place across the UK and Europe”.

Royal guards killed the gunman, identified by the ministry as a 28-year-old Saudi national armed with a Kalashnikov and three grenades.

“An outpost of the royal guard came under fire by a person who got out of a Hyundai car,” the ministry said in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency.

“He was immediately dealt with and his cowardly act also resulted in the martyrdom” of two royal guards, it added.

The US embassy in Saudi Arabia had earlier cautioned its citizens over reports of the attack.

“Due to the possibility of ongoing police activity, American citizens are advised to exercise caution when travelling through the area,” the embassy said in a brief statement.

The warning comes after the Saudi police raided hideouts of a “terror” cell linked to the Islamic State group this week, killing two people and arresting five others, according to the national security agency.

The State Security Agency said police raided three hideouts in the capital Riyadh and exchanged gunfire at one of them, the SPA news agency reported on Thursday.

Since late 2014, IS has claimed a series of bombings and shootings against Shiites and security forces in the Sunni-majority kingdom.

Saudi Arabia is a member of the US-led international coalition that has been battling the Sunni extremist group in Syria and Iraq.

While raising doubts over China’s intellectual property (IP) laws and practices, the United States should not ignore the progress Beijing has made in those areas. For example, guaranteeing full protection to IP rights online is a difficult task, yet the government has taken measures to address the problem and make remarkable progress in this regard.

According to a China Internet Network Information Center report, by the end of last year China had about 731 million Internet users and the total value of Internet copyrights exceeded 560 billion yuan (US$85 billion). But online piracy, too, has grown with the Internet industry, harming the protection of IP rights online. Piracy is the most serious online copyright violation, because of the low costs and low risks involved, and the high profits it can fetch.

This year’s China Network Intellectual Property Development Report indicates that the country’s core online copyright industry increased 31.3 percentage points last year compared with 2015, with the online game industry being worth 180 billion yuan, online literature 10 billion yuan, and online videos 5.21 billion yuan. But for online piracy, these figures could have been bigger.

Data from iResearch Consulting Group show that in 2015 and 2016, piracy caused losses of 7.97 billion yuan and 7.98 billion respectively to the online literature sector. The paid-for mobile-reading sector was worth 4.36 billion yuan and 5.02 billion in 2015 and 2016 respectively. There is little doubt that China, despite some drawbacks in its IP laws and practices, has made tremendous efforts to protect IP rights online.

Since 2005, government departments, such as the National Copyright Administration and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, have been leading a campaign called Sword Net to combat online piracy in literature, music, videos and games.

As a result, many websites involved in IP piracy have been shut down. And because of the increasing awareness of IP protection, establishing a foolproof system for protecting online copyright has become an important task for the government, for which it has implemented more comprehensive laws.

Besides, to combat piracy and protect new media’s copyrights, 10 mainstream media outlets and websites formed an association at the National Conference on Copyright Protection in Digital Environment in April.

The association is expected to play an active role in managing copyrights, making rules and negotiating prices, and thus help its members protect their legitimate rights.

The National Copyright Administration directly supervises more than 3,000 websites, including Baidu, Youku and 18 other influential video platforms, to ensure they closely monitor the content published.

Moreover, due to strengthened IP protection, more online video copyright owners are getting their share of payment. And this year’s Global Music Report issued by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry said the digital music sector markedly increased in scale last year to hit 15 billion yuan.

Strengthened online copyright protection has also facilitated technological and cultural innovations and creations, a new driver of economic growth.

As such, better IP rights protection will boost the mobile Internet, the Internet of Things and other related sectors, including artificial intelligence, and help China to become a stronger Internet economy.

The author is a fellow at the Center for China and Globalization and a researcher at the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television of China.

Three separate events last month offer new hope that the rail industry here is evolving for the better.

The first was SMRT clinching the operating contract for the Thomson-East Coast Line. It beat rival SBS Transit, a company which arguably has a better track record as far as recent reliability statistics go.

SMRT’s bid, at 30 per cent lower than SBS Transit’s, was however, hard to pass up. In assessing bids which involve taxpayers’ money, value for money ranks high.

And there are signs that SMRT has learnt its lesson from past mistakes. Parent group Temasek Holdings has taken the company private and the Government has bought over all its operating assets under the New Rail Financing Framework.

These moves free SMRT from the pressures of market expectations and possible disputes over which assets it is responsible for replacing when the time comes.

For sure, SMRT would not have been able to put in such a low bid if it had still been listed. That 30 per cent difference could well be the entire profit margin from the operating contract, assuming SBS Transit’s submission was competitively priced. Investors would have railed against such a bid.

The tender result is significant because it leaves SBS Transit with only a little over 20 per cent of the rail market in terms of passenger capacity. (The Cross Island Line will be the next new line, but that is several years down the road.) The situation is thus not tenable for the company, which entered the rail sector two decades ago when the Government called on operators to go “multi-modal” for better competition.

Back then, many questioned if Singapore was big enough a market for two rail operators. In 2003, then Transport Minister Yeo Cheow Tong suggested that reverting to one rail operator would make “good sense” as there would be better cost savings and pooled expertise.

This was followed up by a proposal from Lim Jit Poh, chairman of ComfortDelGro Corp, which owns SBS Transit. Mr Lim suggested to the Government that it should do one of two things: Pave the way for a mega-merger of the two transport operators; or have one run all buses and the other, all trains.

With SMRT now being fully owned by Temasek, perhaps the merit of what Lim and Mr Yeo had said can be re-examined more objectively. Certainly, there is some wastage in having two operators for such an engineering-intensive and capital-intensive industry, especially given the limited market size.

This brings us to the second development, in which SMRT’s technical advisory panel called for the operator to grow and nurture its own engineering expertise instead of relying on third-party vendors.

Professor Kristin Wood, a panel member and co-director of the SUTD-MIT International Design Centre at the Singapore University of Technology and Design, said: “It is essential for the future of SMRT not to rely on vendor capabilities.”

Another member, National University of Singapore engineering dean Chua Kee Chaing, said a rail operator needs engineers with “deep engineering expertise” in all areas, including rolling stock, signalling and power systems.

There have been a number of incidents which underscore the importance of this, but none better than last year’s mysterious signal interference episode on the Circle Line.

For weeks on end in August, September and November last year, trains on the line would stall for no apparent reason. SMRT and the Land Transport Authority knew there was some signal interference but did not know what was causing it.

It took engineers from the Defence Science and Technology Agency and the Defence Science Organisation just one weekend to track the source of the interference.

Perhaps that is what Professor Chua meant by “deep engineering expertise”. With good engineers in such short supply, a single rail operator with pooled expertise is only logical.

The third development pertains to SMRT signing a memorandum of understanding with Prasarana Malaysia – Malaysia’s largest public transport provider – to form a joint venture company for the Johor Baru-Singapore Rapid Transit System (RTS) Link.

The joint venture company is expected to design, build, finance, operate and maintain the rail link, which is a northward extension of the Thomson-East Coast Line. It will also be responsible for renewing operating assets such as trains, tracks and systems.

This model is in effect similar to what Hong Kong has for its MTR system, and what Taiwan has for its nationalised Taipei Metro – two of the world’s most reliable systems. This is because the interests of all parties involved in the two systems are well aligned.

After all, if a system had an inferior design, the builder will have a hard time constructing it. If the builder used inferior materials or methods, the operator will end up with a glitchy system. If the operator has a hard time just keeping the system in running order, it will have less resources for asset renewal.

The Bukit Panjang LRT comes to mind. Whether it was built because of “political pressure” is immaterial and irrelevant. The people who built it should have compensated for the challenging terrain, for instance, by levelling the viaduct by using supporting columns of different heights. And if the alignment was full of sharp turns – an unavoidable feature in the first place – why apply an intricate two-in-one power-and-signalling system?

With the Hong Kong or Taipei model, which the JB-Singapore RTS Link will adopt, the vicious circle which brought about entities with diverging interests can become a virtuous circle.

Now, imagine if all MRT lines here were built this way, operated and maintained by people with deep engineering expertise, sourced from within one big organisation that is single-minded in its goal.

Can that be achieved? Without reading too much into the three events, suffice to say, it is a start.

These developments signal a new willingness to chart a new course for the rail industry. With the network doubling in length by 2030, along with a commensurate growth in ridership, Singapore must realise that the foundation for a reliable and robust system is laid well before the ground-breaking.

Instead of being wary about investors, tourism management authorities should collaborate with them in preserving the natural environment, says Dr Nguyen Hong Tri, Secretary of the National Committee for UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere Programme (MAB) in Vietnam.

With about 2.3 million hectares of special use forests (SUF), 31 national parks and 68 natural reserves, and dozens of other forests, Vietnam is seen as a prime eco-tourism destination.

However, rapid and haphazard development of tourism infrastructure in natural reserves and SUFs in the last few years has raised concerns that development was taking place at the expense of the environment.

Tourism inside and around protected areas like the Phong Nha – Ke Bang and Bach Ma national parks, as well as the Son Tra and Lung Ngoc Hoang natural reserves, has also raised concerns over the loss of biodiversity.

Ways to address these concerns and preserve the nation’s natural environment in the context of an eco-tourism boom were discussed at a conference held in Hanoi on Wednesday.

Most tourism projects in the country are implemented without conducting comprehensive environmental impact assessments (EIA), said Dr L Hong Lan of the Vietnam Association for Conservation of Nature and Environment. The result is that the risks and consequences that the projects can have on the environment are not accounted for, she said.

Current regulations only require tourism investors to address damage caused to forests by paying money or replanting trees, “but such losses can’t be measured with money, like losing rare animals like rhinos,” Lan said.

“Re-growing forests does not ensure recovery of biodiversity,” she said, adding that regulations should require investors to restore biodiversity in damaged areas.

Overlaps and loopholes in laws and regulations on natural resource management have complicated the task of preserving biodiversity in the country, public policy specialist Nguyen Quang Dong said at the conference.

For example, the 2010 decree on SUF management actually allows investors to engage in activities forbidden by the Law on Forest Protection and Management, he said.

Both the environmental and agricultural ministries have their own guidelines on planning natural reserves for tourism, which are too many, unstructured, and too complicated, he added.

“They need to redefine their functions and untangle this management mess,” he said.

Dr Nguyen Quoc Dung of the Institute of Investigation and Forest Planning, said that management of national parks has been arbitrarily decentralised in some localities.

Instead of being managed by the provincial People’s Committees as regulated, some national parks are being administered by lower-level agricultural and forest protection departments, he said.

Dr Nguyen Hong Tri, secretary of the National Committee for MAB Vietnam, said that the private sector, particularly tourism investors, should not be excluded from the policy making process.

“Tourism is an important sector for economic development, and it should be encouraged to grow,” he said.

“Since private investors have their own perspectives on tourism, public management agencies and policy makers should not be ‘scared’ of them, but instead engage them in dialogues and collaborate with them in the task of environmental protection,” he added.

Other experts proposed a comprehensive review and evaluation of environmental preservation and development in the last two decades, so that a more effective legal foundation can be laid for eco-tourism development.

“The carrying capacity of facilities at eco-tourism sites, and the monetary value of biodiversity loss caused by eco-tourism, are the two most difficult factors to evaluate,” said Nguyen Viet Dung, deputy director of the Center for People and Nature.

The company is the only entry from the Philippines that qualified to receive the prestigious award this year, which attracts hundreds of tech startups from all over Asia. It joins 21 other companies from the region who will compete for the award, which was established in Japan to foster innovation through collaboration among young startup Asian companies.

Mr. Geek Mobile Solutions, Inc. will present its “MyStart-Apps,” a free mobile application platform that seeks to benefit various Micro, Small- and Medium-scale Enterprises or MSMEs. By using MyStart-Apps, MSMEs will now have the ability to create decent, high quality and fully customizable mobile app through a user-friendly platform in less than 30 minutes and is absolutely free.

This will enable MSMEs to save on cost of development and allocate their budget to other more essential needs in running their business.

By building one’s business on MyStart-Apps allows promising startups to build their business and provide more value to their brand. With MyStart-Apps, the business can now communicate directly to their customers by sending notices, updates and even advertisements to customers’ digital devices, particularly smartphones powered either by Android or iOS.

“As a young tech startup company, it had always been our dream to be recognised internationally as an app developer from the Philippines and make the country proud.”