The rebrand supports Pebsteel’s long-term vision during a new development phase
HOCHIMINH CITY, Vietnam, March 23, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — PEB Steel Buildings Co., Ltd. (Pebsteel), a leading company in the pre-engineering steel construction industry, launches its refreshed brand identity to the market. The rebrand supports Pebsteel’s long-term vision of offering customers innovative, sustainable, and cost-effective solutions during a new development phase.
Construction and industrial sectors are expected to recover strongly after COVID, resulting in enormous demand for pre-engineered steel buildings, steel structures. According to Global Industry Analysts, the world market for pre-engineered steel construction is estimated to grow from $27.1 billion in 2020 to $49.1 billion in 2026 at a compound annual growth rate of 10.1%. Asia-Pacific is the fastest-growing market for pre-engineered buildings and steel structures due to rapid industrialization and urbanization in emerging economies.
Additionally, pre-engineered buildings have become increasingly popular in the construction market thanks to their numerous advantages. They are more cost-effective and energy-efficient than conventional construction methods. Warehouses, office complexes, hangars…are among other various applications.
Pebsteel is a long-standing company with a solid record of 6,000 pre-engineered buildings and steel structures in over 50 countries. Pebsteel’s outstanding projects include the highest Unilever factory in Indonesia with a height of 68 meters; the largest clear span of 128 meters for the Lufthansa hangar in the Philippines; and the longest FCB Warehouse building in Thailand with a total length of one kilometer. Pebsteel also broke its own record by building a 14-story office tower in Manila, as well as creating a unique curved corridor for the Okada Manila hotel and resort complex.
Founded in 1994 by Sami Kteily and Adib Kouteli in Europe with Japanese stakeholders (Nippon Steel and Okaya & Co., Ltd), Pebsteel operates in 10 regional sales offices and has the headquarters in Vietnam. Sami Kteily, Executive Chairman of Pebsteel, said: “The rebrand is an important milestone for Pebsteel. After 27 years of development, Pebsteel reaffirmed its leading position as a total solution provider for pre-engineered steel buildings and steel structures. Amidst the ever-evolving fast-paced construction market, Pebsteel has introduced a new brand tagline – ENGINEERED BUILDING SOLUTIONS – to reflect its aspiration of creating effective solutions for a prosperous future. The company has also updated the logo to demonstrate its efforts to evolve and move towards prosperity with its customers, partners, and employees.”
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, March 22, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — iPrice Group, Southeast Asia’s leading price comparison platform helping online shoppers save money, announced today that it has raised $5 million of additional funding.
The capital was raised from Japan-based firms Itochu Corporation and the KDDI Open Innovation Fund III (operated by Global Brain Corporation).
The additional funding will bolster iPrice’s role in finding shoppers the best deals as Southeast Asia’s e-commerce market becomes increasingly difficult to navigate.
A Facebook and Bain & Company report indicates that in 2021, the number of platforms used by SEA digital consumers has steadily risen to 7.9 websites per user on average, nearly 52% more than 2020.
This trend creates a reinforced need for a curated catalogue to provide transparency across platforms and help users save money among multiple marketplaces. iPrice addresses this need by aggregating the best offers from more than 7 billion products and 8 million sellers on a single platform.
“Besides comparing products, prices, sellers’ reputations, and delivery conditions, we are continually deepening our expertise to help shoppers in various ways – be it aggregating seller vouchers, creating an app that alerts users of their desired products’ price drops, or finding the cheapest loans to fund their purchases,” said iPrice Group CEO Paul Brown-Kenyon.
As the newest addition, iPrice recently launched a Price Watch service allowing users in Indonesia to receive alerts of their desired products’ price drops directly at the iPrice App. The service will continue to roll out in Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Thailand throughout 2022.
With the new funding, iPrice will expand its services to the lending market by helping users find not only the best e-commerce offering but also the best consumer loans to fund their purchases. A Google report predicts that digital lending will hit $92 billion in transactions by 2025 due to its current acceleration in Southeast Asia, and the leading comparison platform intends to meet consumer demand.
That said, iPrice is excited to welcome Itochu as part of the capitalization table. Although known for its trading operations, Itochu has vast experience in the area of lending and operates a lending business in Indonesia under the brand Payku.
“We’re very excited that we can leverage our investors’ extensive lending experience. The first step in our strategic cooperation will be adding Itochu’s subsidiary, Payku, as a key lending partner in Indonesia. Their expertise will be vital as we further penetrate the lending market,” added Brown-Kenyon.
Aside from Payku, iPrice’s other lending partners include Home Credit (Indonesia), Julo (Indonesia), Cashalo (Philippines), Smartpay (Vietnam), and ZIP (Singapore, launching in H1 2022).
“Baseball: America’s Home Run” at the Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum
WASHINGTON, March 22, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The National Postal Museum’s exhibition “Baseball: America’s Home Run” explores America’s national pastime through the unique lens of stamps and mail. On view Saturday, April 9, through Jan. 5, 2025, it invites visitors to explore exciting and memorable stories about how the game of baseball became an integral part of American history and tradition.
Featuring hundreds of U.S. and international stamps commemorating great players and historic moments, and drawing on original artwork and archival material from the U.S. Postal Service’s esteemed Postmaster General’s Collection, the exhibition approaches the story of baseball from a unique, worldwide perspective.
The display of stamps and mail will be complemented by dozens of objects loaned by other Smithsonian museums, the National Baseball Hall of Fame, law enforcement agencies and renowned private collections that have never before been on public display. These rare artifacts—exclusively shared with the public as part of the exhibition—showcase a treasure trove of historically significant game-worn uniforms, jackets and hats, game-used bats and memorabilia from America’s pastime.
The exhibition pays tribute to many of the game’s greatest legends, including Jackie Robinson, Roberto Clemente, Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Lefty Grove, Lou Gehrig and countless others. Of the more than 60 baseball stamps issued by the United States since 1939, the vast majority commemorate individual players. Many of these postal portraits feature specially commissioned artwork designed to mimic the look and feel of classic baseball cards and recall players whose achievements on and off the field made them household names. On display for the first time, original stamp art and production material from the Postmaster General’s Collection is paired with actual game-used artifacts as a powerful visual reminder that these players—whom most know of only from photographs and old footage—were once flesh and blood.
The lives and careers of some of baseball’s greatest players, including those from the Negro Leagues, are examined through the postage stamps that tell their stories. For a number of stamps, the museum is able to show the original artwork commissioned by the U.S. Postal Service, picturing various players along with the actual uniform they wore in the artwork, such as Jackie Robinson’s road uniform from the 1948 season. Uniforms and game-used bats of Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio and other great players from the 20th century will be on display.
These tributes are especially meaningful at the 75th anniversary of Robinson being called up to the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947 as Major League Baseball’s first African American player and the 50th anniversary of Clemente’s death (1934–1972), who was born in Puerto Rico and played 18 seasons at right field for the Pittsburgh Pirates.
“We are proud to have Institution-wide cooperation from the Smithsonian, participation from the greatest organizations dedicated to the sport of baseball and support from businesses and private collectors who love the game,” said Elliot Gruber, director of the museum. “I would like to offer special thanks to the lead sponsors of the exhibition—the Washington Nationals Ball Club, Heritage Auctions, Milwaukee Tool, the National Postal Museum Society, Ricos Products Co. and Smithsonian-published author Stephen Tsi Chuen Wong who also serves as honorary advisor to the exhibition, for their generous support.”
The exhibition will be presented in English and Spanish through a collaboration with the Smithsonian Latino Center, creating broad appeal to collectors of stamps and memorabilia, family audiences and baseball fans.
“The exhibition examines the mythologies of the game of baseball and the role postage stamps have played in creating and enforcing that mythology,” said Daniel Piazza, chief curator of the museum. “We tell some of the lesser-known stories about the game of baseball through the medium of stamps and mail and explore fascinating details about the game in new and unique ways.”
Special exhibition themes examine the game of baseball:
“Creating Baseball” looks at early U.S. baseball-themed stamps and the myths they reflect about the origins of the sport. The Centennial of Baseball stamp gave tacit federal recognition to the now-discredited claim that Abner Doubleday invented baseball in 1839 at Cooperstown, New York. Similarly, a 1969 stamp honoring Anna “Grandma” Moses shows “July Fourth,” her painting of a small-town Independence Day baseball game, reinforcing misconceptions about the sport’s rural American origins, when it was, in fact, a big-city game that evolved from British antecedents.
“We All Play Ball” examines baseball’s global spread in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. With modest equipment needs, baseball was played by American soldiers on military posts around the world and quickly adopted by local people. International baseball stamps will be complemented by memorabilia and military-issued equipment. Watching and playing baseball helped the Irish, Italians, Jews, Poles and other immigrant groups break down ethnic walls and show their determination to integrate into American communities. Europeans learned baseball in this country, but most Latino immigrants came already knowing and playing the game, making them one of baseball’s fastest growing audiences and comprising more than 25% of professional baseball players.
“The Negro Leagues” takes its inspiration from U.S. Poet Laureate Donald Hall, who described a passion for baseball as “a kind of citizenship perhaps more authentic than anything which can be on a piece of paper.” However, African Americans were denied the opportunity to play Major League Baseball until 1947, so they formed their own professional leagues and teams—in the process reaffirming their Americanness to a country that refused to acknowledge their equality.
“Legendary Playing Fields” explores the sense of community that accompanies the familiar surroundings of a favorite baseball park—whether it is a classic stadium like Wrigley Field in Chicago or a newer green cathedral such as Washington, D.C.’s Nationals Park. In the early years, stadiums were generally built on undesirable land in the worst parts of town. One of Washington’s earliest baseball grounds, Capitol Park, was located in an underdeveloped working-class Irish neighborhood dubbed Swampoodle for the tendency of its unpaved streets to flood. Coincidentally, this very plot of land is now the home of the National Postal Museum. “Baseball: America’s Home Run” explores the history of Capitol Park and other parks, including production material for the 2001 U.S. Postal Service’s stamp, Baseball’s Legendary Playing Field Issue, paired with signs, seats, architectural elements and other artifacts from the stadiums depicted on the stamps.
A special website makes available the stories, themes and historical artifacts presented in the exhibition, and it provides multi-media storytelling by some of the most significant organizations and people associated with the game of baseball. Schedules and information regarding public programing and events associated with the exhibition are outlined as well, providing experiences for both on-site and online visitors.
About the Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum
The National Postal Museum is devoted to presenting the colorful and engaging history of the nation’s mail service and showcasing one of the largest and most comprehensive collections of stamps and philatelic material in the world. It is located at 2 Massachusetts Ave. N.E., Washington, D.C., across from Union Station. The museum is currently open Friday through Tuesday, 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. For more information about the Smithsonian, call (202) 633-1000.
Citizens of Myanmar on Tuesday applauded the Biden administration’s recognition of their military’s deadly 2017 crackdown on the Rohingya minority as a genocide but questioned its timing and whether it will lead to concrete action against the junta amid ongoing rights abuses in their country.
On Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that American investigators had determined the Myanmar military was responsible for atrocities including mass killings, gang rapes, mutilations, crucifixions, and the burning and drowning of children during its offensive in Rakhine state, and said the acts constitute genocide under United Nations definitions.
Thousands died in the raids, which forced an exodus of more than 700,000 people to neighboring Bangladesh and followed a 2016 crackdown that drove out more than 90,000 Rohingya from Rakhine.
In a statement, the junta’s Ministry of Foreign affairs rejected the designation as “far from reality” and dismissed Blinken’s comments as “politically motivated and tantamount to interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state.”
The announcement also drew scorn from pro-military voices in Myanmar, including outspoken nationalist blogger Kyaw Swar, who slammed the U.S. in a post on the social media platform Telegram.
“We killed them. What can you do about it,” he wrote, suggesting that Washington “be quiet and concentrate on dealing with Russia” following its invasion of Ukraine.
Others welcomed the decision and called on Washington to take further action against the military, which has killed at least 1,687 civilians and jailed 9,773 others since seizing power in a Feb. 1, 2021, coup.
Win Aung, a resident of the commercial capital Yangon, told RFA’s Myanmar Service he was pleased by the U.S. announcement, but said it was long overdue.
“These Rakhine state massacres were not the only ones committed by this army. Many have occurred in other ethnic areas as well,” he said.
The junta is currently embroiled in multiple conflicts with armed ethnic groups and prodemocracy paramilitaries in the country’s remote border regions and reports have emerged of troops torturing, raping and killing civilians.
But while Western governments have ostracized and sanctioned the military regime, Win Aung said it is unlikely to step down without a fight.
“The whole world is now waiting to see what the U.S. will do,” he said. “Regardless of timing, I think this announcement will have an impact somehow. Especially at a time when the ICJ [International Court of Justice] is looking into the issue. I think it will hurt the junta’s defense at the ICJ genocide hearing.”
Gambia has accused Myanmar’s military leadership of violating the 1948 Genocide Convention in Rohingya areas in a case it brought to the Hague-based ICJ. The court is holding hearings to determine whether it has jurisdiction to judge if atrocities committed there constituted a genocide.
Su Myat, a young woman from Yangon, called the U.S. declaration “the right thing to do.”
But she said that the announcement should have been made long ago “because this kind of brutality has not only been directed against the Rohingya.
“They have committed many crimes everywhere, but these crimes only surfaced after the Rohingyas had their turn and that’s because [they were documented using] modern technology,” she said, noting that similar accusations of atrocities have been leveled against the military by members of the Kachin and Kayin ethnic groups.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken tours the “Burma’s Path To Genocide” exhibit at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, March 21, 2022. Credit: AFP
Call for further action
Prior to Monday, the U.S. government had described the crackdown in Rakhine state as “ethnic cleansing” — not using the “genocide” designation, which carries more legal weight and which the Genocide Convention defines as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.”
The new designation marks the eighth by the State Department since the Cold War, following its recognition of genocides in Bosnia (1993), Rwanda (1994), Iraq (1995), Darfur (2004) and areas under the control of ISIS (2016 and 2017), according to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, where Blinken delivered his announcement on Monday.
Htet Myat Aung, a young man from Mandalay, said that the U.S. government’s declaration should mark the first step in a series of more significant and effective actions.
“All our people welcome the declaration of a genocide. But we hope to see more tangible and meaningful initiatives,” he said.
“People are now realizing that if the military can commit atrocities in cities like Yangon and Mandalay, where we have access to the internet and media, it must have been very bad in the remote areas where the Rohingya lived. Now we can sympathize with them and … we’d like to see more action on this issue.”
Htet Myat Aung said that while junta leaders may think that they can elude accountability by ignoring the international community, “they will have to pay for their crimes.”
Rohingya refugees walk along a path at Kutupalong refugee camp in Ukhia, Bangladesh, Aug. 25, 2021. Credit: AFP
Hope for the future
Myanmar, a country of 54 million people about the size of France, recognizes 135 official ethnic groups, with Burmans accounting for about 68 percent of the population.
The Rohingya, whose ethnicity is not recognized by the government, have faced decades of discrimination in Myanmar and are effectively stateless. They have been denied citizenship. Burmese administrations have refused to call them “Rohingya” and instead use the term “Bengali.”
The atrocities against the Rohingya were committed during the tenure of the civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi, who in December 2019 defended the military against allegations of genocide at the ICJ. The Nobel Peace Prize winner and one-time democracy icon now languishes in prison — toppled by the same military in last year’s coup.
A Rohingya named Hla Kyaw, who has lived in Thei-Chaung Muslim refugee camp in Sittwe since the 2016 and 2017 crackdowns, told RFA that he was saddened by the losses endured by his ethnic group as well as by people throughout the country.
“There are laws in Myanmar, but the laws have been ignored,” he said. “This should not have happened. We hope that we will enjoy freedom in the future and that life will improve for our children.”
Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
A group of 20 North Korean textile workers who were dispatched to Shanghai to earn foreign currency for the government have disappeared, and Pyongyang authorities suspect they are now on the run as refugees, sources in China told RFA.
“In mid-February, an entire group of North Korean women working at a clothing company in Shanghai disappeared when they were supposed to be in quarantine,” a source who lives in Dalian, in China’s northeast, told RFA’s Korean Service March 19.
“The 20 female workers … and their manager were gone, and the owner of the Chinese company that hired them called the North Korean manager, but he did not answer the phone, so [the owner] went to the dormitory to find that they had all disappeared,” said the source, who requested anonymity for security reasons.
Cash-strapped North Korea sends workers to China and Russia to earn foreign currency for the ruling party.
While many North Koreans flee their country by crossing the Yalu River border into China, escape by the workers dispatched to the country is rare–because the government sends only its most loyal citizens abroad and monitors them closely.
Pyongyang has also been known to punish the family members of escapees, referring to them as “defectors.”
The source said that the company owner immediately reported the disappearance of the 20 women to the North Korean consulate in Beijing.
“The consulate has requested cooperation from the Chinese police and is trying to track them, mainly by monitoring railway stations heading towards the border,” he said.
Though the source did not specify which border, refugees typically try to escape China by traveling to Southeast Asia.
Although the Chinese government has pledged to adhere to the U.N. convention that forbids the return of refugees to their home countries if doing so would endanger their lives or freedom, Beijing claims it must send North Koreans found to be illegally within Chinese territory back home under two bilateral border and immigration pacts with Pyongyang.
“The workers and the manager have not been found for a month since they went missing. North Korean authorities believed there is a high possibility that the group defected,” the source said. “The North Korean consulate is under a state of emergency to find if they have already escaped and are in Southeast Asia or already entered South Korea.”
Another source, from Dandong, across the Yalu River from the North Korean city of Sinuiju, told RFA that Shanghai is so large that it would be hard to find the missing workers if they were still there. The city has a population of around 26 million people.
“It is so large and crowded it would be easy to hide there,” said the second source, who requested anonymity to speak freely.
“But if they were to leave by train or bus, they would need to show ID to buy a ticket. It therefore seems this is a planned escape led by a guide, since the manager and the workers have not been caught.”
An official from South Korea’s Ministry of Unification on Tuesday told reporters that there is “nothing to confirm” regarding the 20 North Korean women and their manager after the Korean version of RFA’s report was published.
South Korea’s National Intelligence Service told RFA on Tuesday that it would be unable to confirm workers’ flight even if it knew the report was true.
There are an estimated 20,000 to 80,000 North Koreans working in China, according to the U.S. State Department’s 2021 Trafficking in Person’s Report.
North Korean labor exports were supposed to have stopped when United Nations nuclear sanctions froze the issuance of work visas and mandated the repatriation of North Korean nationals working abroad by the end of 2019.
But Pyongyang sometimes dispatches workers to China and Russia on short-term student or visitor visas to get around sanctions.
The companies employing the North Koreans pay much higher salaries than what they could earn in their home country. The government, however, collect the lion’s share, leaving the workers with only a fraction of their wages.
Translated by Claire Lee and Leejin Jun. Written in English be Eugene Whong.
