OFW who won S$2.3M lottery in Singapore accused of stealing ticket

 News
Aug 152015
 
OFW who won S$2.3M lottery in Singapore accused of stealing ticket

The Straits Times/Asia News Network August 15th, 2015 02:34 PM Len (not her real name), who has been working for her current employer for 14 years, intends to continue working for him. The Straits Times/Asia News Network A maid who won 2.3 million Singaporean dollars in the Singapore Sweep insists she has done nothing wrong, after police received a report from another person claiming that the winning ticket was stolen. Len (not her real name) told The Straits Times that she bought a Singapore Sweep ticket at a Tampines Singapore Pools outlet in June, while on her way to help a friend remit some money to the Philippines. That same night, the maid said she got the surprise of her life when her ticket won the lottery’s first prize, making her an instant multi-millionaire. The 44-year-old, who has worked for the same family in Pasir Ris for 14 years, claimed the prize money, deposited it into her bank account here and transferred some of it to her 22-year-old daughter and 23-year-old son in the Philippines. But last month, three officers from the Ang Mo Kio police division came to the flat where she works. She said they told her that someone had lodged a report claiming ownership of the winning ticket and that it had been stolen. Her employer’s son was with her at the time the police were questioning her. She said she was upset by the news, but has complied with requests to hand over details of her Read More …

Sarah Lahbati on moving to ABS-CBN: I’m open to opportunities

 General
Aug 152015
 
Sarah Lahbati on moving to ABS-CBN: I’m open to opportunities

Sarah Lahbati enjoyed her first ever performance in “ASAP” and said she’s open to any opportunity offered by ABS-CBN. Philstar.com/Chuck Smith MANILA, Philippines – There’s no definite plan yet if Sarah Lahbati will move to ABS-CBN. Few months ago, Sarah signed a contract with Viva which is now handling her career. The reports about her move in the Kapamilya network started after she did a dance number in the Sunday noontime show “ASAP.” READ: Is Sarah Lahbati moving to ABS-CBN? “It was an amazing experience, it was my first time in ASAP,” she said about her performance in an interview aired in “Aquino and Abunda Tonight” on Friday. As for the reports of moving to ABS-CBN, she replied, “anuman po ang opportunity na dumating, open-minded po ako na tanggapin ‘yon at mag-work.” Entertainment ( Article MRec ), pagematch: 1, sectionmatch: 1 Sarah is currently seen in the reality show “It Takes Gutz to be a Gutierrez” which airs in E! Channel every Monday and in TFC on certain schedules. The actress admitted that it takes a lot of guts to be with the Gutierrez’s. “It’s a fun and crazy rollercoaster when you’re with them,” she explained. “It’s like there’s always a celebration, there’s always something going on. It could be drama, it could be something fun. So you really have to have guts to be with them.” Sarah became part of the Gutierrez clan when she became Richard’s partner and eventually they had a child named Zion. One thing she learned Read More …

PHL loses at least P22B in GDP due to school dropouts — UNESCO

 Economy
Aug 142015
 

THE Philippines loses billions of pesos every year in foregone earnings due to out-of-school-children, a study made by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) revealed, with the amount equating to nearly one percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).

Cape Cod race lets runners compete virtually from treadmills

 Entertainment
Aug 142015
 
Cape Cod race lets runners compete virtually from treadmills

Joe Ciavattone, an employee of Outside Interactive, demonstrates the company’s virtual race technology at the New Balance Falmouth Road Race expo in Falmouth, Mass. AP/Collin Binkley FALMOUTH, Mass. — Runners who failed to snag a coveted bib in a Cape Cod road race can now compete virtually from treadmills anywhere. The New Balance Falmouth Road Race is among the first races to let runners download an app with video of the actual course and run from home or the gym. The race on Sunday is letting 100 runners race virtually as a pilot, while more than 12,000 compete in-person. The company behind the technology says other races have agreed to adopt it, and another company plans to offer a virtual version of the London Marathon next year. Some are calling it the future of road running. Virtual runners will use a video of the Falmouth course filmed last year. Their times won’t count among those who run in person.

Drug execs behind female libido pill have run afoul of FDA

 General
Aug 142015
 
Drug execs behind female libido pill have run afoul of FDA

Sprout Pharmaceuticals CEO Cindy Whitehead works in her office in Raleigh, N.C. AP/Allen G. Breed WASHINGTON — A small drugmaker from North Carolina may succeed next week where many of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies have failed: in winning approval for the first drug to boost women’s sexual desire. The husband-and-wife team that founded Sprout Pharmaceuticals is not new to the pharmaceutical business or even to marketing drugs to people frustrated with their sex lives. The couple’s previous company, Slate Pharmaceuticals, sold an implantable testosterone pellet to men with low levels of the hormone. But Slate’s marketing push ran afoul of federal rules, making misleading, unsupported statements about the benefits of testosterone therapy while downplaying risks. In fact, when the Food and Drug Administration held a meeting examining the overprescribing of testosterone last year, it played Slate’s commercial as an example of inappropriate marketing. That record worries Sprout’s critics, who see a troubling pattern in the aggressive tactics it has used to urge the FDA to approve the women’s desire drug, which was previously rejected twice because of lackluster effectiveness and side effects such as nausea, dizziness and fainting. The search for a pill to increase women’s libido has been something of a holy grail for the pharmaceutical industry since the blockbuster success of Viagra for men in the late 1990s. Pfizer, Bayer and Procter & Gamble all studied — then abandoned — potential treatments for female sexual desire disorder. Sprout “already has a history of unethical marketing,” said Dr. Read More …

First Gen books slightly lower earnings in H1

 General
Aug 142015
 
First Gen books slightly lower earnings in H1

MANILA, Philippines – First Gen Corp. of the Lopez Group booked slightly lower profits in the first half of the year due to the lower contribution from its geothermal and hydropower generating units. First Gen reported yesterday its net income attributable to equity holders of the parent declined 7.1 percent to $95.3 million in the first six months of the year from $102.6 million in the same period last year. Its recurring net income attributable to the parent also slipped 7.3 percent to $83.9 million from $90.4 million. The company said its natural gas plants, namely Santa Rita and San Lorenzo, booked higher earnings contribution due to higher dispatch and insurance claims recovered from their previous transformer incidents. However, it cited lower earnings from its subsidiaries Energy Development Corp. (EDC) and First Gen Hydro Power Corp. (FG Hydro). “Despite the positive contribution of the gas projects, EDC’s geothermal operations suffered reliability issues which we are now addressing,” FirstGen president Francis Giles B. Puno said. Business ( Article MRec ), pagematch: 1, sectionmatch: 1 EDC’s lower contribution resulted “from the outage of the Tongonan Geothermal Power Plant in Leyte, trading losses on the Unified Leyte Geothermal Plant strip business, higher operating expenses, and typhoon-proofing works.” FG Hydro, on the other hand, posted a dip in revenues as “the plants suffered from weak spot market prices and a reduction in electricity production caused by lower water availability.”

It’s complicated

 General
Aug 142015
 
It’s complicated

“It’s complicated…” That has to be one of the most famous expressions nowadays. Of course life is complicated and it is our responsibility to put clarity and simplicity into it. I am not naive. You and I may have been collateral damage because of other people’s wrong decisions. And many source of life’s complications today arise out of wrong values and faulty parenting. I once posted this message on my Facebook Page not knowing that it would become one of the most shared posts, eliciting hundreds of comments and earning more than 7,000 likes. The post said: “Many people live dysfunctional lives today because they either are still trying to live up to their parent’s expectations, or are still trying to prove their parents wrong. There were many disagreements, but they were low in percentage to those who agreed with the post. And so people or circumstances that were beyond our control may have complicated our lives. And in many cases, we live in complicated situations because of self-inflicted damages, and then life becomes so difficult. As we all know, there are a lot of creepy people on FB, and there was this guy who kept on attacking me even though I personally do not know him at all. Naturally, I had to tolerate him for the sake of free speech. This person though upped his ploy and began sending comments to others who commented on my posts, complicating the situation. Business ( Article MRec ), pagematch: 1, sectionmatch: 1 Read More …

Empowering airline passengers

 Economy
Aug 142015
 
Empowering airline passengers

Just this week, the Star carried a news item about the Senate ratifying two treaties on aviation.  These of course ensure greater protection and fairer compensation to air passengers in case of accidents during flights.  These treaties refer to the 1999 Montreal Convention (MC99) and the Protocol Relating to an Amendment to the Convention on International Civil Aviation. A quick review of history pertaining to the protocols and conventions leading to MC99 is in order now that the Philippines has adopted this regime as basis for our own aviation protocol. To harmonize private international air laws, the Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules Relating to International Carriage by Air, otherwise known as the Warsaw Convention was signed in 1929 in Warsaw although, as agreed upon by the member states in attendance, this came in to force only in 1933. A total of 152 states concurred with all the provisions of the Warsaw Convention, a  significant number insofar as concurrence is concerned, which you will see as you read on. When World War II came to an end, the aviation industry saw more improvements with larger airplanes and much longer routes, more air passengers and increased freight, and the 1929 Warsaw Convention was becoming irrelevant to the times. In 1944, the Chicago Convention brought a measure of order and a smoother flow of air passengers, baggage and cargo, and this took effect in 1947, concurred in by 191 states against Warsaw’s 152. In 1955, the Hague Protocols took place to Read More …

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