adultdating

TV hosts parents in Cubao accident

The parents of television host Mickey Ferriols figured in a traffic accident and an ensuing altercation in Cubao, Quezon City Sunday night. Joey and Elizabeth Ferriols were about to merge into EDSA from New York Street when their car was hit by a bus driven by Mardonio Tomacmol. Traffic police said the Ferriols couple and Tomacmol exchanged heated words, which led Elizabeth to allegedly hit the bus driver on the back of his head. Tomacmol, in retaliation, allegedly hit Elizabeth on her side. The driver, however, said he merely shielded himself from the couple's attempts to push him. The younger Ferriols, along with husband and fellow TV host Archie Alemania, rushed to the scene to help their parents. Joey has filed a case of reckless imprudence resulting to damage to property against the driver at the Quezon City Police District's Station 10. The couple are also mulling charges against Tomacmol for hitting Elizabeth. Gretchen Malalad, ABS-CBN News

Anti-China protests at torch run in Bangkok

Reuters
BANGKOK - About two hundred China supporters taunted pro-Tibet demonstrators as the Olympic torch was paraded through Bangkok amid tight security on Saturday.
Police pushed back several people who tried to advance beyond barricades to counter demonstrations by scores of activists angry at China's human rights record and rule over Tibet.
A crowd dressed in red waving China flags gathered outside the regional headquarters of the United Nations, chanting pro-China slogans as the demonstrators held aloft banners saying "no torch in Tibet" and "one world, one dream, free Tibet".
"They are killing many Tibetans, like animals," said one protester, who had "free Tibet" scrawled on his bare chest.
A police helicopter hovered overhead as the torch and runners began their 10.5-km relay in the city's China Town, watched by Olympic marshals and tightly escorted by police patrols and motorcycles.
The parade got underway without incident with crowds cheering as the symbolic flame made the short journey towards the golden-spired Grand Palace.
"We, Thailand, confirm our pure intention to separate politics from sport and give our support to China for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing," deputy prime minister Sanan Kajornprasart, told the crowd.
State television in China made no mention of the protests in its report on the relay in the Thai capital, saying that it received a rapturous welcome.
"There were no disharmonious voices," the report said.
Several thousand police have been drafted in to protect the parade route, which has not been altered by security chiefs despite the planned demonstration.
On the previous leg of the torch's swing through Asia, India had to deploy 15,000 police to keep at bay protesters from the world's largest community of exiled Tibetans.
Malaysia run
Malaysia announced on Saturday it will deploy police commandos to beef up security for Monday's run through Kuala Lumpur. They will escort the torch bearers over the 16.5-km route, newspapers said.
There were some early signs of concerns on Friday after about 20 followers of Falun Gong, the religious group outlawed by Beijing, protested peacefully outside the Chinese embassy in Kuala Lumpur.
"We are prepared to counter any form of disturbance from anyone or any organization," the Star newspaper quoted the city's police internal security chief K. Kumaran as saying.
The official China Daily on Saturday quoted French ambassador to China, Herve Ladsous, as saying he regretted what happened on the Paris leg of the relay, and would like to meet the disabled Chinese athlete targeted by protesters there.
"I deeply regret what happened," he said.
"I hope I can meet Jin Jing in person to show friendship and my deep regret," Ladsous added, referring to the disabled athlete, who has rocketed to national fame in China after fending off anti-China protesters in Paris.
The Olympic Games take place in Beijing from August 8-24.

SingTel, Globe to bring iPhone to Asia this yr

Reuters

SINGAPORE - Singapore Telecommunications Ltd. and its mobile associates will bring Apple Inc's popular iPhone to Singapore, India, Australia and the Philippines later this year, Southeast Asia's largest phone company said on Monday.

SingTel said that it, Bharti Airtel Ltd, Globe Telecom Inc. and Australian unit Optus had signed the agreement with Apple.

New book saves Rushdie from wrecked private life

LONDON - British author Salman Rushdie says writing a new novel saved him from the "wreckage" of his divorce last year from fourth wife Padma Lakshmi.
"The Enchantress of Florence", Rushdie's 10th novel, is a story of 15th and 16th century court intrigue in Florence and the Mughal capital Fatehpur Sikri which marks a return to his trademark magical realism where fact and fantasy intertwine.
"It was a good place to go at a time when my private life was in a state of wreckage, and yes it was, I suppose, a bit of a refuge," Rushdie told Reuters in an interview.
"I think in the end what got me through it was the long familiarity of the necessary discipline of writing a novel."
Rushdie, best known for his 1988 novel "The Satanic Verses" which outraged Muslims and forced him into hiding after a death edict was issued by Iran's then supreme religious leader, announced the divorce in 2007, ending a three-year marriage.
"I found that in the end a lifetime's habit of just going to my desk and doing a day's work and not allowing myself not to do it is what got me back on track.
"I was derailed for a while. I was in bad shape and it brought me back to myself."
His tale of two cities centers around real-life characters like the great Mughal emperor Akbar and philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli in Italy and others like the mysterious beauty Qara Koz, who enchants men wherever she goes.
The novel, published by Random House, has divided critics, with the Guardian review saying it was "magnificent" and the Sunday Times calling it "the worst thing he has ever written."
The 60-year-old had originally intended to set the story completely in Europe, but ended up dividing the narrative between two great civilizations that barely knew of each other.
"In the end I wrote a book I didn't expect to write," Rushdie said. "I expected to write a book about difference and instead I found myself writing a book about the similarities."
PARALLELS TODAY
He argues that the parallels with today are clear: while humans are alike everywhere, they often fail to see it and so speak instead of a clash of cultures and religions.
"Even now if you look at the way in which we are all behaving, we are not that unlike at all. It's just that we see ourselves as each other's other, whereas actually we are much more like each other's mirror image."
In "Enchantress", Akbar epitomizes religious and social tolerance and is a champion of freedom of thought and expression, a position criticized by many at the time.
"Was faith not faith but simple family habit?" Akbar ponders at one point. "Maybe there was no true religion. Yes, he had allowed himself to think this."
Yet despite Akbar's example, and Rushdie's belief that human nature is universal, the author is pessimistic about the future.
"It would be difficult to be optimistic," he said. "There is a profound rupture in our ability to describe the world in the same way and I think when that happens ... it becomes very difficult to agree on anything else."
Rushdie believes there should be little compromise in the debate on freedom of speech, no matter what offence it causes.
"When you get involved with this free speech thing you discover that a lot of what you are defending is stuff you don't like. It's easy to defend work that you don't mind. The defence of free speech begins when people say things you don't like.
"If you are not willing to defend the right of people to say things that you personally find even abhorrent then really you don't believe in free speech, you only agree in people's right to agree with you."

(Update) Sulpicio nixes refloating, wants full insurance claim

Agence France-Presse
SAN FERNANDO, Romblon - The owners of a sunken Philippine ferry are unwilling to see its vessel refloated because it would be unable to claim full damages from insurers, a maritime official said Saturday.
The senior official said that the submerged Princess of the Stars, which contains hundreds of dead bodies inside, could easily be refloated but the shipping line and authorities were stalling.
The ferry, which sank off the central island of Sibuyan with 850 people aboard in a typhoon a week ago, has an intact hull with air pockets that could be used to float it once more and put it right side up, the official said.
However, declining to be named, he said the owners, Sulpicio Lines, and the coast guard "are not pursuing that tack because they are waiting apparently for the insurers to conduct their own investigation."
"If they re-float the vessel, Sulpicio will not be able to claim damages for a total wreck," the senior official said.
The 24,000-ton ferry is sitting upside down on a reef off Sibuyan, part of its hull jutting from the waters. Only 57 survivors have been found and it is believed that most of the bodies of the dead are trapped inside the hull.
Philippine Coast Guard and Navy divers, assisted by US Navy frogmen, were trying to retrieve the dead from the ship but the already slow-moving operation was suspended Friday after it was discovered the vessel was carrying a shipment of a toxic pesticide that might leak into the water.
The maritime official said the pesticide complicated the operation but remarked that the coast guard should have had blueprints of the ship and other documents from Sulpicio Lines identifying its cargo before the retrieval operations began.
The site of the sinking, earlier a hive of activity with rescue divers and their boats criss-crossing the waters, was quiet on Saturday with only a boat from the Bureau of Fisheries seen taking water samples for testing.
Nanette Tansingco, mayor of the coastal town of San Fernando, closest to the ill-fated ship, said she had barred fishermen from the area due to the pesticide threat.
"We will be doing a lot of studies in the area to make sure no one gets ill from eating fish," she said.
Officials earlier said that they found no trace of the pesticide in the waters but are not taking chances and have subjected the divers to medical tests.
Navy spokesman Lt. Col. Edgardo Arevalo said that so far, there have been no reports of divers poisoned by the pesticide although some are suffering from infections and fever from the numerous dives they had to make.
One Coast Guard diver earlier this week suffered the bends and had to undergo decompression due to a prolonged dive to look for bodies.
Arevalo said experts from Singapore were expected to arrive soon to assess "how the hull can be breached so the container of pesticide can be brought out."
The Navy spokesman said he had not heard of any suggestions of re-floating the vessel.
The Coast Guard meanwhile said it had recovered 16 additional dead bodies from the ferry, floating in the waters or on the shores of the island of Masbate, some 60 kilometers from Sibuyan.
This adds to the 146 bodies from the ferry that were earlier recovered from the ferry.
Local authorities said another 20 bodies were waiting to be picked up in Pasacao town, east of Sibuyan but this could not yet be confirmed.
The slow recovery of dead bodies has angered relatives who have trooped to Sulpicio Lines offices in Manila and the central city of Cebu waiting for word of their loved ones.
The Coast Guard commander for Manila, Luis Tuazon, was suspended pending an investigation in his role in the sinking, Coast Guard spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Armand Balilo although this did not mean he was suspected of wrongdoing.
Sulpicio Lines has had at least three other major accidents since 1987, when its Dona Paz vessel collided with an oil tanker, killing around 4,000 people.
The government suspended the company's operations until further notice, while anti-corruption campaigners are planning a class action lawsuit. A board of inquiry is also conducting hearings on the company's possible liability.