Latest news with #ImeldaMarcos
South China Morning Post
12-05-2025
- Politics
- South China Morning Post
Philippine midterm elections: casino-linked cash seizure and poll-day disruptions raise alarms
The midterm elections in the Philippines proceeded without major disruption in most areas on Monday, according to officials and observers, but the seizure of nearly half a billion pesos in undeclared cash from foreign nationals, along with isolated incidents of deadly violence and technical glitches, has raised concerns over the integrity of the vote. Advertisement One of the most startling developments occurred late Friday, when six Chinese nationals, three foreigners and two Filipinos were intercepted at Cebu International Airport while attempting to board a private jet to Manila. Authorities discovered 441.9 million pesos (US$7.6 million) in local currency, along with US$168,730 and HK$1,000 in undeclared cash – raising suspicions of illicit election-related activity. Brigadier General Jean Fajardo, spokesperson for the Philippine National Police, said investigators were pursuing multiple leads, including the possibility that the money was intended to influence the polls. 'Is this money part of a plan to influence or at least interfere in our elections?' she said at a Sunday briefing. 'Maybe these foreign nationals might be a conduit to be used to interfere or at least influence our elections.' Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr, centre right, and his mother, former first lady Imelda Marcos, centre left, prepare to cast their votes at a polling station in Batac City, Ilocos Norte province, on Monday. Photo: AP Police officials said the foreign nationals – including a Malaysian, an Indonesian and a Kazakh citizen – had declared only three of seven hard-shell suitcases during check-in. X-ray scans and inspection revealed the undeclared currency.
Filipino Times
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Filipino Times
Marcos honors mothers on Mother's Day, thanks them for boundless love and sacrifice
President Ferdinand 'Bongbong' Marcos Jr. paid tribute to mothers on Sunday, expressing gratitude for their unwavering love and sacrifices in celebration of Mother's Day. In a social media post, the President shared a collage featuring key women in his life—his mother, former First Lady Imelda Marcos; his wife, First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos; and his sister, Irene Marcos. Notably, Senator Imee Marcos, his elder sister, was absent from the photo montage. Marcos described mothers as the 'quiet strength behind every family,' emphasizing their selfless devotion. 'They care, nurture, guide and give of themselves without asking for anything in return,' he said. 'Their love knows no bounds—and neither does their sacrifice.' In Filipino, he also extended heartfelt appreciation: 'Ngayong Mother's Day, taos-puso kong kinikilala at pinasasalamatan ang lahat ng ilaw ng tahanan. Maraming salamat sa inyong walang kapantay na pagmamahal at pagkalinga.'
Los Angeles Times
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Center Theatre Group's 2025-26 season: David Byrne's 'Here Lies Love,' 'Paranormal Activity' and more
Bisserat Tseggai, left, and Mia Ellis in 'JaJa's African Hair Braiding.' The Imelda Marcos bio-musical 'Here Lies Love' injects some disco shimmer to the Center Theatre Group 2025-26 season announced Tuesday. The company behind the Ahmanson Theatre and Mark Taper Forum in downtown L.A. and the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City released a lineup that also includes the Jocelyn Bioh play 'Jaja's African Hair Braiding'; Eboni Booth's new play 'Primary Trust'; a stage riff on the 'Paranormal Activity' movies; the musical '& Juliet' and a 25th anniversary revival of 'Mamma Mia!' 'Here Lies Love,' featuring music by David Byrne and Fatboy Slim, and lyrics by Byrne, made history as Broadway's first musical with an all-Filipino cast. The production earned 2024 Tony nominations for score, sound design, scene design and choreography as well as praise from critics including the New York Times' Jesse Green, who applauded the 'infernally catchy songs.' The musical also faced criticism for historical distortion and what some saw as the underplaying of corruption, censorship and violent political oppression in the Philippines during the Marcos regime. The musical has been updated since its 2013 Off-Broadway premiere at the Public Theater to emphasize the People Power Revolution that spurred the end of the Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos era. In New York, producers transformed the Broadway Theater to evoke Studio 54. Center Theatre Group will present 'Here Lies Love' in the Taper in a run scheduled to open Feb. 11. Snehal Desai, CTG's artistic director, will helm the production. The comedy 'Jaja's African Hair Braiding' earned Tony nominations last year for best play, direction, scenic design and sound design, and Dede Ayite won the award for her costumes. Set in Harlem, Bioh's play centers on a community of West African immigrants who 'confront the challenges of being outsiders in their own neighborhood.' Whitney White will direct a co-production with La Jolla Playhouse, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Chicago Shakespeare Theater and Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. It opens at the Taper on Oct. 1. Booth's 'Primary Trust' was the 2024 Pulitzer Prize winner for drama. The Pulitzer citation called it 'a simple and elegantly crafted story of an emotionally damaged man who finds a new job, new friends and a new sense of worth, illustrating how small acts of kindness can change a person's life and enrich an entire community.' Caleb Eberhardt in La Jolla Playhouse's West Coast-premiere production of 'Primary Trust' last year. After seeing the play's West Coast premiere at La Jolla Playhouse last year, Times theater critic Charles McNulty wrote: 'This is a quirky, small-scale, quietly reflective work that's as tenderhearted as it is spryly comic and as poignant as it is ultimately uplifting. 'It's refreshing to see such a prodigious honor bestowed on a piece of writing that's content to go about its human business without the need to inflate its own importance.' Knud Adams will direct the Taper production, which opens in May 2026. Here are the six major productions in the 2025-26 CTG schedule (in chronological order) announced by Desai, managing director and chief executive Meghan Pressman and producing director Douglas C. Baker. A seventh production will be announced at a later date. '& Juliet'Book by David West ReadMusic by Max Martin & FriendsDirected By Luke SheppardAhmanson Theatre Aug. 13-Sept. 7 'Jaja's African Hair Braiding'Mark Taper Forum Oct. 1-Nov. 9 'Paranormal Activity'Based on the 'Paranormal Activity' films from Blumhouse and Solana Films, adapted here by arrangement with Paramount Pictures and Melting PotWritten by Levi HollowayDirected by Felix BarrettCo-production with American Conservatory Theater of San Francisco, Chicago Shakespeare Theater and Shakespeare Theatre Company of Washington, D.C. Ahmanson Theatre Nov. 13-Dec. 7 'Here Lies Love'Mark Taper Forum Feb. 11-March 22 'Primary Trust'Mark Taper Forum May 20-June 28, 2026 'Mamma Mia!'Music and lyrics by Benny Andersson & Björn UlvaeusBook by Catherine JohnsonDirected by Phyllida LloydAhmanson Theatre June 23-July 19, 2026 The company's 'CTG:FWD' programming includes three shows at the Kirk Douglas: 'Puppet Up! — Uncensored,' an audience-driven affair featuring creations from the Jim Henson Co., running July 16-27; 'Guac,' writer and star Manuel Oliver's one-man show, from the father of a son who was killed in the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., running Oct. 14-Nov. 2; and 'The Enormous Crocodile,' a musical based on the work of Roald Dahl, Dec. 5-Jan. 4. 'Like It Like Harlem,' a production in partnership with Muse/ique, is scheduled for Aug. 8-10 at the Taper.
Telegraph
26-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
My wedding season solution? Spending £50 on a hired frock
Hark, is that the sound of 100 or so people singing Jerusalem, floating from a Home Counties church? Quite possibly, because Lent's over and we're now well and truly into wedding season. How lovely. Celebrations, confetti, champagne and so on. But what are you going to wear? Because as the wedding industry has boomed in the past decade or so, so has the peculiar idea that you can't wear the same outfit to more than one wedding if some of the same guests are going to be at both. Why? What will happen? Will the sky fall in? It's partly the rise in fast fashion, partly social media's fault, because these days people want to post pictures of themselves looking glamorous online, and they want to be in different outfits every time. You can't post a picture of yourself in the same dress, goodness no. You wouldn't get as many likes. You need to look different in each picture and thus be in a new frock. Sometimes this makes me feel quite warmly towards old novels in which the ravishing but impoverished heroine has only one good dress and must make it work for every ball she goes to. Quite often, she still bags the prince or duke, though, so let that be a lesson to you, as you panic trawl the Rixo website. I'm obviously referring more to women here. Men, you can always change your pocket square or wear a nattier pair of socks for each wedding. Although, of course, you could also wear a frock if you so wish. Great Aunt Ermintrude might be quite startled, but the recent ruling about who exactly is a woman said nothing about that. Unless you're the actual bride, I wonder whether that old adage 'nobody's looking at you, dear' could be applied to weddings these days? Of course, one wants to look their best, but now one must apparently buy a new dress, and new shoes, and a new bag, and new earrings, and have perfectly manicured nails in order to attend a wedding. And that's on top of having already spent £63 million on travel and hotels and matching spatulas from the wedding list. That said, I panicked ahead of a recent wedding because I'm an enormous hypocrite as well as a mere mortal, and not immune to the pressures of wanting to look fancy in a home counties church either. 'I have simply nothing to wear!' I cried into my wardrobe, in the manner of Imelda Marcos surveying her shoe rack and declaring that she'd simply have to go barefoot. I'd hire something, I decided, which I've done previously for weddings. Most memorably, for my friend Georgie's wedding at the Royal Hospital in Chelsea, where I wore a silver, sequinned jumpsuit which was very jazzy and fun, but also shed sequins like a Labrador sheds hair. This meant I left a trail of silver sequins from the chapel, through the grand old buildings, to the room in which the reception was taking place, which may have been a surprise for any Chelsea Pensioners attending the Sunday service in the morning. Still, there are several companies now which offer posh frocks for hire. A particularly good one in Notting Hill, Loan The Look, with a studio where you can go and try on various outfits beforehand to ensure something fits. But for this specific wedding, on another website, I found a gold sequinned jumpsuit (I seem to have a fetish for going to weddings dressed like Shirley Bassey). Fifty quid for four days, instead of buying it for £600. That's one of the benefits of hiring: you get to wear expensive togs you wouldn't necessarily buy and feel a million bucks. Three days before said wedding, however, I received an apologetic email from the company, saying the jumpsuit had been returned to them in a substandard condition by its previous borrower, and they were refunding me. Help! I sent back a furious email asking if there was anything else I could hire. They instantly called me. At the time, I was standing in a darkened gallery of the Victoria and Albert Museum, attending the press preview of the new Cartier exhibition. Surrounding me were glittering tiaras in glass cabinets, and chic women in bouclé suits and Cartier watches. I shrunk into one corner and hissed down the line: 'The wedding's in three days! I haven't got time to buy anything else!' I'm not, as a rule, high maintenance. I spend my days in odd socks and old leggings. So old, in fact, that at a gym class last week, while on the floor, legs akimbo, the instructor discreetly bent down and told me I had a hole in my crotch. But that moment in the V&A felt quite high maintenance, and eventually the woman on the other end of the phone agreed they would send me a different gold jumpsuit and a floral dress. Two items in case one didn't fit. I hung up and continued wandering around the exhibition, reflecting forlornly that the Maharaja of Patiala, whose dazzling Cartier necklace strung with 2,930 diamonds has a prominent position in one cabinet, probably never had to deal with such problems. They arrived a day later. And even for me, the jumpsuit was a bit like 2-for-1 cocktails. Too blingy, and potentially sweaty given the hot forecast. So, it was on with the floral number, which was off-the-shoulder and quite Amalfi coast for the Cotswolds in April, but probably better than looking like I was onstage for the late-night soul slot at 11pm. Also, it came in a nifty little zip-up box, with a sticky returns label, so all I had to do to send it back was slap the label on the same box afterwards and sling it into the post office. No washing or dry cleaning required. I recently mentioned hiring to a friend who was in a flap about a wedding, and she said she'd be too nervous to try it. But, odd hiccup aside, it's easy, not expensive and eco. Alternatively, you really can wear something you already own, and the sky probably won't fall in (I'm talking to myself, as much as anyone else).
South China Morning Post
27-01-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Hong Kong aviation milestones, including the first ever night flight
Discover some the pivotal moments from the South China Morning Post archives covering Hong Kong's aviation history, from Concorde's supersonic debut in 1976 to the arrival of Cathay Pacific's first Boeing 747. Explore landmark events such as Cathay Pacific's first night flight, the fierce rivalry sparked by Dragonair's launch and the rise, and rapid fall, of Oasis Hong Kong Airlines. 1. When Concorde first landed in Hong Kong in 1976 it brought Imelda Marcos on a shopping trip In November 1976, Concorde made its historic first landing in Hong Kong, marking the dawn of supersonic travel in Asia. Thousands descended on Kai Tak Airport to witness the iconic jet's arrival from the Philippines which took a mere 51 minutes, or, as the was reported, the same time it took the ferry to reach Hong Kong from Cheung Chau. 2. When Hong Kong's first night flight took off from Kai Tak to write a new chapter in the city's civil aviation history A Cathay Pacific Airways DC-3 took off at 8.30pm on July 18, 1959, in a landmark event that marked Hong Kong's first ever night flight. The short 20-minute trip carrying newsmen and assembled special guests was made possible by Kai Tak Airport's new runway lighting system. 3. Cathay Pacific's first Boeing 747 lands in Hong Kong, bringing the era of the jumbo jet to the city Cathay Pacific's first Boeing 747 landed in Hong Kong in 1979 and marked a significant milestone for the airline and for the city as an aviation hub. It's arrival, which was welcomed by governor Sir Murray MacLehose and a military band, marked the end of a fierce selection process of airlines vying for Cathay's business. Cathay Pacific's first Boeing 747 lands at Kai Tak Airport in 1979. Picture: SCMP Archives 4. Hong Kong's second airline Dragonair's 1985 take-off sparked a rivalry with Cathay Pacific Hong Kong's aviation landscape shifted with the launch of Dragonair, a new airline backed by prominent local and Chinese investors. This move sparked a fierce battle with Cathay Pacific, which ultimately led to the acquisition of Dragonair in 1990. 5. Oasis Hong Kong Airlines took off with a bold promise of cheaper flights but landed with a bump just 18-months later Oasis Hong Kong Airlines launched in 2005 aiming to offer cheaper flights to European destinations but struggled with operational issues and regulatory hurdles. After just 18 months, Oasis filed for liquidation, leaving thousands of passengers and staff in uncertainty. Part of this article was produced with the assistance of generative AI
