The rise and fall of Eileen Ontong — Queen of cybersex and child pornography |
- The rise and fall of Eileen Ontong — Queen of cybersex and child pornography
- The world of dining: The chefs who help define 2014
- EPL: Optimistic Rodgers says Liverpool can be in top four
- The audio goodie you should beg Santa to bring you — Clive Crook
- Driver in France’s second ‘Allahu Akbar’ attack injures 11 pedestrians
- Fantasy fans mystified as final ‘Hobbit’ casts spell on box office
The rise and fall of Eileen Ontong — Queen of cybersex and child pornography Posted: 21 Dec 2014 04:50 PM PST IBABAO (Philippines), Dec 22 — Along the narrow roads leading into the Filipino village of Ibabao, billboards highlight traditional crafts such as baking cassava cakes, rope making, and sea-shell jewelry. There's no mention of a less salubrious trade that has swept the area in recent years: child porn. The area has developed a reputation as a global center of the sexual exploitation of children largely due to Eileen Ontong, authorities say. For at least seven years, Ontong — dubbed "the Queen of Cyberporn" by local media — abused children on demand in front of a webcam for cash delivered via international wire transfer services, according to Philippines and US police. Investigators say as many as 35 children, some as young as five, passed through the door of Ontong's concrete and plywood home, adorned with a crucifix and a picture of Jesus, and into a makeshift cyber-den. There, they were molested, had sex with each other, or exposed themselves in front of a camera. It didn't take long for neighbors to offer their children for shows and set up similar operations at home, police say. "This became a cottage industry in the area because they all saw Eileen Ontong making money," said Abdul Jamal Dimaporo, an agent with the Philippines National Bureau of Investigation, the country's equivalent of the FBI. "It's easier to earn a living doing this than working. They don't think what they are doing is wrong." Police estimate Ontong netted about US$200,000 (RM697,220) over the years: Snapshots of naked children retailed for US$50, nudity in front of the webcam cost US$100, and a live sex show among children ran as high as US$500. The children, or their parents, got US$10-US$18 per show. Members of Ontong's extended family participated from age 11. Her husband, Wilfredo, served as a watchman, police say. The Ontongs today are being held 24km from their home, in the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center, a hilltop prison designed for 1,400 inmates that houses 2,200. Charged with child pornography, child abuse and violating the country's human trafficking law, the Ontongs face life imprisonment, according to the Philippines NBI. They have pleaded not guilty, the NBI says. Their defense lawyer didn't respond to numerous phone calls and text messages. Cat and Mouse Away from the sandy beaches and blue waters that woo tourists to the Philippines, children have long been exploited in the sex trade. These days, though, instead of working as underage prostitutes on street corners or in hotels and discos, children from poor families in remote slums are being used for sex shows via online video calling services. "When the money flows easily through the Internet, there are new ways to exploit children," said Mark Clookie, a former head of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service who oversees investigations at the International Justice Mission, a non- profit group that is helping prosecute the Ontongs. About four years ago, Filipino police say they began receiving reports about online child porn streamed live from the Philippines to customers worldwide. Since then, underage sex shows have become the country's No 1 cybercrime. Though a 2009 law requires Philippines Internet access providers to install software that can detect images and streams of pornography, those rules are often ignored because companies deem it too expensive to comply, said Ronald Aguto, head of the NBI's cybercrime unit. "It's a cat and mouse kind of thing," Aguto said. "Our Internet providers are mandated to be law enforcers, but it's a big business and a lot of people are involved." Private Rooms Until 2006, Eileen Ontong, now 36, worked at a factory that made electronic equipment in the neighboring city of Lapu Lapu. Wilfredo, now 38, had a motorised rickshaw that he used to ferry tourists around resort areas, according to Wilfredo's mother, Nenita Ontong, a slight woman of 56 who lives in a small stucco house with pink curtains and an air-conditioner — relative luxury in the warren of tumbledown shacks. Eileen and Wilfredo's place, next door, was more humble. "Look at their home," Nenita Ontong said, gesturing toward a small concrete structure where her son and daughter-in- law lived. "It's not the house of a queen." After a friend taught Eileen how to use computers, she began frequenting local Internet cafes that offer private rooms for less than US$1 an hour, Nenita said. There, Eileen engaged in chat sessions with foreign men, and she soon earned enough to buy her own computer and a high-speed Internet connection to start working from home. Several times a week, Eileen traveled to money-transfer outlets in Lapu Lapu to pick up funds sent via Western Union or other services, police say — anywhere from US$30 to US$500 at a time. "I knew Eileen was doing something using the Internet, and I advised her to stop but she ignored me," said Nenita. "I think some of our neighbors asked Eileen for help" in setting up their own cyberporn operations. She didn't say whether children were involved. The NBI says it found thousands of images of child pornography on equipment seized from the house: scenes of Eileen Ontong sexually abusing a pre-teen member of her extended family, children having sex, a five-year-old girl exposing herself, young boys performing oral sex on each other. About 60,000 Filipino children enter the sex trade every year, and perhaps 10,000 of them have worked in online porn, according to the Preda Foundation, which runs a shelter for abused girls. In a country where 25 per cent of the population lives below the poverty line, a webcam show can put food on the table or pay for a new roof. "Of course those who do it will always use poverty as an excuse," said Adelino Sitoy, mayor of the Cordova Municipality, which includes Ibabao. "What attracts them is easy money. All you have to do is tell your children to undress." One child testified in the Ontong case on Dec 8, and the next hearing is expected in March, according to the International Justice Mission. One girl found at Ontong's house during the arrests has also testified, but the other two children who were there that night fled and can't be located, according to the NBI. Holy Child Ibabao sits on Mactan Island in the shadow of the international airport serving the city of Cebu, where flights from points as distant as Singapore, Seoul, and Tokyo disgorge sun-seeking tourists. Many of these end up at hotels such as the Shangri-La, Costabella, and Plantation Bay on Mactan's eastern beaches. Few ever make it to Ibabao. To reach the settlement of about 8,000 people, you leave behind the resorts, malls and apartment towers near the shore and cross a low bridge spanning the Gabi River. The road narrows to two lanes, and the sedans and SUVs typical of wealthier districts give way to swarms of motorbikes and three-wheeled motorized rickshaws. Colorful posters depicting happy families urge children to cherish and obey their parents. The area is thick with pawnshops, bakeries, butchers and Internet cafes, many of which double as money-transfer services, with Western Union logos on prominent display. As in villages across the Philippines, women working as nannies in Hong Kong and men constructing skyscrapers in Dubai use these services to send funds back home. From the barangay office — the local town hall — a sharp left onto an unmarked road leads to Sitio Sun-ok, a hardscrabble enclave of tiny homes thrown together from concrete, thin sheets of metal, and plywood. They're separated by dirt pathways, just wide enough for two people, that turn into rivers of mud in the rainy months of June through September. The Ontongs' house lies up one of these lanes, a few steps from a yellow stucco Catholic chapel devoted to the Santo Nino, or Holy Child, that seats about 50 worshipers. Police say the Ontongs were in the process of renovating their home with money from the business. In the past few years they had added a concrete foundation and replaced tarps that made up the walls with cement blocks and plywood. They hadn't yet fixed broken windows or rebuilt the ceiling of banig—dried palm-leaf mats—with something more impermeable. Other proceeds went toward private school tuition for their daughter. And it wasn't unusual for Eileen to take the family to a mall for lunch or one of the beach resorts for a day in the sun — sometimes with a "foreign friend" in tow — Nenita Ontong said. Dockside Encounter One of Eileen's foreign friends, at least via the Internet, was David Tallman. The 55-year-old retired US Navy enlisted man, who sent Ontong more than US$7,300 over four years, is serving a 12-year sentence in Lexington, Kentucky, after pleading guilty to transportation of child pornography. His lawyer has retired and couldn't be reached for comment. On Dec 17, 2012, the USNS Laramie — Tallman's ship — pulled into Norfolk, Virginia, after sailing to ports across the Middle East and Africa. Waiting at the dock were four agents from the US Department of Homeland Security and the Customs and Border Protection service. Peers in Dallas, investigating a separate case, had alerted the agents that Tallman's name had come up as someone who bought child porn. They boarded the ship and asked to search his computer equipment. "He just stared at me like a deer in the headlights," said Paul Wolpert, a Homeland Security agent who questioned Tallman in the ship's staff lounge that day. "He sat in thought for a moment, put his head down, and admitted there would be child pornography on the laptop." Wolpert's team seized Tallman's two computers, three external hard drives and iPhone and took them to Homeland Security offices in downtown Norfolk. Forensic investigators found 4,000 child porn images as well as e-mails and Yahoo! Messenger logs in which Tallman had negotiated sex shows using the screen names "Ronin" and "tragic_prelude." Among those communications were hundreds of messages and chats with Ontong, Wolpert said. Tallman also kept a meticulous folder of receipts from Western Union and credit card companies that detailed his payment for pictures and live shows. Stateroom Arrest On Feb 1, 2013, Wolpert went back to the port and arrested Tallman in his stateroom on the Laramie, where he was living. In exchange for a reduced sentence—he faced more than 20 years in prison—Tallman agreed to help investigators snare Ontong. He turned over his e-mail accounts and transcripts to Wolpert, who assumed Tallman's online identity and kept in contact with her, while police at the Philippines National Bureau of Investigation prepared to raid Ontong's house. On Memorial Day weekend 2013, Wolpert logged on as Tallman from a laptop in his living room near Norfolk and negotiated a live sex show. It was after midnight in the Philippines, so Ontong had trouble rounding up children to join in; the more participants the higher the payout. She settled on two members of her extended family and a boy from the neighborhood, all underage, police say. NBI agent Dimaporo followed the chat on a laptop as he made his way from Cebu to Ibabao in his Toyota sedan, part of a convoy of eight unmarked cars and vans. The NBI had to observe the negotiations taking place from the laptop in order to secure a search warrant, Dimaporo said. "When we saw the children flash on the screen it was all we needed to swoop in," he said. Wilfredo Ontong, standing guard at a basketball court near the house, spotted the agents as they arrived and took off running to warn Eileen, Dimaporo said. He was too late; from the chat, police had all the evidence they needed. The three children were pulled from the house just as two of them were about to have sex in front of the camera, and were handed over to local social welfare counselors. Dimaporo said Eileen showed little remorse, while her husband said he'd warned her to stop the shows for fear of arrest. Both were handcuffed and hustled off to jail. Marine Busted NBI agents have identified 35 children from the material found at Ontong's house. Dimaporo said 13 have been taken from their parents and placed in state facilities or shelters run by non-profit organizations. Evidence from the case has helped police find at least 10 neighbors involved with online pornography, the NBI says. Charges of child pornography and child abuse are pending against three people, including one of the parents of the second girl rescued during the Ontong raid. Police have also identified at least 20 people in the US, UK and Australia, who they say purchased images or live shows from her. One man, an American Marine, paid Ontong some US$40,000 over the years, according to Homeland Security. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service arrested the man in Okinawa, Japan, though he can't be named until he enters a plea, expected in January. In the wake of the Ontongs' arrest, local officials have stepped up efforts in schools, churches and community centers to educate children and their parents about the dangers of the trade. And social workers seek out children on the streets and at Internet cafes to help steer them away from cybersex, said Guusje Havenaar, a psychologist at Terre des Hommes, a non- profit that combats child exploitation. Children who engage in such acts start to "see their bodies as a tool; they become separated from themselves," Havenaar said. "Cybersex, especially when parents are involving their children, is damaging much more than the parents suspect. "Family ties are strong in Philippines, but that doesn't mean they are healthy." — Bloomberg |
The world of dining: The chefs who help define 2014 Posted: 21 Dec 2014 04:42 PM PST LONDON, Dec 22 — Over the past 12 months, these chefs launched bold new projects, expanded their footprint in the culinary world, and made the world sit up and listen. For gaining the world's attention, leaving behind legacies, and opening up important dialogue on the state of consumption—and production—of food today, here's a selection of chefs that made their mark in 2014: André Chiang The Taiwanese chef has successfully cemented his culinary career in Singapore with his award-winning Restaurant André. But in a move meant to bring the chef a larger international presence, Chiang opened his first international outpost this fall, Porte 12 in the cradle of haute gastronomy, Paris. And despite opening to some of the most finicky and demanding palates, Porte 12 received critical acclaim, named the best new restaurant in France by alternative restaurant guide Le Fooding. Shortly after opening Porte 12, he also opened Raw in Taipei. Expect to hear more about Chiang in 2015. Wylie Dufresne He's known as the mad scientist of New York. A chef who unapologetically used science to churn out experimental, bold and inventive dishes like deep-fried mayonnaise, noodles made from shrimp and cold-fried chicken. But after 11 years of conducting kitchen alchemy, Dufresne shuttered his restaurant wd~50 last month, marking what Time magazine called the end of an era for modern cuisine. The closure was lamented by much of the food world, and made Dufresne the subject of many a headline. But don't close the book on the chef yet. He's on the lookout for a new location, and writing a cookbook. Alex Atala Atala, chef of the acclaimed Sao Paulo restaurant D.O.M., is no stranger to accolades. But this year, the Brazilian chef was named the Lifetime Achievement Award winner for Latin America's 50 Best Restaurants. Roy Choi Choi is the man credited with singlehandedly launching the gourmet food truck movement in the US with his Korean-style taco chain Kogi BBQ. This year, the renegade chef worked with actor and filmmaker Jon Favreau as a food consultant for 'Chef,' a film based loosely on Choi's life as a professionally-trained chef turned king of street food. In 2014, he also collaborated with The Line Hotel in Los Angeles to open a series of restaurants and dining options, including Commissary, a rooftop, light-infused greenhouse with a menu that puts a special emphasis on vegetables. Considering Choi's reputation as a pioneering trailblazer, look out for the food world to take heed of the chef's appreciation for the vegetable kingdom and expect more chefs to follow. Dan Barber It was one of the most hotly anticipated books of the year. When Barber, chef of Blue Hill restaurant in New York, released his latest book The Third Plate, it was reviewed by all the major newspapers in America: The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal etc. Because when Barber has something to say, people sit up and listen. As one of the champions of farm-to-table dining, Barber created a culinary paradigm for a school of admiring chefs. But in his latest book, the chef proposes reinventing the model he helped popularize for a new philosophy that eschews the "cherry-picking" of desirable—and resource-intensive—foods, in favour of a more 'integrated system' that values esthetically imperfect produce, grains and legumes. For its influence, and for opening up important dialogue on the way American eat and produce their food, Barber is one of the chefs who a mark in 2014. Joel Robuchon The most-starred chef in the world, Joel Robuchon, hasn't let age or a lifetime of accolades slow him down. In 2014, he published a thought-provoking new book penned with a neuropharmacologist and acupuncturist, that aims to tap into the curative, restorative and 'magical' powers of certain foods. Recipes in "Food & Life" are developed to pull double duty: satisfy the taste buds as only a Michelin-starred chef (he has 28) can, but also help alleviate physical and mental ailments ranging from anger, trauma to fatigue. This past fall, the 69-year-old opened his latest restaurant in a 19th century Bordeaux mansion, La Grande Maison, and has been outspoken of his unabashed goal of adding another three Michelin stars to his existing constellation of stars. The latest opening adds to a global empire that spans Paris, Tokyo, London and Las Vegas, which includes three triple-starred restaurants. — AFP-Relaxnews |
EPL: Optimistic Rodgers says Liverpool can be in top four Posted: 21 Dec 2014 04:42 PM PST LONDON, Dec 22 — Liverpool can still finish in the Premier League's top four and claim a place in next season's Champions League, manager Brendan Rodgers said yesterday after a 2-2 home draw with Arsenal. The point, earned by Martin Skrtel's last-gasp header, left Liverpool in 10th place going into the hectic Christmas fixture list, nine points behind fourth-placed West Ham United. While it looks an unpromising position, Rodgers believes his side are beginning to gel after a poor start to a campaign which has already seen them bow out of this season's Champions League. "Slowly we are getting back to where we want to get back to," Rodgers told reporters. "I'm delighted with the performance. I thought we were outstanding." When asked if a top-four finish was possible, Rodgers replied: "Absolutely!" "We've got to make up (the gap) over the next part of season. We've shown we can put together a run of results." Liverpool produced one of their best performances of the season, dominating Arsenal with a speedy passing game in which Philippe Coutinho and SerbLazar Markovic were instrumental. They enjoyed 65 per cent of possession and had four times as many attempts on goal, yet still trailed 2-1 going into stoppage time after the visitors had come from behind with goals from Frenchmen Mathieu Debuchy and Olivier Giroud. Brazilian Coutinho had put the hosts ahead but with the goals of the departed Luis Suarez and injured Daniel Sturridge missing, Liverpool are proving toothless up front this season, as well as guilty of costly mistakes at the back. Suarez has long gone to Barcelona, but Sturridge hopes to return from a thigh injury in the New Year having spent the festive period with specialists in theUnited States. "That will be really exciting for this team. Put him back in and we will be back to that flow in our game and results hopefully," Rodgers added of England forward Sturridge who scored more than 20 goals for the Reds last season. "He's gone to Boston to pick up the next stage, then he'll move on again to a specialist facility out there and hopefully in the early part of the New Year he'll be back and be somewhere close to being fit and playing." — Reuters |
The audio goodie you should beg Santa to bring you — Clive Crook Posted: 21 Dec 2014 04:29 PM PST December 22 — In pondering your Christmas gift ideas, you will surely have considered, as I did, that hedonic adjustment of price indices seriously complicates judgments about changes in one's standard of living. Let's get that out of the way first. A salient characteristic of modern economic growth is that products get cheaper and better simultaneously. Working out how much the price has changed with quality held constant, product by product and service by service, is hard. Yet to make judgments about whether incomes have risen "in real terms," that's information you must have. That's why real income is a slippery concept. Nonetheless, I am here today to raise your real income. The Fiio X3 is the most wonderful example of "cheaper and much, much better" I have ever come across. I don't know how you pronounce Fiio, but for a little over US$150 (RM522.915), it's raised my standard of living remarkably. The X3 is a digital audio player — an iPod-like device — that runs high-resolution recordings through an anomalously high-end digital-to-analog converter. The iPod or iPhone or Android smartphone you're using has an inferior DAC. You're most likely playing MP3's or some other file format that lost audio information when the original was compressed to a more manageable size. Your music sounds good, but not nearly as good as files that have been "losslessly compressed," run through a good-quality DAC, and played on decent headphones. Good DACs have previously been imbedded in prohibitively expensive devices. Fiio has put one in this thing. Let me reassure you that I am not talking about a barely perceptible, much less imaginary, difference in sound. You may have heard of audiophiles. Second only to wine snobs, they are sad people with empty lives. They claim to discern minuscule differences in the sound quality yielded by ludicrously expensive pieces of equipment—differences that you or I could not hear and wouldn't be interested in if we could. They spend thousands of dollars on cables. I do not speak for audiophiles. I speak, as on all matters, for Everyman. When you first listen to a high-resolution recording of your favorite music through this device, your jaw will drop. The music is fabulously detailed. Wherever you turn your attention, you can hear layer upon layer of sound. Single notes are rendered as complex structures of sounds, changing in character as they're sustained. Nothing jars: The word I want to use — reluctant as I am to surrender to hi-fi foolery—is "liquid." The music emerges from a silent background and presents an impression of voices and instruments precisely located in space. It's miraculous. Now, be aware of certain drawbacks. The user interface is a joke. The buttons are in the wrong place. The screen is no good. It comes equipped with a negligible 8gigabytes of storage, so you have to buy a 64Gb memory card to go with it—and even that is only enough to hold maybe 150 CDs worth of high- resolution files. (The new PonoPlayer, masterminded by Neil Young, will put some of this right, but it's more than twice the price and hasn't launched yet.) The good news is that if you've kept your CDs—you have kept your CDs? -- you can experience them anew, and marvel. The bad news is that you will have to rip them again, in a lossless format. This is time-consuming. As for the software you'll need, iTunes lets you do this, but since Apple has spent the past several years working hard to make iTunes unusable I can no longer recommend it for this or any other purpose. (I use XLD, which is free and does the job; there are many others.) You'll probably need better headphones. Sound quality is limited by the weakest link in the file-DAC-headphone chain. Happily, I already had a good set. But another problem is only just dawning on me. For the past several years I've bought MP3 downloads instead of CDs. The list of albums I feel I need to buy again is growing at an alarming rate. Farther ahead, I discern another issue. The X3 supports files recorded at higher- than-CD resolution, which you can buy from specialist sites. At some point, I will give them a try. At the moment, I dare not. Next year, I will share with you my list of the 100 most essential kitchen appliances. (I have issues with my friend Megan McArdle's far from comprehensive selection.) This year, I'll keep my seasonal listicle — Excellent Gifts That, In View of the Late Date, You Should Have Bought Last Week — down to one. Merry Christmas to you and yours. — Bloomberg * This is the personal opinion of the writer and may not represent the views of Malay Mail Online. |
Driver in France’s second ‘Allahu Akbar’ attack injures 11 pedestrians Posted: 21 Dec 2014 04:25 PM PST PARIS, Dec 22 — A driver shouting "Allahu Akbar" ("God is greatest") ploughed into pedestrians in eastern France yesterday, injuring 11 of them, just a day after a man yelling the same words was killed in an attack on police officers. Two of the people injured in the car attack in the city of Dijon were in a serious condition, a police source said, adding that the driver had been arrested. "The man, born in 1974, is apparently unbalanced and had been in a psychiatric hospital," a source close to the investigation told AFP, adding that "for now his motives are still unclear." The man had targeted groups of passersby at five different locations in the city last evening in a rampage that lasted around half an hour, the police source said. "Nine people were lightly injured and two others seriously but their lives do not appear to be in danger," the source added. Witnesses told police that the driver shouted "Allahu Akbar" and "that he was acting for the children of Palestine," a source close to the investigation said. Police sources said the driver was known to police for petty offences dating back to the 1990s. Prime Minister Manuel Valls took to Twitter to express "solidarity" with those injured in the attack. France is still reeling from a suspected radical Islamic attack on Saturday that saw a French convert to Islam shot dead after attacking police officers with a knife while also reportedly crying "Allahu Akbar" in the central town of Joue-les-Tours. 'Lone wolf' fears The assailant, Burundi-born French national, Bertrand Nzohabonayo seriously injured two officers — slashing one in the face — and hurting another. The 20-year-old attacker also cried "Allahu Akbar" during the assault, said a source close to the case speaking on condition of anonymity. The assault prompted the government to step up security at police and fire stations nationwide. Nzohabonayo had previously committed petty offences but was not on a domestic intelligence watch-list although his brother is known for his radical views and once pondered going to Syria, the source said. The anti-terror branch of the Paris prosecutor's office has opened a probe into that attack, with the line of inquiry focusing on whether it was motivated by radical Islam. The weekend incidents in France come as governments around the world brace for so-called "lone wolf" attacks by individuals returning from waging jihad abroad, or who are simply following Islamic State group calls for violence in the countries involved in a coalition fighting the militants in Iraq and Syria. The group has repeatedly singled out France for such attacks, most recently in a video posted on jihadist sites this week. Last week in Australia, an Iranian-born Islamist with a history of extremism and violence entered a cafe and held people hostage for 16 hours before being killed. Two of the hostages also died. Last year in France, a recent convert to Islam also stabbed a soldier in the busy Paris commercial complex and transport hub of La Defense. And the main suspect in the murders of four people at Brussels' Jewish Museum in May, Mehdi Nemmouche, spent more than a year fighting with extremists in Syria. Authorities in France believe around 1,200 nationals or residents are involved in one way or another in jihadist networks in Iraq and Syria. — AFP |
Fantasy fans mystified as final ‘Hobbit’ casts spell on box office Posted: 21 Dec 2014 04:16 PM PST LOS ANGELES, Dec 22 — Tolkien epic "The Hobbit" weaved its magic at the North American box office this weekend, signaling a farewell to the blockbuster fantasy franchise, industry estimates showed yesterday. The last of six films adapted from J.R.R. Tolkien's books by Oscar-winning director Peter Jackson, "The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies" took US$56.2 million (RM195.919 million) on its debut weekend in the United States and Canada, according to box office tracker Exhibitor Relations. The success of "The Hobbit" flattened the competition in the final weekend before the Christmas holiday period. Second spot went to "Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb," the third film in the Ben Stiller family comedy franchise based on the popular 1993 children's book. The movie, which sees Stiller reprise his role as the security guard trying to keep a track on exhibits which come to life at the New York Museum of Natural History, took US$17.3 million. In third place was another debutant, "Annie," the rebooted big-screen adaptation of the famous Broadway musical about the adventures of an orphan girl which also spawned film versions in 1982 and 1999. The latest version, starring Quvenzhane Wallis in the title role and Jamie Foxx as the tycoon who takes her under his wing, took US$16.3 million. Ridley Scott's historical blockbuster "Exodus: Gods and Kings," starring Christian Bale as Moses, meanwhile fell to fourth spot with US$8.1 million. Another sequel, "Hunger Games: Mockingjay," slipped to fifth with US$7.8 million, pushing its earnings to US$289.2 million after five weeks. Jumping four spots to sixth was Reese Witherspoon drama "Wild" about a woman grappling personal demons on a grueling three-month solo hike along the Pacific Crest Trail. The film, which has vaulted Witherspoon into contention for best actress honors in Hollywood's awards season, took US$3.75 million. Seventh spot was occupied by Chris Rock's "Top Five" about a comedian trying to become a serious actor while grappling with his reality TV star fiancee about broadcasting their wedding. The film took US$3.6 million on its second weekend. In eighth place was Disney animated hit "Big Hero 6" with US$3.56 million, with another animated movie, "Penguins of Madagascar" in ninth with US$3.5 million. Rounding out the top 10 was new entrant "P.K.," an Indian comedy from Bollywood star Aamir Khan, with US$3.5 million. — AFP |
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