Singapore’s Lim Kay Tong to play Lee Kuan Yew in SG50 film, 1965 |
- Singapore’s Lim Kay Tong to play Lee Kuan Yew in SG50 film, 1965
- Formula One: The season so far
- Champions League: Schalke’s new boss Di Matteo set sights on ex-club Chelsea
- After nine years on death row for murder he didn’t commit, murder accused finally freed
- Paintings on cave walls in Asia challenge Europe as birthplace of art
- Chef Ottolenghi’s ‘Plenty More’, such a delicious read
| Singapore’s Lim Kay Tong to play Lee Kuan Yew in SG50 film, 1965 Posted: 08 Oct 2014 05:54 PM PDT
The film has been five years in the making, starting off as a biopic about Mr Lee, but evolving into a story about the time the nation experienced racial riots. As the film's executive producer Daniel Yun told TODAY last month, it was about "how fragile racial harmony can be and how we can take it for granted". In their search for a leading actor, the producers spoke to almost 20 people, including local actor-turned-Hollywood mainstay Chin Han. Sixty-year-old Lim, who has starred in local stage and television shows, as well as BBC productions and Hollywood films such as Shanghai Surprise, had always been tipped to be the frontrunner for the role. Rumours that Hong Kong actor Tony Leung would be cast to play Mr Lee in the movie were widely reported a few years back, but they were soon dismissed by the production company. Mr Yun said Mr Lim was emotional after he read the script. "I think it was this emotion that made him accept this challenge of playing Lee Kuan Yew," he added. On the idea of filling such big shoes on the big screen, Mr Lim said he plans to treat it like every other role he has played. "You have to study and think about it; hopefully not to imitate, but to find some truth in him. In a sense, it's less pressure, because it's not a biopic about him," he said, before adding with a smile: "(But) hypothetically, if Mr Lee calls me after watching my performance and I do hope he doesn't call — hopefully he is not going to slam me." Mr Yun said Mr Lim has been preparing for the role ever since he was confirmed for it. "I am very impressed by his commitment to this role. And thankfully, we finally found the actor who is at the right age to play the man, both in his 40s and 80s," he said. Operating on a budget of S$2.8 million (RM9.1 million), 1965 is set to be released next year in celebration of Singapore's 50 years of independence and is supported by the Media Development Authority and Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth. The film will also feature MediaCorp artiste Joanne Peh, who will play one of the leading female roles, that of Zhou Jun, a feisty and beautiful young Chinese woman who has integrated well with her adopted country. It will be the first time Ms Peh is working on a movie with her husband, MediaCorp artiste Qi Yuwu. Last month, Mr Qi and Malaysian actress Deanna Yusoff were revealed as the first two leads in the film, playing the roles of Cheng, a police inspector with the newly merged Malayan Police Force, and Khatijah, a single mother whose four children are her life. Rounding off the key cast of the ensemble are MediaCorp actor James Seah, Class 95FM DJ Mike Kasem and Singapore Idol 2009 winner Sezairi Sezali, who will be making his acting debut. Mr Yun said the search for the film's cast had been intensive. Director Randy Ang agreed. "Both Daniel and I were bent on inspired casting," he said. Mr Sezairi, for instance, "had great energy", said Mr Ang. "(He's) such an exuberant personality. He came in with such a bright light we were blown away." Mr Yun also revealed that the team had initially considered others for Mr Seah's role, including Hong Kong actors Aarif Rahman, Edison Chen and Taiwanese actor Kai Ko. "But in the end, we wanted someone younger and someone local, and James was a great fit," he said. ― Today  |
| Formula One: The season so far Posted: 08 Oct 2014 05:45 PM PDT
Australian Grand Prix - March 16 Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg led from start to finish as rivals dropped out with mechanical problems as Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo was controversially disqualified from second place over new fuel rules. Pole-sitter Lewis Hamilton and world champion Sebastian Vettel both retired early, leaving Rosberg victorious by a wide margin. McLaren's Danish debutant Kevin Magnussen and Jenson Button in a McLaren took the remaining podium places. Standings: 1. Nico Rosberg - 25 points, 2. Kevin Magnussen 18, 3. Jenson Button 15 Malaysian Grand Prix - March 30 Hamilton led the first Mercedes one-two in 59 years. He streaked away from pole and was never pressured. Team-mate Rosberg was second with Vettel third. It was the first time both Mercedes drivers have led the field since 1955, when the German marque departed the sport before returning in 2010 and now confirming themselves as the team to beat in F1's new era. The win was Hamilton's first since Hungary last July. Standings: 1. Nico Rosberg - 43 points, 2. Lewis Hamilton 25, 3. Fernando Alonso 24 Bahrain Grand Prix - April 6 Hamilton and Rosberg repeated their one-two in Malaysia after a thrilling wheel-to-wheel duel as Hamilton equalled the legendary Argentine Juan Manuel Fangio's record of 24 grand prix victories. Sergio Perez gave Force India just their second ever podium finish in third. Ricciardo, 13th on the grid, continued his impressive start for Red Bull with fourth. Standings: 1. Nico Rosberg - 61 points, 2. Lewis Hamilton 50, 3. Nico Hulkenberg 28 Chinese Grand Prix - April 20 Hamilton sealed his first hat-trick of F1 wins and led Mercedes to their third straight one-two finish, 18 seconds ahead of Rosberg, with Fernando Alonso third. Ricciardo outran his team-mate Vettel for fourth. But there was a bizarre finish when Hamilton was inadvertently shown the chequered flag early, meaning that the race was later declared over after 54 laps instead of the 56 completed. Standings: 1. Nico Rosberg - 79 points, 2. Lewis Hamilton 75, 3. Fernando Alonso 41 Spanish Grand Prix - May 11 Hamilton took control of the title race when he made it four wins in a row by grabbing a heart-stopping victory. He finished just 0.6 seconds ahead of Rosberg. Ricciardo took third ahead of Vettel, who had started from 15th. The win was Hamilton's first in Spain and the 26th of his career. Finn Valtteri Bottas finished fifth for the resurgent Williams team. Standings: 1. Lewis Hamilton - 100 points, 2. Nico Rosberg 97, 3. Fernando Alonso 49 Monaco Grand Prix - May 25 Rosberg started on pole and claimed a faultless victory for Mercedes to regain the championship lead. The 28-year-old came home 9.2 seconds clear of Hamilton, who coped with loss of vision in one eye as he held off Ricciardo's Red Bull in the closing laps to take second. Alonso finished fourth for Ferrari. Standings: 1. Nico Rosberg - 122 points, 2. Lewis Hamilton 118, 3. Fernando Alonso 61 Canadian Grand Prix - June 8 Ricciardo ended Mercedes's dominant run as he won the first Grand Prix of his career in Montreal. The 24-year-old Australian took advantage of power problems that forced Rosberg into second place and saw Hamilton retire. The race on the Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve was also marred by a high-speed collision between Perez and Felipe Massa of Williams, although neither was seriously hurt. Vettel finished third ahead of Button. Standings: 1. Nico Rosberg - 140 points, 2. Lewis Hamilton 118, 3. Daniel Ricciardo 79 Austrian Grand Prix - June 22 It was back to business as usual at the Grand Prix circuit returned to Austria for the first time in 11 years. Another Mercedes double with Rosberg dominant and Hamilton in second, leaving him 29 points behind the German in the overall standings. Bottas made it onto his first ever podium in what turned out to be a disastrous home race for Red Bull. For Mercedes, it was a seventh win in eight races. Standings: 1 Nico Rosberg - 165 points, 2. Lewis Hamilton 136, 3. Daniel Ricciardo 83 British Grand Prix - July 6 Hamilton delighted a 120,000 crowd at Silverstone with victory as Rosberg suffered his first non-finish of the season, due to gearbox problems, to reduce the German's lead in the title race to just four points. Hamilton came home 30 seconds clear of Bottas, who started from 14th on the grid. It was Hamilton's second home win, his fifth of the season and the 27th of his career drawing him level with fellow-Briton three-time champion Jackie Stewart in the record books. Ricciardo finished third ahead. Standings: 1. Nico Rosberg - 165 points, 2. Lewis Hamilton 161, 3. Daniel Ricciardo 98. German Grand Prix - July 20 Rosberg won his first home grand prix to increase his lead in the standings to 14 points ahead of Hamilton, who took third after a battling drive from 20th. Bottas took second for Williams' 300th podium finish. A dramatic race was marred by an opening lap collision with Felipe Massa's Williams somersaulting into the air. Standings: Nico Rosberg - 190 points, 2. Lewis Hamilton 176, 3. Daniel Ricciardo 106 Hungarian Grand Prix - July 27 Ricciardo charged to his second Formula One win for Red Bull, as a drenched track caused chaos among world championship leaders. Ricciardo came first ahead of Alonso in a race which saw Hamilton finish third after ignoring team orders to let championship leader Rosberg go by. Standings: Nico Rosberg - 202 points, 2. Lewis Hamilton 191, 3. Daniel Ricciardo 131 Belgian Grand Prix - August 24 Ricciardo posted his third win with a bold and well-judged drive but all the headlines were hogged by an incident on lap two., when Hamilton suffered a puncture following a collision by Rosberg in a contentious incident that added further spice to the former friends' fractious relationship and left Hamilton trailing Rosberg by 29 points. Standings: Nico Rosberg - 220 points, 2. Lewis Hamilton 191, 3. Daniel Ricciardo 156 Italian Grand Prix - Sept 7 Hamilton refused to brood on his team-mate's behaviour in Belgium and bounced back in the best style possible by outclassing Rosberg in Monza. He recovered from a poor start which saw him drop to fourth from pole but Rosberg, despite looking set to extend his lead, instead twice buckled under pressure and and locked up twice at the first chicane while leading—the second time allowing Hamilton to seize first place—and ended up 3.1 seconds adrift in second place. Standings: 1. Nico Rosberg - 238 points, 2. Lewis Hamilton 216, 3. Daniel Ricciardo 166 Singapore Grand Prix - September 21 Hamilton regained the lead in the drivers' world championship when he capitalised on Rosberg's reliability problems to claim a dramatic victory. Hamilton led almost throughout from pole position to dominate before and after a Safety Car intervention had reduced his lead and forced him to attack again in the closing stages. Rosberg had a nightmare as he had to start from the pit lane but retired after 14 of the 61 laps. Standings: 1. Lewis Hamilton - 241 points, 2. Nico Rosberg 238, 3. Daniel Ricciardo 181 Japanese Grand Prix - October 5 Hamilton won but there were no celebrations as the race which took place in dreadful weather conditions was overshadowed by the sickening crash that left Frenchman Jules Bianchi fighting for his life with a severe brain injury, just days after the 25-year-old had been talking about his hopes to drive for Ferrari. Bianchi was knocked unconscious in a high-speed crash into a recovery vehicle which was trying to remove Adrian Sutil's stricken Sauber, which had crashed at the same spot on the circuit a lap earlier. Standings: 1. Lewis Hamilton - 266 points, 2. Nico Rosberg 256, 3. Daniel Ricciardo 193. — AFP |
| Champions League: Schalke’s new boss Di Matteo set sights on ex-club Chelsea Posted: 08 Oct 2014 05:36 PM PDT LONDON, Oct 9 — Schalke's The 44-year-old was officially unveiled in Gelsenkirchen as Schalke's coach with his new team 11th in the Bundesliga and low on confidence after just two wins in 10 games this season. The Swiss-born Italian will take charge of his first training session on Thursday and his first match as coach is at home to Hertha Berlin on October 18. Di Matteo says his goals are to qualify for the Champions League knock-out phase and to secure their place in next season's competition by finishing in the top three in the Bundesliga. "It's a good team, which has a lot of potential going forward, but it has some problems in defence," said Di Matteo, who has replaced fired predecessor Jens Keller. "We have to work on our defensive organisation and I have a lot of work ahead of me." Di Matteo is Schalke's eighth coach in six years and he knows the importance of stamping his authority on the team. "There is only one boss in the dressing room," he told reporters. "We have to work on getting more organised and work on the players' confidence. There is no miracle cure, we need patience and time." There will be plenty of attention for his showdown at home against his former club on November 25 in the Champions League, although Di Matteo, who steered Chelsea to European Cup glory in 2012, did not want to be drawn on it. "I have only been here 24 hours and there are a lot of games to come before that one," said the ex-Lazio star. Schalke sit second to Chelsea in Group G after drawing their first two Champions League games, including a 1-1 stalemate at Stamford Bridge. Di Matteo even took some tips from Germany coach Joachim Loew before taking the Schalke job, his first coaching appointment since being sacked by Chelsea in November 2012. "I have been friends with Jogi for years," he revealed. "I managed to get a lot of information from him, so that I was well prepared." Whether Di Matteo, whose assistant will be Attilio Lombardo, will sign any new players in January remains to be seen. "We have enough time until the next transfer window to be able to get a good picture of what we have," said Schalke's director of sport Horst Heldt. — AFP |
| After nine years on death row for murder he didn’t commit, murder accused finally freed Posted: 08 Oct 2014 05:34 PM PDT
Manuel Velez was arrested in 2005 and convicted in 2008 of murdering his girlfriend's one-year-old son. His latest attorneys, however, found that Velez, could not have been responsible for the injuries that killed the boy, since he was working a construction job in the state of Tennessee 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) away, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Velez, a functionally illiterate Spanish speaker with an IQ of 65, signed a written confession in English he did not understand; his former lawyer also did not point out that his girlfriend had a history of child abuse. "Manuel never belonged in prison, let alone on death row waiting to be executed. He is indisputably innocent," said Velez's attorney, Brian Stull of the ACLU's Capital Punishment Project. "My joy for him and his family today is tinged with sadness for the years our criminal justice system stole from him, all because he was too poor to afford better counsel than the lawyer the state appointed to him." "We should be ashamed of the errors that put Manuel on the brink of execution. He is far from the only innocent person to receive a death sentence," said Stull. "A recent study estimated that, conservatively, 1 in every 25 people sentenced to death in the United States is innocent. In such a broken system of justice, we are foolish and cruel to continue capital punishment." According to Death Penalty Information Center's director Richard Dieter: "the release of former death row inmate Manuel Velez in Texas today underscores the many problems that continue to plague the death penalty and the ongoing risk of executing the innocent. His "case contained a litany of injustices, including police misconduct, prosecutorial deception, ineffectiveness of defense counsel, and untruthful witnesses. "The death of a child because of abuse is a terrible tragedy, but evidence uncovered after Mr. Velez's trial in 2008 indicates the abuse occurred when he was a thousand miles away." The DPIC has tallied 146 death row inmates whose convictions have been overturned and who have been freed since 1973 — including 10 in Texas. — AFP |
| Paintings on cave walls in Asia challenge Europe as birthplace of art Posted: 08 Oct 2014 05:33 PM PDT
Created by spraying reddish paint around an open hand pressed against rock, the stencil was made about the same time ― and possibly before ― early humans were leaving artwork on cave walls around Europe that was long thought to be the first in the world. In the same cave on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, a painting of a pig was dated to about 35,000 years ago, the Indonesian and Australian team reported in the journal Nature. The discovery, they said, throws up two theories, both of which challenge the conventional wisdom around the history of human artistic expression. Art either arose independently but simultaneously in different parts of the world ― or was brought by Homo sapiens when he left Africa for a worldwide odyssey. "Europeans can't exclusively claim to be the first to develop an abstract mind anymore," Anthony Dosseto of Australia's University of Wollongong said in a statement. "They need to share this, at least, with the early inhabitants of Indonesia." Anthropologists consider rock art to be an indicator of the onset of abstract thinking ― the ability to reflect on ideas and events. Recasting human evolution Dosseto and a team dated 12 hand stencils and two animal likenesses found at seven cave sites on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. The ancient images were discovered more than 50 years ago, but had never been accurately dated. It had been widely assumed that anything older than 10,000 years would have eroded away in the tropical climate. The team measured the radioactive decay of trace amounts of uranium found in small stalactite-like calcite growths called "cave popcorn" that had formed a layer less than 10 millimetres (0.38 inches) thick over the art. The method produced minimum estimates for the works' ages, and the pieces could in fact be much older, said the team. The stencil is now officially the oldest known specimen of the hand silhouette art form, they reported. And the depiction of a fat-bellied babirusa "pig deer", its four legs, head, tail and lines of hair still clearly visible, is one of the earliest known depictions of an animal, "if not the earliest". "It can now be demonstrated that humans were producing rock art about 40,000 years ago at opposite ends of the Pleistocene Eurasian world," the team wrote. The previous oldest cave art was from El Castillo cave in northern Spain, including a hand stencil dated 37,300 years ago, according to Wil Roebroeks of Leiden University, who wrote a comment on the study. The oldest known animal painting was of a charcoal rhino in the Chauvet Cave in France, dated to 35,300-38,827 years ago. Traces of red paint about 36,000-41,000 years old were found in Fumane, Italy. Chris Stringer, a palaeontologist at Britain's Natural History Museum, said the new data suggested that early humans were already artists when they spread out of Africa tens of thousands of years ago. "I think some of the art in Australia will also eventually be dated to this very early time," he said in a video distributed by Nature. The findings "stress the great relevance of Asia, and especially southeast Asia, for the study of human evolution," added Roebroeks. "Compared with Europe, Asia has seen little fieldwork, and new finds will keep on challenging what we think we know about human evolution." AFP |
| Chef Ottolenghi’s ‘Plenty More’, such a delicious read Posted: 08 Oct 2014 05:30 PM PDT
After Jerusalem: A Cookbook, which paid homage to the culinary diversity of Jerusalem's cuisine, and Plenty, published in 2011, Ottolenghi is focusing once again on the humble vegetable kingdom in his latest cookbook. Over 352 pages, readers will learn how to make dishes like globe artichoke and mozzarella with candied lemon, and roasted figs with pomegranate molasses and orange zest. The book features 150 recipes which are organised by cooking method — grilling, roasting, steaming, braising — and focuses on spices, seasonality and bold flavours. Ottolenghi is best known among Londoners, where he owns a handful of restaurants and delis that serve platters groaning with colorful, fresh salads and mains like pork chop with apricot mustard and roast pork belly, prawns and chilli sambal. His last book, Jerusalem: A Cookbook, was named Cookbook of the Year by the International Association of Culinary Professionals and Best International Cookbook by the James Beard Foundation. Plenty More is published by Ten Speed Press and will be released October 14 in the US. — AFP |
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