The Star Online: Metro: Sunday Metro
The Star Online: Metro: Sunday Metro |
| Posted: [unable to retrieve full-text content] |
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The Star Online: Entertainment: TV & Radio
The Star Online: Entertainment: TV & Radio |
| Posted: New drama The Bridge connects murder and immigration. The Bridge is not a tidy little connection between two points, or even two sides of a story. It stretches and bends, bringing in new characters before you've gotten to know the older ones, spreading its narrative from police offices and grimy streets to dry stretches of land along the border between Mexico and the United States. Not even the body that begins its story is simple. Premiering in Malaysia today on FX, the series follows the investigation of that body, left at the midpoint of a bridge between Juarez and El Paso, with part of it resting in the US and part in Mexico – bringing in law enforcement from both sides. From Mexico comes detective Marco Ruiz (Demian Bichir), an honourable man trying to keep his job (and his life) while working among the cartels and their corrupt associates, some of whom are his co-workers. From the US is Sonya Cross (Diane Kruger), an El Paso detective whose personal challenges include having Asperger's syndrome. Each has rules, though not the same ones. And they are part of a larger world that includes, among others, Ruiz's wife Alma (Catalina Sandino Moreno); Cross' boss Hank Wade (Ted Levine); Charlotte Millright (Annabeth Gish), a wealthy ranch wife who is suddenly widowed when her husband suffers a heart attack while on the Mexican side of the border; Daniel Frye (Matthew Lillard), a nasty and troubled newspaper reporter (is there any other kind?) who is drawn into coverage of the case, and others who seem to have interests in the outcome of the investigation. All of that adds to the pushing and pulling of the central characters. But there are also points at which they step aside to reveal more about the supporting players: Frye's approach to the case, for example, or how Millright is seen by her wealthy neighbours. There's more than a little of Traffic at work here, although that film (and the miniseries that inspired it) moved more certainly forward. The Bridge can at times be very good; Bichir, a best-actor Oscar nominee for A Better Life, is especially effective. It is also strong when it comes to the desperation of life along the border. But The Bridge loves complexity too much, in the layers of Cross' personality and in the variety of characters and stories it tries to juggle. Still, I was drawn into it, and well into the third episode still wanted to see where The Bridge was going. – Akron Beacon Journal/McClatchy-Tribune Information Services
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| Posted: With Unforgettable, Dylan Walsh hopes to move on from Nip/Tuck, the show that made him a star. You can hear traffic in the background as you talk to Dylan Walsh. He's been spending a lot of time lately on the sidewalks of New York City. And as the co-star of the new drama, Unforgettable, he spends his workdays pounding the pavement with Poppy Montgomery, solving murders for the NYPD. The premise of the show is that Montgomery (Without A Trace) has an absolutely encyclopaedic memory. She can remember every detail of every day of her life. That means that several times an episode, her character, Carrie, freezes in a kind of trance while viewers see her likeness revisiting the scene of the crime, picking up new details. That leaves Walsh and the rest of the squad in the awkward position of huddling behind her silently, waiting for her to return to the here and now. "We laugh about it," Walsh says. "What would cops do while she's staring off strangely? Would they just stop and watch her?" This type of total recall, by the way, while exceedingly rare, does exist. In fact, scientists have identified – how weird is this? – sitcom actress Marilu Henner (Taxi) as one of the handful of people confirmed with "superior autobiographical memory". Henner is a consultant on Unforgettable. "Actually she's working on the set today," says Walsh. "Poppy met with Marilu before the pilot. The rest of us went on faith. "I was more interested in talking to her husband. Imagine how daunting that must be. She can remember everything that poor man does." Walsh was hoping to ambush Henner at the start of production, a plan that didn't go so well. "She and I had met in 1990 while I was doing a show called Gabriel's Fire," he says. "I couldn't wait to test her on it. But she jumped me before I could even start and rattled off all these minute details about our meeting, half of which I had forgotten." Ed Redlich, the executive producer of Unforgettable, terms the condition "a gift and a burden. If you squint at it one way, it's almost a mental illness." Walsh doesn't think he could cope with it. "Marilu makes it seem like fun," he says. "But I wouldn't want that ability. I think our self-narrative requires letting things go. Otherwise it's too much." Walsh's own narrative has been eventful. His pregnant mother (both parents were in the foreign service) was flown from Addis Ababa to Los Angeles for his birth. Then it was right back to Ethiopia, and many subsequent postings. "I remember Indonesia and India," he says. "But I don't remember Africa." Years after the family eventually repatriated in northern Virginia, Dylan's acting aspirations would take him full circle to Los Angeles, where he became a busy TV and film actor. He's perhaps best known as hectored plastic surgeon Sean McNamara on TV's grotesque guide to vanity, Nip/ Tuck. It was the fevered brainchild of Ryan Murphy, the producer also responsible for Glee and American Horror Story. The long-running Nip/Tuck was so outrageous and incandescent, Walsh is still trying to escape its shadow. "You want your series to be successful, so for years you promote it," he says. "Then the last thing you have to do is live it down and move on. "I'm standing outside on the sidewalk now and people are waving at me," he continues. "They're waving at me for Nip/Tuck, not Unforgettable. That's why I took another series so fast. I want to put it behind me. I need to get Sean McNamara out of my system." Speaking of cosmetic surgery, Dylan, you look remarkably hale for a 49-year-old. Did you ever ...? He chuckles without mirth, at a question he's been asked more than once. "No," he says. "One thing I learned from Nip/Tuck is that that's not the route to take. I do worry, though, that at some point there's going to be some accelerated catching up." – The Philadelphia Inquirer/McClatchy-Tribune Information Services Unforgettable premieres on July 29 at 9pm on Lifetime (Astro Ch 709). |
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The Star Online: World Updates
The Star Online: World Updates |
| Ex-U.S. President Carter plans to visit North Korea - report Posted: SEOUL (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter is planning to visit North Korea soon to try to win the release of a U.S. citizen held for committing crimes against the reclusive state, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported on Monday. Carter has made contact with the North to arrange for the visit, and he is likely to make the trip in a personal capacity to secure the release of Kenneth Bae, the U.S. citizen, a source in Washington was quoted as saying by Yonhap. "The issue of Kenneth Bae who has been held in the North for nine months is becoming a burden for the United States," the diplomatic source was quoted as saying by Yonhap. "Even if Carter's visit materialises, it will be focused on the issue of Kenneth's Bae's release more than anything else." Bae, who is in his mid 40s, was sentenced in May to 15 years hard labour by North Korea's Supreme Court after being detained in November as he led a tour group through the northern region of the country. North Korea said Bae was participating in activities designed to overthrow the government, by infiltrating at least 250 students into the country. Bae has acknowledged to being a missionary and has said he had conducted services in the North. Bae said he had been moved by his faith to preach in North Korea, ranked the most hostile to Christianity by Open Doors International, a Christian advocacy and aid group, since the late 2000s. His arrest and conviction came as the North and the United States remain locked in a diplomatic standoff surrounding Pyongyang's missile and nuclear tests and its claim that Washington was plotting to attack the country. In two months of daily verbal assault earlier this year prompted by annual drills by U.S. and South Korean militaries, Pyongyang threatened to attack the two allies using its nuclear weapons. Pyongyang has had a history of trying to use American captives as a bargaining chip to drag Washington into talks but the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama has been reluctant to respond. Bae has sent letters to his family in the United States pleading for help because his health was failing, his sister said in a media interview last week. Carter has made trips to the North on diplomatic missions and in 2010 helped earn the release of another American, Aijalon Mahli Gomes, a Boston native who had been sentenced to eight years hard labour for illegally entering the country. Former President Bill Clinton flew to North Korea in 2009 and won the release of two American women media workers who had been sentenced to 12 years for illegally entering the country. (Reporting by Jack Kim; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan) |
| Cambodian opposition rejects poll results, demands inquiry Posted: [unable to retrieve full-text content]PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Cambodia's main opposition party on Monday rejected election results given by the government, which said long-serving Prime Minister Hun Sen's party had won, and called for an inquiry into what it called massive manipulation of electoral rolls. |
| Japan's top diplomat heads for China seeking better ties Posted: TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Akitaka Saiki will visit China on Monday and Tuesday for talks with senior officials, the latest in a series of efforts by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to improve relations soured by a bitter territorial row. The hawkish Abe, who cemented his grip on power in an upper house election last week, called on Friday for an unconditional meeting between Japanese and Chinese leaders. On Sunday, Isao Iijima, an adviser to the premier, told reporters that Abe could soon hold a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Often fragile Sino-Japanese ties have been seriously strained since September, when a territorial row over tiny islands in the East China Sea flared following Japan's nationalisation of the uninhabited isles. Concern that the conservative Japanese leader wants to recast Japan's wartime history with a less apologetic tone has added to the tension. "Vice Minister Saiki will visit China on July 29-30 and exchange views with Chinese officials," a Japanese foreign ministry spokesman said. He did not give further details. China's Foreign Ministry responded to Abe's overture on Friday by saying its door was always open for talks but that the problem lay in Japan's attitude. "The crux of the matter at present is Japan's unwillingness to face up to the serious problems which exist in Sino-Japan relations and it is avoiding having earnest talks and consultations with China," the ministry said in a statement faxed to Reuters. Japan, it said, should "stop using empty slogans about so-called dialogue to gloss over disagreements". (Reporting by Linda Sieg and Antoni Slodkowski; Editing by Paul Tait) |
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The Star eCentral: Movie Reviews
The Star eCentral: Movie Reviews |
| Posted: The Conjuring – Welcome to the creepy house that belongs to the unfortunate Perron family. When paranormal activities in their house escalate from terrible to worse, the Perrons call in Ed and Lorrain Warren, two supernatural investigators. Directed by James Wan, it stars Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson and Lili Taylor. R.I.P.D. – Based on the comic-book Rest In Peace Department by Peter M. Lenkov, the film stars Ryan Reynolds and Jeff Bridges. It revolves around undead police officers who make sure no souls – renegade souls, that is – evade the afterlife. Killing Season – Robert De Niro and John Travolta head the cast about two veterans of the Bosnian war. The American and the Serbian form an unlikely friendship which turns tense when a secret gets out. The Place Beyond The Pines – This film boasts a great cast, including Ryan Gosling, Eva Mendes and Bradley Cooper. It's the story of a motorcyle stunt rider who robs banks to support his lover and their newborn child. This decision puts him directly in the sights of an ambitious cop. |
| An actress for 'Poltergeist' remake Posted: Rosemarie DeWitt must've enjoyed watching her husband Ron Livingston get haunted in The Conjuring, as she's in early talks to star in her own horror movie – MGM's Poltergeist remake, TheWrap has learned. DeWitt, who just had a baby with Livingston back in April, is making a deal to play the matriarch of the Freeling family, who move into a new suburban home and becomes terrorised by ghosts. Gil Kenan (Monster House) is directing the movie, which was written by David Lindsay-Abaire. The remake is expected to be more of a grounded, character-based thriller than Tobe Hooper's 1982 original. DeWitt had been rumoured for the role for the past month and an individual close to the actress told TheWrap they'd be surprised if she signed on. It's a testament to the quality of the script and the involvement of producer Sam Raimi that she agreed to star. DeWitt, who just landed the female lead opposite Jeremy Renner in Focus' thriller Kill The Messenger, will soon be seen in Lynn Shelton's Sundance comedy Touchy Feely. She's coming off a busy 2012 in which she starred in Gus Van Sant's Promised Land, Disney's The Odd Life Of Timothy Green, Fox's The Watch and the indie drama Nobody Walks. — Reuters |
| Posted: Seven bright spots to end a crowded, messy summer at the movies. If you've been an avid moviegoer this summer, we understand that you might be worn out by now. Maybe you've got superhero fatigue or apocalypse overload, or maybe you're just fed up to the gills with gunshots and fights and things blowing up and tough guys overcoming impossible odds. And maybe, as July comes to an end, you're ready to stay away from the multiplexes for a while, to spend August catching up on Breaking Bad or House Of Cards or rooting on the Dodgers. But hang on a second. The summer movie landscape may seem as blighted and unappealing as the ravaged planet in After Earth or the zombiescape of World War Z – but with a month to go, there are actually a few movies that might be worth leaving the house to see. Besides, the volume of releases slacks off in August, meaning that some of these flicks could have a little more room to breathe than their May, June and July counterparts, which were shoved out in a brutally overstuffed release schedule that meant anything that didn't come out of the box with a bang was DOA. Note: We've only seen two of these movies, The Spectacular Now and Short Term 12, so don't blame us if they're not as good as we think they might be. But this is summertime, and hope springs eternal. Elysium (Aug 22) This is the big one. In 2009, Neill Blomkamp put a fresh spin on the sci-fi flick with District 9, which came out of nowhere to capture a Best Picture nomination. His follow-up is also set in the future, with bigger names in the cast (Matt Damon, pic below, and Jodie Foster) and a plotline (guy with cancer tries to fight his way to the one-percenters' haven in the sky where they can cure it) that should allow Blomkamp to once again slide social commentary into the action genre. Will this be the rare movie that brings a brain to a too-often-mindless arena? Hopes are high enough that Elysium tops our must-see list. Kick-A** 2 (Aug 29) If the original Kick-A** is any indication, the film's violence will be excessive but also cartoonish and tongue-in-cheek. Like the original, K-A2 is based on comic books by Mark Millar and John Romita, Jr, which should guarantee that it will be as zestfully tasteless and gloriously offensive as its predecessor. Edgar Wright made three movies before this one, and the first two – Shaun Of The Dead and Hot Fuzz – were delightfully twisted comedies starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. So it's good news that The World's End stars Pegg and Frost as heavy drinkers whose attempt to complete a legendary pub crawl encounters some unexpected obstacles of alien origin. The film won mostly rave reviews after its July release in Britain – and in a summer long on end-of-the-world extravaganzas, this might be the right one to put the cherry on top of the impending apocalypse. Lee Daniels' The Butler (Sept 26) Daniels is hardly the sure thing he might have seemed after his Oscar winner Precious – his last film, The Paperboy, was an absurdly overheated Southern Gothic potboiler that needed to be a little worse to enter so-bad-it's-good territory. But he figures to show more restraint this time around, and you know that Whitaker and Oprah Winfrey and Terrence Howard and Cuba Gooding Jr and their castmates will all be acting up a storm. The Grandmaster The Grandmaster is a drama based on the life of Ip Man, a master of the Wing Chun style of martial arts. By all reports it mixes extraordinary action footage (and not a CG monster in sight!) with quieter and more philosophical sequences that have prompted occasional comparisons to the landmark Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Short Term 12One of the quietest but most touching films on the list, Destin Daniel Cretton's low-key drama won the jury and audience awards at this year's SXSW. It features a remarkable performance from Brie Larson as the supervisor at a foster-care home for at-risk teens, and has an array of fine teen actors playing the kids. Short Term 12 is a quiet gem that never gets mawkish but isn't afraid to be sentimental. Cretton, who adapted his short film based on his own experiences as a counselor, has made a touching, open-hearted movie that faces the darkness but also looks to the light, and one that insists that family can be forged in the toughest of circumstances. The Spectacular Now Remember when heartfelt coming-of-age movies were part of the major-studio mainstream release schedule? For today's moviegoers, The Breakfast Club and Say Anything and their ilk are ancient history, and films like The Spectacular Now are almost entirely the province of indie companies. But the indie arena suits this film, which consistently understates rather than overplays and features dead-on performances by Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley that make them seem like real teenagers, not movie characters. Director James Ponsoldt, coming off the excellent but more harrowing Smashed, became a Hollywood hot property on the heels of this film's Sundance debut: He's now signed up to direct a Hillary Rodham Clinton biopic and is working on a few things for the Weinstein Co, including an adaptation of the musical Pippin. — Reuters |
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The Star eCentral: Movie Buzz
The Star eCentral: Movie Buzz |
| Posted: [unable to retrieve full-text content] |
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The Star Online: Business
The Star Online: Business |
| Foreign funds purchase of Malaysian equities declining Posted: KUALA LUMPUR: Foreign funds' purchase of Malaysian equities are declining, with the latest data showing they were net buyers of RM138.10mil in the week ended July 26, according to MIDF Equities Research. It said on Monday foreign funds bought Malaysian equities for the third consecutive week, but the amount was still marginal. "Foreign funds bought Malaysian equities in the open market (that is excluding off-market deals) last week amounted to net RM138.1mil, lower compared with RM168.3mil the week before," it said. MIDF Research said foreign investors were selling in the last two days of last week, which it said was understandable given risk aversion ahead of what could be a game changing week in the US with the FOMC meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday and many important economic statistics scheduled to be released this week. It cautioned that the selling could persist on Monday onwards. "As of last Friday, the cumulative net foreign purchase of Malaysian equity amounted to +US$5.0bil, based on transactions in the open market. The corresponding figures for Thailand and Indonesia remained in the negative territory, at –US$2.43b and –US$0.47b respectively. "In terms of participation, foreign investors continued to withdraw from the market. Last week, foreign participation rate (average daily gross purchase and sale) was only RM808mil, the lowest in 22 weeks. MIDF Research pointed out local investors also pulled back from the market, offloading RM127.9bil last week. After surging to RM1.22bil the week before, retail participation rate fell back to below RM1bil at RM989mil. "We expect the retail market, which has been buoyant after the trough at the end of June, to take a breather in this short term," it said. Local institutions continued to support the market last week with participation rate at RM2.0bil. It was the 10th week this year that the participation rate surpassed the RM2bil mark. "We expect local institutions to accumulate passively this week," said the research house. |
| KLCI down in early trade, BAT, KLCC, UMW fall Posted: KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia's blue chips started the week on a quiet note on Monday, slipping into the red as BAT, KLCC and UMW fell in thin trade but the broader market was firmer with interest in seen in small cap stocks. At 9.25am, the FBM KLCI fell 1.47 points to 1,806.14.Turnover was 147.79 million shares valued at RM147.79. There were 153 gainers, 132 losers and 175 counters unchanged. Maybank KE Research said the obvious support areas for the KLCI were in the 1,723 to 1,807 zone. "The key resistance levels of 1,811 and 1,826 will see some profit-taking activities. The index may attempt a test of the 1,811 and 1,826 very soon, as US markets could sustain near all time highs," it said. BAT fell the most, down 42 sen to RM60.36 with just 200 shares done while Nestle lost 32 sen to RM68.28. KLCC and MAHB lost seven sen each to RM6.49 and RM6.73 while UMW shed six sen to RM14.28. KPJ was down 18 sen to RM7.07 while among property related stocks, Gabungan AQRS lost seven sen to RM1.44 and KSL six sen to RM2.08. Hong Leong Bank gained 16 sen to RM14.46 and Aeon 12 sen to RM15.72 while Lafarge added 10 sen to RM10.38 with 100 shares done. Water-related KPS rose seven sen to RM1.74 with 4.50 million shares done. |
| CIMB Research remains Neutral on Axis REIT Posted: KUALA LUMPUR: CIMB Equities Research remains Neutral on Axis REIT with a dividend discount model-based target price of RM3.74. It said on Monday Axis plans to acquire six assets with a total value of RM380m to RM400m this year. "It is currently in negotiations to acquire two of these assets, although it seems that their injection into the company will only be done towards the end of the year. We thus maintain our Neutral call on Axis, with an unchanged DDM-based target price of RM3.74," it said. CIMB Research said given that Axis's acquisitions are expected to only materialise later in the year, it believed there are no significant positive catalysts in the near term. Still, the current yields of 5.5-5.7% should help to hold up its share price at current levels. |
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The Star Online: Lifestyle: Bookshelf
The Star Online: Lifestyle: Bookshelf |
| Posted: [unable to retrieve full-text content]Take a peek into the lives of power, extreme indulgence and unabashed displays of wealth. |
| How To Get Filthy Rich In Rising Asia Posted: A small book packs a big punch as it examines life's rough ride and how we must all eventually make our exits, even the filthy rich. MOHSIN Hamid's new novel, a slick affair spanning a little over 200 pages, begins with "you" cowering under a bed, suffering from hepatitis E. "Its typical mode of transmission is fecal-oral," says the sardonic narrator, "Yum" (we can almost hear the snigger). At once intimate and jarring, "you" is not exactly a direct address to us, readers of English-language literary fiction. Rather, "you", it seems, is someone who is a cross between the generic Everyman and a rags-to-riches hero, a character almost entirely unlikely to read a novel – unless, of course, it is one that's calledHow To Get Filthy Rich In Rising Asia and is structured like a typical self-help book. The relentless persistence of the second-person voice throughout the narrative does throw off the reader from time to time. It blurs the distinction between Us and Them, the profound and the pulpy, the lofty and the light. "You", that cleverest of devices, is the great mock-leveller. It brings us decently close to the "other", but also keeps us at one remove, giving us a ringside view into their lives from the pages of a book, a bit like the vicarious pleasures offered by celluloid. We get a sneak peek into the squalor in which the rest of the world lives, without getting our hands soiled in the process, and our consciences are quietened. Of course, the omniscient narrator has the last laugh (we have met a version of this narrator before, in Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist, but a less acerbic one, without as much of a ghoulish sense of humour). Hamid's story, a bildungsroman that chronicles his unnamed hero's rise from poverty to prosperity, and his eventual ruin, has a cinematic energy to it. Its levity, Rablesian grittiness, a heady indulgence in the baser instincts of human nature, fit beautifully into the scheme of a Bollywood blockbuster. The plot has a Dickensian linearity, a clear beginning, middle and end. It's also about the commonest of things, the stuff of which the human life cycle is made – the grisly business of being born into want, learning to cope with the vagaries of fate, and then striving to attain the ultimate goal of every existence: how to manage a dignified death. "Have an exit strategy," the narrator gently chides us in the finale, which crawls in with more of a whimper than a bang, as it mostly does in real life. But it's the simplest stories that often have the potential to go disastrously wrong. Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger, Booker Prize notwithstanding, made a mighty mess of the same formula that Hamid uses so expertly, partly because Adiga tried to ape, not just imagine, the voice in which the subaltern speaks. We had Balram Halwai, Adiga's protagonist, sounding utterly unconvincing, if not ludicrous, trying to live up to what his creator thinks he should be like. In contrast, Hamid gives very little speech to his characters – they usually have laconic, functional and pithy exchanges – and focuses instead on describing what goes on in their minds. His god-like narrator does not second-guess much, but tells us – or rather, "you" – what "you" are feeling at any given moment. What makes "you" tick, what gets "your" goat, why "you" are the way "you" are. The progression is abrupt, self-consciously clunky, like jump cuts in a movie, but gripping nonetheless. It's the reckless confidence of the narrator that generates an infectious appeal about the prose. We are exhilarated by its protean cadences, aroused by its joie de vivre, and just as easily crushed by its morbidity. Romance, tragedy, comedy and farce are all seamlessly rolled into this magnificent and hard-to-define literary monster. Its brevity, like that of a miniature painting, is deceptive, and only serves to encourage fantasy. A mini-epic is perhaps the best way to describe it. The unwavering breeziness of the narrator's tone might give the impression of a hearty superficiality but it's actually a refreshingly original veneer from which to convey the most hard-hitting truths. When "you" finally meet the "pretty girl" "you" must meet in a story of any worth, and she lets "you" deflower her, "you" discover, with a start, that "You are the sort of man who discovers love through his penis". However, she is not one to reciprocate your feelings with equal earnestness and would rather blunder through life before "you" and she are reunited at a point when you are both bruised and battered, damaged goods that are pale imitations of their past fullness. The "pretty girl" is a familiar type, though lovingly fleshed out into an individual by the narrator's sharp imagination. The romance between "you" and her, if it can be called that, blossoms over your shared passion for the cinema. "You", before "you" become a filthy rich tycoon selling bottled semi-pure water in an unnamed city, are a delivery boy at a DVD renting outlet, and the pretty girl is an assistant at a beauty parlour. Her head is full of celluloid dreams and "you" are the facilitator of her fancies. The sex between "you" and her, when it happens, is more sedate than steamy, but has its odd satisfactions, especially when "you" and she have a go at it again, decades later, in the winter of your lives, like a couple of Lucien Freud nudes, entangled in your flab, poked by the bony angularity of your sagging skins, a pair of 70- and 80-year-old bodies with weak hearts desperate to rekindle their erotic frisson, before finally giving up and collapsing helplessly into a fit of the giggles. Written from an unmistakably male perspective, Hamid's novel also manages to explore the inner world of its female characters with a humane empathy. The feisty, foul-mouthed, oversexed mother, an archetypal fighter till the end, is a marginal though memorable presence. Her gruesome death, of cancer, and her family's struggle to keep her alive, recall Noor and his dying mother in Mohammed Hanif's Our Lady Of Alice Bhatti. The sister, another cardboard creation, is the girl whose education is interrupted by marriage and childbirth, one of those who live out their years, patiently waiting to be defeated by life. The wife, a progressive girl intrigued by her husband's gradually diminishing interest in her, is more elusive and layered. Like "you", each of these characters is looking for a quick fix that smoothens the rough ride. But the going always gets tough, even for those who manage to get filthy rich. They usually exit trailing more filth than riches. – Mint/McClatchy-Tribune Information Services |
| Posted: [unable to retrieve full-text content]J.R.R. Tolkien's epic unfinished Arthurian long narrative poem is a challenging but ultimately enriching read. |
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The Star Online: Nation
The Star Online: Nation |
| Posted: [unable to retrieve full-text content] |
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The Star Online: Lifestyle: Arts & Fashion
The Star Online: Lifestyle: Arts & Fashion |
| Posted: [unable to retrieve full-text content] |
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The Star Online: Lifestyle: Health
The Star Online: Lifestyle: Health |
| Posted: [unable to retrieve full-text content] |
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The Star Online: Metro: South & East
The Star Online: Metro: South & East |
| N. Korea stages largest parade at war anniversary Posted: [unable to retrieve full-text content]PYONGYANG: North Korea mounted its largest ever military parade to mark the 60th anniversary of the armistice that ended fighting in the Korean War, displaying long-range missiles at a ceremony presided over by leader Kim Jong-un. |
| Psychiatric tests for cop accused of murders Posted: THE police officer accused of the Kovan double murder made a surprise appearance yesterday in court, where it was agreed that he will undergo psychiatric evaluation. Senior staff sergeant Iskandar Rahmat, who was arrested in Johor Baru two weeks ago after a 54-hour manhunt, has also told his lawyers that he wants to claim trial to all charges against him. The 34-year-old, who had been remanded at the Central Police Station, was due to appear in court next Monday. But this was brought forward when police concluded their investigations into the case. Yesterday, the prosecution applied for Iskandar to be remanded at the Changi Prison Complex Medical Centre for psychiatric evaluation. His legal team, led by Ferlin Jayatissa, did not object. Jayatissa, who is assisted by Rudy Marican and N. Sudha Nair, said that he was appreciative that access to Iskandar had been facilitated by the investigation team. "Given the nature of the charge and the possible exceptions to it, the defence has no objections. "This is a necessary and appropriate step in the ongoing investigation," he said. Iskandar was charged on Monday last week with the murder of car workshop owner Tan Boon Sin, 66, and his son at Hillside Drive on July 10. Iskandar will appear via video-link when the case is mentioned next on Aug 16. — The Straits Times / Asia News Network |
| Breakthrough in fight against breast cancer Posted: SCIENTIST in Singapore have identified a gene which makes an aggressive form of breast cancer even worse, in a development which could lead to more effective drugs to treat it. Patients with triple negative breast cancer, whose tumours have high levels of a gene called UBASH3B, are likely to have earlier relapses within three years of treatment. Scientists at the Agency for Science, Technology and Research's Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS) also said that these patients' cancer is more virulent and spreads faster in the body. Triple negative breast cancer gets its name because it's tumours lack oestrogen, progesterone and HER2, which are common in other types of cancer. This means sufferers must rely on more generic chemotherapy and radiotherapy and cannot use drugs designed to attack breast cancer through those three elements. In tests involving two sets of cancer-ridden mice, removing the gene from one set of the mice's tumours had slowed down their cancer's growth by more than half compared with the other set, said GIS senior investigator and project leader Yu Qiang. Dr Yu added that the team plans to approach pharmaceutical companies here to help develop a drug to target the gene. Triple negative breast cancer affects 15% to 20% of patients with breast cancer – the most common cancer among women here, making up three in 10 cancer diagnoses. If the research is clinically validated, doctors could also screen patients for the gene and recommend more aggressive treatment for those who need it, said Tan Tock Seng Hospital consultant surgeon Tan Ern Yu. — The Straits Times / Asia News Network |
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