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The Star eCentral: Movie Reviews

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The Star eCentral: Movie Reviews

Baz Luhrmann in negotiations to direct Elvis Presley biopic

Posted: 01 May 2014 09:35 PM PDT

The King may live again, if the Great Gatsby director gets his way.

Ladies and gentlemen, Elvis is in the building – as in, the Warner Bros building – and director Baz Luhrmann is in negotiations to join the iconic singer, who is the subject of an untitled biopic being written by Kelly Marcel (Fifty Shades Of Grey), TheWrap has learned. Warner Bros had no comment.

Marcel is hard at work writing an original screenplay about Elvis Presley, the hip-gyrating King of Rock 'n' Roll, that will not be based on any pre-existing material. While the project is believed to be a biopic, it's unclear which periods of Presley's life would be depicted in the film.

Gail Berman is producing for Tecumseh Productions, while Andrew Mittman of Whalerock Industries will executive produce. WB executive Courtenay Valenti will oversee the project on behalf of the studio. Warner Bros has secured rights to all musical components in Presley's catalog for this project, multiple individuals familiar with the situation told TheWrap.

Luhrmann has been in negotiations for several weeks and should his deal close, it's expected that his wife, Oscar winner Catherine Martin, would board the project as costume designer and possibly as production designer as well.

Baz Luhrmann on the set of The Great Gatsby.

Luhrmann has several projects in development – including Legendary's Kung Fu movie – and it remains unclear which project will serve as Luhrmann's follow-up to The Great Gatsby. The film was Luhrmann's biggest earner, and with such an impressive gross for a literary drama, it's no wonder Warner Bros is eager to get back in business with Luhrmann.

Luhrmann, who was nominated for an Oscar for producing his dazzling 2001 musical Moulin Rouge, is also developing a Napoleon miniseries for HBO. He's repped by WME and Hirsch Wallerstein.

Marcel is the creator of Terra Nova, who earned high marks for her Saving Mr Banks screenplay. Her work on the latter led to her being hired to adapt E.L. James' bestselling novel, Fifty Shades Of Grey – which hits theatres next Valentine's Day.

Berman and Mittman are developing a Jesse Owens movie as well as an adaptation of the bestselling book, Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus. — Reuters

Hugh Jackman is ready to de-claw after 'Wolverine' sequel

Posted: 01 May 2014 09:25 PM PDT

The Australian actor has played the mutant in seven films, including the upcoming X-Men: Days Of Future Past.

Hugh Jackman has portrayed Wolverine in seven X-Men films, but he's "99.9% sure" the sequel to The Wolverine will be the last time he pops the Marvel mutant's claws.

"I still am very ambitious for the character. And tonally I feel like we corrected the ship with the last one. But I feel we can still go further, in a way," Jackman told SFX Magazine. "If I did another one I'm 99.9% sure it would be the last, so that will inform what it is for me."

If the sequel even happens, that is.

While Jackman is not shy about working with director James Mangold to develop a sequel to last summer's blockbuster, which sent the practically immortal superhero to Japan, the actor emphasised "we're still working it out".

"I'm excited to see what we can come up with, but I haven't signed on signed on," Jackson said.

"I'm genuinely at that point where unless it's better than the last one I'm not going to do it." 20th Century Fox announced in November that Mangold was coming back to write the treatment, but no plot details were revealed. Based on Jackman's answers in this interview, it doesn't sound like many have been decided yet.

"I'd probably move it to a different visual palette," Jackman said. "We are looking at a lot of different storylines. No one has jumped out. You can tell from my answer that we're still working it out."

The Wolverine grossed over US$414.8mil (RM1.32bil) worldwide last year, so a sequel seems inevitable. But Bryan Singer's X-Men: Apocalypse is already lined up for a May 2016 release date.

How much more X-Men can Jackman commit to? Apparently, not much.

"If the script is as good? Hmmm. I don't know if that will get me across the line, man," Jackman said. "I think it has to be better." — Reuters

Kredit: www.thestar.com.my

The Star eCentral: Movie Buzz

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The Star eCentral: Movie Buzz

Baz Luhrmann in negotiations to direct Elvis Presley biopic
Hugh Jackman is ready to de-claw after 'Wolverine' sequel
Songs from animated films are on the right track

Baz Luhrmann in negotiations to direct Elvis Presley biopic

Posted: 01 May 2014 09:35 PM PDT

The King may live again, if the Great Gatsby director gets his way.

Baz Luhrmann on the set of The Great Gatsby.

Luhrmann, who was nominated for an Oscar for producing his dazzling 2001 musical Moulin Rouge, is also developing a Napoleon miniseries for HBO. He's repped by WME and Hirsch Wallerstein.

Berman and Mittman are developing a Jesse Owens movie as well as an adaptation of the bestselling book, Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus. — Reuters

Hugh Jackman is ready to de-claw after 'Wolverine' sequel

Posted: 01 May 2014 09:25 PM PDT

The Australian actor has played the mutant in seven films, including the upcoming X-Men: Days Of Future Past.

Hugh Jackman has portrayed Wolverine in seven X-Men films, but he's "99.9% sure" the sequel to The Wolverine will be the last time he pops the Marvel mutant's claws.

If the sequel even happens, that is.

"I'm excited to see what we can come up with, but I haven't signed on signed on," Jackson said.

The Wolverine grossed over US$414.8mil (RM1.32bil) worldwide last year, so a sequel seems inevitable. But Bryan Singer's X-Men: Apocalypse is already lined up for a May 2016 release date.

How much more X-Men can Jackman commit to? Apparently, not much.

"If the script is as good? Hmmm. I don't know if that will get me across the line, man," Jackman said. "I think it has to be better." — Reuters

Songs from animated films are on the right track

Posted: 01 May 2014 09:00 AM PDT

Movie soundtracks from animated films are booming.

Considered deeply uncool at one point, music from animated movies is back – and singing along is now not only OK for kids, it's something adults record themselves doing on their phones and share on YouTube.

The boom in popular songs from animated movies comes after a long fallow period when the form yielded few hits in the music world, despite box-office juggernauts like the Toy Story, Shrek and Ice Age franchises.

Though all incorporated music in their films, it was rarely the kind that had come to define the genre at Disney Animation in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when it was making music-driven hits like The Lion King, Beauty And The Beast and The Little Mermaid.

"You had this shift ... where there were very successful animated movies but their soundtracks weren't," said president of Disney Music Group, Ken Bunt. "Their scores were important, but they weren't musicals and the music in them wasn't something that gets played on radio or that you're singing in your car."

A sign of the shift: For the first time in 20 years, a soundtrack from an animated film has been No. 1 on the Billboard charts for 11 weeks.

Two weeks ago, Disney's fairy tale Frozen displaced 1994's The Lion King to become the top-selling animated movie soundtrack of all time. It's not the only music from an animated film that's hot right now: Happy, Pharrell Williams' ubiquitous mood booster from Despicable Me 2, has been No. 1 on the single charts for eight weeks and appears everywhere from Fiat commercials to kids' choir homages.

Earlier this year, The Lego Movie popularised a catchy electronic parody song called Everything Is Awesome, and Rio 2 is receiving lots of praise from critics for the quality of its eclectic, Brazil-influenced soundtrack.

In some cases, as with Frozen, the music helped drive the box office, as audiences started learning songs from the radio before they saw the film; in others, as in Despicable Me 2, the song's hit status came well after the film's box-office release and evolved into a story of its own. Regardless, the cloud on animated musicals has clearly lifted.

"There hadn't been a musical in such a long time," said chief creative officer of DreamWorks Animation, Bill Damaschke, which has a Bollywood-style musical composed by A.R. Rahman and an Australia-set project from Tim Minchin, the composer of the Tony Award-winning show Matilda The Musical, in development.

"A really great one came out (Frozen) and it hit a nerve. Everybody's asking, 'What are fresh, original ways to use music in animated movies?'"

One of the key features of the Frozen and Happy phenomena has been social media. According to Bunt, fans have uploaded more than half a million versions of the Frozen empowerment ballad Let It Go to YouTube. Oprah Winfrey recently brought Williams to tears by showing him a collection of fan-made Happy videos from around the world.

"It's sort of like a community singalong in the virtual town square," said Tom Sito, a professor at USC's School of Cinematic Arts who was an animator and storyboard artist at Disney Animation in the 1990s. "And it keeps the material fresh in people's minds."

Rihanna is in the midst of writing a concept album for an animated movie titled Home. She will also lend
her voice to a character in the movie. — EPA

In addition to the Rahman and Minchin musicals it has in development, this year DreamWorks will release How To Train Your Dragon 2 with two songs by Jonsi, the frontman from the Icelandic rock band Sigur Ros, and Home, an alien invasion movie with a character voiced by pop singer Rihanna, who is writing a concept album for the film.

"For us, music is a big focus right now," Damaschke said. "I'd expect to see more and more of it." — Los Angeles Times/McClatchy-Tribune Information Services

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The Star Online: World Updates

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The Star Online: World Updates

Bus crash kills 23, injures 17 in southwest Haiti
Chinese oil engineers kidnapped in Sudan freed - Xinhua agency
Ten bodies recovered from collapsed Colombia mine

Bus crash kills 23, injures 17 in southwest Haiti

Posted: 03 May 2014 08:35 PM PDT

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - A bus crash in southwest Haiti killed 23 people and injured 17 on Saturday, authorities said.

The mayor of the city of Jeremie, Ronald Etienne, told Reuters that the cause of the accident was not known.

The accident occurred near the coastal town of Roseau, east of Jeremie, according to media reports. Most of the dead were from the town of d'Anse d'Hainault on the far western tip of the southern peninsula, the reports said.

Haiti's rural road infrastructure is in poor shape though foreign assistance after the 2010 earthquake has led to improvements on the national two-lane highway in the southwest.

(Writing by David Adams; Editig by Robert Birsel)

Chinese oil engineers kidnapped in Sudan freed - Xinhua agency

Posted: 03 May 2014 08:25 PM PDT

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - (This May 2 story has been corrected to fix date of kidnapping to April 2014, not April 2013)

Two Chinese engineers kidnapped in Sudan have been released, the official Xinhua media service said on Friday, citing a source at the Chinese embassy in Khartoum.

The engineers had been held by the Darfur Justice and Equality Movement, an armed group opposed to the Sudanese central government.

"The two Chinese engineers were released due to efforts made by the Sudanese government and the Chinese embassy in Khartoum," Xinhua quoted the unnamed source as saying.

Chinese media reported that the Darfur group had attacked the Kunar oil field, operated by the Sudanese Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company in the West Kordofan State, on April 18, abducting three engineers, two of them Chinese and one Sudanese.

Chinese workers in Sudan have been repeatedly abducted by Sudanese resistance groups, embarrassing the Khartoum government, which has been engaged in a long-running struggle with ethnically and religiously distinct tribes in the southern and western parts of the country.

China is a major customer for Sudanese oil and an investor in developing infrastructure in the country to facilitate its delivery to the Chinese market.

The partition of Sudan into two countries in 2011, Sudan and South Sudan, was seen as a big diplomatic setback for Beijing, which had invested heavily in developing a relationship with Khartoum to secure rights to energy supplies for one of the world's largest energy consumers.

(Reporting by Pete Sweeney, editing by Gareth Jones)

Ten bodies recovered from collapsed Colombia mine

Posted: 03 May 2014 07:55 PM PDT

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Rescue workers had pulled 10 bodies from the rubble of a collapsed illegal gold mine in Colombia by Saturday, the government said, three days after it caved in, and six are still believed to be buried under tonnes of mud and gravel.

The mine in Santander de Quilichao in southwestern Cauca province collapsed just before midnight on Wednesday when workers were at the site. Three bodies were recovered shortly after but excavators have been digging for days to reach others buried deeper.

"The search continues with dogs and the rescue personnel to find the site where could be more victims," said Captain Victor Claros, commander of the Santander de Quilichao's fire and rescue brigade.

The Mines and Energy Ministry confirmed the recovery of 10 bodies in a statement.

A large proportion of Colombia's gold output comes from illegal mines, many under the control of leftist guerrillas who have been fighting the government for five decades. Precarious conditions at the mines lead to frequent accidents.

The ministry said there had been 30 fatalities linked to illegal mining activity this year.

Authorities have said attempts to close the mine had failed due to the hostile reaction of workers and those in control of the site.

The tragedy follows one a week ago in which four people died after inhaling toxic gases at an artisanal mine in the western province of Antioquia.

(Reporting by Peter Murphy and Nelson Bocanegra; Writing by Peter Murphy; Editing by Robert Birsel)

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The Star Online: Business

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The Star Online: Business

Ringgit likely to trade lower next week
FBM KLCI to trend towards 1,900 points next week
Sabah SMEs have grownpast five years

Ringgit likely to trade lower next week

Posted: 02 May 2014 08:48 PM PDT

KUALA LUMPUR: The ringgit is likely to trade lower against the US dollar next week due to lack of commercial demand, said a dealer.

The latest outcome of the Federal Open Market Committee meeting indicated that growth in economic activity had picked up recently hence the support for the greenback.

For this holiday-shortened week, the ringgit ended higher at 3.2650/2670 against the greenback from 3.2690/2710 last Friday.

Against other major currencies, the ringgit depreciated against the Singapore dollar to 2.6062/5082 from 2.5994/5018 last Friday and rose against the yen to 3.1857/1892 from 3.1974/1009 previously.

It eased against the British pound to 5.5136/5173 from 5.4949/4989 and fell against the euro to 4.5259/5290 from 4.5223/4258 last Friday. - BERNAMA

FBM KLCI to trend towards 1,900 points next week

Posted: 02 May 2014 08:43 PM PDT

KUALA LUMPUR: The FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) is expected to trend higher towards the psychology level of 1,900 points next week.

Affin Investment Bank Vice-President/Head of Retail Research Dr Nazri Khan said local optimism will be driven by European Central Bank and Bank Of Japan's aggressive fiscal stimulus as well as encouraging US economic data.

"Global stocks are steady after the Federal Reserve continued to reduce its monthly bond buying by a mild amount and this indicated the economy was improving at a modest pace," he told Bernama.

Turning to the local market, he said the fact that the benchmark index has broken from the narrow

1,850-1,870 range indicated stronger bulls ahead. "We expect domestic buying momentum to increase riding on Bursa Malaysia's resilient and defensive appeal, more rotation play towards large capital stocks and more external funds inflow following the extra liquidity from Japan and Europe," he said.

Nazri noted the strong leadership by economically-sensitive counters, such as finance, plantation and services, as well as, gains from larger capital stocks indicated new inflow of funds and healthy momentum in the near-term.

He added that the long- and medium-term trend for the index remained firmly up as long as it stayed above the 1,800 points level.

On a week-to-week basis, the FBM KLCI ended 8.1 points better on Friday at 1,869.08 against 1,860.98 recorded the previous Friday.

The Finance Index fell 1.36 points to 17,072.22 points but the Plantation Index soared 66.92 points to 9,062.65 points and the Industrial Index surged 43.88 points to 3,190.86 points.

The FBM Emas Index improved 14.75 points to 12,933.1 points, the FBMT100 Index climbed 33.15 points to 12,583.13 points but the FBM 70 declined 46.25 points to 14,097.46 points and the FBM Ace lost 351.31 points to 6,558.58 points.

The local market was closed on Thursday for the Labour Day holiday.

The holiday-shortened week saw weekly turnover drop to 7.32 billion shares, worth RM6.96 billion, from last week's 11.4 billion shares worth RM10.78 billion. Main market volume decreased to 5.22 billion shares, valued at RM7.55 billion, from 8.66 billion shares, valued at RM10.17 billion, recorded last Friday.
Warrant turnover depreciated to 125.77 million units, worth RM15.1 million, from last Friday's 273.84 million units worth RM39.75 million.

The ACE market volume narrowed to 1.92 billion shares, valued at RM378.62 million, from 2.42 billion shares, valued at RM574.6 million, registered last week. - BERNAMA

Sabah SMEs have grownpast five years

Posted: 02 May 2014 08:39 PM PDT

KOTA KINABALU: The small and medium enterprises (SMEs) sector in Sabah has grown by 65 per cent in the past five years with 40,884 such establishments currently operating in the state.

Minister of Special Tasks in the Chief Minister's Department Datuk Teo Chee Kang said in terms of numbers, Sabah ranked sixth among all the 13 states in the country.

"The SMEs in the state are also more diversified covering many sectors including the manufacturing, agriculture, services, mining and quarrying and, construction sectors," he said at SME 100 Awards 2014 presentation last night.

In helping the SMEs, he said the government would continue to focus on capacity building, financial assistance, market development, facilitation of export and brand development, skill and entrepreneurial training, as well as, provide necessary infrastructure, institutional and regulatory support for business to flourish.

"At the same time, the government is also determined to ensure that our SMEs remain competitive globally and resilient to external shocks and uncertainties," he added.

Teo said the Malaysia Global Innovation and Creative Centre (MaGIC) launched in Cyberjaya jointly by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak and United State President Barack Obama last week, was a one stop centre to empower entrepreneurs.

The state government would continue to work closely with the Federal government and its agencies to enable SMEs to take advantage of all the numerous assistance and incentives extended by the government.

"At the same time, I strongly urge our SMEs to be proactive and more aggressive in developing and expanding their business domestically and internationally.

"As all of you are well aware, most of the successful multinational companies today started off as SMEs," he said.

He also advised SMEs to prepare for the Goods and Services Tax (GST) which be implemented on April 1, 2015.

Teo added that the introduction of the GST was important to have a clear understanding of the general mechanism of the new system so that necessary adjustments can made.

At the event, 31 SMEs from Sabah and Sarawak were announced winners of the annual award, organised by SME Magazine,

Among the award recipients were Airworld Travel and Tours Sdn Bhd, Mega United Resources Sdn Bhd, Pembinaan D.G.E Sdn Bhd, SM Health Care Sdn Bhd, Timplas Industries (M) Sdn Bhd and Ulink Ascot Sdn Bhd. - BERNAMA

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The Star Online: Nation

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Honour journalists killed in line of duty, says editor
PKR polls: Branch youth candidate fumes as name missing from list
MH370: No answers, only hope as father heads home

Honour journalists killed in line of duty, says editor

Posted: 03 May 2014 07:23 AM PDT

SHAH ALAM: Journalists who were killed in the line of duty should be honoured for their ultimate contributions and sacrifices made for their society and country, said a high-ranking media professional from a newspaper organisation based in Thailand.

Bangkok Post editor-in-chief Pichai Chuensuksawadi said it was evident that journalists risked or lost their lives while on duty to expose wrongdoings and injustices within the societies whom they served.

"To me personally, the most important point of World Press Freedom Day today is to honour those journalists who have lost their lives because they did their job of seeking the truth.

"The lives of these journalists were taken because they pursued a principle which we all cherish," he said in his keynote address at a forum entitled 'Fostering Freedom of Expression' (Media Freedom for a Better Future: Shaping the Post-2015 Development Agenda) held in conjunction with World Press Freedom Day.

Bernama general manager Datuk Yong Soo Heong attended the event.

Chuensuksawadi said he himself risked his life ducking mortar attacks when he covered border clashes between Myanmar troops and Karen minority rebels along the Thai-Myanmar border.

"As an editor, I had been interrogated by Special Branch police and spent one day in jail while waiting for bail in fighting one of many criminal defamation cases filed against me.

"But my experiences are nothing compared to the journalists murdered because of their profession.

"How many journalists can say they are prepared to continue doing their jobs despite the threat of violence and death? How many are prepared to make ultimate sacrifice? To me, it is very important to honour journalists who had made the ultimate sacrifice," he said.

Chuensuksawadi said the World Press Freedom Day was being held for more than 20 years and yet despite repeated pleas, media operations in many countries were still being censored, fined, suspended and even closed down besides journalists, editors and publishers being harassed, attacked and detained.

He said based on statistics since 1992 till now, 1,052 journalists had been killed in the line of duty across the globe.

According to Chuensuksawadi, the rise and spread of the Internet and social media platforms had allowed people to disseminate information and express their views and opinions virtually instantaneously.

Yong, one of the panelist at the forum, said people especially from the country which had multi-ethnic and religious society should be matured enough to understand issues brought up by journalists to ensure greater press freedom in the country.

He said by being matured and getting the relevant information in hand, people could make informed decisions.

He said media organisations should have more researchers to assist reporters to ask questions during press conferences.

"There should be a paradigm shift in media operations by having more researchers who can help the reporters from the print and broadcast media," he added. - Bernama

PKR polls: Branch youth candidate fumes as name missing from list

Posted: 03 May 2014 06:27 AM PDT

SUNGAI PETANI: The Sungai Petani PKR branch Youth election was marred by a missing name in the list of its candidates.

Supporters of S. Arvind Kumar - a candidate for the post of youth chief - began protesting when his name was not in the list on the grounds that he was ineligible to contest.

The protest began when Arvind Kumar discovered his name was not in the list when he arrived at the polling station in the Orang Ramai Seri Wangi Hall here on Saturday.

"I was not officially notified on my ineligibility to contest. What hurt me most was my involvement in an intense campaigning over the past one week.

"I was understandably shocked when informed that my name was not in the list of candidates," he said. - Bernama

MH370: No answers, only hope as father heads home

Posted: 03 May 2014 05:47 AM PDT

The hotel became a powder keg of conflict between highly emotional relatives seeking answers about their missing loved ones, and airline officials and Malaysian government representatives stymied by the way flight MH370 vanished.

Read: Families move out of Beijing's Lido Hotel

Yan's younger son Yan Ling, 30, was one of the 153 Chinese passengers on the flight - making up two-thirds of those on board.

The last time the pair had spent time together was when Yan Ling returned to the family home for Chinese New Year in late January.

The annual pilgrimage is replicated in tens of millions of homes across the country, where high-achieving offspring often find work in the booming cities after university, rather than in their backwater hometowns.

During regular family briefings at the hotel, the 60-year-old would sit near the back of the hall, sipping a cup of iced water provided by airline support staff and lifting his head only during the occasions when tempers frayed.

Sometimes he would find solitude away from the insults and allegations, sitting outside in the car park with his thoughts and a cigarette, while relatives burst out of the door behind him sobbing into their handkerchiefs.

In the early days after the plane's disappearance, the signs of sleepless nights were etched on his face, with bags under his eyes and his thin hair ruffled.

Now Yan is more outwardly composed, but inside he remains crippled.

He has "felt nothing but despair", he says, since his life was turned upside down by a phone call from his son's girlfriend on the morning of March 8, 56 days ago.

"She said two sentences. She told me 'The plane is missing. Yan is missing'. Then she said nothing more, as she burst out crying," said Yan, from Yancheng in the eastern province of Jiangsu.

His son's boss telephoned him to say that the aircraft was missing and he should travel to the capital.

"I dropped everything and made the journey here."

There were no flights available to Beijing from nearby airports, so he had no choice but to buy a standing ticket on a train which took "a day and night".

Even at normal times the crowded journey would be gruelling. In the circumstances it was mental torture.

"The plane has gone. The plane has gone. I knew it was something terrible," he said, recalling the thoughts that raced through his mind.

Yan described his missing son as "introverted", but his tone brightened as he proudly exclaimed: "His boss says he is an excellent worker. A really good engineer."

Yan Ling works for a medical equipment company in Beijing's Haidian district and had travelled to Malaysia on a work-sponsored "short-study trip" with a colleague, his father said.

The family are close, said Yan, who was joined in Beijing by his elder son while his wife, who has health problems, stayed in Yancheng.

A vast multi-national search has failed to find any sign of wreckage, and some Chinese relatives have embraced improbable conspiracy theories of hijackings and hostage-takings.

At times the reality of the most likely outcome hits Yan.

"The passengers have probably already died," he said. "I think so, but I don't dare to tell my family that."

Even so, as his voice broke with emotion, Yan refused to accept that he may have spent his last Chinese New Year with his son.

He still clings to the thought of Yan Ling one day walking through the door of the family home once again.

"That would be great. I would be so happy. I hope this day will come, and I will always keep that hope." - AFP

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The Star Online: Metro: Central

Mechanical failure blamed for Seoul train collision

Posted: 03 May 2014 02:50 AM PDT

SEOUL, May 03, 2014 (AFP) - A malfunctioning automatic stopping system caused the recent collision of two subway trains in Seoul, officials said Saturday.

A moving train slammed into the rear of another, which had stopped at Sangwangsimni station in eastern Seoul on mid-afternoon Friday, leaving more than 200 people injured. One elderly woman was seriously hurt, while more than 150 required some sort of treatment - mainly for cuts and sprains.

The accident was a fresh blow to a country still reeling from the April 16 Sewol ferry tragedy that left 300 dead or missing - most of them high school students - after the ship capsized and sank.

"The Automatic Train Stop system (ATS) installed at Sangwangsimni station failed to function properly", Seoul Metro President Chang Jung-Woo told journalists.

ATS is designed to control the distance between trains, and should activate when the two trains were within 200 meters of each other.

The system malfunctioned, consequently, the following train came too close to the stationary train, leaving little time for the driver to brake.

The tunnel curves before entering Sangwangsimni station and the driver did not see the platform was occupied until quite late, Chang added.

The last two carriages of the stationary train appeared to have been thrown off the rails by the force of the impact, and TV footage showed cracked windows on the two trains and one door connecting two carriages that had been completely knocked off its hinges.

Train service on the subway line No.2 returned to normal early Saturday.

Seoul's subway network is one of the busiest in the world, carrying around 5.25 million passengers a day, according to official data from City Hall.

The collision added to public anger and frustration with the country's lax safety standards exposed by the ferry disaster.

The Chosun Ilbo daily with the country's largest circulation said Saturday that Seoul subway line No.2 was built 34 years ago and was run-down, and warned South Korea was not investing enough in maintaining its infrastructure.

"This country, however, has been parsimonious in investing in safety measures while rushing for ostensible economic achievement", it said in an editorial.

350 dead, thousands missing in Afghan landslide

Posted: 03 May 2014 02:46 AM PDT

AAB BAREEK, Afghanistan, May 03, 2014 (AFP) - Rescuers searched for survivors on Saturday after a landslide buried an Afghan village, killing 350 people and leaving thousands of others feared dead amid warnings that more earth could sweep down the hillside.

Local people tried to dig out victims trapped under a massive river of mud that engulfed Aab Bareek village in Badakhshan province where little sign remained of hundreds of destroyed homes.

The United Nations confirmed that 350 people were dead, and provincial officials said more than 2,000 could be still missing 24 hours after the disaster.

Emergency workers arrived on Saturday morning to be confronted by the enormous scale of the landslide and hundreds of homeless families.

"There is a very thick layer of mud. It is very difficult for people to take dead bodies out," Sayed Abdullah Homayun Dehqan, provincial director of the Afghan National Disaster Management Authority, told AFP from the scene.

"There is fear of another landslide. Our assessment team have seen a crack in a nearby hill.

"They have only been able to find the body of a woman and a man.

"We have started distributing food... but we don't have enough tents for all the 700 families who spent the night outside. There are around 2,000 people - women, children, elders - without homes."

Dehqan cautioned that the death toll remained uncertain, after Badakhshan governor Shah Waliullah Adeeb said that 2,500 people could have been killed.

The site is expected to be designated a mass grave and memorial services have been planned for later Saturday.

Villagers were at Friday prayers in two mosques when they were entombed by a tide of debris, and a second landslide hit many who had rushed to assist those in need.

Food, shelter needed

"All the relevant UN agencies - together with the Afghan Red Crescent Society and NGO partners - are already on the ground," the UN mission in Afghanistan said.

"The immediate focus is on approximately 700 families displaced either directly as a result of this slide or as a precautionary measure from villages assessed to be at further risk.

"Key needs for them are water, medical support, counselling support, food and emergency shelter."

President Hamid Karzai expressed his condolences to those affected and said immediate action was being taken to find survivors.

But large-scale rescue work could be impossible as roads to the area cannot take heavy machinery.

Badakhshan is a remote, mountainous province in northeast Afghanistan bordering Tajikistan, China and Pakistan.

It has been relatively peaceful since the US-led military intervention began in 2001, but has seen increasing Taliban activity in recent years.

Local officials said that the landslides occurred at about midday (0730 GMT) in the Argo district of Badakhshan after days of heavy rain.

Between 350 and 400 houses were destroyed, they said.

US President Barack Obama described the deaths as "an awful tragedy" and pledged to help the relief effort.

The landslides follow recent severe flooding in other parts of northern Afghanistan, with 150 people dead and 67,000 people affected by floods in Jowzjan, Faryab and Sar-e-Pul provinces.

Nearly 3,500 houses were damaged and destroyed by the floods.

Flooding and landslides often occur during the spring rainy season in northern Afghanistan, with flimsy mud houses offering little protection against rising water levels and torrents of mud.

In the last major flooding in Afghanistan, 40 people died in August in flash floods in eastern and southeastern provinces and some districts of the capital Kabul.

Afghanistan is in the middle of presidential elections, with former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah and ex-World Bank economist Ashraf Ghani due to compete in a head-to-head vote on June 7.

Preliminary results from the first round of elections on April 5, in which eight candidates ran, showed no one gained the 50 percent needed for a decisive victory.

Kredit: www.thestar.com.my

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