Thai Norak Satya, spokesman of the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts, said on Sunday that measures taken against celebrity Denny Kwan were garnering positive results.

“Her attitude has changed, and she has engaged in social and humanitarian works. Therefore we decided that we would lift the ban,” Satya said, noting they had been initially called to act by a public outcry.

“People critique the ministry for ignoring such things. So we work on it.”

Satya said that while the ministry cannot directly prevent those in the entertainment industry from hiring her, owners of entertainment companies complied. He said the act wasn’t meant to restrict women.

Kwan could not be reached for comment. However, in comments posted to Facebook, she stated that she accepted the decision.

Ros Sopheap, head of Gender and Development for Cambodia, raised the concern that women in the entertainment industry would be more fearful of expressing themselves, as they don’t want to face a similar ban.

“Now when the ministry was successful in banning her, it makes other women scared, and there is no space for women in her profession.”

Canberra has sent asylum-seekers who try to enter the country by boat to camps on PNG’s Manus Island or Nauru in the Pacific for processing, with those found to be refugees barred from resettling in Australia.

The harsh policy is meant to deter people embarking on treacherous sea journeys, but the United Nations and other rights groups have criticised the camps’ conditions and long detention periods.

Australia’s home affairs department confirmed the death but did not provide further details.

The Refugee Action Coalition’s Ian Rintoul told AFP the man, a 32-year-old called Salim, was believed to have jumped from a moving bus near a refugee transition centre and was struck by its wheels, dying at the scene.

Most asylum-seekers on Manus believed the man’s death was a suicide, according to a statement from the coalition.

He was the seventh asylum-seeker to die on Manus since Canberra’s offshore detention regime began in July 2013, in addition to three others who died on Nauru over the same period, Rintoul said.

“The Rohingyan refugee had suffered for a long time with a medical problem” and had previously been sent to Australia for treatment, he added in a statement.

Behrouz Boochani, an Iranian refugee on Manus, tweeted Tuesday that Salim had epilepsy and was “suffering for a long time”.

Previous deaths on Manus include an Iranian refugee found hanging from a tree near a school in August last year, and a Sri Lankan Tamil asylum-seeker who reportedly committed suicide at a hospital two months later.

The Australian camp on Manus was shut late last year after a PNG court ruled it was unconstitutional, with the 600 detainees sent to three transition centres.

Canberra has sought to offload those recognised as refugees to third countries such as the US, and more than a hundred have been resettled there, according to reports.

But hundreds of others remain on Manus, saying they feared for their safety amid hostility from the local population, and that their basic needs such as healthcare were not being met.

The UN refugee agency said Salim’s death showed the need for “proper care and immediate solutions”.

“With the passage of too many years and the withdrawal or reduction of essential services, the already critical situation for refugees most in need continues to deteriorate,” UNHCR’s regional representative Nai Jit Lam said.//AFP

This came in 2015 after his former boss Abu Kassim Mohamed at the MACC decided to indict former prime minister Najib Razak over the RM2.6bilion that was found in his personal bank account.

Shukri said that the commission had wellfounded basis to initiate an investigation into SRC International, a subsidiary of 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), which had been accused of transferring millions of ringgit into Najib’s private account.

According to Shukri, Abu Kassim asked him whether he was ready for the consequences of indicting a sitting prime minister, which could have led to their dismissal.

However, on the day in July 2015 when Abu Kassim was going to do indict Najib, former AttorneyGeneral Gani Patail was removed from his position.

The announcement came along with the reshuffling of the Cabinet that also saw the sacking of the Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin and Rural and Regional Development Minister Mohd Shafie Apdal, who had also raised questions about 1MDB.

With all these sackings foremost in his mind, Shukri left for Washington on July 31, 2015, to bring up the 1MDB issue with US authorities.

Wary, he released misleading information that he was headed to Saudi Arabia, and he heard that people were waiting to arrest him in Jeddah.

Shukri said that before he left for Washington, he faced tremendous pressure.

“The witnesses I interviewed had been taken away.

“I was threatened to be fired, was told to retire early and was even threatened to be sent to the training division,” he said.

The trip to Washington had its own drama. “I noticed someone was following me (in Washington). My team in the United States took pictures of the man who was following me.

“I sent the pictures to MACC deputy chief commissioner (operations) Azam Baki, and asked him to send it to the then InspectorGeneral Police,” he said, adding that he made it clear that he knew that men were following him.

Shukri said he felt unsafe in Washington and decided to go to New York, where he met up with a friend who worked in the New York Police Department (NYPD).

“I got protection from the NYPD and they provided me with three bodyguards,” he said.

Shukri said he then returned to Washington.

It was in recounting this episode during his Tuesday press conference that Shukri broke down in tears, saying he felt guilty when he was told that his men who were working for him had been incarcerated.

“I felt helpless and was frustrated for failing to protect my men.

“I cried in front of the mat salleh (Caucasians). My men and I had been accused of conspiring to topple the (Barisan Nasional) government,” he said.

Shukri finally retired in August 2016 at the age of 56. During his farewell speech, he hit out at an “individual” who had alleged that he was involved in a conspiracy to topple Najib and his administration.

Abu Kassim, who was appointed MACC chief in 2010, was also replaced by Tan Sri Dzulkifli Ahmad in 2016.

Shukri served at the antigraft body for 32 years before he retired. He first joined the then AntiCorruption Agency in 1984 as investigations officer after graduating from Universiti Kebangsaan Malayญsia.

He rose up the ranks and served as ACA director in Perlis, Kelantan and Sabah.

Upon his return to the headquarters in July 2006, he was promoted to the post of assistant investigations director and two months later, was promoted yet again to be the director of investigations.

In 2010, he took on the position of MACC deputy chief commissioner (operations), which he held till his retirement.

Pakatan Harapan appointed Shukri to head the MACC when it took over Putrajaya after GE14.

He clocked in for work at 10.29am on Monday (May 21), having received his appointment letter just about an hour before reporting for duty.

Struggling with hyperthyroidism and spinal problems as a result of decades of tough movie-making, the Beijing-born kung fu superstar’s health has been in decline since he revealed in 2010 that he was suffering from the debilitaing condition.

The Hollywood icon, who starred in Lethal Weapon 4 and Romeo Must Die, admitted he has not been in the best of health in recent years.

“I’ve suffered from illnesses, for example hyperthyroidism. I am fat but I can’t lose weight because I am taking medication for my illness. The medication is to control my heart beat. That’s why I can’t do lots of exercise,” said Li, who revealed his resting heart rate was around 130 to 140 beats per minute (a normal resting heart rate is between 60 and 100 bpm).

Li’s manager, Steven Chasman told the Washington Post that the photo of Li in Tibet “was just a bad photo of someone who is 55 years old”.

“He has hyperthyroidism that he’s been dealing with for almost 10 years. It’s nothing life-threatening and he’s dealing with it,” Chasman told the Washington Post.

Li said he had tackled his condition “head-on” and “aggressively” when he was first diagnosed with hyperthyroidism and although treatment was successful at first, he suffered a relapse.

Li is the youngest in his family and experienced hardship at an early age when he lost his father at the age of two. Growing up in a middle-class family in Beijing, his mother had to take care of five children. Li took up kung fu at the age of eight when martial arts was growing in popularity.

Li excelled in wushu and became national all-round martial arts champion for five consecutive years between 1975 and 1979. Fame came at an early age for him as news of his dazzling skills caught the eye of then Chinese premier Zhou Enlai, while performing in the opening ceremony of an international table tennis competition in 1972.

By the time he was 17, the wushu practitioner had already travelled to North and South America, Africa, Europe and Asia to perform. However, he suffered his first major injury at 18 when he tore his knee and required seven and a half hours of surgery.

He retired from competition in 1979 to focus on a movie career and got his first big break when he starred in Shaolin Temple in 1982 but injuries were already beginning to mount after the young actor broke his leg among other injuries.

He recovered and years later re-enacted the role of Wong Fei-hung in 1991. His movies broke local box office records along the way.

It was in 1991 that Li shot to fame with the Chinese breakout kung fu movie Once Upon a Time in China, earning him the nickname ‘The King of Kung Fu”. Six years later, Hollywood came knocking and in 1997 he made his American film debut playing the villain in Lethal Weapon 4. Other hits quickly followed such as Romeo Must Die, Kiss of the Dragon and more recently The Expendables franchise.

But fame came at a cost as the injuries and illness mounted. Before earning his star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame, he had suffered a series of injuries included a cracked fifth vertebrae and sickness while in his twenties. He suffered broken ribs, a serious left ankle fracture and internal injuries after falling from a 12-feet high tower during the filming of Fearless in 1986, one of his worst accidents on set.

He revealed he had been warned by doctors in 2013 that he “would end up in a wheelchair” if he continued to make physically-demanding action films.

“I’m in pain but I’m not in a wheelchair yet,” he said at that time.

Married to his second wife, former Miss Asia, Nina Li Chi – now a retired actress, he has four daughters (two from his previous marriage to actress Huang Qiuyan).

Li and his family chose Singapore as their home – where he received Singaporean citizenship in 2009 – over the US, Australia and Switzerland.

He is spending more time behind the camera these days and has become involved in charity work, setting up One Foundation, the first private fundraising charity organisation in China, in 2007.

His last completed project was the 20-minute short kung fu film Gong Shou Dao released late last year.

Li made the Forbes list as one of the most highly paid actors in Asia but said a few years ago: “Money is not the most important thing. Your health is your life.”