Hong Kong actor Julian Cheung Chilam had a blast shooting Herman Yau-helmed action thriller The Leakers, which was filmed in Penang a year ago.

Malaysians first discovered that the Hong Kong action thriller was being shot in George Town when video clips of car chase scenes at Campbell Road went viral last year.

In a phone interview from Hong Kong last week, the 46-year-old shared that although he was again portraying a law enforcement officer, it was very different from his usual cop roles.

In The Leakers, Cheung plays a Malaysian police inspector named Lee Weng Kan who is investigating a criminal case which takes him to Hong Kong.

His co-stars include Francis Ng who plays a Hong Kong cop, Kent Cheng who portrays a Malaysian pharmaceutical tycoon and Charmaine Sheh, Sam Lee, and Louis Cheung who play investigative journalists. Supporting acts include Chrissie Chau, Wilfred Lau, Michelle Wai and Dominic Lau.

Portraying a Malaysian for the first time, Cheung says he was not sure whether to appear fair or tanned when he was making the initial physical preparations for his role.

“I found that many of my Malaysian friends are actually fairer than me, so I tried to make my complexion a bit fairer,” the Hong Kong actor said.

“Initially, I went out to sun myself in order to look darker. Later, I realised when I didn’t have to be tanned, I started spending most of my time indoors to get fairer again!”

Although he prides himself on having a flair for languages, Cheung admitted that having to deliver his lines in Bahasa Malaysia was quite tough.

“Speaking in Malay was actually very challenging for me. There were quite a number of scenes of me speaking in Malay. But very few probably made the final cut. They were beyond comprehension, I can imagine,” he said.

“This being my first time speaking Malay, I had no idea what I was saying. Apparently, neither did the other actors whom I shared scenes with!

“The Malaysian actress playing the domestic helper got a bit confused when I delivered my lines in Malay.”

But his favourite part of shooting in Malaysia was getting to feast on durians.

“We became durian experts. We’ve eaten so many durians that we can even do blind tastings now. We know what durians we are eating even when blindfolded!” said Cheung with a laugh.

Cheung also expressed surprise that the durians in Penang are named after real people.

“In Penang, there are so many varieties of durians. Apart from Musang King, they have varieties such as Joan Lin (Jackie Chan’s wife), Wong Fei Hung and Aunt 13.

“Unfortunately, the Joan Lin variety was sold out, so we only got to try varieties such as Musang King, Sultan, and Red Prawn.

“We didn’t get to taste Centipede either, but we learnt a lot. Hopefully, one day I can also have durians named after me too!”

Canberra has pledged to step up efforts to protect the reef as it reels from mass coral bleaching and coral-eating crown-of-thorns starfish, which have proliferated due to pollution and agricultural runoff.

But the groups said the federal government had failed to stop a key threat to the World Heritage-list area — the impending bulldozing of large swathes of land in reef catchments.

Experts have warned that deforestation increases runoff into the reef, reducing water quality and the light needed for coral growth, while fuelling outbreaks of crown-of-thorns starfish.

In a letter to the United Nations, the Wilderness Society, WWF-Australia, the Australian Conservation Foundation and the Australian Marine Conservation Society called for an urgent investigation as the UNESCO World Heritage Committee’s annual meeting starts in Bahrain.

“Allowing this clearing to go ahead is not consistent with the promises the Australian government has made to the international community to protect and restore the Great Barrier Reef,” Australian Conservation Foundation chief Kelly O’Shanassy said in a statement.

The conservationists said some 36,600 hectares (90,000 acres) of old-growth forest — about half the size of Bahrain — was earmarked to be cut down in reef catchments under permits issued by the former Queensland state government, but that Canberra had the power to stop them from going ahead.

Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg refuted the allegations and said the responsibility for planning and approval of land clearing lay with states.

He added that Canberra had won “significant praise” from the UN for a Aus$2.0 billion (US$1.5 billion) “Reef 2050” plan to protect the reef.

“On top of this investment the… government has also invested an additional Aus$500 million, representing the single largest investment in reef protection and restoration in Australia’s history,” Frydenberg said in a statement to AFP.

The bulk of the new Aus$500 million funding — just over Aus$200 million — announced in April was earmarked to improve water quality by changing farming practices and adopting new technologies and land management.

UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee last year decided not to place the reef on its list of sites “in danger” despite concern over the mass bleaching, citing Canberra’s conservation plans.

The Great Barrier Reef is one of Australia’s best known natural wonders and stretches more than 2,300 kilometres (1,400 miles) along the northeastern coast.

Joshua Jeffrey was convicted of aggravated cruelty to animals after he battered the birds with a stick while drunk on a beach with two others at Sulphur Creek in Tasmania state in 2016.

Magistrate Tamara Jago called it a “callous act” against “vulnerable penguins” and said Jeffery, 20, had shown no remorse, the Hobart Mercury reported from the Burnie Magistrates Court.

The newspaper reported that Jago took Jeffrey’s “intellectual limitation into account” when she sentenced him to community service and ordered him to pay costs of Aus$82.15 (US$61) in a ruling Birdlife Tasmania slammed as “no deterrent whatsoever”.

Jeffrey’s lawyer had earlier told the court that his client had suffered from ongoing mental health issues since childhood, national broadcaster ABC reported.

“This will not stop the next person going out and doing exactly the same thing at some time in the future,” said Birdlife Tasmania chief Eric Woehler, an internationally-acclaimed seabirds expert.

“The sentence places minimal value on Tasmania’s precious wildlife. This sets an unwelcome precedent for future attacks on our wildlife.”

Fairy penguins — the smallest species of penguin which can live to 24 years — are only found in southern Australia and New Zealand, with Tasmania supporting around half of the global population.

Also known as little penguins, the six died of head fractures, and the court was told that the colony at Sulphur Creek, which supports an estimated 267 pairs, would take years to recover.

“With so many other threats, such as gillnets and dog attacks, the last thing any penguin colony needs is a senseless and cruel attack such as this one was,” added Woehler.

    The scene inside this Kabul gym is repeated at venues all round the capital, where bodybuilding has become ubiquitous since the fall of the Taliban regime.

The sport has a long tradition in Afghanistan, and was even tolerated by the Taliban when they ruled the country from 1996-2001 — so long as the men wore long trousers as they lifted.

But as security deteriorated and the initial euphoria after the US invasion dissipated into stress, trauma and loss, more and more young men took to the gym.

“Everyone, everywhere in Afghanistan, wants to have a beautiful body shape, and this sport is a favourite sport for every young man,” says Hares Mohammadi, a law and political science student turned champion bodybuilder who is also a trainer at one gym in Kabul.

The 25-year-old, dressed in grey, strikes different poses showing off his carefully honed muscles, and warms up his chest and shoulders ahead of a regional bodybuilding competition.

Despite a surge in bombings and suicide attacks, life goes on, he says, and young Afghans want to “make their mark”. One way is through sporting success.

So, along with Schwarzenegger, other stars from Hollywood and Bollywood such as Sylvester Stallone and Salman Khan are held up as heroes, and the gyms stay busy for hours, filled with music and camaraderie as men tone their bodies to perfection.

– The old days –

It was not always so.

Afghan bodybuilding legend Aziz Arezo reminisces about his time as a teenage lifter, when there were “very, very few people” in the capital who knew anything about the sport.

He himself was only inspired to take it up after seeing movies and posters featuring foreigners such as Schwarzenegger.

“Arnold was my… role model,” he says, smiling as he remembers how expensive postcards featuring the star were.

Speaking to AFP between lifting weights at his small gym in Kabul, Arezo — his physique not quite what it was in his glorious bodybuilding past — reels off his long list of accolades, including being named Afghanistan’s first master sport bodybuilder by the country’s Olympic Committee in the 1970s.

It is a long career, and at times a lonely one.

Though now a trainer himself, guiding hundreds of Afghan youths through lifts and crunches, he never had the guidance of one.

Years ago he made the equipment and dumbbells in his gym from spare car parts as there was no place to buy them.

“I have been a teacher of myself,” he says, adding that his dumbbells are “more efficient than foreign dumbbells”.

Under Taliban rule, he worked for four months in Kabul before eventually fleeing again, fearing their restrictions despite their views on bodybuilding.

“Nowadays, bodybuilding clubs are everywhere in the city, and everyone has made a gym of his own,” he says.

He has trained hundreds of bodybuilders in his career, but is suspicious of new methods employed by many young Afghans, including taking protein supplements to boost their abilities.

“I believe if you do sport or exercise naturally, it is better than protein,” he says, warning of detrimental side effects.

“Before my workout… I was drinking carrot and banana juice, and post-training, I was taking two eggs, three glasses of milk, one bowl of beans and lentils, and it was everyday food for me,” he says.

“Today’s bodybuilding is not natural.”

– Stress and frustration –

Regardless of the method, sport can help ease the psychological trauma of nearly four decades of war, says Ali Fitrat, a psychology professor at Kabul University.

Afghans are stressed socially, culturally, financially and politically, he said, citing fighting, insecurity and poor economic conditions as some of the most devastating factors.

As such, he says sports such as bodybuilding can play a “vital role”.

But, like Mohammadi, he also suggests that young men in particular have a strong desire to make their mark.

“They want to show their bodies, they want to attract the attention of the people, and they want to have different looks and to look different than the others,” he said.

However, security continues to deteriorate in Kabul, where both the Taliban and the Islamic State group have stepped up their attacks.

Many fearful residents now limit their movements. Arezo says his gym’s membership has shrunk.

“Nowadays people are concerned about fleeing the country rather than taking up sport,” he says.//AFP

The officer was arrested at the MACC headquarters around 9.45pm on Sunday (June 24) where he was earlier called to have his statement recorded.

Sources said he is being investigated as he is a director of a company believed to have money banked into its accounts.

With Italy — long the frontline in Europe’s migration crisis — vowing a new hardline stance, Salvini told the aid groups to back off and let the Libyan coastguard take care of rescue operations.

“Let the Libyan authorities do their work of rescue, recovery and return (of migrants) to their country, as they have been doing for some time, without the ships of the voracious NGOs disturbing them or causing trouble,” he said.

“Italian ports are and will be closed to those who aid human traffickers,” he said.

Spanish group Proactiva Open Arms said it had received “seven or eight” messages alerting them to boats in distress in the Mediterranean on Sunday.

“Combining all the notifications, it would add up to 1,000 people” near the coast of Libya, spokeswoman Laura Lanuza told AFP.

But she said the Italian coastguard had told the group they “weren’t needed” and “the operation was being handled by the Libyan coastguard”.

“If the Libyan coastguard coordinates this effort, all these people will be sent back to Libya,” she said.

Late Sunday, Salvini tweeted that the Libyan coastguard had rescued “820 migrants” and once again took aim at NGO ships.

“I would like to express my heartfelt thanks, as a minister and as a father, to the authorities and the Libyan coastguard,” he said.

“Today they saved and brought 820 immigrants back to Libya, making the “work” of the traffickers in vain and avoiding wrongful interventions by NGO ships.”

It was not clear if the migrants referred to by Salivini were the same ones highlighted by Proactiva Open Arms

Safe harbour

Earlier Sunday Barcelona mayor Ada Colau had called on the Spanish government to save the migrants in distress.

“Right now more than 1,000 people adrift in seven boats and Italy intends to leave them in the hands of Libya, where people are tortured, raped and enslaved,” she said on Twitter.

She urged her own country to “help save lives” and said the migrants could would be welcomed in her city.

“Barcelona is offered as a safe harbour.”

In recent weeks, Italy’s new populist government has cracked down on foreign rescue ships operating in the Mediterranean.

Salvini has repeatedly accused the charities of being complicit with human smugglers.

The Italian coastguard also sent a message to rescue boats operating in the Mediterranean Friday informing them it would no longer be coordinating rescue operations in the Libya search and rescue area.

The groups, which have been chartering boats to rescue migrants, point to the very difficult conditions for migrants in Libya as they attempt to reach Europe on the perilous Mediterranean crossing.

Rome once played an important role coordinating rescue missions but Salvini wants to drastically reduce Italy’s involvement.

Earlier this month Salvini triggered an EU-wide row when he barred the Aquarius rescue ship, chartered by French charity SOS Mediterranee, carrying around 630 migrants, from docking in Italy. Nearby Malta also turned the boat away and the ship was later accepted by Spain.

Two other ships carrying hundreds of migrants — the German NGO ship Lifeline and Danish container ship Alexander Maersk — are currently in the Mediterranean awaiting instructions on where they will be allowed to dock.

Both Italy and Malta have refused to take them in.

Salvini’s refusal to welcome the rescue ships has thrust immigration to the forefront of the EU agenda. On Sunday EU leaders held a mini-summit on the issue.

IN A MEETING with French President Emmanuel Macron today, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha would highlight economic relations, offering opportunities for entrepreneurs from France to use Thailand as their regional hub for trade and investment, but the junta chief was also ready to discuss democratisation, diplomatic sources said.

President Macron was expected to raise the issue of democratisation and human rights but Prayut would reaffirm his stance on following the road map towards election early next year, said diplomats close to the preparations for the meeting.

A group of exiled dissidents in France, meanwhile, plan to gather and show their disapproval of Prayut’s visit while urging Macron to pressure the junta chief on suppression of democracy and human rights abuses. Prayut, however, might not be seeing the dissidents, as the French authorities are likely to keep them away from the meeting venue.

“The relations with France these days are driven by economic factors notably the role of the private sector in trade and investment in aviation and the high technology sector,” said a diplomat on condition of anonymity.

Prayut arrived in France from London on Friday and witnessed the signing of an agreement between Airbus Commercial Aircraft and Thai Airways International in Toulouse to set up a multi-billion-baht maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) project for jetliners at the U-tapao airport.The MRO would be a giant leap towards making Thailand a genuine aviation hub in the region, said the diplomat and added the country would be a major supply chain for the industry.

Dubbed as the largest MRO hub of its kind planned for Asia Pacific, the U-tapao facility will have an annual capacity to service up to 4,800 wide-bodied aircraft such as A350 and A380 over the next two decades.

Many leading French companies such as VINCI Construction have also expressed their interest in doing business in Thailand, notably in the Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC). Their investments would support Thailand’s 4.0 vision and human resource development, he said.

Prayut’s visit to Europe became possible only after the European Union softened its stance on resuming political engagement at all levels with the Thai military government late last year.

Paris might have realised that enhancing economic ties had to go along with strong political relations with the Thai government, the diplomat said, adding, “engaging is better than no engagement”.

Macron, who champions the causes of reform, multilateralism and climate change, is expected to broach these subjects with Prayut, especially as Thailand would be taking the leadership reins of Asean next year. The EU is a dialogue partner of Asean and France also regards the regional grouping as the centre of security architecture in the Indo-Pacific, the diplomat said. In this context, regional issues such as the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar would be raised and Prayut was prepared to discuss Thailand’s role, he said.

Saran Chuichai is fixing posters in protest of Prayut’s visit to Paris–[pictured by Junya Yimprasert]

Meanwhile, activists Junya Yimprasert, Saran Chuichai – better known as Aum Neko – Jaran Ditapichai and other well-known dissidents said they had organised a series of protests since late last week when Prayut landed in France. The group has distributed hundreds of posters and stickers slamming Prayut as a dictator in Paris yesterday. Posters entitled “Dictateur de Thailande” were seen in public in Paris, according to Junya’s Facebook.

Jaran Ditapichai, left, is in protest on business deal between Airbus and Thai Airways sealed when Prayut arrived in France on Friday [pictured by Junya Yimprasert]

The demonstrations would reach a climax today when the group takes its protests to the French Presidential Palace, although local police would keep the group 150 metres away from the palace.

“There would be a surprise for the Thai dictator,” Junya told The Nation, “we have a clear message for the French leader – not to have any agreement with Prayut since he is not the legitimate leader of Thailand.”

Prayut staged a military coup in 2014 to topple the elected civilian government led by Yingluck Shinawatra, who is now in self-exile abroad and showed up in London when Prayut was there last week.

“We want President Macron to press him to return democracy to the Thai people soon,” Junya said.

The group also submitted a protest letter to Airbus when the giant aircraft manufacturer signed a pact with Thai Airways last week.

Yesterday, the group gathered at a park, distributed posters and leaflets as well as discussed the future of Thai democracy on the occasion of 86th anniversary of the 1932 Revolution that turned Thailand from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy.