One of Singapore's most well-known Mobile Legends players, EVOS SG's Stefan "Soul" Chong is stepping down as a player to focus on other aspects of esports.
He talks to Yahoo Esports Southeast Asia on his playing career and his plans for the future.
Memory Makers: In a new series, Yahoo News Singapore talks to the last kacang puteh man in Singapore.
FIFA's Ethics committee says it cannot prosecute German former World Cup winner Franz Beckenbauer and two other German football officials in an alleged bribery case due to time running out on the case. FIFA's investigatory chamber concluded in 2016 that Beckenbauer, Theo Zwanziger and Horst Schmidt had broken the organisation's rules on bribery and corruption during the successful German bid campaign for the hosting rights to the 2006 World Cup.
Israel on Thursday imposed a curfew for the Jewish holiday of Purim, when crowds of revelers traditionally don costumes and party late into the night, as a precaution after last year's festivities became a coronavirus super-spreader event. This weekend, from 8:30 p.m. until 5 a.m., instead of dancing and drinking at house parties and outdoor jamborees, Israelis are required to stay at home. "We can be happy, we can put on costumes, but we have to follow the rules."
Irisnaide Silva is female, Brazilian, indigenous, and she's found an unlikely ally: Brazil's nationalist president Jair Bolsonaro.The 32-year-old is the leader of the Macuxi tribe – one of two main indigenous groups in the Amazonian state of Roraima.For decades her family picked and panned their land, scouring the hills for diamonds and gold.They kept digging even after the government marked the land as indigenous territory in 2005 – a measure that prohibited mining despite protests from her tribe.Now, Silva has the ear of none other than Bolsonaro.The right-wing leader is abhorred by the global green movement for his eagerness to develop the Amazon rainforest."You (indigenous) have a lot of land! Let's use this land! When it comes to mining, Raposa Serra do Sol and Yanomami, underground, state of Francisco Rodrigues (Politician and former governor of Roraima), have billions, trillions of dollars, this need not even be discussed. Are we going to remain poor? Being enslaved by NGOs?"Silva has twice met with Bolsonaro in the capital Brasilia.The first time was soon after he took power in January 2019 to discuss a bill that would authorize mining on native lands.It’s not clear if the bill will make it through Brazil’s unwieldy Congress nor how lucrative mining would be on these lands.But Bolsonaro has made the bill a 2021 priority.And by teaming up with some indigenous people like Silva, activists say Bolsonaro is exacerbating tensions within tribes through divide-and-conquer methods that historically helped destroy native lands worldwide.Many indigenous associations also see Silva as a traitor, manipulated by rapacious intruders eager to grab lands and resources.She does not care."We always appreciate that, dressing well, eating well, having a car. This has been evolving, today we are looking for that. If we can dress better and better, we will do it!"And she does have some support from within the indigenous community.Workers at this mine near Napoleão sweat from dawn til dusk with pickaxes to get 4% of the mining profits.Diggers take 74% and those with machines to extract gold take the final 22%.But it’s enough, according to the town’s indigenous leader Carpejane Lima."The importance of mining not only for my community but for the others is also the development it is bringing. Those who didn't own a bicycle, now do. Those who did not have a motorcycle, now do! Those who didn't own a car, now do. Those who didn't have a house are now building one."
The number of available COVID-19 vaccine doses is steadily rising around the world.But a shortage of physical space that meets standards for pharmaceutical manufacturing is a becoming a bottleneck.That's according to drugmakers, construction experts and officials involved in the U.S. vaccine program.The production of raw materials, vaccine formulation and vial filling requires special "clean rooms".They need features like air cleaners, sterile water and sterilizing steam.Moderna this week announced plans to expand vaccine manufacturing capacity.But said it will be a year before that can add to its production.With vaccines needed for billions of people, drugmakers have even had to turn to rivals for help in churning out doses.And the emergence of new variants is likely to increase the strain.Many are counting on the authorization of Johnson & Johnson's vaccine this week.Longer term, tackling COVID-19 may require annual shots to protect against new virus mutations, similar to the flu.Building new facilities and even expanding existing sites has typically taken years. During the pandemic, some projects have reportedly been completed in as little as 6-to-10 months.Emergent BioSolutions, which is making J&J and AstraZeneca vaccines for the US, says it cannot add any more equipment to facilities dedicated to those vaccines.Some firms are purchasing and repurposing existing plants to sidestep construction. Pfizer-partner BioNTech bought a German facility from Novartis in September.
Gaga, whose recent performances included singing the national anthem at President Joe Biden's inauguration last month, has been in Rome filming a movie. The outlet said Gaga's dog walker was walking the dogs on Wednesday evening when he was shot.
Lisa Opie, managing director of U.K. production at BBC Studios, is departing after eight years with the company. The executive will leave in the coming months. She reported to BBC Studios director of content Ralph Lee and will help him find a replacement. Opie was responsible for delivering BBC Studios Productions’ business plan, defining and […]
Press Secretary Jen Psaki conducts a briefing at the White House.
A conscientious toddler gave part of his meal to a Mickey Mouse doll in Rock Hill, South Carolina.Footage by Katessa Kennedy shows her grandson Karson sitting in his high chair and sharing his food with Mickey, who had a high chair of his own for the breakfast party.Katessa told Storyful that the cute clip was filmed in December 2019.“This boy loves Mickey,” she wrote in a Facebook post. Credit: Katessa Kennedy via Storyful
In celebration of Ruth E. Carter making history as the second costume designer, and the first Black costume designer to receive a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, Carter shares two of her favorite sketches with Variety. “BLACK PANTHER” Director Ryan Coogler presented Ruth E. Carter with a bible explaining the fictional country of […]
Wales wing Louis Rees-Zammit's try-scoring exploits and poster-boy looks are winning him fans far and wide, with even coach Wayne Pivac's stepchildren among the Gloucester flyer's legion of admirers.
President Joe Biden’s pick to be the top U.S. trade envoy promised to work with America’s allies to combat China’s aggressive trade policies, indicating a break from the Trump administration’s go-it-alone approach. Tai dodged questions on two politically sensitive questions — whether the Biden administration would drop President Donald Trump's tariffs on imported steel and aluminum and whether it would revive former President Barack Obama's Asia-Pacific trade deal that was jettisoned by Trump.
The northern lights were seen dancing above Reykjavik, Iceland, after a series of earthquakes shook the capital city on February 24.Gudmar Kristjansson captured this footage the evening after a 5.7-magnitude earthquake rocked the city, followed by another with a magnitude of 4.9, according to local news outlets.“Following a day with consistent earthquakes throughout the day, we were greeted with this spectacular northern light show in Iceland,” Kristjansson said. “What a day.”The footage shows the green aurora borealis moving across the sky. Credit: Gudmar Kristjansson via Storyful
A fleet of yellow taxis line up outside Gaza's newly reopened Rafah crossing into Egypt, polished and ready to roll, but who knows for how long.It's been two weeks since one of Gaza's few gates to the outside world swung open, after years of blockade.Life is trickling back into the economy. Jaber Abu Talal is a transit taxi driver, who relies on the crossing."It’s good that the crossing is open, we will be making a living. When the crossing is closed, we stay at home. These cars have no work inside the town."What unlocked the door were Egyptian-brokered talks between rival Palestinian factions to smooth the way for possible elections.Egypt had been opening Rafah rarely, and for just a few days at a time.There's no airport in Gaza and an Israeli-led blockade on people and goods has inflicted grave hardship for years.Hepatitis patient Uday Zaanin was waiting to board a bus."It is a lifeline for the Gaza Strip and its people, we don't have another crossing, our only crossing is Rafah crossing to Egypt and then on to other countries. When it is closed that means Gaza is dead and we feel like we're in prison. When it is open we can breathe and we can travel where we want."About 2 million Palestinians live in the 140-square-mile Gaza strip, where uncertainty is a fact of life.Israel and Egypt cite security concerns for the restrictions, pointing to the fact that Gaza is controlled by the Islamist militant group Hamas.
Thierry Henry cited family reasons for his decision to step down as head coach of CF Montreal, the organization announced Thursday morning. The move also comes amid multiple media outlets reporting that Henry had interviewed for the vacant position at Bournemouth. "It is with a heavy heart that I've decided to take this decision," Henry said in a club statement.
A live-action “G.I. Joe” TV series is in the works at Amazon, Variety has confirmed. The series will be a standalone story centered around “G.I. Joe” undercover operative, Lady Jaye, with the series also connecting to the larger “G.I. Joe” universe. The series hails from Paramount Television Studios, eOne, and Skydance Television. Erik Oleson created the […]
Fnatic have now reasserted themselves as the top dogs of Southeast Asia, topping the league with six wins and a 13-4 game record to secure a direct seed to the Major playoffs.
In “Cherry,” Tom Holland sports a buzzcut, dead eyes, and a skeevy complexion. In a look-at-my-badass-self reversal from the effusive heroics of the “Spider-Man” films, he plays an Iraq War veteran turned opioid addict turned heroin addict turned bank robber, and he looks zoned-out and strung-out, like Eminem as a fallen Eagle Scout. He gets […]
Television commercials have long been one of the media industry’s surest bets — so much so that advertisers around the world dumped a whopping $149 billion on them in 2020, according to estimates from Magna, the large media-buying firm. But Pepsi recently decided to take a gamble on something else. On Valentine’s Day, the soda […]
Some of the roles that attract rising young performers wanting to be taken seriously as adult actors include a) traumatized combat veteran, b) suffering drug addict, and c) desperate bank robber, and “Cherry” gives Tom Holland the opportunity to play d) all of the above. As a showcase for Holland, “Cherry” absolutely offers the chance to stretch and expand his talents to places that the “Spider-Man” franchise would never allow. Beyond that, however, this is a distressingly familiar tale of trauma and addiction that often plays like a cover version of older, better movies about war and drugs. Fraternal filmmakers Anthony Russo and Joe Russo, coming off the worldwide success of “Avengers: Infinity War” and “Avengers: Endgame,” obviously have the clout to write their own ticket, and they’ve opted to move in the opposite direction, making a film about life-sized human beings in everyday distress. Still, this adaptation of Nico Walker’s novel (written by Angela Russo-Otstot and Jessica Goldberg) takes a cursory approach to the big issues it seeks to explore. Holland’s character very pointedly has no name, but he doesn’t have much else, either. Watch Video: 'Cherry' Trailer: Tom Holland Breaks Bad and Shows His Dark Side in Russo Brothers' Latest In flashbacks, we meet our troubled hero at the age of 18, going to college and falling for classmate Emily (Ciara Bravo, “A Teacher”). They’re seemingly happy, until she suddenly announces she’s transferring to a school in Montreal; distraught, the young man joins the Army, and it’s too late to get out of his commitment when Emily changes her mind and stays. (We get a few hints regarding her emotional wounds, but like so much in “Cherry,” this angle is underexplored.) They get married before he’s deployed to Iraq (it’s just after 9/11), and after grueling basic training, he sees his first combat as a medic. It’s destructive to his psyche, particularly after his best friend dies right in front of him. (Points to the film for making the aftermath of this horrifying incident visible on screen rather than being discreetly implied.) Tour of duty accomplished, he returns home to receive the medal of valor, but is physically and psychologically damaged, a situation briefly remedied by an inattentive VA doctor’s prescription of oxycontin, which eventually turns both him and Emily into self-described “dope fiends.” Also Read: No, Tom Holland's 'Cherry' Poster Is Not Supposed to Look That Bad That’s when the bank-robbing starts, both to afford their fixes and stay in the good graces of a preppy-dressing dealer known only as “Pills & Coke” (Jack Reynor). As the film lurches toward the climax of its 140-minute running time, it becomes uncomfortably apparent that the filmmakers are less interested in addiction as a source of drama, character, or commentary, and more as a chance to gawk at tragedy. “Cherry” does acknowledge that the military-industrial complex feeds on young men and women who lack other economic opportunities, and then fails to take proper care of them after they’re been scarred by combat, but that’s the only piece of contextualization the film has to offer. And since our nameless hero and Emily exist in a void with few friends or family members — each has parents that are seen once — we’re left with one line in Holland’s reams and reams of narration about how their addiction has destroyed their personal relationships. Also Read: Tom Holland Announces the Real 'Spider-Man 3' Title After a Bunch of Fakes More frustrating is the Russo’s stylized Pop filmmaking style, self-consciously jittery throughout, turning genuinely human scaled issues into sensational bursts of energy. The war sequences and drug-abuse scenes allow Newton Thomas Sigel’s camera to glide all over creation, and that dizzying visual sense might have carried some meaning and emotional impact if left alone elsewhere. This, however, is not the case, and what works during emotionally frenzied moments (owing a debt to films like “Apocalypse Now” and “Trainspotting”) proves distracting everywhere else. Holland and Bravo (and, in his few scenes, Reynor) make the most of the opportunities being laid out before them. These are characters pushed to the edge, but the actors know when to pull back and maintain a sense of tragic scale, even when they’re engaged in extreme behavior. Smaller moments land as well: Holland’s phone-call home from Iraq after his friend’s death, in particular, features a full-bodied grief that’s tough and powerful to witness. These moments of emotional honesty aren’t enough to give “Cherry” the resonance that these situations deserve. From its facile depiction of the role of incarceration in the rehab process — addiction is a health issue that we keep mistakenly treating as a criminal issue — to the under-writing of the characters, what should be a harrowing drama instead comes off as an anti-drug pamphlet. “Cherry” opens in select theaters Feb. 26 and on AppleTV+ March 12. Read original story ‘Cherry’ Film Review: Tom Holland Addiction Drama Unfolds in an All-Too-Familiar Way At TheWrap
