How Did Busy Benedict Bulk Up For ‘Star Trek’?
The broad-shouldered Benedict Cumberbatch as John Harrison in Star Trek Into Darkness
And they’d be right to have spotted this, because for a few weeks, during filming, Benedict had the unenviable task of trying to match the height and breadth of his co-stars Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto using just food and exercise as his tools, as he explained to the ITV breakfast show Daybreak.
“Physically and vocally I needed to have a lot of presence, and Zach and Chris are tall men. They’re taller than me and they’re broader than me, and I don’t mean that in a euphemistic sense for them being rotund, they are square-shouldered, big American men.
“So I thought ‘I’ve really got to catch up fast!’ I did a lot of training and I did a lot of eating. By the end I could – and I say this knowing full well if you asked me now I would faceplant – but I ended up being able to do handstand press-ups: Feet up against the wall, lowering my head to the floor and pushing up.
“It didn’t last long, but I could definitely do that for a week or two. I ate 4,000 calories a day for a good two or three weeks. It was a lot of food and I popped up about four suit sizes.”
Yep, that’s how the Cumberbatch measures his own bodily bulk: Suit sizes. Scales are just so… common.
Best of all, when presented with the ever-present bubbling rumor that he might be in line to play the Doctor, should Matt Smith decide to step down anytime soon, he displayed astonishingly deft diplomacy, saying: “Really? Oh no I am not aware of those rumors, other rumors but not that one.
UN names North Korea human rights investigators
North Korea is unlikely to
allow investigators into its borders
The UN has named the three panel
members for its first-ever human rights investigation into North Korea.
Retired Judge Michael Kirby will chair the inquiry, working with UN special rapporteur Marzuki Darusman, and human rights activist Sonja Biserko.
The panel will examine reports of prison camps, torture and food deprivation, reporting back in March 2014, a UN statement said.
North Korea has previously denounced the investigation as a political ploy.
It is highly unlikely that North Korea will give access to the investigators, so the panel will have to rely on satellite imagery and testimony from defectors.
However, Michael Kirby, a former justice of Australia's High Court, said the panel would approach the inquiry with "complete independence" and no "preconceptions", and that North Korea would be given "due process".
"I certainly want to try to engage with North Korea so that we can get the best and most reliable material and report that to the United Nations which, after all, is the eyes and ears of the world," he told Australian broadcaster ABC.
Mr Kirby added that many people had already contacted him, offering to make submissions to the commission.
He will be joined by Sonja Biserko, a founder of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia, and former Indonesia attorney-general Marzuki Darusman.
Marzuki Darusman is currently the UN Special Rapporteur on North Korea. He had presented the UN's initial report on North Korea, which led the UN human rights council to set up the inquiry.
His report highlighted the conditions in North Korea's prison camps, believed to hold around 200,000 people, and described "widespread and systematic violations of human rights" including enforced
North Korea to issue verdict on US citizen
North Korea says US man arrested
A US citizen will be tried soon on
charges including attempting to overthrow North Korea's government, the North's
official news agency says.
KCNA says that Pae Jun-Ho has admitted the charges, without specifying when the verdict will be handed down.
Pae Jun-Ho, who is known in the US as Kenneth Bae, was held last year after entering North Korea as a tourist.
His case comes at a time of high tension between Pyongyang and Washington.
This follows North Korea's third nuclear test in February.
'Proved by evidence'
"The preliminary inquiry into crimes committed by American citizen Pae Jun-Ho closed," the KCNA said in a report on Saturday.
"In the process of investigation he admitted that he committed crimes aimed to topple the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) with hostility toward it.
"His crimes were proved by evidence," the report added. "He will soon be taken to the Supreme Court of the DPRK to face judgement."
“Start Quote
End Quote Koh Yu-hwan Dongguk University, SeoulFor North Korea, Bae is a bargaining chip in dealing with the US ”
It is not clear what sort of sanction Mr Pae, 44, might
face, although North Korea's criminal code provides for life imprisonment or the
death penalty for similar offences.
North Korea has arrested several US citizens in recent years, including journalists and Christians accused of proselytism. They have been released after intervention by senior American public figures.
Mr Pae, believed to be a tour operator of Korean descent, is the sixth American detained in North Korea since 2009.
Former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter as well as former UN Ambassador Bill Richardson have all been involved in mediation efforts to gain the release of previous American detainees.
Industrial complex
In one of the most high-profile cases, Mr Clinton negotiated the release in 2009 of two US journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, who had been found guilty of entering North Korea illegally.
"For North Korea, Bae is a bargaining chip in dealing with the US," Koh Yu-hwan, a professor of North Korean Studies at Dongguk University in Seoul told Associated Press news agency.
"The North will use him in a way that helps bring the US to talks when the mood slowly turns toward dialogue,'' he said.
The last South Korean workers
will leave the joint industrial zone on Monday Mr Pae was reportedly arrested in November after arriving in Rason - a special economic zone in the north-east of the country near the Russian border.
Washington has so far not publicly commented on the latest development.
The US and North Korea do not have diplomatic relations. The Swedish embassy in Pyongyang represents the US.
In a further sign of the continuing tension on the Korean peninsula, South Korea has begun withdrawing its remaining workers from the Kaesong joint industrial zone in North Korea.
The complex, once considered a symbol of reconciliation, lies just north of the military demarcation line dividing the two Koreas.
South Korean officials said 126 people had left, with the final 48 expected home by Monday.
North Korea has already withdrawn its 53,000 workers and blocked access to the zone in response to joint South Korean and US military exercises.
disa9 May 2013 Last updated at 12:26 GMT
Syria conflict: US says Assad can have no post-war role
John Kerry met Jordanian
Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh in Rome
US Secretary of State John Kerry has
said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad would have no role in a political
settlement to Syria's conflict.
The comments followed reports that the US was softening its insistence on Mr Assad's departure as a precondition for any deal - as demanded by rebels.
That had been opposed by Russia, which this week agreed to convene an international conference on Syria.
Meanwhile, Jordan said Syrian refugees now make up 10% of its population.
Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh said that by the end of the year that figure could reach 25%, and 40% by mid-2014.
Mr Kerry announced a further $100m (£64m) in aid for Syrian refugees, $43m of which would go to Jordan.
'Very positive response'
Speaking to reporters in Rome, Mr Kerry said Mr Nasser would work with the US to "effect a transition government by mutual consent of both sides, which clearly means that in our judgement President Assad will not be a component of that transitional government".
Mr Kerry also said there had been a "very positive response" to the US-Russian proposal for an international conference on Syria, announced after Mr Kerry held talks in Moscow with President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
The forum will try to persuade both the Syrian government and opposition to accept a solution based on the core elements of the final communique issued after the UN-backed Action Group for Syria meeting in Geneva last June.
The communique called for an immediate cessation of violence and the establishment of a transitional government that could include officials serving under President Bashar al-Assad and members of the opposition.
"We are going to forge ahead very, very directly to work with all of the parties to bring that conference together," Mr Kerry said on Thursday.
The UN-Arab League envoy for Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, said the deal was "the first hopeful news" on Syria for a long time, but cautioned that it was "only a first step".
British Prime Minister David Cameron, who is due to fly to Moscow for talks with Mr Putin about Syria on Friday, said there was an urgent need to "force a political transition" in Damascus.
Mr Cameron also told parliament on Wednesday that there was a "growing body of limited but persuasive information showing that the regime has used and continues to use chemical weapons, including sarin".
After Moscow, Mr Cameron will travel to the US, where he is also expected to discuss Syria. The UK is pushing for the EU arms embargo against the main Syrian opposition group, the National Coalition, to be lifted or amended.
Last week, the US said it was reconsidering its opposition to supplying weapons to rebel forces.
More than 70,000 people are estimated to have been killed since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began in March 2011.
Nearly 1.5 million Syrians have fled their country, and as many as four million are thought to have been internally displaced, according to UN estimates.
ppearances and using food to control people.
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