Author: Ohart

There have been mixed reactions in Cameroon after the Confederation of African Football (CAF) withdrew the 2019 continental soccer event-hosting rights from the central African state. The government has described the CAF decision as “total injustice” while some people say the suspension should act as an eye opener for the government to solve the crisis that has destabilized the English speaking regions for more than two years.

Night shift workers transport roofing material and seats to the Olembe stadium on the outskirts of Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde. It is here the government of Cameroon had announced the opening and closing matches of the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations would take place.

Work supervisor Angel Thamin says they are working night and day so that the stadium should be ready by March 2019, three months before the official kickoff of the competition.

“For the main stadium, all the structure elements are here, almost a hundred percent,” he said. “When it comes to office ventilation as you can see, I mean, you know it is extremely advanced and the main stadium will be finished in terms of structures and as you can see now, it is not only foundations and columns, but you can see slabs that are ready.”

Issa Tchiroma, Cameroon government spokesperson and minister of communication says the government has instructed all companies working on infrastructure projects for the football feast to continue as if CAF had not stripped hosting rights from Cameroon.

“Cameroon has put in a creditable performance,” said Tchiroma. “It shall prove it to the entire world by completing with the same determination and on time, the construction of this modern infrastructure belonging to the Cameroonian people. Our country which has written the pages of African football in bold letters will not relent her effort in working with other African countries to develop football in our beloved Africa.”

Issa Tchiroma says Cameroon, a five-time African football champion, agreed to host the prestigious African event even though CAF decided to increase the size of the tournament from 16 to 24 teams without asking its opinion.

But during Friday’s extraordinary meeting of CAF’s executive committee in Accra, Ghana, the football body said the infrastructure was not ready. They also raised security concerns, especially in the restive English-speaking regions where armed conflicts have continued for more than two years, leading to the deaths of more than 1,200 civilians, fighters and military personnel, and leaving hundreds of thousands displaced.

Gladys Matute, a 24-year English-speaking Cameroonian says she is very okay with the decision to remove hosting rights from Cameroon until peace is negotiated in the restive regions.

“We cannot be hosting an event when we know that the two English speaking regions are not at peace,” she said. “They are killing people, so it is good for the president to come back and sit and talk with the Anglophone regions so that there should be some peace. Paul Biya should sit up and there should be some peace talks.”

Secondary school student Rose Ghani says she had expected CAF to withdraw the hosting rights a long time ago.

“We are not surprised because embassies have been refusing their citizens from traveling to Cameroon especially to the northwest and southwest,” she said. “And also we have the Boko Haram fight in the far north. Moreover, all the towns to host are suffering from insecurity. There is also fear that when the tournament will be going on the Ambazonian fighters might attack people in Yaounde.”

The 2019 finals will take place from June 15-July 13, a change from the traditional January period.

Cameroon had proposed five cities, Limbe, Bafoussam, Douala, Garoua and the capital Yaounde as competition venues.

CAF says it has initiated an urgent and open call for a new host.

 

 

 
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Since President John Adams and first lady Abigail Adams’ Christmas party at the White House in December 1800, wintertime in the U.S. president’s residence has been filled with various holiday festivities. This year, first lady Melania Trump has decked White House halls in the spirit of the patriotic theme “American Treasures.” Patsy Widakuswara has this report.
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A San Francisco chef is the first woman in the United States to be awarded three stars from the Michelin Guide.

Dominique Crenn celebrated the honor on Instagram Thursday with her staff at Atelier Crenn, posting “congratulations to my amazing team.”

 

It was not the only honor for Crenn in Michelin’s Bay Area guide. Michelin also awarded one star to her new wine bar, Bar Crenn.

 

One star means “a very good restaurant,” while three stars signify “exceptional cuisine that is worth a special journey.”

 

Michelin’s international director Gwendal Poullennec tells The Mercury News it sends a “very positive message.” Poullennec says Michelin hopes “it will lead to more women operating their own restaurants.”

 

 
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FIFA’s ethics committee has imposed a four-year ban on a soccer official for accepting a bribe, reportedly from former presidential candidate Mohamed bin Hammam.

FIFA says Manuel Dende, former president of the Sao Tomean Football Association, is also fined 75,000 Swiss francs ($75,000).

 

FIFA gave no details about the charges Dende faced, of bribery and corruption plus accepting gifts.

 

Dende took a $50,000 cash gift from Bin Hammam, according to authors of “The Ugly Game” book about the now-banned Qatari official’s dealings at FIFA.  

 

In 2009, the book states, Dende asked Bin Hammam for $232,000 in his personal bank account to help build artificial pitches on his home island in west Africa.

 

Citing Bin Hammam correspondence, the book said $50,000 was eventually wired months later.
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Angola’s most famous operatic tenor hopes to inspire more Africans to take up the classical music form. Nelson Ebo has performed around the world and is currently starring with the Heartbeat Opera company on stage in New York. He recently sang in Washington, where VOA Portuguese Service’s Mayra de Lassalette met up with him.
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The Mystery Writers of America withdrew a major honor Thursday from author Linda Fairstein after other writers condemned the ex-prosecutor’s role in New York’s notorious “Central Park Five” case. 

The decision, just two days after the Grand Master Award was announced, marked the first time the group has ever rescinded the prize, which recognizes lifetime achievement and has been given to such scribes as Sue Grafton and Stephen King. 

“MWA cannot move forward with an award that lacks the support of such a large percentage of our members,” the group said in a statement that also pledged to re-evaluate its process for selecting honorees. 

Fairstein, known for her best-selling novels featuring prosecutor Alex Cooper, was speaking at a conference Thursday and referred an inquiry to her publisher, Penguin Publishing Group’s Dutton imprint. It had no immediate comment. 

When the award was announced Tuesday, Fairstein called it “a thrilling surprise.”

“I’m pinching myself,” she tweeted at the time. 

But some prominent mystery writers, including Attica Locke and Nick Kolakowski, expressed outrage over the decision. On Thursday, Locke tweeted “Thank you (at)EdgarAwards for listening.” 

Fairstein was the top Manhattan sex crimes prosecutor when five teenagers were charged with the 1989 rape and beating of a female investment banker jogging in Central Park. 

The attack became a national symbol of urban mayhem at a time when New York City’s murder rate was nearing its historical peak. The case also bared the city’s racial and class divide, painting a portrait of a crew of black and Hispanic youths “wilding” and preying on a white professional. Donald Trump, a New York real estate developer at the time, bought full-page newspaper ads reading “Bring Back The Death Penalty. Bring Back Our Police!”

The teens said they were coerced into confessing their involvement in the attack. Their convictions were overturned in 2002 after convicted murderer and serial rapist Matias Reyes confessed to committing the crime alone, and DNA linked him to it. 

Prosecutors stopped short of declaring the five innocent but withdrew all charges. The legal time clock had run out for charging Reyes, who was already serving life in prison on other convictions. 

Fairstein observed the boys’ 1989 interrogation, conducted by another prosecutor and police. She didn’t personally try the case. 

Since its collapse, she has denied the teens were coerced and has defended authorities’ conduct in the case, explored in a 2013 documentary by Ken Burns. 

The city reached a roughly $41 million settlement with the five the next year, while not admitting any wrongdoing. 

Locke and Fairstein exchanged caustic tweets after the award was announced. Locke, who is working with Ava DuVernay on a Netflix docudrama about the case, called Fairstein “almost singlehandedly responsible for the wrongful incarceration of the Central Park Five” and castigated her for not apologizing. 

Fairstein responded by tweeting Locke should “learn your facts,” adding: “Your anger and comments are so misdirected.” 

Fairstein built a reputation as a pioneering prosecutor of sexual offenses during her 25 years of leading the Manhattan district attorney’s sex crimes unit. She retired in 2002, but was already established as a crime novelist.

In 1995, she agreed to a two-book, $500,000 deal. Her first novel, “Final Jeopardy,” came out in 1996 and was the basis for an Edgar-nominated TV miniseries starring Dana Delany. Her other books include “Killer Look,” “Devil’s Bridge” and “Lethal Legacy.”
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Chinese photographer Lu Guang has gone missing during a visit to China’s Xinjiang province.

Lu’s wife Xu Xiaoli, who is in the United States, set up a Twitter account this week to spread information about the disappearance of the award-winning photojournalist, who covers sensitive issues in China, such as pollution, poverty, and AIDS.

Xu said Lu had been missing since Nov. 3 after disappearing during a trip to attend several photography events in China.  He was expected to meet a friend in Sichuan on Nov. 5, but failed to appear.  Xu says the wife of Lu’s host in Xinjiang said he had been taken away by national security agents.

A friend of the couple, Chinese artist Wu Yuren, told VOA that Xu considered traveling to China to search for her husband.  Wu said he managed to talk Xu into staying in the United States to publicize his disappearance. 

“We were all very shocked,” Wu told VOA’s Mandarin service.  “Ever since we came to the U.S., it’s rare to hear about someone we know disappeared like this.” 

Wu said Lu may have fallen prey to media suppression in China.  “He thought he had the experience of dealing with this,” Wu said, “But he could not have imagined how bad the situation is now.”

Xu told Radio Free Asia she has been calling officials in Xinjiang in search of word of her husband, but no one has picked up on the phone numbers published online.

Sophie Richardson, China director of Human Rights Watch, told VOA “the Chinese government has a long history of simply taking people whose views it doesn’t like, literally off the grid and disappearing them.” 

She continued, “I think every time this happens, authorities diminish their claim that this country is governed by rule of law.” 

The Associated Press cites Chinese officials as confirming that Lu and a fellow photographer were taken away by Xinjiang state security agents.

Xinjiang has recently been the subject of international concern, after news reports spread word that China has constructed internment camps there to conduct “re-education” of Muslim Uighurs and other ethnic groups.

A representative for Amnesty International, Patrick Poon, told Radio Free Asia that international concern caused by those reports has influenced the Chinese government to try to shut down information coming from the area.

Lu is the winner of a number of photojournalism awards, including the World Press Photo, a National Geographic Photography grant, and China’s highest domestic photography award.  He holds a U.S. “green card” (permission to work in the United States) and in 2005 became the first photographer from China to be invited by the U.S. State Department as a visiting scholar. 

VOA Mandarin service contributed to this report. 
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Oscar-winning filmmaker Peter Jackson is returning to the big screen with adventure fantasy “Mortal Engines,” a post-apocalyptic tale of survival in his first feature film project since his award-winning adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien’s novels.

The New Zealand-born director, known for his “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit” trilogies, produced and co-wrote the script for the film, based on the young adult book series by Philip Reeve.

Oscar-winning visual effects artist Christian Rivers, who worked with Jackson on the Tolkien adaptations as well as 2005’s “King Kong” makes his directorial in the film, set hundreds of years after a catastrophic event wipes out civilizations.

“Once ‘The Hobbit’ was done, we were looking forward to getting this made,” Jackson told Reuters at the film’s premiere in London on Tuesday.

“I didn’t want (Rivers) to make his first feature with somebody else … I wanted to be part of helping him get his feature film career off the ground … He’s done an amazing job.”

In the film, humans live in gigantic moving cities which devour smaller towns. A group made up of an outlaw, outcast and mysterious woman lead a rebellion against one such predator city, London.

“It was the fear of saying yes because I knew how much work it would be and it was also a fear of saying no, if I said no and someone else made it and it wasn’t any good, I’d be kicking myself,” Rivers said about directing “Mortal Engines.” “It was a freight train, it was a big film that came in and I had to jump on and take the ride.”

On top of his work in the art department, Rivers was a second unit director on the last two “Hobbit” films, the last of which came out in 2014.

Since then, Jackson directed World War I documentary “They Shall Not Grow Old”, released this month.

“Mortal Engines” features a young cast led by Icelandic actress Hera Hilmar. “Matrix” and “The Hobbit” actor Hugo Weaving also stars in the film.
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One of the most famous songs of Christmas was celebrated Tuesday as it approaches its 200th anniversary, with a concert at the New York City church where “Silent Night” is believed to have been sung in the United States for the first time and where a priest was the first to publish an English translation of the Austrian carol.

 

The performance of the carol by Austria’s Kroell Family Singers and ensembles from Trinity Church took place at the Alexander Hamilton memorial in the Trinity churchyard. The singers stood in front of the memorial in the darkened yard as onlookers gathered and horns from passing cars beeped on nearby streets.

 

The Kroell singers opened the carol with verses in the original German, followed by the Trinity singers with verses in languages including French, Spanish, and finally English. After the outdoor performance, they went inside the church, where the Austrian group sang some other songs before they finished with another rendition of “Silent Night.”

 

The song resonates with people because of its simple melody and straightforward message, said Elisabeth Frontull, a member of the Kroell group.

 

“You sing it from the bottom of your heart; that’s the reason why the song is so popular,” she said.

 

Organizers of the event said it’s believed the song was first sung at the Trinity Church location in 1839 by the Rainer family singers, a traveling singing group from Austria.

 

“Silent Night” initially debuted as a musical piece in December 1818, with words by Joseph Mohr, a priest, and music by Franz Xaver Gruber, in Oberndorf, Austria.

 

In 1859, a priest at Trinity, John Freeman Young, published the first English translation of three verses of the carol, including the well-known first verse that ends with “sleep in heavenly peace.”

 

It has become one of the most recorded songs in the world and declared as part of Austria’s cultural heritage.

 

To mark its anniversary, Austrian tourism organizations put together a number of events in that country, including concert and exhibitions.

 

The concert at Trinity — a historic church and tourist attraction that survived the destruction of the nearby World Trade Center in 2001 — was the only stateside event done through that effort, said Sigrid Pichler, spokeswoman for New York City’s Austrian Tourist Office.

 

“It touches the hearts of people deeply,” she said. “It’s a very simple song, it has an eternal message of peace. It is also something that the whole world needs to hear.”
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Stevie Wonder wants to raise money through his benefit concert for California fire victims impacted by the catastrophic wildfires.

The R&B legend announced his plan Tuesday to also help firefighters and first responders who assisted with the fires through his 22nd annual House Full of Toys Benefit Concert on Dec. 9. The charity billed as “The Stevie Wonder Song Party: A Celebration of Life, Love & Music” will be held at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. 

Concertgoers are being asked to bring an unwrapped toy or other gift. 

“We have to do our best to raise money for those that have been so less fortunate, for those that have lost dreams, lost their homes,” he said. “I am very happy to do this again this year but very, very, very excited to do something to help those in a bigger sense the less fortunate.”

Wonder said his foundation House Full of Hope along with the Entertainment Industry Foundation will also help raise money for those affected by the wildfire.

Nearly 90 people were killed in the massive wildfires as thousands have been displaced from their homes.

After his announcement, Wonder performed a few songs including “My Cherie Amour,” “The Christmas Song (Merry Christmas to You)” and “Golden Lady.”

Wonder also spoke on the importance of taking care of the planet.

“I know we’re dealing with a drought,” he said. “There are some who don’t believe in global warming. I do. We have to protect the planet. We have to be cognizant of what we do. … I pray that all of us, even those who are non-believers, understand that if we don’t love and take care of our planet, we won’t have it.”

The lineup for this year’s charity has not been announced. Last year’s performers included Tony Bennett, Pharrell Williams and Andra Day. 
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In the first major soiree of Hollywood’s awards season, Chloe Zhao’s elegiac, lyrical Western “The Rider” took best feature film at the 28th annual Gotham Awards. 

It was a surprising, but far from baffling conclusion to the Gothams, the New York-based gala for independent film, held Monday night at Cipriani’s Wall Street in downtown Manhattan. The awards were generally spread around, including a pair of prizes for Bo Burnham’s coming-of-age directing debut “Eighth Grade” and Paul Schrader’s impassioned Catholic drama “First Reformed.”

But the night’s final honor went to “The Rider,” the second feature by the Chinese-born Zhao, despite no previous awards on the night and only one other nomination: an audience award nod alongside 14 other films. Some may have forgotten it was eligible. Having first premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2017, “The Rider” was nominated by the Gotham’s West Coast corollary, the Independent Film Spirit Awards, in February as one of last year’s best. 

Zhao, too, wasn’t in attendance (she is prepping her next film). And few looked more surprised than the producers — Bert Hamelinck and Mollye Asher — who accepted the award. “This is going to be the worst acceptance speech,” stuttered Hamelinck. 

Yet “The Rider,” filmed with Lakota cowboys on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation, persevered over a few Oscar favorites, including Yorgos Lanthimos’ period romp “The Favourite” and Barry Jenkins’ James Baldwin adaptation “If Beale Street Could Talk.” 

“The Favourite” still went home with two honorary awards: an award for its acting ensemble, led by Olivia Colman, Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz; and a tribute to Weisz. Jenkins applauded the choice of “The Rider’’ with a standing ovation and a retweet of his earlier praise of the film, in which he called it “ravishing, sublime imagery paired with deeply earnest storytelling.” 

Unpredictability pervaded the ceremony, especially for the winners, themselves. When the Fred Rogers documentary “Won’t You Be My Neighbor” won the Gothams’ audience award (not typically a category for documentaries but “Won’t You Be My Neighbor” proved a modest summer blockbuster), its director Morgan Neville was stunned, partially since he had already lost best documentary to RaMell Ross’ “Hale County This Morning, This Evening.” 

“To say this was a surprise would be an extreme understatement,” Neville said. “Since I didn’t know we were nominated.” 

As an Oscar bellwether, the Gothams, presented by the not-for-profit Independent Film Project , are of little value. Their nominees are chosen by small juries of filmmakers and film critics before some of the fall’s films have been seen. 

But in the early going, any momentum helps an underdog Oscar campaign, and that seemed especially true of “First Reformed” and “Eighth Grade” — both releases from A24, the indie distributor of “Moonlight” and “Lady Bird.” 

“First Reformed” star Ethan Hawke took best actor and its 72-year-old writer-director Schrader (“Taxi Driver,” “Raging Bull”) won best screenplay. 

“Fourteen years. Best attendance. Sunday school,” said Schrader, who chose filmmaking over the seminary but remained gripped by his Calvinist upbringing. “I earned this award.”

Burnham’s “Eighth Grade,” starring 15-year-old Elsie Fisher, won for both breakthrough director and breakthrough actor. 

“I’m pretty sure this was a glitch in the system or something,” began Fisher, who said she had been considering giving up on acting before Burnham cast her. “Me from two years ago would be really proud of me right now.” 

Tributes were also paid to “At Eternity’s Gate” star Willem Dafoe, “22 July” director Paul Greengrass and RadicalMedia founder Jon Kamen. But one of the night’s abiding themes was who wasn’t there. Toni Collette, star of the horror film “Hereditary,” wasn’t on hand to collect her best actress award. And Weisz was the only star of “The Favourite” there for the film’s ensemble award. 

Weisz held up cardboard paddles of Colman and Stone’s faces and read statements from each claiming that they were the real standout in Lanthimos’ triangular tale of a power struggle in Queen Anne’s 18th century court. 

“Considering that I’m the only one to turn up,” Weisz concluded, “I think I might be the favorite.” 
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“Game of Thrones” actor Jason Momoa brings the latest superhero spin-off to the big screen, this time “Aquaman,” to tell the story of the DC Comics half-human, half-Atlantean character.

The 39-year-old first made an appearance in the role in 2016’s “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” but now has his own movie exploring the superhero’s origins.

Momoa portrays the character, known as Arthur Curry, as he embarks on a journey of self-discovery, and with plenty of action and special effects, viewers are taken to the underwater world of the seven seas.

Walking a blue carpet – in line with the film’s aquatic theme – at the film’s world premiere in London on Monday, Momoa said the role was the toughest he had undertaken so far.

“Physically it’s just really challenging and demanding to do the stunts and then stay in shape,” the actor told Reuters, adding he identified with the character for various reasons including “being an outcast.”

“I had two stunt doubles. I’ve never had stunt doubles really ever…This had so many stunts.”

The film also stars “The Rum Diary” and “Magic Mike XXL” actress Amber Heard as warrior Mera. Dressed in a floor-length green dress with matching head cap, Heard said she was not keen at first on doing a superhero film.

“I was pretty allergic to the idea…In my very limited experience with that world, I didn’t see intuitively what that would have to appeal to me,” she said. “I’m interested in complex nuanced roles that depict women in more accurate and more organic ways. And then the creators called me (saying) she’s a warrior queen.I was like.. ‘OK, I’m interested.'”
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Mick Jagger likes a buzz. A natural buzz.

 

The Rolling Stones frontman, who will tour America next spring with his iconic band, says live shows give him a rush that can’t be matched and is the reason that at 75, he still loves touring.

 

“When you go out in front of all those people you get an enormous rush of chemicals in your body — your own chemicals, not chemicals you’ve put in,” he said laughing.

 

“Let’s face it, it is a huge buzz. Must be like playing football or something,” he said.

 

Jagger should feel like a football player — since he’ll be playing the same stadiums as NFL stars when the Stones’ No Filter tour launches in Miami on April 20, 2019.

 

Tickets go on sale Friday and the 13 shows will hit Florida, Texas, Arizona, California, Washington, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Illinois and Washington, D.C.

 

“Basically your life’s attuned to doing those few hours onstage and everything else is a build up to that. Of course, you get to enjoy yourself at other times, but really you’re thinking about the next show or the show you’re doing that night,” said Jagger, who will be joined onstage with Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood and Charlie Watts. “A lot of prep time goes into that — keeping yourself (together) so you can get through the whole thing without screwing up physically and mentally and keeping yourself really sharp. But I really enjoy it.”

 

In an interview Monday with The Associated Press, Jagger talked about the tour, only having three Grammys and appearing in the new-but-old Aretha Franklin concert documentary, “Amazing Grace,” filmed at a Los Angeles church in 1972.

 

AP: What can fans expect from the U.S. shows?

 

Jagger: A good night out! A good night out for all. We did a kind of similar tour in Europe this summer, so it’s got a lot of fun. …It’s pretty high energy and it’s a good a show, I think. I’m into it.

 

AP: Is it different performing in the U.S. compared to other territories?

 

Jagger: Well, I don’t have to speak foreign languages normally, so that’s a big difference. When you tour Europe it’s a lot of languages, so I try to do them all and that takes up some time, so (in the U.S.) I can concentrate on some other things. There’s lots of regional differences, say between Houston and New York, so you’ve got to tune yourself to that a little bit. It’s slightly about adjusting your set and attitude. Its different. It’s nice that it’s different, you don’t want it to be completely homogenous. But it’s great to be going around so many different areas, different states and so on.

 

AP: How’s the new music you’re writing coming along?

 

Jagger: It’s going good. I’ve got lots of stuff. I’m doing some more writing this week. And I’m always, like, messing around. I enjoy the writing process a lot. I mean, you always think the last thing you wrote is really wonderful and sometimes they’re really not (laughs). But it’s really fun doing it and it’s really enjoyable doing new things.

 

AP: You don’t even need to release music because of the band’s catalog…

 

Jagger: Yeah, and we haven’t released that much and I think it’s a shame we haven’t released more new music. So, I would hope we’re going to release some music. We do have a huge catalog. The thing about the catalog is when we come up to doing a tour like this, I try and go back and find some stuff that we haven’t done ever or we haven’t done very much and try to mix it in, so it isn’t always the same show. But when you’re playing a really big show, there’s a certain amount of songs people want to hear — you don’t have to play them — but there’s a certain percentage of the songs that people will want to hear and if you don’t do them, they’ll go, “Wish he’d done that one.”

 

AP: Were you happy with the success of the band’s blues album, which won a Grammy this year?

 

Jagger: That was good. We weren’t really setting out to do that. It just happened. It was a fun thing to do. It was … stuff we’d known for years since we were kids and played in like clubs and we knew it all pretty well. I really thought it was great and the response was really surprising, and I thought that was really wonderful. And I just hope we’re going to come up with some new stuff as well.

 

AP: I’m surprised the Stones only have three Grammys, when other acts have 10 or 20. Does that bother you?

 

Jagger: No, I don’t really care about Grammys very much. I’m not saying it’s not not nice to have, it’s lovely to have. But it’s not going to break my heart if I don’t get Grammys and if my Grammys count is not as big as other peoples. But it’s very nice to get a Grammy. I appreciate it.

 

AP: I saw you in the new Aretha documentary…

 

Jagger: I didn’t even see it yet! …It was like an amazing event. It was so delayed and long and I don’t think Aretha wanted it to come out for whatever reasons and there were so many technical problems with the sound, but I’m glad it’s out and I can’t wait to see it. …It was quite a lot of preaching. Did they leave the preaching in?

 

AP: They did.

 

Jagger: I remember that very well.

 

AP: What else do you remember about that day?

 

Jagger: I remember it really well. It was just a wonderful event. It was quite mesmerizing from start to finish really. I think I went with Charlie (Watts) and I think Billy Preston quite possibly, but I don’t know if you see him there. It was really an amazing, really fantastic day in church really, which I haven’t had for a while.

 

AP: What do you remember about working with filmmaker Nicolas Roeg, who died a couple days ago and directed you in 1970’s “Performance”?

 

Jagger: He was a wonderful filmmaker and I only worked with him that one time, and he was co-directing. And he’s a wonderful cinematographer and did some great movies, and he was very quirky and all his films were very different, one to the other. He did some great work and he had a long life and I’m sad he passed away, but I always remember working with him; a wonderful guy to work with.

 

AP: I know you’ve produced a lot lately, from TV shows to documentaries, but do you want to do more acting?

 

Jagger: I just actually finished doing a cameo part in a movie which is kind of a twisted thriller, which is called “The Burnt Orange Heresy.” I just finished doing that in Italy. I did a couple weeks on that, so it’ll be out next year. It was only a small part, but fun to do.
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Patricia Hall went to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum in 2016 hoping to learn more about the music performed by prisoners in World War II death camps.

The University of Michigan music theory professor heard there were manuscripts, but she was “completely thrown” by what she found in the card catalogs: Unexpectedly upbeat and popular songs titles that translated to “The Most Beautiful Time of Life” and “Sing a Song When You’re Sad,” among others. More detective work during subsequent trips to the Polish museum over the next two years led her to several handwritten manuscripts arranged and performed by the prisoners, and ultimately, the first performance of one of those manuscripts since the war.

“I’ve used the expression, ‘giving life,’ to this manuscript that’s been sitting somewhere for 75 years,” Hall told The Associated Press on Monday. “Researching one of these manuscripts is just the beginning — you want people to be able to hear what these pieces sound like. … I think one of the messages I’ve taken from this is the fact that even in a horrendous situation like a concentration camp, that these men were able to produce this beautiful music.”

Sensing the historical importance of resurrecting music for modern audiences, Hall enlisted the aid of university professor Oriol Sans, director of the Contemporary Directions Ensemble, and graduate student Josh Devries, who transcribed the parts into music notation software to make it easier to read and play.

Last month, the ensemble gathered to record “The Most Beautiful Time of Life” (“Die Schonste Zeit des Lebens”), and it plans to perform the work Friday during a free concert at the university.

Hall believes the piece, a popular fox trot of the day, was performed in 1942 or ’43 by the prisoners in front of the commandant’s villa for Sunday concerts for Auschwitz garrison. Although the prisoners didn’t compose the songs, they had to arrange them so they could be played by the available instruments and musicians.

Based on the prisoner numbers on the manuscript, Hall has so far identified two of the three arrangers: Antoni Gargul, who was released in 1943, and Maksymilian Pilat, who was released in 1945 and later performed in the Gdansk Symphony Orchestra. They were Polish political prisoners.

The recording will become part of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum, which recently obtained a baton of one of the inmate orchestra’s conductors.

While survivors and museum officials have said the musicians received more food, had clean clothes and were spared the hardest labor, museum director Piotr M. A. Cywinski recently said in a statement that they experienced “an element of humiliation and terror.”

Hall said they weren’t immune to the greatest horrors of the camp.

“We like to think of a narrative in which the musicians were saved because they had that ability to play instruments,” she said. “However, it’s been documented by another prisoner [in an orchestra] that around 50 of them … were taken out and shot.”

During 1940-45, some 1.1 million people, mostly Jews, perished in Auschwitz-Birkenau’s gas chambers or from hunger, disease or forced labor.

Hall said it’s a little surprising that no one discovered the manuscripts earlier given their significance, but “not everybody wants to do manuscript study in an archive.” She said she found about eight similar manuscripts that would be worth recording and performing, though it might be for someone else to do.

“Despite everything I do, I find the atmosphere in Auschwitz-Birkenau quite depressing,” she said. “I go back and forth about how much further I’m going to research these manuscripts.”

Still, she said she has been buoyed by the spirit with which her colleagues and students embraced the project.

“It was wonderful to bring it back to this atmosphere with so much positive enthusiasm behind it,” she said. “I thought it was a great idea, but I could imagine talking to someone who said, ‘I don’t really want to perform music from a concentration camp.’ It’s very inspiring for me watching these talented musicians.”
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Misinformation, as opposed to disinformation, was chosen Monday as Dictionary.com’s word of the year on the tattered coattails of “toxic,” picked earlier this month for the same honor by Oxford Dictionaries in these tumultuous times.

Jane Solomon, a linguist-in-residence at Dictionary, said in a recent interview that her site’s choice of “mis” over “dis” was deliberate, intended to serve as a “call to action” to be vigilant in the battle against fake news, flat earthers and anti-vaxxers, among other conduits.

It’s the idea of intent, whether to inadvertently mislead or to do it on purpose, that the Oakland, California-based company wanted to highlight. The company decided it would go high when others have spent much of 2018 going low.

“The rampant spread of misinformation is really providing new challenges for navigating life in 2018,” Solomon told The Associated Press ahead of the word of the year announcement. “Misinformation has been around for a long time, but over the last decade or so the rise of social media has really, really changed how information is shared. We believe that understanding the concept of misinformation is vital to identifying misinformation as we encounter it in the wild, and that could ultimately help curb its impact.”

In studying lookups on the site that trended this year, Dictionary noticed “our relationship with truth is something that came up again and again,” she said.

For example, the word “mainstream” popped up a lot, spiking in January as the term “mainstream media,” or MSM, grew to gargantuan proportions, wielded as an insult by some on the political right. Other words swirling around the same problem included a lookup surge in February for “white lie” after Hope Hicks, then White House communications director, admitted to telling a few for President Donald Trump.

The word “Orwellian” surfaced in heavy lookups in May, after a statement attributed to White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders accused the Chinese government of “Orwellian nonsense” in trying to impose its views on American citizens and private companies when it declared that United Airlines, American Airlines and other foreign carriers should refer to Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau as part of China in public-facing materials, such as their websites.

Misinformation, Solomon said, “frames what we’ve all been through in the last 12 months.” In that vein, the site with 90 million monthly users has busied itself adding new word entries for “filter bubble,” “fake news,” “post-fact,” “post-truth” and “homophily,” among others. Other word entries on the site have been freshened to reflect timely new meanings, including “echo chamber.”

The company’s runners-up for the top honor include “representation,” driven by the popularity of the movies “Black Panther” and “Crazy Rich Asians,” along with wins during the U.S. midterm elections for Muslim women, Native Americans and LGBTQ candidates.

But the rise of misinformation, Solomon said, stretches well beyond U.S. borders and Facebook’s role in disseminating fake news and propaganda in the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The use of Facebook and other social media to incite violence and conflict was documented around the globe in 2018, she said.

“Hate speech and rumors posted to Facebook facilitated violence against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, riots started in Sri Lanka after false news set the country’s Buddhist majority against Muslims, and false rumors about child kidnappers on WhatsApp led to mob violence in India,” Solomon said.

Is disinformation or misinformation at play in terms of the year’s most prominent conspiracy theories? Solomon noted proliferation on social media over students in the Parkland school shooting being crisis actors instead of victims of violence, and over a group of migrants from Honduras who are making their way north being funded by “rich liberals.”

Elsewhere in the culture, countless podcasts and videos have spread the absurd notion of a global cover-up that the Earth is flat rather than round. The idea of “misinfodemics” has surfaced in the last several years to identify the anti-vaccination movement and other beliefs that lead to real-world health crises, Solomon said.

There are distinctions between misinformation and disinformation to be emphasized.

“Disinformation would have also been a really, really interesting word of the year this year, but our choice of misinformation was very intentional,” she said. “Disinformation is a word that kind of looks externally to examine the behavior of others. It’s sort of like pointing at behavior and saying, ‘THIS is disinformation.’ With misinformation, there is still some of that pointing, but also it can look more internally to help us evaluate our own behavior, which is really, really important in the fight against misinformation. It’s a word of self-reflection, and in that it can be a call to action. You can still be a good person with no nefarious agenda and still spread misinformation.”

She pointed to “Poe’s law” in slicing and dicing “misinfo” and “disinfo.” The term, dating to 2005, has become an internet shorthand to sum up how easy it is to spread satire as truth online when an author’s intent isn’t clearly indicated.

The phrase is based on a comment one Nathan Poe posted on a Christian forum during a discussion over creationism, in which he commented: “Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is uttrerly [sic] impossible to parody a Creationist in such a way that someone [italics used] won’t mistake for the genuine article.”

Dictionary.com chose “complicit” as last year’s word of the year. In 2016, it was “xenophobia.”

 

 

 
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Italian film director Bernardo Bertolucci has died.

Bertolucci, who was 77 years old, died Monday morning at his home in Rome. Variety, the entertainment weekly magazine, reports that he had cancer.

He is best known for the films “The Last Emperor,” and “Last Tango in Paris.”

Bertolucci won the best director Oscar for “The Last Emperor,” making him the first and only Italian to win the best director Oscar. “The Last Emperor,” a cinematic masterpiece about the last imperial ruler of China, was nominated for nine Oscars and won all nine categories.

“Last Tango in Paris,” however, is probably his best-known film. The 1972 erotic drama starred Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider. Tango is the tale of a older man and a young woman who have anonymous sex in various locations in Paris. “Tango” created quite a stir when it came out because of a controversial sex scene involving butter.

Years later, Schneider, who was 19 years old when filming on “Tango” began, said in an interview that the scene was not in the original script and she was only told about it right before the scene was shot. “I felt humiliated and to be honest, I felt a little raped, both by Marlon and by Bertolucci.”

 

At the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, Bertolucci was awarded an honorary Palme d’Or for his life’s work.

 
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An elderly Palestinian refugee uses his brushes and a small palette to add lively colorful scenes to the walls of al-Buss, his impoverished camp in southern Lebanon. The country is home to an estimated 170,000 Palestinian refugees, spread among different camps across the country. As VOA’s Mariama Diallo reports, while most camps suffer from poor infrastructure, al-Buss is brightened by his work.
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Countries around the world have their own versions of pasta. In Germany there is spaetzle, in Greece there is orzo, throughout Asia there are dishes with noodles, and in Latin America you can find countless variations of spaghetti and other pastas. Voice of America reporter Iacopo Luzi visited the famed company Pasta Mancini in Monte San Pietrangeli, Italy, to see how they make this global staple.
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Washington’s National Museum of Women in the Arts is the only museum in the world that showcases creations made exclusively by women. But in the three decades since it first opened, the museum has never had exhibitions dedicated to fashion until now. In November, it opened an exhibit dedicated to the famous American fashion house, Rodarte. Karina Bafradzhian has the story.
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With unparalleled views of the Statue of Liberty and Manhattan, a new 2,400-square-meter (26,000-square-foot) museum celebrating the statue’s legacy is set to open in 2019. VOA’s Ramon Taylor takes a peek into the building that is still under construction and pays homage to the universal concept of liberty and Lady Liberty’s more than 4 million annual visitors.
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Presidents, prime ministers and Hollywood stars have visited what from the outside may look like an old, shabby jazz club in New Orleans. In this case, however, appearances are quite deceiving. Musicians call this place the holy grail of clubs and home to American jazz. Maia Kay went to the famous Preservation Hall that tells the story of jazz.
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Millions of migrating birds pass through Egypt on their migratory flyway mainly seeking food, water and shelter, every year. But experts say Egypt, an essential transit point on the birds’ nomadic journey, has become a very dangerous place for migrating birds, with many being illegally shot or trapped. Egyptian Falconers gathered recently in the desert of Borg Al-Arab to mark the sixth annual World Falconry Day on November 17. Hamada Elrasam reports from Egypt.
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From Senegal to Ethiopia, artists, governments and museums are eagerly awaiting a report commissioned by French President Emmanuel Macron on how former colonizers can return African art to Africa.

The study by French art historian Bénédicte Savoy and Senegalese economist Felwine Sarr, being presented to Macron on Friday in Paris, is expected to recommend that French museums give back works that were taken without consent, if African countries request them. That could increase pressure on museums elsewhere in Europe to follow suit.

The experts estimate that up to 90 percent of African art is outside the continent, including statues, thrones and manuscripts. Tens of thousands of works are held by just one museum, the Quai Branly Museum in Paris, opened in 2006 to showcase non-European art — much of it from former French colonies. The museum wouldn’t comment ahead of the report’s release.

The head of Ethiopia’s Authority for Research and Conservation of Cultural Heritage, Yonas Desta, said the report shows ”’a new era of thought” in Europe’s relations with Africa. “I’m longing to see the final French report,” he told The Associated Press.

Senegal’s culture minister, Abdou Latif Coulibaly, said: “It’s entirely logical that Africans should get back their artworks. … These works were taken in conditions that were perhaps legitimate at the time, but illegitimate today.”

The report is just a first step. Challenges ahead include enforcing the report’s recommendations, especially if museums resist, and determining how objects were obtained and whom to give them to.

The report is part of broader promises by Macron to turn the page on France’s troubled relationship with Africa. In a groundbreaking meeting with students in Burkina Faso last year, Macron stressed the “undeniable crimes of European colonization” and said he wants pieces of African cultural heritage to return to Africa “temporarily or definitively.”

“I cannot accept that a large part of African heritage is in France,” he said at the time.

The French report could have broader repercussions. In Cameroon, professor Verkijika Fanso, historian at the University of Yaounde One, said: “France is feeling the heat of what others will face. Let their decision to bring back what is ours motivate others.”

Germany has worked to return art seized by the Nazis, and in May the organization that coordinates that effort, the German Lost Art Foundation, said it was starting a program to research the provenance of cultural objects collected during the country’s colonial past.

Britain is also under pressure to return art taken from its former colonies. In recent months, Ethiopian officials have increased efforts to secure the return of looted artifacts and manuscripts from museums, personal collections and government institutions across Britain, including valuable items taken in the 1860s after battles in northern Ethiopia, Yonas said.

In Nigeria, a group of bronze casters over the years has strongly supported calls for the return of artifacts taken from the Palace of the Oba of Benin in 1897 when the British raided it. The group still uses their forefathers’ centuries-old skills to produce bronze works in Igun Street, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Eric Osamudiamen Ogbemudia, secretary of the Igun Bronze Casters Union in Benin City, said: “It was never the intention of our fathers to give these works to the British. It is important that we get them back so as to see what our ancestors left behind.”

Ogbemudia warned the new French report should not remain just a “recommendation merely to make Africans to calm down.

“Let us see the action.”

 

 
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‘Green Book,’ by filmmaker Peter Farrelly, tells the story of an unlikely friendship between two men, a world-renowned African-American classical pianist and an Italian-American bouncer. Their friendship develops during a concert tour in the American South during the 1960s as they navigate by the Green Book, a guidebook advising African-American motorists where to safely sleep, eat or travel during the Jim Crow era. VOA’s Penelope Poulou reports on the dramatization of this real life story.
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“Ralph Breaks the Internet” may star an arcade bad guy with powerful hammer-like fists, but the animated sequel is also packing a punch with strong female characters.

Sarah Silverman, who returns as the voice of Vanellope von Schweetz, credits Disney for including more impactful female roles in the new film, which comes out Wednesday. Her character is one of the leading ladies, along with new cast members Gal Gadot’s Shank and Taraji P. Henson, who plays Yesss.

“I love it,” said Silverman, an outspoken comedian known for advocating for women’s rights. “You see how far Disney has allowed itself to grow and change, and be more inclusive and more progressive? You can’t keep on existing if you don’t change and grow with the times. With me, Taraji and Gal’s character, it’s nice to see.”

In the past, Disney has been criticized for having a lack of self-sufficient female characters who focused more on their physical appearance and being reliant on a man. That pattern began to change over the years in films such as “Tangled,” ″Brave” and “Frozen.”

With the “Ralph” sequel, the studio is taking “girl power” a step further as directors Phil Johnston and Rich Moore wanted to incorporate more “strong and complicated” female characters.

“This studio is the birthplace of a lot of these stereotypes,” said John C. Reilly, the voice of the massive, overall-wearing Ralph. “It’s really an amazing and commendable thing that Disney has recognized. … As a man, it’s not really my lane to talk about these issues. But I do think if things are going to change, men and women have to both talk about this stuff and embrace gender equality, and think of women’s rights as humans. I was a strong advocate for balance in our story.”

The sequel is a follow up to the 2012 Oscar-nominated “Wreck-it Ralph.” This time, Ralph and Vanellope’s friendship is tested after leaving Litwak’s video arcade to travel through a Wi-Fi connection that ultimately delivers them into the fast-paced internet dimension. They venture into an unfamiliar world exploring major brands from Twitter to Amazon, online shopping, the dark web and visits inside Walt Disney Studio’s website.

Johnston said the film’s imaginary of the internet mimics the look of a New York City or Tokyo. It’s where Ralph and Vanellope meet Gadot’s Shank, a gritty street-racing star, and Henson’s Yesss, who is the head algorithm of the trend-making website BuzzzTube.

“It’s like they’re small-town kids who are now in the big city,” said Moore, who directed the first “Ralph” film and the Academy Award-winning “Zootopia.” ″This is a movie about change. I’m glad that we took the more challenging road.”

“Ralph Breaks the Internet” offers an animated glimpse inside their parent company’s website showing several characters from Marvel to “Star Wars.” The film also highlights the Disney princesses in a scene where all stereotypes and cliches associated with the animated icons are dealt with head-on.

Initially, the princess scene faced backlash from fans in August after a publicity photo surfaced online showing Princess Tiana with lighter skin and a thinner nose compared to the version in the black character’s stand-alone Disney movie, “The Princess and the Frog.” The studio ultimately reanimated the character after meeting with actress Anika Noni Rose, who voiced Tiana in the 2009 film, and members of Color of Change, a civil rights advocacy organization.

“Our goal is to make this film as perfect as possible as we can,” Johnston said. “I hope everyone knows we love this character as much as anyone.”

Henson called Tiana’s reanimation a “brilliant move” by Disney.

“If you know about it, you do better,” said the actor, who is black. “But Disney has a history of pleasing the people and appealing to the people. They’re a standup company. They did the right thing. I’m glad I’m in the film. I’m glad I’m in business with people who are on the right side of history, with no ego. Listening to the people who pay their money to see the film is a smart business move, but it also shows you care.”
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Bystanders are refusing to let cold temperatures put a damper on watching Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, breaking out the blankets and sleeping bags to watch the giant balloons go by.

Tony Stout camped out with his extended family since 2 a.m. to make sure they got a good view of his son, who would be in the parade with The Ohio State University marching band. They traveled from Columbus, Ohio, for the parade.

“Ohhh, I’m freezing and numb, but excited,” he said.

Forecasters say it could be the coldest Thanksgiving in well over a century on Thursday, with the National Weather Service projecting temperatures in the low 20s (-4 to -7 Celsius) and sustained winds of up to 20 mph (32 kph) with gusts to 30 mph (48 kph), just inside the safe zone for the balloons to fly.

City officials said the 16 giant character balloons such as SpongeBob and Charlie Brown could fly safely, although their height would be adjusted if necessary.

Diana Ross, John Legend, Martina McBride and the Muppets from “Sesame Street” are slated to perform in the frigid cold.

Thursday has the potential to be New York City’s coldest Thanksgiving since 1901, when the temperature only got as high as 26 degrees (-3.3 Celsius). The coldest on record was in 1871, when the warmest it got was 22 degrees (-5.5 Celsius).

The Macy’s parade didn’t start until 1924.

New York City has issued an extreme cold weather alert and is urging anyone going outside to wear hats, scarves, gloves and layered clothing and to keep their fingertips, earlobes, and noses covered to prevent frostbite.

Police Commissioner James O’Neill said thousands of officers will be stationed along the parade route. They include counterterrorism teams with long guns, plainclothes officers mixed in with the crowd and a new squad of K-9 teams that can sniff out explosives from a few hundred feet away.

The parade runs 46 blocks from the west side of Central Park to Macy’s flagship store in midtown Manhattan.

The parade features about 8,000 marchers, including high school bands from across the country, and two-dozen floats culminating with the arrival of Santa Claus. The performances will be shown on the NBC telecast, which starts at 9 a.m. EST.

Ross, 74, will perform a song from her new Christmas album and will be joined on her float by her some of her family members, including daughter Tracee Ellis Ross, a star of ABC’s “Black-ish,” and actor son Evan Ross.

Others in the lineup include Bad Bunny, Kane Brown and Ella Mai, Pentatonix, Rita Ora, Sugarland, Anika Noni Rose, Barenaked Ladies, Leona Lewis, Fifth Harmony’s Ally Brooke, Bazzi, Ashley Tisdale and Carly Pearce.
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