Category: Новини

Iranian chess referee Shohreh Bayat says a gesture of solidarity with female compatriots at a tournament in Iceland has caused a feud with the game’s global body and seen her kicked off a commission.

Bayat wore a “Women, Life, Freedom” T-shirt at a prestigious tournament in October, soon after protests began in Iran over the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while in custody for breaking strict Islamic dress code.

“I don’t think it’s normal to stay quiet about this,” Bayat, 35, told Reuters in a video interview. She is among a string of sports figures to clash with authorities over the hijab policy and express solidarity with anti-government demonstrators.

“This is a big human rights matter. I think if we stay quiet about these things, we cannot forgive ourselves,” she added.

Bayat, who was also accused by Iran of violating hijab practice at a tournament in 2020, said the International Chess Federation (FIDE) had removed her from its arbiters’ commission after she angered its President Arkady Dvorkovich.

The Iranian said Dvorkovich asked her to change her attire in Iceland, after another chess official had raised the issue. She reappeared at the tournament in a yellow suit and blue blouse: the colors of the Ukrainian flag.

FIDE confirmed Dvorkovich had requested she not wear the shirt about women’s rights. The federation said it respected Bayat’s political activities but that she “disregarded direct instructions given to her to stop wearing slogans or mottos.”

“No matter how noble or uncontroversial the cause is, doing activism from that role is inappropriate and unprofessional,” it said in a statement to Reuters.

Tehran casts the protesters as pawns of a Western-led push to overthrow the government.

‘Beautiful message’

Bayat accused Dvorkovich, a Russian deputy prime minister from 2012 to 2018, of succumbing to geopolitics.

“Iran and Russia are very united in the war against Ukraine,” she said. “When I was told by Dvorkovich to take off my T-shirt, that was the reason probably.

“My T-shirt was not political at all … It’s one of the most beautiful women’s rights messages in the world.”

According to a message seen by Reuters, a senior FIDE official told Bayat she had been removed from the commission because Dvorkovich was “furious” with her.

Dvorkovich did not respond to a request for comment.

FIDE said it had not discussed any disciplinary action against Bayat and values her as an arbiter.

Bayat lives in London, fearing for her safety after photos of her at the 2020 tournament in Russia brought criticism in Iranian state media.

Bayat said at the time that she does not agree with the hijab, but that she had been wearing a headscarf during the championship’s first matches, although it had been loose and was not visible from some angles in photographs.

Since Iran’s Islamic Revolution, all women are required to wear a hijab in public, including sportswomen abroad. Women who break the dress code can be publicly berated, fined or arrested.

Bayat was awarded the International Women of Courage Award by the United States in 2021 and has since used her platform to advocate for Iranian women.

“When I can, when there is an opportunity, I have to raise the voice of Iranian people,” she said.
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After three years of isolation and financial struggles in Chinese soccer, the country is reopening its borders and economy to the outside world. With it, frustrated fans, financially challenged clubs and unpaid players in the Chinese Super League might receive some long-awaited good news.

The 2022 season was unrecognizable from the 2019 edition, the last before COVID-19 hit. Then the league had an average attendance of over 24,000, the highest in Asia, and a number of big-name foreign imports.

From 2020 onwards, Beijing’s “zero-COVID” policy, designed to stamp out the virus, meant that teams mostly played in empty stadiums at centralized venues. Players were stuck in bio-secure bubbles for months on end and international stars, unable to enter the country, were released from contracts.

It also meant little ticket, broadcast or sponsorship revenue for clubs. In 2021, defending champion Jiangsu FC folded and several other clubs have struggled to pay players.

Opening up the country may not mean a return to the carefree spending of the previous decade, but it is a prerequisite to starting the journey back to pre-pandemic levels. It is reported that clubs will play home and away games in the 2023 season.

“It almost feels like there has been no league in the past three years with delays, months without games and strange schedules,” Shanghai Shenhua supporter Wang Yi told The Associated Press. “Some fans have lost interest, but I think that will change when we can all get together at the stadium again.”

Due to the government’s strict policies, foreign teams were unable to enter the country, forcing China to play 2022 World Cup qualifiers in neutral venues. It finished next to last in its final qualification group, eight points behind Oman. The country was scheduled to host the 2023 Asian Cup in June but last May, Beijing relinquished its staging rights.

“It remains to be seen if and how quickly Chinese football can return to its ambitions and plans of 2019, and prior to that.” Simon Chadwick, professor of Sport and Geopolitical Economy at Skema Business School, told the AP, adding that state help will be needed.

“It is important that the sport doesn’t just restart, but that it is kick-started . . . there must be a worry that unless both the government and Chinese football commit themselves to refreshing and relaunching it, then the sport could get stuck in the international doldrums.”

The pandemic also exacerbated a downturn in China’s overheated property market. With more than half of the clubs in the top tier owned, at least in part, by real estate companies, it has been a major soccer issue.

Evergrande, the property developer, saw its club Guangzhou, who won eight titles in the previous decade, relegated in December after the team’s stars left and were replaced by young domestic players.

Opening up the country is expected to boost the housing market especially as, in December, Chinese state banks opened up a line of credit worth around $460 billion for real estate companies. It remains to be seen if this will ease the financial strain on clubs.

“One suspects that the Chinese government will be keen to decouple football from its previous unhealthy relationship with property investors,” added Chadwick. “Both sectors need to discover some market discipline whilst being subject to the state’s appropriate guidance.”

For now though, fans just want to go and see their teams play.

“I won’t believe it until it happens,” said Wang. “It is when something disappears that you know how much it means. It will be very exciting.”
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Lisa Marie Presley, a singer-songwriter, Elvis’ only daughter, and a dedicated keeper of her father’s legacy, died Thursday after being hospitalized for a medical emergency. She was 54.

Her death in a Los Angeles hospital was confirmed by her mother, Priscilla, a few hours after her daughter was rushed to the hospital after having a medical emergency at home.

“It is with a heavy heart that I must share the devastating news that my beautiful daughter Lisa Marie has left us,” Priscilla Presley said in a statement. “She was the most passionate, strong and loving woman I have ever known.”

Presley, the only child of Elvis and Priscilla Presley, shared her father’s brooding charisma — the hooded eyes, the insolent smile, the low, sultry voice — and followed him professionally, releasing her own rock albums in the 2000s, and appearing on stage with Pat Benatar and Richard Hawley among others.

She even formed direct musical ties with her father, joining her voice to such Elvis recordings as “In the Ghetto” and “Don’t Cry Daddy,” a mournful ballad that had reminded him of the early death of his mother (and Lisa Marie’s grandmother), Gladys Presley.

“It’s been all my life,” she told The Associated Press in 2012, speaking of her father’s influence. “It’s not something that I now listen to and it’s different. Although I might listen closer. I remain consistent on the fact that I’ve always been an admirer. He’s always influenced me.”

Famous from the start

Her birth, nine months exactly after her parents’ wedding, was international news and her background was rarely far from her mind. With the release last year of Baz Luhrmann’s major musical feature “Elvis,” Lisa Marie and Priscilla Presley had been attending red carpets and award shows alongside stars from the film.

She was at the Golden Globes on Tuesday, on hand to celebrate Austin Butler’s award for playing her father. Just days before, she was in Memphis at Graceland — the mansion where Elvis lived and died — on January 8 to celebrate her father’s birth anniversary.

Presley lived with her mother, an actor known for “Dallas” and the “Naked Gun” movies, in California after her parents split up in 1973. She recalled early memories of her dad during her visits to Graceland, riding golf carts through the neighborhood, and seeing his daily entrances down the stairs.

“He was always fully, fully geared up. You’d never see him in his pajamas coming down the steps, ever,” she told The Associated Press in 2012. “You’d never see him in anything but ‘ready to be seen’ attire.”

Elvis Presley died in August 1977, when he was just 42, and she 9 years old. Lisa Marie was staying at Graceland at the time and would recall him kissing her goodnight hours before he would collapse and never recover. When she next saw him, the following day, he was lying face down in the bathroom.

“I just had a feeling,” she told Rolling Stone in 2003. “He wasn’t doing well. All I know is I had it (a feeling), and it happened. I was obsessed with death at a very early age.”

Life in the spotlight

She would later make headlines of her own. Struggles with drugs and some very public marriages. Her four husbands included Michael Jackson and Nicolas Cage.

Jackson and Presley were married in the Dominican Republic in 1994, but the marriage ended two years later and was defined by numerous awkward public appearances, including an unexpected kiss from Jackson during the MTV Video Music Awards and a joint interview with Diane Sawyer when she defended her husband against allegations he had sexually abused a minor.

Her other celebrity marriage was even shorter: Cage filed for divorce after four months of marriage in 2002.

“I had to sort of run into many walls and trees,” she told the AP in 2012. “But now I can also look back at it and tell you all the stuff that was going on around me and all the different people around me and all the awww — and it was not a good situation anyway. That wasn’t helping. Either way, it was a growing process. It was just in a different way. It was just out in front of everybody all the time. Because it’s all documented of course.”

Lisa Marie became involved in numerous humanitarian causes, from anti-poverty programs administered through the Elvis Presley Charitable Foundation to relief efforts after Hurricane Katrina. She would receive formal citations from New Orleans and Memphis, Tennessee for her work.

Presley had two children, actor Riley Keough and Benjamin Keough, with her former husband Danny Keough. She also had twin daughters with ex-husband Michael Lockwood.

Benjamin Keough died by suicide in 2020 at the age of 27. Presley was vocal about her grief, writing in an essay last August that she had “been living in the horrific reality of its unrelenting grips since my son’s death two years ago.”

“I’ve dealt with death, grief and loss since the age of 9 years old. I’ve had more than anyone’s fair share of it in my lifetime and somehow, I’ve made it this far,” she wrote in an essay shared with People magazine.

“But this one, the death of my beautiful, beautiful son? The sweetest and most incredible being that I have ever had the privilege of knowing, who made me feel so honored every single day to be his mother? Who was so much like his grandfather on so many levels that he actually scared me? Which made me worry about him even more than I naturally would have?” the essay continued. “No. Just no … no no no no …”

Graceland

Lisa Marie became the sole heir of the Elvis Presley Trust after her father died. Along with Elvis Presley Enterprises, the trust managed Graceland and other assets until she sold her majority interest in 2005. She retained ownership of Graceland Mansion itself, the 13 acres around it, and items inside the home. Her son is buried there, along with her father and other members of the Presley family.

Lisa Marie Presley is a former Scientologist — her son was born in 1992 under guidelines set by Church of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, according to an AP story at the time — but later broke with Scientology.

Lisa Marie and Priscilla Presley would make regular trips to Graceland during huge fan celebrations on the anniversaries of Elvis’ death and birthday. One of the two airplanes at Graceland is named the Lisa Marie.

After her first album “To Whom It May Concern,” in 2003, some fans came out to see her perform just out of curiosity given her famous family, she told the AP in 2005.

“First I had to overcome a pre-speculated idea of me,” she said of the barriers to becoming a singer-songwriter.

“I had to sort of burst through that and introduce myself, and that was the first hurdle, and then now sing in front of everybody, and then that was the second one, and I’m the offspring of — you know, who I’m the offspring of — I had a few hurdles to get through, no doubt about it,” she continued. “But the scales never tipped in the other direction too much.”
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A statue in Benin of one of the female warriors of Dahomey, which appeared in the Hollywood film ‘The Woman King,’ was likely built by a sanctioned North Korean company, according to evidence discovered by VOA’s Korean Service. In an exclusive interview with VOA, the Beninois government denies the statue was constructed by North Korea. Henry Wilkins reports from Cotonou, Benin.
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Jeff Beck, a guitar virtuoso who pushed the boundaries of blues, jazz and rock ‘n’ roll, influencing generations of shredders along the way and becoming known as the guitar player’s guitar player, has died. He was 78. 

Beck died Tuesday after “suddenly contracting bacterial meningitis,” his representatives said in a statement released Wednesday. The location was not immediately known. 

“Jeff was such a nice person and an outstanding iconic, genius guitar player — there will never be another Jeff Beck,” Tony Iommi, guitarist for Black Sabbath, wrote on Twitter. 

Beck first came to prominence as a member of the Yardbirds and then went out on his own in a solo career that incorporated hard rock, jazz, funky blues and even opera. He was known for his improvising, love of harmonics and the whammy bar on his preferred guitar, the Fender Stratocaster. 

“Jeff Beck is the best guitar player on the planet,” Joe Perry, the lead guitarist of Aerosmith, told The New York Times in 2010. “He is head, hands and feet above all the rest of us, with the kind of talent that appears only once every generation or two.” 

Beck was among the rock-guitarist pantheon from the late 1960s that included Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and Jimi Hendrix. Beck won eight Grammy Awards and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice — once with the Yardbirds in 1992 and again as a solo artist in 2009. He was ranked fifth in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.” 

Beck played guitar with vocalists as varied as Luciano Pavarotti, Macy Gray, Chrissie Hynde, Joss Stone, Imelda May, Cyndi Lauper, Wynonna Judd, Buddy Guy and Johnny Depp. He made two records with Rod Stewart — 1968’s “Truth” and 1969’s “Beck-Ola” — and one with a 64-piece orchestra, “Emotion & Commotion.” 

“I like an element of chaos in music. That feeling is the best thing ever, as long as you don’t have too much of it. It’s got to be in balance. I just saw Cirque du Soleil, and it struck me as complete organized chaos,” he told Guitar World magazine in 2014. “If I could turn that into music, it’s not far away from what my ultimate goal would be, which is to delight people with chaos and beauty at the same time.” 

Beck’s career highlights include joining with bassist Tim Bogert and drummer Carmine Appice to create the power trio that released “Beck, Bogert and Appice” in 1973, tours with Brian Wilson and Buddy Guy and a tribute album to the late guitarist Les Paul, “Rock ‘n’ Roll Party (Honoring Les Paul).” 

Geoffrey Arnold Beck was born in Surrey, England, and attended Wimbledon Art College. His father was an accountant, and his mother worked in a chocolate factory. As a boy, he built his first instrument, using a cigar box, a picture frame for the neck and string from a radio-controlled toy airplane. 

He was in a few bands — including Nightshift and the Tridents — before joining the Yardbirds in 1965, replacing Clapton but only a year later giving way to Page. During his tenure, the band created the memorable singles “Heart Full of Soul,” “I’m a Man” and “Shapes of Things.” 

Beck’s first hit single was 1967’s instrumental “Beck’s Bolero,” which featured future Led Zeppelin members Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones, and future Who drummer Keith Moon. The Jeff Beck Group — with Stewart singing — was later booked to play the 1969 Woodstock music festival, but their appearance was canceled. Beck later said there was unrest in the band. 

“I could see the end of the tunnel,” he told Rolling Stone in 2010. 

Beck was friends with Hendrix, and they performed together. Before Hendrix, most rock guitar players concentrated on a similar style and technical vocabulary. Hendrix blew that apart. 

“He came along and reset all of the rules in one evening,” Beck told Guitar World. 

Beck teamed up with legendary producer George Martin — a.k.a. “the fifth Beatle” — to help him fashion the genre-melding, jazz-fusion classic “Blow by Blow” (1975) and “Wired” (1976). He teamed up with Seal on the Hendrix tribute “Stone Free,” created a jazz-fusion group led by synthesizer player Jan Hammer and honored rockabilly guitarist Cliff Gallup with the album “Crazy Legs.” He put out “Loud Hailer” in 2016. 

Beck’s guitar work can be heard on the soundtracks of such films as “Stomp the Yard,” “Shallow Hal,” “Casino,” “Honeymoon in Vegas,” “Twins,” “Observe and Report” and “Little Big League.” 

Beck’s career never hit the commercial highs of Clapton. A perfectionist, he preferred to make critically well-received instrumental records and left the limelight for long stretches, enjoying his time restoring vintage automobiles. He and Clapton had a tense relationship early on but became friends in later life and toured together. 

Why did the two wait some four decades to tour together? 

“Because we were all trying to be big bananas,” Beck told Rolling Stone in 2010. “Except I didn’t have the luxury of the hit songs Eric’s got.” 

Beck is survived by his wife, Sandra. 
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U.S. filmmaker Steven Spielberg was among the honorees at the annual Golden Globes awards ceremony Tuesday night. 

The director of such classics as “Jaws,” “Schindler’s List” and “Saving Private Ryan” won the best director trophy for his autobiographical film “The Fabelmans,” which was named best movie drama. It was the third Golden Globes award for the 76-year-old Spielberg, who previously won for “Schindler’s List” and “Saving Private Ryan.” 

“The Banshees of Inisherin,” a dark story about two feuding Irishmen, was named the best movie musical or comedy.  Director Martin McDonagh won for best screenplay, while star Colin Farrell won for best actor in a comedy.  

In the best actor for a movie drama category, Austin Butler won for his performance as the King of Rock and Roll in “Elvis,” while Cate Blanchett won the Golden Globe for best actress in a movie drama for her performance as a troubled symphony conductor in “Tár.”   

Angela Bassett made history when she won for best actress in a supporting role in any motion picture for her performance in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” making her the first actor from a Marvel Comics film to win a Golden Globes. Ke Huy Quan won the best actor in a supporting role in any movie for “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” while co-star Michelle Yeoh won best performance by an actress in a movie musical or comedy. 

The annual Golden Globes ceremony, which also honors television shows and performances, normally begins Hollywood’s yearly awards season which is capped by the Academy Awards.  But the NBC television network took the show off the air last year after it was revealed that its parent organization, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, had no Black journalists in its membership ranks, along with ethical issues involving its finances. 

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters. 
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