Category: Новини

Friends and fellow authors spoke out on Salman Rushdie’s behalf during a rally Friday on the steps of the main branch of the New York Public Library, one week after he was attacked onstage in the western part of the state and hospitalized with stab wounds. 

Rushdie’s condition has improved, and, according to his literary agent, he has been removed from a ventilator. 

Jeffrey Eugenides, Tina Brown and Kiran Desai were among those who shared wishes for a full recovery, told stories of Rushdie as an inspiration and defender of free expression, and read passages from his books, essays and speeches, including from The Satanic Verses, the 1988 novel that some Muslims condemned as blasphemous. 

Rushdie spent years in hiding after Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a 1989 edict, a fatwa, calling for his death, but had traveled freely over the past two decades. 

The hourlong “Stand With Salman” gathering was presented in part by the library, by Rushdie’s publisher, Penguin Random House, and by the literary and human rights organization PEN America. Hundreds were in attendance, many affiliated with PEN, of which the 75-year-old Rushdie is a former president. 

‘Indefatigable champion’

“He’s been a constant, indefatigable champion of words and of writers attacked for the purported crime of their work,” said the day’s first speaker, PEN CEO Suzanne Nossel. “Today, we will celebrate Salman for what he has endured, but even more importantly, because of what he has engendered — the stories, characters, metaphors and images he has given to the world.” 

The rally did not include any new words from Rushdie, but Nossel said Rushdie was aware of the event and even made suggestions for what to read. Rushdie’s son Zafar Rushdie, who has been with his father, tweeted that “it was great to see a crowd gathered” outside the library. 

“Stand With Salman” took place the day after a judge in Mayville, New York, denied bail to Hadi Matar, 24, who has pleaded not guilty of attempted murder and assault. While in jail, Matar told the New York Post that he disdained Rushdie as anti-Muslim and expressed admiration for the ayatollah. 

On Friday, other readers included author and journalist Gay Talese, author and former PEN President Andrew Solomon, and poet-activist Reginald Dwayne Betts. Actor Aasif Mandvi read from Rushdie’s upcoming novel, Victory City, which he completed before the attack and includes the passage, “I myself am nothing now. All that remains is the city of words. Words are the only victors.” 

Eugenides, whose novels include the Pulitzer Prize-winning Middlesex, remembered traveling to London in the early 1980s. Eugenides was 20 and Rushdie’s breakthrough novel, Midnight’s Children, had recently been published. He knew Rushdie lived there and decided he wanted to meet him. It was years before The Satanic Verses, and Eugenides found his name and address in the phone book. 

“I took the tube out to his house. As it turned out, Salman wasn’t at home; he was in Italy, vacationing,” said Eugenides, who was greeted by Rushdie’s then-mother-in-law and left a note for the author. 

“That was the world we used to live in,” Eugenides added.
…

The Victoria and Albert Museum in London is hosting an exhibition of African fashion that organizers say is the largest of its kind. The landmark exhibit — named simply “Africa Fashion” — promises to set a new standard on how the subject is portrayed in museums and art galleries. For VOA, Pasi Myohanen reports from London. Camera: Humberto Nascimento
…

Wolfgang Petersen, the German filmmaker whose World War II submarine epic “Das Boot” propelled him into a blockbuster Hollywood career that included the films “In the Line of Fire,” “Air Force One” and “The Perfect Storm,” has died. He was 81.

Petersen died Friday at his home in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Brentwood after a battle with pancreatic cancer, said representative Michelle Bega.

Petersen, born in the north German port city of Emden, made two features before his 1982 breakthrough, “Das Boot,” then the most expensive movie in German film history. The 149-minute film (the original cut ran 210 minutes) chronicled the intense claustrophobia of life aboard a doomed German U-boat during the Battle of the Atlantic, with Jürgen Prochnow as the submarine’s commander.

Heralded as an antiwar masterpiece, “Das Boot” was nominated for six Oscars, including for Petersen’s direction and his adaptation of Lothar-Günther Buchheim’s best-selling 1973 novel.

Petersen, born in 1941, recalled as a child running alongside American ships as they threw down food. In the confusion of postwar Germany, Petersen — who started out in theater before attending Berlin’s Film and Television Academy in the late 1960s — gravitated toward Hollywood films with clear clashes of good and evil. John Ford was a major influence.

“In school, they never talked about the time of Hitler. They just blocked it out of their minds and concentrated on rebuilding Germany,” Petersen told the Los Angeles Times in 1993. “We kids were looking for more glamorous dreams than rebuilding a destroyed country, though, so we were really ready for it when American pop culture came to Germany. We all lived for American movies, and by the time I was 11, I’d decided I wanted to be a filmmaker.”

“Das Boot” launched Petersen as a filmmaker in Hollywood, where he became one of the top makers of cataclysmic action adventures in films spanning war (2004’s “Troy,” with Brad Pitt), pandemic (the 1995 ebola virus-inspired “Outbreak”) and other ocean-set disasters (2000’s “The Perfect Storm” and 2006’s “Poseidon,” a remake of “The Poseidon Adventure,” about the capsizing of an ocean liner).

But Petersen’s first foray in American moviemaking was child fantasy: the enchanting 1984 film “The NeverEnding Story.”

Arguably Petersen’s finest Hollywood film came almost a decade later in 1993’s “In the Line of Fire,” starring Clint Eastwood as a Secret Service agent protecting the president of the United States from John Malkovich’s assassin. In it, Petersen marshaled his substantial skill in building suspense for a more open-air but just as taut thriller that careened across rooftops and past Washington, D.C., monuments.

“In the Line of Fire” was a major hit, grossing $177 million worldwide and landing three Oscar nominations.

“You sometimes have seven-year cycles. You look at other directors; they don’t have the big successes all the time. Up to ‘NeverEnding Story,’ my career was one success after another,” Petersen told The Associated Press in 1993. “Then I came into the stormy international scene. I needed time to get a feeling for this work — it’s not Germany anymore.”

After “Outbreak,” with Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo and Morgan Freeman, Petersen returned to the presidency in 1997’s “Air Force One.” Harrison Ford starred as a president forced into a fight with terrorists who hijack Air Force One.

“Air Force One,” with $315 million in global box office, was a hit, too, but Petersen went for something even bigger in 2000’s “The Perfect Storm,” the true-life tale of a Massachusetts fishing boat lost at sea. The cast included George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg, but its main attraction was a 100-foot computer-generated wave. With a budget of $120 million, “The Perfect Storm” made $328.7 million.

For Peterson, who grew up on the northern coast of Germany, the sea long held his fascination.

“The power of water is unbelievable,” he said in a 2009 interview. “I was always impressed as a kid how strong it is, all the damage the water could do when it just turned within a couple of hours and smashed against the shore.”

Petersen followed “The Perfect Storm” with “Troy,” a sprawling epic based on Homer’s The Iliad that found less favor among critics but still made nearly $500 million worldwide. The big-budget “Poseidon,” a high-priced flop for Warner Bros., was Petersen’s last Hollywood film. His final film was 2016’s “Four Against the Bank,” a German film that remade Petersen’s own 1976 German TV movie.

Petersen was first married to German actress Ursula Sieg. When they divorced in 1978, he married Maria-Antoinette Borgel, a German script supervisor and assistant director. He’s survived by Borgel, son Daniel Petersen and two grandchildren.
…

Rising teenager Emma Raducanu came out on the winning side of a generational clash against tennis icon Serena Williams with a 6-4 6-0 win in their first-round meeting at the Cincinnati Open on Tuesday. 

After a sluggish start, the 23-time Grand Slam champion finally gave the supportive sold-out crowd something to cheer about when she crushed back-to-back aces to cut Raducanu’s lead to 4-3. 

But the English reigning U.S. Open champion fired an ace of her own to snag the first set and followed that up with a break of serve to open the second. 

Raducanu rolled from there, smacking an unreturnable serve on match point to end their first career meeting. 

“I think we all just need to honor Serena and her amazing career,” Raducanu said in an on-court interview. 

“I’m so grateful for the experience of getting to play her and for our careers to have crossed over. Everything she has achieved is so inspirational, and it was a true honor to get to share the court with her.” 

Williams, 40, was world number one and had already won four major titles when Raducanu was born in November 2002. 

Williams won her last major in 2017 while pregnant with her daughter Olympia, who was in attendance. 

With the loss, Williams has just one professional tournament remaining before she drops the curtain on her historic career – the U.S. Open, which begins August 29. 

Osaka out 

Earlier in the day, Naomi Osaka’s U.S. Open preparations suffered another setback as the former world number one was swept aside 6-4 7-5 by China’s Zhang Shuai. 

It was only Osaka’s third tournament back from an Achilles injury, and it has been a stuttering return to action for the twice U.S. Open champion, who also exited in the opening round in Toronto last week, retiring with lower back pain. 

For Zhang, doubles champion in Cincinnati last year, it was her first singles win at the event since 2014. 

“Naomi, she is amazing, but I don’t know she is maybe not really feeling good today,” said Zhang. “But for sure today – not her best today.” 

Gauff hurt, Venus Williams falls 

American teenager Coco Gauff rolled her left ankle late in the first set in her match against qualifier Marie Bouzkova, and she eventually retired from the match while trailing 7-5 1-0. 

The newly crowned world number one in doubles will look to recover ahead of the U.S. Open where she will hope to compete for a first Grand Slam title. 

This year’s major at Flushing Meadows starts August 29. 

Venus Williams was defeated by 14th seed Karolina Pliskova. 

Venus Williams was bidding for her first win over a top-20 ranked opponent since overcoming Kiki Bertens in Cincinnati three years ago. 

 
…

After an extensive joint investigation by the United States and Cambodia, about 30 Cambodian cultural artifacts were returned to their homeland. As VOA’s Chetra Chap reports, it turns out that some of the people who looted the antiquities helped bring some of them back to the Southeast Asian nation.
Videographer: Chetra Chap 
…

The fatal film-set shooting of a cinematographer by actor Alec Baldwin last year was an accident, according to a determination made by New Mexico’s Office of the Medical Investigator following the completion of an autopsy and a review of law enforcement reports. 

The medical investigator’s report was made public Monday by the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office along with numerous reports from the FBI on the revolver and ammunition collected after the shooting. 

Prosecutors have not yet decided if any charges will be filed in the case, saying they will review the latest reports and were awaiting cellphone data from Baldwin’s attorneys. 

Baldwin was pointing a gun at cinematographer Halyna Hutchins when it went off on Oct. 21, killing Hutchins and wounding the director, Joel Souza. They had been inside a small church during setup for filming a scene. 

While it’s too early to say how much weight the medical investigator’s report will carry with the district attorney’s office, Baldwin’s legal team suggested it was further proof that the shooting was “a tragic accident” and that he should not face criminal charges. 

“This is the third time the New Mexico authorities have found that Alec Baldwin had no authority or knowledge of the allegedly unsafe conditions on the set, that he was told by the person in charge of safety on the set that the gun was ‘cold,’ and believed the gun was safe,” attorney Luke Nikas said in a statement. 

Baldwin said in a December interview with ABC News that he was pointing the gun at Hutchins at her instruction on the set of the Western film “Rust” when it went off after he cocked it. He said he did not pull the trigger. 

An FBI analysis of the revolver that Baldwin had in his hand during the rehearsal suggested it was in working order at the time and would not have discharged unless it was fully cocked and the trigger was pulled. 

With the hammer in full cock position, the FBI report stated the gun could not be made to fire without pulling the trigger while the working internal components were intact and functional. 

During the testing of the gun by the FBI, authorities said, portions of the gun’s trigger sear and cylinder stop fractured while the hammer was struck. That allowed the hammer to fall and the firing pin to detonate the primer. 

“This was the only successful discharge during this testing and it was attributed to the fracture of internal components, not the failure of the firearm or safety mechanisms,” the report stated. 

It was unclear from the FBI report how many times the revolver’s hammer may have been struck during the testing. 

Baldwin, who also was a producer on the movie “Rust,” has previously said the gun should not have been loaded for the rehearsal. 

Among the ammunition seized from the film location were live rounds found on a cart and in the holster that was in the building where the shooting happened. Blank and dummy cartridges also were found. 

New Mexico’s Occupational Health and Safety Bureau in a scathing report issued in April detailed a narrative of safety failures in violation of standard industry protocols, including testimony that production managers took limited or no action to address two misfires on set prior to the fatal shooting. 

The bureau also documented gun safety complaints from crew members that went unheeded and said weapons specialists were not allowed to make decisions about additional safety training. 

In reaching its conclusion that the shooting was an accident, New Mexico’s medical investigator’s office pointed to “the absence of obvious intent to cause harm or death” and stated that there was said “no compelling demonstration” that the revolver was intentionally loaded with live ammunition on the set. 
…