Category: Новини

Workers dig and ferry wheelbarrows laden with sand to open a new shaft at a bustling archaeological site outside of Cairo, while a handful of Egyptian archaeologists supervise from garden chairs. The dig is at the foot of the Step Pyramid of Djoser, arguably the world’s oldest pyramid, and is one of many recent excavations that are yielding troves of ancient artifacts from the country’s largest archaeological site.   As some European countries re-open to international tourists, Egypt has already been trying for months to attract them to its archaeological sites and museums. Officials are betting that the new ancient discoveries will set it apart on the mid- and post-pandemic tourism market. They need visitors to come back in force to inject cash into the tourism industry, a pillar of the economy.   But like countries elsewhere, Egypt continues to battle the coronavirus, and is struggling to get its people vaccinated. The country has, up until now, received only 5 million vaccines for its population of 100 million people, according to its Health Ministry. In early May, the government announced that 1 million people had been vaccinated, though that number is believed to be higher now.   In the meantime, authorities have kept the publicity machine running, focused on the new discoveries.   In November, archaeologists announced the discovery of at least 100 ancient coffins dating back to the Pharaonic Late Period and Greco-Ptolemaic era, along with 40 gilded statues found 2,500 years after they were first buried. That came a month after the discovery of 57 other coffins at the same site, the necropolis of Saqqara that includes the step pyramid.   “Saqqara is a treasure,” said Tourism and Antiquities Minister Khaled el-Anany while announcing the November discovery, estimating that only 1% of what the site contains has been unearthed so far.   “Our problem now is that we don’t know how we can possibly wow the world after this,” he said.   If they don’t, it certainly won’t be for lack of trying.  FILE – Dr. Zahi Hawass, the renowned Egyptian archeologist credited with discovering the site, leads a media tour of the roughly 3,000-year-old “lost golden city” in Luxor, Egypt, Apr. 10, 2021. (Hamada Elrasam/VOA)In April, Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s best-known archaeologist, announced the discovery of a 3,000-year-old lost city in southern Luxor, complete with mud brick houses, artifacts and tools from pharaonic times. It dates to Amenhotep III of the 18th dynasty, whose reign (1390–1353 B.C.) is considered a golden era for ancient Egypt.   That discovery was followed by a made-for-TV parade celebrating the transport of 22 of the country’s prized royal mummies from central Cairo to their new resting place in a massive facility farther south in the capital, the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization.   The Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh is now home to an archaeological museum, as is Cairo’s International Airport, both opened in recent months. And officials have also said they still plan to open the massive new Grand Egyptian Museum next to the Giza Pyramids by January, after years of delays. Entrance fees for archeological sites have been lowered, as has the cost of tourist visas.   The government has for years played up its ancient history as a selling point, as part of a yearslong effort to revive the country’s battered tourism industry. It was badly hit during and after the popular uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak and the ensuring unrest. The coronavirus dealt it a similar blow, just as it was getting back on its feet.   In 2019, foreign tourism’s revenue stood at $13 billion. Egypt received some 13.1 million foreign tourists — reaching pre-2011 levels for the first time. But in 2020, it greeted only 3.5 million foreign tourists, according to the minister el-Anany.   At the newly opened National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, Mahmoud el-Rays, a tour guide, was leading a small group of European tourists at the hall housing the royal mummies.   “2019 was a fantastic year,” he said. “But corona reversed everything. It is a massive blow.”   Tourism traffic strengthened in the first months of 2021, el-Anany, the minister, told The Associated Press in a recent interview, though he did not give specific figures. He was optimistic that more would continue to come year-round.   “Egypt is a perfect destination for post-COVID in that our tourism is really an open-air tourism,” he said.   But it remains to be seen if the country truly has the virus under control. It has recorded a total of 14,950 deaths from the virus and is still seeing more than a thousand new cases daily. Like other countries, the real numbers are believed to be much higher. In Egypt, though, authorities have arrested doctors and silenced critics who questioned the government’s response, so there are fears that information on the true cost of the virus may have been suppressed from the beginning.   Egypt also had a trying experience early on in the pandemic, when it saw a coronavirus outbreak on one of its Nile River cruise boats. It first closed its borders completely until the summer of 2020, but later welcomed tourists back, first to Red-Sea resort towns and now to the heart of the country — Cairo and the Nile River Valley that hosts most of its famous archaeological sites. Visitors still require a negative COVID-19 test result to enter the country.   In a further cause for optimism, Russia said in April that it plans to resume direct flights to Egypt’s Red Sea resort towns. Moscow stopped the flights after the local Islamic State affiliate bombed a Russian airliner over the Sinai Peninsula in October 2015, killing all on board.   Amanda, a 36-year-old engineer from Austria, returned to Egypt in May. It was her second visit in four years. She visited the Egyptian Museum, the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization and Islamic Cairo, in the capital’s historic center.   She had planned to come last year, but the pandemic interfered.   “Once they opened, I came,” she said. “It was my dream to see the Pyramids again.”   El-Rays, the tour guide, says that while he’s seeing tourists starting to come in larger numbers, he knows a full recovery will not happen overnight.   “It will take some time to return to before corona,” he said.  
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Gavin MacLeod, the veteran supporting actor who achieved stardom as Murray Slaughter, the sardonic TV news writer on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” before going on to even bigger fame as the cheerful Captain Stubing on “The Love Boat,” has died. He was 90. MacLeod died early Saturday, his nephew, Mark See, told Variety. MacLeod’s health had been poor recently, but no cause of death was given, the trade publication reported. Known to sitcom fans for his bald head and wide smile, MacLeod toiled in near anonymity for more than a decade, appearing on dozens of TV shows and in several movies before landing his “Mary Tyler Moore” role in 1970. He had originally tested for Moore’s TV boss, Lou Grant, a part that went to Ed Asner. Realizing he wasn’t right for playing the blustery, short-tempered TV newsroom leader, MacLeod asked if he could try instead for the wisecracking TV news writer, whose jokes were often made at the expense of dimwitted anchorman Ted Baxter. “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” was a smash from the start and remains a classic of situation comedies. It produced two spinoffs, “Rhoda” and “Phyllis,” starring Valerie Harper and Cloris Leachman, who had portrayed Mary’s neighbors. It was still top-rated when Moore, who played news producer Mary Richards, decided to end it after seven seasons. MacLeod moved on to “The Love Boat,” a romantic comedy in which guest stars, from Gene Kelly to Janet Jackson, would come aboard for a cruise and fall in love with one another. Although scorned by critics, the series proved immensely popular, lasting 11 seasons and spinning off several TV movies, including two in which MacLeod remained at the cruise ship’s helm. It also resulted in his being hired as a TV pitchman for Princess Cruise Lines. “The critics hated it. They called it mindless TV, but we became goodwill ambassadors,” he told the Los Angeles Times in 2013. Private strugglesMacLeod’s lighthearted screen persona was in contrast to his private life. In his 2013 memoir, This Is Your Captain Speaking, MacLeod acknowledged that he had struggled with alcoholism in the 1960s and ’70s. He also wrote that losing his hair at an early age made it hard for him to find work as an actor. “I went all over town looking for an agent, but no one was interested in representing a young man with a bald head,” he wrote. “I knew what I needed to do. I needed to buy myself a hairpiece.” A toupee changed his luck “pretty quickly.” By middle age, he didn’t need the toupee.MacLeod, whose given name was Allan See, took his first name from a French movie and his last from a drama teacher at New York’s Ithaca College who had encouraged him to pursue an acting career. After college, the Mount Kisco, New York-native became a supporting player in “A Hatful of Rain” and other Broadway plays, and in such films as “I Want to Live!” and “Operation Petticoat.” He made guest appearances on TV shows throughout the 1960s, including “Hogan’s Heroes,” “Hawaii Five-O” and “The Dick Van Dyke Show.” He also appeared on “McHale’s Navy” from 1962 to 1964 as seaman Joseph “Happy” Haines.He auditioned for the role of Archie Bunker in “All in the Family.” But he quickly realized that the character, immortalized by Carroll O’Connor, was wrong for him. “Immediately I thought, ‘This is not the script for me. The character is too much of a bigot.’ I can’t say these things,” MacLeod wrote in his memoir. Other movie credits included “Kelly’s Heroes,” “The Sand Pebbles” and “The Sword of Ali Baba.” MacLeod had four children with his first wife, Joan Rootvik, whom he divorced in 1972. He was the son of an alcoholic and his drinking problems helped lead to a second divorce, from Patti Steele. But after MacLeod quit drinking, he and Steele remarried in 1985. The couple later hosted a Christian radio show called “Back on Course: A Ministry for Marriages.” 
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As French cultural institutions reopen after months of coronavirus restrictions, a spectacular new museum has made its debut in Paris, housing the contemporary art collection of French billionaire Francois Pinault, including a number of prominent Black artists.A wax replica of The Rape of the Sabine Women by 16th century artist Giambologna at the Pinault Collection. (L. Bryant/VOA)A chandelier shaped like a basketball net, by American artist David Hammons, a slow-burning wax replica of a 16th century sculpture aimed to melt completely in six months, the works of Chinese-born painter Xinyi Cheng and British artist Lynette Yiadom-Boakye — the Pinault Collection is an eclectic mix of contemporary art.A crystal chandelier shaped as a basketball net by Black American artist David Hammons. (L. Bryant/VOA)”It’s giving different kind of offers to a general public in Paris, but being more of today, so to speak,” said Curator Caroline Bourgeois. “We are focused on today’s question. Even David Hammons is 70s years old, but he speaks a lot of today.”Bourgeois says the private Pinault Collection complements the raft of other Paris museums, offering completely contemporary works focusing on young artists. This opening exhibit is just a taste of the 10,000 artworks 84-year-old Francois Pinault has collected over the years.A wax replica of The Rape of the Sabine Women by 16th century artist Giambologna at the Pinault Collection. (L. Bryant/VOA)A number of them include a number Black artists like Hammons — a friend of Pinault’s, with this show including about 30 of his works. But Bougeois says showcasing race or gender is not the point. “We don’t want to put them ghettos, to show them just as women artists. This is unfair,” Bourgeois said. “Or to show the Black artists as Black artists only. This is also unfair. For us, it’s important that they can dialogue — the dialogues between the generations, the origin…”The Pinault Collection includes works by a number of prominent Black artists, including British painter Lynette Yiadom-Boakye. (L. Bryant/VOA)This Pars museum embodies a years-long goal by Pinault, a self-made billionaire from humble origins in Brittany. As other European museums struggle to stay afloat after months of coronavirus closures, this one sank nearly $200 million into redeveloping a former Paris grain exchange to house it.It’s an amazing space — rented for 50 years from the city of Paris. The building’s circular shape is inspired by Roman monuments. The top offers views of Paris—including the Pompidou Center, which also offers contemporary as well as earlier, modern art.A view of Paris from the Pinault museum, including the Pompidou center, which also exhibits contemporary but also modern art. (L. Bryant/VOA)Restored 19th-century frescoes flank the ceiling, depicting colonial-era trade. It’s a sharp and studied contrast with this collection. Frescoes on the ceiling of Bourse de Commerce, housing the Pinault Collection, depict colonial-era trade. (L. Bryant/VOA)Outside, there’s a long line to get in, even on a weekday afternoon. For those lucky enough to get tickets these first days, it’s a discovery.Francoise, who didn’t want to give her last name, says she knows some of Pinault’s collection from his museums in Venice. This one is luminous, she says, and beautiful.It’s like reliving after months of lockdown, her friend Jocelyne adds. You can’t imagine what it’s like to see art everywhere.Curator Bourgeois says she’s been moved by the many visitors who thank her.Crowds pack the Pinault Collection days after its opening. (L. Bryant/VOA).”The most beautiful compliment I had about this first show is that it’s made for everyone. And I had that a few times,” said Bourgeois. “That everyone can recognize themselves.”She won’t say when or what the next exhibit will be. This one is called “Ouvert” or “open” — a word that suggests many things.   
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In the Heights, a film about the dreams and struggles of the Latino community in a New York neighborhood, is Lin Manuel Miranda’s love letter to the place where he grew up. It also represents Miranda’s high-stakes bet that people will flock to the theater after months of COVID restrictions. VOA’s Penelope Poulou has more from the cast and the filmmaker.  
Camera: Penelope Poulou      Producer: Penelope Poulou
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Some veteran Hollywood actors say a law intended to help gig economy workers has the unintended consequence of threatening nonprofit theaters.  Mike O’Sullivan has the story from Los Angeles.
Camera: Roy Kim, Rodmy Dorcil and Arturo Martinez
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Actor and professional wrestler John Cena has apologized to fans in China after he called Taiwan a country in a promotional interview for his upcoming film and became the latest celebrity to face the fury of Chinese nationalists.
In a short video posted Tuesday on Chinese social media site Weibo, Cena did not refer to Taiwan or go into much detail about the incident, which occurred earlier this month when he was doing a promotion for “Fast & Furious 9” with Taiwanese media.
“In one interview, I made a mistake,” he said in heavily accented Mandarin Chinese. “I need to say now that this is very, very, very, very, very important. I love and respect China and the Chinese people. I’m very, very sorry. As for my mistake, I really apologize for it.”FILE – Actor John Cena attends the Road to “Fast & Furious 9” Concert at Maurice A. Ferre Park in Miami Beach, Fla.In his interview with TVBS, a Taiwanese cable channel, Cena was also speaking in Mandarin when he said Taiwan would be the first “country” to be able to see the film. That led to an uproar in China, which considers the self-governing democracy its own territory to be taken back by force if necessary.
It was unclear if Cena’s apology worked, as many comments on Chinese social media in response to his video were negative. Likewise, Cena was also facing scorn back in the United States, where Sen. Tom Cotton called the apology “pathetic” and others lashed out at him on social media as a “coward.”
Global companies and celebrities seeking to maintain access to the lucrative Chinese market have to tread a fine line on many issues as online nationalistic outrage can spark boycotts.  
China has increasingly pressured foreign firms over their statements on Taiwan, Hong Kong, Xinjiang, Tibet, the South China Sea and other issues Beijing considers sensitive.  
Airlines and other multinational companies have been pushed to refer to Taiwan as a part of China on their websites or risk damage to their business in China.  
Chinese state broadcaster CCTV cut ties with the NBA for a year in response to a tweet by Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey backing pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong, even though the post was quickly deleted.  
News about Chloe Zhao, a Chinese director, winning an Oscar was censored in April after old interviews surfaced where she said that she grew up in a place where there were “lies” everywhere.
Brands including Swedish retailer H&M, Adidas and Nike have been targeted for consumer boycotts after state media criticized them for expressing concern about reports of forced labor in China’s western region of Xinjiang.
Meanwhile, “Fast & Furious 9” — the latest in the Hollywood franchise — appeared to be doing well in China despite the uproar. The film has taken in $155 million at the box office in China since it opened on May 21, according to local media reports.
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