ОГЛЯД

Afghan Taekwondo champion Nisar Ahmad Abdulrahimzai fled Afghanistan for Ukraine and is now in Switzerland. Despite his circumstances, he says he is ready to represent Afghanistan in competition. VOA’s Waheed Faizi has the story.
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Naomi Judd, the Kentucky-born singer of the Grammy-winning duo The Judds and mother of Wynonna and Ashley Judd, has died. She was 76.

The daughters announced her death Saturday in a statement provided to The Associated Press.

“Today we sisters experienced a tragedy. We lost our beautiful mother to the disease of mental illness,” the statement said. “We are shattered. We are navigating profound grief and know that as we loved her, she was loved by her public. We are in unknown territory.”

Naomi Judd died near Nashville, Tennessee, said a statement on behalf of her husband and fellow singer, Larry Strickland. It said no further details about her death would be released and asked for privacy as the family grieves.

The Judds were to be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame on Sunday and they had just announced an arena tour to begin in the fall, their first tour together in over a decade. They also made a return to awards shows when they performed at the CMT Music Awards earlier this month.

“Honored to have witnessed ‘Love Can Build a Bridge’ just a few short weeks ago,” singer Maren Morris posted on Twitter Saturday.

“This is heartbreaking news! Naomi Judd was one of the sweetest people I’ve ever known,” singer Travis Tritt posted on Twitter, noting that he had worked with Judd several times on screen and during performances.

The mother-daughter performers scored 14 No. 1 songs in a career that spanned nearly three decades. After rising to the top of country music, they called it quits in 1991 after doctors diagnosed Naomi Judd with hepatitis. Wynonna continued her solo career.

The Judds’ hits included “Love Can Build a Bridge” in 1990,”Mama He’s Crazy” in 1984, “Why Not Me” in 1984,”Turn It Loose” in 1988, “Girls Night Out” in 1985, “Rockin’ with the Rhythm of the Rain” in 1986 and “Grandpa” in 1986.

Born Diana Ellen Judd in Ashland, Kentucky, Naomi was working as a nurse in Nashville, when she and Wynonna started singing together professionally. Their unique harmonies, together with elements of acoustic music, bluegrass and blues, made them stand out in the genre at the time.

“We had a … such a stamp of originality on what we were trying to do,” Naomi Judd told The AP after it was announced that they would be joining the Country Music Hall of Fame.

The Judds released six studio albums and an EP between 1984 and 1991 and won nine Country Music Association Awards and seven from the Academy of Country Music. They earned a total of five Grammy Awards together on hits like “Why Not Me” and “Give A Little Love.”

The Judds sang about family, the belief in marriage and the virtue of fidelity. Because Naomi was so young looking, the two were mistaken for sisters early in their career.

They first got attention singing on Ralph Emery’s morning show in early 1980, where the host named them the “Soap Sisters” because Naomi said she used to make her own soap.

After the success of “Mama He’s Crazy,” they won the Horizon Award at the 1984 CMA Awards. Naomi started her speech by saying “Slap the dog and spit in the fire!”

Daughter Ashley Judd is an actor known for her roles in such movies as “Kiss the Girls,” “Double Jeopardy” and “Heat.”

Strickland, who was a backup singer for Elvis Presley, was married to Naomi Judd for 32 years.
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A musical that depicts the remarkable escape from the Holocaust of a renowned Jewish sculptor and his family is about to open in Australia. Driftwood recounts the journey of Karl Duldig, his wife Slawa Horowitz-Duldig – inventor of the modern foldable umbrella – and their baby daughter, Eva. They fled the Nazis from Vienna in 1938, sought refuge in Singapore, but were deported to Australia in September 1940.

“Driftwood” is based on a 2017 memoir by Karl Duldig’s daughter, Eva. She was a child when the family arrived in Australia. It was during World War II, and the family were classified as enemy aliens. They were interned in an isolated camp in the state of Victoria until 1942, when Karl Duldig joined the Australian army.

Eva de Jong-Duldig, who became a talented tennis player and reached the quarterfinals at Wimbledon in 1961, says the musical is an epic story of survival.

“My parents were inspiration. I think what I admire most is their resilience after coming through such a terrible period in which they lost nearly all their family. They made new lives here in Australia and they became wonderful art teachers, and my dad became really very well recognized as a sculptor,” she noted.

They rebuilt their lives as artists in Melbourne in what is described as a “magical” family history of “creativity, perseverance and freedom.”

Their granddaughter, Tania De Jong, is one of the musical’s main performers. She told the Australian Broadcasting Corp., that Driftwood has become a story with a global appeal.

“Both of us just felt a really strong yearning to create a new Australian musical that was deep and substantial and told a very meaningful story. But we do also have an enormous amount of interest from international film producers to turn this epic story into a feature film as well,” she expressed.

Karl Duldig died in Melbourne in 1986. His wife, Slawa, died in 1975.

The show has had positive reviews from Australia’s Jewish community.

Hadassah Australia, an organization that supports programs that connect the Australian community with Israel, said it looked “forward to the success of the musical telling [of Eva de Jong-Duldig] parents’ story.”

Theatrepeople.com.au, an online publication, said “Driftwood” “features a fluid sense of time, as characters reconstruct past experiences, to make sense of history. It is an epic, ambitious theatrical piece and a truly original Australian story.”

The Australian Jewish News said it would be giving away free tickets to the show’s opening night.

The world premiere takes place at Monash University in Melbourne May 13.
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For many students, living and studying at one of the most prestigious schools in the United States can be stressful and sometimes a little lonely. But some Muslim students at Princeton University can find comfort in their community during the month of Ramadan. VOA’s Nida Samir reports.
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Muslim worshippers in Turkey’s southeastern city of Diyarbakir say they are struggling to purchase essential groceries for Ramadan celebrations because of the country’s high inflation rate. VOA’s Xecican Farqin has details in this report narrated by Rikar Hussein. Camera: Xecican Farqin
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Veteran Hong Kong actor Kenneth Tsang has died while in a COVID-19 quarantine hotel in the southern Chinese city, local media reported.

Tsang was best known internationally for his action roles in the 2002 James Bond film Die Another Day,'' John Woo'sThe Killer” in 1989, Rush Hour 2'' in 2001 starring Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker, and 1998'sThe Replacement Killers” alongside Chow Yun-Fat and Mira Sorvino.

Tsang had been undergoing seven days of quarantine after returning from Singapore on Monday and was found collapsed on the floor of his hotel room by staff on Wednesday, according to the South China Morning Post and other media.

The South China Morning Post said Tsang was 87 years old but other sources gave his age as 86.

No cause of death was given and the paper said he had tested negative for the virus and had no underlying medical conditions.

In all, Tsang had some 237 acting credits, mainly in Hong Kong film and television productions, and especially in detective and martial arts movies, according to his IMDb page.

Born in Shanghai, Tsang began acting after obtaining an architecture degree at the University of California, Berkeley, making his debut in 1955. In 1969 alone, he was credited in more than 20 movies and continued working up to the time of his death.

Tsang was married three times and had a son with his first wife, Lan Di, and a daughter with his second wife, Barbara Tang.

Hong Kong is dealing with a renewed outbreak in cases of the highly transmissible omicron variant and requires all inbound travelers to undergo quarantine for up to 14 days.
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