Russian court orders to keep French researcher in jail as trial starts

A Moscow court yesterday ordered a French researcher accused of breaching Russia’s “foreign agent” law be held in jail until February next year, at the start of a trial that comes amid tensions between Russia and the West over the Ukraine conflict.Laurent Vinatier, who worked for a Swiss conflict mediation NGO before he was arrested in Moscow in June, is one of several Western citizens who have been held in Russian prisons in recent years on charges that the West says are baseless.At the opening of the trial in Moscow’s Zamoskvoretsky court yesterday, the judge ruled to extend Vinatier’s detention until 21 February 2025.The judge also set the next hearing in the case for 16 September, AFP journalists reported from the courtroom, granting Vinatier’s request for more time to prepare.Vinatier was held in a metal cage for defendants during the proceedings.Wearing a blue shirt and dark trousers, he smiled as he spoke with his lawyers ahead of the start of the trial.The 48-year-old faces a five-year prison sentence if convicted.France has urged Russia to release Vinatier, saying he has been “arbitrarily detained”.Russian authorities say he was collecting information on Russia’s military without being registered as a “foreign agent”, as required by law.The law has more often been used to target Russians and domestic critics of the Kremlin, rather than foreign citizens.Russian investigators also say Vinatier collected military information that could be used against Moscow by foreign states — raising fears he could face further charges later.Russia has previously used “foreign agent” charges to arrest people before levelling more serious accusations at them.Tensions between Moscow and Paris are running high after France charged Russian-born Telegram founder Pavel Durov last week over illegal content on the popular social media platform, with the Kremlin warning Paris not to turn Durov’s case into “political persecution”.In previous court hearings Vinatier has acknowledged violating the Russian law and apologised, explaining that he was unaware he should have registered as a “foreign agent”.Vinatier is an adviser with the Geneva-based Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue and a researcher on Russia and other post-Soviet countries.The centre “works to prevent and resolve armed conflicts around the world through mediation and discreet diplomacy”, it says in a statement on its website.According to sources interviewed by AFP, the Frenchman had been working for years on the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, before Russia launched its full-scale offensive in February 2022.Humanitarian Dialogue said in June that it was doing “everything possible to help” Vinatier, who “lives in Switzerland and travels regularly for his work”.Married and the father of four children, he has been in pre-trial detention since his arrest, with his repeated requests to be placed under house arrest rejected.“I always wanted to adequately present the interest and position of Russia on international relations in my work,” he said at a hearing in early July.“I love Russia, my wife is Russian, my life is linked with Russia,” he told the court.In recent years, several Westerners, particularly Americans, have been arrested in Russia and charged with serious offences.Washington has accused Moscow of arresting US citizens on baseless charges to use them as bargaining chips to secure the release of Russians convicted abroad. On August 1, Russia freed US reporter Evan Gershkovich, former US Marine Paul Whelan and more than a dozen others — including Russian opposition politicians — in its biggest prisoner swap with the West since the Cold War.

source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/689932/international/russian-court-orders-to-keep-french-researcher-in-jail-as-trial-starts

Biden, Harris to make first joint campaign appearance

President Joe Biden and Kamala Harris (pictured) hit the campaign trail together for the first time yesterday, in a public display of unity after she replaced him as candidate and revived Democratic election hopes.The 81-year-old president bowed out in late July under mounting pressure after his disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump.His rapid endorsement of Vice-President Harris, 59, saw her quickly shore up party support and she became the formal Democratic nominee last month.Riding a wave of fresh enthusiasm, she has held packed rallies in key swing states across the country and raked in cash donations for the final two-month stretch of the campaign.Polls show her entry improving the party’s chances at defeating Republican Trump, but with the race still neck and neck.Harris last appeared with Biden after his speech two weeks ago at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.As she works to define her platform, the vice-president has sought to promise changes, while avoiding criticism of Biden’s tenure.With Monday being the national Labour Day holiday, Biden and Harris were expected to argue that she would be better for workers than Trump, choosing the union-heavy city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania as the backdrop.“The most pro-labour administration in history, under President Biden and Vice-President Harris’s leadership, support for union membership has grown to its highest level in half a century,” her campaign said in a statement previewing the day’s events.Pennsylvania is one of a handful of states that will decide the election, and is viewed as possibly the one on which the outcome will hinge.Harris and Biden will speak at a union hall where they will meet local members.Harris is expected to say that US Steel – which Japan’s Nippon Steel is seeking to buy – should remain domestically owned, a campaign official said.During a campaign tour last week in swing-state Georgia, Harris held her first in-depth interview since becoming the party standard-bearer, accompanied by her running-mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.Harris aimed to stake out a centrist position in the CNN sit-down, insisting that she will be tough on illegal immigration and support oil and gas fracking – but not abandon her long-time liberal values.In her 2020 campaign, Harris had pledged to ban fracking – a major source of income in Pennsylvania.Yesterday’s joint appearance with Biden is also seen as launching the two-month sprint to the November vote, with Labour Day marking the traditional end to the US summer.Before the Pittsburgh rally, Biden and Harris received a briefing at the White House on ceasefire negotiations in the Israel-Hamas war.The meeting was added to their schedules late on Sunday after six hostages died in Gaza over the weekend, including a US citizen.After the briefing, Harris headed to Detroit, Michigan for another event with union leaders, before joining Biden in Pittsburgh.Walz was separately to hold an event in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, while Trump and his VP pick J D Vance had stops scheduled for later in the week.

source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/689864/international/biden-harris-to-make-first-joint-campaign-appearance

11 dead as storm triggers landslides in Philippines

Floods and landslides killed 11 people after a fierce tropical storm dumped heavy rain on the Philippines for a second day, officials said yesterday.Tropical Storm Yagi slammed into the main island of Luzon yesterday after brushing past the Bicol region southeast of Manila overnight Sunday, with more heavy rain forecast which the state weather service said could cause flooding and more landslides.As a precaution, schools and government offices across the capital were shut for the day, ferry services in some areas were suspended and 29 domestic flights were cancelled due to the weather.Three people, including a pregnant woman, were killed in a landslide yesterday in Antipolo, near equally rain-soaked Manila, city information officer Relly Bonifacio said.He said the bodies of four other people, all drowning victims, were recovered yesterday in three other areas of the hilly community, hours after creeks overflowed overnight.The Bicol city of Naga was also hard-hit, with a man electrocuted as floodwaters rose and a baby girl drowning, rescuers said.“The floods were above head height in some areas,” Joshua Tuazon of the city’s public safety office said, adding that hundreds of residents had been rescued. More than 300 people were at evacuation camps yesterday, with local officials saying the floodwaters in the city of 210,000 people were slow to ebb.Two landslides killed two people and damaged five houses in the central city of Cebu on Sunday, the local disaster office there said.The storm also unleashed strong currents and big waves that wrought chaos in Manila Bay yesterday, hurling a barge and an oil tanker onto the seawall and causing another barge to run adrift, the coast guard said.A tug and a small passenger ship also collided while both were anchored, causing a fire aboard the second vessel, it said in a statement.

source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/689862/international/11-dead-as-storm-triggers-landslides-in-philippines

Russia repels ‘massive’ Ukraine drone attack

Russia said yesterday it had repelled a “massive” Ukrainian drone attack on energy and fuel plants in Moscow and 14 regions, one of the largest such strikes since the start of the two and half-year conflict.Ukraine has repeatedly sent drones to strike Russia’s energy infrastructure in recent months, in retaliation for Moscow’s missile attacks that have hugely damaged its own energy network since the Kremlin first sent troops into the country in February 2022.“It is entirely justified for Ukrainians to respond to Russian terror by any means necessary to stop it,” President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on Facebook.The latest barrage saw 158 drones fired, most of them downed over the regions of Kursk, Bryansk, Voronezh and Belgorod which border Ukraine, Russia’s defence ministry said.Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin said that 10 drones had targeted various areas in and around the capital.One of them sparked a fire at an oil refinery within the city limits of the sprawling capital, he said, while a coal-fired power plant near the city was also reported to have been targeted.The barrage came just days after Russia sent over 200 drones and missiles at Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, in one of the largest such attacks.It also comes nearly a month since Ukraine went on the offensive in Russia’s Kursk region, crossing the border and capturing Russian territory as Russian troops continued their slow but steady advance in eastern Ukraine.Sobyanin said yesterday morning that a downed drone had hit a “technical building” at the Moscow oil refinery, owned by the Gazprom energy giant, in the southeast Kapotnya area of the capital.The mayor later said “the fire at the oil refinery has been localised and there is no threat to people or the plant’s operation”.In the Tver region northwest of Moscow, five drones targeted the area of Konakovo power plant and caused a fire that was swiftly extinguished, according to governor Igor Rudenya.A local official in the Moscow region, Mikhail Shuvalov, said on Telegram that three drones had also tried to hit the Kashira coal-fired power station, but that “there were no victims nor damage and it did not catch fire”.Russian military blogger Rybar, who is followed by more than 1.3 million people, wrote, “the night attack by the Ukrainian armed forces was the most massive since the start of the special military operation” in 2022.In the city of Belgorod and the surrounding area, governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said 11 were injured in a later Ukrainian attack yesterday afternoon, among them two children and there was widescale damage to blocks of flats and houses. In the Donetsk region, Russia is advancing towards the city of Pokrovsk and Ukraine’s Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Oleksandr Syrsky wrote on Facebook that the “situation is difficult in the direction of the enemy’s main offensive”.At least three people were killed and nine injured by shelling of the Donetsk region near the town of Kurakhove, the regional governor Vadym Filashkin said.Russia yesterday claimed control of two new villages in the region: Ptyche near Pokrovsk and Vyyimka further northeast.Yesterday afternoon, Russia struck Ukraine’s second largest city of Kharkiv with missiles, injuring 47 people including seven children, according to the emergency services.National police said Russia injuring 21 at a shopping centre and 18 at a sports centre, of whom five were children.The attack caused “large-scale destruction and fires,” the emergency service said and “people could be under the rubble”.An AFP photographer saw rescuers working in the rubble of the destroyed Sports Palace centre with a dog, looking for survivors and bringing out one of those injured on a stretcher.Outside the shopping centre, there were burnt-out cars and facades torn off buildings and flames from a damaged gas pipe.Prosecutors said Russia fired two Iskander-M ballistic missiles at a shopping centre and three at the Sports Palace while three other missiles hit near the sports centre.The energy ministry said that Russia had attacked an energy facility in the city, without giving details.Kharkiv also came under attack Friday with an aerial strike killing seven including a teenage girl.“Russia is once again terrorising Kharkiv, striking civilian infrastructure and the city itself,” Zelensky wrote on Facebook, appealing for more weapons to fend off attacks.He urged global leaders to show the “courage to give Ukraine everything it needs to defend itself”.

source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/689795/international/russia-repels-massive-ukraine-drone-attack

Clooney, Pitt are lone Wolfs at Venice

Hollywood’s two top leading men — George Clooney and Brad Pitt — are ready to set the Venice Film Festival alight with the premiere of their new film Wolfs. The action comedy, pitting one professional “lone wolf” fixer against another, is one of the highlights of the 10-day festival, where it is playing out of competition on the glamorous Lido. Fans will be sure to await the arrival of the dashing movie stars by water taxi from Venice, with a world premiere scheduled for last evening. The 81st edition of the world’s oldest film festival has been awash with stars this year, with Clooney and Pitt following on the red carpet Nicole Kidman, Cate Blanchett and Angelina Jolie — Pitt’s ex-wife. Expected today will be Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton, starring in a new film from Spain’s Pedro Almodovar, while Lady Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix will dominate Wednesday’s festivities with the premiere of the sequel to Joker, Joker: Folie a Deux. In the Apple TV+ production from US director Jon Watts, Clooney and Pitt play professional “lone wolf” fixers forced to work together when both are called in to clean up after a high-profile crime. More than colleagues, Clooney and Pitt are accomplices, with an easy rapport and self-deprecating humour that the Coen brothers tapped in 2008’s Burn After Reading, or on display in the trilogy of heist films Ocean’s Eleven (2001-2007). With Wolfs, the characters “find their night spiralling out of control in ways that neither one of them expected”, explains the production, which has already announced a sequel. Watts comes to Wolfs after directing the Spider-Man: Homecoming trilogy starring Tom Holland and Zendaya. The film will have only a limited theatrical release before going to streaming around the world on Apple TV+ September 27. Sunday’s offerings also include the premiere of The Brutalist from US director Brady Corbet, a three-and-a-half-hour film that sees Adrien Brody play a Hungarian Jewish architect embarking on a life-changing project. Today, Almodovar returns to the Lido with his first full-length film in English, The Room Next Door, with Moore and Swinton, while Daniel Craig is the star of tomorrow’s premiere of Queer, an adaptation of the William Burroughs novel set in 1940s Mexico City.

source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/689794/international/clooney-pitt-are-lone-wolfs-at-venice

Brazil block on X takes effect as Musk blasts ‘dictator’ judge

A block on Elon Musk’s X social network in Brazil started to take effect early yesterday after a Supreme Court judge ordered its suspension, according to AFP.Brazilian Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes on Friday ordered the suspension of the platform following a months-long standoff with the tech billionaire over disinformation in South America’s largest nation.Moraes handed down the ruling after Musk failed to comply with an order to name a new legal representative for the company.Early yesterday access to X was no longer possible for some users in the South American country, who were presented with a message asking them to reload the browser without being able to log in successfully.Musk, who also owns Tesla and SpaceX, reacted with fury to the judge’s order, branding Moraes an “evil dictator cosplaying as a judge” and accusing him of “trying to destroy democracy in Brazil.”“Free speech is the bedrock of democracy and an unelected pseudo-judge in Brazil is destroying it for political purposes,” the billionaire, who has become increasingly aligned with right-wing politics, wrote on X.The two have been locked in an ongoing, high-profile feud for months as Moraes leads a battle against disinformation in Brazil.Musk has previously declared himself a “free speech absolutist,” but since he took over the platform formerly known as Twitter in 2022 he has been accused of turning it into a megaphone for right-wing conspiracy theories.He is a vocal supporter of former US president Donald Trump’s bid to regain the White House.Moraes ordered the “immediate, complete and comprehensive suspension of the operation of” X in the country, telling the national communications agency to take “all necessary measures” to implement the order within 24 hours.He threatened a fine of 50,000 reais ($8,900) to anyone who used “technological subterfuges” to get around the block, such as a VPN.The judge also demanded Google, Apple and Internet providers “introduce technological obstacles capable of preventing the use of the X application” and access to the website — though he later walked back that order.The social media platform has more than 22mn users in Brazil. Musk shut X’s business operations in Brazil earlier this month, claiming Moraes had threatened the company’s previous legal representative with arrest to force compliance with “censorship orders.” On Wednesday, Moraes told Musk he had 24 hours to find a new representative or he would face suspension.

source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/689707/international/brazil-block-on-x-takes-effect-as-musk-blasts-dictator-judge

Bangladesh garment industry short on cotton as floods worsen protest backlog

Garment factories in Bangladesh, one of the world’s biggest clothing production hubs, are struggling to complete orders on time as flooding disrupts their cotton supplies -- exacerbating a backlog caused by recent political turmoil.Bangladesh is a leading global cotton importer due to the size of its textile and garment industry, but the devastating floods mean few trucks and trains have been able to bring supplies to factories from Chittagong port over the last week, industry officials and analysts said. The disruption, on top of the unrest and protests that led to factory closures earlier this month, have caused garment production to fall by 50%, said Mohammad Hatem, president of the Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association.“The industry is now under immense pressure to meet deadlines, and without a swift resolution, the supply chain could deteriorate even further,” Hatem said. Bangladesh was ranked as the third-largest exporter of clothing in the world last year, after China and the European Union, according to the World Trade Organization, exporting $38.4bn worth of clothes in 2023.At the clothing factory she runs in the capital, Dhaka, Rubana Huq is counting the cost of lost production.“Even for a moderate-sized company like ours, which makes 50,000 shirts a day and if the price of one single shirt is $5, there was $250,000 of production loss,” said Huq, a former president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA).She said some garment plants were slowing resuming production, but estimated that complete recovery “would be at least six months away”, warning that Bangladeshi manufacturers could lose 10%-15% of business to other countries. Bangladesh’s readymade garments industry, which supplies many of the world’s best-known fashion brands, accounts for more than 80% of the country’s total export earnings.Buyers are adopting a cautious approach and could potentially delay new orders, said Shahidullah Azim, a director of the BGMEA industry group. “The longer this uncertainty persists, the more challenging it becomes for us to maintain the momentum we have built,” he told Reuters. The Bangladesh Meteorological Department said flood conditions could persist if the monsoon rains continued, as water levels were receding very slowly. Some cotton shipments could get diverted to India, Pakistan and Vietnam, commodity analysts said. “We are already hearing and seeing some cotton for prompt delivery wanted by Pakistan and Vietnam,” said Louis Barbera, partner and analyst at VLM Commodities based in New Jersey.New orders shifted from Bangladesh could also be accommodated in southern India, said Atul Ganatra, president of the Cotton Association of India. Even before the floods and political unrest, the Bangladeshi garment industry was grappling with power shortages that remain a problem, said Fazlee Shamim Ehsan, vice president at the country’s knitwear manufacturers and exporters association.“Energy shortages continue to hamper our operations,” he said.

source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/689648/international/bangladesh-garment-industry-short-on-cotton-as-floods-worsen-protest-backlog

Typhoon Shanshan churns up Japan, up to six dead

Typhoon Shanshan dumped record rains yesterday as it slowly churned up through Japan, triggering transport havoc and widespread warnings of landslides with up to six people killed. The typhoon, one of the fiercest to hit Japan in decades, has weakened and was forecast to ease to tropical cyclone strength by Monday, though gusts were still reaching 126km per hour early Friday.Even before making landfall on the island of Kyushu, a landslide caused by the heavy rains preceding it killed three members of the same family late Tuesday in Aichi prefecture, around 1,000km away. Government spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi confirmed four deaths but said that in one case, “the relation to the typhoon was being studied”.Two more were feared dead and two others were missing, Hayashi said.Eight people were seriously hurt and 70 others had light injuries, he said, with many hurt by broken glass after the typhoon smashed windows and ripped tiles off roofs when it slammed into Kyushu on Thursday with gusts up to 252 kph. Almost 200 buildings were damaged.Typhoons in the region have been forming closer to coastlines, intensifying more rapidly and lasting longer over land due to climate change, according to a study released in July.Another published by World Weather Attribution (WWA) on Thursday said that climate change had turbocharged Typhoon Gaemi, which killed dozens of people across the Philippines, Taiwan and China last month.A similar rapid attribution analysis from Imperial College London using peer-reviewed methodology calculated that Typhoon Shanshan’s winds were made 26% more likely by a warming planet.“Without phasing out fossil fuels, the root cause of climate change, typhoons will bring even greater devastation to Japan,” said Ralf Toumi, director of the Grantham Institute at Imperial.Japanese authorities issued their highest alert in several areas, with more than five million people advised to evacuate, although it was unclear how many did.The Japan Meteorological Agency issued alerts for possible landslides in many parts of Kyushu and as far away as Shizuoka on the main island of Honshu, the Tokyo region and nearby Kanagawa. Footage from Japanese broadcaster NHK showed a car park in Kanagawa prefecture with vehicles half-submerged in brown water, with authorities there urging residents to move to higher floors after a local river flooded.Some parts of Kyushu saw record rains for August, with the town of Misato recording a staggering 791.5mm in 48 hours, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.Kitakyushu in Kyushu saw 474 mm in the 24 hours to Friday morning, the most since 2012, when comparative data began to be collected. Nearby Kunimi had 384.5 mm, the most since records began in 1977.The holiday resort of Beppu in Kyushu suffered no major damage, but the typhoon left tourists stranded and bored, with the onsen hot springs, a monkey park and even 24-hour convenience stores shut.“This is my first time (here). I was very looking forward to it,” morose visitor Nobuhiko Takagishi from Tokyo told AFP. “But it will be a trip to remember. A trip when I couldn’t do anything.”“Tourists must be in big trouble. They came here with no preparation, and they are stranded,” said resident Hiroko Handa, 48. Power cuts hit more than 250,000 Kyushu households but the utility operator said Friday that only 6,500 were still without electricity as engineers repaired transmission lines.Overnight, many motorways were fully or partially closed in Kyushu, as well as others further afield, media reports said. Shinkansen bullet trains remained suspended in Kyushu and were also halted on the major route between Tokyo and Osaka, with operators warning of disruptions elsewhere.Japan Airlines and ANA had already announced the cancellation of more than 600 flights between them for Friday, having scrapped a similar number the previous day, affecting almost 50,000 passengers.

source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/689649/international/typhoon-shanshan-churns-up-japan-up-to-six-dead

Fighter jet deal at centre of Macron’s Serbia trip

France’s President Emmanuel Macron arrived yesterday in Serbia where the two countries hope to sign a deal worth billions of euros for Paris to supply fighter jets to the Balkan nation.The Rafale fighter jet deal is looming large over the French leader’s two-day visit, after Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic told AFP that he hoped to seal the agreement this week.The deal to purchase the French Rafale jets would be one of several agreements inked during the visit, according to Vucic.“There are thousands of things that we’ll have to discuss tomorrow. There are many memorandums of understanding and many contracts that we’re going to sign tomorrow,” Vucic said in an interview Wednesday.“I believe that we’ll finish everything successfully regarding our military-technical co-operation, which means that Serbia might become a member of (the) Rafale Club, which is a huge, huge contract.”A source with the French presidency said “intense discussions” were ongoing and hoped a deal could be reached during Macron’s visit.Macron arrived in Belgrade late yesterday afternoon, where he was greeted with a hug by Vucic and a traditional honour guard. Vucic told a Serbian state broadcaster late Wednesday that financing for the fighter jet agreement was no longer an issue, while adding that some unspecified “guarantees” still needed to be ironed out.France has been strengthening its economic ties with Belgrade in recent years, with trade between the two countries tripling in the past 12 years, according to Serbia’s finance ministry.French company Vinci has been overseeing a years-long renovation of Belgrade’s Nikola Tesla airport, and French groups are set to build the capital’s first metro station and a state-of-the-art wastewater treatment plant.Belgrade-based analyst Vuk Vuksanovic said that Vucic likely saw the Rafale deal as crucial for ensuring France’s support in the future.The president “believes that by purchasing these Rafales, which are an extremely expensive product of the French military and industry, he will buy President Macron’s favour and political protection,” Vuksanovic, a senior researcher at the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy, told AFP.If signed, the agreement would mark the latest in a string of moves by Serbia to curry favour with Europe.In July, the European Union and Serbia signed a deal to develop the country’s supply of lithium — seen as a crucial building block to achieve Europe’s transition to a green economy.The Serbian government reinstated the licences for a controversial lithium mine this summer after revoking in 2022 the permits granted to Rio Tinto following a string of demonstrations over environmental concerns.

source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/689579/international/fighter-jet-deal-at-centre-of-macrons-serbia-trip

Jolie ‘terribly nervous’ about playing diva in new film

Angelina Jolie confessed she was afraid about being able to “live up” to Maria Callas in her new biopic about the great diva’s extraordinary yet tragic life that premieres yesterday at the Venice Film Festival.In Maria, the American movie star tackles the tormented final years of the 20th century’s most celebrated opera singer who mesmerised audiences around the world.“The bar in this... are the Maria Callas fans and those who love opera,” Jolie told a press conference ahead of the premiere of the movie by Chilean director Pablo Larrain.“And my fear would be to disappoint them.”“I really came to care for her so I felt I didn’t want to do a disservice to this woman,” she added.Jolie said she hoped to honour the “legacy” of the diva, who died nearly alone in 1977 aged 53, after a whirlwind life and career that was nevertheless marked by great sadness.The film’s premiere last night on the festival’s second day is the last in Larrain’s trilogy of movies about iconic women — after 2021’s Spencer about Princess Diana and 2016’s Jackie about Jacqueline Kennedy.The director has said only a larger-than-life star in her own right could play the role of the American-born Greek singer, whose successes at La Scala, La Fenice, Covent Garden and New York are the stuff of opera legend 100 years after her birth.“This movie would not have existed without Angelina,” said the director.Absent from the screen since 2021, the 49-year-old American actress and director has kept a relatively low profile even as her lengthy, acrimonious divorce from Brad Pitt continues to make headlines.The public’s fascination with Jolie’s private life has parallels with Callas, whose stormy life and loves — including her relationship with the Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, who left her for Jacqueline Kennedy — were similarly fodder for the tabloids.But while the paparazzi will be out in full force yesterday for her premiere, Jolie will not cross paths with Pitt during her visit.Pitt’s action comedy Wolfs, in which he and George Clooney play rival professional fixers, is playing out of competition on the Lido on Sunday, as purposely planned by festival organisers to avoid awkward encounters.One of 21 films in competition for Venice’s prestigious Golden Lion prize, Maria opens with a whirlwind look at the highlights of Callas’ life as seen through the eyes of the paparazzi, with Jolie here singing Casta Diva in Paris in her red silk wrap, there accepting ovations at La Scala or frolicking with Aristotle Onassis on his yacht.Jolie said she studied for nearly seven months ahead of filming, training herself to mimic the great artist’s cadences and tones as the film mixes in her own singing voice with that of the celebrated soprano.“I was terribly nervous,” Jolie said. “I was frightened to live up to her.”Taped master classes taught by Callas served as a guide, however: “I got very lucky because the best way in, I got to be taught by Maria.”Jolie said she related to Callas’ softer side, “the part of her that’s extremely soft and doesn’t have room in the world to be as soft as she truly was, and as emotionally open as she truly was.”“I share her vulnerability more than anything.”While some critics found flaws with Callas’s voice, it was nevertheless deeply expressive, able to impart dramatic intensity to any role, which combined with her beauty and presence often brought frenzied standing ovations.A towering talent with a tireless work ethic, Callas was often portrayed as a “temperamental” star, a label she rejected, defending herself as a disciplined perfectionist with high standards.She single-handedly revived the 19th-century bel canto operas of Donizetti, Rossini and Bellini — whose Norma was one of Callas’s signature roles.But the diva’s voice began to fail and even as she struggled to rekindle it, the “critics were so cruel”, said Jolie.“I don’t know if she passed knowing that she did her best and she was appreciated and loved. I think she may have died with a lot of loneliness and pain.”

source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/689580/international/jolie-terribly-nervous-about-playing-diva-in-new-film

25 militants killed, 11 Injured in infiltration qttempt on Pakistan-Afghan Border

Twenty-five militants were killed and 11 others were injured in an attempt to infiltrate Pakistani territory across the Afghan border.Radio Pakistan quoted a statement by the Pakistani army on Thursday as saying that militants tried to infiltrate across the border last night, but Pakistani forces confronted them and managed to eliminate them during an exchange of fire.The land border between the two neighboring countries, Pakistan and Afghanistan, is witnessing the infiltration of armed elements in both directions, as authorities in Islamabad and Kabul are seeking to control the border through preemptive combing operations.

source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/689553/international/25-militants-killed-11-injured-in-infiltration-qttempt-on-pakistan-afghan-border