Month: March 2018

World-renowned British physicist Stephen Hawking, who sought to understand a range of cosmic topics from the beginning of the universe to the intricacies of black holes, died Wednesday at the age of 76.

A family spokesman said he died peacefully at his home in the city of Cambridge where he worked for decades as the Lucasian Professorship of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge.

“He was a great scientist and an extraordinary man whose work and legacy will live on for many years,” Hawking’s children, Lucy, Robert and Tim, said in a statement.

He was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis at the age of 21, a disease that eventually confined him to a wheelchair and took away this ability to speak, leaving Hawking to communicate through a voice synthesizer.

Doctors predicted he would only live a few years, but he instead thrived, focusing on his work that included seeking to bridge the gap between Albert Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity that describes the motion of large objects and the Theory of Quantum Mechanics dealing with subatomic particles.

“My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all,” Hawking said.

His 1988 book “A Brief History of Time” became an international bestseller and brought him widespread fame.

One of his most famous accomplishments came in his research on black holes, showing that small amounts of radiation could escape their gravitational pull. The phenomenon is now commonly known as Hawking radiation.

A sign of his popularity came in October when Cambridge put Hawking’s 1966 thesis online for the first time, and demand for the document was so high the university’s website crashed.

Hawking was also a proponent of human space travel to the Moon and Mars, an endeavor he said would help unite humanity in the shared purpose of spreading beyond Earth.

Hawking said making the first moves into space would “elevate humanity” because it would have to involve many countries.

“We are running out of space and the only places to go to are other worlds. It is time to explore other solar systems. Spreading out may be the only thing that saves us from ourselves. I am convinced that humans need to leave Earth,” he said last year. “If humanity is to continue for another million years, our future lies in boldly going where no one else has gone before.”
…

Chinese artist and dissident Ai Weiwei has unveiled a 60-meter inflatable rubber raft carrying more than 300 anonymous oversized figures in Sydney, Australia, to represent the plight of refugees around the world. His work of art comes as more than 11-thousand migrants have arrived by sea in Europe so far this year, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Nearly 430 have died or gone missing in the attempt. VOA’s Mariama Diallo reports.
…

Jimmy Gata, 19, recites an anti-drugs poem at “Theatre in the Park” in Zimbabwe’s capital Harare, jumping and gesturing on the stage, as spectators clap and cheer on the former addict.

Before finding his passion for the spoken word, Gata regularly took BronCleer, a cough syrup often smuggled in from South Africa that contains codeine, a painkiller similar to morphine. If enough is drunk, it also intoxicates like alcohol.

“Since Ngoma Yorira Theatre Association took me in to learn about film-making and acting and poetry, I have had no time for (BronCleer),” said Gata, a trained motor mechanic.

There are no accurate figures on the number of drug users in Zimbabwe. The Ministry of Health and Child Care says about 3,000 people nationwide are suffering mental illness directly related to drug abuse.

For 19-year-old Innocent Ndaramashe, an emerging R&B and hip-hop music star who was addicted to substances like BronCleer, the performing arts came to his rescue just in time.

“My music encourages my peers not to consume drugs because they damage our health,” Ndaramashe told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “As a young man who has been taking drugs, I decided to preach against the abuse of drugs through my music career.”

In a country where many people struggle to earn a living in the informal economy, the theater association has also helped out the poor and hungry.

“(It) gives food parcels, groceries to the needy in my community of which I am also a beneficiary because I am very old,” said 73-year-old Tambudzai Mlambo, a resident of Mbare township in Harare.

State Support

As Zimbabwe battles drug abuse made worse by a shortage of jobs for young people, the government acknowledges the contribution of the community arts scene.

“Groups that have of late emerged have helped to keep former drug addicts focused on theater or art. This diverts their attention from drugs to concentrate on something new and positive for their well being,” said Dorcas Sithole, deputy director of the Ministry of Health’s mental health department.

The state is doing what it can to fight drug abuse in tough circumstances, she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“We are trying to prevent drug users from turning into addicts,” she said, explaining how the government puts them on withdrawal programs in hospital and is also planning to open rehabilitation centers.

In addition, anti-drugs activists say there is a need for occupational therapy such as theater, which also helps young people build their self-esteem.

“Nurturing talent provides an avenue for accomplishment as opposed to helplessness which is associated with the onset of drug use,” said Hilton Nyamukapa, program coordinator for the Zimbabwe Civil Liberties and Drug Network.

Established seven years ago, the national network advocates for strategies to address problems linked to drug use in Zimbabwe and across Southern Africa.

Community Care

A pioneer of the idea of using theater to tackle drug problems, Ernest Nyatanga, founder and president of the Ngoma Yorira Theatre Association, said his organization pays former addicts for their acting.

“Rewarding former drug users for their performances in theater helps to motivate them and cultivate in them a desire to work for themselves,” he told Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Recently the association shot films highlighting social and economic issues facing the country, such as “The Delinquent” which depicts a misled young man who takes drugs while in school. The films are shown at Harare’s “Theatre in The Park.”

Nyatanga said the association donates some of the proceeds from its performances — which it stages in townships in remote areas too — to local orphanages and poor widows.

And it has helped feed people going hungry when drought hit food supplies in rural and urban areas.

It also recruits community members to sell recordings of theater productions on a commission basis by the roadside.

“We are an association that lives amongst ordinary people, and we care for their needs,” Nyatanga said.

So far, the theater association has helped more than 340 individuals change their lives for the better, 30 percent of whom were hooked on drugs, he said.

Parents like Linda Masarira, 36, whose 18-year-old son was an addict but has now resumed his secondary-school studies, are grateful for its work.

“It is a miracle – my son is reforming; he is now an upcoming hip-hop star while he is also into theater and as a result he has… stopped using drugs,” Masarira said.

Faith and Football

Community religious groups like the Christian Youths Fellowship Association (CYFA) based in Chegutu, a farming town 100 km (62 miles) west of Harare in Mashonaland West Province, have also joined the fight against drugs.

Patrick Imbayago, founder and director of the CYFA, said his group has shown anti-drugs films in urban and rural townships.

“After seeing these kinds of films, few would return to drug abuse because… drug abusers are shown as eventually losing their marbles, going mad,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The CYFA also funds football training for young people.

“The more we occupy them with social activities like soccer, the less our youths turn to drug abuse,” said Imbayago.
…

Bridesmaids director Paul Feig said Tuesday that his production company was adding an inclusion rider for future shows, the latest Hollywood figure to take up the call for more diversity on movie and television sets.

Feig, whose movies also include the all-female 2016 version of Ghostbusters, joined Matt Damon, Ben Affleck and Black Panther actor and producer Michael B. Jordan in adopting the initiative that was highlighted at the Oscars ceremony this month.

An inclusion rider is an addition to a Hollywood contract that can stipulate 50 percent diversity of gender, race and sexual orientation in both the casts and crews of movies and television shows. The idea won attention thanks to a rousing Oscar best actress acceptance speech by Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri star Frances McDormand.

“Thrilled to announce that Feigco Entertainment is officially adopting an #inclusionrider for all our film and TV productions moving forward,” Feig said on Twitter. “We challenge other companies and studios to do the same.”

Damon and Affleck’s production company, Pearl Street Films, said Monday that it was adopting the inclusion rider, and Jordan said last week that his company, Outlier Productions, would do the same.

Stacy Smith, the Los Angeles researcher and academic behind the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, on Tuesday thanked Feig and said he had long promoted women in his projects.

“Thank you my friend for putting female leads front and center for years! You are an industry role model,” Smith tweeted.
…

Even royals, it seems, may suffer from the gender pay gap.

British actress Claire Foy, who starred as a young Queen Elizabeth in the critically acclaimed Netflix series The Crown, was paid less than her co-star, Matt Smith, according to the television show’s producers.

In the latest example of pay disparity in the entertainment industry, Hollywood trade publication Variety reported on Tuesday that The Crown producers Andy Harries and Suzanne Mackie told a television industry conference in Jerusalem that Smith, who played a young Prince Philip, was paid more than Foy for the first two seasons of the show.

Foy, 33, won a Golden Globe and two Screen Actors Guild awards for her nuanced portrayal of Britain’s monarch in the 1950s and 1960s. Smith, 35, was not similarly honored.

The producers said the pay difference was due to Smith’s coming into the show after a six-year stint as Dr. Who on television, one of Britain’s most popular shows. They did not give details of the gap.

The producers said they would rectify that in the future, Variety reported.

“Going forward, no one gets paid more than the queen,” Variety quoted Mackie as saying.

Foy, however, will not be reprising her role as Queen Elizabeth. British actress Olivia Coleman is stepping in to play the older monarch as upcoming Season 3 of the show moves into the 1970s. Prince Philip will also be played by a different actor.

Netflix declined to comment on actor salaries. 

Representatives for Foy and Smith did not return requests for comment on Tuesday.

The Crown is one of the most expensive television shows ever produced, costing a reported $130 million for the first season.

The ongoing disparity between men’s and women’s pay is reflected in annual lists published by Forbes magazine. In 2017, Emma Stone topped the best-paid actress list with $26 million, while Mark Wahlberg was the highest-paid man with $68 million in estimated annual earnings.

Wahlberg made news earlier this year when it was revealed that he was paid $1.5 million for reshoots on movie All the Money in the World while co-star Michelle Williams got $1,000.

Wahlberg later donated his salary to Time’s Up, the campaign against workplace sexual misconduct.
…

Student Sama Kinsara adjusts her camera at Saudi Arabia’s only cinema school, her dream of seeing her work on the big screen coming into focus after the lifting of the country’s 35-year ban on cinema.

“Everything is about to change,” the first-year student of “visual and digital production” at Effat University in Jeddah told Reuters.

Her course is to be renamed “cinematic arts,” dropping the deceptive title employed originally to help stay under the radar of religious police and local communities opposed to the idea of men teaching women how to make movies.

Kinsara and her classmates on the four-year, women-only course have been able to film outside the university grounds for the first time.

“A girl carrying a camera and shooting in the streets is pushing boundaries,” said Mohamed Ghazala, head of Effat’s Visual and Digital Production Department, which began the course in 2013.

The changes follow the lifting of restrictions by reform-minded Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the last year.

Authorities hope that by opening 300 cinemas and building a film industry, more than $24 billion can be added to the economy and 30,000 jobs created.

Cinema is one of several new avenues for Saudi women, who can now attend soccer matches, take part in sport, and in a few months will be allowed to drive cars.

The deeply conservative kingdom is still one of most restrictive countries for women in the world, with a guardianship system requiring women to have a male relative’s approval for important decisions.

For film student Qurratulain Waheb, the chance to get off the university campus and film with her classmates is welcomed.

“Before, there was a problem if we had a camera in the malls, we were not allowed to enter the malls but things are getting smoother now when we have access,” she said. “When we have permissions it gets easier, it gets better and people are more accepting. They want to see what we’re doing.”
…

The peak bloom period for Washington, D.C.’s cherry blossoms has been pushed back.

The National Park Service announced Monday afternoon that it is pushing back the peak bloom date from the March 17-to-20 window to March 27 to 31 due to colder-than-expected temperatures.

Peak bloom occurs when 70 percent of the Yoshino cherry trees that surround the Tidal Basin are in bloom. The park service says the cherry blossoms’ flowers can last up to 10 days once they bloom.
…

Shahnaz Kamal is an anomaly in the male-dominated sport of boxing, especially in a country like Pakistan, which clings tightly to traditional roles for men and women.

Formerly a professional boxer, Kamal is the only female coach registered with the Pakistan Boxing Federation.

“My husband, taught me as his student. He showed me how to box,” she said. “I was a trained boxer. I learned boxing for two years, my husband gave me all of my training.”

Kamal is the only female 3-star national boxer in Pakistan as well as the country’s only international boxing coach. Assisted by her husband and brothers, Kamal roams the countryside in an old car equipped with a portable boxing ring to teach young boys and girls boxing techniques.

“We were the first in Pakistan’s history to get females into boxing,” Kamal said. “We started the first [training] camp in Peshawar. It is a matter of pride for Peshawar. After our girls won medals, one was from KP and one from Multan. We trained them and they received bronze medals at the South Asia games [for Pakistan.]”

Despite traditional misgivings in Pakistan about women in boxing, Kamal’s husband, Syed Kamal Khan, is proud of his wife’s accomplishments.

“My own wife boxes and coaches boxing,” he said. “This is a good path. Sports is a good path, it’s the best. We are on a positive path, Allahumdullilah (thank God), we are not on a negative path. There is no shame in it, or feeling bad about it. Nor do we care what other people think.”

The Kamals are disappointed with the lack of government support for women in sports. But their shared love for the sport keeps them going.

“If I had a say, I would train all girls in boxing for self-defense,” Shahnaz Kamal said. “Our society deals with a lot of problems concerning women. I am not sure why parents think that girls should not box.”

The Kamals say boxing is not going to make them rich, but they believe young girls should have as many opportunities open to them as boys.

And they say their mission makes them happy.
…

She’s an anomaly in the male-dominated sport of boxing. And in a country that clings tightly to traditional roles for men and women, she’s an inspiration to women. VOA’s Hamid Ullah visited Peshawar for this profile of Shahnaz Kamal — the only professional female boxing coach in Pakistan.
…

For Amber McAuley, life in Salisbury – a picturesque cathedral town best known as the gateway to Stonehenge – has become surreal ever since the town became the scene of a spy drama worthy of John le Carre.

The 20-year-old film student became a bit player in the story when she went to the Mill pub on March 4, only to learn the next day that a former Russian spy and his daughter might have been poisoned there a few hours earlier.

“It all just kind of feels a bit surreal,” she said after serving customers at a coffee shop in Salisbury. “It’s just so strange, going on your phone and seeing where you live (in the news), when it is such a quaint, quiet city. … I can’t quite believe it.”

McAuley spent Sunday scrubbing herself in the shower and repeatedly washing her clothes after public health officials said traces of a nerve agent had been found in the pub and a nearby pizzeria. Most other residents, however, are taking events in stride, even as chemical weapons experts and international news crews descended on this city of 40,000, some 90 miles (145 kilometers) southwest of London. They are following things closely, but going about their daily routines as much as possible.

Prime Minister Theresa May on Monday applauded the “fortitude and calmness” of the people of Salisbury as she told the House of Commons that Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, were targeted with a military-grade nerve agent developed by Russia. It is “highly likely” that Russia was responsible for the attack, she added. The Skripals are still in critical condition at a local hospital.

Police investigating the suspected assassination attempt have set up a series of cordons around sites linked to the attack, including the pub and Zizzi, a chain pizzeria. Public health officials have said there is little danger to the general public, though they advised anyone who visited either restaurant on March 4 or 5 to wash the clothes they were wearing, as well as phones, jewelry and other accessories.

Jeff Timmins’ barbershop, with a traditional blue-and-red striped barber pole out front, sits across the street from the pizzeria. Police stand guard on the corner, and TV reporters do stand-up reports meters (yards) from his front door.

It’s all extraordinary, but Timmins isn’t getting too excited.

“The fact that anyone is carrying nerve agents is a little bit unnerving,” he said. “But it’s being dealt with properly.”

Part of that attitude has to do with the character of the town and its links to the military. The Ministry of Defense owns large swathes of Salisbury Plain, which has been the site of army exercises for more than a century. Samples from the Salisbury attack are being tested at the nearby Defense Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down.

Many of those who served in the military have had chemical weapons training, and accept the expert assessment that only those who had direct contact with the nerve agent are in danger, Timmins said. Even the fact that it took authorities more than a week to advise people to take extra precautions isn’t really causing much alarm.

“We’re just keeping calm and carrying on,” he said with typical English understatement.

Part of that nonchalance may disappear now that the government has linked the attack to Russia. Speculation about Russian involvement began almost immediately because of the 2006 killing of another former spy, Alexander Litivinenko, who died after drinking tea laced with radioactive polonium-210.

His widow, Marina, fought for a public inquiry into the case, keeping it in the public eye for a decade. The inquiry found that the Kremlin was involved and that Putin “probably” approved the attack.

Russian involvement makes it bigger than “one man and attempted murder,” said Diane Hampstead of Foxtrot Vintage, a clothing store in Salisbury. “It makes it an international incident.”

Nicola Hardingham, who runs a cookery store, says she can’t escape the fallout from the attack.

Walking home from work now means dodging the police cordons. Casual conversations gravitate toward Cold War politics. Her grandmother is afraid to come into the town center.

“It’s just the weirdest thing,” said Hardingham, 23. “It’s one thing to hear about (spies). To have it so close is another matter. It’s just surreal. I don’t feel as if I’m in danger, but you do sort of stop to think.”
…

New York’s Metropolitan Opera said on Monday that it had fired its longtime conductor and musical director James Levine after an inquiry found “credible evidence” to support accusations against him of sexual misconduct.

The Met suspended Levine, 74, in December after several accusations of sexual misconduct stretching from the 1960s to 1980s. At the time, he was serving as music director emeritus and artistic director of its young artist program at the Met.

The Metropolitan Opera said in a statement on Monday that an independent inquiry had “uncovered credible evidence that Mr. Levine had engaged in sexually abusive and harassing conduct” before and during his time at the company.

“In light of these findings, the Met concludes that it would be inappropriate and impossible for Mr. Levine to continue to work at the Met,” it said in the statement.

Levine, who served as the Met’s musical director for 40 years until he retired from that position in 2016, has denied the accusations. His representative did not immediately return a request for comment on Monday.

The Met said in its statement on Monday that more than 70 people had been interviewed in the investigation, which took more than three months and was led by an outside counsel.

Levine was the latest powerful man in the United States to lose his job over accusations of sexual misconduct or harassment.
…

Music’s first couple Beyonce and Jay-Z on Monday announced a new joint tour in what will likely mark some of the year’s most lucrative concerts.

The rapper and diva, who in June gave birth to twins, will open the stadium tour on June 6 in the Welsh city of Cardiff.

The 36-date show will travel across Europe, including a Bastille Day show at the Stade de France in Paris, before a North American leg that closes on October 2 in Vancouver.

Beyonce announced the tour in a series of posts to her 112 million Instagram followers, including a black-and-white photo in which the couple poses sensually astride a motorcycle, an Old West-style bull’s skull on the front.

She also posted a half-minute video of slow-motion footage of the two superstars, the reggae classic “I’m Still in Love With You” playing.

Jay-Z and Beyonce dubbed the tour “OTR II,” a reference to their first co-headlining “On the Run” tour in 2014 which grossed some $100 million.

Beyonce is set to return to the stage in April to headline Coachella, the biggest-name US music festival, in her first performance since giving birth to the couple’s second and third children.

For Jay-Z, the tour follows solo concerts to promote “4:44,” his introspective last album in which he notably apologizes to Beyonce for infidelity.

 
…

The next book from Nobel winner Malala Yousafzai is a story of refugees.

 

Little, Brown Books for Young Readers told The Associated Press on Monday that Yousafzai’s “We Are Displaced” will come out Sept. 4. The book will combine her own experiences with accounts she has heard while visiting refugee camps. The 20-year-old Pakistani activist for female education said in a statement that she hoped to show “the humanity behind the statistics.”

 

In 2014, she became the youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner ever when given the award at age 17. Yousafzai also is known for her best-selling memoir, “I Am Malala.”
…