Renovated Gallery Aims to Put African Art in Proper Cultural Context
Art from across Africa is on display in a newly renovated gallery at the Denver Art Museum in the U.S. state of Colorado. VOA’s Scott Stearns shows us what is on display.
…
US, Microsoft Warn Chinese Hackers Attacking ‘Critical’ Infrastructure
State-sponsored Chinese hackers have infiltrated critical U.S. infrastructure networks, the United States, its Western allies and Microsoft said Wednesday while warning that similar espionage attacks could be occurring globally.
Microsoft highlighted Guam, a U.S. territory in the Pacific Ocean with a vital military outpost, as one of the targets, but said “malicious” activity had also been detected elsewhere in the United States.
The stealthy attack — carried out by a China-sponsored actor dubbed “Volt Typhoon” since mid-2021 — enabled long-term espionage and was likely aimed at hampering the United States if there was conflict in the region, it said.
“Microsoft assesses with moderate confidence that this Volt Typhoon campaign is pursuing development of capabilities that could disrupt critical communications infrastructure between the United States and Asia region during future crises,” the statement said.
“In this campaign, the affected organizations span the communications, manufacturing, utility, transportation, construction, maritime, government, information technology, and education sectors.”
Microsoft’s statement coincided with an advisory released by U.S., Australian, Canadian, New Zealand and British authorities warning that the hacking was likely occurring globally.
“This activity affects networks across US critical infrastructure sectors, and the authoring agencies believe the actor could apply the same techniques against these and other sectors worldwide,” they said.
‘Living off the land’
The United States and its allies said the activities involved “living off the land” tactics, which take advantage of built-in network tools to blend in with normal Windows systems.
It warned that the hacking could then incorporate legitimate system administration commands that appear “benign”.
Microsoft said the Volt Typhoon attack tried to blend into normal network activity by routing traffic through compromised small office and home office network equipment, including routers, firewalls and VPN hardware.
“They have also been observed using custom versions of open-source tools,” Microsoft said.
Microsoft and the security agencies released guidelines for organizations to try to detect and counter the hacking.
“It’s what I would term a low and slow cyber activity,” said Alastair MacGibbon, chief strategy officer at Australia’s CyberCX and a former head of the Australian Cyber Security Centre.
“This is someone wearing a camouflage vest and carrying a sniper rifle. You don’t see them, they’re not there,” he told AFP.
“When you think about something that can really cause catastrophic harm, it is someone with intent who takes time to get into systems.”
Once inside, the cyber attackers can steal information, he said. “But it also gives you the ability to carry out destructive acts at a later stage.”
‘Highly sophisticated’
A number of other governments had found similar activity since the Volt Typhoon alert was issued, said Robert Potter, co-founder of Australian cybersecurity firm Internet 2.0.
“I am not sure how communications infrastructure would be at risk from these attacks because those networks are highly resilient and difficult to bring down for more than small intervals,” Potter told AFP.
“However, the ongoing threat from China-based APT (advanced persistent threat) groups is real.”
The director of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Jen Easterly, said China had been stealing intellectual property and data worldwide for years.
“Today’s advisory, put out in conjunction with our U.S. and international partners, reflects how China is using highly sophisticated means to target our nation’s critical infrastructure,” Easterly said.
China offered no immediate response to the allegations. But it routinely denies carrying out state-sponsored cyber-attacks.
China in turn regularly accuses the United States of cyber espionage.
…
Analysis: China Steps Up Response to US Chip Moves but Economic Reality Limits How Far
Beijing’s restrictions on American chipmaker Micron in retaliation to sweeping US chip curbs mark a major step up in its response to Washington’s pressure and could open the door for further measures in the geopolitical standoff, analysts say.
But they warned President Xi Jinping’s ability to raise the stakes will be limited as he battles to re-energize the world’s number two economy while it struggles to recover from years of zero-Covid-imposed inertia.
China on Sunday banned the use of Micron’s chips in critical infrastructure projects, which Beijing said posed “major network security risks” that could affect “national security”.
Washington expressed “serious concerns” over the ruling that came just as leaders of the world’s seven richest nations (G7) signed a statement urging Beijing to end “economic coercion”.
The move marked a significant shift in China’s response to US measures that have targeted the country’s technology sector, with Gary Ng, a senior economist at Natixis who specializes in the global chip trade, calling it “a landmark case”.
He emphasized it was China’s first cybersecurity probe into a foreign company since tighter rules were announced in 2021, and a rare instance when the scope of such reviews was expanded to include national security concerns.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if regulators used these reviews as a tool for retaliation in future” when faced with other geopolitical issues, he said.
Emily Weinstein, a research fellow at Georgetown University specializing in the US-China tech rivalry, added that the definition of what fell under “critical information infrastructure” was very broad — ranging from online government services and defense to healthcare and water conservation.
“Technically that could mean that anything qualifies,” she said.
“China has consistently found national security or other reasons to create protectionist barriers” including mandatory technology transfer agreements, which require companies to store all data locally and requirements for foreign entities to have joint ventures with local partners in several sectors.
‘Fuel to this fire’
China began an investigation into Micron in late March, five months after the US unveiled sweeping curbs aimed at cutting off Beijing’s access to high-end chips, chipmaking equipment and software used to design semiconductors.
“This is clearly part of a tit-for-tat retaliation for what Beijing perceives as Washington’s support of Micron and the US semiconductor industry,” said Paul Triolo, a China tech expert at consultancy Albright Stonebridge.
Micron was singled out to make a political statement, Triolo said, adding that previous cybersecurity reviews of domestic firms, such as ride-hailing app Didi, focused on data instead of broadening the scope to include national security.
Washington has banned Chinese chipmakers including Micron rival Yangtze Memory Technologies.
The announcement came as the G7 nations said they would move to “de-risk, not decouple” from China, while Washington pressures allies to unite in restricting chip equipment exports to China.
“The strong statement from G7 may have added fuel to this fire,” Ng said.
However, Xi’s desire to combat what he sees as US hegemony will need to be balanced against the impact such measures would have on the economy.
According to analysts, Micron — one of the US’s largest memory chipmakers — was an easy target because its semiconductors could be replaced by products from South Korea’s SK Hynix and Samsung.
But restrictions against other US firms such as Intel and Qualcomm would be much harder to deal with because their technologies are used in consumer goods, including smartphones, that are made in the country and shipped abroad.
Betting on South Korea
“The approach of limiting US firms like Micron intends to send a signal that Beijing is willing to bear some pain as it contests with the US,” Ja Ian Chong, an associate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore, said.
“But Beijing is quite careful to limit costs to itself,” he said, according to Bloomberg News.
The ban will come down particularly hard on companies offering cloud services or data centers because they use hardware that requires high-end memory chips, according to Toby Zhu, an analyst at market research firm Canalys.
He told AFP that Micron’s consumer goods products are “completely replaceable” by South Korean and domestic memory chip suppliers.
And Triolo said Beijing was “betting on switching to South Korean suppliers”.
However, the White House last month urged South Korean chipmakers not to export to China to fill any gap left by a ban on US semiconductor imports.
The Netherlands and Japan have already announced their own restrictions on chip exports, following requests from Washington.
Ng added: “China has been quite cautious not to retaliate too much… because Beijing can’t ramp up domestic capacity quickly to match any shortfall.”
…
Microsoft Says China-Backed Hacker Targeted Critical Infrastructure in Guam, US
Microsoft Corp. said on Wednesday it had uncovered malicious activity by a state-sponsored actor based in China aimed at critical infrastructure organizations in Guam and the United States.
Microsoft said it assessed with “moderate confidence” that this Volt Typhoon campaign “is pursuing development of capabilities that could disrupt critical communications infrastructure between the United States and Asia region during future crises.”
Volt Typhoon has been active since mid-2021 and has targeted critical infrastructure organizations in Guam and elsewhere in the United States, the company said.
Guam is home to major U.S. military facilities, including the Andersen Air Force Base, which would be key to responding to any conflict in the Asia-Pacific region.
Microsoft said it had notified targeted or compromised customers and provided them with information.
The Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
…
‘Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll’ Tina Turner Dies at 83
Tina Turner, the American-born singer who left a hardscrabble farming community and abusive relationship to become one of the top recording artists of all time, died on Wednesday at the age of 83.
She died peacefully after a long illness in her home in Küsnacht near Zurich, Switzerland, her representative said.
Turner began her career in the 1950s during the early years of rock ’n’ roll and evolved into an MTV phenomenon.
In the video for her chart-topping song “What’s Love Got to Do with It,” in which she called love a “second-hand emotion,” Turner epitomized 1980s style as she strutted through New York City streets with her spiky blond hair, wearing a cropped jean jacket, mini skirt and stiletto heels.
With her taste for musical experimentation and bluntly worded ballads, Turner gelled perfectly with a 1980s pop landscape in which music fans increasingly valued electronically produced sounds and scorned hippie-era idealism.
Sometimes nicknamed the “Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll,” Turner won six of her eight Grammy Awards in the 1980s. The decade saw her land a dozen songs on the Top 40, including “Typical Male,” “The Best,” “Private Dancer” and “Better Be Good to Me.” Her 1988 show in Rio de Janeiro drew 180,000 people, which remains one of the largest concert audiences for any single performer.
By then, Turner had been free from her marriage to guitarist Ike Turner for a decade.
The superstar was forthcoming about the abuse she suffered from her former husband during their marital and musical partnership in the 1960s and 1970s. She described bruised eyes, busted lips, a broken jaw and other injuries that repeatedly sent her to the emergency room.
“Tina’s story is not one of victimhood but one of incredible triumph,” singer Janet Jackson wrote about Turner, in a Rolling Stone issue that placed Turner at No. 63 on a list of the top 100 artists of all time.
“She’s transformed herself into an international sensation — an elegant powerhouse,” Jackson said.
In 1985, Turner gave a fictional turn to her reputation as a survivor. She played the ruthless leader of an outpost in a nuclear wasteland, acting opposite Mel Gibson in the third installment in the Mad Max franchise, “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.”
Most of Turner’s hit songs were written by others, but she enlivened them with a voice that New York Times music critic Jon Pareles called “one of the more peculiar instruments in pop.”
“It’s three-tiered, with a nasal low register, a yowling, cutting middle range and a high register so startlingly clear it sounds like a falsetto,” Pareles wrote in a 1987 concert review.
She was born Anna Mae Bullock on November 26, 1939, in the rural Tennessee community of Nutbush, which she described in her 1973 song “Nutbush City Limits” as a “quiet little old community, a one-horse town.”
Her father worked as an overseer on a farm and her mother left the family when the singer was 11 years old, according to the singer’s 2018 memoir My Love Story. As a teenager, she moved to St. Louis to rejoin her mom.
Ike Turner, whose 1951 song “Rocket 88” has often been called the first rock ’n’ roll record, discovered her at age 17 when she grabbed the mic to sing at his club show in St. Louis in 1957.
The band leader later recorded a hit song, “A Fool in Love,” with his protégé and gave her the stage name Tina Turner, before the two married in Tijuana, Mexico.
Tina employed her strong voice and strenuously rehearsed dance routines as lead vocalist in an ensemble called the Ike and Tina Turner Revue. She collaborated with members of rock royalty, including The Who and Phil Spector, in the 1960s and 1970s and appeared on the cover of issue two of Rolling Stone magazine in 1967.
Ike and Tina Turner bounced between record labels, owing much of their commercial success to a relentless touring schedule. Their biggest hit was a cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Proud Mary.”
Turner left her husband one night in 1976 on a tour stop in Dallas, after he pummeled her during a car ride and she struck back, according to her memoir. Their divorce was finalized in 1978.
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inducted Ike and Tina Turner in 1991, calling them “one of the most formidable live acts in history.” Ike Turner died in 2007.
After leaving her husband, Turner spent years struggling to regain the limelight, releasing solo albums and singles that flopped and gigging at corporate conferences.
In 1980, she met new manager Roger Davies, an Australian music executive who went on to manage her for three decades. That led to a solo No.1 record — “What’s Love Got to Do With It” — and then in 1984 her album “Private Dancer” landed her at the top of the charts.
“Private Dancer” went on to become Turner’s biggest album, the capstone of a career that saw her sell more than 200 million records in total.
In 1985 Turner met German music executive Erwin Bach who became her long-term partner and in 1988 she moved to London, beginning a decades-long residency in Europe. She released two studio albums in the 1990s that sold well, especially in Europe, recorded the theme song for 1995 Bond movie “GoldenEye” and staged a successful world tour in 2008 and 2009.
After that, she retired from show business. She married Bach, relinquishing her U.S. citizenship and becoming a citizen of Switzerland.
She battled a number of health problems after retiring and in 2018 she faced a family tragedy, when her oldest son, Craig, died by suicide at age 59 in Los Angeles. Her younger son Ronnie died in December 2022.
Her name continues to draw audiences years after her retirement. Musical stage show “TINA: The Tina Turner Musical,” with Adrienne Warren initially acting and singing the star’s life story, was a hit first in London’s West End in 2018, and later on Broadway, and is still running. And in 2021 HBO released a documentary about her life, “Tina.”
She is survived by Bach and two sons of Ike Turner’s whom she had adopted.
…
Apple Inks Multi-Billion-Dollar Deal With Broadcom for U.S.-Made Chips
Apple Inc on Tuesday said it has entered a multi-billion-dollar deal with chipmaker Broadcom Inc. to use chips made in the United States.
Under the multi-year deal, Broadcom will develop 5G radio frequency components with Apple that will be designed and built in several U.S. facilities, including Fort Collins, Colorado, where Broadcom has a major factory, Apple said.
Broadcom were up 2.2% after the announcement, hitting a record high. The chipmaker is already a major supplier of wireless components to Apple, with about one fifth of its revenue coming from the iPhone maker in its two most recent fiscal year.
Apple has been steadily diversifying its supply chains, building more products in India and Vietnam and saying that it will source chips from a new Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co plant under construction in Arizona.
SEE ALSO: A related video by VOA correspondent Michelle Quinn
The two companies did not disclose the size of the deal, with Broadcom saying only that the new agreements require it to allocate Apple “sufficient manufacturing capacity and other resources to make these products.”
Broadcom and Apple previously had a three-year, $15 billion agreement that Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon said was set to expire in June. He said the development was positive for Broadcom, despite the fact that the two firms did not give a time frame for how long the work will last.
“It’s good that it removes that overhang,” Rasgon said. “Broadcom has existed over the years with a number of these long-term agreements with Apple. Sometimes they have them and sometimes they don’t.”
Apple said it will tap Broadcom for what are known as film bulk acoustic resonator (FBAR) chips. The FBAR chips are part of a radio-frequency system that helps iPhones and other Apple devices connect to mobile data networks.
“All of Apple’s products depend on technology engineered and built here in the United States, and we’ll continue to deepen our investments in the U.S. economy because we have an unshakable belief in America’s future,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a statement.
Apple said it currently supports more than 1,100 jobs in Broadcom’s Fort Collins FBAR filter manufacturing facility.
…
$6 Million Raised to Preserve Nina Simone’s Childhood Home
An art auction and New York gala have raised nearly $6 million to preserve and restore the childhood home of soul music legend and civil rights activist Nina Simone, organizers said Tuesday.
The twin events brought in some $5.88 million — far more than the original $2 million organizers hoped to raise to restore the rural North Carolina abode.
“The new funding will meaningfully advance our project goals to complete the full restoration of the house and landscape,” said Brent Leggs, executive director of the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund. “With this investment, we are well on our way to opening the doors to visitors in 2024.”
Four US artists — Julie Mehretu, Ellen Gallagher, Rashid Johnson and Adam Pendleton — bought the dilapidated rural home in 2017 for $95,000. They’ve since worked with Leggs’ organization, as well as tennis star Venus Williams, to raise money to turn the house into a cultural and historical site.
The online auction, with works donated by British painter Cecily Brown and American artist Sarah Sze, was organized by Pace and Sotheby’s.
Among the 11 works for sale, Mehretu’s ink-and-acrylic “New Dawn, Sing (for Nina)” fetched $1.6 million.
Simone, whose songs found renewed resonance during the Black Lives Matter protests of recent years, had a complex, often difficult relationship with the United States, where she was born in 1933, during the era of racial segregation.
Born Eunice Waymon, she spent the first years of her life in the three-room house in Tryon, in the rural southeastern state of North Carolina, with her parents and siblings, and began playing the piano at age 3.
But her dream of becoming a classical concert performer was shattered when she was rejected by Philadelphia’s prestigious Curtis Institute of Music, an ordeal she attributed to racism.
In the 1960s, Simone was active in the civil rights movement, including through rousing speeches and song.
Her “Mississippi Goddam,” was a response to a 1963 fire in an Alabama church started by members of the Ku Klux Klan. Three days after the assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968, she performed “Why? (The king of love is dead).”
Simone eventually left the United States and lived her last years in the south of France, where she died in 2003.
…
TikTok Sues to Stop Ban in US State of Montana
TikTok on Monday filed suit in U.S. federal court to stop the northern state of Montana from implementing an overall ban on the video-sharing app.
The unprecedented ban, set to start in 2024, violates the constitutionally protected right to free speech, TikTok argued in the suit.
“We believe our legal challenge will prevail based on an exceedingly strong set of precedents and facts,” a TikTok spokesperson told AFP.
Montana Governor Greg Gianforte signed the prohibition into law on May 17.
Gianforte said on Twitter that he endorsed the ban in order to “protect Montanans’ personal and private data from the Chinese Communist Party.”
“The state has enacted these extraordinary and unprecedented measures based on nothing more than unfounded speculation,” TikTok contended in its lawsuit.
Five TikTok users last week filed a suit of their own, calling on a federal court to overturn Montana’s ban on the app, arguing that it violates their free speech rights.
Both suits filed against Montana argue the state is trying to exercise national security power that only the federal government can wield and is violating free speech rights in the process.
TikTok called on the federal court to declare the Montana ban on its app unconstitutional and block the state from ever putting it into effect.
“Montana can no more ban its residents from viewing or posting to TikTok than it could ban the Wall Street Journal because of who owns it or the ideas it publishes,” the lawsuit filed by TikTok users contends.
The app is owned by Chinese firm ByteDance and is accused by a wide swath of U.S. politicians of being under the tutelage of the Chinese government and a tool of espionage by Beijing, something the company furiously denies.
Montana became the first U.S. state to ban TikTok, with the law set to take effect next year as debate escalates over the impact and security of the popular video app.
A matter of law
The prohibition will serve as a legal test for a national ban of the platform, something that lawmakers in Washington are increasingly calling for.
The Montana ban makes it a violation each time “a user accesses TikTok, is offered the ability to access TikTok, or is offered the ability to download TikTok.”
Each violation is punishable by a $10,000 fine every day it takes place.
Under the law, Apple and Google will have to remove TikTok from their app stores and companies will face possible daily fines.
The prohibition will take effect in 2024 but would be voided if TikTok is acquired by a company incorporated in a country not designated by the United States as a foreign adversary, the law reads.
The cases should move quickly in court, since they center on points of law that don’t require lots of evidence to be gathered, according to University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias.
“There are very compelling constitutional arguments that favor the plaintiffs,” Tobias said.
“First is free speech, and second is if the ban is justified by national security, that is a matter for the federal government not any individual state.”
The law is the latest skirmish in duels between TikTok and many western governments, with the app already banned on government devices in the United States, Canada and several countries in Europe.
…
First Sudanese Director at Cannes ‘Heartbroken’ by New War
“The war never ends. Tomorrow it will start again,” remarks a character in “Goodbye Julia,” the first Sudanese film ever selected for Cannes.
It explores the racism fueling decades of conflict in the country, and director Mohamed Kordofani admitted to “contradictory feelings” about walking the glitzy red carpet of the Cannes Film Festival while his fellow Sudanese are cowering from bombs.
The irony is not lost on Kordofani, who did not expect his debut feature to coincide with the breakout of a new conflict in Sudan.
“Right now, I am stranded in Cannes,” he joked in an interview with AFP on a seaside terrace overlooking a flotilla of yachts, before adding on a serious note that he was “heartbroken” by the conflict and the fact he could not go home.
“The bombing needs to stop,” said the former aircraft engineer, who packed in his career to start a film production company.
“Goodbye Julia” is playing in the Un Certain Regard category in Cannes, a segment focusing on young, innovative talent.
The film starts in 2005 after the end of an earlier bout of fighting, between Khartoum and the separatist south, and ends as South Sudan gains independence in 2011.
It tells the story of how a covered-up murder brings a southern Sudanese woman, Julia, into contact with a northern Sudanese woman, Mona, and her overbearing conservative husband.
‘My own transformation’
The two women’s friendship is complex, and the racist undercurrent between Arabs and black Africans that stalks the Middle East and North Africa is on stark display.
Mona’s husband refers to the southerners as “slaves” and “savages,” and she is forced to confront her own ingrained racism, while gender roles are also explored.
Kordofani said he was inspired by how his own views had changed over the past decade.
“I started to review how I was behaving in my previous relationships. I reviewed my own racism.”
He said discrimination was so deeply ingrained in Sudan that “to this day, I don’t know if I’m completely not racist.”
While racism is not at the heart of Sudan’s current conflict, Kordifani said the film’s message was still relevant, as the country lurches from one broken cease-fire to the next, and residents hunker down with barely any food or supplies.
“I don’t think the war will end unless we change. We the people, not the government. We need to be equal, and we need to be inclusive, and we need to learn to coexist.”
Critics have warmly received “Goodbye Julia,” with Screen calling it “a gut-wrenching and emotionally rewarding tale.”
The Hollywood Reporter said it had “shades of a thriller” and praised Kordofani’s “fine direction.”
…
Ray Stevenson, of ‘Rome’ And ‘Thor’ Movies, Dies At 58
Ray Stevenson, who played the villainous British governor in “RRR,” an Asgardian warrior in the “Thor” films, and a member of the 13th Legion in HBO’s “Rome,” has died. He was 58.
Representatives for Stevenson told The Associated Press that he died Sunday but had no other details to share Monday.
Stevenson was born in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, in 1964. After attending the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and years of working in British television, he made his film debut in Paul Greengrass’s 1998 film “The Theory of Flight.” In 2004, he appeared in Antoine Fuqua’s “King Arthur” as a knight of the round table and several years later played the lead in the pre-Disney Marvel adaptation “Punisher: War Zone.”
Though “Punisher” was not the best-reviewed film, he’d get another taste of Marvel in the first three “Thor” films, in which he played Volstagg. Other prominent film roles included the “Divergent” trilogy, “G.I. Joe: Retaliation” and “The Transporter: Refueled.”
A looming presence at 6-foot-4, Stevenson, who played his share of soldiers past and present, once said in an interview, “I guess I’m an old warrior at heart.”
On the small screen, he was the roguish Titus Pullo in “Rome,” a role that really got his career going in the United States and got him a SAG card, at the age of 44. The popular series ran from 2005 to 2007.
“That was one of the major years of my life,” Stevenson said in an interview. “It made me sit down in my own skin and say, just do the job. The job’s enough.”
In the Variety review of “Rome,” Brian Lowery wrote that “the imposing Stevenson certainly stands out as a brawling, whoring and none-too-bright warrior — a force of nature who, despite his excesses, somehow keeps landing on his feet.”
He was Blackbeard in the Starz series “Black Sails,” Commander Jack Swinburne in the German television series “Das Boot,” and Othere in “Vikings.”
Stevenson also did voice work in “Star Wars Rebels” and “The Clone Wars,” as Gar Saxon, and has a role in the upcoming Star Wars live-action series “Ahsoka,” in which he plays a bad guy, Baylan Skoll. The eight-episode season is expected on Disney+ in August.
In an interview with Backstage in 2020, Stevenson said his acting idols were, “The likes of Lee Marvin (and) Gene Hackman.”
“Never a bad performance, and brave and fearless within that caliber,” Stevenson said. “It was never the young, hot leading man; it was men who I could identify with.”
Stevenson has three sons with Italian anthropologist Elisabetta Caraccia, who he met while working on “Rome.”
…
Song Created with Help of AI Rattles Music Industry
After an anonymous TikTok user created a song using artificial intelligence that fooled many into thinking it was made by pop stars, experts say the music industry will have to decide how to handle AI music. Deana Mitchell has the story.
…
SpaceX Sends Saudi Astronauts, Including Nation’s 1st Woman in Space, to International Space Station
Saudi Arabia’s first astronauts in decades rocketed toward the International Space Station on a chartered multimillion-dollar flight Sunday.
SpaceX launched the ticket-holding crew, led by a retired NASA astronaut now working for the company that arranged the trip from Kennedy Space Center. Also on board: a U.S. businessman who now owns a sports car racing team.
The four should reach the space station in their capsule Monday morning; they’ll spend just more than a week there before returning home with a splashdown off the Florida coast.
Sponsored by the Saudi Arabian government, Rayyanah Barnawi, a stem cell researcher, became the first woman from the kingdom to go to space. She was joined by Ali al-Qarni, a fighter pilot with the Royal Saudi Air Force.
They’re the first from their country to ride a rocket since a Saudi prince launched aboard shuttle Discovery in 1985. In a quirk of timing, they’ll be greeted at the station by an astronaut from the United Arab Emirates.
“Hello from outer space! It feels amazing to be viewing Earth from this capsule,” Barnawi said after settling into orbit.
Added al-Qarni: “As I look outside into space, I can’t help but think this is just the beginning of a great journey for all of us.”
Rounding out the visiting crew: Knoxville, Tennessee’s John Shoffner, former driver and owner of a sports car racing team that competes in Europe, and chaperone Peggy Whitson, the station’s first female commander who holds the U.S. record for most accumulated time in space: 665 days and counting.
“It was a phenomenal ride,” Whitson said after reaching orbit. Her crewmates clapped their hands in joy.
It’s the second private flight to the space station organized by Houston-based Axiom Space. The first was last year by three businessmen, with another retired NASA astronaut. The company plans to start adding its own rooms to the station in another few years, eventually removing them to form a stand-alone outpost available for hire.
Axiom won’t say how much Shoffner and Saudi Arabia are paying for the planned 10-day mission. The company had previously cited a ticket price of $55 million each.
NASA’s latest price list shows per-person, per-day charges of $2,000 for food and up to $1,500 for sleeping bags and other gear. Need to get your stuff to the space station in advance? Figure roughly $10,000 per pound ($20,000 per kilogram), the same fee for trashing it afterward. Need your items back intact? Double the price.
At least the email and video links are free.
The guests will have access to most of the station as they conduct experiments, photograph Earth and chat with schoolchildren back home, demonstrating how kites fly in space when attached to a fan.
After decades of shunning space tourism, NASA now embraces it with two private missions planned a year. The Russian Space Agency has been doing it, off and on, for decades.
“Our job is to expand what we do in low-Earth orbit across the globe,” said NASA’s space station program manager Joel Montalbano.
SpaceX’s first-stage booster landed back at Cape Canaveral eight minutes after liftoff — a special treat for the launch day crowd, which included about 60 Saudis.
“It was a very, very exciting day,” said Axiom’s Matt Ondler.
…
Early Warning Systems Send Disaster Deaths Plunging, UN Says
Weather-related disasters have surged over the past 50 years, causing swelling economic damage even as early warning systems have meant dramatically fewer deaths, the United Nations said Monday.
Extreme weather, climate and water-related events caused 11,778 reported disasters between 1970 and 2021, new figures from the U.N.’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) show.
Those disasters killed just more than 2 million people and caused $4.3 trillion in economic losses.
“The most vulnerable communities unfortunately bear the brunt of weather, climate and water-related hazards,” WMO chief Petteri Taalas said in a statement.
The report found that more than 90% of reported deaths worldwide due to disasters in the 51-year period occurred in developing countries.
But the agency also said improved early warning systems and coordinated disaster management had significantly reduced the human casualty toll.
WMO pointed out in a report issued two years ago covering disaster-linked deaths and losses between 1970 and 2019, that at the beginning of the period the world was seeing more than 50,000 such deaths each year.
By the 2010s, the disaster death toll had dropped below 20,000 annually.
And in its update of that report, WMO said Monday that 22,608 disaster deaths were recorded globally in 2020 and 2021 combined.
‘Early warnings save lives’
Cyclone Mocha, which wreaked havoc in Myanmar and Bangladesh last week, exemplifies this, Taalas said.
Mocha “caused widespread devastation … impacting the poorest of the poor,” he said.
But while Myanmar’s junta has put the death toll from the cyclone at 145, Taalas pointed out that during similar disasters in the past, “both Myanmar and Bangladesh suffered death tolls of tens and even hundreds of thousands of people.”
“Thanks to early warnings and disaster management, these catastrophic mortality rates are now thankfully history. Early warnings save lives,” he added.
The U.N. has launched a plan to ensure all nations are covered by disaster early warning systems by the end of 2027.
Endorsing that plan figures among the top strategic priorities during a meeting of WMO’s decision-making body, the World Meteorological Congress, which opens Monday.
To date, only half of countries have such systems in place.
Surging economic losses
WMO meanwhile warned that while deaths have plunged, the economic losses incurred when weather, climate and water extremes hit have soared.
The agency previously recorded economic losses that increased sevenfold between 1970 and 2019, rising from $49 million per day during the first decade to $383 million per day in the final one.
Wealthy countries have been hardest hit by far in monetary terms.
The United States alone incurred $1.7 trillion in losses, or 39% of the economic losses globally from disasters since 1970.
But while the dollar figures on losses suffered in poorer nations were not particularly high, they were far higher in relation to the size of their economies, WMO noted.
Developed nations accounted for more than 60% of losses from weather, climate and water disasters, but in more than four-fifths of cases, the economic losses were equivalent to less than 0.1% of gross domestic product (GDP).
And no disasters saw reported economic losses greater than 3.5% of the respective GDPs.
By comparison, in 7% of the disasters that hit the world’s least developed countries, losses equivalent to more than 5% of their GDP were reported, with several disasters causing losses equivalent to nearly a third of GDP.
And for small island developing states, one-fifth of disasters saw economic losses of more than 5% of GDP, with some causing economic losses of 100 percent.
…
First-Time Filmmaker Competes at Cannes with Senegalese Drama
Most filmmakers in the Cannes Film Festival’s top-rung competition are well-known directors who have been around for decades. One dramatic exception this year is Ramata-Toulaye Sy, a French-Senegalese filmmaker whose first film, “Banel & Adama,” landed among the 21 films competing for the Palme d’Or.
“It’s only now that I realize that being in competition means being in a competition,” Sy said, laughing, in an interview shortly after “Banel & Adama” premiered in Cannes. “Now that we’re really in the middle of it, I realize there’s a lot of passion going around.”
Sy, 36, is the sole first-timer in Cannes’ main lineup this year. She is also only the second Black female director to ever compete for the Palme, following Mati Diop, also a French-Senegalese filmmaker, whose “Atlantics” debuted in 2019. For the Paris-raised Sy, it’s not a distinction of significance.
“I’m a filmmaker and I really wish we stopped being counted as women, as Black or Arab or Asian,” she said.
In “Banel & Adama,” also the only Africa-set film competing for the Palme this year, Sy crafts a radiant and languorous fable tinged with myth and tragedy.
Banel (Khady Mane) and Adama (Mamadou Diallo) are a deeply in love married couple living in a small village in northern Senegal. In their intimate romantic idyll, they wish to pull away from the local traditions. Adama is set to become village chief but is uninterested in doing so. Banel dreams of living outside the village, in a home buried under a mountain of sand.
While Banel and Adama slowly work to sweep away the sand, their yearning to live on their own causes angst in the village, especially when a drought arrives that some take as a curse for their independence. Though often opaque, the film stays largely with the psychology of Banel, whose single-mindedness grows increasingly dark.
“I was quite reluctant at the start to acknowledge that Banel is me,” Sy said. “Now I have to confess that it’s definitely me. I see myself, my questions, my struggle in her journey. How to become an individual inside a community is really my own question.”
Sy began writing “Banel & Adama” in 2014 as a student at La Fémis, the French film school. Sy, the daughter of Senegalese immigrants, says she was first drawn to literature. Novels like Toni Morrison’s “Sula” and Elena Frenate’s “My Brilliant Friend” inspired “Banel & Adama.”
“The love story was a pretext for to deal with myth,” she says. “I wanted to have this kind of mythological female character that you find in Greek tragedy.”
Sy co-wrote Atiq Rahimi’s “Our Lady of the Nile” and Çagla Zencirci and Guillaume Giovanetti’s “Sibel” — both of which played at international festivals. Her first short film, “Astel,” was well-received.
But little prepared her for the stresses of shooting in rural Senegal. Along with heat, sandstorms and bouts of illness among the crew, Sy struggled to find her Banel. In the end, she found Mane while walking around.
“We had all the cast except for her. We started five months before shooting and one month before shooting we still didn’t have her. One day I was walking down the street and my eyes locked on this girl,” Sy said. “It was the way that she looked at me. Her gaze had something a bit wise and a bit crazy.”
…
Jennifer Lawrence-Produced Afghan Documentary Premieres at Cannes
While the world watched Kabul fall and the Taliban surge back to power in 2021 following the withdrawal of U.S. troops, actor Jennifer Lawrence and producer Justine Ciarrocchi were asking themselves what they could do to support women’s rights.
“Jen’s first response was to find an Afghan filmmaker and give them a platform,” Ciarrocchi told The Hollywood Reporter.
They eventually found director Sahra Mani, whose 2019 documentary “A Thousand Girls Like Me” looked at a sexually abused woman’s quest for justice.
On Sunday, “Bread and Roses,” Mani’s documentary about the daily lives of three women after the Taliban’s resurgence, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in a special screening.
“This film has a message from women in Afghanistan, a soft message; please be their voice who are voiceless under Taliban dictatorship,” said Mani at the premiere.
The director said in an interview on the Cannes website that she wanted to show the reality of how drastically life has changed under the Taliban for women, even if filming was difficult. “Now that women can no longer leave the house without the veil, I thought we should tell their stories,” she said.
The safety of the camera crews and the people filmed was of top priority, said Mani, who currently lives in France.
“The way in which their lives have changed under the Taliban is an everyday reality for us, it’s life under a dictatorship, a cruel reality we cannot ignore.”
…
‘Fast X’ Speeds to No. 1; Knocks ‘Guardians 3’ to 2nd
The 10th installment of the “Fast and Furious” franchise was off to the races this weekend, knocking “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” out of first place and easily claiming the No. 1 spot at the box office. “Fast X” earned $67.5 million in ticket sales from 4,046 North American theaters, according to estimates from Universal Pictures on Sunday.
It’s on the lower end of openings for the series which peaked with “Furious 7’s” $142.2 million launch, the sole movie in the series to surpass $100 million out of the gates. “Fast X’s” domestic debut only ranks above the first three. The last movie, “F9,” opened to $70 million in 2021.
But this is also a series that has usually made the bulk of its money internationally, often over 70%. True to form, overseas it’s on turbo drive. “Fast X” opened in 84 markets internationally, playing in over 24,000 theaters, where it earned an estimated $251.4 million. The top market was China with $78.3 million, followed by Mexico with $16.7 million. And it adds up to a $319 million global debut — the third biggest of the franchise.
“It’s a global franchise with a very broad audience,” said Jim Orr, Universal’s head of domestic distribution. “The themes resonate across the world.”
Directed by Louis Leterrier (who took over from Justin Lin during production), “Fast X” brings back the familiar crew including Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson and Jordana Brewster and adds several newcomers, like Brie Larson, Rita Moreno and a villain played by Jason Momoa. The ever-expanding cast includes Jason Statham, Charlize Theron, Scott Eastwood and Helen Mirren.
Reports say the movie cost $340 million to produce, not including marketing.
Reviews were mixed for “Fast X,” the beginning of the end for the $6 billion franchise, which currently has a 54% on Rotten Tomatoes. AP’s Mark Kennedy wrote in his review that, “It has become almost camp, as if it breathed in too much of its own fumes” and that it’s also “monstrously silly and stupidly entertaining.”
According to exit polls, audiences were 29% Caucasian, 29% Hispanic and 21% Black, and 58% were between the ages of 18 and 34. They gave the film a B+ CinemaScore.
In its third weekend, Disney and Marvel’s ” Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 ” made an estimated $32 million in North America to take second place. It’s now made $266.5 million domestically and $659.1 million globally.
Third place went to another Universal juggernaut, “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” which is now in its seventh weekend and available to rent on VOD. Nevertheless, it earned an additional $9.8 million in North America, bringing its domestic total to $549.3 million.
“Book Club: The Next Chapter ” added $3 million in its second weekend to take fourth place, while “Evil Dead Rise” rounded out the top five in its fifth weekend with $2.4 million.
“Mario” and “Fast X” are just the latest success stories for Universal, following hits like “Cocaine Bear” and “M3GAN.” And later this summer, on July 21, they’ll release Christopher Nolan’s ” Oppenheimer.”
“Universal as a studio is just on a roll like no other by having this incredible slate of films from all different types of genres,” said Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst for Comscore. “They’ve created a release strategy that’s really picture perfect so far.”
“Fast X” doesn’t have an entirely open runway though. Next weekend there will be sizable competition in Disney’s live-action “The Little Mermaid,” in addition to a slew of crowd-pleasers hoping to catch a Memorial Day weekend audience, including Julia Louis-Dreyfus in “You Hurt My Feelings” and the broad comedy “About My Father,” with Sebastian Maniscalco and Robert De Niro.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
-
“Fast X,” $67.5 million.
-
“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” $32 million.
-
“The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” $9.8 million.
-
“Book Club: The Next Chapter,” $3 million.
-
“Evil Dead Rise,” $2.4 million.
-
“John Wick: Chapter 4,” $1.3 million.
-
“Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret,” $1.3 million.
-
“Hypnotic,” $825,000.
-
“MET Opera: Don Giovanni,” $701,025.
-
“BlackBerry,” $525,000.
…
In Cannes, Scorsese and Dicaprio Turn Spotlight Toward Osage Nation
It was well into the process of making “Killers of the Flower Moon” that Martin Scorsese realized it wasn’t a detective story.
Scorsese, actor Leonardo DiCaprio and screenwriter Eric Roth had many potential avenues in adapting David Grann’s expansive nonfiction history, “Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI.” The film that Scorsese and company premiered Saturday at the Cannes Film Festival, however, wasn’t like the one they initially set out to make.
The film, which will open in theaters in October, chronicles the series of killings that took place throughout the Osage Nation in 1920s Oklahoma. The Osage were then enormously rich from oil on their land, and many white barons and gangsters alike sought to control and steal their money. Dozens of Osage Native Americans were killed before the FBI, in its infancy, began to investigate.
DiCaprio had originally been cast to star as FBI agent Tom White. But after mulling the project over, Scorsese decided to pivot.
“I said, ‘I think the audience is ahead of us,’” Scorsese told reporters Sunday in Cannes. “They know it’s not a whodunit. It’s a who-didn’t-do-it.”
The shift, filmmakers said, was largely driven from collaboration with the Osage. Osage Nation Chief Standing Bear, who consulted on the film, praised the filmmakers for centering the story instead on Mollie (Lily Gladstone) and her husband Ernest Burkhart (DiCaprio), the tragic romance at the heart of Scorsese’s epic of insidious American ethnic exploitation.
“Early on, I asked Mr. Scorsese, ‘How are you going to approach the story? He said I’m going to tell a story about trust, trust between Mollie and Ernest, trust between the outside world and the Osage, and the betrayal of those trusts,” said Chief Standing Bear. “My people suffered greatly and to this very day those effects are with us. But I can say on behalf of the Osage, Marty Scorsese and his team have restored trust and we know that trust will not be betrayed.”
“Killers of the Flower Moon,” the most anticipated film to debut at this year’s Cannes, instead became about Ernest, who Scorsese called “the character the least is written about.”
DiCaprio, who ceded the character of White to Jesse Plemons, said “Killers of the Flower Moon” reverberates with other only recently widely discussed dark chapters of American history.
“This story, much like the Tulsa massacre, has been something that people have started to learn about and started to understand is part of culture, part of our history,” said DiCaprio. “After the screenplay, from almost an anthropological perspective — Marty was there every day — we were talking to the community, trying to hear the real stories and trying to incorporate the truth.”
“Killers of the Flower Moon” premiered Saturday to largely rave reviews and thunderous applause nearly 50 years after Scorsese, as a young filmmaker, was a sensation at Cannes. His “Taxi Driver” won the Palme d’Or in 1976.
Among the most-praised performances has been that of Gladstone, the actor of Blackfeet and Nimíipuu heritage.
“These artistic souls on this stage here cared about telling a story that pierces the veil of what society tells us we’re supposed to care about and not,” said Gladstone, who singled out Scorsese. “Who else is going to challenge people to challenge their own complicity in white supremacy in such a platform except as this man here?”
“We’re speaking of the 1920s Osage community. We’re talking about Black Wall Street and Tulsa. We’re talking about a lot in our film,” she continued. “Why the hell does the world not know about these things? Our communities always have. It’s so central to everything about how we understand our place in the world.”
In the film, Robert De Niro plays a wealthy baron who’s particularly adept at plundering the Osage. Speaking Sunday, De Niro was still mulling his character’s motivations.
“There’s a kind of feeling of entitlement,” said De Niro. “It’s the banality of evil. It’s the thing that we have to watch out for. We see it today, of course. We all know who I’m going to talk about, but I won’t say the name. Because that guy is stupid. Imagine if you’re smart?”
A minute later, De Niro resumed: “I mean, look at Trump,” referring to former President Donald Trump.
With a running time well over three hours and a budget from Apple of $200 million, “Killers of the Flower Moon” is one of Scorsese’s largest undertakings. Asked where he gets the gumption for such risks, the 80-year-old director didn’t hesitate.
“As far as taking risks at this age, what else can I do?” said Scorsese. “‘No, let’s go do something comfortable.’ Are you kidding?”
…
SpaceX Launching Saudi Astronauts on Private Flight to Space Station
SpaceX’s next private flight to the International Space Station awaited takeoff Sunday, weather and rocket permitting.
The passengers include Saudi Arabia’s first astronauts in decades, as well as a Tennessee businessman who started his own sports car racing team. They’ll be led by a retired NASA astronaut who now works for the company that arranged the 10-day trip.
It’s the second charter flight organized by Houston-based Axiom Space. The company would not say how much the latest tickets cost; it previously cited per-seat prices of $55 million.
With its Falcon rocket already on the pad, SpaceX targeted a liftoff late Sunday afternoon from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. It’s the same spot where Saudi Arabia’s first astronaut, a prince, soared in 1985.
Representing the Saudi Arabian government this time are Rayyanah Barnawi, a stem cell researcher set to become the kingdom’s first woman in space, and Royal Saudi Air Force fighter pilot Ali al-Qarni.
Rounding out the crew: John Shoffner, the racecar buff; and Peggy Whitson, who holds the U.S. record for the most accumulated time in space at 665 days.
…
Iraq Rebuilding Efforts Get High-Tech Boost
It’s been more than a decade since the end of the Iraq War. Much of the country still bears the scars of the U.S.-led invasion. But Iraqis today are working to clean up their country, and some have turned to technology for help. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more.
…
National Treasure Wins Preakness Stakes
National Treasure won the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore on Saturday, giving Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert a record-breaking eighth win in the middle jewel of U.S. thoroughbred racing’s Triple Crown.
With John Velazquez aboard, National Treasure held off a late charge from Blazing Sevens. Kentucky Derby winner Mage finished third, meaning the chestnut colt will not have a shot at becoming U.S. thoroughbred racing’s 13th Triple Crown winner.
The win capped an emotional day for Baffert, whose colt Havnameltdown was euthanized on the track earlier on Saturday after going down with an injury during a race at Pimlico.
“Losing that horse today really hurt but I am happy for Johnny, he got the win,” Baffert said fighting back tears, referring to the jockey. “It’s been a very emotional day.”
For Baffert, one of the sport’s best-known figures, the Preakness marked his first Triple Crown race in two years due to a lengthy suspension after one of his horses, Medina Spirit, tested positive for a banned substance and was stripped of the Kentucky Derby title in 2021.
…