UN head calls for ‘Olympic’ truce in Ethiopia

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres speaks to the press at the United Nations Headquarters in New York on Tuesday. (Reuters)
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Updated 02 February 2022
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UN head calls for ‘Olympic’ truce in Ethiopia

  • "The tradition of the Olympic Truce has called on all parties, everywhere, to stop hostilities throughout the course of the Games," said UN Secretary General

UNITED NATIONS, United States: UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres urged Tuesday for all parties in the Ethiopian conflict to implement a truce to mark the Olympic Games, and use the break in hostilities to provide relief to all Ethiopians.
“As I prepare to leave for the Winter Olympics, I make the strongest possible appeal for all parties in Ethiopia for an immediate cessation of hostilities,” said Guterres during a brief press appearance in New York.
“For millennia,” he explained, “the tradition of the Olympic Truce has called on all parties, everywhere, to stop hostilities throughout the course of the Games.”
Such an interruption would provide an opportunity for “effective humanitarian access and relief to all affected populations throughout Ethiopia,” the former Portuguese prime minister said.
“These actions will help pave the way to a much-needed inclusive national dialogue involving all Ethiopians.”
Since November 2020, pro-government forces in Ethiopia have confronted rebels led by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, the former rulers of the Tigray region.
The conflict has led nearly 40 percent of people in the region to suffer “an extreme lack of food,” the UN said last week.


Hollywood stars condemn Gaza 'genocide' as Cannes Festival opens

Updated 42 min 41 sec ago
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Hollywood stars condemn Gaza 'genocide' as Cannes Festival opens

More than 380 figures from the cinema world including "Schindler's List" actor Ralph Fiennes condemned "genocide" in Gaza in an open letter published on Tuesday ahead of the Cannes Festival opening.
"We cannot remain silent while genocide is taking place in Gaza," read the letter initiated by several pro-Palestinian activist groups and published in French newspaper Liberation and US magazine Variety.
The signatories -- which include Hollywood stars Richard Gere and Susan Sarandon, as well as acclaimed Spanish director Pedro Almodovar and former Cannes winner Ruben Ostlund -- decried the death of Gazan photojournalist Fatima Hassouna.
Hassouna, 25, is the subject of a documentary which will premiere in Cannes on Thursday by Iranian director Sepideh Farsi, titled "Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk".
Hassouna was killed along with 10 relatives in an Israeli air strike on her family home in northern Gaza last month, the day after the documentary was announced as part of the ACID Cannes selection.
Farsi welcomed the impact of her film but called on Cannes Festival organisers to denounce Israel's ongoing bombardment of the devastated Palestinian territory.
"There needs to be a real statement," she told AFP. "Saying 'the festival isn't political' makes no sense."
This year's Cannes jury president Juliette Binoche was initially said by organisers to have signed the petition, but her spokeswoman told AFP that she had not endorsed it and her name was not published by Liberation.
Other signatories include Jonathan Glazer, the British director of Jewish origin who won an Oscar for his 2023 Auschwitz drama "The Zone of Interest", as well as US star Mark Ruffalo and Spanish actor Javier Bardem.


The Cannes Festival kicks off on Tuesday on the French Riviera, with an opening ceremony headlined by Robert De Niro and three films showing the devastation of Russia's war on Ukraine.
Two documentaries featuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and a third film shot on the brutal frontlines of Europe's biggest war in 80 years are to be screened on a "Ukraine Day" of programming.
It is "a reminder of the commitment of artists, authors and journalists to tell the story of this conflict in the heart of Europe", the festival said.
Nothing similar has been planned for the war in Gaza, but the film on Hassouna is set to "honour" her memory, organisers said previously.
Gazan filmmakers Arab and Tarzan Nasser are also set to showcase their fiction feature set in 2007 in the Palestinian territory in one of the secondary sections of the festival.
The opening film on Tuesday evening is "Leave One Day" by French director Amelie Bonnin, a newcomer, before Hollywood heavyweight De Niro receives an honorary Palme d'Or.


De Niro is one of the most outspoken critics of US President Donald Trump in the American cinema world, with the "Taxi Driver" star often struggling to find words harsh enough for the US president.
Trump has made himself one of the main talking points in Cannes after announcing on May 5 that he wanted 100-percent tariffs on movies "produced in foreign lands".
The idea sent shockwaves through the film world, although few insiders or experts understand how such a policy could be implemented.
Cannes director Thierry Fremaux talked up the festival's "rich" American film programme on Monday, with movies from Wes Anderson, Richard Linklater, Ari Aster and Kelly Reichardt in the main competition.
"American cinema remains great cinema. The United States remains a great country of cinema," he said.
Off-screen news in France is also likely to overshadow the red-carpet action in Cannes on Tuesday, with French film icon Gerard Depardieu facing a verdict in a sexual harassment case in Paris.
Depardieu, who has acted in more than 200 films and television series, is the highest-profile figure caught up in France's response to the #MeToo movement against sexual violence.


While independent cinema forms the core of the Cannes festival, organisers also hand over part of the programme to major Hollywood studios to promote their blockbusters.
Tom Cruise is set to return to the Riviera for the premiere of the latest instalment of his "Mission: Impossible" franchise on Thursday, three years after he lit up the festival while promoting "Top Gun: Maverick".
The festival will also see a series of high-profile debut films from actors-turned-directors, including "Eleanor the Great" from Scarlett Johansson and "The Chronology of Water" by Kristen Stewart.
Organisers on Monday denied reports that they had banned provocative near-nude dresses from the red carpet.
However, "full nudity on the red carpet" has been formally outlawed, "in keeping with French law".
 


Kim Kardashian will testify in the Paris trial about the jewelry heist that upended her life

Updated 13 May 2025
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Kim Kardashian will testify in the Paris trial about the jewelry heist that upended her life

The last time Kim Kardashian faced the men that police say robbed her, she was bound with zip ties and held at gunpoint, and feared she might die. On Tuesday, nearly a decade later, she returns to Paris to testify against them.
One of the most recognizable figures on the planet is expected to take the stand against the 10 men accused of orchestrating the 2016 robbery that left her locked in a marble bathroom while masked assailants made off with more than $6 million in jewels.
Kardashian is set to speak about the trauma that reshaped her life and redefined the risks of celebrity in the age of social media. Her appearance is expected to be the most emotionally charged moment of a trial that began last month.
Court officials are bracing for a crowd, and security will be tight. A second courtroom has been opened for journalists following via video feed.
Kardashian’s testimony is expected to revisit, in painful detail, how intruders zip-tied her hands, demanded her ring, and left her believing she might never see her children again.
Twelve suspects were originally charged. One has died. Another has been excused from proceedings due to serious illness. Most are in their 60s and 70s — dubbed les papys braqueurs, or “the grandpa robbers,” by the French press — but investigators insist they were no harmless retirees. Authorities have described them as a seasoned and coordinated criminal group.
Two of the defendants have admitted being at the scene. The others deny any involvement — some even claim they didn’t know who Kardashian was. But police say the group tracked her movements through her own social media posts, which flaunted her jewelry, pinpointed her location, and exposed her vulnerability.
The heist transformed Kardashian into a cautionary tale of hyper-visibility in the digital age.
In the aftermath, she withdrew from public life. She developed severe anxiety and later described symptoms of agoraphobia. “I hated to go out,” she said in a 2021 interview. “I didn’t want anybody to know where I was … I just had such anxiety.”
Her lawyers confirmed she would appear in court. “She has tremendous appreciation and admiration for the French judicial system,” they wrote, adding that she hopes the trial proceeds “in an orderly fashion … and with respect for all parties.”
Once dismissed in parts of the French press as a reality TV spectacle — and lambasted by Karl Lagerfeld for being too flashy — Kardashian now returns as a key witness in a case that has forced a wider reckoning with how celebrity, crime, and perception collide.
Her lawyers say she is “particularly grateful” to French authorities — and ready to confront those who attacked her with dignity.


Samsung launches slimmest smartphone as races against rival Apple

Updated 13 May 2025
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Samsung launches slimmest smartphone as races against rival Apple

  • The S25 Edge has Samsung’s latest built-in AI functions
  • Analysts said the launch was strategically timed to pre-empt Apple, which is expected to launch a thinner iPhone in the second half of this year

SEOUL: Samsung Electronics made public on Tuesday its slimmest flagship model to date, complete with enhanced artificial intelligence features, as it seeks to get ahead of rival Apple on the premium market.
The S25 Edge launch is designed to appeal to increasing demand, especially from consumers in their 20s and 30s, for more portable smartphones.
“The feedback was clear – users wanted something slimmer and easier to carry without sacrificing performance,” said Samsung, which made structural changes to reduce the thickness of internal components, including the printed circuit board and thermal systems.
Analysts said the launch was strategically timed to pre-empt Apple, which is expected to launch a thinner iPhone in the second half of this year.
“By releasing the product a few months ahead, Samsung could inflict some impact on Apple and attract consumers looking for thinner smartphones. It appears to be a calculated decision to capture that segment of demand,” Ryu Young-ho, a senior analyst at NH Investment & Securities, said.
The S25 Edge will go on sale in South Korea on May 23 and in the United States on May 30, Samsung said, adding it will roll it out to about 30 countries, including China and in Europe.
Starting at $1,099, the model has a 6.7-inch  screen and a 5.8 millimeter-thick body, making it larger than the basic S25 model but only fractionally heavier.
The S25 Edge has Samsung’s latest built-in AI functions, including multimodal AI that allows users to interact with the device in real time through vision and voice, using the camera to ask questions.
Samsung did not disclose the production site for the new model.
It became the world’s leading smartphone vendor in the first quarter of 2025, capturing 20 percent of the global market and narrowly surpassing Apple, which held an 19 percent share, data from Counterpoint Research showed.
Samsung last month, however, said second-quarter shipments could be affected if tariff risks weaken demand.


Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs was ‘coercive and criminal,’ jury hears

Updated 13 May 2025
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Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs was ‘coercive and criminal,’ jury hears

NEW YORK: Sean “Diddy” Combs used violence and threats of reputational ruin to control women he abused for years, New York jurors heard Monday during opening statements of the federal sex trafficking trial that was followed by the case’s intitial graphic testimonies.
The panel of 12 jurors and six alternates responsible for determining Combs’s fate heard of the famed artist’s explosive outbursts and an attempt to preserve his own reputation and power of celebrity through bribery.
But the 55-year-old music mogul’s defense team insisted that while some of his behavior was questionable — and at times constituted domestic abuse — it did not amount to evidence of the racketeering and sex trafficking he’s charged with.
Combs has pleaded not guilty on all counts, including the racketeering charge that the hip-hop pioneer led a sex crime ring that included drug-fueled sex parties by use of force, threats and violence.
Prosecutor Emily Johnson alleged Combs “brutally” beat his former girlfriend, singer Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, threatening to release videos of her participating in elaborate sexual “freak-offs” if she defied him.
Ventura’s testimony is core to the case, and she is expected to take the witness stand as soon as Tuesday.
Johnson also told jurors Combs had set a man’s car ablaze and dangled a woman from a balcony, and made impossible demands of his lovers and employees alike.
“Let me be clear,” US attorney Johnson said, “this case is not about a celebrity’s private sexual preferences.”
“It’s coercive and criminal.”
But Combs’s defense lawyer Teny Geragos told jurors the “case is about love, jealousy and infidelity and money.”
Combs, appearing aged with his once jet-black hair now gray, dramatically stood up and looked at the jury box when Geragos introduced him, his hands clasped.
Geragos called Combs’s accusers “capable, strong adult women,” and said his situation with Ventura was a “toxic relationship” but “between two people who loved each other.”
“Being a willing participant in your own sex life is not sex trafficking,” she said, adding that the defense would admit there was domestic violence — but that Combs is not charged with such crimes.
Combs was joined at the courthouse by his children, including 18-year-old twin daughters, as well as his mother Janice.
The case’s first witness was Israel Florez, a Los Angeles police officer who “at the time” was a security officer — and who responded to a call of “a woman in distress” on March 5, 2016 at the Los Angeles-area InterContinental Hotel.
Florez’s testimony provided the foundation for the prosecution to introduce evidence of now-infamous security footage — published by CNN last year — of Combs in a towel chasing Ventura throughout the hotel hallways, at times striking her.
The jury was repeatedly shown the video on Monday, including a cell phone-recorded version that Florez filmed himself of the original footage.
Florez detailed his interaction with Combs and Ventura in painstaking detail, including saying that after the officer escorted the rapper back to his room, Combs offered him a wad of cash.
The officer understood this was intended as a bribe: “He was telling me, ‘Don’t tell nobody,’” Florez said.
Florez’s testimony was followed by a male dancer who engaged in a sexual relationship, often in exchange for money, with Combs and Ventura from 2012 to approximately the end of 2013.
In lurid detail, Daniel Phillip described his encounters with the pair, which generally involved sex with Ventura while Combs watched.
But eventually, Phillip said, Combs physically abused Ventura in front of him.
“Why is she doing this, why is she staying with this guy?” Phillip recalled thinking.
“I tried to explain to her that she was in real danger if she stayed with him.”
Day one of testimony in the blockbuster trial saw hoards of journalists, influencers and members of the public descend on the downtown Manhattan courthouse.
If convicted, the one-time rap producer and global superstar, who is often credited for his role in bringing hip-hop into the mainstream, could spend the rest of his life in prison.
The selected jurors will remain anonymous, but not sequestered — meaning they must individually ensure they stay away from media coverage and social media commentary about the high-profile case.
The proceedings are expected to last eight to 10 weeks.


Hollywood studios and unions call on Trump to offer tax breaks

Updated 13 May 2025
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Hollywood studios and unions call on Trump to offer tax breaks

  • The letter thanks Trump “for the support you have shown our industry,” and for drawing attention to production fleeing overseas

LOS ANGELES: Hollywood studios and unions representing movie workers joined forces Monday to urge US President Donald Trump to give tax breaks to US-made films.
The joint letter, which was also signed by Jon Voight and Sylvester Stallone — two of Trump’s “ambassadors” to Hollywood — comes days after the Republican president said he wanted to impose 100 percent tariffs on foreign films in a bid to help the domestic industry.
The letter thanks Trump “for the support you have shown our industry,” and for drawing attention to production fleeing overseas.
But it makes no mention of Trump’s tariff plan, a proposal that was met with bafflement across the industry, with observers saying they had no idea how such a tax might work.
“Currently, more than 80 countries offer production tax incentives and as a result, numerous productions that could have been shot in America have instead located elsewhere,” says the letter.
“Returning more production to the United States will require a national approach and broad-based policy solutions, including... longer term initiatives such as implementing a federal film and television tax incentive.”
The idea of a federal tax credit scheme was also suggested last week by California Governor Gavin Newsom.
The letter, from the Motion Picture Association — an umbrella grouping for major studios and streamers — and unions representing directors, actors and writers, suggests a number of tax deductions that would make movie-making cheaper.
“A domestic production incentive would make the US market more competitive and able to retain and return high-paying jobs tied to film and television productions — and the use of this deduction has historically promoted significant economic and job growth,” it says.
America’s movie industry has gradually moved away from its traditional home in and around Hollywood as production has shifted to cheaper locations.
The number of shooting days in Los Angeles reached an all-time low last year — lower even than during the Covid-19 pandemic, when filming shut down completely.
Fewer than one in five film or TV series broadcast in the United States was produced in California, according to FilmLA, an organization that tracks the movie industry.
The loss of that production has a significant economic impact.
According to the letter to Trump, each day a film shoots on location it spends more than $670,000, and employs nearly 1,500 people.
On May 4, Trump declared on social media that “the Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death.”
He said he had told the Department of Commerce and the Office of the US Trade Representative to levy a 100 percent tariff “on any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands.”