‘No more fear’: Stand-up comedy returns to post-Assad Syria

A Syrian street vendor dressed as Santa Claus in Damascus, after Syria's Bashar al-Assad was ousted, December 22, 2024. (Reuters)
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Updated 24 December 2024
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‘No more fear’: Stand-up comedy returns to post-Assad Syria

DAMASCUS: In post-Assad Syria, stand-up comedians are re-emerging to challenge taboos, mocking the former president and his regime and even testing the waters with Damascus’s new rulers.
Melki Mardini, a performer in the Syrian capital’s stand-up scene, is among those embracing newfound freedoms.
“The regime has fallen,” he declares from the stage, referring to Bashar Assad’s abrupt departure earlier this month, ending more than half a century of his family’s rule.
The audience at an art gallery hosting the show remains silent.
“What’s the matter? Are you still scared?” Mardini says, triggering a mix of awkward laughter and applause.
“We’ve been doing stand-up for two years,” says the 29-year-old. “We never imagined a day would come when we could speak so freely.”
Now, his performances are “safe spaces,” he says.
“We can express our views without bothering anyone, except Bashar.”
Under the old regime, jokes about elections, the dollar or even mentioning the president’s name could mean arrest or worse.
Chatting with the audience during his set, Mardini learns one man is a psychiatrist.
“A lord in the new Syria!” he exclaims, imagining crowds rushing into therapy after five decades of dictatorship.
For two hours, 13 comedians — including one woman — from the collective Styria (a play on the words Syria and hysteria) take the stage, sharing personal stories: an arrest, how they dodged compulsory military service, how they sourced dollars on the black market.

“Syria wants freedom!” declares Rami Jabr as he takes the stage.
“This is our first show without the mukhabarat in the room,” he quips, referring to the feared intelligence agents.
He reflects on his experience in Homs, dubbed the “capital of the revolution” in March of 2011 when anti-government protests broke out in the wake of the Arab Spring, followed by brutal repression.
A commercial representative for a foreign company, Jabr recalls being detained for a month by various security services, beaten, and tortured with a taser, under the accusation that he was an “infiltrator” sent to sow chaos in Syria.
Like him, comedians from across the country share their journeys, united by the same fear that has suffocated Syrians for decades living under an iron fist.
Hussein Al-Rawi tells the audience how he never gives out his address, a vestige of the paranoia of the past.
“I’m always afraid he’ll come back,” he says, referring to Assad. “But I hope for a better Syria, one that belongs to all of us.”

Said Al-Yakhchi, attending the show, notes that free speech is flourishing.
“During the last performance before the regime fell, there were restrictions,” says the 32-year-old shopkeeper.
“Now, there are no restrictions, no one has to answer to anyone. There’s no fear of anyone.”
Not even Syria’s new rulers — a diverse mix of rebel groups, including Islamists and former jihadists, who quickly marched on Damascus and toppled Assad’s government.
“We didn’t live through a revolution for 13 or 14 years... just to have a new power tell us, ‘You can’t speak,’” Mardini says.
When not performing on stage, Mary Obaid, 23, is a dentist.
“We unload everything we’ve been holding inside — we do it for all Syrians,” she says.
“Each person shares their own experience. The audience reacts as if each story has happened to them too.”
Of the country’s new leaders, Obaid says she will wait to see “what they will do, then we’ll judge.”
“Right now, we feel freedom,” she says. “We hope we won’t be targets of harassment.”
“We’re at a pivotal moment, transitioning from one era to another,” she adds.
“Now we are the country of freedom, and we can put forward all our demands. From now on, never again fear.”


Moscow bids farewell to late ballet supremo Grigorovich

Updated 59 min 50 sec ago
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Moscow bids farewell to late ballet supremo Grigorovich

MOSCOW: Fans paid tribute on Friday in Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre to late ballet supremo Yuri Grigorovich, who died this week at the age of 98.
Born in the Soviet city of Leningrad to a ballet family, Grigorovich’s career — as a dancer and choreographer — spanned 80 years.
For much of it, he was the artistic powerhouse behind the Bolshoi, which he was said to have run with an iron fist.
Grigorovich made his name staging classics such as The Nutcracker, Swan Lake and The Stone Flower.
The latter was his most famous piece, based on folk tales from the Urals accompanied by composer Sergei Prokofiev’s music.
He then led the Bolshoi between 1964 and 1995.
“This man was a gift from God,” Agnessa Balieva, 78, a former star dancer at the Bolshoi, told AFP when she came to pay tribute to Grigorovich.
The choreographer’s coffin was covered in garlands in front of the stage of the Bolshoi, alongside a large black and white portrait of him, while music from his ballets was played.
“He was a great man, a genius, a legend,” said Ilia Krivov, a 42-year-old former Bolshoi dancer.
He said Grigorovich had elevated male ballet to “an unprecedented level.”
“Grigorovich was the soul of the Bolshoi,” said Svetlana Staris, a journalist and poet, hailing a figure who “revolutionized ballet.”


‘Leap together,’ Kermit the Frog says in commencement address at University of Maryland graduation

Updated 23 May 2025
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‘Leap together,’ Kermit the Frog says in commencement address at University of Maryland graduation

  • Kermit, who was created in 1955 and became the centerpiece of the Muppets franchise, is no stranger to the school
  • Muppets creator Jim Henson graduated from Maryland in 1960 with home economics as his major

COLLEGE PARK, Maryland: Kermit the Frog knows it’s not easy being green — or graduating from college and entering the real world, especially during a time of economic uncertainty and political turmoil.
Members of the University of Maryland’s class of 2025 received their diplomas Thursday evening with sage advice from the amphibious Muppet ringing in their ears.
“As you prepare to take this big leap into real life, here’s a little advice — if you’re willing to listen to a frog,” the beloved Muppet said. “Rather than jumping over someone to get what you want, consider reaching out your hand and taking the leap side by side, because life is better when we leap together.”

 

The university announced in March that Kermit, who was created in 1955 and became the centerpiece of the Muppets franchise, would be this year’s commencement speaker. He is also no stranger to the school.
Muppets creator Jim Henson graduated from Maryland in 1960. A home economics major, he fashioned the original frog puppet from one of his mother’s coats and a Ping-Pong ball cut in half, according to a statement from the university. Henson died in 1990.
A bronze statue of Henson and Kermit sitting on a bench is a well-known feature of the College Park campus.
In a video announcing the speaker pick, Kermit is described as an environmental advocate, a bestselling author, an international superstar and a champion of creativity, kindness and believing in the impossible.
His speaker bio calls him “a star of stage, screen and swamp” whose simple mission is to “sing and dance and make people happy.”
“I am thrilled that our graduates and their families will experience the optimism and insight of the world-renowned Kermit the Frog at such a meaningful time in their lives,” university President Darryll J. Pines said in a statement.


In tune with nature: expert sounds out all of Ireland’s bird species

Updated 23 May 2025
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In tune with nature: expert sounds out all of Ireland’s bird species

  • Some clips show birds mimicking other animals like dogs, people and other bird species

COBH, Ireland: On a mission to record all of Ireland’s bird species, many of which are dying out, Irishman Sean Ronayne calls his unique audio archive a tool to both raise alarm and bring hope.
According to conservation bodies, some 63 percent of Ireland’s birds are currently either red or amber-listed, meaning they are at severe or moderate extinction risk.
“Birds are in trouble in Ireland like they are across the world, the loss of wildlife — sonically and physically — is devastating to me,” said the 37-year-old.
“But I focus on hope and beauty, which is essential,” the ornithologist told AFP at his home near Cobh (pronounced “Cove“) in County Cork.
More than four years into his recording project he has sampled 201 different Irish bird species, stocking over 12,000 audio clips from around the country, Ronayne told AFP.
Just two remain to be documented: the great skua, and red-breasted merganser.
“If people realize just how spectacular wildlife is, there’s no way they would let it disappear, attitudes would change,” Ronayne said.
Ireland may be famed for its green fields, but Ronayne paints a bleak picture — “realistic” he says — of a degraded landscape and a bird population decimated by vanishing habitats.
Most of Ireland comprises intensively farmed fields bounded by trimmed hedgerows, drained and mined peatlands, overgrazed uplands, and minimal native woodland, he told AFP.
Non-native conifer plantations — approximately nine percent of Ireland’s 11 percent forest cover — are also a biodiversity villain, described by Ronayne as “a species-poor industrial cash-crop.”
“I try to show people the beauty of what we’re erasing and what we must stand up and fight for,” said the wildlife expert.
Last year he published an award-winning book, released two albums, and made an acclaimed documentary film. His talk tour is currently selling out venues around Ireland.
“Wildlife sound is such a great engaging tool to connect people to nature itself and get them acquainted with everything that’s on their doorstep,” Ronayne told AFP.
“If you know your neighbor you’re more likely to help them in times of need,” he said.
At the shows Ronayne, who was diagnosed with a form of autism as an adult, presents the story of his life and how nature is woven through it.
He also plays audio of warbles, tweets, trills, screeches and chirps, and mystery sounds, inviting the audience to guess the origin.
Some clips show birds mimicking other animals like dogs, people and other bird species.
“Some species in my collection can mimic 30 to 40 other species in their song,” he said.
Laughter is common at his talks, but also tears and grief as listeners learn of Ireland’s endangered birdlife.


Ronayne regularly holds “dawn chorus” walks, bringing small groups into silent forests far from road noise to experience the birdlife waking up.
A gradually building cacophony of sound, the dawn chorus is “a reflection of the health of a given environment,” he told AFP in an old woodland near his home while waiting for sunrise.
“The more sonically diverse it is, the healthier the habitat is,” he said.
After unpacking his audio recorder, parabolic microphone and tripod, he quickly identified the melodies of song thrushes, robins, blackbirds, goldcrests and others as they greeted the day.
“Chiffchaff! Did you hear that?! There’s a grey wagtail!” he exclaimed, head twitching toward each sound in the lifting gloom.
Ronayne also hides recorders for weeks and even months in remote untouched places where birds congregate.
On Ballycotton beach near Cobh, migrating birds swirled overhead before settling on an adjacent lagoon.
Ronayne carefully placed a waterproof recorder — able to run for up two weeks — in grass by the shore.
“They have to fly right over here to there,” he said pointing upwards at their route.
“After I collect it I’ll be able to monitor the birds, capture their calls, and tell environmental stories from the audio,” he said.
Back home, he scrolled on a computer showing thousands of archived sonogram clips — visual representations of sound — of birdsong audio.
Each entry included data on the behavior, calls and protected status of each bird: many either red or amber.
“First we must realize how wonderful nature is, then how fragile it is, and how much we have kicked it down,” Ronayne told AFP.
“When we as a society fall back in love with nature, and respect it as we once did, beautiful things will happen.”


Disney delays next two Marvel ‘Avengers’ movies

Updated 23 May 2025
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Disney delays next two Marvel ‘Avengers’ movies

  • “Avengers: Doomsday” now will come out on December 18, 2026

LOS ANGELES: Walt Disney’s movie studio has postponed the release of the next two installments in Marvel’s blockbuster “Avengers” series, the company said on Thursday.
“Avengers: Doomsday” now will come out on December 18, 2026, about seven months later than its previous date of May 1. “Doomsday” will bring Robert Downey Jr. back to the franchise as the villain, Doctor Doom.
Disney also moved “Avengers: Secret Wars” to December 17, 2027 from May 2, 2027.
The new schedule was chosen to give the filmmakers more time to complete the superhero movies, which are among the biggest Disney has ever made, a source familiar with the matter said. “Doomsday” is already in production.
“Avengers: Endgame,” released in 2019, is the second-highest grossing movie of all time with $2.8 billion in global ticket sales, behind “Avatar” with $2.9 billion. 


YouTube hires former Disney veteran to oversee sports and media

Updated 23 May 2025
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YouTube hires former Disney veteran to oversee sports and media

  • The platform has also expanded beyond traditional video sharing and into live TV

Alphabet’s YouTube has hired long-time Walt Disney executive Justin Connolly to serve as its global head of media and sports, the company said on Thursday, as the video service pushes further into sports and traditional media.
Connolly will manage the platform’s relationships with major media companies as well as take charge of the company’s growing live-sports portfolio, according to a source familiar with the matter.
The popular video sharing platform has been aggressively pursuing live sports for the past few years, alongside competitors such as Netflix and Amazon, in a bid to take advantage of its massive user base and large sports audience.
YouTube inked a $14 billion NFL streaming deal in 2022, which enables it to stream big football matches, while Amazon and other media firms also rushed to secure big sports streaming deals.
The platform has also expanded beyond traditional video sharing and into live TV, music and podcasts, and generates billions in advertising revenue from its vast content reserves.
Connolly spent over two decades at ESPN and Disney and exited his role as head of platform distribution earlier this week as Disney gears up to launch its ESPN sports streaming platform.