Author: afp

  • One Direction stars attend Liam Payne’s funeral in UK

    One Direction stars attend Liam Payne’s funeral in UK

    Family and friends of One Direction star Liam Payne, who died last month after falling from a Buenos Aires hotel room, gathered for his funeral in Britain on Wednesday.

    Payne’s former bandmates Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Zayn Malik and Louis Tomlinson were among the dozens of mourners at the private service at St Mary’s Church in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, just outside London.

    Payne’s tearful parents were joined by his two sisters, his girlfriend Kate Cassidy and former partner Cheryl Tweedy, with whom he has a son.

    Around a dozen fans watched from behind a nearby cordon as guests hugged each other before walking past floral tributes into the 12th-century church to pay their final respects.

    “Because his death was such a public death, to have the funeral in a private way… I think it was very nice,” said onlooker Sheila Morris, a 65-year-old from Amersham.

    “It’s a beautiful church… it’s a very beautiful place for a funeral,” she said.

    Payne’s coffin arrived in a white horse-drawn hearse topped with floral tributes spelling the words “Son” and “Daddy”, followed by his parents.

    Payne was found dead on October 16 after falling from the balcony of his third-floor room at the Casa Sur Hotel in the Argentinian capital.

    His death, at 31, prompted a global outpouring of grief from family, former bandmates and fans, with thousands gathering in cities around the world to offer condolences.

    – ‘Completely devastated’ –

    Payne shot to stardom as a teenager alongside Styles, Horan, Tomlinson and Malik after their appearance on the UK talent show “The X Factor” 14 years ago.

    He died from “multiple traumas” and “internal and external haemorrhaging” after the fall from the hotel room, a post-mortem examination found.

    The balcony attached to his room overlooked a rear patio that was about 14 meters (45 feet) high.

    Hotel staff had called emergency services twice to report a guest “overwhelmed by drugs and alcohol” who was “destroying” a hotel room.

    Investigators have said he was alone at the time and appeared to have been “going through an episode of substance abuse”.

    In a short statement following his death, Payne’s family said: “We are heartbroken. Liam will forever live in our hearts and we’ll remember him for his kind, funny and brave soul.”

    One Direction said they had been “completely devastated” by his death.

    After forming in 2010, the band went on to release an album of radio-ready songs each year in time for the holiday shopping season and became one of the highest-grossing live acts in the world. 

    In 2016, after Malik left, the group said it was on an indefinite hiatus but not splitting up.

    Payne’s first solo single “Strip That Down” peaked at number three on the UK charts and number 10 on the US Billboard top songs list.

    But in recent years he had spoken publicly about struggles with substance abuse and coping with fame from an early age.

    His last solo work, the single “Teardrops”, was released in March, with a second album announced at the time.

    Payne was born and raised in Wolverhampton, central England.

  • Lady Gaga, Green Day, Post Malone to headline Coachella 2025

    Lady Gaga, Green Day, Post Malone to headline Coachella 2025

    Lady Gaga, Green Day and Post Malone will headline 2025’s Coachella music and arts festival, organizers said Wednesday, while Travis Scott will play a special guest slot.

    Missy Elliott, Charli XCX and Megan Thee Stallion will also feature at the major event in the California desert that kicks off the music festival circuit.

    Coachella takes place over two three-day weekends in the spring, this year April 11-13 and 18-20.

    The line-up reveal came months earlier than usual, one day after Post Malone slipped in his own tour schedule release that he’d be playing concerts during the anticipated festival dates in Indio.

    Scott’s performance will come four years after he was slated to headline the 2020 festival, which was ultimately scrapped due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

    South Africa’s Tyla will perform at the 2025 edition after pulling out last year due to an injury.

    Other acts of interest include famed conductor Gustavo Dudamel along with the LA Philharmonic, along with a return to the desert for Brazil’s Anitta and electronic music pioneers Kraftwerk.

    Last year’s festival was headlined by Lana Del Rey, Doja Cat and Tyler, the Creator. It also featured a special reunion performance from No Doubt.

    Taylor Swift was also an overwhelming presence at the grounds flanked by the San Jacinto Mountains in 2024 — although as a spectator, not a performer.

  • ‘Gladiator 3’ already in works, say director and star

    ‘Gladiator 3’ already in works, say director and star

    Ridley Scott’s long-awaited “Gladiator” sequel has not even hit US theaters yet, but the veteran director is already hard at work on a third installment.

    “Gladiator II,” which arrives in North American cinemas Friday, stars Irish actor Paul Mescal (“Normal People”) as Lucius, the son of Russell Crowe’s Maximus from the multiple Oscar-winning original.

    A bloody, blockbuster epic of revenge, treachery and — yes — gladiators, it has drawn positive reviews and already hauled in a muscular $87 million at the global box office since opening in several countries last week.

    “Given the performance in the rest of the world that we’ve seen yesterday, there’s certainly going to be a ‘Gladiator III,’” said Scott, in Los Angeles on Monday for the movie’s glitzy US premiere.

    “Because it also becomes financial, and you’d be insane not to consider a third version,” said the British director of seminal films such as “Blade Runner” and “Thelma & Louise.”

    The plot of “Gladiator II” was also “planned to leave it wide open to a sequel,” added Scott, a famously prolific filmmaker who is still directing roughly a film per year at the age of 86.

    The second film opens with Lucius — sent into exile by his mother to avoid certain death in Rome — battling in vain to defend his adopted North African home city from the arrival of seemingly unstoppable Roman soldiers.

    Captured as a prisoner of war, he is brought back to the imperial metropolis, where he must prove his worth in the Colosseum in order to exact revenge on invading general Marcus Acacius, played by Pedro Pascal.

    Danish actress Connie Nielsen reprises her role as Lucilla from the 2000 original, while Denzel Washington is already earning Oscar buzz for his conniving, mercurial and highly flamboyant ringmaster, Macrinus.

    “Jewelry, sandals and everything — I just looked like a Roman pimp… I couldn’t put on enough rings,” joked Washington on Monday.

    – ‘Political’ –

    Mescal — whose character battles bloodthirsty baboons, rhinos and sharks in addition to humans in “Gladiator II” — also expressed excitement about returning for another film.

    But he said Scott had discussed a new direction for the plot that would not simply “go back to the arena as we know it.”

    “The last time I spoke to (Scott) he said he had nine pages. Yesterday, he said he had 14,” Mescal told journalists.

    “I would be excited for it to go into a more political sphere,” with Lucius thrust into a world of court intrigue that he does not want to inhabit, like Michael Corleone in “The Godfather,” added Mescal.

    Asked how the second film’s themes tackled power and politics differently, some 24 years after the original Scott said: “They’re exactly the same.”

    “A super-rich man thinks he can take over the Empire. Is that familiar?” he said, just days after billionaire Donald Trump’s re-election as US president.

    “We don’t learn historically anything. We keep repeating the same mistakes. We’re going through exactly the same thing right now in several parts of the planet,” he added.

  • Son of Norwegian Princess arrested on suspicion of rape

    Son of Norwegian Princess arrested on suspicion of rape

    Norwegian police said Tuesday that the 27-year-old son of Norwegian Crown Princess Mette-Marit had been arrested on suspicion of rape.

    Police said that Marius Borg Hoiby, who was born from a relationship prior to Mette-Marit’s 2001 marriage to Crown Prince Haakon, had been arrested Monday evening.

    “What police can say about the rape is that it concerns a sexual act without intercourse. The victim is said to have been unable to resist the act,” they said.

    In a later statement, police said they had searched the suspect’s home and made “seizures”.

    Borg Hoiby was raised by the royal couple alongside his step-siblings Princess Ingrid Alexandra, 20, and Prince Sverre Magnus, 18, but has no official public role.

    The rape arrest comes only months after he was accused of bodily harm after a night-time row on August 4 at the Oslo apartment of a woman he was having a relationship with, police said.

    Norwegian media reports said police found a knife stuck into one of the walls of the woman’s bedroom at the time.

    He was arrested again in September for violating a restraining order.

    Police said he was in a car with the alleged victim of the August incident when he was arrested Monday.

    On Tuesday, police also said the suspicions relating to the August incident now include domestic abuse.

    Police said they had yet to decide whether he would be remanded in custody.

    Hoiby was born in 1997 from a relationship prior to Mette-Marit’s 2001 marriage to Crown Prince Haakon, the heir apparent to the Norwegian throne.

  • Sweden, Finland urge residents to be ready for war

    Sweden, Finland urge residents to be ready for war

    Sweden on Monday began sending some five million pamphlets to residents urging them to prepare for the possibility of war, as neighbouring Finland launched a new preparedness website.

    Both Sweden and Finland dropped decades of military non-alignment to join the US-led military alliance NATO in the wake of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

    Since the start of the war, Stockholm has repeatedly urged Swedes to prepare both mentally and logistically for the possibility of war, citing the serious security situation in its vicinity.

    The booklet “If Crisis or War Comes”, sent by the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB), contains information about how to prepare for emergencies such as war, natural disasters, or cyber-attacks.

    It is an updated version of a pamphlet that Sweden has issued five times since World War II.

    The previous version sent out in 2018 made headlines, as it was the first time it had been sent to Swedes since 1961 at the height of the Cold War.

    “The security situation is serious and we all need to strengthen our resilience to face various crises and ultimately war,” MSB director Mikael Frisell said in a statement.

    The 32-page document outlines with simple illustrations the threats facing the Nordic nation, including military conflict, natural disasters, and cyber and terror attacks.

    It includes tips for preparedness, such as keeping non-perishable food in stock and storing water.

    MSB said the updated 2024 version had a stronger focus on preparation for war.

    Over the next two weeks 5.2 million copies will be sent to Swedish households.

    The brochure is available in print in both Swedish and English and digital versions are available in several other languages — including Arabic, Farsi, Ukrainian, Polish, Somali and Finnish.

    Sweden’s former army chief Micael Byden alarmed many of his compatriots in January when he urged them to consider their own preparedness.

    “Swedes have to mentally prepare for war,” he said.

    Also on Monday, the government in Finland, which shares a 1,340-kilometre (830-mile) border with Russia, launched a website gathering information on preparedness for different crises.

  • Phone documentary details struggles of Afghan women under Taliban

    Phone documentary details struggles of Afghan women under Taliban

    A rare inside account of the tyranny of the Taliban and their impact on Afghan women hits screens next week with the smartphone-filmed documentary “Bread & Roses.”

    Produced by actress Jennifer Lawrence (“Hunger Games”) and Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, this feature-length film immerses the viewer in the daily asphyxiation endured by half the population of Afghanistan since the withdrawal of US troops paved the way for the Taliban to seize power.

    “When Kabul fell in 2021 all women lost their very basic rights. They lost their rights to be educated, to work,” Lawrence told AFP in Los Angeles.

    “Some of them were doctors and had high degrees, and then their lives were completely changed overnight.”

    The documentary, which debuted at Cannes in May 2023, was directed by exiled Afghan filmmaker Sahra Mani who reached out to a dozen women after the fall of Kabul.

    She tutored them on how to film themselves with their phones — resulting in a moving depiction of the intertwined stories of three Afghan women.

    We meet Zahra, a dentist whose practice is threatened with closure by the Taliban, suddenly propelled to the head of the protests against the regime.

    Sharifa, a former civil servant, is stripped of her job and cloistered at home, reduced to hanging laundry on her roof to get a breath of fresh air.

    And Taranom, an activist in exile in neighboring Pakistan, who watches helplessly as her homeland sinks into medieval intolerance.

    – Gender apartheid –

    “The restrictions are getting tighter and tighter right now,” Mani told AFP on the film’s Los Angeles red carpet.

    And hardly anyone outside the country seems to care, she said.

    “The women of Afghanistan didn’t receive the support they deserved from the international community.”

    Since their return to power, the Taliban have established a “gender apartheid” in Afghanistan, according to the United Nations.

    Women are gradually being erased from public spaces: Taliban authorities have banned post-secondary education for girls and women, restricted employment and blocked access to parks and other public places.

    A recent law even prohibits women from singing or reciting poetry in public.

    The Taliban follow an austere brand of Islam, whose interpretations of holy texts are disputed by many scholars.

    “The Taliban claim to represent the culture and religion while they’re a very small group of men who do not actually represent the diversity of the country,” Yousafzai, an executive producer of the film, told AFP.

    “Islam does not prohibit a girl from learning, Islam does not prohibit a woman from working,” said the Pakistani activist, whom the Taliban tried to assassinate when she was 15.

    The documentary captures the first year after the fall of Kabul, including moments of bravery when women speak out against repression.

    “You closed universities and schools, you might as well kill me!” a protester shouts at a Talib threatening her during a demonstration.

    These gatherings of women — under the slogan “Work, bread, education!” — are methodically crushed by the regime.

    Protesters are beaten, some are arrested, others kidnapped.

    Slowly, the resistance fades, but it doesn’t die: some Afghan women are now trying to educate themselves through clandestine courses.

    Three years after the Taliban seized power from a hapless and corrupt civilian government, few countries have officially recognized their regime.

    In the wake of Donald Trump’s re-election to the US presidency, the fundamentalists have made it known that they hope to “open a new chapter” in relations between Kabul and Washington, where a more transactional foreign policy outlook is expected to prevail.

    For Mani, that rings alarm bells.

    Giving up on defending the rights of Afghan women would be a serious mistake — and one the West could come to regret, she said.

    The less educated Afghan women are, the more vulnerable their sons are to the ideology that birthed the terror attacks of September 11, 2001.

    “If we are paying the price today, you might pay the price tomorrow,” she said.

  • 10 newborns killed, 16 critical in India hospital fire

    10 newborns killed, 16 critical in India hospital fire

    A fire at the neonatal unit of an Indian hospital killed 10 newborns, authorities said on Saturday, with another 16 clinging to life after a blaze blamed on a faulty oxygen machine.

    Building fires are common in India due to shoddy construction and a routine disregard for safety regulations.

    Friday night’s fire broke out at about 10:30pm (1700 GMT) Friday at the Maharani Lakshmibai Medical College in Jhansi, around 450 kilometres (280 miles) south of the capital New Delhi.

    Footage from the scene showed charred beds and walls inside the ward as a crowd of anguished families waited outside.

    Babies rescued from the fire, all only days old, were laid side by side on a bed elsewhere in the hospital as hospital staff hooked up their arms to intravenous drips.

    “Ten infants have sadly died,” Uttar Pradesh deputy chief minister Brajesh Pathak told reporters.

    “Seven bodies have been identified. Three bodies haven’t been identified as yet.”

    Another 16 infants were in critical condition after the blaze, news outlet Times Now reported.

    Pathak said a safety audit of the hospital was carried out in February followed by a fire drill three months later.

    “The cause of the fire will be probed,” he added. “If any lapses are found, strict action will be taken against those responsible and no one will be spared.”

    District official Avinash Kumar said the fire had been caused by an electrical short circuit in the unit.

    “We are providing medical care to the critically injured,” he was quoted as saying by the Hindustan Times newspaper.

    Local media reports quoted other officials who said the fire started in a piece of machinery used to enrich the level of oxygen in the atmosphere.

    The high concentration of the combustible gas in the unit helped the fire spread quickly and suddenly, they said.

    Broadcaster NDTV reported that 54 infants in total were in the neonatal intensive care unit when the fire broke out.

    ‘War footing’

    Prime Minister Narendra Modi called the deaths “heart-wrenching” in a post on social media platform X.

    “My deepest condolences to those who have lost their innocent children in this. I pray to God to give them the strength to bear this immense loss,” he wrote.

    Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath announced compensation of 500,000 rupees ($5,900) to bereaved families.

    “The district administration and concerned officials have been instructed to carry out relief and rescue operations on a war footing,” Adityanath wrote on X.

    “I pray to Lord Shri Ram to provide salvation to the departed souls and speedy recovery to the injured.”

    Friday’s fire comes six months after a similar blaze at a children’s hospital in New Delhi that killed six newborns.

  • Ye claims ‘Jews’ controlling Kardashian clan: lawsuit

    Ye claims ‘Jews’ controlling Kardashian clan: lawsuit

    Kanye West frequently told employees that Jewish people were controlling the family of his ex-wife Kim Kardashian, according to a new lawsuit filed in California on Thursday.

    The musician and entrepreneur — now formally known as Ye — faces a litany of legal claims from former employees who accuse him of abusive and sometimes bizarre behavior.

    In the latest filing, Murphy Aficionado, who worked for Ye for nine months between 2022 and 2023, said life at his Yeezy brand and Donda Academy school was a “nightmare.”

    “During Aficionado’s employment, Ye’s anti-Semitic tirades and conspiracies were a daily occurrence,” the suit says.

    “Often, these outbursts involved how Jews controlled the Kardashians. Other times, Ye recounted how Jews were going after him and his money.”

    Ye, 47, was married to socialite and businesswoman Kim Kardashian for eight years.

    The couple, who have four children, divorced in 2022 in an increasingly acrimonious split, despite her earlier defending him and calling for understanding while he grappled with mental health issues.

    Ye has garnered a string of headlines over recent years for anti-Semitic outbursts, including once saying he saw “good things about Hitler” and writing on social media that he was “going death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE.”

    His pronouncements cost him a lucrative deal with Adidas.

    Thursday’s lawsuit claims Ye had no compunction about flaunting his sexual relationships in front of staff.

    “On one occasion, in between his racist lectures, Ye invited Aficionado to his hotel room to work,” the suit states.

    “In the suite, Aficionado waited miserably and uncomfortably while he unwillingly listened to Ye having sex with his then-girlfriend Bianca Censori in the adjoining room.

    “On another occasion, Ye subjected Aficionado to those same sexual proclivities, but this time with his masseuse –- leaving Aficionado feeling violated and dehumanized.”

    The suit seeks unspecified compensation for outstanding contractual payments, as well as emotional and psychological damage.

    Attorney William Reed, who is representing Aficionado, said the lawsuit was an effort “to force Ye to learn that this conduct has no place in our society.”

    The rapper’s “vitriol, hate, and anti-Semitism continues, as does his complete and utter disrespect for the women around him.”

    There was no immediate response from Ye’s representatives to an AFP request for comment.

     

  • Film’s ‘search for Palestine’ takes centre stage at Cairo festival

    Film’s ‘search for Palestine’ takes centre stage at Cairo festival

    The tale of a distinctly Palestinian road trip — through refugee camps and Israeli checkpoints — takes centre stage in director Rashid Masharawi’s latest film, which debuted at this year’s Cairo International Film Festival.

    “It’s a search for home, a search for Palestine, for ourselves,” Masharawi told AFP a day after Wednesday’s world premiere of his new film “Passing Dreams”.

    It kicked off the Middle East’s oldest film festival, which opened with a traditional dabkeh dance performance by a troupe from the war-torn Gaza Strip.

     
    Masharawi’s film follows Sami, a 12-year-old boy, and his uncle and cousin on a quest to find his beloved pet pigeon, which has flown away from their home in a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.

    Told that pigeons always return to their birthplace, the family attempts to “follow the bird home” — driving a small red camper van from Qalandia camp and Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank to the Old City of Jerusalem and the Israeli city of Haifa.

    Their odyssey, Masharawi says, becomes a “deeply symbolic journey” that represents an inversion of the family’s original displacement from Haifa during the 1948 war that led to the creation of the State of Israel — a period Palestinians refer to as the Nakba, or “catastrophe”.

    “It’s no coincidence we’re in places that have a deep significance to Palestinian history,” the director said, speaking to AFP after a more intimate second screening on Thursday.

    – ‘From Ground Zero’ –
    The bittersweet tale is a far cry from Masharawi’s other project featured at the Cairo film festival: “From Ground Zero”.

    The anthology, supervised by the veteran director, showcases 22 shorts by filmmakers in Gaza, shot against the backdrop of war.

    For that project, Masharawi — who was the first Palestinian director officially selected for the Cannes Film Festival for his film “Haifa” in 1996 — “wanted to act as a bridge between global audiences” and filmmakers on the ground.

    In April, he told AFP the anthology intended to expose “the lie of self-defence”, which he said was Israel’s justification for its devastating military campaign in Gaza.

    The war broke out following Palestinian militant group Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel, which resulted in 1,206 deaths, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures. 

    Israel has since killed more than 43,700 people in the Gaza Strip, according to the Hamas-controlled territory’s health ministry.

    “As filmmakers, we must document this through the language of cinema,” Masharawi said, adding that filmmaking “defends our land far better than any military or political speeches”.

    – Smuggled onto set –
    Speaking to an enthralled audience, the 62-year-old director — donning his signature fedora — called for change in Palestinian filmmaking.

    “Our cinema can’t always only be a reaction to Israeli actions,” he said.

    “It must be the action itself.”

    A self-taught director born in a Gaza refugee camp before moving to Ramallah, Masharawi is intimately familiar with the “obstacles to filmmaking under occupation” — including “separation walls, barriers, who’s allowed to go where”.

    Like the family in the film, “you never know if authorities will let you get to your location”, he said, especially since Masharawi refuses “on principle” to seek permits from Israeli authorities.

    Instead, his crew often resorts to makeshift schemes — including “smuggling in” actors from the West Bank who do not have permission to visit Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem.

    “If you ask (Israeli authorities) for permission to shoot in Jerusalem, you’re giving them legitimacy that Jerusalem is theirs,” he said Thursday to raucous applause from audience members, many of them draped in Palestinian keffiyehs.

    Organisers cancelled the Cairo film festival last year after calls for the suspension of artistic and cultural activities across the Arab world in solidarity with Palestinians.

    But this week, keffiyehs have dotted the red carpet, while audience members wore pins bearing the Palestinian flag and the map of historic Palestine.

    Festival president Hussein Fahmy voiced solidarity “with our brothers in Gaza and Lebanon”, where Israel’s bombing campaign and ground offensive have killed 3,360 people.

    Pride of place, Fahmy said, has been given to Palestinian cinema, with a handful of films showing during the festival and a competition to crown a winner among the 22 filmmakers in “From Ground Zero”.

  • Mike Tyson slaps Jake Paul ahead of much-hyped fight

    Mike Tyson slaps Jake Paul ahead of much-hyped fight

    Former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson slapped opponent Jake Paul as the two men faced off for the final time on Thursday ahead of their controversial Netflix-backed bout.

    Tyson, 58, hit Paul flush on the cheek with his right hand following the formal weigh-in for Friday’s fight at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.


    A scrum of security swiftly intervened to separate the two fighters following the incident before Tyson was ushered away.

    Tyson, who weighed in at 228.4 pounds after stepping onto the scales wearing only a pair of Versace briefs, barely spoke before leaving the stage.

    “Talking’s over,” Tyson said before making his exit with members of his entourage.

    Paul, the 27-year-old Youtuber-turned-boxer, insisted he had not been hurt by Tyson’s open-handed slap, which drew gasps from the audience.


    “I didn’t even feel it — he’s angry. He’s an angry little elf…cute slap buddy,” said Paul, who weighed in at 227.2 pounds.

    Paul concluded his remarks with an expletive-laden pledge to knock Tyson out before roaring theatrically into a microphone: “He must die.”


    Tyson is reportedly being paid $20 million for Friday’s officially sanctioned about in Texas, which will be comprised of eight two-minute rounds.

    The contest, being streamed live on Netflix, has divided opinion across the boxing world, with many prominent figures decrying the prospect of Tyson lacing up his gloves nearly 40 years after his professional debut and 19 years after his last officially sanctioned fight.