Mumbai: How could you define Rishi Kapoor? A sparkling Kapoor prodigy, a versatile actor who explored different genres till cancer grips him, a sharp tongue who used to call ‘spade’ a ‘spade’? The second son of Raj Kapoor was an absolute chocolate boy during his initial days and used to enjoy female attention a lot.
But as soon as he fell for his on-screen co-star Neetu Kapoor, a love story was born and continued till his last breath. Ahead of his third death anniversary, let’s remember the gorgeous Kapoor in vignettes of his family ties.
“Fond memories of Baisakhi day as we got engaged 43 years back on 13th April 1979. Baisakhi has a different connotation for Neetu and Rishi.”
In this frame, Rishi Kapoor is holding his granddaughter Samara Sahani.
This is the ultimate famjam picture. Rishi was accompanied by Neetu, son Ranbir, daughter Ridhima and granddaughter Samara.
Neetu Singh’s Instagram album is full of couple pictures. From the 70s to 2020s- the couple has seen different shades of marital life. This is a goofy picture where Neetu and Rishi exude love.
This is a major throwback picture where Rishi is enjoying the colour of festival.
This is a precious frame. In Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt’s Sangeet, Ranbir is holding a picture frame of his late father.
This is another famjam moment where Kapoor was accompanied by his teenage son and daughter.
If stories are to be believed, after being diagnosed with cancer, Rishi requested his doctor that he might allow him to have a sip of wine once a day.
Food, fun, family and wine…This was Rishi Kapoor’s world…
Dhaka: The World Bank has discussed a new Country Partnership Framework (CPF) for Bangladesh, spanning from 2023 to 2027, and approved $1.25 billion financing in three new projects, the lender said.
Of the projects, the bank said on Friday that it will provide $500 million for a project termed Program on Agricultural and Rural Transformation for Nutrition, Entrepreneurship, and Resilience (PARTNER).
Another $500 million will come as First Green and Climate Resilient Development Credit which will help the country’s transition to green and climate-resilient development, the lender said in a statement.
It approved $250 million for a project on microenterprise to help transform the micro-enterprise sector into a more dynamic, less-polluting, resource-efficient, and climate-resilient growth sector, Xinhua news agency reported.
“This Country Partnership Framework builds on five decades of strong partnership between the World Bank Group and Bangladesh,” said Abdoulaye Seck, World Bank country director for Bangladesh and Bhutan.
“As Bangladesh aims to be more prosperous, it will need stronger institutions and policies to serve the needs of an upper-middle-income country. This CPF will support the government’s reform programmes to deliver jobs and support inclusion and resilience,” Seck added.
“Bangladesh has been one of the world’s outstanding development growth stories. Additional reforms to spur the development of a more diversified and competitive private sector will grow exports and create quality jobs,” said Martin Holtmann, country manager of International Finance Corporation for Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan.
Protesters carry a banner as they attend a mass ‘independence party’ in a demonstration against Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his nationalist coalition government’s judicial overhaul. The fight over the judicial changes ‘transcends issues of left and right, and comes down to public distrust in government’, said one of the architects of the plans, Simcha Rothman.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
“It was an incredible, emotional moment for me to spend time with her,” Andriy Shevchenko says as he describes meeting a little Ukrainian girl called Maryna last month. The most famous former footballer from Ukraine, who won the Ballon d’Or in 2004 and the Champions League with Milan before he also coached his country at Euro 2020, pauses as he reflects on a simple encounter where he kicked a football back and forth in hospital with the six-year-old.
The images of their kickaround assume a grainy resonance when it is explained that Maryna had become the first child in Ukraine to receive a prosthetic limb after her leg was blown off by a Russian missile last year. For many weeks she barely moved. Finally, when she was well enough to sit up, her doctors started the slow process of her rehabilitation by using a football. Maryna learned to balance on her prosthetic leg while using her good foot to kick the ball.
For Shevchenko, Maryna represents the courageous spirit of Ukraine but he concedes: “It’s very sad to say it like that because she is so young to have been in that condition. But she shows everyone she’s very strong coming back from a terrible injury. It took her some time, especially emotionally, to recover. But she is so brave.”
The 46-year-old, who won 111 caps for Ukraine, leans forward, his eyes shining with emotion as he describes playing football with Maryna at the Ohmatdyt Children’s Hospital in Kyiv. “I saw her start smiling. The doctor came to me and said: ‘Andriy, she’s been here for four months and we never saw her even smiling.’ Then she gets excited, playing with the ball, and she kicked it back to me with both legs. She was very enthusiastic.
Andriy Shevchenko with Maryna, the first child in Ukraine to receive a prosthetic limb after her leg was blown off by a Russian missile. Photograph: Andrii Yushchak/UNITED24
“I saw a lot of kids in the paediatric hospital and many of them were in a very difficult condition. The next day I went to another hospital where I met soldiers, who are really just boys of 18 or 19, and they have no legs, no arms.”
Shevchenko’s four sons are aged between nine and 18 and, on an otherwise ordinary Wednesday afternoon at his home in London, he nods gently when I ask whether this most recent visit to Ukraine made him think of his own boys. “Of course. But I think it’s good we’re speaking because I want the world to understand the damage. The images of destruction and the bombs coming can be seen on television but the personal feeling after you go inside the hospitals is absolutely different. You feel the pain of people. So I want to share with the world what Ukrainian people are feeling.
“These young soldiers are defending the frontline, risking their lives, and there are civilian [casualties] too. When you go to Ukraine you always know it can happen to anyone. You accept that. Everyone who moves inside the war zone knows. But it’s more dangerous to be close to the frontline and you see so many families and young children who stayed there. We need to support these people when they have to recover in hospital. But we also need some human relationships with them, to encourage people after such a difficult injury to have a desire to live, to continue life. Most of them, I’m sure, can recover back to normal life – like Maryna.”
How did Shevchenko try to comfort the young soldiers who had lost limbs in the war? “I just want to give them attention. I walk in, give him a big thank you for his service, for defending Ukraine. It is one of the hardest moments, going to these hospitals, but it becomes a good feeling to say thanks to them from everyone.”
Shevchenko’s words carry even more weight after the latest wave of bombing across Ukraine. In the early hours of Friday Russia fired more than 20 cruise missiles and two drones at Kyiv and other cities. The haunting sound of air raid sirens echoed around a darkened Kyiv for the first time since early March. There are reports of at least 25 more deaths and of children being rescued from the rubble of their destroyed homes.
We return to the early hours of 24 February 2022 when the war began. “I remember going to sleep the night before,” Shevchenko says. “I was very nervous but I still believed it would be OK because it’s impossible they start a war with no reason. Until then we believed that Russia would not attack Ukraine. But I did not feel peaceful. I left my phone close to me because I was in London and my mother was in Kyiv.”
Andriy Shevchenko playing football with children in Borodianka. Photograph: Andrii Yushchak/UNITED24
Shevchenko is briefly silent as the memories flood through him. “It was three in the morning for me,” he continues, “and 5am in Ukraine. I open my eyes because my mum phoned me. I already know what it means. You don’t know for how long we’re going to be in this war but you know something terrible has happened. When the first attack started some important military bases around the airports were hit by missiles. My mum lives pretty close to one of them and she felt that explosion and called me immediately. She was scared and disoriented. She was crying and so I knew. War had started.”
His mother and sister left Ukraine six weeks later. “My mum didn’t feel well,” he explains, “and so my sister took her and their two dogs across Ukraine, close to the border. When they could they crossed the border and went to Italy. So they are safe but they have been three times back in Ukraine. They go back and forth. We all do. I try to go to Ukraine every month.”
The family’s close links with Italy are rooted in his successful years with Milan. Shevchenko scored 173 goals in 296 gamesbetween 1999 and 2006, reaching two Champions League finals. In 2003 he scored Milan’s winning penalty in a dramatic shootout in the final against Juventus while, two years later, his spot-kick at the same stage was saved by Jerzy Dudek in the Liverpool goal. That missed penalty meant Liverpool won the shootout, having been 3-0 down at half-time of normal time and with their 3-3 draw secured only by Dudek’s incredible double save from Shevchenko in extra time.
This season has sparked such memories for Shevchenko again and it’s striking that we only stop talking about the war in Ukraine to discuss Milan’s unexpected progress to the semi-finals. Next month they play Internazionale in a Champions League derby which reminds Shevchenko of the 2003 semi-final. He scored the vital away goal against Inter which helped Milan reach the final.
Andriy Shevchenko scoring for Milan against Internazionale in their 2003 Champions League semi-final. Photograph: Phil Cole/Getty Images
“They are fantastic memories,” Shevchenko says with a smile, “and Milan have a big chance to repeat the story against Inter again.”
He is enough of a Milan supporter to believe that they could shock everyone by winning the Champions League – even though Manchester City or Real Madrid would await in the final. “I watched how Milan played those two quarter-final games against Napoli like a mature team,” he says. “I say mature because, when they had to suffer, Milan would close the gap, defend, work as a team, covering a lot of distance and fight. And then they could strike when the chances came. These games are so close but there is a maturity to the team. I think Milan could do it because they have good players and a very strong team spirit.”
Shevchenko is an astute and intelligent coach, who did excellent work in guiding Ukraine to the quarter-finals of the Covid-delayed Euro 2020, where they lost to England in Rome in the summer of 2021. When he took over as national coach they had just emerged from a miserable tournament at Euro 2016 after losing all three group games and failing to score. Shevchenko drew on everything he had learned from his managerial mentor Valeriy Lobanovskyi, who had helped Dynamo Kyiv become a force in Europe in the 70s and 80s.
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When Shevchenko played under Lobanovskyi at Dynamo he became intensely serious about football. “He gave me the understanding that there are no trifles in football,” Shevchenko said. “No detail of the work can be ignored. I listened to him with my mouth open, catching every word.”
Shevchenko’s knowledge deepened during his years in Italy when he was coached by Alberto Zaccheroni and then Carlo Ancelotti, who became his second mentor. The lessons he learned from Italian football shaped his work in revitalising Ukraine. It would have been fascinating to discover how Shevchenko might have done in club management but his brief stint at Genoa lasted just over two months, and nine league games, before he was sacked after a defeat by Milan in January 2022.
Five weeks later Vladimir Putin declared war on Ukraine and the first bombs rained down on Kyiv. Shevchenko’s determination to help raise awareness of the unjust conflict means that any return to coaching has been delayed. His immersion in the war effort is deep and so there is no time to analyse the current fiasco at Chelsea, where Shevchenko battled with injury and form during an unsuccessful spell from 2006 to 2009. We do not get a chance to discuss how Roman Abramovich, who was once close to Putin, had pursued Shevchenko relentlessly before he signed him from Milan.
We also don’t have time to reflect on his happier times at Dynamo, where he developed into the lethal striker who lit up European football. I would love to ask Shevchenko about the night in 1997 when, aged just 21, he scored a Champions League hat-trick in the first half for Dynamo against Barcelona at the Camp Nou. The war, instead, is too consuming for such memories.
“As soon as the war started,” Shevchenko says, “my mum and my sister were packed, with their small luggage, ready to go any time. My aunt also spent 10 days under the shelter, hiding from missiles in the first months of the war. I know families who didn’t even have time to pack or take their passports. They had to [flee] because danger was coming. We did this as a family when I was very young [Shevchenko was nine when his family had to leave their village near Chornobyl and move to Kyiv in 1986] but that was a nuclear disaster. This is a war and if you had asked me a few years ago if this could happen I would say: ‘No.’”
Has he lost friends in the war? “Yes,” Shevchenko says. “A few close friends. But I know people who have lost much more.”
Andriy Shevchenko with the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Photograph: Alamy
Amid grief and pain he and Oleksandr Zinchenko, Ukraine’s captain who has been a revelation for Arsenal this season, have set up their Football for Ukraine initiative which aims to raise funds for the war effort. “We already did a lot of different projects together,” he says of Zinchenko and himself. “Now we’re preparing something big with this project to raise support for Ukrainian people. We already did a project in [the war-torn city of] Irpin with UNITED24.”
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy set up UNITED24 to give people around the world an easy and direct way to support Ukraine’s military efforts, enhance medical aid and help finance the rebuilding of the country. “We raised funds to rebuild the football stadium in Irpin and I think the impact of sport is very important,” Shevchenko says as an ambassador for UNITED24. “It can bring something different to people, and help them escape the war for a little bit. Oleksandr has been incredible. I’m very proud of him because he’s young and he has a very young family, with a baby, but he has given so much support to Ukraine. He’s not only tried to find the funds but he speaks loud about Ukraine. He has stayed so strong.”
As his former national‑team manager, has Shevchenko helped Zinchenko adjust to the trauma of having to address the war again and again? “When we talk I try to tell him; ‘Don’t hold the emotion. Let it out. There’s nothing to hold. We have to show the truth. We are here to show the world exactly what Ukrainian people are feeling.’ It has been difficult for everyone but, every time we speak, I always remind him: ‘We have to be a lot stronger. We have to help our people in Ukraine because they need us. We have to bring attention to the war.’”
Does the endless grind, with Russian aggression continuing no matter how heroically the Ukrainian army pushes them back, leave Shevchenko feeling depressed? “I am much stronger now. I know we have to just carry on. At the beginning of the war, and for the first four months there was a lot of hard stuff for me. But I can’t complain because I know on the frontline the soldiers have to face so much and families in Ukraine have to evacuate dangerous areas which have been hit by missiles. We went through an incredible year, the winter was so difficult, and with the first big blackout in Ukraine I was there, in Kyiv.
“But we defend our country and this gives us such power. We know the entire democratic world is behind us. But this is a good moment for me to remind everyone that the war keeps going.
“Please help share the Maryna story. These are our people, our children and our soldiers, who are losing their lives or being badly injured. It’s important the entire world keeps helping us. We still have a strong spirit – and that spirit will help us to defend Ukraine and win in the end.”
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
New Delhi: The US and its allies have severely eroded the global security architecture in a bid to maintain global dominance, Russian Defence Minister Gen Sergei Shoigu said on Friday amid Moscow’s increasingly frosty relations with Washington over the Ukraine conflict.
In his address at a conclave of defence ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in Delhi, Shoigu also said that Western powers are actively opposing the formation of a multipolar world in the Asia-Pacific region.
“As has been noted, today’s meeting takes place against the background of a highly volatile international environment,” he said.
“Fundamental, dynamic, and irreversible changes are taking place as the new multipolar world takes shape. This is actively opposed by the collective West. In a bid to maintain global dominance, the US and its allies have severely eroded the global security architecture,” he alleged.
Russia and the US have been at loggerheads over the Ukraine conflict with both sides making allegations and counter-allegations against each other.
On the sidelines of the SCO defence ministers’ meeting, Shoigu also met his Chinese counterpart Li Shangfu.
“We have always stressed the importance of building equal and indivisible security, of preserving the central role of the UN, of upholding its charter and its purposes and principles aimed at maintaining peace and stability,” the Russian defence minister said.
“We believe it is important to strengthen the role of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation as one of the pillars of the new multipolar international system, a model of inter-state relations based on equality and mutual respect,” he said.
“It is necessary to maintain close coordination within the SCO and to hold regular consultations on common security issues, both in multilateral and bilateral ways,” he added.
India hosted the meeting in its capacity as chair of the grouping.
The SCO is an influential economic and security bloc and has emerged as one of the largest transregional international organisations.
The SCO was founded at a summit in Shanghai in 2001 by the presidents of Russia, China, the Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. India and Pakistan became its permanent members in 2017.
When I told my mum I was taking my younger sister to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, she could barely contain her excitement.
Thirty years before we set foot in Goma, our mother arrived in the same city on a dusty Bedford truck that had carted a swag of lanky youths all the way from London. Back then, the DRC was called Zaire and civil war had yet to tear the region apart. Mum remembers Goma as being quite cosmopolitan.
A mountain gorilla in Virunga national park, north of Goma, the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Photograph: Petrina Darrah
When my sister and I passed through, there were “no firearms” signs tacked to ATM booths. Virunga national park rangers stuck with us at all times. We weren’t allowed to walk alone. My sister had never travelled outside New Zealand or Europe.
It might seem reckless, visiting a country considered so risky for foreigners. Most travel insurance policies refuse to cover it. But we were dogged in our pursuit of reaching the peak of the Nyiragongo volcano our mother had climbed decades earlier.
Selections from the photo album of Darrah’s mother’s travels – the middle-right image shows her standing on top of Nyiragongo volcano. Photograph: Petrina Darrah
I didn’t always plan to retrace my mother’s travels around the world. Yet some quirk of nature or nurture has landed me in many of the same places she journeyed through, back before she was anyone’s mother.
Shrugging in the face of convention, Mum spent the late 70s and early 80s pursuing a series of adventures that became steadily more outlandish. At 20, she worked in Greece as a groom in a stable of Arabian stallions. She lived on a kibbutz in Israel. There she met a man and travelled with him to the United States.
They hitchhiked from a ranch in Wyoming to California, catching rides with young men who had driven three states away from home for the hell of it. They slept under bridges and on beaches and, camped alongside Vietnam vets who were trying to outrun themselves. She drew the line at jumping on to trains.
Eventually, Mum hitchhiked all the way down to the Pacific coast of Mexico. Later, she backpacked solo through Indonesia, guided by a well-thumbed 1982 copy of Lonely Planet Southeast Asia on a Shoestring, which still sits on her bookshelf. She went to New Zealand to hike. She ended up getting married instead.
Mum travelled because of the stories told by her Jamaican born and raised father. She grew up in rural England listening to his memories of custard apples and alligators on a hot and humid island far away.
Petrina Darrah and her sister at Virunga national park. Photograph: Petrina Darrah
Similarly, when I was young, I pored over sepia-toned photographs of my mother as a young woman, with a feathery haircut and skimpy shorts, feeding an okapi, standing on top of Kilimanjaro, posing on a volcano.
These stories planted the seed: I wanted to see beyond New Zealand’s small horizons. As soon as I was old enough, I shot off overseas on a one-way ticket. While my peers found jobs, saved for houses and settled into long-term relationships, I emptied my bank account over and over, going wherever I could find a cheap flight, a temporary job, or a new adventure.
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From the travel photo album of Darrah’s mother, including images of the Bedford truck that transported her from London to Goma. Photograph: Petrina Darrah
Comparing notes with Mum, somewhere along the line I realised my travels echoed hers. It might have been sheer chance, or perhaps an unconscious direction set by her stories. Or maybe it just goes to show the backpacker routes carved out by travel guidebooks have stood the test of time. Whatever it was, I have trodden some of the same paths unintentionally as well as on purpose.
I moved to Tanzania for a job and stood at the foot of Kilimanjaro. I crossed the Serengeti in a dusty safari Jeep.
Darrah’s mother’s 1982 copy of Lonely Planet’s Southeast Asia on a Shoestring. Photograph: Petrina Darrah
I made it to Indonesia and sent her a photo of myself, lying among a dozen other bodies prone with sea sickness, on a boat from Lombok to Flores. She flipped through her album and sent back a photo of travellers puddled on a deck, suffering the same affliction on the same route. I washed up on the Pacific coast of Mexico, with a laptop instead of a tent. The small towns along this coast have Starlink now.
Many things have changed since she travelled. I don’t send letters home – I share my location on Instagram and hundreds of people, not just my immediate family, know where I am. Instead of precious rolls of film carefully meted out on special moments, I take endless smartphone photos that will probably never be printed. Hippies have been replaced by digital nomads.
But the lure of travel is as compelling as ever. Where does it end? Her restlessness ran out – mine is still burning. Maybe I’ll stick out my thumb in a foreign country and end up meeting the man I’ll marry, like she did. In the meantime, I’ll keep collecting stories to pass on.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
Bogota: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has said that the world is recognising the capabilities and contributions of a ‘New India’ as he underscored that there is a feeling that today’s India has the ability to bridge the difficult issues.
During an interaction with the Indian community members in Bogota on Tuesday, Jaishankar also said that the world today is acknowledging the changes in India and getting more ready for India.
Jaishankar also shared with the community members India’s transformation into ‘New India’ and its global implications. “Underlined how the world is recognising the capabilities and contributions of a New India,” he said.
Citing the Ukraine conflict or problems which deal with the developed world and the developing world, he told the Indian diaspora that “in all of this from all quarters, there is today that feeling that India is a country which in some way or the other can serve as a bridge as a someone who brings differing opinions together (and) helps to find a solution”.
“In the last decade, we have built up a reputation as what we call a first responder. When something happens we are quick to move because we’ve developed our own capability within the country. And now we feel we are good enough, experienced enough and responsible enough to do that outside…” he said, citing the example of the recent earthquake in Turkey where India sent its disaster rescue team within 24 hours.
Noting that there are some issues which trouble all countries in the world, the minister said that climate is one and here too there’s been a big change in India’s positioning, in India’s image.
“We are seeing today as a climate leader, a country which has done a lot on solar energy, on renewables, which is actually coming up with a whole series of ideas and practices and institutions,” he said.
He added that today a much more united global position on terrorism is at least partly due to the efforts that India has made in the last 10 years. “There is a feeling that today’s India has the ability to bridge the difficult issues. And frankly, sometimes the difficult arguments of the day,” he added.
He said that there is a much greater inclination on the part of the world to make an effort to understand India, that an India which is stronger, more powerful, more impactful. “There is a much greater willingness on the part of the world to make an effort to understand us and what we are,” he said.
Jaishankar also talked about the work done by Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government for the welfare of Indians abroad.
He lauded the Indian diaspora’s contributions, saying the image of India in foreign countries is significantly shaped by the community. “In this era of globalisation, of technology, of mobility, Indians are making their presence felt everywhere,” he added.
While responding to a question on dual citizenship, Jaishankar said that the issue involves security implications and not many big countries allow it.
During his stay in Colombia, Jaishankar would meet several top leaders of the country and review bilateral ties with his Colombian counterpart Alvaro Leyva Duran.
Jaishankar is on a nine-day trip to Guyana, Panama, Colombia, and the Dominican Republic, his first visit as the external affairs minister to these Latin American countries and the Caribbean.
A Chinese invasion of Taiwan would destroy world trade, and distance would offer no protection to the inevitable catastrophic blow to the global economy, the UK’s foreign secretary, James Cleverly, warned in a set piece speech on Britain’s relations with Beijing.
In remarks that differ from French president Emmanuel Macron’s attempts to distance Europe from any potential US involvement in a future conflict over Taiwan, and which firmly support continued if guarded engagement with Beijing, Cleverly said “no country could shield itself from the repercussions of a war in Taiwan”.
He added that he shuddered to think of the financial and human ruin that would ensue.
Urging no side to take unilateral action to change the status quo, he asserted the relevance of Taiwan to UK interests saying: “About half of the world’s container ships pass through these vital waters [the Taiwan Strait] every year, laden with goods bound for Europe and the far corners of the world. Taiwan is a thriving democracy and a crucial link in global supply chains, particularly for advanced semi-conductors.
“A war across the Strait would not only be a human tragedy, it would destroy world trade worth $2.6 trillion, according to Nikkei Asia. No country could shield itself from the repercussions.
“Distance would offer no protection from this catastrophic blow to the global economy – and to China most of all.”
He added: “As we watch new bases appearing in the South China Sea and beyond, we are bound to ask ourselves: what is it all for? Why is China making this colossal investment?
“If we are left to draw our own conclusions, prudence dictates that we must assume the worst.”
Overall Cleverly set himself apart from advocates of economic decoupling including some of his own backbenchers saying he wanted Britain to “engage directly with China, bilaterally and multilaterally, to preserve and create open, constructive and stable relations, reflecting China’s global importance”.
Although he said the mass incarceration in Xinjiang cannot be ignored or brushed aside, he said: “We believe in a positive trade and investment relationship, whilst avoiding dependencies in critical supply chains.
“We want British companies to do business in China – just as American, ASEAN, Australian and EU companies do – and we will support their efforts to make the terms work for both sides, pushing for a level playing field and fairer competition.”
China he acknowledged represented a ruthlessly authoritarian tradition utterly at odds with Britain’s own. “But we have an obligation to future generations to engage because otherwise we would be failing in our duty to sustain – and shape – the international order. Shirking that challenge would be a sign not of strength but of weakness.”
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Invasion of Taiwan would be a ‘horror scenario’, says German foreign minister – video
At the same time he balanced this by saying: “The UK had a right to protect core interests too, and one of them is to promote the kind of world that we want to live in, where people everywhere have a universal human right to be treated with dignity, free from torture, slavery or arbitrary detention.”
He insisted, without going into details: “We are not going to be silent about interference in our political system, or technology theft, or industrial espionage. We will do more to safeguard academic freedom and research.” He did not repeat the promise by Rishi Sunak, the prime minister, to close Chinese-controlled Confucius Institutes at British universities.
He also urged China in its relations with Russia over Ukraine not to allow Vladimir Putin to trample upon China’s own stated principles of non-interference and respect for sovereignty.
He told China: “A powerful and responsible nation cannot simply abstain when this happens, or draw closer to the aggressor, or aid and abet the aggression. The rights of a sovereign nation like Ukraine cannot be eradicated just because the eradicator enjoys a ‘strategic partnership’ with China.”
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
The ping today of a WhatsApp message and my heart wrenching at the news. Harry Belafonte. Gone.
Not that he hadn’t earned his rest at 96, but this was an incandescent beacon of most everything that can be good and right in a man – intelligence, closely considered and courageous political activism, guided by an unwavering moral compass that paused for neither breath nor age, encased in a package of heart-stopping beauty and grace.
Those seductive eyes and husky voice. In his earliest days, undulating hips tightly clad in what were sometimes known as calypso pants, shiny things that triggered dreams. Open-collared shirt clung to smooth muscular chest and the entertainment world hardly knowing what hit it when audiences of every race and class fell panting to his feet and all of it subversive vehicle for changing hearts and minds. Glorying himself but always us as well.
The world must always treasure and celebrate such a gift; and the poignancy of losing him, but 15 months after Sidney Poitier’s passing? Those of us of a certain age, particularly of the African diaspora, will be needing to take a moment to steady ourselves, for these two titans bestrode and uplifted our world. Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier, best friends and occasional competitors, born nine days apart, pioneers in challenging and changing dominant attitudes towards Black men by steadfastly refusing to embody either beast or fool: by being themselves and declaring what we all were/could be.
They were Harry and Sidney to us all, family members of whom we were beyond proud, loving them for what they did for us and for the joyous love they had for one another. Having assistant-directed several of his films, I was privileged to know Sidney’s intelligent dignity chased by a mischievous humour fairly well, but Harry’s fire was a more distanced legend to me.
He was known for his legendary support of Martin Luther King and what we all just call the Movement. But my aunt recalled this ambitious young buck luring fellow cast members to his cabin with promises of free food to try out his nightclub act, them all thinking him a bit full of himself, but reasonably talented.
Soon the world was simply wild about Harry and how he worked to circulate and elevate the breadth of African diasporic talent and culture. Talent like Miriam Makeba. Shattering walls in television and films. Encountering resistance but neither stopping nor caving.
I caught the occasional glimpse of Harry and Sidney together. One caramel in colour, the other ebony. Both tall. Comfortable in their skins and with what the world demanded of them. Never shirking before our need for them to always be their very best. Continually taking all breaths away.
I was only eye to eye with Harry once. When was it? One loses track. Six years ago, maybe seven. Some time before I’d written a novel on the Black female trumpet player Valaida Snow. Harry’s youngest daughter, Shari, had expressed interest in acquiring rights. Nothing had come of it, but then I heard that Harry himself would like to meet at his art-filled office in Hell’s Kitchen.
For two hours I was led through my tale by those probing eyes and that whispering voice, walking stick by his side but charisma undimmed, and I felt myself truly blessed to be in the presence of a king: one who will now rest with our deepest gratitude and profound love.
Candace Allen is a writer and film-maker
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
Abu Dhabi: The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has ranked first in the Arab world and 20th globally for economic opportunities offered to residents and investors.
This came according to a report issued by the World Citizenship Report 2023 in ‘Economic Opportunity Rankings’ list of 128 countries, positioning it higher than Iceland, Malaysia, China, Qatar, Italy, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Turkey and others.
UAE has announced a number of initiatives to make it easier to do business such as introducing a new long-term visa regime, 100 per cent foreign ownership for foreigners, zero income tax, very low corporate income tax, and signing the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) with a number of of countries to facilitate and facilitate trade with major economies like India, Israel, etc.
Globally, Singapore, the United States, Hong Kong, the Netherlands and Japan are among the top five countries with the best economic opportunities.
