ISTANBUL (AFP) – Turkey’s leading activist Osman Kavala, who at the weekend marked his 1,600th day in prison without conviction, appeared before court yesterday for the first time in months, only to have his case adjourned and his detention extended.
The philanthropist is accused of financing 2013 anti-government protests and playing a role in a coup plot against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The case has strained Turkey’s ties with the West and become a symbol of Turkey’s sweeping crackdown on government opponents.
Kavala has been detained since 2017 in a huge prison complex on the outskirts of Istanbul, in defiance of a European Court of Human Rights ruling to release him.
Last month, the Council of Europe (COE) launched rare disciplinary action against Turkey over the case, which Ankara denounced as interference.
Kavala, who had snubbed court hearings since October, yesterday attended the latest hearing in Istanbul’s main court Caglayan via a video link from his prison in Silivri.
His presence had built up expectations that the three judges overseeing his trial could be poised to deliver a final verdict.
Many Western observers, including diplomats from France and the United States were present in the packed courtroom, an AFP journalist reported.
LONDON (CNA) – The global Financial Stability Board (FSB) is closely scrutinising the use of cryptoassets during the war in Ukraine after concerns they could be used to evade Western sanctions on Russia.
The crypto sector is on the defensive amid warnings from the United States (US) and European lawmakers that digital asset companies are not up to the task of complying with Western financial sanctions imposed on Russia following the country’s invasion of Ukraine.
Some crypto exchanges have rejected calls to cut off all Russian users, raising concerns that crypto could be used as a way to circumvent sanctions.
Ukraine also raised millions of dollars in cryptocurrencies after posting appeals on social media for donations in bitcoin and other digital tokens.
“We at the FSB are monitoring the situation, the conflict situation relative to cryptos,” a member of the FSB’s secretariat Patrick Armstrong, told a City and Financial conference.
The FSB, which groups financial regulators, central banks and finance ministry officials from the Group of 20 economies, is sharing the information it obtains among its members, Armstrong said.
Britain’s Financial Services Minister John Glen told the same conference that steps already taken by the United Kingdom (UK) to bring cryptoassets under anti-money laundering and terrorist financing curbs will support law enforcement in cryptoassets.
MIAMI (AFP) – Sam Burns sank a dramatic 35-foot birdie putt on the second playoff hole yesterday to defeat rookie Davis Riley and capture his second consecutive US PGA Valspar Championship title.
In an intense extra-holes showdown between 25-year-old Americans, Burns and Riley began with pars at the par-4 18th hole at Innisbrook’s Copperhead course in Palm Harbor, Florida.
The playoff moved to the par-4 16th, where Burns found the green and Riley the short rough. Burns saw his putt roll left to right around the back edge of the cup and drop in, the flagstick still in the cup.
When Riley couldn’t match him with a 32-foot chip, Burns had defended his crown.
“Man it was crazy,” Burns said. “Davis played well, especially the way he finished. Hats off to him.” It was the third career PGA title for Burns, who won by three strokes over Keegan Bradley at Innisbrook last year and took last October’s Sanderson Farms Championship.
Burns will jump from 17th to 10th in the world rankings.
Sam Burns celebrates with the trophy. PHOTO: AFP
“Just a lot of hard work,” Burns said. “I’m so happy.”
Burns fired a two-under-par 69 to complete 72 holes on 17-under 267.
“I tried to stay steady. We didn’t make a lot of mistakes,” Burns said. “If you can just plod your way around – make a bunch of pars, throw in a few birdies here and there – a lot of times it works well.”
Riley, ranked 399th, battled back from a triple bogey at the par-5 fifth hole that dropped him out of the lead to shoot 72 and manage his best tour finish, improving on a share of seventh at Bermuda last October.
“I got punched in the mouth pretty early,” Riley said. “Fought back. I knew if just kept staying in it, I would have a chance to win, but unfortunately didn’t have my best stuff and that’s just what happens.
“We just said there’s a lot of golf to play, triple sucks, but I knew I was playing well enough to bounce back from it. Unfortunately that hole just kind of cost me.”
Americans Justin Thomas and Matthew NeSmith shared third on 268 with England’s Matt Fitzpatrick and American Brian Harman sharing fifth on 270.
NeSmith, ranked 279th, matched the course record with a 61 on Friday and managed his best US PGA finish, surpassing a share of sixth in 2020 at Puerto Rico.
In the final round, Riley sank a six-foot birdie putt at the par-3 17th while Burns rescued bogey with a nine-foot putt at 17 – his first bogey after 24 holes – to keep a share of the lead. Both closed with pars, Riley missing a 15-foot birdie putt to win at 18.
MADRID (AFP) – With a Golden Bear for Spanish director Carla Simon and four compatriots nominated for Oscars, including superstars Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz, Spanish cinema has now begun to captivate a global audience.
When Bardem and Cruz, who have been married for over a decade, were both tapped for Oscars, the 53-year-old actor could hardly contain his excitement.
“The fact that (Penelope’s) nomination was for a role in Spanish seems really extraordinary, even historic in terms of the Spanish brand,” he said in February.
Unlike other countries with a long and distinguished history of cinema, Spain has struggled to establish itself on the international stage.
So far, Luis Bunuel has been the only Spanish director to win the coveted Palme D’Or at Cannes Film Festival for his provocative 1961 feature Viridiana.
But all that is changing, with Spanish cinema increasingly recognised for its contribution to the silver screen, the most recent being Carla Simon’s triumph at this year’s Berlinale where she took the top prize for Alcarras (2022), a Catalan drama about peach farmers.
Spanish film director Alberto Mielgo, Spanish actor Javier Bardem, Spanish actress Penelope Cruz and Spanish composer Alberto Iglesias pose on the red carpet upon arrival at the 36th Goya awards ceremony at the Palau de les Arts in Valencia. PHOTOS: AFP
And according to Variety magazine, Cruz is rumoured to be in the running for president of the jury at Cannes, an honour already bestowed upon the legendary Pedro Almodovar, by far Spain’s best-known filmmaker.
Cruz herself is the only Spanish actress ever to win an Oscar, taking home the gong in 2009 for best supporting actress in the Woody Allen comedy Vicky Cristina Barcelona.
And if she wins best actress at the Oscars later this month for Almodovar’s Parallel Mothers, it will be a coup for a film entirely ‘Made in Spain’, whose soundtrack has also been nominated for best original score.
The score was written by Basque composer Alberto Iglesias, who has worked with Almodovar for two decades on 13 of his films. This is the fourth time an Iglesias soundtrack has been nominated for an Oscar.
For him, there is “strong momentum” within Spanish cinema.
“There is an energy… it has to do with the film schools that have been working for a long time to create new filmmakers,” he told AFP.
“It has been really difficult for Spanish cinema to cross the threshold and get into these big international festivals,” explained director of the Spanish Film Festival in the French city of Nantes Pilar Martinez-Vasseur.
Spanish films which have received acclaim abroad are often not identified as such, she said, pointing to the 2001 psychological thriller The Others starring Nicole Kidman which was directed by Spain’s Alejandro Amenabar.
“In Spain, we still have the idea that Spanish cinema is bad, that it’s a nest of communists, that filmmakers are pampered, they do nothing and get subsidies,” she said, calling for greater support from the government.
Filmmaking in Spain receives far less state aid than in France, experts said.
Spanish cinema has had to “learn how to break into a globalised ecosystem”, said Beatriz Navas who heads the Institute of Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts (ICAA), which is subsidised by the Culture Ministry.
“This hasn’t happened overnight because you need some sort of ‘greenhouse’ environment where filmmakers can work with freedom,” she told AFP.
“And the ‘incubation time’ needs to be sufficient for these productions to achieve the recognition and prestige they deserve.”
BLOOMBERG – Arcadia Kim devoted her career to video games, until one hit her in the face. The incident happened several years ago when Kim, a former studio operating chief at Electronic Arts Inc (EA), was trying to peel away her then 10-year-old son from a game of Minecraft. He threw the iPad at her in frustration.
Kim, 48, said the experience inspired her to start a business in 2019 advising parents on forming healthy relationships between their kids and their screens. The work took on greater urgency this year when the World Health Organization (WHO) began formally recognising video game addiction as an illness for the first time.
Among gamers and parents and even within the medical community, there’s disagreement about whether gaming addiction is real. Either way, the WHO’s designation could provide a boon to Kim and other businesses like hers. Dozens of consultants operate in the United States (US) alone, as well as an assortment of apps, camps, self-help books and treatment centres.
A diagnosis of addiction is based on a series of symptoms, according to the WHO. They include a lack of control over the impulse to play video games, a tendency to prioritise it at the expense of other interests or obligations and continued or escalated involvement despite experiencing negative consequences.
Studies offer varying conclusions, in part due to disagreements over how to define addiction, but they typically show the illness in two to three per cent of people who play games. A similar condition called gaming disorder is more prevalent in the population than compulsive gambling but less than compulsive shopping, estimated Matthew Stevens of the University of Adelaide in Australia.
Arcadia Kim, founder of Infinite Screentime, watches her daughters play Minecraft in Hong Kong. PHOTO: BILLY HC KWOK
Achieving recognition was a years-long process. WHO member states voted in 2018 to add it to the organisation’s disease classification list, which helps standardise health reporting and tracking worldwide. The change didn’t go into effect until last month, a lag designed to give the health care industry time to prepare.
Yet, the debate rages on among behavioural scientists. At the American Psychological Association (APA), some members are lobbying the group to follow the WHO and acknowledge gaming addiction. The effort is facing resistance. The last time the association classified a new addiction was in 2013, when it added gambling, said Paul Appelbaum, chair of the APA committee in charge of making such designations. Changes come slowly and “really need to be backed up by data if they’re going to be widely accepted”, he said.
A broad recognition of the disorder would have legal ramifications. “It would make it more difficult for courts to exclude experts who testify on video gaming addiction,” said Matt Bergman, an Oregon lawyer who has filed lawsuits against social media companies on behalf of teenagers.
In Kim’s line of work, she often deals with people who overindulge in games, but she’s reluctant to use the word addiction. “It has a very specific meaning,” said Kim, who advises parents through her consultancy Infinite Screentime. “Let’s not turn it into something it’s not.”
Before her son hit her in the face with an iPad, Kim spent almost a decade at EA, the publisher of Apex Legends, FIFA and Madden. She was COO of the Los Angeles studio, where she helped publish a Lord of the Rings game, oversaw development of the war games Medal of Honor Airborne and Command and Conquer 3 and worked on the Sims 2. She’s proud of her time there.
But there are aspects of Kim’s work that she still contemplates to this day. She compares part of her job to a novelist crafting a suspenseful plot or a television writer creating a cliffhanger for the end of an episode. The goal was to ensure the games were hard to put down. “The more I was able to hook people, bring them into the world, bring something people could escape to-the better I was at that, the more successful I was at my job,” she said.
EA said it offers various parental control options to facilitate healthy habits for kids and ran an ad campaign in the United Kingdom (UK) to raise awareness of these tools. “Game play must be balanced with responsible play, and we take seriously our role in ensuring parents are empowered and aware of all the resources available to help them make the right decisions for their families,” Chris Bruzzo, the company’s chief experience officer, said in an emailed statement.
Developers at EA also spent considerable amounts of time strengthening what’s known as the compulsion loop, Kim said. Fine-tuning certain techniques can help draw players back, using such tools as a point system, character upgrades, extra lives and ample surprises. Many of the principles were laid out in a 2001 essay, Behavioural Game Design, by one of the industry’s most renowned researchers, John Hopson, whose credits include Microsoft Corp’s Halo 3.
Kim left Los Angeles in 2006 for South Korea and consulted for an EA studio there for two years. She now lives in Hong Kong. The iPad incident took place on a trip back to LA in 2017.
The family was staying with Kim’s brother, Bernard Kim, the president of Zynga Inc, itself the creator of many enthralling games such as FarmVille. (He said he supports his sister’s work).
Kim had rounded up her two young daughters for an outing but couldn’t find her son. She suspected he was in active violation of the family rule limiting daily screen time to 20 minutes. Then she discovered him in a guest bedroom, a screen’s glow gently illuminating the covers he was hiding under. The ensuing outburst left her in tears, face stinging, slumped on the floor of a nearby bathroom.
Kim concluded that her limits were unreasonably tight, borne out of a sense of guilt about her prior professional work on games and fear over their power. She was unintentionally creating an association of shame with her son’s interest in the medium. Now Kim tries to embrace her children’s hobby. “My son gets so excited when he talks about his Minecraft world,” she said.
For clients of Infinite Screentime, Kim advises parents to play video games with their children and encourages kids to decide how long a game session should last before it starts and plan for intermissions. Kim also tells clients about the compulsion loop and how to recognise the hooks. People dislike being manipulated, she said, and simple awareness of the strategy helps control the impulse to overdo it.
KUANTAN (BERNAMA) – An 11-year-old boy has died after he was allegedly kicked, choked and assaulted by a 16-year-old boy in an incident stemming from a dispute over MYR4 on Sunday.
Kuantan District Police Chief ACP Wan Mohd Zahari bin Wan Busu said the incident was believed to have occurred at a welfare home for orphans and asnaf when the suspect and the victim along with six other residents were cleaning the surau.
“The victim was allegedly carried by three residents to the dormitory supervisor’s home located around 50 metres from the surau at 4.15pm in an unconscious state.
The supervisor had initially thought that the victim had suffered a seizure.
“The supervisor immediately rushed the victim to the Tengku Ampuan Afzan Hospital where the doctor confirmed the victim had died at the emergency ward,” he said when contacted yesterday.
Preliminary investigations revealed that witnesses claimed the suspect had confronted the victim, who he suspected had taken MYR4 belonging to him, but he grew dissatisfied when the victim ignored him.
This resulted in the suspect allegedly choking and slamming the victim against the ground till he lost consciousness.
Wan Mohd Zahari said the suspect has been remanded till March 27 to facilitate investigations under Section 302 of the Penal Code, which carries a death sentence upon conviction.
Nearly 6,000 packs of kurma kurnia peribadi or dates that were personal gifts of His Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu’izzadddin Waddaulah ibni Al-Marhum Sultan Haji Omar ‘Ali Saifuddien Sa’adul Khairi Waddien, Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam were distributed to officers and staff of the Ministry of Culture Youth and Sports (MCYS).
Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports, Major General (Rtd) Dato Paduka Seri Haji Aminuddin Ihsan bin Pehin Orang Kaya Saiful Mulok Dato Seri Paduka Haji Abidin distributed the dates at the Citra Hall of the MCYS building yesterday.
Over 200 saplings were planted to mark the International Day of Forests in an event organised by the Forestry Department, Ministry of Primary Resources and Tourism (MPRT) at the Andulau Forest Reserve yesterday.
MPRT and Forestry Department officers and staff, representatives from the Brunei Climate Change Secretariat and volunteers from Green Brunei planted 213 ru runang saplings.
Forestry Department Director Noralinda binti Haji Ibrahim was present with Legislative Council member and co-founder of Green Brunei Yang Berhormat Khairunnisa binti Haji Ash’ari.
Bangar Police Station personnel discovered 228 bottles of alcohol inside packages found along the riverbank of the boat landing area in Mukim Bokok yesterday.
According to the Royal Brunei Police Force (RBPF), personnel were carrying out a patrol when they found suspicious packages along the riverbank believed to be a smuggling tactic.
Upon inspection, personnel discovered the contraband inside the packages.
