CNA – Sony Pictures Entertainment said recently it has paused business operations in Russia, two weeks after the studio suspended theatrical releases in the country.
In a message to staff, Sony Pictures Entertainment Chairman Tony Vinciquerra wrote that the studio would halt planned home entertainment releases, including Spider-Man: No Way Home and any future television distribution deals. Crunchyroll also suspended its anime streaming service in Russia.
“Our thoughts and prayers remain with those who have been impacted and it is our hope that a peaceful resolution can be found soon,” Vinciquerra wrote.
Sony Pictures is a unit of Sony.
The film studio’s decision to suspend operations, amid growing concerns about the violence in Ukraine, follows similar steps earlier this week by Sony Music and Sony Interactive Entertainment, which halted software and hardware shipments.
Sony televisions on display in the Dundrum branch of Brown Thomas in Dublin Ireland. PHOTO: CNA
INDIAN WELLS (AFP) – Rafael Nadal pulled off another great escape on Saturday, rallying from two breaks down in the third set to beat young American Sebastian Korda in the second round at Indian Wells.
As Daniil Medvedev – the man Nadal beat with an epic comeback in the Australian Open final – cruised to victory in his first match as the world’s top-ranked player, Nadal was made to work by 21-year-old Korda, ranked 38th in the world.
“I feel very, very lucky today to be through,” Nadal said after a 6-2, 1-6, 7-6 (7/3) victory in the prestigious WTA and ATP Masters hard court tournament.
“Sebastian was playing some fantastic tennis. I didn’t play my best match without a doubt (but) a lot of credit to him that he played so aggressive and he put me in a lot of trouble.”
The night ended with four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka departing Stadium Court in tears after she was heckled early in a 6-0, 6-4 second-round loss to Veronika Kudermetova.
Osaka, who put athlete mental health in the spotlight during a tumultuous 2021, said it wasn’t so much the “Naomi, you suck” shout from the crowd but the fact that it reminded her of how Venus and Serena Williams were jeered at the same tournament in 2001.
Daniil Medvedev returns a shot to Tomas Machac. PHOTO: AP
“To be honest I feel like I’ve been heckled before, it didn’t really bother me,” she told the crowd after the match.
“But, like, I’ve watched a video of Venus and Serena being heckled here. If you’ve never watched it you should watch it,” Osaka added, choking back tears.
“I don’t know why, but it went into my head and it got replayed a lot.”
Osaka asked the chair umpire to intervene after the incident, to no avail, and at 0-3 down the former world number one’s emotions briefly spilled over.
She pulled herself together and even though she raised her game in the second set she couldn’t find a way past Kudermetova.
Medvedev had opened the action on Stadium Court and after saving a break point in the opening game had little trouble with 21-year-old Czech qualifier Tomas Machac, ranked 158th in the world.
The US Open champion wrapped up a 6-3, 6-2 victory in 70 minutes, although Medvedev said it “was not as easy as it seems” after he sealed the win on a third match point.
Medvedev said it was a “great feeling” to take the court as world number one, “something I’ve always dreamed of”.
Medvedev, who has never made it past the fourth round in four prior appearances, next faces France’s Gael Monfils, who beat Serbian Filip Krajinovic 6-3, 6-4.
Nadal, who won a record 21st Grand Slam at the Australian Open in January, improved his perfect season’s start to 16 straight victories with a gritty display that owed more to experience.
Korda led the third set 5-2 and twice served for the match. But he couldn’t conjure a match point as Nadal reeled off four games in a row.
“I think it’s true that probably he got a little bit more nervous,” said Nadal, who next plays Britain’s Dan Evans, a 6-2, 6-0 winner over Argentina’s Federico Coria.
Nadal was joined in the third round by rising young compatriot Carlos Alcaraz, who beat American Mackenzie McDonald 6-3, 6-3.
The 18-year-old Alcaraz, coming off a title at the Rio Open, converted five of his nine break-point chances and rallied from a break down in the second set.
Fifth-seeded Stefanos Tsitsipas was pushed to the limit by Jack Sock, overcoming 28 forehand winners by the American in a 7-6 (7/5), 3-6, 7-6 (7/5) victory.
Defending men’s and women’s champions Cameron Norrie and Paula Badosa both advanced.
Britain’s Norrie, seeded 12th, defeated Pedro Martinez 6-3, 6-3 to earn a rematch of last year’s final against Georgia’s Nikoloz Basilashvili.
Badosa kicked off her title defense with a 6-2, 7-6 (7/4) victory over Tereza Martincova.
Badosa had lost three prior meetings with the Czech, although all had come before the Spaniard moved into the top 10 with her Indian Wells victory in October, when a pandemic delay shifted the event from its usual March slot.
The women’s draw produced the first big upset of the week, as 46th-ranked Italian Jasmine Paolini stunned world number three Aryna Sabalenka 2-6, 6-3, 6-3.
Religious teacher Nurzaidah binti Harun from Pengiran Anak Puteri Hajah Masna Secondary School, Kampong Sungai Akar earned the top spot in the National Oratory Competition finals (PPKBD 2022), receiving a BND1,000 cash prize, trophy and certificate of participation at the Sarmayuda Hall of the Language and Literature Bureau (DBP) in Jalan Pembangunan, Jalan Airport Lama Berakas on Saturday.
Meanwhile, in second place was Universiti Islam Sultan Sharif Ali student Muslimah binti Mahadi, who won a BND800 cash prize, followed by Universiti Brunei Darussalam (UBD) student Mohamad Hajib Sarhan bin Mohamad Harkani winning BND500 in third and Politeknik Brunei student Mohammad Ridzwan bin Ismail winning BND400 in fourth. The four finalists were selected from 12 participants in the preliminary round. All received plaques and certificates of participation.
Permanent Secretary (Community and Culture) at the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports (MCYS) Hajah Nor Ashikin binti Haji Johari was the guest of honour.
Deputy Permanent Secretary (Culture) at the MCYS Dr Siti Norkhalbi binti Haji Wahsalfelah was also present.
The PPKBD 2022, held in conjunction with the 38th National Day celebration, was streamed live via the DBP’s social media and Zoom for the public.
The panel of judges for the finals included language researcher of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at UBD Dr Najib bin Moorashid, who evaluated on the language aspect; Youth and Sports Department Assistant Head Officer of Youth Dr Muhammad Nuriskandar bin Mohd Hasnan as the head judge, who evaluated on the ideas or contents; and former assistant director of Department of Schools Mohammad bin Rajab, who evaluated the technical aspect and presentation.
The competition was aimed at enlivening the 38th National Day celebration, while evoking a sense of love and patriotism for the country, widening and strengthening the knowledge, usage and mastery of the proper standard Malay, and building self-confidence and communication skills in public speaking.
Permanent Secretary (Community and Culture) at the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports Hajah Nor Ashikin binti Haji Johari with the competition winners. PHOTO: LYNA MOHAMMAD
AA – The United States (US) welcomed Turkey’s role in finding a diplomatic solution to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, a State Department spokesman said on Friday.
“We welcome it, precisely because our Turkish allies have done so in full co-ordination and consultation with US,” Ned Price told reporters at a briefing when asked about Ankara’s role to resolve the fighting.
He said US President Joe Biden “had an opportunity to speak to” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan after a tripartite meeting on Thursday between Ankara, Moscow and Kyiv on the sidelines of the Antalya Diplomacy Forum in southern Turkey.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also had a telephone discussion with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu ahead of the meeting.
“So any diplomatic effort that is conducted just as we had conducted our diplomacy with the Russian Federation, that is to say in full consultation and coordination with our allies and partners, that is something that we welcome,” he added.
During their phone talk, Biden and Erdogan shared concerns about Russia’s war on Ukraine, The White House said in a statement. “They reaffirmed their strong support for the government and people of Ukraine, underscored the need for an immediate cessation of Russian aggression, and welcomed the coordinated international response to the crisis,” it said.
Biden expressed “appreciation” for Turkey’s “efforts to support a diplomatic resolution to the conflict”, along with its “recent engagements with regional leaders that help promote peace and stability”, it added.
United States State Department spokesman Ned Price. PHOTO: AFP
The Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 came to a close on February 20 after achieving several historic feats, with athletes and audiences contributing to record-breaking performances on and off the snow and ice.
It was the most digitally engaged Olympic Winter Games ever, with billions of engagements across digital platforms, including Olympic and Rights-Holding Broadcasters’ properties. There were more hours of broadcast coverage made available than at any previous Olympic Winter Games edition, including record coverage through digital platforms.
At the same time, the Beijing 2022 Opening Ceremony achieved the highest global audience reach ever for an Olympic Winter Games opening ceremony. In China, broadcast coverage of the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 reached over 600 million people through TV alone.
Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 covered 19 days of competition with 2,897 athlete entries competing for 109 medal events in seven sports and 15 disciplines. The new events include Women’s Monobob; Freestyle Skiing Men and Women’s Freeski Big Air; Short Track Speed Skating Mixed Team Relay; Ski Jumping Mixed Team NH; Freestyle Skiing Mixed Team Aerials; and Mixed Team Snowboard Cross.
From the competition, 17 Olympic records were broken with two world records broken and 29 National Olympic Committees (NOCs) won medals. A total of 91 NOCs participated and one NOC, New Zealand, won its first Olympic Winter Games gold medals (Men’s Freeski Halfpipe and Women’s Snowboard Slopestyle).
Chinese athlete Gu Ailing competes during women’s freeski big air final at Big Air Shougang in Beijing. PHOTO: XINHUA
In term of gender equality, it is also the most gender-balanced Olympic Winter Games ever with 45 per cent women and 55 per cent men. It also had the highest-ever number of women’s events with 46 events.
The Beijing 2022 competition schedule built on key advances. Namely, seven disciplines have been moved to gender balanced for the first time: skeleton; luge (men’s and women’s singles); speed skating; cross-country skiing; alpine skiing; and freestyle skiing and snowboard reaching this milestone in Beijing, making for a total of 10 (out of 15) fully gender-balanced disciplines.
Forty five per cent out of the total number of flagbearers at the opening ceremony were women and 73 per cent of NOCs had a female flagbearer at the opening ceremony (either one female flagbearer or one male and one female flagbearer).
Meanwhile, 236 Olympic Solidarity individual scholarship-holders competed (138 men and 98 women) and 10 medals were won by individual scholarship-holders: three gold, two silver and five bronze, plus 35 diplomas.
Ninety-three NOCs received NOC Olympic Solidarity funding (80 through individual scholarships and 13 through tailor-made assistance). Three medals were won by teams who received Olympic Solidarity grants: one silver and two bronze plus two diplomas.
Sixty-five Beijing 2022 individual scholarship-holders (31 women and 34 men) were selected as the flagbearers for their NOC at the opening ceremony. Nineteen Beijing 2022 scholarship-holders (two women and 17 men) were selected as the flagbearers for their NOC at the closing ceremony.
In terms of achievement in digitisation, Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 had record numbers using Olympic web and app for a Winter Games edition, with over 64 million people reached during Beijing 2022.
The Olympics app was the number one sports app across over 20 territories. As of the end of February 19 (before the closing ceremony) there were 2.8 billion engagements across Olympic social handles during Beijing 2022. Unique viewers on the Olympics YouTube channel grew by 58 per cent driven by global collaboration with YouTube, including games highlights available in over 70 territories. There was growth of more than 10 million Olympic social media followers, particularly on youth-led platforms, surpassing 93 million across handles.
Innovative digital platform collaborations drove huge engagement, including 2.1 billion video views surpassed for the #OlympicSpirit hashtag on TikTok during Beijing 2022. There were 720,000 live views on the first Olympics Twitch stream, as well as 178 million views of Olympic archive GIFs on Google’s Tenor. Forty-seven million virtual cheers were sent by fans to their favourite teams on Olympics.com. By the end of 2021, more than 2,500 primary and secondary schools across China had included Olympic and Paralympic education, plus winter sports, in their curriculum. Since 2019, 200,000 children have learnt about the Olympic and Paralympic values in Beijing.
In terms of sustainability, Beijing 2022 is on track to being carbon-neutral Games. Five Beijing 2008 venues were reused, reducing construction and carbon emissions. All Beijing 2022 venues were powered by 100 per cent renewable energy – a first at the Olympic Games.
All new venues embraced new, green construction standards while natural CO2 refrigeration systems were used for the first time in China and at the Olympic Games – in four ice venues, reducing carbon emissions and energy consumption. 100 per cent of all passenger cars and 84.9 per cent of all vehicles were fuel efficient vehicles – hydrogen, electric, natural gas
and hybrid.
In addition, carbon compensation measures include afforestation projects in Beijing and Zhangjiakou. Since 2014, Beijing and Zhangjiakou have planted 47,333 and 33,000 hectares of forest and green areas respectively.
BANGKOK (AFP) – A tense playoff between Lin Xiyu and Nanna Koerstz Madsen brought the final round of LPGA Thailand to a spectacular close with the Danish player snatching
victory yesterday.
Koerstz Madsen became the first player from Denmark to win the LPGA title, taking home the tournament’s USD240,000 prize at the Siam Country Club.
The two-time Olympian bolted out of the gates on her final round with an eagle before ending on 67 – and chalked up a tournament record in the process.
“It was fun. I really tried to enjoy the moment. Standing now with the trophy it was even more fun,” she said.
Towards the end of the front nine the 27-year-old began to wobble, chalking up one bogey at the seventh hole and then another two at the sixteenth and final.
Eight Kolej International Graduate Studies (KIGS) students from the Faculty of Multimedia and Broadcasting taking Diploma and Bachelor Degree under the supervision of lecturer Amirul Jazli, are participating in the Brunei Islamic Film Festival (BIFF) workshop, which continue until March 30. Among the workshop collaborations include Origin studio/Mahakarya, Universiti Islam Sultan Sharif Ali, Ministry of Religious Affairs and Ministry of Culture, Youth, and Sports.
Lecturer Amirul Jazli said the workshop is a good opportunity and experience for the students, helping them to gain network and exposure in the creative industry before completing their studies.
Kolej International Graduate Studies lecturer Amirul Jazli with the students. PHOTO: LYNA MOHAMMAD
THE STRAITS TIMES – For months, cryptocurrency enthusiasts poured hundreds of millions of dollars into a project called Wonderland, which claimed to provide a system of exchange for the murky world of decentralised finance.
To take part in the project, the investors – who called themselves Frog Nation – entrusted their money to Wonderland’s treasury manager, a crypto developer whom they knew only by the profile name of 0xSifu.
In late January, 0xSifu was revealed to be an alias for Michael Patryn, who had served 18 months in federal prison for fraud. The price of the Wonderland token $TIME crashed overnight as Frog Nation’s panicked denizens debated shutting down the project.
“I was like, ‘Oh, man, this is going to get ugly,’” a Wonderland investor in Florida who runs the crypto podcast Mission: DeFi Brad Nickel said.
From its inception, the crypto industry has been built on anonymity. Bitcoin was conceived more than a decade ago by a mysterious figure who went by the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto.
For years, thieves and drug dealers have used cryptocurrencies to do business in the shadows.
Even as crypto transforms into a mainstream industry, ostensibly legitimate actors still insist on anonymity. PHOTO: THE STRAITS TIMES
The ability to operate anonymously is a central tenet of crypto technology. All cryptocurrency transactions are recorded on decentralised ledger systems called blockchains, which let users transact namelessly without registering a bank account or interacting with traditional financial gatekeepers.
Now as crypto transforms into an increasingly mainstream industry, even the ostensibly legitimate actors – start-up founders, engineers and investors – insist on anonymity. A growing number of crypto entrepreneurs, many of whom control hundreds of millions of dollars in investor funds, conduct business via mysterious Internet avatars scrubbed of identifying information. Some venture capital firms are backing founders without ever learning their real names.
But the near collapse of Wonderland is forcing a reckoning over whether this culture of anonymity undermines accountability and enables fraud. Last month, BuzzFeed News set off a fresh round of debate by identifying two of the pseudonymous founders of Bored Ape Yacht Club, a USD2.5 billion collection of non-fungible tokens, the unique digital collectibles known as NFTs.
“This pseudonymous stuff is so dangerous,” said Brian Nguyen, a crypto entrepreneur who used a pseudonym last year before making his identity public. “They could be a good actor today, but they could turn bad in two or three years.”
In interviews, anonymous crypto entrepreneurs and engineers offered a variety of reasons for concealing their names. Some feared that a regulatory crackdown could put them in the cross hairs of law enforcement. Others said they disliked the attention or worried that their growing wealth could make them targets for thieves and hackers.
The nameless entrepreneurs often take extreme steps to keep their identities private, using voice-altering software on calls or requiring business partners to sign non-disclosure agreements.
Wonderland was established last September by Daniele Sestagalli, a crypto entrepreneur who managed the project with Patryn, using whimsical imagery from Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland to entice investors. In a January blog post, Sestagalli said he had known since December that Patryn was a former fraudster but decided not to take action because he believed in “second chances”.
Patryn’s identity may have remained secret if not for the work of an influential crypto sleuth, who tweeted screenshots of a text conversation he had with Sestagalli. In those messages, the Wonderland founder appeared to acknowledge 0xSifu’s real name.
Last month, the sleuth was at it again, tweeting evidence that an anonymous leader of another crypto project had once been fined by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The sleuth’s name? Unknown. He uses a pseudonym.
PARIS (AFP) – Tens of thousands of people protested across France yesterday to call for more attention to the climate crisis in the run-up to presidential polls next month.
“Look up,” read one message in giant orange letters demonstrators held up in Paris, urging politicians to make protecting the planet a priority.
The sign was a nod to Netflix hit Don’t Look Up, in which astronomers who discover a comet will wipe out the earth try in vain to get politicians to take the threat seriously.
“When are we going to talk about it?” read another sign.
The climate crisis took up only 1.5 per cent of talking points in media coverage of the election campaign from February 28 to March 6, a recent survey by climate justice NGOs has found.
Organisers said 80,000 protesters took part across the country, including 32,000 people in Paris. The interior ministry however said just around 40,000 demonstrated, of whom 11,000 in the capital.
In the northern city of Lille, Lydie Lampin Bernand described the climate crisis as “worse than critical”.
WILLIAMS, CALIFORNIA (AP) – Former California Governor Jerry Brown is living off the grid in retirement, but he’s still deeply connected on two issues that captivated him while in office and now are centre stage globally: climate change and the threat of nuclear war.
The 83-year-old Brown, who left office in 2019, serves as executive chairman of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which sets the Doomsday Clock measuring how close humanity is to self-destruction. He’s also on the board of the Nuclear Threat Initiative.
In an interview with the Associated Press (AP), Brown commended United States (US) President Joe Biden for not raising the US nuclear threat level after Russian President Vladimir Putin made veiled threats to use his country’s nuclear arsenal amid its war in Ukraine. Brown also urged Biden to resist Republican calls to increase oil production as gasoline prices soar.
“It’s true that the Russians are earning money from oil and gas, but to compound that problem by accelerating oil and gas in America would go against the climate goals, and climate is like war: If we don’t handle it, people are going to die and they’re going to be suffering. Not immediately, but over time,” said Brown, a Democrat.
Brown spoke to the AP last week from his home in rural Colusa County, about 60 miles northwest of Sacramento. The land in California’s inner coastal mountain range has been in Brown’s family since the 1860s, when his great-grandfather emigrated from Germany and built a stagecoach stop known as the Mountain House.
Former California Governor Jerry Brown. PHOTO: AP
The home Brown and his wife, Anne Gust Brown, finished building in 2019 is called Mountain House III. The home is powered entirely by solar panels and is not connected to any local utility.
Though Brown is retired from electoral politics after serving a record four terms as California’s governor – from 1975 to 1983 and 2011 to 2019 – he is hardly absent from public life.
Brown has organised conversations with Biden’s special presidential envoy for climate John Kerry; China’s climate envoy Xie Zhenhua; and former United Nations (UN) Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. He created and chairs the California-China Climate Institute at the University of California, Berkeley, which aims to boost collaboration on climate-related research and technology.
“No matter how antagonistic things get, cooperation is still the imperative to deal with climate and nuclear proliferation,” he said.
At the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, he brings an important political perspective as its scientists consider how to get their message out, said Group President Rachel Bronson. Last week, he joined the organisation’s science and security board as they formulated a statement on Putin’s nuclear threats.
The scientists decided to not update the Doomsday Clock, which in 2020 was moved ahead 20 seconds to be set at 100 seconds to midnight, the metaphorical time representing global catastrophe. They did, however, warn Russia’s invasion has brought to life the “nightmare scenario” that nuclear weapons could be used to escalate a “conventional conflict”.
