Graft claimed in police hotline bid

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PUBLISHED : 18 Jul 2023 at 06:00

Graft claimed in police hotline bid
Officials man the 191 emergency hotline. (Bangkok Post file photo)

The Royal Thai Police (RTP) is to review a complaint regarding the bidding for the rights to operate its 191 emergency hotline.

The complaint was presented to the RTP on Monday by activist Srisuwan Janya and Yoswaris Chuklom, alias Jeng Dokjik, who chairs the Ruam Jai Rak Chart (United Hearts for the Nation) group and alleged that the process had been rigged.

Mr Srisuwan said the RTP run project is worth over 7 billion baht and is to be financed by the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission.

Approved by the cabinet on Dec 25, 2018, the project was modelled on hotline systems already in operation in other countries where distress calls are routed to a central hub which coordinates with local services in order to respond to emergencies more efficiently.

The project involves building the infrastructure and installing telecommunication networks.

Mr Srisuwan alleged the terms of reference (ToR) had been written to favour one particular firm in the bidding, which has now been cancelled twice on suspicion of corruption.

The project also requires that three companies install telecommunication networks, which Mr Srisuwan claimed was another cause for concern as it could lead to confusion between different emergency response teams.

Despite the project having gone through three national police chiefs, little headway has been made.

On July 10, the Comptroller’s General Department opened a fresh bid calling for firms to tender their offers on Aug 10.

RTP spokesman Pol Lt Gen Archayon Kraithong said the complaint against the project was received, and the RTP office will gather the documentary evidence needed to review the allegations.

Mr Yoswaris said the owner of the company allegedly favoured by the ToR has close connections with a high-profile politician and senior RTP officers.

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US Congress needs to scrutinize foreign-aid spending closely

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The United States has a long and noble tradition in international development. In 1961, the US Congress passed the Foreign Assistance Act, which reaffirmed “the traditional humanitarian ideals of the American people and renewed [their] commitment to assist people in developing countries to eliminate hunger, poverty, illness, and ignorance.” 

But if it’s true, as many claim, that the US Department of State (DOS) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) have frittered away billions of taxpayers’ dollars on quixotic, far-fetched, and even harebrained initiatives, then it’s time for Congress to ax programs that are inconsistent with or irrelevant to the original intent under the Foreign Assistance Act, or contrary to the US government’s foreign-policy priorities.  

The President’s Fiscal Year 2024 Budget Request for DOS and USAID is jam-packed with excess and dubious programs. It calls for “$63.1 billion for foreign assistance and diplomatic engagement, which includes $32 billion in foreign assistance for USAID fully and partially managed accounts, $3 billion (10%) above the FY2023 Adjusted Enacted level.”

Given the unprecedented size of the budget request, Congress must go over it during the markup process on Capitol Hill with a fine-tooth comb – or, better yet, a hacksaw – and eliminate funding for projects that are wasteful, ill-conceived, or contrary to American values, or which fly in the face of the recipient’s values. In any case, Americans have pressing needs at home that cry out for attention. 

The Fiscal Year 2024 State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Bill, released on June 22, “provides $52.5 billion for programs under the jurisdiction of the subcommittee.” This is a decent start. 

A bank teller wouldn’t hand you a wad of cash just for the asking. You have to establish your bona fides as a client of the bank. Likewise, Congress should not dish out cash to any overzealous DOS/USAID ideologue who insists his or her pet program is vital to global stability or national security without presenting corroborating evidence that it is needed or that it will work.

Foreign assistance – Gordian knots 

DOS/USAID development assistance fits, broadly speaking, into two categories: a) essential humanitarian aid to save lives, alleviate suffering and meet basic human needs, and b) advocacy and sponsored research, which, frankly, is often optional, ill-conceived, or possessed of a whiff of ideology. Some research projects – for example, those related to dual-use biological research – are potentially dangerous. 

Advocacy programs are often brazen exercises in social engineering incompatible with (when not subversive of) the values and standards of the recipient nation. Moreover, not infrequently, they bankroll “market-oriented reforms,” a euphemism for concentrating economic power in the hands of entrenched elites while leaving everyone else for the most part high and dry. Or they aim to achieve utopian goals only in the distant future – if at all (and it’s probably better if they never do).

Having said that, Congress should unambiguously continue to support humanitarian activities such as international disaster assistance, food security, nutrition, sanitation, biodiversity, and medical aid. That’s the easy part.

The hard part is distinguishing between essential humanitarian aid that is in the national interest from what is not – and then excising the vast quantities of lard that surround most budget submissions. That which is ideologically inspired, that is, anchored in belief structures detached from science and reality, should come in for especially close scrutiny.

The size of the DOS/USAID budget request for 2024 is just under the average of the annual budget outlays for the Department of Defense for the years 1960-1972 (when the Vietnam War was on); it is more than the 2023 defense budgets of any one of America’s major allies, that is, of France, Saudi Arabia, Japan or Germany.

To be sure, most development professionals are hard-working, kind, and extraordinary individuals who are motivated by a spirit of service and compassion toward others, let there be no doubt. But they owe it to the US taxpayer and the world’s poor to pull the plug on failed projects and programs, especially the ones that are fruitless, have resulted in botched outcomes or were of dubious intent to begin with. 

Foreign aid for advocacy re-examined 

USAID’s mission is “to transform families, communities, and countries” across the globe. Fine, but from what, into what? And with what end in mind?

American institutions are informed by a specific idea of the human person who, as a rational, sensitive creature made of body and soul and possessed of fundamental rights and transcendent dignity, lives within a pre-existing, objective order that governs the cosmos. 

This concept of the human person is reflected in the American Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” 

These convictions gave rise to the American spirit of enterprise, individual responsibility, tolerance, and good humor. Our spirit is optimistic, humane, and pragmatic and, until recently, rigorously non-ideological. 

The alternative worldview – prevalent among agnostics, practical atheists, skeptics, and most of America’s cultural elites today – sees the human person as a psychologically challenged complex construction of atoms and electrical impulses descended from one thing or another after a long period of random mutations.  

They cannot explain where consciousness and feelings come from and do not even try. Their vision is reductionist and pessimistic and, as a result, they tend to see development assistance as limited to a means of preventing social disorder, alleviating poverty, and mitigating human distress rather than as an opportunity to do just that and bring out the greatness in each human being. 

Some aid programs aim at nothing less than changing long-standing social norms and attitudes in countries deemed insufficiently attuned to the interests of progressive humanity. This kind of thinking is captured, for example, in “Biden USAID’s Radical Gender Policy Is Exporting Cultural Colonialism” or “Biden Takes the Culture War to Hungary.” 

Today’s orthodox worldview in the academy tends to limit the purpose of development to the attainment of bodily comfort (or at least to the minimization of discomfort) and the achievement of prosperity – perfectly worthy goals but ones which fall short of integral human development in a wholistic sense – or some other material goal such as harnessing natural forces in order to improve the human condition.  

To limit the aim of foreign development assistance to such material considerations is to treat the endeavor as an exercise in experimental science or a kind of animal husbandry – with people as the animals.

Since US foreign aid affects people, families and countries, Congress must insist that USAID formulate development assistance policies that are secundum natura hominis, not contra natura hominis, that is, consistent with or, at least, not contrary to the nature of the human person and enhance the common good of society. 

When engaging foreign countries, USAID must be careful not to export a reductive vision of the human person, which may inadvertently promote moral underdevelopment or be seen as part of a bid for geo-political dominance.

Aid programs in support of education can easily degenerate into a means of social indoctrination, no matter how high-minded the stated purpose, and be used to overrule a person’s conscience, regulate outcomes, and control the uncooperative. 

Spotlight on performance

The Heritage Foundation, which has long cast a critical eye on US foreign assistance programs, highlighted the need for improved efficiency metrics and good governance to measure performance in its report “USAID 2017-2021: The Journey to Self-Reliance.” This report provides “a solid base from which to launch even bolder reforms while offering a future Congress a basis upon which to reshape foreign aid authorizations and appropriations.” 

Congress should take a hard look at programs that have become bloated and/or undergone ideological drift. The pursuit of ideological pseudo-reality only undermines foreign aid’s exalted purpose, that is, to save lives, foster entrepreneurial spirit and self-reliance, alleviate distress, and foment a culture of life and the common good. As such, it disserves and betrays both those who need the aid and those who give it, namely the US taxpayer.

When deliberating on the DOS and USAID budget request and during markup, which has begun, Congress should insist that agencies: 

  1. Explain the value proposition and assumptions of specific line-items in the proposed budget and set forth the expected outcomes within a realistic timeframe. Congress should challenge experimental programs and request that USAID spell out its criteria for prioritizing countries and allocating funding “to reform coalitions and policy priorities” under, for example, its “Dekleptification Guide ” (September 2022).
  2. Define unambiguously the meaning of words such as “prosperity,” “freedom,” “human rights,” “equity,” “democratic governance,” “health,” and “inclusion.”
  3. Disclose criteria for selecting partners, allocating funds, and determining the purpose of each proposed line item against benchmarks, timelines, and past achievements/failures. 
  4. Identify redundancy in certain specific accounts, for example, USAID ‘s Pillar Bureaus, Transition Initiatives, Complex Crisis Fund, Economic Support Fund, Functional Bureaus and Offices, Prevention and Stabilization Fund, and Democracy Fund, to name a few.
  5. Check for inconsistencies in language and reasons for de-prioritizing formerly high-priority accounts. For example, if international religious freedom is one of the administration’s top priorities, the FY2024 request of $11.4 million (66% of which covers salaries, benefits, utilities and supplies) for the Bureau of International Religious Freedom seems paltry. 

Moreover, as Representative Mario Diaz-Balart underscored on June 23 in his remarks at FY24 State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Sub-Committee Markup, Congress must make sure that foreign assistance does not “leave countries unable to support themselves, more dependent on foreign aid and throw the door open for Communist China.” 

Learn from Afghanistan

The economic component of foreign aid to Afghanistan was $39 billion, or 30% of its total outlay of approximately $91.4 billion between 2001 and 2021.

The report of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (July 2021) – “What We Need to Learn: Lessons from 20 years of Afghanistan Reconstruction” – unequivocally states that “the US government did not understand the Afghan context and therefore failed to tailor its efforts accordingly.” 

Good intentions do not compensate for bad ideas or boundless ideological confidence. 

John F Sopko, the author of the report, lamented the failure of aid policy in Afghanistan: “We [need] to determine why the effort to build a strong, sustainable Afghan state failed so dramatically and disastrously.” That failure had more to do with bad ideas than with poor management or a lack of resources. Congressional oversight should seek to prevent such failures in the future.

Listen to partners without preconditions

Foreign assistance initiatives must be in sync with the wishes and concerns of peoples and elected officials across the globe. If not, the US runs the risk of blowback. Here is just one example: 

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico, in a recent note to US President Joe Biden, slammed USAID: “I would like to briefly express to you that for some time the United States government, in particular the United States Agency for International Development has dedicated itself to financing organizations openly opposed to the legal and legitimate government that I represent, which is clearly an interventionist act, contrary to international law and the respect that should prevail between free and sovereign states.” 

This sentiment is increasingly expressed by countries around the world. 

The problem of concentration

USAID, with its small and shrinking partner base, has a concentration problem. Congress should require it to divulge the names of its top 25 implementing partners and, more important, the names of its subcontractors and how often they are engaged. Ditto the recipients. 

Concentration has been a problem for years. According to USAID’s website (link recently deleted), “In FY2017, 60% of obligations went to 25 partners, and more than 80% of obligations went to just 75 partners. The number of new partners has decreased consistently since 2011 when the agency worked with 761 new partners; in 2018, it worked with 226 new partners.” 

Congress should tell USAID to diversify its partner base and expand local empowerment even if this results in increased inefficiencies and workloads. USAID must dramatically expand direct assistance to worthy recipients in foreign countries, by-passing its Washington-based brokers. 

Putting human development, humanitarian assistance first

To be sure, Congress should:

  1. Continue to support USAID’s humanitarian aid portfolio: water management, food security, sanitation, sustainable agriculture, small businesses and entrepreneurship, disaster preparedness, sensible environmental and biodiversity programs, non-intrusive health initiatives (such as malaria and HIV/AIDS care, improved nutrition for vulnerable children, etc) and the promotion of religious freedom and, generally, culture-of-life initiatives. 
  1. Ensure that the programming in the 2024 Budget Request neither contradicts the principles embodied in the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act, the Declaration of Independence, and other key documents of the United States, or undermines the interests of, or otherwise antagonizes, partner countries that may regard the ideologies, attitudes or policies we would introduce as alien, deleterious or anathema. 
  1. Insist emphatically that DOS/USAID focus on traditional humanitarian assistance and scale way back on the undesirable and intrusive aspects of its advocacy work. Such an approach will better reflect the original intent of foreign aid, the magnanimity of Congress and the generosity of the American people. 

And, as indicated in the aforementioned appropriations bill, Congress should demand transparency by requiring “the public posting of reports and foreign assistance data on the Department of State and USAID websites so the American taxpayers can see how the funds are used” and who is receiving the funding. 

In short, Congress must insist that DOS/USAID spend taxpayers’ money more wisely while giving us something we haven’t had in a long time: a foreign policy anchored in realism, common sense, and more respectful engagement with foreign countries, taking into account their unique needs, cultures, and sensitivities.

In this way, USAID will remain “the world’s premier international development agency and a catalytic actor driving development results” while demonstrating American generosity. 

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Commentary: Should Singapore worry about a loneliness epidemic among seniors?

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We also quantified, for the first time, the impact of loneliness on life expectancy among older adults, using data from Singapore. We found that people aged 60, who perceived themselves to be lonely, live three to five years less, on average, compared to peers who perceived themselves as not lonely.

Similarly, at ages 70 and 80, lonely older persons could, on average, expect to live three to four and two to three years less, respectively, compared to non-lonely peers.

LONELY IN A CROWD

It is important to note that loneliness is distinct from social isolation. Loneliness refers to the state of distress or discomfort that arises from a gap between one’s desire for social connection and actual experience of it.  Whereas social isolation is marked by a low number of family and friends, and the quality of those interactions.

We often think that socially isolated people, for instance those living alone or with spouses only, must be lonelier than those living in multigenerational households with family members all around them. In fact, a significant percentage of older Singaporeans who are living in multigenerational households report being sometimes or mostly lonely.

Similarly, an individual could be in a marriage and feel lonely due to the lack of connection with one’s spouse. As the saying goes, one can be lonely in a crowd.

This is exemplified by the experience of Madam Lau*, a participant in one of our research studies. 72-year-old Mdm Lau lives with her husband and son in a large condominium. She describes Mr Lau as a “macho man” who has never helped with chores or taken care of their children because his job was to earn money. He does his own activities and does not initiate conversations.

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Yellen’s Beijing trip won’t stop ‘cold war’

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During US Secretary of Treasury Janet Yellen’s attend to Beijing later this year, top-level formal meetings between China and the US will be held. In the short term, neither party anticipates a substantial improvement in connections, but there is cause for optimism that they may eventually come to terms with one another’s differences.

According to China’s Ministry of Finance, Yellen may travel to Beijing from July 6 to July 9. This decision was made following a conversation between the two nations. The original Fed Chairman is regarded as a US politician who is reasonably cordial with China.

Following Blinken’s visit on June 18 – 19, Yellen will arrive before an anticipated meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Joe Biden. The best topics on the agenda for the upcoming Xi-Biden dialogues will continue to be Taiwan problems, the Ukraine War, and US device export bans.

Foreign observers claimed that because Washington formally began a Cold War with China, it is doubtful that the US will soon stop putting new restrictions on China’s high-tech industry. & nbsp,

Professor of global relations Zhang Weiwei of Fudan University claimed on a TV programme on June 26 that the US, which refused to acknowledge that China is rising, was to blame for the Sino-US conflict. Additionally, he claimed that the US’s assumption that it could prevent China from rising was a grave error.

But, he added, the circumstance appears to be getting better. & nbsp,

Zhang cited the Elizabeth Kuebler-Ross stages of grieving in psychology as evidence that the US appears to have moved past the first two stages — denial and anger— and is now moving on to the third stage, which refers to” partial acceptance and bargaining ,” after failing to defeat China in the trade and technology wars. The terms” depression” and” acceptance” refer to the fourth and fifth stages, respectively.

He continued by saying that China has not yet resumed defense negotiations with the US in an effort to reassure the latter of its lack of military apprehension.

In a statement released on Sunday at US time, the US Treasury Department stated that Yellen will meet with representatives from the People’s Republic of China in Beijing to explore” the importance for our countries- as the two largest economies– to properly manage our relationship, communicate immediately about areas of concern, and work up to address worldwide challenges.”

The Treasury Department stated in a statement Yellen gave in April that the US will work to” safe its regional security interests along with those of our friends and to protect human rights through targeted activities that are not intended to gain financial advantage.”

According to the statement,” We seek a good financial relationship with China that promotes socially beneficial growth and innovation and expands financial option for American workers and businesses.” Additionally, we want to work together to address urgent global issues like loan stress and climate change.

a few contexts

Before much of that does happen, there is a distance to travel. On June 19, Blinken was given a seat across from Chinese diplomat Wang Yi when they first met in Beijing, with Xi occupying the center seat. The sitting program, according to Chinese pundits, was intended to demonstrate to the world that China was instructing the US.

On June 19, 2023, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is seated at the head of the table in Beijing’s Great Hall of People. Pool / Leah Mills

On June 20, Biden fired back, claiming that Xi was unaware of the Chinese balloon’s presence when he ordered its shoot-down over US aircraft in first February during an event in California. He claimed that it was” tremendous humiliation for rulers when they did not know what happened.”

The Chinese ambassador in the US formally protested Biden’s remarks to the White House on June 21.

Biden met Xie Feng, China’s fresh adviser to the US, in the White House on June 30. The voice got a little bit better.

Biden accepted the Letter of Credence of Xie and welcomed the ambassador, who had taken office on May 23, to his new position, according to a statement posted on the website of the Foreign embassy. They had a discussion about the Sino-US connection. The speech displayed two images, in which Biden shakes Xie’s hand twice and is positioned very close to the latter and his family Wang Dan.

It will take more than that for the two nations to significantly lessen the mistrust and hostility that permeate standard lines and public opinion on both sides.

Liu Yong, a military journalist based in Hubei, writes in an essay published on Monday that” Yellen’s visit to China may not have taken into account Chinese problems.” Yellen stated that she wants to reestablish contact with China. She is, however, claiming that the US wants China to make concessions and uphold British objectives. “& nbsp,

He claims that” US debts is one of the centers among China – US economic subjects.” Since China has been disposing of US Treasury Bonds repeatedly in recent years, the US has grown concerned. Yet if China purchases more, it won’t be nearly enough to appease the US.

He continues by saying that during Yellen’s attend, Washington is likely to put pressure on Beijing by using Taiwanese problems.

China had$ 867.1 billion in US Treasury bonds as of last year, down from$ 1.12 trillion at the end of 2018. During the same time period, Japan’s holding of US Treasury securities increased from$ 1.04 trillion to$ 1.08 trillion, while the UK saw a growth in its having from$ 288 billion to 654.5 billion. & nbsp,

Despite Beijing’s vehement resistance, nine US politicians traveled to Taiwan between June 27 and 29. & nbsp,

tech outlaw

Due to rising US-China political tensions, the two sides have never held standard talks since US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Chinese Defense Minister Wei Feng met in Cambodia last November. Austin and Li Shangfu, the innovative Chinese Defense Minister, shook hands on June 2 in the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, but there was no formal meeting between them.

In a presentation on June 28, Liu Pengyu, the Chinese Embassy’s official in Washington, stated that if the US wants to continue high-level military negotiations with China, restrictions may be lifted. & nbsp,

The US will make sure that China doesn’t use American technology to create fast weapons or violate human rights, according to Blinken, who claimed to have told his Taiwanese rivals during his trip to Beijing on the same day.

The French government announced on June 30 that in order to trade specific DUV lithography tools, ASML will need to use for licenses starting on September 1. According to ASML, the ban will have an impact on China’s imports of its Twinscan NXT: 1980Di, which may produce 38 millimeter chips in a single coverage.

According to an unknown spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Commerce on Saturday,” In recent years, the US has consistently generalized the concept of regional security, abused export control measures, and sacrificed the interests of its allies to force and earn over various countries to suppress and contain Chinese semiconductor industry in order to maintain its international hegemony.”

Guan Xiansen, a poet from Guangdong, writes in an article that was published on Sunday,” While Blinken promoted Yellen’s visit to China, the weakening of his approach was cursory.” He made an effort to downplay the fact that the US is actively repressing and controlling China, claiming that its sanctions just apply to regions that do not serve its objectives.

He” made conspiracy theory conclusions that China may” improperly use” some essential systems without any supporting evidence.” According to Guan, this unfounded claim demonstrates how the US evaluates some based solely on its own experiences.

The US will quickly tighten its sanctions against China, despite Chinese commentators’ continued optimism that China may ultimately defeat the US.

Following Yellen’s trip to China, Washington will forbid Nvidia from exporting its artificial intelligence ( AI ) chips, such as the A800 and H800, to the country, according to a report in the US media last week. At the end of July, Biden will also sign an executive order prohibiting US funds from investing in high technology industries in China.

Study: AI device bans obstruct US-China trade negotiations

At & nbsp, @ jeffpao3 is Jeff Pao’s Twitter account.

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Karen Allen on one last hurrah as Marion Ravenwood in Indiana Jones: Dial Of Destiny

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Indiana Jones. Karen Allen always knew he’d come walking back through her door.

Since 1981’s Raiders Of The Lost Ark, Allen has been only a sporadic presence in the subsequent sequels. But the glow of the freckled, big-eyed actor who so memorably played Marion Ravenwood has only grown stronger over time.

Indiana Jones may be one of the movies’ most iconic characters, but he’s always needed a good foil. It was Kate Capshaw and Ke Huy Quan in Temple Of Doom and Sean Connery in The Last Crusade.

Yet, none could top, or out-drink, Allen’s Marion, a wisecracking, naturalistic beauty and swashbuckling heir to screwball legends like Katharine Hepburn and Irene Dunne.

Allen’s place in the latest and last Indiana Jones, the just-released Dial Of Destiny, has long been a mystery. Now that the movie is in theatres – spoiler alert – we can finally let the cat out of the bag. Allen returns. And while her role isn’t large – tragedy has driven Marion and Indiana apart – it’s extremely poignant in how she figures into Harrison Ford’s swan song as Indiana Jones.

“Secrets,” Allen chuckled in a recent interview, “are not my specialty.”

Allen, 71, was a magnetic presence in some memorable 1970s and 1980s films, including 1978’s Animal House (the performance that caught Steven Spielberg’s eye), 1984’s Starman and 1988’s Scrooged.

But while she’s steadily worked ever since, the era’s male-dominated Hollywood often seemed to squander her talent. Allen has lived for decades in the Berkshires, where she opened a textiles and clothing boutique and has frequently performed at Tanglewood.

Allen also returned to Marion in 2008’s Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull. But as much as Dial Of Destiny signifies the end of Ford’s run as Indy, it’s also Allen’s goodbye to her most beloved character. This time, Indiana’s sidekick went to Phoebe Waller-Bridge, the Fleabag creator and star. Allen, praising Waller-Bridge as a strong woman, approves.

“If it wasn’t going to be me,” said Allen, “I’m glad it was her.” More about her role below:

Did Steven Spielberg or Dial Of Destiny director James Mangold reach out to you about returning as Marion?

There was a period of time when Steven was going to direct the film. It was my understanding – although I never read any of those scripts – that it was being developed very much as a still-ongoing Marion-and-Indy story.

When Steven decided to step down and James took over and brought in new writers, I knew it was going into a different direction. Having not even known what it was before, it was even more mysterious after they took it over. So I really didn’t know anything for a long period of time until they had a script.

And I have to confess, I was a bit disappointed that she wasn’t more woven throughout the story and didn’t have more of an ongoing trajectory. However, the way in which she does come back into the story was very satisfying. I just thought, “okay, I’m just going to embrace this”. I certainly would have been wildly disappointed had Marion just sort of vanished into the ether.

Did you always think Marion and Indiana were destined for each other? You don’t exactly get a sense of permanence between them in Raiders.

It’s funny. When I first started working on it, I just decided that Indy was the love of her life. I just decided to make a deep commitment to that and to play through Raiders Of The Lost Ark with the feeling they’re soulmates. When we end up married in Crystal Skull, I wept when I read that script.

Indiana Jones could be a boys world but you were such a spirited force of nature.

Well, Steven and George had this experience as young boys with these Saturday afternoon matinee serial films. They were just a little bit older than I am, so I kind of missed that. I don’t have a reference point for that. So I don’t think that I necessarily understood the genre of film we were making. I thought we were making Casablanca. I really, truly did.

So, I sort of defined my character in that sort of genre – which I think weirdly enough works quite well for the film. I never imagined Marion as a damsel in distress in any sort of way. I was always pushing back against that, and in the end, Steven was supportive of that.

Do you ever wish you had gotten the chance to star in more Hollywood films?

I make movies all the time, although I have tended in the last 10 or 15 years to focus more on indie films. In truth, the kinds of roles I’m really hungry to play, particularly for someone my age, they’re written more in the indie world.

People kind of think, “where have you been?”. There were times I was raising my son but I often do at least two films a year. They’re very satisfying, probably more satisfying than the sort of roles I would be offered. A lot of times I turned down things. There’s a lot of thankless roles for women in bigger budget films.

What has Marion meant to you?

She’s sort of at the core of my growth as an actor and certainly my relationship to the world. As I move through the world, I’ve become very identified with that character. There was maybe a brief period of time where I found it annoying.

But that passed and now it’s just this character that I love. I can’t imagine anything more satisfying to have had the chance in life to create a character that has some meaning for people.

What was it like to shoot your scenes with Harrison Ford in Dial Of Destiny?

It was fantastic. We shot it all in one day or maybe two days. To just imagine these two people that have been wrenched apart through grief and loss and then she’s coming back with this hope that they can move forward. When we played the scene, that was very, very affecting. We were both very affected by it and a little teary. And the crew was a little teary.

How has it been keeping your role in the film secret?

It’s been excruciating. (Laughs) I never have to do anything like this again. People have come up to me and they’ve been so upset because they didn’t see my name on IMDb. People would be so mad I’d have to stand there and just be like, “what do I say?”.

Do I say, “yeah, isn’t that a drag?” or “You never never know – wink, wink”. I’ve had to say I just can’t answer any questions about Indiana Jones – which I feel like is sort of saying that I’m in the film. It’s a lose-lose situation. (Laughs)

Does playing Marion one last time cap anything for you?

More so for Harrison than for me. He’s such a fully developed character and has done all five of these. With Marion, I’ve kind of come and gone. But she will always be a character that moves through life with me.

I don’t know if I really have a sense of it being over. There always was a sense that one more would be done, even if it took 20 years. Now, they’ve been very clear that this is the last one. So it is a letting-go.

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