British Prime Ressortchef (umgangssprachlich) Rishi Sunak lately declared that the “golden era” of UK-China relations is over. The following day, the government removed China and taiwan General Nuclear Strength Group, a Chinese state-owned company, from the construction of the UK’s Sizewell C nuclear power station. Some other countries have made similar moves in recent years. Within 2020, for example , […]#@@#@!!Continue Reading
What started in the autumn as the small, hesitant steps of reluctant dance partners has exploded in pace over the past few weeks, as Turkey and Syria begin open moves toward some form of reconciliation. A few months ago, it was reported that the intelligence heads of both countries had held multiple meetings, encouraged by Russia. […]Continue Reading
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It’s a partnership that’s been hailed as “history in the making.”
One of the world’s most famous soccer stars landed in the Saudi capital Riyadh on Tuesday, where Cristiano Ronaldo was received in an extravagant ceremony, with excited children sporting his new club’s yellow and blue jerseys.
Oil-rich Saudi Arabia’s success in luring the five-time Ballon d’Or winner on a two-year contract with the kingdom’s Al Nassr FC is the Gulf monarchy’s latest step in realizing its sporting ambitions – seemingly at any cost.
According to Saudi state-owned media, Ronaldo will earn an estimated $200 million a year with Al Nassr, making him the world’s highest-paid soccer player.
Shortly after the 37-year-old’s signing with Al Nassr, the club’s Instagram page gained over 5.3 million new followers. Its official website was inaccessible after exceeding its bandwidth limit due to the sudden surge in traffic, and the hashtag #HalaRonaldo – Hello, Ronaldo in Arabic – was trending for days across the Middle East on Twitter.
Analysts say that his recruitment in Saudi Arabia is part of a wider effort by the kingdom to diversify its sources of revenue and become a serious player in the international sporting scene.
It is also seen as a move by the kingdom to shore up its image after it was tarnished by the 2018 dismemberment and killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi at the hands of Saudi agents, and a devastating war it started in Yemen in 2015.
Critics have decried the kingdom for “sportswashing,” an attempt to burnish one’s reputation through sport.
“I think Saudi Arabia has recognized a couple of years ago that to be a powerful nation internationally, you cannot just rely on hard power,” Danyel Reiche, a visiting research fellow and associate professor at Georgetown University Qatar, told CNN.
“You also need to invest in soft power, and the case of Qatar shows that this can work pretty well,” he said, adding that Saudi Arabia is following in the Qatari approach with sport, but with a delay of around 25 years.
Neighboring Qatar has also faced immense criticism since it won the bid to hosting last year’s FIFA World Cup in 2010.
Despite the smaller Gulf state facing similar accusations of “sportswashing,” the tournament has largely been viewed as a success, not least in exposing the world to a different view of the Middle East, thanks in part to Morocco’s success in reaching the semifinals and Saudi Arabia beating eventual World Cup champion Argentina in their opening group game.
Gulf nations engage in fierce competition to become the region’s premier entertainment and sporting hubs. The UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Bahrain, in close proximity to each other, each have their own Formula One racing event. But their competition hasn’t been confined to the region. Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have also bought trophy European soccer teams.
Riyadh is playing catchup with neighbors who have long realized the importance of investing in sports, said Simon Chadwick, professor of sport and geopolitical economy at SKEMA Business School in Lille, France, especially as its main source of income – oil – is being gradually shunned.
“This is part of an ongoing attempt to create more resilient economies that are more broadly based upon industries other than those that are derived from oil and gas,” Chadwick told CNN.
Ronaldo’s new club Al Nassr is backed by Qiddiya Investment Company (QIC), a subsidiary of the kingdom’s wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF), which has played a pivotal role in Saudi Arabia’s diversification plans.
“It is also a sign of interconnectedness, of globalization and of opening up to the rest of the world,” said Georgetown University’s Reiche.
The move is part of “several recent high profile moves in the sports world, including hosting the Andy Ruiz Jr. and Anthony Joshua world heavywight boxing championship bout in 2019, and launching the LIV Golf championship,” said Omar Al-Ubaydli, director of research at the Bahrain-based Derasat think tank. “It is a significant piece of a large puzzle that represents their economic restructuring.”
The kingdom has been on a path to not only diversify its economy, but also shift its image amid a barrage of criticism over its human rights record and treatment of women. Saudi Arabia is today hosting everything from desert raves to teaming up with renowned soccer players. Argentina’s Lionel Messi last year signed a lucrative promotional deal with the kingdom.
Hailed as the world’s greatest player, 35-year-old Messi ended this year’s World Cup tournament in Qatar with his team’s win over France, making his ambassadorship of even greater value to the kingdom.
The acquisition of such key global figures will also help combat the monarchy’s decades-long reputation of being “secretive” and “ultra-conservative,” James Dorsey, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore and an expert on soccer in the Middle East, told CNN’s Eleni Giokos on Wednesday.
Al-Ubaydli said that the kingdom wants to use high profile international sports “as a vehicle for advertising to the world its openness.”
Saudi Arabia bought the English Premier league club Newcastle United in 2021 through a three-party consortium, with PIF being the largest stakeholder. The move proved controversial, as Amnesty International and other human rights defenders worried it would overshadow the kingdom’s human rights violations.
Ronaldo’s work with Saudi Arabia is already being criticized by rights groups who are urging the soccer player to “draw attention to human rights issues” in Saudi Arabia.
“Saudi Arabia has an image problem,” especially since Khashoggi’s killing, says Reiche. But the kingdom’s recent investments in sports and entertainment are “not about sportswashing but about developing the country, social change and opening up to the world.”
Saudi Arabia is reportedly weighing a 2030 World Cup bid with Egypt and Greece, but the kingdom’s tourism ministry noted in November that it has not yet submitted an official bid. Chadwick believes that Ronaldo’s deal with Al Nassr, however, may help boost the kingdom’s bid should it choose it pursue it.
Another way Saudi Arabia may benefit from Ronaldo’s acquisition is that it will be able to improve commercial performance, says Chadwick, especially if this collaboration attracts further international talent.
“It is important to see Ronaldo not just as a geopolitical instrument,” said Chadwick, “There is still a commercial component to him and to the purpose he is expected to serve in Saudi Arabia.”
What Ronaldo’s move to Saudi Arabia shows is that the kingdom aspires “to be seen as being the best” and that it wants to be perceived as a “contender and a legitimate member of the international football community,” said Chadwick.
UAE FM meets Syria’s Assad in Damascus in further sign of thawing ties
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad received the United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed in Damascus on Wednesday in the latest sign of thawing relations between Assad and the Gulf state. The meeting addressed developments in Syria and the wider Middle East, according to UAE state news agency WAM.
Turkish President Erdogan says he could meet with Assad
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a speech on Thursday that he could meet the Syrian leader “to establish peace.”
Iran shuts down French cultural center over Charlie Hebdo’s Khamenei cartoons
Iran announced on Thursday it had ended the activities of a Tehran-based French research institute, in reaction to cartoons mocking Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and fellow Shia Muslim clerics published by French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo this week.
The prized legacy of iconic Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum re-emerged this year when Rolling Stone magazine featured her in its “200 Greatest Singers of All Time.”
Ranking 61st, Umm Kulthum was the only Arab artist to make it to the list, with the magazine saying that she “has no real equivalent among singers in the West.”
Born in a small village northeast of the Egyptian capital Cairo, Umm Kulthum rose to unmatched fame as she came to represent “the soul of the pan-Arab world,” the music magazine said.
“Her potent contralto, which could blur gender in its lower register, conveyed breathtaking emotional range in complex songs that, across theme and wildly-ornamented variations, could easily last an hour, as she worked crowds like a fiery preacher,” it wrote.
Nicknamed “the lady of Arab singing,” her music featured both classical Arabic poetry as well as colloquial songs still adored by younger generations. Her most famous pieces include “Inta Uumri” (you are my life), “Alf Leila Weileila” (a thousand and one nights), “Amal Hayati” (hope of my life) and “Daret al-Ayyam” (the days have come around). Some of her songs have been remixed to modern beats that have made their way to Middle Eastern nightclubs.
The singer remains an unmatched voice across the Arab World and her music can still be heard in many traditional coffee shops in Old Cairo’s neighborhoods and other parts of the Arab world.
Umm Kulthum’s death in 1975 brought millions of mourners to the streets of Cairo.
By Nadeen Ebrahim
Not since the 1970s oil crisis has the West seen such a focus on energy security. Suddenly, in 2022, it became a critical part of the battle for Ukraine. Russian attacks on energy facilities have left millions of Ukrainians without power during a freezing winter. Since it couldn’t force a quick, decisive win onto Ukraine, […]Continue Reading
Malaysia’s meteorological department forecast continuous rains through Thursday in several states, including Terengganu. Flash floods on Thursday may affect these areas in Johor: Kota Tinggi, around Sedili Kechil and Ulu sungai Sedili Besar, Muar (Bandar, Bandar Maharani and Jalan Bakri) , as well as Mersing (Bandar Padang Endau). In Pahang, it affectsContinue Reading
The lifting of restrictions has been followed by nationwide outbreaks – and online anger.Continue Reading
TOKYO – Japan plans to add “active cyber defense” to its national security policy mix with new operational emphasis on surveillance, prevention and response, preemptive neutralization and even counterattacks. The move towards stronger, more institutionalized cybersecurity measures will please those on the Japanese right worried about China, North Korea and Russia’s cyber threats and concern […]Continue Reading
The new film “Fantasy Football” capitalizes on some of its stars natural talent.
Marsai Martin channels lots of girl-boss energy playing Callie Coleman, a tech-savvy young woman whose father’s long career in the NFL lands him with the Atlanta Falcons team.
Her production company is behind the family-friendly film. (Martin, 18, set a Guinness World Record in 2020 as the youngest Hollywood executive producer to work on a major production.)
She and costars Omari Hardwick (Bobby Coleman), Rome Flynn (Anderson Fisher), along with the film’s director Anton Cropper, recently spoke with CNN when they appeared at a Falcons game held at Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia.
It was familiar surroundings as the group shot plenty of scenes for their movie there.
The plot centers around Callie’s father, played by Hardwick, seemingly at the end of his career when his daughter discovers she can control his moves via playing the Madden football video game.
Martin sees the role in which her character also makes friends with the robotics club team members at her new school as more than just fun with its positive message about diversity in technology.
“I’ve met so many girls who are in to technology and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) or are all about Black girls coding,” she said. “It’s important to shine a light on it because it’s a very big deal. It’s all about representation.”
For Hardwick, the project gave him the opportunity to lean into his football roots.
Before he became famous for his work in roles like James “Ghost” St. Patrick on “Power,” the Savannah, Georgia native played as a defensive back at the University of Georgia and later tried out with the San Diego Chargers as an undrafted free agent.
“It feels incredible to be right back here at home,” Hardwick said. “This is obviously my hometown team…but I never got to play for the Falcons. With this film, I got to do my thing.”
Hardwick also pointed out that it was appropriate that they were attending a game in which the Atlanta Falcons were playing the Chicago Bears given that Rome Flynn, who plays Bobby Coleman’s rival, the hotshot young quarterback Anderson Fisher, grew up in Chicago.
Flynn told CNN that unlike their characters, he and Hardwick had no competition between them as leading men.
“It’s all love,” he said smiling. “We respect each other and we brought out the best in each other.”
“Fantasy Football” debuts Friday on Paramount+.
Although the main character’s name was inspired by the poetic line “Wednesday’s child is full of woe,” “Wednesday” is generally a delight, thanks almost entirely to Jenna Ortega. Having outgrown her Disney Channel days, Ortega makes the Addams Family’s now-high-school-age daughter the coolest humorless goth sociopath you’ll ever meet, in a Netflix series that’s more kooky than spooky or ooky.
Director Tim Burton sets just the right visual tone – a mix of the comedic and macabre that resembles “Edward Scissorhands” – while teaming up with “Smallville” producers Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, who know something about building a TV show around an extraordinary teen. Indeed, when Wednesday gets enrolled in a new private school, Nevermore Academy, she tells the headmistress (“Game of Thrones’” Gwendoline Christie) about her frequent moves from school to school, “They haven’t built one strong enough to hold me.”
That might change at Nevermore, a Poe-etic name for this haven for the weird and witchy, with a supernatural vibe that’s as much Hogwarts (or X-Men) as Charles Addams’ signature comic strip.
Not only does Wednesday have to deal with dawning psychic abilities and the strange visions that go with them, but a mystery emerges that turns the suspicious lass into an ill-tempered, ebon-clad Nancy Drew, trying to ascertain who’s responsible as the clues begin to circle back to her own family tree.
It’s obviously a fairly derivative mashup of genre elements, but the mix works in part because even the smaller ingredients are tasty, from Catherine Zeta-Jones and Luis Guzman as Wednesday’s parents, Morticia and Gomez, to her sidekick Thing, who obtains a dress she wants by employing – what else? – a “five-fingered discount.” The writers extract a great deal of comedic mileage from that extremity, so give them a hand.
What separates “Wednesday” from similar efforts (Netflix’s “The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina” comes to mind), ultimately, is Ortega, who somehow manages to be relentlessly strange, a portrait in unblinking intensity and oddly endearing all at once. When the character description includes never raising one’s voice or cracking even the hint of a smile, that’s no small feat.
Throw in nifty touches like having Christina Ricci, who played Wednesday in the 1990s movies, as part of the school staff, and the local sheriff (Jamie McShane) dismissing Wednesday and her classmates as “the Scooby gang,” and the series operates on multiple levels.
Perhaps inevitably, “Wednesday” can’t sustain its initial kick as the serialized story unfolds over eight episodes, and the ending becomes too chaotic. Then again, that’s hardly a surprise given the nature of source material designed more for little jokes than a big sweeping story.
Seeking to bring something new a property like the Addams Family, which has been done so many times before, isn’t easy without altering its DNA. To its credit, “Wednesday” rises to the challenge and mostly manages to make it look like a snap.
“Wednesday” premieres November 23 on Netflix.
SEOUL: North Korea’s military said on Monday (Nov 7) that recent South Korea-US military exercises were an “open provocation and dangerous war drill,” and it had responded with measures simulating striking their air bases and warplanes, state media KCNA said Last week, North Korea test-fired multiple missiles including a possibleContinue Reading