Month: May 2017

Takuma Sato on Sunday became the first Japanese driver to win the Indianapolis 500, in a race that featured a horrific crash involving the driver who started from the pole position.

In the 101st running of the iconic U.S. auto race in the midwestern state of Indiana, Sato passed three-time winner Helio Castroneves of Brazil in the closing laps of the 200-lap drive around the oval track, and held on to win by the slim margin of two-tenths of a second.

“Unbelievable feeling!” a jubilant Sato, 40, declared. Five years ago, the Japanese driver had a great chance to win the prestigious event, but on the final lap collided with eventual champion Dario Franchitti of Scotland.

“He drove unbelievable,” said Michael Andretti, head of the team Sato drives for, Andretti Autosport.

“I couldn’t do what he was doing (on the closing laps),” said Castroneves, who barely avoided two crashes.

The most horrific crash involved pole sitter Scott Dixon of New Zealand, the 2008 Indy 500 winner. With just over a quarter of the 500-mile (805 km) race completed, Briton Jay Howard’s car made contact with the outside wall after turn one and slid down into Dixon’s.

Dixon’s car was sent flying and sliding sideways on the inside safety barrier, flames shooting out as the back end of the car was ripped away. Miraculously, Dixon climbed out of the race car and walked away, as did Howard.

“I’m a little beaten up there. It was a bit of a rough ride,” said Dixon.

Sunday’s race featured 35 lead changes among a race record 15 drivers.

Twenty-two-year-old rookie Ed Jones of Britain placed third, and last year’s winner, Alexander Rossi of the United States, ended up seventh.  The only female driver in the annual event, Pippa Mann of Britain, climbed from 28th at the start and overcame a pit stop penalty to finish 17th in the 33-car field.
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The Swedish satire The Square has taken the top honors at the 70th annual Cannes Film Festival.

The art world satire by Swedish writer-director Ruben Ostlund won the Palme d’Or in Cannes, France, Sunday. Dominic West, Elisabeth Moss and Claes Bang star in the movie.  Bang plays the curator of an art museum, who sets up “The Square,” an installation inviting passers-by to acts of altruism. But after he reacts foolishly to the theft of his phone, the father of two finds himself dragged into shameful situations.

Sofia Coppola became only the second woman to win the prize for best director for her film The Beguiled, starring Nicole Kidman and Colin Farrell.  Soviet director Yuliya Ippolitovna Solntseva was the first woman to win the prize in 1961.

Diane Kruger was named best actress for her performance in Fatih Akin’s In the Fade. In the drama, she plays a German woman whose son and Turkish husband are killed in a bomb attack.

Joaquin Phoenix was named best actor for his role in Lynne Ramsay’s thriller You Were Never Really Here, in which he played a tormented war veteran trying to save a teenage girl from a sex trafficking ring.

The French AIDS drama 120 Beats Per Minute won the Grand Prize from the jury. The award recognizes a strong film that missed out on the top prize.

Kidman was awarded a special prize to celebrate the festival’s 70th anniversary.  She wasn’t at the French Rivera ceremony, but sent a video message from Nashville, saying she was “absolutely devastated” to miss the show.

Jury member Will Smith made the best of the situation, pretending to be Kidman. He fake cried and said in halting French, “merci beaucoup, madames et monsieurs.”

Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar presided over the competition jury that included Smith, German director Maren Ade, Chinese actress Fan Bingbing, Italian director Paolo Sorrentino, American actress Jessica Chastain and South Korean director Park Chan-wook.
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Iran’s potential as a holiday destination is vast, with its stunning landscapes and numerous World Heritage sites, but foreign tourists have largely avoided the country ever since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

The reasons are numerous. The visa process can be lengthy and complex. Some female visitors object to customary restrictions on dress. Alcohol consumption is heavily restricted. And, fears of detention and political upheaval enter the minds of many foreigners considering holidays in the Islamic republic.

Under President Hassan Rohani, a relative moderate who won a second term in office with a convincing first-round victory in Iran’s May 19 presidential election, the country has welcomed foreigners as part of an effort to improve its international image and boost an economy battered by low oil prices and years of crippling international sanctions imposed over Iran’s nuclear program.

Since the signing of a nuclear deal with world powers in 2015 that was the crowning achievement of Rohani’s first term, tour companies have launched holiday packages and major European airlines have resumed regular flights to Iran.

The number of foreign tourists has increased accordingly, and the cash-strapped government is planning to build on its tourism revival by easing visa restrictions and spending heavily to spruce up tourist accommodations and shabby transportation networks.

‘Tsunami of tourists’

In 2015, Masoud Soltanifar, the head of Iran’s Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization, said he was expecting a “tsunami of tourists” once sanctions were lifted following the deal under which Iran’s nuclear program would be curbed in return for the lifting of sanctions.

The World Bank said the number of visitors to Iran increased from 2.2 million in 2009 to 5.2 million in 2015, and Iranian officials expect that trend to continue.

The influx of tourists has brought the country billions of dollars in revenue and created badly needed jobs. In 2015, Iran earned $7.5 billion in tourism revenue; the government hopes to attract 20 million foreign tourists by 2025 and gross $30 billion.

Business Insider and Bloomberg have named Iran among the top destinations to visit in 2017 because of security and the country’s ancient architecture, famous bazaars, and natural beauty.

To put Iran on the map for tourism in the region, authorities have announced sweeping plans that include easing visa restrictions.

Issuing visas on arrival at the airport for nationals of 190 countries as well as issuing electronic visas are among the initiatives being considered by Iranian officials. Citizens from the United States, Canada and Britain would still only be allowed to travel on escorted tours.

The government has also announced plans to create sufficient accommodation and transportation for the growing number of tourists. There is a plan to increase the number of higher-end hotels from 130 to more than 1,000 in 10 years.

Iran also plans to add 400 new passenger planes to its domestic fleet to compensate for shortages due to international sanctions over the past three decades.

The plan is to make Iran a hot spot that would rival regional destinations. Like Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, Iran is blessed with natural wonders.

The Islamic Republic has a sun-baked coast with hundreds of kilometers of beaches. Iran is also a haven for culture buffs, with 19 World Heritage sites, including the ancient desert city of Bam and the ruins of Persepolis.

Tourist hub

Key to the government’s plans to boost tourist numbers is Kish Island, one of a handful of free-trade zones in Iran. The southern island in the Persian Gulf is known for its newly built, multistory malls; sparkling jewelry stores; and swanky, five-star hotels hugging the coast.

The island is a tourist hot spot that attracts an estimated 1 million people every year, mostly Iranians. But Tehran is stepping up its efforts to make the island, located 16 kilometers from the mainland, a destination for foreign visitors as well.

Iran’s first cruise ship since 1979 made its maiden voyage on April 13, docking at another Iranian Gulf resort island, Qeshm, with more than 200 passengers on board.

The seven-floor, Swedish-built cruise liner, named Sunny, is equipped with two cinemas, restaurants, a swimming pool and a conference hall. With the capacity to carry up to 1,600 passengers and 200 vehicles between the two islands, the ship is intended to help launch a “boom [in] marine tourism,” according to Iran’s state IRNA news agency.

Luxurious spot

Kish Island is known as an oasis of luxury and relative freedom in the otherwise conservative Islamic republic.

Women can be seen dipping their bare legs in the warm sea, alcohol is easier to come by, and even prostitutes can be seen on the promenades. It is a world away from the mainland, where a strict ban on alcohol and prostitution is enforced and women must be covered.

Visitors to Kish are attracted by the duty-free shops, resort hotels, water sports and an opportunity to escape the strict social norms on the mainland. A small number of foreigners are also going to Kish, where they do not need a visa and where they can mingle freely in foreigners-only parts of the island.

Authorities occasionally crack down on cinemas playing Western films, shops displaying mannequins that are deemed too exposed, and restaurants selling alcohol, but that is the exception.

Mina, a 21-year-old Iranian student who has visited Kish Island twice, says Iranians go there to escape the social restrictions on the mainland. But she added, “I saw more foreigners coming to Kish, and as long the infrastructure improves, more will come.”
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Southern rock legend Gregg Allman has died in Savannah, Georgia, at age 69, according to his family.

Allman, whose blues guitar and vocals became representative of an entire genre of country-and-blues-tinged rock music, had been in poor health. He announced in March 2017 that he was canceling all performances for the rest of the year.

The family said in a statement that Allman “passed away peacefully” in his home near the southeastern U.S. coast Saturday.

The Nashville-born musician, known for his long, blond hair, originally began playing music with his brother, Duane, when the two were teenagers. Legend has it that the two boys, close in age, initially shared a guitar bought at Sears.

After years of playing together in various groups, the self-titled Allman Brothers Band had just begun to achieve mainstream success in 1971 when Duane was killed in a motorcycle accident at age 24.

Gregg Allman carried on with the Allman Brothers Band for decades afterward, releasing such famous Southern rock tunes as “Whipping Post,” “Ramblin’ Man” and “Midnight Rider,” and influencing untold numbers of Southern songwriters who followed.

In 1995, the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It won a Grammy for the instrumental “Jessica” the following year.

Allman abused drugs and alcohol until the mid-1990s. While he spent the final two decades of his life sober, his health was affected by the excess of his earlier years. He underwent a liver transplant in 2010.

Music was essential

Throughout his recovery and later health problems, Allman maintained that playing music was essential to his survival. The year after his liver transplant, he released a solo album called “Low Country Blues.”

During his  five-decade career Allman worked with many of the greats of American blues and rock ‘n’ roll, including Wilson Pickett, Neil Young, Clarence Carter, Eric Clapton and T-Bone Burnett. The band established a tradition of playing a multinight residency at New York City’s Beacon Theater once a year for most of two decades. Their final residency at the Beacon ended in October 2014.

He was married several times, including one famous but brief pairing with pop superstar Cher. He had five children.

Allman was the most famous face of a band that saw more than its share of tragedy.

In addition to the death of brother Duane, the Allman Brothers Band lost its bassist, Berry Oakley, to a motorcycle accident in 1972. In January of this year, another founding member of the band, Butch Trucks, committed suicide. Like Allman, he was 69.
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Two new documentaries have shed light on the plight of Syria’s refugees and how they are regarded by the world around them.

Apo Bazidi’s “Resistance is Life” chronicles the siege of Kobane, a primarily Kurdish town in northern Syria that Islamic State militants seized in 2014, forcing many of its inhabitants to flee. During the monthslong siege, thousands escaped to Turkey, including a family of five that moved into a refugee camp in Suruc.

Eight-year-old Evlin is the eldest of the children. Smart and engaging, she is the main character of this documentary. Using a small camera, Evlin trains her eye on scenes around the refugee camp.

“I take pictures of the pain around me,” she says.

Her high intellect and her voraciousness for learning seem wasted in a barren refugee camp. Yet Evlin seems to derive wisdom from her personal experiences and the experiences of others around her.

She appreciates the welcome the people of Suruc have extended to the refugees, but she confesses that sometimes her expressed appreciation is more for the sake of the giver.

In her young, perceptive mind, she has weighed the few options she and her family have.

“I have not given up on my homeland,” she says. With adult composure, she describes how many opt for making a treacherous trek to Europe. “They get on a boat. They ask each other who knows how to operate it. One says, ‘Me.’ Then people go in the water. Little children drown, and they die,” she says.

Key role of women

In April 2015, Kurdish fighters were able to liberate the villages of the Kobane canton. Enwer Muslim, prime minister of the canton, says women led a major part of the resistance.

“Young women fought to prevent even a single braid falling into the hands of ISIS,” he says, using an Islamic State acronym. “It may hurt some male fighters to hear this, but believe me, 70 percent to 80 percent of our victory was led by women.”

But the city lies in ruins.

Many have returned to their destroyed homes, but tens of thousands, including Evlin and her family, remain in a refugee camp.

The threat of the extremists is still palpable in the region, and life is far from returning to normal. The documentary is a reminder that these people need help from the international community.

Tonislav Hristov’s “The Good Postman” focuses on a dying Bulgarian village as its elderly inhabitants face refugees crossing into their lands from Turkey.

As the electoral campaign of three mayoral candidates heats up, the debate over Syrian refugees, who cross illegally into their village daily, intensifies.

The current mayor is a young woman who brings little hope for relief to the poverty-ridden villagers.

An unemployed self-styled revolutionary is a populist candidate, who longs for the older communist times and mixes utopian socialism with bigotry and xenophobia. During a lackluster campaign gathering, he promises “internet for all” to the sparse octogenarian electorate that has huddled around, waiting for a ration of sausages and beer, and in the same breath he declares his objection to Syrian refugees settling in his village.

Ivan, a postman and the liberal candidate in the race, offers a different proposal: Let the refugees settle in the village and revitalize it.

Mayor re-elected

In the end, neither Ivan nor the revolutionary wins. The existing mayor, who has not campaigned, wins again amid the poverty and malaise of her dying constituents.

Kaarle Aho, the documentary producer, says the Bulgarian village is reflective of the Western world.

“It’s sort of like a microcosm. You have these people everywhere in Europe and also here. You don’t have to go to a small Bulgarian village in order to find these characters. The same kind of politicians you have in Finland and Sweden, everywhere in Europe,” he says, “but also probably the United States. … There is like a small-time populist politician there who’s just promising anything and who’s trying to raise fears among people, to make people be afraid of everything new. And then, funnily enough, the liberal guy is the postman of the village.”

As for the populist candidate who ran against the settlement of Syrian refugees in the village, Aho says “he has a son living in Ukraine, which means that his son is an immigrant. Yet he doesn’t want to have immigrants in his own country,” underscoring his hypocrisy.

“The Good Postman” is as heartbreaking as it is funny, a searing satire of today’s world.
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Take a seat, “Thor.”

Scattered plans among Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas to host women-only screenings of the upcoming “Wonder Woman” movie have produced both support and some grumbling about gender discrimination.

Various locations have taken to social media in response, including the operators of the Brooklyn theater promising on Twitter to funnel proceeds from women-only screenings in early June to Planned Parenthood. And by women only, they mean staff, too.

Some of the screenings were already selling out despite social media haters, many of whom are men, and several have been added.

The offer of special screenings began recently in Austin, Texas, where Alamo has held specialty screenings in the past for military veterans and others. As for “Wonder Woman,” the Alamo in Brooklyn posted a statement online saying what better way to celebrate the most iconic superheroine than with “an all-female screening?”

“Apologies, gentlemen, but we’re embracing our girl power and saying `No Guys Allowed’ for several special shows at the Alamo Downtown Brooklyn. And when we say `Women (and people who identify as women)only,’ we mean it. So lasso your geeky girlfriends together and grab your tickets to this celebration of one of the most enduring and inspiring characters ever created.”

The movie opens June 2 based on the DC Comics character. It was directed by Patty Jenkins and stars Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman/Diana Prince.
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Two documentaries shed light on the hardships Syrian refugees and how they’re regarded by the world. One tells the story of a town in northern Syria seized by Islamic State militants in 2014, turning its inhabitants into refugees. Another focuses on a Bulgarian village’s debate over what to do with the refugees crossing into their lands from Turkey. VOA’s Penelope Poulou has more.
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The fabled World War II bomber Memphis Belle will finally go on public display next spring at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force alongside John F. Kennedy’s presidential plane, an early Wright Brothers flyer and other national treasures.

The journey from the flak-ridden skies over occupied France and Germany to restoration and display in the Ohio museum has been long for one of the most celebrated American planes to survive the war.

The B-17F “Flying Fortress,” feted as one of the first to make it through the required 25 bombing missions, arrived at the museum at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in pieces a dozen years ago. It was in rough shape, having been on display outside for decades in its namesake city where it deteriorated from weather and vandalism.

Restoration work by an army of volunteers has continued for years, delayed by a major expansion at the sprawling museum near Dayton and other restoration projects vying for attention. An unveiling of the restored warbird now is scheduled for May 17, 2018 — the 75th anniversary of the crew’s 25th and final mission. The Memphis Belle will be displayed as the centerpiece of an exhibit on the strategic bombing campaign that broke the back of Germany’s wartime production.

“This is an American icon,” said Jeff Duford, curator of the Memphis Belle exhibit. “It’s like the flag that flew at Iwo Jima or the USS Arizona. This is one of those things that’s truly legendary and represents America and our spirit.”

Since B-17 parts are no longer manufactured, volunteers have worked long, painstaking hours fabricating them from scratch and reassembling the plane inside a cavernous restoration hangar at the museum. The wing tips just went on, but the fuselage skin is still being riveted on. And it’s still missing the plastic nose cone, tail section and an authentic paint job.

Greg Hassler, who is supervising the restoration, knows the clock is now ticking.

“We will have it done,” Hassler vowed. “The airplane will look like it did on its 25th mission on 17 May of next year.”

The four-engine bomber bristling with .50-caliber machine guns was piloted by then-Lt. Robert Morgan and had its famous name before it left the U.S. mainland. Morgan, who died in 2004, said it was inspired by his sweetheart, 19-year-old Memphis resident Margaret Polk. The actual moniker came from a riverboat in a John Wayne movie called “Lady for a Night” that Morgan and his co-pilot saw the night before the crew voted on a name.

Before heading for Europe, Morgan flew the bomber to Memphis, where Polk christened it with a bottle of champagne amid much fanfare.

The Memphis Belle, with the leggy Esquire magazine pinup girl painted on the nose, survived six months of punishing air combat in 1942-43 during missions to bomb factories and submarine pens. In doing so, the airplane and its crew beat the odds in a big way. Two out of three young men — their average age was 20 — who flew on those B-17 missions from airfields in England did not survive the war. One out of every 18 planes was lost to combat. 

Because the plane’s crew members sometimes flew in other planes, they actually completed their requisite 25th mission two days before the Belle, which flew its 25th on May 19, 1943, making it one of the first B-17s to do so.

After being honored by the Army brass and the king and queen of England, most of the original crew and plane were reunited for a highly publicized tour of the U.S. to help sell war bonds in the summer of 1943, including a stop at the same Ohio Air Force base where it will now reside permanently.

A 1944 William Wyler documentary added to the lore of the Belle, while younger generations were introduced to it in a 1990 hit movie that was a fictionalized account of the final mission.

Despite the Memphis Belle’s installation at the Air Force museum, the legislature in Tennessee earlier this year designated it as that state’s official airplane.
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In a new book, “Amina’s Voice,” a Pakistani Muslim pre-teen girl deals with middle school and Islamophobia. VOA’s Yahya Albarznji spoke with young American students, teachers and the award-winning author about this book and the hope that it will help people understand Islam.
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