Genevieve Nnaji will join the cast of the audio adaptation of FELA!, Fela Ten Twenty, written and directed by filmmaker Funa Maduka, to premiere on Clubhouse, May 15 and May 16.
Proceeds from the show will support GEANCO, whose work provides full-tuition, healthcare, and social and psychological support to young female survivors of terrorism and gender inequality in Nigeria and across the continent.
“The contemporary issues highlighted in the script are what sold me. This is an artful retelling of Fela’s story and I’m honoured to be a part of it. I grew up on radio plays and the experience is nostalgic for me – the power of voice to influence minds and touch hearts is undeniable,” says award-winning actor, writer and director, Genevieve Nnaji.
Genevieve Nnaji is a Nigerian actress, producer, and director. She won the Africa Movie Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role in 2005. In 2011, she was honoured as a Member of the Order of the Federal Republic by the Nigerian government for her contributions to Nollywood. Her directorial debut film, Lionheart, was Nigeria’s first submission to the Oscars.
Paris is expected to reopen catwalks in July as the French government unwinds lockdown measures, allowing live fashions shows to resume.
According to a statement from the body in charge of the French fashion industry, Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode, The annual Haute Couture Week will take place from July 5 to July 8 and fashion houses will be allowed to organise live shows and presentations.
No major live fashion shows have been held in Paris since September 2020 when brands including Dior and Chanel had organised a few shows with a limited number of guest to make a live audience.
In the past months, fashion brands have gotten creative, presenting their new lines in online-only shows and have experimented with other ways to showcase their designs such as short films and one-on-one presentations.
It is estimated that usually, Paris’s multiple fashion weeks generate some 1.2 billion euros (S$1.93 billion) for the local economy every year.
A nine pieces parure of sapphires and diamonds, from a collection owned by Napoleon?s adopted daughter Stephanie de Beauharnais, is displayed 200 years after the Emperor's death during a preview at Christie?s before their May 12 auction sale, in Geneva, Switzerland, May 5, 2021. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
An imperial jewellery sale including a set of sapphire and diamond pieces fetched nearly $3 million at an auction at Christie’s in Geneva on Wednesday.
The pieces are said to have belonged to Napoleon’s adoptive daughter which increased its value and demand as sale of objects directly linked to the French emperor is rare.
Nine items from the collection of Stephanie de Beauharnais’ jewelry which were displayed 200 years after the Emperor’s death at a preview at Christie’s, including a sapphire crown which previously belonged to Queen Maria II of Portugal. Bids on the imperial consignment far outweighed pre-sale estimates.
The 9 items were sold individually and included a necklace and tiara adorned with sapphires from mines in what was then known as Ceylon, now Sri Lanka.
The Italian competition authority announced that it has fine Google the sum of 102 million Euros ($123 million) for abuse of its dominant position, using its Android mobile operating system and its app store, Google Play.
The regulator said Google refused JuicePass, an electric vehicle services app from Enel X, from operating on Android Auto unfairly limiting its use while favouring Google Maps. The app allows the use of other apps while driving.
Enel X is the e-solutions division of Italian utility company Enel and JuicePass mainly allows users to find charging stations on maps and view their details. Google has not been allowing the app on Android Auto for the past two years, which could compromise Enel X’s ability to build a user base, the watchdog said.
In addition to the fine, the Italian competition authority said it had requested that Google make JuicePass available on Android Auto.
With Cristiano Ronaldo’s future at Juventus in dooubt, Paris Saint-Germain star Neymar has admitted that he ‘wants to play with the Portuguese forward before the end of his career.
The Brazil international has taken to the pitch alongside some of the game’s all-time greats, and is currently spearheading Les Parisiens’ attack with fellow forward and starlet Kylian Mbappe.
But one footballer remains who he wishes to partner before his time on the big stage comes to a close.
Speaking to GQ France, Neymar confessed that he wishes to ‘play with Ronaldo’, in a statement which has only fuelled rumours of the 36-year-old’s potential departure from Juventus at the end of the season.
“I want to play with Cristiano Ronaldo,” he said. “I’ve already played with great players like Messi and [Kylian] Mbappe, but I haven’t played with Cristiano Ronaldo yet.”
Hamas militants have launched dozens of rockets at Israel after Israeli air strikes killed senior commanders and felled a multi-storey building in Gaza.
Reports say several locations in southern Israel were hit, killing a young child in Sderot.
The escalation of the fighting, which began on Monday, has prompted the UN to warn of a “full-scale war”.
At least 65 people in Gaza, including 14 children, and seven people in Israel have been killed since then.
The fighting erupted after weeks of rising Israeli-Palestinian tension in East Jerusalem which culminated in clashes at a holy site revered by Muslims and Jews.\
Further violence in towns in Israel with mixed Jewish and Arab populations has led to 374 more people being arrested on Wednesday evening, Israeli police said, and 36 officers being injured.
There were reports in Israeli media of both Jewish and Arab individuals being attacked by mobs in Israeli towns and cities. They include a Jewish man who suffered injuries at the hands of Arabs in the city of Acre, and an Arab man who was reportedly injured in Bat Yam.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking late on Wednesday night, said what had been happening in Israeli cities in recent days was “unbearable”.
“We will not accept anarchy,” he said.
“Nothing can justify an Arab mob assaulting Jews, and nothing can justify a Jewish mob assaulting Arabs,” he said in a video statement, as reported by the Times of Israel.
image captionViolent clashes continued in the town of Lod on Wednesday evening
Palestinian militants have been firing rockets into Israel since Monday night, and Israel has responded by hitting targets in the territory.
Hundreds of air strikes and rocket attacks have been carried out.
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says that more than 360 people have been injured there since the conflict began, as well as the 65 who have died.
Mr Netanyahu said the government would use all its strength to protect Israel from enemies on the outside and rioters on the inside.
Militants in Gaza said they had fired 130 rockets into Israel in response to an Israeli aid raid which destroyed the al-Sharouk tower in Gaza City.
The tower, which is the third tall building to be destroyed by air strikes this week, housed al-Aqsa TV, the station run by Hamas.
image captionThis woman and child were evacuated from a building in Gaza
Israel said it had killed senior Hamas officials in Gaza, and was also targeting missile launching sites. Hamas confirmed a senior commander and “other leaders” had died.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said on Wednesday that their strikes on Gaza were the largest since the conflict in 2014.
Residents had been warned to evacuate the buildings before fighter jets attacked; however health officials said there were still civilian deaths.
Five members of one family were killed in an air strike on Tuesday, including two young brothers, according to AFP news agency.
“We were laughing and having fun when suddenly they began to bomb us. Everything around us caught fire,” their 14-year-old cousin, Ibrahim, said, breaking down in tears as he described their death.
Meanwhile millions of Israelis were in bomb shelters on Wednesday evening, according to the IDF, after sirens warning of rockets sounded across the country.
The child killed in the Israeli town of Sderot was named as Ido Avigal, aged six, who was caught in an attack on a block of flats.
Anna Ahronheim, the defence and security correspondent of the Jerusalem Post, described spending Tuesday night in a shelter with her five-month-old baby.
“To hear hundreds of interceptions and even to hear rockets fall near us was horrifying,” she told the BBC.
image captionIsrael’s Iron Dome anti-missile system – seen here over Ashkelon – aims to protect towns and cities from rockets
On Wednesday morning an Israeli soldier was killed by an anti-tank missile fired from Gaza into Israel, authorities said, while two Israeli Arabs died in Lod when a rocket hit their car.
How has the world responded?
United Nations Secretary General António Guterres said he was “gravely concerned” by the ongoing violence. The UN Security Council has met to discuss the issue, but has not issued a statement.
In a phone call to Mr Netanyahu, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken condemned Hamas rocket attacks but said Israel had an obligation to avoid civilian casualties.
He said he had sent an envoy to the region to meet both sides.
Russia has called for an urgent meeting of the Middle East Quartet (the US, EU, UN and Russia).
A Russian foreign ministry statement quoted a Hamas spokesman as saying the movement was ready for a ceasefire if Israel stopped “violent acts” in East Jerusalem and “illegal measures in respect of its native Arab residents”.
What has caused the violence?
The fighting between Israel and Hamas was triggered by days of escalating clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police at a holy hilltop compound in East Jerusalem.
The site is revered by both Muslims, who call it the Haram al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary), and Jews, for whom it is known as the Temple Mount. Hamas demanded Israel remove police from there and the nearby predominantly Arab district of Sheikh Jarrah, where Palestinian families face eviction by Jewish settlers. Hamas launched rockets when its ultimatum went unheeded.
Palestinian anger had already been stoked by weeks of rising tension in East Jerusalem, inflamed by a series of confrontations with police since the start of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan in mid-April.
It was further fuelled by the threatened eviction of Palestinian families from their homes in East Jerusalem by Jewish settlers and Israel’s annual celebration of its capture of East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war, known as Jerusalem Day.
The fate of the city, with its deep religious and national significance to both sides, lies at the heart of the decades-old Israel-Palestinian conflict. Israel in effect annexed East Jerusalem in 1980 and considers the entire city its capital, though this is not recognised by the vast majority of other countries.
Palestinians claim the eastern half of Jerusalem as the capital of a hoped-for state of their own.
Yannick Carrasco put Atletico ahead when he collected Marcos Llorente’s ball over the top of the Sociedad defence and finished past Alex Remiro.
Angel Correa doubled the hosts’ lead with a first-time finish following Luis Suarez’s excellent through ball.
Igor Zubeldia scored late on for Sociedad but Atletico held on to win.
Atletico will win the Spanish title for the 11th time in their history if they win both their last two matches.
They play at home against 11th-placed Osasuna on Sunday, 16 May before ending the campaign a week later away at a Real Valladolid side that are 18th and in the relegation zone.
Martin Griffiths, the UN envoy struggling to end the bloody war in Yemen, was named Wednesday to be the global body’s humanitarian chief.
UN Yemen envoy named humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths, the UN envoy struggling to end the bloody war in Yemen, was named Wednesday to be the global body’s humanitarian chief.
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ appointment of Griffiths as under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs keeps the prominent post in the hands of a British diplomat, succeeding Mark Lowcock.
Similarly, two other top positions, under-secretary-general for political affairs and under-secretary-general for peacekeeping, have stayed respectively with diplomats from the United States and France despite a 1992 General Assembly resolution that opposed the “monopoly” of the major powers in key jobs.
Griffiths, 69, has earned the appreciation of Security Council nations for persevering even in the most dire situations, including in the Yemen post that he assumed in 2018.
The United Nations has described Yemen as the world’s worst humanitarian situation, with 80 percent of the population relying on assistance as Saudi Arabia carries out a devastating campaign aimed at rooting out Huthi rebels who control much of the country.
Griffiths — like his predecessor as envoy, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed of Mauritania — failed to stop the conflict and suffered a rupture of relations with the Huthis, who are tied to Iran.
The United States last week denounced the Huthis for refusing to meet Griffiths as President Joe Biden’s administration steps up diplomacy to end the war.
“A mediator cannot force the parties to negotiate,” Griffiths told a Security Council meeting on Wednesday as he deplored the “relentless military escalation” by the Huthis as they try to take the last northern government stronghold of Marib.
It was not immediately clear who would take on the UN job on Yemen.
Lowcock, the outgoing under-secretary-general, earlier this year said he wanted to step down and rejoin his family in Britain.
Griffiths has long worked in humanitarian roles at the United Nations, including coordinating efforts in the Great Lakes region of Africa in the 1990s.
He also served as an adviser to former secretary general Kofi Annan during his bid to end Syria’s civil war and, before the Yemen job, led the European Institute of Peace in Brussels.
A jewellery set worn by French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte’s adopted daughter sold for $1.65 million in Geneva on Wednesday, soaring way above the pre-auction estimate.
Marking the 200th anniversary of Napoleon’s death, Christie’s auction house sold the nine imperial jewels adorned with sapphires and diamonds, which were from the collection of his adopted daughter Stephanie de Beauharnais.
Some 38 sapphires from Sri Lanka were used to create the set in the early 1800s.
Offered as separate lots, the jewels had remained in the same family ever since they were offered to Beauharnais on her wedding to Charles, the grand duke of Baden, at the Tuileries Palace in Paris in 1806.
Besides their historical value, the jewels were also prized for their natural blue, as sapphires usually undergo heat treatment to accentuate the colour.
The nine pieces included a tiara, a necklace, a pair of earrings, two pendants, two brooches, a ring and a bracelet.
“There was a huge demand from collectors around the world, both in Asia and the Middle East, also Europe and the Americas,” auctioneer Max Fawcett told reporters at the Magnificent Jewels sale.
It was thought that the collection might fetch $475,000 in total, but the tiara alone went for $462,000. It contains octagonal step-cut and oval-shaped sapphires, rose and old-cut diamonds, and gold.
The sale also included a sapphire crown worn by queen Mary II of Portugal, who was twice the country’s reigning monarch before her death in 1853.
Set with a Burmese sapphire in the centre, the crown was estimated at $190,000-$385,000 but sold for far more, at $1.95 million.
The priciest item in the sale was the last of the 146 lots — a rectangular white 100.94-carat diamond called the Spectacle, which sold for $14.1 million.
The internally flawless diamond is the largest stone ever to have been cut in Russia and was cut from a rough stone unearthed in the remote northeastern Yakutia region in 2016.
The preparation and cutting process took a year and eight months.
A year ago, Pep Guardiola arrived at a pivotal moment with Manchester City. It was a crossroads he had experienced before.
Towards the end of his tenure with Barcelona, the Spaniard found himself in something of a quandary.
Barca had won 14 trophies in his four seasons in charge, becoming the best club side in the world. But he felt cracks were beginning to show.
He spoke to Sir Alex Ferguson and Rafael Benitez and asked them for their views on how to handle such a situation. Renew the squad or leave?
Both men were unequivocal in their advice. Stick to your beliefs, stay and renew the squad. Ferguson, a master of that approach, summed it up succinctly: “Recycle your squad, or before you know it you’ll find they have recycled you.”
Not for the first time Guardiola chose to disregard the advice given to him.
By the end of the 2011-12 season – his fourth at the club – an exhausted and thoroughly frustrated Guardiola realised he could no longer get what was needed from players who for so long had hung on his every word.
Enough was enough and, to the shock of everyone at Barcelona, he walked away to recharge his batteries with a one-year sabbatical in the United States.
Suitably refreshed, he returned a year later to take the reins at Bayern Munich but, despite three Bundesliga titles and two German Cups during his three-season spell at the club, he felt the movers and shakers did not fully understand what he was trying to do.
So to City – and more success.
But, with the Covid-19-ravaged 2019-20 season concluded and the Premier League title transferred to Liverpool, Guardiola had a decision to make about his contract.
And at that point the words of Benitez and Ferguson made a lot more sense than they had done almost a decade earlier.
Did Guardiola consider leaving Man City?
As it transpired, Guardiola signed a new contract and the mutual faith of both parties has been rewarded with a third Premier League title across his five years with City.
The deal, if he so wishes, could keep him at City for seven years, a sure sign there was never any sense the Spaniard was beginning to overstay his welcome.
From his perspective, he never remotely considered any of the overtures from Paris St-Germain. Nor will he ever go to the French club, not least because the Abu Dhabi owners of City would consider a move to a Qatar-owned club like PSG as nothing short of treachery.
City never forced him to accept an offer that was negotiated in fewer than 24 hours but had been on the table for the previous few months.
In fact, all they asked of Guardiola was that if he decided to leave, the club should be given plenty of notice.
The key moment in that period came on a trip Guardiola took to the Maldives in October to meet up with City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak, who convinced him to stay. “We have to keep going,” Guardiola was told. “We will keep winning, we will do what is required to continue competing at this level. You have to stay.”
The consistency of the message from his bosses, plus the fact he is comfortable and surrounded by people he trusts, did the rest of the job.
Renewed squad – but reinvented style
His agreement to continue with the club obliged them to think about renewing the squad.
At the end of last season and the beginning of the current one it became clear that changes were needed.
Immediate steps were taken, notably with the arrival of winger Ferran Torres and defender Ruben Dias. The Portuguese has been a hugely positive influence off the pitch, encouraging others but also demanding a lot of those around him on it, not just the defenders but also his team’s attackers (helped by the absence of fan noise).
The initial idea was just four or five from the ‘old guard’ would be deemed irreplaceable, although the re-evaluation of certain players like Joao Cancelo and John Stones, and how the market has been affected by the pandemic, made it apparent the assessment of who could be sold needed to be more rigorous than had previously been thought.
While the squad underwent minor renewal, it was the methods that received the biggest overhaul.
A 1-1 draw with West Brom on 15 December, with City sixth in the table, forced a deep reflection on the situation. The feeling was the team was bored, uninterested, lethargic and generally short of the enthusiasm required.
Clearly the lack of a proper break and the absence of mental freshness were having an impact and were exacerbating the situation.
Guardiola, drawing on his previous experiences at Barcelona and Bayern, started to think maybe his pupils were tired of hearing his words and opened the door so they could have greater contact with his assistant coaches, rather than with him directly.
After exhaustive analysis with his coaching team and honest chats with his second in command, Juan Manuel Lillo – someone who has become more of a mentor than a conventional assistant coach – Guardiola decided to return to the essence of his team’s game.
With forwards Phil Foden and Raheem Sterling in wider positions, more spaces were created inside.
Ilkay Gundogan, Bernardo Silva and Kevin de Bruyne, now free from injury, plus a Cancelo rediscovered as a wing-back who moves into midfield, were able to create a superiority of numbers in the middle of the pitch.
Calmness was applied to attack with more patience and passes and, as Guardiola realised he could no longer rely on Sergio Aguero’s fitness, he became obsessed with working out how to get more bodies into the box. He wanted wingers, midfielders and even full-backs to be a goal threat. That is how Gundogan started to score regularly and why Foden began delivering stats that were better than those produced by club legend David Silva in his first season in England.
The manager determined that his priority was players who gave fluidity, whose first touch and body positioning allowed the ball to be moved faster. That became a determining factor in his selections for big games.
An obsession with counters…
A side-effect of the new approach was the large number of players in front of the ball, and with it came the problem of how to minimise the threat of possible counter-attacks.
In Guardiola’s first year at City, they conceded five goals on the counter, and they looked weak when they lost the ball. From then on this became one of Guardiola’s obsessions.
For this season he decided there would be a line of four defenders behind the ball, consisting of the two centre-halves, a full-back (normally Cancelo) and a holding midfielder.
This season they have conceded just once from a rapid transition after conceding possession.
Also, Guardiola took on board that sometimes results have to be ground out as well as beautifully crafted and City started playing a different way, less brilliant than in the past but more consistent.
There was a crucial game in December, a 1-0 win against Southampton, which did not produce great football but allowed City to keep up with the big clubs. There was more relief than happiness at the end of that match.
If there was a ‘eureka’ moment it came on 3 January when City, eight points off leaders Liverpool at the time, blew away Chelsea with a 3-1 win.
With City 3-0 up by the 34th minute, everything Guardiola had been working towards was encapsulated in a first-half masterclass.
The 4-1 victory at Anfield in February, played, like at Stamford Bridge, without a classic number nine, meant they had established a successful formula for the big games. It was that structure Guardiola has used to such effect over recent weeks.
Within the context of a pandemic, the lack of rest in a busy calendar, and the need to change the dynamic of a season that had not started well, this can be considered the best example of team-building Guardiola has produced in his career. You only have to look at how difficult it has been for other contenders to keep the consistency necessary to challenge for the title.
Guardiola has moulded players and helped adapt new ones into a squad that is fully designed to suit his requirements – even De Bruyne, signed before the manager’s arrival, was recruited with his knowledge and approval.
He has come out the other side with a Premier League title and Carabao Cup, and could complete a treble when City face Chelsea in the Champions League final on 29 May.
Where will Guardiola strengthen next?
When Guardiola arrived at City he was given a clear brief. Dominate the domestic scene and achieve regular appearances in the semi-final stages of the Champions League.
With three league titles in five years, the domestic dominance is there, and this season was his first Champions League semi-final since arriving, He navigated it superbly, with a 4-1 aggregate victory over Paris St-Germain.
Those who look to diminish his achievements claim success has been achieved by spending a fortune in bringing in some of the best players in the world, a statement that is as true as it is an oversimplification.
Among the Premier League’s known ‘money-spenders’, there is not that much variation in the cost of their squads (City’s most-used XI this season could ultimately cost £499.8m, while Manchester United’s equivalent figure is £504.2m) and the only real difference is Guardiola has maximised and radically improved the assets available to him.
But there is room for more acquisitions.
With Aguero departing at the end of the season and Sterling and others looking like they have misplaced their accuracy in front of goal, far too many opportunities have been wasted.
City have looked enviously at other teams’ strikers and it is something the club will certainly attempt to address in the summer transfer window.
Barcelona’s Lionel Messi continues to be the ultimate dream for the club, although the absolute priority is to bring in a striker for the next five or six years, a youngster of great quality who can convert a higher percentage of the multiple chances this side can create.
Yes, City are one of the 14 teams who have shown interest in Erling Braut Haaland and hope to convince him to join the club.
They are all possibilities as Guardiola continues to lead the biggest rebuild of a team in his career, a group fully moulded on what he dreams of having on the pitch.
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