World News
Carrie Fisher Best Know as Princess Leia Dead at 60, “May the Force be With Her”
But for millions, Fisher was Princess Leia, with her now-iconic hair bagels
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LOS ANGELES – Carrie Fisher, known to the world as Princess Leia of “Star Wars,” died Tuesday at 60, four days after suffering a heart attack on an airline flight returning from London.
The daughter of Hollywood stars Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds, and a survivor of early fame, drug addiction and bipolar disorder, she wrote with unsentimental wit and understanding about her private struggles and about an industry she was raised in but stood apart from.
No one could make us laugh through the pain like Carrie Fisher.
The public fell in love with her twice: as Princess Leia and as the wry truth-teller of such books as “Postcards From the Edge,” ”Wishful Drinking” and “The Princess Diarist,” in which she revealed having an intense affair with “Star Wars” co-star Harrison Ford.
Fisher told plenty of secrets about others – about her parents’ breakup when she was 2, about being advised by Warren Beatty on wearing a bra in “Shampoo,” and about arguing with then-husband Paul Simon about whether it was better to be a man or a woman.
Asked by NPR recently why she wrote about her fling with Ford, who was 15 years older and married, she joked that she could hold back no longer because he had refused to die: “I kept calling and saying, ‘When are you going to die because I want to tell the story?'”
But she was toughest on herself and unafraid to turn trauma into humor. She became the most knowable of celebrities, with a great and generous gift for bringing us into her unusual life.
“One of the therapists came in to admit me and asked how long I had been a drug addict,” she wrote in Postcards,” her autobiographical novel that became a movie of the same name. “I said I didn’t think I was a drug addict because I didn’t take any one drug. ‘Then you’re a drugs addict,’ she said. She asked if I had deliberately tried to kill myself. I was insulted by the question. I guess when you find yourself having overdosed, it’s a good indicator that your life isn’t working.”
She is survived by her mother; her daughter, Billie Lourd, from a relationship with talent agent Bryan Lourd; her brother, the actor-filmmaker Todd Fisher; and her half-sisters, actresses Joely and Tricia Leigh Fisher. Her father died in 2010.
Born and raised in Beverly Hills, Carrie Fisher was a bookish child who had difficult relationships with both parents. In a celebrity breakup that made headlines everywhere in 1958, Eddie Fisher left his family for Elizabeth Taylor.
Eddie Fisher was hardly present for his daughter in her early years, and Reynolds’ second husband, shoe store magnate Harry Karl, was even worse. He squandered his own money and Reynolds’ on gambling and prostitutes and left the actress and her children broke and devastated.
Carrie Fisher went into the family business early – too early, she would later say. She was performing on stage by age 12 and appeared with Reynolds in the 1973 Broadway revival “Irene.” She was still a teenager when she made her feature film debut in “Shampoo” in 1975.
Even after “Star Wars,” Fisher would speak often of feeling overshadowed by her mother and about the need to break away, a conflict dramatized in “Postcards From the Edge.”
Mother and daughter were estranged for years but reconciled later in life and came to admire each other’s talent and determination. “Bright Lights: Starring Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher,” an HBO documentary, is scheduled for release in 2017.
Fisher’s film credits included a wide range of spoofs, musicals and romantic comedies, from “Austin Powers” and “The Blues Brothers” to “Hannah and Her Sisters” and “When Harry Met Sally …” Meryl Streep was the star when “Postcards From the Edge,” with a screenplay by Fisher, was adapted into a film of the same name in 1990. Shirley MacLaine played Streep’s mother, the stand-in for Reynolds.
But for millions, Fisher was Princess Leia, with her now-iconic hair bagels and metal bikini. She uttered the immortal phrase “Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope” in the original “Star Wars” in 1977.
Director George Lucas, who considered Jodie Foster, Amy Irving and dozens of others for the role, said he had been looking for an actress who could “hold her own” against her male co-stars.
In her 2008 memoir “Wishful Drinking,” she recounted how Lucas told her on the first day of shooting that she couldn’t wear a bra under her costume because “there’s no underwear in space.” Lucas, she said, later explained that a woman could be strangled by her bra in the weightlessness of space.
Fisher wisecracked in her book that that would make for a “fantastic obit,” adding: “I tell my younger friends that no matter how I go, I want it reported that I drowned in moonlight, strangled by my own bra.”
Fisher would make a lot of wisecracks about the role that made her pop-culture royalty and led Reynolds to note ruefully she was now regarded as the mother of Princess Leia.
Fisher disliked her hairstyle, disparaged her hybrid British-American accent in the films and was appalled by some of the “Star Wars” merchandise, including a Princess Leia candy dispenser.
Given the chance, she would have preferred to play Han Solo.
“When I first read the script I thought that’s the part to be, always wry and sardonic,” she told a gathering in England in 2015. “He’s always that. I feel like a lot of the time Leia’s either worried or pissed or, thank God, sort of snarky. But I’m much more worried and pissed than Han Solo ever was, and those aren’t fun things to play.”
Her drug problems pre-dated “Star Wars.” She recalled smoking pot at age 13 (She would later learn that there is a kind of marijuana called “Princess Leia.”) and dropped acid at 21.
She used so much cocaine that even world-class partyer John Belushi, who died of a drug overdose at 33, warned her to stop.
In her 20s, she was diagnosed as bipolar and treated with electroshock therapy and medication, which she wrote about in the memoir “Shockaholic.”
“People relate to aspects of my stories, and that’s nice for me because then I’m not all alone with it,” she told the AP in 2009.
Ever ready to satirize herself, she even played “Carrie Fisher” a few times, as in David Cronenberg’s dark Hollywood sendup “Maps to the Stars” and in an episode of “Sex and the City.” In the past 15 years, Fisher also had a steady career as a television guest star, perhaps most memorably as a has-been comedy legend on “30 Rock.”
Her one-woman show, “Wishful Drinking,” which she had performed on and off across the country since 2006, made it to Broadway in 2009 and was captured for HBO in 2010.
“I don’t have a problem with drugs so much as I have a problem with sobriety,” she wisecracked in the show. At another point, she said: “I’m a product of Hollywood inbreeding. When two celebrities mate, something like me is the result.”
The Associated Press
Exit polls in France showed that Marine Le Pen’s right-wing National Rally (RN) party made huge gains to win the first round of election on Sunday. However, the final outcome will depend on how people trade votes in the days before next week’s run-off.
Exit polls from Ipsos, Ifop, OpinionWay, and Elabe showed that the RN got about 34% of the vote. This was a big loss for President Emmanuel Macron, who called the early election after his party lost badly in the European Parliament elections earlier this month.
The National Rally (RN) easily won more votes than its opponents on the left and center, including Macron’s Together group, whose bloc was predicted to get 20.5% to 23% of the vote. Exit polls showed that the New Popular Front (NFP), a hastily put together left-wing alliance, would get about 29% of the vote.
The results of the exit polls matched what people said in polls before the election, which made Le Pen’s fans very happy. But they didn’t say for sure if the anti-immigrant, anti-EU National Rally (RN) will be able to “cohabit” with the pro-EU Macron in a government after the runoff election next Sunday.
Voters in France Angry at Macron
Many French people have looked down on the National Rally (RN) for a long time, but now it is closer to power than it has ever been. A party known for racism and antisemitism has tried to clean up its image, and it has worked. Voters are angry at Macron, the high cost of living, and rising concerns about immigration.
Fans of Marine Le Pen waved French flags and sang the Marseillaise in the northern French district of Henin-Beaumont. The crowd cheered as Le Pen said, “The French have shown they are ready to turn the page on a power that is disrespectful and destructive.”
The National Rally’s chances of taking power next week will rest on what political deals its opponents make in the next few days. Right-wing and left-wing parties used to work together to keep the National Rally (RN) out of power, but the “republican front,” which refers to this group, is less stable than ever.
If no candidate gets 50% of the vote in the first round, the top two candidates and anyone else with 12.5% of the registered voters immediately move on to the second round. The district goes to the person who gets the most votes in the runoff.
France is likely to have a record number of three-way runoffs because so many people voted on Sunday. Experts say that these are much better for the National Rally (RN) than two-way games. Almost right away on Sunday night, the horse trade began.
Macron asked people to support candidates who are “clearly republican and democratic.” Based on what he has said recently, this would rule out candidates from the National Rally (RN) and the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) party. Leaders on the far left and the center left both asked their third-placed candidates to drop out.
Minority government
Jean-Luc Melenchon, leader of France Unbowed, said, “Our rule is simple and clear: not a single more vote for the National Rally.” But the center-right Republicans party, which split before the vote when some of its members joined the RN, didn’t say anything.
The president of the RN party, Jordan Bardella, who is 28 years old, said he was ready to be prime minister if his party gets a majority of seats. He has said he won’t try to make a minority government, and neither Macron nor the communist NFP will work with him.
“I will be a “cohabitation” Prime Minister, respectful of the constitution and of the office of President of the Republic, but uncompromising about the policies we will implement,” he said.
A few thousand anti-RN protesters met in Paris’s Republique square on Sunday night for a rally of the leftist alliance. The mood was gloomy.
Niya Khaldi, a 33-year-old teacher, said that the RN’s good results made her feel “disgust, sadness, and fear.”
“This is not how I normally act,” she said. “I think I came to reassure myself, to not feel alone.”
Election Runoff
The result on Sunday didn’t have much of an effect on the market. In early Asia-Pacific trade, the euro gained about 0.23%. Fiona Cincotta, a senior markets expert at City Index in London, said she was glad the outcome “didn’t come as a surprise.”
“Le Pen had a slightly smaller margin than some of the polls had pointed to, which may have helped the euro a little bit higher on the open,” she noted. “Now everyone is waiting for July 7 to see if the second round supports a clear majority or not. So it does feel like we’re on the edge of something.”
Some pollsters thought the RN would win the most seats in the National Assembly, but Elabe was the only one who thought the party would win all 289 seats in the run-off. Seat projections made after the first round of voting are often very wrong, and this race is no exception.
On Sunday night, Reuters reported there were no final results for the whole country yet, but they were due in the next few hours. In France, exit polls have usually been very accurate.
Voter turnout was high compared to previous parliamentary elections. This shows how passionate people are about politics after Macron made the shocking and politically risky decision to call a vote in parliament.
Mathieu Gallard, research head at Ipsos France, said that at 1500 GMT, nearly 60% of voters had turned out, up from 39.42% two years earlier. This was the highest comparable turnout since the 1986 legislative vote. It wasn’t clear when the official number of people who voted would be changed.
(CTN News) – Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States, Masood Khan, has urged Washington to provide Pakistan with sophisticated small arms and communication equipment to ensure the success of Operation Azm-e-Istehkam, a newly approved counter-terrorism initiative in the country.
The federal government recently approved the reinvigorated national counter-terrorism drive, which comprises three components: doctrinal, societal, and operational.
Ambassador Khan noted that work on the first two phases has already begun, with the third phase set to be implemented soon.
Addressing US policymakers, scholars, and corporate leaders at the Wilson Center in Washington, Khan emphasized the importance of strong security links, enhanced intelligence cooperation, and the resumption of sales of advanced military platforms between Pakistan and the US.
He argued that this is crucial for regional security and countering the rising tide of terrorism, which also threatens the interests of the US and its allies.
“Pakistan has launched Azm-i-Istehkam […] to oppose and dismantle terrorist networks. For that, we need sophisticated small arms and communication equipment,” said Ambassador Khan.
Pakistan–United States relations
The ambassador observed that the prospects of Pakistan-United States relations were bright, stating that the two countries “share values, our security and economic interests are interwoven, and it is the aspiration of our two peoples that strengthens our ties.”
He invited US investors and businesses to explore Pakistan’s potential in terms of demographic dividend, technological advancements, and market opportunities.
Khan also suggested that the US should consider Pakistan as a partner in its diplomatic efforts in Kabul and collaborate on counterterrorism and the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan.
He stressed that the bilateral relationship should be based on ground realities and not be hindered by a few issues.
“We should not base our engagement on the incongruity of expectations.
Our ties should be anchored in ground realities, even as we aim for stronger security and economic partnerships. Secondly, one or two issues should not hold the entire relationship hostage,” said the ambassador.
China has reassured Taiwanese citizens that they can visit the mainland “without the slightest worry”, despite Taiwan raising its travel alert to the second-highest level in response to Beijing’s new judicial guidelines targeting supporters of Taiwanese independence.
Last week, China published guidelines that could impose the death penalty for “particularly serious” cases involving “diehard” advocates of Taiwanese independence.
In response, Taiwan’s government urged the public to avoid “unnecessary travel” to mainland China and Hong Kong, and raised its travel warning to the “orange” level.
However, Zhu Fenglian, a spokeswoman for a Chinese body overseeing Taiwan affairs, stated that the new directives are “aimed solely at the very small number of supporters of ‘Taiwan independence’, who are engaged in malicious acts and utterances”.
She emphasized that “the vast majority of Taiwan compatriots involved in cross-strait exchanges and cooperation do not need to have the slightest worry when they come to or leave mainland China”.
“They can arrive in high spirits and leave fully satisfied with their stay,” Zhu added.
What’s Behind The China-Taiwan Tensions?
The tensions stem from the longstanding dispute over Taiwan’s status. Mainland China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has refused to rule out using force to bring the democratic island under its control, while Taiwan sees itself as a sovereign state.
Beijing has not conducted top-level communications with Taipei since 2016, when the Democratic Progressive Party’s Tsai Ing-wen became Taiwan’s leader. China has since branded her successor, President Lai Ching-te, a “dangerous separatist”.
“The DPP authorities have fabricated excuses to deceive the people on the island and incite confrontation and opposition,” Zhu said in her statement.
Despite the political tensions, many Taiwanese continue to travel to mainland China for work, study, or business.
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