Cannes entry 'Paradise: Love' looks at sex tourism
RELATED CONTENT
-
Actors Margarethe Tiesl, left and …
-
From left actors, Inge Maux, Peter …
CANNES, France (AP) — There's sun, sand and sex in Cannes Film Festival entry "Paradise: Love" — and they add up to a grim and unsettling holiday movie.
Austrian director Ulrich Seidl's film depicts middle-aged European women at a Kenyan holiday resort seeking romance with young local men. It had its gala premiere Friday in Cannes, where it is one of 22 films competing for the Palme d'Or.
The movie stars Margarethe Tiesel as a 50-year-old Austrian whose search for love turns increasingly predatory. But the actress told journalists that she did not judge the character's behavior. She said the movie examined female loneliness and the way "people who are exploited at home travel abroad and become exploiters in turn."
Seidl, who looked at east-west friction in Europe in his 2007 Cannes entry "Import/Export," plans the film as the first in a trilogy about modern tourism.
The director views his European and African characters with the detached eye of an anthropologist. Seidl began as a documentary maker, and even on his fiction features shoots without scripted dialogue and mixes professional and nonprofessional actors.
"Paradise: Love" had a mixed reception from critics in Cannes. Some accused it of reproducing the exploitation of Africans that it claims to examine — or, like the Hollywood Reporter, simply found it "a psychologically empty wallow."
Others praised the bravery of the actors, who are required to strip naked, physically and emotionally, as they enact the characters' sexual negotiations.
"It wasn't easy, it's true," Tiesel said. "It was a challenge to surpass yourself, to go beyond your comfort zone. But in the beginning Ulrich said to me: 'Nothing will happen that you don't want to happen.' So that reassured me."
The film's title is ironic: this is no paradise, and there is little love. But Seidl rejected the suggestion he is a pessimist.
"As a filmmaker my goal is to depict things as honestly as possible," he said. "To deal with social systems, to show them as realistically as possible. Negative, positive, pessimistic, whatever — that's not really the point here."
Texting While Walking Banned in New Jersey Town
Texting While Walking Banned in New Jersey Town (ABC News)
Avid texters beware: Fort Lee, N.J. police said they will begin issuing $85 jaywalking tickets to pedestrians who are caught texting while walking.
"It's a big distraction. Pedestrians aren't watching where they are going and they are not aware," said Thomas Ripoli, chief of the Fort Lee Police Department.
Ripoli said the borough, which is home to approximately 35,000 residents, has suffered three fatal pedestrian-involved accidents this year. He hopes his crackdown on people who display dangerous behavior while walking will make his town safer, but not everyone is on board with the idea of issuing $85 tickets.
"When I walk I still look around. I'm not like constantly looking down the whole time," said resident Sue Choe.
Another woman complained about the tickets were "a lot of money."
Officers handed out pamphlets during a short grace period in March before they began aggressively going after "dangerous walkers."
More than 117 tickets have been issued, according to the New Jersey Record.
Two professors at Stony Brook University in New York conducted a study on walking and texting. They found texters are 60 percent more likely to veer off line than non-texters.
"We want to raise awareness that a real disruption occurs because of texting," Eric Lamberg, co-author of the study, told Long Island Business News. "Texting disrupts your ability much more than does talking."
Mexico drug wars: 49 headless, dismembered bodies found dumped along highway
A policeman guards the area where dozens of bodies were found, May 13, 2012. (Christian Palma/AP)
Forty-nine headless, dismembered bodies were found along a stretch of highway in Mexico on Sunday.
The mutilated bodies--some with their hands and feet "hacked off," according to the Associated Press--were discovered "scattered in a pool of blood" by local authorities on the edge of the town of San Juan on a road that connects Monterrey to the Texas border.
The bodies were thought to have been dumped there by a drug cartel, authorities said. A welcome sign near the killing field was graffitied with the message, "100% Zeta."
Zetas is one the two largest drug cartels in Mexico. The other is the Sinaloa Cartel.
"This continues to be violence between criminal groups," Jorge Domene, a state security spokesman,said a news conference on Sunday. "This is not an attack against the civilian population."
But the escalating violence between the two cartels has resulted in a recent rash of symbolic slayings.
On April 17, the AP noted, of the mutilated bodies of 14 men were left in minivan in downtown Nuevo Laredo. On May 5, the bodies of 23 people were found either hanging from a bridge or decapitated and dumped near city hall. On May 9, 18 dismembered bodies were found outside Guadalajara, Mexico's second-largest city.
Nuevo Laredo and Monterrey are considered Zetas territory, while Guadalajara has been controlled by the Sinaloa cartel.
In September, a Sinaloa drug gang dumped 35 bodies in Veracruz, Mexico. In August, a Zetas attack on a Monterrey casino left 52 dead.
Domene said Sunday's victims--43 men and 6 women--would be hard to identify because of "the lack of heads, hands and feet."
Since 2006, when Mexico's President Felipe Calderon announced a crackdown on cartels, more than 47,500 people have been killed in drug-related violence.
By Dylan Stableford | The Lookout
More popular Yahoo! News stories:
France prepares to vote in presidential election
Francois Hollande (left) is mounting a strong challenge against President SarkozyContinue reading the main storyFrance votes
France is set to vote in a presidential election amid widespread disaffection caused by the eurozone crisis and high unemployment.
Centre-right incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy is seeking re-election, saying only he can preserve a "strong France".
But he is facing a tough challenge from Socialist Francois Hollande, who has said it is "the left's turn to govern".
There are 10 candidates in all, and if none wins more than 50% of the votes there will be a run-off round on 6 May.
Polls in mainland France and Corsica will be open from 08:00 to 18:00 (06:00-16:00 GMT), with voting stations in big cities remaining open for another two hours.
The first official results will be released after the last stations close at 20:00 (18:00 GMT).
President Sarkozy, who has been in office since 2007, has promised to reduce France's large budget deficit and to tax people who leave the country for tax reasons.
He has also called for a "Buy European Act" for public contracts, and threatened to pull out of the Schengen passport-free zone unless other members do more to curb immigration from non-European countries.Continue reading the main storyStart QuoteThe political rivals are keen to demonstrate that history is on their side”
Chris Morris
Mr Hollande, for his part, has promised to raise taxes on big corporations and people earning more than 1m euros a year.
He wants to raise the minimum wage, hire 60,000 more teachers and lower the retirement age from 62 to 60 for some workers.
If elected, Mr Hollande would be France's first left-wing president since Francois Mitterrand, who completed two seven-year terms between 1981 and 1995.
French presidents are now elected for five years.FrustrationWages, pensions, taxation, and unemployment have been topping the list of voters' concerns.
But the candidates have been accused of failing to address the country's problems during a lacklustre campaign.
Frustration with Mr Sarkozy's flashy style and with Mr Hollande's bland image has also allowed radical candidates to flourish.
Marine Le Pen, a media savvy far-right leader, has invigorated her anti-immigration National Front.
Meanwhile Jean-Luc Melenchon, who is supported by the Communist Party, has galvanised far-left voters.
Centrist leader Francois Bayrou is standing as a presidential candidate for the third time. In 2007, he came third, with nearly 19% of the vote.
Voting was held on Saturday in France's overseas territories - including Martinique and Guadeloupe in the Caribbean, Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean and French Polynesia.
Those territories vote early because results will be known on Sunday evening in mainland France - when it is still mid-afternoon in Caribbean islands and other overseas territories.
The presidential vote will be followed by a parliamentary election in June.
Are you in France? How are you feeling about the presidential election? Please send us your comments and experiences.
IMF fund boosted to stop speculation on troubled economies
20 April 2012 Last updated at 08:38 GMTHelpThe International Monetary Fund has received pledges of an extra $320bn (£199bn) in a bid to stave off speculative market attacks on Spain and other troubled eurozone countries.Some of the organisation's 188 members have been keen to boost the funds reserves, but the US, the IMF's most powerful member, has refused.The funding issue is likely to be key at this weekend's meetings of G20 finance ministers and the IMF in Washington.Caroline Hepker reports.
Bahrain 'confident' Grand Prix will not be disrupted
Human rights activist Nabeel Rajab: "We are almost in a war zone"Continue reading the main storyBahrain Protests
The authorities in Bahrain say they are confident the Formula 1 Grand Prix will not be disrupted by protests.
The heavily-guarded race track has been surrounded with layers of security to keep opposition activists away.
On Saturday, protests intensified after the body of a Shia man killed in overnight clashes with security forces was discovered on a rooftop.
Protesters are calling for the race to be cancelled, but the government is determined it will go ahead.
On the eve of the event, British Foreign Secretary William Hague spoke to his Bahraini counterpart to "call for restraint" in dealing with protesters.
The race is due to start at 15:00 (12:00 GMT).
Spotlight on protests
Mr Hague's call came after police fired tear gas to disperse thousands of protesters on Saturday. Many of them had gathered near the village where anti-government demonstrator Salah Abbas Habib's body was found.
Zeinab al-Khawaja, the daughter of hunger striker Abdul Hadi al-Khawaja, was also briefly detained on Saturday afternoon.
Her father has been on hunger strike in prison for more than 70 days after he was arrested for protesting against the government. He is now refusing water.
Armoured vehicles are patrolling the streets to clamp down on any demonstrations ahead of Sunday's race.
Violent protests against the Grad Prix began on Friday and continued overnightFormula 1's governing body, the FIA, only went ahead with the Grand Prix after the government said it had security under control.
Last year's Bahraini Grand Prix was cancelled after 35 people died in February and March during a crackdown on mass demonstrations calling for greater democracy.
The Bahraini government, headed by the al-Khalifa dynasty, had been keen for this year's race to go ahead this year to prove it has put the 14-month uprising against Sunni minority rule behind them.
BBC correspondent Caroline Hawley says that staging the event has had the opposite effect, highlighting the small Gulf state's political problems.
Race 'lends
legitimacy'
On Friday, Bahrain's Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa said cancelling the Grand Prix "just empowers extremists", and insisted that holding the race would "build bridges across communities".
Jean Todt, the president of the motor racing governing body, the FIA, said he had no regrets about the race, as extensive investigations into the situation in Bahrain had unearthed "nothing (that) could allow us to stop the race".
"On rational facts, it was decided there was no reason to change our mind," Mr Todt said.
The Shia protesters say going ahead with the race lends international legitimacy to a government that is continuing to suppress opposition with violent means.
They demand an end to discrimination against the majority Shia Muslim community by the Sunni royal family.
Human rights groups and activists estimate that at least 25 people have died since the start of the latest protests, many as a result of what has been described as the excessive use of tear gas.
Are you in Bahrain? Send us your comments and experiences using the form below:
Send your pictures and videos to yourpics@bbc.co.uk or text them to61124 (UK) or +44 7624 800 100 (International). If you have a large file
Cannes entry 'Paradise: Love' looks at sex tourism
RELATED CONTENT
- Actors Margarethe Tiesl, left and …
- From left actors, Inge Maux, Peter …
CANNES, France (AP) — There's sun, sand and sex in Cannes Film Festival entry "Paradise: Love" — and they add up to a grim and unsettling holiday movie.
Austrian director Ulrich Seidl's film depicts middle-aged European women at a Kenyan holiday resort seeking romance with young local men. It had its gala premiere Friday in Cannes, where it is one of 22 films competing for the Palme d'Or.
The movie stars Margarethe Tiesel as a 50-year-old Austrian whose search for love turns increasingly predatory. But the actress told journalists that she did not judge the character's behavior. She said the movie examined female loneliness and the way "people who are exploited at home travel abroad and become exploiters in turn."
Seidl, who looked at east-west friction in Europe in his 2007 Cannes entry "Import/Export," plans the film as the first in a trilogy about modern tourism.
The director views his European and African characters with the detached eye of an anthropologist. Seidl began as a documentary maker, and even on his fiction features shoots without scripted dialogue and mixes professional and nonprofessional actors.
"Paradise: Love" had a mixed reception from critics in Cannes. Some accused it of reproducing the exploitation of Africans that it claims to examine — or, like the Hollywood Reporter, simply found it "a psychologically empty wallow."
Others praised the bravery of the actors, who are required to strip naked, physically and emotionally, as they enact the characters' sexual negotiations.
"It wasn't easy, it's true," Tiesel said. "It was a challenge to surpass yourself, to go beyond your comfort zone. But in the beginning Ulrich said to me: 'Nothing will happen that you don't want to happen.' So that reassured me."
The film's title is ironic: this is no paradise, and there is little love. But Seidl rejected the suggestion he is a pessimist.
"As a filmmaker my goal is to depict things as honestly as possible," he said. "To deal with social systems, to show them as realistically as possible. Negative, positive, pessimistic, whatever — that's not really the point here."
Texting While Walking Banned in New Jersey Town
Texting While Walking Banned in New Jersey Town (ABC News)
Avid texters beware: Fort Lee, N.J. police said they will begin issuing $85 jaywalking tickets to pedestrians who are caught texting while walking.
"It's a big distraction. Pedestrians aren't watching where they are going and they are not aware," said Thomas Ripoli, chief of the Fort Lee Police Department.
Ripoli said the borough, which is home to approximately 35,000 residents, has suffered three fatal pedestrian-involved accidents this year. He hopes his crackdown on people who display dangerous behavior while walking will make his town safer, but not everyone is on board with the idea of issuing $85 tickets.
"When I walk I still look around. I'm not like constantly looking down the whole time," said resident Sue Choe.
Another woman complained about the tickets were "a lot of money."
Officers handed out pamphlets during a short grace period in March before they began aggressively going after "dangerous walkers."
More than 117 tickets have been issued, according to the New Jersey Record.
Two professors at Stony Brook University in New York conducted a study on walking and texting. They found texters are 60 percent more likely to veer off line than non-texters.
"We want to raise awareness that a real disruption occurs because of texting," Eric Lamberg, co-author of the study, told Long Island Business News. "Texting disrupts your ability much more than does talking."
Mexico drug wars: 49 headless, dismembered bodies found dumped along highway
A policeman guards the area where dozens of bodies were found, May 13, 2012. (Christian Palma/AP)
Forty-nine headless, dismembered bodies were found along a stretch of highway in Mexico on Sunday.
The mutilated bodies--some with their hands and feet "hacked off," according to the Associated Press--were discovered "scattered in a pool of blood" by local authorities on the edge of the town of San Juan on a road that connects Monterrey to the Texas border.
The bodies were thought to have been dumped there by a drug cartel, authorities said. A welcome sign near the killing field was graffitied with the message, "100% Zeta."
Zetas is one the two largest drug cartels in Mexico. The other is the Sinaloa Cartel.
"This continues to be violence between criminal groups," Jorge Domene, a state security spokesman,said a news conference on Sunday. "This is not an attack against the civilian population."
But the escalating violence between the two cartels has resulted in a recent rash of symbolic slayings.
On April 17, the AP noted, of the mutilated bodies of 14 men were left in minivan in downtown Nuevo Laredo. On May 5, the bodies of 23 people were found either hanging from a bridge or decapitated and dumped near city hall. On May 9, 18 dismembered bodies were found outside Guadalajara, Mexico's second-largest city.
Nuevo Laredo and Monterrey are considered Zetas territory, while Guadalajara has been controlled by the Sinaloa cartel.
In September, a Sinaloa drug gang dumped 35 bodies in Veracruz, Mexico. In August, a Zetas attack on a Monterrey casino left 52 dead.
Domene said Sunday's victims--43 men and 6 women--would be hard to identify because of "the lack of heads, hands and feet."
Since 2006, when Mexico's President Felipe Calderon announced a crackdown on cartels, more than 47,500 people have been killed in drug-related violence.
More popular Yahoo! News stories:
France prepares to vote in presidential election
Francois Hollande (left) is mounting a strong challenge against President SarkozyContinue reading the main storyFrance votes
France is set to vote in a presidential election amid widespread disaffection caused by the eurozone crisis and high unemployment.Centre-right incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy is seeking re-election, saying only he can preserve a "strong France".
But he is facing a tough challenge from Socialist Francois Hollande, who has said it is "the left's turn to govern".
There are 10 candidates in all, and if none wins more than 50% of the votes there will be a run-off round on 6 May.
Polls in mainland France and Corsica will be open from 08:00 to 18:00 (06:00-16:00 GMT), with voting stations in big cities remaining open for another two hours.
The first official results will be released after the last stations close at 20:00 (18:00 GMT).
President Sarkozy, who has been in office since 2007, has promised to reduce France's large budget deficit and to tax people who leave the country for tax reasons.
He has also called for a "Buy European Act" for public contracts, and threatened to pull out of the Schengen passport-free zone unless other members do more to curb immigration from non-European countries.Continue reading the main storyStart QuoteThe political rivals are keen to demonstrate that history is on their side”
Mr Hollande, for his part, has promised to raise taxes on big corporations and people earning more than 1m euros a year.He wants to raise the minimum wage, hire 60,000 more teachers and lower the retirement age from 62 to 60 for some workers.
If elected, Mr Hollande would be France's first left-wing president since Francois Mitterrand, who completed two seven-year terms between 1981 and 1995.
French presidents are now elected for five years.FrustrationWages, pensions, taxation, and unemployment have been topping the list of voters' concerns.
But the candidates have been accused of failing to address the country's problems during a lacklustre campaign.
Frustration with Mr Sarkozy's flashy style and with Mr Hollande's bland image has also allowed radical candidates to flourish.
Marine Le Pen, a media savvy far-right leader, has invigorated her anti-immigration National Front.
Meanwhile Jean-Luc Melenchon, who is supported by the Communist Party, has galvanised far-left voters.
Centrist leader Francois Bayrou is standing as a presidential candidate for the third time. In 2007, he came third, with nearly 19% of the vote.
Voting was held on Saturday in France's overseas territories - including Martinique and Guadeloupe in the Caribbean, Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean and French Polynesia.
Those territories vote early because results will be known on Sunday evening in mainland France - when it is still mid-afternoon in Caribbean islands and other overseas territories.
The presidential vote will be followed by a parliamentary election in June.
Are you in France? How are you feeling about the presidential election? Please send us your comments and experiences.
IMF fund boosted to stop speculation on troubled economies
20 April 2012 Last updated at 08:38 GMTHelpThe International Monetary Fund has received pledges of an extra $320bn (£199bn) in a bid to stave off speculative market attacks on Spain and other troubled eurozone countries.Some of the organisation's 188 members have been keen to boost the funds reserves, but the US, the IMF's most powerful member, has refused.The funding issue is likely to be key at this weekend's meetings of G20 finance ministers and the IMF in Washington.Caroline Hepker reports. Bahrain 'confident' Grand Prix will not be disrupted
The heavily-guarded race track has been surrounded with layers of security to keep opposition activists away.
On Saturday, protests intensified after the body of a Shia man killed in overnight clashes with security forces was discovered on a rooftop.
Protesters are calling for the race to be cancelled, but the government is determined it will go ahead.
On the eve of the event, British Foreign Secretary William Hague spoke to his Bahraini counterpart to "call for restraint" in dealing with protesters.
The race is due to start at 15:00 (12:00 GMT).
Spotlight on protests
Mr Hague's call came after police fired tear gas to disperse thousands of protesters on Saturday. Many of them had gathered near the village where anti-government demonstrator Salah Abbas Habib's body was found.
Zeinab al-Khawaja, the daughter of hunger striker Abdul Hadi al-Khawaja, was also briefly detained on Saturday afternoon.
Her father has been on hunger strike in prison for more than 70 days after he was arrested for protesting against the government. He is now refusing water.
Armoured vehicles are patrolling the streets to clamp down on any demonstrations ahead of Sunday's race.
Violent protests against the Grad Prix began on Friday and continued overnightFormula 1's governing body, the FIA, only went ahead with the Grand Prix after the government said it had security under control.Last year's Bahraini Grand Prix was cancelled after 35 people died in February and March during a crackdown on mass demonstrations calling for greater democracy.
The Bahraini government, headed by the al-Khalifa dynasty, had been keen for this year's race to go ahead this year to prove it has put the 14-month uprising against Sunni minority rule behind them.
BBC correspondent Caroline Hawley says that staging the event has had the opposite effect, highlighting the small Gulf state's political problems.
Race 'lends
legitimacy'
On Friday, Bahrain's Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa said cancelling the Grand Prix "just empowers extremists", and insisted that holding the race would "build bridges across communities".
Jean Todt, the president of the motor racing governing body, the FIA, said he had no regrets about the race, as extensive investigations into the situation in Bahrain had unearthed "nothing (that) could allow us to stop the race".
"On rational facts, it was decided there was no reason to change our mind," Mr Todt said.
The Shia protesters say going ahead with the race lends international legitimacy to a government that is continuing to suppress opposition with violent means.
They demand an end to discrimination against the majority Shia Muslim community by the Sunni royal family.
Human rights groups and activists estimate that at least 25 people have died since the start of the latest protests, many as a result of what has been described as the excessive use of tear gas.
Are you in Bahrain? Send us your comments and experiences using the form below:
Send your pictures and videos to yourpics@bbc.co.uk or text them to61124 (UK) or +44 7624 800 100 (International). If you have a large file
