Current Final

Author: AFP

  • Sweden, Finland urge residents to be ready for war

    Sweden, Finland urge residents to be ready for war

    Sweden on Monday began sending some five million pamphlets to residents urging them to prepare for the possibility of war, as neighbouring Finland launched a new preparedness website.

    Both Sweden and Finland dropped decades of military non-alignment to join the US-led military alliance NATO in the wake of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

    Since the start of the war, Stockholm has repeatedly urged Swedes to prepare both mentally and logistically for the possibility of war, citing the serious security situation in its vicinity.

    The booklet “If Crisis or War Comes”, sent by the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB), contains information about how to prepare for emergencies such as war, natural disasters, or cyber-attacks.

    It is an updated version of a pamphlet that Sweden has issued five times since World War II.

    The previous version sent out in 2018 made headlines, as it was the first time it had been sent to Swedes since 1961 at the height of the Cold War.

    “The security situation is serious and we all need to strengthen our resilience to face various crises and ultimately war,” MSB director Mikael Frisell said in a statement.

    The 32-page document outlines with simple illustrations the threats facing the Nordic nation, including military conflict, natural disasters, and cyber and terror attacks.

    It includes tips for preparedness, such as keeping non-perishable food in stock and storing water.

    MSB said the updated 2024 version had a stronger focus on preparation for war.

    Over the next two weeks 5.2 million copies will be sent to Swedish households.

    The brochure is available in print in both Swedish and English and digital versions are available in several other languages — including Arabic, Farsi, Ukrainian, Polish, Somali and Finnish.

    Sweden’s former army chief Micael Byden alarmed many of his compatriots in January when he urged them to consider their own preparedness.

    “Swedes have to mentally prepare for war,” he said.

    Also on Monday, the government in Finland, which shares a 1,340-kilometre (830-mile) border with Russia, launched a website gathering information on preparedness for different crises.

  • Phone documentary details struggles of Afghan women under Taliban

    Phone documentary details struggles of Afghan women under Taliban

    A rare inside account of the tyranny of the Taliban and their impact on Afghan women hits screens next week with the smartphone-filmed documentary “Bread & Roses.”

    Produced by actress Jennifer Lawrence (“Hunger Games”) and Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, this feature-length film immerses the viewer in the daily asphyxiation endured by half the population of Afghanistan since the withdrawal of US troops paved the way for the Taliban to seize power.

    “When Kabul fell in 2021 all women lost their very basic rights. They lost their rights to be educated, to work,” Lawrence told AFP in Los Angeles.

    “Some of them were doctors and had high degrees, and then their lives were completely changed overnight.”

    The documentary, which debuted at Cannes in May 2023, was directed by exiled Afghan filmmaker Sahra Mani who reached out to a dozen women after the fall of Kabul.

    She tutored them on how to film themselves with their phones — resulting in a moving depiction of the intertwined stories of three Afghan women.

    We meet Zahra, a dentist whose practice is threatened with closure by the Taliban, suddenly propelled to the head of the protests against the regime.

    Sharifa, a former civil servant, is stripped of her job and cloistered at home, reduced to hanging laundry on her roof to get a breath of fresh air.

    And Taranom, an activist in exile in neighboring Pakistan, who watches helplessly as her homeland sinks into medieval intolerance.

    – Gender apartheid –

    “The restrictions are getting tighter and tighter right now,” Mani told AFP on the film’s Los Angeles red carpet.

    And hardly anyone outside the country seems to care, she said.

    “The women of Afghanistan didn’t receive the support they deserved from the international community.”

    Since their return to power, the Taliban have established a “gender apartheid” in Afghanistan, according to the United Nations.

    Women are gradually being erased from public spaces: Taliban authorities have banned post-secondary education for girls and women, restricted employment and blocked access to parks and other public places.

    A recent law even prohibits women from singing or reciting poetry in public.

    The Taliban follow an austere brand of Islam, whose interpretations of holy texts are disputed by many scholars.

    “The Taliban claim to represent the culture and religion while they’re a very small group of men who do not actually represent the diversity of the country,” Yousafzai, an executive producer of the film, told AFP.

    “Islam does not prohibit a girl from learning, Islam does not prohibit a woman from working,” said the Pakistani activist, whom the Taliban tried to assassinate when she was 15.

    The documentary captures the first year after the fall of Kabul, including moments of bravery when women speak out against repression.

    “You closed universities and schools, you might as well kill me!” a protester shouts at a Talib threatening her during a demonstration.

    These gatherings of women — under the slogan “Work, bread, education!” — are methodically crushed by the regime.

    Protesters are beaten, some are arrested, others kidnapped.

    Slowly, the resistance fades, but it doesn’t die: some Afghan women are now trying to educate themselves through clandestine courses.

    Three years after the Taliban seized power from a hapless and corrupt civilian government, few countries have officially recognized their regime.

    In the wake of Donald Trump’s re-election to the US presidency, the fundamentalists have made it known that they hope to “open a new chapter” in relations between Kabul and Washington, where a more transactional foreign policy outlook is expected to prevail.

    For Mani, that rings alarm bells.

    Giving up on defending the rights of Afghan women would be a serious mistake — and one the West could come to regret, she said.

    The less educated Afghan women are, the more vulnerable their sons are to the ideology that birthed the terror attacks of September 11, 2001.

    “If we are paying the price today, you might pay the price tomorrow,” she said.

  • 10 newborns killed, 16 critical in India hospital fire

    10 newborns killed, 16 critical in India hospital fire

    A fire at the neonatal unit of an Indian hospital killed 10 newborns, authorities said on Saturday, with another 16 clinging to life after a blaze blamed on a faulty oxygen machine.

    Building fires are common in India due to shoddy construction and a routine disregard for safety regulations.

    Friday night’s fire broke out at about 10:30pm (1700 GMT) Friday at the Maharani Lakshmibai Medical College in Jhansi, around 450 kilometres (280 miles) south of the capital New Delhi.

    Footage from the scene showed charred beds and walls inside the ward as a crowd of anguished families waited outside.

    Babies rescued from the fire, all only days old, were laid side by side on a bed elsewhere in the hospital as hospital staff hooked up their arms to intravenous drips.

    “Ten infants have sadly died,” Uttar Pradesh deputy chief minister Brajesh Pathak told reporters.

    “Seven bodies have been identified. Three bodies haven’t been identified as yet.”

    Another 16 infants were in critical condition after the blaze, news outlet Times Now reported.

    Pathak said a safety audit of the hospital was carried out in February followed by a fire drill three months later.

    “The cause of the fire will be probed,” he added. “If any lapses are found, strict action will be taken against those responsible and no one will be spared.”

    District official Avinash Kumar said the fire had been caused by an electrical short circuit in the unit.

    “We are providing medical care to the critically injured,” he was quoted as saying by the Hindustan Times newspaper.

    Local media reports quoted other officials who said the fire started in a piece of machinery used to enrich the level of oxygen in the atmosphere.

    The high concentration of the combustible gas in the unit helped the fire spread quickly and suddenly, they said.

    Broadcaster NDTV reported that 54 infants in total were in the neonatal intensive care unit when the fire broke out.

    ‘War footing’

    Prime Minister Narendra Modi called the deaths “heart-wrenching” in a post on social media platform X.

    “My deepest condolences to those who have lost their innocent children in this. I pray to God to give them the strength to bear this immense loss,” he wrote.

    Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath announced compensation of 500,000 rupees ($5,900) to bereaved families.

    “The district administration and concerned officials have been instructed to carry out relief and rescue operations on a war footing,” Adityanath wrote on X.

    “I pray to Lord Shri Ram to provide salvation to the departed souls and speedy recovery to the injured.”

    Friday’s fire comes six months after a similar blaze at a children’s hospital in New Delhi that killed six newborns.

  • Ye claims ‘Jews’ controlling Kardashian clan: lawsuit

    Ye claims ‘Jews’ controlling Kardashian clan: lawsuit

    Kanye West frequently told employees that Jewish people were controlling the family of his ex-wife Kim Kardashian, according to a new lawsuit filed in California on Thursday.

    The musician and entrepreneur — now formally known as Ye — faces a litany of legal claims from former employees who accuse him of abusive and sometimes bizarre behavior.

    In the latest filing, Murphy Aficionado, who worked for Ye for nine months between 2022 and 2023, said life at his Yeezy brand and Donda Academy school was a “nightmare.”

    “During Aficionado’s employment, Ye’s anti-Semitic tirades and conspiracies were a daily occurrence,” the suit says.

    “Often, these outbursts involved how Jews controlled the Kardashians. Other times, Ye recounted how Jews were going after him and his money.”

    Ye, 47, was married to socialite and businesswoman Kim Kardashian for eight years.

    The couple, who have four children, divorced in 2022 in an increasingly acrimonious split, despite her earlier defending him and calling for understanding while he grappled with mental health issues.

    Ye has garnered a string of headlines over recent years for anti-Semitic outbursts, including once saying he saw “good things about Hitler” and writing on social media that he was “going death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE.”

    His pronouncements cost him a lucrative deal with Adidas.

    Thursday’s lawsuit claims Ye had no compunction about flaunting his sexual relationships in front of staff.

    “On one occasion, in between his racist lectures, Ye invited Aficionado to his hotel room to work,” the suit states.

    “In the suite, Aficionado waited miserably and uncomfortably while he unwillingly listened to Ye having sex with his then-girlfriend Bianca Censori in the adjoining room.

    “On another occasion, Ye subjected Aficionado to those same sexual proclivities, but this time with his masseuse –- leaving Aficionado feeling violated and dehumanized.”

    The suit seeks unspecified compensation for outstanding contractual payments, as well as emotional and psychological damage.

    Attorney William Reed, who is representing Aficionado, said the lawsuit was an effort “to force Ye to learn that this conduct has no place in our society.”

    The rapper’s “vitriol, hate, and anti-Semitism continues, as does his complete and utter disrespect for the women around him.”

    There was no immediate response from Ye’s representatives to an AFP request for comment.

     

  • Film’s ‘search for Palestine’ takes centre stage at Cairo festival

    Film’s ‘search for Palestine’ takes centre stage at Cairo festival

    The tale of a distinctly Palestinian road trip — through refugee camps and Israeli checkpoints — takes centre stage in director Rashid Masharawi’s latest film, which debuted at this year’s Cairo International Film Festival.

    “It’s a search for home, a search for Palestine, for ourselves,” Masharawi told AFP a day after Wednesday’s world premiere of his new film “Passing Dreams”.

    It kicked off the Middle East’s oldest film festival, which opened with a traditional dabkeh dance performance by a troupe from the war-torn Gaza Strip.

     
    Masharawi’s film follows Sami, a 12-year-old boy, and his uncle and cousin on a quest to find his beloved pet pigeon, which has flown away from their home in a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.

    Told that pigeons always return to their birthplace, the family attempts to “follow the bird home” — driving a small red camper van from Qalandia camp and Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank to the Old City of Jerusalem and the Israeli city of Haifa.

    Their odyssey, Masharawi says, becomes a “deeply symbolic journey” that represents an inversion of the family’s original displacement from Haifa during the 1948 war that led to the creation of the State of Israel — a period Palestinians refer to as the Nakba, or “catastrophe”.

    “It’s no coincidence we’re in places that have a deep significance to Palestinian history,” the director said, speaking to AFP after a more intimate second screening on Thursday.

    – ‘From Ground Zero’ –
    The bittersweet tale is a far cry from Masharawi’s other project featured at the Cairo film festival: “From Ground Zero”.

    The anthology, supervised by the veteran director, showcases 22 shorts by filmmakers in Gaza, shot against the backdrop of war.

    For that project, Masharawi — who was the first Palestinian director officially selected for the Cannes Film Festival for his film “Haifa” in 1996 — “wanted to act as a bridge between global audiences” and filmmakers on the ground.

    In April, he told AFP the anthology intended to expose “the lie of self-defence”, which he said was Israel’s justification for its devastating military campaign in Gaza.

    The war broke out following Palestinian militant group Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel, which resulted in 1,206 deaths, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures. 

    Israel has since killed more than 43,700 people in the Gaza Strip, according to the Hamas-controlled territory’s health ministry.

    “As filmmakers, we must document this through the language of cinema,” Masharawi said, adding that filmmaking “defends our land far better than any military or political speeches”.

    – Smuggled onto set –
    Speaking to an enthralled audience, the 62-year-old director — donning his signature fedora — called for change in Palestinian filmmaking.

    “Our cinema can’t always only be a reaction to Israeli actions,” he said.

    “It must be the action itself.”

    A self-taught director born in a Gaza refugee camp before moving to Ramallah, Masharawi is intimately familiar with the “obstacles to filmmaking under occupation” — including “separation walls, barriers, who’s allowed to go where”.

    Like the family in the film, “you never know if authorities will let you get to your location”, he said, especially since Masharawi refuses “on principle” to seek permits from Israeli authorities.

    Instead, his crew often resorts to makeshift schemes — including “smuggling in” actors from the West Bank who do not have permission to visit Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem.

    “If you ask (Israeli authorities) for permission to shoot in Jerusalem, you’re giving them legitimacy that Jerusalem is theirs,” he said Thursday to raucous applause from audience members, many of them draped in Palestinian keffiyehs.

    Organisers cancelled the Cairo film festival last year after calls for the suspension of artistic and cultural activities across the Arab world in solidarity with Palestinians.

    But this week, keffiyehs have dotted the red carpet, while audience members wore pins bearing the Palestinian flag and the map of historic Palestine.

    Festival president Hussein Fahmy voiced solidarity “with our brothers in Gaza and Lebanon”, where Israel’s bombing campaign and ground offensive have killed 3,360 people.

    Pride of place, Fahmy said, has been given to Palestinian cinema, with a handful of films showing during the festival and a competition to crown a winner among the 22 filmmakers in “From Ground Zero”.

  • Mike Tyson slaps Jake Paul ahead of much-hyped fight

    Mike Tyson slaps Jake Paul ahead of much-hyped fight

    Former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson slapped opponent Jake Paul as the two men faced off for the final time on Thursday ahead of their controversial Netflix-backed bout.

    Tyson, 58, hit Paul flush on the cheek with his right hand following the formal weigh-in for Friday’s fight at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.


    A scrum of security swiftly intervened to separate the two fighters following the incident before Tyson was ushered away.

    Tyson, who weighed in at 228.4 pounds after stepping onto the scales wearing only a pair of Versace briefs, barely spoke before leaving the stage.

    “Talking’s over,” Tyson said before making his exit with members of his entourage.

    Paul, the 27-year-old Youtuber-turned-boxer, insisted he had not been hurt by Tyson’s open-handed slap, which drew gasps from the audience.


    “I didn’t even feel it — he’s angry. He’s an angry little elf…cute slap buddy,” said Paul, who weighed in at 227.2 pounds.

    Paul concluded his remarks with an expletive-laden pledge to knock Tyson out before roaring theatrically into a microphone: “He must die.”


    Tyson is reportedly being paid $20 million for Friday’s officially sanctioned about in Texas, which will be comprised of eight two-minute rounds.

    The contest, being streamed live on Netflix, has divided opinion across the boxing world, with many prominent figures decrying the prospect of Tyson lacing up his gloves nearly 40 years after his professional debut and 19 years after his last officially sanctioned fight.

  • Trump names Senator Marco Rubio to be US secretary of state

    Trump names Senator Marco Rubio to be US secretary of state

    President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday named adversary-turned-ally Senator Marco Rubio to be secretary of state in his incoming administration. Rubio is expected to push for a harder line on relations with China, Cuba and Iran.

    President-elect Donald Trump named Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida as his nominee for secretary of state on Wednesday, setting up a onetime critic who evolved into one of the president-elect’s fiercest defenders to become the nation’s top diplomat.

    The conservative lawmaker is a noted hawk on China, Cuba and Iran, and was a finalist to be Trump’s running mate this summer. 

    On Capitol Hill, Rubio is the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He has pushed for taking a harder line against China and has targeted social media app TikTok because its parent company is Chinese. He and other lawmakers contend that Beijing could demand access to the data of users whenever it wants.

    “He will be a strong Advocate for our Nation, a true friend to our Allies, and a fearless Warrior who will never back down to our adversaries,” Trump said of Rubio in a statement.

    Trump made the announcement while flying back back to Florida from Washington after meeting with President Joe Biden.

    The selection is the culmination of a long, complicated history between the two men. During their tense competition for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016, Rubio was especially blunt in his criticism of Trump, calling him a “con artist” and “the most vulgar person to ever aspire to the presidency.” 

    He tried to match Trump’s often-crude attacks by joking about the size of Trump’s hands in a reference to his manhood. Trump responded by branding Rubio as “little Marco,” a nickname that stuck with the senator for years.

    But like many Republicans who sought to maintain their relevance in the Trump era, Rubio shifted his rhetoric. As speculation intensified that Trump might pick him as his running mate, Rubio sought to play down the tension from 2016, suggesting the heated tone simply reflected the intensity of a campaign.

    “That is like asking a boxer why they punched somebody in the face in the third round,” Rubio told CNN when asked about his previous comments. “It’s because they were boxing.”

    Rubio was first elected to the Senate in 2010 as part of the tea party wave of Republicans who swept into Washington. He quickly gained a reputation as someone who could embody a more diverse, welcoming Republican Party. He was a key member of a group that worked on a 2013 immigration bill that included a path to citizenship for millions of people in the country illegally. 

    But that legislation stalled in the House, where more conservative Republicans were in control, signaling the sharp turn to the right that the party — and Rubio — would soon embrace. Now, Rubio says he supports Trump’s plan to deploy the U.S. military to deport those in the country illegally.

    “We are going to have to do something, unfortunately, we’re going to have to do something dramatic,” Rubio said in a May interview with NBC.

    He also echoes many of Trump’s attacks on his opponents as well as his false or unproven theories about voter fraud. After Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts in what New York prosecutors charged was a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election, Rubio wrote a column for Newsweek saying Trump had “been held hostage” in court for “a sham political show trial like the ones Communists used against their political opponents in Cuba and the Soviet Union.”

    Trump, meanwhile, has backed off his insistence while president that TikTok be banned in the United States, and he recently opened his own account on the platform. 

    A bill that would require the Chinese company ByteDance to sell TikTok or face a ban in the United States was supported by Rubio even as Trump voiced opposition to the effort.

    Rubio’s Democratic counterpart on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Chairman Mark Warner of Virginia, praised the pick.

    “I have worked with Marco Rubio for more than a decade on the Intelligence Committee, particularly closely in the last couple of years in his role as Vice Chairman, and while we don’t always agree, he is smart, talented, and will be a strong voice for American interests around the globe,” Warner said in a statement.

    Earlier Wednesday, Trump announced that longtime aide Dan Scavino will serve as a deputy without giving a specific portfolio, campaign political director James Blair as deputy for legislative, political and public affairs, and Taylor Budowich as deputy chief of staff for communications and personnel. All will have the rank of assistant to the president.

    Trump also formally announced Stephen Miller, an immigration hard-liner, will be deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser. That had previously been confirmed by Vice President-elect JD Vance on Monday.

    Blair was the political director for Trump’s campaign and, once Trump became the presumptive GOP nominee, the political director for the Republican National Committee. He previously worked on Trump’s 2020 campaign in Florida and was a top aide for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. 

    Scavino was a senior adviser on Trump’s campaign and, in his first term in the White House, he worked as a social media director. 

    He began working for Trump as a caddy at one of Trump’s golf courses, and was part of the small group of staffers who traveled with the president across the country for the entirety of the campaign. He frequently posts memes and videos of Trump’s campaign travel online, cataloguing the campaign from the inside on social media.

    Before joining the campaign, Budowich worked for the pro-Trump Super PAC, Maga Inc., and after Trump left office, Budowich served as his spokesman while working for Trump’s political action committee, Save America. 

    “Dan, Stephen, James, and Taylor were ‘best in class’ advisors on my winning campaign, and I know they will honorably serve the American people in the White House,” Trump said in a statement. “They will continue to work hard to Make America Great Again in their respective new roles.”

    Miller is one of Trump’s longest-serving aides, dating back to his first campaign for the White House. He was a senior adviser in Trump’s first term and has been a central figure in many of his policy decisions, particularly on immigration, including Trump’s move to separate thousands of immigrant families as a deterrence program in 2018. 

  • Murder suspect linked to prominent Khalistan activist netted in Canada

    Murder suspect linked to prominent Khalistan activist netted in Canada

    A man wanted for murder in India, who is also an alleged associate of a prominent Canadian Khalistan activist, has been arrested in Canada on gun charges, a local broadcaster said on Wednesday.

    Arshdeep Singh Gill, 28, was one of two men arrested in late October in Milton, Ontario and charged with the illegal discharging of a firearm after showing up at a local hospital, CTV News said.

    One of the two suspects was treated for a non-life-threatening gunshot wound during an apparent shooting in the area, which local police are now investigating, according to a police statement.

    CTV said Gill and the other suspect, Gurjant Singh, remain in custody pending a bail hearing that has yet to be scheduled.

    According to a January 2023 Indian Ministry of Home Affairs notice, Gill is wanted on suspicion of murder, extortion, the smuggling of large quantities of drugs and weapons, and terror financing.

    He is also described in the document cited by CTV and seen by AFP as having been “very close” to Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a naturalized Canadian citizen and prominent Khalistan campaigner who was killed in Vancouver in 2023.

    Ottawa has accused India of orchestrating Nijjar’s murder, and linked a broader campaign targeting Canadian Sikh activists to the highest levels of India’s government.

    India has dismissed the allegations, which have sent diplomatic relations into freefall, with both nations last month each expelling the other’s ambassador and other senior diplomats.

    Canada is home to the largest Sikh community outside of India, and includes activists for “Khalistan,” a fringe separatist movement seeking an independent state for the religious minority carved out of Indian territory.

    Any support for the Khalistan movement within India today, which dates back to the country’s 1947 independence, faces a swift crackdown.

  • ‘Interior Chinatown’ satirizes Asian roles in Hollywood… and beyond screen

    ‘Interior Chinatown’ satirizes Asian roles in Hollywood… and beyond screen

    A “meta” detective series in which a struggling Asian waiter becomes the unlikely hero of a police procedural-style criminal conspiracy, “Interior Chinatown” satirizes Hollywood’s stereotypical treatment of minorities — while also nodding to the progress the industry has belatedly made.

    The new show, out on Disney-owned Hulu next Tuesday, is based on the critically adored novel by US author Charles Yu, who is of Taiwanese descent.

    Yu’s 2020 bestseller delivered a humorous takedown of racism in US society through the adventures of Willis Wu, a Hollywood extra reduced to playing roles like “Background Oriental Male” but who dreams of one day being promoted to “Kung Fu Guy.”

    Yu now serves as the TV series’ creator and showrunner.

    “I grew up watching TV in the ’80s and ’90s, and I just never saw Asians on TV. It’s as if they didn’t exist,” he told a press conference in July.

    “They existed in real life when I’d go outside, but they weren’t somehow in my screen. And so, that sort of shaped me in wanting to tell this story.”

    Even a decade ago, Yu’s literary creation would likely have been ignored by Hollywood.

    But in recent years, breakout successes for Asian American productions like “Crazy Rich Asians” and “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” not to mention South Korean hits “Parasite” and “Squid Game,” have proven the commercial appetite for diverse storytelling.

    Hong Kong-born US actor Jimmy O. Yang, who appeared in “Crazy Rich Asians,” stars as Wu in “Interior Chinatown.”

    Oscar-winning New Zealand filmmaker Taika Waititi (“Jojo Rabbit”) directs the pilot episode.

    – ‘Metaphor’ –

    Viewers are introduced to Wu as an ordinary waiter at a restaurant in Los Angeles’s Chinatown — but quickly find out that he also appears to reside within a police procedural.

    In these scenes, “Interior Chinatown” adopts the visual codes and tropes of a TV cop drama. Wu is relegated to a background character role, as the series’ Black and white cop duo solve crimes.

    Even more strangely, unexplained cameras are shown filming Wu and his colleagues, reminiscent of “The Truman Show.”

    The distortion of reality echoes the premise of the original novel, which was itself written in the form of a television screenplay.

    “It’s such a great metaphor for what it means to be Asian American in this country,” said Yang.

    “But at the same time, it’s a universal story of someone longing to be more, someone finding themselves in their career.”

    When Wu witnesses a kidnapping, twists and turns see this background actor take on increasingly important roles in the narrative of a criminal intrigue.

    “He moves on to be kind of like a guest star. And then the tech guy, which, of course, I played before. So it really drew a lot of parallels to my own career,” said Yang.

    – ‘Mind-bending’ –

    The series blends English, Mandarin and Cantonese dialogue.

    Among its characters is Lana Lee, a mixed-race novice cop, who is assigned a case in Chinatown by superiors who incorrectly assume that she must know her way around the Asian neighborhood.

    The irony was not lost on actress Chloe Bennet, born Chloe Wang to a Chinese father and white American mother, who in real life had to change her last name in order to land roles in Hollywood.

    “My journey through the industry is so meta for Lana,” she told the press conference.

    “I literally was told at the beginning of my career… ‘You’re just not white enough to be the lead, but you’re not Asian enough to be the Asian.’”

    Wu’s best friend Fatty Choi, played by comedian Ronny Chieng (“The Daily Show”), provides a hilarious counterpoint to audiences’ pre-conceived notions of Asians as the “model minority.”

    A video game-addicted stoner, Choi aggressively lectures the restaurant’s demanding white customers that they are “not the center of the universe.”

    “To do something this cool, this meta, this mind-bending and smart — social commentary, but not hitting people over the head with it… this is the stuff that you only dream of being able to do,” he said.

  • Trump, Biden shake hands in White House, vow smooth transfer

    Trump, Biden shake hands in White House, vow smooth transfer

    US President-elect Donald Trump thanked President Joe Biden for pledging a smooth transfer of power as the victorious Republican made a historic return visit to the White House on Wednesday.

    “Politics is tough, and in many cases, it’s not a very nice world. It is a nice world today and I appreciate it very much,” Trump said after the two men shook hands in the Oval Office.

    Trump, 78, added that the transition would be “smooth as you can get.” Biden greeted Trump in front of a roaring fire, offering him congratulations and saying: “Welcome back.”

    The 81-year-old Biden invited his sworn rival to the White House — despite the fact that Trump, who refused to admit his 2020 election loss, never afforded Biden the same courtesy.

    Biden, who dropped out of the election in July but saw his successor Kamala Harris lose to Trump last week, said he was “looking forward to having a smooth transition.”

    “We’ll do everything we can to make sure you’re accommodated, [have] what you need,” he told Trump.

    Triumphant Trump

    Their talks after the public handshake may have been a bitter pill to swallow for Biden, who branded Trump a threat to democracy.

    Biden was expected to push during the meeting for Trump to continue US support for Ukraine’s fight against Russia, which the Republican has called into question.

    Ahead of the White House visit, Trump addressed Republicans from the House of Representatives at a Washington hotel near the Capitol, which a mob of his supporters stormed in 2021 to try to reverse his election loss. An ebullient Trump suggested that he could even be open to a third term in office — which would violate the US Constitution.

    “I suspect I won’t be running again unless you say, ‘He’s good, we got to figure something else,’” he said, drawing some laughter.

    Trump’s party looks set to take both chambers of Congress and consolidate his extraordinary comeback.

    He was accompanied at the meeting with Republicans by the world’s richest man Elon Musk, whom he named on Tuesday as head of a new group aimed at slashing government spending. Trump has launched a flurry of nominations as he moves swiftly to name his administration.

    Picking his team

    Biden’s Oval Office invitation restored a presidential transition tradition that Trump tore up when he lost the 2020 election, refusing to sit down with Biden or even attend the inauguration.

    Then-president Barack Obama had welcomed Trump to the White House when the tycoon won the 2016 election.

    But by the time Trump took his last Marine One flight from the White House lawn on January 20, 2021, he had also been repudiated by many in his own party for having stoked the assault on the Capitol.

    That period of disgrace soon evaporated, however, as Republicans returned to Trump’s side, recognizing his unique electoral power at the head of his right-wing movement.

    Trump enters his second term with a near-total grip on his party and the Democrats in disarray. He has spent the week since the election at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida assembling his top team, as the world watches to see how closely he sticks to his pledges of isolationism, mass deportations and sweeping tariffs.

    Trump named Space X, Tesla and X boss Musk, and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, to lead a “Department of Government Efficiency (‘DOGE’)” — a tongue-in-cheek reference to an internet meme and cryptocurrency.

    Trump is moving quickly to fill out his administration, picking a host of ultra-loyalists.

    Trump nominated Fox News host and army veteran Pete Hegseth as his incoming defence secretary. An outspoken opponent of so-called “woke” ideology in the armed forces, Hegseth has little experience similar to managing the mammoth US military budget and bureaucracy.

    Trump named South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem — an ally who famously wrote about shooting her dog because it did not respond to training — as head of the Department of Homeland Security.