Jimmy Carter’s long public goodbye begins/node/2585246/world
Jimmy Carter’s long public goodbye begins
People watch as the hearse containing the casket of former President Jimmy Carter passes through Byron, Ga., Saturday, Jan. 4, 2025, en route to Atlanta. Carter died Dec. 29 at the age of 100. (AP)
PLAINS, Georgia: Jimmy Carter’s long public goodbye began on Saturday in Georgia, with the 39th US president’s flag-draped casket rolling through his tiny hometown and past his boyhood farmhouse on its way to Atlanta, where he climbed the political ladder and based his decades of humanitarian work after leaving the White House.
The former president’s six-day state funeral started in Americus at the Phoebe Sumter Medical Center, where current and former Secret Service agents who protected the late president loaded his remains into a black hearse and walked alongside as it rolled off the campus toward Plains.
With Carter’s children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren accompanying their patriarch, a mournful train whistle filled the clear air as the pallbearers faced the hearse, hands on their hearts, for a final goodbye.
In Plains, where Carter was born Oct. 1, 1924, and lived most of his life, mourners lined the main street, some holding bouquets of flowers and wearing pins bearing images of the former president. He died on Dec. 29 at the age of 100.
“We want to pay our respects,” said 12-year-old Will Porter Shelbrock, who was born more than three decades after Carter left the White House in 1981. “He was ahead of his time on what he tried to do and tried to accomplish.”
It was Porter Shelbrock’s idea to make the trip to Plains from Gainesville, Florida, with his grandmother, Susan Cone, 66. He admires Carter for his humanitarian work building houses and waging peace, and talking about a warming planet before the climate crisis was part of routine political discourse.
Willie Browner, 75, described Carter as hailing from a bygone era of American politics. “This man, he thought of more than just himself,” said Browner, who grew up in the town of Parrott, about 15 miles from Plains, before moving to Miami. Browner said it meant “a great deal” to have a president come from a small southern town like his — something he worries isn’t likely to happen again.
REVIEW: Netflix’s French thriller ‘Ad Vitam’ fails to pick a lane
Updated 52 sec ago
Adam Grundey
JEDDAH: It’s hard to know quite what to make of “Ad Vitam.” Maybe because its creators don’t seem to have decided quite what they were making.
Co-writer Guillaume Canet stars as Franck Lazarev, whose wife Leo is just days away from giving birth to their first child. Franck is working a civilian job checking historical buildings for structural cracks (which makes for some stunning opening shots of Paris). A few days after finding their apartment has been ransacked, they are attacked by masked intruders, who kidnap Leo and tell Franck that unless he hands over “the key,” she will die and he will be framed for her murder. It all makes for a gripping 30 minutes.
Then the story goes back a full decade. Leo and Franck are trainees for the GIGN (essentially the French police’s anti-terrorist unit). They become ace agents, bond with certain colleagues, fall in love… you get the picture. It’s a montage — but one that takes around 20 minutes when it could have taken two. It throws off the momentum considerably.
Next, we jump ahead nine years to find Franck leading a team of agents who are called to a hotel where gunshots have been heard. Things escalate rapidly. Two perpetrators are killed, but so is Franck’s best friend, and his protégé is seriously wounded. Franck is fired.
But he can’t let it go. He gets his friend’s badge tested for DNA (explaining a notable focus on badges in the earlier flashback sequence) and discovers that one of the two perps was actually a government agent. A conspiracy begins to unravel. The key demanded by the kidnappers opens the locker where Franck has stashed the evidence.
Back to the present: Franck rushes to save Leo, and we’re back to frantic action, this time with mediocre parkour scenes and a paragliding sequence that is hilarious (unintentionally). Canet clearly fancies himself an all-action hero in the Tom Cruise mold. He doesn’t pull it off. Like the film itself, Canet is best when playing it small and gritty.
Credit to the makers for taking some big swings, but they don’t come off. And while “Ad Vitam” is entertaining enough, it’s also instantly forgettable.
Audio artist Tarek Atoui discusses his participation at this year’s AlUla Arts Festival
Updated 6 min 1 sec ago
Nada Alturki
ALULA: Anyone walking through the valleys and mountains of AlUla will notice its unique stone formations and untouched carvings — but not many would notice the echoes of falling rocks. Lebanese artist and electroacoustic composer Tarek Atoui says some of the valleys sound like “porcelain or crystal.”
“In Hegra, you don’t really hear it because it’s an archeological site,” he adds. “You really have to walk in valleys or in places that are wilder.”
Atoui has made a name for himself by blurring the boundaries of sound, technology, art, and collaborative performance. His latest participation — at AlUla Arts Festival, in Bayt Al Hams (The Whispering House) — is a testament to his ability to blend the human, the natural, and the machine. On the festival’s opening night on Jan. 16, Atoui, French musician Toma Gouband, and students from AlUla staged an intriguing performance using custom-designed instruments, natural objects such as tree branches and rocks, and cutting-edge techniques.
Tarek Atoui and French musician Toma Gouband during their performance at AlUla Arts Festival on Jan 16. (Supplied)
“I believe sound can take you to places where you really speak about the inner and not just the surface — and that’s what I love about it,” Atoui tells Arab News. “Sound is an abstract medium, so it can create sensations and emotions in us in an unexpected way, and what you choose to do with it is very personal and intimate. It’s something that allows you to speak of an identity, of an intimacy, of a fragility, that maybe image doesn’t allow you to.
“If you want to find out about a place then, of course, you find out about its history, archeology, geology, its different social and political realities. But it’s mainly about talking to the people that inhabit it. And the best way, in my case, to have a dialog with people is through what I do. So that’s why it was very important to reach out to people in this way.”
Bayt Al Hams, a dedicated hub for Atoui’s work, is a soundscape that will be changing almost seasonally, he explains. It showcases a selection of works that rely largely on four natural elements: water, stone, metal, and glass.
Visitors to Atoui's “Bayt Al-Hams” exhibition. (Supplied)
The interactive space is scattered with contraptions that create sound, from textile squares to tablas to metal-infused ink hooked up to machinery developed by Atoui himself.
“It’s a kind of easy way to get into a complex, deep topic,” he says. “The things that are here have a double life. Let’s say they’re animated and automated through computer software and algorithms I write, which kind of drive this space, but they are also brought to life by human beings, the students we work with, the musicians we work with,” he explains.
Atoui was first inspired by techno music, or, as he describes it, “music that had physicality to it.” He went on to study contemporary music, and began to understand that any sound can be musical. “You can work with sound in so many ways to make music. And that was liberating for me, because I didn’t know how to compose with scores and classical instruments,” he says.
He was interested in poetry, literature, and theater too, but when he went to France — where he is now based — for university, he fell in love with the crossover between art, mathematics, abstraction, and sound.
His unique art, he says, came “through a lot of improvisation, like thinking how to use the computer as a music instrument, learning how to code and to program and to create software for sound, and, from there, learning how to work with electronics and build electronic instruments.”
Atoui’s latest participation — at AlUla Arts Festival, in Bayt Al Hams (The Whispering House) — is a testament to his ability to blend the human, the natural, and the machine. (Supplied)
He was also interested in education, which began manifesting in his practice.
“Not having a musical background myself, I wanted to encourage people from different realms to also have a say in sound, or to use new technologies to make sound and music,” he explains.
He’s worked with Palestinian refugees in camps, with groups in the suburban areas of Cairo, and in parts of Europe, Asia, and the US.
“It was a really mind-opening experience to travel to all these places and to perform, teach, and interact with people. Slowly, I started to slide towards the art world, because this is where I found (more) freedom. I didn’t feel I was exclusively a musician,” he says.
Atoui is not concerned that his work may be too avant-garde to ever go mainstream.
“That’s no problem at all,” he says. “We each have our sensibilities and tastes. To me, also, there are musical things that are not music.”
Oil Updates — prices poised for weekly fall on Trump’s energy policies
Updated 18 min 2 sec ago
Reuters
LONDON: Oil prices were little changed on Friday but headed for a weekly decline after US President Donald Trump issued a sweeping plan to boost US production and demanded OPEC lower crude prices.
Brent crude futures were down 9 cents at $78.20 a barrel by 7:45 a.m. Saudi time on Friday, while US West Texas Intermediate crude dipped 9 cents to $74.53.
For the week, Brent was down 3.18 percent so far, while WTI shed 4.28 percent.
“Crude prices have been easing all through this week, as investors trimmed war premiums after the Gaza ceasefire while bracing for Trump’s energy policy change,” said Priyanka Sachdeva, senior market analyst at Phillip Nova.
“For now, Trump is being unpredictable as predicted, setting oil prices up for headlines-oriented volatility ahead,” Sachdeva added.
Trump, during his speech on Thursday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, said he would demand that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries bring down the cost of crude barrels.
He also said he would ask Saudi Arabia to increase a US investment package to $1 trillion, up from $600 billion reported by the Kingdom’s state news agency earlier in the day.
Trump had declared a national energy emergency on Monday, rolling back environmental restrictions on energy infrastructure as part of a sweeping plan to maximize domestic oil and gas production.
On Wednesday, he vowed to hit the EU with tariffs and impose 25 percent tariffs against Canada and Mexico, and said his administration was considering a 10 percent punitive duty on China.
As attention shifts to a possible February timeline for new tariffs set by Trump, caution will likely persist in the market as any new trade restrictions will carry negative implications for global growth, potentially weighing on oil demand prospects, said Yeap Jun Rong, market strategist at IG.
Traders expect oil prices to range between $76.50 and $78 a barrel, Yeap added.
While bullish catalysts like a significant drawdown in US crude stocks are providing temporary positive swings, an overall oversupplied global market and ailing projections of Chinese demand continue to weigh on crude futures, Phillip Nova’s Sachdeva said.
US crude inventories last week hit their lowest level since March 2022, according to the US Energy Information Administration.
The EIA report, issued a day late because of a US holiday on Monday, said crude stockpiles fell by 1 million barrels to 411.7 million barrels in the week to Jan. 17, marking a ninth consecutive weekly decline.
Southeast Asian cities among world’s most polluted, ranking shows
Air pollution is caused by a combination of crop-related burning, industrial pollution and heavy traffic
Weeks earlier, Vietnam’s capital Hanoi was ranked the world’s most polluted
Updated 38 min 12 sec ago
Reuters
BANGKOK: Southeast Asian cities were among five most polluted in the world on Friday according to air-monitoring organization IQAir, with Ho Chi Minh City ranked second-most polluted, followed by Phnom Penh and Bangkok fourth and fifth, respectively.
In the Thai capital, a thick smog was seen covering the city’s skyline. Workers, especially those who spend most of their time outdoors, were suffering.
“My nose is constantly congested. I have to blow my nose all the time,” said motorcycle taxi driver Supot Sitthisiri, 55.
Air pollution is caused by a combination of crop-related burning, industrial pollution and heavy traffic.
In a bid to curb pollution, the government is allowing free public transportation for a week, Transport Minister Suriya Juangroongruangkit said.
Some 300 schools in Bangkok were closed this week, according to the city administration.
“They should take more action, not just announce high dust levels and close schools. There needs to be more than that,” said Khwannapat Intarit, 23.
“It keeps coming back, and it’s getting worse each time.”
Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra said in a social media post that companies and government agencies should allow staff to work from home to reduce car use and construction sites should be using dust covers.
“The government is fully committed to solving the dust problem,” she said.
In Vietnam’s largest city, IQAir said the level of fine inhalable particles in Ho Chi Minh City was 11 times higher than the recommended level by the World Health Organization.
Weeks earlier, the capital Hanoi was ranked the world’s most polluted, prompting authorities to issue a warning about the health risks from air pollution and urging the public to wear masks and eye protection.
Governments in Southeast Asia were pushing for longer-term solutions to bring pollution down including a carbon tax and promoting the use of electric vehicles.
Nikola Jokic hits 66-foot heave to highlight his 5th straight triple-double
Jokic finished with 35 points, 22 rebounds and a season-high 17 assists against Sacramento
Jokic’s shot highlighted his fifth straight triple-double, all before the end of the third quarter
Updated 46 min 25 sec ago
AP
DENVER: Nikola Jokic took an inbounds pass with 1.7 seconds left in the third quarter, turned and let fly with a 66-foot heave that got all net at the other end. He casually walked over to his bench as his teammates mobbed him and the sold-out arena erupted.
“I thought it had a chance, and then boom,” Russell Westbrook said. “The best part of it was no reaction from him. Which I love.”
It appeared to be a footnote in what looked like a Denver Nuggets blowout win Thursday night. Denver led Sacramento 110-85 at that point but had to hold off a late rally to pull out a 132-123 victory over the Kings, its fourth straight.
Jokic finished with 35 points, 22 rebounds and a season-high 17 assists, and the shot from three-quarters court stood out among his 12 field goals.
“Not surprising,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said. “He’s a guy that has this uncanny ability.”
Jokic took the low-percentage shot but saw his 3-point average rise. He made 2 of 3 from behind the arc and is now shooting 47.9 percent from deep.
“When you play you want to make every shot,” he said. “I took it to make it and I did make it. It’s a lucky shot, not really a high-percentage shot, but I took it to make it. It’s three points. It’s going to help us.”
Jokic’s shot highlighted his fifth straight triple-double, all before the end of the third quarter, and his 20th of the season, the most in the NBA this season.
He also has an uncanny ability to put up historic numbers. He is now averaging a triple-double for the season — 30.2 points, 13.4 rebounds and 10 assists — and two weeks ago he and Westbrook became the first teammates to both record triple-doubles in same game multiple times.
Thursday night he hit another milestone.
According to the NBA, Jokic joins Wilt Chamberlain as the only players in NBA history to record a game with at least 35 points, 20 rebounds and 15 assists.
“I think this the best basketball I’ve ever played,” Jokic said. “I’m feeling good out there, I’m in shape, the ball is going in. I think I’m playing really good.”
Jokic earned another All-Star spot for the event next month in San Francisco. It is the seventh straight time he has been named to the All-Star game and it’s the fifth in a row as a starter.
“Just to be on the floor with the best players in the league is an honor,” he said.
