JEDDAH: Singer Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, the former French First Lady, wowed the Beiteddine Art Festival near Beirut, Lebanon, in a concert on Monday.
Carla performed songs from her fifth album, “French Touch,” to a crowd including Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, former Lebanese president Michel Suleiman and former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, who is her husband.
On Tuesday, the singer-songwriter posted on Instagram alongside a photo from the concert: “Thank you beautiful Beirut for your warm welcome.” Earlier, with an image of the Beirut sky, she wrote: “Beirut, my heart burns for you already.”
Another image she captioned with: “Looking forward to playing for you tomorrow @beiteddinefestival and so happy to finally discover the beautiful city of Beirut.”
Dressed in black pants and a sequinned jacket initially and then a blue jacket, Bruni was seen belting out one number after another in videos posted by her and the festival’s official account on Instagram. She also performed on the piano and guitar.
The French singer’s performance was one of the most anticipated at this year’s festival, which is held every summer at the Beiteddine Palace in Lebanon’s Chouf Mountains, south of the capital Beirut. The 200-year-old Beiteddine Palace is a marvel of Lebanese architecture, with its many courtyards, monumental gates, elegant arcades and levelled galleries.
The former French president and his wife landed in Beirut on Sunday. They were greeted at the Beirut airport by Beiteddine Art Festival president Noura Jumblatt and the French ambassador to Lebanon, Bruno Foucher.
Sources said Sarkozy met with a number of Lebanese officials, including Suleiman and Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt at his Mukhtara residence.
Since her first album, “Quelqu’un m’a dit,” in 2002, Bruni has sold five million albums and toured the world, including New York, Rio, London and Moscow, singing classic rock, country and jazz standards in English from her fifth album.
The former supermodel married Sarkozy in 2008. The marriage is her first and Sarkozy’s third. In 2010, Forbes magazine ranked Bruni-Sarkozy as the 35th most powerful woman in the world.
The 33rd annual Beiteddine Art Festival, one of the leading ones in the Middle East, began last month, showcasing a series of performers and aiming to draw spectators from around the country and beyond. The festival was launched in the summer of 1985.
This year’s performances include German singer Ute Lemper, Arab composer and singer Kadim Al-Sahir and Montreal-based troupe Cirque Eloize. Shows will continue until August 11.
Bruni enthralls at Lebanon’s Beiteddine festival
Bruni enthralls at Lebanon’s Beiteddine festival
- Bruni-Sarkozy performed for an audience including Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, former Lebanese president Michel Suleiman and former French president Nicolas Sarkozy
- The French singer’s performance was one of the most anticipated at this year’s festival, which is held every summer at the Beiteddine Palace in Lebanon’s Chouf Mountains
Israeli strike killed 36 Syrian soldiers near Aleppo: war monitor
- Syrian state media SANA, quoting a military official, also reported that the airstrike inflicted casualties
- The strike targetted an area near Hezbollah rocket depots, says Syrian Observatory for Human Rights
BEIRUT: An Israeli strike on northern Syria’s Aleppo province killed at least 36 Syrian soldiers on Friday, according to a war monitor.
The attack killed at least “36 Syrian soldiers” and targeted an area “near rockets depots belonging to Lebanese group Hezbollah,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor, which has an extensive network of sources in Syria.
Syrian state news agency SANA said the pre-dawn strike killed and wounded civilians as well as military personnel.
A Syrian military source told SANA that “at approximately 1:45 a.m., the Israeli enemy launched an air attack from the direction of Athriya, southeast of Aleppo,” adding that “civilians and military personnel” had been killed and wounded in the strike.
The Britain-based SOHR, an opposition war monitor, said Hezbollah missile depots targetted in the strikes were in Aleppo’s southern suburb of Jibreen near the Aleppo International Airport.
The Observatory said explosions were still heard two hours after the strikes.
There was no immediate statement from Israeli officials on the strikes. Israel frequently launches strikes on Iran-linked targets in Syria but rarely acknowledges them.
On Thursday, Syrian state media reported airstrikes near the capital Damascus saying it wounded two civilians.
Hezbollah has had an armed presence in Syria since it joined the country’s conflict fighting alongside government forces.
Aleppo, Syria’s largest city and once its commercial center, has come under such attacks in the past that led to the closure of its international airport. Friday’s strike did not affect the airport.
The strikes have escalated over the past five months against the backdrop of the war in Gaza and ongoing clashes between Hezbollah and Israeli forces on the Lebanon-Israel border.
Canadian school boards sue Snapchat, TikTok and Meta for disrupting students’ education
- Lawsuits claim platforms like Facebook and Instagram are “designed for compulsive use, have rewired the way children think, behave, and learn” and teachers have been left to manage the fallout
TORONTO: Four of the largest school boards in the Canadian province of Ontario said Thursday they launched lawsuits against TikTok, Meta and SnapChat alleging the social media platforms are disrupting student learning.
The lawsuits claim platforms like Facebook and Instagram are “designed for compulsive use, have rewired the way children think, behave, and learn” and teachers have been left to manage the fallout.
Meta Platforms Inc. owns Facebook and Instagram, while Snap Inc. owns SnapChat and ByteDance Ltd. owns TikTok.
Rachel Chernos, a trustee for the Toronto District School Board, said teachers and parents are noticing social withdrawal, anxiety, attention problems, cyberbullying and mental health issues.
“These companies have knowingly created programs that are addictive that are aimed and marketed at young people and it is causing significant harm and we just can’t stand by any longer and not speak up about it,” Chernos said.
Dozens of US states, including California and New York, are also suing Meta Platforms Inc. for harming young people and contributing to a youth mental health crisis by knowingly and deliberately designing features on Instagram and Facebook that addict children to its platforms.
The school boards in Canada suing are the Toronto District School Board, the Peel District School Board, the Toronto Catholic District School Board and the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board.
They are seeking damages in excess of $4 billion Canadian ($2.9 billion) for disruption to student learning and the education system.
A spokeswoman for Snap Inc., Tonya Johnson, said Snapchat helps its users stay connected with their friends.
“Snapchat opens directly to a camera — rather than a feed of content — and has no traditional public likes or comments,” she said. “While we will always have more work to do, we feel good about the role Snapchat plays in helping close friends feel connected, happy and prepared as they face the many challenges of adolescence.”
Representatives of Meta and ByteDance didn’t immediately respond to messages seeking comment.
Duncan Embury, a lawyer for the firm representing the boards, said there is a real addiction issue with the designed algorithms.
Embury said proper warnings are needed, age parameters need to change and there needs to be an increase in the level of resources school boards get to adapt to the new reality. He said the companies have knowingly and negligently designed their products to maximize the amount of time young people spend on their platforms at the expense of their well-being and education.
“There is an inability for students to focus,” he said.
The use of social media among teens is nearly universal in the US and many other parts of the world. Almost all teens ages 13 to 17 in the US report using a social media platform, with about a third saying they use social media “almost constantly,” according to the Pew Research Center.
In May, US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy called on tech companies, parents and caregivers to take “immediate action to protect kids now” from the harms of social media.
This week, Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill that will ban social media accounts for children under 14 and require parental permission for 14- and 15-year-olds. It takes effect Jan. 1 and is expected to face legal challenges.
No money will be paid to the attorneys handling the Canadian lawsuits unless they win.
Bus plunges off a bridge in South Africa, killing 45 people; 8-year-old child is lone survivor
- Authorities said the bus carrying worshippers was traveling from the neighboring country of Botswana to the town of Moria, which hosts a popular Easter pilgrimage
CAPE TOWN, South Africa: A bus carrying worshippers headed to an Easter festival plunged off a bridge on a mountain pass and burst into flames in South Africa on Thursday, killing at least 45 people, authorities said.
The only survivor of the crash was an 8-year-old child, who was receiving medical attention, according to authorities in the northern province of Limpopo. They said the child was seriously injured.
The Limpopo provincial government said the bus veered off the Mmamatlakala bridge and plunged 50 meters (164 feet) into a ravine before busting into flames.
Search operations were ongoing, the provincial government said, but many bodies were burned beyond recognition and still trapped inside the vehicle.
Authorities said they believe the bus was traveling from the neighboring country of Botswana to the town of Moria, which hosts a popular Easter pilgrimage. They said it appeared that the driver lost control and was one of the dead.
Minister of Transport Sindisiwe Chikunga was in Limpopo province for a road safety campaign and changed plans to visit the crash scene, the national Department of Transport said. She said there was an investigation underway into the cause of the crash and offered her condolences to the families of the victims.
The South African government often warns of the danger of road accidents during the Easter holidays, which is a particularly busy and dangerous time for road travel. More than 200 people died in road crashes during the Easter weekend last year.
The Zionist Christian Church has its headquarters in Moria and its Easter pilgrimage attracts hundreds of thousands of people from across South Africa and neighboring countries. This year is the first time the Easter pilgrimage to Moria is set to go ahead since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Macron says G20 must agree before inviting Putin to summit
BRASILIA: French President Emmanuel Macron said Thursday that members of the G20 would have to agree before Russian leader Vladimir Putin is invited to attend the group’s summit in Brazil in November.
“The meaning of this club is that there must be consensus with the 19 others. That will be a job for Brazilian diplomacy,” he said during a joint press conference in Brasilia with his counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
If such a meeting can be “useful, it must be done,” Macron said, though he warned division on the matter could scuttle any Russian invitation.
Brazil, the current chair of the G20 group — which represents 80 percent of the global economy — has opposed the US-led drive to isolate and punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, arguing that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Western countries share some of the blame for the war.
Putin missed last year’s G20 summit in the Indian capital New Delhi, avoiding possible political opprobrium and any risk of criminal detention under an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant.
In September 2023, Lula said there was “no way” that Putin would be arrested if he attended the Rio de Janeiro summit.
Shortly after, he backtracked and said that it would be up to the justice system to decide on Putin’s eventual arrest and not his government.
Israel has not received everything it has asked for, top US general says
- Some Democrats and Arab American groups have criticized the Biden administration’s steadfast support of Israel, which they say provides it with a sense of impunity
WASHINGTON: The United States’ top general said on Thursday that Israel had not received every weapon it has asked for, in part because some of it could affect the US military’s readiness and there were capacity limitations.
Washington gives $3.8 billion in annual military assistance to Israel, its longtime ally. The United States has been rushing air defenses and munitions to Israel, but some Democrats and Arab American groups have criticized the Biden administration’s steadfast support of Israel, which they say provides it with a sense of impunity.
“Although we’ve been supporting them with capability, they’ve not received everything they’ve asked for,” said General Charles Q. Brown, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“Some of that is because they’ve asked for stuff that we either don’t have the capacity to provide or not willing to provide, not right now,” Brown added, while speaking at an event hosted by the Defense Writers Group.
A spokesperson for Brown later on Thursday said his comments were in reference to “a standard practice before providing military aid to any of our allies and partners.”
“We assess US stockpiles and any possible impact on our own readiness to determine our ability to provide the requested aid,” Navy Captain Jereal Dorsey said in a statement.
“There is no change in US policy. The United States continues to provide security assistance to our ally Israel as they defend themselves from Hamas,” Dorsey added.
More than 32,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip by Israel’s devastating offensive, according to health authorities in the territory.
Israel retaliated following an attack by militant group Hamas on southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and abducting 253 hostages according to Israeli tallies.
The Israeli offensive prompted opposition from within Biden’s Democratic Party, leading thousands to vote “uncommitted” for him in recent party presidential primaries.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met with Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in Washington earlier this week and the Pentagon said security assistance to Israel was discussed.
“It is a constant dialogue,” Brown said.