’God save Dua Lipa’: festival puts Kosovo on music map

With more than 87 million followers on Instagram and more than 25 million albums sold, the British-born singer of Kosovo descent is one of the biggest pop stars in the world. (AFP)
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Updated 27 July 2024
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’God save Dua Lipa’: festival puts Kosovo on music map

PRISTINA: Amid a sea of denim shorts, selfies, sequins and thumping bass lines, the setting could easily be mistaken for Coachella or Glastonbury.
But the Sunny Hill festival in Pristina is helping turn Kosovo into a go-to destination during Europe’s summer festival season, thanks in large part to its founder: Dua Lipa.
For years, Kosovo was associated with its bloody war against Serbia that pitted ethnic Albania insurgents against Serb forces in the late 1990s, leaving thousands dead and triggering a refugee crisis.
But the arrival of Lipa on the international pop scene has helped showcase Kosovo’s other side — young, talented and full of ambition.
With more than 87 million followers on Instagram and more than 25 million albums sold, the British-born singer of Kosovo descent is one of the biggest pop stars in the world.
Alongside an endless tour schedule, film roles and hosting a popular podcast, Lipa remains one of the most vocal promoters of all things Kosovo.
Launched in 2018 with her father, the Sunny Hill festival she created has brought some of the biggest names to perform in this tiny corner of the Balkan.
Late Thursday afternoon, as the first notes echoed from the main stage, a young crowd passed through the festival entrance, ever grateful to Lipa for bringing another star-studded line up to the capital Pristina.
“I’m very happy that she’s promoting our country with these big, big artists and bringing them to our country,” said Rita Ramadani, 19.
For its fifth edition, Sunny Hill boasts a roster of performers that rivals more established festivals.
Headliners this year include British rap sensation Stormzy and the king of afrobeat, Burna Boy.
Bebe Rexha — who is also of ethnic Albanian origin — electrified the crowd as she sang her global hit “Me, Myself and I,” while speaking Albanian with the audience in between songs.
Albania and Kosovo flags dotted the stages and were scattered across the audience during performances, where festival goers regularly hold two crossed hands in the sign of the Albanian eagle aloft.
This is a festival in Kosovo, afterall.
“We are all very happy that this is happening right now and people from all the world got to hear about Kosovo, and about Sunny Hill. Thanks to Dua Lipa,” said festival attendee Nita Krasniqii.
And while the festival attracts thousands of locals, music lovers from abroad are also making their way to Pristina.
“We’re here because it’s amazing music,” said Michael Maguire, who traveled to the festival from Brussels with friends.
“Kosovo’s an amazing country, full of young people, and very vibrant.”
But hosting a concert in Kosovo has not always been easy.
“In the first years it was more difficult to invite artists as their managers would look online for information about Kosovo and see it might be risky,” Lipa’s father and festival co-founder Dukagjin Lipa told local media.
“Now we don’t have that problem because we have built a name!“
According to organizers, around 45 percent of the festival’s tickets this year were sold abroad.
Priced at 200 euros a ticket — which is nearly half the average monthly salary in Kosovo — few local youngsters are able to afford entry to the four-day festival.
To help control costs, Pristina’s municipal government provided the land, security, transportation and garbage collection for free.
“It is miraculous that it happens in Pristina,” mayor Perparim Rama told AFP.
“It provides us with the fantastic opportunity to showcase our people, our culture, our heritage.”
And even though Lipa is not officially scheduled to perform this year as she manages the festival from the sidelines and watches performances from the VIP section, the spotlight remains fixated on her.
“In the United States, we say God save America,” rapper Mozzik shouted to the audience during his set.
“I say ‘God Save Dua Lipa’.”


TikTok is designed to be addictive to kids and causes them harm, US states’ lawsuits say

Updated 09 October 2024
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TikTok is designed to be addictive to kids and causes them harm, US states’ lawsuits say

More than a dozen states and the District of Columbia filed lawsuits against TikTok on Tuesday, saying that the popular short-form video app is designed to be addictive to kids and harms their mental health.
The lawsuits stem from a national investigation into TikTok, which was launched in March 2022 by a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general from many states, including New York, California, Kentucky and New Jersey. All of the complaints were filed in state courts.
At the heart of each lawsuit is the TikTok algorithm, which powers what users see on the platform by populating the app’s main “For You” feed with content tailored to people’s interests. The lawsuits note TikTok design features that they say addict children to the platform, such as the ability to scroll endlessly through content, push notifications that come with built-in “buzzes” and face filters that create unattainable appearances for users.
“They’ve chosen profit over the health and safety, well-being and future of our children,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said at a news conference in San Francisco. “And that is not something we can accept. So we’ve sued.”
The latest lawsuits come nearly a year after dozens of states sued Instagram parent Meta Platforms Inc. in state and federal courts for harming young people and contributing to the youth mental health crisis by knowingly and deliberately designing addictive features that keep kids hooked on their platforms.
Keeping people on the platform is “how they generate massive ad revenue,” District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb said in an interview. “But unfortunately, that’s also how they generate adverse mental health impacts on the users.”
The legal challenges, which also include Google’s YouTube, are part of a growing reckoning against social media companies and their effects on young people’s lives. In some cases, the challenges have been coordinated in a way that resembles how states previously organized against the tobacco and pharmaceutical industries.
TikTok, though, is facing an even bigger obstacle, as its very existence in the US is in question. Under a federal law that took effect earlier this year, TikTok could be banned from the US by mid-January if its China-based parent company, ByteDance, doesn’t sell the platform by then. Both TikTok and ByteDance are challenging the law at an appeals court in Washington. A panel of three judges heard oral arguments in the case last month and are expected to issue a ruling, which could be appealed to the US Supreme Court.
In its filings Tuesday, the District of Columbia called the algorithm “dopamine-inducing,” and said it was created to be intentionally addictive so the company could trap many young users into excessive use and keep them on its app for hours on end. TikTok does this despite knowing that these behaviors will lead to profound psychological and physiological harms, such as anxiety, depression, body dysmorphia and other long-lasting problems, the district said.
TikTok is disappointed that the lawsuits were filed after the company had been working with the attorneys general for two years on addressing to the issues, a spokesman said.
“We strongly disagree with these claims, many of which we believe to be inaccurate and misleading,” the TikTok spokesman. Alex Haurek, said. “We’re proud of and remain deeply committed to the work we’ve done to protect teens and we will continue to update and improve our product.”
The social media company does not allow children under 13 to sign up for its main service and restricts some content for everyone under 18. But Washington and several other states said in their filings that children can easily bypass those restrictions, allowing them to access the service adults use despite the company’s claims that its platform is safe for children.
The District of Columbia alleges TikTok is operating as an “unlicensed virtual economy” by allowing people to purchase TikTok Coins – a virtual currency within the platform – and send “Gifts” to streamers on TikTok LIVE who can cash it out for real money. TikTok takes a 50 percent commission on these financial transactions but hasn’t registered as a money transmitter with the US Treasury Department or authorities in the district, according to the complaint.
Officials say teens are frequently exploited for sexually explicit content through TikTok’s LIVE streaming feature, which has allowed the app to operate essentially as a “virtual strip club” without any age restrictions. They say the cut the company gets from the financial transactions allows it to profit from exploitation.
The 14 attorneys general say the goal of their lawsuits is to stop TikTok from using these features, impose financial penalties for their alleged illegal practices and collect damages for users that have been harmed.
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.
High school students who frequently use social media more commonly have persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness, according to a new survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conducted last year in which about 20,000 teenagers participated.
Also on Tuesday, 22 other states including Alabama, Colorado, Florida and Michigan filed an amicus brief urging a Tennessee court to force TikTok to produce documents related to a multistate investigation that those attorney general offices say TikTok is withholding or destroying.
When TikTok failed to produce the requested information last year, 46 states including Minnesota filed an amicus brief in support of Tennessee. The amicus brief they filed Tuesday supports Tennessee’s continued efforts to compel TikTok’s compliance.
Last week, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued TikTok, alleging the company was sharing and selling minors’ personal information in violation of a new state law that prohibits these practices. TikTok, which disputes the allegations, is also fighting against a similar data-oriented federal lawsuit filed in August by the Department of Justice.
Several Republican-led states, including Nebraska, Kansas, New Hampshire, Kansas, Iowa and Arkansas, also previously sued the company, some unsuccessfully, over allegations it is harming children’s mental health, exposing them to “inappropriate” content or allowing young people to be sexually exploited on its platform.


Duo wins Physics Nobel for key breakthroughs in AI

Updated 08 October 2024
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Duo wins Physics Nobel for key breakthroughs in AI

  • The pair will receive their prize, consisting of a diploma, a gold medal and a $1 million cheque, from King Carl XVI Gustaf in Stockholm

STOCKHOLM: American John Hopfield and British-Canadian Geoffrey Hinton won the Nobel Prize in Physics on Tuesday for pioneering work in the development of artificial intelligence.
The pair were honored “for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks,” the jury said.
“This year’s two Nobel Laureates in Physics have used tools from physics to develop methods that are the foundation of today’s powerful machine learning,” the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences said in a statement.
Hopfield, 91, a professor at Princeton University, was spotlighted for having created “an associative memory that can store and reconstruct images and other types of patterns in data.”
The jury said Hinton, a 76-year-old professor at the University of Toronto, “invented a method that can autonomously find properties in data, and so perform tasks such as identifying specific elements in pictures.”
“I’m flabbergasted... I had no idea that could happen,” Hinton told reporters via a phone interview as the winners of the award were announced in Stockholm.
The pair will receive their prize, consisting of a diploma, a gold medal and a $1 million cheque, from King Carl XVI Gustaf in Stockholm on December 10, the anniversary of the 1896 death of scientist Alfred Nobel who created the prizes in his last will and testament.
Last year, the Nobel Prize in Physics went to France’s Pierre Agostini, Hungarian-Austrian Ferenc Krausz and Franco-Swede Anne L’Huillier for research using ultra quick light flashes that enable the study of electrons inside atoms and molecules.
The Nobel season continues this week with the announcement of the winner, or winners, of the chemistry prize on Wednesday — followed by the much-anticipated prizes for literature on Thursday and peace on Friday.
The Economics Prize winds things up on Monday, October 14.
Awarded since 1901, the Nobel Prizes honor those who have, in the words of prize creator and scientist Alfred Nobel, “conferred the greatest benefit on humankind.”


Netflix series explores women’s dreams in the body-slamming world of Japanese pro wrestling

Updated 08 October 2024
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Netflix series explores women’s dreams in the body-slamming world of Japanese pro wrestling

  • The Netflix series tells the story of Dump Matsumoto, a real-life wrestling legend from the 1980s who grew up poor with an abusive father

TOKYO: “The Queen of Villains” is a typical coming-of-age tale about a young woman’s road to empowerment and self-discovery — except it all takes place in the body-slamming, arm-twisting world of Japanese professional wrestling.
The Netflix series, which began airing last month, tells the story of Dump Matsumoto, a real-life wrestling legend from the 1980s who grew up poor with a father who was often absent or abusive.
Matsumoto grew up angry, she said, and went on to create in her wrestling persona a ferocious, almost camp villain character, known in the sport as a “heel,” complete with outlandish Kabuki-like facial makeup, chains, sticks and a grotesque scowl. She loomed large as a symbol of fearless and defiant womanhood.
“I gave it my all to be evil,” Matsumoto said.
A hefty woman with a friendly smile, Matsumoto makes a point even now to adamantly deny that she was ever a nice person or acknowledge that many people in Japan, especially women, love her.
“I still beat people up in matches. I stuck forks in them and made them bleed,” she said, adding, “All the people who pretend to be good are the truly evil ones.”
“The Queen of Villains” follows the friendship between Matsumoto and Chigusa Nagayo of the popular wrestling tag team known as the Crush Gals. Nagayo served as an adviser, trainer and choreographer for the series’ dramatized wrestling scenes.
Japanese professional wrestling fans still talk about the matches between Matsumoto and the Crush Gals, including the ones they fought in the US
The actresses in the series spent two years training for their roles. They gained weight and muscle, and learned techniques like the “giant swing,” in which a wrestler grabs her opponent’s legs and moves in a dizzying circle, or the “flying knee kick,” which involves a jump and kick to the body while airborne.
The trick in professional wrestling is to execute the punches and body slams convincingly but in a controlled way to avoid serious injuries. A wrestler also must know how to fall properly.
One key fight scene took a month to film as the actors went over each move, again and again.
“Dump played a role to be hated by the entire nation,” said Yuriyan Retriever, a professional comedian who stars as Matsumoto in the series.
“Previously, there was a limit, maybe even unintentionally, beyond which I couldn’t go. But when I played Dump, all those emotions had to come out and be expressed,” she said.
She felt like she was no longer playing a role, she said, but that she had become Dump Matsumoto.
“It’s frightening to be hated, and I don’t think anyone wants to be hated,” Retriever said.
“When I finished a cut, I was crying. And my body was shaking. I can’t express it in words, but I understood all the pressures Dump must have felt.”
The series not only presents a women-beating-the-odds story against a backdrop of sexism and abusive management but it also captures the postwar period of the Showa-era in a way that feels authentic. The scenes used thousands of extras, many of them serious wrestling fans.
Some viewers say the real-life wrestling was more intense than the dramatized version in the new series.
Rionne McAvoy, an Australian filmmaker who as a professional wrestler was hit with a stick by Matsumoto, said: “The actors often fail to capture the intensity, grit and charisma required for these roles.”
But for most viewers, it’s real enough and heartbreaking.
“This is an eternal but emotional story portraying ordinary girls who passionately pursued a dream, found friendship and also themselves,” director Kazuya Shiraishi said.
“It gave me a chance to reflect on my own 15-year filmmaking career, what I truly want to be, what kind of films I want to make. I just wanted to tell their story, which is also everyone’s story.”


Police chase koala through Sydney train station

Updated 08 October 2024
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Police chase koala through Sydney train station

SYDNEY: A wayward koala led police on a low-speed, early morning chase through a Sydney train station, video released on Tuesday showed, surprising commuters in the city.
Video provided by Transport for New South Wales showed the koala ambling through Casula station on Friday, around 34 km (21 miles) south-west of the city’s central business district.
The video showed the koala checking out an elevator before opting to descend a stairway.
Trains in the area were ordered to slow as the koala — a normally reclusive species and one of Australia’s best-loved animals — came dangerously close to the platform edge.
The marsupial eventually hopped the station fence after police officers were dispatched to chase it away from the tracks.
“All passengers, great and small, are reminded to stay behind the yellow line,” Transport for New South Wales said in a statement.
Koala are listed as vulnerable to extinction in the state.


Don’t expect human life expectancy to grow much more, researcher says

Updated 08 October 2024
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Don’t expect human life expectancy to grow much more, researcher says

  • Women continue to live longer than men and life expectancy improvements are still occurring — but at a slowing pace, the researchers found
  • The researchers focused on eight of the places in the world where people live the longest — Australia, France, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Spain and Switzerland

NEW YORK: Humanity is hitting the upper limit of life expectancy, according to a new study.
Advances in medical technology and genetic research — not to mention larger numbers of people making it to age 100 — are not translating into marked jumps in lifespan overall, according to researchers who found shrinking longevity increases in countries with the longest-living populations.
“We have to recognize there’s a limit” and perhaps reassess assumptions about when people should retire and how much money they’ll need to live out their lives, said S. Jay Olshansky, a University of Illinois-Chicago researcher who was lead author of the study published Monday by the journal Nature Aging.
Mark Hayward, a University of Texas researcher not involved in the study, called it “a valuable addition to the mortality literature.”
“We are reaching a plateau” in life expectancy, he agreed. It’s always possible some breakthrough could push survival to greater heights, “but we don’t have that now,” Hayward said.
What is life expectancy?
Life expectancy is an estimate of the average number of years a baby born in a given year might expect to live, assuming death rates at that time hold constant. It is one of the world’s most important health measures, but it is also imperfect: It is a snapshot estimate that cannot account for deadly pandemics, miracle cures or other unforeseen developments that might kill or save millions of people.
In the new research, Olshansky and his research partners tracked life expectancy estimates for the years 1990 to 2019, drawn from a database administered by the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research. The researchers focused on eight of the places in the world where people live the longest — Australia, France, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Spain and Switzerland.
The US doesn’t even rank in the top 40. But is also was included “because we live here” and because of past, bold estimates that life expectancy in the US might surge dramatically in this century, Olshansky said.
Who lives the longest?
Women continue to live longer than men and life expectancy improvements are still occurring — but at a slowing pace, the researchers found. In 1990, the average amount of improvement was about 2 1/2 years per decade. In the 2010s, it was 1 1/2 years — and almost zero in the US
The US is more problematic because it is harder hit by a range of issues that kill people even before they hit old age, including drug overdoses, shootings, obesity and inequities that make it hard for some people to get sufficient medical care.
But in one calculation, the researchers estimated what would happen in all nine places if all deaths before age 50 were eliminated. The increase at best was still only 1 1/2 years, Olshansky said.
Eileen Crimmins, a University of Southern California gerontology expert, said in an email that she agrees with the study’s findings. She added: “For me personally, the most important issue is the dismal and declining relative position of the United States.”
Why life expectancy may not be able to rise forever
The study suggests that there’s a limit to how long most people live, and we’ve about hit it, Olshansky said.
“We’re squeezing less and less life out of these life-extending technologies. And the reason is, aging gets in the way,” he said.
It may seem common to hear of a person living to 100 — former US President Jimmy Carter hit that milestone last week. In 2019, a little over 2 percent of Americans made it to 100, compared with about 5 percent in Japan and 9 percent in Hong Kong, Olshansky said.
It’s likely that the ranks of centenarians will grow in the decades ahead, experts say, but that’s because of population growth. The percentage of people hitting 100 will remain limited, likely with fewer than 15 percent of women and 5 percent of men making it that long in most countries, Olshansky said.