Harvey Weinstein hospitalized after ‘alarming’ blood test: attorney

In 2017, the allegations against Hollywood film producer Harvey Weinstein helped launch the #MeToo movement, a watershed moment for women fighting sexual misconduct. (AFP)
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Updated 03 December 2024
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Harvey Weinstein hospitalized after ‘alarming’ blood test: attorney

  • Lawyer: Harvey Weinstein will remain at the hospital ‘until his condition stabilizes’
  • Weinstein had previously been hospitalized in September for emergency heart surgery before being reincarcerated

NEW YORK: Former Hollywood movie producer and convicted sex offender Harvey Weinstein was hospitalized after an “alarming blood test result,” his lawyer said late Monday.
Weinstein’s attorney Imran Ansari said via email that the 72-year-old was taken to a New York hospital for “emergent treatment due to an alarming blood test result that requires immediate medical attention.”
He will remain at the hospital “until his condition stabilizes,” his lawyer added.
US media reported in October that Weinstein was diagnosed with bone marrow cancer.
The disgraced producer, who is currently serving a prison sentence at the notorious Rikers Island prison, “has been suffering from a lack of adequate medical care and enduring deplorable and inhumane conditions,” Ansari said.
In the same email, Weinstein’s spokesman Juda Engelmayer said his client “is suffering from a number of illnesses, including leukemia” and “has been deprived the medical attention that someone in his medical state deserves, prisoner or not.”
“In many ways, this mistreatment constitutes cruel and unusual punishment,” Engelmayer added.
Weinstein had previously been hospitalized in September for emergency heart surgery before being reincarcerated.
The co-founder of Miramax Films is due to be retried in New York in 2025, after an appeals court last year reversed the ruling of his 2020 sentence for raping an actress, Jessica Mann, and sexually assaulting a production assistant, Mimi Haleyi.
The trial was due to begin in November, but has since been delayed.
Weinstein has appeared in court several times due to the proceedings, most recently in October, during which he arrived in a wheelchair, pale and visibly diminished.
Prosecutors in New York, meanwhile, have since charged him in a separate sexual assault case from 2006, to which Weinstein pleaded not guilty and attorneys requested a separate trial.
The next hearing in the case is set for January 29, during which a new trial date will be set for all charges.
Although Weinstein’s conviction in New York was overturned, he remains incarcerated for a separate 16-year prison sentenced issued in 2023 by a court in Los Angeles for additional rape and sexual assault charges.
In 2017, the allegations against Weinstein helped launch the #MeToo movement, a watershed moment for women fighting sexual misconduct.
More than 80 women accused him of harassment, sexual assault or rape, including prominent actors Angelina Jolie, Gwyneth Paltrow and Ashley Judd.
Weinstein has claimed that any sexual relations in question were consensual.


Iranian drones hit Azerbaijan airport

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Iranian drones hit Azerbaijan airport

  • Azerbaijan on Thursday summoned the Iranian envoy after two people were wounded in drone hits on an airport and near a school

DUBAI: Azerbaijan on Thursday summoned the Iranian envoy after two people were wounded in drone hits on an airport and near a school.
The attacks around midday involved at least two drones that crossed from Iran into Azerbaijan’s exclave of Nakhichevan, which borders Iran and is separated from mainland Azerbaijan by Armenia, said a foreign ministry statement.
“One drone fell on the terminal building of Nakhichevan Airport, while another drone fell near a school building in the village of Shekerabad,” the ministry said, damaging the airport and wounding two civilians.
The ministry said it had summoned Iranian envoy in Baku to express “strong protest” over the attack, which “contradicts the norms and principles of international law and contributes to rising tensions in the region.
“Azerbaijan reserves the right to take appropriate retaliatory measures,” it added.
Iran has long expressed concern that Israel — a close ally of Azerbaijan and a key arms supplier — could use Azerbaijani territory to stage attacks.
Last June, Azerbaijan reassured Iran that it would not allow its territory to be used for attacks against Tehran after Israel launched a large-scale strike on Iranian targets.
Tehran has historically been wary of separatist sentiment among its ethnic Azerbaijani minority, which makes up around 10 million of Iran’s 83 million citizens.

Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry lodged an official protest with the ​Iranian embassy on Thursday after a pair of Iranian drones flew across the border into Azerbaijan and injured two people at an airport in the Nakhchivan exclave.

“This attack on the territory of Azerbaijan contradicts the norms and principles ‌of international ‌law and contributes ​to increased ‌tensions ⁠in the ​region,” ⁠the foreign ministry said in a statement.
“We demand that the Islamic Republic of Iran clarify the matter in the shortest possible time, provide an explanation and take the necessary urgent measures to prevent ⁠such incidents from recurring in the ‌future.”
The Iranian ‌ambassador to Azerbaijan has been ​summoned to the foreign ‌ministry to receive a formal ‌note of protest, Baku said.
The statement said Azerbaijan reserved the right to carry out “appropriate response measures” against Tehran.
Azerbaijan’s ministry said one drone fell ‌on the terminal building of the Nakhchivan International Airport, which is approximately ⁠10 ⁠km (6 miles) across the border from Iran, and another drone landed close to a school building in a nearby village.
A source close to the Azerbaijani government told Reuters a fire had started as a result of the incident.
Video footage shared by the source showed black smoke rising near the airport ​and damage to ​the skylight inside the terminal building.