Maureen Lipman criticised decision to cast Mirren as former Israeli prime minister as she is not Jewish
Dame Helen Mirren has said questions over the choice to have her play Israel’s first female prime minister, Golda Meir, are “utterly legitimate”.
The Academy award-winning actress said there was “a discussion to be had” about the suitability of certain actors for certain roles.
Continue reading...Women required to attend separate classes and follow dress code at facilities in Kandahar and Helmand as they restart classes for first time since Taliban takeover
Public universities in Kandahar and Helmand provinces in Afghanistan have reopened after being closed for nearly nine months, with some female students joining classes.
Despite calls from education activists and students, universities and high schools across Afghanistan stayed shut after their usual summer break as the Taliban came to power. High schools have since reopened, but only for boys.
Continue reading...He was the fake medium from Florida whose scandalous cons almost got him shot. So why did M Lamar Keene then blow the whistle on psychic swindlers? A new podcast finds out
What does it take for someone to impersonate a dead teenager to the grieving mother of the deceased? For M Lamar Keene, a prominent Tampa-based medium in the 1960s and 70s, it was a cinch – all it required was a cocktail of cunning, charisma and sheer audacity. In front of the congregation of his spiritualist church, Keene would enter a trance state and appear to speak as the deceased 17-year-old, Jack, and ask Jack’s mother, Lona, to donate thousands of dollars to the church. One day, Lona asked Jack about the secret name he used for her, to prove it was really him, and Keene was stumped – until he attended a gathering at her house and feigned a headache. While pretending to rest in her bedroom, he searched her belongings and found the name scribbled in a family Bible: “Appleonia”. He pulled it off.
Keene confessed to being a conman in his 1976 book, The Psychic Mafia. Jack and Lona’s was just one of many audacious cases he revealed in the exposé, which shook the world of spiritualism so much that it led to an attempt on his life. Someone took a shot at him on his lawn but missed, leaving a bullet in the side of his house. In the book, Keene described how mediums shared client information so that they could conduct “hot readings” based on solid facts. He recounted how they would steal jewellery from clients for a few months, only to pretend a dead family member’s spirit had made it reappear (which usually resulted in generous tips). Ultimately, he confirmed that mediums formed a vast network to fraudulently monetise people’s grief. So why did Keene – the so-called Prince of the Spiritualists – choose to blow the whistle on everyone?
Continue reading...Michael Todd’s viral moment highlights pastors’ push to connect with an audience beyond the walls of the church
It was meant to be a sermon on the importance of having faith in God’s vision, even when that task seems difficult. An object lesson from the book of Mark, in which Jesus heals a blind man by spitting on his eyes. But it’s how Pastor Michael Todd brought this message home that made the sermon unforgettable.
Addressing congregants and a live-streaming audience, Todd placed one hand on the shoulder of a closed-eyed worshipper on stage before letting out a deep snort and twice hacking phlegm into his other hand. The audible gasps inside the Transformation Church, a Tulsa, Oklahoma-based mega ministry rooted firmly in Black Baptist tradition, turned to full on outcry when Todd smeared said loogie on the worshipper’s face.
Continue reading...In the city’s favelas, a new generation of ‘narco-pentecostals’ are embracing Christian symbols
“Pastor, do you think we could hold a service at my house next Thursday?” the peroxide-haired gangster wondered, cradling an AK-47 in his lap as he took a seat beside the man of God.
A few months earlier, the 23-year-old had bought his first home with the fruits of his illegal work as a footsoldier for one of Rio de Janeiro’s drug factions. Now, he wanted to give thanks for the blessings he believed he had received from above.
Continue reading...The Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh, who has died at 95, gave his movement a global reach and influence
Before he got sick, Thich Nhat Hanh urged his followers not to put his ashes in a vase, lock him inside and “limit who I am”. Instead, the Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk, poet and peace activist apparently told them: “If I am anywhere, it is in your mindful breathing and in your peaceful steps.”
And after the 95-year-old’s death on Saturday, the breadth of the legacy of his extraordinary life was laid bare as news of his death reverberated around the world, drawing tributes from leading figures from across psychology, religion and social justice.
Continue reading...The mutilated body of a 24-year-old Muslim, Arbaaz Aftab Mullah, was discovered on a railway track near his home. His family believe he was murdered because of his interfaith relationship with a Hindu woman and that he is one of the latest victims of the 'love jihad' conspiracy theory, which has swept across groups of Hindu nationalists in India. The theory claims that Muslim men are seducing Hindu women and luring them into marriage in order to convert them to Islam. The claims are baseless, yet the consequences are real
Continue reading...Man denied any wrongdoing after pair caught together in conservative Aceh province
An Indonesian woman has been flogged 100 times in Aceh province for adultery while the male involved, who denied the accusations, received just 15 lashes.
Ivan Najjar Alavi, the head of the general investigation division at the East Aceh prosecutors’ office, said the court handed down a harsher sentence for the woman after she confessed to investigators she had sex outside of her marriage.
Continue reading...Postal wonder | Corruption | Sacklers | Platinum pudding | Polar prayers
As a five-year-old in the 1950s, I wrote a letter with my Toytown writing set to my favourite uncle, who was in the navy. Before posting, I chose the shade of Noddy stamp to best complement the matching paper and envelope, then addressed it to “Uncle Bob, Malta” (Letters, 11 January). He received it, along with a hefty excess postage fee, but carried it with him in his wallet long afterwards as a cherished memory of home.
Andrea Clarkson
Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria
• You report that “the British foreign secretary, Liz Truss, insists the UK has some of the toughest anti-corruption laws in the world” (MPs to re-examine UK response to dirty money from Russia, 10 January). But laws and acts of parliament are just pieces of paper until their implementation is monitored.
Marika Sherwood
Oare, Kent
Photojournalist Giuia Besana visits the world’s northernmost priest who runs the Svalbard Church in Longyearbyen, in Norway’s Svalbard archipelago. Pastor Siv Limstrand is the community’s guiding figure as it looks to an uncertain future in the face of economic shifts and the effects of climate change
Located in the Svalbard archipelago in Norway, Longyearbyen is the world’s northernmost settlement. Here, winter temperatures range from -13 to -20C and inhabitants are prepared for two and half months of complete darkness in winter, the constant danger of polar bears, and avalanches.
The road to the cabin of Siv Limstrand, in Adventdalen Valley, an 18-mile-long valley east of Longyearbyen, during a brief moment of daylight
Continue reading...She has played the Queen and a gangster’s moll but her latest casting has sparked controversy
Nobody is quite what they seem. And actors? Well, for actors that’s the job. Dame Helen Mirren, as well as being herself for 76 years, has by now notably been Lady Macbeth, a London gangster’s moll, a thief’s wife, an alcoholic cop, an action hero, Prospero and also a British monarch at least four times. Now she takes on Golda Meir, the late prime minister of Israel, in a new biopic, and the casting has caused controversy.
The choice of a non-Jewish actor to star as a woman with such a prominent place in the history of Israel has prompted irritation on both sides of the argument. Another illustrious dame, Maureen Lipman, was first to raise the issue – or “blast” Mirren, according to some reports last week – and then Dame Esther Rantzen defended the director’s choice. It is the latest instance of a ‘Jewface’ row, a backlash to the assignment of a major Jewish role to someone not from that minority background.
Continue reading...People juggle work and Friday prayer as country switches to Saturday-Sunday weekend
Employees and schoolchildren juggled work and studies with weekly Muslim prayers on the first ever working Friday in the United Arab Emirates, as the Gulf country formally switched to a Saturday-Sunday weekend.
Some grumbled at the change and businesses were split, with many moving to the western-style weekend but other private firms sticking with Fridays and Saturdays, as in other Gulf states.
Continue reading...Decision to close public hammams – most people’s only chance for a warm wash – sparks anger in light of country’s mounting crises
The Taliban sparked outrage this week by announcing that women in northern Afghanistan would no longer be allowed to use communal bathhouses.
The use of bathhouses, or hammams, is an ancient tradition that remains for many people the only chance for a warm wash during the country’s bitterly cold winters.
Continue reading...Pontiff laments ‘denied parenthood’ and people who ‘substitute cats and dogs for children’
In a move likely to raise the hackles of millions of cats, dogs and their human cohabitees, Pope Francis has suggested that couples who prefer pets to children are selfish.
Wading into a debate noted for its toxic tone on social media, the leader of the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics said substituting pets for children “takes away our humanity”.
Continue reading...Pope Francis suggested people who own cats and dogs instead of having children exhibit 'a certain selfishness', during a speech on parenthood and adoption at the Vatican.
The pontiff lamented that pets 'sometimes take the place of children' and that countries were becoming older and losing their humanity as a result
Continue reading...Celebrating mass in St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, Francis says violence against women is insult to God
Pope Francis has used his new year’s message to call for an end to violence against women, saying it was an insult to God.
Celebrating mass in St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, on the day the Roman Catholic church marks its annual World Day of Peace, Francis wove his new year’s homily around the themes of motherhood and women, saying it was they who kept the threads of life together.
Continue reading...Body of revered anti-apartheid figure to be displayed for extra day ‘to accommodate more mourners’
The body of archbishop Desmond Tutu, the revered South African anti-apartheid fighter who died at the weekend aged 90, will lie in state for two days before his funeral on New Year’s Day, his foundations have said.
The lying in state was initially scheduled to last just one day – Friday – but has been extended to include Thursday “to accommodate more mourners”, said the Archbishop Tutu IP Trust and the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation.
Continue reading...Amid growing intolerance to India’s Christian minority, several Christmas events were targeted by Hindu right wing groups
Festive celebrations were disrupted, Jesus statues were smashed and effigies of Santa Claus were burned in a spate of attacks on India’s Christian community over Christmas.
Amid growing intolerance and violence against India’s Christian minority, who make up about 2% of India’s population, several Christmas events were targeted by Hindu right wing groups, who alleged Christians were using festivities to force Hindus to convert.
Continue reading...Archbishop of Canterbury says pandemic has shown our capacity for compassion and generosity
Everyone in society, from Cabinet ministers to rough sleepers, has faced “uncertainty, uncontrollability and unpredictability” during the Covid pandemic, the archbishop of Canterbury has said in his Christmas sermon.
Justin Welby, who led the Christmas Day service at Canterbury Cathedral, added that the past 22 months has also shown people’s capacity for compassion and generosity.
Continue reading...When Wesley Rowell realised he was gay, he swapped church for the library, and became a performer. Then, in his seventh decade, he heard the call to join a seminary
Wesley Rowell hoped to make it as an opera singer. A bass-baritone, he supported his ambitions and auditions with singing jobs in churches in Chicago and New York, and as a luxury salesperson, selling expensive pots of face cream. Then, at 60, he found a different kind of voice – and started seminary at Princeton with a mission to “reclaim God’s queerness”.
No one was more surprised than Rowell, who is now 61. “If somebody said to me three years ago: ‘You’ll be going to a seminary,’ it would have been a ridiculous joke.” His mother, however, “a very serene, soft” 91-year-old, “just smiled and said: ‘Well, I guess your grandmother was right.’” Rowell’s grandfather was a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion church in the family’s hometown of Fayetteville, North Carolina, and his grandmother had raised the possibility that one of the grandchildren might follow that path.
Tell us: has your life taken a new direction after the age of 60?
Continue reading...