First female concert in Saudi: Balqees steals the show

Riyadh, Feb 27: Saudi Arabia on Thursday halted travel to the holiest sites in Islam over fears about a new viral epidemic just months ahead of the annual hajj pilgrimage, a move coming as the Mideast has over 220 confirmed cases of the illness.

The extraordinary decision by Saudi Arabia stops foreigners from reaching the holy city of Mecca and the Kaaba, the cube-shaped structure the world's 1.8 billion Muslims pray toward five times a day. It also said travel was suspended to Prophet Muhammad's mosque in Medina.

The decision showed the worry about the outbreak potentially spreading into Saudi Arabia, whose oil-rich monarchy stakes its legitimacy on protecting Islam's holy sites. The epicenter in the Mideast's most-affected country, Iran, appears to be in the holy Shiite city of Qom, where a shrine there sees the faithful reach out to kiss and touch it in reverence.

"Saudi Arabia renews its support for all international measures to limit the spread of this virus, and urges its citizens to exercise caution before traveling to countries experiencing coronavirus outbreaks," the Saudi Foreign Ministry said in a statement announcing the decision.

"We ask God Almighty to spare all humanity from all harm." Disease outbreaks always have been a concern surrounding the hajj, required of all able-bodied Muslims once in their life, especially as pilgrims come from all over the world.

The earliest recorded outbreak came in 632 as pilgrims fought off malaria. A cholera outbreak in 1821, for instance, killed an estimated 20,000 pilgrims. Another cholera outbreak in 1865 killed 15,000 pilgrims and then spread worldwide.

More recently, Saudi Arabia faced a danger from a related coronavirus that caused Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS. The kingdom increased its public health measures in 2012 and 2013, though no outbreak occurred.

While millions attend the 10-day hajj, this year set for late July into early August, millions more come during the rest of the year to the holy sites in the kingdom.

"It is unprecedented, at least in recent times, but given the worldwide spread of the virus and the global nature of the umrah, it makes sense from a public health and safety point of view," said Kristian Ulrichsen, a research fellow at the James A Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University. "Especially since the Iranian example illustrates how a religious crossroads can so quickly amplify the spread and reach of the virus." The virus that causes the illness named COVID-19 has infected more than 80,000 people globally, mainly in China. The hardest-hit nation in the Mideast is Iran, where Health Ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour said 19 people have died among 139 confirmed cases.

Experts are concerned Iran may be underreporting cases and deaths, given the illness's rapid spread from Iran across the Persian Gulf. For example, Iran still has not confirmed any cases in Mashhad, even though a number of cases reported in Kuwait are linked to the Iranian city.

In Bahrain, which confirmed 33 cases as of Thursday morning, authorities halted all flights to Iraq and Lebanon. It separately extended a 48-hour ban overflights from Dubai and Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates, through which infected travellers reached the island kingdom off the coast of Saudi Arabia.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said there were no immediate plans to quarantine cities but acknowledged it may take "one, two or three weeks” to get control of the virus in Iran.

As Iran's 80 million people find themselves increasingly isolated in the region by the outbreak, the country's sanctions-battered economy saw its currency slump to its lowest level against the US dollar in a year on Wednesday.

Los Angeles, Mar 6: Filmmaker-writer Taika Waititi is set to direct two animated series based on Roald Dahl's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" for Netflix.

Waititi, who won an Academy Award in February for his adapted screenplay, "Jojo Rabbit", will also serve as the writer and producer on the animated series.

According to Deadline, the first series will be based on the world of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", while the second will be an original take on the Oompa-Loompa characters from the book.

The Oompa-Loompas are little humans who were preyed upon in Loompaland before Wonka invited them to work at his chocolate factory. They are paid in cocoa beans and love practical jokes and singing songs.

Netflix said the animation series would "retain the quintessential spirit and tone of the original story while building out the world and characters far beyond the pages of the Dahl book for the very first time."

The series will follow in the footsteps of Gene Wilder's 1971 portrayal of Willy Wonka and Johnny Depp's 2005 interpretation.

Los Angeles, Feb 6: U.S. silver screen legend Kirk Douglas, the son of Jewish Russian immigrants who rose through the ranks to become one of Hollywood's biggest stars, has died, his family said Wednesday. He was 103.

One of the last survivors of the golden age of cinema and the father of Oscar-winning actor and film-maker Michael Douglas, the Spartacus actor was renowned for the macho tough guy roles he took on in around 90 movies over a six-decade career.

"It is with tremendous sadness that my brothers and I announce that Kirk Douglas left us today at the age of 103," Michael Douglas said in a statement posted to Facebook.

"To the world he was a legend, an actor from the golden age of movies who lived well into his golden years, a humanitarian whose commitment to justice and the causes he believed in set a standard for all of us to aspire to."

Douglas was Oscar-nominated for his roles as a double-crossing and womanizing boxer in Champion (1949), a ruthless movie producer in The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) and tortured artist Vincent Van Gogh in Lust for Life (1956).

But his only Academy Award came in 1995 -- an honorary lifetime achievement statuette "for 50 years as a creative and moral force in the motion picture community."

Douglas is survived by second wife Anne Buydens, 100, and three sons. A fourth child, Eric, died of a drug overdose in his 40s, in 2004.

"(To) me and my brothers Joel and Peter he was simply Dad, to Catherine (Zeta-Jones), a wonderful father-in-law, to his grandchildren and great grandchild their loving grandfather, and to his wife Anne, a wonderful husband," said Michael.

"Kirk's life was well lived, and he leaves a legacy in film that will endure for generations to come, and a history as a renowned philanthropist who worked to aid the public and bring peace to the planet."

Kirk Douglas rose to the heights of Hollywood from an impoverished childhood as the son of Jewish Russian immigrants.

He was one of the last survivors of the golden age of cinema, often portraying the macho and not-always-likeable tough guy in around 90 movies over a six-decade career.

With charming dimples and a cleft chin, Douglas was a renowned ladies' man but also admitted to being angry into adulthood because of his difficult New York childhood.

"I still have anger in me," he said in a New York Times article in 1988 after the release of his first autobiography.

"I think I'm loath to let it go because I think that anger was the fuel I used in accomplishing what I wanted to do; you see it in my films, you see it in imitations people do of me."

Screen legend

The role that perhaps immortalized him as a star was that of a rebellious Roman Empire slave turned gladiator in the 1960 epic Spartacus.

Douglas also produced the film, which took four Oscars. He won praise for listing in the credits the real name of Hollywood screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, who was blacklisted for his Communist sympathies and wrote under a pen name.

There were Oscar nominations for his roles as a double-crossing and womanizing boxer in Champion (1949), a ruthless movie producer in The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) and of tortured artist Vincent Van Gogh in Lust for Life (1956).

But his only Oscar came in 1995 as an honorary lifetime achievement award "for 50 years as a creative and moral force in the motion picture community."

Other major acting roles were as a French private in a botched suicidal mission in World War I in Paths of Glory (1957) and American Western legend Doc Holliday in Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957).

"Often cast as a villain, amoral climber or self-obsessed grabber, Kirk Douglas took care to color his hard edges with suggestions of pain, wit and sympathy," says American Film Institute, which ranks him as 17th on its list of the greatest male screen legends.

In the 1970s he stood behind the camera, directing Scalawag (1973) and Posse (1975).

He also took up writing, penning his first autobiography The Ragman's Son in 1988 and following with around 10 other titles.

In the autobiography, Douglas writes: "I always worked in the theory that when you play a weak character, find a moment when he's strong. And if you're playing a strong character, find a moment when he's weak."

Tough childhood

Douglas was born in New York on December 9, 1916 to illiterate Jewish Russian immigrants, an only boy with six sisters.

He started out as Issur Danielovitch, later Izzy Demsky. It was tough, he recounted later, with the family poor, anti-Semitism rife and his distant alcoholic father forced to earn a living as a ragman.

"In a sense, I've always felt on the outside, looking in," he said in the New York Times article.

"It's my background, damn it. My father was an illiterate Russian immigrant, a ragman, the lowest rung on the economic scale."

His dream of a way out was through acting and he started in high school, eventually entering the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and changing his name along the way.

To survive he took jobs as a waiter, labourer and porter. In 1941 he hit Broadway but his budding career was interrupted by service in the Navy. After the war, he headed for Hollywood.

His romantic conquests were many, although he once said he had never counted, and included starls such as Rita Hayworth, Marlene Dietrich, Joan Crawford and Ava Gardner.

Douglas' four sons followed him into cinema.

Oscar-winning actor and producer Michael and Joel were from a marriage to actress Diana Webster, whom he divorced in 1951.

Three years later he married Belgian-American Anne Buydens, having Peter and then Eric, who died in 2004 from an accidental overdose.

Douglas has also brushed death: he survived a helicopter crash in 1991 and a massive stroke in 1996 that nearly robbed him of speech.

Around the time of his 100th birthday in 2016, he attributed his remarkable longevity to his second marriage.

"I was lucky enough to find my soulmate 63 years ago, and I believe our wonderful marriage and our nightly 'golden hour' chats have helped me survive all things," he said in celebrity magazine Closer Weekly.