Daily Archives: July 5, 2017

Censor, directed and produced by Peter Kerekes, and written by Ivan Ostrochovsky, has won the 14th edition of the Karlovy Vary Film Festivals Works in Progress competition, which is open to projects from Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, Turkey, Greece and former Soviet territories.

The jury, which consisted of Iole Maria Giannattasio, directorate general for cinema at the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage, Activities and Tourism (MiBACT), producer Cedomir Kolar from A.S.A.P. Films, and Susana Santos Rodrigues, a film programmer, distributor, producer and co-founder of Vaivem, awarded the prize to the Slovak film for its original and vivid human portrait of a lonely woman.

The film centers on Irina, who works as a censor in a prison in Odessa, Ukraine. She spends eight hours a day in her office reading love letters. Through her, we follow various love affairs that only she can observe, according to a statement. Although she sees how women being used, and how the relationships end in disaster for them, she cannot take any action. She is a single woman and after 12 years of reading love letters full of the lies men tell, she is not capable of any relationship. If a guy on a date says, You are special, she feels sick. But, of course, even she dreams of love.

Eight projects competed and one was selected out-of-competition from 77 projects submitted. The award, which has a total value of Euros 100,000 ($114,000), includes post-production services at UPP and Soundsquare, as well as a Euros 10,000 ($11,400) cash award from Barrandov Studio.

The Stand-In, directed and written by Ra di Martino and produced by Marco Alessi, won the Eurimages Lab Project Award. The prize is for projects that are in production or post-production, and are being made outside the traditional filmmaking framework, and involve international co-operation. Eight projects were considered, selected from 45 submissions from Eurimages countries. The winning project, which received an award of Euros 50,000 ($56,800), was awarded for its ironic visual experimental approach to innovative narrative, and for being an intersection of art and film. The film is a co-production from Italy, France and Morocco.

In the movie a small film crew travel around Marrakech and the surrounding area looking for swimming-pool locations for a remake of an American movie in which a man crosses the county, pool by pool, to reach his home (presumably 1968s The Swimmer, starring Burt Lancaster). The filmmakers rehearse the shots with a stand-in to find the path through the city and the pools that the main actor will run and swim through. As we watch his struggles to become more than just a stand-in, the real actors and film crew burst onto the scene on a set where nobody seems to be in the right place, according to a statement. [It is] a film in search of itself, looking for where the real film is.

Ra di Martinos The Stand-In deconstructs the cinematic boundaries between stand-ins and actors, according to producer Marco Alessi (Photo courtesy of Dugong)

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Peter Kerekes' 'Censor' Wins Karlovy Vary's Works in Progress Contest - Variety

MINNEAPOLIS Talk about a response. Talk aboutprogress.

Columbus Crew SC were able to keep their first clean sheet since late May on Tuesday, beating Minnesota United, 1-0, at TCF Bank Stadium. For Crew SCcoach Gregg Berhalter, the close affair followed his desired script.

We had an objective to make it difficult for Minnesota, Berhalter said. In the first half, we had a goal to get to 0-0at the half, and we did that. We werent pleased with our counterattacking in the first half. We had an opportunity to score two or three goals.

With each team starting with a variation of a five-man back line, midfield possession was scarce. This left the two teams to focus on building through quick transitions. Columbus wereable to capitalize on one such chance in the second half, as Kekuta Manneh struck in the 58th minute on a well-taken low shot from distance.

Manneh's contributions and those of the other Crew SC attackers were not simply in the attack. They also chipped in to the overall solid defensive effort on the day by pressuring Minnesota.

Kekuta, Ola [Kamara], and Ethan [Finlay]did well to close down, Berhalter said. They worked to make it hard on defenders. You can understand why there were times that they didnt have energy for the counterattack.

The focus on the wings and counters madefor an interesting development in Columbus' midfield, which did not allow much up the middle against Minnesota en route to surrendering just one shot on target on the day.

Today was a great testament to our collective work, said Columbus captain Wil Trapp. We had a new lineup, a lot of guys who didnt start. We stayed as cohesive as possible, and thats a lot of work that we put in the training field. Its a mentality, to communicate and have the guynext to yours back.

Among the new pieces in the lineup were Lalas Abubakar, who madehis MLS debut. The rookiewas alongside Nicolai Naess and Alex Crognale, and they all did well to keep the clean sheet despite not having veteran presenceJonathan Mensahto leadthe way.

I think its good, Berhalter said of holding Minnesota scoreless. The thing about us is that we play a certain way that will concede some chances at times. We dont want to give upsilly goals. A lot of the times were the aggressor, looking to stretch the opponent, and sometimes that leaves you vulnerable.

"Tonight, the effort from guys like Abubakar, Crognale, and [Josh] Williams made it a collective effort.

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Columbus Crew SC make defensive progress in win over Minnesota United - MLSsoccer.com

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: We return now to North Korea and its recent missile launch.

Today, the United States called for a closed-door United Nations Security Council meeting to address the threat.

So, what exactly are the Trump administrations options, and how might it respond?

For that, we turn to Ambassador Christopher Hill. He was the chief U.S. negotiator with North Korea from 2005 until 2009, and served as U.S. ambassador to South Korea. And by Mark Bowden. Hes a national correspondent for The Atlantic magazine, and he recently wrote a comprehensive cover story titled Can North Korea Be Stopped?

Gentlemen, welcome to you both.

Ambassador Hill, I would like to start with you first.

Can you just give me your initial reaction to this most recent launch?

CHRISTOPHER HILL, Former Chief U.S. Negotiator with North Korea: I think its a very serious matter. Its pretty clear they have made progress on intercontinental ballistic missiles.

From what I can understand, if you sent it at a different pitch, it could actually exceed the 5,000 miles that qualifies it as an intercontinental ballistic missile. So its a pretty serious matter.

And we also understand they made progress on miniaturization, so its not farfetched to assume that in the next two or three years, they will have a deliverable nuclear weapon aimed at the United States. And the real question is, how is the president going to explain that to the American people? And, perhaps more immediately, what is he going to do about it?

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Mark Bowden, just as Ambassador Hill is saying, President Trump has said he will not allow a nuclear-armed missile to be able to be developed in North Korea. But this certainly seems like a very large step in that direction.

MARK BOWDEN, The Atlantic: It does.

And in addition to shrinking a nuclear weapon to go on top of a missile like that, they already have chemical and biological weapons that are capable of mass casualties. So, this is a really serious development. And its easy to say youre going to stop them from doing it, but its not a very easy thing to accomplish.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Ambassador, I wonder if you could give me a sense of, what is your understanding of what Kim Jong-un actually wants with this nuclear program?

CHRISTOPHER HILL: Well, you know, opinions differ on this. There are some who believe this is a poor, beleaguered country surrounded by larger hostile states who want to do it harm, and so why not allow the North Koreans to defend themselves?

But I think its actually a much more aggressive purpose they have in mind. I think what theyre hoping is that to hold American civilians at risk, that is, to have a deliverable nuclear weapon that is deliverable to the U.S. mainland, they can convince the United States not to exercise their responsibilities in the treaty with South Korea.

And I think being North Korean is to believe that, somehow, if they can get the U.S. out of the equation, they could reunite the peninsula on their own terms.

This is seems farfetched, but to be a North Korean is not necessarily to believe in the conventional wisdom. I think there are a lot of North Koreans who feel there is a lot of pro-North Korean sentiment in South Korea, and if only they could get the U.S. out of the equation, they could do it.

So I think its is a very serious moment and, frankly, a very dangerous moment.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Mark Bowden, what do you make of that? Is this really primarily a development of an offensive weapon for the potential keeping the U.S. and others at bay while it retakes South Korea?

MARK BOWDEN: I do think and I agree with Ambassador Hill that is the primary reason for having this weapon, but it also gives North Korea a lot more leverage in that region and certainly in dealing with South Korea.

Its conceivable, given the overtures that the new South Korean president has made to reopen negotiations with North Korea, that he could Kim Jong-un could use the possession of a weapon like this to pressure that those negotiations take place without the United States.

And I think his goal may well be to get the United States to withdraw from the Korean Peninsula.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Ambassador Hill, help me understand this a little bit more, though, because we are always told that, while this regime may be a despotic regime, that theyre not out of their minds, theyre not irrational actors. And the idea that somehow the U.S. would allow them to invade South Korea just seems unbelievably farfetched.

CHRISTOPHER HILL: Well, I mean, if you look at the kind of weaponry, which tends to be very offensive, tends to be right up there in the front, when you look at, as Mark pointed out, their capacities in chemical weapons and biological weapons, if you look at the fact that they have some 14,000 artillery tubes right up there in the front pointing right at the South Korean civilian populations, it looks to be a kind of offensively minded force.

And I think, for a long time, they have been dedicated to the proposition that they have to kind of decouple the U.S. from the Korean Peninsula and then a lot of things will fall their way.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Mark Bowden, your piece in The Atlantic laid out what you describe as the four main options for the Trump administration to respond. And you imply obviously that these are largely bad options.

Can you sort of explain what suite of options that the administration has?

MARK BOWDEN: Well, the obvious one, people Always bring this up whenever Im interviewed on the subject, is that, well, why dont we just attack North Korea and take out their military and eliminate the threat?

And thats certainly doable, but the consequences of that would be horrific, as the ambassador just pointed out. Even the conventional weapons that North Korea has could level Seoul, a city of 26 million people. And when you add, you know, chemical weapons and biological weapons and potentially nuclear weapons, you have possibly one of the greatest catastrophes in human history.

The other possibility is to sort of turn up the screws, a series of small-scale military attacks that would kind of ramp up the pressure on North Korea, something that could rapidly descend into an all-out conflict.

Another possibility is to target Kim Jong-un himself and try and eliminate him and replace him. And then the last bad option is just to accept the fact that we cant stop North Korea from building these weapons. And, you know, deterrents are you know, in this case, it would just be assured destruction we can hope might prevent them from using them.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Ambassador, last question to you.

The president seemed to imply in his tweet that its really upon China to handle this situation. But we have had now three administrations that have tried to persuade China to act with regards to North Korea.

Why hasnt that happened yet?

CHRISTOPHER HILL: Well, I think the Chinese are split.

I think theres some Chinese who feel that the demise of North Korea would be perceived in their country that is, in China as a victory for America and a defeat for China. And they worry about the perception of that within China, that is, its a domestic issue within China.

So, there are a lot of people who want to go with reforms much faster than Xi Jinping does. And if North Korea were to go away, perhaps those people would be in the ascendancy. So, a lot of party types, security types in China dont like to see something that results in something that looks like a U.S. victory.

That said, I think those three administrations are absolutely correct. We need to work more with China. I think the problem is President Trump has more of an outsourcing notion, that, somehow, OK, over to you, China, you sort this out. We will support you, and, by the way, we will stop calling you a currency manipulator and all the other bad things that you dont like.

Well, China is not going to be able to do this alone. I would keep the door open for negotiation, not that the North Koreans have shown any interest in negotiation. But having done it for a number of years, I think it was the right way to keep our relations with Japan and South Korea together, and having taken a lot of criticism from people who thought, how can you think negotiation is the right answer?

It has to be a factor in it if youre going to keep others together with you on the issue.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: All right, Former Ambassador Christopher Hill, Mark Bowden of The Atlantic magazine, thank you both very much.

MARK BOWDEN: Youre welcome.

CHRISTOPHER HILL: Thank you.

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North Korea is making progress developing weapons. What can the US do about it? - PBS NewsHour

On July 7, G20 leaders will gather in Hamburg for their annual meeting. One likely outcome: another clash over climate change between the host government, Germany, and United States president Donald Trump.

As the Chinese did last year, German Prime Minister Angela Merkel has prioritised climate on the G20 agenda, just when the US administration is rolling back many environmental policies.

President Trump has announced that he wants his country to leave the Paris agreement, saying that the international accord is unfair to the US.

The question of what is fair in climate politics is hugely important.

Trumps definition of fairness America First is probably not mutually acceptable to most other nations. But countries will hesitate to scale up their ambitions unless they are convinced that others are doing their fair share.

To address this question, we have put together our third annual stocktake on their progress in a report coordinated by the global consortium Climate Transparency that determines how far the G20 has come in shifting from fossil fuels to a low-carbon economy.

The report, compiled with 13 partners from 11 countries, draws on a wide spectrum of published information in four main areas (emissions, policy performance, finance and decarbonisation) and presents it concisely, enabling comparison between these 20 countries as they shift from dirty brown economies to clean green ones.

Issei Kato/Reuters

The G20 is crucial to international action on climate change. Together, member states account for 75% of global greenhouse gas emissions and, in 2014, accounted for about 82% of global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions.

All member countries signed on to the 2015 Paris agreement, with its long-term temperature goals of keeping global warming to below 2C, ideally limiting it 1.5C..

The G20 have also proven to be a nimble policy forum, where soft policy making can happen. And there is less concern than in the past that the group would seek to replace the multilateral process.

This means these governments must lead the way in decarbonising their economies and building a low-carbon future.

According to the Climate Transparency report, the G20 countries are using their energy more efficiently, and using cleaner energy sources. Their economies have also grown, proving that economic growth can be decoupled from greenhouse gas emissions.

So we are beginning to see a transition from brown to green. But the report also reveals that the transition is too slow; it does not go deep enough to meet the Paris Agreements goals.

In half of the G20 countries, greenhouse gas emissions per capita are no longer rising. A notable exception is Japan, where emissions per person are ticking upward.

Canada has the highest energy use per capita, followed by Saudi Arabia, Australia and the US.

India, Indonesia and South Africa all have low energy use per capita (Indias per capita rate is one-eighth that of Canada). Poverty in these countries can only be addressed if people have access to more energy.

Today, renewable energy is increasingly the cheapest option. Still, we found that many G20 countries are meeting their increasing energy needs with coal, the dirtiest of fossil fuels.

According to the Climate Action Tracker, which monitors progress toward the Paris agreements temperature goals, coal should be phased out globally by 2050 at the latest.

Between 2013 and 2014, the G20 countries public finance institutions - including national and international development banks, majority state-owned banks and export credit agencies - spent an average of almost US$88 billion a year on coal, oil and gas.

Yet many of the G20 countries are now looking at phasing out coal, including Canada, France and the UK, which have all established a plan to do so.

Author provided

Germany, Italy and Mexico, too, are considering reducing their use of coal or have taken significant action to do so. India and China continue to be highly dependent on coal but have recently closed and scaled back plans for a number of coal plants.

Countries at the bottom of the rankings are Japan, Indonesia and Turkey, all of which have substantial coal-plant construction plans, and Australia.

Despite their repeated commitment to phasing out fossil fuel subsidies, the G20 countries are still heavily subsidising fossil fuels. In 2014, together, the G20 provided a total of over US$230 billion in subsidies to coal, oil and gas.

Japan and China provided, respectively, about $US19 billion and $US17 billion a year in public finance for fossil fuels between 2013 and 2014.

There is good news, though: renewable energy is on the rise. The G20 countries are already home to 98% of all installed wind power capacity in the world, 97% of solar power and 93% of electric vehicles.

In most G20 countries, renewables are a growing segment of the electricity supply, except in Russia, where absolute renewable energy consumption has decreased by 20% since 2009. China, the Republic of Korea and the UK have all seen strong growth.

Generally, the G20 countries are attractive for renewable energy investment, especially China, France, Germany and the UK although the UK has now abandoned its policy support for renewables.

Solar

National experts asked by Germanwatch, a Climate Transparency partner, generally agree that their respective G20 country is doing quite well on the international stage (with the exception of the US) but lack progress in ambitious targets and policy implementation.

China, Brazil, France, Germany, India, Mexico and South Africa are ranked the highest for climate action. Countries with the lowest climate policy performance are the US, Australia, Japan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

Putting together this G20 stocktake has had its challenges. The choice of indicators involves value judgements, which often become only apparent once national experts begin discussing them.

Enabling the international comparisons necessary to measure progress on climate requires information that is accurate, verifiable and comparable. The underlying data comes from very diverse economies with different legal systems, different regulations and reporting methods.

International organisations, such as the International Energy Agency, have often done extensive and very careful work to develop comparable data sets but these may not always be consistent with data from in-country sources. Exploring these differences helps us to improve our understanding of the data and the underlying developments.

The existing reporting and review system of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is the source of much of the data that makes these comparisons possible.

The real challenge the UNFCCC process faces in the next few years as it finalises the rule book for the Paris agreement is how to develop an enhanced transparency system that will be robust and detailed enough to provide the relevant information for its five-yearly assessment of global progress on addressing climate.

Even so, the UNFCCC is constrained by the extent to which countries are able to see beyond their narrow interests.

Independent assessments such as Climate Transparencys, which remains mindful of different perspectives but is not limited by national interests, can play a vital role in helping to increase the political pressure for effective climate action.

Niklas Hhne, Professor of Mitigation of Greenhouse Gases, Wageningen University; Andrew Marquard, Senior Researcher on energy and climate change, University of Cape Town, and William Wills, Research Coordinator, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Climate and the G20 summit: some progress in greening economies, but more needs to be done - HuffPost

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HOUSTON, TX - APRIL 03: Dallas Keuchel #60 of the Houston Astros pitches in the first inning against the Seattle Mariners on Opening Day at Minute Maid Park on April 3, 2017 in Houston, Texas. (Photo by Bob Levey/Getty Images)

HOUSTON, TX - APRIL 03: Dallas Keuchel #60 of the Houston Astros pitches in the first inning against the Seattle Mariners on Opening Day at Minute Maid Park on April 3, 2017 in Houston, Texas. (Photo by Bob

Astros' Dallas Keuchel could progress to mound work this week

ATLANTA --- Astros ace Dallas Keuchel could progress beyond playing catch by week's end.

Manager A.J. Hinch said Tuesday the Astros are hopeful Keuchel can test himself off a mound while the team's in Toronto on Thursday through Sunday. Keuchel's clearing of that hurdle would provide more clarity on a timetable for a minor league rehab outing and then his return to the Astros' rotation.

"We want to start to push him forward and test him," Hinch said.

Keuchel, selected Sunday for his second All-Star team, hasn't pitched since June 2 because of a recurrence of a pinched nerve in his neck. The Astros have been extra conservative in his rehab given it's his second DL stint for this issue.

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"He still feels strong. His arm feels good. His legs are strong," Hinch said. "But a month is too long to go in between major league outings (without a rehab outing)."

A return during the Astros' first series of the second half against the Twins appears out of the question at this point. But if Keuchel makes a rehab start that first weekend of the second half, it could potentially set him up to come off the disabled list during the Astros' road series in Baltimore from July 21-23.

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Astros' Dallas Keuchel could progress to mound work this week ... - Chron.com