TEHRAN: Iranian officials on Monday dismissed the Oscar-winning film ”Argo” as anti-Iran, state TV dismissed it as CIA commercial, some viewers disparaged it as US propaganda while others welcomed a fresh view of their recent history.    

All this is despite the fact that the movie based on the escape of six American hostages from the besieged US Embassy in Tehran in 1979 has not been screened in any Iranian theaters.

Despite that ban, many Iranians have seen the movie. In downtown Tehran, bootleg DVDs of ”Argo” sell for about 30,000 rials, or less than $1.

The movie has set off a spirited exchange of views. The discussions have often pried open a generational divide: Iranians who took part in the 1979 Islamic Revolution picking apart the portrayals of Tehran at the time, but Iranians too young to recall the events getting a different view of the upheavals.

”I want to know what the other side is saying,” said Shieda, a 21-year-old University of Tehran student, who gave only her first name to avoid possible backlash for speaking with foreign media.

Tehran City Council member Masoomeh Ebtekar, who was one of the students who occupied the US Embassy and acted as the Iranian students’ spokeswoman, says the film exaggerates the violence among crowds that stormed the compound in November 1979.

Fifty-two Americans were held hostage for 444 days, but a handful of embassy staff were sheltered by the Canadian ambassador. Their escape, using a fake movie as a cover story, is recounted in ”Argo.”

Ebtekar insists the hostage-takers were mostly students, but other accounts suggest militants and members of the Revolutionary Guard were closely involved in the crisis.

Actor-director Ben Affleck ”shows scenes of a very violent and very angry mob throughout the film,” Ebtekar said.

”It is never mentioned that these are a group of students.”

Iranian Culture Minister Mohammad Hosseini said, ”The movie is an anti-Iran film. It is not a valuable film from the artistic point of view. It won the prize by resorting to extended advertisement and investment,” he said, according to the official IRNA news agency.

He said Hollywood has ”distorted history” as part of what Iranian officials call a ”soft war” of cultural influence in Iran.    Iran’s state TV called the movie ”an advertisement for the CIA.”

The semiofficial Mehr news agency called the Oscar ”politically motivated” because First Lady Michelle Obama at the White House joined Jack Nicholson via video link to Los Angeles to help present the best picture prize.

In contrast, retired teacher Reza Abbasi who saw the Revolution first hand, said: ”I know Hollywood usually changes reality to make it attractive for movie lovers, but more or less it was close to the realities then.”

Others said ”Argo” also shows the need for Iranian filmmakers to deal more with issues from the Revolution.

The moderate Hamshahri newspaper said the movie ”targeted the culture and civilization of Iran,” but is worthwhile for Iranians to see a different perspective of the events that led to the collapse of relations between the U.S. and Iran.

”Iranian audiences are seeing a new version of the events for the first time,” said a commentary in the newspaper. ”This has been a weak point for our TV and cinema industry, which has not produced anything about the (US Embassy takeover) after more than three decades.”

Behnam Farahani  a student in Tehran Art University said, ”Both Django and Lincoln won a few prizes. I think both of them were way better than Argo in terms of structure and theme. They deserved more attention. Argo was just a political movie, it was a narration of a political event, ant it suited their own purposes.”

Mohammad Amin Sharifi, a movie fan in Tehran, was less harsh. ”In my opinion, it’s a nice movie from technical aspects, and it was on the scale of Hollywood movies, but I don’t think it was worth a nomination for Oscar and other awards,” he said.

Last year, Iranian director Asghar Farhadi won the Oscar for best foreign film for ”A Separation,” Iran’s first Oscar.

A month earlier, Iranian authorities ordered the closure of the House of Cinema, an independent film group that operated for 20 years and counted Iran’s top filmmakers, including Farhadi, among its members.

The Nigerian soldiers came in a commando style.

Soldiers on Monday evening stormed Wikki Hotel in the Government Reserved Area of Bauchi, ostensibly to arrest a suspect.

A witness told PREMIUM TIMES that the soldiers came in large numbers in a commando style.

Some residents said the soldiers came to arrest a member of the dreaded insurgent group, Boko Haram, while others said the suspect(s) may have been the kidnappers of the seven foreigners abducted in Jamaare Local Government Area of Bauchi.

The foreigners are yet to be freed. A group, Jama’atu Ansarul Muslimina Fi Bidalis Sudan, has claimed responsibility for the kidnap.

“The soldiers eventually arrested an unarmed civilian in the hotel,” a witness said.

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Source: Premium Times

Family, friends and colleagues of Nigeria’s Afro pop singer, Oluwabimpe Susan Harvey, popularly known as Goldie Harvey, today paid their last respect to the singer as she was buried at the Vaults and Gardens Cemetery, Ikoyi, Lagos.

The late singer, whose remains was placed in a brown MIC Casket, was brought into the premises in a R350 Mercedes Benz hearse at around 10:00am.

During the private funeral, Andrew Harvey, Goldie’s husband who surfaced few days after her death on 14 February, paid a moving tribute to his wife:

“Susan you walked into my life, it was like God sent you as a fresh breath. I still remember your response to my first love message. You said ‘Love killed Romeo; sent Diana to an early grave and killed Jack on the Titanic. Forget about love, just have friendship and live long. Overtime our love grew to a depth I have never known. You were the best years of my life, your smile, your desire to live your dream.”

Her siblings read both the first and second Bible readings before she was interred in one of the private vaults at the cemetery.

In his moving tribute, Goldie’s close friend and Channel O presenter, Denrele Edun, who was a shadow of himself, described the deceased “just as gorgeous now as when last I saw her. Her slightly disappearing figure and total loss from my sight is in me, not in her.”

“The Goldie I knew despite the World recognition, I would move mountains, I would break ceilings sell your legacy and you are the best friend I forever had’, I can hear you say to me, do not stand at my grave and weep, I am not there, I do not sleep. Do not stand on my grave and cry. I am not there, I did not die,” teary-eyed Edun said.

Also paying tribute to one of his prized artiste, Keke Ogungbe, President, Kennis Music, stated: “Lovely and talented Oluwabimpe Goldie Susan, if I’m to start saying all I can’t finish. Though it’s painful, so lovely to have left on Valentine’s Day, May almighty God grant your soul eternal rest forever and ever in Jesus Name Amen.”

Others in attendance at the burial to pay their last respect to the singer are Chris Ubosi, Dele Momodu, Mayor Akinpelu, Kunle Bakare, Olisa Adibua, Jaywon, Eedris Abdulkareem, DJ Jimmy Jatt, KSB, Essence, Weird MC, ID Ogungbe, Gbenga Adeyinka 1st, eLDee the don, Julius Agwu, Freeze, Tiwa Savage and others.

Goldie died on the St. Valentine’s Day of Hypertensive heart disease some hours after returning from the 53th Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, United States.

The autopsy carried out February 19 and signed by Dr. O.O Oyewole of the Department of Pathology and Forensic Medicine said she suffered a terminal ‘hypertensive heart disease’ which resulted to’ intracerebellar haemorrhage.’

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Source: PM News

Delta State Government on Monday inaugurated a waterways security committee and advisory council to assist security agencies on intelligence gathering and boost its peace and security agendum.

The State Deputy Governor, Prof. Amos Utuama performed the ceremony on behalf of the Governor, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan at the Government House, Annex, Warri.

Utuama observed that the absence of the committee which was dissolved sometime ago had created a loophole and gap in security information gathering hence it was reconstituted.

He noted that security agencies alone could not deal with the rising security challenges, explaining that it was the responsibility of everyone in the state to play his or her role in helping security agencies do their work.

According to him, the work of the committee among other responsibilities include alerting relevant security agencies of any possible threat to peace and security in the state and also taking necessary measures to nip such threats in the bud.

Utuama stressed that since members of the committee were drawn from different communities and localities, it was incumbent on them to quickly alert the security agencies of acts likely to cause a breach of the peace in their areas.

He added that where a member who was aware of such a threat to peace in his area failed to take necessary measures that could have doused tension, such a member would be held liable.

The Deputy Governor said that the Uduaghan administration was committed to delivering on his three-point development agenda for the people of the state and did not want acts of insecurity to impede its drive.

Uduaghan had last week informed that the State Government was deploying a multi-pronged security strategy aimed at addressing cases of insecurity and other violent crimes in the state.

At least thirteen Chadian soldiers and 65 militants have been killed in a fierce battle in the mountainous Ifoghas region of northern Mali, Chad’s military command announced Friday.

“The Chadian army destroyed five vehicles and killed 65 jihadists,” it said in a statement, adding that 13 of its soldiers had been killed and another five wounded.

The casualties are the heaviest in Mali since France launched its campaign against the region’s Islamist rebels six weeks ago, according to Reuters.

The United States has sent drones from Niger to collect information about the rebels and sharing it with French troops in Mali, who are still assisting thousands of African troops after their initial coup in Mali last month, BBC News reported.

Earlier this month, around 1,800 Chadian soldiers took control of the northern city of Kidal to secure what had been the rebels’ last stronghold.

Chad promised 2,000 soldiers to the the African-led AFISMA intervention force in Mali.

France hopes this force will replace its troops after their lightning offensive that forced the militants from the northern cities into the surrounding desert wilderness and the northern mountains.

Also on Friday, two suicide car bombings in the town of Tessalit left three people dead, Al Jazeera English reported. The bombers were reportedly targeting ethnic Tuareg forces stationed there.

Attempts to polarise the Nigerian Governors’ Forum took a fresh dimension on Sunday evening with the emergence of Governor Godswill Akpabio as the chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party’s Governors’ Forum, a new forum.

The forum is expected to be at par with the already divided NGF led by Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State.

The emergence of Akpabio, a known ally of President Goodluck Jonathan, was announced at the end of a late night meeting between the PDP governors and the President.

With the development, it is believed that Amaechi’s power and influence as the chairman of the NGF would  be greatly curtailed and wittled down.

Briefing State House correspondents at the end of the meeting that extended into the early hours of Monday, Akpabio, the governor of Akwa Ibom State,  said the PDP Governors’ Forum would not work in conflict with NGF.

Akpabio said, “The Governors Forum still subsists and the new forum will not lead to a crack in the larger forum as other political parties also have the right to form a similar forum.

“There was no move to remove the Rivers Governor as chairman of the Governors’ Forum.”

He said the forum would only be meeting and be taking decisions on issues affecting the party.

Describing his emergence as unanimous, the governor promised to lead his colleagues with respect as he is only “the first among equal.

PDP chairman, Bamanga Tukur, presented Akpabio to journalists.

Forces, suspected to be loyal to the President, were said to have been trying to replace Amaechi for allegedly working against Jonathan’s re-election in 2015.

He was also said to be using his position to promote his rumoured ambition to serve as running mate to Governor Sule Lamido in the 2015 presidential election.

Although Amaechi was at the meeting where the decision on Akpabio’s emergence was taken, he did not wait like some of his colleagues did while the Akwa Ibom State governor was briefing journalists.

Meanwhile, a source privy to the workings of the committee, explained that the selection of the next Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the PDP would follow the established tradition of consensus.

The source said, “The Presidency wants to maintain our time tested practice of choosing a chairman for the BoT based on consensus. This system has worked for us over the years, why change it now?

“If you recall, that was the method that was used for the selection of Sen. Walid Jibrin, as Secretary to the board during the last meeting. The selection of the Chairman cannot be any different.”

Former Minister of Works, Chief Tony Anenih, business mogul, Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, and former President of the Senate, Ken Nnamani are among the party’s stalwarts, who have indicated interest in occupying the position.

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Source: Punch