Our Reporter

Sir Sean Connery, the Scottish actor known across the globe for his portrayal of James Bond, died Saturday at 90.

He was the first to bring the role to the big screen and appeared in seven of the spy thrillers.

His son, Jason, said the actor died peacefully in his sleep while in the Bahamas, having been “unwell for some time”.

The younger Connery said the actor “had many of his family who could be in the Bahamas around him” when he died overnight in Nassau.

“We are all working at understanding this huge event as it only happened so recently, even though my dad has been unwell for some time,” he said.

“A sad day for all who knew and loved my dad and a sad loss for all people around the world who enjoyed the wonderful gift he had as an actor.”

Sir Sean’s acting career spanned five decades, winning an Oscar in 1988 for his role in The Untouchables.

He also featured in The Hunt for Red October, Highlander, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and The Rock.

Though he made more than 60 films, winning an Academy Award for his supporting role as an incorruptible lawman on the trail of Al Capone in “The Untouchables” (1987), Connery was most closely affiliated with the debonair fictional British spy.

He introduced Bond and his trademark greeting in “Dr. No” (1962), which turned Connery into an international star. He would go on to play the womanising, dinner-suited, martini-quaffing spy, created by Ian Fleming, in “From Russia With Love” (1963), “Goldfinger” (1964), “Thunderball” (1965), “You Only Live Twice” (1967) and “Diamonds Are Forever” (1971). In 1983, Connery starred in one more Bond movie, “Never Say Never Again.”

He was largely regarded as being the best actor to have played 007 in the long-running franchise, often being named as such in polls.

READ ALSO: New James Bond movie delayed, crushing hopes for 2020 cinema rebound

He was knighted by the Queen at Holyrood Palace in 2000.

In August, he celebrated his 90th birthday.

Bond producers Michael G Wilson and Barbara Broccoli said they were “devastated by the news”.

Sir Sean was a long-time supporter of Scottish independence, saying in interviews in the run-up to the 2014 referendum that he might return from his Bahamas home to live in Scotland if it voted to break away from the rest of the UK.

Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said: “I was heartbroken to learn this morning of the passing of Sir Sean Connery. Our nation today mourns one of her best-loved sons.

“Sean was born into a working-class Edinburgh family and through talent and sheer hard work, became an international film icon and one of the world’s most accomplished actors.”

Thomas Sean Connery was born on August 25, 1930, in the working-class Fountainbridge district of western Edinburgh.

The elder of two boys, he first slept in a drawer in a traditional tight Scottish apartment called a tenement. His home was demolished decades ago, though there’s a plaque with his name on it at a new housing development there.

A fresh lockdown has taken off in France to curb one of Europe’s biggest coronavirus surges and ease the pressure on its hospitals.

It is expected to last at least a month.

The lockdown sparked record traffic jams around Paris on Thursday evening, with many people heading for rural accommodation.

Unlike during the March lockdown, Paris’ streets are busier now and schools and workplaces remain open.

However, people need permits to leave home.

The downloadable exemptions are for essential shopping, trips for medical reasons or for getting to work. Home-working is urged wherever possible.

Read Also: New COVID-19 test for Nigerian passengers to Dubai

People are also allowed to go out for exercise – for a maximum of an hour – in their local area. The fine for breaking the rules is €135.

The French government has issued stricter hygiene rules for schools: they must keep class sizes small and masks are now required from the age of six.

Germany is expected to introduce “lockdown light” measures on Monday, with tighter restrictions on people’s movements, though not as tough as the French regime.

Poland now has its highest level of restrictions to date, with public gatherings banned, most schools closed and restaurants and cafes only offering take-away service.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the EU had set aside €220m to help transfer Covid patients from hard-hit member states to other nations with spare hospital beds. The Netherlands has already arranged to send some patients to Germany.

Thirteen of Spain’s 17 autonomous regions have stopped movement in and out of their areas. Valencia is the latest to close its borders for the next week

Almost all of Austria has turned red on its four-level at-risk traffic light system. That means outbreaks are out of control and the virus is widespread

Greeks are waiting to hear what PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis will announce today – with medical experts warning that tough measures are required. He is keen to avoid a national lockdown, so overnight curfews are most likely

Belgians are braced for more restrictions to be announced on Friday, as more than half the country’s 2,000 intensive care beds are full

Russian infections have surged to a record 18,283, with 355 new deaths.

Agency Reporter

A Saudi man stabbed and slightly wounded a guard at the French Consulate in the city of Jiddah on Thursday, authorities said, as France urged its citizens in the kingdom to be “on maximum alert.”

The Saudi Press Agency offered no immediate motive for the attack in the Red Sea port city. However, it comes amid heightened tensions after an assailant decapitated a French middle school teacher who showed caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad for a class on free speech. Those caricatures were published by Charlie Hebdo and cited by the men who gunned down the newspaper’s editorial meeting in 2015.

The Saudi Press Agency report, citing police spokesman Maj. Mohammed al-Ghamdi, said the special force for diplomatic security was able to arrest the Saudi man. He is said to be in his 40s. The guard was taken to a hospital for treatment, the agency said.

The report did not elaborate. A statement published by the French Embassy in Riyadh mirrored the details of the news agency’s account, saying that the diplomatic mission condemned the “unjustified” attack.

READ ALSO: Three die, woman beheaded as terrorist attack jolts France

“We appeal to our compatriots in Saudi Arabia to be on maximum alert,” the statement said.

In France on Thursday, authorities said an attacker armed with a knife killed three people at a church in the city of Nice. It wasn’t immediately clear if that attack or the one in Jiddah involved the current controversy, which has seen protests across the Muslim world. Muslims also have called for boycotts of French products.

In Saudi Arabia, home to the holiest sites in Islam, there has been criticism of France but much-more muted than in other countries. The Saudi Foreign Ministry has said the kingdom “rejects any attempt to link Islam and terrorism, and denounces the offensive cartoons of the prophet.” Saudi clerics have too condemned the caricatures, but have also cited the prophet’s “mercy, justice, tolerance.”

Another prominent sheik called on Muslims not to overreact.

(www.newsnow.couk)

Our Reporter

Still reeling from a terrorist attack earlier this month where a history teacher was beheaded by an 18-year-old Chechen extremist, France was jolted by a new terror attack in the southern city of Nice.

A woman was beheaded by an attacker with a knife who also killed two other people at a church in the French city of Nice on Thursday, police said, in an incident immediately investigated as an act of terrorism.

Mayor Christian Estrosi said on Twitter the knife attack had happened in or near the city’s Notre Dame church and that police had detained the attacker and was taken to a hospital.

Police said three people were confirmed to have died in the attack and several were injured.

A police source said a woman was decapitated. French politician Marine Le Pen also spoke of a decapitation having occurred in the attack.

Le Pen described the attack as “an act of war” perpetrated by “an Islamist soldier”.

The French anti-terrorist prosecutor’s department said it had been asked to investigate the attack.

Police armed with automatic weapons had put up a security cordon around the church, which is on Nice’s Jean Medecin Avenue, the city’s main shopping thoroughfare. Ambulances and fire service vehicles were also at the scene.

READ ALSO: Germany, France prepare for new lockdowns

The attack comes while France is still reeling from the beheading earlier this month of French middle school teacher Samuel Paty in Paris by a man of Chechen origin.

The attacker had said he wanted to punish Paty for showing pupils cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in a civics lesson.

It was not immediately clear what the motive was for the Nice attack, or if there was any connection to the cartoons, which Muslims consider to be blasphemous.

Today, Thursday, Muslims around the world celebrate the birthday of Prophet Mohammad.

Since Paty’s killing, French officials – backed by many ordinary citizens – have re-asserted the right to display the cartoons, and the images have been widely displayed at marches in solidarity with the killed teacher.

That has prompted an outpouring of anger in parts of the Muslim world, with some governments accusing French leader Emmanuel Macron of pursuing an anti-Islam agenda.

(www.newsnow.co.uk)

Agency Reporter

Hollywood star Johnny Depp will find out on Nov. 2 the outcome of his libel action against a British newspaper which labelled him a “wife-beater”, a ruling which could have a lasting impact on the actor’s career.

Depp, 57, sued News Group Newspapers, publishers of the Sun, and one of its journalists, Dan Wootton, over a 2018 article which stated he had been violent towards his ex-wife, actress Amber Heard, 34, and which questioned his casting in the “Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them” movie franchise.

Both Depp and Heard gave evidence before Judge Andrew Nicol during a three-week hearing at London’s High Court, laying bare their tempestuous private lives and making allegations of serious domestic abuse, drug-taking and affairs.

The couple met while making “The Rum Diary” in 2011 and married in February 2015, but Heard filed for divorce 15 months later.

Depp told the court he was never violent towards his ex-wife, that she was lying, and that she had attacked him on numerous occasions.

He said he lost the tip of a finger after she threw a vodka bottle at him during one ferocious row.

Heard said Depp would turn into a jealous alter ego, “the monster”, after bingeing on drugs and alcohol.

He had often threatened to kill her, she told the hearings, detailing 14 occasions of extreme violence when she said the actor choked, punched, slapped, head-butted, throttled and kicked her.

READ ALSO: Depp severed finger during three-day row with ex-wife, UK court told

Nicol will deliver his judgment on Nov. 2 at 10 a.m. (1000 GMT), the Judicial Press Office said. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the judgment will be handed down remotely and no event will take place at the High Court building.

The judge has to decide whether the Sun article caused “serious harm” to Depp’s reputation and whether the allegations made by the paper were substantially true.

If Depp wins, his lawyers have argued he would be “entitled to very substantial damages as only a substantial award can start to compensate him for the damage and distress the Defendants’ appalling allegations have had and ‘nail the lie’.”

They said in practice there was a ceiling on general damages of between 300,000 and 325,000 pounds ($391,000-$423,600) but argued Depp should also receive aggravated damages, saying the Sun’s response to his claim had added to the “harm, distress and need for vindication”.

If he loses, his reputation will be severely damaged and he may struggle to land major film parts in the future, commentators say.

On top of the London action, Depp has also filed a $50 million defamation lawsuit against Heard in a Virginia court over an opinion piece she wrote in The Washington Post.

(Reuters/NAN)

President Donald Trump has cut the number of refugees allowed into the U.S. to historic low of 15,000 in the current fiscal year.

The figure includes 6,000 unused places from the previous financial year due to the coronavirus pandemic, Trump said in a statement distributed by the White House in the early hours of Wednesday.

The policy caps the number of refugees who can be admitted from Iraq at 4,000 and the number admitted from El Salvador, Guatemala or Honduras at 1,000.

The remaining 10,000 spots are for people who fear persecution for their religious beliefs or political activities or who are referred to the U.S. Refugee Admissions Programme.

Read Also: Judge rejects Trump’s request in rape defamation case

The statement additionally specifies that “persons from certain high-risk areas of terrorist presence or control, including Somalia, Syria, and Yemen, shall not be admitted as refugees, except those refugees of special humanitarian concern.”

The U.S. State Department had announced the cut would happen earlier in the month, saying it was necessary to “prioritise the safety and well-being of Americans, especially in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.’’

The number is the lowest level since the introduction of the U.S. refugee programme in 1980. The previous limit for the last fiscal year was 18,000.

In 2016, then-President Barack Obama’s last full year in office, about 85,000 refugees were allowed into the US.

Trump lowered the limit in 2017, his first in office and about 53,000 refugees were let in, according to a report issued last year by the Department of Homeland Security. (dpa/NAN)

Agency Reporter

President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa has entered self-quarantine after coming into contact with a person with COVID-19, his office said on Wednesday.

Ramaphosa “has begun a period of self-quarantine following the positive COVID-19 diagnosis of a guest at a dinner attended by the President on Saturday, Oct. 24 ,’’ a statement by the presidency of South Africa read.

The presidency said that 35 guests attended the event in a Johannesburg hotel, which adhered stringently to COVID-19 protocols and directives on screening, social distancing and the wearing of masks.

It added that Ramaphosa was showing no symptoms and will be tested if any were to manifest, according to health advice.

“The president will perform his duties remotely and will observe the guidelines that apply to self-quarantine,’’the presidency said.

So far, South Africa has recorded 717,851 coronavirus cases and over 19,000 deaths.

(dpa/NAN)