Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash has won the grand jury prize and the audience award at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.
The opening night film, about an obsessive jazz drummer, has now been bought by Sony Picture Classics, which will bring it to a wider audience.
Rich Hill, about a group of teenagers living in a deprived area of rural America, won the documentary prize.
Sundance is the US’s leading indie film festival, backed by Robert Redford’s institute of the same name.
Whiplash‘s writer and director, Damien Chazelle, won the US fiction short film grand jury prize last year at Sundance for his original short version of Whiplash.
Damien Chazelle, 28, then expanded his short to make it into a feature film for this year’s festival.
Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash has won the grand jury prize and the audience award at the Sundance Film Festival 2014
“I remember my first time here was with a short, and the whole reason we made a short was because of my experiences as a drummer,” Damien Chazelle said.
“No-one wanted to finance the film because no-one wants to make a film about a jazz drummer – surprising,” he jokily added.
Rich Hill co-director Tracy Droz Tragos dedicated the win to the film’s subjects.
The documentary audience award went to Alive Inside: A Story of Music & Memory, which explores the effect of music on elderly patients suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.
The annual film festival, now in its 30th year, opened on January 16 in Park City, and will close on Sunday.
Other awards given out on Saturday included the short film audience prize, sponsored by YouTube and based on the number of online hits each entry had. This year’s prize went to Chapel Perilous, a comedy about a man who is visited by a salesman with nothing to sell.
Researchers have found that a 7,000-year-old man whose bones were left behind in a Spanish cave had the dark skin of an African, but the blue eyes of a Scandinavian.
The man was a hunter-gatherer who ate a low-starch diet and couldn’t digest milk well – which meshes with the lifestyle that predated the rise of agriculture. But his immune system was already starting to adapt to a new lifestyle.
Researchers found all this out not from medical records, or from a study of the man’s actual skin or eyes, but from an analysis of the DNA extracted from his tooth.
The study, published online by the journal Nature, lays out what’s said to be the first recovered genome of a European hunter-gatherer from a transitional time known as the Mesolithic Period, which lasted from 10,000 to 5,000 years ago. It’s a time when the hunter-gatherer lifestyle was starting to give way to a more settled existence, with farms, livestock and urban settlements.
La Braña 1 ancient man had dark skin and blue eyes
The remains of the Mesolithic male, dubbed La Braña 1, were found in 2006 in the La Braña-Arintero cave complex in northwest Spain. In the Nature paper, the researchers describe how they isolated the ancient DNA, sequenced the genome and looked at key regions linked to physical traits – including lactose intolerance, starch digestion and immune response.
The biggest surprise was that the genes linked to skin pigmentation reflected African rather than modern European variations. That indicates that the man had dark skin, “although we cannot know the exact shade,” Carles Lalueza-Fox, a member of the research team from the Spanish National Research Council, said in a news release. At the same time, the man possessed the genetic variations that produce blue eyes in current Europeans.
That combination makes for a rare genetic profile, but perhaps it was more typical of the Mesolithic Period. To find out, the researchers say they’ll need to analyze more genomes from that time – starting with La Braña 2, another male whose skeleton was found in the Spanish cave.
Alfonso Cuaron has picked up the top film honor from the Directors Guild of America (DGA) for space drama Gravity.
The prestigious win for Gravity could give Alfonso Cuaron the edge at March’s Academy Awards.
In the DGA’s 65-year history, the winner has only failed to also pick up the best director Oscar seven times.
Accepting the award, Alfonso Cuaron said: “What you cannot see from up there [in space] is this bizarre experiment of nature that is the human experience.
“That experiment is what directors try to sort out with our films. Thankfully, that experience is as diverse as the films as these film-makers make.”
The film-maker also thanked his son and Gravity co-writer Jonas Cuaron.
Alfonso Cuaron has picked up the top film honor from the Directors Guild of America for space drama Gravity
Alfonso Cuaron’s film saw off competition from Paul Greengrass’s piracy film Captain Phillips, Steve McQueen’s historical drama 12 Years a Slave, David O. Russell’s 1970s crime caper American Hustle and Martin Scorsese’s black comedy The Wolf of Wall Street.
Other than the Writers’ Guild Awards on February 1st, there are no more major US awards before the Oscars, which take place on March 2nd. The UK’s BAFTA awards take place in London on February 16.
Recent awards, including the Golden Globes and the Producers’ Guild Awards, have seen a split in honors between Gravity, 12 Years a Slave and American Hustle.
Gravity and American Hustle lead the Oscar nominations with 10 nods apiece. 12 Years A Slave has nine nominations.
Other DGA winners included Jehane Noujaim, who won the documentary prize for The Square, about the Egyptian uprising that began in 2011. The film was acquired by subscription service Netflix last year.
Steven Soderbergh’s Behind the Candelabra mirrored its Golden Globes success by winning the best TV movie or mini-series. The film stars Michael Douglas and Matt Damon as flamboyant pianist Liberace and his partner Scott Thorson respectively.
Steven Soderbergh, who was once a first vice-president of the Directors’ Guild, was also honoured with the Robert B. Aldrich Award for his services to the organization.
Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan won his first DGA award for the series finale of the hit drama.
Other winners included Beth McCarthy-Miller for 30 Rock (best comedy series) and Don Roy King for Saturday Night Live (best variety series).
The awards took place at the Hollywood and Highland complex in Los Angeles, hosted by Glee actress Jane Lynch – the first woman to present the ceremony.
American Horror Story: Coven came to an end thanks to Fiona’s daughter Cordelia.
When Cordelia (Sarah Paulson) got her “sight” back, she had a vision of Fiona (Jessica Lange) standing over all the dead bodies of her fellow coven members.
In order to prevent the inevitable, she told the Axeman (Danny Huston) that Fiona planned to leave him once she got her powers back. Once he had proof, the Axeman used his, well, axe on Fiona, killing her and leaving her body in the swamp.
American Horror Story fans received some shocking news in this week’s episode
Even though the season has been full of resurrections, Fiona is gone for good. Misty (Lily Rabe) even pointed out that she can’t bring someone back once they’re “gator sh–.”
Despite knowing how evil Fiona has been, the coven brutally killed the Axeman. Cordelia then declared that the whole coven will go through the Seven Wonders test to find out who will replace Fiona.
American Horror Story: Coven’s season finale airs Wednesday at 10 P.M. ET/PT on FX.
Karl Slym, managing director of India-based Tata Motors, has died in Thailand where he was attending a board meeting.
Tata Motors said in a statement it “deeply regrets to announce the untimely and tragic” death of 51-year-old Karl Slym.
The circumstances of his death were not immediately apparent, although several media reports said he may have had a fall at a hotel in Bangkok.
The British-born executive ran all Tata Motors’ operations except Jaguar Land Rover in the UK.
Karl Slym had been managing director of Tata Motors, part of the giant Tata Group, since October 2012
Karl Slym had worked for Toyota in the UK, and then General Motors in India and China. He had been managing director of Tata Motors, part of the giant Tata Group, since October 2012.
Although Jaguar Land Rover has been hugely successful, the rest of Tata Motors has struggled.
Karl Slym was brought in to help overhaul the manufacturing, sales and distribution operation, including Tata’s new-look Nano ultra-cheap car and building a new generation of engines.
In his tribute, Tata Motors chairman Cyrus P. Mistry described Karl Slym as “a valued colleague who was providing strong leadership at a challenging time for the Indian auto industry”.
Universal Pictures and Focus Features have released the first poster of the adaptation of E.L. James’ novel Fifty Shades of Grey.
The poster depicts business magnate Christian Grey with his back to the viewer, facing a window, with the message: “Mr. Grey Will See You Now.”
The film is set to be released on February 13, 2015.
Fifty Shades of Grey movie is set to be released on February 13, 2015
It was originally slated for release on August 1, 2014, but the date was moved back after Charlie Hunnam, who was initially cast to play Christian Grey, dropped out of the film, citing scheduling conflicts.
Jamie Dornan will now portray Christian Grey in the film.
The book and film depict the relationship between Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele, who’ll be portrayed by Dakota Johnson.
Arseniy Yatsenyuk has announced that Ukraine’s opposition protests will continue after he rejected President Viktor Yanukovych’s offer to appoint him as prime minister.
Arseniy Yatsenyuk said the opposition was generally ready to accept leadership, but several key demands must be met, including new elections.
Clashes continued overnight. Activists stormed a Kiev building housing police.
Viktor Yanukovych’s proposal came amid new efforts to end the deadly unrest.
He offered the post of prime minister to Arseniy Yatsenyuk and the position of deputy PM to former boxer Vitali Klitschko following talks on Saturday.
The opposition – confident in its position – appears to have taken these offers as a sign of weakness on Viktor Yanukovych’s part, and is forging ahead with the campaign to unseat him.
Arseniy Yatsenyuk has announced that Ukraine’s opposition protests will continue after he rejected President Viktor Yanukovych’s offer to appoint him as prime minister
Speaking to large crowds in central of Kiev late on Saturday, the opposition leaders repeated their demands.
“Viktor Yanukovych announced that the government wasn’t ready to take the responsibility for the country and offered to the opposition to lead the government,” said Arseniy Yatsenyuk.
“What is our response to this? We are not afraid of the responsibility for the destiny of Ukraine.”
Later, Arseniy Yatsenyuk tweeted: “No deal @ua_yanukovych, we’re finishing what we started. The people decide our leaders, not you.”
Arseniy Yatsenyuk says that Tuesday, when a special session of parliament has been called, will be “judgement day”.
The opposition is demanding that a free trade agreement with the EU be signed and political prisoners be freed, including former PM Yulia Tymoshenko.
They are also demanding early presidential elections. A vote is not due until 2015.
Vitali Klitschko told the crowd that they would press ahead with their demands and that talks would continue: “We are not turning back and we will keep discussing and trying to find a direction.”
Jay-Z, hip-hop duo Macklemore and Lewis and Pharrell Williams are among the stars who will be vying for glory when the prestigious Grammy Awards are handed out later.
The Los Angeles ceremony is the biggest night in the US music calendar.
Jay-Z leads the field with nine nominations, while pop hitmaker Pharrell Williams and hip-hop duo Macklemore and Lewis are among the acts with seven.
Other nominees include Ed Sheeran, James Blake and Paul McCartney, who will perform at the event.
The ceremony is known for its heavyweight on-stage collaborations and this year’s highlights will include Daft Punk, Nile Rodgers and Pharrell Williams being joined by Stevie Wonder to perform their hit Get Lucky.
Queens of the Stone Age will join forces with Nine Inch Nails, Dave Grohl and Lindsey Buckingham are to close the show, while Jay-Z is expected to duet with his wife Beyonce.
Jay-Z has the most nominations, up for awards including best rap song and best rap album. But he was left out of the three main categories – song, record and album of the year.
Rapper Macklemore and producer Ryan Lewis, who found fame after self-releasing their album The Heist, are up for awards including album of the year, best new artist and song of the year for Same Love.
Pharrell Williams is listed twice for record of the year and twice for album of the year thanks to his work with Daft Punk, Robin Thicke and Kendrick Lamar.
Rapper Lamar also has seven nominations including album of the year for Good Kid, M.A.A.D City, plus best rap album, best rap performance and best new artist.
Justin Timberlake has seven nominations including best pop solo performance and best R&B song – but he was shut out of the main three categories.
The Los Angeles ceremony is the biggest night in the US music calendar
Other leading contenders include 17-year-old New Zealand singer Lorde, who is up for record of the year, song of the year and best pop solo performance for her hit Royals.
There are five nominations each for Drake and mastering engineer Bob Ludwig, who is rewarded for his work with Daft Punk and the Rolling Stones.
The Rolling Stones will go up against Paul McCartney in the best rock song category.
The Stones’ Doom And Gloom, from their 50th anniversary album GRRR!, is up against Cut Me Some Slack, a collaboration between Paul McCartney and the surviving members of Nirvana.
The other nominees in that category are veteran metal band Black Sabbath, stadium rockers Muse and singer-guitarist Gary Clark Jr..
Black Sabbath have two more nods – for best rock album and metal performance.
Meanwhile, two of the five nominees for best new artist are James Blake and singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran.
David Bowie’s comeback has earned nominations for best rock performance and best rock album. In both categories, fellow veterans Led Zeppelin are also nominated thanks to a live album recorded at their reunion concert in 2007.
Calvin Harris is up for best dance/electronica album for 18 Months and best dance recording for Sweet Nothing with Florence and the Machine’s Florence Welch.
Duke Dumont and Disclosure are also named in the dance categories, while Adele’s James Bond theme Skyfall is in the running for one of the soundtrack awards.
Leading Grammy Nominees 2014:
Jay-Z – 9 nominations
Kendrick Lamar – 7 nominations
Macklemore and Ryan Lewis – 7 nominations
Justin Timberlake – 7 nominations
Pharrell Williams – 7 nominations
Drake – 5 nominations
Bob Ludwig – 5 nominations [youtube BYSK0InwJ_U 650]
Thai protesters have surrounded polling stations, blocking early voting ahead of next week’s general election, officials say.
One of their leaders has been shot dead during a clash with government supporters just outside the capital, Bangkok.
Advance voting has reportedly been cancelled in a number of locations.
Anti-government activists want Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra to step down and the political system to be reformed.
Suthin Taratin was speaking on top of a truck, which was part of a rally at a polling station where advanced voting was supposed to take place, when he was struck by gunfire.
He died later in hospital.
Crowds of flag-waving demonstrators chained the doors of polling stations shut, despite promises by protest leaders not to obstruct the polls.
The protesters surrounded polling stations in Bangkok and southern Thailand in an attempt to stop people voting.
Thai protesters have surrounded polling stations, blocking early voting ahead of next week’s general election
Voting was either blocked completely or halted at 48 out of 50 polling stations in Bangkok.
Thailand’s election commission has called for the general vote scheduled for February 2 to be postponed because of possible disruption and violence.
But the government has so far insisted that the election must go ahead on schedule.
The latest disturbances comes despite a pledge from protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban, who said on Saturday that his supporters would not obstruct advance voting – although they would demonstrate outside polling stations.
The protest movement says it is not obstructing the poll, but that “supporters are simply protesting the advance polls held today by surrounding/standing in front of election units”, in a statement on its Facebook page.
Advance voting is for those unable to take part in the February election.
A state of emergency is in place as the authorities struggle to cope with the unrest.
Protesters, who started their campaign in November, want to install an unelected “people’s council” to run the country until the political system is changed.
They say Yingluck Shinawatra’s government is being influenced by her brother, exiled former leader Thaksin Shinawatra.
Sao Paulo police say they have detained 128 people during clashes that followed a demonstration against this year’s football World Cup in Brazil.
A car was set on fire. Shops, banks and a police vehicle were also damaged.
The violence forced the authorities to cancel some of the festivities planned for the city’s 460th anniversary.
Earlier, some 2,500 people took to the street to complain about the costs of staging the World Cup.
They marched through central Sao Paulo waving flags, carrying banners and chanting: “There will be no Cup.”
Sao Paulo peaceful protest was marred by sporadic acts of vandalism which turned into clashes with the police
Other Brazilians protested on Twitter, saying “FIFA go home”, in reference to football’s world governing body. There were similar small protests in Rio de Janeiro and other cities.
Saturday’s peaceful protest was marred by sporadic acts of vandalism which turned into clashes with the police.
Some demonstrators attacked an empty police car and tried to overturn it, while others torched a small car. They also burned tires and targeted banks and others businesses.
The Sao Paulo state Governor Geraldo Alckmin condemned the violence.
Fifteen people were also reported to have been detained at a protest near the World Cup stadium in Natal, a city in north-eastern Brazil.
Last year, more than a million people took to the street in dozens of Brazilian cities over poor public services, corruption and the high cost of the World Cup.
The wave of protests prompted Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff to propose a referendum on political reform.
Dilma Rousseff also pledged to invest 50 billion reais ($25 billion) in public transport, one of the protesters’ main grievances.
Prominent human rights activist Xu Zhiyong has been sentenced to four years in prison, a Chinese court has ruled.
Xu Zhiyong, who campaigned for children’s rights and against corruption, was convicted of “gathering crowds to disrupt public order”.
Several other activists from a transparency movement are facing similar charges.
Rights groups have criticized President Xi Jinping – who pledged to fight corruption – over their cases.
Xu Zhiyong was arrested in July 2013 and the trial began on Wednesday.
Human rights activist Xu Zhiyong has been sentenced to four years in prison
Reacting to the verdict, Xu Zhiyong ‘s lawyer Zhang Qingfang said his client had told the court that “the last shred of dignity of China’s rule of law” had been destroyed.
Xu Zhiyong, who was also previously under house arrest, is a leading member of a group calling for officials to reveal their wealth.
The activist has also campaigned in behalf of inmates on death row and families affected by tainted baby milk formula, among other causes.
Many across China believe Xu Zhiyong was targeted by the government because of his rising popularity and his growing presence on Chinese social media platforms.
In 2009 Xu Zhiyong was arrested on tax evasion charges that were eventually dropped after public outcry.
A newly-married couple has climbed to the top of a protest barricade in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, to celebrate their wedding.
Anti-government protesters have been occupying areas of Kiev for several weeks after the government’s rejection of a planned treaty with the EU.
The newly-married couple has climbed to the top of a protest barricade in Kiev to celebrate their wedding
The crisis escalated this week when two activists were shot dead during clashes near the main protest camp on Kiev’s Independence Square, known as Maidan.
The newly-married couple said they were taking to the barricades to show support for the opposition struggle.
Leading dissident Jose Daniel Ferrer has been arrested after meeting European diplomats in Havana, pro-democracy activists in Cuba say.
The activists said they did not know where Jose Daniel Ferrer had been taken.
They have also reported other arrests and intimidation from the Cuban authorities, ahead of a regional gathering of heads of state next week.
Jose Daniel Ferrer was planning to attend an unauthorized meeting of dissidents during the summit.
“He was detained late on Friday near my home, where he had been a guest,” Elizardo Sanchez, the leader of the illegal but tolerated Cuban Human Rights and National Reconciliation Commission (CCDHRN), told the AFP news agency.
Elizardo Sanchez said that at least eight other activists had been arrested, most of them temporarily, and that they were being targeted because of the international gathering, which opens on Tuesday.
Jose Daniel Ferrer spent eight years in prison after a major crackdown on opposition activists in 2003
“We fear that a wave of political repression has started ahead the summit, especially in the west of the country, near the capital,” he told Efe news agency.
It has become normal practice in Cuba to detain people to warn them off or keep them out of the way of an event.
The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the head of the Organization of American States Jose Miguel Insulza, as well as the presidents from Brazil, Argentina, Peru and other countries, are gathering in Havana on 28-29 January for the summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC).
They are set to discuss ways to combat poverty, hunger and inequality in the region.
But alongside the official gathering, pro-democracy activists were planning to stage their own summit without the authorization of the Cuban government.
The Cuban dissident blogger Yoani Sanchez complained they were being watched by the authorities and reported police intimidation ahead of the CELAC meetings.
“The political police have intercepted my husband @rescobarcasas [Reinaldo Escobar] outside the house to threaten him about #CumbreCELAC,” Yoani Sanchez said in Spanish on Twitter, referring to the summit.
Jose Daniel Ferrer spent eight years in prison after a major crackdown on opposition activists in 2003, when the authorities arrested 75 opponents of the government.
The mass arrests, which became known as Cuba’s Black Spring, provoked widespread international condemnation.
The EU called off co-operation with Cuba, which was only officially resumed in 2008.
Two people have been shot dead at a shopping centre in Maryland.
After the gunman opened fire, he apparently took his own life, police say.
The incident took place at a mall in the Baltimore suburb of Columbia.
The man opened fire at a store in the mall, killing a man and a woman, both employees at the shop, Zumiez, which sells skate accessories and clothing.
Police have named the victims as 21-year-old Brianna Benlolo and 25-year-old Tyler Johnson.
Two people have been shot dead at a shopping centre in Maryland
The man believed to be the shooter, who has not been identified, was found dead near a gun and ammunition. A further five people were injured in the incident.
One of those injured was shot. Police said the motive for the attack was still uncear.
Howard County Police Chief Bill McMahon said officers had concerns that the gunman might have been carrying explosives and had proceeded “with an abundance of caution”.
The centre, about 45 minutes outside Washington DC, is a popular weekend shopping destination.
Lee Daniels’ movie The Butler is based on the story of Eugene Allen, who worked for 34 years in the White House under eight presidents.
Eugene Allen was hired in 1952 as a pantry worker and worked his way up to butler after several years. This contrasts the movie, which has Cecil Gaines starting to work as a butler immediately. In 1980, during the Reagan administration, Eugene Allen was promoted to maitre d’, the position he held when he retired in 1986.
Eugene Allen’s name was changed to Cecil Gaines for the movie.
“While the movie The Butler is set against historical events, the title character and his family are fictionalized,” states director Lee Daniels.
Louis Gaines character, portrayed by actor David Oyelowo, is entirely fictional
“We were able to borrow some extraordinary moments from Eugene’s real life to weave into the movie,” he added.
Danny Strong, who penned The Butler script, told WorldandFilm.com: “It’s important to understand, there’s a reason why the character’s name is Cecil Gaines. Because this is not the Eugene Allen story. It’s not just about him. We were hoping to capture the essence of Eugene Allen, and I think we did. But it’s not just about him. It’s about several other people I spoke to that worked at the White House as well so that the film would create this universal truth for many people of what that experience was like.”
The Louis Gaines character (Cecil Gaines’ eldest son), portrayed by actor David Oyelowo, is entirely fictional, as is the subplot involving the character. This includes Louis Gaines joining the Freedom Riders and the Black Panthers, and the rift that develops between him and his father as a result.
In real life, Eugene and Helene Allen only had one son, not two.
Director Lee Daniels pays tribute to African Americans in his latest film The Butler.
The film presents the evolution and struggle of the black woman and man as seen through the eyes of a butler, Cecil Gaines (played by Forrest Whitaker).
Not only is this film about a butler’s brutal journey to make a life by overcoming intense hardship, but also his internal struggle to join the fight for civil rights alongside his son Louis Gaines (played by David Oyelowo) who is the hero of this film.
Louis Gaines is portrayed in The Butler by David Oyelowo
While Cecil Gaines is a butler who is serving eight presidents, he is unable to protect his son Louis who is a freedom fighter.
Louis Gaines is being beaten up in Alabama and Tennessee where he has been incarcerated at least 16 times. An understated motion picture makes this true story work. Violence is brief and in flashes.
However, director Lee Daniels juxtaposed the violence with scenes of family life.
President Viktor Yanukovych has offered the position of Ukraine’s prime minister to one of the opposition leaders, Arseniy Yatsenyuk.
The offer came after talks on Saturday with opposition leaders in a new effort to end the worsening unrest that has spread across Ukraine.
Earlier, protesters in Kiev tried to occupy the energy ministry.
The protests began in November after Ukraine decided not to sign an accord on more co-operation with the EU.
Instead, the government opted to deepen ties with neighboring Russia.
Arseniy Yatsenyuk is the parliamentary leader of Ukraine’s second biggest party, Fatherland
The crisis escalated this week when two activists were killed, and another was found dead with torture marks in a forest near the capital.
A fourth, 45-year-old protester is said to have died in a Kiev hospital on Saturday, after sustaining injuries in earlier violence.
Arseniy Yatsenyuk, parliamentary leader of the country’s second biggest party, Fatherland, has not commented on the president’s offer.
He is an ally of the jailed ex-PM Yulia Tymoshenko.
Viktor Yanukovych has also offered the post of deputy prime minister for humanitarian issues to the former boxer, Vitali Klitschko, who is leader of the Udar (Punch) movement.
In addition, Ukrainian media report that Viktor Yanukovych has said he is ready to amend the constitution to reduce the president’s powers.
The opposition has previously demanded that Viktor Yanukovych step down.
France’s President Francois Hollande has confirmed his separation from Valerie Trierweiler.
Francois Hollande told the French news agency AFP that their “shared life” had ended.
Earlier, his office at the Elysee Palace denied split reports.
Two weeks ago Closer magazine published photos which appeared to show Francois Hollande had been having an affair with actress Julie Gayet.
Valerie Trierweiler spent a week in hospital after the revelations.
Francois Hollande, who has never denied having an affair with Julie Gayet, has admitted to a “difficult moment” in his relationship with Valerie Trierweiler.
At the time, he promised to clarify the situation before his official visit to Washington on February 11.
Francois Hollande has confirmed his separation from Valerie Trierweiler
Francois Hollande told AFP he was speaking in a personal capacity and not as the head of state.
“I am making it known that I have put an end to my shared life with Valerie Trierweiler,” the president said.
On Thursday, Valerie Trierweiler sacked her lawyer for saying she was seeking to end her relationship with Francois Hollande “with the greatest possible dignity”.
Valerie Trierweiler, who has continued to work as a journalist for the glossy magazine Paris-Match, is travelling to India on Sunday in support of the work of the French charity Action Against Hunger.
Since she left hospital, Valerie Trierweiler has been staying at an official residence, La Lanterne, near Versailles.
“He [Francois Hollande] has consulted her and brought her up to date, she accepts the situation as a fait accompli, but she is leaving it to him to take the initiative,” a member of Valerie Trierweiler’s entourage told the newspaper Le Parisien.
Valerie Trierweiler and Francois Hollande have never married.
Canadian customs have seized a shipment of Marmite and Irn-Bru bound for a British foods shop in Canada in a crackdown on banned additives.
Tony Badger, who owns Brit Foods in Saskatoon in central Canada, said he lost more than 20,000 CAD when the cargo from the UK was seized.
Irn-Bru contains the Ponceau 4R food coloring, while Marmite is enriched with vitamins and minerals which are unacceptable to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA).
Lucozade, Penguin bars, and Bovril were also in the package and seized, as they all fall foul of the country’s food laws. The CFIA is believed to be clamping down on foods that breach its laws.
Tony Badger told Canada talk radio station CKOM he had been importing and selling the products since 1997.
Marmite is enriched with vitamins and minerals which are unacceptable to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency
“We’ve been bringing Irn-Bru in since the very beginning. I haven’t heard of anyone dying from consuming Irn-Bru in Scotland or Britain.
“All we’re looking for is fair and equitable treatment. If a product is banned and they show us in writing it’s banned, then we’ll understand, it’s banned and this is the reason.”
Tony Badger said last October the shipment was detained for inspection, and he began to ask questions when the process took longer than usual.
CFIA officials then came to his store last Thursday and seized the remaining product from his shelves.
Shoppers describe the ban on Marmite and Irn-Bru as “insanity” in a country that allows the sale of “firearms, guns and bullets”.
AG Barr, the Scottish company which manufactures Irn-Bru, produces a Canada-specific product that does not contain Ponceau 4R.
The colorant is being removed voluntarily from its European recipe, following a request from the UK Food Standards Agency , which investigated concerns over links to hyperactivity in children.
Google has patented a way of linking online ads to free or discounted taxi rides to the advertising restaurant, shop or entertainment venue.
The transport-linked ad service could encourage consumers to respond more often to location-based special offers, experts say.
Algorithms would work out the customer’s location, the best route and form of transport, Google says.
Advertisers will mine huge databases recording people’s habits, likes and preferences so that ads can be highly targeted.
Google says, in future, customers could be driven to restaurants, bars, shops and venues by driverless cars
Combining this information with location data gleaned from Wi-Fi, cellular and GPS tracking will enable businesses to tailor their ads and special offers according to where people are, the time of day and their schedules.
The addition of free or cheap travel to the location will be the icing on the cake, Google hopes.
In August, Google’s venture capital arm invested $258 million in Uber, the San Francisco-based car hire network.
In the same way that advertisers bid against each other for the rights to Google keywords online, the company sees them competing on transport costs too.
The real-time system would help advertisers work out the costs of offering the transport sweetener versus the potential profit margins, Google said.
“Getting a potential customer to a business location in order to conduct a sale may be one of the most difficult tasks for a business or advertiser,” Google says in its US patent for the “transportation-aware physical advertising conversions” system.
Madonna will perform at this year’s Grammy awards on January 26, CBS network confirmed.
The network also said that Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong and Miranda Lambert – both nominated for Grammys this year – will perform a duet in tribute to Everly Brothers musician Phil Everly, who died earlier this year.
Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue and Juicy J have also been added to the performers’ slate, with Steve Coogan, Jeremy Renner.
Madonna will perform at this year’s Grammy awards on January 26
Julia Roberts and Charlie Wilson added to the presenters’ roster.
The newly announced performers join a slate that already included Sara Bareilles, Carole King, Daft Punk, Kendrick Lamar, Imagine Dragons, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Nine Inch Nails, Queens of the Stone Age, Robin Thicke and numerous others.
The 56th Annual Grammy Awards, hosted by LL Cool J, will take place at the Staples Center in Los Angeles on Sunday, January 26.
Syrian government and opposition representatives have met briefly face to face in Geneva in what is being hailed a small but significant step in talks aimed at “saving Syria”.
The initial gathering in Geneva lasted half an hour mediated by the UN’s Lakhdar Brahimi.
Delegates in Geneva are aiming at small concessions, not a full peace deal.
“Ending terrorism and violence” is the top priority, Syrian officials say. They insist it is too early to discuss President Bashar al-Assad’s position.
The two delegations filed in through separate doors into one room in the UN Geneva Headquarters, and sat down at the same U-shaped table, but said nothing to each other.
Lakhdar Brahimi spoke for half an hour. Then they all filed out again.
Ahead of the next face-to-face meeting, Lakhdar Brahimi will shuttle between the delegations, trying to build confidence with small achievements like localized ceasefires, release of detainees and the opening of humanitarian corridors.
There is hope that minor progress will pave the way for the discussion of wider issues like political transition next week, although there has been no sign of common ground on this so far.
Syrian government delegation has said the main issue of the Geneva talks is finding a solution to foreign-backed terrorism
Shortly after the initial meeting, the chief of staff to the leader of Syria’s National Coalition, Monzer Akbik, claimed that the transition process had started in earnest.
“Today we had the chance to speak directly to regime… You know dictators usually, they don’t like to listen. But today they had to listen to us and to the voice of the Syrian people that they want transition from dictatorship to democracy.”
However Syria’s Ambassador to the UN Bashar Jafari – part of the government delegation – said it was “too early” to talk of President Bashar al-Assad stepping down and that the issue was “not the priority”.
“Item number one should be putting an end to the terrorism and to the violence,” he said.
The envoy said the common ground between the parties “should be that we should talk about everything, everything, without any selectivity… and no preconditions and no hidden agendas”.
But he accused the coalition delegation of harboring “personal hatreds towards the government for whatever reasons”.
The opposition and government are fundamentally divided over the aims of the conference.
The government delegation has said the main issue of the talks is finding a solution to foreign-backed “terrorism”, by which it means the whole of the armed opposition.
The opposition, however, had insisted that the regime commit in writing to the 2012 Geneva I communiqué, which called for a transition process.
The communiqué urged Syria to form a transitional governing authority that “could include members of the present government and the opposition and other groups”.
Syria’s civil conflict has claimed well over 100,000 lives since it began in 2011.
The Philippines’ government has agreed the final section of a peace deal with Muslim rebels fighting a long-running insurgency in the south of the country.
It is the fourth part of a roadmap for peace with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front set out in October 2012.
The accord details how the rebels will hand over their weapons in exchange for self-rule in parts of the south.
The agreement, reached in Kuala Lumpur, paves the way for a final and comprehensive peace treaty.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed over the past four decades of separatist fighting.
The government’s chief negotiator, Miriam Coronhel Ferrer, said the agreement marked the effective end of the formal negotiations.
The Moro Islamic Liberation Front was created after a split with another rebel group in 1977
Her counterpart from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, Monagher Iqbal, said certain steps had to be taken: “To pave for peace, real peace in Mindanao, we have to decommission our forces and put them beyond use.
“As for the number of combatants that are involved in the decommissioning process – it’s part of the verification and validation which will be undertaken by the independent decommissioning body.”
The Moro Islamic Liberation Front, created after a split with another rebel group in 1977, originally wanted an independent Muslim state, but dropped this demand.
The Philippines has faced separatist movements for decades in Mindanao, where the Moro Islamic Liberation Front is based, and in Jolo, home to the radical Islamist Abu Sayyaf group, which is reputedly linked to al-Qaeda.
