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(08/29/07 2:16pm)
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Pakistan’s painstakingly built National Art Gallery has overcome decades of political turbulence to become an eye-catching symbol of modernity and creativity in a nation more often associated with Islamic conservatism.\nThe four-story gallery opened to the public on Tuesday with an expansive exhibit of 600 works, from Persian-style miniature paintings with a modern twist to large-scale sculptures created specially for the museum.\nPakistan has long had a vibrant if small art scene, but the gallery took more than a quarter-century to go from conception to completion, due mainly to the changing priorities of a series of military leaders and short-lived elected governments.\n“It’s a wonderful feeling to have a home for all the work – a place to house the work of three generations of artists,” said Naiza Khan, a curator of the inaugural show and an artist whose female metal body armor is on display.\nFeaturing work from 126 Pakistani artists, some of the pieces in the “Moving Ahead” show have a distinctively South Asian or Islamic flavor: Arabic calligraphy, a painting with Bollywood actors, a throne made of white plastic ablution buckets that Muslims use to wash themselves before prayer.\nThe works are owned by the Pakistan National Council of the Arts or are on loan from private collectors.\nOne miniature painting by Waseem Ahmedtitled “Burqa” transforms a classical European odalisque into a classical Persian form. The reclining Venus is draped in a gauzy, transparent burqa, an all-covering Islamic veil, and gazes into a mirror that reflects apples, a Christian symbol of temptation.\nOne of the 132,000-square-foot gallery’s two grand halls holds several sculptures, including a creation by artist Khalil Chishtee. The piece, which uses white plastic bags, shows a life-size woman walking a tightrope, a man below turning his head up toward her, apparently held in position by a thread tugging his nose skyward. The tightrope is the braided hair of an elderly woman sitting in a wheelchair.\n“There’s a lot of stuff that you wouldn’t expect to be ... in a museum in Pakistan,” said Sana Raza, a 27-year-old consultant from Karachi who visited the gallery on opening day. She gestured toward sculptures criticizing society and the political system and said, “You would expect censorship ... more toned down stuff, but they’ve been pretty open about open expression.”\nThe Ministry of Culture promised there would be no censorship, said Salima Hashmi, one of the curators and an art historian. Curators were told to exercise their own judgment so as not to offend anyone. Showing figurative work or nudes “would be a problem in certain venues in Pakistan that are more conservative,” Hashmi said.\nThe museum’s interior space is white with warm accents, such as a brick-paved ramp leading to the mezzanine and a few areas with wood detailing on the ceiling. An auditorium and a rooftop courtyard are surrounded by delicate arches.\nThe exterior is made almost entirely of brick – a rare choice in an era of new museums around the world constructed with large concrete or stone slabs. “Brick has a humility. It has a scale that is so intimate,” said architect Naeem Pasha, who won the first competition in architect selection in 1981.\nA sentry of seven large black statues of burqa-clad figures, haunting and anonymous, stands outside the gallery entrance.\nSome spaces, such as the room displaying the calligraphy, are one-story high, while others are two stories high or taller, including one room that can be viewed from two little balconies on the second floor to give the visitor a different perspective.\nOn Tuesday, the room of miniatures was leaking a murky gray water through the ceiling, and many of the works had to be removed from the walls to protect them. Jamal Shah, executive director of the Pakistan National Council of the Arts, called the leaking “teething” problems that were being addressed.\nPasha won the first competition to choose an architect in 1981, but the project had many delays often because of the frequent changes of government. The foundation stone was laid in March 1996, but funding was diverted for a convention center, he said. When they finally got started, some officials wanted to demolish the unfinished structure, worrying it could be a hiding place for snipers targeting President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, whose office is nearby.\nThe $8.9 million gallery creates a rare cultural attraction for visitors to the grid-plan capital, which was only built in the 1960s. There are outdoor shopping centers, parks and the impressive Lok Virsa ethnographic museum, but few places to see art or theater.\nThe artwork at the National Gallery indicates how secular and liberal Pakistan’s growing middle-class has become, despite the conservative influence of the religious establishment.\n“As in many countries, you have audiences which will accept work which seems to be pushing the boundaries, and there will be other conservative audiences that will simply not accept it,” said Hashmi. “It’s anybody’s guess as to how this will proceed.”
(07/19/07 4:00am)
OK, so much like the movie, I've got a lot to say and not a lot of time to say it.\n I made the mistake of rereading the book last week and therefore was able to point out everything the movie changed or left out, putting a damper on my Harry Potter experience. \nBeing the longest book in the series, "Order" somehow managed to end up the shortest film yet. Um, why? So much happens in "Order" that simply adding 10 minutes would have breathed a lot more into it. Everything in the movie is rushed. The actors hurriedly spit out thousands of words to keep things moving. It's exhaustive and probably a bit incompressible to the average Muggle. The quick pace also downplays the seriousness of certain plot points. Dementors in Little Whinging and Mr. Weasley's attack are played off as everyday occurrences, and the Order itself is barely explained.\nThis time around, the film is directed by BBC vet David Yates (the directors are changing as frequently as Hogwarts' defense against the dark arts teachers), who definitely brings his own style to the film. There are many awkward cuts and bird's-eye-view camera angles that don't work, but Yates succeeds in taking the film in a darker direction. This ain't the magical world of "Sorcerer's Stone" anymore. Things are starting to get grim, which brings us to the film's highlight: the last 20 minutes in the Department of Mysteries. It's fricking terrifying -- like really, really scary (Voldemort at the train station, Bellatrix Lestrange's smirk, the claustrophobic atmosphere -- ahhh, help me!). Apparently I've been downplaying the intensity of Deatheaters and dark magic in my mind while I read the books because I never imagined it to be this extreme and frightening. Any ambition I had to become an auror is now gone; I'm not brave enough for that. I'll stick to charms instead.\nThe story lines of Umbridge taking over Hogwarts and Dumbledore's Army are handled well, and as always, the adult cast of Britain's who's who (Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Helena Bonham Carter, Maggie Smith, Richard Griffiths) are fantastic if underused. I loved the Weasley twins' obsession with apparting, and Harry finally got some play in an awkwardly long make-out scene with Cho. (But how dare they change the story so that she gave up the D.A.?)\nThe few days after the initial viewing of a Harry movie are always touchy, so as I've done with the previous films, I'm sure I'll get over my complaints and learn to love this movie. But until then, it gets a B+
(02/28/07 5:00am)
BAGRAM, Afghanistan – A suicide bomber attacked the entrance to the main U.S. military base in Afghanistan on Tuesday during a visit by Vice President Dick Cheney, killing up to 23 people and wounding 20.\nCheney was unhurt in the attack, which was claimed by the Taliban and was the closest that militants have come to a top U.S. official visiting Afghanistan. At least one U.S. soldier, an American contractor and a South Korean soldier were among the dead, NATO said.\nCheney said the attackers were trying “to find ways to question the authority of the central government.” The Taliban said Cheney was the target.\nAbout two hours after the blast, Cheney left on a military flight for Kabul to meet with President Hamid Karzai and other officials, then left Afghanistan.\nThe vice president had spent the night at the sprawling Bagram Air Base, ate breakfast with the troops and met with Maj. Gen. David Rodriguez, the commander of U.S. troops in Afghanistan.\nHe was preparing to leave for a meeting with Karzai when the suicide bomber struck about 10 a.m., sending up a plume of smoke visible by reporters accompanying him. U.S. military officials declared a “red alert” at the base.\n“I heard a loud boom,” Cheney told reporters. “The Secret Service came in and told me there had been an attack on the main gate.”\nHe said he was moved “for a brief period of time” to a bomb shelter on the base near his quarters. “As the situation settled down and they had a better sense of what was going on, I went back to my room,” Cheney added.\nAsked if the Taliban were trying to send a message with the attack, Cheney said: “I think they clearly try to find ways to question the authority of the central government.”\n“Striking at Bagram with a suicide bomber, I suppose, is one way to do that,” he said. “But it shouldn’t affect our behavior at all.”\nMaj. William Mitchell said it did not appear the explosion was intended as a threat to Cheney. “He wasn’t near the site of the explosion,” Mitchell said. “He was safely within the base at the time of the explosion.”\nThere were conflicting reports on the death toll. Karzai’s office said 23 people were killed, including 20 Afghan workers at the base. Another 20 people were injured, it said.\nNATO’s International Security Assistance Force said initial reports were that three people were killed, including a U.S. soldier, an American contractor and a South Korean soldier. U.S. officials indicated they planned to update that death toll.\nA message posted on a Web site used by militants said “a mujahid ... carried out a suicide attack in front of the second gate of the Bagram Air Base. ... The target was Bush’s vice president, Dick Cheney.”\nA purported Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, said Cheney was the target of the attack, which Ahmadi said was carried out by an Afghan called Mullah Abdul Rahim, of Logar province.\n“We knew that Dick Cheney would be staying inside the base,” Ahmadi told AP by telephone from an undisclosed location. “The attacker was trying to reach Cheney.”\nMitchell noted that Cheney’s overnight stay occurred only after a meeting with Karzai on Monday was canceled because of bad weather.\n“I think it’s a far-fetched allegation,” he said, referring to the Taliban claim. “The vice president wasn’t even supposed to be here overnight, so this would have been a surprise to everybody.”\nWhite House spokesman Tony Snow said he did not know whether publicity about Cheney’s overnight stay at the base helped invite the attack.\n“The fact is, the vice president was committed to having a visit with President Karzai,” Snow said. “And they had to delay, due to weather, in being able to get together. He certainly wasn’t going to leave before he finished doing his business.”
(04/29/04 4:29am)
PATTANI, Thailand -- A heap of bodies in a bullet-scarred mosque attested to a sharp and sudden upsurge of separatist violence Wednesday in Thailand's Muslim south. While the prime minister said the issues were strictly local, some tied the clashes to the country's support for the war in Iraq.\nPolice said they shot and killed 107 Islamic fighters -- including 32 inside the mosque -- after repelling near simultaneous attacks by hundreds of militants.\nThe violence began when the militants, mostly teenagers, stormed about 15 police stations and government buildings in three provinces.\nMost of the attackers were armed only with machetes, but at least some of those killed in the mosque had guns and knew how to use them, said army chief Gen. Chaiyasit Shinawatra.\nThree policemen and two soldiers were killed and 17 militants arrested during the pre-dawn attacks in Yala, Pattani and Songkhla provinces, officials said.\nPrime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said authorities had been tipped off and were ready for the attacks. He said the outcome would help end an Islamic insurgency that has simmered for decades in this Buddhist nation's impoverished south.\n"It will be hard for them to do these kind of bad things again," Thaksin told reporters in Bangkok, the capital.\nMuslims, 5 percent of Thailand's 64 million people, are a majority in the country's thin southern peninsula. They have long complained of cultural, religious and economic repression by the central government, some 600 miles away in Bangkok.\nThaksin blamed a surge in violence this year on money flowing into the south from drug traffickers and corrupt politicians. Other officials say the trouble stems from rival criminal factions or conflicts between corrupt army and police forces over the spoils of smuggling.\nThaksin insisted no foreign terrorists were involved, though the area is believed to have been used as a hiding place for militants linked to al Qaeda through Jamaah Islamiyah, a regional terrorist group.\nMansalan Mohamad, a lecturer at the Yala Islamic College in the south, acknowledged the motives cited by the prime minister but said they weren't the whole story. "The trend of growing Muslim anger and the war in Iraq, the situation in the Middle East, also are part of the factors," he said.\nThailand has about 450 troops in Iraq and has cooperated closely in efforts to catch terrorists in Southeast Asia.\nAnalysts said Wednesday's attacks may indicate rising stakes in a hitherto small-scale battle of bombings and drive-by shootings.\nSunai Phasuk, a Bangkok political analyst, said the attackers showed readiness to fight and die. "They fought with knives and swords, fully understanding that the police will be ready and waiting for them with M-16 rifles ... they refused to back off.\n"This is very dangerous," he said.\nThaksin said the attackers arrived at their targets on brand new motorcycles. "This proves they got financial support from influential figures, including politicians and drug gangsters," he said, without elaborating.\nThe prime minister said the assailants' apparent goal was to steal guns, as they did in a Jan. 4 attack on a military base that netted hundreds of weapons.\nBut security forces lying in wait responded with a hail of bullets Wednesday. TV footage showed attackers' bodies sprawled in pools of blood, some of them still clasping machetes.\nChaiyasit, the army chief, said one group of 32 attackers fled the initial skirmishes to the 16th-century Kreu-Se mosque in Pattani, a town of a few thousand people.\n"They were well trained," he said. "Those who were holed up in the mosque for hours had M-16 and AK-47 rifles and were skilled in using such war weapons."\nSecurity forces lobbed tear gas canisters into the flat-roofed single-story shrine before peppering it with grenade and automatic fire.\nBy the time journalists were allowed in, no guns were in evidence. Police said they had collected them.\nWaedaloh Hayeesohoh, a Muslim elder from a nearby village, said he heard gunfire and went to investigate. "I saw some men and knew they weren't from around here. They were armed with guns and knives," he said.