World

Bad Bunny, the Puerto Rican Latin trap and reggaeton artist who’s among the world’s biggest stars, scored MTV’s artist of the year award Sunday at the annual Video Music Awards.

But the performer was conspicuously absent from the show: he was busy with his own blockbuster tour, playing the second night of a sold out concert at Yankee Stadium that over the weekend drew some 100,000 fans.

Bad Bunny, wearing a satin pink suit and white sunglasses, accepted the award via video and also delivered a seismic performance of his smash “Titi Me Pregunto” from the baseball stadium in New York, where the song has soundtracked the streets for months.

“Thank you so much, New York,” the 28-year-old said in Spanish to resounding applause.

“From the beginning I always believed that I could be great, that I could be one of the biggest stars in the world, without changing my culture, my language,” he said. “I’m Benito Antonio Martinez from Puerto Rico — for the whole world.”

In a sure sign that pandemic-stymied touring was back in full swing, another of the year’s biggest stars, Harry Styles, also couldn’t make it to the VMAs — which aired from New Jersey’s Prudential Center — due to his own show at Madison Square Garden.

The artist who dropped “Harry’s House” this year also accepted his award for the year’s best album via video, before heading back to his own global concert run.

– Swift album on the way –

Taylor Swift was also among the night’s big winners, turning heads on the red carpet in a dress dripping with crystals before winning the night’s top prize of music video of the year for her 10-minute-long film “All Too Well.” 

“I’m so proud of what we made,” said the 32-year-old, who has been making good on her vow to re-record her first six albums so she can control the rights to them.

“We wouldn’t have been able to make this short film if it weren’t for you, the fans,” Swift said onstage. “Because I wouldn’t be able to re-record my albums if it weren’t for you. You emboldened me to do that.”

She then gave fans a gift in return, announcing that her new album will come out October 21.

Shortly after the broadcast’s end, the megastar revealed the new project’s name.

“Midnights, the stories of 13 sleepless nights scattered throughout my life, will be out October 21. Meet me at midnight,” she wrote on social media.

Hip hop superstar Nicki Minaj reigned over the evening as the 2022 recipient of the prestigious Video Vanguard Award.

Wearing her signature pink wig, the hip-hop icon from Queens delivered a medley of her hits including “Super Bass” and her most recent single “Super Freaky Girl.”

Brazil’s Anitta also turned heads with a booty-popping performance before winning the award for best Latin video for “Envolver.”

“I was born and raised in the ghetto of Brazil, and for whoever was born there, we would never think this was possible,” she said when accepting the trophy.

– Johnny Depp appears –

Iconic stoner comedy duo Cheech and Chong awarded the Red Hot Chili Peppers with the Global Icon Award, before the California rockers performed and also paid tribute to Taylor Hawkins, the late Foo Fighters drummer.

Eminem and Snoop Dogg opened their performance sitting on a couch as Snoop smoked a giant — albeit fake — blunt, before the pair headed to the metaverse for a trippy, animated performance of their latest collaboration “From the D 2 the LBC.”

Marshmello and Khalid performed “Numb” with neon, disorienting visuals that created a brief but heady rave effect, while South Korea’s Blackpink gave their first show at a US awards night ever.

Lizzo also performed before scoring the Video For Good award — which honors videos with social or political messages — for her song “About Damn Time.”

Wearing a cone-bra corseted dress that recalled Madonna, the superstar thanked fans for voting for her to receive the award before nodding to US politics.

“Vote to change some of these laws that are oppressing us,” the star urged.

And at the awards show that’s historically far better known for its antics than actual prizes, Johnny Depp — fresh off his controversial defamation trial against his ex-partner Amber Heard — appeared as the MTV Moonman, his head digitally superimposed on the flying astronaut.

“You know what? I needed the work,” said the 59-year-old actor.

Sparks flew Sunday as far-right President Jair Bolsonaro accused leftist rival Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of massive corruption — and drew accusations of “destroying Brazil” in return — as they faced off in their first election debate.

The two front-runners, who waited until the last minute to confirm they would attend the first televised debate ahead of October’s elections, wasted no time in attacking each other.

Bolsonaro called Lula a “thief” in his opening salvo of the three-hour clash, pummeling the 76-year-old ex-president over the massive “Car Wash” corruption scandal centered on state-run oil giant Petrobras.

The investigation landed Lula in prison from 2018 to 2019 on controversial corruption charges — annulled by the Supreme Court last year.

“Your government was the most corrupt in Brazilian history,” said Bolsonaro, 67, rattling off figures from the scandal in a rapid-fire attack.

“It was a kleptocracy, a government based on robbery…. What do you want to come back to power for? To do the same thing to Petrobras again?”

Lula fired back that Bolsonaro was spreading “untruths” — one of several exchanges in which they accused each other of lying. He in turn accused the incumbent of trashing his legacy of economic growth and anti-poverty initiatives.

“This country has been destroyed,” Lula said in his trademark gravelly voice, attacking Bolsonaro over increased poverty and hunger, soaring prices and a surge in destruction in the Amazon rainforest.

Dressing the part in dark suits and ties — striped blue for Bolsonaro, burgundy red for Lula — the front-runners had numerous fiery exchanges, but hewed to the rules and kept their demeanor relatively civilized.

However, tension erupted into the open in the side room where their entourages were watching. Pro-Lula lawmaker Andre Janones and Bolsonaro’s ex-environment minister, Ricardo Salles, got into a raucous shouting match and had to be pulled away from each other.

– Bolsonaro rants, Lula underwhelms –

In all, six of the 12 presidential candidates on the ballot were on the neon-blue-lit stage in TV network Band’s Sao Paulo studios.

But all eyes in the deeply polarized Latin American giant of 213 million people were on front-runner Lula, the popular but tarnished ex-metal worker who led Brazil from 2003 to 2010, and his nemesis, Bolsonaro, the leader nicknamed the “Tropical Trump,” who is vying for a come-from-behind win.

Neither appeared to score a knock-out punch, and both drew criticism over their performances.

Bolsonaro sparked outrage with a trademark rant in which he attacked journalist Vera Magalhaes, one of the moderators, for saying he had spread disinformation about Covid-19 vaccines.

“Vera, you think about me in your sleep, you must have a crush on me or something,” the incumbent reacted irately.

“You can’t take part in a debate like this and spread lies and accusations about me. You’re an embarrassment to Brazilian journalism.”

The president, who has been struggling to win over women voters, drew accusations of misogyny on social networks after the episode.

Lula meanwhile delivered an underwhelming performance, looking less fiery as the three-hour debate wore on.

“Lula looked very timid and made mistakes on certain points, falling into some traps,” said political analyst Andre Cesar of consulting firm Hold.

He gave Bolsonaro the edge in the debate for hitting on his favorite themes, “nation, family and freedom… often with humor.” But he added the incumbent’s attack on the moderator “showed that this is who Bolsonaro is — and that might hurt him anyway.”

Lula leads Bolsonaro by 47 percent to 32 percent, according to the latest poll from the Datafolha institute.

If no candidate wins more than 50 percent of valid votes in the first round on October 2, the election will go to a run-off on October 30.

EU foreign ministers are to discuss this week an appeal led by Ukraine to ban Russian tourists from visiting Europe.

The idea, to be studied in a two-day meeting starting Tuesday in Prague, has divided EU nations, with some wholeheartedly agreeing with it while others resist, fearing it would shut the door on dissident Russians fleeing their homeland.

Some EU countries neighbouring Russia have already moved to bar or limit visas to Russians, but no EU-wide ban is as yet in place.

– Ukraine: Russians stay home –

In February, the European Union restricted visas in certain categories for Russians linked to the Kremlin, including for officials, diplomatic passport holders and company bosses. But tourist visas were still permitted.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is now demanding the West shut its borders to all Russians, including tourists, saying they should “live in their own world until they change their philosophy”.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has said: “Russians overwhelmingly support the war, cheer missile strikes on Ukrainian cities and (the) murder of Ukrainians. Let Russian tourists enjoy Russia then.”

A furious Kremlin has reacted by calling Kyiv’s appeal “irrational” and pledging retaliation.

– Finland steps up –

Finland, which has Europe’s longest border with Russia, will from Thursday slash the number of Russian tourist visa applications it handles to just 10 percent of the usual 1,000 received per day. A flat-out ban based on an applicant’s nationality is impossible under Finnish law.

That measure will have an impact. Because of EU sanctions closing European airspace to flights from Russia, Russians had massively turned to land travel through Finland to reach other European countries.

EU countries Latvia, Lithuania and Poland stopped issuing new tourist visas to Russians when the Kremlin’s forces invaded Ukraine in late February.

– EU’s Schengen visa –

Russian leisure travellers use Schengen visas normally valid across 26 EU and associated countries, including Switzerland and Norway.

The visas typically allow stays of up to 90 days in a 180-day rolling period.

Those 26 countries received around three million Schengen visa applications last year. Russians made up the biggest group, accounting for 536,000 of them.

Estonia wants EU rules to be changed to allow it to stop Russians with already issued Schengen visas, regardless of which EU country issued them.

The Czech Republic — which holds the rotating EU presidency — argues “business as usual for Russian tourists in time of aggression is inappropriate”.

EU sanctions require unanimity among all 27 member states. One country — Hungary — maintains friendly ties with Moscow and could veto a bloc-wide visa ban. 

On top of that, several EU countries, among them France, Germany and Portugal, insist that Russian journalists and other civilians fearing persecution should continue to be allowed entry.

And EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, who will chair the EU ministers’ meeting in Prague, said he believed a prohibition on all Russians from entering Europe “is not a good idea”.

The European Commission insists on the need for humanitarian access for dissident Russians, and says visa applications should be assessed individually and not under a blanket rule.

Lithuania has said that, if no EU-wide ban is agreed, it could seek a “regional solution” banning tourists, possibly including Latvia, Estonia, Finland and Poland.

– ‘Fuel’ for Kremlin propaganda –

An expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations think tank, Marie Dumoulin, said the appeal to ban Russians from Europe contains “a dangerous error of analysis”.

“Less than 30 percent of Russians have a passport, and their top travel destinations are Turkey, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates,” she said.

“A ban would have the exact opposite effect of what is being sought. By stigmatising Russians, it would fuel the Kremlin propaganda that, for years and especially since the offensive in Ukraine, has been decrying a supposed ‘Russophobia’ by Westerners.”

The EU, she said, should retain links with Russian civil society and not “lock it away in a pen totally controlled by the regime”.

Striking geometric shapes that recall 20th century abstract art are not what you would expect to see adorning a handmade Iranian rug.

But changing tastes and increased competition from Asia have forced some in the trade to redesign and resize a tradition dating back more than 2,000 years.

“A revolution is underway,” said Ahad Azimzadeh, 65, who calls himself “the biggest exporter of Persian carpets in the world”.

Rugs traditionally woven in the Islamic republic are known for dense, curving floral designs in rich colours.

Their beauty and quality have long been recognised worldwide, yet sales have collapsed over the past 30 years.

“In 1994 the value of Iranian carpets sold abroad reached $1.7 billion and represented 40 percent of our non-petroleum exports,” Ahmad Karimi, chief of the Handmade Carpet Manufacturers’ and Exporters’ Union, told AFP.

By 2019-20 that figure had shrunk to $70 million, he said.

By another measure, in 2000 Iran represented 32 percent of global handmade carpet exports. This fell to 7.9 percent by 2019 as exports from China and India rose, Karimi said. 

– ‘New generations’ –

There was “an impact” from international sanctions that targeted Iran over its nuclear programme, human rights and other issues, but he said other factors are more to blame.

“Especially by the big diversity of carpets on the market and the change in the mentality and tastes of the new generations,” Karimi said.

Azimzadeh, the carpet exporter, said “the future is with modern handmade rugs”. 

He spoke at last week’s handmade carpet exhibition in Tehran. The annual event, suspended for two years because of the coronavirus pandemic, features about 400 exhibitors from across Iran.

“The patterns of Iranian carpets are ancient but today there is a strong demand for contemporary styles. They’re more suitable for a modern house,” said Azimzadeh, a big talker who started small — as a seven-year-old weaver. By 14, he had graduated to the commercial side of the trade.

Among the new styles on display at the exhibition which ended Sunday: a rug featuring small squares of hypnotic diagonal blue and white lines.

Another depicts diamond and other geometric patterns in gold silk on a black background. One wool rug looks as if an ink roller has left splashes of gold on it.

“The colours are clear and the sizes smaller,” which is what modern tastes demand, Azimzadeh said.

As an extreme but less typical example of this “revolution”, Azimzadeh stands in front of a woven rug three metres square (3.6 square yards) in size. It depicts global personalities including actor Charlie Chaplin, the physicist Albert Einstein and Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.

– From art to doormat –

The new style is also cheaper. 

Some sell for $3,000 or $4,000, whereas Azimzadeh has a 2,000 square metre traditional carpet from Tabriz priced at $120 million.

His inventory also holds a 170-year-old piece from Kashan available for about $160,000.

For now, modern designs are still a minority at his stand in the exhibition, but the traditional stock will be gradually withdrawn, he said.

“Next year, 70 percent of the rugs on display will be modern,” Azimzadeh predicts.

Karimi, of the exporters’ union, regrets that Iranian carpets are nowadays seen as “a consumer good to put in front of the door, whereas in the past it was an investment.

“It’s lost its status as an object of art.”

Another trader, Abbas Arsin, was perhaps ahead of his time when he created what he calls the “transitional carpet” 25 years ago.

He took traditional patterns and made the bright colours fade by rubbing them and leaving them in the sun.

“My father and my older brother didn’t understand why I wore myself out making the old rugs fade,” said Arsin, 40, the third generation of his family in the business.

But when he exhibited his first works and customers came, his family encouraged him to “only do that”, he recalls with a smile.

Arsin said India, Pakistan, Turkey and China overtook Iran in the global market because “we Iranians had fewer relations with the rest of the world. We didn’t see the changes that were happening.”

Even now, not everyone is convinced.

“A year ago we began to make carpets in modern designs but they represent only five percent of our production and I don’t think we will go beyond that,” said Mehdi Jamshidi, 42, director of sales for Iran Carpet company.

“Modern carpets will never replace the traditional ones, which are deep-rooted in our culture and regions.”

Hamid Sayahfar, 54, a dealer who spends his time between Tehran and Toronto, said the new geometric styles might be suitable for an office, but not at home.

It’s just a fashion, he said, “and like every fashion it will disappear.”

Following a spectacular fall from grace and power, speculation is rife about what outgoing British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will do next.

Will he plot a comeback from the backbenches in parliament or cash in and wreak revenge as a political pundit?

Johnson, 58, famously signed off his final performance as prime minister in the House of Commons by telling MPs: “Hasta la vista, baby”.

He may as well have used another line from the “Terminator” films — “I’ll be back” — as it only fuelled speculation that he has unfinished political business.

Allies said he wants to lead the Conservative party at the next general election, due in two years time, even though a new leader will be crowned on September 5.

“I suspect he’s not totally given up on the idea of a comeback,” politics professor Tim Bale, from Queen Mary University of London, told AFP.

“I suspect friends of Boris Johnson… will be talking to journalists off the record all the time and criticising, albeit not openly, his successor.”

Despite being ousted by his own MPs following a string of scandals, Johnson remains popular with many party members.

According to Daniel Bowman, a political researcher at the University of Liverpool, he could leverage that power to settle some scores.

“Boris Johnson is a well-known agitator. I think revenge may be on his mind,” he said.

This could be as a member of the cabinet, he said, pointing out that Liz Truss, the favourite to succeed him, had not ruled out giving Johnson a ministerial role. 

“He could also be an agitator on the backbenches,” said Bowman.

– Risk –

Whoever takes over will immediately face the task of tackling the soaring cost of living and rampant inflation and is likely to hear calls for a general election to legitimise their power.

Should he stay on as a rank-and-file MP, Johnson could make mischief for his successor, as his predecessor Theresa May did for him.

It would also be the ideal position for him to lie in wait in case his replacement is felled.

But that choice may not be entirely in his own hands.

Parliament’s Privileges Committee is due to report on whether he committed “contempt of the House of Commons” by saying that he believed no lockdown rules were broken in his Downing Street office. 

Johnson, wife Carrie and leadership candidate Rishi Sunak, whose resignation as finance minister triggered his eventual demise, received fines for attending a birthday celebration in June 2020.

He risks losing his seat if the committee rules that he should be suspended from parliament, triggering a by-election at a time when the ruling Conservatives trail dismally in the polls.

– Cash –

Even if he survives the investigation, Bowman said Johnson may quit parliament anyway, if Labour look set to take the next election and he loses his seat.

“So maybe he might acknowledge that actually his political career, his time is running out, and he will be better on the sidelines, using the power of the media” to realise his ambitions, said Bowman.

Having reportedly complained that he was struggling to make ends meet on his £164,000 ($193,000) prime ministerial salary, Johnson could accept lucrative offers to become a columnist or a pundit.

His former employer The Daily Telegraph and the popular conservative newspaper the Daily Mail are both likely suitors.

According to the parliamentary register of members’ interests in 2018, Johnson was paid £275,000 a year to write a weekly column in the Telegraph.

As a former prime minister, he would likely command even more money. 

“I think Boris Johnson will inevitably go to the highest bidder,” said Bowman.

His predecessor May, not known for her rhetorical flair, earned more than £1 million in speaking fees in the year after she left office in 2019.

Otherwise, he could become a multi-millionaire by writing his memoirs and joining the international lecture circuit, with the ability to command around $100,000 per speech in the United States, Mark Cowne, CEO of the Kruger Cowne agency, told AFP.

A newspaper job would give Johnson a platform to attack those he blames for his downfall and make a case to become leader again.

“I really think he’ll pull all the levers he possibly can and really try to talk to his base,” said Bowman.

“Outside of parliament, he really has the ability to construct his own narrative and his own attack line.” 

Either way, he is likely to cause his successor “a lot of trouble”, he predicted.

An Iraqi museum is using computer technology and virtual reality headsets to turn back time, so visitors can explore heritage sites destroyed by jihadist fighters and in battles to defeat them.

Islamic State group fighters captured a third of Iraq in a lightning offensive in 2014, seizing the northern city of Mosul as their stronghold and vandalising or destroying a swathe of cultural sites across the country.

Now, using thousands of photographs, a group of local engineers have given a virtual rebirth to five historic sites in Mosul and the broader Nineveh province, including a mosque and its leaning minaret.

“It takes you to another world,” said Mahiya Youssef, pulling the VR goggles off her rose-covered hijab at the Mosul Heritage House museum, after exploring the 3D images of damaged buildings.

“I really wish it was the real Mosul, not just a virtual version”, added Youssef, 50, who works in a food factory in the northern city. “The return to reality is painful.”

The IS group’s then chief, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, made his only confirmed public appearance at Mosul’s Al-Nuri mosque, where he declared the establishment of a “caliphate”.

Mosul’s Old City was reduced to rubble during the battle to retake the city, including the mosque and its adjacent leaning minaret, nicknamed Al-Hadba or the “hunchback”.

Iraqi authorities have accused IS of planting explosives at the site before their withdrawal. Only the minaret’s base survived.

– ‘Retrieve memories’ –

VR technology has been used before to recreate the heritage destroyed by the IS group, including a UNESCO-backed exhibit in the United States.

But this museum brings sites back to life for the people who live in Mosul.

“Many children have never seen the Al-Nuri mosque and its Al-Hadba minaret,” 29-year-old Ayoub Younes, the museum’s founder.

“We try, through virtual reality, to let the person experience visiting those sites and retrieve those memories.”

Five years after Iraqi forces and an international coalition routed the jihadists in mid-2017, historic sites, mosques and churches in Mosul are still being restored.

But large parts of the Old City remain oceans of debris.

While some residents have returned to other districts, much of the city remains a patchwork of buildings either ruined or under construction. 

The private museum with a marble facade, sitting along the Tigris river, opened in mid-June and saw more than 4,000 visitors in its first month, Younes said. 

In a sombre room, curious visitors wait to use the museum’s sole VR headset, a pair of large black googles.

Other sites on the virtual visit are the historic Al-Tahera church, tucked among the once meandering alleyways of the Old City, and the more than 2,000 year old Hatra archaeological site in the desert south of Mosul.

The jihadists took guns and pickaxes to the once extensive remains of the ancient city, releasing video footage in 2015 of their orgy of destruction. 

– ‘Saving the memory’ – 

On his computer screen, Abdullah Bashir showed a 3D replica of the mosque housing the Nabi Yunus shrine — revered by both Muslims and Christians as the tomb of Prophet Jonah — which the extremists blew up in 2014.

“We used personal photos and shots taken by residents” to reconstruct the sites in their former state, he said.

But he said there were “very few” images before 2014, citing the “lack of photos” as the main difficulty.

Bashir and other specialised engineers from QAF Lab have brought the former scenes back to life, in a project he says is “a way of saving the memory of Mosul”.

After his virtual tour, visitor Mohammed Abdullah pushed his wheelchair around the real-life displays in museum’s vaulted rooms.

Many of the exhibits are daily-life objects donated by local families, from terracotta amphoras to oil lamps, traditional wall hangings, metal containers and even an old radio.

Abdullah, 28, a student of telecommunication engineering, also said the contrast between the VR and the reality of Mosul was painful.

“Reconstruction is extremely slow, and is not equal to the devastation,” said Abdullah.

He called for faster restoration of heritage sites both to attract tourists and to “breathe life” into nearby areas. 

Despite the bitter taste the virtual visit left, he said he has not lost hope. 

“The day will come when we will make this visit in reality,” he said. “It will be even better than the virtual one”.