27, August 2024
Mariah Carey’s mother and sister die on the same day 0
Mariah Carey’s mother, Patricia, and sister, Alison, died over the weekend, the American singer has said in a statement.
“My heart is broken that I’ve lost my mother this past weekend,” Carey said on Monday. “Sadly, in a tragic turn of events, my sister lost her life on the same day.”
The singer said she feels blessed to have spent time with her mother in the week before her death, and has asked for privacy.
No further details were released about the causes of death.
Patricia, 87, was a former opera singer and vocal coach of Irish-America descent.
In Carey’s 2020 memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey, the five-time Grammy Award-winning singer detailed her complicated relationship with her mother, saying that it “caused me so much pain and confusion”.
Carey said competition came between the two and that professional jealousy “comes with the territory of success, but when the person is your mother and the jealousy is revealed at such a tender age, it’s particularly painful”.
But she also spoke the deep love she had for her mother, writing in the dedication: “To Pat, my mother, who, through it all, I do believe actually did the best she could. I will love you the best I can, always.”
In an interview with Gayle King in 2022, Carey said that the criticism she was subject to by her mother growing up “definitely had an effect on me”.
She added that she has always credited her mother with exposing her to music.
Carey’s relationship with her older sister Alison, 63, was also complex.
In her memoir, she wrote of being estranged from her and her brother Morgan, saying that it was “emotionally and physically safer for me to not have any contact”.
Alison sued Carey for $1.2m (£909,780) following the release of the memoir for “immense emotional distress”, calling it “vindictive”.
The singer’s father, Alfred, died in 2002 of cancer at the age of 72.
Carey is regarded as one of the most successful singers globally.
Her holiday single “All I want for Christmas is You” is the best selling Christmas song by a female artist of all time.
She holds the record for the most Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles by a solo artist at 19 songs, has sold over 220 million records worldwide, and served as a judge on the competition show American Idol.
Source: BBC
28, August 2024
Yaoundé: Missing activist found in jail with signs of torture 0
A Cameroonian social media activist and government critic who disappeared last month has been located in a security cell of the military court in Yaoundé, Cameroon’s capital, with signs of torture, Human Rights Watch said Tuesday.
His lawyers believe the activist, known as Steve Akam, was extrajudicially returned to Cameroon from Gabon, where he had been living for the past decade. They gained access to him in custody in Yaoundé and found him partially paralysed with severe visual impairments, the international rights group said.
Akam, an outspoken critic of President Paul Biya’s administration, was last seen in a video circulated online that showed him handcuffed and surrounded by Cameroonian police near the border with Gabon.
He is better known by his social media profile Ramon Cotta on TikTok, which has over 30,000 followers. In a recent video, he accuses Biya of pursuing a war in Cameroon’s anglophone regions in order to remain in power.
Ilaria Allegrozzi, senior Sahel researcher at Human Rights Watch, said Akam “may already have lost his sight and ability to walk properly as a result of torture, so prompt action is immediately needed”.
She called on Cameroon to provide medical treatment and investigate the signs of torture. Cameroon’s government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Source: Reuters