5, September 2021
South Africa’s former president Zuma released from prison on medical parole 0
South Africa’s jailed former president Jacob Zuma has been placed on medical parole because of his ill health, the government’s correctional services department said on Sunday.
Last month prison authorities said Zuma, serving a 15-month sentence in Estcourt prison for contempt of court, underwent unspecified surgery at an outside hospital where he had been sent for observation. He remained in hospital with more operations planned.
The 79-year old’s eligibility for medical parole follows a medical report received by the Department of Correctional Services, it said in a statement.
“Medical parole placement for Mr Zuma means that he will complete the remainder of the sentence in the system of community corrections, whereby he must comply with a specific set of conditions and will be subjected to supervision until his sentence expires,” the department added.
Its spokesman Singabakho Nxumalo said that Zuma, who was imprisoned in early July, was still in hospital but could go home to continue receiving medical care. He gave no details on Zuma’s illness, his parole conditions nor whether his health had deteriorated since surgery.
Mzwanele Manyi, a spokesperson for the Jacob Zuma Foundation, said it welcomed the decision of the parole board and a more detailed statement would be issued after consultation with Zuma’s legal team.
Zuma was jailed for defying a Constitutional Court order to give evidence at an inquiry investigating high-level corruption during his nine years in office until 2018.
When Zuma handed himself in on July 7, protests by his supporters escalated into riots involving looting and arson that President Cyril Ramaphosa described as an “insurrection”.
(REUTERS)
6, September 2021
Iconic French New Wave actor Jean-Paul Belmondo dies aged 88 0
Jean-Paul Belmondo’s battered face, laconic style and roguish smile captured the imagination of French 1960s youth.
Belmondo, who has died at his Paris home aged 88, was the cool rebel of the new wave of French cinema typified in Jean-Luc Godard’s 1960 film classic, A Bout de Souffle.
His moody performance as a doomed thief and Humphrey Bogart fan struck a chord and saw him dubbed the Gallic James Dean.
Later, he forsook arts cinema to become a highly bankable commercial actor, as at home in comedy as in drama.
Jean-Paul Belmondo was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, a suburb of Paris on 9 Apr 1933, the son of Paul Belmondo, a sculptor whose statues grace many a Parisian park.
The intensely Bohemian atmosphere of his upbringing had a formative effect on him.
He failed at school and became an amateur boxer. In his short-lived career, he won 15 of his 23 bouts before giving up to concentrate on acting.
His trademark bumpy nose, however, was a result of a fight in the school playground rather than the ring.
After performing on stage in provincial theatres, his movie break came with the role of Laszlo in Marcel Carné’s 1958 film Les Tricheurs.
On the strength of his forceful portrayal, he was given his first starring role in A Bout de Souffle.
One critic described him as “a bewitchingly ugly man.”
His cult image carried him through several action films such as Les Distractions and La Novice.
Flying grandpa
Determined not to be stereotyped, Belmondo also accepted more demanding roles such as the idealistic intellectual of Vittorio de Sica’s La Ciocara in 1961, and as the young country priest in Philippe de Broca’s swashbuckling Cartouche the following year.
He also enjoyed comic roles, in Godard’s Une Femme est une Femme, and, particularly, in De Broca’s L’Homme de Rio, in which he played a suave, unflappable secret agent.
By the mid-60s, he had switched completely to the commercial mainstream and formed his own production company, Cerito.
He even performed his own stunts in such films as Les Tribulations d’Un Chinois en Chine in 1965, though he gave this practice up after an accident in the 1985 film Hold-up.
He brightened many an all-star cast in international productions such as Is Paris Burning? (1966), the James Bond spoof Casino Royale (1967) and with Alain Delon in the gangster movie Borsalino (1970),
He moved away from action movies claiming that “I don’t want to be a flying grandpa of the French cinema.”
In 1987 Belmondo returned to the stage for the first time for nearly 30 years and divided his work between theatre and film for the rest of his career.
Two years later he won a Cesar, the French equivalent of an Oscar, for his performance in Itineraire d’un Enfant Gate.
He branched out creatively as part of the ensemble in Varda’s homage to international cinema Les Cent et une Nuits de Samon Cinema in 1995 and as the Jean Valjean figure in Claude Lelouche’s re-working of Les Miserables in the same year.
Jean-Paul Belmondo was divorced from his first wife Elodie in 1965. His second marriage to Constantin also failed. He later had long relationships with actresses Ursula Andress and Laura Antonelli.
Cinema audiences at home and abroad were drawn to his charm and seeming disregard for whatever absurdities were taking place on screen. He was chosen by Empire magazine as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history.
Culled from BBC