Category: Entertainment

New York, The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade will return to its pre-pandemic form this year, with its route restored through Manhattan, high-flying helium balloons once again pulled by handlers and crowds welcomed back to cheer them on.

This year’s parade — the 95th annual — will snap back to form after bowing to pandemic restrictions last year. It will feature 15 giant character balloons, 28 floats, 36 novelty and heritage inflatables, more than 800 clowns, 10 marching bands and nine performance groups and, of course, Santa Claus, AP reports.

New balloon giants joining the line-up on Nov. 25 include Ada Twist, Scientist and the Pokémon characters Pikachu and Eevee. Broadway will be represented by the casts of “Six,” “Moulin Rouge! The Musical” and “Wicked.” The Rockettes will be there, as will the cast of the upcoming NBC live production of “Annie.”

“For our 95th celebration, Macy’s has created a spectacle to remember featuring a dazzling array of high-flying balloons, animated floats and incredible performers. We can’t wait to help New York City and the nation kick-off the holiday season with the return of this cherished tradition,” Will Coss, executive producer of the parade, said in a statement.

There will be new floats led by the cast of “Girls5eva” — Sara Bareilles, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Paula Pell and Busy Philipps — Nelly and Jordan Fisher, while Jon Batiste will be on an alligator-themed float celebrating Louisiana’s music, food and culture.

Other celebrities on hand include Carrie Underwood, Jimmie Allen, Kelly Rowland, Rob Thomas, Kristin Chenoweth, Darren Criss, Foreigner, Andy Grammer, Mickey Guyton, Chris Lane, Miss America Camille Schrier, Muppets from “Sesame Street” and the three past and current hosts of “Blue’s Clues” — Steve Burns, Donovan Patton and Josh Dela Cruz.

Some of the returning balloons will be Astronaut Snoopy, ’The Boss Baby,” “Diary of a Wimpy Kid,” Chase from “Paw Patrol,” the Pillsbury Doughboy, Red Titan from “Ryan’s World,” Papa Smurf from ”The Smurfs,” Sonic the Hedgehog and SpongeBob SquarePants.

The Macy’s parade has been a traditional holiday season kickoff and spectators often line up a half-dozen deep along the route to cheer about 8,000 marchers, two dozen floats, entertainers and marching bands.

Last year, the usual 2 1/2-mile route through crowded Manhattan was scrapped in favor of concentrating events to a one-block stretch of 34th Street in front of the retailer’s flagship Manhattan store. Many performances were pre-taped and most of the parade’s performers were locally based to cut down on travel. The balloons were tethered to specialized vehicles instead of being controlled by handlers.

Visitors this year will once again be allowed to see the balloons inflated the day before the parade as long as they show proof of vaccination. Children under the age of 12 may be accompanied by a vaccinated adult.

Source: Bahrain News Agency

CLEVELAND —

Jay-Z added another title to a resume that includes rapper, songwriter, Grammy winner, billionaire business mogul, and global icon — Hall of Famer.

The self-proclaimed “greatest rapper alive” was inducted Saturday night as part of an eclectic 2021 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame class that included Foo Fighters, Carole King, Tina Turner, The Go-Gos and Todd Rundgren.

Once a drug dealer on the tough streets of Brooklyn, New York, Jay-Z rose through the rap world with hard, straightforward songs that often portrayed the struggles of Black people in America.

His catalogue includes songs like Hard Knock Life, 99 Problems and Empire State of Mind, as well as 14 No. 1 albums.

Following a video introduction that included President Barack Obama, LeBron James and David Letterman, Jay-Z was inducted by comedian Dave Chappelle, who praised him for being an inspiration.

“He rhymed a recipe for survival,” Chappelle said. “He embodies what the potential of our lives can be and what success can be.”

Paul McCartney welcomed Foo Fighters, who have carried the mantle as one of rock’s top arena acts. Initially, the band was little more than a side project for front man Dave Grohl, who was previously inducted as Nirvana’s drummer.

McCartney described the parallels between himself and Grohl as both were part of massively popular bands that broke up.

“Do you think this guy is stalking me?” McCartney joked.

Foo Fighters and McCartney closed the show with the Beatles’ Get Back.

Rapper LL Cool J was enshrined for musical excellence along with keyboardist Billy Preston and guitarist Randy Rhoads.

Electronic pioneers Kraftwerk, singer-poet Gil Scott-Heron and Delta blues legend Charley Patton were inducted as early influencers, and Sussex Records founder Clarence Avant received the Ahmet Ertegun Award.

Cool J recruited some of his heavyweight musical friends to usher him into rock immortality. He was joined on stage by Eminem and Jennifer Lopez for a powerful career-spanning performance.

With New York street style and swagger, Cool J remains a relevant artist more than 40 years after he first spit lyrics.

“What does LL really stand for?” asked rapper/producer Dr. Dre in his induction speech. “Ladies love? Living large? Licking lips? I’m here because I think it stands for living legend.”

Cool J then did a medley of his hits, including Rock The Bells accompanied by a bearded Eminem before he was joined by J-Lo for All I Have. Cool J wrapped up his blistering set with one of his biggest hits, Mama Said Knock You Out.

Superstar Taylor Swift opened the show with one of King’s best-known songs, Will You Love Me Tomorrow, which appeared on Tapestry her seminal 1971 album — a soundtrack for a generation.

Swift gave a heartfelt induction speech for one of her musical idols.

“I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know Carole King’s music,” Swift said, saying her parents taught her several important lessons as a child with one of the most important being “that Carole King is the greatest songwriter of all time.”

King thanked Swift “for carrying the torch forward.” She noted other female singers and songwriters have said they stand on her shoulders.

“Let it not be forgotten,” King said. “They also stand on the shoulders of the first woman inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. May she rest in power, Miss Aretha Franklin.”

King then introduced Jennifer Hudson, who performed a stunning, rafter-shaking performance of (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman before King sang You Got A Friend.

The 81-year-old Turner, who found her greatest success when she left abusive husband Ike Turner, lives in Switzerland and did not attend the ceremony.

“If they’re still giving me awards at 81,” Turner said in a video message. “I must have done something right.”

Keith Urban and H.E.R. performed It’s Only Love, a duet Turner did with Bryan Adams, before Mickey Guyton took on her most iconic song, What’s Love Got To Do With It. Then Christina Aguilera belted out River Deep, Mountain High.

Considered the greatest female group in rock history, The Go-Go’s emerged from Los Angeles’ punk scene in the 1980s. The quintet broke rules and smashed gender ceilings in a male-dominated industry with hits like We Got The Beat, My Lips Are Sealed and Head Over Heels.

“They’ve been in my personal Hall of Fame since I was 6 years old,” said actress Drew Barrymore, who mimicked the cover of the band’s debut album, Beauty and the Beat, during her induction speech by wrapping her body and hair in bath towels and applying face cream.

“Now,” she said. “My childhood fantasy is fulfilled.”

Best known for soft ballads like Hello It’s Me and Love Is The Answer, Rundgren also had a long path to induction. He’s been outspoken about the hall’s selection process and skipped the ceremony in protest.

“Ever defiant,” Patti Smith said in a video presenting Rundgren.

This year’s ceremony was held for the first time at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, the 20,000-seat home of the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers and a venue familiar to Jay-Z and Foo Fighters, who have played shows in the arena before.

It was a return to normalcy for the event, which was forced to go virtual in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Artists are not eligible for induction until 25 years after release of their first recording.

There are lively debates every year over omissions, and as Public Enemy’s Chuck D noted during a plaque induction ceremony on Friday at the hall, patience is sometimes another requirement for entrance.

“It ain’t no overnight thing,” he said. “You can’t stumble into this place.”

That was certainly the case for King, who had been eligible for enshrinement as a solo artist since 1986. She went in previously as a songwriter with Gerry Goffin, her late husband, in 1990.

 

Source: Voice of America

Efforts by Chinese diplomats to stop cultural events deemed critical of the government in Beijing have met with mixed results in Europe, succeeding in Germany but being rebuffed by a city government in Italy.

The incident in Germany concerned a new book, Xi Jinping — The Most Powerful Man in the World, by two veteran German journalists, Stern magazine’s China correspondent Adrian Geiges, and Die Welt newspaper publisher Stefan Aust.

Confucius Institutes at two German universities had planned online events on Oct. 27 to coordinate with the book’s launch. But the book’s publisher, Piper Verlag of Munich, said the events were canceled at short notice “due to Chinese pressure.”

The company accused Feng Haiyang, the Chinese consul general in Düsseldorf, of intervening personally to quash the event at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Duisburg and Essen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.

At Leibniz University in Hannover, the Tongji University in Shanghai — which jointly operates the Confucius Institute there — forced the cancellation of an event, according to the company. Neither the publisher nor the institute offered details on what triggered the cancellation.

The institutes, run by China’s education ministry, are seen by Beijing as a way to promote its culture. Many Western countries have become wary of the influence the institutes exert on campuses by subsidizing classes, travel and research.

Dozens of Confucius Institutes have been closed or are closing in Europe and Australia. At least 29 shuttered in the U.S. after the State Department in August 2020 designated the Confucius Institute U.S. Center as a “foreign mission” of the Chinese government.

In a statement, Piper Verlag quoted a Confucius Institute employee as saying that “One can no longer talk about Xi Jinping as a normal person, he should now be untouchable and unspeakable.”

Felicitas von Lovenberg, head of Piper Verlag, called the cancellation of the events “a worrying and disturbing signal.”

Aust of Die Welt said the incident confirmed the book’s basic thesis: “For the first time, a dictatorship is in the process of overtaking the West economically, and is now also trying to impose its values, which are against our freedom, internationally.”

The book presented China in a very differentiated way as it also talked about China’s success in overcoming poverty, co-author Geiges said. “Apparently, such balanced reports are no longer enough for Xi Jinping. Stories are no longer enough — he now wants a cult around his person internationally, just as he does in China itself.”

A spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Berlin said events at Confucius Institutes were planned to bring about better understanding between the two peoples, and they “should build on the basis of comprehensive communications between the partners.”

China supports the development of the institutes as “a platform to understand China comprehensively and objectively,” the embassy spokesperson added. “But we strongly object to any politicization of academic and cultural exchange.”

Both Confucius Institutes said in their respective statements that there were different views between the German and Chinese partners, making it impossible to carry on. The Institute for East Asian Studies at the University of Duisburg-Essen had expressed interest in hosting the event, according to the university’s Confucius Institute.

German human rights activist David Missal told VOA Cantonese there has always been pressure from the Chinese side when it comes to critical events, but the tactics were rarely exposed. He took it as a positive development that these incidents are coming to light.

“I think this is the only way to fight this kind of influence in a democracy — you have to make these things public, make them transparent, and then there will be political responses to these incidents,” Missal said.

Reinhard Bütikofer, a German member of the European Parliament who is critical of China, said the next German federal government must draw clear lines about its China policy. “Chinese censorship at German universities? Does not work at all. These so-called ‘Confucius’ institutes, which are in fact CCP aides, have no future,” he tweeted.

Earlier this month, the Chinese Embassy in Rome attempted to stop a critical art show, but failed.

A museum in Brescia, an Italian city about 100 kilometers east of Milan, will continue with its plans to open a solo exhibition of the work of Australia-based Chinese exiled activist Badiucao. Scheduled to run from Nov. 13-Feb. 13, the exhibition is entitled “China is [not] near.” It will feature the artist’s work criticizing issues such as China’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and its crackdowns in Hong Kong and Xinjiang.

The Chinese Embassy in Rome sent the Brescia city council a message on Oct. 21, contending that Badiucao’s works twisted facts, spread false information, would mislead the Italian people’s understanding of China while seriously damaging Chinese people’s feelings, and jeopardize friendly relations between China and Italy, according to Italy’s ANSA news agency.

Brescia Mayor Emilio Del Bono told the Il Foglio newspaper the show will not be canceled, adding, “I think it is important to show that you can stay friends while criticizing some things.”

Badiucao told VOA Mandarin via phone on live TV that he was not surprised by the embassy’s position. “I am very excited that the city government and the museum stood strongly with me. I can say very confidently that my exhibition will not be canceled. I will not amend my exhibits or commit any self-censorship.”

VOA Cantonese asked the Chinese Embassy in Rome for comments but received no response.

Source: Voice of America

Eleven Picasso paintings and other works that helped turn Las Vegas into an unlikely destination for art were sold at auction on Saturday for more than $100 million.

The Sotheby’s auction was held at the Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas, where the works had been on display for years, and took place two days before the 140th birthday of the Spanish artist on Oct. 25.

Five of the paintings had hung on the walls of the Bellagio’s fine dining restaurant, Picasso. The restaurant will continue to display 12 other Picasso works.

The highest price was fetched by the 1938 painting “Femme au beret rouge-orange” of Picasso’s lover and muse Marie-Therese Walter, which sold for $40.5 million, some $10 million over the high pre-sale estimate.

The large-scale portraits “Homme et Enfant” and “Buste d’homme” sold for $24.4 million and $9.5 million respectively, while smaller works on ceramic, like “Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe” which sold for $2.1 million, went for three or four times their pre-sale estimate.

The buyers’ names were not disclosed.

Saturday’s sale was part of a bid by casino and hotel group MGM Resorts to further diversify its vast collection to include more art from women, people of color and emerging nations as well as from LGBTQ artists and artists with disabilities.

American museums and art galleries have been working to broaden their collections in the wake of the widespread cultural reckoning in 2020 over racism at all levels of U.S. society.

A 2019 Public Library of Science study of 18 leading U.S. museums found that 85% of the artists on display are white and 87% are men.

The MGM Resorts Fine Arts Collection boasts about 900 works by 200 artists, including modern pieces by Bob Dylan and David Hockney. It was started more than 20 years ago by Steve Wynn, former owner of the Bellagio and former chief executive of Wynn Resorts.

Source: Voice of America

OUAGADOUGOU, BURKINA FASO —

Somali filmmaker Khadar Ahmed won the top prize at the FESPACO film festival in Burkina Faso on Saturday for “The Gravedigger’s Wife,” which he wrote and directed.

The 40-year-old was not at the ceremony to receive the Golden Stallion award, but his work bested 16 other African films for the top prize. The films in competition were made by directors from 15 African countries.

This year’s international jury was led by Mauritanian producer Abderrahmane Sissako, who won France’s coveted Cesar in 2015 for “Timbuktu.”

The Golden Stallion, said Sissako, was “for any African filmmaker, the best prize you can have, a source of great pride.”

The festival, first staged in 1969, is held every two years in the Burkinabe capital Ouagadougou.

The event is closely followed by the U.S. and European movie industries, which scout the event for new films, talent and ideas.

Its top prize is named after the Golden Stallion of Yennenga, a mythical beast in Burkinabe mythology.

The event was originally set for February 27-March 6 but was postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Source: Voice of America

SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO —

Hollywood star Alec Baldwin said Friday, “My heart is broken” after a cinematographer died when he fired a prop gun on a New Mexico movie set, adding that he was cooperating with a police investigation to determine how the incident occurred.

“There are no words to convey my shock and sadness regarding the tragic accident that took the life of Halyna Hutchins, a wife, mother and deeply admired colleague of ours,” Baldwin wrote in a statement on Twitter.

“I am in touch with her husband, offering my support to him and his family. My heart is broken for her husband, their son, and all who knew and loved Halyna.”

The incident occurred Thursday afternoon on the set of “Rust” at the Bonanza Creek Ranch, a production location south of Santa Fe, according to the Santa Fe Sheriff’s Department. Hutchins was transported by helicopter to the University of New Mexico Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

Baldwin, 63, is a co-producer of “Rust,” a Western movie set in 1880s Kansas, and also plays the eponymous character who is an outlaw grandfather of a 13-year-old boy convicted of an accidental killing.

The sheriff’s office said late Thursday that no charges had been filed and the investigation remained “open and active.” Baldwin voluntarily gave a statement about the shooting at the sheriff’s office, the Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper reported.

The film’s director, Joel Souza, was wounded and taken by ambulance to a local hospital. Actress Frances Fisher, who is co-starring in the movie, said on Twitter: “Souza texted me that he’s out of hospital.”

Baldwin was seen “distraught and in tears” outside the sheriff’s department on Thursday, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported.

Known for his impersonations of former U.S. President Donald Trump on NBC’s comedy sketch show “Saturday Night Live,” Baldwin is a versatile actor who has starred in both comedies and dramas over a long career in film and television. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance in 1993’s “The Cooler” and has won multiple Emmy and Golden Globe Awards.

Production of “Rust” has been halted for an “undetermined period,” several news outlets quoted the film’s production company, Rust Movie Productions LLC, as saying. An email to an address for the film production went unanswered.

The road leading to the set location was closed Friday morning, with security guards turning people away.

Another on-set shooting

The shooting evoked memories of an on-set accident in 1993 when U.S. actor Brandon Lee, son of martial arts legend Bruce Lee, died at age 28 after being fatally wounded by a prop gun while filming “The Crow.”

“Our hearts go out to the family of Halyna Hutchins and to Joel Souza and all involved in the incident on ‘Rust’. No one should ever be killed by a gun on a film set. Period,” said a tweet from Lee’s account, which is handled by his sister.

The accident renewed debate about whether certain types of prop guns should be banned.

“This suggestion doesn’t help any of them, but it’s time to stop being macho about blanks and end the practice,” Ben Rockula, a director, said on Twitter.

Earlier on Thursday, Baldwin had posted a picture of himself on Instagram from the set dressed in cowboy-style attire, with what appeared to be a fake blood stain on his shirt and jacket. The post was deleted Thursday night.

Halyna Hutchins

Hutchins, 42, who was originally from Ukraine and grew up on a Russian military base in the Arctic Circle, once worked as an investigative reporter in Europe, her website said.

She graduated from the American Film Institute in 2015 and was selected as one of American Cinematographer’s Rising Stars of 2019, her website said. She described herself as a “Restless Dreamer” and an “Adrenaline junkie” on her Instagram page.

April Wright, a writer, director and producer, paid tribute to her on Facebook. “I’m in disbelief,” wrote Wright. “So young, vibrant, and talented. Such a wonderful soul. My heart goes out to her son and family.”

Representatives for Hutchins did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“I’m so sad about losing Halyna. And so infuriated that this could happen on a set,” director Adam Egypt Mortimer, who worked with Hutchins on the 2020 movie “Archenemy,” wrote on Twitter. “She was a brilliant talent who was absolutely committed to art and to film.”

Souza, 48, directed, wrote and produced “Crown Vic,” a 2019 action film also co-produced by Baldwin.

The New Mexico Film Office, which promotes the state as a location for movies and television, declined to comment. The Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, which represents 160,000 actors and other media professionals, said it would investigate the incident “to understand how to prevent such a thing from happening again.”

Source: Voice of America

MOSCOW —

A Russian actor and a film director making the first move film in space returned to Earth on Sunday after spending 12 days on the International Space Station (ISS).

The Soyuz MS-18 space capsule carrying Russian ISS crew member Oleg Novitskiy, Yulia Peresild and Klim Shipenko landed in a remote area outside the western Kazakhstan at 07:35 a.m. (0435 GMT), the Russian space agency Roscosmos said.

The crew had dedocked from the ISS three hours earlier.

Russian state TV footage showed the reentry capsule descending under its parachute above the vast Kazakh steppe, followed by ground personnel assisting the smiling crew as they emerged from the capsule.

However, Peresild, who is best known for her role in the 2015 film “Battle for Sevastopol,” said she had been sorry to leave the ISS.

“I’m in a bit of a sad mood today,” the 37-year-old actor told Russian Channel One after the landing.

“That’s because it had seemed that 12 days was such a long period of time, but when it was all over, I didn’t want to bid farewell,” she said.

Last week 90-year-old U.S. actor William Shatner – Captain James Kirk of “Star Trek” fame – became the oldest person in space aboard a rocketship flown by billionaire Jeff Bezos’s company Blue Origin.

Peresild and Shipenko have been sent to Russian Star City, the home of Russia’s space program on the outskirts of Moscow for their post-flight recovery which will take about a week, Roscosmos said.

Source: Voice of America

OUAGADOUGOU, BURKINA FASO —

The Pan-African Film Festival of Ouagadougou returns to Burkina Faso this weekend after being canceled last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

One Burkinabe director, who has made a film documenting a nursery for the infants of sex workers, talks about the importance of telling African stories through cinema.

Moumouni Sanou is a documentary film director from Bobo Dioulasso, Burkina Faso’s second largest city.

In 2019, he made a film, which is being screened at The Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou, or FESPACO.

Night Nursery follows the story of an older woman who runs a nighttime home for sex workers’ children in Bobo Dioulasso.

Sanou said he wants Night Nursery to humanize sex workers.

Sanou said the idea was to show a different side to sex workers, which is very rarely seen. In Burkina Faso and in the rest of Africa this profession is frowned upon, he said. “But it is also the oldest profession in the world. When we see these girls, people say they are bad people because they are sex workers,” he adds.

FESPACO has been running since 1969 and this year will feature films from around 30 African countries in its official selection. Cinema professionals and cinephiles travel from all over Africa and beyond to attend.

“FESPACO is one of the biggest African film festivals, and for me to be selected and represent Burkina Faso in the documentary film section will mean this film will be seen by the whole world, not just by Africans,” Sanou said.

Ardiouma Soma, the director of FESPACO, says that this year, the event will also host the African International Film & TV Market — known as MICA — for the first time.

Soma said, because this year the MICA will be held at FESPACO they have invited distributors, whose names he prefers not to mention, to Ouagadougou. He said the market will allow them to find new projects that are in post-production and also films that are already finished but not scheduled for FESPACO, so that they can buy them for their own platforms.

Last year, FESPACO, which usually happens every two years, was cancelled due to COVID-19. Burkina Faso is also in the middle of a conflict with terrorist groups linked to Islamic State and al-Qaida.

Burkina Faso’s culture minister, Élise Foniyama Ilboudo Thiombiano, said it is important the festival goes on.

She said it’s a challenge for Burkinabè to continue to be able to keep the festival going every two years. But it is through cinema we can see the vision of Africans and the people who live on this continent, she adds. She points out that her predecessors all made sure FESPACO remained a focal point for Africa and she intends to do the same.

As for Sanou, he is hoping Night Nursery could receive an award, and the recognition it needs to win a wide audience.

Source: Voice of America

A South Sudan women’s rights activist has been named one of three winners of an award given by Amnesty International USA recognizing women who the group says “protect the dignity, liberties and lives of women and children in crisis regions.”

Riya William Yuyada, executive director of Crown the Women-South Sudan, was honored for her commitment to women’s safety, equality and empowerment in South Sudan.

Named for an Italian-born American human rights activist who spent years defending women unfairly persecuted by oppressive governments, the annual Ginetta Sagan Award comes with a grant of $20,000.

Norma Andrade, a human right defender in Mexico who works with mothers of slain daughters, and Naw K’nyaw Paw, who helps displaced women and girls in Thai refugee camps, were co-winners, Amnesty told VOA.

Yuyada told South Sudan in Focus that she accepted the award on behalf of women and girl activists in South Sudan.

“I feel excited, and I must say it is not just an award recognizing Riya for her outstanding work toward the fight for women’s rights, but also an award for all the South Sudan women who are working hard for better [conditions] and all the girls and women that I work with,” Yuyada told VOA.

Crown the Women-South Sudan has carried out mentorships in 10 schools in Juba to inspire girls to stay focused in school and to promote girls’ education.

The largest group of out-of-school children in South Sudan are girls, according to the UNICEF. Poverty, child marriage, and cultural and religious beliefs hinder girls’ education.

Yuyada’s group also links older South Sudanese women as mentors with younger women struggling to overcome challenges.

Yuyada plans to use some of the $20,000 award money to build a healing center for survivors of rape and other gender-based violence in South Sudan.

“My dream has always been to have a healing studio or healing center for survivors of sexual violence, especially survivors of rape,” she said. “So, I will acquire a piece of land with it and then see what follows next.”

Yuyada said the recognition from the award will pave the way for her to connect with the two other women who have won the Sagan award.

“We are three this year uniquely, so I believe this award is going to help me tap into the network of Sagan’s family … to amplify further issues on women and girls’ human rights here in South Sudan and [across] the continent,” Yuyada said.

Source: Voice of America