Iran Cannes winner Panahi backs trucker strikes
Iranian director and screenwriter and producer Jafar Panahi poses with the trophy during a photocall after winning the Palme d'Or for the film "Un simple accident" (A Simple Accident) during the closing ceremony at the 78th edition of the Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, southern France.--AFP
Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi backed week-long nationwide strikes by truckers Wednesday as a "loud call" to the authorities, after arriving home from his triumph at the Cannes film festival. Truck drivers across Iran were striking for a seventh day on Wednesday in a stoppage rare in its length and magnitude, seeking better conditions in a sector crucial for the economy in the Islamic republic.
After starting last week in the southern port city of Bandar Abbas, the strike action has spread across the country, according to reports by monitoring groups on social media and Persian-language media based outside Iran. The truck drivers are protesting a rise in insurance premiums, poor road security, high fuel prices and low freight rates, according to union statements cited by these media.
"They are fed up. They have no choice but to go strike," Panahi wrote on Instagram, having returned to Iran on Monday after winning the Palme d'or for his latest film "It Was Just an Accident". "When thieves and illiterate people are put in charge, the result is this terrible situation: corruption and mismanagement in everything, from the economy and culture to the environment and politics," added Panahi.
The acclaimed director was long banned from filmmaking and unable to leave Iran, having also spent time in prison due to his political stances. "This strike is a loud call to the government saying: 'Enough! Stop all this oppression and plunder'," he said.
Persian-language television channels based outside Iran, including Iran International and Manoto, which are critical of the government, said the strike was continuing Wednesday, broadcasting images of deserted roads sent from inside Iran as well as trucks parked up in cities including the central city of Isfahan. It was not immediately possible to independently verify the images.
Tankers carrying fuel from the major refinery in Abadan in western Iran have now joined the strike, Manoto said.
Iran International also said some participants had been arrested in the western city of Kermanshah, following arrests earlier this week in the southern city of Shiraz. The same outlets also indicated that there have been strikes in other sectors in Iran, notably by bakers who are angered by early morning power cuts when they are baking bread. — AFP
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Kuwait Times
37 minutes ago
- Kuwait Times
Lewis Capaldi makes triumphant Glastonbury return with surprise set
Scottish singer Lewis Capital performs on the pyramid stage during the third day of the Glastonbury festival at Worthy Farm in the village of Pilton in Somerset, south-west England, on June 27, 2025.--AFP Scottish singer Lewis Capaldi made an emotional return to Glastonbury Festival on Friday, two years after stopping a performance on the same stage as he struggled to overcome his Tourette symptoms. Tens of thousands of fans flocked to the main Pyramid Stage in southwest England for the secret set, chanting 'oh Lewis Capaldi' before the singer launched into hit song 'Before You Go'. 'Glastonbury, it is so good to be back. I'm not gonna say much up here today, because if I do, I think I would probably start crying,' he told the crowd. 'I just wanted to come and kind of finish work and finish the first time around on this stage,' he added. The 28-year-old in 2023 announced that he was taking a break from performing, after struggling to finish his Glastonbury set days earlier. That year's Glastonbury was meant to be his comeback after he cancelled three weeks of shows due to the mental and physical effects of touring. He had previously spoken of his difficulties coping with fame and suffering panic attacks, while he has also been diagnosed with Tourette's Syndrome, a neurological condition that causes involuntary sounds or movements called tics. Stress and anxiety are common triggers. The award-winning singer-songwriter is best known for his 2019 hit 'Someone You Loved', which was a number one in the UK and United States and the song which he couldn't finish in 2023. Capaldi choked up and had tears in his ears as he began the song this time around. 'It was sentimental. We were here last time when he had the complications so it was nice seeing him make that come back,' said entrepreneur Charlie Boi 34. 'I cried a lot,' admitted 33-year-old HR worker Rachel Butler. Controversy New Zealand singer Lorde helped kick off this year's festival with a packed out secret appearance. Best known for hits including 'Royals', 'Green Light' and 'Solar Power', the star's performance on the Woodsies stage coincided with the release of her much-anticipated fourth studio album which came out at midnight. Organizers shut off Woodsies field just before Lorde came on stage due to overcrowding as news of her presence spread around the festival's sprawling Worthy Farm site. Headline acts this year include Neil Young and Olivia Rodrigo, with other highlights including Charli XCX and Rod Stewart. The festival opened its gates Wednesday amid controversy over the inclusion of Irish rap trio Kneecap on the bill. The group has made headlines with their outspoken pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel stance. One of their members, Mo Chara, has been charged with a 'terror' offence for allegedly supporting Hezbollah by waving a flag at a concert. Asked whether he regretted that, and other comments caught on camera, Chara told the Guardian in an interview published Friday: 'Why should I regret it? It was a joke – we're playing characters.'—AFP
Kuwait Times
37 minutes ago
- Kuwait Times
‘Mission: Impossible' composer Lalo Schifrin dies aged 93
Famed composer Lalo Schifrin, who created themes for a host of hit Hollywood films and television shows -- including the instantly recognizable 'Mission: Impossible' score -- died Thursday aged 93, US media reported. Born in Argentina, Schifrin blended the influences of his classical and symphonic training with jazz and modern sounds in his diverse and vast oeuvre, which includes the scores for around 100 films, some of them the best-known of their generation. His death was confirmed by his son, Ryan Schifrin, to several entertainment trade publications. Schifrin's work for film includes 'The Cincinnati Kid (1965) and 'Bullitt' (1968), both with Steve McQueen, Paul Newman's 'Cool Hand Luke' (1968), and Clint Eastwood's 'Dirty Harry' (1971). He also created the score to the 1960s 'Mission: Impossible' television series, which inspired the theme of the massive film franchise starring Tom Cruise. A pipe-smoker in his younger years and bespectacled with a mane of silver hair later, he was also a highly respected international orchestra conductor and jazz pianist. Boris Claudio Schifrin was born in Buenos Aires on June 21, 1932 into a musical family, his father Luis Schifrin being the concert master of the city's Philharmonic Orchestra for 25 years. He learned piano at a young age, developing an extensive knowledge of classical music. His introduction in his teens to jazz and the American sound -- through its greats such as Charlie Parker, George Gershwin and Louis Armstrong -- was like a conversion, he would say later, and set his life on a new course. After training in Paris, Schifrin returned to Buenos Aires and set up his own big band, with a performance notably impressing jazz legend trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie. 'So after we finished, Dizzy came to me and said, did you write all these charts? And I said, yes. Would you like to come to United States? I thought he was joking. He wasn't,' Schifrin recounted to NPR in 2007. 'I wouldn't be here had it not been for that moment,' he told the US radio. Schifrin moved to the United States in 1958 and became a US citizen over a decade later. In Hollywood, television producer Bruce Geller asked him to create scores for his television series 'Mission: Impossible' (1966) and 'Mannix' (1969). Geller's brief was for 'a theme that's exciting, promising, but not too heavy' and anticipates the action to follow, Schifrin told NPR in 2015. Geller said that when 'people go to the kitchen and get a Coca-Cola, I want them to hear the theme and say, Oh, this is 'Mission: Impossible',' he recounted. The score he delivered earned Schifrin two Grammy music awards in 1967, adding to two for the albums 'The Cat' (1964) and 'Jazz Suite On The Mass Texts' (1965). Shifrin received several Academy Award nominations for his film work including for 'Cool Hand Luke.' In 2018, he received an honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement, presented by Eastwood.—AFP
Kuwait Times
14 hours ago
- Kuwait Times
Reluctant fame of Gaza photog Motaz Azaiza
PHILADELPHIA: At a church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, hundreds of people gathered recently for a weeknight charity fundraiser hosted by a celebrity guest. The venue was not announced in advance due to security concerns, and attendance cost at least $60 a pop — with some spending $1,000 to get a photo with the host. Yet, the event was not a gala hosted by a movie star or famed politician, but by a photojournalist: Gaza native Motaz Azaiza, whose images of the Zionist assault in Gaza launched him to international recognition. Wearing a black T-shirt, jeans, sneakers and gold-framed glasses, the 26-year-old boasts nearly 17 million followers on Instagram for his images from the war in Gaza. 'I wish you would have known me without the genocide,' Azaiza told the crowd, his voice faltering. Before the war, Azaiza was a relative unknown, posting photos from his daily life in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip to his roughly 25,000 Instagram followers at the time. But as soon as the first strikes from the Zionist entity hit Gaza, he became a war photographer by virtue of circumstance, and his wartime posts soon went viral. 'As a photojournalist, I can't watch this like anyone else, I'm from there, this is my home,' Azaiza said. After surviving 108 days of Israeli bombardment, Azaiza managed to escape Gaza via Egypt, and he has since become an ambassador of sorts for the Palestinian territory, sharing the story of his people as the conflict rages on. 'Every time you feel like you regret leaving, but then you lose a friend, you lose a family, you say, OK, I saved my life,' Azaiza said. Before the war, Azaiza had been hired to manage the online content for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the humanitarian agency accused by Israel of providing cover for Hamas militants. This month, he is touring the United States to raise money for UNRWA USA, a nonprofit which collects funding for the agency. 'I can't handle this much of a real big responsibility,' Azaiza told AFP from the fundraiser in Philadelphia. 'This is not me... I'm waiting to the genocide to stop. I want to go back to Gaza, continue my work capturing pictures,' he added. At one point he embedded himself in the crowd, posing for a selfie before shaking hands with donors. At the fundraiser, a UNRWA USA official solicited donations. 'Is there someone who wants to give $20,000? I would like to have $20,000. Nobody? Is there someone who want to give $10,000? I would like to have $10,000,' the official calls out. Once the call lowered to $5,000, five hands raised, and even more went up when asked for donations of $2,000 and $1,000. One of the donors, Nabeel Sarwar, told AFP Azaiza's photographs 'humanize' the people in Gaza. 'When you see a picture, when you see a child, you relate to that child, you relate to the body language, you relate to the dust on their face, the hunger, the sadness on their face,' Sarwar said. 'I think it's those pictures that really brought home towards the real tragedy of what's going on in Gaza.' Veronica Murgulescu, a 25-year-old medical student from Philadelphia, concurred. 'I think that people like Motaz and other Gazan journalists have really stuck a chord with us, because you can sense the authenticity,' she said. 'The mainstream media that we have here in the US, at least, and in the West, it lacks authenticity,' she added. Sahar Khamis, a communications professor at the University of Maryland who specializes in Arab and Muslim media in the Middle East, said Gazan journalists like Azaiza who have become social media influencers 'reshape public opinion, especially among youth, not just in the Arab world, not just in the Middle East, but globally and internationally, including in the United States.' 'The visuals are very, very important and very powerful and very we know in journalism, that one picture equals a thousand words. 'And in the case of war and conflict, it can equal a million words, because you can tell through these short videos and short images and photos a lot of things that you cannot say in a whole essay.' – AFP
