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Time of India
01-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
When Anurag Kashyap said he was 'Busier than Shah Rukh Khan' after quitting Mumbai's 'Toxic' Bollywood circle
There was a moment in 2025 that reminded the film world why Anurag Kashyap is one of the boldest voices in Indian cinema, not just for his storytelling, but also for speaking his mind. When Anurag Kashyap Walked Away, but Stayed Right in the Game It came weeks after he publicly declared his decision to move out of Mumbai, citing what he called the 'toxicity' of the Bollywood ecosystem. Just when some were ready to write him off or assume he was fading away, Kashyap dropped a fiery post on X (formerly Twitter) that quickly went viral. 'I'm Busier Than Shah Rukh Khan' – The Internet Reacts In his brutally honest and cheeky style, Anurag wrote: 'I have relocated cities. I have not left filmmaking. For all the people who think I am frustrated and gone, I am here and I'm busier than Shah Rukh Khan (I have to be, I don't make as much money). I don't have dates until 2028.' He revealed that he had five directorial projects lined up, with some expected to release that same year. In typical Kashyap fashion, he also shut down critics with a colourful sign-off. Fans loved the unfiltered honesty, with one user writing, 'You be you. Let the noise be noise.' Another chimed in, 'You're doing really well in the South film industry, especially in Maharaja.' New City, Same Fire: Anurag's Projects Roll On Despite stepping away from Mumbai, Anurag Kashyap clearly never stepped away from cinema. In 2025 alone, he was seen in 'Dacoit – Ek Prem Katha', playing a cop in Shaneil Deo 's directorial debut. He also returned with Nishaanchi, a gritty crime drama releasing on September 19. The film also marks the acting debut of Aaishvary Thackeray and features a strong ensemble cast including Vedika Pinto, Monika Panwar, Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub, and Kumud Mishra . Anurag Kashyap says people used to 'question his 'morality and character' after watching his films: 'I used to identify with adult movies'
Yahoo
14-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Lawsuit claims Rockland votes were miscounted in 2024 election: Were they? What we know
NEW CITY - A Sloatsburg resident who ran for the U.S. Senate in 2024 is challenging the election results in Rockland. Diane Sare, of the Lyndon LaRouche Party, and two other voters claim in court papers that the Rockland Board of Elections shortchanged her in the vote tabulation. Although the so-called discrepancies won't change the outcomes, they fall under the principle of election integrity, according to a watchdog group that filed the legal action. The legal action, filed by SMART Legislation, also questioned some of the vote totals, specifically in Ramapo districts, where Hasidic Jews traditionally vote in large numbers as a bloc for specific candidates and shut out other candidates. Rockland attorneys and election officials dispute the claims in the legal action filed Dec. 24 in the New York State Supreme Court in Rockland. "We have full faith the BOE (Board of Elections) conducted a free & fair election & that every vote was counted correctly," county government spokesperson Beth Cefalu said Friday. She said the County Executive's Office has no operational oversight over the Board of Elections, referring further questions to the state. Justice Rachel Tanguay has ordered both sides to conduct discovery into the evidence and take testimony. The lawsuit seeks a hand recount of the thousands of votes for president and the U.S. Senate races in November, according to the group. The next scheduled court session is Sept. 22. 'There is clear evidence that the Senate results are incorrect, and there are statistical indications that the presidential results are highly unlikely,' said Lulu Friesdat, founder and executive director of SMART Legislation. "If the results are incorrect, it is a violation of the constitutional rights of each person who voted in the 2024 Rockland County general election." Friesdat said the best way to determine if the results are correct is to examine the paper ballots in a full, public, transparent hand recount of all presidential and senate ballots in Rockland County. "We believe it's vitally important, especially in the current environment, to be absolutely confident about the results of the election," she said. What's being contested are a handful of votes and statistical claims about those votes for president in Rockland, according to the legal action. Sworn voter affidavits reveal missing ballots, the lawsuit claims. The complaint claims more voters have sworn they voted for Sare than the votes counted and certified by the Board of Elections. For example, in Rockland District 39, nine voters signed sworn statements saying they voted for Sare for Senate. The Board of Elections recorded five votes, according to the legal action. In District 62, five voters said they voted for Sare while the Board of Elections recorded three votes, the legal action claims. The group's analysis of the Rockland vote cited what's called drop-off irregularities. A drop-off is a measure of the difference, in this case, for example, between the presidential candidate and a major down-ballot candidate of the same party. SMART Legislation offered analysis by Max Bonamente, Ph.D., professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Alabama and the author of the textbook, 'Statistics and Analysis of Scientific Data." 'These data would require extreme sociological or political causes for their explanation, and would benefit from further assurances as to their fidelity," Bonamente determined, according to SMART Legislation. Sare received 39,421 votes statewide — less than half a percentage point. Gillibrand won her race 59%-41% over Republican businessman Mike Sapraicone. Vote tallies in Rockland were as follows: 72,003 (53%) for Gillibrand, 64,082 (47%) for Sapraicone. There were 15,366 ballots left blank, meaning voters skipped that race. The Rockland presidential vote broke down as follows: 83,543 for Trump, 65,880 for Democrat Kamala Harris, and 1,316 blanks. The legal action offers two theories, according to a release from SMART Legislation, affiliated with SMART Elections. A large positive drop-off indicates an overperformance by a candidate, meaning the candidate received more votes than is typical. A large negative drop-off indicates an underperformance by a candidate, meaning the candidate received fewer votes than is typical, and could signify votes are missing from the candidate's totals. The Republican 23% drop-off of Trump's totals in Rockland exceeds the 2024 Republican Senate candidate. This illustrates that the presidential candidate far outperformed his down-ballot counterpart, Sapraicone, according to the lawsuit. The Democratic drop-off in Rockland was negative at 9%, indicating the percentage by which Harris' vote total was below that of the Democratic Senate candidate, Gillibrand. The lawsuit claims this is a highly unusual phenomenon that was repeated across the state and across the country. Rockland County is the first county where it is being formally investigated, SMART Legislation stated. In Ramapo, vote totals can become skewed by the Hasidic Jewish bloc vote. For example, the 2024 results show in Ramapo District 35 covering the Viznitz Hasidic community, Trump beat Harris by a vote of 552 to 0. Harris received zero votes in four Ramapo districts out of the county's 122 precincts and was trounced by Trump in several others. In the same district, Gillibrand easily beat Sapraicone. Across New York, Gillibrand received around 90,000 more votes than Harris, while Sapraicone received around 330,000 fewer votes than Trump. Rockland Republican Elections Commissioner Patricia Giblin told The Poynter Institute's Polifact that the District 35 election results reflect the area's longstanding trends. The Orthodox Jewish population "has consistently and overwhelmingly supported Republican candidates in the past elections," Giblin said. She said the Board of Elections "thoroughly reviewed the results and confirmed no irregularities, fraud or hacking." The legal action seeks: A transparent hand recount of all presidential and senate ballots in Rockland County to include all ballots cast, regardless of when or how they were submitted. Hold a special election for president and Senate in Rockland. Assign a court-appointed monitor to oversee the special election. Assign a court-appointed monitor to develop, implement, and oversee mandatory best practices for the Board of Elections by creating a process to guarantee the public that all votes are being counted accurately Develop and implement an audit process that counts every vote accurately Allow access for the public to monitor all of these developments in real time, and via Freedom of Information requests Read the lawsuit below. New York State Team Reporter Chris McKenna contributed to this article. Steve Lieberman covers government, breaking news, courts, police, and investigations. Reach him at slieberm@ Twitter: @lohudlegal. Read more articles and bio. Our local coverage is only possible with support from our readers. This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Lawsuit claims Rockland votes miscounted in 2024 election. Were they?
AllAfrica
13-05-2025
- Politics
- AllAfrica
Sanctions galore for Myanmar's scam center kingpin
Justice has finally caught up with one of Myanmar's notorious Karen strongmen, Saw Chit Thu, head of the Karen National Army (KNA) and widely seen as the mastermind behind the country's proliferating scam center scourge. On May 5, the United States Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) finally placed Chit Thu and his two sons, Htoo Eh Moo and Chit Chit, and the KNA on a sanctions list on accusations of running a transnational criminal organization through the scam centers of Shwe Kokko, situated north of the border town of Myawaddy. The US Treasury announcement said that: (t)he KNA profits from cyber scam schemes on an industrial scale by leasing land it controls to other organized crime groups, and providing support for human trafficking, smuggling, and the sale of utilities used to provide energy to scam operations… Chit Thu has emerged as one of the central figures in Burma's scam economy, facilitating transnational crimes in a KNA-controlled zone along the border with Thailand. What the OFAC designation only mentions in passing is that Chit Thu, up until March 2024, was the commander of the Karen State Border Guard Force (BGF) since 2009, a colonel in the Myanmar army and a long-time 'proxy' of the Myanmar military. In December 2023, Chit Thu, one of his BGF colleagues and a Chinese criminal were sanctioned by the United Kingdom under the Global Human Rights (Sanctions) Regulations 2020, on claims they were: responsible for, provided support for or obtained benefit from activity that violates the right not to be subjected to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and the right to be free from slavery, not to be held in servitude or required to perform forced or compulsory labour [connected to Shwe Kokko scam centers.] In October 2024, the European Union (EU) sanctioned Chit Thu, two of his subordinates and the Chit Linn Myaing Group for alleged: transnational crime, including online fraud, drug and human trafficking, and is experiencing massive human rights violations, including forced labour and torture (and for being) closely associated with the Tatmadaw (Myanmar Armed Forces), with whom it collaborates, for example by informing the Tatmadaw about opponents of the government and by forcefully recruiting soldiers. For anyone closely watching the scam center saga over the past several years, Chit Thu's prominent involvement wasn't a surprise. The question was why it took these sanctioning entities so long, with all the publicly available evidence of his complicity. A May 2024 report by Justice for Myanmar (J4M) laid out in exhaustive detail the expansive business empire of Chit Thu and the KNA, with involvement in online scam centers and other enterprises going back to at least 2016 when Chit Thu signed a deal with Chinese criminal She Zhijiang to develop the Yatai New City project in the BGF's long-time base area of Shwe Kokko. All of these developments have been extensively documented by Myanmar's independent media and rights groups over the past decade. Chit Thu first rose in Myanmar's eastern borderlands in 1994, when he was ejected from the rebel Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) and joined the Myanmar military-aligned Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), leading its notorious 999 Special Battalion. Chit Thu and his troops were engaged in multiple cross-border atrocities, entering Thailand to kill civilians and burn down refugee camps. These crimes were assiduously documented by multiple groups, including the Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG). Chit Thu's business empire later reportedly expanded to ya-ba ('crazy medicine', or methamphetamine), logging, smuggling, including trafficking human beings, especially Myanmar migrant workers, real estate and construction. He also built a massive theme park and resort outside of the Karen state capital Hpa-an, eponymously known as Chit Thu Myaing. For over two decades, Chit Thu has been a case study in prolonged impunity in an environment where insecurity merges seamlessly with illicit enterprise, collective elite rent-seeking and the 'gray area' of multiple antagonists with shifting loyalties in a long-running civil war. This extended to the 'democracy period' of Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) from 2016 to 2021, when one of Chit Thu's companies, Chit Linn Myaing Toyota, became a subcontractor for the China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC) to assist in building an extension of the Asia Highway through an Asia Development Bank (ADB) loan. However, Chit Thu's fortunes became increasingly tenuous following the 2021 coup and the rise of multiple armed groups fighting the State Administration Council (SAC) junta regime. As conflict spreads, his combined military strength and economic riches have been gradually challenged. He quit the BGF and the Myanmar army, establishing the KNA after vexed negotiations with the military, who wanted Chit Thu to use his forces more aggressively against the KNLA and their multiple anti-military People's Defense Force (PDF) allies. However, he was dragged back into negotiations in April 2024 when the KNLA was projected to seize the strategic border town of Myawaddy. Chit Thu's involvement in brokering the arrangement that averted the KNLA's full capture of the town illustrates the crucial, if conflicted, role he has played for many years, negotiating with multiple Karen armed factions, Myanmar military officials and multiple cross-border commercial and security concerns. But his deep involvement in scam centers was the main cause of the three sanctions listings, as a combination of widespread media scrutiny and intensive Chinese pressure to force some version of a 'crackdown' spurred multiple efforts to curtail the fraud operations and 'rescue' various nationalities working in Shwe Kokko and elsewhere. The SAC has claimed to have processed over 10,000 people caught up in the scam trade. In February, the Thai Department of Special Investigation (DSI) requested a court to issue an arrest warrant for Chit Thu, but it is not clear if this has been granted or what effect the OFAC designation could have. So is this the end of the line for Chit Thu? The lessons of Chit Thu are not just the rise of one corpulent gangster, but the multiple types of border strongmen, entrepreneurs of violence and illicit enterprise with ambiguous political roles that have long thrived in Myanmar. These actors continued to thrive unimpeded by 'reform' and the peace process of 2011-2021, making a mockery of the rule of law. The Kachin warlord and BGF commander Zhakung Ting Ying saw his fortunes reversed in 2024 when most of his territory along the China border, including lucrative rare earth mines, was seized by the Kachin Independence Army (KIA). Yord Serk, chairman of the Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS), is another example of a border strongman, albeit one diminished by his vacillation since the 2021 coup, trying to sit out the civil war and find a way to benefit from the carnage. As his legitimacy withers amongst many Shan inside Myanmar, and the hundreds of thousands living in Thailand, Yord Serk has to find an accommodation with the SAC and border authorities to find a way to exist. One suggestion floated amongst observers is for the RCSS to become one variety of BGF or militia, continuing a general tradition of balancing multiple relationships similar to Chit Thu. The spread of the United Wa State Army (UWSA) over three decades along the Myanmar-Thailand border has been another example of 'parallel state' actors gaining power. From sparking the modern methamphetamine trade in the late 1990s and flooding Thailand with ya-ba , the Wa now have a monopoly of control, either directly or through proxies, of the joint border and extensive interests in casinos, narcotics, smuggling and a range of mining interests. Gold mining activities along the border have over several months polluted rivers running into Thailand with arsenic, with minimal pushback against the Wa, according to a recent article by Paskorn Jumlongrach in Transborder News. As welcome as the US sanctions on Chit Thu may be, it is still too early to predict his demise. A survivor with multiple fingers in multiple dirty pies, he could reach eclectic accommodations and deals with multiple actors to ensure his exposure over scams centers is a temporary setback, a kind of gangland market correction. The pity is that Chit Thu will likely never face full justice for his three-decade crime spree in Karen state, replete with forced labor, land grabbing, narcotics peddling and modern-day slavery in the scam centers. A greater pity is that he is not the only one in the Myanmar conflict multiverse, and likely not the last to rise from the chaos of war. David Scott Mathieson is an independent analyst working on conflict, humanitarianism, and human rights in Myanmar
South China Morning Post
04-03-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
5 exhibitions to get you psyched for March's art happenings
With Arts Month around the corner, this season's exhibitions offer an exciting mix of perspectives, mediums and themes. From the meditative stillness of meticulously staged photography to bold abstract paintings that reimagine humanity's relationship with the natural world, these showcases reflect the creative pulse of both local and international artists. Whether you are a seasoned art lover or a curious newcomer, these five exhibitions are provide a perfect reason to step into the city's galleries and immerse yourself in thought-provoking works. Chen Wei: Breath of Silence Chen Wei, 'Breath of Silence', 2024. Photo: courtesy Chen Wei and Blindspot Gallery Chen Wei's 'Breath of Silence' presents photography, LED sculptures and video installations that explore themes of alienation and solitude. Known for his staged, cinematic photography, the Beijing-based artist constructs atmospheric scenes that feel suspended in fragmented time. Muted and often vacant, his compositions reflect the quiet disquiet of a post-pandemic world. This exhibition also marks the conclusion of his 'New City' series, a more than decade-long exploration of urban aesthetics and the psychological impact of contemporary life. Blindspot Gallery, until April 12, 2025 Unsold ≠ Worthless, Shifting Perspectives Chan Ka Kiu, After, 2023. Photo: Chan Ka Kiu, courtesy De Sarthe Hong Kong This provocative group exhibition examines the meaning of value in the art world, reframing unsold works as opportunities for conversation rather than failure. It brings together a diverse range of contemporary artists whose works challenge commercial norms and celebrate creativity. By showcasing pieces that have been overlooked and left unsold, the exhibition invites viewers to reconsider the way art is perceived, collected and appreciated. De Sarthe Gallery, until March 15, 2025 Halley Cheng: Never Describe a Sunset
