Pakistan has lifted a ban on the video-sharing website YouTube, which was said to be brought in after a video offensive to Islam was uploaded to the site. According to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), the offending material was in relation to a trailer for a film by Geert Wilders, a Dutch politician.
The PTA ordered the country's 70 internet service providers to ban YouTube. However, their actions mistakenly blocked the site on other international ISPs, preventing many countries' access to the popular site for around two hours.
American art director and production designer Robert F. Boyle was honoured last night at the Academy Awards.
Hired as an extra in films during the Great Depression, the young architect became a draftsman at Paramount Studios, moving on to become a sketch artist and assistant art director, before becoming a full-fledged art director in the early 1940s, at Universal Studios.
His credits include Alfred Hitchcock films Saboteur (1942), North by Northwest (1959), and The Birds (1963). Other films to his credit include The Thomas Crown Affair (1968
One of last night's surprise wins at the 80th Academy Awards was Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová winning the Best Original Song Oscar.
The song "Falling Slowly" is from the 2006 film Once, which also co-stars Hansard and Irglová.
The favorite in the category was Enchanted, a Disney film which received nominations for "Happy Working Song", "That's How You Know", and "So Close". Also nominated was "Raise It Up" from August Rush.
The soundtrack received a Grammy nomination in 2008.
Irglová was cut off by music, when stepping up to the microph
Tonight, many of the year's most critically acclaimed films vie for Oscars, including Best Picture nominees There Will Be Blood, No Country for Old Men, Juno, Michael Clayton, and Atonement.
Among the favorites are No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood, each with 8 nominations, and Atonement and Michael Clayton, each with 7 nominations. All four films are nominees for the Best Picture award, along with breakout hit Juno.
The telecast finished tonight, in eastern standard time; it often goes past midnight.
Nominees
Best Picture
Ato
As English-Irish actor Daniel Day-Lewis took home his second Oscar for his leading role as a mean early oil enterpreneur in the motion picture There Will Be Blood, the top four honors for acting were swept away by European actors.
Earlier in the evening, Best Supporting Actress went to British actress Tilda Swinton, won for her portrayal of Karen Crowder in Michael Clayton. Spaniard Javier Bardem took Best Supporting Actor for his role of psychotic killer Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men.
French actress Marion Cotillard took the B
A war museum located in Norway has stated that Adolf Hitler has drawn characters from the Walt Disney film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and were found hidden inside a painting signed "A. Hitler".
Director William Hakvaag says that colored images of the characters Bashful and Doc along with the initials 'A.H.' appear hidden in a painting which tests say date back to 1940, sometime during World War II. Pinocchio is also reported to be among the characters drawn by Hitler. He says that he bought the painting for US$300 at an auction in Germany
Emily Perry, a British actress has died at the age of 100.
Born on June 28, 1907 in Torquay, Devon, England, she was known for playing Madge Allsop, Dame Edna Everage's long-suffering, silent "bridesmaid"; she began playing the role at the age of 80.
Barry Humphries (Dame Edna) said, "It is a great loss to me, she was a close friend."
As an actress in her own right, her filmography is limited to her appearances with Dame Edna, except for a 1995 appearance, in her late eighties, on an episode of Last of the Summer Wine as "Mrs. Broadbent".
Volunteers and interested people could visit the Belgian Indymedia headquarters in Brussels on Sunday during their second open door day. Around 50 people came to hear about the organisation's evolution during 2007 and what's coming up for 2008. A book about citizen journalism, with contributions from both mainstream journalists and several alternative media experts, was also presented. And the Indymedians mingled, with loungy Creative Commons music in the background.
Indymedia.be was founded in 2000, only a few months after Indymedia's incepti
The website WikiLeaks.org has been taken off line in many parts of the world. Wikileaks is a website dedicated to leaking documents that are "anonymous, untraceable, uncensorable."
Several factors have taken the site off line including DDoS attacks, which was followed by a fire which took out the main servers hosting the site in Sweden, and a restraining order on the domain name 'WikiLeaks.org' issued in the United States.
According to the website HongPong.com, Wikileaks experienced "a 500Mbps distributed denial of service attack" before the
Iran's Minister of Justice Gholam-Hossein Elham has requested that Dutch politician Geert Wilders' Qur'an film named Fitna should be prohibited by the Dutch government, Iranian press-agency IRNA reports. Elham wrote a letter to his Dutch colleague Ernst Hirsch Ballin stating that: "you can stop the process of this satanic and conspiracy movement based on the European Convention on Human Rights".
Freedom of speech cannot be the reason to allow this film, they say. "We also respect freedom of speech, but the insult of holy and ethical values is
Activision, publisher of the popular Guitar Hero series of video games which simulate the playing of rock music, has unveiled the next title in the franchise: Guitar Hero: Aerosmith.
The game, which will focus entirely on the top-selling American rock band Aerosmith, is set to be released this June. The soundtrack will be composed of songs performed by Aerosmith or otherwise related to the band. Venues featured in the game will highlight different points in the band's career.
"The premise is that it's going to cover the 30-plus years of the
Ren and Stimpy. Bugs Bunny. Philip J. Fry and Professor Hubert Farnsworth on Futurama. Sparx. Bi-Polar Bear. Popeye the Sailor Man. Woody Woodpecker. You may not think you have ever heard Billy West, but chances are on a television program, a movie, a commercial, or as Howard Stern's voice guru in the 1990's, you have heard him. West's talent for creating personalities by twisting his voice has made him one of a handful of voice actors—Hank Azaria and the late Mel Blanc come to mind—who have achieved celebrity for their talent. Indeed,
