The BBC is hoping that its decision to suspend Jonathan Ross for 12 weeks will end the crisis caused by crude prank phone calls he made with Russell Brand on a radio show, media commentators said on Friday.
While newspapers generally welcomed the corporation’s action against Ross, one of the BBC’s highest paid presenters, the decision by Lesley Douglas, the head of Radio 2, to quit over the furor was greeted with sadness.
The BBC acted on Thursday after the “deplorable” messages left on actor Andrew Sachs’ phone drew 30,000 complaints, criticism from Prime Minister Gordon Brown and media condemnation.
Following an emergency meeting between BBC Director-General Mark Thompson and the BBC Trust, the BBC’s independent governing body, Ross, 47, was suspended without pay but kept his job for what Thompson described as his “utterly unacceptable” behavior.
However, Thompson said it was a “final warning” for Ross, who has been suspended for 12 weeks.
Douglas, who was appointed controller of the music and chat station in 2003, then made the decision to quit.
The prank had already led to the resignation of Brand, 33, a flamboyant comic who has branched out into acting in Hollywood films including the romantic comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall.
The row erupted after the duo joked Brand had slept with the granddaughter of 78-year-old Sachs, who played Spanish waiter Manuel in the cult comedy series Fawlty Towers.
They also joked that Sachs might kill himself after hearing messages left on his phone.
Newspapers said the BBC had taken far too long to take action and Douglas was a victim.
The new James Bond film, Quantum of Solace, debuted in Britain on Friday to record one-day ticket sales of US$8 million, distributor Columbia Pictures said on Saturday. The total tops Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the previous record holder with an opening day haul of US$6.5 million in 2005, and it also beat the US$4.72 million first-day total for the last Bond flick, Casino Royale (2006), Columbia said.
Fashion icon Victoria Beckham is the spokeswoman for the new Armani fashion house lingerie line following in the footsteps of husband David Beckham, who also appeared in the fashion house’s underwear campaign.
The company said Friday that Beckham will debut in the spring-summer 2009 advertising campaign of Emporio Armani women’s underwear.
Giorgio Armani called the former “Posh Spice’’ of the Spice Girls a “style icon, a dynamic lady whose influence and recognition will add great excitement’’ to the ad campaign.
Joaquin Phoenix is quitting movies to focus on music.
“He has said that Two Lovers is his last. But this is not strange. Joaquin has been directing music videos and been involved in music for the last number of years,’’ Susan Patricola, Phoenix’s publicist, said Friday.
Phoenix first talked about his decision to Extra last week while attending a fundraiser in San Francisco, abruptly ending the interview after the reporter wondered whether he was joking.
Patrick Swayze, filming again less than a year after being given a grim diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, described chemotherapy as “hell on wheels” but said work had kept him feeling positive. Swayze, 56, best known for his dance instructor role in the movie Dirty Dancing, underwent months of chemotherapy and an experimental drug treatment to beat one of the most virulent forms of cancer, which experts say has only a 5 percent five-year survival rate.
British actress Sienna Miller’s life has been made intolerable because of a “campaign of harassment” by photographers, her lawyer told London’s High Court on Thursday. Miller, 26, star of movies such as Alfie and Layer Cake, is taking legal action against photographic agency Big Pictures Ltd and its founder, Darryn Lyons, claiming they are guilty of harassment.
Germany’s first television station for gay men will go on air this week offering entertainment and news with homosexual themes via satellite and cable, the new TIMM channel said Friday.
The line-up will include popular series such as Queer as Folk, The L-Word and Absolutely Fabulous dubbed into German as well as documentaries on gay stars or celebrities who are big in the gay community such as Rupert Everett, Susan Sarandon and Liza Minnelli, the station said in a statement.
With the slogan “We love men,” TIMM said it was aimed at the estimated 3.6 million gay men who live in Germany, and also hoped to draw their family and friends, lesbians and a few “metrosexuals.”
“TIMM enriches the existing television landscape with programming from and by the target group — simply for everyone who loves men,” it said.
“The highly positive feedback from the target group in the last 12 months has shown us how high the demand is for tailored information, entertainment and service.”
That US assistance was a model for Taiwan’s spectacular development success was early recognized by policymakers and analysts. In a report to the US Congress for the fiscal year 1962, former President John F. Kennedy noted Taiwan’s “rapid economic growth,” was “producing a substantial net gain in living.” Kennedy had a stake in Taiwan’s achievements and the US’ official development assistance (ODA) in general: In September 1961, his entreaty to make the 1960s a “decade of development,” and an accompanying proposal for dedicated legislation to this end, had been formalized by congressional passage of the Foreign Assistance Act. Two
March 31 to April 6 On May 13, 1950, National Taiwan University Hospital otolaryngologist Su You-peng (蘇友鵬) was summoned to the director’s office. He thought someone had complained about him practicing the violin at night, but when he entered the room, he knew something was terribly wrong. He saw several burly men who appeared to be government secret agents, and three other resident doctors: internist Hsu Chiang (許強), dermatologist Hu Pao-chen (胡寶珍) and ophthalmologist Hu Hsin-lin (胡鑫麟). They were handcuffed, herded onto two jeeps and taken to the Secrecy Bureau (保密局) for questioning. Su was still in his doctor’s robes at
Last week the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said that the budget cuts voted for by the China-aligned parties in the legislature, are intended to force the DPP to hike electricity rates. The public would then blame it for the rate hike. It’s fairly clear that the first part of that is correct. Slashing the budget of state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) is a move intended to cause discontent with the DPP when electricity rates go up. Taipower’s debt, NT$422.9 billion (US$12.78 billion), is one of the numerous permanent crises created by the nation’s construction-industrial state and the developmentalist mentality it
Experts say that the devastating earthquake in Myanmar on Friday was likely the strongest to hit the country in decades, with disaster modeling suggesting thousands could be dead. Automatic assessments from the US Geological Survey (USGS) said the shallow 7.7-magnitude quake northwest of the central Myanmar city of Sagaing triggered a red alert for shaking-related fatalities and economic losses. “High casualties and extensive damage are probable and the disaster is likely widespread,” it said, locating the epicentre near the central Myanmar city of Mandalay, home to more than a million people. Myanmar’s ruling junta said on Saturday morning that the number killed had
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