I N T E R N A T I O N A L
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I N T E R N A T I O N A L
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Wednesday, October 2, 2013
Oscar-winning filmmaker backs out of Clinton doc Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK — CNN and NBC on Monday backed out of high-profile television projects about Hillary Rodham Clinton they had been working on for months. NBC said it was pulling the plug on a planned four-hour miniseries on the Democratic former first lady and secretary of state. “Hillary,” which was to star Diane Lane in the feature role and appear before the 2016 election, was the target of external protests and internal unhappiness at NBC. Earlier Monday, an Academy Awardwinning filmmaker who was making a documentary about Clinton for CNN said that he was backing out because few people would cooperate with him. The network said the film would not be produced. The Republican National Committee had protested both projects, fearing they would lionize Clinton when she might be a candidate for president. The RNC said it would not allow either network to air televised debates among potential
Republican candidates for president for 2016 if the films continued. NBC Entertainment issued a statement saying that “after reviewing and prioritizing our slate of movie and miniseries development, we’ve decided that we will no longer continue developing the Hillary Clinton miniseries.” The statement gave no reason for the change, and spokesman Richard Licata did not immediately return a call seeking comment. The announcement by NBC’s entertainment division this summer that it was making “Hillary” took people in the network’s news division by surprise. They were concerned that the news division would be blamed if the entertainment series took liberties with facts or leaned too far in making a positive or a negative portrayal of Clinton.
NBC News Washington correspondents Chuck Todd and Andrea Mitchell made their unease about the miniseries public. CNN, meanwhile, had contracted with Charles Ferguson to make a documentary on Clinton. Ferguson won the 2011 Academy Award for his documentary “Inside Job,” about the 2008 financial meltdown. But Ferguson wrote in a column posted on The Huffington Post on Monday that he concluded he couldn’t make much of a film: Clinton wouldn’t agree to be interviewed, and of the more than 100 people he approached only two who had dealt with her agreed to speak on camera.
FILE - In this Sept. 9, 2013, file photo, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks about Syria in the South Court Auditorium on the White House Complex in Washington.
Imprisoned Bollywood actor released for 2 weeks Associated Press Writer
AP Photo
Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt, center, stands outside his home after being temporally freed for two weeks from an Indian prison in Mumbai, India, Tuesday, Oct.1, 2013.
MUMBAI, India — Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt was temporarily released Tuesday from an Indian prison where he is serving time for illegal possession of weapons linked to the 1993 terror attack in the financial capital of Mumbai. The 54-year-old actor said he would spend his two weeks of leave, granted by prison authorities for good behavior, at home with his family. “I am a law-abiding citizen,” he told reporters after leaving Yerawada Central Jail in Pune, a city near Mumbai. “I will go back at the given time.” Dutt became popular for his Hindi film roles as a reformed thug who follows the teachings of pacifist freedom fighter Mohandas Gandhi. According to industry estimates, he is currently involved in projects worth at least $20 million. He was convicted for illegal possession of weapons linked to the 1993 terror attack, when 13 powerful bombs packed into cars and scooters exploded over a two-hour period across Mumbai. The bombs killed 257 people and injured 720. He has said he knew nothing about the bombing plot, and wanted the guns to protect his family — his mother was Muslim and his father Hindu — after receiving threats during the religious riots that preceded the bombings. The Supreme Court in March confirmed his conviction, but reduced his sentence to five years from six, including 18 months already served.
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Wednesday, October 2, 2013
Chinese flock to Tiananmen and jam trains in holiday exodus
‘Climate refugee’ fighting to stay in New Zealand
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AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File
President Barack Obama
First time in 17 years
US federal government shuts down Agence France-Presse
WASHINGTON - The United States federal government shut down for the first time in 17 years on Tuesday, as Congress failed to end a bitter budget row after hours of dizzying brinkmanship. Ten minutes before midnight, the White House budget office issued an order for many government departments to start closing down, triggering 800,000 furloughs of federal workers, and shutting tourists out of monuments like the Statue of Liberty, national parks and museums. Prospects for a swift resolution were unclear and economists warned that the struggling US economic recovery could suffer if the shutdown drags on for more
than just a few days. Only workers deemed essential will be at their desks from Tuesday onwards, leaving government departments like the White House with skeletal staff. Vital functions like mail delivery and air traffic control will continue as normal, however. On a day of dysfunction and ugly rhetoric in the divided US political system, Republicans had repeatedly tied new government funding to attempts to defund, delay or dis-
mantle President Barack Obama’s signature health care law. Obama, heralding the first government shutdown since 1996, told US troops in a video that they deserved better from Congress, and promised to work to get the government reopened soon. Sylvia Mathews Burwell, Obama’s budget director, said agencies should execute plans for an “orderly shutdown”, and urged Congress to swiftly pass bridge financing that would allow the government to open again. Obama earlier accused Republicans of holding America to ransom with their “extreme” political demands, while his opponents struck back at his party’s supposed arrogance.
AP Photo/ Evan Vucci
House Speaker John Boehner rebuked Obama in a fiery floor speech after an unproductive call with the president. “I didn’t come here to shut down the government,” Boehner said. Republicans accuse Obama of refusing to negotiate in good faith, but the White House says Obamacare is settled law and says there is no way to stop it from going into force, with a goal of providing affordable health care to all Americans. The crisis is rooted in the long running campaign by “Tea Party” Republicans in the House to overturn or disable Obamacare -- the president’s principal domestic political achievement -- key portions of which also come into force on Tuesday.
More broadly, the shutdown is the most serious crisis yet in a series of rolling ideological skirmishes between Democrat Obama and House Republicans over the size of the US government and its role in national life. “One faction of one party in one house of Congress in one branch of government doesn’t get to shut down the entire government just to re-fight the results of an election,” Obama said, referring to his own re-election. He spoke in a televised statement from the White House. Obama warned that a government shutdown could badly damage an economy which has endured a sluggish recovery from the worst recession in decades. Continued on page 6