February 25, 2013

British actor Daniel Day-Lewis received this year’s Academy Award for best actor for the title role in Steven Spielberg’s motion picture Lincoln. Day-Lewis is first man to win the best actor prize three times. He previously received Oscars for My Left Foot (1989) and There Will be Blood (2007). His co-star in the film, Sally Field, who played Mary Todd Lincoln, was nominated but failed to win in the best supporting actress category. Field had previously won Academy Awards for best actress for her performances in Norma Rae (1979) and Places in the Heart (1984).

Lincoln was nominated for best picture of the year, but the prize went to the thriller Argo, which was produced, directed, and starred in by Ben Affleck. In 1998, Affleck shared an Academy Award with Matt Damon for their original screenplay for the drama Good Will Hunting. Argo, which was co-produced by actor George Clooney, tells the story of how in 1980 the Central Intelligence Agency, with the help of a Canadian diplomat, rescued a group of Americans from Iran after they had escaped from Iranian protesters who were taking over the United States embassy in Tehran.

Ang Lee (right), a Taiwanese-born motion-picture director, won the 2013 Academy Award for best director for “Life of Pi.” “Argo,” a movie co-produced by American actor George Clooney (left), won the best picture award. (AP/Wide World)

Affleck was not nominated for best director. Ang Lee won the directing award for Life of Pi. The film was based on a fantasy novel about a boy stranded in a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger. In total, Life of Pi won four Oscars, more than any other film this year. The award was Lee’s second directing Oscar. The Taiwanese-born director won previously for Brokeback Mountain in 2006.

Jennifer Lawrence won the Academy Award for best actress for her role as a troubled young women in the film romance Silver Linings Playbook. Anne Hathaway won the best supporting actress award for her role as Fantine, a woman broken by poverty and human cruelty, in the movie musical Les Miserables. Christoph Waltz won the best supporting actor award for playing a German bounty hunter in Quentin Tarantino’s slave revenge movie Django Unchained. The Austrian actor previously won an Oscar playing a Nazi in another Tarantino film, Inglorious Basterds, in 2010.

Additional World Book articles:

• Motion pictures
• Iran 1980 (a Back in Time article)

September 26, 2012

United States President Barack Obama addressed the opening session of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in New York City on September 25. He stated that the United States will “do what we must” to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Concerns over a nuclear-armed Iran have led the United States and many other countries to impose increasingly severe sanctions on Iran. The Iranian government has insisted that its nuclear program is intended for peaceful uses.

The president condemned the violence that erupted in predominantly Muslim nations over what he described as a “disgusting” anti-Islam video but defended U.S. freedom of speech and the spirit of tolerance that allowed the inflammatory anti-Muslim video to be made. “As president of our country, and commander in chief of our military, I accept that people are going to call me awful things every day,” noted the president. “And I will defend their right to do so.”

The United Nations (UN) General Assemblyis the only major organ of the United Nations in which all members are represented (© Mario Tama, Getty Images)

Speaking before President Obama, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon characterized the civil war in Syria as “a regional calamity with global ramifications.” President Obama was more forthright in his assessment of the situation in Syria, bluntly stating that the Bashar al-Assad regime must go. According to human rights activists, at least 21,000 people have been killed since the uprising began in March 2011. An estimated 1 million people have been displaced by the violence.

Additional World Book articles:

• Arab Spring
• Middle East: From Fall to Spring (a Special Report)
• Syria 2011 (a Back in Time article)

August 8, 2012

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad appeared on state television yesterday for the first time in weeks to greet Iran’s security chief, Saeed Jalili.  Jalili assured Assad that Syria is part of a vital regional alliance–an “axis of resistance”–that Iran will not allow to be broken. Assad, in turn, affirmed  his determination “to cleanse the country from the terrorists and fight against terrorism unreservedly.”

The government of Iran is currently trying to secure the release of 48 Iranians abducted by Free Syrian Army rebels from a bus in Damascus on August 4. The Free Syrian Army claims the men are members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. The government of Iran maintains that they are pilgrims who had been heading t a Shi’ite Muslim religious site.

Iran is Syria's only ally in the Middle East. (World Book map)

In a major blow to Assad, Syria’s prime minister, Riad Hijab, defected on August 6 and fled to Jordan. Hijab is the highest-profile defector from the Assad regime since the uprising began in March 2011.

In Aleppo, residents continue to flee the embattled city by the tens of thousands as government fighter jets accelerate bombing raids in an attempt to drive rebels from neighborhood strongholds. United Nations monitors pulled out yesterday “due to deterioration in the security situation.” Talal Atrissi, a Lebanese political analyst, noted, “The regime is ready to destroy all of Aleppo. The regime will never allow the fall of Aleppo because it would start a countdown to their demise.”

Additional World Book articles:

• Arab Spring
• Middle East: From Fall to Spring (a Special Report)
• Syria 2011 (a Back in Time article)