Entertainment
Putin to join President Xi and world leaders at SCO meeting in China
TIANJIN: Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to arrive in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin on Sunday, where he will join President Xi Jinping and around 20 other world leaders for a major regional summit.
The gathering, organised under the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), will run until Monday and comes just days before a huge military parade in Beijing marking 80 years since the end of World War II.
The SCO comprises China, India, Russia, Pakistan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Belarus — with 16 more countries affiliated as observers or “dialogue partners”.
China and Russia have sometimes touted the SCO as an alternative to the NATO military alliance.
In an interview published on China’s Xinhua news agency on Saturday, Putin said the upcoming summit will “strengthen the SCO’s capacity to respond to contemporary challenges and threats, and consolidate solidarity across the shared Eurasian space”.
“All this will help shape a fairer multipolar world order,” Putin said, Xinhua reported.
As China’s claim over Taiwan and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have seen them clash with the United States and Europe, experts say Beijing and Moscow are eager to use platforms like the SCO to curry influence.
“China has long sought to present the SCO as a non-Western-led power bloc that promotes a new type of international relations, which, it claims, is more democratic,” said Dylan Loh, an assistant professor at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University.
“In short, it offers a Chinese-inflected multilateral order that is distinct from the western-dominated ones in international politics,” Loh told AFP.
More than 20 leaders including Iranian and Turkish presidents Masoud Pezeshkian and Recep Tayyip Erdogan will attend the bloc’s largest meeting since its founding in 2001.
“The large-scale participation indicates China’s growing influence and the SCO’s appeal as a platform for non-Western countries,” Loh added.
Beijing, through the SCO, will try to “project influence and signal that Eurasia has its own institutions and rules of the game”, said Lizzi Lee from the Asia Society Policy Institute.
“It is framed as something different, built around sovereignty, non-interference, and multipolarity, which the Chinese tout as a model,” Lee told AFP.
Talks on the sidelines
Chinese President Xi met leaders including Egyptian Premier Moustafa Madbouly and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet in Tianjin on Saturday.
Other bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the summit will be organised.
Putin is expected to hold talks on Monday with Turkey’s Erdogan and Iran’s Pezeshkian about the Ukraine conflict and Tehran’s nuclear programme respectively.
Putin needs “all the benefits of SCO as a player on the world stage and also the support of the second largest economy in the world”, said Lim Tai Wei, a professor and East Asia expert at Japan’s Soka University.
“Russia is also keen to win over India, and India’s trade frictions with the United States present this opportunity,” Lim told AFP.
The summit comes days after India was hit by a sharp bump up in US tariffs on its goods as punishment for New Delhi’s purchases of Russian oil.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Tianjin on Saturday evening after a trip to Japan, marking the start of his first visit to China since 2018.
The two most populous nations are intense rivals competing for influence across South Asia and fought a deadly border clash in 2020.
A thaw began last October when Modi met with Xi for the first time in five years at a summit in Russia.
Modi was not on a list of attendees for the Beijing parade published by Chinese state media on Thursday that included Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto, Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un.
Entertainment
Royal fan defends Meghan Markle amid brutal criticism: ‘There was no BS’
Meghan Markle, who left her senior royal role with Prince Harry back in 2020, received support from a royal fan after critics slammed the Duchess of Sussex for an insensitive move during her four-day Australia visit.
Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet’s mum was invited as a special guest at an all-girls luxury retreat in Sydney. She sat down for a Q&A session where she spoke candidly about her experience in the public life describing it as “very hard”.
However, Meghan’s trip has not been without backlash over several things in the course of the tour. Some fans expressed how the getaway promised a “a weekend of connection, inspiration and personal growth, with Meghan positioned as its headline guest” but she left early Saturday morning.
Social media was abuzz with comments calling her out over leaving the event so soon and not even having dinner with attendees, like she was supposed to.
“Why did Meghan Markle not even share a meal with women who had paid $3000 to spend ‘retreat’ time with her? How is that kind?” one user wrote.
Others echoed the sentiment: “How ridiculous, they advertised like she was spending the whole weekend with them,” one said, while another remarked, “2 hours? I thought it was a weekend retreat? WOW!”
In the midst of all this, an entrepreneur and business owner Liliana Sanelli, who is also a fan of King Charles, shared kind words for Meghan.
“It’s not every day you can say you meet someone as beautiful as Meghan Markle,” she wrote. “This besties weekend has been incredible so far to connect, unite, recalibrate with 300 dynamic women.”
She continued, “Hearing Meghan speak so openly, authentically and be so real – has given me another perspective of powerful, insightful strong women when they are truly real to themselves.
“Whatever your opinion – I must admit I was blown away at her kind, caring engaging energy. There was no BS…. Just keeping it real.”
She noted that Harry was also in the room and the two are “definitely beautiful as a couple and in love”.
Entertainment
Ruby Rose old essay resurfaces detailing night of alleged Katy Perry assault
Ruby Rose shed light on a night she claims changed the course of her life.
In a resurfaced 2011 essay written for Australian outlet news.com.au, the actress and model described a drunken evening with Katy Perry that she now alleges was the night of a sexual assault.
“I had been off the grog for 30 days — my first attempt at sobriety — and I was out partying with Katy,” Rose recalled in the piece.
“What I do remember thinking was: ‘I’ll have a drink tonight, I deserve one. I mean, what’s the worst that could happen?’” she wrote.
She admitted she relapsed that night, consuming “not one drink, or 10,” before vomiting on Perry’s foot.
Rose framed the incident as a turning point, saying, “The short answer: I threw up on Katy Perry.
And that’s one of the reasons I’ve been off the grog now for almost 90 days.”
She emphasized that “nothing horrific happened” and that she hadn’t faced a DUI.
At the time, she framed the incident as a “funny little drunk story” that inspired her to recommit to sobriety.
But in recent Threads posts, Rose alleged Perry sexually assaulted her at Melbourne’s Spice Market nightclub.
“She didn’t kiss me. She saw me ‘resting’ on my best friend’s lap to avoid her and bent down, pulled her un*****ar to the side and rubbed her disgusting v****a on my face until my eyes snapped open and I projectile vomited on her,” Rose claimed.
She added that she kept the story quiet for years, even as Perry later helped her secure a U.S. visa.
Perry’s representatives have strongly denied the accusations, calling them “categorically false” and “dangerous reckless lies.”
They pointed to Rose’s history of making public allegations against various individuals, all of which have been denied.
Australian authorities have since confirmed they are investigating a “historical sexual assault” reported to have occurred in Melbourne in 2010.
Acting Sergeant Paul Hogan of Victoria Police said detectives from the Sexual Offenses and Child Abuse Investigation Team are reviewing the claims.
A former club manager has also spoken out, saying both women had “too much to drink” that night and insisting he did not witness any assault or vomiting.
For Rose, the resurfaced essay and her recent posts highlight how long it has taken her to speak openly.
“Though I am so grateful to have made it long enough to find my voice, it just shows how much of an impact trauma and sexual assault takes,” she wrote.
Entertainment
Nathalie Baye, low-key legend of French cinema, dies aged 77
Nathalie Baye, the discreet icon of French cinema, passes away at age 77 at her home in Paris, her family confirms.
Fans were left reeling with the sudden passing of French film icon Nathalie Baye, who has starred in over 100 roles throughout her decades-long career.
Her buzzing film credits include Downton Abbey: A New Era, Catch Me if You Can, and Laurence Anyways.
After the news was confirmed by her family, fans and colleagues have been pouring out tributes.
Baye was struggling with Lewy body dementia, per the Y Net News outlet, which added that her health deteriorated in the summer of 2025.
She debuted her career in the French cinema in 1973 in La Nuit Américaine, directed by Francois Truffaut.
Baye saw her stardom rise after starring in Sauve qui peut (la vie) in 1980.
She was born on JULY 6, 1948, in Mainneville, in the Eure region.
Nathalie Baye showed interest at a very young age in theater and cinema and was enrolled in the drama classes of the Rue Blanche at the prestigious Conservatoire National Supérieur d’Art Dramatique de Paris in 1967 and graduated in 1971.
After debuting in the 1973 film La Nuit Américaine, she then worked with the legends of French cinema.
These included Jean-Luc Godard (Sauve qui peut ((la vie) 1980), Claude Sautet (Mado, 1976), Bertrand Tavernier (Une semaine de vacances, 1980), Bertrand Blier (Father-in-law, 1981), and Claude Chabrol (La Fleur du mal, 2003).
Baye is survived by her daughter, Laura Smet, who is also a famous French actress.
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