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
Amanda Seyfried is ‘going to keep campaigning’ for ‘Mamma Mia 3′
Amanda Seyfried is not letting go of her hopes for a third Mamma Mia! film and says she’s more motivated than ever to see it happen.
Speaking with PEOPLE at the Los Angeles premiere of The Testament of Ann Lee on Dec. 14, the actress made it clear she’s ready to keep pushing for Mamma Mia 3, especially if it allows her beloved character Sophie to step into a new phase of life.
When asked what Sophie’s future might look like if the franchise returns, Seyfried immediately imagined motherhood.
“Oh, with kids. I mean, I love being a mother,” the 40-year-old said, drawing a parallel between her own life and Sophie’s journey.
“I love playing a mother, and I would love to dive into the curiosities of motherhood and raising children on a Greek island, just like Donna did with Sophie.”
Meryl Streep famously played Donna, Sophie’s free-spirited mother, in the original 2008 musical.
Seyfried believes that exploring Sophie as a parent could open up fresh emotional ground for the story.
“I think that would be really interesting,” she said, adding that while she doesn’t know exactly where the plot would go, she’s confident the heart of the franchise would remain the same.
“I have no idea where the story is going to go, but I know there’s going to be a lot of singing and dancing.”
Her enthusiasm doesn’t stop there. Seyfried made it clear she’s not quietly waiting on the sidelines.
“I’m going to keep campaigning for that movie until I’m blue in the face,” she said, emphasizing just how committed she is to seeing the third installment made.
There is reason for optimism.
Producer Judy Craymer has confirmed that a script for Mamma Mia 3 has already been completed and that the film remains in development as a follow-up to 2018’s Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again.
“Well, we know what we want to do with the movie, and it will happen,” Craymer told Deadline in May, while also discussing the possibility of Sabrina Carpenter joining the cast alongside Seyfried and Streep.
Off screen, Seyfried brings real-life experience to the idea of motherhood.
She shares daughter Nina, 8, and son Thomas, 5, with her husband, actor Thomas Sadoski.
The couple got engaged in 2016, eloped the following year, and now live with their children on a farm in upstate New York.
For Seyfried, both on screen and off, motherhood seems like a story she’s more than ready to keep telling.
Entertainment
Vogue Williams says ‘end of era’ as couple sell Battersea flat
Irish media personality and model, Vogue Williams and her husband Spencer Matthews have taken a major step in their personal lives by selling their £4.25million Battersea apartment and buying their ‘forever’ home in London.
The couple first put their luxurious London flat on the market two years ago, slashing the price but a staggering £1million during that time.
In the latest episode of her YouTube vlog, Vogue shared the couple have finally sold the first home where they made memories together and purchased their ‘forever’ family house in London back in June.
The I’m A Celeb star gave fans a sneak peak of the stunning new property but admitted the family will have to wait at least 18 months in due to extensive renovations.
‘We sold our apartment. It’s gone. End of an era. The apartment is gone,’ Vogue told viewers.
‘We’ve got a rental around the corner so that the kids can stay in school because we have bought our dream house.’
‘I’ll miss this apartment. We’ve lived here for seven years. It’s the first place we lived together. All our kids were born here. So, it’s going to be weird saying goodbye, but at the end of the day, we have this amazing house that we’re going to love so much.’
‘This is our forever house. I know that people say that, but it actually is our forever house. It’s like my dream home I have in Ireland. And this is the dream home here where I think the kids will grow up.’
Back in April it was revealed that Vogue and Spencer had knocked a further £450,000 off the asking price of their luxurious London apartment.
Entertainment
Jim Belushi shares having lively dreams about late brother John
Jim Belushi is opening up about a deeply personal experience that has stayed with him for decades, revealing that he still has recurring dreams about his late brother, John Belushi, more than 40 years after his death.
The actor and comedian says these dreams feel less like memories and more like meaningful reunions.
Speaking to PEOPLE, Jim, now 71, shared that several of these dreams have stood out over the years, especially those where John appears healthy, alive, and doing what they both loved most.
“He’s alive and fine, and we were acting together,” Jim said. “We’re improvising at Second City or on Saturday Night Live.”
In the dreams, the brothers are back on stage, fully immersed in comedy, as if time never interrupted their bond.
Jim admitted that even in his dreams, John’s humour gets the best of him.
“I got mad at him because he was making me laugh so hard I couldn’t stay in character,” he said, recalling how those moments would play out.
“Those were kind of nice visits.” The actor’s words reflect both the joy and ache of reconnecting with a brother he lost too soon.
John Belushi, a celebrated Saturday Night Live star and performer, died on March 5, 1982, at just 33 years old.
His death was ruled an accidental overdose caused by acute cocaine and heroin intoxication, often referred to as a “speedball.”
More than 43 years later, Jim says the dreams still come from time to time, offering what he describes as “little visits.”
He echoed similar thoughts in a conversation with Variety, explaining, “I have dreams once in a while where he and I are acting at Second City.”
Jim went on to describe one dream in detail, saying, “We were on stage together, and he was so funny that I cracked up, eating the scene in front of everybody. I got so mad at him, because that’s the worst thing you can do, is break character, right? But he was just so funny, and he goes, ‘Ah, come on, kid!’ He was sweet to me. So, I still get little visits.”
Jim Belushi has spoken about his brother many times over the years, often reflecting on their close relationship and shared passion for comedy.
Today, as he stars in the new film Song Sung Blue alongside Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson, those dreams remain a comforting reminder that the connection he shared with John never truly faded.
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