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China 2.0

Top Chinese Filmmaker Investigated Over Seven Children

XINHUA, GLOBAL TIMES (China), AFP

Worldcrunch

WUXI – Zhang Yimou, one of China’s top film directors is being investigated over claims he has fathered seven children, the Chinese media reported on Thursday.

The Wuxi City Population and Family Planning Commission, in eastern China’s Jiangsu Province, is investigating the Xi'an-born director, after it has come to light that Zhang had at least seven children – a violation of China’s family planning policy reports the Global Times.

Zhang, 61, could be fined up to 160 million yuan ($26 million) for these violations.

China’s one-child policy limits urban couples to one child, and to two children for rural families when the first child is a girl.

Zhang, one of China’s most respected directors, according to Xinhua, has won several awards including the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival.

His most famous films include Red Sorghum (1987), Raise the Red Lantern (1991), Hero (2002) and House of Flying Daggers (2004). His last movie, in 2011, was The Flowers of War, starring Christian Bale.

Many of his early films were banned in China, reports the AFP, but he has since become a favorite. He was chosen to direct the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and was a runner-up for the Time Magazine Person of the Year in 2008.

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Geopolitics

How Russia And China Are Trying To Drive France Out Of Africa

Fueled by the Kremlin, anti-French sentiment in Africa has been spreading for years. Meanwhile, China is also increasing its influence on the continent as Africa's focus shifts from west to east.

Photo of a helicopter landing, guided a member of France's ​Operation Barkhane in the Sahel region

Maneuver by members of France's Operation Barkhane in the Sahel region

Maria Oleksa Yeschenko

France is losing influence in its former colonies in Africa. After French President Emmanuel Macron decided last year to withdraw the military from the Sahel and the Central African Republic, a line was drawn under the "old French policy" on the continent. But the decision to withdraw was not solely a Parisian initiative.

October 23-24, 2019, Sochi. Russia holds the first large-scale Russia-Africa summit with the participation of four dozen African heads of state. At the time, French soldiers are still helping Mali, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Chad, and Niger fight terrorism as part of Operation Barkhane.

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Few people have heard of the Wagner group. The government of Mali is led by Paris-friendly Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, although the country has already seen several pro-Russian demonstrations. At that time, Moscow was preparing a big return to the African continent, similar to what happened in the 1960s during the Soviet Union.

So what did France miss, and where did it all go wrong?

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