US –  Viola Davis has expressed regret about her role in 2011 film The Help, apparently concurring with critics of its “white saviour” narrative. Davis played Aibileen Clark, one of two black maids in 1963 Mississippi whose stories are told by a young white woman (Emma Stone) in a book exposing the everyday racism they face.

In an interview with the New York Times, Davis cited The Help as a role she regretted. “I just felt that at the end of the day that it wasn’t the voices of the maids that were heard,” she said. “I know Aibileen. I know Minny. They’re my grandma. They’re my mom. And I know that if you do a movie where the whole premise is, I want to know what it feels like to work for white people and to bring up children in 1963, I want to hear how you really feel about it. I never heard that in the course of the movie.”

Davis qualified her criticism by saying that the experience of making the film in terms of friendships and collaborators was extremely positive. In the same interview, Davis spoke of the “responsibility of feeling like I am the great black female hope for women of colour”, describing it as “a real professional challenge”.(The Guardian)…[+]

GERMANY –  Angela Merkel has condemned the outbreak of far-right protests in eastern Germany, telling the Bundestag in an unusually passionate address that shouting Nazi slogans and committing acts of violence are inexcusable.

The German chancellor was heckled during a lively Bundestag debate by the head of the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party (AfD), Alexander Gauland, who accused her of dividing Germany with her immigration policy, endangering peace and spreading fake news by supporting controversial evidence that far-right protesters were hounding foreigners through the streets. In response, Merkel told Gauland that while she acknowledged the anger felt after the death of a man in Chemnitz who was allegedly stabbed by two asylum seekers, “there is no excuse or explanation for rabble-rousing, in some cases the use of violence, Nazi slogans, hostility towards people who look different, to the owner of a Jewish restaurant, attacking police”.

Merkel also responded to the row gripping Germany over Hans-Georg Maaßen, the head of the BfV domestic intelligence agency, who questioned the use of the word “Hetzjagd” meaning hunting by Merkel’s spokesman to describe what happened to foreign people in Chemnitz.(The Guardian)…[+]

ITALY –  Thousands of migrants risk dying at sea because of a clampdown on NGO rescue ships, aid agencies have warned, in what has been the longest period of their absence in the central Mediterranean since they began operating in late 2015.

Since 26 August, no NGO rescue vessel has operated on the main migration routes between north Africa and southern Europe. Anti-immigration policies by the Maltese and Italian governments, which have closed their ports to the vessels, have driven the sharp decrease in rescue missions. People seeking asylum are still attempting the risky crossing. The last time the Mediterranean was without NGO rescue boats was from 28 June to 8 July 2018, and in those days more than 300 migrants died at sea.

The death toll has fallen in the past year, but the number of those drowning as a proportion of arrivals in Italy has risen sharply in the past few months, with a possibility of dying during the crossing now three times higher. According to figures from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), 2,383 migrants died as a result of shipwreck in 2017, compared with 100,308 arrivals to Italy. In 2018, with NGO boats under pressure from Maltese and Italian authorities, the number of victims has already reached 1,130, compared with just 20,319 who have landed in the country.

Of the 10 NGO rescue boats that were operating in the Mediterranean, three are being detained at the port of Valletta, Malta, in a dispute over flag registration. Vessels operated by the Open Arms NGO, meanwhile, left the central Mediterranean last month because of the closure of the Italian ports, with no date set for their return. (The Guardian)…[+]