Author: NY TIMES

The celebrated Iranian film director Mohammad Rasoulof said he had fled the country, after a court sentenced him to eight years in prison for his movies.Mr. Rasoulof — known for his award-winning film “There Is No Evil” — had been barred from leaving Iran after his work criticized life under authoritarian rule in the country. His lawyer, Babak Paknia, wrote last week on social media that a court had sentenced Mr. Rasoulof to imprisonment, whipping and a fine for movies that it called “examples of collusion with the intention of committing a crime against the country’s security.”On Monday, Mr. Rasoulof…

The Parliament of Georgia gave final approval on Tuesday to a contentious bill that has prompted a series of tense protests in the capital, Tbilisi, spurred by fears that the legislation could push the country back into the Kremlin’s orbit.President Salome Zourabichvili has promised to veto the bill. But Georgian Dream, the governing party in Georgia since 2012, has enough votes to override her veto.Both the opposition and the government have presented the passage of the innocuous-sounding bill, titled “On Transparency of Foreign Influence,” as a momentous step in the history of Georgia, a mountainous country of 3.6 million saddled…

Jesmine Hall is director of communications for Raffles Singapore. “We see a hotel being a destination for not just rest and rejuvenation,” she said, “but a setting for cultural immersion.” The hotel’s Enlightenment Retreat (from 7,800 Singapore dollars, or about $5,745) features four days of holistic treatments — including yoga, meditation, hydrotherapy herbal body wraps — along with personalized menus from the hotel’s restaurants. It also includes visits to the Singapore Botanic Gardens, a UNESCO World Heritage site and the Intan, a private house museum devoted to Peranakan culture — a mix of local and Chinese heritage. Tea with the…

For decades, China has moved methodically to dominate ever more industries, from toys and clothing in the 1980s to semiconductors and renewable energy today. China now produces a third of the world’s manufactured goods — more than the United States, Germany, Japan, South Korea and Britain combined. Its trade surplus in these goods is equal to a tenth of the entire Chinese economy.And those exports keep increasing, causing alarm about China’s manufacturing “overcapacity” among its biggest trading partners. Top leaders in the United States and Europe have begun calling on China to dial back how much it sells to the…

On Tuesday, the 77th edition of the Cannes Film Festival will begin in the south of France. You can expect glamorous gowns and awfully prolonged standing ovations — at Cannes, such things are de rigueur — but what distinguishes this year’s lineup? Here are five things we’ll be watching out for.A new Coppola on the Croisette.Some 45 years after Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now” won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, he will return to the Croisette, the festival promenade, with “Megalopolis,” starring Adam Driver as a visionary architect determined to rebuild a city after it’s beset by disaster. Coppola self-financed…

For months, the Biden administration has pleaded with Israel to do more to protect Palestinian civilians, who have borne the brunt of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s campaign in Gaza to destroy Hamas.But now, on the eve of Israel’s long-threatened major assault on the city of Rafah, the gulf between what the United States is recommending and what Israel appears intent on doing could not be wider.The Biden administration’s list of suggestions is lengthy. Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said this week that the United States wanted Israel to carry out “more precise” operations, and that the 2,000-pound bombs it…

The thunder of ferocious clashes unfolded at the nearby front line as the Ukrainian crew prepared to maneuver its American-made Bradley fighting vehicle out of camouflage and into the fire.The commander of the team, a sergeant with the call sign Lawyer, nervously scanned the sky. “If we are seen, the KABs will come,” he said, referring to the one-ton bombs Russia has been using to target Ukraine’s most valuable armor and defenses.What had started as a small Russian thrust into the tiny town of Ocheretyne was growing into a substantial breakthrough, threatening to unhinge the Ukrainian lines across a broad…

So for much of Sunday night’s game between the Vancouver Canucks and Edmonton Oilers, there were two parallel narratives — one on the ice and one on social media.On the ice: How Vancouver lost miserably in goaltending battle, rookie Arturs Silovs was exceptionally good (and much better than his Oilers counterpart Stuart Skinner) . Silovs shot 41-for-44 from the field. He was an absolute key in Vancouver’s 4-3 win, which gave the Canucks a 2-1 lead in the NHL Western Conference semifinal series.On social media: How officiating bias affected the Oilers, who didn’t get the calls they deserved from the…

In Britain’s bucolic Cotswolds region, the arrival of summer is typically marked by a migration. Specifically, the return of a rarefied group to grand country houses in counties like Oxfordshire or Gloucestershire, where preparations begin for a season of hosting guests at picnics, luncheons and events like the Chelsea Flower Show, the Royal Ascot horse races and “the tennis” — shorthand for a center court box at Wimbledon.Owners of those country estates — let’s call them the one percent of the one percent — of course do not handle such preparations themselves. These are relegated to butlers, whose job, like…

President Biden will announce on Tuesday that he is raising tariffs on an array of Chinese imports, including electric vehicles, solar cells, semiconductors and advanced batteries, in what he calls an effort to protect strategic American industries from a new wave of competitors that are unfairly subsidized by Beijing.The president will also officially endorse maintaining tariffs on more than $300 billion worth of Chinese goods that were put in place by President Donald J. Trump. Mr. Biden criticized those tariffs as taxes on American consumers during his 2020 run for the White House.Mr. Biden’s moves are the latest trade-war escalation…