A teaser trailer for the fifth Hunger Games film has been released, and though it doesn’t depict much, or anything, about the project or its story, it signals a return to the totalitarian dystopia with an impressive display of gold and ice.
Here's everything we know so far about the project.
What’s the teaser trailer about?
The two-minute CGI clip offers the first look at the film adaptation of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, which takes place before the events portrayed in the Hunger Games trilogy that stars Jennifer Lawrence.
The teaser shows the leafless, ice-crusted branches of a tree before revealing a frozen songbird and snake. As the frost melts to an ethereal synth and string-driven soundtrack, we see hints of gold behind the chipping ice. First appear the talons and then the feathers, as the snake in the background begins to slither.
“The world will discover who is a songbird and who is a snake,” the teaser reads before concluding with the film’s title and crest, which depicts a golden songbird and snake perched and twined on the same circular branch.
When will the film be released?
A mesmerising but uninformative clip, the teaser lives up to its name by only revealing the film’s release date — November 17, 2023. It is the same pre-Thanksgiving time window where The Hunger Games films Catching Fire, Mockingjay Part 1 and Mockingjay Part 2 were released.
The franchise has made upwards of $3 billion at the international box office.
What will it be about?
As the film is adapted from Suzanne Collins’s eponymous 2020 prequel to her Hunger Games trilogy, we have a pretty good idea of what the film is going to be about.
The book revolves around a young Coriolanus Snow, who we know as the nonchalantly ruthless despot and main antagonist of the original Hunger Games trilogy, who was portrayed by Donald Sutherland.
However, here, Snow is not yet like the man he is doomed to become. Once the son of one of the most elite families in the Capitol, Snow is an orphan living with his grandmother and cousin in an apartment they can barely afford.
In a turn of fate, he is assigned to mentor, Lucy Gray Baird, the tribute from the destitute District 12, home of the original Hunger Games protagonist Katniss Everdeen. The two combine their aptitude for theatrics, showmanship and political acumen to try and win the 10th annual Hunger Games, revealing who is the songbird and who is the snake in the process.
Who will be in it?
Francis Lawrence, who directed the Hunger Games sequels, will return to helm The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.
West Side Story actress Rachel Zegler will star as Lucy Gray Baird and Billy the Kid’s Tom Blyth will take on the role of the young Coriolanus Snow.
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Sheikh Zayed's poem
When it is unveiled at Abu Dhabi Art, the Standing Tall exhibition will appear as an interplay of poetry and art. The 100 scarves are 100 fragments surrounding five, figurative, female sculptures, and both sculptures and scarves are hand-embroidered by a group of refugee women artisans, who used the Palestinian cross-stitch embroidery art of tatreez. Fragments of Sheikh Zayed’s poem Your Love is Ruling My Heart, written in Arabic as a love poem to his nation, are embroidered onto both the sculptures and the scarves. Here is the English translation.
Your love is ruling over my heart
Your love is ruling over my heart, even a mountain can’t bear all of it
Woe for my heart of such a love, if it befell it and made it its home
You came on me like a gleaming sun, you are the cure for my soul of its sickness
Be lenient on me, oh tender one, and have mercy on who because of you is in ruins
You are like the Ajeed Al-reem [leader of the gazelle herd] for my country, the source of all of its knowledge
You waddle even when you stand still, with feet white like the blooming of the dates of the palm
Oh, who wishes to deprive me of sleep, the night has ended and I still have not seen you
You are the cure for my sickness and my support, you dried my throat up let me go and damp it
Help me, oh children of mine, for in his love my life will pass me by.
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'Avengers: Infinity War'
Dir: The Russo Brothers
Starring: Chris Evans, Chris Pratt, Tom Holland, Robert Downey Junior, Scarlett Johansson, Elizabeth Olsen
Four stars
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Iran's dirty tricks to dodge sanctions
There’s increased scrutiny on the tricks being used to keep commodities flowing to and from blacklisted countries. Here’s a description of how some work.
1 Going Dark
A common method to transport Iranian oil with stealth is to turn off the Automatic Identification System, an electronic device that pinpoints a ship’s location. Known as going dark, a vessel flicks the switch before berthing and typically reappears days later, masking the location of its load or discharge port.
2. Ship-to-Ship Transfers
A first vessel will take its clandestine cargo away from the country in question before transferring it to a waiting ship, all of this happening out of sight. The vessels will then sail in different directions. For about a third of Iranian exports, more than one tanker typically handles a load before it’s delivered to its final destination, analysts say.
3. Fake Destinations
Signaling the wrong destination to load or unload is another technique. Ships that intend to take cargo from Iran may indicate their loading ports in sanction-free places like Iraq. Ships can keep changing their destinations and end up not berthing at any of them.
4. Rebranded Barrels
Iranian barrels can also be rebranded as oil from a nation free from sanctions such as Iraq. The countries share fields along their border and the crude has similar characteristics. Oil from these deposits can be trucked out to another port and documents forged to hide Iran as the origin.
* Bloomberg
Key recommendations
- Fewer criminals put behind bars and more to serve sentences in the community, with short sentences scrapped and many inmates released earlier.
- Greater use of curfews and exclusion zones to deliver tougher supervision than ever on criminals.
- Explore wider powers for judges to punish offenders by blocking them from attending football matches, banning them from driving or travelling abroad through an expansion of ‘ancillary orders’.
- More Intensive Supervision Courts to tackle the root causes of crime such as alcohol and drug abuse – forcing repeat offenders to take part in tough treatment programmes or face prison.
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Director: Elie Semaan
Starring: Abdullah Boushehri, Laila Abdallah, Lulwa Almulla
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Name: Xpanceo
Started: 2018
Founders: Roman Axelrod, Valentyn Volkov
Based: Dubai, UAE
Industry: Smart contact lenses, augmented/virtual reality
Funding: $40 million
Investor: Opportunity Venture (Asia)
Most sought after workplace benefits in the UAE
- Flexible work arrangements
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- Financial well-being incentives
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- Shortly after 9.40pm, three other attackers launched a three-hour raid on the Bataclan, in which 1,500 people had gathered to watch a rock concert. In total, 90 people were killed
- Salah Abdeslam, the only survivor of the terrorists, did not directly participate in the attacks, thought to be due to a technical glitch in his suicide vest
- He fled to Belgium and was involved in attacks on Brussels in March 2016. He is serving a life sentence in France
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Expo details
Expo 2020 Dubai will be the first World Expo to be held in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia
The world fair will run for six months from October 20, 2020 to April 10, 2021.
It is expected to attract 25 million visits
Some 70 per cent visitors are projected to come from outside the UAE, the largest proportion of international visitors in the 167-year history of World Expos.
More than 30,000 volunteers are required for Expo 2020
The site covers a total of 4.38 sqkm, including a 2 sqkm gated area
It is located adjacent to Al Maktoum International Airport in Dubai South
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Ultramafic rocks: Dark-coloured rocks rich in magnesium or iron with very low silica content
Ophiolite: A section of the earth’s crust, which is oceanic in nature that has since been uplifted and exposed on land
Olivine: A commonly occurring magnesium iron silicate mineral that derives its name for its olive-green yellow-green colour
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Tightening the screw on rogue recruiters
The UAE overhauled the procedure to recruit housemaids and domestic workers with a law in 2017 to protect low-income labour from being exploited.
Only recruitment companies authorised by the government are permitted as part of Tadbeer, a network of labour ministry-regulated centres.
A contract must be drawn up for domestic workers, the wages and job offer clearly stating the nature of work.
The contract stating the wages, work entailed and accommodation must be sent to the employee in their home country before they depart for the UAE.
The contract will be signed by the employer and employee when the domestic worker arrives in the UAE.
Only recruitment agencies registered with the ministry can undertake recruitment and employment applications for domestic workers.
Penalties for illegal recruitment in the UAE include fines of up to Dh100,000 and imprisonment
But agents not authorised by the government sidestep the law by illegally getting women into the country on visit visas.
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