Princess Diana's revelations about sex, sorrow to be aired on British TV

Recordings of Princess Diana speaking candidly about her sex life with Prince Charles and her sorrow at the spectacular collapse of her marriage will be broadcast on British television on Sunday.

Diana, first wife of the heir to the British throne, died aged 36 in Paris on Aug. 31, 1997, after the limousine carrying her and lover Dodi al-Fayed crashed in a tunnel as it tried to escape paparazzi who were chasing them on motorbikes.

Diana was just 19 when she was betrothed to Charles in 1981, but the marriage broke down. Diana blamed Camilla Parker Bowles, Charles’s lover who later became his wife, for the collapse of the marriage.

 

In a documentary planned to coincide with the 20th anniversary of Diana’s death, broadcaster Channel 4 will show footage of her speaking about her marriage during privately recorded sessions with an adviser on public speaking.

The footage includes Diana speaking about her sex life with Charles.

“It was just so odd. I don’t know there was no requirement for it from his case,” Diana says. “Sort of once every three weeks.”

“And then I followed a pattern, he used to see his lady once every three weeks before we got married,” she said.

Diana also relates how she approached Queen Elizabeth to discuss the failing marriage.

“She said, ‘I don’t know what you should do, Charles is hopeless’. And that was it,” Diana said. She also said Charles’s father, Prince Philip, had given him permission to have an affair if the marriage did not work.

The footage of Diana was filmed at Kensington Palace in 1992 and 1993 by speech coach Peter Settelen. After a lengthy court battle, the tapes were handed to Settelen.

Segments of the tapes were aired in the United States by channel NBC. In 2007, British broadcaster the BBC also tried to use the tapes for a documentary, but the film was scrapped.

Marcus Rutherford, Settelen’s lawyer, said his client had tried to keep the tapes private but that this privacy was broken during the court battle.

“Peter was not her priest, doctor, therapist or lawyer,” Rutherford said in an emailed statement, defending his subsequent decision to release them.

“It is very clear that Diana herself wanted the world at large to know about the causes of the problems in her marriage,” he said.

Friends of Diana have criticised Channel 4 for what they said was a violation of privacy.

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Stevie Wonder to lead concert for global aid

Stevie Wonder and Green Day will headline a concert in New York to mobilise support for efforts to eradicate global poverty as president Donald Trump proposes sweeping foreign aid cuts.

“Happy” pop star Pharrell Williams, chart-topping electronic duo The Chainsmokers and alternative rockers The Killers will also play the Global Citizen Festival in Central Park on 23 September, organisers announced Tuesday.

Wonder said the festival came at a “crucial time,” adding in a statement: “When we commit ourselves to life issues, we are showing love of the Most High.”

The festival has drawn A-list stars annually since 2012 as the largely young audience presses world leaders for commitments to development as they gather in New York for the UN General Assembly.

The 2017 edition comes in a sharply different political climate even as needs mount amid crises ranging from intractable wars in Syria and Yemen to hunger on the Horn of Africa.

Global Citizen CEO Hugh Evans said the timing was critical-after Trump’s shock win and Britain’s vote to exit the European Union but also amid a rejection of right-wing populism in elections in France and The Netherlands.

“Now is a hugely important point for there to be a line drawn in the sand that says foreign aid matters, investing in education matters, investing in food and hunger matters,” Evans told AFP.

The festival, which has expanded over the past year to India and Germany, is free of charge with fans earning tickets by taking actions such as writing letters to their governments.

Hoping to expand its reach, the festival for the first time will be proceeded by a Global Citizen Week of discussions, films, art and music around New York.

Evans said the festival wanted to reach out to people, including political centrists, who believed in the possibility of making change in the world.

“In the same way that extreme poverty has been halved in the past 30 years while I’ve been alive, actually in the next 30 years we can end it all together,” he said.

Progress ‘impossible’ with Trump cuts -

The United Nations has set the Millennium Development Goals whose targets include eradicating malnutrition, ensuring universal access to drinking water and providing equal educational opportunities to girls by 2030.

But Evans said it would be “virtually impossible” to achieve the goals if the United States implements Trump’s plans. He wants to slash foreign aid by one-third while ramping up military spending as part of his “America First” platform.

US lawmakers, including some from Trump’s Republican Party, support assistance in areas such as HIV/AIDS. But Evans said there was still a risk of major reductions in US aid, even if not by the same margins proposed by Trump.

The United States is the world’s largest economy and donor in absolute terms, although many European nations give more in public funds on a per capita basis.

Alongside pressing for sustained US aid, the latest festival will seek support for the Global Partnership for Education, which promotes schooling in poor countries-an area where progress has lagged behind some health areas.

Other acts to play the Global Citizen Festival include folk rockers The Lumineers, soul singer Andra Day, rising Canadian pop songwriter Alessia Cara and rapper Big Sean.

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Suicide searches rise after '13 Reasons Why'

Suicide-related searches on Google have risen significantly since the release of Netflix show “13 Reasons Why”, says a study.

Published in JAMA Internal Medicine, the paper studied Google trends data from the show’s release date on March 31 through April 18.

Researchers said they used the specific dates so that search results wouldn’t be contaminated with queries relating to suicide of former National Football League star Aaron Hernandez. They also removed from their search queries on any terms that included “Suicide Squad”, according to Canadian news platform globalnews.ca.

The researches have found that the phrase “how to commit suicide” went up 26 per cent and “commit suicide” rose by 18 per cent. In addition, “how to kill yourself” increased by nine per cent, reports people.com.

However, there was also a jump search of terms which indicated an increase in suicide awareness.

Terms like “suicide hotline number” went up by 21 per cent, while “teen suicide” rose by 34 per cent.

“The data shows that ‘13 Reasons Why’ isn’t fit for public health. Even though it’s causing somewhat of an increase in suicide awareness and people seeking information on how to prevent suicide, we saw an increase in searches on how to commit suicide, literally, how to have a painless suicide,” John Ayers, the study’s lead author said.

“Our study allowed us to see what people are thinking and when they’re thinking it. The act of searching itself is moving that person one step closer to a suicide act. Searches often foreshadow offline behaviour,” Ayers added.

In response to the study, Netflix said: “We always believed this show would increase discussion around this tough subject matter. This is an interesting quasi experimental study that confirms this. We are looking forward to more research and taking everything we learn to heart as we prepare for season 2.”

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Priyanka producing show on Madhuri

Indian actress Priyanka Chopra says she cannot wait to begin work as executive producer of a comedy series about Bollywood’s dancing diva Madhuri Dixit’s life for US network ABC.

The 34-year-old actress, who has made her presence felt in Hollywood, took to Instagram to share her excitement about the project.

“One of the favourite parts of my job is to be able to tell stories across genres, languages and to a varied audience. Today I’m happy to share with you another step I’ve taken on that creative journey, in my role as a producer. This particular story is one of a few Hollywood projects that I am currently developing,” Priyanka wrote.

New York-based writer Sri Rao has penned the comedy series about Madhuri, who settled down in the suburbs of the US with her bi-cultural family.

The “Dil Toh Pagal Hai” actress shifted her base to the US after her marriage to Sriram Nene. Madhuri along with her husband and two sons returned to India in 2011.

“The incredible Madhuri Dixit’s real life has been the inspiration behind Sri Rao’s amazing story, and I can’t wait to work with the both of them to see how this will pan out,” Priyanka said.

“Again, it’s unchartered territory for me, producing a show for American television, but I’m blessed to have a great set of partners in Mark Gordon Company’s Mark Gordon and Nick Pepper, along with ABC Studios to develop and produce this very fun idea,” Priyanka added.

The former beauty queen says after having an “incredible experience” with Gordon and Pepper in the American thriller “Quantico”, this seemed like a “perfect extension of our partnership”.

“I’ve only just begun and there is little I can share at this point about any of the projects, but I’m looking forward to rolling up my sleeves and getting to work. Stay tuned,” she wrote.

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Clooney couple to help 3,000 Syrian children

George and Amal Clooney plan to help nearly 3,000 Syrian refugee children go to school this year in Lebanon, where the United Nations says around 200,000 Syrian refugee children are out of education.

More than one million Syrians -- including over 500,000 children -- are registered as refugees in Lebanon after fleeing the devastating war that has lasted more than six years in neighboring Syria.

UNICEF said Monday that close to 200,000 Syrian refugee children in Lebanon are out of school. Human Rights Watch estimates the number at more than 250,000.

The nearly 3,000 Syrian children's education will be funded through a $2.25 million partnership announced by The Clooney Foundation for Justice with Google, in addition to a $1 million technology grant from HP.

The partnership with UNICEF will help seven public schools educate the students, who are not currently in school, and will support a pilot of technology tools in these schools for refugee and Lebanese children, the Clooneys said.

"Thousands of young Syrian refugees are at risk -- the risk of never being a productive part of society. Formal education can help change that," the couple said in a statement.

"We don't want to lose an entire generation because they had the bad luck of being born in the wrong place at the wrong time," they added.

More than 330,000 people have been killed in Syria since war broke out in March 2011 with anti-government protests that have evolved into a complex proxy war.

The Clooneys welcomed their first children -- a twin boy and girl -- in Britain last month. Amal Clooney, a prominent British-Lebanese human rights lawyer, married her Hollywood movie star husband in 2014.

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