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Straits Times
27 minutes ago
- Sport
- Straits Times
Zico says Carlo Ancelotti just the man to take Brazil back to the top
Brazilian football legend and current technical director for Japanese club Kashima Antlers Zico poses following an interview with AFP. PHOTO: AFP Zico says Carlo Ancelotti just the man to take Brazil back to the top KASHIMA – Carlo Ancelotti's track record of getting the most out of Brazilian players makes him the best man to take the national team back to the top, football legend Zico told AFP. Ancelotti has vowed to make five-time World Cup winners Brazil champions again in 2026 after becoming the first non-Brazilian to coach the side in six decades. He nurtured Brazilians such as Vinicius Junior at Real Madrid, helping to turn the 24-year-old from a figure of fun because of his inconsistent end product into one of the Spanish league's biggest stars. Zico is one of the best players ever to pull on Brazil's iconic yellow shirt and believes Ancelotti's understanding and experience make him the ideal man for the job. 'Ancelotti played with Brazilian players, he has been a champion coach with Brazilian players at several teams and he's always praised Brazilian players and put them in a position to help him,' he said in Japan, where the 72-year-old is an adviser to J. League club Kashima Antlers. 'He has a great understanding, he loves football and his approach to football is very much in line with Brazilian thinking. So I think he can be successful for this reason, he can help Brazilian players thrive with his knowledge, his ability and his expertise.' At 65, Ancelotti has five Champions League titles under his belt and has managed the cream of Europe's clubs including Real, Juventus, AC Milan, Chelsea, Paris Saint-Germain and Bayern Munich. But he is taking the reins of a national team for the first time and becomes Brazil's first foreign-born manager since 1965. Zico says Brazilian coaches are no longer in vogue around the world, and believes the Brazilian federation had little choice but to look overseas. 'Now is not a good time for Brazilian coaches,' he said. 'When it comes to the Brazil team, if you're going to bring someone in, bring the best. As I see it, Brazil brought the best. For me he's the best, so I don't see anything to complain about.' Brazil have yet to clinch their place at the 2026 World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico, and are currently fourth in the South American qualifying table. The top six will qualify automatically. Ancelotti faces some tricky fixtures in World Cup qualifying, with games at Ecuador and Bolivia still to come. But Zico believes Brazil can be one of the main contenders for the trophy if they avoid the unthinkable and book their place in the tournament. 'Why not? I don't see any team in the world today as favourites,' he insisted. AFP Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Straits Times
27 minutes ago
- Entertainment
- Straits Times
In a troubled world, grown-ups find joy in doll's houses
Miniatures at the London Dollhouse Showcase in London, on May 16. PHOTO: AFP LONDON – A log burns in the hearth in the artfully lit drawing room. The armchairs look plush and inviting. Glasses and a bottle of wine stand ready as a grandfather clock keeps time. It is all straight out of a glossy magazine and yet every carefully crafted item in the room can fit into the palm of one hand. 'I love Victorian houses and always wanted to live in one,' says doll's house enthusiast Michele Simmons, 57, admiring the cosy miniature scene by historical specialists Mulvany & Rogers. The corporate recruiter revived her childhood passion for doll's houses during the Covid-19 pandemic and has since 'flipped' about 10 – buying them, doing them up, then selling them. She and her daughter thought nothing of flying all night from Boston in the United States to hunt for tiny curtains and a child's crib at the leading Kensington doll's house festival in London earlier in May. 'I love it. You don't think about anything else when you are doing this,' she tells AFP. The annual festival has been gathering some of the world's finest miniature craftspeople since 1985, celebrating a hobby that has seen rising interest recently and a mushrooming of online activity. It showcases tiny versions of anything needed to furnish a house, from chandeliers to paintings to mahogany dining tables to kitchen items, all with steep price tags. The festival features tiny versions of anything needed to furnish a house, from chandeliers to paintings to dining tables. PHOTO: AFP Doll's houses may be associated with children, but this high-end miniature collecting is very much an adult hobby. 'This is craftspeople working on just exquisite things,' says ' tiny-obsessed ' Rachel Collings, who bought toys from renowned miniaturists Laurence & Angela St Leger. Every purchase, which cost at least £40 (S$70) , fits easily into a small plastic container. 'I've got half a cut lemon. Just imagine the size of that. A lemon squeezer and a pastry brush and a hand whisk that actually works,' says the 47-year-old editor. 'It's an inner-child thing.' Doll's houses originated from Europe in the 1500s, when they displayed the miniature possessions of the wealthy . The annual festival has been gathering some of the world's finest miniature craftspeople since 1985. PHOTO: AFP Retired midwife Susan Evans, 67, on her annual pilgrimage from Wales , does not have just one doll's house. 'I have a whole village,' she says. 'It's got 18 Victorian shops, a school, a manor house, a pub and now a church,' she said, adding that the church had cost over £4,000. Initially, the hobby was just a stress-buster to help her unwind, but she has now raised thousands of pounds hosting groups to visit the display in her home. 'It's my passion. It's escapism and it's about using your imagination, which I think is very good for your mental health,' she says. Kensington Dollshouse organiser Charlotte Stokoe says there is currently huge interest in doll's houses and miniatures, compared with before the pandemic. 'When the world itself is going a bit crazy with so much stress in everyone's lives, it's quite relaxing. You are in control,' she says, adding that many people had delighted in pulling out old doll's houses during the Covid-19 lockdowns. And at a time of rising costs, she said, people had 'discovered they can do interior design that maybe they can't do with their own homes – in small scale, it's so much more doable'. Doll's houses have seen rising interest in recent years, especially with a mushrooming of online activity. PHOTO: AFP Medical anthropologist Dalia Iskander of University College London has spent three years researching the subject for her forthcoming book Miniature Antidotes. 'For many people, it's a way of exploring their own experiences, memories and imagination, and incorporating that into these miniature worlds,' she says. A range of medical issues such as depression or anxiety could can be explored through miniatures in a 'beneficial' way. Ms Collings says the hobby has become such a source of happiness that her 12-year-old daughter also gets involved. She urges anyone to give it a try. 'When everything is difficult, there are these tiny things,' she says. 'Sometimes, I just go and sit and look at them, and it just makes me happy.' AFP Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Express Tribune
27 minutes ago
- Science
- Express Tribune
Climate action could save vanishing glaciers
More than three-quarters of the world's glaciers are set to vanish if climate change continues unchecked, a major new study warned on Thursday, fueling sea-level rise and jeopardizing water supplies for billions. Published in Science, the international analysis provides the clearest picture yet of long-term glacier loss, revealing that every fraction of a degree in global temperature rise significantly worsens the outlook. It may sound grim, but co-lead author Harry Zekollari, a glaciologist at Vrije Universiteit Brussel and ETH Zurich, told AFP the findings should be seen as a "message of hope." Under existing climate policies, global temperatures are projected to reach 2.7 degrees Celsius (4.9F) above pre-industrial levels by 2100 -- a pathway that would ultimately erase 76 percent of current glacier mass over the coming centuries. But if warming is held to the Paris Agreement's 1.5C target, 54 percent of glacial mass could be preserved, according to the study, which combined outputs from eight glacier models to simulate ice loss across a range of future climate scenarios. "What is really special about this study is we can really show how every tenth of a degree of additional warming matters," co-lead author Lilian Schuster of the University of Innsbruck told AFP. The paper's release comes as Swiss authorities monitor flood risks following the collapse of the massive Birch Glacier, which destroyed an evacuated village. While Swiss glaciers have been heavily impacted by climate change, it remains unclear how much the latest disaster was driven by warming versus natural geological forces. Glaciers are found on every continent except Australia — from Mount Kilimanjaro to the Austrian Alps and the Karakoram range in Pakistan. While most are clustered in the polar regions, their presence in mountain ranges across the world makes them vital to local ecosystems, agriculture and human communities. Vast bodies of snow, ice, rock, and sediment that gain mass in winter and lose it in summer, glaciers formed in the Earth's deep past when conditions were far colder than today. Their meltwater sustains rivers critical for farming, fisheries, and drinking water.
France 24
33 minutes ago
- General
- France 24
New York's Met museum sheds new light on African art collection
After a four-year renovation with a $70 million price tag, the reopening of the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing comes amid heated debate over the representation of cultural diversity in Western museums and the return of works to their countries of origin. The reopening should be "an opportunity to recognize that the achievements of artists in this part of the world (sub-Saharan Africa) are equal to those of other major world traditions," Alisa LaGamma, the Met's curator for African art, told AFP. In a spacious gallery bathed in light, visitors are greeted by a monumental Dogon sculpture -- "a heroic figure, likely a priest," LaGamma explained. Next to it sits a clay sculpture of a curled body from the ancient city of Djenne-Djenno, in present-day Mali, which is believed to be one of the oldest pieces in the collection, dating back to the 13th century. 'Complex history' The exhibit does not present the works of sub-Saharan Africa as a single unit, but in chapters to better distinguish between the various cultures. "We don't want people to oversimplify their understanding of an incredibly complex history," LaGamma said. "There are over 170 different cultures represented among the 500 works of African art on display," she pointed out. "That gives you a sense of how many different stories there are to tell in this presentation." The museum wing, which also displays arts of Oceania and the "ancient Americas" -- prior to European colonization -- opened in 1982 after former Republican vice president and philanthropist Nelson Rockefeller donated his monumental collection. It is named for his son. "This is a collection that was formed essentially following independence in a lot of what were new nations across sub-Saharan Africa," LaGamma said. "It doesn't have necessarily the heavy weight of a collection that was formed under colonialism," she said, hinting at the pressure faced by many museums to respond to questions about the origins of works on display. 'African Spirits' A third of the works shown here were newly acquired. The museum was thus able to benefit from a donation of thousands of photographs from the renowned Arthur Walther collection. Among the vast trove of pieces donated is a 2008 series of self-portraits entitled "African Spirits" by Fosso, a Cameroonian-Nigerian photographer. Among Africa's leading photographers, Fosso poses as major figures in African independence and civil rights struggles, from Congolese independence leader and first prime minister Patrice Lumumba, to Nelson Mandela and Malcolm X. Through around a dozen films directed by Ethiopian-American artist Sosena Solomon, visitors can also explore iconic cultural sites across the continent, like Tsodilo rock paintings in Botswana, the rock-hewn churches of Lalibela and Tigray in Ethiopia, and the tombs of Buganda kings at Kasubi in Uganda. "In an art museum like this, it is important that rock paintings should be reflected," said Phillip Segadika, chief curator for archeology and monuments at Botswana's national museum, in residence at the Met to participate in the project. "It tells us that what we are seeing today, whether it's in European art, medieval art, whatever -- it has a history, it also has an antiquity."
France 24
33 minutes ago
- Sport
- France 24
Zico says Ancelotti just the man to take Brazil back to the top
The Italian Ancelotti has vowed to make five-time World Cup winners Brazil champions again next year after becoming the first non-Brazilian to coach the side in six decades. He nurtured Brazilians such as Vinicius Junior at Real Madrid, helping to turn the 24-year-old from a figure of fun because of his inconsistent end product into one of the Spanish league's biggest stars. Zico is one of the best players ever to pull on Brazil's iconic yellow shirt and believes Ancelotti's understanding and experience make him the ideal man for the job. "Ancelotti played with Brazilian players, he has been a champion coach with Brazilian players at several teams and he's always praised Brazilian players and put them in a position to help him," Zico told AFP in Japan, where the 72-year-old is an adviser to J. League club Kashima Antlers. "He has a great understanding, he loves football and his approach to football is very much in line with Brazilian thinking. "So I think he can be successful for this reason, he can help Brazilian players thrive with his knowledge, his ability and his expertise." At 65, Ancelotti has five Champions League titles under his belt and has managed the cream of Europe's clubs including Juventus, Real Madrid, AC Milan, Chelsea, Paris Saint-Germain and Bayern Munich. He is taking the reins of a national team for the first time and becomes Brazil's first foreign-born manager since 1965. Zico says Brazilian coaches are no longer in vogue around the world, pointing to declining numbers of his compatriots in former hotspots like Africa, Saudi Arabia and Japan. Qualifying in balance Zico, who has coached in several countries including Uzbekistan, Iraq and India, believes the Brazilian federation had little choice but to look overseas. "Now is not a good time for Brazilian coaches, not just in Brazil but all over the world," he said. "Now, when it comes to the Brazil team, if you're going to bring someone in, bring the best. As I see it, Brazil brought the best. "For me he's the best, so I don't see anything to complain about." Brazil have yet to clinch their place at next year's World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico, and are currently fourth in the South American qualifying table. Ancelotti is their fourth coach since Tite stepped down following the quarter-final loss to Croatia at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. The Italian faces some tricky fixtures in World Cup qualifying, with games at Ecuador and Bolivia still to come. But Zico believes Brazil can be one of the main contenders for the trophy if they avoid the unthinkable and book their place in the tournament. "I think Brazil have a chance if Ancelotti manages to do a good job in the short time he has," he said.
