Latest news with #Haslett
Yahoo
20 hours ago
- Yahoo
Four arrests after protest disorder in Scarva
Four men have been arrested after minor disorder associated with a protest held in Main Street in Scarva, in County Down. It is understood to have involved an unnotified counter-protest opposing a pro-Palestine march going from Lurgan to Newry on Saturday. Three men were also cautioned in relation to public order offences at the towpath between Portadown and Newry, also understood to be an unnotified counter-protest. By law those organising a protest against a public procession must notify the Parades Commission not less than 14 days before the date on which the parade is to be held. Supt Norman Haslett, who was responsible for the policing operation, said footage will now be reviewed and they will "consider any potential offences". In Newry, police said a flag, believed to be associated with a proscribed terrorist organisation was removed from a parade participant by police and this is subject to an ongoing police investigation. Supt Haslett said it was an "appropriate and proportionate policing operation to ensure that the safety of everyone involved was maintained and that the law was upheld".
Arabian Business
15-04-2025
- Business
- Arabian Business
Cruise giant Celestyal inks three-year tourism deal with Abu Dhabi
Global cruise operator Celestyal said it signed a three-year agreement with the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi (DCT Abu Dhabi) to promote the emirate as a key destination among the liner's guests. The multi-year partnership, agreed at Seatrade Global in Miami, will also aim to further establish the cruise line's affiliations to the region, Celestyal said in a media release. Celestyal boosts UAE ties Celestyal is set to return to the region with two ships in December this year, featuring three weekly calls to Abu Dhabi across the winter season until March 2026. Lee Haslett, chief commercial officer at Celestyal, said the company considers it a privilege to sign the three-year agreement with DCT Abu Dhabi. 'Abu Dhabi is a diverse and stunning destination, which is why we're excited to not only homeport there, but also include three weekly calls to the city throughout the winter season for the next three years,' he said. Haslett said the company looks forward to working closely with its agent partners to showcase everything it has to offer. 'The cruise industry in the Arabian Gulf is on track to welcome record passenger numbers in the coming years, and after a strong first season in the region, we're excited to bring the very best of this special part of the world to our guests for many years to come,' he said. The cruise operator's shore excursion programme includes nine Abu Dhabi excursions that transport guests to the heart of the emirate. These include half-day tours taking in the best of Abu Dhabi, food and culture explorations, theme park visits, VIP beach days, as well as classic desert safaris and attractions. Last year, Celestyal launched a seven-day 'Desert Days' itinerary, onboarding the 1,260 guests Celestyal Journey, sailing round trip from Doha and calling at Bahrain, Dubai, Khasab, Sir Bani Yas Island and Abu Dhabi. The successful extended inaugural season ran from November until March 2025, and will feature for a minimum of three seasons.
The Guardian
05-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Mothers and Sons by Adam Haslett review
The great American novel may be hard to define, but Adam Haslett is certainly having the great American career. Twice shortlisted for the Pulitzer and once for the National book award, he has followed up an acclaimed debut (the short story collection You Are Not a Stranger Here) with three novels at dignified intervals of six to eight years, including the highly garlanded Imagine Me Gone. On the side, a constellation of fellowships, and a journalistic career. As a way to pursue a life in writing, I would say to my own students: this is how it's done. It's strange, then, to read Mothers and Sons and reflect on just how much of his third novel wouldn't make it through a writers' workshop. Haslett is a writer of extraordinary strengths – he excels at an emotional undercurrent, the trancelike rhythms of routine and the cauterised numbness of trauma – whose architectural abilities, the skills required to craft the underlying tectonic structure of a story, seem strangely underdeveloped here. Peter Fischer is working as a legal aid immigration lawyer, filling every waking hour with the bureaucratic tedium of court filings, appeals and affidavits, his caseload a litany of traumatic stories of flight and insecurity. Just as Haslett proved his acuity with his first novel, Union Atlantic, writing about the arrogance of bankers as the financial crash brought them to the forefront of public consciousness, he has once again situated a novel on a faultline of our times, as the incoming American administration promises to pursue its deportation agenda with unprecedented vigour. Elsewhere, Peter's estranged mother, Ann, a secondary protagonist who is not afforded Peter's first-person perspective, is running a women's retreat. Both live entrenched lives of apparent moral worth, with little room for emotional volatility. In Peter's case this is because he won't let anyone in, preferring instead to occasionally text Cliff, his not-quite partner, and invite him over for sex. In Ann's case it's because any emotional turbulence is resolved within the retreat's listening circles. These are two very different kinds of torpid calm, but the effect is strangely similar. It turns out that the listening circles are just as much a deflection tactic as Peter's solitude – despite aiming to help women open up about their struggles, Ann has signally failed for several years to engage with her feelings for Jeanette, another woman working at the centre. Having established his protagonists in their isolation, Haslett proceeds to sustain that isolation for 200 pages, until mother and son eventually reunite and confront one another. The trigger for this reunion is that one of Peter's colleagues challenges him, while walking to lunch, over the fact that he never takes gay cases. Peter takes the very next case that comes up, a young Albanian man named Vasel's attempt to prove he would be in danger if sent home. This has profound consequences. This is where I start to wonder about Haslett's plotting. Is it enough, after years of avoiding gay deportation cases, that one casual inquiry should lead Peter to change tack so fundamentally? And does it satisfy the requirements of good storytelling that something so small should lead to Peter's breakdown, and the confrontation Peter has with Ann about the tragedy that set them chasing their twin silences? Every storyteller I've come across would ask for more from the triggering event. They'd also want their protagonists, in some way, to change: which may not be entirely true to life, but is surely something we expect from good fiction. At the end of Mothers and Sons, I don't think either Peter or Ann have shifted in their courses. All that's emerged is that these do-gooders are, in fact, people whose selfless deeds mask a colossal and appalling selfishness. Perhaps that's the violence that underpins the United States, but I'm not sure it makes for satisfying plotting. It also becomes slowly more difficult as one reads to accept how similarly written Ann and Peter are; this isn't a novel that finds conflict and stimulus in the contrast between its protagonists' voices. It's two people going through the same thing, in the same key, except one of them, Peter, is a more interesting character. Ann's relegation to a third-person narrative feels like a telling admission of defeat – she struggles to come across as more than an extension of Peter's crisis. It's frustrating to read a work where significant gifts are spent on a story that doesn't really go anywhere. Haslett's depiction of Peter's love for Jared, a boy in the year above him at high school, his recounting of the death of Peter's father, and his percussive portrayal of the minutiae of the courtroom, are magnetic. But the book comes to feel like circular storytelling, a tale freighted with false catharsis. Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion Mothers and Sons by Adam Haslett is published by Hamish Hamilton (£20). To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at Delivery charges may apply.
