Movie Review: Cinderella Will Steal Your Heart

Magnificent! We all knew the story, yet directorKenneth Branagh still had the audience eager to see it unfold as witnessed by the applause at the end of this masterpiece. The regal sets, bizarre costumes and jaw dropping special effects make this fairy tale almost a reality. Lily James, the beauty fromDowntonAbby, is perfect asCinderella.Her dark brows juxtaposed against her pale complexion and blonde locks give her expressions heightened impact.

She is simply splendid while Cate Blanchett, as the evil Stepmother, terrifies and yet gets the biggest laughs when her delivery is spot on. Richard Madden as the Prince has all the right moments, but his pitter- pat -appeal is a tad short for a Prince of one's fantasies. Kenneth Branagh directs with perfection and gives longmoments between the Prince andCinderella. These moments allow them to fall in love in lingering romantic silence.And how nice that the four mice were sparred.

Iso feared the evil stepmother Cate Blanchett would do them in with her adorable, but evil cat, but the cruelty in this film is kept to a minimum. Perhaps there could have been more.Cinderelladoes not suffer as much as she did in my memory. Her suffering seems to be replaced by her need to forgive and to be kind.

Opposite from a selfless Ella are her stepsisters, Drisella and Anastasia who are played respectively by Sophie Mc Shera and Holiday Grainger with bubbly enthusiasm.But the highlight of the film is fairy god mother Helen Bonham Carter who steals everyone's thunder when she turns a pumpkin into a gold chariot with the mice as horses andlizards and ducks asCinderella'sentourage. Together they drive her golden pumpkin a la mode to the ball given by the King.

The purpose of the ball is to find a bride for the Prince whose heart is spent pining for a younglass he met in the woods while hunting. He never learned her name. But as we all know this lass was Ella, who later is dubbedCinderelladue to nights sleeping by the fire while its cinders leave smudges of charcoal on her face.

Branagh's direction begins slow and small and builds to a crescendo and climax guaranteed not to let your fantasies down. The stellar castis so well coiffed in period fairy garb that some are barely recognizable. Stellan Skarsgard, as the Grand Duke, is a nasty piece of work and good at this, while Derek Jacobi who plays the King spreads wisdom and concern with each utterance. After the Palace Ball the Prince combs the countryside looking for the beauteous spirit who stole his heart, but who left her glass slipper. When lo and behold, he has been among the Palace's caped and masked troops looking for the mysteriousCinderella.

As the King's guard searches for her, Captain, Nonso Anozie, plays good while the Grand Duke plays bad cop. These two workwell together and add gravitas at a moment when the ho hums could have set in.Writer Chris Weitz keeps the dialogue active and modern, but not cutsie or filled with clichés. My only criticism is that the Prince lacked a tad bit of sensuality which could have made him more charming. But leaving the theatre the applause warmed my heart and I left with memories of the goodness and kindness of aCinderellawho never grows old.

Kwankwaso Berates Fayose Over Unguarded Utterances, Says His 'Day Of Reckoning' Is Imminent

Kano State Governor, Rabiu Kwankwaso, has berated
his Ekiti State counterpart, Ayo Fayose, over what he
called the latter’s unguarded utterances.

The Governor who led the Hausa community in Lagos,
in a visit to the National leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, to plan for the forthcoming election, used the occasion to react to
what he calls the seeming disrespect for elders by Fayose.

Kwankwaso was reacting to Fayose’s various
vilifying statements about Buhari and that he
(Kwankwaso) and former vice president, Atiku
Abubakar, were secretly working against the All Pro­
gressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, Gen­
eral Muhammadu Buhari.

The Kano State governor, while fielding questions
from journalists during the visit, said Fayose should
be mindful of the fact that the day of reckoning would
soon come.

Read His Statement In Part:
“I have this belief that in this part of the country are
people who are positively cultured. This part of
Nigeria we have very respectful people, ranging from
Awolowo, Shonekam, Obasanjo, MKO Abiola, Asiwaju
and so on and so forth.

“But anytime I listen to this young man in Ekiti State,
I feel terribly embarrassed as a governor and I feel
bad for Yoruba people.

“This young man, I don’t know what went wrong, I
used to know him, although I was not very close to
him. Of course when I was a governor, he was not a
governor, he was governor after I left Government
House in 2003.

“These days if I look at him, I think many things are
wrong with his words and even his mouth. You tell him
that he should learn how to respect elders.

“Even those of us who are governors with him are his
seniors and in this business of politics, like all other
businesses, I think seniority should be respected".

The White House’s strange, illogical response to Netanyahu

To all those who imagined President Obama would not let Iran keep its illegal nuclear program and then get a green flag for breakout after 10 years , you were wrong . Yes, Obama actually is capitulating entirely after years of saying that negotiations would make clear Iran had to give up its nuclear ambitions . It was his argument that Iran wanted to be included in the family of nations , and later ( after he opposed sanctions ) his argument was that sanctions had forced Iran to the table . But now he concedes all that was wrong .

In his very odd response to Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu’ s speech , Obama did not dispute he is making these huge concessions and he did not argue they are wise. Instead , he argued Netanyahu said nothing new ( well, Obama knew he had bargained away an awful lot, but many Americans did not , which is why Obama had to put it out there in an interview on the eve of Netanyahu’ s speech ) . And Obama groused that Netanyahu did not provide an alternative.

Let’ s take the latter argument . There is a whole list of
problems with the president’ s complaint .

First, the speech did contain an alternative: Hold firm
and increase sanctions . Many have said Netanyahu is
insisting on regime change . But that is not correct. He’ s demanding that Iran change its behavior , just as Obama was supposed to be demanding that Iran give up its quest for nuclear weapons . Maybe the president should say exactly what he promised : If no deal was reached , he’ d be the first one back asking for more sanctions .

Second, since when does a president demand that an ally , whom he has ignored and who has found the fatal flaw in his negotiations ( the details of which Obama has tried to conceal) , come up with a solution to get him out of his mess ? Some chutzpah. If the deal is bad, Obama has said no deal is better. What was his alternative supposed to be if no deal was the better course of action?

Third , the original deal in Obama ’ s mind is “unattainable , ” as Susan Rice insisted, because Iran said no. But how does he know Iran won’ t stay at the table or change its mind . A regime that has cheated and still is cheating and has concealed its illegal program, you might suspect , would conceal its threshold for economic pain and come up with all sorts of threats to try to keep what it has already acquired .

Perhaps Obama is just a rotten negotiator — just as we saw in his dealings with the Castros.

Fourth, I thought the president had said Iran is
“isolated , ” and his policy was working. If Iran is truly
isolated , why does he fret so that the alliance won ’ t hold together?

His arguments made no sense for all these reasons and
more because they are not real arguments, but excuses — excuses to conceal that his negotiators were inept , excuses to avoid the perception that he failed to understand the nature of the regime, and excuses for not having gotten more leverage .

It is also fascinating that Obama does not dispute
Netanyahu’ s accusation that he is seeking an alliance
with Iran to defeat the Islamic State . That in a way is a
far more grievous and fundamental error than his
nuclear negotiations posture, for it involves selling out all our allies in the region and cozying up to a nation that wants to destroy Israel , tyrannize its own people and sponsor terrorism . How could we conceivably go along with all that ? Perhaps Obama imagines that if we give Iran the bomb and let it run amok , it will change its ways. But the regime’ s behavior has gotten worse . What victorious dictatorship voluntarily gave up territory and weapons?

The president throws a fuss and tosses insults, and his
loyal lapdogs in Congress pretend to be “ insulted, ” but
right about now in Jerusalem , Cairo , Amman and Riyadh our allies are shaking their heads in disbelief.

The president is as feckless and confused as they feared . They stand unprotected by the United States as they stare into the jaws of a regime bent on destroying them . Well, perhaps they , too , will come and speak to Congress . Or Congress can invite Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper or Czech President Milos Zeman. It would be interesting to see whether they share Netanyahu ’ s views or Obama’ s .

And the invited guests don’ t even need to say anything new or offer us an alternative. Just tell America what they think . They can ’ t all be “electioneering ” or out to create trouble for Democrats ,can they ? Maybe it is Obama who is isolated , not Iran.

Russia's Putin says he doesn't want rerun of gas rows with Ukraine

Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that he did not want a gas conflict with Ukraine similar to ones that took place in the past, and that Kiev only had enough pre-paid gas from Russia to last two days.

Moscow cut off gas supplies to Kiev from June until
December in a dispute over pricing and unpaid bills that
marked the third such stoppage in a decade, after price rows in 2006 and 2009.

Previous "gas wars" have led to supply disruptions to
Europe, which gets around a third of its gas from Russia, and 40 percent of this via Ukraine.

Gas supplies to Europe have been unaffected by the latest row, but Ukraine's chaotic finances have left it struggling to keep up with regular pre-payment for its gas from Russia's state-controlled producer Gazprom.

"(There is) pre-paid gas for exactly two days, no action has been taken yet," Putin told a governmental meeting on Wednesday.

"I would ask the prime minister and Gazprom to pay more attention to this, given that no one needs conflicts similar to those in previous years. We are ready to strictly fulfil (our) contractual obligations, but under pre-payment only."

The European Commission helped to negotiate a "winter gas deal" between Moscow and Kiev, under which Ukraine paid off some of its gas debts and imported over 1 billion cubic metres of gas. The deal expires at the end of March.

Russia and Ukraine have agreed to discuss a summer
package later this month, with Kiev winning an assurance at EU-mediated talks this week that it would not have to pay for energy delivered to rebel-held areas.

With economic output falling and a pro-Russian rebellion simmering in its eastern industrial heartland, Ukraine's gas consumption is likely to fall to some 40 billion cubic metres (bcm) this year from 42.5 bcm in 2014, the UNIAN news agency quoted the energy minister as saying.

More than 30 coal miners trapped underground after deadly explosion in Ukraine

DONETSK, Ukraine — An explosion ripped through a coal mine before dawn Wednesday in war-torn eastern Ukraine, killing at least one miner and trapping more than 30 others underground, rebel and government officials said. One injured miner reported seeing five bodies.

The explosion at the Zasyadko mine in Donetsk, an eastern city under separatist control, was not caused by shelling, rebel authorities said. Eastern Ukraine has been wracked by fighting between government forces and Russian-backed rebels for almost a year, a conflict that has killed more than 6,000 people.

The blast Wednesday occurred more than 1,000 metres
underground as 230 workers were in the mine, separatist authorities in Donetsk said in a statement, blaming a mixture of gas and air — a common cause of industrial mining accidents.

Rescue operations were continuing and at least 157 workers had been evacuated from the mine, Donetsk rebel officials said.

One lightly wounded miner being evacuated, who gave his name only as Sergei, told The Associated Press that he saw five bodies being pulled out, but provided no further details.

Another injured miner, 42-year-old Igor Murynin, said at a hospital in Donetsk that he was blown off his feet by the impact of the explosion.

“When I came to, there was dust everywhere. People were groaning,” said Murynin, who doctors said had burns over 20% of his body.

Murynin said the mine had installed new equipment and that nothing appeared to be out of order.

The rebels said 14 miners were sent to medical centres in Donetsk, and a doctor there, Emil Fistal, was quoted as saying that at least six were in grave condition.

There was no immediate way to reconcile the varying
numbers given of miners working, injured, possibly trapped or dead.

The speaker of Ukraine’s parliament, Volodymyr Groysman, said he can confirm only one death, pedaling back on an earlier claim that 32 miners had died. It was unclear what his source for the information was, since rebel authorities do not
answer to the government in Kyiv.

“For now, I can say only that 32 people are below ground. One person has died,” Ivan Prikhodko, administrative head of the Kyiv district in Donetsk, where the affected mine is located, told Donetsk News Agency. “Until rescuers get to them, speaking about how many people have died would be unethical, to say

A mine rescue services representative, Yuliana Bedilo, also said only one death had been confirmed.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said in Kyiv that rebels had prevented a team of 60 Ukrainian rescue workers from reaching the mine to provide assistance. But leading rebel representative Denis Pushilin denied that Ukrainian authorities had offered any help.

“If we truly need assistance, we will turn to Russia,” Pushilin was quoted as saying by the Donetsk News Agency.

Separatist officials trickled into the grounds of the mine throughout the morning, but all refused to respond to questions or provide details about how many workers were still trapped. That stance frustrated many miners’ families.

He was supposed to retire next year. Everyone is angry that they say on TV that 32 people died but nobody tells us anything,” she said.

Miners arriving for their morning shift, hours after the
accident, complained volubly about the long history of safety violations at the Zasyadko mine, which is considered particularly dangerous for its high methane content.

One, who gave only his first name, Kostya, said two of his brothers had been injured in earlier blasts at the same time

“We work like crazy for peanuts. We want this place to be safe. We want our children to be able to work here,” he told the AP.

The mine has a history of deadly accidents, including one in November 2007 that killed 101 workers, and two more in December 2007 that killed 52 miners and then five more workers.

Ninety-nine people were killed in Ukraine’s coal mines in
2014, according to mining safety oversight bodies.

Thirteen of those deaths were a direct result of the war in the east, where mines have frequently been struck in artillery duels between rebel and Ukrainian government forces.

The son of Ivory Coast legend Didier Drogba said he would prefer to play for England than the Ivory Coast.

Drogba, who is Ivory Coast’s all-time top goal-scorer, has lived in England since first signing for Chelsea in 2004, and his 16-year-old son Isaac, who is part of the Chelsea youth set-up and was born in Paris, says he would choose the Three Lions over the Elephants if he becomes an international footballer.

“When I asked him (Isaac) which country he would like to play for as an international, he told me neither Ivory Coast nor France but England,” Drogba senior told Sports Illustrated .

The 36-year-old said he does not know the reasoning behind his son’s decision, yet will leave the choice up to him should he reach that level.

“I cannot tell why he doesn't want to play for my country Ivory Coast if he had to choose a national team someday,” the striker said. “That would be his choice.”

Drogba retired from international duty last year, ending a glittering career with the African giants having scored 65 goals in 104 appearances for the newly-crowned African Cup of Nations champions.

4 s*xual Sins Every Christian Should Avoid

There are at least four primary s*xual sins the Word of God speaks of: adultery, fornication, uncleanness and
lewdness.

Here are the
definitions of these four s*xual sins:

1- Adultery: Unlawful s*xual intercourse involving at least one married person. Adultery is incompatible with the harmonious laws of family life in God’s kingdom, and is under God’s judgment since it violates God’s original purpose.

2- Fornication: p****graphy, illicit s*xual intercourse
including prostitution, whoredom, inc*st, licentiousness
(lack of moral restraint), and habitual immorality (would include s*xual fantasies that lead to self service).

3- Uncleanness: Often refers to homosexuality and
lesbianism

4- Lewdness: unashamed indecency, unbridled lust,
unrestrained depravity (a disposition or settled tendency to evil, the innate corruption of unregenerate man), the person with this characteristic has an insolent defiance of public opinion, sinning in broad daylight with arrogance and contempt. Again, this often refers to s*xual sin. Here’s where many people err in their understanding of their se*uality. Notice the following verses. “Foods for the stomach and the stomach for foods, but God will destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for s*xual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God both raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by His power” (1 Cor. 6:13-14).

Paul is correcting the dangerous misconception among
the Corinthians who believed, “as the stomach is
designed for food, the private parts are created for
s*xual experience.” This mind-set is not only common
among unregenerate human beings but also among
Christians who justify s*xual immorality. Paul shows how this analogy is false because your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost and belongs to Christ. Eating food is a secondary and temporal arrangement, but se*uality reaches into the eternal and metaphysical depths of one’s being. An essential identity exists between the present physical body and the future glorified body (v 14). s*xual intercourse is more than a biological experience; it involves a communion of life.

Since Jesus is one with the born-again believer’s spirit, it is unthinkable to involve Him with immorality; thus the strong admonition not to let the sin of fornication and all uncleanness “even be named among you” (Eph. 5:3;emphasis added). se*uality is a uniquely profound aspect of the personality involving one’s entire being. s*xual immorality has far-reaching effects, with great spiritual significance and social implications (v18).

Such immorality is not only a sin against the body but against the Holy Spirit, who dwells in the body. It is one of the ways we are to discern the Lord’s body, which when consistently neglected, as I stated earlier, often brings weakness, sickness, and even premature death. Regardless of how satisfying and fulfilling s*x is in its rightful place within the marriage, it is still a temporal arrangement and not a part of our eternal existence. And yet by it we procreate and give birth to eternal spirits. s*xual immorality messes with the power of procreation with someone to whom you are not married. The s*xual drive is not sinful, but it is hurtful if not kept in its proper place. Scripture
forbids s*xual immorality in order to protect you.

Politicians, businesses, schools and our public
institutions are not qualified to handle the subject of
s*xual immorality and deviate s*x problems we have in
our culture. They are a part of the problem, not the
solution. Sadly though, the church has fallen so short of addressing this problem from a strong scriptural
perspective. Some churches no longer even believe what.the Bible says about s*xual immorality is pertinent. One high-ranking church official said that the church is going to have to come to an understanding of homosexuality according to the changing culture. That is one of the biggest problems in the church today. Many of us are conforming to the standards of the culture around us.

Another well-known charismatic television preacher told his audience that homosexuality is not sin but
brokenness. “What do you think David and Jonathan
were doing? What do you think Ruth and Naomi were
doing?” implying that they were involved in homosexual
and lesbian relationships. I had to shake my head at that one. And yet this preacher is considered one of the
greatest preachers in America with a very large following. It turns out that one of his own children is a homosexual.

Although this is a very crushing trial for any godly
parent to have to face, one cannot be loyal to his family at the expense of betraying God’s holy Word.

When influential preachers say erroneous things like that, it opens the door for deception and compromise among masses of people who respect these preachers.

This will lead to a flood of evil, immorality, and all kinds of perversion among the hearers of such. It is sad to see the dilution of sound doctrine in much of the church
today. It is grievous to the Holy Spirit to see such
cowardice and compromise among preachers who have
either departed from the true faith or who are afraid to
teach sound doctrine in the area of s*xual morality. As a result, our children and young people are getting
educated by the reprobate minds of the world. Let the
preachers of righteousness speak up with strength and conviction, for the time is here when many are not
enduring sound doctrine, but with itching ears are
heaping up teachers unto themselves.