Holly Hunter and Callan Mulvey join Batman vs Superman

Holly Hunter and Callan Mulvey are joining Zack Snyder's Batman vs Superman movie.
'Paradise' star Hunter impressed director Snyder who is working on the sequel to 2013 blockbuster 'Man of Steel' and although the role is yet to be named he claims it was written 'specifically' for her.
Snyder said: 'Holly has always been one of my favourite actresses. She has immense talent and is always captivating on screen. I had an opportunity to meet her a while back and knew instantly that I had to work with her, so as we began writing the script I made sure to create a role specifically for her.'
Mulvey will appear alongside Henry Cavill who will reprise his role as Superman and Ben Affleck as Batman, and Snyder was thrilled to announce they'll be teaming up once again after filming '300: Rise of an Empire' together.
He explained: 'I just had the good fortune to work with Callan on '300: Rise of an Empire' and was very impressed with his incredible talent. 
'He's a fantastic actor and I'm looking forward to having the chance to work with him again.' 
Warner Bros has also cast Tao Okamoto who starred in 'The Wolverine' in the forthcoming film.
Snyder gushed: 'And, quite simply, Tao is a striking presence whose beauty is aptly rivaled by her amazing abilities as an actress. I'm really excited to have her joining us on this adventure.'
The film is currently being written by Chris Terrio, from a screenplay by David S. Goyer. 
Charles Roven and Deborah Snyder are producing, with Benjamin Melniker, Michael E. Uslan, Wesley Coller, Goyer and Geoff Johns serving as executive producers.
The film is tipped for a May 6, 2016, release.

Noah to replicate the Bible story

Darren Aronofsky wanted to replicate the Bible's version of Noah's Ark for 'Noah', according to visual effects supervisor Ben Snow.
The 45-year-old director first became interested in the story when he penned a poem based on the tale for a writing contest and won an award to read it in front of the United Nations, and when it came to making the film he wanted it to be as similar to the original as possible.
Snow said: 'Darren wanted to avoid clichés. No elephants or things that you get in children's play sets. He sent us a reference book that had [drawings of] animals from Victorian times, when they'd heard about platypuses and dodos but hadn't seen them, so they're imagining what they'd look like.'
The 'Black Swan' director also wanted to ensure that the movie - which stars Russell Crowe, Emma Watson and Anthony Hopkins - was more humanistic than children's versions.
Snow told the New York Post newspaper: 'One of the things that Darren wanted to do was anchor it in reality, give it a grittiness. That's only achieved by going out there and filming on location.'
Darren is also said to have kept the design of the ark simple in order to maintain a sense of realism, and Ben claims it ended up looking like a 'large coffin'.
He added: 'One of the things we discussed early on is that the ark isn't a cruise ship. It's a life raft.'
'Noah' is set to be released in the United States later this week and in the United Kingdom next month.

China seeks strategic advantage in Afghanistan

As the US prepares to scale back its military presence in Afghanistan this year, China has begun to contemplate a geopolitical 'march westwards'. Beijing hopes to trigger an economic boom in its restive western Xinjiang province by re-vitalizing the ancient Silk Road, which runs through its Central and South Asian neighbors.

Beijing has largely taken a low-profile and cautious approach toward the conflict in neighboring Afghanistan since the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001. But there is growing concern among the Chinese leadership that NATO could leave behind a security vacuum in Afghanistan, which would potentially jeopardize China's economic investments in the broader region.

'If they remain in a civil war, we can't make any money there,' Jin Canrong, an expert on China's foreign policy at Rinmin University in Beijing, told DW. 'China's stance is very simple: China would like to see a capable central government and wants to see a stable Afghanistan, open to the world market.'

China's economic 'march westwards'

Since China's leadership change last year, Beijing has sought to accelerate its economic integration with its western neighbors. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang travelled to Islamabad in May 2013, where he announced plans to build a China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. Among other infrastructure projects, the close allies plan to upgrade the Karakoram Highway, which connects northern Pakistan and western China.

The following September, Chinese President Xi Jinping travelled to Kazakhstan, where he delivered a speech on regional development at Nazarbayev University in Astana. According to Xi, Beijing wants to work with the Central Asian nations to revitalize the ancient Silk Road trade route, connecting the Pacific Ocean to the Baltic Sea.

In particular, Beijing has sought to deepen its energy ties in the region. China and Kazakhstan have built an oil pipeline that stretches more than 2,200 kilometers from the Caspian Sea to Xinjiang province.

Since the overthrow of the Taliban, China has also increased its investment in Afghanistan. In 2007, Beijing won the contract for the largest investment project in the county, the Aynak copper mine. Located in eastern Afghanistan, the mine is worth an estimated $3 billion (2 billion euros). In 2011, Beijing also secured oil and gas exploration rights worth at least $700 million in the northeastern Sari Pul and Faryab provinces.

'For China, a lot of their concern with Central Asia and Afghanistan stems from its concerns with respect to Xinjiang, sort of a long standing concern to integrate that region more fully with China,' Michael Clarke, an expert on Chinese foreign policy at Griffith University in Australia, told DW.

'A key aspect of that process over the last few decades has been an attempt to use Xinjiang’s geopolitical position at the crossroads of Central Asia to facilitate the spread of Chinese influence into Central Asia, mainly for strategic reasons related to energy security issues,' Clarke said.

Combating the 'three evils'

During his trip to Kazakhstan, President Xi also called on China's Central Asian neighbors to help in the regional fight against what Beijing calls the 'three evils': terrorism, separatism and religious extremism.

Xinjiang's indigenous Uighur population, who speak a Turkic language and are predominantly Sunni Muslim, have long chaffed under Beijing's rule. China's border with Afghanistan is less than 100 kilometers long and largely inaccessible due to rugged terrain. Nevertheless, Beijing has expressed concern that a resurgent Taliban could embolden Muslim separatists in Xinjiang.

The Chinese government has blamed a series of recent attacks, including the knife massacre at the Kunming train station in February, on Muslim separatists from Xinjiang. Twenty-nine people died in the train station massacre, which state media has called 'China's 9/11.' The leader of the separatists, Abdullah Mansour, reportedly has taken refuge in North Waziristan along the Afghan-Pakistan border.

'There is a genuine and serious concern in Beijing as well as in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, that perhaps some of the incidents of violent extremism and terrorism inside China...may have their roots… in China's neighborhood - countries like Afghanistan,' Mushahid Hussain Syed, a Pakistani senator and director of the China-Pakistan Institute, told DW.

New Great Game?

According to a recent report by The Guardian newspaper, US officials believe that Beijing and Washington are basically on the same page when it comes to combating Islamist militancy in Afghanistan, opening the possibility of greater cooperation between the world's two most powerful nations.

China has already set up a fledgling security partnership with Kabul, training at least 300 Afghan police officers since 2012. In February, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi travelled to Kabul, where he highlighted the central importance of Afghanistan to Beijing’s broader interests in the region.

Despite its interest in fighting militancy in Afghanistan, Beijing remains wary of a long-term American and NATO military presence in the region.

'China is aware that there are certain lobbies, there are certain constituencies, there's a certain school of thought in capitals like Washington, D.C. or Brussels which talk of a China threat, which talk of containment of China, which talk of encirclement of China,' Hussain said.

'China doesn't want that Afghanistan should become the center of a revived new great game that could in turn suck China into a debilitating tug of war strategically with the US or its proxies.'

Do some yoga’, Russia’s Deputy FM tells US as NATO-Moscow war of words escalates

NATO has not breached a deal with Russia by beefing up its forces in eastern Europe, the alliance’s chief has said. After talks with Estonia’s Prime Minister Taavi Rõivas, Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen accused Moscow of ‘‘violating every principle and international commitment it has made’‘. 'Russia pledged to respect territorial integrity, sovereignty and political independence of other states, and refrain from the threat or use of force and that’s exactly what Russia is not doing,’‘ Rasmussen said. Rasmussen also described Russian accusations about NATO’s actions as ‘‘propaganda and disinformation’‘. The NATO chief’s comments followed an earlier demand by the Kremlin to explain the alliance’s military build up in the Baltic. 'Of course our stand is that Russian-NATO relations are also regulated by certain rules according to which, there must be no additional constant military presence on Eastern European territory,' Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said. But NATO has vowed to continue collective defence of its eastern partners following Russia’s recent annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. Elsewhere, in a sign the diplomatic crisis between Moscow and the West is the worst since the Cold War ended two decades ago, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told the Interfax news agency ‘‘US policymakers need to calm down, maybe do some yoga and accept that Crimea is now part of Russia’‘. The war of words comes as US and Ukrainian troops take part in long planned military drills in Bulgaria.

Kerry takes Middle East time-out for NATO summit

Less than 24 hours after arriving in Israel for unscheduled meetings aimed at keeping Middle East peace talks afloat, John Kerry has left Jerusalem and is headed for a NATO summit in Brussels.

The NATO summit has been scheduled for some time, and Kerry was already in Paris at the weekend when a fresh crisis developed in the Middle East: Palestinian officials threatened to cease talks with Israel.

Israel had agreed to free 104 prisoners in four stages, but following its refusal to release the fourth and final group of detainees on March 29, Palestinian officials warned Israel 'would bear the consequences' of its decisions. The deal – agreed to in July 2013 – brought the two sides back to the negotiating table after a long hiatus.

Kerry first met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem. A planned meeting with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas did not take place but has been rescheduled for Wednesday following the conclusion of the NATO summit. Kerry did meet with chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat at his Jerusalem hotel on Monday night. Before departing Jerusalem on Tuesday, Kerry held further talks with Netanyahu.

The Palestinians have said that if Israel does not quickly change its decision about the release of the final set of prison it will be an end to peace talks.

Possible bargaining chip

A key to the negotiations, according to US officials, may be the release of American-Israeli Jonathan Pollard. He is currently serving a life sentences in the US after being convicted of spying for Israel.

The unnamed sources, cited in news agency reports, say Pollard would be released before the Jewish holiday of Passover under the proposed arrangement. Passover begins in two weeks.

State department officials refused to comment on any speculation that Pollard may be released.

If he were freed, however, many see it as the concession Netanyahu needs to gain backing for the release of the rest of the Palestinian prisoners.

Peter Jackson’s jet searches for missing Malaysian flight

Peter Jackson has lent his private jet to the search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.
The 'The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug' director's $80 million G650 is being used to search for the airliner, which vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, off the coast of Australia.
A spokesperson for the filmmaker told the New Zealand Herald newspaper: 'A lot of civilian and military aircraft are involved in the search and it's kind of disappointing that because one is owned by a celebrity it becomes a matter of news when there are [over] 200 people missing.''
He also denied that Peter, who is worth an estimated $400 million, decided to loan his jet for attention, saying: 'Peter would not seek publicity for something like this and would actively avoid it in fact.'
The 'Lord of the Rings' director purchased his jet in March 2013 for approximately $80 million and it registered to his production company Wingnut, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
His spokesperson also confirmed the jet is available for charter via the service Execujet and is currently on charter in Perth, Australia.
It was recently reported that Peter had sold two of his penthouses in New York City to Taylor Swift for $20 million.

US plan to destabilize Cuba ‘very foolish policy’

The US Agency for International Development (USAID) clandestinely developed ZunZuneo, which was similar to Twitter, in order to incite flash mobs at sensitive political moments in an effort to force democratic change in Havana. At its height, ZunZuneo had 40,000 users in Cuba, who were unaware of the US government's involvement. Realizing that the US role would eventually be discovered, those involved in the operation sought to find independent financing for ZunZuneo. Unable to secure a private sector sponsor, they shut the social media site down in 2012 when government financing dried up.

DW: US-Cuban relations have warmed since Barack Obama became US president and Fidel Castro handed over power to his brother Raul. The White House has eased the US embargo on Cuba and Havana has introduced some economic reforms. Will the revelation that Washington tried to use social media to destabilize Havana jeopardize the US-Cuban détente?

LeoGrande: The improvement in relations has been an on-and-off thing. Relations between the United States and Cuba during the Bush administration were just terrible, so they couldn't really have gotten much worse.

President Obama came into office saying he wanted a new beginning in his relationship with Cuba, but the changes he's made have been mostly people-to-people changes rather than engaging directly with the Cuban government very much. So, for example, he lifted all the restrictions on Cuban-American travel and Cuban-American remittances to their families on the island. He liberalized people-to-people travel so people in the Untied States can more easily go and visit Cuba. At the government-to-government level, however, there's only been relatively small advances on issues of mutual interests, like Coast Guard cooperation [and] oil spill mitigation and prevention.

The problem that Obama has faced is that he's got significant congressional resistance not just from Republicans like Senator Marco Rubio [from Florida], but also from some Democrats like Senator Robert Menendez from New Jersey. Obama doesn't want to fight a battle on Capitol Hill over Cuba when he has so many other battles to fight on Capitol Hill. And he doesn't want to fight one that's going to divide Democrats.

Things have been sort of stuck particularly around the issue of Alan Gross. He was a subcontractor for USAID who went to Cuba under the auspices of USAID's democracy promotion programs. He brought fairly sophisticated satellite telecommunications equipment and computers to Cuba to distribute within the Cuban-Jewish community to provide people with access to the Internet independent of the Cuban government's normal Internet servers. This was against the law in Cuba. So he was arrested in December 2009 and put on trial for subversion and convicted and sentenced to 15 years in prison. Since that time, the Obama administration has been reluctant to move ahead with any improvement in bilateral relations.

This kind of revelation does not help the case of Alan Gross. It shows that what he was doing was part of a broader effort by the United States government to use digital technology to destabilize the Cuban government.

USAID ran the operation that created ZunZuneo. Is it appropriate for a development agency to run an operation aimed at triggering political change in a sovereign nation? What impact will this have on USAID's work in other nations?

It is absolutely not appropriate for an aid agency to be engaged in covert operations to destabilize another government. I think the Cuba program may be the only program in the world where USAID is operating covertly as opposed to operating under the auspices of an agreement of the host government. It taints USAID; it makes other governments suspicious of what they're doing. It's a very, very foolish policy. You have people whose specialty is humanitarian assistance doing what amounts to intelligence operations.

Will the ZunZuneo operation harm the credibility of popular uprisings elsewhere, particularly in Latin American nations such as Venezuela, where President Nicolas Maduro has long accused the US of being behind popular protests there?

The president of Venezuela has already pointed to this incident as proof that the unrest in his country is being fomented by the United States. This operation in Cuba gives other governments the perfect excuse to blame internal problems on USAID and the United States government.

In March 2011, President Obama delivered a speech in Chile, in which he said that the US and Latin American nations are equal partners. Does Obama's promise of equality have any credibility among the governments of Latin America?

Obama first promised a new partnership with Latin America, in which the United States would act as an equal [and] not as first among equals, in his meeting with Latin American heads of state at the Summit of the Americas just after he was inaugurated in April of 2009. And it was a welcome message - he was received very warmly by Latin American heads of state. At the next summit in Cartagena, Colombia, Latin American heads of state were much more skeptical because nothing had really changed.

Now you have the revelations from Mr. Snowden about US eavesdropping on Latin American heads of state [such as Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto] and this issue of trying to destabilize the government in Cuba through USAID. I think the administration has done enormous damage to our relations with Latin America. The Latin Americans don't believe the United States is willing or able to get beyond the old mentality of this being our own backyard.

William LeoGrande serves as a professor at American University in Washington, D.C. and specializes in US foreign policy toward Latin America. He has been an adviser to both the US government and the private sector on Latin American issues. LeoGrande is the author of five books, including 'Our Own Backyard: The United States in Central America, 1977-1992.' Most recently, he was the co-editor of 'A Contemporary Cuba Reader: Reinventing the Revolution.'