The Times - UK (2022-02-16)

the times | Wednesday February 16 2022 29

All-female hosts take

Oscars into a new era

Page 32

For more than 50 years, European

countries have been able to settle their

differences by awarding their enemies

“nul points”. Now American states

could have the chance to do the same.

US citizens will soon have a new out-

let through which to air their grievan-

ces with each other as the Eurovision-

inspired American Song Contest heads

to the nation’s television screens.

Presented by the rapper Snoop Dogg

and the pop star Kelly Clarkson, the

show will feature artists from all 50

states as well as Washington DC and

five overseas territories. The American

Song Contest will last eight weeks and

will premiere on the NBC network in

March, with a grand final set for May.

Fans intimate with the geopolitical

America seeks harmony with answer to Eurovision

posturing at Eurovision may hope for

similar fireworks in the US version.

Viewers will be keenly watching the

votes from states which have

enjoyed friendly rivalries

— for example Califor-

nia and Texas, two giants

of the union, which have

markedly different cul-

tures and customs.

Country music

could go head to

head with hip hop,

according to the

preference of each

state, while the

Trump-supporting red

states of the midwest could band

together against the coastal blue

states. However Ben Silverman, ex-

ecutive producer of the Amer-

ican Song Contest, is

hopeful that the series

will help to heal Amer-

ican divides. He told

the NME: “When

America is more fac-

tionalised than ever

and we are dealing

with so many issues that di-

vide us, the one [thing] that

truly unites us is our culture...

It can unite [us] by celebrating

its diversity, its distinctions

and in pulling everyone [to-

gether] around its love of

music and its love of song.”

NBC is yet to reveal the ex-

act format of the show. Eurovision is de-

cided partly by music industry profes-

sionals and partly by a public vote. The

European contest has been held annu-

ally since 1956. The 2020 edition was

cancelled during the pandemic, but its

most recent event last year drew 183

million viewers worldwide.

Clarkson, who found fame on the TV

show American Idol, said: “I have been a

fan and love the concept of Eurovision

and am thrilled to bring the musical

phenomenon to America. I’m so excit-

ed to work with Snoop and can’t wait to

see every state and territory represent-

ed.” Snoop Dogg, who won widespread

acclaim for his performance during the

Super Bowl half-time show on Sunday,

said: “I am honoured to host American

Song Contest alongside my lil sis Kelly

Clarkson, aka Miss Texas.”

Keiran Southern Los Angeles

Italy is Pandora’s

box of abuse, says

Vatican official

Italy is a Pandora’s box of hidden sex

abuse by priests, a senior Vatican offi-

cial has claimed as activists press for an

inquiry into Italian clergy they suspect

of assaulting up to a million victims.

Father Hans Zollner, who is the

Pope’s main expert on abuse, said inves-

tigations in France and Germany had

to be followed by similar action in Italy.

“There needs to be an investigation but

no one wants to open this Pandora’s box

— in Italy there is an 11th command-

ment stating ‘Don’t look bad’,” he told

The Times.

Nine anti-abuse groups began a cam-

paign for an investigation yesterday

called Beyond the Great Silence, which

is being led by the victims’ association

The Abuse Network. “The situation is

critical. If Italy doesn’t do this now, it

may never happen,” said the associa-

tion’s head, Francesco Zanardi, who

was abused by a priest as a teenager.

The inquiry in Germany discovered

497 cases of abuse since the Second

World War. It singled out Pope Bene-

dict for turning a blind eye to abusive

priests when he was Archbishop of

Munich and Freising from 1977 to 1982.

Last year a French inquiry reported

that more than 200,000 children had

been abused by priests in the past seven

decades. “France has 20,000 priests,

Italy has 52,000, and I believe the num-

ber of victims could be as high as a

million here,” Zanardi said.

The Abuse Network has counted 360

known cases in Italy in the past 15 years,

including a 14-year-old girl who

became pregnant after being raped by a

priest and gave birth to a son, Eric

Zattoni, now 40, who says that he has

been refused a meeting with the Pope.

Zattoni said that his mother’s family

had been evicted from their home, a

church property, when she reported

that she had been raped. The priest

confessed years later when he was

forced by a court to take a paternity test.

“Nothing was done. What do we have to

do to make sure that these priests, these

criminals, are convicted, are removed?”

Zattoni said.

Zanardi said that an agreement

between the church and the Italian

state freed priests from the legal obliga-

tion of reporting abuse to the police.

Father Zollner, who runs a child pro-

tection centre in Rome, said it was

“highly unlikely there wouldn’t be

abuse cases here, but Italian society is

not ready to tackle this”. “There is a

German and Anglo-Saxon way of deal-

ing with problems, while here you don’t

confront people. That has advantages

but in this case it is detrimental,” he said.

Paola Lazzarini, head of Women for

the Church, another group pushing for

the inquiry, demanded the Italian

church open its archives on abuse and

rejected a recent offer by Italian

bishops to hold an in-house

investigation rather than the independ-

ent inquiries carried out in France and

Germany.

On Monday the Pope streamlined

the Vatican department that handles

abuse complaints in an effort to speed

up the Church’s response to allegations.

He has described the abuse scandals

around the world involving priests as a

“plague”, and has called on Catholic

bishops to “listen to the cry of the little

ones who plead for justice”. If an inde-

pendent inquiry was started in Italy it

would probably need the Pope’s back-

ing before dioceses opened their

records to scrutiny.

Cristina Balestrini, who set up a

support group after her son was abused

by a priest, said: “Victims have had no

help from the church. When we told a

priest about what had happened, he

told us not to spit in the plate where you

eat. We replied we had been trying to

clean the vomit from it for ten years.”

Italy

Tom Kington Rome

answer to the Orient

Express and which is

considered the jewel of

South Africa’s tourism

industry, has been

scuppered just as

bookings started to pick

up for the £2,200

overnight journey

between Pretoria and

Cape Town. A derailment

last month was the train’s

second in a matter of

weeks, though it was

empty of passengers and

there were no reports of

injuries to staff. Suspected

arsonists then set fire to a

coach that had been

taken in for repairs at an

engineering facility run

by Transnet, the state

freight operator. One man

has been arrested as

investigations continue.

Transnet cited “safety

considerations” as it

announced suspension of

the service until further

notice. Its optimism about

the train’s return to the

track is not widely shared.

The operator has been

labelled a “primary site”

of state-sponsored looting

by an inquiry into South

Africa’s biggest post-

apartheid corruption

scandal. Only 30 per cent

of the rail system it runs is

in use at present, a recent

survey found.

The Blue Train’s origins

date back to the 1920s

when the Union Express

ran between

Johannesburg and Cape

Town, featuring butlers

serving the finest wines in

wood-panelled carriages.

Its exclusivity has not,

however, offered any

immunity from the

widespread corruption

and underinvestment that

have contaminated South

Africa’s state-owned

entities over the past

decade. Visitors, who are

given a formal dress code,

have increasingly

reported problems with

the service and delays.

Herbert Prinsloo, the

Blue Train’s former

manager, blew the whistle

on what he described as

the hazardous condition it

had fallen into because of

a lack of funds for repairs.

He told the Mail &

Guardian website that it

had been regularly

commandeered for

entertaining by ministers

and friends of the former

president Jacob Zuma.

A judicial inquiry into the

so-called “state capture”

scandal during the Zuma

years reported that

Transnet gave irregular

business worth more than

41 billion rand (about £2

billion) to entities linked

to the Guptas, three

Indian brothers with links

to Zuma. Prinsloo

claimed the Guptas

chartered the train at

least twice. Zuma and the

Guptas have denied any

wrongdoing.

ALAMY

I am not afraid, says

Navalny as he faces

ten more years in jail

Page 31

Kelly Clarkson and

Snoop Dogg will host

the American contest

Father Hans Zollner

is the Pope’s chief

expert on tackling

sexual abuse

spacewalk

data on spaceflight-associated neuro-

ocular syndrome: 70 per cent of astro-

nauts suffer swelling behind the eye.

Scientific partners include the Univer-

sity of Colorado Boulder, Embry-

Riddle Aeronautical University, Johns

Hopkins University and the US Air

Force Academy.

A second mission will build on the

work of the first, including testing laser-

based communications technology in

space. The third will be on Starship, a

fully reusable rocket ship being devel-

oped to carry crew and cargo to Earth

orbit, the moon and Mars.

Isaacman raised more than $240 mil-

lion for a cancer charity through activi-

ties related to his Inspiration4 mission

on Crew Dragon last year. He wants

Polaris to advance space exploration as

well as causes on Earth.

The once luxurious Blue

Train has derailed several

times and passengers have

complained of delays and

problems with the service