it's a nation's warrant. the public water system in lebanon was on the verge of collapse, and that 71 percent of the population, around 4000000 people could like access to water. but dilapidated infrastructure isn't the only problem. the sector depends on the state for the electricity that operates the pumps. money is needed to purchase fuel to compensate for the lack of electricity fuel to it on these and generators. also money is needed to stock up a stores forward with spare parts to address any brake guns. the 3rd is to pay for a salaries for workers that come to work every day. water authorities acknowledge that merely repairing the pipeline won't solve the problem. the state is nearly bankrupt and the government is failing to implement the reforms necessary to qualify for international financial 8 bit global on the whole lot. the big problem is when we don't have electricity and no money to buy diesel,

that means we can't on port few expect water services to improve any time soon in a country where the main pipeline to the capital was last service half a century ago. seneca there else is eda beirut. ah, i write her instead of going here. and so ha, with add lines on al jazeera for what japanese prime minister sions all day has been shot during a trans fade event in the city of nora or santos saca reports for the 41 year old man was arrested at the scene of zeros. won't mcbride report start from the g 20 meeting and bali that we're getting more reports from the city of narrow. this is a city in the center of japan close to the much larger city of osaka. and this is where a campaign rally was taking place as campaigns have been taking place throughout japan. this is the run up to the upper house elections. i sions,

obey who was now effectively retired from politics. he was out on the campaign trail campaigning for a candidate there, according to eyewitness reports, according to the authorities, he had just started to as speak when he was approached by an attacker, the attacker who has now been arrested, seized by the authorities, is described as a 41 year old man who is apparently local to nara is also said to be a former member of the armed forces. there are reports that 2 shots were fired and according to the authorities ave was shot through the neck and chest. he was seen to be in an unconscious condition when paramedics, i got to him, were attending to him, put him into a vehicle to get him away from the sea. there was a hand gun, a recovered from the sea, which was said apparently to be home made to a foot pause. most senior former officials set platter, and michelle patina have been acquitted of corruption. both were found not guilty by a court in switzerland. they've been accused of arranging for the global football body

of schieffer to pay them $2000000.00 in 2011, a form of feature. and you, a for president, denied and eat long doing or as johnson says that he intends to stay on as u. k prime minister, despite resigning as leader of the governing conservative party, he says he'll continue in a caretaker capacity until party members elect his successor. but calls are growing for his immediate departure. others may headlines for these continues. he announces here after the stream, coming up next and i hadn't, on celeste's working in asian africa that be days where i'd be choosing and editing my own stories in a refugee camp with no electricity. and right now we're confronting some of the greatest challenges that humanities ever faced. and i really believe that the only way we can do that is with compassion and generosity and compromise. because up the only way we can try to solve any of these problems is together. that's why are so

important. we make those connections. ah years ah, getting shoes that was japanese to pano. every nakamura singing the role of chosen in the royal opera house, his revival, but she needs madame a butterfly. i am from you. okay to down the stream. yellow face in 2022 or perhaps some serious catching up to do when it comes to orientalism. an antique asian racism somewhat more companies are rethinking how the stage problematic works in a culturally appropriate way. that is,

i show today you can join us in the comment section of each you. ah, daniel, 9, a phil, so good to have all 3 of you with us. we are talking about problem mac. take all proper duck shits and you're the people to bring it, daniel. hello, please say hello to our audience around the well, tell them who you all what you do? i, my name's daniel yolo, writer, actor filmmaker, musician, associate artist stretcher chinese austin. i was combine dos, company in london and found a member of continue member of beads. british e southeast asians in fish and on screen coaches and advocacy group all to have all that. hello 9. know welcome to the stream is introduce yourself to have you as around the world. hi, i'm 9 yoshida nelson. i'm a metro soprano. i've sung vicki and madame butterfly over 150 times and i am a co founder of the asian oper alliance. we advocate for asia in the upper industry

and i'm also an artistic advisor at boston. they're a copper so much expertise. i'm excited. hello, feel welcome. to the screen, please introduce yourself to our audience around the world. hi everybody. my name is phil chair and i'm a and author, a choreographer, and the writer, and co founder of final talk for yellow face and the president of the gold standard or nation. a lot of my work started out around the conversation started about 6 years ago with the artistic director of new york city ballet about how to represent asian characters on stage better, which has snowballed into a much larger global conversation. that pretty much every major american dollars now part of this conversation to improve how we represent asians on stages. so thank you so much for having. i think it had, he said, daniel, 9, i feel one question for one is a question for all i know you will come to it from different perspectives that start on my laptop. this is why the with doing the show, i caught a headline that surprise me, made me stop, have a look here on my laptop, royal opera status. madame butterfly with changes to respect japanese culture. that

to me and that was fascinating. let's start though, 9 out with madame a butterfly. how many times in performed are you still counting? yeah, definitely over a 150 times. right it's, it's my signature roll. all right, very good. you are a great person to tell us the story. what's the story? ab? absolutely. so it's a story of the love story and a tragedy. i won't. i won't tell you the ending, i'll let you see it and you can note yourself once you see the opera, but it is a story about a young girl who falls in love, a japanese girl who all's in love with a naval officer who comes to japan. and it's, it's their love story about how she and she waits for him after he goes back out to sea and waits and waits and, and hopes that one day he'll come back. let him butterfly is proper to my take now

because of the way certain characters are portrayed. phil, can you hang on a couple of the areas that makes it quite difficult to see this production in 2022 . sure. if so, i think a lot of them opera repertory, we have to remember this comes from europe and europe has not always had the most enlightened views of people outside of its boundaries. so exotic people oriental us on it's, it's in many cases. ready this fantasy asia, that european creators were using to tell stories outside of their own social norms . and so that was the way it worked back then. it was really innovative. it was a way to, to create new stories and explore new themes, tabulate themes and things like race that were not easy chicks. busy in a native setting, however, these works as they continue to be beloved by generation after generation. we also have to recognize that times change our societies are

a lot more mixed and we're not just programming for europeans anymore. we're programming for a multiracial audience. and so in order for these are farms like opera to survive but come from europe. there were sort of at this crossroads where. ready were like okay, so what do we do with this repertory? but it's beautiful as artistic merit, but also has sensitive issues or problematic outdated, caricatured versions of different races. so that's what we're grappling, especially as asian americans who are in the, our form who love it. so much i'm and her really coming to it from a place where we, we don't want to see this work canceled. this is part of our, our legacy in our history as well. but the question is, how do we do it better so that we're being more inclusive and not just seeing the whole world through a white man's land from 200 years ago wed, which doesn't necessarily ring true with who we are today and who our friends and neighbors are and family members, so that's what we're asking with. his question is, how do we keep these work alive,

which is a, you know, if you think about it, the opposite of counsel culture. right? and i think a very, it's important to also know that when puccini wrote this, he had never been to japan. he knew nothing about the japanese other culture. and the way he studied the japanese culture was by going to some kabuki shows in milan . and then he also talked to the japanese ambassador life in japan and asked about them some folk songs. and so that is how he researched i that whole world, the butterfly. yeah. a fancy piece of what tank i had you going to say something? no, no, i was going to say it definitely you know, what we're saying is absolutely true. and i think a lot of european drama is kind of bill on the, i mean, the 1st grade of theaters, beef in stage was tumbling, but christmas alo, which was set in central asia and you know, for audiences of those days,

it was incredibly exciting. i kind of think of it like james bond films and i was a kid. you'd see all these places you were never going to go to if you're working class get in britain, you would never, you know, i mean, middle class audiences in those days couldn't read it. you know, go to japan. i was like, go to the moon, frankly. and so we do have this kind of very dated or 9. it was entering sort of cursory, researched, you know, maybe research to the best of his, his, his abilities and resources at the time. but that, that was naturally, you know, it's a very, very superficial and kind of exhaust is always view of, of a different culture. what is that for flight done coming from a heritage that goes back to east asia. but seeing y'all culture, your heritage, as a stereotype, what does that feel like? what is that i well, i think a problem. the problem with it is especially, and i think this is, you know, probably true in america as well in britain where,

where, you know, if you're, if you're 2nd 3rd, 4th, 5th generation, a lot of time you grow your outside of our culture as well. so what you see is kind of really weird portrayal of, of something you, you, you don't really know yourself and you get this kind of awful thing where, where you feel like i don't, i mean, i know i know isn't as an actor. sometimes in britain, you sometimes feel that you're being asked to imitate an imitation that white people do of asian people, which is really strange. i only read that none of you got that. second. ok. i always say that i never really identified as asian until people started identify me as asian and putting the entities role. and all of a sudden i was like, oh ok. what does it mean to be japanese? and i had to start and figuring out what being japanese actually meant because it was so far away from, from how i grew up yet. so i think this is also something that many other racial

groups feel who are non white and who are. ready in a space where they're in the minority i think that a lot of these questions about race also. ready it's uniquely asian situation because european opera really loved orientalism as a shondra. and so you know, black singers, latino singers, other folks who are from non asian groups, were not necessarily represented on the european stages. and even the top 10 offers that are continually performed, but regularly there are many asian characters that continue to be performed overseas and tornado. and what we have to think about too is not just the impact on being projected. i think it just touched on that very well is that when we have these ideas in the broader culture about what certain people are supposed to be. so the patient women are hyper submissive, but hyper sexual or their either the geisha or the tornado. right. you know, there's sort of dragon lady that's sort of pigeonhole people into these. ready

ideas and so we, we tend to project these things on to asian people, whether that's, you know, kind of a weird fetishizing sexuality or just certain racial ideas or just code it. and you see this across the theater opera dancer. but, you know, it's all the james bond movies, it's all connected in a, as a part of this broader culture. and so what a lot of asian american folk ourselves are trying to tease those things apart, connect the dots, and say ok, but within this framework, how do we keep this beautiful work alive? and so what i'm looking at is, is the royal opera house production is still set in this very traditionally oriental us place, which i think is what people are sort of uncomfortable about. and i guess my solution that i was like a lot of this work i think was the focus on solutions that we look at. ready shakespeare, which is now, you know, 400 plus years old. i think the reason why his genius survived is because we had the freedom to adapt it and play with it. i mean, how many people can think of

a shakespearian play that is not set exactly the way shakespeare wrote it to be. and every time it's set somewhere different, it gives you a nuance or new flavor or gives us a different way of a mirror to our current moment. and that's what makes it powerful. and for some reason, we're very comfortable staging the magic flute in different settings or lab where we know these other operas that are beloved. but the oriental hist repertory. ready tornado, madame a butterfly. we seemed to which i stuck in the possession of us and what i think what i think one thing, what we should do is try to find ways to keep the music. but like shakespeare lay his over production just just tweet a little bit so it doesn't have to be at that just kimonos and geisha who are 15 year old girls. i mean, so now the quite a few year old girl. busy i hate name it is morning, another voice here. this is jane manami. she's a met, so soprano and she told us this a little bit earlier. haven't listened to jane. she's talking about the effort that

the world oper house went to, to be culturally appropriate in this current production of madame a butterfly. they spent a year consulting, lots of people. this is james reaction to i think this kind of cultural research is great and is definitely a step in the right direction. but unfortunately, the upper house are still using yellow face in the show. they're still using someone else's at, in a city as a costume. and that rings pretty tone deaf for me, considering that i look like what i look like and i can't take it off when i leave the theater. and the reality for people who look like me is that hate crimes against us have risen by over 300 percent since the start of the pandemic. when i look at a production like this, what it feels like to me is that i've walked into a halloween party where every one has gotten dressed up in a bad racist costume. and there is absolutely no excuses for doing

a production that looks like this in 2020 to 9 out. what is it like being on stage with somebody who is made up to look like they're form east asia better than not? well, it's really interesting because i think, i think traditions have changed a lot in even in the last few years, i think back to when i was 1st doing my 1st bad about applies and how the makeup artists used to actually make me try and look more asia, and now i think the trend is started to be using people's own. i more asian when he'll asian. well, i think i remember something they tried to like flatten out my 8th year somehow with highlighters. i, you know, i don't know. it's been many years, but there are ways to do it, you know, and make your eyes look, look more asian. and so i think traditions are changing. and i think one of the most interesting things, and also one of those frustrating things is the fact that there is no actual

definition of what is offensive as yellow. for me, what i find offensive maybe might be completely different from what the next person down the road by that for me it might just be a make up or maybe putting a geisha weight on. but for someone is making a list of that, that is like a down phase and, and we don't live to dance, they stand, make that face one more time size coming to us life. ok. that why would you making that face some of those photographs is a shocking, i mean, yeah, i mean 9 is right. that those, those gradations of what people consider yellow face. i mean, i, i think if you will pretend to be an asian, whether you in the make up or not, you'll, you'll, you'll kind of doing a form, a yellow face, i think. but, but there is obviously the more of a things which is, which is the makeup, which is the whigs. it's interesting what 9 it was talking about being a mixed race asian as well. i have the experience on a film some years ago. they wanted me to look more asian, and it was, it was

a beautiful mon when the, when the makeup artist came into the, into the room. and so when she was a black woman and she looked at one look at me and she said, i'm not doing not insulting, clear the asian, which is which is a nice it is it tera when she said that to her that i did i oh, i yeah, i, this is on youtube and so this is a good question, phil, if i, if i do, does that good? oh i, i did want to clarify the difference between yellow faces and oriental and because i think that's where folks can get kind of confused. yellow face as a specific, you know, like, like, is a when you're trying to play a race that you're not as often in a caricature sort of way. i orientalism which is this larger structure is setting stories that are set in places like china, india, the middle east, where all the characters have to be from that race. i or that's part of the allure . and so i think that a work like madame a butterfly, you know,

there's several different ways to talk about the specific casting. but i think let's just be clear, that yellow face is more of a caricature pretending to be a specific asian person. and then and then project so larger, you also oriental of them as a larger. yeah. like a story. yeah. okay. i, i, we understand that. all right, so a couple of thoughts coming from at youtube community watching right now. nathi says, i don't think it is important to respectfully portray people. what i want to see is an accurate portrayal of history. whether it is good or bad, instant response stand, fail, and then 9, i just have a quick one to mattie that a and i cripple 12 history. i mean, i mean i, i do think when people, to quote historical accuracy, we do get into a, into a kind of ra there where i mean, people sometimes go see shakespeare and they'll see people of color. and they'll say that that's not historically accurate. but if you were going to be his doctor,

who is shakespeare ever what have terrible teeth, the new releases the about hold on, let me. oh yeah. oh wait. i say i like to see that i would just say to just say that there's videos. i mean, that's the, that's the privilege we have now is that you can go back and you can watch maria carlos do butterfly. you can watch any star of the past, due butterfly, in any good production you want. so i think that is part of the history, but the difference here is we're in the performing arts, we're not in the visual arts or static arts, right? so, paintings, film, sculpture, photography, those are our forms that capture the zeitgeist of a moment. in the performing arts, we have to make art that reflects the now always, whether it's theater, opera, dance, whatever. and so part of the fund and the challenge and the messiness of it is having to change. so if you want just tradition, just like the historical time capsule approach video, i'm sorry, because otherwise it doesn't exist. had me been recreate last nights show exactly

the way it was last night. so, you know, i mean, we are going to politic. we have to remember also that this is not a historical story. this is just a love story. it can be set in any time. it doesn't have to be set in the early 19 hundreds, right? so, so there's no reason that we have to keep the story in the past. all right, so i was reading to tell you that would be himself revised as 5 times to fight versions. so maybe if he was around now, maybe he would, he would rock hill knows at this this, i'm going to put this one straight team. this is from the bow kitchen watching on you chief thanking the bell, can't you for doing as, why don't you just hire asian pressing as well. why spend a year researching about this? was not a lot of times that is what happened and a lot of times we are hired for these roles. the unfortunate thing is that these

become the only roles that we are ever hired for. so this becomes a sense of pigeon holing. you know everyone to see me as a japanese american best kind of so of course night is going to thing suzuki and butterfly. but if there's a whole bigger picture, like our stages in every offer, we do need to look like the society we live in. right, and the 2nd we start just hiring asian singers, the thing and butterfly, we get in a lot of trouble. also, if you look, we go back in history, the history between japan and china and, you know, and korea, is that any better if you're hiring a chinese soprano to thing? the lead role as, as a japanese artist, i don't know and know. and again, it just comes to like even even asian people can be creating caricatures of asians on stage. so i don't know if it's any better or different to hire asians are you stuck in? madame butterfly 9. if you're going to be truly honest,

i am play this for the rest of your singing life. oh, fully not. and that's one of the reasons i started the asian oper alliance, a friend of mine, and asked me, you know, 9 in a, in a traditional season, how many non asian roles do you thing? and i went back and i started counting. and of course, you know, a $150.00 plus the suki is and in 10 years i had sung the read non asian roles. and so i was like, if i'm to start advocating, you know, i wasn't even aware of the fact that this is what was happening. i wasn't aware of the book dear, neither you never know. never often on the book on the plus side, i never have to learn a book. i know it backwards. i know everybody like, yeah. so how can sacto, tim bo ne, spoke to us a little bit earlier. we're talking about what he thinks this issue, what are the problems here with orientalism in opera? this is what she told us. i appreciate the initiatives that some oper companies are

taking to bring in authenticity to madame a butterfly. but there's still a misunderstanding of what authentic japanese really means. i am a licensed chemo dresser and have years of experience in japanese tea ceremony and traditional das. yet i once was criticized for not being authentic enough, as suzuki. so i've been wondering what those critics expectations were. so i do hope that more companies will continue to. busy close this gap. another possible solution, of course, is to have more asian artists or artists of japanese descent in these roles in butterfly to help bring more than to city. so if we go back to the current production of madame butterfly at the royal opera house, we did invite to be part of the program, but they were not able to join us. there are 2 cas members of east asian heritage in an entire company of a production that is said in japan to i want to show you this. this is from oliver

mir's. he's the royal or pros, director of ro opera has his director of opera. this is what he told the guardian newspaper casting is more complicated, not less because opera as a more limited talent pool. and for example, that available to film or theater, but performing madame a butterfly with an old japanese or, or asian cast and chorus. even a majority cast and chorus is a holy, unrealistic aim, and would even be desirable. dan. yeah, i'm, i'm really struggling with, i can't understand the point he's making me. yes, i understand. i did learn about this before when i wrote an article when they did or tell her what role of her house with, with, with, with the wire to playing or telo. sh, a white singer. and i understand that there's a certain level of technical achievement. you have to have, you know, to, to be in, but out of i could, you can see that, but i mean that, that you showed at the beginning of the program of the,

of the japanese singer. i mean that, that, that was, i'm spine chilling. i know that now on the back of my back is incredible. i cannot, i know 9 has done a $150.00 times and probably is maybe a little bit sick of it. but it sounds like it was a roll of browser on my, on my go see, i can, it's mean i guess they're talking about minus performance. we're going to end on 9 is singing the flowering jew at the flower to let you know for me. i me. can you tell us in 2 sentences, what is happening on the clip that we're gonna end on? because we want to hear your beautiful place as well as seen talking on the screen . let's just set it up a little bit and where play out with it's a joyous occasion of 2 friends talking about being in love. it's another oriental show and also sometimes very problematic, but it's one of the most beloved i do, but in opera cannon. all right, and i do want to give

a shout out to this is from boston clear coppers butter by process film. i was then called b stunning film if you want to check out the whole video, fail and 9, and thank you so much, daniel. what a pleasure. we again end on the beautiful voice of 9. a thing in the flower you add from the production lack me and some watching everyone see next time i think you're going to recognize this music. have a listen enjoy. ah, intelligence and playful, alters are in high demand, is pants in japan,

but concerns are growing over the illegal smuggling and irresponsible breeding of these wild animals. $11.00 east investigates on alta 0. johnny has begun the faithful world copies on its way to the castle book. your travel package today. how i we have clear blue sky send lots of warm sunshine across much of western europe. the skies have opened up nicely here. high pressure coming in the azores high as keeping things calm, settle. i'm very, very sunny, a little more cloud the way which was eastern part of europe this. so where the system here, just freshening things up attached to will be some share with some of them on the shop side. where to whether they're up towards latvia, pushing down across at east side of poland all the way down towards south northern areas of greece. could see some rather shocked and foundry showers over the next hour. a little bit of whether to into our eastern areas are remaining pushing across you crank him at around $25.00 degrees celsius as that was $29.00 celsius in

london. on friday after day we're getting into the mid to high thirty's, across spain and portugal and similar conditions as we go on into sas day. more glorious sunshine. what is to show as they are into a jeremy pushing into central parts, the wet weather, a which was at east an area of here across the made its fine and dry lots of very warm sunshine. want to lots of sunshine across northern parts of africa. was secretarial bout we got the showers rolling informed ethiopian hottest into the gulf of guinea, much of west africa since and live he showers. those wet weather, always pushing up towards malley. cat ha, airway official airline of the journey. ah al jazeera, with awe .