News

Hollywood Iconic Actor Dies @88

Published

8 months ago

March 21, 2024

Report has shown that a legendary actor known to have played visible Character in different movies, who appeared in more than 220 roles across seven decades, has died in Vermont on Tuesday.

M Emmet Walsh, the character actor who appeared in more than 220 film and television roles including Blade Runner, Knives Out and the Coen brothers’ films Blood Simple and Raising Arizona, has died aged 88.

However, Walsh’s manager, Sandy Joseph, confirmed to the industry publication Variety that he had died Tuesday in Vermont.

Born in New York in 1935 and raised in Vermont, Walsh landed his first uncredited film role – an extra in Midnight Cowboy – and his first credited film role in Alice’s Restaurant, both in 1969.

He played a sportswriter in the Paul Newman sports comedy Slap Shot (1977), Dustin Hoffman’s parole officer in Straight Time (1978), the sniper hunting down Steve Martin in The Jerk (1979), and the LAPD boss who brings Harrison Ford out of retirement in Blade Runner (1982

Walsh told the Hollywood Reporter in 2017 that Blade Runner was the film he was asked about the most, saying that after he saw the finished product: “We didn’t know what to say or to think or do! We didn’t know what in the hell we had done! The only one who seemed to get it was Ridley.”

With his dry delivery and hangdog face, he was known for his ability to take on both menacing and comedic roles – and sometimes both at the same time, such as Loren Visser, the double-crossing private detective in the Coen brothers’ 1984 feature debut, Blood Simple.

The famed film critic Roger Ebert praised Walsh as a “poet of sleaze” for his performance and came up with the “Stanton-Walsh Rule”: “no movie featuring either Harry Dean Stanton or M Emmet Walsh in a supporting role can be altogether bad”.

“Every time, you try to figure something individual that works for the character. If you’re playing a villain, you don’t play villain,” Walsh told the Guardian about Blood Simple in 2017, adding: “Visser doesn’t think of himself as particularly bad or evil. He’s on the edge of what’s legal, but he’s having a lot of fun with all that.”

He also played small roles in Fletch (1985) and the horror flick Critters (1986), as well as Nicolas Cage’s chatty co-worker in Raising Arizona (1987), John Lithgow’s father in Harry and the Hendersons (1987), and Michael Keaton’s sponsor in Clean and Sober (1988). He also appeared in Romeo + Juliet (1996), My Best Friend’s Wedding (1997), The Iron Giant (1999), Calvary (2014) and Knives Out (2019).

“I have more fun playing 10 different people than I do playing the same person 10 different times,” he once told the Houston Chronicle. “One time it’s a garbage collector, and the next time it’s the president of Princeton.”

His final role was in the 2024 western Outlaw Posse alongside Whoopi Goldberg and Cedric the Entertainer.

Over seven decades of television, Walsh appeared in shows including Starsky and Hutch, Frasier, The Twilight Zone, The X-Files, Home Improvement and Adventure Time. One of his last roles was as Grandaddy Roy in The Righteous Gemstones.

“It’s a good life being a character actor,” he once told the Orange County Register. “I’ve been around stardom. I’ve been around Redford and Hoffman, and it’s scary. That drive for stardom is like the greyhounds chasing the mechanical rabbit. By the time he catches him, he’s too tired to run anymore, and you’ve got to shoot him.”

News

Nigerian government secures €300m development finance deal with France

Published

2 hours ago

November 30, 2024

Kayode Sanni-Arewa

The Nigerian government has announced that it has secured a €300 million worth of development financing partnership with the French government.

Nigeria’s Ministry of Finance disclosed in a statement on Friday through its official X account.

According to the statement, the Minister of Finance, Wale Edun, led the Nigerian government to the partnership with the French government.

The ministry noted that the partnership will strengthen key sectors of Nigeria’s economy and drive sustainable development, including healthcare, transportation, agricultural value chains, and renewable energy.

“The Letter of Intent [was] co-signed by Mr. Edun and France’s Minister of Economy, Finance, and Industry, Mr. Antoine Armand.”

In Edun’s remarks, he said: “This partnership goes beyond financial support. It is about building robust, sustainable systems that foster development and empower Nigerians. It reflects the confidence of international partners in the progress of Nigeria’s economic reforms.”

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his wife, Remi, are in France for an official state visit.

News

P’Harcourt refinery halts operations, loading bay empty

Published

2 hours ago

November 30, 2024

Kayode Sanni-Arewa

The fanfare that greeted the resumption of activities at the Port Harcourt Refining Company on Tuesday may have melted away leaving the hope and expectations of many Nigerians hanging.

A visit by Saturday PUNCH to the refinery on Friday revealed that there was no activity on site, as some workers met by our correspondent claimed that the refinery was undergoing calibration which might last till next week.

The Port Harcourt Refinery has faced numerous delays and missed deadlines to resume operations.

However, the Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited, Melee Kyari, inaugurated the new plant at the Area 5 terminal of the refinery on Tuesday. It was claimed that 200 petrol trucks were loading daily from the plant.

However, the announcement was met with skepticism as reports circulated that the trucks were loaded with old products in the storage tanks.

Upon visiting the Port Harcourt Refinery Area 5, our correspondent observed no signs of activity.

An official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, revealed that the loaded trucks contained “dead stock”.

He said, “Before the refinery was shut down between 2015/2016, we had dead stock left in the tank, including some Premium Motor Spirit (petrol) DPK (kerosene), and Automated Gas Oil (diesel).

“So, these products were in large quantities in stores in those tanks. During the rehabilitation of the Port Harcourt Refinery, Old Area 5, those products were evacuated from the tanks for storage.”

However, he noted that the large quantity of refined petrol was “off-spec,” requiring separation from water to obtain the main product in preferred colours.

“But for DPK, it is in large quantity but they have not pushed it from the tank where it was kept after refined ready for commercial purposes.

“So, the product that was loaded was dead stock, that is the old product that was in the system. So, after these dead stocks, they will have to clean the tank, remove all the debris before pumping the new project into that tank, and redye it,” the source said.

The worker highlighted that refineries worldwide should operate electronically, not manually.

“But what they are trying to do at the Port Harcourt Refinery is manual, which cannot match the new digital pumps. Most of the pumps used for the event were refurbished,” he added.

He explained that during Kyari’s visit on Tuesday, seven trucks were prepared for loading, but only five were filled with petrol.

The Chairman of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, Taken Ikpaki, while speaking to journalists during the inauguration of the facility on Tuesday, had expressed optimism.

He stated that more trucks were expected to come into the facility to load products in the coming days.

But rather than more trucks coming into the refinery, the number of trucks has dwindled.

Around 1.30pm when our correspondent visited, he observed that most workers and drivers appeared idle as no machinery was operational.

Nine trucks were seen parked, but the loading bay, numbered from one to 18, was empty and deserted, with some workers lying down.

When asked about the lack of loading activity, a worker in overalls said, “They are de-watering, removing the water under the PMS. Maybe there will be loading after that, but we don’t know what time today.”

Another worker at the loading bay mentioned that ongoing calibration was the reason for the delay.

“They are calibrating the meters,” he said tersely.

Findings by Saturday PUNCH showed that the PMS left in the storage might not be enough to fill five trucks.

A source indicated that calibration would continue until Monday, with the loading of DPK (kerosene) and AGO (diesel) expected to start by then.

Speaking to our correspondent, a resident of Alode in Eleme Local Government Area of Rivers State, who simply identified himself as Osaro, said, “After that ceremony with Mele Kyari where they said the refinery had started operation and loading was taking place, what happened afterwards? They continued loading on air, that is on the pages of newspapers and social media.”

When contacted for his reaction on the lack of activities on Friday, the National Public Relations Officer of the Petroleum Product Retail Outlet Owners Association of Nigeria, Dr Joseph Obelle, said it was as a result of ongoing calibration.

Obelle, the PETROAN spokesman, said, “They are calibrating the loading pumps. They will be done today.”

Meanwhile, it was gathered that the Senate Committee on Petroleum visited the refinery on Thursday on a facility tour. The outcome of the visit had yet to be made public.

Calls and text messages to the spokesperson for the NNPC, Olufemi Soneye, were not replied as of the time of filing this report.

But the NNPC had in a statement denied claims by an Alesa community leader, Timothy Mgbere, that the Port Harcourt refinery was not producing fuel.

Soneye accused Mgbere of crass ignorance of how a refinery runs.

He said, “The old and new Port Harcourt refineries have since been integrated with one single terminal for product load-out. They share common utilities like power and storage tanks. This means that storage tanks and loading gantry which he claimed belongs to the new Port-Harcourt Refinery can also receive products from the Old Port Harcourt Refinery.”

He called on the public to disregard claims borne out of “sheer mischief and blatant display of ignorance.”

Credit: PUNCH