New Zealand Leads Way on Same-Sex Marriage in Asia-Pacific

BEIJING â€" The words of the stately, popular New Zealand love song, Pokarekare Ana, swelled in New Zealand’s parliament on Wednesday evening, as spectators and members of Parliament joined in an emotional scene. Here’s an English translation of some of the Maori song:

“The waves are breaking against the shores of Waiapu,
My heart is aching for your return, my love.
Oh my beloved, come back to me, my heart is breaking for love of you.”

Tears flowed, too. Minutes earlier, parliament had voted 77 to 44 to legalize same-sex marriage, making New Zealand the first Asian-Pacific nation and the 13th country in the world to do so.

There was frustration among some in neighboring Australia, where the prime minister, Julia Gillard, has refused to legalize it. Commentators predicted gay Australians may fly to New Zealand to marry. Steve Dow, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, said her stance was “nonsensical.”

“In that traditional Maori song, they got it dead right: ‘I have written you a letter, and enclosed it with my ring / If your people should see it, then the trouble will begin.’ What, exactly, has Canberra got against happiness?” Mr. Dow wrote, referring to another verse of the traditional song.

This tweet portrayed the Australian government’s stance as behind the curve:

But there’s action on the issue elsewhere in Asia, in Vietnam, with the Thanh Nien News reporting last week the Vietnamese government had decided to scrap fines against same-sex couples who marry.

“The move comes as part of a larger wave of progress for gay rights champions” in Vietnam, reported the flagship publication of the Vietnam National Youth Federation.

Actual legalization of same sex marriage may take quite a bit longer; the scrapping came in response to storm of criticism from gay rights and other groups after the government proposed increasing fines on gay couples who marry between 200,000 and one million dong (about $10-48), the newspaper said.

Deputy minister of Justice Pham Quy Ty said it was no longer appropriate to fine homosexuals. But, “The absence [of the fine] doesn’t mean Vietnam recognizes same-sex marriages,” Ty was quoted by the Tuoi Tre newspaper as saying.

The Vietnamese government has been discussing legalizing same sex marriage since July last year but a vote on the issue in the National Assembly will be delayed until next year, Gay Star News reported in February.

Le Quang Binh, director of the Institute for Studies of Society, Economy and Environment, said that may be a good thing.

“I think it’s not a bad thing to delay for one year,” Mr. Le told the newspaper. “We actually think it may be good because then we have more time to work with the national assembly and educate the population.”

In February, Thailand held its first public hearing on introducing civil unions for same-sex couples, Gay Star News reported.

Berlin’s New Entry on the Summer Festival Calendar

There’s a new summer festival in town, and that town is Berlin. From June 27 to July 14, the city will host Foreign Affairs, an ambitious multi-arts festival whose program was announced this week in Berlin by the artistic director, Matthias von Hartz.

The festival, which is centered around the Fritz Bornemann-designed Haus de Berliner Festspiele (although events take place across the city), has a strong emphasis on dance and theater, but is notable for its extended focus on key artists rather than a broadly eclectic program. The central events are extensive presentations of work by the Frankfurt-based, American choreographer William Forsythe, and by the New York experimental theater group, Nature Theater of Oklahoma. Two installations by Mr. Forsythe, “White Bouncy Castle,” an exhilarating, giant version of the children’s carnival staple, created with Dana Caspersen and Joel Ryan, and “The Defenders” will be presented throughout the festival, as well as several films, and two full-length works, “I Don’t Believe in Outer Space” and “Sides,” performed by the Forsythe Company.

Nature Theater of Oklahoma brings its 2009 “Romeo and Juliet” (not the Shakespeare you know; indeed that’s the point as its participants invent and enact variations on the tale, based on their notably vague memories of the story), as well as its work-in-progress, epic “Life and Times.” This multi-part, 12-hour (so far) work will be staged both in sections and as a daylong marathon (meals included), and the company’s residence in Berlin will incorporate the creation of a new section, based on interviews conducted at a public barbeque on June 28 and on conversations during public rehearsals at the Hebbel am Ufer HAU 1 theater, where the company will be resident during the festival.

Among the other highlights is the the slightly unlikely choreographic collaboration of Boris Charmatz (conceptual) with Anne-Teresa de Keersmaeker (kinetically physical) in a duet, “Partita No. 2” to the Bach composition of the same name; the radical Spanish performer Angelica Liddell and her company, Atra Bilis Teatro, with “Yo no soy bonita” (“I am not pretty”); the Catalan theater artist Ernesto Collado’s “Neuva Marinaleda,” described in the festival brochure as a “social utopia” that the audience is invited to try out; Philippe Quesne’s “Swamp Club,” (“an urban fairytale set in the eerily peaceful environment of a lonely swamp peopled by odd creatures, insects and sounds”); and the Congolese choreographer, Faustin Linyekula’s “Sur les traces de Dinozord,” a continuation of an earlier work examining personal and political histories in his home town of Kisangani.

And then there is a double bill from Pere Faura, a Catalan choreographer who, the brochure tells us “worked with names like Jerome Bel and Ivana Muller before he went on to undress in front of audiences across the world.” The pieces, “Striptease” and “Bomberos con Grandes Mangueras,” (“Firefighters with Long Hoses”) apparently deal with the nature of the gaze and the role of the performer. (“Demi Moore, naturally, has to feature,” concludes the description.)

Mr. Faura’s pieces, together with the on-site Nature Theater interactions with the public, and a collection of visual and performance art pieces based on betting (one involves giving people rides in a formerly abandoned stretch limo), suggest that Foreign Affairs is a festival with a sense of humor.

In China, Questions about Cancer Care as Rates Rise

BEIJING â€" China has many dedicated oncologists who care deeply about their patients, and as cancer rates rise - partly as the result of environmental pollution, but also other factors such as an aging society - they have their work cut out for them.

Unfortunately, that work is being done within a system that isn’t easy for doctors to negotiate, is a main message of a new article in the Journal of Oncology Practice, published by the American Society of Clinical Oncology, as my latest’s Letter from China explores.

Hospitals may be quick to blame an individual doctor if controversy arises, such as over a “bad outcome,” or death.

“Chinese patients, thinking they have or are diagnosed with cancer, will demand that certain tests be performed,” write the authors, Dr. David H. Garfield of the United States and Dr. Harold Brenner of Israel, and a Chinese oncology nurse, Lucy Lu. “Physicians, rather than argue necessity, will acquiesce instead of having these patients complain to hospital administrators, when they must then defend their case.”

Why?

“In this regard, it must be pointed out that hospitals have two administrators: first, a conventional one, as in the West, and second, a Communist party member. A physician must take care. A bad outcome is felt to put physicians, particularly surgeons, at risk for administrative admonishment, lawsuits, or, worse, bodily harm,” the authors write.

The authors said they based their observations on the experience, in 2011, of being in a group that set up the first of several planned outpatient cancer centers in China, the article said.

China’s medical profession enjoys an often tense relationship with patients, who may distrust physicians, suspecting them of being motivated by personal gain.

Another key aspect of the trust problem: the country does not have a system of general practitioners who can get to know a patient well over a long period of time, “resulting in no long-standing, physician-patient relationships,” the authors write. To make medical care more affordable, the government has kept it relatively cheap; but, tied to that, a doctor may need to see very many patients each day and time for examination is extremely limited, they write.

“During those few minutes, rarely is a physical examination performed. Several questions are asked and answered, with a brief look at images and laboratory tests, tumor markers, and so on; that is it,” the authors write.

And they offered a vivid story: a woman who stopped taking medication for fear of side-effects. “Our Western oncologist convinced her, after much discussion, to continue tamoxifen by telling her the most important thing was to be alive for her 4-year-old daughter,” the article said. “She called back later and said she really appreciated what we did for her because her Chinese physician had just given her the pills, not caring whether she risked her life by not taking them.”

1920s Egyptian Movie Palace Reopens in Paris

Toward the end of his 1877 novel “l’Assommoir,” Emile Zola describes construction in the working-class neighborhood of Barbès of a boulevard that is to become the address of the luxurious Dufayel department store and, in the early 20th century, of several grand cinemas.

Barbès, in the 18th Arrondissement, is still a working-class neighborhood, and one of Paris’s most diverse and dynamic. On Thursday one of those1920s art-house cinemas has reopens, restored and equipped with state-of-the-art technology.

The Louxor cinema is at the epicenter of the neighborhood, on the corner of the Boulevard Magenta opposite the elevated metro and diagonally across from Tati, the budget department store. The city of Paris spent €25 million, or $32.7 million, to restore it as part of an urban development plan to improve the neighborhood that includes the recently renovated Gare du Nord train station. It is also part of the Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoë’s effort to keep the city’s cinema culture alive: Paris spends €1.2 million a year to bolster independent art-house cinemas.

Built in neo-Egyptian style, the Louxor cinema opened in 1921, designed by architect Henri Zipcy and commissioned by an enterprising businessman called Henri Silberberg who went bankrupt and died shortly after the opening. The Louxor was eventually sold to Pathé Cinemas, which managed it until the Tati company bought it in 1983. The Louxor underwent several transformations under the Pathé management, entirely losing its neo-Egyptian interior, the original mosaics on the exterior of the building and gradually sinking into a state of abandonment. From 1985 until 2003, when it was bought by the city of Paris, the Louxor building was saved several times by petitions. In 2008 the architect Philippe Pumain was given the task of restoring the theater

A few days before the grand opening Mr. Pumain was inspecting the finishing touches being put to the facade the exterior mosaic work was gleaming. Inside, a replica of an ancient Egyptian cartouche hung above the box office. The last brushes of paint were being applied to the ochre walls in the vast Youssef Chahine cinema (named for the celebrated Egyptian director) with a 43-foot-high ceiling, the largest of three theaters in the building, with 340 seats. Mr. Pumain said that the original décor had been covered over by layers of subsequent redesigns but that his forebear’s design was coherent. “It was a mix of Art Deco and Egyptomania,” he said. “Although it was fanciful, you sense that the architect had really done his research.”

Mr. Pumain and his team based their work on traces of color they found from excavations and two photographs of the theater from 1920. The Youssef Chahine theater has two balconies and a bar on the top floor with a view of the theater on one side, and a terrace on the other that looks out onto an urban panorama with a view of the Sacré Coeur. A nice touch on the upper balcony is a series of three wooden seats with an Egyptian symbol on the backs that came from the original theater and were bought from a collector.

Among the updates is the theater’s encasement in a protective outer box so that vibrations from the metro won’t be felt. It has both a 4K digital projector and a 35-milimeter traditional film projector for the 18-by-30 foot screen.

Mr. Pumain used the cinema’s underground space to build two more theaters,one with a club-like atmosphere in prune-colored velvet, raspberry and gray tones and another with metallic bronze columns and ceiling lights organized in geometric staggered rows.

Zola would have been impressed.

1920s Egyptian Movie Palace Reopens in Paris

Toward the end of his 1877 novel “l’Assommoir,” Emile Zola describes construction in the working-class neighborhood of Barbès of a boulevard that is to become the address of the luxurious Dufayel department store and, in the early 20th century, of several grand cinemas.

Barbès, in the 18th Arrondissement, is still a working-class neighborhood, and one of Paris’s most diverse and dynamic. On Thursday one of those1920s art-house cinemas has reopens, restored and equipped with state-of-the-art technology.

The Louxor cinema is at the epicenter of the neighborhood, on the corner of the Boulevard Magenta opposite the elevated metro and diagonally across from Tati, the budget department store. The city of Paris spent €25 million, or $32.7 million, to restore it as part of an urban development plan to improve the neighborhood that includes the recently renovated Gare du Nord train station. It is also part of the Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoë’s effort to keep the city’s cinema culture alive: Paris spends €1.2 million a year to bolster independent art-house cinemas.

Built in neo-Egyptian style, the Louxor cinema opened in 1921, designed by architect Henri Zipcy and commissioned by an enterprising businessman called Henri Silberberg who went bankrupt and died shortly after the opening. The Louxor was eventually sold to Pathé Cinemas, which managed it until the Tati company bought it in 1983. The Louxor underwent several transformations under the Pathé management, entirely losing its neo-Egyptian interior, the original mosaics on the exterior of the building and gradually sinking into a state of abandonment. From 1985 until 2003, when it was bought by the city of Paris, the Louxor building was saved several times by petitions. In 2008 the architect Philippe Pumain was given the task of restoring the theater

A few days before the grand opening Mr. Pumain was inspecting the finishing touches being put to the facade the exterior mosaic work was gleaming. Inside, a replica of an ancient Egyptian cartouche hung above the box office. The last brushes of paint were being applied to the ochre walls in the vast Youssef Chahine cinema (named for the celebrated Egyptian director) with a 43-foot-high ceiling, the largest of three theaters in the building, with 340 seats. Mr. Pumain said that the original décor had been covered over by layers of subsequent redesigns but that his forebear’s design was coherent. “It was a mix of Art Deco and Egyptomania,” he said. “Although it was fanciful, you sense that the architect had really done his research.”

Mr. Pumain and his team based their work on traces of color they found from excavations and two photographs of the theater from 1920. The Youssef Chahine theater has two balconies and a bar on the top floor with a view of the theater on one side, and a terrace on the other that looks out onto an urban panorama with a view of the Sacré Coeur. A nice touch on the upper balcony is a series of three wooden seats with an Egyptian symbol on the backs that came from the original theater and were bought from a collector.

Among the updates is the theater’s encasement in a protective outer box so that vibrations from the metro won’t be felt. It has both a 4K digital projector and a 35-milimeter traditional film projector for the 18-by-30 foot screen.

Mr. Pumain used the cinema’s underground space to build two more theaters,one with a club-like atmosphere in prune-colored velvet, raspberry and gray tones and another with metallic bronze columns and ceiling lights organized in geometric staggered rows.

Zola would have been impressed.

1920s Egyptian Movie Palace Reopens in Paris

Toward the end of his 1877 novel “l’Assommoir,” Emile Zola describes construction in the working-class neighborhood of Barbès of a boulevard that is to become the address of the luxurious Dufayel department store and, in the early 20th century, of several grand cinemas.

Barbès, in the 18th Arrondissement, is still a working-class neighborhood, and one of Paris’s most diverse and dynamic. On Thursday one of those1920s art-house cinemas has reopens, restored and equipped with state-of-the-art technology.

The Louxor cinema is at the epicenter of the neighborhood, on the corner of the Boulevard Magenta opposite the elevated metro and diagonally across from Tati, the budget department store. The city of Paris spent €25 million, or $32.7 million, to restore it as part of an urban development plan to improve the neighborhood that includes the recently renovated Gare du Nord train station. It is also part of the Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoë’s effort to keep the city’s cinema culture alive: Paris spends €1.2 million a year to bolster independent art-house cinemas.

Built in neo-Egyptian style, the Louxor cinema opened in 1921, designed by architect Henri Zipcy and commissioned by an enterprising businessman called Henri Silberberg who went bankrupt and died shortly after the opening. The Louxor was eventually sold to Pathé Cinemas, which managed it until the Tati company bought it in 1983. The Louxor underwent several transformations under the Pathé management, entirely losing its neo-Egyptian interior, the original mosaics on the exterior of the building and gradually sinking into a state of abandonment. From 1985 until 2003, when it was bought by the city of Paris, the Louxor building was saved several times by petitions. In 2008 the architect Philippe Pumain was given the task of restoring the theater

A few days before the grand opening Mr. Pumain was inspecting the finishing touches being put to the facade the exterior mosaic work was gleaming. Inside, a replica of an ancient Egyptian cartouche hung above the box office. The last brushes of paint were being applied to the ochre walls in the vast Youssef Chahine cinema (named for the celebrated Egyptian director) with a 43-foot-high ceiling, the largest of three theaters in the building, with 340 seats. Mr. Pumain said that the original décor had been covered over by layers of subsequent redesigns but that his forebear’s design was coherent. “It was a mix of Art Deco and Egyptomania,” he said. “Although it was fanciful, you sense that the architect had really done his research.”

Mr. Pumain and his team based their work on traces of color they found from excavations and two photographs of the theater from 1920. The Youssef Chahine theater has two balconies and a bar on the top floor with a view of the theater on one side, and a terrace on the other that looks out onto an urban panorama with a view of the Sacré Coeur. A nice touch on the upper balcony is a series of three wooden seats with an Egyptian symbol on the backs that came from the original theater and were bought from a collector.

Among the updates is the theater’s encasement in a protective outer box so that vibrations from the metro won’t be felt. It has both a 4K digital projector and a 35-milimeter traditional film projector for the 18-by-30 foot screen.

Mr. Pumain used the cinema’s underground space to build two more theaters,one with a club-like atmosphere in prune-colored velvet, raspberry and gray tones and another with metallic bronze columns and ceiling lights organized in geometric staggered rows.

Zola would have been impressed.

1920s Egyptian Movie Palace Reopens in Paris

Toward the end of his 1877 novel “l’Assommoir,” Emile Zola describes construction in the working-class neighborhood of Barbès of a boulevard that is to become the address of the luxurious Dufayel department store and, in the early 20th century, of several grand cinemas.

Barbès, in the 18th Arrondissement, is still a working-class neighborhood, and one of Paris’s most diverse and dynamic. On Thursday one of those1920s art-house cinemas has reopens, restored and equipped with state-of-the-art technology.

The Louxor cinema is at the epicenter of the neighborhood, on the corner of the Boulevard Magenta opposite the elevated metro and diagonally across from Tati, the budget department store. The city of Paris spent €25 million, or $32.7 million, to restore it as part of an urban development plan to improve the neighborhood that includes the recently renovated Gare du Nord train station. It is also part of the Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoë’s effort to keep the city’s cinema culture alive: Paris spends €1.2 million a year to bolster independent art-house cinemas.

Built in neo-Egyptian style, the Louxor cinema opened in 1921, designed by architect Henri Zipcy and commissioned by an enterprising businessman called Henri Silberberg who went bankrupt and died shortly after the opening. The Louxor was eventually sold to Pathé Cinemas, which managed it until the Tati company bought it in 1983. The Louxor underwent several transformations under the Pathé management, entirely losing its neo-Egyptian interior, the original mosaics on the exterior of the building and gradually sinking into a state of abandonment. From 1985 until 2003, when it was bought by the city of Paris, the Louxor building was saved several times by petitions. In 2008 the architect Philippe Pumain was given the task of restoring the theater

A few days before the grand opening Mr. Pumain was inspecting the finishing touches being put to the facade the exterior mosaic work was gleaming. Inside, a replica of an ancient Egyptian cartouche hung above the box office. The last brushes of paint were being applied to the ochre walls in the vast Youssef Chahine cinema (named for the celebrated Egyptian director) with a 43-foot-high ceiling, the largest of three theaters in the building, with 340 seats. Mr. Pumain said that the original décor had been covered over by layers of subsequent redesigns but that his forebear’s design was coherent. “It was a mix of Art Deco and Egyptomania,” he said. “Although it was fanciful, you sense that the architect had really done his research.”

Mr. Pumain and his team based their work on traces of color they found from excavations and two photographs of the theater from 1920. The Youssef Chahine theater has two balconies and a bar on the top floor with a view of the theater on one side, and a terrace on the other that looks out onto an urban panorama with a view of the Sacré Coeur. A nice touch on the upper balcony is a series of three wooden seats with an Egyptian symbol on the backs that came from the original theater and were bought from a collector.

Among the updates is the theater’s encasement in a protective outer box so that vibrations from the metro won’t be felt. It has both a 4K digital projector and a 35-milimeter traditional film projector for the 18-by-30 foot screen.

Mr. Pumain used the cinema’s underground space to build two more theaters,one with a club-like atmosphere in prune-colored velvet, raspberry and gray tones and another with metallic bronze columns and ceiling lights organized in geometric staggered rows.

Zola would have been impressed.

Conservative Anger Over White House Thatcher ‘Snub’

LONDON â€" Conservatives on both sides of the Atlantic have been getting hot under the collar about the relatively low-level U.S. representation at Wednesday’s funeral of Margaret Thatcher, the former British prime minister.

Britain’s right-leaning Daily Mail said it was a “poor show” that the Obama administration did not deem the funeral important enough to attend.

In the United States, the Tea Party News Network, a partisan Web site, said the “amazing snub” contrasted with the White House’s decision to send an official delegation to the funeral of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, a “tyrannical socialist dictator.”

The senior Americans at Wednesday’s ceremony were George Shultz and James Baker, who both served as Secretary of State while Mrs. Thatcher was in power.

Barbara Stephenson, the U.S. charge d’affaires in London, and Louis Susman, the former U.S. ambassador, were also among those attending as part of what The Guardian described as a “distinctly low-key official representation.”

The Sun had a new twist on the controversy on Wednesday, claiming President George H.W. Bush had turned down a personal plea from President Obama to travel to London for the occasion.

He and his son, President George W. Bush, were too busy preparing for the opening of the Bush library, The Sun claimed.

The tabloid quoted Sir Gerald Howarth, a Conservative parliamentarian and former Thatcher aide as saying, “Given the extraordinary bond between Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, which helped to end the Cold War and liberate millions, it’s very disappointing the present administration doesn’t feel able to send a representative.”

Katherine Rosario in The Forge, a conservative American blog, lambasted the United States Senate for having been slow to adopt a resolution honoring the Iron Lady and said the White House had now added insult to injury.

“It would be difficult to identify a truer friend to the United States than Baroness Thatcher,” Ms. Rosario wrote. “Most Americans recognize this, but unfortunately, our respect and â€" for the freedom loving among us â€" admiration for Lady Thatcher is not being conveyed by some of our elected leaders.”

Britain’s left-leaning Mirror quoted the office of Prime Minister David Cameron as saying the absence of a member of the U.S. administration was “absolutely not a snub.”

“I think the seniority of the U.S. dignitaries, including two former Secretaries of State with whom she worked closely, I think is testament to her global stature,” a spokesman said.

As The Mirror pointed out, members of the U.S. administration were not the only absentees. It noted that Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, had also announced she would not attend and President François Hollande of France was sending a former minister.

Chinese Media Seizes on Death of Promising Student

BEIJING â€" The family of Lv Lingzi, the young Chinese woman killed in the attack at the Boston Marathon, didn’t want their daughter’s name revealed, according to the Chinese consulate in New York.

But proving - if that were still needed - that there’s very little privacy in the online world, shortly afterwards, the Chinese blogosphere was feverishly transmitting it. Early Wednesday morning in China even Xinhua, the state-run news agency, was running a story by Phoenix TV, based in Hong Kong, that identified the victim not just by name - but with a photograph. The Shenyang Daily, the city in northeast China where Ms. Ling was from, also had a long article with photographs.

By early afternoon on Wednesday here in China, a day after the attack that killed three and injured more than 170, at least 12,000 people had left comments on Ms. Lv’s microblog account, where the photograph on the home page was identical to that on the Phoenix TV and Shenyang Daily reports. Her online handle was “Jingjing Dudu’s older sister.” Many netizens left candles of remembrance. (In Chinese, Lv is pronounced the way a German would say Lü. Chinese people put a person’s last name first.)

Ms. Ling, a graduate student at Boston University, loved food, judging from her Weibo account. In a very sad note, her last post - a photograph of a dish with food, with the words “my wonderful breakfast!,” sent at 9 p.m. on April 15, was reposted thousands of times.

On her account, she listed her three interests as “fine food, music, finance and economics.”

She loved Ben and Jerry’s icecream, writing on April 6: “Ben&Jerry’s ice cream, really every flavor tastes good.”

On March 30, she posted a photograph of a dish she had made, writing: “The first time to make kimchi pancakes! Very successful!” And on Mar. 23, sounding excited, she posted: “A new whole foods is going to open near BU!”