MQM stands by Kashmiris: Altaf

TrendPK.com

LONDON: MQM chief Altaf Hussain Sunday advised Kashmiri people to deter of nothing, continuing that he and his party stand by them through all kinds of thick and thin, therefore, they should not consider themselves alone, reports TrendPK.

Meanwhile, Azad Kashmir PM Chaudhry Abdul Majeed, in goodwill gesture, went a step ahead, saying he would stand shoulder to shoulder with MQM if some elements again try to conspire against the Karachi’s majority party.

Earlier, PM AJK Majeed received warm welcome upon reaching NineZero. On the occasion, he visited Shaheed Memorial graveyard in Jinnah Ground and later held sittings with the members of MQM’s coordination committee.

Talking to media, Majeed said Altaf Hussain always voiced concerns for the rights of Kashmiri people, vowing to become stumbling block in way of conspiracy against MQM at all levels.

MQM’s Dr. Shagheer Ahmed said his party has always kept its stance very lucid and coherent on Kashmir issue that the most longstanding dispute of South Asia, the Kashmir row, be resolved in line with the wishes of people of Kashmir Valley.

During the visit, two leaders – PM AJK Majeed and Altaf Hussain – also held telephonic conversation. Hussain, on the occasion, called upon United Nations to have the Kashmir Dispute settled for the sake of durable peace in the region. “Kashmiri people should not consider themselves alone; MQM stands shoulder to shoulder with them through troubled waters,” Altaf maintained. TrendPK

What are the Stars Saying About Whitney Houston

By Greg Hernandez

TrendPK.com: Aretha, Barbra, Cher, Janet and JLo among others on Whitney. “She had everything, beauty, a magnificent voice. How sad her gifts could not bring her the same happiness they brought us,” said Barbra Streisand.

My feelings about Whitney!Life is hard 4 everyone,Sadness Disappointment, Loss,Fear,insecurity,Loneliness, IMAGINE DOING IT IN A SPOTLIGHT, said Cher.

Aretha Franklin
I just can’t talk about it now. It’s so stunning and unbelievable. I couldn’t believe what I was reading coming across the TV screen.

Aretha Franklin
My heart goes out to Cissy, her daughter Bobbi Kris, her family and Bobby.

Janet Jackson
Please cherish life and those around you. Tomorrow is never promised.

JLo Jennifer Lopez
Such a loss. One of the greatest voices of our time. Sending out prayers to her family… #R.I.P.Whitney.

Ricky Martin
RIP Whitney Houston. Sending my love and deepest condolences to her family and friends. Fly Whitney Fly

Sean Hayes
The voice of a music legend has been quieted today. R.I.P. for one of the most amazing artists of our time – Whitney Houston.

Kathy Griffin
She was A TALENT & A LEGEND. She was never a “reality star” No jokes from me about Miss Houston today.

Cheyenne Jackson
Whitney, I’ll always love u.

Nia Vardalos
RIP Whitney Houston, we sang along and fell in love to your songs.

Chris Colfer
Whitney Houston #IWillAlwaysLoveYou

Ricki Lake
Listening to #WhitneyHouston on the radio. What a loss.

Joan Rivers
Whitney Houston. What a sad tragedy-the end of the life of an incredible talent. RIP to an amazing singer and legend.

Rosie O’Donnell
Dear God … There is a grief that can’t be spoken #DEVASTATED

Chely Wright
Whitney Houston, rest in peace. I can’t stop crying. So sad.

Lance Bass
Another incredible talent lost way too soon. Thanks for entertaining us all Whitney!

Linda Perry
This is tragic terribly sad news. Whitney Houston was such a powerful presence & a lost soul. Her voice made me cry, She will be missed.

Wilson Cruz
OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD!! I can’t take it. I am overcome with grief.

Serena Williams
#OneMomentInTime has propelled me to many of my grand slams victories. #whitneyhouston

Sandra Bernhard
let’s remember too #whitneyhouston came from a long line of greats her mom #cissyhouston cousin #dionnewarwick godmother #arethafranklin

Ryan Seacrest
At Grammys rehearsal hearing Whitney Houston has passed away at 48. Everyone here is absolutely stunned.

Brad Goreski
I’m so incredibly saddened by the news that Whitney Houston has died. Words cannot describe how her voice touched my life. So tragic

Ross Mathews
OMG. TMZ says Whitney Houston has died? So sad.

George Kotsiopoulos
Yesterday on @e_FashionPolice we were talking about how healthy & happy she looked. So very tragic & sad. #RIPWHITNEYHOUSTON

Kelly Osbourne
i truly hope you are in peace #WhitneyHouston i feel so honored to have known you! i love you RIP!

Sean Maher
RIP Whitney Houston

Matthew Jenkin
Whitney Houston is dead! So sad #WhitneyHouston #Ripwhitneyhouston

Nick Adams
So sad…. RIP Whitney.

Bette Midler
Please, please someone tell me it’s not true…

Simon Cowell
I am so sad to hear about Whitney. We have lost one of the greatest singers of all time.

Sharon Osbourne
Clive Davis Grammy party..not going. Mark Burnett party..not going. Can’t celebrate tonight when one of the greatest voices ever is dead.

To read more go to www.greginhollywood.com

Follow Hollywood News on Twitter for up-to-date news information.

Hollywood News, Hollywood Awards, Awards, Movies, News, Award News, Breaking News, Entertainment News, Movie News, Music News

‘The Vow’ breaks records, ‘Safe House’ opens huge

By Scott Mendelson

TrendPK.com: Wow. Just wow. Four major releases debuted this weekend and every single one of them opened with superb numbers. On one hand, that means that every respective demographic was ably served this weekend. On the other hand, one can only wonder how much cash was sacrificed by opening these four movies on the same weekend. Anyway, the top film of the weekend was the Rachel McAdams/Channing Tatum romantic drama The Vow. The $30 million Screen Gems drama, which by the way is NOT based on a Nicholas Sparks novel (it’s a true story), debuted with an eye-popping $41 million, a record for the studio. That’s well-over $10 million more than the $30.4 million debut of Dear John, which was the previous record-holder for an opening weekend for a pure romantic drama. The film played 55% under-25 years old and 72% female. Obviously everything clicked on the marketing for this one, and Channing Tatum is now the official king of the romantic drama, having headlined the first one to open with more than $30 million and now the first one to open with over $40 million, while Rachel McAdams is the queen, now holding the first and fourth-biggest opening weekend for an unfiltered romantic drama ($18 million for The Time Traveler’s Wife). Where it goes from here is an open question, as Dear John did not have the strongest legs, topping out at $80 million (or just below the $81 million gross of Rachel McAdam’s The Notebook). On the plus side, The Vow doesn’t have the same-demo blockbuster Valentine’s Day nipping on its heals like Dear John did. Plus, even if The Vow has the same quick-kill performance (2.6x weekend-to-final multiplier), it will become the first pure romantic drama (no explosions, no action scenes, no mass-disaster in the third act) to cross $100 million since Jerry McGuire in 1996.

The second major opener was the Denzel Washington/Ryan Reynolds thriller Safe House. The R-rated film opened with $39 million, which is one of the biggest non-sequel/non-animated openings in Universal Studios history. This is Denzel Washington’s second-biggest opening, behind the $43 million debut of Universal’s American Gangster (which also starred Russell Crowe) while it’s Reynold’s third-biggest debut, behind Green Lantern ($52 million) and his glorified cameo as Deadpool in X-Men Origins: Wolverine ($85 million). The ads sold this one as a CIA-ops variation on Training Day, with rogue and uber-cool special agent Washington ‘schooling’ rookie Reynolds while engaged in a painfully generic action/thriller narrative (this is not among Washington’s better thrillers, folks). Washington has made a string of old-school, adult-skewing thrillers over the last ten years or so, and this picture is right in his comfort zone. The biggest debut as a by-himself lead was The Book of Eli, which debuted with $31 million two years ago, so how much of that extra $8 million you want to credit Ryan Reynolds is up to you (I’d say enough to keep his agent’s phone ringing). Still, in an era when the modern movie star is an endangered species, Washington is among the last of his breed, a ‘put my face on the poster and they will flock’ box office draw. The picture played 62% over the age of 30 and 50% female. In terms of racial demos, it played 38% African American, 31% Caucasian, and 23% Hispanic. If it has even the relative legs of The Book of Eli (3x its opening weekend), it will end up with $118 million and become Washington’s second-biggest domestic grosser (American Gangster grossed $130 million).

Opening in third place was the second entry in the ongoing series of ‘add The Rock to your ongoing franchise and watch your grosses go up!’ (following Fast Five and proceeding this summer’s GI Joe: Retribution). Journey 2: The Mysterious Island is a very loose sequel to the 2008 3D-ground breaker Journey to the Center of the Earth, which Brendan Fraser powered to $101 million domestic off a $21 million debut and $140 million overseas. Journey 2 opened with a robust $27 million, as it played like an old-fashioned family film (IE – it went WAY up on Saturday). The film had already grossed just under $50 million overseas prior to this debut, so it’s well on its way to eclipsing the $241 million worldwide total of the first film. Still, the idea of a live-action 3D fantasy film isn’t quite as novel as it was in the summer of 2008 (Journey to the Center of the Earth was literary the first modern live-action 3D picture, although Spy Kids 3 did the old-school red/blue 3D back in 2003). Also, Journey 2 cost $79 million, versus the first film’s relatively meager $45 million budget, so it will have to perform better if it wants a similar profit margin. Nonetheless, a win is a win. If G.I. Joe: Retaliation significantly improves on G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra this summer, expect Dwayne Johnson to be shoe-horned into every ailing/rebooted franchise around. Coming soon – The Rock in Chronicles of Narnia: The Silver Chair, Saw 8, and Bridget Jones’s Diary 3!

The last major opener was the 3D-converted re-release of Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace, which debuted with a solid $23 million, bringing the overall domestic total to $454 million. This is the first of what is to be annual re-releases of George Lucas’s six Star Wars films starting this year (the 35th anniversary of Star Wars) and ending with Return of the Jedi in 2017 (the 40th anniversary). Whether you like the prequels or not, this was a chance for the generation who grew up with Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith to see those films again on the big screen, just as our generation feasted on the now-infamous ‘special editions’ of the original trilogy back in 1997. No one should have been expecting anything approaching the $35 million debut of Star Wars: Special Edition back in 1997 (about $47 million adjusted for inflation), as the marketplace has changed in the last 15 years. In a pre-DVD era, that was the first-ever opportunity for many younger fans to see the films in widescreen or on a screen larger than 25″. In today’s DVD/Blu-Ray and 60″ LCD world, it’s actually pretty impressive that this 3D-converted version actually opened larger than the 1997 releases of The Empire Strikes Back ($22 million) and Return of the Jedi ($16 million). At the very least, it’s good to see technical pros like Lucas and Cameron (Titanic 3D drops in early April) showing us how a real 3D-conversion is supposed to look. Even if the six movies top out at $50 million respectively, that’s still $300 million domestic and at least that overseas over the next six years. And since Lucas has signed that ‘Giving Pledge’, at least 1/4 of that money (depending on the studio/distributor/theater chain split) will be going to various charities.

There isn’t much holdover news, as the massive influx of new releases caused some large drops across the board, spurred both by the appeal of new product and inevitable screen losses to compensate for the four new films. Even The Artist ($24 million), on the verge of several major Oscar wins, is losing 200 screens as even popular films like The Grey ($42 million) loses 400 screens in just its third weekend and Underworld: Awakenings ($58 million) and Red Tails ($45 million) lose nearly 1,000 and 800 screens in their respective fourth weekends. Point being, there is a cost for the sheer volume of new product week-in and week-out. There is almost no opportunity for real legs and casual/general moviegoers no longer have the option of seeing new releases at their convenience, fostering a ‘see it now or don’t see it at all’ environment. So when I say that Chronicle (now with $40 million), The Woman In Black ($35 million), and Big Miracle ($13 million) dropped 44%, 50%, and 49% respectively in their second weekends, it’s as much to due with the flood of new product as it is with the respective popularity of last weekend’s openers. Thus, the three drops are even more impressive when you factor in the competition (although Miracle is a tank by virtue of its small numbers overall). It will be interesting to see how leggy the late-February/early-March releases are when you realize that there are only nine new wide releases in the entire month of March (21 Jump Street and likely juggernaut The Hunger Games open unopposed on the 16th and 23rd).

That’s it for this weekend. Join us over Presidents’ Day weekend when Fox unveils the Reese Witherspoon/Chris Pine/Tom Hardy action-romcom This Means War, Sony attempts to revive Nicholas Cage’s Ghost Rider franchise with Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance and Disney releases an English-dubbed animated fable from Studio Ghibli (founded by, among others, Hayao Miyazaki) onto an uncommonly wide 1,300 theaters with The Secret World of Arrietty. Until then, take care, keep reading, and share your thoughts below.

To read more go to Mendelson’s Memos

Follow Hollywood News on Twitter for up-to-date news information.

Hollywood News, Hollywood Awards, Awards, Movies, News, Award News, Breaking News, Entertainment News, Movie News, Music News

Oscars: Could Glenn Close’s Irish win boost her Oscar profile? – AWARDS ALLEY

By Sean O’Connell
TrendPK.com: Best Actress nominee Glenn Close could be in for a big Oscar telecast IF there are a large number of Irish voters in the Academy.

The Irish certainly took to Close’s performance as a Dublin manservant in “Albert Nobbs,” rewarding the actress with the Irish Film And Television Academy’s best international actress award Saturday evening. THR reports that she topped fellow Oscar nominee Meryl Streep (“The Iron Lady”) as well as Tilda Swinton (“We Need To Talk About Kevin”) and Kirsten Wiig (“Bridesmaids”) for the top prize.

In addition to Close, the Irish recognized Ryan Gosling (“Drive”) for best international actor; Michael Fassbender (“Shame”) for leading actor; Chris O’Down (“Bridesmaids” for best supporting actor; Saoirse Ronan (“Hanna”) for lead performance in film; “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” for best international film; and “The Guard” for virtually every other prize, including Best Director (John Michael McDonagh), best screenwriter and the Irish Film Board Rising Star.

But given that Close is the one with Oscar dreams, lets’ focus on her for a minute as the Oscars fast approach.

Close first played the character of Albert Nobbs in an off-Broadway production in 1982. Ever since, she has been fighting to bring the sympathetically tragic character to the silver screen.

I caught up with the film at the Toronto International Film Festival and found it to be a wonderful story of self-discovery, of finding love and loving oneself. I want to repost a portion of a lengthy discussion I had with Close at TIFF, as well as the actress’s acceptance speech from the Hollywood Film Awards, where we honored Close with the Hollywood Career Achievement Award.

Close hasn’t won the Best Actress Oscar … yet. Could this be her year?

TrendPK.com: You first played Albert on stage decades ago. How had your thought process changed over the years in terms of approaching her as a character?

I think the essence of the character is probably them same. It’s me! I’ve aged 30 years. And that’s bound to make for a deeper impact. And also, on film, film is such a much more intimate medium than the stage. It was very difficult. There were some scenes where I didn’t know how much to show in my face. I was always going to Rodrigo, “Am I saying too much?” The first time she really looks somebody in the eye is after telling Hubert her story. That’s kind of her release. Before that … servants were not supposed to look people in the eye. She was an invisible person doing an invisible job.

TrendPK.com: How common was this practice of pretending to be a different gender to maintain a job?

It was much more common than people expect. You can find many, many stories about people who had to do this. Some of them were rich women, and this was a way for them to get out of the house. Today, in Afghanistan, little girls are dressed as boys in order to get out of the house. It’s not an uncommon thing right now. In a repressive society, where women have no rights, it happens.

TrendPK.com: I also think it’s interesting that in films where characters play a different gender, it’s often to deceive, to reach another end. But for Albert, she does it to survive.

Exactly. She’s not going, “Hey! Ho! Look at me!” in a deep and masculine voice. She’s not like putting on a mustache and a beard. She’s just disappeared into that disguise.

TrendPK.com: She almost forgets how to be a woman. Speaking to that, on a surface level, when did you feel comfortable enough that the make up, the hair and the surface elements were convincing enough that you wouldn’t distract the audience with a woman playing a man?

Oh, well, the voice was challenging because I often concentrated in scenes about how much was showing on my face. So I did re-voice some of the dialogue. My voice was too high in some of the takes, and we had to lower it later. I was probably distracted by five other things. And that was very useful, to be able to do that. As for the look, when it became evident that we really were going to go for it, and that it might be a possible, I said to my contacts that I’ve got to convince myself that I can actually do this. I’m 20 years older. So I went out and I did a screen test. Rodrigo got a studio and I went and got Matthew Mungle, who went on to do our makeup on the film, and he helped. It wasn’t the final work that you see on screen. But I had to convince myself. I didn’t want it to be a movie where the audience thinks, “Oh, how do they not know? She’s a woman! Everybody in the hotel must be stupid!” I also felt that my face being highly recognizable would be a burden, and that really was a concern. But we did a screen test, and they did a couple of things to my face, and I looked up … and it wasn’t me. And I started crying. Because it was possible. Because we could do this.

TrendPK.com: That’s fantastic. Rodrigo has done some impressive television work on films like “Six Feet Under” and “Big Love.”

He has a great sensitivity toward women. He likes women. He writes beautiful parts for women. And also, he comes from that tradition of magic realism, which initially the script had much more of her imagining what her bedroom would be like. So you saw hr arranging things. We just couldn’t afford all of that.

TrendPK.com: But the scenes where we see her looking in on the broken down space and seeing her dream shop are wonderful.

Initially, in the script, when she imagined something, you’d see it appear. But the piece of equipment that we needed to do that was 80,000 Euros laughs and we had to say, “OK, we’ll do it without it!” laughs But this story has a real delicate touch because it’s funny and sad, and I just though Rodrigo came from this tradition. He just gets it.

Awards Alley brings you the best Oscar coverage. Click below to read our exclusive interviews with:
– Harvey Weinstein
– The cast of “The Artist.”
– Kenneth Branagh for “My Week With Marilyn.”
– Bennett Miller talks “Moneyball.”
– Producer Jim Burke for “The Descendants.”
– Sir Ben Kingsley and Chloe Grace Moretz for “Hugo.”
– Tilda Swinton for “We Need to Talk About Kevin.”
– David Fincher, Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara on “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.”
– Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer for “The Help.”
– Tate Taylor for “The Help.”
– Woody Harrelson for “Rampart.”
– Gavin O’Connor for “Warrior.”
– Gary Oldman and Colin Firth for “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.”
– Charlize Theron, Patton Oswalt, Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody for “Young Adult.”
– Steve McQueen for “Shame.”
– Glenn Close for “Albert Nobbs.”
– Seth Rogen and Will Reiser for “50/50.”
– Producer Grant Heslov for “The Ides of March.”

For complete Oscar and Film Festival coverage, visit our Awards Alley for the latest news items, reviews and interviews all season long.

Follow Hollywood News on Twitter for up-to-date news information.

Hollywood News, Hollywood Awards, Awards, Movies, News, Award News, Breaking News, Entertainment News, Movie News, Music News

White House: Matter of time before Assad falls

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama’s chief of staff says it’s only a matter of time before the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad collapses.

Jacob Lew says the U.S. and its allies have brought “serious financial pressure” on Syria and that Assad’s government is “feeling it.”

While the violence continues as rebels try to topple Assad, Lew says the transition “from tyranny to democracy is very hard.” Lew says the Syrian people “have to handle this in a way that works in Syria.”

Lew tells “Fox News Sunday” that “the brutality of the Assad regime is unacceptable and has to end.” He says the U.S. is pursuing “all avenues that we can” and that “there is no question that this regime will come to an end. The only question is when.” AGENCIES

Israeli airstrike kills Palestinian in Gaza

 

A Palestinian in Gaza died early Sunday after being wounded in a series of retaliatory Israeli airstrikes, Gaza medical sources said.

 

The fatality was identified as Abdel Karim Zatuniya, an elderly man serving as a guard at the barracks in the Zeitun area, south-east of Gaza city, who was wounded in an airstrike late Saturday night in which four other people were wounded. No militant faction in Gaza announced Zatuniya a member.

 

Three other Saturday night airstrikes — near the Karni crossing east of Gaza city, east of Khan Younis and at an empty house in Rafah — resulted in no further casualties.

 

The Israeli military confirmed launching the strikes, and in a statement early Sunday said its aircraft “targeted a terror tunnel and a weapon manufacturing facility in the northern Gaza Strip, a terror tunnel in the central Gaza Strip and an additional terror tunnel in the southern Gaza Strip,” noting direct hits.

 

“These sites were targeted in response to the rocket fire on communities in southern Israel,” the statement read, noting that a Friday night rocket from Gaza that struck between two houses in the Hof Ashkelon area had lightly injured an Israeli woman.

 

Earlier Saturday night, a rocket fired by Palestinian militants from the Gaza Strip hit southern Israel causing no casualties or damage, an Israeli police spokesman said.

 

“A rocket was fired from the Gaza Strip at the Eshkol region. It landed in an open area without causing any damage or injuries,” Micky Rosenfeld told AFP.

 

Speaking in Tehran on Saturday, Hamas prime minister of Gaza Ismail Haniya reiterated his movement s long-held stance it “will never recognise Israel,” as Palestinian efforts to form a temporary unity government headed by Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas continue.

 

Israel rejects efforts by Hamas to link up with Fatah, and views Hamas as a terrorist organisation and Iran as its sponsor and weapon supplier.

 

“The resistance will continue until all Palestinian land, including Al-Quds (Jerusalem), has been liberated and all the refugees have returned,” Haniya said. 

 

Malik says ready to brief Senate on Balochistan package

TrendPK.com

ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Rehman Malik says he is ready to brief the House over progress made so far regarding implementation of Aghaz-e-Haqooq Balochistan package.

Speaking at Senate today (Friday), Malik accused foreign interference of creating unrest in Balochistan.

Many countries of the world don’t want Balochistan to be part of Pakistan, he said.

He said neither army nor paramilitary frontier corps are deteriorating law and order situation

Any third power is behind the unrest, he added.

He said that 85 percent implementation has been made on Aghaz-e-Haqooq Balochistan package.

He said no airbase would be allowed to be used for NATO supplies. TrendPK

More than 80 killed in Syria, most in Homs: activists

 

More than 80 people died in violence across Syria on Thursday, activists said, with the majority killed in a fierce assault by regime forces on the flashpoint central city of Homs.

 

Rami Abdel Rahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that of the 83 deaths nationwide, 63 people were killed in shelling and other violence in Homs province.

 

Fifty-three were killed in Homs city, which has been under a relentless bombardment by regime forces for the past six days, he told AFP.

 

Of these, Abdel Rahman said 35 civilians died in the Baba Amr neighbourhood of Homs and 11 were killed when a shell slammed into their house in the protest hub s Inshaat district.

 

He added that seven other people died in the city s Khaldiyeh and Karm el-Zeytoun neighbourhoods.

 

Ten more people, five from the same family, died in shelling and heavy gunfire as regime troops pushed forth with a more than week-long assault on the town of Zabadani near the Syrian capital, Abdel Rahman added.

 

“They are trying to choke the town before storming it,” he said. “Residents are fleeing to Bludan and other nearby villages.”

 

Elsewhere, seven security forces members were killed when rebels ambushed two buses near the southern town of Daraa, cradle of the revolt against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

 

Among other deaths in the armed forces, a military colonel was killed at his home in Rastan, in Homs province.

 

Four other civilians, including a young woman, were killed in the northwestern province of Idlib, and a man died of wounds he suffered the day before in Daraa.
 

MQM membership campaign starts tomorrow

TrendPK.com

KARACHI: Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) has announced to start membership campaign throughout the country from tomorrow (Thursday), TrendPK reported on Wednesday.

MQM Leader Anis Ahmed Qaimkhani urged the people of the country to join Altaf Hussain for real change.

During a news conference at Nine Zero, Qaimkhani said that the MQM has decided membership campaign as the party is getting popularity throughout the country. TrendPK

Nepal’s vulture "restaurants" for endangered birds

PITHAULI: In the village of Pithauli, surrounded by ripening mustard fields, a woman hauls a cow carcass on a trolley, drops it in an open field, then runs and hides in a nearby hut as dozens of vultures swoop down.

In under half an hour, the carcass has been reduced to picked bones by the dun-coloured birds, occasionally squabbling as they feed.

The site is one of a handful of vulture “restaurants” opened to save the birds, which help keep the environment clean by disposing of carrion, from extinction — and at the same time help impoverished villages become self-sufficient.

A drug called diclofenac, used for treating inflammation in cattle, causes kidney failure and death in vultures which feed on their carcasses. As a result, two species of vulture — the White-rumped and Slender-billed — are now critically endangered in Nepal, as well as in Pakistan and India.

“If the situation continues the two species will be extinct in ten years,” said Hem Sagar Baral, chief of the Nepalese Ornithological Union.

“We may maintain certain minimum numbers but we’ll never see the numbers we had 20 years ago.”

Two decades ago there were about 50,000 nesting pairs of the two vulture species in Nepal. Now, barely 500 pairs remain.

Their steep decline is blamed on the widespread use of diclofenac, which was banned in 2006, and loss of habitat, with the kapok trees they use for nesting vanishing fast to meet demand from factories producing match sticks and plywood.

Five years ago, Bird Conservation Nepal came up with the idea of “restaurants” as places where the birds could feed on safe carcasses.

Pithauli, some 100 km (60 miles) southwest of the Nepali capital of Kathmandu, was the site of the first such feeding station, which now number six around the country.

The number of nesting pairs there has grown to 46 compared with just 17 before the feeding site was opened five years ago, said Dhan Bahadur Chaudhary, who coordinates the project.

“When we started I had no idea how it would do. I am happy that we have come to this point,” he said.

Baral agreed that the “eateries” and the ban on the drug had helped, with numbers stabilising after an initial rise, but noted that they still remain under threat.

For one thing, the ban on diclofenac use is being flouted by giving cattle a version of the drug intended for humans, meaning it is still taking its toll on the birds.

In addition, despite the vulture’s positive depiction in Hindu mythology as fighting to free Sita, wife of the god-king Rama, from the clutches of a demon, the birds are widely reviled as ugly and the harbingers of bad luck.

SUPERSTITION AND SUCCESS

Residents in Pithauli, a village of more than 6,000 people, tell how villagers carried out special “purification” rites when vultures perched on the roofs of their homes.

When an old villager died a few days after a vulture had alighted on his house, it was widely believed to have resulted from his failure to perform the proper ritual.

But in an effort to win over the villagers, the organisation that started the feeding stations provides training in income-generating activities such as beekeeping, trail and bridge construction, and tourist guide services.

They also give support to schools and public health offices.

“Initially, it was not easy. But the villagers started to support us gradually as we launched community activities for the local people,” Chaudhary said.

Authorities have also set up a vulture breeding centre in the Chitwan National Park in the neighbouring jungle resort of Kasara, where 60 birds, captured in the wild, are being raised. Ultimately, they plan to release chicks into the wild.

The vulture restaurant has become a tourist attraction in the poverty-stricken village, and admission fees from visitors — who last year numbered some 2,000 — help support it.

Additional help comes from authorities who buy old and sick cattle from the villagers for $3 a head, a modest income. These animals are kept on a farm in a community-run forest and offered to the birds when they die naturally since killing a cow is illegal in deeply Hindu Nepal.

Despite the gains, though, some villagers remain skeptical.

“Why save a bird that feeds on dead animals?” said 34-year-old Chet Nath Gandell, noting that the birds sometimes leave parts of the carcasses unfinished.

“Stinking carrion pollutes the air and we are forced to breathe in a slow poison.” AGENCIES

Next Page »