Pop star Lady Gaga has urged fans in Malaysia to protest over her gay lyrics in 'Born This Way' single being censored.
Malaysian radio stations are playing edits of the song because they fear fines if they broadcast lyrics which promote acceptance of gay people, reports the BBC.
Speaking at a Google''s Californian HQ, Gaga said it was fans'' "duty as young people to have their voices heard".
"You must do everything that you can if you want to be liberated by your society, you must call, you must not stop, you must protest peacefully," the singer added.
In the song, she sings, "no matter gay, straight or bi, lesbian trans gendered life, you were born this way".
Elizabeth Taylor was laid to rest Thursday at Forest Lawn in Glendale, with a private service conducted inside the Grand Mausoleum where she was to be interred, L.A. Now reports.
Security had been requested for the three to four dozen family members and friends expected to attend the funeral, Glendale police said. Shortly after 2 p.m., five limousines scooted past the media pack that surrounded the memorial park's entrance. They left shortly before 4 p.m. without making a public statement.
Family members planned to gather again Thursday night for a private service memorializing the legendary actress, who died at 79 of congestive heart failure.
Fans had been placing flowers at Taylor's star, near Hollywood Boulevard and Ivar Avenue on Hollywood's Walk of Fame, since word of her 1:28 a.m. death Wednesday began to spread. A candlelit shrine was set up by staff in the VIP room at the West Hollywood bar the Abbey, where Taylor had been known to hang out, according to TMZ. A special "Blue Velvet Martini" was being sold in Taylor's memory all weekend, with proceeds going to the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation. At the Newseum in Washington, D.C., a display of front pages of myriad newspapers marked Taylor's death.
The speedy funeral service and interment — Taylor died at 1:28 a.m. Wednesday — is in line with Jewish tradition; she'd converted to Judaism in the 1950s, before she married Eddie Fisher. The actress' good friend Michael Jackson, who died in 2009, is interred in a different wing of the Grand Mausoleum. See more pictures below.
Late Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin's historic flight around the Earth in 1961 has been recreated in a movie.
There is no film to show what Gagarin saw through the view ports of his Vostok capsule, there is only an audio recording of his observations, which has now been matched to high-definition video shot from the station.
“When you combine these pictures of what he was genuinely able to see with the excitement and tingle in his voice, it’s quite amazing,” the BBC quoted film director and space historian Dr Chris Riley as saying.
Gagarin became the first human to venture above the Earth’s atmosphere when he blasted away from the Tyuratam missile range (now the Baikonur Cosmodrome) in Kazakhstan at 0607 GMT on 12 April 1961.
His 108-minute journey around the globe took him across the Soviet republics, across the Pacific Ocean, over the Straits of Magellan in South America, above the Atlantic and Africa before re-entry and a bailout back to the ground near the city of Engels in southwest Russia.
The view down to Earth along this same path has now been filmed from the International Space Station (ISS).
Riley said organising the filming onboard the busy space lab was not straightforward.
“My stipulation was that we had to film it at the same time of day that Gagarin had seen it, to get the Sun angles right. Those chances only happen every six weeks,” he explained.
FirstOrbit will have a YouTube premiere next month to celebrate Gagarin’s achievement 50 years on.
Her posters made people freeze in their tracks. Her movies were seen again and again. But Elizabeth Taylor will be remembered by Indians as much as a woman who lived life on her own terms as an actress of striking beauty and talent.
Be it her many marriages, her phenomenal jewellery collection or her zest for life, she was the original Hollywood diva.
With the film legend passing away in Los Angeles at the age of 79 Wednesday, many Indians in showbiz and fashion recall being smitten by her arched dark eyebrows, piercing green eyes and oomph factor in the early 1960s.
"For me, she defined cinema and cinematic beauty. When I was a kid, people used to be very attracted to English films. We used to be in awe of her looks. I remember stopping for a glance at her poster," filmmaker Rohan Sippy told IANS. "Her presence will certainly be missed a lot."
Her portrayal of a promiscuous woman in "Butterfield 8" (1960) and an alcoholic woman trapped in a vicious marriage in "Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf" (1966) won her Oscars.
But perhaps her most famous role in India remained "Cleopatra" in 1961 - on the sets of which she met and fell in love with Richard Burton. Taylor was married eight times, including the two marriages to Burton.
"It was with a sense of awe that I watched 'Cleopatra' because it opened up a whole new world for me, particularly on gender issues. At that time in India, a woman's place was generally regarded as at home even though my own mother had a full time job," said journalist V. Romesh Kumar who saw "Cleopatra" at the age of 11.
"The fact that a woman could be a queen and a powerful one at that, able to exercise her own judgement was quite a revelation - and Taylor portrayed this forcefully."
Her wide eyes captivated many men.
"We have always perceived her as a rare personality... a lady who thinks from the heart..., and you can see it in her decisions," Jai of designer duo Parvesh-Jai told IANS.
"Like getting married again and again... falling in love again and again..., but nothing could stop her. She was a person who did what she felt was right," he added.
Jai feels at times, her love life overshadowed her work as an actress, although it reinforced her stardom and celebrity status.
Her style statement is still an inspiration for fashion designers.
"I loved her bold and individualistic style statement. Her death indeed comes as a shock. The loss will be irreparable to the world of art and cinema. She was truly someone who owned the room once she walked into one! Truly an inspiration for us," said designer Nida Mahmood.
Designer Arpan Vohra added: "It's really sad to bid goodbye to one of the most iconic glamorous beauties in Hollywood who in every way, be it with the movies or her personal life, made people talk about her.
"Her unmatched style statement of wearing jewels, and it is believed she had one of the world's best collections, hardly comes as a surprise because she used to flaunt them at all occasions," he said.
After reigning in Hollywood industry for over two decades, major movie roles started to dry up in the 1980s, although she later appeared as a guest star on "The Simpsons" and several TV movies.
In her later years it was her charity work for AIDS with the establishment of the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation and her friendship with late popstar Michael Jackson that kept her in the news.
She also launched lucrative perfume and jewellery lines, pioneering merchandising efforts by Hollywood stars.
Her life was also marred by health problems, many of which were attributed to a horse fall she suffered while filming "National Velvet". She also famously battled addictions to alcohol and drugs.
For the young southern actor Rana Daggubati, who is making his Bollywood debut with "Dum Maro Dum", her screen persona was very strong.
"Elizabeth Taylor was one of those actresses who had a very powerful hold on people here in India. Not only on-screen but her off-screen persona was really strong too. I have followed quite a lot of films of her," he said.
Singer Gwen Stefani has donated 1 million dollars to the relief effort in Japan.The money, presented to Save the Children''s Japan Earthquake-Tsunami Children in Emergency Fund, will help finance ongoing recovery efforts in the country.
"The disaster in Japan is beyond heartbreaking, and I want to do anything I can to help," the New York Daily News quoted Stefani as saying in a press release.
"I''ve been inspired by Japan for many years and have a true love, appreciation and respect for the Japanese people and their culture," she said.The rocker first visited Japan in 1996 while on tour with her band No Doubt, and since then Tokyo''s Harajuku area has served as the inspiration for much of the singer''s work.
She has dubbed her backup dancers the "Harajuku Girls," dressing them in the neighborhood''s famed nonconformist style.
In 2006, she released the Harajuku Lovers collection under her fashion label L.A.M.B. - a line heavily influenced by Japanese street fashion.
Stefani also announced plans for a limited-edition T-shirt to be released on nodoubt.com next week and a charity auction that will allow fans to bid on a chance to attend an exclusive fund-raising event in Los Angeles - all proceeds to go directly to aid efforts.
