Word: backings
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...final decade she did voice work (for the English-language version of Hayao Miyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle), and just last year she starred as the matriarch of a troubled family in the film Shadows in the Sun, back in her native U.K. In its modest way, this marked the return of Jean Simmons, a prodigious daughter. She had beguiled the British movie world as a teen, rose to one of the higher Hollywood hills in her 20s, then had to settle for being a working actress - still very pretty, but not quite so proud...
...derided the case as yet another attempt by Russian leaders to manipulate the Orthodox Church for political and nationalistic purposes. Under the Soviet regime, communist leaders enlisted Russian Orthodox officials to fan patriotism and encourage support for the state among the population, in return for which the authorities held back from stamping out the religion for good. Now detractors say that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his government allies are similarly seeking to gain public support by reclaiming relics of Russia's former greatness abroad to stoke patriotism among voters. (See pictures of Pope Benedict...
...tradition that goes back to Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great, in which political leaders used symbols of Russian grandeur - including an entirely submissive church - to create greater support for the regime," says Jean Gueit, rector of the Nice cathedral. "Russian society has been so disoriented and adrift following the changes of the past 20 years that Putin is playing the old nationalist game to snap people out of it by responding to simplistic messages and emotions. Part of that is rebuilding the equally shattered Russian Orthodox Church and help it snatch up all these parishes abroad...
...Moscow's drive isn't just about real estate and nationalism. Critics say the government is also trying to bring back into the fold the congregations that broke with the Russian Orthodox Church during the Soviet era to join a rival Orthodox branch, the Patriarchate of Constantinople - as the faithful in Nice did in 1931. Many of these overseas congregations have started to restore their ties to the Russian Orthodox Church in recent years, though Gueit says this is only in response to the government's putting the squeeze on their churches...
...fighting poverty, and the media can be relied on to ignore him if he continues to work on that issue. He, among many others, went to Haiti this week, without cameras. John Edwards may never be liked again, but with a lot of effort, he could claw his way back to being ignored...