Myanmar frees journalists jailed for flying drone
Nay Pyi Taw: Two foreign journalists, an interpreter and a driver jailed for flying a drone near Myanmar's parliament have been released, the authorities said on Friday.
Cameraman Lau Hon Meng from Singapore and Malaysian reporter Mok Choy Lin were detained while shooting a documentary in October. Their driver Hla Tin and their interpreter, journalist Aung Naing Soe, are both from Myanmar, reports the BBC.
All four detainees, who work for Turkish broadcaster TRT, have served a two-month sentence for breaching anti-aircraft laws.
Further charges, which could have led to years in jail, have been dropped.
TRT has always insisted the authorities had been informed about the planned filming activities.
The four were being further investigated for breaching rules on importing the drone without a licence, an offence which could have resulted in a three-year jail term. The two foreign journalists were also accused of immigration offences.
But the police dropped the additional charges, saying the men had not endangered national security, the BBC reported.
Earlier this month, two local Reuters journalists covering the Rohingya crisis in Rakhine state were arrested.
The two are facing up to 14 years in prison and met their families on Wednesday for the first time since they were held.
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President Donald Trump threatens 100% tariff on foreign-made films
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New York (AP): President Donald Trump is opening a new salvo in his tariff war, targeting films made outside the US.
In a post on Sunday night on his Truth Social platform, Trump said he has authorized the Department of Commerce and the Office of the US Trade Representative to slap a 100% tariff “on any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands.”
“The Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death," he wrote, complaining that other countries “are offering all sorts of incentives to draw" filmmakers and studios away from the US. "This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat. It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda!”
It wasn't immediately clear how any such tariff on international productions could be implemented. It's common for both large and smaller films to include production both in the US and other countries. Big-budget movies like the upcoming “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning," for instance, are shot around the world.
Incentive programs for years have influenced where movies are shot, increasingly driving film production out of California and to other states and countries with favorable tax incentives, like Canada and the United Kingdom.
Yet tariffs are designed to lead consumers toward American products. And in movie theaters, American-produced movies overwhelmingly dominate the domestic marketplace.
China has ramped up its domestic movie production, culminating in the animated blockbuster “Ne Zha 2” grossing more than USD2 billion this year. But even then, its sales came almost entirely from mainland China. In North America, in earned just USD20.9 million.
The Motion Picture Association didn't immediately respond to messages Sunday evening.
The MPA's data shows how much Hollywood exports have dominated cinemas. According to the MPA, the American movies produced USD22.6 billion in exports and USD15.3 billion in trade surplus in 2023.
Trump has made good on the “tariff man" label he gave himself years ago, slapping new taxes on goods made in countries around the globe. That includes a 145% tariff on Chinese goods and a 10% baseline tariff on goods from other countries, with even higher levies threatened.
By unilaterally imposing tariffs, Trump has exerted extraordinary influence over the flow of commerce, creating political risks and pulling the market in different directions. There are tariffs on autos, steel and aluminum, with more imports, including pharmaceutical drugs, set to be subject to new tariffs in the weeks ahead.
Trump has long voiced concern about movie production moving overseas.
Shortly before he took office, he announced that he had tapped actors Mel Gibson, Jon Voight and Sylvester Stallone to serve as “special ambassadors" to Hollywood to bring it "BACK—BIGGER, BETTER, AND STRONGER THAN EVER BEFORE!”
US film and television production has been hampered in recent years, with setbacks from the COVID-19 pandemic, the Hollywood guild strikes of 2023 and the recent wildfires in the Los Angeles area. Overall production in the US was down 26% last year compared with 2021, according to data from ProdPro, which tracks production.
The group's annual survey of executives, which asked about preferred filming locations, found no location in the US made the top five, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Toronto, the U.K., Vancouver, Central Europe and Australia came out on top, with California placing sixth, Georgia seventh, New Jersey eighth, and New York ninth.
The problem is especially acute in California. In the greater Los Angeles area, production last year was down 5.6% from 2023 according to FilmLA, second only to 2020, during the peak of the pandemic. Last, October, Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed expanding California's Film & Television Tax Credit program to USD750 million annually, up from USD330 million.
Other US cities like Atlanta, New York, Chicago and San Francisco have also used aggressive tax incentives to lure film and TV productions. Those programs can take the form of cash grants, as in Texas, or tax credits, which Georgia and New Mexico offer.
“Other nations have been stealing the movie-making capabilities from the United States,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Sunday night after returning from a weekend in Florida. “If they're not willing to make a movie inside the United States we should have a tariff on movies that come in."
