12/9/2023 0 Comments Dragon spring cafe![]() Their new album's artwork features a 1924 photograph by the Russian artist Alexander Rodchenko. They dress like German schoolboys, their outlook is arty, austere and resolutely European. ![]() Despite the twin guitar bite of their abrasive but danceable songs (labelled disco-punk by some critics), they more closely resemble fey indie kids than snarling rock behemoths. 'I am loving it.'īut if anyone thought Franz Ferdinand would, like some of their UK predecessors during the Nineties, now be practically tobogganing in cocaine and groupies, they'd be wrong. 'It wasn't until we came here that we realised that British bands don't really have an impact,' says singer, guitarist and band leader Alex Kapranos, 33. Nationalist boundaries don't seem to apply to them as much.' The band, four art-loving bohemians who met in Glasgow as students, are equally agog. 'They are smart guys who have personality, they can play live and they look great. 'For a band like them to have sold over a million records with their debut is unheard of,' confirms Jason Adams, senior editor of America's agenda-setting Entertainment Weekly, which has been an enthusiastic supporter of the band. For Franz Ferdinand - who played their first New York show to 40 people just over a year ago - it's downright miraculous. Outside Coldplay, it's an achievement unmatched by a UK rock band since Oasis roamed the American continent almost 10 years ago. Having sold more than a million copies of their Mercury Music prize-winning debut album in the US last year, the follow up, You Could Have It So Much Better, has entered the US Billboard 200 at number eight, with 81,000 over-the-counter sales in its first week of release. But so are a growing number of enthusiasts on that side of the Atlantic. Epoch Media Group denied any involvement, saying it split with Vietnam Epoch Times a year before.David Bowie, who's turned up to watch the band the last two times they've played in his adopted hometown of New York, is a committed Franz Ferdinand fan. Facebook found BL spent more than $US9 million on ads that reached 55 million accounts.Īlex Kasprak discovered BL was operated from Vietnam by former employees of The Vietnam Epoch Times. In one example, the actress Helen Mirren's image was used as the profile picture of a fake account. The BL, or The Beauty of Life, was posting fake profiles of supposed Trump supporters that were actually stock photos and even artificially generated images. He also points out that "every single advertisement went through Facebook's review process and was approved … before running."įacebook took action again in December, taking down posts from a network that it linked to the Epoch Media Group. "And there is no secret there, since it's all public." "Without exception, these ads are overtly Epoch Times advertisements for our subscriptions," says The Epoch Times' publisher Stephen Gregory. ![]() The Epoch Times denied any deception, saying it was obvious they were behind the ads. "That's a clear violation of Facebook's policy." "Essentially they were creating a number of Facebook groups or pages that didn't disclose they were part of the publisher or part of The Epoch Times publishing group," says investigative journalist Alex Kasprak, who works for the fact-checking website Snopes. ( Foreign Correspondent/Background Briefing) The Falun Dafa Association added that it is ultimately a personal choice whether someone seeks medical treatment, but when people have taken up the practice and understood the universal principles behind it, diseases can disappear.īen Hurley was a Falun Gong practitioner for 10 years and worked for the Australian version of The Epoch Times. She says any practitioners who encouraged Colleen to avoid medicine did so based on their "personal interpretations". "Personally, I didn't tell her or pressure her not to take medicine." "Whether she actually continued to take medication or not is her personal choice," she says. Lucy Zhao, president of the Falun Dafa Association of Australia, says Colleen was a friend and claims her health improved after she started practicing Falun Gong. "There's plausible deniability because Li has a range of teachings … that says 'if you're sick, go to the hospital', but then there are always parts of teaching that Master Li can cure all of your illnesses and you just have to believe in him." "In Falun Gong, the teachings are you don't acknowledge illness," says Ben. Colleen May (right) found solace in Falun Gong and gave much of her time to the movement's activities.
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