Indonesian president in Malaysia to mend ties

KUALA LUMPUR — Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono arrives in Malaysia on Wednesday for a visit aimed at smoothing over the latest spats between the neighbours, who have a history of troubled relations.

Yudhoyono will be given a full state welcome at Parliament Square in the afternoon, before an evening audience with Malaysia's king and a state banquet. On Thursday he will hold talks with Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak.

Discussions are expected to cover allegations of mistreatment of Indonesian maids, a territorial dispute, regional terrorism and wrangles over cultural issues that have caused anger in Indonesia.

"I think we have our ups and downs," Malaysian Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein told AFP ahead of the visit.

"What is important is that wisdom and sincerity prevails among our top leaders so that (contentious issues) will not jeopardise our relationship."

Hishammuddin said the discussions between Najib and Yudhoyono would cover the issues of "foreign workers, terrorism, Islamic militancy, border security and drug trafficking".

Relations have dived since June when Indonesia said Malaysian warships entered oil-rich waters of the disputed Ambalat area in the Sulawesi sea off northeastern Borneo island.

An Indonesian navy ship came within moments of firing on a Malaysian vessel.

Tensions have been aggravated by horrific cases of abuse against Indonesian maids, which led to Jakarta putting a temporary ban on sending domestic workers to Malaysia.

One of Asia's largest importers of labour, Malaysia depends heavily on domestic workers, mainly from Indonesia, but has been criticised for not introducing legislation to enshrine their rights and conditions.

Cultural issues, long a flashpoint between the two countries, have also added to the troubles.

Foreign minister Anifah Aman met his Indonesian counterpart in September after anger erupted over erroneous reports that Malaysia had screened tourism advertisements featuring the traditional "pendet" dance of Indonesia's Hindu-majority Bali island.

The ad was actually a promotion for a Discovery Channel programme, but did little to quell a media-fuelled rage in Indonesia that saw protesters vow to "crush Malaysia" and organise vigilante sweeps aimed at rounding up Malaysians.

"The visit by the Indonesian president will help mend ties and allow the two leaders to reconcile and strengthen their bond," Mohamad Abu Bakar, professor of international relations at University Malaya, told AFP.

"The relationship of the two Southeast Asian countries is stable but we see minor eruptions," he said.

Hishammuddin said relations between the two sides remained strong in the area of security.

"At the operations level, the relationship is very strong. If not you will not see Mas Selamat and Noordin Mohammed Top brought to book," he said.

In September, Indonesian security forces working with unspecified cooperation from Malaysia, killed Noordin, a 41-year-old Malaysian who led a violent splinter faction of the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) radical network.

He is believed to have masterminded suicide bombing at two Jakarta hotels in July, as well as a string of other attacks including the 2004 bombing of the Australian embassy in Jakarta and 2005 attacks on the holiday island of Bali.

Malaysian security services said in July that with the help of Indonesia and Singapore, they had captured militant Mas Selamat bin Kastari, head of the JI cell in Singapore who had been on the run for more than a year after escaping from a high-security detention centre in Singapore.

Yudhoyono will travel to Singapore on Thursday to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.

Lebanon finally forms government

Lebanese President Michel Suleiman has announced the formation of the 30-member national-unity cabinet - five months after a general election.

Five ministers were chosen by President Suleiman, and 15 are from PM-designate Saad Hariri's Western-backed coalition.

The remaining 10 are from the opposition, including two members of Hezbollah, which struck a deal with the governing coalition last week.

The deadlock over the new government had threatened Lebanon's stability.

Mr Hariri's coalition won a narrow majority in June's election, but needed to negotiate with the opposition to form a unity government.

"Finally, a government of national unity is born," Mr Hariri said.

"I want to be honest from the start: this government can be a chance to renew faith in the state and its institutions... or it can turn into a replay of our failures."

'Real partnership'

Although his party has 15 cabinet positions, with Hezbollah and allies ten, neither side has outright control.

Hezbollah representative Mohammed Fneish told the Associated Press news agency: "This formula achieves the principle of real partnership in political decision-making on key decisions."

The five ministers appointed by President Sleiman include key interior and defence portfolios.

One of the delays was prompted by Christian leader Michel Aoun, a Hezbollah ally, who insisted on retaining the sensitive telecommunications ministry.

Mr Hariri accepted his demand after initially rejecting it.

Mr Hariri led what many described as an anti-Syrian coalition to victory in the elections five months ago.

Syria was a significant political player in neighbouring Lebanon for nearly 30 years until the death of Mr Hariri's father, Rafik, in 2005.

WestJet offering more seat sales in "intensely competitive" environment

CALGARY — WestJet Airlines Inc. (TSX:WJA) is offering a lot more seat sales to travellers than it has in the past as recession-weary consumers scrutinize every dollar they spend, says the chief executive of the Calgary-based carrier.

"We have felt over this recession how discretionary the buying of an airline ticket really is," Sean Durfy told analysts on a conference call to discuss his company's third-quarter results.

WestJet and chief rival, Air Canada (TSX:AC.B), have been vying for customers by aggressively pricing their fares, a factor Durfy said had led his company to post lower third-quarter revenues.

"It is intensely competitive in this marketplace," he said.

And it appears the recession is playing a much larger role in consumers' spending decisions than the H1N1 flu scare.

The virus first surfaced in Mexico in the spring, scaring travellers away from holidays in that region for a time.

However, that does not appear to be the case anymore, Durfy said.

"Because we did have an issue with H1N1 in Mexico a while back, you would think there would be some skepticism from the travelling public but . . . we're not seeing it," he said.

"I can't associate any booking declines with the H1N1 scare."

On Tuesday, WestJet added a twice-weekly flight to Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo, Mexico, bringing the number of cities it now travels to in that country to six. The airline also recently introduced several other routes to various Caribbean holiday destinations.

Earlier Wednesday, WestJet reported profits of $31.4 million, or 24 cents per share, down from $57.9 million or 45 cents in last year's third quarter. Revenue fell to $600.6 million from $718.4 million.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters were, on average, expecting earnings per share of 27 cents and revenues of $603 million.

Last month, WestJet overhauled its reservation system, which in its initial few days caused headaches for some travellers. The airline's website crashed, and its call centre was overwhelmed with an onslaught of callers.

"That won't happen again. These are one-time events," said Durfy.

There are still a few more wrinkles to iron out, like how to handle customers who booked with WestJet before the new system came into effect, but scheduled to fly afterwards.

Migrating the entries from the old system to the new one was no problem, but making changes to those flights has been tricky.

WestJet chose to install a new reservation system, called SabreSonic, to pave the way for code-share agreements with a number of other airlines worldwide.

Code sharing means a traveller can transfer from one airline to another seamlessly, which essentially gives WestJet access to markets around the world.

WestJet is working with Texas-based Southwest Airlines on bringing their code-share agreement into effect, though the timing is uncertain, said executive vice-president Hugh Dunleavy.

Interline pacts, which lay the ground work for code-shares, with Air France and Dutch carrier KLM are working out well so far. Next month, WestJet plans to increase the number of Canadian cities that can connect to those European airlines.

"Look forward to 2010 with three or four additional announcements in terms of partnerships being put into production at WestJet," said Dunleavy, without disclosing which other airlines are involved.

The airline also reported separately that its load factor had improved last month compared with October 2008 when the magnitude of the U.S.-led global recession began to be felt by Canadian consumers.

For October, WestJet's load factor increased to 77.3 per cent, up 1.5 percentage points from the year-earlier period.

For the July-September quarter, WestJet's load factor was down 1.7 points at 79.7 per cent from 81.4 per cent in 2008.

Shares in the airline were 14 cents higher at $11.23 in afternoon trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

Canadian doc pays homage to John Hughes

Documentary filmmaker Matt Austin Sadowski said he made his film Don't You Forget About Me to try and get at the heart of why one of his favourite filmmakers, John Hughes, faded from the public eye.

Working on a shoestring budget, the Toronto-based filmmaker conducted interviews with Hughes protégés Ally Sheedy, Andrew McCarthy, Mia Sara, Alan Ruck, Gedde Watanabe and other actors over a period of three years.

But Sadowski's project gained currency when Hughes, the American film director behind The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller's Day Off, died in August.

His documentary becomes available on DVD on Tuesday, amid renewed interest in Hughes's teen canon. The title of the film is taken from the song Don't You (Forget About Me), which was written for the soundtrack of The Breakfast Club by Simple Minds, who were also interviewed for the documentary.

"These are [films] that have resulted in conversations and really have not only [put] a mark on pop culture but really have [put] a mark on people's adolescence," Sadowski said.

He framed the documentary as a road trip in which he and a camera crew pile into a van to meet the young actors who starred in films such as Weird Science, Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club.

They also interview famous Hughes admirers such as Clerks director Kevin Smith and Juno director Jason Reitman.

"There's a void that you left, whether you like it or not," says former teen actor Justin Henry, the little brother from Sixteen Candles, referring to the fact that Hughes stopped making movies in the 1990s.

The documentary was not made as a eulogy for Hughes, who died after the film was already complete, but as a tribute to his impact as a filmmaker, Sadowski said.

"His movies were really big to so many people," he said.

Cartoon Astérix celebrates 50th birthday

France celebrated the 50th anniversary of cartoon hero Astérix on Thursday, with the surviving creator of the iconic character honoured at events around Paris.

At historic sites around the French capital, open-air displays paid tribute to the diminutive, moustachioed Gaul and the hundreds of related characters René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo created five decades ago.

Astérix, his massive sidekick Obélix and their remote Brittany village perennially resisting the invasion of Roman soldiers debuted in the first edition of Pilote magazine in 1959.

Uderzo — the original illustrator, who added on writer duties after co-creator Goscinny's death in 1977 — was pleased with the outdoor Astérix "monuments" placed around Paris.

Erected near the Place de la Concorde, in front of the Eiffel Tower and in other locations, the displays featured images of the jovial characters or speech bubbles of famous exchanges from the series.

"It's wonderful. It's prestigious," the 82-year-old Uderzo told French TV network euronews.

"Now they must ask the mayor of Paris to keep this on. It's really beautiful. It must be kept on. It must not be removed," he quipped.

The city planned a host of events, including special galas, exhibits and street celebrations. A commemorative stamp will also be issued in France, while the Musée de Cluny has opened a rare exhibition of Uderzo and Goscinny's early Astérix sketches, manuscripts and even the old typewriter the latter used.

Uderzo has also released his latest, Astérix and Obélix's Birthday: The Golden Book. It's the 34th instalment of the stories, which have sold more than 325 million copies in 107 countries worldwide. The series also spawned a trio of live action films, countless related merchandise and even a theme park.

"This success was not expected at all. Even in France the success was not expected. We were pleased to discover the international appeal, firstly in Germany, which compared with that in France," Uderzo told the Guardian newspaper.

"I hope that [the stories] will survive us, that it will be able to still live. You know, the life of a hero is held only by the goodwill of the readers. That does not depend so much on the author. If it must continue, it will continue."

"Precious" star eyes Showtime cancer comedy pilot

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – Hot off her acting debut in the title role of the upcoming drama "Precious," Gabourey Sidibe is in talks to join Showtime's comedy pilot "The C Word."

Laura Linney stars as a suburban wife, mother and a teacher forced to face a diagnosis of cancer but who manages to find the lighter side of a dark situation.

Sidibe would play a student in her summer-school class. The role could be a recurring one for the newcomer, whose breakthrough performance in "Precious" is creating Oscar buzz. The film, in which Sidibe plays a pregnant teen who overcomes insurmountable odds, opens next Friday via Lionsgate.

Also in the cast of the pilot are John Benjamin Hickey ("Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen") as the brother of Linney's character, and Phyllis Somerville ("The Curious Case of Benjamin Button") as her neighbor.

Rock, Seinfeld, Rashad and others salute Bill Cosby in DC with Mark Twain humour prize

WASHINGTON - Bill Cosby is feeling reflective after a celebration of his life's work - making people laugh.

On Monday night, Cosby received the nation's top humour prize at the Kennedy Center in Washington and was saluted by fellow comedians and entertainers. He was lauded by Chris Rock, Jerry Seinfeld, and "The Cosby Show" co-stars Phylicia Rashad and Malcolm-Jamal Warner.

Afterward, Cosby said he saw his life pass before his eyes but it was "all right."

Seinfeld and Rock shared the stage. Both said they followed Cosby's comedy as children and it inspired their own careers. But they joked they could never be as funny as him.

That led into a clip of Cosby's famous impression of a visit to the dentist and other highlights from his career.

"Dunham" breaks Comedy Central ratings record

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – After breaking Comedy Central's ratings records with his special last year, ventriloquist Jeff Dunham repeated the feat with his new series.

The Thursday debut of "The Jeff Dunham Show" drew 5.3 million viewers, making it the most-watched series premiere in Comedy Central's history.

The show, mostly panned by critics, also posted all-time records for a Comedy Central series premiere among adults 18-49 (a 2.6 rating).

Including the same-night replays, the premiere of "Jeff Dunham" attracted 7.9 million viewers. It was the top cable series on Thursday night and powered Comedy Central to its highest-rated night of the year.

Pie-splattered comedian Soupy Sales dies at 83

DETROIT – Soupy Sales, the rubber-faced comedian whose anything-for-a-chuckle career was built on 20,000 pies to the face and 5,000 live TV appearances across a half-century of laughs, has died. He was 83.

Sales died at Thursday night at Calvary Hospice in the Bronx, New York, said his former manager and longtime friend, Dave Usher. Sales had many health problems and entered the hospice last week, Usher said.

At the peak of his fame in the 1950s and '60s, Sales was one of the best-known faces in the nation, Usher said.

"If President Eisenhower would have walked down the street, no one would have recognized him as much as Soupy," said Usher.

At the same time, Sales retained an openness to fans that turned every restaurant meal into an endless autograph-signing session, Usher said.

"He was just good to people," said Usher, a former jazz music producer who managed Sales in the 1950s and now owns Detroit-based Marine Pollution Control.

Sales began his TV career in Cincinnati and Cleveland, then moved to Detroit, where he drew a large audience on WXYZ-TV. He moved to Los Angeles in 1961.

The comic's pie-throwing schtick became his trademark, and celebrities lined up to take one on the chin alongside Sales. During the early 1960s, stars such as Frank Sinatra, Tony Curtis and Shirley MacLaine received their just desserts side-by-side with the comedian on his television show.

"I'll probably be remembered for the pies, and that's all right," Sales said in a 1985 interview.

Sales was born Milton Supman on Jan. 8, 1926, in Franklinton, N.C., where his was the only Jewish family in town. His parents, owners of a dry-goods store, sold sheets to the Ku Klux Klan. The family later moved to Huntington, W.Va.

His greatest success came in New York with "The Soupy Sales Show" — an ostensible children's show that had little to do with Captain Kangaroo and other kiddie fare. Sales' manic, improvisational style also attracted an older audience that responded to his envelope-pushing antics.

Sales, who was typically clad in a black sweater and oversized bow-tie, was once suspended for a week after telling his legion of tiny listeners to empty their mothers' purse and mail him all the pieces of green paper bearing pictures of the presidents.

The cast of "Saturday Night Live" later paid homage by asking their audience to send in their joints. His influence was also obvious in the Pee-Wee Herman character created by Paul Reubens.

Sales returned from the Navy after World War II and became a $20-a-week reporter at a West Virginia radio station. He jumped to a DJ gig, changed his name to Soupy Heinz and headed for Ohio.

His first pie to the face came in 1951, when the newly christened Soupy Sales was hosting a children's show in Cleveland. In Detroit, Sales' show garnered a national reputation as he honed his act — a barrage of sketches, gags and bad puns that played in the Motor City for seven years.

After moving to Los Angeles, he eventually became a fill-in host on "The Tonight Show."

He moved to New York in 1964 and debuted "The Soupy Sales Show," with co-star puppets White Fang (the meanest dog in the United States) and Black Tooth (the nicest dog in the United States). By the time his Big Apple run ended two years later, Sales had appeared on 5,370 live television programs — the most in the medium's history, he boasted. He had a pair of albums that hit the Billboard Top 10 in 1965; "Do the Mouse" sold 250,000 copies in New York alone.

Sales remained a familiar television face, first as a regular from 1968-75 on the game show "What's My Line?" and later appearing on everything from "The Mike Douglas Show" to "The Love Boat." He played himself in the 1998 movie "Holy Man," which starred Eddie Murphy.

He joined WNBC-AM as a disc jockey in 1985, a stint best remembered because Sales filled the hours between shock jocks Don Imus and Howard Stern.

Sales is survived by his wife, Trudy, and two sons, Hunt and Tony, a pair of musicians who backed David Bowie in the band Tin Machine.

FoxTrot

Comedy treatments get Telefilm boost

Five prospective Canadian comedy film projects will get a boost from established veterans Eugene Levy, Ivan Reitman and others this fall as part of the Telefilm Canada Features Comedy Lab.

A Canadian Film Centre collaboration with Just for Laughs, the program aims to help the chosen filmmakers hone their feature-length comedy projects in hopes of scoring production and a theatrical release.

"The Features Comedy Lab is one of the most important building blocks to insure a vibrant future for Canadian film comedy," Comedy Lab chair Eugene Levy said in a statement. "It's just a win-win for the Canadian film industry."

This year, organizers received 74 submissions vying for just five slots.

The winning projects are:

• Workplace comedy Servitude from writer/producer Michael Sparaga and director Warren P. Sonoda (Cooper's Camera, Ham and Cheese), Victory Man Productions.
• The romantic comedy That Burning Feeling from writer Nicolas Citton and producer/director Jason James, Resonance Films.
• Ramington's: Men Of Steel from writer Sacha Pavlovic and producer Mark Montefiore.
• Comedy western Saddlebags by writer Christine Lippa, producers Elizabeth Yake and Angela Heck.
• Irreverent female comedy Two Of Me from writer/director Mina Shum and producer Stephen Hegyes, Brightlight Pictures.

Beginning in November and continuing for three months, the selected filmmaking teams will take part in workshops, classes and one-on-one sessions with experienced comedy producers and other industry professionals who will help them strengthen their scripts, develop and package their ideas.

Some of the mentors will include Reitman, Step Brothers, Elf and Talledega Nights producer Jimmy Miller, My Cousin Vinny and Rushmore producer Tai Duncan and Meatballs, The Pink Panther writer-producer Len Blum.

Kids' pic "Nicolas" misses humor of source material

PARIS (Hollywood Reporter) – Le Petit Nicolas, along with Asterix and Lucky Luke, is one of a small number of French cartoon figures who have captured the imagination of school children around the world. This screen version, "Little Nicolas," technically proficient and featuring two of France's best comic actors, has been timed to mark the 50th anniversary of the scamp's appearance in print.

The sly, gentle humor of the books and the elegance of Jean-Jacques Sempe's illustrations have given way to a literal-minded, sometimes leaden alignment of scenes that are more or less comic, according to taste.

Still, it's hard to see the film -- a hit on home turf since its October 1 release -- failing to do good business in territories outside France, although North America may be an exception.

Director Laurent Tirard, assisted by co-writers Alain Chabat and Gregoire Vigneron and advised by Anne Goscinny, daughter of Nicolas' creator, Rene Goscinny, has strung together a series of episodes drawn from the books and formed them into a plot of sorts.

Misinterpreting a conversation between his parents (Valerie Lemercier, Kad Merad) to mean that he is shortly to have a little brother, Nicolas (Maxime Godart) fears the prospect of being upstaged and possibly even abandoned in favor of the newcomer. He recruits his school chums to carry out a plan to avert this unwelcome competition.

"Little Nicolas" faithfully reproduces the prim, decorous world of suburban France in the postwar years -- pre-Beatles, pre-pill, pre-immigration -- portrayed in the books and seen in other nostalgia-tinged movies such as "The Fabulous Destiny of Amelie Poulain" and "The Chorus" (to which the movie refers in a brief appearance by Gerard Jugnot). The film is no funnier than it has to be. Schoolkids by the hundreds of thousands will probably love it. The parents they bring, curious to see what the filmmakers have made of the books they themselves read, may have mixed feelings.

Goscinny's anarchic 7-year-olds have morphed into a group of mildly larky, gauche 10-year-olds, and while the movie has its moments, the spark of fantasy that would have made it full-throttle funny is mostly missing.

Sadly, the actions and dialogue by the central character have no real wit or bite, so that when in a closing voice-over Nicolas says his ambition in life is "to make people laugh," it is hard to imagine him succeeding.

Monty Python reunite in NY on 40th anniversary

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The Monty Python comedy team, the world-renowned British troupe celebrating its 40th anniversary, was honored with a special award on Thursday for its contribution to film and television.

"If you want to get a better view, this will be on eBay tomorrow," joked John Cleese as he accepted the award from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. Monty Python also included Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin and the late Graham Chapman.

The presentation was made at the official 40th anniversary Monty Python reunion event in New York co-hosted by the Independent Film Channel, and followed a screening of a new documentary, "Monty Python: Almost the Truth (The Lawyer's Cut)."

Monty Python created the influential British television show "Monty Python's Flying Circus," which first aired in 1969, and went on to make popular movies including "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" and "Monty Python's Life of Brian."

The five remaining members of Monty Python took questions from the audience at the event and reminisced. Cleese recalled his most embarrassing moment as "when the queen came down to watch and my trousers fell down."

BAFTA, which hands out Britain's equivalent of the Oscars each year, last honored the Monty Python team in 1987 when it received the Michael Balcon Award for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema.

"Family Guy" special pacts with Microsoft

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – Fox's "Family Guy" special will air November 8 with an exclusive Microsoft sponsorship, the network announced.

The half-hour show, whose working title is "Family Guy Presents: Seth & Alex's Almost Live Comedy Show," will air at 8:30 p.m. and star series creator Seth MacFarlane and his co-star Alex Borstein.

The special will air without traditional commercials and instead will feature Microsoft-branded programing that Fox said will blend with the show's content. The show will promote Microsoft's latest operating system, Windows 7, which will be released October 22.

The special will include original animation, live-action performances of "Family Guy" musical numbers, comedy sketches and celebrity guests. The network's programing that evening will showcase an all-MacFarlane lineup, with new episodes of "American Dad," "The Cleveland Show" and "Family Guy."

Garfield