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THE VETERAN FILM-MAKER Richard Attenborough, who won an Oscar for Gandhi, has died.
The actor’s son, Michael Attenborough told the BBC that his father died today. He had been in poor health for some time.
Prime Minister David Cameron issued a statement calling Attenborough “one of the greats of cinema.”
“His acting in ‘Brighton Rock’ was brilliant, his directing of ‘Gandhi’ was stunning,” Cameron said.
Attenborough won an Academy Award for best director with “Gandhi” in 1982, only one of many highlights of a distinguished career as actor and director.
With his abundant snow-white hair and beard, Attenborough was one of the most familiar faces on the British arts scene — universally known as “Dickie.”
His greatest success was Gandhi, a film 20 years in the planning.
For many of a younger generation, he will be remembered as the man who welcomed you to Jurassic Park.
His later years were marked by a horrendous personal tragedy when he lost his daughter Jane and granddaughter in the tsunami that hit Thailand the day after Christmas in 2004.
The heart-broken Attenborough said he was never able to celebrate the Christmas holidays after that.
He had been in frail health since a fall at his house in 2008, and spent his last years in a nursing home with his wife.
He is survived by his wife, their son and a daughter.
With reporting from the Associated Press.
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Contraception, abstention, no, condoms… can start to tell the people of the third world the advantages of these words? And back them up with positive actions?
We as a planet need to address resources and infant mortality as a priority or start turning off the TV every time we hear about famine or drought.
Surely the Free Market will be overjoyed with all these births. All the more workers to exploit, I mean employ to keep the capitalist wheel turning.
Sadly these children born in africa wont survive into their teens.
its worse than that dee lee most wont see their fifth birthday,thats why they have such large families,to try and at least have 2 or 3 children survive to continue on the blood line
If it has increased by 1bn in the last decade why would that rate slow down? Should it not be much higher than 2 – 4.5bn more people come 2100? Given that the growth is geometric…
Or is there some planned pandemic they haven’t told us about…
Like a lot of natural systems, population growth looks closer to a sigmoid function. After a period of high growth, the growth will reduce over time and possibly become negative as it has in the first world.
I remember a ridiculous graph in the geography book in school that showed exponential population growth continuing into the distant future and a population of tens of billions of people by 2050. I don’t know how that was allowed into a supposed fact-based school book.
There was an issue of national geographic a few months ago announcing the population had hit 7billion.
have your say