{"id":76959,"date":"2014-12-24T07:34:26","date_gmt":"2014-12-24T07:34:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=76959"},"modified":"2014-12-24T07:34:26","modified_gmt":"2014-12-24T07:34:26","slug":"obama-hails-interview-screenings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=76959","title":{"rendered":"Obama hails ‘The Interview’ screenings"},"content":{"rendered":"

US President Barack Obama has welcomed a decision by Sony to screen a comedy about North Korea in a limited number of US cinemas on Christmas Day.<\/p>\n

He had earlier criticised Sony for pulling the film following a cyber-attack and threats against cinemas.<\/p>\n

The US has accused North Korea of being behind the cyber-attack.<\/p>\n

The film is expected to show in 200 mostly independent and art-house cinemas on Thursday. Hackers have threatened fresh attacks.<\/p>\n

Mr Obama had called Sony’s earlier decision to cancel the film’s release a “mistake”.<\/p>\n

His spokesman, Eric Schultz, said in a statement that the president applauded the change of mind.<\/p>\n

“As the president made clear, we are a country that believes in free speech, and the right of artistic expression,” the statement said.<\/p>\n

“The decision made by Sony and participating theatres allows people to make their own choices about the film, and we welcome that outcome.”<\/p>\n

North Korea has denied that it was behind the cyber-attack on Sony. But it praised the attack and had long condemned The Interview, which depicts a fictional plot to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.<\/p>\n

The Interview was originally due to be released on up to 3,000 screens on Christmas Day.<\/p>\n

Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton said his company had “never given up” on a release, and was continuing efforts to have the film shown more widely.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
\"The<\/div>\n
The film was branded an “act of war” by North Korea<\/div>\n

Earlier, Seth Rogen, who directed and starred in the film, tweeted: “The people have spoken! Freedom has prevailed! Sony didn’t give up!”<\/p>\n

Hundreds of independently-owned theatres had signed a petitionexpressing support for the film and its screening.<\/p>\n

Criticism of Sony had also come from Congress and from Hollywood, with some calling the initial decision an attack on freedom of expression.<\/p>\n

In recent days North Korea has suffered severe internet outages, though it is not clear what caused the disruption. President Obama had previously vowed to respond to the cyber-attack against Sony, but US officials declined to comment on whether the US was responsible.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

US President Barack Obama has welcomed a decision by Sony to screen a comedy about North Korea in a limited number of US cinemas on Christmas Day. He had earlier criticised Sony for pulling the film following a cyber-attack and threats against cinemas. The US has accused North Korea of being behind the cyber-attack. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":76960,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[38,14],"class_list":["post-76959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-palaver-newspaper","tag-papa-owusu-ankomah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=76959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/76960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}