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A Concise History of Sunnis and Shi’is
John McHugo
London: Saqi Books, 2017
Pp. 347

Aside from the intrinsic fascination that history holds for many, the ultimate rational for studying it is to glean lessons that might help in designing a better world for the future. “A Concise History of Sunnis and Shi’is” certainly meets this criterion by tackling a current issue, sectarianism, that has brought so much suffering to people in the Middle East and beyond, in recent years. British scholar John McHugo guides the reader through Muslim history from the time of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, until today, to reach a potentially game-changing conclusion: “Co-operation across the sectarian divide has always been possible. There is nothing inevitable about conflict between Sunnis and Shi’is.” (p. 306)

It is no mean feat to cover over 1400 years of history in a book that is correctly termed concise. McHugo strikes a good balance between charting overall trends and highlighting significant details as he reviews the development of Islam from a small community of believers into an empire, subsequently multiple empires, and finally the majority religion in the Arab countries, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan. (The book also includes India and Indonesia when relevant to the focus on Sunni-Shi’i relations.)

McHugo covers the teachings of a broad array of Muslim scholars, both Sunni and Shi’i, and the debates among them, whether on religious doctrine or on the relation of religion to state power. His descriptions of the political and economic context in which these debates occurred is masterful, and his profiles of the leading figures at different stages are fascinating. His charting of migration patterns that spread Islam and its different branches to various locations is very instructive, especially since he ties it into today’s demographic realities as to where Sunnis and Shi’is are found.

Throughout this historical review, it is eye-catching that most instances of Sunni-Shi’i discord have occurred in conjunction with power struggles, even when they appeared to involve doctrinal disputes. For example, harsh measures taken by Ottoman sultans against their Shi’i subjects in the 16th century were mainly motivated by fear that the latter might support the rival Safavid Empire. Many contrary examples are also cited of political and religious leaders who in some way straddled the Sunni-Shi’i divide, or attempted to close the gap between them, such as Emperor Akbar, a Sunni Muslim who headed the Mughal Empire that covered most of India in the 16th century. He instituted a policy of universal tolerance which gained the loyalty of Sunnis, Shi’is and Hindus alike, and precluded sectarian strife. McHugo also notes the bridging role of Sufism which over the centuries “could seem to come remarkably close to Shi’ism, while technically remaining Sunni”. (p. 138)

In fact, before the advent of colonialism, the only significant trend within Sunni Islam that was uncompromisingly opposed to Shi’ism was the movement begun by Ibn Abd Al Wahhab, about whom McHugo writes, “Although he saw himself as uniting Muslims, his actions divided communities against themselves, and those divisions persist to this day.” (p. 176) 

The book is logically divided into two parts with the second part covering the last 200 years starting with the colonial era and the imposition of Western dominance. “The Muslim world has been a very different place during this period, no longer able to set its own terms of reference and decide its own agendas.” (p. 185)

While, initially, the need of Muslim societies to defend themselves from colonial penetration led to greater Sunni-Shi’i cooperation, over time Western hegemony enacted huge political and economic changes that sometimes widened the gap between the two. 

McHugo analyses the interplay between pan-Islamism and Arab nationalism, and how the former eventually surpassed the latter, as well as the impact of colonial policies and flawed state formations on Sunni-Shi’i relations. In his review of the earth-shaking events that have marked the Middle East from the Iranian Revolution to the rise of Daesh, it once again becomes apparent that most sectarian conflict has had political and/or socioeconomic, rather than religious, roots, and has been exacerbated by imperialist intervention, most obviously in the case of Iraq. He cites numerous examples of how various regimes have exploited the Sunni-Shi’i divide to their own purposes, to keep their own population under control or to increase their regional clout — all building up to the disastrous situation of today.

McHugo does not view reality through rose-tinted glasses, yet the book gives cause for hope by taking a long view of history: “There have always been tensions between Sunnis and Shi’is, but there has never been sectarian strife between them to compare with the wars of religion and persecutions of the Reformation in Christian Europe…” (p. 304)

If class factors once trumped sectarianism in Iraq, if sectarianism was absent in Yemen until the 21st century, if people of all persuasions rose up across the region for freedom and dignity only a few years ago, the tide can turn again. 

The risk of developing an irregular heart rhythm increases as people age and become overweight or obese, spiking after age 50 for men and age 60 for women, a recent study suggests. 

Researchers examined data on almost 80,000 people, ages 24 to 97, in four European studies. When they joined the studies, none of the participants had atrial fibrillation. 

After following half of the participants for at least 13 years — and some of them for nearly 28 years — researchers found that 4.4 per cent of the women and 6.4 per cent of the men had developed atrial fibrillation. Compared to people who did not develop atrial fibrillation, those who did had a tripled risk of dying during the study period, researchers report in Circulation. 

Excess weight explained most of the increased risk with atrial fibrillation, said study author Dr Christina Magnussen of the University Heart Centre Hamburg in Germany. 

“For each additional 10 pounds, the atrial fibrillation rate increases by 31 per cent in men and by 18 per cent in women,” Magnussen said by e-mail. “As [weight] is a modifiable risk factor, we advise weight reduction for both women and men.” 

In atrial fibrillation, the upper chambers of the heart, or atria, quiver instead of beating to move blood effectively. 

Few people developed atrial fibrillation before age 50, the study found. 

By age 90, roughly one in four men and women had the condition. 

High cholesterol did not appear to increase the risk of atrial fibrillation. In fact, the opposite held true, especially for women. 

The study was not a controlled experiment designed to prove whether or how specific risk factors like high cholesterol or obesity might increase the risk of atrial fibrillation. Some people also might have had undiagnosed atrial fibrillation when they joined the study. 

Even so, the results add to the evidence that the risk of atrial fibrillation decreases with weight loss, said Dr Jonathan C. Hsu, a researcher at the University of California, San Diego, who was not involved in the study. 

“As the body ages or gains weight, inflammatory molecules may be released into the blood,” Hsu said by e-mail. “This type of inflammation may affect the heart and increase the risk of developing atrial fibrillation.” 

Both men and women can reduce their odds of heart problems such as atrial fibrillation by improving their overall health and losing weight, Hsu added. 

“Prior studies have shown that the lifetime risk of developing atrial fibrillation is one in four, with increasing age, elevated blood pressure, obesity, smoking and alcohol consumption being major risk factors, said Dr Gregg Fonarow, a researcher at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, who was not involved in the study. 

“This study further highlights that maintaining a healthy body weight and blood pressure, and not smoking, can substantially lower the risk of developing atrial fibrillation,” Fonarow said by e-mail. 

BONN — The world must sharply draw down greenhouse gas emissions and suck billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide from the air if today’s youth are to be spared climate cataclysm, a top scientist has warned.

“This reality is being ignored by governments around the world,” said James Hansen, who famously announced to the US Congress 30 years ago that global warming was underway.

“To say that we are ‘moving in the right direction’ just isn’t good enough anymore,” he said in an interview.

Head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies until 2013, Hansen and his 18-year-old granddaughter — who is suing the US government for contributing to the problem — delivered that message this week at UN climate negotiations in Bonn.

Thousands of diplomats at the 12-day, 196-nation talks are haggling over the fine print of a “user’s manual” for a treaty that will go into effect in 2020.

Inked in the French capital in 2015, the Paris Agreement calls for capping global warming at 2ºC.

With the planet out of kilter after only one degree of warming — enough to amplify deadly heatwaves, superstorms and droughts — the treaty also vows to explore the feasibility of holding the line at 1.5ºC. 

“That is a good impulse, because if we go to 2ºC, it is guaranteed that we will lose our shorelines and coastal cities,” said Hansen. 

“The only question is how fast.”

Earth’s surface temperature, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, and sea levels have all changed in lock-step over hundreds of millions of years, he pointed out.

In 2016, atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide — the main greenhouse gas — tipped over 403 parts per million (ppm), 40 per cent above the pre-industrial average and the highest level in at least 800,000 years, the UN’s weather agency reported this week. 

‘Proven prescient’

Even under optimistic scenarios, that number is projected to rise for decades. 

What’s the limit for a climate-safe world?

The UN’s science advisory body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has said we can “likely” stay under the 2ºC threshold if CO2 levels don’t exceed 450 ppm by 2100.

For Hansen, that’s a recipe for disaster.

Meltwater from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets could add metres to sea levels by 2100, he has calculated.

“The last time in Earth’s history that CO2 concentrations were at 450 ppm, sea level was 25 metres higher,” he noted.

When writer and environmentalist Bill McKibben decided a decade ago to launch a campaign to fight global warming, he asked the world’s best known climate scientist what he should call it.

“He had in mind the name ‘450.org’,” Hansen recalled. 

By coincidence, Hansen was about to publish a major study that concluded the ceiling for CO2 levels should be 350 ppm, at most. 

Thus was born 350.org, probably the largest grassroots climate action organisation in the world.

“Hansen does make a compelling case that many climate change impacts are occurring sooner and with greater magnitude than we expected,” said Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Centre at Pennsylvania State University.

“Jim’s past predictions have proven prescient and we do indeed ignore him at our peril.”

“Hansen’s contributions to the basic science of climate change are fundamental to our current understanding — no one has contributed more,” said Michael Oppenheimer, a professor of geosciences and international affairs at Princeton University.

Climate negligence

Even if humanity succeeds in bending down the curve of greenhouse emissions far sooner than currently seems imaginable, it would not be fast enough to bring CO2 levels back to 350 ppm by century’s end, according to Hansen. 

“You would have to extract 150 billion tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere,” more than 10 times the amount we emit each year, he said.

The technology to do that does not currently exist.

At 76, Hansen is thinking a lot about and what kind of world young people will be inheriting. 

So is his granddaughter, Sophie Kivlehan, a first year university student in the United States. 

Along with 20 of her peers, Kivlehan has sued the US federal government for what might best be called climate negligence. 

“When the US Constitution says ‘We the People,’ that means young people too,” she said in an interview. 

“We have constitutional rights, and those rights are being violated.”

The case is currently wending its way through the federal court system, and could one day wind up before the supreme court, one of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs told AFP.

Government attempts to have the case thrown out have failed.

Despite his grim predictions, Hansen has not thrown his hands up in despair. He continues, for example, to campaign for a direct tax on fossil fuels as the only realistic way to achieve the necessary cuts.

People who exercise may lower their odds of developing low back pain or may reduce the intensity of back pain they do experience, a research review suggests. 

Compared to people who did not exercise, those who did were 33 per cent less likely to develop low back pain, the analysis of data from 16 previously published studies found. Pairing exercise with patient education about back pain was associated with 27 per cent lower odds of developing low back pain, the study also found. 

“The study shows that exercises for strengthening and stretching the lumbar and abdominal muscles, or a combination of strengthening and aerobic exercises protect against low back pain,” said lead study author Dr Rahman Shiri of the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health in Helsinki. 

“Furthermore, exercise reduces the severity of low back pain as well as disability due to low back pain,” Shiri said by e-mail. 

The researchers analysed results from previous experiments that randomly assigned people with or without back pain to start different exercise routines. They also looked at some studies that compared exercise alone or exercise paired with education. 

Altogether, the studies in the analysis had a total of 4,310 participants. Individual studies ranged in size from 30 to 901 participants and followed people for 2 to 24 months. 

Many of the trials included stretching exercises and some looked at strengthening, aerobic fitness, endurance, balance, coordination and motor skills. 

Four studies were conducted in Japan, three in Denmark, two in Sweden and one each in Canada, Finland, Italy, New Zealand, Thailand, the UK and the United States. 

Five studies only included people who did not have back pain to see if they developed it, while the rest included participants with and without back pain. 

Exercise alone, compared to no physical activity, was associated with a 38 per cent lower risk of disability due to low back pain, an analysis of five studies found. Adding patient education to exercise got similar results, one study concluded. 

While exercise appeared to also lower the chances that participants would seek medical care or go on sick leave for low back pain, the difference was too small to rule out the possibility that it was due to chance. 

One limitation of the review is that it focused on people in the general population, so it is possible the impact of exercise might be different for individuals already suffering from low back pain, the authors note in the American Journal of Epidemiology. 

Another drawback is that the analysis did not explore whether one type of exercise might be better than another for preventing low back pain, said Steven George, a researcher at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, who was not involved in the study. 

“This study also could not separate the physical and mental benefits of exercise,” George said by e-mail. “My guess is that the individual gets the benefit of both with exercise.” 

Any exercise people like may help as long as they do it often enough, said Bruno Saragiotto, a public health researcher at the University of Sydney in Australia who was not involved in the review. Ideally, people should get at least 150 minutes a week of moderate-intensity activity, he said by e-mail. 

“Fortunately, the type of exercise seems less important,” Saragiotto added. 

Many other things people try for back pain — like braces, special mattresses and custom footwear — have not been found to help like exercise has, noted Julie Fritz, a researcher at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City who was not involved in the review. 

“This current study helps to reinforce and strengthen further our knowledge that exercise is about the only thing that consistently results in reduced risk of developing back pain,” Fritz said by e-mail. “For patients who have had prior episodes of back pain, exercise helps reduce the risk of a new episode.” 

TAMPA — A new review of research into fish oil consumption in pregnant women has found that eating fish and taking supplements are both equally likely to protect children from developing asthma.

Carried out by researchers at the University of South Florida in Tampa, the scientific review looked at two studies before concluding that children whose mothers consumed high-dose omega-3 fatty acids daily during the third trimester, whether from fish or supplements, were less likely to develop breathing problems.

The first study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, looked at 346 pregnant women in their 3rd trimester who took omega-3 fatty acids daily and 349 women who took a placebo. It found that women with the lowest blood levels benefited the most from fish oil supplementation.

The second study randomised pregnant women in their third trimester into fish oil, placebo and “no oil” groups.

The fish oil group took omega-3 fatty acids supplements daily, whilst the placebo group was given olive oil daily.

The “no oil” group was informed about the aims of the study, and were told that if they wanted, they could consume either fish oil supplements or fish during the third trimester.

The results showed that children of women in the fish oil and the “no oil” groups took less asthma medication as they aged to 24 years old, suggesting that both groups, whether consuming supplements or fish, developed less asthma.

Co-authors of the review, Richard Lockey, MD, and Chen Hsing Lin, MD, also suggest that pregnant women receive the same benefit as supplements if they follow the Food and Drug Administration and Environmental Protection Agency’s recommendation to consume 225-349 grammes (2-3 servings) of low mercury fish per week.

“Omega-3 fatty acids cannot be synthesised by humans and therefore are essential nutrients which are derived exclusively from marine sources,” said Lin. “It may be premature to recommend daily high dose fish oil supplementation during the third trimester.”

“With almost equal to slightly higher cost, consuming 225-349 grammes [2-3 servings] of fish a week not only may attain the same asthma protection, but strengthens the nutritional benefits to infant growth and development,” said Lockey.

You can think of them as five world superpowers in their own right. They are GAFAM, the now accepted and widely used acronym for Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft. I must admit I only recently discovered the acronym, though the concept itself, being the crucial role these five entities play in our life, has been understood, acknowledged and felt by the entire world for many years now.

The combined power of these five giants is overwhelming and perfectly illustrates our dependency on digital and on global networks. The business and social impact of GAFAM cannot be underestimated.

Macroeconomics aside, and on a somewhat down-to-earth level, one wonders which of these five is the most crucial on a day to day evaluation. In other, simpler words, should one of them stop working for a while, which one would affect us most? And how?

The answer will unmistakably come with a dose of subjectivity. If for example you use Apple computers and iPhones, then of course for you it is Apple that is the most critical. If your life depends on doing 100 Google searches per day, on gmail and on your Android mobile system, then it would be Google.

On a global scale, however, Microsoft is the enterprise that fuels the largest, and by far, number of computers and networks in the world. With its Windows operating system, be it the version on your personal computer or the one that runs on networks servers, it is not exaggerated to say that the world would stop should Microsoft’s Windows system stop.

After that I would say it is a tie between Google and Apple, with perhaps a little edge for Google. Apple’s iPhones represent an average 13 per cent of the world’s smartphones market. Whereas this is not negligible in absolute value, it is but a fraction of the Android’s market, Google’s system for mobile devices. And of course, Google is not just about Android but about the biggest — and the fastest, let’s not forget — web search engine and information database in the world.

In third position I would put Facebook and Amazon. Despite their gigantic users’ base, we just would not die overnight if they suddenly stopped working. True, Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder and boss has recently overtaken Microsoft’s founder and former boss Bill Gates in terms of personal wealth, but the impact of the two companies is radically different in nature.

There are still countless alternatives to online shopping on Amazon today, but there are very few to Microsoft’s computer operating systems. Moreover, with the excellent performance of their latest editions, being Windows 10 for personal computers and Windows Server 2016 for big machines, the company has shown that despite passing criticism from time to time, it is here to stay and is highly dependable.

As to Facebook, with all due respect to Mark Zuckerberg, and without diminishing the importance of the social network, its business impact cannot be compared to the other four of the group, this despite the growing income that advertising on Facebook is generating.

Based on the above I would sort the acronym to be updated as MAGAF, as in Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon and Facebook; but apparently it is not up to me.

Older women who get more moderate to vigorous physical activity may be less likely to die prematurely than their counterparts who do not get much exercise, a US study suggests. 

The study involved more than 17,700 women with an average age of 72 who were asked to wear accelerometres every day for a week. Researchers followed the participants for more than two years on average. During this time, 207 women died. 

When the researchers sorted women into four groups from most to least active, they found those who got the most moderate to vigorous physical activity, such as brisk walking, were up to 70 per cent less likely to die during the study period. Getting more low-intensity activity, however, did not appear to influence the odds of death. 

“The fact that physical activity lowers the risk of premature mortality is not a new fact — we have many studies showing this,” said lead study author I-Min Lee of Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. 

“However, previous studies have primarily relied on self-reported physical activity and self-reports tend to be imprecise,” Lee said by e-mail. 

Earlier studies based on participants’ own assessments of their activity levels have found regular exercise associated with up to about a 30 per cent reduction in mortality rates, Lee and colleagues note online November 6 in Circulation. 

Accelerometers and other activity trackers are more reliable ways to examine the connection between longevity and exercise habits because they offer a more accurate picture of how much time people devote to exercise as well as how hard they work out and how much time they are sedentary in a typical day. 

The accelerometres used in the current study could measure activity along three planes: up and down, front to back and side-to-side. This can help researchers see not just if people are moving, but the intensity of their movements. 

Half of the participants spent at least 28 minutes in moderate to vigorous physical activity on an average day, or around 196 minutes a week. 

Doctors typically advise people to get at least 150 minutes a week of moderate to vigorous exercise. 

Even though some previous research has linked excessive sedentary time to a higher risk of premature death, the current study did not find an association between these two things. 

One limitation of the study is that researchers didn’t follow women for very many years, which might make it hard to see long-term benefits of intense exercise for older women. In addition, even though researchers accounted for individual characteristics and medical issues, they relied on women to report their own health problems and this may have allowed some inaccurate or incomplete information to be used in the analysis. 

It is also possible that the study results might not reflect what would happen for all older adults because these participants were avid exercisers, said Dr David Alter, a researcher at the University of Toronto who was not involved in the study. 

“This study examined a healthy active group of women where we might have not expected to see any deleterious effects from sedentary behaviour,” Alter said by e-mail. “Had the researchers explored very sedentary non-exercise avid individuals, the results might have been [different].” 

Even so, the findings add to a large body of evidence already linking moderate to vigorous physical activity to a lower risk of premature death, said Keith Diaz, a researcher at Columbia University Medical Centre in New York who was not involved in the study. 

“Research shows individuals have a hard time estimating how many hours a day they are active or sitting,” Diaz said by e-mail. “So what’s relatively new about this study is that an activity monitor was used to more accurately determine how much time study participants spent active and sitting.” 

Anyone who cannot handle a brisk walk every day can consider other options to get the benefits of moderate to vigorous physical activity, Diaz added. 

“Swimming, bicycling, rowing, arm cycling, and seated steppers are all alternatives,” Diaz said. 

People who suffer from depression may not live as long as individuals who do not experience this mental health disorder, a Canadian study suggests. 

Researchers examined six decades of mental health and mortality data on 3,410 adults during three time periods: 1952 to 1967, 1968 to 1990 and 1991 to 2011. Depression was associated with an increased risk of premature death in every decade of the study for men, and starting in the 1990s for women. 

The connection between depression and a shorter lifespan appeared strongest in the years following a depressive episode, leading the researchers to conclude that at least part of the risk might be reversed by effectively treating the mental illness. 

“For some individuals depression can be very serious condition,” said lead study author Stephen Gilman of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. 

“Given our finding that individuals whose depression was present at multiple time points in our study were at highest risk, it is very important to seek treatment for depression and to be vigilant about recurrences,” Gilman said by e-mail. 

Depression has long been linked to a variety of health problems, in part because it may lead to physiological changes in the body and also because it can contribute to unhealthy habits like a poor diet, inactivity, smoking and excessive drinking. 

In the current study, however, researchers found a link between depression and premature death even after accounting for things like obesity, smoking and drinking habits. 

“It is known that depression is associated with an increased risk of death from heart disease,” said Dr Ralph Stewart, a researcher at the University of Auckland in New Zealand who was not involved in the study.” 

“This study suggests that this increased risk of death extends to other causes of premature death and persists over decades,” Stewart said by e-mail. 

The researchers examined data from the Stirling County Study, which began in 1952 in Canada and is one of the first community-based studies on mental illness. 

People were about 50 years old on average when they joined the study. Across the three time periods examined, researchers followed half of the participants for at least 19 years. 

Researchers calculated life expectancies at age 25 for men and women with and without depression in each wave of the study. 

In the first wave, life expectancy with depression was 10 and 12 years shorter for women and men, respectively, researchers report in The Canadian Medical Associaion Journal . It was seven years shorter for men with depression in the second wave, and 7 and 18 years shorter for women and men with depression, respectively, in the last group. 

Men with depression were almost three times as likely to die early at the beginning of the study, but the increased risk declined to 52 per cent by the end. 

Women’s risk of a premature death increased, however. At the start of the study, women with depression were 8 per cent more likely to die prematurely, and by the end their increased risk was similar to men’s odds at 51 per cent. 

Limitations include a long interval between participant interviews, which prevented the research team from determining the exact timing of depression and recurrences, the authors note. 

Even so, the findings underscore the importance of diagnosing and treating depression, said Dr Gjin Ndrepepa, a researcher at the German Heart Centre and Technical University in Munich, Germany, who was not involved in the study. 

“Since the risk related to depression decays over time, great efforts should be made to improve treatment and prevent recurrences of depressive episodes,” Ndrepepa said by e-mail. 

Treating depression, Ndrepepa added, “can reduce depressive symptoms, improve quality of life and potentially prolong life”. 

LOS ANGELES — Disney-Marvel’s “Thor: Ragnarok” came in first place at the box office with  a stellar opening weekend with $121 million at 4,080 North American locations — the fourth best launch of 2017.

The third Thor movie is also putting an emphatic end to the month-long box office slump that saw the worst October in a decade. Among 2017 titles, its debut weekend trails only “Beauty and the Beast” at $174.8 million, “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” at $146.5 million and “It” at $123.4 million.

“Thor: Ragnarok” also officially launches the holiday season with a major bang. Moviegoing has been battered this year by a subpar second half that is pulled down 2017 grosses by 5 per cent, but it should rebound somewhat, thanks to “Thor: Ragnarok”, Warner Bros.-DC Entertainment’s “Justice League” (which opens November 17) and Disney-Lucasfilm’s “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” (opening December 15).

“November has been a hotbed for blockbusters and is as important to any given year as even the hottest summer months and has been the launch pad for some of the biggest franchises in box office history including ‘Harry Potter,’ ‘The Hunger Games’ and ‘Twilight,’ not to mention the traditional home for James Bond,” noted Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst with comScore. “Now Thor joins the rarefied air that is the $100 million November opening club, becoming only the ninth film to ever reach this threshold and the first to do it within the first part of the month.”

STXfilms’ R-rated “A Bad Moms Christmas”, which opened Wednesday, came in second place with a respectable $16.86 million at 3,615 sites for its first five days. A24’s launch of Greta Gerwig’s “Lady Bird” posted the best platform opening of the year with $375,612 on four screens for an impressive $93,903 per-screen average.

“Thor: Ragnarok” wound up over-performing recent estimates, which had been in the $100 million to $118 million range. The rollout includes 3,400 3D screens, 391 IMAX screens, 616 premium large format screens, and 204 D-Box locations. The IMAX total was $25.4 million.

With Chris Hemsworth reprising the title role, “Thor: Ragnarok” will finish far above its predecessors, nearly doubling the 2011 opening of “Thor” at $65.7 million and coming in 41 per cent above the 2013 sequel “Thor: The Dark World” at $85.7 million.

“Thor: Ragnarok” is directed by Taika Waititi from a screenplay by Eric Pearson and the writing team of Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost. It also stars Tom Hiddleston, Cate Blanchett, Idris Elba, Jeff Goldblum, Tessa Thompson, Karl Urban, Mark Ruffalo and Anthony Hopkins. The character of Thor, based on Norse mythology, was created in 1962 by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, and Jack Kirby for Marvel Comics.

“Thor: Ragnarok” has also taken in $306 million overseas, including $109 million in its international launch last week in 52 per cent of foreign markets. It expanded to most other overseas territories this weekend.