Lily is parodying the assumption that because a celebrity likes clothes she’s the reincarnation of Coco Chanel . . . or something I have found myself to be strangely gripped by that TV show, Lily Allen Opens a Shop, or whatever it’s called . Is that all it takes to open a
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Here’s what we’re hoping for from the Rocky and Rambo star’s menswear label This autumn, Academy Award winner Sly Stallone faces his greatest challenge yet: the film legend is launching his very own clothing line. Stallone’s menswear will be based on his two most iconic characters, Rambo and Rocky, and will feature – in the words of the designer – “looks for the rebel and the gentleman”. Here are the key pieces we’re desperately hoping for. • A deluxe headband. Sly reckons that the line will be “premium”, so we’re holding out for something in six-ply cashmere that says “soldier-chic”. • An olive-green vest. Scoop-necked and a bit military. A menswear cliché perhaps, but the Stallone interpretation could be styled with a gold pendant. One for Cristiano Ronaldo
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Three groups, led by former presidents, refuse to initial road map aimed at ending two-year impasse Three opposition groups in Madagascar have rejected a new unity government named as part of a road map to end a two-year impasse. The government, named on Saturday, has 23 new ministers while nine members of the previous administration retain their posts – including the ministers of finance, mines and hydrocarbons, justice, defence, and the environment and forests. The groups, led by former presidents Marc Ravalomanana, Didier Ratsiraka and Albert Zafy, declined to initial the plan, which allows Andry Rajoelina, who grabbed power with military support in 2009, to remain president until free and fair elections are held. Rajoelina did, however, include some members of the party founded by Ravalomanana and some dissidents within his movement. The Southern African Development Community (SADC) had long called for Rajoelina to go so Ravalomanana could return to power, but it shifted its stance earlier this year by approving the plan to leave Rajoelina in office until elections. The prime minister, Camille Vital, said he thought the new government was inclusive and that SADC would accept it. A member of Zafy’s group, however, said the government had been formed unilaterally by Rajoelina’s transitional administration to buy more time. An official in Ravalomanana’s movement said that until the road map had been signed, the current administration had no business appointing a new government. The political deadlock has hurt Madagascar’s economy after donors froze budgetary support worth hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Government spending dried up and private investment slowed sharply after the power grab. An independent electoral commission and UN representatives will agree a date for the election based on evaluations of how soon a credible vote can be held. Madagascar guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …The Taliban claimed today that it kidnapped 50 Afghan policemen in northeastern Afghanistan—part of the insurgents’ murder and intimidation campaign against anyone affiliated with the US-backed government. Militants ambushed the policemen yesterday afternoon after being tipped off that they would be traveling in Kunar province, a Taliban spokesman said….
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I’m not going to tell you whodunnit, only that The Killing has been the best thing on TV for ages Non-spoiler alert: there are no spoilers in what follows. If you’ve yet to see the end of The Killing, or any of it and you plan to, it’s still fine to read on. Honest. I need to explain something about the mechanics of this column. Unless there’s some massive live TV event on Saturday I file copy for Monday’s edition, the weekend’s television, on a Friday. The early deadlines are to allow people who work on the print edition, the newspaper, to have some kind of a weekend. I don’t know whether they deserve one, but that’s another matter. The point is, I’m not going to discuss who it was whodunnit in The Killing (BBC4, Saturday), the conclusion of which was obviously the Big Thing this weekend. It wouldn’t be fair on my editors and subeditors. For those of them (loads, this is prime Guardian territory) who have been watching, it would totally spoil their weekend. For the others, it would spoil the box set which I will be urging them to get hold of as soon as it comes out. If you do want to discuss how Pernille could possibly have slaughtered her own daughter (oops . . . only kidding, hahaha), then you need to go to Vicky Frost’s excellent series blog . Which you almost certainly have done already – more than 1,200 posts after the last one. And there are half a million viewers of the show – not bad for an obscure foreign-language drama on BBC4 that requires serious commitment. And after all that hype, who’s talking about Boardwalk Empire? I will say, however, that the end of The Killing has left a frightening gaping void in my life. What is there to think about now, to lie awake worrying about at night? (I had a nice little theory about Nordic neo-Nazism, Mayor Bremer, and the bid for the 1984 Winter Olympics on the go). In my house, The Killing – or Forbrydelsen, as we’ve come to call it, pretentiously – has crept up and engulfed us like the gloom of an unlit Copenhagen cellar in November. Not only has it been pretty much the only topic of conversation for the past 10 weeks, but we’ve also begun speaking in Danish. Pass the salt, tak ; shall we get a hund ? We’ll call out “Troels!” in the voice of Rie Skovgaard for no reason at all, often in our sleep. And then think of excuses to say it again. Who are ugly and live under bridges? “Troels!” How does the fisherman catch mackerel behind his boat? “Troels!” What does a bobby on the beat do? He pa-”Troels!” Shut up! I’ve also asked my girlfriend to dress up in a loose-knit white Scando sweater and walk about in the dark with a torch, saying nothing, stony faced, giving nothing away . . . anyway, sorry, perhaps you don’t need to know about that. The reason for the obsession is simple: The Killing is brilliant, the best thing on television for yonks. It started with the brutal murder of a teenager, then dragged us along for 20 hours, mainly in the dark (sometimes with a torch, sometimes without), up side paths and cul-de-sacs, doubling back on itself until it eventually reached its conclusion, leaving us exhausted. And emotionally drained too, because The Killing isn’t just a thrilling whodunnit, it’s a very human story that never lets you forget there’s a tragic death at its heart. It has some of the most interesting and real characters on television, who develop and react to the drama as it unfolds. I’m talking about Pernille and Theis Birk Larsen, Hartmann (“Troels!”), Bremer, Meyer. And Sarah Lund, of course, possibly the most single-minded detective in TV history, but also seriously fallible and therefore believable, and now officially the coolest woman in the world. A mesmerising performance by Sofie Gråbøl, by all of them. The Killing is also beautifully written and directed, deeply atmospheric and fantastic to look at once you get used to the dark. Eat plenty of carrots if you’ve yet to get involved. Which you must do. I do still have a few questions – mainly about Danish police procedure, but also about some of the political stuff and who knew what when. So conversation isn’t totally dead yet. Or maybe I’ll go back and revisit earlier episodes. I really think you could, already, and get more out of it; there’s not a lot of television you can say that about. The final body count is six, or seven if you count the earlier one. My final score is clearer, and higher. Ten. Out of 10. Television The Killing Crime drama Drama Sam Wollaston guardian.co.uk
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Tina Brown’s return to print media with Newsweek surprised many. Here, she explains her plans for the loss-making title The last time Tina Brown launched a magazine – Talk in 1999 – she held a celebrity-stuffed party on an island off Manhattan where the fireworks were bigger, louder and longer than those at Rupert Murdoch’s wedding just a few weeks later. To celebrate her first issue as editor-in-chief of Newsweek, earlier this month, Brown ditched the party idea altogether, instead inviting some of the world’s richest, poorest and most-oppressed women to talk about their rights in a midtown Manhattan hotel for the Women In The World summit. The Murdochs were there too to discuss China, their marriage having outlived Talk by a whole decade. The magazine cost its backers a rumoured $100m (£62m) over two seemingly spendthrift years. After its closure in early 2002, Brown hosted a chat show and wrote a biography of Princess Diana before setting up the webzine, the Daily Beast, in 2008. The past decade has seen an explosion of online social networking that now makes celebrity parties seem, well, old school, and the print media decimated by websites from Google to Gawker and the Huffington Post. But what hasn’t changed since 1999 is Brown’s ability to attract headlines, both good and bad. Brown is catnip to print journalists and the more vicious bloggers. When the Beast team merged with the even more loss-making Newsweek last November, Gawker ran a much-read piece comparing Brown with a hagfish, “a blind, slimy, deepwater eel-like creature that darts into the orifices of its prey and devours them, alive, from the inside”. Brown is, inevitably, dismissive of these attacks.”Snark is the medium of the day,” she says when we meet over a hotel breakfast (egg white omelette with bacon and butterless toast). In her transatlantic, staccato voice, she says she hasn’t read the stories anyway. “I don’t have Google alert because it just distracts the brain. At the end of the day, we have bigger things to worry about than that, quite frankly. We have a magazine to remake.” The task she faces in remaking Newsweek is one of the biggest of a 35-year career that has included taking on a failing Tatler when she was just 25, as well as editing Vanity Fair (1984 to 1992) and the New Yorker (1992 to 1998). In a world where advertising and circulation revenues have plummeted and the future of news magazines looks dire, Newsweek’s losses are estimated at more than $20m a year . Sidney Harman, a 92-year-old technology mogul paid $1 for the 78-year-old magazine last summer. He contacted Brown soon after. So, the question is, after extolling the virtues of the 24/7 nature of the internet for the past two years, why would Brown and her billionaire backer Barry Diller return to print? Manhattan gossip suggests Diller simply wants to distance himself from the loss-making Beast, but he has a funny way of showing it, if so. As well as continuing to fund the merged firm, he will provide office space in his new Frank Gehry-designed offices in the next month. Brown says of her two new co-owners: “I’ve got two guys who’ve expressed their commitment and no one expects it to be quick. I think I’m much safer with them than I
Continue reading …Mohandas Gandhi may have been a great man, leading India to independence, but he was also a great jerk, leading a life of racism, self-promotion, sexual weirdness, and cruelty—or so says the new biography Great Soul , by former New York Times executive editor Joseph Lelyveld. Gandhi’s early biographers dubbed…
Continue reading …Avalanche on western slope of Croix de Tsousse kills five and leaves five injured BERN, Switzerland (AP) Rescuers called off their search Sunday for the last member of a group of 11 French snowshoers and cross-country skiers swept off the slopes of a Swiss peak by an avalanche, bringing the death toll to five. Rescue guides, helicopters, sniffer dogs and police halted their two-day search for the missing woman due to safety concerns and because they were unable to safely keep probing the snow that had packed like concrete and was some 20 meters (65 feet) thick in places, according to police in the canton (state) of Valais. “For this reason and to ensure the safety of rescuers, the search was called off,” the police said in a statement. Three victims were found dead at the scene of the avalanche, while a fourth died in a hospital after the slide struck Saturday on the western slope of the 2,800-meter (9,000-foot) Croix de Tsousse peak, near the Swiss-Italian border. Five others were injured, three seriously, and remained hospitalized Sunday. One woman escaped uninjured and was able to seek help. The group nine snowshoers and two cross-country skiers were part of a mountaineering club from the Cluses region of France on a moderate day’s outing to the Pennine Alps. They did not have a guide, but did carry avalanche beacons, police said. Swiss police said the victims recovered at the scene were two women and a man aged between 57 and 65. No details have been released on the man who died in the hospital or the missing woman. The injured were four men and one woman aged between 39 and 62. Switzerland’s National Avalanche Center had warned of a “considerable” risk of snowslides in the region. In January 2010, six people died in an avalanche in another Swiss region, Diemtigtal, and a doctor who went to help was swept away in a second avalanche. Switzerland France Europe guardian.co.uk
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Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan challenges western direct action and says prolonged conflict could lead to a ‘second Iraq’ The Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has signalled that Turkey is ready to act as a mediator to broker an early ceasefire in Libya, as he warned that a drawn-out conflict risked turning the country into a “second Iraq” or “another Afghanistan” with devastating repercussions both for Libya and the Nato states leading the intervention. In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, Erdogan said that talks were still under way with Muammar Gaddafi’s government and the Transitional National Council. He also revealed that Turkey is about to take over the running of the rebel-held Benghazi harbour and airport to facilitate humanitarian aid, in agreement with Nato. Speaking in Istanbul at the weekend, Erdogan said Gaddafi had to “provide some confidence to Nato forces right now” on the ground if there was to be progress towards the ceasefire the Libyan leader wanted and an “end to the blood being spilled in Libya”. His comments came as Nato leaders met in Brussels to finalise arrangements for the alliance – with Turkey’s participation – to take over the enforcement of the UN no-fly zone from Tuesday, as well as for the more controversial air strikes against Gaddafi’s ground forces. Meanwhile, rebel forces completed their weekend take-over of a string of government-held oil towns, including Brega, Ras Lanuf and Bin Jawad, with the help of heavy coalition air strikes on pro-Gaddafi forces. By Sunday night their Their rapid advance westwards is heading for the Libyan leader’s home town and stronghold, Sirte, where two loud explosions were heard. The Turkish government, which is playing an increasingly important regional role and has the second largest armed forces within Nato, has been at the centre of the argument within the alliance over Libya, publicly clashing with the French president Nicolas Sarkozy. Turkey opposed any outside military involvement before it began – Erdogan described the idea of Nato intervention as a “nonsense” — but has now agreed to participate in a non-combat role in the wake of the UN security resolutions and Arab League appeal. His public challenge to US, British and French direct military intervention is likely to deepen Nato dissension and alarm western leaders who hoped Turkey had now acquiesced in the thrust of the Libya mission. “We have been opposed to any unilateral action and we could never accept appeals such as that by the French minister for a new crusade,” Erdogan told the Guardian, in a reference to comments made by France’s interior minister, Claude Guéant. His government would carry out its obligations under UN resolutions. “But for Turkey, it’s out of the question to shoot at Libyan people or drop bombs on the Libyan people,” Erdogan said in reference to the emerging “no-drive zone” policy. “Turkey’s role will be to withdraw from Libya as soon as possible” and “restore the unity and integrity of the country based on the democratic demands of the people”, he added. It was vital, Erdogan said, that “this deployment should not be carried out for Libya’s oil. Of course there will be a price for these actions and no one can guarantee that Libya won’t have to pay a price.” Repeatedly drawing parallels with Iraq and Afghanistan – which senior Turkish officials regard as a serious risk if there is a military stalemate – Erdogan said Iraq was “still paying a price” 20 years after the Gulf war of 1991. “I’m afraid we could see another Afghanistan or a second Iraq emerging. When western forces entered Afghanistan nearly 10 years ago, people were talking of it being over in days, and people said the same in Iraq. But a million have died and a civilisation has as good as collapsed. We don’t want to see a similar picture in Libya.” If the conflict was prolonged, the Turkish prime minister warned of a backlash against countries now carrying out air strikes. “It will be devastating for the entire Libyan people, and the repercussions will not be restricted to Libya, but will have a direct impact on those countries that have intervened.” Erdogan added: “There is a civil war in Libya and we have to bring that to an end.” He had spoken to Gaddafi repeatedly before the air strikes and to the Libyan prime minister since, while Turkey’s foreign minister was in close touch with the Benghazi-based opposition. It was crucial that contacts were maintained with both sides, he said. “Gaddafi wants a ceasefire, this came up when I was talking to the prime minister, but it’s important for those circumstances to mature. It wouldn’t be consistent to keep shooting while demanding a ceasefire.” If the two parties to the conflict requested Turkey to play the role of mediator, the Turkish prime minister said “we will take steps to do that” within the framework of Nato, the Arab League and African Union. “We can never ignore the democratic rights and liberties called for by the people of Libya, and change and transformation can never be delayed or postponed,” Erdogan said, adding that a leader such as Gaddafi, with no formal position, should be able to “lay the foundation for such a transformation”. Erdogan’s AKP party and its programme of Islamic democratisation and greater national independence is widely admired in the Arab world, and Erdogan widened his warning to autocratic governments facing popular uprisings throughout the region: “Leaders who are resistant to change and their people’s demands may find that brings an end to their being a leader.” Erdogan was also fiercely critical of European governments he said had misunderstood Turkey’s embrace of “Islam and democracy simultaneously”. In its negotiations to join the EU, Turkey had faced “obstacles that no country had ever witnessed before,” adding: “Never mind, we will do what we will do.” He was at pains to rebut criticism in the western media over the jailing of journalists caught up in the long-running investigation into an attempted military coup and claims that the government has used the case to intimidate sections of the press. “These criticisms upset us very much,” he said, adding that a total of 27 journalists had been convicted and jailed for crimes, including membership of terrorist organisations, coup plotting and sexual harassment. “Would that be accepted as normal in your country?” None of these cases had been brought to court at the initiative of the government which, he said, had taken action to increase the independence of judges and prosecutors, and the efficiency and speed of the judicial process. Libya Arab and Middle East unrest Middle East Turkey Europe Nato Seumas Milne guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Those at risk of mental illness are likely to hurry the onset of schizophrenia by 2.7 years simply by smoking pot, reports Miller-McCune . “The earlier the disease starts, the greater the social disruption it causes,” says Michael Compton, one of the report’s authors. “You’re less likely to finish high…
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