Faculty Gives Yale a Dose of Dissent Over Singapore

NEW HAVEN — Yale announced a year ago that it was creating the “first new college to bear the Yale name in 300 years” at the National University of Singapore, and last week, after reviewing 2,500 applications, it sent out the first handful of faculty job offers for Yale-N.U.S. College.

So it is distinctly awkward timing that members of the Yale College faculty, which never voted on the plan, are now raising concerns about joining their storied institution with an autocratic city-state where drug offenses can bring the death penalty, homosexual relations are illegal and criminal defamation charges are aggressively pursued.

On campus, there is a whiff of a Yale Spring, a slow awakening — at a university with no faculty senate — to faculty discontent. Many Yale professors are unhappy about the absence of a vote on the Singapore project, while some go further and attack it as a dangerous collaboration with a government that does not support the broad freedoms they believe are central to liberal arts education.

“The faculty is feeling disempowered, that it has no voice in what is going on,” said Seyla Benhabib, a political science professor.

Richard C. Levin, the university’s president, said the faculty had no vote on the project because it would not affect the college. It was approved by the Yale Corporation, the governing board. Yale officials take pains to explain that Yale-N.U.S., which will be paid for entirely by Singapore, will not be Yale but a distinct institution with its own president and its own diploma.

Of course, some faculty support the project, and some are deeply involved in it: Charles Bailyn, an astronomy professor, will be the dean of Yale-N.U.S. when the first 150 students arrive next year, and other professors helped develop the plan and are working on hiring.

At last month’s faculty meeting, about 150 professors, an unusually high turnout, debated Professor Benhabib’s resolution calling for a formal commitment to broad freedoms. A vote was postponed until the next meeting, this Thursday evening, when an even larger turnout is expected, along with an attempt to amend the resolution to include a statement of support for the project.

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Spoilt little Buddhas! Doting parents turn out children who just can't behave, says teachers' leader

 Parents are raising a  generation of ‘little Buddhas’ who never lift a finger around the house, a teachers’ leader declared yesterday.Children are growing up constantly demanding their own way because they are ‘waited  on hand and foot’ by over- indulgent parents, said Dr  Mary Bousted.


They arrive at school with an ‘I’m important’ attitude and struggle to abide by rules and timetables.And they lash out at classmates because they fail to understand they have responsibilities towards others.‘How many parents ask their children regularly to contribute to the running of the household, doing jobs?’ she asked. ‘It seems to me that far too many children are waited on, hand and foot. 


Dr Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said schools are forced to deal with the consequences of parents’ failure to lay down clear boundaries.'They don’t do the washing up, they don’t do the hoovering, they don’t make their own beds. 'We’re not doing our children any favours if we make them little Buddhas at home, and it certainly doesn’t do them any favours in school.’ Dr Bousted told the ATL’s annual conference in Manchester that children too often treated teachers like ‘servants’ and squabbled with fellow pupils. ‘They expect to get what they want immediately and do not understand that there are other children in the class and the school who need the attention.’

Middle-class parents who fail to impose clear boundaries simply ‘buy off their children…expensively’ – with the latest computer games, smartphones and other gadgets.But Dr Bousted added: ‘Bad behaviour isn’t just the preserve  of poor children and parents. It occurs among all classes of society.’ She said parents needed to be more confident in laying down reasonable expectations of children – including completing basic household chores.‘In my view a child or adolescent who doesn’t understand proper boundaries is very unhappy.

‘We need to be more confident as a society in saying, “No, you can go so far but no further”.’ Without this discipline, children grow up with an attitude to life which says: ‘I’m important,  am an island to myself’, said Dr Bousted.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2125059/Spoilt-little-Buddhas-Doting-middle-class-parents-turn-children-just-behave.html#ixzz1rBUSOBxC

Ban on the cane 'left schools unable to impose discipline and led to deterioration in children's behaviour'

The scrapping of the cane has led to a deterioration in children’s behaviour at school, according to teachers.Sanctions available to schools since corporal punishment was abolished 25 years ago are ‘totally inadequate’ at reasserting authority in the classroom and lack the same deterrent effect, they said yesterday.While rejecting a return to the cane, members of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers condemned existing sanctions such as detention and suspension.

‘Novel’ punishments are needed to allow teachers to reassert their authority in the classroom, they said.Delegates at the association’s annual conference voted unanimously for research into ‘effective’ disciplinary methods.

‘When corporal punishment was abolished nothing was put in its place that had equivalent deterrent powers,’ said Julian Perfect, a teacher from London.

Laws forbidding state schools from using the cane or slipper to discipline pupils were introduced in 1987, and a decade later in independent schools.                                                                                                   But Mr Perfect pointed out that subsequent governments had failed to give teachers sufficient sanctions.He added that while teachers have statutory authority to discipline pupils whose behaviour is unacceptable, governments have failed to suggest methods for making authority ‘meaningful’.Suspensions and expulsions were now handed out all too rarely amid pressure on schools to reduce the number of pupils who are excluded from school, the conference also heard.

Research by the teachers’ association suggested pupil behaviour had declined further in recent years.Responding to one of its surveys, a teacher said: ‘The children know that our hands are tied and play up frequently.


‘In the past two years, we have only successfully permanently excluded one pupil. It is the good students whose education is being wrecked that I feel for. Another said: ‘Persistent low-level rudeness and disruption seems to have become a fact of life in education today and no longer raises eyebrows or seems to merit special attention.’

A third reported: ‘I had a female student threaten to kick the smile off my face, in front of a whole class.’ 

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2125336/Ban-cane-schools-led-discipline-childrens-behaviour.html#ixzz1rBSYooTQ

The shy smile that shames Syria: Gifted student vanishes without a trace into brutal prisons

                                                                                                                                                                                Before the troubles in Syria began early last year, 24-year-old Noura Aljizawi was a gifted young woman looking forward to a bright and exciting future. 

An exceptional student, she had completed a masters degree at the University for Arabic Literature and had been granted a scholarship to continue her studies in France.But like many young people living in the flashpoint city of Homs, Noura was swept up by the revolutionary fervour at which point her life was turned upside down.

A week ago she was abducted by the Syrian regime. Her family and friends fear the worst. Sources within the revolutionary movement claim she was abducted by Assad forces at a coach station in Damascus as she tried to make her way to Aleppo, the country's largest city.

She left home one morning and never returned. No one has been able to make contact with her since. 

Although her official whereabouts remain unknown, colleagues believe she is being held in one of the regime's brutal prisons where women are routinely tortured, raped and even murdered.

Sources say she was seized carrying six cameras that contained clips of protests and pictures and names of activists.

They claim 12 of these activists - 7 females and 5 males - have gone missing since Noura's abduction which indicates she may have been tortured to reveal their whereabouts.

Her incredible conversion from model student to champion of the revolution had been swift and selfless.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2125269/The-shy-smile-shames-Syria-Gifted-student-vanishes-trace-brutal-prisons-women-raped-tortured-murdered.html#ixzz1rBQdBr7
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City Hospitals Reach $11 Million Scholarship Deal With Medical School in Grenada

Over the last few years, St. George’s University Medical School on the Caribbean island of Grenada has come under fire from New York City medical schools for paying to have its students trained in the city’s public hospitals, turning what local schools say should be an academic relationship into a fiscal one.

Now St. George’s and the city’s public hospitals are further cementing their financial relationship with a deal that will provide $11 million in scholarships for New Yorkers to attend St. George’s over the next five years. In exchange, they must promise to work as primary care physicians in the city’s hospitals after graduation.

The deal will give out 25 scholarships — 5 full and 20 half — in the first year, and the value of 40 full scholarships in the four years after that, officials said. The scholarships are to be financed entirely by St. George’s.

Alan Aviles, president of the city’s Health and Hospitals Corporation, which runs the public hospitals, said at a news conference on Wednesday that the deal was a way of attracting badly needed internists, family medicine doctors and pediatricians to hospitals serving poor patients, and would be a boon to New Yorkers who might otherwise not be able to afford medical school tuition.

“This will make the dream of medical school come true for some talented New Yorkers,” Mr. Aviles said at Metropolitan Hospital on the Upper East Side, where he was joined by Charles Modica, St. George’s chancellor.

He cited projections that the nation faced a shortage of more than 90,000 physicians by the end of the decade, and said that city hospitals expected a wave of retirements that would exacerbate the shortage. About 35 percent of primary care physicians in the public hospital system are over 55, he said.


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Google’s ‘Project Glass’ Augmented Reality Glasses Are Real And In Testing

After weeks of speculation and rumors, Google has officially pulled back the curtain on what they have come to call Project Glass — a pair of augmented reality glasses that seek to provide users real-time information right in front of their eyes.

“We think technology should work for you — to be there when you need it and get out of your way when you don’t,” wrote Babak Parviz, Steve Lee, and Sebastian Thrun, three Google employees who are part of the Google X skunkworks. “We’re sharing this information now because we want to start a conversation and learn from your valuable input.”

Something tells me that they won’t be hurting for feedback.

To call these things glasses may be a bit of a stretch —early rumors noted that glasses bore a striking resemblance to a pair of Oakley Thumps, but the demo images on Project Glass’s Google+ page (one of which can be seen above) don’t look a thing like them. Rather, they appear to be constructed of a solid metal band that runs across the brow line, with a small heads-up display mounted on the right side.

The New York Times‘ Nick Bilton, who broke the Project Glass story today, went on to say that the prototype model seen in the images is just one of the potential designs currently in testing. Among others, one of the potential designs for Project Glass is (thankfully) meant to be attached to a person’s existing pair of glasses.

These demo designs are far more stylish than the original reports made it out to be, but really — who cares about that right now? A brief demo video (below) highlights some of the functionality that the Project Glass specs aspire to provide: the protagonist of the video goes about his daily life aided by the glasses, which displays a circle-based UI that provides real time information like and weather and transit when needed. Further applications include the ability to send messages using your voice, instructing the glasses to take a picture, and displaying the location of nearby friends.

It’s also worth noting that as downright magical as these things could be, there’s still very little insight into how they would actually work. Bilton’s early write-up notes that the glasses will be capable of establishing a 3G or 4G wireless connection, but how exactly Google will shoehorn those components (just to name a few) into a comfortable headset is still up the air.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/9c6W4CCU9M4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

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Yutyrannus Huali, Tyrannosaurus Rex Relative, Was Largest Feathered Dinosaur Ever

A newly discovered titanic tyrannosaur is the biggest feathered dinosaur yet, reaching up to 30 feet (9 meters) long and weighing more than 3,000 pounds.

While smaller than Tyrannosaurus rex, the new species, named Yutyrannus huali —meaning "beautiful feathered tyrant" — is still 40 times the weight of the largest feathered dinosaur known previously, Beipiaosaurus, which was described in 1999.

"Yutyrannus dramatically increases the size range of dinosaurs for which we have definite evidence of feathers," study researcher Xing Xu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing said in a statement. "It’s possible that feathers were much more widespread, at least among the meat-eating dinosaurs, than most scientists would have guessed even a few years ago."

The researchers found three well-preserved fossils of the species in a dig in Liaoning Province, in northeastern China, the same place Xu and his colleagues discovered Beipiaosaurus.

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HTC And Sprint Officially Unveil The New EVO 4G LTE

It’s hardly a surprise anymore (as is usually the case) but here it is anyway – Sprint CEO Dan Hesse and HTC President Jason Mackenzie have just taken the stage at their collaboration event in New York, and just officially unveiled the new EVO 4G LTE.

There is still no official release date yet, though the device will launch sometime in Q2 and pre-orders are set to begin on May 7. The Evo does have a price tag though, and Sprint customers can expect to shell out $199 for it whenever it sees the lit of day.

Nestled behind its gigantic 4.7-inch 720p Super LCD 2 display is the same dual-core, 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4 chipset that powers its One X cousin, along with 1GB of RAM to help keep things snappy.

As expected, the EVO 4G LTE also runs Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, with HTC’s thoughtfully-redesigned Sense 4.0 UI on top of it. Some people tend to bristle when custom overlays are thrown into the mix, but as I noted when I got to play with the One X, it’s much less clunky than the Sense of days past.

All in all, it’s the same general formula as the lovely HTC One X, just with most of the visual appeal sucked out of the hardware.

The redesign first spotted in that leaked press shot a few days ago was indeed legit, and it extends far beyond the device’s ho-hum front. The back appears to be clad in both glossy and matte black finishes, with a strip of red metal dividing the two (it’s also where the wee little kickstand is). Right smack in the middle of the glossy black zone is the The EVO 4G LTE’s 8-megapixel camera pod is mounted, which (as on the One X) will be paired with HTC’s new camera software for some solid shots.

Thankfully, the EVO 4G LTE does stand out in one place where its more handsome brethren don’t — it includes a discreet camera button along the lower right side, while the others relegate the shutter button to the touchscreen. It may seem like a minor quibble, but it strikes as a rather thoughtful addition considering HTC’s renewed focus on mobile photography.

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Facebook: Video Apps Getting a Big Boost From Timeline And Open Graph

Facebook today revealed statistics from a variety of video apps that have integrated with thenew Timeline interface through the Open Graph API. According to the performance numbers out of the likes of VEVO, Viddy, and DailyMotion, video apps are getting tons of traction from integrating with Facebook’s newest look and feel.

Some highlights from Facebook’s blog post on video app growth on Timeline:

•  Video sharing iPhone app Viddy has doubled its average daily sign-ups since launching its Timeline app in February. Most impressively, its monthly active users have boomed from 60,000 to more than 920,000. We’re hearing separately that at the moment, fully 90 percent of new Viddy users sign up for the app through Facebook.
•  VEVO has seen “exponential growth” since it deepened its Facebook integration across its web and mobile apps. Fully 60 percent of its traffic now comes from Timeline posts on Facebook. The company has seen its daily user registrations grow by 200 percent since turning on Facebook-only registration.
• Izlesene, a Turkish video site, has seen its monthly active users grow to 6.5 million from 250,000 since it made its debut on Timeline in September 2011.
• Social video site Dailymotion has had more than 9 million people add their app to their Facebook Timelines in the past two months alone.

The popularity of online videos often grows “virally,” passing from person to person, so it makes sense that a massively popular social network like Facebook would be a boon to services that host videos. It really is just the beginning when it comes to seeing how well video can do in this format — Ustream and Magisto, for example, just launched their own respective Facebook Timeline integrations this week. It’ll be exciting to see how the numbers progress in the weeks and months ahead, and if the engagement grows or wanes as more services become available on the platform.

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Germany’s Samwer Brothers Rumored to Launch a Square Clone Soon

Square, the mobile payment startup founded by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, is one of Silicon Valley’s hottest companies right now. It’s no surprise then, that German clone factory Rocket Internet, which is run by brothers Mac, Oliver and Alexander Samwer, is now rumored to be developing its own blatant Square clone. According to German startup blog Deutsche Startups, the clone, which will supposedly be called Zenpay, is currently one of Rocket Internet’s top priorities, though it is not clear when and where it will launch. The source that talked to Deutsche Startups, however, did indicate that Rocket Internet is planning to launch Zenpay “globally.” Given the nature of these payment systems, however, this seems rather unlikely.

Rocket Internet currently offers a wide variety of clones, including its own versions of Airbnb, Zynga and Pinterest, among others. Run by the publicity shy Samwer brothers, the company made its fortune by building and bankrolling European clones of major U.S. startups like eBay, Amazon, Groupon, Facebook and others and then selling those to either the companies they cloned or their competitors. Given the scope of Rocket Internet’s efforts to clone virtually every hot U.S. startup, it’s almost surprising that the Samwer brothers only got around to cloning Square now.

Rocket Internet’s biggest recent hit was surely CityDeal, its Groupon clone, which the brothers sold to Groupon itself and which also turned the Samwer brothers into some of Groupon’s biggest stockholders.

This experience with Groupon will likely help Rocket Internet with its Square clone. Just like in Groupon’s case, the success of a product like Zenpay depends on the company’s ability to convince businesses to use its system. Thanks to its experience and connection with Groupon, Rocket Internet already has a channel to introduce businesses to Zenpay.

It’s worth noting, by the way, that just like the overall concept, Zenpay isn’t exactly a very original name: there is already a U.S.-based startup called ZenPayroll that is set to launch in the near future. In addition, there is already at least one other European Square clone out there, too, though this one also hasn’t launched yet.

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European Decline: Is a University Degree Still Worth It?

The euro crisis' impact on the job market will extend for at least the next decade, with only eight million new jobs expected to be created in the European Union between now and 2020. These are the central findings of a new report by the European Center for the Development of Vocational Training (Cedefop), an E.U. agency headquartered in Thessaloniki, Greece.

Cedefop director Christian Lettmayr says eight million new jobs over a 10-year period is "very few," and warns that development could slow down even further. The job stagnation, which will be concentrated in southern Europe where millions of young people are without jobs, challenges a long-accepted assumptions about the benefits of pursuing a higher education.

Cedefop estimates that on average, college grads and skilled workers in the European Union have an easier time finding work than their less qualified counterparts. However, in 2020, only 37% of available jobs will require higher qualifications. “And the problem is that in countries with very high unemployment like Greece, Italy, and Spain, that figure would not apply,” says Lettmayr. “In those countries, the differences are disappearing.”

The Cedefop head sees an imbalance in E.U. countries between supply and demand as regards those with high levels of skill or education. “The highly qualified are pushing people out of jobs that they are over-qualified for.”

There are very few winners in the situation – with the possible short-term exception of the employer who is getting more for less. Lettmayr fears that more and more people are reaching the conclusion that, over the space of a working life, there will be too little return to warrant the investment in education.

Lettmayr, however, warns against drawing hasty conclusions from this exceptional, crisis-induced situation and thus risk degrading entire regions to a second-class job market status. “Levels of education and qualifications have to be increased in the economically weak countries, and not – driven by austerity measures – made even worse,” he says.

The present over-qualified generation should find encouragement, says Lettmayr, by not focusing solely on their own country but instead viewing all of Europe as one large job market. “A significant number of people in Greece who are presently training to be doctors, or engineers, or computer scientists, will find jobs in northern Europe.” That goes for skilled workers too, albeit to a lesser extent, Lettmayr adds. The Austrian-born Cedefop director admits, nevertheless, that “Europeans willing to work in other countries are still relatively few and far between.”

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Houston drowned in very hot water, cocaine in system

(Reuters) - Whitney Houston drowned in a hot bathtub in a Beverly Hills hotel room with cocaine in her system and white powder nearby, a final coroner's report revealed on Wednesday.
Detectives found white powdery substances, a rolled-up piece of paper, a small spoon and a mirror in the bathroom shortly after Houston's naked body was found face down in the bathtub on February 11, the 40-page Los Angeles County coroner's report said.
Houston, 48, had a history of drug addiction. An autopsy in March determined she died of accidental drowning due to the effects of cocaine and heart disease.
Wednesday's report revealed that Houston had a perforated nose, indicating substance abuse, filled with a bloody discharge.
Detectives said she was found in about 12 inches of extremely hot water, which was determined to be 93 Fahrenheit (34 Celsius) some six hours after her death.
The singer also had traces of marijuana in her system and an open bottle of champagne was found in her room at the Beverly Hilton, hours before she was due to attend a pre-Grammy party.
On a counter in the bathroom, detectives found "a small spoon with a crystal-like substance in it and a rolled up piece of white paper."
In a drawer, they found "a white powdery substance and a portable mirror on a base" together with more remnants of powder on the base of the mirror.
Wednesday's report did not identify the substance.
The "I Will Always Love You" singer appears to have been left alone in the hotel room for less than an hour. Houston had complained of a sore throat and her personal assistant advised the singer to have a bath to get ready for the party while she went to a nearby Neiman Marcus department store to pick up items for her appearance.
When the assistant returned, she found a naked Houston face down in the bathtub and unresponsive, according to the report.
Houston was one of the world's best known singers in the 1980s and 1990s with hits such as "Saving All My Love For You" and "I Wanna Dance with Somebody."
But her career declined during a tumultuous, drug-fueled 15-year marriage to singer Bobby Brown. She was last known to have entered drug rehabilitation in May 2011 but celebrity media reported that she was seen drinking heavily and behaving erratically in the three or four days before her death.
Houston's family said in statement last month that they were "saddened to have learned of the toxicology results" that revealed recent cocaine use, but were glad to have closure.

Google testing heads-up display glasses in public, won't make you look like Robocop

 

The good news: Google has started testing those augmented reality glasses we heard about earlier in the year. The bad news: if the artsy shots of the test units are to be believed, they won't make you look like some '80s cinematic anti-hero. In fact, the things wouldn't look too out of place in a New York Times style story. The software giant let it be known that, while it hasn't quite got a sale date on the wearables, it's ready to test ProjectGlass amongst the non-augmented public. The company is also looking for feedback on the project, writing in a post today, "we want to start a conversation and learn from your valuable input." Want some idea of what ProjectGlass might offer the public? Sure, it's not quite as good as strapping a pair on your own eyes, but interested parties can check out a video of Google's vision after the break.

(engadget)

The Spiritual World - Life of Death

You may or may not know a Thai movie called "The Spiritual World". If you are a horror movie fan or nerd, you should really watch it. The movie does have sudden scary moments, yes. But it also has a wicked atmosphere that keeps you jittery and feeling oppressed throughout. And that is what a lot of horror movies lack. This movie is dark and "ugly". Both thematically and visually.

What Asian horror movies do well is give their ghosts or monsters a purpose and a meaning. This movie is in fact the journey of a very tortured young woman caught in a very frightening situation of seeing things which she has no idea why she is seeing.

SYNOPSIS: Ming is an ordinary girl who can contact the dead since she was young. It has been fifteen years that she tries to escape from a mysterious ghost that keeps following her. She meets a young doctor named Budd who visits her to find out the reason behind the death of his father. He believes that his father was murdered. The arriving of Budd brings back the terrible memory in the past of Ming's life. Now she is going to face the truth that is more terrible than the ghosts.

Anonymous hacks hundreds of Web sites in China

The online hacktivist group defaces government and commercial sites with a message predicting the downfall of the Chinese government, although no central government sites appear to have been compromised.

Anonymous has recently turned its attention to the human rights struggle in China, hacking and defacing hundreds of government and commercial Web sites in that country.

The online hactivist group claims to have compromised more than 500 Web sites over the past couple of days, defacing them with messages claiming responsibility for the breach while The Who's "Baba O'Riley" plays in the background.

The group posted the following message -- still visible at the time of this publishing -- predicting the downfall of the Chinese government, to the Central Business District in Chengdu:

Dear Chinese government, you are not infallible, today websites are hacked, tomorrow it will be your vile regime that will fall. So expect us because we do not forgive, never. What you are doing today to your Great People, tomorrow will be inflicted to you. With no mercy.

The message then addresses the people of China, saying: "Each of you suffers from the tyranny of that regime which knows nothing about you. We are with you. With you here and now. But also tomorrow and the coming days so promising for your freedom. We will never give up. Don't loose [sic] hope, the revolution begins in the heart."

While some hacker sites list five government Web sites as being hacked, it appears that none of the central government Web sites were compromised.

The defacements appear to have begun earlier this week after Anonymous China issued an invitation on Twitter to "Chinese hackers, programmers, etc and hackers all over the world...to be part of Anonymous China, fighting for justice!"

Meanwhile, a hacker has posted thousands of internal documents allegedly obtained by hacking into the network of a Chinese company with defense contracts. The hacker told that he broke into the Beijing-based China National Import & Export Corp. (CEIEC) and made off with a range of documents, including information on U.S. military transport information.

It's unknown if the documents authentic or the hacker's claims are valid. CEIEC representatives did not respond to a request for comment. The company's Web site says it specializes in "defense electronics system integration."

The hacker, who goes by the name Hardcore Charlie, said he had help in cracking the e-mail passwords, particularly from a hacker named Yama Tough, who recently tried to negotiate the sale of stolen Symantec source code. He also said he was a friend of Hector Xavier Monsegur, the former leader of the hacking group LulzSec who became an informant for the FBI. 

(Cnet)

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a 2011 espionage film directed by Tomas Alfredson, from a screenplay written by Bridget O'Connor and Peter Straughan based on the 1974 novel Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré. The film stars Gary Oldman as George Smiley, and co-stars Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, John Hurt, Toby Jones, Mark Strong, Benedict Cumberbatch and Ciarán Hinds. Set in London in the early 1970s, in the bleak days of the Cold War, espionage veteran George Smiley is forced from semi-retirement to uncover a Soviet agent within MI6.

The film was produced through the British company Working Title Films and financed by France's StudioCanal. It premiered in competition at the 68th Venice International Film Festival. The film was a critical and commercial success and was the highest-grossing film at the British box office for three consecutive weeks. It received three Academy Award nominations including a Best Actor nomination for Oldman.

Cartier Expo, New York International Bridal Week

Wedding trends will be at the forefront of some of the biggest upcoming fashion events, with New York International Bridal Week taking place April 14 and Sarah Burton's wedding gown for Catherine Middleton nominated in the fashion category at London's Design Museum Awards.


Cartier, Jeweler of the Arts
April 3-21
Paris, France
Four artworks commissioned by French luxury jewelry house Cartier will be showcased together in Paris for the first time since their various appearances at events including Art Basel and Art Basel Miami. Made using precious and semi-precious stones no longer deemed suitable for Cartier jewelry, the pieces were made by Japanese filmmaker Takeshi Kitano, American filmmaker David Lynch, Italian architect Alessandro Mendini, and Brazilian artist Beatriz Milhazes. Prior to the expo, Milhazes's ‘Aquarium' was presented at Art Dubai in March 2012. Reservation with the Visitor's Department is necessary.


New York International Bridal Week
April 14-16
Taking place a month before Europe's prestigious Barcelona Bridal Week, the New York International Bridal Week is a trade event welcoming leading wedding dress designers from the US and Europe, attracting the likes of Anne Barge, Claire Pettibone, Casablanca, David Fielden and Eve of Milady to showcase their latest creations.

Boeing delivers latest 777 passenger jet to Air France

Air France is celebrating the delivery of its 60th Boeing 777 passenger jetliner.

The airplane, a 777-300ER (Extended Range) model, landed in Paris earlier.

Air France’s newest 777-300ER seats 468 passengers in a three-class configuration.

The brand-new cabin includes 14 business class lie-flat seat beds measuring over 78.74 inches (2 m) in length, plus an in-seat entertainment system with 15-inch (38 cm) wide screens in 16:9 format.

It also features 32 “Alize” new premium economy fixed-shell seats offering 40 percent additional space compared with seats in economy class.

Air France, a member of Sky Team, will operate this 777-300ER between Paris and the French Overseas Departments in the Indian Ocean and the Caribbean regions, including Fort de France, Pointe a Pitre and St-Denis de la Reunion.

By summer 2012, Air France will operate a total of 62 777 passenger jetliners and two 777 Freighters.

The 777-300ER is 19 per cent lighter than its closest competitor, greatly reducing its fuel requirement.

It produces 22 per cent less carbon dioxide per seat and costs 20 per cent less to operate per seat.

Last year was the best year on record for 777 sales with 200 orders from 24 customers, topping the previous record of 154 set in 2005.

Production is at an all-time high for the program and a 20 percent rate increase begins this fall, increasing from seven to 8.3 airplanes per month.

The program will begin building 100 airplanes per year beginning in 2013. 

To date, Boeing has recorded orders for 1,367 777s to 64 customers around the globe.

(Breaking Travel news)

From Alaïa to Louboutin: Ten Must-See Fashion Expos from Across the Globe

The popularity of the fashion exhibition was cemented in 2011, when the Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art attracted over 600,000 visitors. This May the Met will place Italian designers Elsa Schiaparelli and Miuccia Prada in the limelight, while other designers including Marc Jacobs and Christian Louboutin are the focus of retrospectives in France and the UK respectively. Here is guide to ten not-to-be-missed fashion expos, currently on or coming soon, from across the world.

Azzedine Alaïa in the 21st Century
Until May 6
Groningen, NetherlandsThe Groninger Museum in The Netherlands stages a retrospective of the Tunisian-born couturier Azzedine Alaïa, who has dressed style icons of past and present including Greta Garbo and Michelle Obama. This expo looks at some of his lost iconic creations from the past decade.
http://www.groningermuseum.nl/en/exhibition/azzedine-ala%C3%AF-21st-century

Secret Archives
Until June 1
Florence, Italy

Italian label Salvatore Ferragamo hosts a special exhibition at its Florence museum unveiling its "Secret Archives." Showcasing patents, photographs, tools and shoes, the expo explores the fashion house's links with cinema icons and its influence in the arena of sky-high heels.
http://www.museoferragamo.it/en/eventi.php

Helmut Newton
Until June 17
Paris, France

Taking place at Paris's Grand Palais, this is the first French retrospective of fashion photographer Helmut Newton (1920-2004), bringing together some two hundred photographs from the provocateur whose work graced the pages of international style bibles, in particular French Vogue.
http://www.rmn.fr/spip.php?page=expo-maintenant-en

Yves Saint Laurent: The Retrospective
Until July 8
Colorado, USA

The internationally acclaimed exhibition Yves Saint Laurent: The Retrospective hits the US March 25, with the Denver Art Museum hosting the expo displaying work ranging from the creator's earlier days at Christian Dior to his final catwalk collection in 2002. Some 200 haute couture outfits will be on display along with photographs, drawings and films.
http://www.denverartmuseum.org/home

The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier
Until August 19
San Francisco, USA

The De Young Museum in San Francisco, California, is honoring Jean Paul Gaultier with a retrospective devoted to his creations spanning from his 1976 ready-to-wear to his 2007 haute couture collections. Entitled From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk, it celebrates his avant-garde style and collaborations with Madonna, Lady Gaga, filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar, dance and theater with film clips of concerts, ballets, and fashion shows.
http://deyoung.famsf.org/

Louis Vuitton - Marc Jacobs
Until September 16
Paris, France

The Louis Vuitton - Marc Jacobs exhibition at the city's museum of Arts Décoratifs celebrates the luxury label's namesake and its current creative director by comparing and analyzing their achievements and contributions to the fashion industry during very different time periods.
http://www.lesartsdecoratifs.fr/english-439/exhibitions/forthcoming-events

Put in your diary:

Cartier, Jeweler of the Arts
April 3-21
Paris, France

Four artworks commissioned by French luxury jewelry house Cartier will be showcased together in Paris for the first time since their various appearances at events including Art Basel and Art Basel Miami. Made using precious and semi-precious stones no longer deemed suitable for Cartier jewelry, the pieces were made by Japanese filmmaker Takeshi Kitano, American filmmaker David Lynch, Italian architect Alessandro Mendini, and Brazilian artist Beatriz Milhazes.
http://www.fondation.cartier.com/cartier

Christian Louboutin
May 1-July 9
London, UK

In honor of Christian Louboutin's 20th anniversary, London's Design Museum presents the first UK retrospective of the acclaimed French shoe designer, showcasing his work and inspiration over the past two decades. The creator's design process will be at the core of the exhibition.
http://designmuseum.org/

Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations
May 10-August 19
New York, USA

With film director Baz Luhrmann acting as creative consultant, New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art pays tribute to Italian designers Elsa Schiaparelli and Miuccia Prada, exhibiting about 80 designs by Schiaparelli from the 1920s-1950s and by Prada from the 1980s to the present day, drawn mainly from The Costume Institute's collection and the Prada archive.
http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2012/impossible-conversations

Timeless Beauty
May 20-July 15
Shanghai, China

Taking place at Shanghai's Museum of Contemporary Art, luxury jewelry maison Van Cleef & Arpels presents a guide to its legacy, showcasing some 370 pieces of jewelry, watches and accessories and celebrating more than 100 years of high-end jewels.
http://www.mocashanghai.org/index.php?_function=exhibition

Ines of My Soul by Isabel Allende

From the Publisher:
This magisterial work of historical fiction recounts the astonishing life of Ines Suarez, a daring Spanish conquistadora who toiled to build the nation of Chile--and whose vital role has too often been neglected by history.

It is the beginning of the Spanish conquest of the Americas, and when Ines's shiftless husband disappears to the New World, she uses the opportunity to search for him as an excuse to flee her stifling homeland and seek adventure. After a treacherous journey to Peru, she learns of his death in battle. She meets and begins a passionate love affair with a man who seeks only honor and glory: Pedro Valdivia, war hero and field marshal to the famed Francisco Pizarro. Together, Ines and Valdivia will build the new city of Santiago and wage a ruthless war against the indigenous Chileans. The horrific struggle will change them forever, pulling each toward their separate destinies.

Ines of My Soul is a work of breathtaking scope, written with the narrative brilliance and passion readers have come to expect from Isabel Allende

Next by Michael Crichton

From the Publisher:
Is a loved one missing some body parts? Are blondes becoming extinct? Is everyone at your dinner table of the same species? Humans and chimpanzees differ in only 400 genes; is that why a chimp fetus resembles a human being? And should that worry us? There's a new genetic cure for drug addiction--is it worse than the disease?

We live in a time of momentous scientific leaps, a time when it's possible to sell our eggs and sperm online for thousands of dollars and to test our spouses for genetic maladies.

We live in a time when one fifth of all our genes are owned by someone else, and an unsuspecting person and his family can be pursued cross-country because they happen to have certain valuable genes within their chromosomes . . .

Devilishly clever, Next blends fact and fiction into a breathless tale of a new world where nothing is what it seems and a set of new possibilities can open at every turn.

Next challenges our sense of reality and notions of morality. Balancing the comic and the bizarre with the genuinely frightening and disturbing, Next shatters our assumptions and reveals shocking new choices where we least expect.

The future is closer than you think.

Cross by James Patterson

Book Description:
Alex Cross was a rising star in the Washington, DC, Police Department when an unknown shooter gunned down his wife, Maria, in front of him. Alex's need for vengeance was placed on hold as he faced another huge challenge-raising his children without their mother.

Years later Alex is making a bold move in his life. He has left the FBI and set up practice as a psychologist once again. His life with Nana Mama, Damon, Jannie, and little Alex finally feels like it's in order. He even has a chance at a new love.

Then Cross's former partner, John Sampson, calls in a favor. He is tracking a serial rapist in Georgetown, one whose brutal modus operandi includes threatening his victims with terrifying photos. Cross and Sampson need the testimonies of these women to stop the predator, but the rape victims refuse to reveal anything about their attacker.

When the case triggers a connection to Maria's death, Alex may have a chance to catch his wife's murderer after all these years. Is this a chance for justice at long last? Or the culminating scene in his own deadly obsession?

Marc Jacobs Cosmetics Line in the Works

While his latest fragrance Marc Jacobs Dot is set for release this spring, the US designer and Louis Vuitton creative director is the latest designer to announce he is branching into the realm of color cosmetics.

The designer already has a large fragrance empire, and he's now set to follow in the footsteps of the likes of Tom Ford, who launched his first full color cosmetics collection last September at Tom Ford stores and high-end department stores.

There are very few details on Jacobs' collection at the moment and a target launch date has not yet been decided. However, the creator revealed to WWD April 3 that he's working with international beauty giant Sephora on the line and had his first meeting for the color collection last week.

"I see makeup, fragrance -- everything, really -- as an opportunity. The idea of choosing a color for your lip, or an eyeliner -- it's just such a delight. The ritual of waking up and making those choices is something people really enjoy," said the designer.

"We currently are working on defining what Marc Jacobs cosmetics will be, what they'll say, what makes them distinctive. I think that will take some time, but the first meeting was good."

Other top fashion houses to have expanded their beauty portfolios in the past 12 months include Dolce & Gabbana and Burberry, while Italian designer Roberto Cavalli revealed his cosmetic line ambitions earlier this year.

"I'd like to make many, many things with color and cosmetics -- even color for the hair," said Cavalli.

The Last Exorcism (2010)

The Last Exorcism is a 2010 found footage supernatural horror film directed and edited by Daniel Stamm. It stars Patrick Fabian, Ashley Bell, Iris Bahr, and Louis Herthum.

The film is told from the perspective of a disillusioned evangelical minister, who after years of performing exorcisms decides to participate in a documentary chronicling his last exorcism while exposing the fraud of his ministry. After receiving a letter from a farmer asking for help in driving out the devil, he meets the farmer's afflicted daughter.

Plot Summary: When he arrives on the rural Louisiana farm of Louis Sweetzer, the Reverend Cotton Marcus expects to perform just another routine "exorcism" on a disturbed religious fanatic. An earnest fundamentalist, Sweetzer has contacted the charismatic preacher as a last resort, certain his teenage daughter Nell is possessed by a demon who must be exorcized before their terrifying ordeal ends in unimaginable tragedy.

Buckling under the weight of his conscience after years of parting desperate believers with their money, Cotton and his crew plan to film a confessionary documentary of this, his last exorcism. But upon arriving at the already blood drenched family farm, it is soon clear that nothing could have prepared him for the true evil he encounters there. Now, too late to turn back, Reverend Marcus' own beliefs are shaken to the core when he and his crew must find a way to save Nell – and themselves – before it is too late.

Real Madrid CF and Chelsea FC have reached the UEFA Champions League semi-finals.

A late Raul Meireles goal finally saw off ten-man SL Benfica at Stamford Bridge, after Lampard's penalty was equalised by Garcia on 85th minute. The Blues going through 3-1 on aggregate have set up a tie against holders FC Barcelona.

Cristiano Ronaldo scored twice as Madrid defeated APOEL FC 5-2 on the night and 8-2 overall. The nine-time champions will take on FC Bayern München in the last four.

'Agüero will not join Real'

Manchester City will resist all attempts by the Spanish giants to lure Sergio Agüero from the Etihad Stadium this summer amid claims that the Argentine forward is unsettled in England and keen to move to the Bernabéu.

Senior figures at Manchester City took the rare step on Tuesday of dismissing out of hand reports in Spain that the 23 year-old, a £34million signing from Atlético Madrid last summer, would welcome a return to the Spanish capital because of problems adjusting to life in the North West.
While the City futures of forwards Carlos Tévez, Mario Balotelli and Edin Dzeko are uncertain, with all three potentially available for transfer this summer, the club’s Abu Dhabi hierarchy will not entertain the prospect of selling Agüero .
Agüero, expected to overcome badly blistered feet in time to face Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium on Sunday, has been a huge success during his first season at City, scoring 24 goals in 41 appearances for the club.
But with growing speculation emanating from Spain linking Agüero with a move to Real, City sources have stressed that the club had “no intention” of selling the player and insisted that he and his family are happy in England.
Recent comments by Diego Maradona, Agüero ’s father-in-law, that the player made a “mistake” in signing for City have fuelled the belief in Spain that he would be open to move to Real.

Maradona said Agüero “has to play for Real Madrid. Even though he is flying at City, the best thing would have been to sign for Madrid.
"He made a mistake. Now, as he is doing so well, it will be difficult to get him from City.
"However, if Madrid want someone they get them. Florentino [Pérez] has no limits.
"It’s a question of convincing City – but not with money because they have plenty of that”.(Telegraph.co.uk)

CO2 linked to end of last ice age

(LiveScience)The circumstances that ended the last ice age, somewhere between 19,000 and 10,000 years ago, have been unclear. In particular, scientists aren't sure how carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, played into the giant melt.

New research indicates it did in fact help drive this prehistoric episode of global warming, even though it did not kick it off. A change in the Earth's orbit likely started of the melt, setting off a chain of events, according to the researchers.

The ambiguity about the end of the ice age originates in the Antarctic. Ice cores from the continent reveal a problematic time lag: Temperatures appeared to begin warming before atmospheric carbon dioxide increased. This has led scientists to question how increasing carbon dioxide — a frequently cited cause for global warming now and in the distant past — factored into the end of the last ice age. Global warming skeptics have also cited this as evidence carbon dioxide produced by humans is not responsible for modern global warming.

But the data from Antarctica alone offer too narrow a perspective to represent what was happening on a global scale, according to lead study researcher Jeremy Shakun of Harvard University.

At least 50 arrests at Montreal student protest

MONTREAL — Police made dozens of arrests Wednesday morning after student protesters, some of whom were masked, threw firecrackers at officers and tried to occupy the downtown Eaton Centre.

About 150 students gathered at Victoria Square and began to march up the hill towards the commercial district.

Police declared the event illegal after protesters gathered at the Eaton Centre around 8:30 a.m. Demonstrators vandalized the mall as well as a nearby hotel, leading police to surround about 50 suspects.

Students also planned to gather in large numbers in Premier Jean Charest's home riding of Sherbrooke, about 200 km east of Montreal.

It's part of a strike by about 200,000 post-secondary students who are upset about Charest's decision to increase tuition by $1,625 over five years.

Protesters have blocked bridges and major thoroughfares across Quebec, and several protests have ended in violence and arrests.

UK teenager lands stunt job with YouTube freerunning video

Marcus Wilson, 17, from Beccles in Suffolk has been offered a dream job teaching Parkour after catching the eye of talent spotters in the US in a series of YouTube clips.

The World Freerunning and Parkour Federation (WFPF) contacted the Suffolk teenager after tracking his development online for two years in a series of clips uploaded to the video sharing website by Mr Warren and his friend Ryan Lovejoy.

The WFPF asked Mr Warren, who spends eight hours a day clambering over buildings and leaping off rooftops in his hometown, to teach his skills to youngsters in Los Angeles.
Freerunning, or Parkour as it is also known, originated in France in the twentieth century and involves participants navigating often urban terrain by means such as vaulting, jumping and climbing.
Mr Warren, who hopes to become a professional stuntman when he turns 18, has been practising the art for four years.
“I will only do the jumps if I am in the right frame of mind. It is a mental thing as well. I wouldn’t do them if I was tired or feeling ill. (torontosun.com)