Greasepaint Eyes! Violet Lips! Gilded Crowns! : Five looks we loved from the Paris couture shows

• January 31, 2016

This season's above-the-neck additions offered unexpected takes on a few well-loved trends-from a delineated new slash of black eyeliner at Chanel to the vivid lips at Maison Margiela! Here are the five runway directives we'll be making uniquely ours in the coming months.

Go graphic

Amid Chanel's structured Zen backdrop, traditional flicks of winged black eyeliner were replaced by stylized delineations that mirrored the sculptural up-dos.

Put a bow on it

Ladylike lengths were pulled into low yet voluminous ponytails and finished with thin black ribbon headbands at Giambattista Valli. In true Parisian style, the look allowed for a halo of fuzzy baby hairs to have their day.

Reinvent the fiery red lip

Faces at Dior offered a cool juxtaposition: While some models got black liner and nude lips for their turn down the runway, it was the bold carmine shade-an electrifying cross between cherry and crimson-spotted on show regular Hedvig Palm that stole our hearts!

Think outside the make-up box

The larger-than-life makeup looks at Maison Margiela paid homage to a certain glam rock-inspired aesthetic, from a Bowie-esque eye dusted with astral sparkles to a playful lip-print-stamped face! Off the runway and in real life, it was a vivid, glitter-coated violet lip that promised to make an inspiring off-the-cuff statement.

Try a greasepaint eye

At Atelier Versace, sharply shaded lids were given new sex appeal with a greasy metallic black finish that extended outward into an exaggerated cat-eye, resulting in the kind of tough-edged look that Donatella has made a house signature.

Makes us wince : Five meanest Bollywood Tweets

• February 01, 2016

Asin Thottumkal vs Kamal Rashid Khan

"It's very good decision by Asin in Budhapa who decided to get married to leave Bollywood. Public don't want to watch old girls as heroines." While the entire Twitter feed was busy congratulating Asin Thottumkal on her marriage, KRK chose the not-so-conventional form of wishing her good luck; calling her old. Someone snatch his phone away, already.

Ram Gopal Varma vs Karan Johar

"If someone takes off from Karan johar's Student of the year and makes Teacher of the year it will become the Disaster of the year." When RGV decided to take on Karan Johar's 'Student Of The Year', Johar quickly retorted by Tweeting, "Disaster of the year is your territory Ramu...no one can ever replace the comfortable place you have made for yourself there." Shots fired.

Shobha De vs Sonam Kapoor

"Guys please don't take Shobha De seriously. She's a fossil who's getting no action and going through menopause." This one dates back to 2010 and it is still considered to be one of the hottest and most controversial celebrity Twitter wars ever. Sonam Kapoor took to Twitter to express her angst against the author, when she criticised 'I Hate Love Stories' and it left Shobha De red in the face.

Twinkle Khanna vs Chetan Bhagat

"Well if u were taller, had more hair u could have got Bobby Deol's role." Twinkle Khanna and Chetan Bhagat got into an infamous Twitter battle last year and Khanna ended up making those nasty personal remarks against the author. Ouch!

22nd Screen Actors Guild Awards : ‘Spotlight’ tops at the SAG Awards

• February 01, 2016

LOS ANGELES: 'Spotlight', a film based on the true story of investigative journalism on sexual abuse by Catholic priests, won the top prize of best ensemble cast at the 22nd Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards on Saturday.

Accepting the award on behalf of the cast, Mark Ruffalo said the movie shed light on "one of the most horrific things that our culture has allowed to happen".

"And this movie allows them to be seen in the world, in a world that has been blind to them," he said.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Brie Larson were named best actor and best actress respectively, raising their hopes for Oscars.

DiCaprio, 41, claimed his first SAG Award in nine nominations for his role as a frontiersman who is left to die in 'The Revenant'. He has already won a Golden Globe and is an Oscar front-runner.

Larson, who also won a Golden Globe earlier this month, won her first SAG Award for her role as a mother held captive with her young son in 'Room'.

Alicia Vikander, a 27-year-old Swedish actress, was named best supporting actress for her work in 'The Danish Girl'. It was her first win and first SAG nomination.

In the television category, 'Downton Abbey' won its second straight and third overall SAG Award for outstanding cast in a drama series. Netflix's 'Orange Is The New Black' was named best ensemble cast in a comedy series for the second straight year.

The two-hour ceremony, held at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, was particularly notable for the number of awards won by black performers amid a controversy over the lack of diversity in this year's list of Oscar nominees and in Hollywood in general.

British actor Idris Elba won best supporting actor for Netflix's 'Beasts Of No Nation' and US actress Queen Latifah scooped best actress for HBO's TV miniseries 'Bessie'.

Big dreams but little action for Manila’s traffic nightmare

• February 01, 2016

Web designer Maria Zurbano kisses her three-year-old daughter goodbye and sets out in the pre-dawn darkness for a torturous commute through the Philippine capital.

Her ordeal, a return trip of up to six hours every weekday, is expected to get even worse as the number of cars explodes in the chaotic Asian mega-city of more than 12 million people. Dubbed “carmaggedon” by locals, business leaders are warning Manila could come to a total standstill despite grand government plans to tackle its traffic. “Physically, during these trips, I feel ill. My back is always hurting. It affects my health to have to sit down for so long,” said Zurbano, 36, as she waited for a bus outside her home at 5:00 am.

After finally ending a cramped mini-bus trip of just 17 kilometres (10.6 miles) to the financial district of Makati, Zurbano despaired of being trapped in a traffic hell.

“Traffic just gets worse and worse. I just get more stressed and stressed but it doesn’t look like anything will change. I will just have to learn to bear with it,” she said.

Traffic in the capital and its surroundings is already costing the country about three billion pesos ($64 million) a day, or about 0.8 percent of gross domestic product, according to government figures. And it is steadily worsening as an emerging middle class fuels an auto boom — car sales rose 23 percent last year with nearly 300,000 new vehicles hitting the roads.

Compounding the problem, decades of infrastructure neglect has left Manila with a just a few major roads across the city and their gridlock “peak hours” often last for three or four hours.

Commuters have few other options with Manila’s dilapidated rail network tiny in comparison with neighbouring Southeast Asian capitals such as Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok.

A chaotic private bus and mini-bus network with drivers who regularly flout traffic laws by, for instance, stopping in the middle of roads to pick up passengers, is widely perceived as adding to the problem.

“This is going to be the most critical problem the next administration faces,” John Forbes, a senior adviser at the American Chamber of Commerce in Manila, told AFP.

Forbes warned Manila risked becoming “uninhabitable” in the next three to five years — meaning people would simply be unable to get around the city — if urgent action was not taken to build roads and rail lines.

Elections for a successor to President Benigno Aquino, who is required by the constitution to stand down after a single six-year term, will be held in May.

Aquino has proved a generally popular president but he has been the target of fierce public criticism for a perceived lack of urgency in updating the nation’s creaking infrastructure.

He earnt widespread condemnation mid-way through his term with comments that worsening traffic was merely a sign of a growing economy.

His aides have since sought to project a sense of empathy and urgency, pointing to new expressways and an extension of a train line as planned projects that will ease the congestion.

They have also emphasised the adoption in 2014 of a “Dream Plan” to fix the urban chaos, which outlines $65 billion of infrastructure spending by 2030. The plan envisages a wide range of massive and unprecedented projects for the Philippines, such as a subway, satellite cities linked to Manila by high-speed rail, relocating air and sea ports, as well as many new roads.

Finance Undersecretary Gil Beltran, an economist who has studied the traffic problem, said the plan’s huge price tag is within the government’s reach. “Financing should not be a problem because the funders are ready,” Beltran told AFP, pointing to the nation’s improved credit rating that will allow cheaper loans, as well as expected help from the Japanese government and multilateral lenders.

But many experts believe there is little chance of many projects going ahead. They point to the nation’s chaotic and corrupt democratic system, as well as a strangling bureaucracy, which prevent infrastructure development.

A glaring example is the construction of a 19-kilometre light rail line on the outskirts of the capital that was meant to have been finished by the end of last year — but it has not even been started. Touting the project in 2013, Aquino joked he was ready to be run over a train if it was not completed by the end of 2015. But his government has not even finalised the tender process.

Gilbert Llano, president of the Philippine Institute for Development Studies, a government think-tank, echoed the ironic tones of many experts when talking about the government’s infrastructure plan.

“It’s called a dream plan (because) it will stay in the realm of dreams,” said Llanto.

Donald Trump becomes the choice of the Republican establishment

• February 01, 2016

The 2016 presidential campaign is being driven by two politicians whose names are not on any ballot: Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. The Republican race is being shaped by conservative rage at Obama. The Democratic race by liberal wariness of Clintonism.

Seven years of President Obama has driven Republicans over the edge. They despise this president and everything he stands for. Obama is the ultimate conservative nightmare — a big-government liberal who’s weak on foreign policy. And black.

What’s shaping the Republican race is the fury of rank-and-file Republican voters at their own party. Republicans have taken control of Congress — and for what? They still can’t stop Obama. He vetoes what the Republican Congress can pass, like repeal of Obamacare. And he ignores Congress and acts on his own authority to implement what they won’t pass.

Based on two decades of polling by the Pew Research Center, the New York Times reports, “Republican unhappiness with their own party during the Obama presidency has exceeded any previous level of self-party dissatisfaction among either Democrats or Republicans.” Rage at the Republican leadership has produced two brutally antiestablishment contenders, Donald Trump and Senator Ted Cruz, both current front-runners for the GOP nomination.

What we are seeing now is a split. The Republican Party establishment is anxiously embracing Trump. The conservative ideological establishment is angrily rejecting Trump and promoting Cruz. What’s the difference?

Republican Party leaders see Trump as more flexible and pragmatic. “We’ve got to make deals,” Trump said at a campaign rally last week. “We don’t want to sign executive orders. We want to make good deals.” Deal making is something professional politicians understand.

Cruz, on the other hand, is totally inflexible. To him, deals are sell-outs. Cruz believes that shutting down the federal government and putting the full faith and credit of the United States at risk are good negotiating tactics. His willingness to go to the brink horrifies professional politicians.

But it thrills conservative intellectuals. They want a leader who is completely committed to principle. That’s not Trump. The Weekly Standard called Trump “a confidence man.” The National Review published an entire issue “Against Trump.” He’s ideologically incoherent. He has no problem with big government – a wall on the border, mass deportations — as long as he’s in charge. The only thing Trump truly believes in is himself.

Conservatives admire Cruz’s “no compromise” approach. Republican politicos hate it. They think it will doom them at the polls. “With Cruz, you’re looking at a Republican Party that wouldn’t win the vote of a young person, a young woman or minority for a generation,” one Republican consultant warned.

On the Democratic side, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton promotes what she calls a “sensible, achievable agenda.” That doesn’t exactly get liberals’ juices flowing. Neither did her husband’s record as president. He got elected at a time when Reaganism was still in the ascendancy, and he moderated the Democratic Party’s “big government” image in order to make Democrats more competitive. It worked.

But this is a different time. Liberals today do not feel they have to reach an accommodation with free-market capitalism. Not after the financial crash, the Great Recession and years of wage stagnation and rising inequality.

Bill Clinton’s signature policy achievements never had much appeal to liberals. Free trade, welfare reform, a balanced budget and Wall Street deregulation were all passed with more support from Republicans than from Democrats. Many liberals look at Hillary Clinton and see Wall Street and “triangulation.”

Older Democrats revere Bill Clinton and see him as a president who delivered “good times.” Many younger Democrats don’t share those recollections. After all, Clinton has been out of the White House for more than 15 years. For younger voters, Clinton’s “good times” means something different.

Senator Bernie Sanders electrifies liberals. He’s conviction. Hillary Clinton is calculation. Especially when she shifts to the left on issues like trade. For younger liberals, socialism is not a scare word. They didn’t live through the Cold War. Even the fact that Sanders is not a registered Democrat doesn’t bother them. Many young liberals identify as independents, too.

If Sanders wins Iowa and New Hampshire, he will be an instant media sensation: the Clinton crusher. He’s hoping the momentum of the two victories would carry him to the Democratic nomination, especially as he becomes better known to minority Democratic voters.

Commentators are constantly drawing attention to parallels between the 2016 Democratic race and the 2008 race between Obama and Hillary Clinton. In some ways, however, the stronger parallel is the primary showdown between Vice President Walter Mondale and Senator Gary Hart of Colorado in 1984. Mondale was the standard-bearer of the Democratic Party establishment. Hart was the advocate of a “new politics” for a new generation.

But there’s one big difference. Hart was thwarted by a single question, borrowed from a television commercial: “Where’s the beef?” Sanders is less vulnerable to that kind of criticism. When it comes to policy ideas, Sanders is pretty beefy.


Bill Schneider is professor of public and international affairs at George Mason University

New Zealand down Pakistan in nail-biter, win ODI series 2-0

• February 01, 2016

AUCKLAND: A record partnership by Martin Guptill and Kane Williamson gave New Zealand victory with two balls to spare in a tense third one-dayer against Pakistan in Auckland on Sunday. The three-wicket win in the rain-abridged match also wrapped up the series for New Zealand 2-0. Initially set a target of 291 to win, New Zealand made a disastrous start with Brendon McCullum out for a first-ball duck. But Guptill and Williamson restored order with a 159-run stand, a New Zealand ODI record for the second wicket, to set the side up before a lengthy rain delay shortened the match by seven overs.

When play resumed, New Zealand were set a revised target of 53 off 45 balls, which they reached with two balls to spare and with the help of a contentious umpire's call. With 27 balls remaining and New Zealand still 38 runs short of their target, Corey Anderson appeared to have been caught behind but was given not out and Pakistan had used up their review. The ODI series win added to New Zealand's golden summer after they also beat Pakistan 2-1 in the Twenty20s and beat Sri Lanka in Tests, ODIs and Twenty20s. In the decider against Pakistan, Azhar Ali won the toss and opted to bat first which initially proved productive.

While Babar Azam and Mohammad Hafeez were together it looked like they would threaten the Eden Park ODI innings record of 340. Even with Hafeez back in the pavilion, Pakistan were 207-3 with 20 overs remaining. But they were soon to run out of steam with their last six wickets falling for 63 runs and they were all out for 290 with 15 balls remaining. McCullum's comeback was very brief after being sidelined for five weeks by a back complaint. The first ball he faced from Mohammad Amir was hooked to long leg where Mohammad Irfan took a smart catch on the run.

Enter Williamson to partner Guptill in a record stand, two better than the previous best 157 which Guptill had set with McCullum four years ago against Zimbabwe. Azhar removed the pair in the space of eight deliveries. Guptill was first to go for 82 caught at point by Hafeez, and Williamson was stumped for 84. Azhar may consider himself a part-time bowler but showed all the guile of a career leg-spinner when he outwitted Williamson charging down the wicket by getting the ball through to wicketkeeper Sarfraz Ahmed. Henry Nicholls, who set up the first ODI win, and Grant Elliott both fell cheaply as New Zealand slipped from 165-1 to 210-5. Lusty hitting from Anderson with 35 off 29 narrowed the gap and with six required off the last over, Mitchell Santner hit boundaries off the first and fourth deliveries to get New Zealand home.

Triple blasts near holy shrine in Syria kill 60

• February 01, 2016

DAMASCUS: At least 60 people were killed and 120 wounded on Sunday in three bomb blasts near the revered shrine of Bibi Zainab (SA) outside the Syrian capital Damascus, state media said.

State news agency SANA said the first blast was caused by a car bomb that detonated at a bus station near the shrine. It said two suicide bombers then detonated their explosive belts when people gathered at the scene. The eyewitnesses said the blasts caused massive damage, shattering windows and ripping a huge crater in the road.

Smoke rose from the twisted carcasses of more than a dozen cars and a bus damaged in the blasts, as ambulances ferried away the wounded and firefighters worked to put out blazes started by the bombings.

The Islamic State group said on social media it had carried out the attack.

Sunday’s attacks were carried out by two suicide bombers, but some witnesses spoke of three blasts. TV footage showed burning buildings and destroyed vehicles.

“The destruction is huge. The building in front of me on Koua Soudan Street is charred black in the middle. There is a military headquarters on the ground floor and families also lived in the five-storey building. There is a fruit stall with blackened oranges all over the floor. I can also see a large number of charred vehicles, including a bus in the middle of the street which is almost completely destroyed and overturned. The smoke is still rising from one of the cars on the side of the street,” an eyewitness said.

The shrine south of the capital contains the grave of a granddaughter of Holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and is particularly revered as a pilgrimage site by Muslims.

It has continued to attract pilgrims from Syria and beyond, particularly from Iran, Lebanon, and Iraq, throughout the war, and has been targeted in previous bomb attacks. In February 2015, two suicide attacks killed four people and wounded 13 at a checkpoint near the shrine.

Also that month, a blast ripped through a bus carrying Lebanese pilgrims headed to Bibi Zainab (SA), killing at least nine people, in an attack claimed by Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front. The area around the shrine is heavily secured with regime checkpoints set up hundreds of metres away to prevent vehicles from getting close to the shrine of Bibi Zainab (SA).

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, members of Lebanon’s powerful group Hezbollah are among those deployed at the checkpoints. The Britain-based monitor said 47 people were killed in the blasts, including a car bomb that targeted a checkpoint, and included non-Syrian militants without specifying their nationalities. Hezbollah is a staunch ally of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad and has dispatched fighters to bolster his troops against the uprising that began in March 2011 with anti-government protests.

More than 260,000 people have been killed in Syria’s conflict, which has also displaced over half the country’s population internally and abroad.

The attack happened as the government and opposition groups gathered in Geneva in a bid to start talks aimed at a political solution to the conflict.

While both sides are in Geneva, the talks have yet to begin - the main opposition group says the Syrian government must first meet key humanitarian demands.

US Secretary of State John Kerry urged both sides to seize the opportunity to end the bloodshed.

Kerry said there was ‘no military solution’ to the spiralling crisis, which he warned could engulf the region if the tentative UN-sponsored negotiations fail as previous attempts have.

BBC Arab affairs editor Sebastian Usher says Shia fighters from around the region have joined the conflict in Syria on the grounds that they wish to protect the shrine from the civil war. The Lebanese Shia movement Hezbollah has cited it as a key reason that it chose to fight on the side of President Bashar al-Assad, he adds.

The violence has also been the biggest driver behind Europe’s migration crisis. The opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC), backed by Saudi Arabia, agreed late on Friday that it would travel to Geneva - hours after the Syrian government delegation had arrived and held preliminary talks with UN envoy Staffan de Mistura. Hostility between key players remains high, with the Syrian government’s envoy Bashar al-Jaafari saying the HNC’s last-minute decision to take part showed it was ‘not serious’.

He said the Bibi Zainab (SA) shrine attack confirmed the link between the opposition and terrorism.