CAIRO: Arab states remain widely divided over how to deal with Syria’s crackdown on protesters after a peace plan brokered by its neighbors failed to stem violence, and there is little likelihood a meeting this week will bridge the gap. Several countries oppose bringing serious pressure to bear on President Bashar Al-Assad and it looks …

By Arthur Smith KELLER, Texas: On 18 September 2011, Northwood Church in Keller, Texas hosted an event where 1,000 Christians and 1,000 Muslims came together to embark on societal change. “The only hope we have to tone down our fear of Muslims and the only thing Jesus commands us to do is love — it’s done …

  CAIRO: Senior US Senator John McCain met Egypt’s military chief and foreign minister on Saturday, a day after a trip to the Libyan rebel stronghold of Benghazi, Egyptian television reported. It said McCain, a Republican who lost his 2008 presidential bid to Barack Obama, met Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, head of the Supreme Council …

  * A delicious Mediterranean panino is an easy treat to make. Photo Credit: Sarah Khanna # How did you see yourself at the age of 11? I, for one, thought I wouldn’t get married until the age of 30 due to being the high and mighty career woman I was to be. I never …

A new 1970s-style fashion muse, who means business during the day but can disco the night away, dominated the recent runway trends in the world’s fashion capitals. Gone from the spring 2011 collections previewed in New York, London, Paris and Milan, Italy, was the aggressive, tough woman designers had sent out to do battle with …

CAIRO: A growing middle-class of affluent Egyptians are pushing demand for more commercial and retail space, but the sector is still an untapped market for property developers, a SODIC executive said on Wednesday. SODIC, which mostly builds for the high end of the real estate market, has been steering away from middle income housing units, …

In the same week that a blatant handball helped Esperance of Tunisia knock Egypt’s Ahly out of the African Champions League, the inventor of Hawk-Eye has claimed he has goal-line technology that can make a goal-scoring decision within half a second. That’s half a second less than what the International Football Board (IFAB) had initially …

“Do good and throw it to the sea,” says an Egyptian proverb; meaning do good without waiting for any immediate rewards. In Egypt, we have proverbs for every occasion — both good and bad — phrased in classical Arabic and colloquial for a touch of humor and sass, as if spoken by feisty Egyptian housewives. …

Rarely seen outfits by some of Japan’s most influential designers, from Issey Miyake and Yohji Yamamoto to the fashion labels dressing Tokyo’s coolest kids, go on display at a new exhibition Friday. "Future Beauty: 30 Years of Japanese Fashion" at the Barbican looks at the design culture which took Paris by storm in 1981 and …

RAMALLAH: It has been 10 years since Palestinians began an uprising that swept away peace talks, triggered a ferocious reaction by the Jewish state and left thousands dead on both sides. Exactly why it happened just as Palestinian statehood seemed attainable is a mystery, fed by conspiracy theories and competing narratives from across the political …

Milan Fashion Week kicked off Wednesday with a study in contrasts, from Briton John Richmond’s sassy 1960s throwbacks to Gucci’s austere classics and Elena Miro’s full-figured goodness. Richmond set the tone with the Beatles 1967 hit "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" as he sent his models down the catwalk in hip-hugging pin-striped bell bottoms, …

He who says that there is no nightlife in Heliopolis obviously hasn’t hung out with the Cairo 360 crew. Sure, Heliopolis isn’t the epicenter of posh clubs, but it does have its fair share of affordable watering holes and shisha lounges with great food. If you’d like to know about the hippest place to watch …

CAIRO: State-run daily Al-Ahram defended in an editorial Friday publishing a doctored photo of the Mideast peace talks, which put President Hosni Mubarak in the front, saying it was “illustrative.” Last Tuesday, ahead of the second round the peace talks in Sharm El-Sheikh, the paper published doctored photo from the Washington talks earlier in the …

Italy’s Culture Minister Sandro Bondi denounced Quentin Tarantino as "elitist" after the "Pulp Fiction" director headed a jury that honored ex-girlfriend Sofia Coppola with the top prize at the Venice film festival. "Tarantino is an expression of an elitist, relativistic and snobbish culture," Bondi said in an interview to be published in Italian weekly Panorama …

They sail solo around the world, climb the highest mountains and race around ovals at breakneck speeds. They’re kids, some not old enough to get into an R-rated movie on their own. On Sunday, a 13-year-old became the youngest person to die at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway when he fell off his motorcycle and was …

MOSCOW: A Russian helicopter pilot who disappeared in Darfur while working for the United Nations was being held by a militia loyal to the Sudanese government, a Russian official was quoted Thursday as saying. The pilot was transporting rebel commanders for peace talks with the government when his helicopter landed in the wrong place Monday …

Combine Facebook, Twitter, geocaching and a Lonely Planet guidebook, and what do you get? Gowalla. This location-based, social networking tool is part game, part travel companion. Download the free app to your phone or iPad, register for an account and then "check in" at various spots around the globe. But that’s the basic, 10-second description …

If you follow fashion, you would know Australia is where it’s really happening now. Australian Fashion Week took place last week (their seasons are inverted to ours and so are their fashion seasons and the presentation of collections) and it has generated buzz once again in Europe and the US. Australia is setting trends. The …

W hen I introduce myself to Kamal Mouzawak for the first time in person, he asks me in an admonishing tone: “What are you doing in Egypt? The most fertile land on earth and nothing is being done with it!” He is wholly reprimanding me and I have to agree; Egypt’s farmed produce is in dire …

CAIRO: American cartoonist Molly Noriss distanced herself from a Facebook group calling for an international day to draw Prophet Mohamed, a campaign that was inspired by one of her cartoons. On her web page, she apologized to Muslims worldwide and insisted that she “never started a Facebook page; I never set up any place for …

CAIRO: A recent decision by a leading committee in Dar Al-Iftaa — the official body which issues religious edicts — permitting the use of drugs like marijuana, opium or cocaine for medical purposes, has triggered controversy among Al-Azhar scholars, according to online news portal masrawy.com. In Islam, it is considered haram, or religiously forbidden, for …

PARIS Girls who are thin at the age of seven are at higher risk of breast cancer after menopause than chubbier counterparts and more vulnerable to a worse type of tumor, according to a Swedish study published on Wednesday. The surprising conclusion is made by Karolinska Institutet researchers who looked at data from 2,818 Swedish …