A tête-à-tête on fashion trends
When you win a national fashion design competition at age 16, and you're judged by Dame Vivienne Westwood to have the most creative designs among thousands of entries, you're on…
French food for the soul
The struggle to understand French food on my part has recently been resolved. I have come to grips with their philosophy of using only the finest, and oftentimes the most…
Egypt's textile industry needs bottom-up approach, say experts
CAIRO: Egyptian cotton is world-renowned as one of the finest materials available for use in the manufacture of textiles. Demanded by everyone from large luxury carpet companies to the fashion…
GE Healthcare heads east to emerging markets
ALEXANDRIA: "GE Healthcare is focusing on emerging markets to cope with the global financial crisis, Hamid Khoudli, general manager of Africa at GE Healthcare, said Wednesday. In an interview with…
Arab novel booms as Beirut named World Book Capital
As Beirut prepared to don the mantle on Thursday of UNESCO "World Book Capital City 2009, Arabic novels are enjoying an unprecedented boom across the Middle East, breaking taboos on…
Oriental dancer hopes to revive a dying art
Egypt has long cultivated a culture that loves to dance, dating as far as its ancient pharaoh civilization. While the temples of Memphis have been home to some of the…
THE REEL ESTATE: Where have all the good movies gone?
A few weeks back, a particular news item regarding Ron Howard's "Frost/Nixon caught me by surprise. In the brief, Antoine Zend, one of the biggest foreign films distributors in Egypt,…
Naseeruddin Shah: the extraordinary gentleman
"Nobody becomes an actor because they want to serve art, says Indian cinema veteran Naseeruddin Shah. "They become actors because they want to be noticed, to be successful, to be…
The Rise of the Beijing Consensus
BRUSSELS: President Barack Obama's first appearances outside North America - in London, Strasbourg, Prague, and Istanbul - galvanized world attention. But what that trip singularly failed to do was paper…
A hidden resource for US diplomacy
New York: In rhetoric, and increasingly in action, US President Barack Obama s administration is ushering in a willingness to engage the other - the missing link in US statecraft.…