Sexes equal in education, women lack power: study
November 18, 2008
Sexes equal in education, women lack power: study
GENEVA (Reuters) - Women still lag far behind men in top political and decision-making roles, a waste of talent given that their access to education and healthcare is nearly equal, the World Economic Forum said on Wednesday.
Obama as role model for black youth? Not so fast
November 16, 2008
Obama as role model for black youth? Not so fast
ATLANTA (Reuters) - The election of the first black president in U.S. history should send a powerful signal to young black Americans: If Barack Obama made it, so can you.
Travel Picks: 10 top ugly buildings and monument
November 15, 2008
Travel Picks: 10 top ugly buildings and monument
SYDNEY (Reuters Life!) - Travel can open your eyes to some of the world’s most beautiful sights and buildings — and to some of the ugliest.
Web site VirtualTourist.com (www.virtualtourist.com) has come up with a list of “The World’s Top 10 Ugliest Buildings and Monuments” according to their editors and readers. Reuters has not endorsed this list.
“Some of these picks have all the charm of a bag of nails while others are just jaw-dropping in their complexity. Love them or hate them, the list is certainly entertaining,” said General manager Giampiero Ambrosi.
1. Boston City Hall; Boston, Massachusetts
While it was hip for it’s time, this concrete structure now gets routinely criticized for its dreary facade and incongruity with the rest of the city’s more genteel architecture. Luckily, it’s very close to more aesthetically pleasing attractions.
2. Montparnasse Tower; Paris, France
While it’s almost universally agreed that this ominous stick is a blight on the landscape of the world’s most stunning city, its detractors admit that there is one very good reason to take in the view from the building’s observation deck: it’s the only place you can go to get a view of the city without it.
3. LuckyShoe Monument; Tuuri, Finland
It may be over-the-top, but there is something to be said for the giant, golden horseshoe that looms over Finland’s second-largest shopping center. The shoe, and, in fact, the entire town in which it is situated, is said to bring good luck.
4. Metropolitan Cathedral; Liverpool, England
The people who work here must be sick of the space capsule jokes. Even those who find the building’s shell a bit “spacey,” have to admit the circular interior is pretty spectacular.
5. Port Authority Bus Terminal; New York City, New York
Those who pass by this iron monstrosity might be tempted to ask about a completion date, but alas, this is the finished product.
6. Torres de Colon; Madrid, Spain
Like a set of giant salt-and-pepper shakers, these matching towers loom over the city to the dissatisfaction of many area residents. The buildings are also known as “El Enchufe” or “The Plug” for the plug-like structure that holds them together.
7. Liechtenstein Museum of Fine Arts; Vaduz, Liechtenstein
Some feel the building’s minimalist box design is a triumph, others say it’s an eyesore.
8. Scottish Parliament Building; Edinburgh, Scotland
Stone, oak, and bamboo are part of the make-up of the Scottish Parliament, a building that is the subject of much debate.
9. Birmingham Central Library; Birmingham, England
One look and it’s easy to see how this genre of architecture came to be known as the “Brutalist” style. Not surprisingly, the issue of its possible demolition has been looming for years.
10. Peter the Great Statue; Moscow, Russia
Some 15 stories high, the larger-than-life monument was designed by controversial artist, Zurab K. Tsereteli, whose statue of Christopher Columbus was repeatedly rejected by the United States.
Italy’s winemakers see China as new top destination
November 12, 2008
Italy
MILAN (Reuters Life!) - Only a couple of years ago producers from Tuscany, the wine heart of Italy, used to say China was not mature enough to embrace their top quality labels.
Now, with recession hovering over their main markets in Europe and the United States, makers of premium Italian wines are turning to China where wine is becoming increasingly popular and the newly rich easily splash out on a top-price bottle.
Going raw sparks life change — and a movie
November 11, 2008
Going raw sparks life change -- and a movie
CANBERRA (Reuters Life!) - Inspired by a documentary about eating only McDonald’s for 30 days, Jenna Norwood decided to go for the opposite and only eat raw, organic food for a month with the result sparking major lifestyle changes — and a movie.
Thrill-seekers snap up new Aussie dare - croc swim
November 8, 2008
DARWIN (Reuters Life!) - Swimming face-to-face with a massive saltwater crocodile might not be everyone’s idea of fun but thrill-seekers are snapping up northern Australia’s new tourist attraction.
Conscientious Medoc wine-maker wins ecology award
November 5, 2008
Conscientious Medoc wine-maker wins ecology award
BORDEAUX (Reuters Life!) - Medoc’s largest vineyard won a special certificate last week that honors more than a decade of work toward durable development in wine-making.
The 225-hectare (556-acre) Château Larose Trintaudon at Saint-Laurent-Medoc in the area close to Bordeaux, is the first French wine house to get the certificate with the not so catchy name of AFAQ 1000 NT level 3.
“Larose Trintaudon has been committed to durable development since 1999,” said Brice Amouroux, Larose’s secretary-general.
“That has taken us to new working methods, especially in our use of natural resources, the way we deal with waste, and improvement of the working conditions, the way we sell our products and the transparency of what we do,” he added.
The award may be new, but it is part of a growing trend for environmental winemaking in France driven by a traditional respect for nature and increasing consumer awareness.
There are specialized websites such as www.vin-bio-naturalcellar.com that sell wines which have been made without artificial fertilizers or pesticides and the Agriculture Ministry can grant the “AB label, which stands for Agriculture Biologique — sustainable agriculture.
France has some 1,500 wine-growers who operate on biological grounds, though this adds up to only 1.5 percent of France’s wine-growing areas.
Some ecological wine labels include Domaine Monthchovet in Burgundy and Domaine Grillet in Beaujolais and in Bordeaux Chateau Grand Renard, Jean-Marc Maugey, Chateau Ferrand, or Domaine Sainte Juste in Corbieres.
It takes four years for a winemaker to switch to ecological wine-making, due to the time the soil and the plants need to fully purge themselves from chemicals and waste minerals.
BEES, BUGS AND ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH
Last April, Larose Trintaudon installed six beehives on its land as part of a project to preserve bees and other insects considered to be sentinels of environmental health.
“We harvested 100 kg (220 lb) of honey in which there was not enough Acacia, which is a tree that was widely present in this region. Therefore we decided to plant Acacia trees,” Amouroux said.
Owned since 1986 by insurance group AGF, part of Germany’s Allianz, Larose Trintaudon also obtained a certificate in 2006 for reasoned agriculture and signed on to a pact in 2007 that was launched by the United Nations for the protection of the rights of man and related to the respect of workers.
Making production more natural hasn’t hit the quality of the wines produced by Larose Trintaudon, which regularly harvest prizes.
Larose Trintaudon is not one of the big classified growths of the famous 1855 Bordeaux classification, but in 2003 it was included in a new classification of top Haut Medoc wines, since canceled by an administrative court.
The vineyard produces around 1.2 million bottles a year, using 60 percent Cabernet Sauvignon and 40 percent Merlot grapes. Some 60 percent of production is sold in France, while 200,000 bottles go to the United States.
(Writing by Marcel Michelson, editing by Paul Casciato)
Finance students eye future with uncertainty
November 4, 2008
- Finance students eye future with uncertainty
SINGAPORE (Reuters) -
These may be uncertain times for banking and finance workers, but spare a thought for thousands of wannabe whiz kids still looking for a start in industry.
Jewish settlers vow to hang tough in occupied land
November 3, 2008
Jewish settlers vow to hang tough
HAR BRACHA, West Bank (Reuters) - Being a Jewish settler in occupied territory is the only life Renana Cohen has known for most of her 25 years, and she couldn’t imagine living anywhere else, including within Israel’s borders.
It’s not the breathtaking scenery from Har Bracha, or “Blessed Mountain,” a West Bank hilltop settlement of 2,000, that attracts the mother of two, but more the mission of staking a claim to land Israeli rightists see as a biblical birthright.
“This is my place, where my soul feels best,” said Cohen, her hair wrapped in a headscarf typical of those worn by devout Jewish women. “It’s because I believe this is a part of Israel that we must live here, without a doubt.”
Palestinians, facing a recent surge in attacks by settlers out to disrupt their olive harvest, say Jewish settlements, on territory Israel captured in a 1967 Middle East war, rob them of land they want for a state.
Some 300,000 Israelis live in the West Bank, alongside some 3 million Palestinians, in settlements which the World Court has branded as illegal.
Settlement expansion, along with Israel’s insistence on keeping major enclaves in any future peace deal, have impeded U.S.-sponsored talks on Palestinian statehood and chances of meeting Washington’s target of a framework accord this year.
Settler assaults on Palestinians harvesting olives this month have illustrated the difficulties Israel faces with defiant rightists who insist on staying in the West Bank with or without peace.
Human rights groups and Israeli organizations that monitor military and settler treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank say settlers are rarely prosecuted for violence.
Some unrest has spilled over into Israel where police suspect rightists were behind a recent explosion that injured an Israeli anti-settler professor. There have been no arrests in the weeks that have followed that blast.
LENIENCY
“There is unexplainable leniency toward terrorism from our side,” said Ofer Pines-Paz, lawmaker with the left-wing Labour Party. The problem “puts Israeli society at risk of collapse.”
Some settlers are riled by proposals once set forth by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to remove a third of settlements, following on a 2005 pullout of some 9,000 settlers from the Gaza Strip and isolated enclaves in the northern West Bank.
The Gaza pullout dogs many settlers, especially a hardened younger generation that came of age during a Palestinian uprising that erupted in 2000.
Cohen, herself a former Gaza settler dragged from her home by Israeli soldiers, said many at Har Bracha, a settlement overlooking the West Bank’s largest Palestinian city of Nablus, “would spare no efforts to avert any evacuation.”
“They will do everything to prevent it. I cannot even imagine it happening,” Cohen said.
Citing a biblical link, many settlers seek to hold onto areas once inhabited by patriarchs and ancient Israelite kings, and to serve as physical barriers to ever handing land to Palestinians.
“If we don’t live here, then the Arabs would,” Cohen said.
She said she saw a chance for peace only if Palestinians accepted Israeli rule or left.
“If they could evacuate Gush Katif, then they can evacuate them (the Palestinians from the West Bank), too,” Cohen said, using the Hebrew name for the former Gaza settler enclave.
Peretz Levanon, 20, a religious seminary student who hobnobs with militant youths who live in West Bank hilltop outposts built without official Israeli authorization, speaks of “sacrificing your life” to prevent evacuation.
He said he would avoid striking out at Israeli soldiers, but “do whatever is possible” to stop the removal of settlers.
“It should never be allowed to happen,” Levanon said.
Travel Postcard: 48 hours in Philadelphia
November 2, 2008
Rupiah Banda says he can move Zambia forward
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters Life!) - Got 48 hours to spend in Philadelphia? With the presidential election just days away Reuters correspondents with local knowledge help visitors enjoy the historic sites in the City of Brotherly Love.
FRIDAY
6 p.m. - For a pre-dinner beer or two, check out the Nodding Head Brewery and Restaurant in Center City. It’s one of a number of independent local breweries that is helping to restore Philadelphia’s reputation as a center for craft beer making.
8 p.m. - The Tin Angel, a cozy second-floor live-music venue near the busy corner of Second and Market Streets, regularly hosts nationally known artists. Past acts have included Grace Potter and the Nocturnals and Richie Havens. It’s joined with the Serrano restaurant.
SATURDAY
10 a.m. - Time to see the sights. The Liberty Bell is Philadelphia’s most famous historic landmark. The cracked bell was rung on July 8, 1776 to summon the people of Philadelphia to a reading of the newly written Declaration of Independence. It’s in a special pavilion on Independence Mall, the center of Philadelphia’s historic area.
11 a.m. - Independence Hall. Within walking distance of the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall was where the Declaration of Independence was adopted on July 4, 1776 and the U.S. Constitution was drafted in 1787. It contains reconstructed rooms where the “founding fathers” including Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison argued and labored to create the documents that laid the groundwork for the United States, and its independence from England. The National Park Service provides free tours on a first-come-first-served basis.
12 noon - Congress Hall, next to Independence Hall, was built in 1787-89 as a court house and became the meeting place of the fledgling U.S. Congress from 1790-1800. It also housed the presidential inaugurations of George Washington and John Adams.
1 p.m. - Reading Terminal Market. It is a bustling city-center food emporium where you can buy anything from bagels to brisket to bananas, as well as prepared food from many nations. Grab lunch in the no-frills food court and watch the world go by.
2 p.m. - National Constitution Center, housing a permanent exhibition on the U.S. Constitution, is at the opposite end of Independence Mall from Independence Hall, and an easy walk of about 10 minutes. It includes a multimedia theater called “Freedom Rising”, tracing the origins of the Constitution. Visitors can also walk among life-sized bronze statues of 42 men - 39 delegates who signed the Constitution and three who dissented.
3 p.m. - Franklin Court: the site of the house where Philadelphia’s most famous son, Benjamin Franklin, lived while serving in the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention, and where he died in 1790. It commemorates the life of the statesman, politician and inventor with an 18th century printing office and a postal museum.
4 p.m. - The Schuylkill River. Take a stroll behind the Art Museum and watch the boating crews working out along the river where the 19th century painter Thomas Eakins depicted some of his most famous scenes.
6 p.m. - Take a walking tour of the Kimmel Center, Philadelphia’s main classical music concert hall beneath its distinctive glass roof on Avenue of the Arts near City Hall. A few blocks away, on the elegant Rittenhouse Square, it’s worth looking into the ornate lobby of the Curtis Institute of Music where some of the world’s most talented young musicians are trained. Students sometimes give free concerts.
7 p.m. - Dinner time. Choices in a famously foody city include:
– Pod: a futuristic restaurant on University of Pennsylvania campus in West Philadelphia. You may be able to choose your own “pod” (alcove) or eat in the main restaurant serving “contemporary pan-Asian cuisine”
– Le Bec Fin: venerable, elaborate, expensive French restaurant that is consistently near the top of the ratings in Philadelphia restaurant guides.
– Maggiano’s Little Italy: a chain that produces high-quality Italian family cooking in prodigious quantities for large groups in bustling restaurants.
9 p.m. - Head to Warmdaddy’s, a renowned blues club and restaurant that has recently moved from its Front Street location to a new space on Columbus Boulevard at Reed Street. Taste the southern cooking while listening to a selection of blues and soul.
SUNDAY
10 a.m. - For brunch try the Marathon Grill, a popular deli/coffee shop chain with five locations in central and west Philadelphia. It serves eggs, sandwiches, salads and a range of brunch fare.
11 a.m. - Mural Arts Program: With almost 3,000 of the wall paintings throughout the city, Philadelphia is known as the world capital of murals. They range from naturalistic depictions of neighborhood residents to portraits of historic figures and complex allegories of urban life. Tours are available through the Mural Arts Program, which is celebrating is 25th anniversary in 2008.
1 p.m. - Time to try another icon of Philly culture, the cheesesteak. Philadelphia’s most famous culinary offering consists of a torpedo roll filled with shredded beef and melted cheese. It is served by many long-established restaurants that all claim to make the authentic steak. They include Geno’s in South Philadelphia which has drawn national attention, and some criticism, for its sign instructing customers to speak English when ordering.
2 p.m. - Take a tour of City Hall. This national historic landmark is the world’s tallest masonry building, and with almost 700 rooms, the largest municipal building in America.
Its ornate style, dating from 1871, stands out from the bland modern office buildings and hotels that surround it at the very heart of the city. With its statue of William Penn on top, it was the tallest building in Philadelphia until 1985 when a nearby skyscraper broke a gentleman’s agreement that no building in the city should be higher than Billy Penn’s hat.
3 p.m. - Philadelphia Museum of Art. One of America’s largest art museums, it contains some 225,000 works of art including paintings, sculpture, textiles and metalwork. From the top of the front steps you can look out over Benjamin Franklin Parkway with City Hall at the other end.
Visitors can, and frequently do, do the famous Rocky run up the Art Museum steps and pay homage at the bottom to the statue of the boxer played by Sylvester Stallone.