BRAZIL, the saying used to go, is the land of the future and always will be. But when Brazil's president, Dilma Rousseff, visits the White House next week, she will come as the leader of a country whose future has arrived.
DAMASCUS TENS of thousands of Syrian protesters took to the streets on Friday under fire from regime forces, who pressed their campaign to pound rebel cities into submission, activists said.
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ALEXANDER Cudlin got back into winning ways, claiming the first race of the fifth round of the Qatar International Road Racing Championship on Friday...
WHATEVER happened to omerta? For decades, Mafioso from Joseph Valachi (The Valachi Papers) to Henry Hill (Wise Guys and Goodfellas) to Salvatore Gravano (Underboss) have violated the traditional code of silence, looking to cash in ...
DOHA THE fifth edition of Schools Olympic Programme (SOP) concluded on Friday with students from over 300 schools in Qatar participating in all nine sporting activities for the finals themed on 'Sport and Family'. The closing ceremony of the SOP was attended by Qatar Olympic Committee Secretary-General Sheikh Saoud bin Abdulrahman al Thani, President of Palestine Olympic Committee Major- General Jibril Rajoub, Supreme Council for Family Affairs Secretary-General Hamad bin Mohamed al Hajiri, Under Secretary of Ministry of Education and Higher Education Rabea al Kaabi besides, presidents of sports federations and other officials...
DOHA JOTUN Paints, a leading producer and distributor of paints and powder coatings, threw the spotlight on its wide range of colours and shades with its participation at the Qatar Green Building Council's 'Solid Waste Interest Group's' (QGBC SWIG) art project, which was unveiled at the Pearl Qatar recently. The project, which was initiated and organised by Dr Sarah Clarke, coordinator of the Solid Waste Interest Group (SWIG) at QGBC, was part of the global 'Earth Hour' celebrations and made use of over 60,000 collected plastic bottle caps to form a mural that sent out the key message to 'reduce, reuse and recycle....
DOHA REPRESENTATIVES of various Egyptian organisations working in the field of youth unemployment recently completed a weeklong training course on how to provide effective career advice and guidance to young people. Delivered by Silatech and hosted by Microsoft Egypt, the training which was held in Cairo included 14 career advisors from six Egyptian non-governmental organisations (NGOs). The programme was held in preparation for the launch of MasrWorks.com, a new online employability portal for young Egyptians cofounded by Silatech and Microsoft...
PAYROLLS rose far less than expected in March, keeping the door open for further monetary policy support from the Federal Reserve, even as the unemployment rate fell to a three-year low of 8.2 percent. Employers added 120,000 jobs last month, the Labour Department said on Friday, the smallest increase since October. Economists polled by Reuters had expected nonfarm employment to increase 203,000 and the jobless rate to hold at 8.3 percent. The slowdown in employment growth last month likely reflected the fading boost from unseasonably warm winter weather....
BOEING overtook Airbus in deliveries in the first quarter, setting itself on course to recapture the coveted number one spot in annual aircraft production for the first time since 2002, company data showed this week. European planemaker Airbus said on Friday its deliveries grew 10 percent compared with the first quarter of last year to 131 aircraft. On Thursday, its US competitor Boeing announced first-quarter deliveries of 137 commercial airplanes, up 32 percent from a year earlier. Both planemakers are increasing production of best-selling medium-haul models, the Boeing 737 and Airbus A320, roughly in tandem to ...
THE average vacancy rate at US strip malls fell for the first time in nearly seven years in the first quarter and rents inched up, but it is too early to call a rebound for a sector battered by the housing bust and recession, a report by Reis Inc showed. The real estate research firm said vacancies at large US regional malls continued to decline in the nearabsence of new supply, but consumer spending is not strong enough to lift retail real estate out of its slump. "The tide of the economy is not rising quickly enough to raise all the ships in the ocean of retail," according to the report released on Friday...
SERGIO Alvarez Moya triumphed in the first big 5* class of the Global Champions Tour (GCT) season setting the stage for a thrilling Grand Prix on Saturday night with a convincing victory. The leading Spanish rider outpaced the field with a clear round in 62.09 on his bay gelding Abab van het Molenhof. Brazilian Alvaro de Miranda came in second on 63.66 on Rahmannshof's Bogeno. Speaking after his victory Sergio said, "I am very happy to win on the first day and I hope to keep it up. The course is very good for the horse. A lot of forward riding and its a big arena with long distances, so the horse can go really fast which he did....
David Ferrer demolished Austria on the opening day of their Davis Cup quarter-final on Friday as the five-time champions moved to the verge of the semi-finals. Almagro took just under two hours to see off Jurgen Melzer 6-2, 6-2, 6-4 in Castellon before world number five David Ferrer, Spain's top player in the absence of Rafael Nadal, needed just 85 minutes to crush Andreas Haider- Maurer 6-1, 6-3, 6-1. "I'm very happy with my match today, I think I played one of my best matches in Davis Cup," said Almagro, as Spain chase a first win over Austria since 1979. "The score was easy but the match wasn't...
PARIS Saint-Germain host Marseille in French football's biggest fixture on Sunday, with the capital club on the verge of a full-blown crisis and OM desperate to end the worst run of results in its history. PSG missed the chance to reclaim top spot in Ligue 1 when it lost 2-1 at Nancy last weekend, its first league defeat under Carlo Ancelotti meaning that it has now won just twice in eight matches in all competitions. Meanwhile, Marseille has gone a club record 10 matches without winning in all competitions following its exit from the Champions League to Bayern Munich at the quarter-final stage in midweek...
THE television news feature about eighth grader Ben Heckmann was breathless in its praise. "At 14 years old, he has accomplished something many adults can't achieve," the reporter said. "Ben is a twice-published author." As the camera rolled, Ben described how "the first time I held my own book, it was just this amazing feeling." Then he shared a lesson for other young people, saying, "You can basically do anything if you put your mind to it." But his two Velvet Black books, detailing and depicting the antics of a fictional rock band, were not plucked from a pile of manuscripts by an eagle-eyed publisher.
AS our prehistoric ancestor "Lucy'' was making tracks in eastern Africa millions of years ago, another type of pre-human might have been watching from above, a new study suggests. Scientists have pieced together a new type of prehuman foot from 3.4-millionyear- old fossils found in Ethiopia. The bones don't belong to the Lucy fossil's species, Australopithecus afarensis – the only hominid (or member of the human lineage) thought to be living then, according to findings reported in the journal Nature. Researchers say the partial foot points instead to the existence of a previously unrecognised pre-human that was a contemporary of Lucy.
IN the May issue of Elle, the chart-topping We Found Love singer, Rihanna, finally acknowledges why she's back in contact with ex Chris Brown. Over three years after Brown's violent assault of then-girlfriend Rihanna, they collaborated on two singles — and have been secretly hooking up for over a year, multiple sources have confirmed. "I respect what other people have to say. The bottom line is that everyone thinks differently," cover girl Rihanna tells Elle of the furious reactions from fans and critics about reconnecting with Brown, 22, despite their brutal past. "It's very hard for me to accept, but I get it," she says of the criticism.
AFP BLANTYRE JOYCE BANDA, who rose to prominence in Malawi as a relentless advocate for women's rights, now appears set to become only the second female African head of state in modern times.
AGENCIES WASHINGTON PRESIDENT Barack Obama headlined an event on Friday morning which focused on one demographic that is quickly becoming the key voting bloc in 2012: women.
