Lifestyle
Travel Tips: How to Choose an Eco-Friendly Destination
The ecologically interested traveller has no shortage of appealing destinations. The gorilla-roamed bamboo groves of the Virunga Volcanoes in Central Africa, the deserts and dry lands of interior Australia, the sandstone wildernesses of America's Colorado Plateau -- countless ecosystems, species and cultures demand firsthand experience. To ensure your travels are environmentally and socially sustainable, thoroughly research a potential destination ahead of time.
USA: Muslim women have more clothing options that satisfy both religion and fashion
It wasn't easy being the only 12-year-old in her Texas school to wear a hijab, the Islamic head scarf. While Elif Kavakci wanted to follow Islamic guidelines, she found it important to look trendy in front of her classmates. But she had a tough time in American stores finding clothes that covered her body, a struggle that continued as she got older. In 2007, Kavakci started her own couture clothing line of stylish but modest clothing for Muslim women after an international women's peace organization asked her to put on a fashion show as a fundraiser. Muslim women "feel like they can't go into the stores and find what they want," says Kavakci, now 36. "I thought I could design clothes that were Islamic, but modern, and look beautiful and chic at the same time."
Filed Under: Fashion
FRANCE: Sarkozy nixes Halal meat in schools for Muslims
The issue of France’s Muslims moved front and centre into the presidential campaign with the incumbent, Nicolas Sarkozy, excluding on Saturday any special indulgences for Halal meat or separate swimming hours for Muslim women in public pools. Echoing his 2007 campaign, Sarkozy insisted that French civilization must prevail in France. He created France’s first Ministry of Immigration and National Identity after being elected, but has since done away with it. Muslims, and immigration, are constant themes in recent French presidential races, but the topic is rising to the fore with vehemence as the April 22 first-round vote nears — 50 days from now. The final round is May 6.
MALAYSIA: Beauty industry subjected to health guidelines
The beauty industry will soon be subjected to a set of guidelines by the Health Ministry to ensure public safety. Its minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai said the guidelines, to be introduced by the end of March, will spell out the "do's and don'ts" for the industry which has an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 practitioners – excluding doctors and cosmetic surgeons.
LEBANON: 10 minutes with the man who was Cat
“Now I’m gonna take a little break,” Yusuf Islam announces to his Saturday evening audience. He’s already seated and, as he speaks, a white tablecloth-draped table is whisked on stage before him. “Well it did take you a long time to arrive,” he jokes to the audience, groups of whom were still filing into BIEL an hour after the show’s start time. “Now I’m gonna get you back!” After ruminating over the coffee pot before him, stories about leaving and coming home, he confesses he’s been writing a musical, one that takes its name, “Moon Shadow,” from one of the many songs he composed when people knew him by the name “Cat Stevens.” Yusuf’s show is divided between those Stevens tunes familiar to mostly everyone in this capacity audience – whether actively listening to his records or absorbing them passively in the decades after Stevens embraced Islam and abandoned music. The day of the show, Yusuf told The Daily Star about his gradual reconciliation of his music with his faith.
USA: World's first Muslim model agency opens in New York
The launch of the world's first Muslim model agency, in New York's fashionable Tribeca district, offered an interesting alternative to the options presented at New York Fashion Week a few blocks uptown. A coming-together of a particularly stylish segment of the Islamic community in this cosmopolitan city, the event on Saturday night played host to everyone from a fully veiled woman in black abaya to dramatically coiffed fashionistas (and fashionistos) curious about a groundbreaking project. The founder of the Underwraps agency, Nailah Lymus, is a born-and-bred New York Muslim with a love of fashion and a mission to prove Islam's worth and tolerance to a city whose inhabitants remain, in many cases, emotionally fragile and somewhat suspicious of Islam more than a decade after the tragic September 11 terrorist attacks.
CHILE: The origins of Islam in Chile
The origins of Islam in Chile are not very clear. It is known that in 1854 two "Turks" resided in the country, a situation that was repeated in 1865 and 1875 censuses. Their country of origin is not known, just that they were from certain areas of the vast Ottoman Empire. According to Census 1885, the number of "Turks" had risen to 29, but there are no precise information on their origin and faith, since religion was not included in this census. However, the census of 1895 recorded the presence of 76 "Turks", 58 of them Muslims. They lived mainly in the Tarapaca in northern Chile, in the region of Atacama, Valparaiso and Santiago. In the 1907 census, Muslims had increased to 1,498 people, all strangers. They were 1,183 men and 315 women, representing only 0.04 per cent of the population. This is the highest percentage of Muslims in the history of Chile.
MALAYSIA: Teaching core values to children
Excellence in education is not just about academics but also about character at Sekolah Rendah Sathya Sai, a private day school that provides free education to the needy. Its chairman K. Jegadeva said truth, love, right conduct, peace and non-violence were not mere values, but the foundations for many other sub-values taught at the school. "We teach value education based on truth, love, right conduct, peace and non-violence, and we teach this not just as a subject, but integrated into all the other subjects," Jegadeva told theSun today. He said the school, which was set up in 2002, provides education to children from the Pure Life Society orphanage, a society for destitute children and abused mothers, and the poor. "The children come here and are taught values in all their subjects; they are then taught to practise these values and apply them whenever possible."
UAE unveils new treatment for blocked heart arteries
The Dubai Health Authority (DHA) announced an innovative new procedure for treating blocked heart arteries, making the UAE the fifth in the world to have this mode of treatment. Three Emirati patients underwent the procedure last week which unclog the blocked arteries with a ‘scaffolding' that dissolves within the body within three months. “We are determined to reduce the social and economic burden of disease in the UAE”, said Khalid Al Shaikh Mubarak, Deputy Director General of DHA. Unlike the metal stents which remain in the body for ever, the new "bioresorable' scaffolding do not turn the arteries rigid, making it easier for further treatment in the future, surgeons said.
SAUDI ARABIA: Contemporary art show in Saudi Arabia could herald a new movement
Usually it is the job of an art historian to pinpoint when an art movement begins. But last month, on the west coast of Saudi Arabia, the overwhelming feeling among visitors to a ground-breaking exhibition of Saudi contemporary art was that they had witnessed the birth of something new. They may well be right. Organised by Edge of Arabia, an independent arts initiative, “We Need to Talk” (until 18 February) features more than 40 pieces by 22 young Saudi artists, almost half of them women, and includes videos, sculpture and photography from the likes of Abdulnasser Gharem, Ahmed Mater and Manal Al-Dowayan. Most of these artists have shown together over the past three-and-a-half years in London, Venice, Berlin, Istanbul and Dubai, but never before in Saudi Arabia. Could an exhibition like this have been staged in Jeddah ten years ago? “Of course not,” said the show’s curator Mohammed Hafiz, “because we didn’t have the artists, we didn’t have the works of art… there are many elements.”