Summer Collection Launched In Islamabad

Dazzling designs coupled with innovative cuts and glamorous embellishments attracted a large number of women and girls to the launching ceremony of ‘Hunar’ summer collection.

Bringing a blend of modern designs to the eastern 'shalwar-kameez', the designers Semi and Aliya have taken their inspiration from modern 'empowered image of Pakistani women.

According to Aliya, a model-turned-designer having lived in Europe, 'Hunar' is for today's woman who wants to look chic but retain her cultural appearances. “We think that there is a huge scope to alter styles in Pakistan and infuse it with various elements,” she said.

She said that a lot of people work on orders, which tends to take long-term planning for a client and people don’t have time to plan events and evenings. ‘Hunar’ wants to fill that gap, where a trendy outfit can be picked up instantly.

"We have chosen to launch cutting edge designs that will arouse public's fashion sensibilities," she said, while adding that Islamabad needs some of its own homegrown designers and develop synergies amongst the handful names to host its own fashion week.

She said that their range included casual, formal and semi-formal wear while their summer collection exclusively deals with the formal wear. "It is really hard to choose the formal dress in the hot and humid weather of our country, but we created a glamorous look of a summer outfit by embellishing them in a proper way," she said.

The event was formally inaugurated by In Sun Choi, wife of the ambassador of Republic of Korea. It was well-attended by dignitaries, diplomats and fashion conscious women of Islamabad.

Speaking on the occasion, In Sun Choi said that the designs displayed in the exhibition had a great similarity with the Korean designs. "The designers have worked with all colour tones to cater to the demands of all types of customers," she said.

She said that the designs and colour combinations have a great deal of universality in them and is a fusion of different cultures besides representing Pakistan in a true sense.

Source: http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=170814

Obama Makes History in Live Internet Video Chat

The White House said more than 64,000 people watched President Obama answer questions on Thursday in the first live Internet video chat by an American president. But in declaring itself “Open for Questions,” on the economy, the White House learned it must be careful what it wishes for.

More than 100,000 questions were submitted, with the idea that Mr. Obama would answer those that were most popular. But after 3.6 million votes were cast, one of the top questions turned out to be a query on whether legalizing marijuana might stimulate the economy by allowing the government to regulate and tax the drug.

“I don’t know what this says about the online audience,” Mr. Obama said, drawing a laugh from an audience gathered in the East Room, which included teachers, nurses and small-business people. “The answer is no, I don’t think that is a good strategy to grow the economy.”

The marijuana question later took up a good chunk of the daily White House press briefing, where Robert Gibbs, the press secretary, suggested that advocates for legalizing marijuana had mounted a drive to rack up votes for the question.

Those advocates included Norml, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, which urged supporters to “let the president know that millions of American voters believe that the time has come to tax and regulate marijuana.”

But however the marijuana query rose to the top of the White House list, it provided one of the livelier moments in the mostly staid 70-minute event.

Mr. Obama did make a sliver of news, disclosing that he intended to announce in the next couple of days what kind of help his administration would give the auto industry. A senior White House official said no decision had yet been made; Mr. Gibbs hinted that the announcement would most likely occur on Monday.

“We will provide them some help,” Mr. Obama said, as he has in the past, while also talking tough, as he has done previously, by insisting that the auto makers would have to make “drastic changes” to restructure the way they do business.

“If they’re not willing to make the changes and the restructurings that are necessary,” Mr. Obama said, he will be unwilling to “have taxpayer money chase after bad money.”

Thursday’s session, which had been advertised on the White House Web site since Tuesday, is the latest example of efforts by the Obama team to replicate its creative use of the Internet in the election campaign.

Mr. Obama has been trying to make the case for his economic agenda in a variety of forums, from Jay Leno’s late-night television show to the CBS program “60 Minutes” to a prime-time news conference on Tuesday. The Internet chat, streamed live on the White House Web site, was a chance for Mr. Obama to bypass the news media entirely.

“This is an experiment,” the president said in a video promoting the event, “but it’s also an exciting opportunity for me to look at a computer and get a snapshot of what Americans across the country care about.

“So, America, what do you want to know about the economy? Just go to whitehouse.gov and ask.”

Mr. Obama, of course, was not looking at a computer himself. Jared Bernstein, an economic adviser to Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., moderated the event, reading some of the most popular written questions and cuing video questions.

Macon Phillips, the White House director of new media, said in an interview afterward that he was pleased with “the experiment,” which he said was part of Mr. Obama’s mission to open the government to greater citizen involvement.

“Anytime you ask if people will engage and 100,000 people show up, it’s a big deal,” Mr. Phillips said.

Yet at times, the forum had a canned feel, perhaps because most Americans tend to be more polite in their questions than news reporters, perhaps because they lacked any opportunity to follow up.

The first question, on education, prompted Mr. Obama to promise higher pay and more support for teachers, without specifics. The second, on what benefits his stimulus plan offered to struggling homeowners, prompted a recitation of the president’s recently announced housing plan. The third was a video question, from “Harriet in Georgia,” who asked the president what he was doing to bring back jobs that had been outsourced.

ForMoreInfo: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/27/us/politics/27obama.html?ref=us

Obama May Visit Russia In July

US President Barack Obama could pay his first visit to Russia in early July, the Russian daily newspaper Kommersant reported Wednesday, citing unnamed diplomatic sources.

The visit would include more in-depth talks than will be possible when Obama meets Russian President Dmitry Medvedev for the first time next month, the newspaper said, citing a source close to the Russian foreign ministry.

Obama and Medvedev are due to meet on the sidelines of the G20 summit in London in early April.

The most likely dates for Obama's visit to Russia are just ahead of the G8 summit to be held in Italy from July 8 to 10, Kommersant said.

Citing sources in Washington, the newspaper said that former US secretary of state James Baker would arrive in Moscow this week to help lay the groundwork for Obama's visit.

Also this week, a group of prominent US foreign policy veterans including former secretary of state Henry Kissinger will visit Moscow for a series of meetings with Russian officials, including Medvedev, Kommersant said.

The tone of US-Russian relations has warmed since Obama's inauguration and officials from both sides have pledged to work closely on renegotiating START, a landmark Cold War-era nuclear arms control treaty that expires in December.

Ties between the two countries deteriorated badly under the administration of former president George W. Bush due to disputes over a range of issues, including NATO expansion, last summer's war in Georgia and missile defence.

16 People Missing As Helicopter Ditches Off Newfoundland

Canadian rescuers are searching freezing Atlantic waters for 16 people missing after a helicopter heading to an oil platform ditched in the sea off Newfoundland.

Of the 18 people on board the Sikorsky-92 helicopter, one man was rescued and a body was recovered. The other 16 were missing 30 miles (48 km) out to sea, officials said.

Two empty life rafts were spotted in the water amid debris from the helicopter that was spread over a six mile area. Although there were no signs of survivors eight hours after the accident, which happened at 8 am local time on Thursday, rescuers said they still held out hope as the missing people were believed to be wearnig survival suits, which retain body warmth in frigid seas as well as acting as life vests.

"We'll continue to search until there is absolutely no chance that any survivors may be located," said Major Denis McGuire of Halifax's Rescue Coordination Center.

The survival window is about 24 hours with the suits and water-activated locator beacons, he said.

The heliocpter had reported mechanical problems and had turned around to return to its base in St Johns, Newfoundland, when it was forced to dtich, according to local media.Officials withCanada's Transportation Safety Board have begun an investigation into the incident.

Survivor Robert Dekcer was last night in critical but stable condition at St John's hospital.

Premier Danny Williams issued a statement today expressing condolences to the family and friends of the person who died in the tragic accident.

“I cannot begin to imagine the sorrow and despair of those who are left to mourn this incredible tragedy,” he said.

The crash came less than a month after a helicopter ferrying oil workers crashed into the North Sea off Scotland. All 18 on board were rescued after the aircraft landed upright a few hundred yards from the oil platform and was kept afloat by inflatable bags that deploy when the craft lands on water.

Barbie Returns To Her Roots

As though girls haven't drawn tattoo-like designs on their Barbies for years--in fact, one is famously decorated toward the end of Toy Story 2--parents are upset about a new version of the wasp-waisted doll that comes with tattoo stickers that can be attached to her plastic skin, and a tattoo gun that kids can use to put a temporary design on themselves as well.

"Barbie's going trampy!" is the cry from parents who think it's straight from here to an illicit visit to a parlor for a Hell's Angels design or worse. Actually, for a couple of decades now, temporary tattoos from colored stickers have been a popular party favor for even very nice children. Time to remember that parents are not actually forced to buy their children toys they think are inappropriate.

Besides, maybe Barbie's just going traditionalist--for her. She was modeled on a German doll for adults, and the earliest model featured hooded, come-hither eyes a la Marlene Dietrich along with her zebra-striped strapless swimsuit. It seems a little late to worry about her innocence.

Reason Behind the Crash

Gmail blackout that lasted a few hours sure irritated a bunch of us. More so for those who pay for a better version of the service.

Perhaps that's why, in order to ensure that the dark clouds of bad publicity garner the company, Google has declared 15 days of free service to businesses, government agencies and other subscribers who pay for an expanded version of the product and were affected by the service breakdown.

Along with the free Gmail for the common people, Google sells a more sophisticated version of Gmail as part of a software bundle that costs $50 (Rs. 2,519) annually, per user.

So, what was the reason behind the crash?

Google said that during a routine maintenance of one of its European data centres, it had directed the traffic to other servers, as reported by The Economic Times. However, the company was simultaneously trying a new code that "tries to keep data geographically close to its owner causing another data centre in Europe to become overloaded. This caused cascading problems from one data centre to another", said Gmail site reliability manager Acacio Cruz on early Wednesday morning.

Researchers for HIV work

Even as Connecticut considers reducing funding for AIDS programs, state public health researchers are winning accolades for their work with those living with HIV.

A program developed at the University of Connecticut's Center for Health, Intervention and Prevention is among a group of eight intervention programs commended recently by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Under the program, known as "Options," clinicians are trained to counsel HIV-positive patients during routine medical appointments to avoid risky behavior, such as unprotected sex and drug use, developing a list of behavioral prescriptions for patients to follow as they live with the virus.

"Most interventions focus on people not infected with HIV and not likely to become infected," said Jeffrey D. Fisher, a social psychology professor at UConn and director of the intervention center. "But we also need to help people who have HIV to practice safer sex and drug use."

Such precautions are necessary not just to protect the health of those living with HIV or AIDS, which make patients substantially more susceptible to infection and disease, but also to ensure that continued risky behavior doesn't spread HIV to those with whom diagnosed people share needles or have sex.

Fisher developed the program in the late 1990s with his brother, Bill Fisher, a professor at the University of Western Ontario, and three other researchers from CHIP and Yale University.

The Options program was developed from current behavioral theory and a process of collaboration with those struggling with HIV diagnosis and problems with substance abuse or risky sex, Fisher said. The intervention plan asks clinical workers to work with patients to develop strategies for reducing risk, and to evaluate each patient's willingness to change.

The program was included this year in "The 2008 Compendium of Evidence-based HIV Prevention Interventions," which is compiled annually by the CDC, and recognizes programs that have proven successful at reducing HIV infection and behavior that can increase the chance of contracting sexually transmitted diseases.

The CDC estimates that 46,000 people were infected with HIV in the U.S. in 2006, the most recent year for which data was available.

Source: theday.com/re.aspx?re=76b88ed9-71a3-4510-a675-6361d367da02