Murray trails Federer in fashion stakes

By Miles Evans
LONDON (Reuters) - Andy Murray may be snapping at Roger Federer's heels in the world rankings but the Briton still has a good deal to learn from the Swiss maestro when it comes to making an eye-catching entrance.
Federer was the talk of the opening day at Wimbledon on Monday with his military-style jacket and slacks which had the British press comparing him to anything from an extra on Miami Vice to a backing singer for a mediocre eighties tribute band.
Murray, seeking to end Britain's 73-year wait since Fred Perry won the men's singles title, proved a far more sheepish clothes horse for his grand entry on Tuesday.
The 22-year-old made his eagerly awaited arrival on Center Court for his first-round match against Robert Kendrick sporting the latest kit from the sponsor that bears Perry's name, a sleek tracksuit-style top with a white-collared T-shirt and shorts.
An awkward wave to all corners of the crowd, third-seed Murray then quickly removed his top and began to focus on his tricky opening encounter against the American.
LITTLE SURPRISE
Ever since the aloof Scot hit the public eye, he has been a shade uncomfortable in the limelight and it comes as little surprise that he looked slightly ill at ease on the plush green turf-cum-catwalk.
Murray struck you as the kind of schoolboy who ruffled his hair the moment he left the barbers, the roguish youth who untucked his shirt once out of sight of his home.
It is a sign of his meteoric rise in the game, though, that his reluctance to engage in the commercial aspects of the sport have clearly diminished.
However, Murray would gladly trade all the retro T-shirts in the world for the chance to emulate Perry and succeed him as a home champion of the world's biggest tournament on July 5.

Source: Reuters

Pre-Raphaelites back with London show

By Mike Collett-White
LONDON (Reuters Life!) - Victorian art is making a comeback in London this summer with a major exhibition, and the biggest retrospective to date, of works by John William Waterhouse, who died in 1917.
The exhibition at the Royal Academy, which runs from June 27 to September 13, is seen by critics as the latest step in a broader movement to re-establish the reputation of Waterhouse and the genre he is most closely associated with -- the Pre-Raphaelites.
"After years in the wilderness, the Pre-Raphaelites are again in the spotlight, and quite rightly," wrote Franny Moyle in Britain's Telegraph newspaper.
Waterhouse was born in Rome to British parents in 1849, and the same year the founding members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood -- William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti -- delivered their manifesto challenging the "official" art promoted by the Royal Academy.
Waterhouse inherited their taste for Tennyson, Keats and Shakespeare, and the escapist, dreamlike quality of his works was also common to the school, perhaps most famously represented by Millais' ghostly "Ophelia."
But he also developed an interest in classical mythology through Homer and Ovid, whose works he interpreted in his eerie, atmospheric paintings, and his brushwork had moved away from the meticulous realism of the original Pre-Raphaelites.
STRIVING TO BE NOTICED
From early in his career, Waterhouse was striving to be noticed in a crowded arena.
His choice of subjects from ancient history, for example, including "The Favourites of the Emperor Honorius" or "St. Eulalia" from the 1880s, was seen as a bold choice.
Although in the tradition of great painters, it was not particularly popular with the art establishment at the time.
"So Waterhouse is doing something quite daring -- he's measuring himself up against the great painters (of the Renaissance)," said co-curator Elizabeth Prettejohn.
His St. Eulalia, depicting a 12-year-old Christian girl martyred in Roman Spain in the 4th century, was a theme more closely associated with French painting than British.
"This is a very unusual thing to find at the Royal Academy," said Prettejohn. "He gets maximum impact out of it."
With the help of the Academy and its shows, Waterhouse's reputation grew and by the 1880s he was at the center of the British art establishment.
His works also became increasingly preoccupied with mystical, powerful female figures ranging from nymphs to mermaids to the Lady of Shalott. Continued...
Source: Reuters

French wine courts India and China

By Marcel Michelson
BORDEAUX (Reuters Life!) - Caught napping by a consumer crisis after a series of record years, the French wine trade is lusting after the potentially huge markets of China and India as an outlet for Old World wine sales.
But this may not prevent a restructuring of the cozy grand family-oriented traditional wine industry with its myriad of chateaux still on show at the opening day of the twice-a-year Vinexpo world wine and spirits industry fair.
While such European winemakers are eager to export their wares to China, where sales are still small but growing fast, Chinese capital appears keener on buying into Bordeaux.
That message was clear from the announcement that Hong Kong firm A&A International was taking a majority stake in Chateau Richelieu in Fronsac.
Fronsac is a well-known French wine area which does not carry the same reputation as Medoc, but includes such wines as Pauillac, Margeaux, Saint-Estephe and others.
The current owner is former Dutch airline pilot Arjen Pen. For the "in-crowd' of the Bordelais wine families, Chateau Richelieu, one of the eldest, had already fallen into foreign hands and was no longer in the ownership of a "dynasty."
But then many of the local dynasties have had foreign infusions, be it in blood or capital, as the Rothschild families or the Suntory group can testify.
Simon Bradford, export director at traders Ballade & Meneret said the crisis will cut Bordeaux prices down to a level that will make them attractive to more consumers, but might also be the final, impassable obstacle for houses with shaky finances.
"It is not a big disaster for the Bordeaux sector, but for some houses with stretched finances it could be the last straw," he told Reuters.
The top names in Bordeaux and Burgundy, and in Italy or Spain for that matter, will be able to weather the storm. But smaller firms in the lower price ranges have found an urgent need to associate themselves with partners and underline their "unique selling point" in a world that is awash with wine.
There were many examples present at the Vinexpo fair, where the number of visitors was noticeably lower than in 2007, such as the Alienors grouping of 12 female wine growers.
With unity comes strength and shared costs, even though they produce different wines. At a group tasting there were several Chinese professionals interested in, for example, the Entre-Deux Mers white wine from Veronique Barthe.
"No. no, I do not give discounts for big volume, I produce for quality not for volume," she told a potential female Chinese buyer, while drinks were poured for the assembled visitors. "And no, I cannot give you exclusivity for all of the mainland."
Another way to catch the eye of the buyers is by playing the sustainable development card such as the Val d'Orbieu brand which is based in Narbonne in southern France.
"We wanted to act now and not wait until the climate changes are irreversible, and it applies to all what we do," export director Roland Olvers said. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Milan shows colorful, firm spring man

By Marie-Louise Gumuchian
MILAN (Reuters) - From soft suits to sporty leisure wear, designers at Milan's fashion week sought more to reassure rather than provoke with easy, familiar styles and vibrant colors for men next spring.
The trend at the spring/summer 2010 menswear shows -- which ended on Tuesday -- was for a mix of tailoring and dressed down, with roomy bags and sportswear shoes evoking a travel theme.
A neat and firm silhouette was evident -- shoulders were defined, while waists and trousers were slim at Gianfranco Ferre and Roberto Cavalli. Bottega Veneta had V-shape trousers -- full on top and narrow below -- with crisp shirts and jackets.
Trousers, usually slim, were to the ankle.
As the warm season brings out more skin, several top names made sure to show off men's bodies -- with revealing vests at Cavalli and open tops tucked into tiny tight swimming trunks at Dolce & Gabbana, also seen at Versace.
Not known as one to go with trends, Miuccia Prada cut out the color seen elsewhere and stuck to greys, black and white for an urban collection shown against a monochrome backdrop.
Prada presented knit waistcoats or armless buttoned gilets over armless collarless shifts of shirts. Tops, some in a flexible wetlook fabric, had holes. Trousers with tiny black and white checks or tweed-like narrowed at the ankle.
"I wanted it to be contemporary, wearable," she said.
The theme was also urban at Emporio Armani -- for which designer Giorgio Armani got a standing ovation from some of the crowd. Armani, looking to city connections, presented suits in cool shades of grey with a fitted cut and defined shoulders and trousers with small darts at the front and turn-ups.
"It is city smart but also comfortable," Armani said in show notes. He also turned to Asia with jackets in techno mesh and put in dabs of orange on jackets, fleeces and accessories.
For his Giorgio Armani line, he went for classicism -- suits were chequered or striped, shirts had oversized patterns.
HERE COME THE MEN IN WHITE
Armani also put out white suits with sky blue patterned tops. White was also evident at Salvatore Ferragamo and Ferre which had a "free and easy yet ever impeccable mood."
Versace and Gucci, whose mood was "resolutely optimistic," started their shows with men dressed in white or pale creams.
Versace also showed comfort with unbuttoned tunics and safari-like jackets, also seen at Ermenegildo Zegna and Ferre which had sparkly tops underneath. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Mallmann grills the Argentine way

By Nick Zieminski
NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - If you're going to grill the Argentine way, it helps to have a hunger for meat, a big wood fire, and plenty of open space.
Patagonia will do.
Argentine chef Francis Mallmann, who runs three highly-regarded restaurants in Argentina and Uruguay, was raised in the Patagonia region and credits its culture and style for inspiring his cooking.
His television show airs across Latin America, and he may launch a program for U.S. audiences to help fight a trend toward overly complicated recipes.
Mallmann, who spoke with Reuters this month, aims to inspire American cooks with the simple, unpretentious food in his new cookbook, "Seven Fires: Grilling the Argentine Way."
Q: Yours may be the only cookbook to include a recipe for grilling an entire cow. Who is your audience?
A: "The idea was to adapt all the Argentine ways of cooking into a home, where you can do these things in the backyard or a kitchen even if you don't want to light a fire. You can still achieve good things on a stove, the burned orange with rosemary, burned tomato with oregano, the smashed beet with the goat cheese and garlic chips. You can't do the cow inside."
Q: What defines Argentine cooking?
A: "It has to do with our culture, our idiosyncrasies. We are a bleeding country, economically, socially, but there is a huge beauty in that adversity. That struggle makes you creative. That goes into cooking, into tango, into soccer."
Q: Why is it often important to burn the food a little?
A: "I like the taste of burned. In some things it works really well, like with tomatoes or oranges. Lamb is good slightly charred. I don't believe in harmony when you eat, I like contrasts. Charred meat has that bite, but there's a boundary, it can't be black."
Q: You say in the book food shouldn't be too pretty. Why?
A: "I believe that you cook, and when it's ready you just put in on the plate. Don't touch it, don't move it around. Cooking is a craft, it's not an art. I don't believe in decoration. (On my TV show) I only cook outside in beautiful places with fires and it's very simple. I do it to fight this trend in the world of cooking of complicated recipes. I just have a couple of eggs in my pocket and I chop an onion on my knee and cook something on a stick."
Q: Is cooking never an art?
A: "Never. The only reason to eat and drink well is to have better conversations with peers. It's arrogant to think that cooking is an art. It shouldn't be like going to a cathedral." Continued...
Source: Reuters

Speed dating... for winemakers

By Leslie Gevirtz
NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - There was the promise of passion, finesse, elegance - and that was just the wine.
"What do you want to try first?" asked Pierre-Jean Sauvion at a speed-dating French winemakers' event.
In a tone that was almost as seductive and playful as his Muscadet, Sauvion, 31, declared, "I am a pleasure maker. I don't make blends. I make marriage. I'm a winemaker from the Loire."
Like speed-dating French winemakers were given 30 minutes to promote themselves. But instead of assessing a potential life partner, the winemakers tried to impress some of the top U.S. wine writers with their latest vintages at a French restaurant.
Sauvion, the manager and chief winemaker at his family's vineyards, compared his job to that of a chef.
"I'm like that. I choose the grapes I want, the methods that I use, to make the wines that I want. And I want my wines to give pleasure to everyone who drinks them," he said.
He offered his Sauvion Muscadet Sevre et Maine 2007 explaining that when he made this wine of Melon de Bourgogne grapes, he had in mind two people sitting on a terrace on a sunny afternoon.
"This wine is perfect for that. It is round, but not huge and it is fresh and fruity and I make this wine because I want to introduce myself. To get the conversation going," Sauvion said.
Before quickly moving on to the next person, he poured what some would call his signature wine - Sauvion Haute Culture - Chateau du Cleray 2007, Muscadet Sevre et Maine sur lie. It is also 100 percent Melon de Bourgogne, but the difference between the two is astounding.
The wine spends six months on the lees - dead yeast particles - that give the crisp wine complexity, structure, and the aromas of a flower-filled garden.
"The lees feed the wine. They also give it a fizziness when you first taste it. It makes you feel happy ... and we keep the wines on the lees because the yeast prevents oxidation and keeps the wine fresh," he said.
Next up was Vincent Cruege, the 44-year-old winemaker in charge of Andre Lurton's white wines from the Pessac-Leognan appellation of Bordeaux.
Though both men come from winemaking families their styles couldn't be more different.
While Sauvion concentrates on single varietals, Cruege is a matchmaker -- someone who marries Semillon with Sauvignon Blanc and a bit of Muscadet to capture what could be called Andre Lurton's trademark white: Chateau Bonnet Blanc, 2008.
"When you drink this wine you are in the meadow, the smell of white flowers just fills the nose. You can drink the sunshine," he said, unscrewing the top. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Nibble your Nibchoc guilt free

By Eleanor McCausland
OXFORD (Reuters Life!) - A new business in Oxford claims to have found a healthy alternative to the sugar- and dairy-laden chocolate bars often blamed for contributing to a growing obesity crisis in the wealthy Western world.
Nibchoc, a cacao bar marketed as "more than chocolate, without the guilt" is designed in a way that retains the nutritious properties of cacao that are lost in commercial dairy chocolate-making.
Its inventor, Rachel Niblock, was inspired to create the product after working in the NHS.
"My background always involved thinking holistically about what people need," she said. "One of the things which really concerned me was the 'healthy' claim of some products that actually contained a lot of refined sugar and fats, and didn't taste very nice. I don't want to have a healthy product that tastes rubbish."
Nibchoc is designed to provide a satisfying "chocolate hit" without any of the additives found in chocolate. It is made with cacao nibs, from the fruit of the Theobroma Cacao tree, which in their raw state contain over 300 chemical compounds that render them highly nutritious.
However, this nutritional power is diluted in the manufacture of chocolate, which adds dairy and refined sugars.
Nibchoc preserves the benefits of the cacao nib by using healthier alternatives. The bars are sweetened with agave nectar, a low-GI naturally occurring sweetener, and bound together with coconut oil, which has been found to promote the formation of so-called 'good cholesterol' in the body. Because of these natural sugars, most of Nibchoc's products are suitable for diabetics, vegans and coeliacs.
After experimenting with raw cacao in her own kitchen, making bars and wrapping them in cling film, Niblock began selling it to small delis around Oxford. Eight months ago, she left her job to work at Nibchoc full time.
"I've needed every single minute of the day, it's been very busy," she said. "Mail order is really starting to grow. We've sent out to Europe as a result of people being in Oxford having picked up a bar."
The business is expanding rapidly, mainly through appearing at farmers' markets throughout Britain and through mail order from the Nibchoc website: www.nibchoc.com .
All the ingredients used in Nibchoc are organic where available, and the cacao nibs are high-quality imports from Ecuador.
"We know that what we're using is the best we're able to use," Niblock said. "We've had several chocolatiers tasting the cacao nib and saying it's a very good one."
Nibchoc is currently available in nine flavors, including ginger, chilli and coffee. Niblock is working on a healthy alternative to chocolate spread that can also be used in cooking.
"We're always coming up with new ideas. We always want to be open to feedback, because that's the most important part. Nibchoc has grown because of people's ideas, and that's been our biggest motivation," she said.
She hopes that Nibchoc will appeal to all ages as a replacement for chocolate and high-sugar snack foods. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Pre-Raphaelites return with new London show

By Mike Collett-White
LONDON (Reuters Life!) - Victorian art is making a comeback in London this summer with a major exhibition, and the biggest retrospective to date, of works by John William Waterhouse, who died in 1917.
The exhibition at the Royal Academy, which runs from June 27 to September 13, is seen by critics as the latest step in a broader movement to re-establish the reputation of Waterhouse and the genre he is most closely associated with -- the Pre-Raphaelites.
"After years in the wilderness, the Pre-Raphaelites are again in the spotlight, and quite rightly," wrote Franny Moyle in Britain's Telegraph newspaper.
Waterhouse was born in Rome to British parents in 1849, and the same year the founding members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood -- William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti -- delivered their manifesto challenging the "official" art promoted by the Royal Academy.
Waterhouse inherited their taste for Tennyson, Keats and Shakespeare, and the escapist, dreamlike quality of his works was also common to the school, perhaps most famously represented by Millais' ghostly "Ophelia."
But he also developed an interest in classical mythology through Homer and Ovid, whose works he interpreted in his eerie, atmospheric paintings, and his brushwork had moved away from the meticulous realism of the original Pre-Raphaelites.
STRIVING TO BE NOTICED
From early in his career, Waterhouse was striving to be noticed in a crowded arena.
His choice of subjects from ancient history, for example, including "The Favourites of the Emperor Honorius" or "St. Eulalia" from the 1880s, was seen as a bold choice.
Although in the tradition of great painters, it was not particularly popular with the art establishment at the time.
"So Waterhouse is doing something quite daring -- he's measuring himself up against the great painters (of the Renaissance)," said co-curator Elizabeth Prettejohn.
His St. Eulalia, depicting a 12-year-old Christian girl martyred in Roman Spain in the 4th century, was a theme more closely associated with French painting than British.
"This is a very unusual thing to find at the Royal Academy," said Prettejohn. "He gets maximum impact out of it."
With the help of the Academy and its shows, Waterhouse's reputation grew and by the 1880s he was at the center of the British art establishment.
His works also became increasingly preoccupied with mystical, powerful female figures ranging from nymphs to mermaids to the Lady of Shalott. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Heirs race to find Nazi-looted art

By Sarah Marsh
VIENNA (Reuters) - Eighty-one-year old Thomas Selldorff, who fled Austria with his family before it was annexed by Nazi Germany in 1938, hopes an upcoming international conference will bolster efforts to return Nazi-looted art.
The Nazi's seized over 200 artworks owned by his grandfather, an avid art collector, as part of a policy of seizing Jewish property. So far, Selldorff has been able to retrieve only two of the lost paintings.
"I want to be able to pass these things on to my family ... I want them to have the link and an appreciation for some of the things my grandfather was involved with," said Selldorff, who lives in the United States and wants to exhibit the altar pieces by Austrian baroque artist Kremser Schmidt in a museum.
Some 65 years after World War Two, experts say thousands of artworks confiscated by the Nazis, including masterpieces by art nouveau master Gustav Klimt and expressionist Egon Schiele, still need to be restituted to their rightful owners.
Government officials from around 49 countries, dozens of non-governmental groups and Jewish representatives will meet in Prague this week to review current practices. They are likely to sign a new agreement to step up restitution efforts.
Some participants hope the conference will lead to the creation of a central body responsible for publishing updates on countries' progress, which could prompt them to do more.
The task of restituting Nazi-looted works is an epic one. The Nazis formed a bureaucracy devoted to looting and they plundered a total of 650,000 art and religious objects from Jews and other victims, the Jewish Claims Conference estimates.
Artworks were auctioned off, handed over to national museums or top Nazi officials, or stashed away for a Fuehrer museum Adolf Hitler was planning to build in the Austrian town of Linz, where he spent a part of his youth.
"This is one way that Jews were made to pay for their own elimination," said art restitution expert Sophie Lillie.
At the end of World War Two, some works were returned but many continued to circulate on the international art market or stayed put in museums, and it was only in the 1990s that there was a new burst of Holocaust restitution.
PATCHY RECORD
Austria is considered among the leaders of art restitution efforts, putting its larger neighbor Germany to shame. The Alpine Republic in 1998 passed a law governing art restitution and has since returned over 10,000 artworks.
"There are a handful of countries that have achieved a lot," said Anne Webber, co-chair of the Commission for Looted Art in Europe, citing Austria, Holland and Britain.
Austria's Belvedere Gallery has had to restitute 10 paintings by Gustav Klimt, including two portraits of Adele Bloch-Bauer, which are among the artist's most famous works.
"Most countries have not even undertaken the work which was endorsed in Washington in 1998," said Webber, referring to the non-binding Washington Principles agreed by 44 countries in 1998 as the framework for returning looted art. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Wyclef Jean stands in for Lauryn Hill at Montreux

By Stephanie Nebehay
GENEVA (Reuters) - Haitian-born rap star Wyclef Jean will stand in at the Montreux Jazz Festival for Lauryn Hill, who has canceled her European bookings, organisers said on Tuesday.
Organisers scrambled to replace the American Grammy-winner, who has already canceled tour dates in Japan. "Europe now has to face the disappointment of missing out on the fantastic Lauryn Hill," the festival said in a statement.
"We were told she was cancelling her European tour," Montreux festival spokeswoman Pauline Lalondrelle told Reuters.
Wyclef founded the hip-hop group Fugees along with Hill and Pras Michel. They recorded the 1996 Grammy-winning album "The Score," which sold some 17 million copies worldwide.
He takes the stage at Stravinski Auditorium on July 11 after an homage to American civil rights activist, soul singer and songwriter Nina Simone, featuring Dianne Reeves, Lizz Wright and Angelique Kidjo.
"His new album, which features Akon and TI, is set for release this autumn and we can expect many of the songs to be debuted on July 11th," the statement said.
New Yorker Eric Lewis aka ELEW, whom it called "a slightly mad pianist with an equally astounding amount of technical and improvisional talent," will be playing the same night next-door at the famed Miles Davis Hall, followed by bass virtuosos trio SMV: Stanley Clarke, Marcus Miller and Victor Wooten.
"Chances of the night ending in a jam session are very strong," it said.
Chaka Khan has also booked a return engagement on July 6, teaming up with George Duke's trio for a jazz concert at Miles Davis Hall, according to the statement. The Black Eyed Peas remain booked that night at Stravinski Auditorium.
More than 1,000 musicians are to perform at the 43rd annual festival along Lake Geneva, one of Europe's most prestigious summer music events, between July 3-18.
(Editing by Paul Casciato)

Source: Reuters

Dog-loving Japan baying for canine blood donors

By Chris Meyers
KAWASAKI, Japan (Reuters Life!) - One of Japan's largest animal medical centres is calling on blood donors of a different breed to help provide dogs with top-notch care.
Japan is a canine-crazy nation, with more than 6 million dogs registered as pets. Many provide company for the growing number of elderly people or sometimes replace children in a nation with one of the world's lowest birth-rates.
Many people expect their dogs, like themselves, to live to a ripe old age, and that means more blood is needed for the rise in the number of surgeries that often accompany growing older.
"Due to both the increase in number and elderly population of animals, there has been an increase in medical complications," said Hiroyuki Ogawa, executive director of the Japan Animal Referral Medical Center in Kawasaki, on the outskirts of Tokyo.
"The most common use of transfusions is for blood loss, but the amount we use for cancer treatments has also increased."
Many dog owners in Japan have no qualms about spending a small fortune on their pet's health, but dog blood donation drives are rare, and complicated for many reasons.
There is no animal equivalent of the human blood bank in Japan, so hospitals and clinics must sort out any blood required for surgery beforehand.
Canine blood can only be stored for up to a month, after which it has to be thrown out, and each dog can only donate twice a year. Bigger dogs are also preferred over smaller ones because the average amount of blood they are asked to donate is about 200 ml (7 fl oz). There are 13 blood types too, which means there is a need for a variety of donors.
"There's no recognized blood bank, and as such, we can't stockpile blood. It is allowed for individual hospitals to conduct their own donation drives. But they cannot re-sell or redistribute that blood," Ogawa said.
To help raise awareness about the issue, the Japan Animal Referral Medical Center has enlisted the help of pet grooming salons and training centres.
And there's also a perk -- once dogs donate, they get a free blood checkup, which can detect possible diseases early.
Some veterinarians say before dog blood donations can be widely accepted, clinics will need to educate pet owners about the system and also explain that donations are safe.
Tokyo resident Yuka Torihama spends about $1,500 a year on healthcare for her two dogs, but like many other pet owners, had never taken her pets in to donate blood, mainly because she didn't know she could.
"I'm willing to donate my dog's blood as long as the donation system is safe. It's just that a lot of pet owners still don't know about the system and therefore, are sceptical about it," said Torihama. "Though I think it's extremely important, you never know when your dog might be in need of blood."
(Editing by Miral Fahmy)

Source: Reuters

HK school helps young drug addicts kick the habit

By Tan Ee Lyn
HONG KONG (Reuters Life!) - Ng Ka-chun was 13 when friends in Hong Kong introduced him to marijuana, psychotropic drugs and then ecstasy. But his world changed a year later, after he was sent to a school and drug rehabilitation center.
"I remember thinking it (marijuana) wasn't any different from a cigarette and then I tried ecstasy and ketamine. It was the same logic, they were quite the same as marijuana, they seemed less serious than heroin," said Ng, who was caught stealing.
Apart from learning to play the piano and guitar at the Christian Zheng Sheng College, he is now adept at handling audio-visual equipment and hopes to finish secondary school.
"I will be here for another two years to finish my secondary school and serve the rest of my probation ... I will study as much as I can, I want to be a trainer, outward bound teacher."
The use of psychotropic drugs has soared in Hong Kong in recent years with social workers and academics encountering addicts as young as nine years of age.
The spartan Zheng Sheng College stands alone on a small hilly island in Hong Kong. There are only eight toilets for its 120 students and a small shed serves as a canteen, classroom and study area at different times of the day.
Its principal Alman Chan, who is fighting to get a bigger premise for his students, believes that education is the only way to get young people back on track.
"We have so many young people involved in drugs in Hong Kong. They have to be educated ... schooling gives them a chance at life, empowering them, reconnecting them with society. Schooling creates a new status, they are students, not inmates," Chan said.
Some of Chan's students get to finish secondary school and some obtain accountancy qualifications, which means they can find jobs afterwards.
PEER PRESSURE, AIMLESSNESS
There were 8,306 reported psychotropic drug users in 2008 in Hong Kong, up from 6,335 in 2005. Most of them primarily abuse ketamine, an animal tranquilizer that is produced illegally in China and Hong Kong.
The social problem gained prominence in recent weeks after groups of students were found dazed and unconscious at beaches and in parks. According to local newspapers, 20 percent of Hong Kong's more than 500 secondary schools had sought help on how to manage students with drug problems.
Experts have offered a host of reasons to explain Hong Kong's worsening drug addiction problem, from their easy availability to aimlessness among the young and peer pressure.
"My schoolmates gave it (ketamine) to me. I did it to socialise with my friends," said Kwan Wang-yuen, who had his first encounter with drugs when he was just 12.
Now a student at Zheng Sheng, 14-year-old Kwan hopes to finish school and take up a pastoral vocation later on. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Bangalore restaurants offer expats a taste of home

By Ajay Kamalakaran
BANGALORE (Reuters Life!) - Fancy sushi or kimchi? How about some central Asian kebabs or borsch? Many foreigners in India's information technology capital Bangalore now find it easier to get a taste of home.
With a burgeoning population of resident foreigners, several restaurants, run by expatriates, have recently opened in the city to sate the appetite of the homesick.
"Our restaurant is especially popular during Korean festivals and when it's a Korean person's birthday," says Eam Hie Yong, the Korean owner of Korean restaurant Soo Ra Sang.
Eam, who came to Bangalore to do a doctoral degree, estimates the Korean community in the city to number around 1,000.
Besides serving the pickled and peppered cabbage that is kimchi, traditional noodle soups and an array of grilled food -- with all the necessary side dishes -- Soo Ra Sang also has a karaoke bar, where a mix of students, missionaries and businessmen belt out popular Korean and Western songs.
"I love the spicy biriyanis you get in Bangalore but it's hard to go without Korean food for long," says Kim Min Jung, a yoga student from Busan and a regular customer.
For Bangalore resident Tatiana Shahmatova, Rolls United Cafe is the place to go, and take Indian friends, for a taste of her home country Russia.
"Bangaloreans don't know how diverse Russian cuisine actually is," says Shahmatova, who works as a technical writer in a multinational company. "For me, it's nice to occasionally get a taste of home, living 5,000 kilometres away."
Elena Bannerjee, who hails from the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, runs Rolls United Cafe. She says the restaurant caters to the Bangalore's growing appetite for foreign cuisines, but admits that it's the Russians residents -- and the Indians who studied in Russia -- that keep her in business.
"A large section of our clientele are home-sick Russians who craving for blinis, Russian salads and pelmenis," says Bannerjee, who is married to an Indian.
In addition to the pelmenis, or steamed meat dumplings, the restaurant also serves central Asian specialties such as shashlik, skewered lamb kebabs, and golubsti, or cabbage rolls.
Harima, a restaurant owned by Osaka-native Hiroshi Sujimoto, is the popular haunt of the city's Japanese business community.
The restaurant, which has a tatami room, serves traditional food such as fermented soybeans to go with the sake, ramen noodles, sushi, tempura and miso soup.
Sayaka Natsui, a freelance writer who has been living in Bangalore for over three years, says she often brings visiting friends and relatives to the restaurant.
She believes the familiar taste and presentation of the food along with the Japanese-style interiors, tend to calm her guests and offer a respite from the chaos outside.
"I am so used to the sounds, smells and color of India that I couldn't live without it... but when friends visit, the culture shock can be overbearing," Natsui says.

Source: Reuters

Martin Luther King books, sermons to be published again

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - Out-of-print books and writings by Martin Luther King will be brought back onto the shelves from next year under a deal between a U.S. publisher and the African-American civil right leader's family.
Beacon Press said it will print new editions of previously published King titles and compile his writings, sermons, orations, lectures, and prayers into new editions with introductions by scholars in a series called "The King Legacy."
King, who pioneered efforts to deliver racial equality through civil disobedience and other non-violent means, was assassinated in April 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee, aged 39.
"His vision and his message are more essential than ever in a world where, despite great gains, the global aspects of the radical inequities Dr. King devoted his life to exposing and addressing are all too apparent," said Helene Atwan, director of independent publisher Beacon Press, in a statement.
King's youngest son, Dexter Scott King, representing the Nobel Peace Prize winner's estate, said Boston-based Beacon Press would be the dedicated public outlet for his father's work.
"(This) will help bring his urgently needed teachings of nonviolence and human dignity, and his dream of freedom and equality to a new global audience," King said in a statement.
The first titles in the series will be published on the Martin Luther King holiday in the United States in January next year when he would have turned 80, with the Beacon Press planning on publishing two to three new works each year.
The first books to be republished after being unavailable since the 1990s will be:
* "Stride Toward Freedom," about the bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955 that opposed racial segregation on the public transit system and that was first published in 1958.
* "Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?," King's last book published in 1967 in which he analyzed the state of American race relations and the movement after a decade of U.S. civil rights struggles.
* "Trumpet of Conscience," five lectures delivered by King in November and December 1967.
* "Strength of Love" a collection of his sermons delivered in the late 1950s and 1960s that was published in 1963.
(Writing by Belinda Goldsmith, Editing by Miral Fahmy)

Source: Reuters

Rolls-Royce devotees undeterred by recession

By Kathy Finn
NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Grim economy be damned. How glum can you be when surrounded by stately, polished automobile royalty?
There's little to celebrate elsewhere in the car world. On top of that, U.S. stocks are still languishing and the country's jobless rate is at a 26-year high.
But the mood was buoyant at the Rolls-Royce Owners Club, where some 500 members of the U.S.-based club, which also welcomes Bentley enthusiasts, tended their Silver Ghosts and Phantom Vs at the Louisiana Superdome on Saturday.
Judges surveyed rows of gleaming automobiles -- some of them almost a century old. Members sipped champagne and kept their expensive chariots free of fingerprints and dust.
Julius Cohn of White Plains, New York, has spent a fortune restoring and maintaining his 1952 Rolls-Royce Silver Dawn.
"Only 111 of these were made in the left-hand driving type, with a stick shift," Cohn boasted.
Some of the vehicles on display are valued at more than $1 million, but Cohn said pricetags are irrelevant.
"We hope enough people imbue in their children the appreciation of nice things that these cars will always be preserved," he said.
Cohn and others have poured thousands into the vehicles.
Rolls owner Hamilton Dixon of Rome, Georgia, said he once spent $250,000 restoring a Phantom V that he later sold for $95,000. "It costs way more to restore it than what you get for it," Dixon said with a chuckle.
Dixon and his wife, Jane, brought a pristine 1954 Silver Wraith, James Young touring limousine to this year's show.
"It's the same model used for years by the Queen of England," Dixon said. His wife likes to ride in the limousine's plush back seat so she can mimic Queen Elizabeth's genteel wave, he said.
DOLDRUMS IN AUTOS WORLD
The opulence on display contrasted with the doldrums that have hit the autos world -- Chrysler and General Motors collapsed into bankruptcy in the last two months -- amid the global recession, including in the market for new luxury vehicles.
Luxury car manufacturers like Rolls-Royce, owned by Germany's BMW, prospered in the last decade as easy credit prompted U.S. consumers to go on a buying spree that many in the industry thought would last for years. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Asians snap up fine wine in soft auction market

By Leslie Gevirtz
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Asia is saving the fine wine auction market.
Asian buyers bought the three highest grossing lots at Christie's June 6 auction in South Hampton, New York, including spending $16,900 for a 12-bottle case of 1982 Chateau Lafite-Rothschild.
And at Sotheby's New York auction, it was an Asian collector who bought a case of 1990 Le Pin for $48,400, more than double its pre-sale estimate of $12,000 to $20,000.
Jeff Zacharia, president of Zachys auction house, viewed the wine auction market as "an early indicator that the worst is over. The prices seem to have bottomed out at the beginning of the year and now there seems to be an upward momentum."
Zachys' Hong Kong sale saw two cases of 1989 Chateau Haut-Brion, which had been expected to sell for no more than HK$100,000 ($12,900), go under the hammer at HK$114,950. ($14,831).
Prices, which had been off as much as 40 percent in the last half of 2008, are coming back, according to Jamie Ritchie, head of wines at Sotheby's New York.
"They're now down between 20 and 25 percent, so they've recovered a bit. And we're seeing fierce competition in Asia," he said.
American and British collectors were credited with running up Bordeaux prices in the years just prior to the global recession.
But the price plunge in the fine wine market coincided with the collapse of Lehman Brothers and a $750 billion bailout of U.S. banks.
"Distress sales of private collections were evident in the post-Lehman period last year, but have been less prevalent in 2009," said Jack Hibberd, research manager for Liv-Ex, the London-based fine wine exchange.
The worldwide auction market for fine wines, a rarefied sliver of global wine sales, is estimated at roughly $300 million annually by Wine Spectator magazine.
"The market has stabilized and prices continue to creep upward," said Paul Hart, of the Chicago's Hart Davis Hart auction house. HDH's June 9 auction sold all of its lots for $1.9 million, surpassing its pre-sale high estimate of $1.8 million.
"The market has shown increased stability in 2009, with a gradual rise in both prices and trading activity," Hibberd said. "There is certainly little evidence of the sharp price falls we saw toward the back end of last year.
"Whether we have passed the bottom is more difficult to call, however," Hibberd said. The Liv-Ex 100 Fine Wine Index as of the end of May was up 4.5 percent since the beginning of January, but down 17.2 percent from year-ago levels.
Bloomsbury Auctions in New York City, better known for its sales of books and fine art, held its first wine auction on June 19. More than 80 percent of the almost 800 lots on offer sold for a total of $1.35 million. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Natural cosmetics maker swamped with demand

By Eva Kuehnen
BAD BOLL/ECKWAELDEN, Germany (Reuters Life!) - Natural beauty care products maker Dr. Hauschka is turning down offers for new markets at a time when rivals are struggling to persuade consumers to pay up for cosmetics.
WALA, a medium-sized company based in the sleepy German village of Bad Boll near Stuttgart, rose to fame after Hollywood star Julia Roberts and pop stars like Madonna and Kylie Minogue discovered its Dr. Hauschka natural cosmetics.
Surfing on a green wave of growing demand for organic products from food to furniture, WALA's natural remedies and beauty products are now available in more than 30 countries and keep attracting interest from distributors across the world.
"We have many requests, but we turn down most of them," WALA Chief Executive Johannes Stellmann told Reuters in an interview.
Based on the teachings of Austrian social philosopher Rudolf Steiner, WALA does not believe in pushing aggressively into new markets, but rather waits for demand to find it.
Finding sufficient high-quality ingredients and skilled staff are the main constraints to growth for WALA, which competes with brands like Weleda, Lavera, Logocos, Primavera and Santaverde in the global market for natural cosmetics.
The market has been growing about 16 percent annually over the past two to three years and generated sales of $6.9 billion in 2007, research and consulting company Organic Monitor said, expecting to see similar growth rates this year.
WALA expects anything between a 10 percent rise or fall in 2009 growth, having more than doubled sales since 2000, reaching 103 million euros ($136 million) in 2008. "But we count on medium- to long-term growth," Stellmann said.
Organic Monitor director Amarjit Sahota said WALA's market has not been affected that much by the global financial crisis, mainly due to a huge number of private label launches at lower prices and the exploration of new distributions channels, such as pharmacies, supermarkets, discount stores, spas and hair salons.
In Germany for example, which is the world's second-largest market for natural cosmetics after the United States, discount supermarkets like Aldi and Lidl have launched their own lines.
Other rivals bought into the business long ago. In 2006, the world's largest beauty products group L'Oreal bought British beauty products chain Body Shop for 652 million pounds ($983 million) and Estee Lauder bought Aveda in 1997.
CLOSED SHOP
But for WALA it is more than a business.
"It's not WALA's purpose to generate return on equity, but to transport an idea for which the corporation is a platform," Stellmann said.
It was the Austrian chemist Rudolf Hauschka who founded WALA 74 years ago making anthroposophic medicines. Continued...
Source: Reuters