Month: February 2008
Experts create mother of all lasers
Experts create mother of all lasers
IANS
NEW YORK: Scientists have developed the mother of all laser beams — one that has focussed power equal to all the sunlight heading Earth’s way.
Researchers at the University of Michigan recently created the record-setting beam, which measures 20 billion trillion watts per square centimetre, Sciencedaily reported. “I don’t know of another place in the universe that would have this intensity of light. We believe this is a record,” said Karl Krushelnick, who was part of the team that created the laser.
The laser contains 300 terawatts of power, or 300 times the capacity of the entire US electricity grid, and its power is concentrated in a 1.3-micron speck — about one-100th the diameter of a human hair.
Of course, a beam like this cannot be sustained for long. This one lasted just 30 femtoseconds. A femtosecond is a millionth of a billionth of a second, the researchers said in a paper published in the online edition of the journal Optics Express.
Such intense beams could help scientists develop better proton and electron beams for radiation treatment of cancer, among other applications. The laser can produce this intense beam once every 10 seconds, whereas other powerful lasers can take an hour to recharge.
The team managed to get such high power by putting a moderate amount of energy into a very, very short time period. In addition to medical uses, intense laser beams like these could help researchers explore new frontiers in science.
Women memorise better than men
Women memorise better than men
ANI
WASHINGTON: Women are better than men at memorising things in certain respects, according to a new study.
Psychologists Agneta Herlitz and Jenny Rehnman in Stockholm, Sweden, have discovered that women can excel in verbal episodic memory tasks like remembering words, objects, pictures or everyday events.
The researchers have also found that men can outperform women in remembering symbolic, non-linguistic information, known as visuospatial processing. According to them, this result indicates that a man is more likely to remember his way out of the woods than a woman.
However, their study also suggests that women are more likely than men to remember the location of car keys, which involves both verbal and visuospatial processing.
“In addition, women are better than men at remembering faces, especially of females, and the reason seems to be that women allocate more attention to female than to male faces,” say Herlitz and Rehnman.
In the course of the study, three groups of participants were presented with black and white pictures of hairless, androgynous faces. The researchers described the pictures as that of ‘female faces’, ‘male faces’ or just ‘faces’.
It was found that women were able to remember the androgynous faces presented as female more accurately than the androgynous faces presented as male.
The researchers also discovered that women performed better than men in tasks requiring little to no verbal processing, such as recognition of familiar odours. They said that the female episodic memory advantage increased when women utilized verbal abilities, while it decreased when visuospatial abilities were required.
The researcher duo believes that environmental factors, such as education, also seem to influence the magnitude of these sex differences. They concede that the probability of genetically-based differences between the quality of male and female memory is still unknown.
The findings appear in the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science .
New way to tell age through eyes
New way to tell age through eyes
REUTERS
LONDON: A new way to decipher a person’s age by looking into the lens of the eye could help forensic scientists identify bodies, Danish researchers said on Tuesday.
Their new technique uses radiocarbon dating to measure special proteins known as lens crystallines that develop around birth and remain unchanged for the rest of our lives. They are the only part of the body apart from teeth that do so. The researchers correctly identified the ages of 13 people within one-and-a-half years by analyzing a carbon isotope called carbon 14 trapped inside the crystallines, they reported in the journal PLoS One.
“In forensics we are always looking for ways to identify deceased persons,” said Niels Lynnerup, a forensic scientist at the University of Copenhagen, who led the study. “We found with this method you can determine almost to the year, the year of birth.”
Scientists have long used radiocarbon to date fossils or bones. More recently, researchers have applied the technique to tooth enamel to tell the age of people who have recently died, Lynnerup said. The technique employed in the lens analysis is based on the sudden increase in atmospheric carbon 14 beginning in the 1950s until a test ban a few years later when the Soviet Union and the United States began testing nuclear bombs.
These experiments more than doubled the amount of atmospheric carbon 14, which gradually began to decline toward normal levels after the ban, Lynnerup said.
Scientists have recorded these levels annually, giving the Danish team a benchmark to date a person’s birth by matching the corresponding year in which the carbon 14 atmospheric content was as high as in the person’s eye lens. The researchers also said their technique could one day help scientists in other fields date proteins and other molecules in the body to determine when cancer tissues or cells develop.
Anger slows down healing process
Anger slows down healing process
AFP
PARIS: The adage that laughter is the best medicine has been backed by an unusual investigation which says that people who seethe with anger take longer to recover from injury.
Previous studies have linked ill tempered behaviour, whether brow-beating or road rage, with higher incidence of coronary heart disease, hypertension and stroke, especially among men.
But the new study, published on Wednesday in the British journal Brain, Behaviour, Immunity, is the first controlled experiment that directly measures the impact of ire on the healing process.
Researchers at the University of Ohio inflicted minor burns on the forearms of 98 volunteers who were then monitored over eight days to see how quickly the skin repaired itself.
The subjects had each taken a battery of psychological tests beforehand to assess how easily and often they felt and expressed wrath, and were then ranked on an “anger scale”.
Persons who took certain pharmaceutical drugs, smoked cigarettes or drank excessive quantities of caffeine-laden coffee were excluded, along with individuals who were extremely over- or under-weight.
The results were startlingly clear: individuals who had trouble controlling expressions of anger were four times likelier to need more than four days for their wounds to heal, compared with counterparts who could master their anger.
But the researchers were also surprised to find that anger has its nuances, too.
Subjects described as showing “anger out” (regular outbursts of aggression or hostility) or “anger in” (repressed rage) healed almost as quickly as individuals who ranked low on all anger scales.
Only those who tried but failed to hold in their feelings of upset and distemper took longer to heal.
This same group also showed a higher secretion of the stress hormone cortisol, which could at least partly explain the difference in healing time, the study noted.
Earlier research has shown a clear link between cortisol and anger. Hostile men who yelled at spouses during marital spats secreted more of the endocrine modulator within minutes, as did teachers experiencing high levels of stress in the classroom.
High levels of cortisol appears to decrease the production at the point of injury of two cytokines crucial to the repair process, suggests the study.
Cytokines are proteins released by immune-system cells. They act as signallers to generate a wider immune response. “The ability to regulate the expression of one’s anger has a clinically relevant impact on wound healing,” concludes lead author Jean-Philippe Gouin, a psychologist at the University of Ohio. “Those who has low anger control secreted more cortisol following exposition to this stressor. This individual difference in the response to the blistering was related to longer healing,” Gouin added.
Anger-control therapy could help patients recovering from surgery or injury heal more quickly, the paper says.
10 golden rules to become rich!
10 golden rules to become rich!
February 21, 2008 11:35 IST
Once you decide to put your money to work to build long-term wealth, you have to decide, not whether to take risk, but what kind of risk you wish to take. Here are 10 investing rules that can make you rich:
1. There’s no escaping risk
Once you decide to put your money to work to build long-term wealth, you have to decide, not whether to take risk, but what kind of risk you wish to take.
Yes, money in a savings account is dollar-safe, but those safe dollars are apt to be substantially eroded by inflation, a risk that almost guarantees you will fail to reach your wealth goals.
And yes, money in the stock market is very risky over the short-term, but, if well-diversified, should provide remarkable growth with a high degree of consistency over the long term.
2. Buy right and hold tight
The most critical decision you face is arriving at the proper allocation of assets in your investment portfolio — stocks for growth of capital and growth of income, bonds for conservation of capital and current income.
Once you get your balance right, then just hold tight, no matter how high a greedy stock market flies, nor how low a frightened market plunges. Change the allocation only as your investment profile changes. Begin by considering a 50/50 stock/bond-cash balance, then raise the stock allocation if:
You have many years remaining to accumulate wealth.
The amount of capital you have at stake is modest.
You don’t have much need for current income from your investments.
You have the courage to ride out the stock market booms and busts with reasonable equanimity.
As these factors are reversed, reduce the 50 per cent stock allocation accordingly.
3. Time is your friend, impulse your enemy
Think long term, and don’t allow transitory changes in stock prices to alter your investment program. There is a lot of noise in the daily volatility of the stock market, which too often is ‘a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing’.
Stocks may remain overvalued, or undervalued, for years. Realize that one of the greatest sins of investing is to be captured by the siren song of the market, luring you into buying stocks when they are soaring and selling when they are plunging.
Impulse is your enemy. Why? Because market timing is impossible. Even if you turn out to be right when you sold stocks just before a decline (a rare occurrence!), where on earth would you ever get the insight that tells you the right time to get back in? One correct decision is tough enough. Two correct decisions are nigh on impossible.
Time is your friend. If, over the next 25 years, stocks produce a 10% return and a savings account produces a 5% return, $10,000 would grow to $108,000 in stocks vs. $34,000 in savings. (After 3% inflation, $54,000 vs $16,000). Give yourself all the time you can.
4. Realistic expectations: the bagel and the doughnut
These two different kinds of baked goods symbolize the two distinctively different elements of stock market returns.
It is hardly farfetched to consider that investment return — dividend yields and earnings growth — is the bagel of the stock market, for the investment return on stocks reflects their underlying character: nutritious, crusty and hard-boiled.
By the same token, speculative return — wrought by any change in the price that investors are willing to pay for each dollar of earnings — is the spongy doughnut of the market, reflecting changing public opinion about stock valuations, from the soft sweetness of optimism to the acid sourness of pessimism.
The substantive bagel-like economics of investing are almost inevitably productive, but the flaky, doughnut-like emotions of investors are anything but steady — sometimes productive, sometimes counterproductive.
In the long run, it is investment return that rules the day. In the past 40 years, the speculative return on US stocks has been zero, with the annual investment return of 11.2% precisely equal to the stock market’s total return of 11.2% per year.
But in the first 20 of those years, investors were sour on the economy’s prospects, and a tumbling price-earnings ratio provided a speculative return of minus 4.6% per year, reducing the nutritious annual investment return of 12.1% to a market return of just 7.5%. From 1981 to 2001, however, the outlook sweetened, and a soaring P/E ratio produced a sugary 5% speculative boost to the investment return of 10.3%.
Result: The market return leaped to 15.3% — double the return of the prior two decades.
The lesson: Enjoy the bagel’s healthy nutrients, and don’t count on the doughnut’s sweetness to enhance them.
5. Why look for the needle in the haystack? Buy the haystack!
Experience confirms that buying the right stocks, betting on the right investment style, and picking the right money manager — in each case, in advance — is like looking for a needle in a haystack.
Investing in equities entails four risks: stock risk, style risk, manager risk, and market risk. The first three of these risks can easily be eliminated, simply by owning the entire stock market — owning the haystack, as it were — and holding it forever.
Owning the entire stock market is the ultimate diversifier. If you can’t find the needle, buy the haystack.
6. Minimize the croupier’s take
The resemblance of the stock market to the casino is not far-fetched. Yes, the stock market is a positive-sum game and the gambling casino is a zero-sum game . . . but only before the costs of playing each game are deducted. After the heavy costs of financial intermediaries (commissions, management fees, taxes, etc.) are deducted, beating the stock market is inevitably a loser’s game. Just as, after the croupiers’ wide rake descends, beating the casino is inevitably a loser’s game. All investors as a group must earn the market’s return before costs, and lose to the market after costs, and by the exact amount of those costs.
Your greatest chance of earning the market’s return, therefore, is to reduce the croupiers’ take to the bare-bones minimum. When you read about stock market returns, realize that the financial markets are not for sale, except at a high price.
The difference is crucial. If the market’s return is 10% before costs, and intermediation costs are approximately 2%, then investors earn 8%. Compounded over 50 years, 8% takes $10,000 to $469,000. But at 10%, the final value leaps to $1,170,000 — nearly three times as much . . . just by eliminating the croupier’s take.
7. Beware of fighting the last war
Too many investors — individuals and institutions alike — are constantly making investment decisions based on the lessons of the recent, or even the extended, past. They seek technology stocks after they have emerged victorious from the last war; they worry about inflation after it becomes the accepted bogeyman, they buy bonds after the stock market has plunged.
You should not ignore the past, but neither should you assume that a particular cyclical trend will last forever. None does. Just because some investors insist on ‘fighting the last war,’ you don’t need to do so yourself. It doesn’t work for very long.
8. Sir Isaac Newton’s revenge on Wall Street — return to the mean
Through all history, investments have been subject to a sort of law of gravity: What goes up must go down, and, oddly enough, what goes down must go up. Not always of course (companies that die rarely live again), and not necessarily in the absolute sense, but relative to the overall market norm.
For example, stock market returns that substantially exceed the investment returns generated by earnings and dividends during one period tend to revert and fall well short of that norm during the next period. Like a pendulum, stock prices swing far above their underlying values, only to swing back to fair value and then far below it.
Another example: From the start of 1997 through March 2000, Nasdaq stocks (+230%) soared past NYSE-listed stocks (+20%), only to come to a screeching halt. During the subsequent year, Nasdaq stocks lost 67% of their value, while NYSE stocks lost just 7%, reverting to the original market value relationship (about one to five) between the so-called ‘new economy’ and the ‘old economy.’
Reversion to the mean is found everywhere in the financial jungle, for the mean is a powerful magnet that, in the long run, finally draws everything back to it.
9. The hedgehog bests the fox
The Greek philosopher Archilochus tells us, ‘The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one great thing.’ The fox — artful, sly, and astute — represents the financial institution that knows many things about complex markets and sophisticated marketing.
The hedgehog — whose sharp spines give it almost impregnable armour when it curls into a ball — is the financial institution that knows only one great thing: long-term investment success is based on simplicity.
The wily foxes of the financial world justify their existence by propagating the notion that an investor can survive only with the benefit of their artful knowledge and expertise. Such assistance, alas, does not come cheap, and the costs it entails tend to consume more value-added performance than even the most cunning of foxes can provide.
Result: The annual returns earned for investors by financial intermediaries such as mutual funds have averaged less than 80% of the stock market’s annual return.
The hedgehog, on the other hand, knows that the truly great investment strategy succeeds, not because of its complexity or cleverness, but because of its simplicity and low cost. The hedgehog diversifies broadly, buys and holds, and keeps expenses to the bare-bones minimum.
The ultimate hedgehog: The all-market index fund, operated at minimal cost and with minimal portfolio turnover, virtually guarantees nearly 100% of the market’s return to the investor.
In the field of investment management, foxes come and go, but hedgehogs are forever.
10. Stay the course: the secret of investing is that there is no secret
When you consider these previous nine rules, realize that they are about neither magic and legerdemain, nor about forecasting the unforecastable, nor about betting at long and ultimately unsurmountable odds, nor about learning some great secret of successful investing.
In fact, there is no great secret, only the majesty of simplicity. These rules are about elementary arithmetic, about fundamental and unarguable principles, and about that most uncommon of all attributes, common sense.
Owning the entire stock market through an index fund — all the while balancing your portfolio with an appropriate allocation to an all bond market index fund — with its cost-efficiency, its tax-efficiency, and its assurance of earning for you the market’s return, is by definition a winning strategy.
But if only you follow one final rule for successful investing, perhaps the most important principle of all investment wisdom: Stay the course!
[Excerpt from Investing Rules from the Masters by John C. Bogle, a doyen of the American mutual fund industry who was designated by Fortune magazine as one of US investment industry’s four ‘Giants of the 20th Century.’]
Source:rediff.com
What you must do before you abandon your PC
What you must do before you abandon your PC
Jay Dougherty, February 21, 2008
If you’ve been using a computer for some time and need to abandon it – either because you’re leaving a job or moving to another machine – you need to be concerned about security. Simply put, once you’re gone, a lot of information can be retrieved about you just by inspecting the digital traces you leave behind.
So before you say goodbye to a PC, follow this list of to-do items to ensure that no one gains information about you that they do not need to know.
The applications on your PC keep a record of almost everything you do. By default, your Web browser probably leaves tracks from a lot of the sites you’ve visited, stores the user names you use online, the files you’ve downloaded, and even passwords, if you allow it.
Many business applications also keep track of the documents you’ve last worked on or edited. “Histories” are useful to those who need quick recall of what they last worked on, but they’re anathema to those who require privacy.
There are ways to selectively clear usage history with each of the applications that keep such records. But because it’s difficult to remember exactly which applications are keeping a record of how you’ve used a computer, a better solution is to turn to a tool that specialises in removing traces of every document you’ve worked on or website you’ve visited.
Clear History, for instance, removes the history of activity kept by most popular applications. It can clear not only document and Internet history but also can ferret down into more arcane data and registry information, removing any record of your activity.
If the PC you’ve been using contains sensitive files, it’s not enough simply to delete them. Even if you delete a file and subsequently remove it from the recycle bin, a savvy user can reconstruct deleted data and potentially gain access to files that you thought were gone for good.
So to delete sensitive files, you have to turn to something more robust than the delete key. Software-based file shredders fit the bill. Most of these applications work by scrambling the contents of a file using special algorithms.
Your e-mail probably holds plenty of information you’d rather not see fall into the hands of someone who comes along to use a computer after you. So it’s critical that you know how to destroy e-mail you do not want others to see.
First, though, that deleting e-mail from a machine that has been connected to a corporate network probably does not actually remove all traces of messages you’ve revived or sent. Many companies are required by law to keep copies of the e-mail their employees generate, so your best course of action is to plan ahead and never send sensitive information by e-mail from work.
You can delete e-mail messages individually using the Delete key on particular messages. Remember, though, that deleting e-mail messages this way just sends them to the Deleted E-mail folder, where they will need to be deleted again. Holding down the Shift key while deleting messages sends them directly to the recycle bin in Outlook and Outlook Express.
If you have the option to completely wipe out a hard drive before leaving a machine or returning it, take advantage of it. A study by researchers at Britain’s Glamorgan University showed that more than half of the used hard drives purchased from eBay contained retrievable personal and financial information.
Reformatting an old hard drive isn’t enough, since even a standard reformat can leave the data on a disk vulnerable to retrieval by savvy users.
So you need to look into disk shredding tools before passing on a hard drive that may contain sensitive information. As with file shredders, you’ll find plenty of commercial utilities that can accomplish this task, but capable free ones exist as well.
Look to the popular Darik’s Boot and Nuke (http://dban.sourceforge.net), for instance. This programme runs from a boot disk or drive and proceeds to securely erase any hard drive that it finds on a system.
French connection
French connection
By Shiva Kumar Thekkepat, Staff Writer GULF NEWS Published: February 15, 2008, 00:30
The UAE is fast becoming a major player on the international art scene. Next month, the first French Art Festival – featuring the works of 35 artists, including five from the UAE – is scheduled to take place in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
Think art and one of the first images that springs to mind is of France. This nation was home to some of the most prolific artists in the world.
After the Second World War, many in the field argued that the US had taken over from France to become the centre of the art world. However, in the past decade or so, Europe, primarily Britain and France, has been edging ahead of the US. Now, if the French interest in the Middle East, as shown by the high profile French Art Festival set to take off in Dubai and Abu Dhabi next month, is anything to go by, a fourth market is likely to emerge on the international art scene – the UAE.
The First French Art Festival will see the exhibition and sale of 400 works of art produced by 30 French artists. Also taking pride of place in this festival will be five artists from the UAE who are to be the guests of honour at the festival. Hosted by the Abu Dhabi Cultural Foundation, the event will showcase some of the finest works of art including paintings, sculptures and photographs.
“It all started with Francoise Malafosse’s passion for art, contemporary art in particular, and creation,” says Odile Duron, French Art Festival project manager.
“Through the French design and communication company she started with her husband, Michel, Francoise (who is the French Art Festival manager and a passionate art lover). met a large number of artists, most of whom became her friends over the past 15 years. Francoise always had the desire to bring their talents together through a major art exhibition. Out of 120 she chose 30, and she wanted to showcase their talents and that is how the festival came about. The French Art Festival in the UAE offered her just that opportunity.”
Francoise is all set to realise her dream thanks to Odile Duron who, along with her team, has been working for over a year enlisting the support of the concerned authorities in the UAE.
“It is about promoting art, French contemporary art and French artists helping them to export their works of art which is usually difficult to do especially if they are independent and don’t work with established galleries. The French Art Festival is a great opportunity (for them),” says Odile.
Patrice Paoli, French Ambassador to the UAE, and Dominique Baudis, president of the Arab World Institute in Paris, are expected to attend the opening of the event.
During the opening night, one of the French painters, Robert
Di Credico, will paint live on stage and his painting will then be auctioned with the proceeds going to the Emirates Foundation. Around 5,000 people have been invited and 2,000 more visitors are expected over the three days, according to Odile. A special evening will be reserved for women.
Based on the initial selection made by Francoise, over 700 works of art by the 30 select French artists have been put together to form a panel that is representative of the best of contemporary art in France.
“Many French artists don’t work with galleries as they want to be independent and we too prefer it that way as we want to preserve their identity and not impose anything on (their creativity),” explains Odile. “Francoise and the artists chose the works of art that are to be exhibited together, and nothing was imposed on them in terms of technique or anything.”
The main idea behind the selection was to make sure that they would not compete with each other. Also the organisers wanted to provide a wide range of what contemporary French art is. Francoise did not choose one trend in particular. On the contrary, she wanted to be as objective as possible, to give as broad a spectrum as possible to meet the expectations of the public, says Odile.
According to her, the talent that will be on exhibit is incontrovertible. “There is Robert Di Credico who is going to paint live on stage at the opening ceremony and that work will be auctioned, with the proceeds going to the Emirates Foundation,” she says. “He’s done that before, he’s very good at it. There’s also Christine Barres. She uses very bright colours. It reflects her personality. She’s very enthusiastic, very optimistic. She’s going to conduct workshops at the Cultural Foundation and wants to share her passion for art with all art lovers.
“There is also Pascal Magis, he’s already quite famous in France. Then there’s Jean-Louis Toutain, a sculptor, whose works can be seen in many public places in France. All of them are quite unique in their own way.”
Apart from the French talent, five local contemporary artists – Manal Bin Amro, Nuha Hassan Asad, Mohammad Kanoo, Mohammad Mandi and Wasel Safwan Antepli – will provide local input with their works complementing those of their French colleagues.
Though French art has dominated the art scene globally for centuries spawning many influential schools, it has not been setting any discernible trends in recent times.
Francoise, a serious student of French contemporary art, says: “I don’t think there is a particular trend, or maybe it’s too early to say.
“I would refer instead to a new momentum in various fields: there are interesting creations in ‘classic’ fine arts (painting, sculpture, music, couture, etc.) as well as in more innovative areas: photography, design, cuisine, video art, etc. There is a profusion of talent and inventiveness. For French artists, the challenge is to take on board – and release themselves from – extremely strong traditions. For years, France has reigned supreme as the country of the arts: both an opportunity and a responsibility.”
Does this mean that French art is in a good state of health at present?
“You have to distinguish between the creation and the market,” says Francoise.
“In terms of creation, I would emphasise that the talent is out there. And the people we are introducing with the French Art Festival prove my point. Through the 30 artists selected, we present a sort of representative shot of what is being done in France today.
“In terms of the market, or rather of market share, it cannot be denied that France follows the United States, Great Britain and, now, China. But artistic quality is not measured just by millions of dollars … at least I hope not,” she says.
The French government had announced a Euro 100-million project to support French artists and increase the contemporary art market some time back. Has this succeeded in reviving the art market in France?
“I don’t know the details of this project,” says Francoise. “But I do know that in March, Martin Béthenod, general commissioner of the International Contemporary Art Fair, is to submit his report to ease the administrative burdens facing professionals and to encourage collectors. That will involve relaxation of regulations in France and harmonisation on a European level. Last autumn, Christine Albanel, Minister for Culture, promised to launch a revival plan to boost the art market. And at the end of January, the Council of Ministers adopted a bill to make art and cultural education generally available from the earliest age. Finally, a new structure, linked to the Pompidou Centre, will be created in the vacant premises of the Palais de Tokyo in Paris.”
While it appears that the French government has many mechanisms for supporting contemporary art and artists, there has been some criticism of this sort of State sponsorship. Francoise, however, feels this move is justified.
“Most countries promote their art and support their artists by placing orders, allocating grants, providing premises, facilitating exports, etc,” she says. “France has a tradition and knowledge in this field, whether at a national level or at a regional level through DRACs – the regional offices for the arts. Local councils are also playing an increasingly important part in the distribution of the arts and culture.
“There are always critics on either side: some believe that public authorities do not do enough, others believe that they are getting involved in a field which is not their own. You have to find the right balance between public and private, while keeping in mind that, in the end, it is always the public who decides.”
And then she delivers the coup de grace: ” I have two things to say about the effectiveness of this policy: first, the share of living artists in the art market is continuing to rise; second, 83 per cent of works changing hands around the world in 2005 were worth less than $10,000. So it is not only past geniuses who are finding buyers!”
Francoise does not entirely agree that after ten centuries of hegemony, there was a certain decline in the influence of French art following the Second World War. “I would not call it a decline in French art but increased strength in other countries, which is perfectly normal,” she says.
“It was natural that the dominant power of the United States since 1945 should also manifest itself in the arts. Similarly, it is natural that China, which represents nearly a quarter of humanity, should take its own prominent place.
“Countries such as France, England and Italy, for example, have made similar journeys. But I do recall that, in 2005, of the 10 bestselling artists in the world, four were French – Claude Monet, Marc Chagall (originally from Belarus), Fernand Léger and Jean-Michel Basquiat. [Also], the number one, Pablo Picasso, spent a large part of his life in France!”
But according to experts, during the past decade Europe appears to have caught up somewhat with the United States. Does this denote a resumption of contemporary art in France?
“Following the explosion of the speculative bull market in 1990, the art market experienced several years of recession, followed by an upturn in recent years, linked primarily with an increase in the number of buyers,” explains Francoise. “This can be explained by the emergence of new markets (such as China, India and Russia) and by increased accessibility to works, thanks to all the tools in place especially on the internet.
“France continues to be an inexhaustible crucible for works of art: the country’s museums contain unrivalled riches, its collectors are innumerable and the institutions, such as the Drouot auction house, the house of François Pinault and Fondation Cartier, play a major role in artistic exchange today. And, again, we are not just talking about classic works: the 20th century was exceptionally rich [in modern works of art] in France, and there is no reason for that to stop in the 21st century.”
There are three essential markets for art: France, Great Britain and the United States. Does this exhibition represent a high level of interest in French art in the Middle East?
“Yes, I believe these new ‘stages’ are important,” says Francoise. “Not just because these are markets, but also because these are places where art has always been present. What motivates me more than anything is artistic exchange, the meeting of people and works from different traditions. Nothing is more interesting.”
Perhaps the reason why both Francoise and Odile are looking beyond the festival already. “The spin-offs of such an event are innumerable and not all of them are quantifiable,” say Odile. How can one measure the pleasure provided, the desires aroused, the relationships it leads to …, she asks.
“There will, of course, be economic spin-offs, for the artists who open up to new markets, and for the companies taking part in this festival in different ways,” she continues.
“But there will also be spin-offs in terms of knowledge and recognition: what an opportunity for an artist to be able to present his or her work on such a prestigious scene and to an audience as cosmopolitan as that of the UAE! It offers tremendous encouragement to these new talents to continue and make further progress in their artistic expression!
“There will also be other benefits in terms of openness of mind, the discovery of new forms of expression and respect for cultures. The festival’s noble ambition is to bring individuals together through their shared interest in contemporary art.”
According to the organisers of the festival, the art event will be “renewed and amplified every year because contemporary art is by definition constantly evolving and because, alongside the visual arts, other arts such as literature, theatre, cinema, music and even gastronomy can find their place and their audience.”
Ultimately, Francoise feels the Middle East, and the East in general, will be significant markets for international art.
“The UAE considers culture to be a factor of development. That is wonderful and we were lucky that our proposal was consistent with this outlook,” she says.
Abu Dhabi to host T/20, county warm-up games
Abu Dhabi to host T/20, county warm-up games
By Adur Pradeep, KHALEEJ TIMES 20 February 2008
DUBAI — Abu Dhabi is all set to join the Twenty20 bandwagon soon.
The likes of former international cricketers Chris Cairns, Marwan Atapattu and Rashid Latif will be in action in Abu Dhabi next week.
Playing for Lashings XI, they take on the Chairman’s XI at the Zayed Cricket Stadium in Abu Dhabi on Monday.
Among others, Lashings XI will have the likes of Alwin Kallicharran, Grant Glower and Chris Harris in their team.
“We plan to have regular meetings with Lashings XI. We would like to conduct it on an annual basis,” Dilawar Mani, CEO of Abu Dhabi Cricket Club, told Khaleej Times.
The city is also set to host five UK counties — Sussex, Essex, Lancashire, Yorkshire and Somerset — from March 12 to 28, he said. “The likes of England’s Andrew Flintoff and Pakistan’s Mushtaq Ahmed are expected to play in the pre-season warm-up matches here.
“The UAE team is also playing against the counties. Out of the twelve matches, Abu Dhabi will host eight games, while Sharjah will have four,” he added.
Regarding the Twenty20 match to be played on Monday, he said, the game, under floodlights, is scheduled to start at 6.30pm. Tickets prices are fixed at Dh20 for East and West mounds; Dh30 for North and South stands.
The chairman’s XI include Saqib Ali, Alawi Shukri, Sajjad Ahmed and Arshad Ali.
“The match has only been made possible by the support provided by Shaikh Nahayan Mabarak Al Nahayan, Chairman of the Club,” Mani said in a statement.
Tickets are available at the Zayed Cricket Stadium office reception from 10 am to 6 pm. The sponsors of the match include Emirates Palace, Etihad Airways, Khaleej Times, Gulf Technical & PDM International.
“The cricket match in Abu Dhabi will be a grand occasion. Playing cricket in the Emirates has always been a dream and we are sure it will be a wonderful experience. The fan-base for Lashings and the international cricket stars in the team, is huge.
“The beautiful stadium of Abu Dhabi, green outfield, impressive seating areas and flood lights will all add colour to this event.
“We would like to thank Shaikh Nahayan Mabarak Al Nahayan, Omar Al Askari, Dilawar Mani and the ADCC for this opportunity.” David Folb, chairman of Lashings said in a statement.
List of Players: Lashings XI: Alwin Kallicharran, Chris Harris, Adam Hollioake, Philp DeFreitas, Jimmy Adams, Devon Malcolm, Brendon Taylor, Chris Cairns, Chris Silverwood, Grant Flower, Graeme Hick, Rashid Latif, Marwan Attapattu, Ed Giddins
Chairman’s XI: Saqib Ali, Alawi Shukri, Sajjad Ahmed, Arshad Ali, Amjad Javed, Irfan Haider, Khurram Khan, Mohd Iqbal, Prasanth Braggs, Amjad Ali, Fayaz Ahmed, Haroon Iftiqar, Fahad Al Hashimi, Waqas Alwi.
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