 | | Qatari women set to launch fashion magazine |
 MAKING
a foray into the fashion and lifestyle world, three young Qatari
women have joined hands to launch an English magazine from Doha.
Named HauteMuse, the magazine will be published quarterly. Talking
to Qatar Tribune, Fatma Hamad al Thani and Noor Rashid al Thani,
both owners of the magazine, said that each issue would be theme-based
with an innovative layout. "We will... |
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|  |  | | UK Monarchy: How Relevant? |
 AMID
the flag-waving and the street parties to celebrate the marriage
of Prince William and Kate Middleton on Friday, bigger questions
about the relevance of the monarchy to modern Britain lurk like
uninvited guests. Extravagant living in a time of austerity
abrades public sensibilities; unearned privilege is resented,
while snobbery and elitism are seen as dangerously outmoded.
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| |  | | THE PRICE OF
DELUSION |
| COL Moamar Qadhafi is a vain man. Like
the other Arab dinosaurs he has his dyed hair, his designer
shades, his spoiled children and his compound full of sycophants.
He doesn´t want, one day, to be dragged from a rat hole
like Saddam Hussein or hauled from a bunker like the Ivory Coast´s
Laurent Gbagbo. So what´s his calculation? Does he have
one at all? Here in liberated eastern Libya, where the tricolour
Qadhafi banished now flies... |
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Six million Laotians vote to elect communist assembly
AFP HANOI LAOTIANS cast ballots on Saturday to elect a communist- controlled legislature that has shown signs of growing clout in recent years.
Polling opened in the early morning, a source familiar with the electoral process told AFP by telephone from Laos.
There are 190 candidates vying for 132 seats in the National Assembly, up from 115 seats last time, government- controlled media in the one-party state reported.
About half the country’s roughly six million people are eligible to vote in the polls, with results expected in about one week.
“I will select the candidates who I believe will be true representatives of the Lao people and take their issues to the National Assembly,” said Khounkham, 18, a first-time voter quoted in state-controlled Vientiane Times on Friday.
The assembly has evolved from being “a pure rubber stamp” into an organ with its own identity that has criticised the government and even substantially revised some laws, a foreign diplomat in Vientiane said.
But real power remains with the ruling Politburo and Central Committee already chosen in March at a five-yearly Congress by fewer than 600 party members, analysts say.
In the last legislature all but two delegates belonged to the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party but even those “independents” eventually joined the party, the diplomat said.
Martin Stuart-Fox, a Laos specialist at The University of Queensland in Australia, agreed the assembly has sometimes been more critical of the government, “but the problem is how far does it go?” The assembly has discussed the country’s corruption problem but nobody of any significance has ever been prosecuted, he said.
“I’m sure that nothing is discussed that the party doesn’t want discussed,” Stuart- Fox said.
In June the newly elected assembly will formally adopt the composition of a new government, decided behind closed doors during the party congress.
Choummaly Sayasone, re-elected to the country’s top post of party leader during the congress, is also expected to be named president, the diplomat said.
Thongsing Thammavong is expected to stay on as prime minister.
The former president of the assembly took on the role in December after the surprise resignation of his predecessor.
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