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| Can Brazil Stop Iran |
| BRAZIL, the saying used to go, is the land of the future and always will be. But when Brazil's president, Dilma Rousseff, visits the White House next week, she will come as the leader of a country whose future has arrived.
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| A MIDDLE EAST PEACE PLAN |
| THERE is so much going on in the Middle East today, it's impossible to capture it all with one opinion. So here are two for the price of one. |
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 | Mob wives no longer
silent partners WHATEVER happened
to omerta?
For decades,
Mafioso from
Joseph Valachi
(The Valachi Papers) to Henry
Hill (Wise Guys and Goodfellas)
to Salvatore Gravano
(Underboss) have violated the
traditional code of ....
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| | Loving publisher for
your teen – You | | THE television news feature about eighth grader Ben Heckmann was breathless in its praise. "At 14 years old, he has accomplished something many adults can't achieve," the reporter said. "Ben is a twice-published author." As the camera rolled, Ben described how "the first time I held my own book, it was just this amazing feeling." Then he shared a lesson for other young people, saying, "You can basically do anything if you put your mind to it." But his two Velvet Black books, detailing and depicting the antics of a fictional rock band, were not plucked from a pile of manuscripts by an eagle-eyed publisher. They were self-published, at a cost to Ben's parents of $400 – money they have more than made up by selling 700 copies. Over the past five years, print-on-demand technology and a growing number of selfpublishing companies whose books can be sold online have inspired writers of all ages to bypass the traditional gatekeeping system for determining who could call themselves a "published author." They include hundreds of children and teenagers who are now self-publishing books each year – a growing corner of the book world that raises as many questions about parenting as publishing. The mothers and fathers who foot the bill say they are simply trying to encourage their children, in the same way that other parents buy gear for a promising lacrosse player or ship a Broadway aspirant off to theatre camp. But others see the blurring of the line between publishing and self-publishing as a lost opportunity to teach children about adversity and perseverance.... |
| | 'Lucy' wasn't alone? | | AS our prehistoric ancestor "Lucy'' was making tracks in eastern Africa millions of years ago, another type of pre-human might have been watching from above, a new study suggests. Scientists have pieced together a new type of prehuman foot from 3.4-millionyear- old fossils found in Ethiopia. The bones don't belong to the Lucy fossil's species, Australopithecus afarensis – the only hominid (or member of the human lineage) thought to be living then, according to findings reported in the journal Nature. Researchers say the partial foot points instead to the existence of a previously unrecognised pre-human that was a contemporary of Lucy. Whereas Lucy was designed for upright walking – a crucial step in human evolution – her newly identified neighbour appears to have been a bit of a swinger. Analysis of the newfound foot suggests its owner had an apelike gait and spent a good deal of time in the trees. That's a surprise, because "once walking on two legs evolved, we didn't think there was an additional species that had the capability for climbing up trees,'' said study leader Yohannes Haile- Selassie, an anthropologist at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. Discovered in the Burtele area of the Afar region in 2009, the fossil foot has a separated, thumblike big toe – perfect for climbing and grasping branches, the study team said. The foot's other toes were somewhere between those of other hominids and apes, although the curiously elongated bone of the fourth toe is more like a monkey's, the team noted. Yet the foot also reveals upright-walking traits. For instance, the toe bones have joints and ends that would have allowed the species to hyperextend its toes to push off while walking, the study found. .... |
| | Rihanna talks about her relationship with Chris | | IN the May issue of Elle, the chart-topping We Found Love singer, Rihanna, finally acknowledges why she's back in contact with ex Chris Brown. Over three years after Brown's violent assault of then-girlfriend Rihanna, they collaborated on two singles — and have been secretly hooking up for over a year, multiple sources have confirmed. "I respect what other people have to say. The bottom line is that everyone thinks differently," cover girl Rihanna tells Elle of the furious reactions from fans and critics about reconnecting with Brown, 22, despite their brutal past. "It's very hard for me to accept, but I get it," she says of the criticism. "People end up wasting their time on blogs, ranting away, and that's all right. I don't hate them for it." But Rihanna is standing firm — and she's not going to apologise. "Because tomorrow I'm still going to be the same person," she says. "I'm still going to do what I want to do." Brown's February 2009 attack was a turning point for the star, who is now more popular and successful than ever. "It gave me guns," she says of the trauma. "I was like, well, they know more about me than I want them to know. It's embarrassing. But that was my liberation. I wanted people to know who I am. Whether they take that to be, good or bad, I just want them to know the truth." Although she's lost a lot of her privacy since then, she reasons, "I have more freedom the more people know about me. It's like, one less skeleton in the closet, one less burden, one less secret; now you know that, so you can say what you want about it. I don't have anything to hide." She famously channelled the pain of the assault and the breakup in her 2010 album Rated R. "I was going through the hardest time of my life. I was angry, sad, confused, torn. I was still in love," she admitted of the dark record. "And I needed to talk about it. That was the only way I could get peace, because it was in my head, and I couldn't leave it there."... |
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