The Indian film industry may shy away from swearing and realism on screen, but Ram Ganesh Kamatham's Dancing on Glass shows a darker and angrier vision of India on stageAt New Delhi's Habitat Centre, a young actor has just unleashed a string of expletives in both English and Kannada, drawing gasps from the audience. They have, however, been....(more)
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British-Pakistani journalist Asad Qureshi, who has been held captive in Pakistan since March, has been released.The British high commission in Pakistan announced the news today but gave no further details except to say he was receiving consular assistance. Qureshi - thought to have been working for a British TV broadcaster - was kidnapped in the re....(more)
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Brittany Lopez – whose favourite book was Vampire Kisses – read 325 books and comics over a three-month periodAfter churning through over three books a day for the last three months, a 14-year-old from the Bronx has been named New York's reader of the summer.Brittany Lopez read 325 books – a mix of novels and comics – between June and August th....(more)
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One dead, the other seriously injured in crash one month after moment of passion was controversially published in newspaperTheirs was a kiss that stunned a conservative town. When a moment of passion between two men was published on a newspaper front page, it provoked fierce debate in one of South Africa's oldest communities.In a single photogr....(more)
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Pinpointing the end of Ramadan and start of Eid al-Fitr isn't a precise art, which only makes those final hours of fasting worseThe wait for Eid al-Fitr to be announced at the end of Ramadan never gets less agonising. As Usama Hasan explained on this site back in 2008, because Ramadan and the month that follows are lunar months, their arrival c....(more)
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Spanish artist who filled the pages of 1950s British comicsIn the late 1950s, Fernando Fernández, who has died aged 70, was one of the youngest of a group of Spanish artists working for the British comics publisher Fleetway Publications. Only 17 when his first strips were published, Fernández filled the pages of British comics for the next dec....(more)
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Former Cuban president says Marxist model 'doesn't even work for us' in offhand remark to US journalist Jeffrey GoldbergIt was a casual remark over a lunch of salad, fish and red wine but future historians are likely to parse and ponder every word: "The Cuban model doesn't even work for us any more."Fidel Castro's nine....(more)
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Liberal resolution with 337 majority rebukes Nicolas Sarkozy for deporting Roma and destroying their campsNicolas Sarkozy has been accused by the European parliament of stirring up racism through his anti-Gypsy campaign in a highly unusual vote against a leading EU country that has humiliated the centre-right dominating the politics of Europe.A par....(more)
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Dana shareholders keen to accept Korean National Oil Corporation's £1.7bn offer, despite board saying offer undervalues DanaA hostile takeover of Dana Petroleum by South Korea looked increasingly likely today after the Asian bidder insisted it is not prepared to pay more than £1.7bn.Responding to a spirited defence document from Dana which dism....(more)
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