Rising stars will compete against established Hollywood names for the limelight at this year’s Cannes film festival, with Robert Pattinson, Zac Efron, Kristen Stewart and Shia LaBeouf all appearing in highly anticipated movies.

They will rub shoulders with the likes of Brad Pitt and Nicole Kidman, as well as some of the great names in directing, at the world’s biggest and most glamorous cinema showcase.

"I think there’s a whole new wave of acting talent that has come in on to the scene literally in the last couple of years," Australian director John Hillcoat said.

His competition movie Lawless, a Depression-era gangster tale, features Tom Hardy, Jessica Chastain, Labeouf and Mia Wasikowska, among others, and he also singled out Michael Fassbender as an example of fresh talent coming to the fore.

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Dubai: Oman’s resort and hotel portfolio will continue to expand with more than 2,000 additional rooms scheduled for opening in 2012-2013, the Oman Ministry of Tourism said yesterday in a statement.

It added that Muscat will see biggest growth with 726 new hotel and resort roomsr, while niche resorts are set to open in Salalah, Khasab and in the high altitude Hajar Mountains.

"Oman is seeing strong investor demand in the sector, especially in niche properties.

"This is from government sponsored joint ventures through increasing Omani participation and Omran [the company set up by the Government of Oman to deliver major projects and to manage assets and investments in the tourism sector]," Maitha Al Mahrouqi, Undersecretary of the Oman Ministry of Tourism, said in a statement.

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Narrowing our search to just six finalists was no easy task, but, ultimately, these women represent all mothers who work selflessly each day to raise their families and do good things. Here they are: our Moms Who Rock.

Starla Jones

22, Norman, Oklahoma; mom to son Elijah, 13 months, and foster mom to her niece, 5 months

Why she rocks: She broke a family legacy of neglect and abuse and fostered her sister’s drug-addicted infant — all while being a new mom herself.

Her story: Four days after Starla Jones’ estranged older sister gave birth to a little girl, the baby was handed over to foster care. (The laws in some states prohibit the baby from being identified.)

Starla, herself a new mom, felt she needed to step in and help. “I wanted to do what I could to give her a normal life,” says Starla, who lived in foster homes for a couple of years as a child. “I didn’t want her to go through what I did.”

When she and her husband welcomed her niece at 3 weeks old, the newborn was underweight and still dealing with drug withdrawal symptoms like not wanting to be held and difficulty sleeping. “That was probably the hardest time of my life,” she says. Fortunately, the little girl is thriving under their care. “She’s so smiley,” says Starla.

The couple are trying to officially adopt the infant. “It’s a huge blessing to see a baby who was going through something so difficult and then to see her get the love she deserves,” Starla says. “I’m truly amazed to see her happy and doing great.”

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Courtney deYager

24, Seattle, Washington; mom to daughter Kaylee Hope, 5 months

Why she rocks: Despite an unimaginable loss, she reached out to support other grieving parents.

Her story: After a healthy pregnancy in 2009, nurse Courtney DeYager was devastated to give birth to an 8-pound 14-ounce stillborn son named Zachary. Days later, Courtney began blogging her story atzacharymichaeldeyager.blogspot.com as a way to deal with her grief and connect with others dealing with devastating loss. “The blog has been a great way to reach out to other moms and give a voice to those who’ve lost a child,” she says.

A few days after Courtney suffered an ectopic pregnancy in January 2010, a fellow nurse asked her to travel to Haiti to help in the aftermath of the earthquake. Her time there brought an unexpected reward. “Haiti was the first time I felt like I could love kids again. It was healing for me,” she says. Soon after returning home, Courtney learned she was pregnant. Kaylee Hope was born Nov. 27, 2010. “I’m loving being a mom and soaking it all in,” Courtney says.

Amy Dunnigan

37, San Rafael, California; mom to daughter, 5, and son, 22 months

Why she rocks: She has tirelessly collected baby clothes for new-borns in need since 2006.

Her story: For the past five years, Amy Dunnigan has made it her mission to help Loved Twice, a nonprofit dedicated to collecting and distributing gently used clothes to underprivileged babies in the San Francisco area.

Since 2005, Loved Twice has collected 25,000 pounds of items — 5,000 pounds of which Amy contributed. She gathers, washes, sorts, repackages and delivers goods to the organization each week. She even scours sites like Craigslist and tries to convince sellers to donate items instead. “After you become a mom and hear that any child is in need, you want to drop everything and help,” she says. “It’s just instinct.”

Amy also uses this as a learning tool for her kids. “My son is in the car when I make my pickups,” she says. “And my daughter enjoys snapping all the one-piece bodysuits. She knows she’s helping babies. I think it’s so important to teach kids how easy it is to donate and how fulfilling it is.”

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Tishara Osbey

21, Crete, Nebraska; mom to daughter Alyssia, 12 months

Why she rocks: She regained her footing as a single mom and found time to go to work, school and feed the homeless.

Her story: When Tishara Osbey became pregnant her sophomore year of college, she was faced with personal and financial struggles. Thanks to a school adviser who went out of her way to help Tishara and her new baby, she was encouraged to get back on track. “If she wasn’t going to give up on me, I knew I couldn’t give up on myself either,” says Tishara.

The single mom then focused on re-enrolling for the fall semester. She also started a job, but wanted to help people too. The local soup kitchen didn’t need more volunteers, so using her own money, Tishara began bagging lunches and driving 50 miles round trip to downtown Lincoln, Nebraska, to give food to the homeless every week.

She hopes to one day open a homeless shelter, but in the meantime, Tishara’s working on a sociology degree and raising Alyssia. “I plan to teach her through example and involvement in things I do.”

Cari Childers

24, Spring Hill, Florida; mom to daughter MaKayla, 6 months

Why she rocks: Come March, the new mom will deploy to Afghanistan for 12 months, where she’ll serve as a mechanic for the Black Hawk helicopters used for patrol, transportation and flight training.

Her story: While serving in the National Guard since 2003, Cari Childers did a tour in Iraq from 2008 to 2009, where for four of those months she flew as a door gunner. (Yep, you read that right — she aimed and fired arms from a helicopter.) Cari admits it wasn’t difficult being away from home during her previous tour because she wasn’t married or a mother. This time will be a challenge. “It’s especially hard for a mom missing your child’s milestones,” she says.

Cari credits her husband, Kyle, a stay-at-home father, for supporting her career. While it might be difficult to be away, Cari knows her work is helping to create a good life for her family. “There’s nothing better than what I do.”

First lady Michelle Obama launched an initiative encouraging all Americans to find ways to help support the families of those who serve in the Armed Forces. For more on Strengthening Our Military Families, go to serve.gov.

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Brooke Scollin

27, Blue Springs, Missouri; mom to son Austin, 6, and daughter Kenadie, 4

Why she rocks: She volunteered as a gestational carrier for her cousin and then pumped breast milk for the baby.

Her story: After a decade of trying to conceive, including several rounds of in vitro fertilization attempts, Monika Ogilvie and her husband had nearly given up hope of having a biological child. That is, until Monika’s cousin, Brooke Scollin (pictured, right), offered to be her gestational carrier. “My kids are my life, and I can’t imagine trying for 10 years and not getting anything in the end,” Brooke says.

In January 2010, Brooke underwent an embryo transfer resulting in a pregnancy after the first try. Brooke welcomed Monika at doctors’ appointments and ultrasounds so she could enjoy each step of the baby’s growth. “The experience was amazing,” says Monika. “I got to go to every appointment and feel the baby kick for the first time on Mother’s Day. I don’t feel like I missed anything.”

When Brooke gave birth last October to a healthy baby girl named Olivia, she went on to pump breast milk for four months while working. Naturally, the experience brought the cousins closer. “We are 10 years apart, so we weren’t always close,” says Brooke, “but now Monika is like a sister to me. I don’t remember what my life was like without having her in it every day.”

Parenting.com: 17 easy steps to becoming a happier mom

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The face of Islam, according to Foreign PolicyHilal Elver ("Al Jazeera," May 14, 2012)

Santa Barbara, USA – The most recent issue of Foreign Policy magazine (May/June 2012), titled “The Sex Issue” created a huge controversy, especially among Muslim women who live in the West. They divided into two camps – criticising or celebrating the featured article written by Mona Eltahawy, the Egyptian-American journalist who became known globally during the Tahrir Square demonstrations after she was badly beaten by Egyptian police.

Thanks to her article, highly sophisticated arguments have been created among Muslim feminists as to how to deal with the highly politicised and contested subject of women and Islam. Among them, Noura Erakat’s article in Jadaliyya, and Sarah Mousa’s Al Jazeera piece are excellent works that give readers a feeling for the larger picture.

To say the least, there was nothing new in Eltahaway’s article. Many of the issues she raised were already well known, thanks to Western media that has been issuing frequent alarmist warnings to the public about the menace of Islam. Especially, if such articles come from a Muslim woman, such as Ayan Hirsi Ali or Irshad Manji, their audience is automatically larger, and possesses a certain credibility due to the fact that they were born as Muslims. Anthropologists use the term “native informants” to identify the witness of insiders. Giving a platform to Muslim women writers critical of Islam has also become a very popular tactic in Europe. These commentators claim to speak from bitter experience about how Islam is bad for women. This makes the European public feel comfortable when they adopt public policies against Islamic practices.

It is of course understandable, and entirely natural, that Eltahawy should feel very hostile toward the Egyptian police. Their behaviour was inexcusable, no matter what happened in Tahrir Square on that very day. Many people, men and women lost their lives. It is still unknown which direction the struggle will take. It is also important to follow the struggle of young women and men respectably, so that they can freely practice their right of self-determination.

Provacative sexual dimension

While Muslim feminists struggle with how to deal with FP’s provocative focus on Muslim women, the military trial against the 9/11 plotters became world news. A defendant lawyer, Cheryl Bormann, appeared in the court room with a headscarf and Islamic-style dress, claiming to show respect for her client’s religious faith, even though she is not Muslim. Furthermore, she requested the court to order other women to follow her example, at least in dressing modestly, so that the defendants do not have to avert their eyes “for fear of committing a sin under their faith”.

She particularly blamed one of the female prosecutors whom she contended was dressing inappropriately, as she was wearing a skirt. The US Military Commissions at Guantanamo are under strict scrutiny by liberal lawyers due to various genuine problems, but no-one expected such a demand. This little scuffle about female dress codes also shows us how far we can be led astray by extremist positions. Why, in a military court – or any court – should respect for the religious beliefs of defendants require prosecutors to dress with excessive modesty? Such a demand diverts attention, by focusing on the wrong issue, and thereby creates a negative image associated with Islam’s supposed preoccupation with women body, and in this regard, it is as inflammatory as FP’s cover page.

FP deliberately designed its treatment of the sexual dimension of foreign policy to be provocative, both visually and substantively; the result was one huge soundbite. To some extent, this is an understandable expression of media ambition. Obviously, newspapers and magazines are receptive to what their readers would like to read and see. In this instance, this issue of FP gained worldwide prominence even before the print version became available. On the cover is a striking picture of a woman, at once threatening and seductive: her face covered, exposing only her eyes, her black hair, with her entire body painted black. There was a similar depiction of Muslim women wearing a burqa at a Paris fashion show when Sarkozy was using the “threat” posed by Muslim women to spark his ultimately unsuccessful presidential campaign.

Obviously by some, this FP cover was considered to be art. Additionally, FP included a poster version in the form of a centre foldout as a free gift, perhaps unwittingly reminiscent of the notorious “playmate of the month” foldouts from Playboy magazine. In what appears to be a Freudian slip, the picture is supposed to portray the prototypic Muslim woman, accented by her painted black skin. There is no other colour but black, meant to convey the sense of absolute “otherness” in the United States.

West conveniently left out

It has long been a popular theme among critical US race scholars in the post-9/11 era to explain how Muslims are being racialised in the United States. This picture is a good example of this pattern of “implicit” racialisation of Muslims. It also recalls Orientalist Mind, how the West became fascinated by Eastern private life and women, an alien and exotic domain that the coloniser could not fully grasp or penetrate. Edward Said’s writings provided a seminal understanding of the origins and evolution of Orientalism, and how its legacy lives on in the form of cultural and political discrimination.

You might wonder about what happened recently to persuade the editors of FP to have this feature devoted to sex and foreign policy (rather than to the more neutral phrasing of “gender and foreign policy”). Also, it is fair to ask why was not the theme focused on women globally (including in the United States), rather than to present this unbalanced and harshly critical depiction of sexuality in the Muslim world. Perhaps, to soften any impression of an Islamophobic intention, FP included articles on gender issues associated with China and Russia, countries about which the US public harbours serious suspicions and are thought of as geopolitical adversaries.

In this respect, it could be alleged that FP intends to address the issue of the human rights relevance of sex in civilisational and geopolitical settings that pose threats to US global supremacy.

Sex is resonant with various aspects of US electoral politics. Recently, there has been a “War on Women” being waged by the Republicans. Obama is very popular among women voters for obvious reasons; his social policies are more progressive and gender friendly compared with those of the Republican candidate, Mitt Romney. The Romney campaign organisers seem in a panic mode, desperately trying to find ways to compete with Obama for the hearts and minds of female voters. As the US political lexicon is comfortable using the word “war” in non-military contexts – as in “war on poverty”, “war on drugs” and “war on terror”; it was not hard to see why “war on women” has become the latest battle cry.

In light of this, you might have expected that there would be some articles about US political controversies relating to sex. However, when American people hear about war these days, they think first and last of the Islamic world. The FP editors reflect this mood, accordingly twisted their approach, and rather than dealing with domestic US politics on such key questions as abortion, contraception rights, women’s reproductive life, how to stop insurance companies from proscribing birth control pills to women who work for religious organisations – or, more importantly, how to interpret the gay marriage controversy. Instead, they simply reaffirmed how bad Islam as a religion and culture is for women.

‘Why they hate us’

They invoke George W Bush’s tag line about “why they hate us” to reinforce their indictment of Islam. At first glance, it is not so clear who hates who, and for what reason. When I first saw the FP cover I assumed that the focus would be on why Westerners hate Muslim women, because some wear a burqa. But its message was different, namely, that Muslim men hate Muslim women, something that the US public clearly needs to realise and do something to correct.

The featured section of the magazine contains several articles addressing a range of issues: “The Bedroom States”, by Joshua E Keating, describes – from Iran to India – a variety of public policies hostile to women in one way or another. It is informative and interesting, yet it avoids mention of any Western countries’ public policies. Don’t you think that some European countries refusing to grant a visa to immigrants who marry a person from their native country is a bad policy? Or what about the French law banning girls from wearing a headscarf in high schools, or a burqa in public spaces? Are not such public policies hostile towards the women affected?

If a French immigration officer shows a picture of men kissing men or of a man beating his wife and asks whether this is acceptable, is this not insulting and discriminatory behaviour, because in French practice these pictures and exams are only given to Muslims? Or take Karim Sadjapour’s article on “the Ayatollah under the bed (sheets)”, which certainly warrants an equivalent piece talking about sex scandals in Catholic churches worldwide. Or why do equally problematic rules about sexual discrimination against women among Orthodox Jews not receive any notice? For instance, how many of us know that an Orthodox Jewish man can refuse to take a driver’s license exam administered by female officers – in Canada? But, we all know that women are not permitted to drive a car in Saudi Arabia, and cannot even be in the same car alone with a man with whom they are not related or married.

Thanks to Western media we all have an extensive knowledge about many unacceptable behaviours of Islamic religion and culture, but we know little about comparable practices in other religions and cultures. Even small news, for example, in Saudi Arabia the government prohibits men from working in women’s clothing stores in order to create more job opportunities for women – this became front page news, without even pausing to consider that this restriction might actually be helpful for Saudi women.

We hear when Chechnya mandated women to wear a headscarf, but we are not often informed that such a decree was a matter of government discretion, and not a mandatory precept of Islam – nor considered respectful of human rights in many Muslim countries. When a Muslim government makes a law that bans women from wearing a headscarf in universities, this does not make news in the West. Instead, it is treated as a step forward for women – because it is discouraging religious traditionalism that is supposedly blocking the embrace of Western secularism and modernity.

A global issue

Violence against women does not respect religious, cultural or state borders. Statistics are very clear on that. Women in politics in high level positions have to pay a big price no matter which country we consider, although some do better than others.

FP only pointed to the United States as a good example, how Secretary of State Hillary Clinton works on women’s issues while shaping US foreign policy. I am sure she has many things to say about the United States, if FP would ask, about the relevance of her gender to her unsuccessful presidential campaign. But, this is not what readers seem to care about. It would have been much more impressive and acceptable if such critical issues were presented not only for selected adversary countries and cultures, and if there was not exhibited such bias and partisanship.

I think we are in a period when women’s rights can and should be dealt with in an equal and just manner that befits 21st century globalisation, distinguishing between what is acceptable what is not through an optic of cultural respect and universal standards.

London: Moody’s Investors Service is delaying ratings downgrades on more than 100 banks as it assesses the effect of JPMorgan Chase & Co’s trading losses and a greater possibility of a euro breakup, a Moody’s official said.

The Moody’s official declined to be identified as he wasn’t authorised to comment publicly. Moody’s said on April 13 that it would begin downgrading banks, including BNP Paribas, France’s biggest lender, Germany’s Deutsche Bank and New York-based JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley, by early May. Yesterday, Moody’s spokeswoman Kirsten Knight said the firm’s schedule for "concluding bank rating reviews" hadn’t changed.

"Moody’s expects to conclude the reviews by the end of June," she said in an emailed statement. Moody’s declined to elaborate beyond the statement or comment on when the first downgrade would occur.

It’s the second time Moody’s has delayed publishing details of the downgrades in a month. Any ratings cuts could push up bank funding costs, heaping further misery on the industry as the boost that followed the European Central Bank’s cash injections in December and February wears off and policymakers struggle to extinguish the sovereign-debt crisis.

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"I think this [is] the perfect comeback. Prabhu has action and more action. His mind is full of action and he choreographs action," Kumar said on Saturday, referring to director Prabhu Deva.

Kumar and his co-star Sonakshi Sinha also said they would love to ride auto-rickshaws on the streets of Mumbai. At a promotional event, the stars were made to travel in a vehicle next to an auto rickshaw race organised by the team.

"I was asked to stand in the Jeep. Whatever [I'm] told I will do. When I was sitting in the Jeep I said many times, ‘Give me also the auto rickshaw to ride.’ Maybe the reason was that I don’t even have a licence to drive. You have to follow the rules," Kumar told reporters.

Talking about the stress of Rowdy Rathore, Kumar said: "Every actor is worried about his film. A little stress is always there. But if it doesn’t work, the next film will come."

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Dubai: The Cosmos ITL Group, one of Dubai’s oldest privately owned businesses, is to make a full-scale foray into branded textiles and garment retail through an estimated Dh50 million to Dh100 million investment. It will be done in association with a prominent Indian brand rather than by developing one of its own, which would have made it a more costly exercise.

Currently, trade in textiles generates 60 per cent of the group’s turnover, which was deemed the prime factor in the decision to go for a direct retail presence. The plans are to go for mall locations in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah.

After having gone through its share of blips in the past decade, the local textile sector is again starting to sport vibrant hues, aided by sustained domestic demand as well as from the major re-export markets. The upturn is prompting some of the biggest wholesalers to derive more out of retail, which is where Cosmos ITL — marking its 60th year of operations next year — is headed.

The move to get into textile retail has also been prompted by the decline in revenue from the group’s interests in electronics, which includes a distributor relationship with Japan’s Sharp since the early 1960s. It is also a nod to the fact that consumer preferences in the electronics space have solidified over a handful of select brands.

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