Other Topics : Art Culture - Fashion - Tourism

Latest & Hot Fashion News : 

Return to current news about latest fashion

Now, celebrate 'Kiss Day'
Indo-Asian News Service

New Delhi, Sep 23 (IANS) The heart needs no reason to celebrate. After enthusiastically taking to Friendship Day, Valentine's Day, Father's Day, Mother's Day, the young and old are looking forward to 'Kiss Day'.

The young and not so young are ready to romance their loved ones on Sep 24 with roses, chocolates, gifts and sweet nothings, and never mind that most haven't heard of 'Kiss Day'.

"Its not well known in our country but there is always a special charm in celebrating a special day like this. It's a once in a year chance to express feelings to your sweethearts," said Ashwini Swain, a student of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU).

"It's really sad that not many gifts are available especially for this day. I think I and my friends have to manage with Valentines' Day gifts," he added.

And more than greeting card galleries, it's e-cards that are doing the rounds to fulfil the desire of young hearts. From 'Give me a Kiss' to 'Kiss brings you Closer', e-cards can be found in hundreds of varieties with options available to customize them especially for your sweetheart.

"It is not well known in Delhi. So why keep special card or gifts for Kiss Day," said Suresh, a card shop owner in Greater Kailash in south Delhi.

Added Happy Samantray, another JNU student: "Not much is available in gift shops but e-cards are there in plenty to solve your problem.

"Whether it is popular or not, my girlfriend and I are going to celebrate it with equal zest like Valentine's Day," he smiled.

Catherine Deneuve defends embattled Kate Moss
DPA

London, Sep 23 (DPA) French veteran actress and model Catherine Deneuve has come to the defence of British supermodel Kate Moss, who is at the centre of a storm over drug abuse allegations.

Speaking on a British TV chatshow, Deneuve, a former face of Chanel No 5, said about Moss: "She's a great model. If she's ruining her personal life, that belongs to her."

Moss, 31, Thursday faced the loss of another lucrative advertising contract. The US-owned cosmetic firm Rimmel said it was reviewing her contract.

On Wednesday, fashion houses Burberry and Chanel said they would sever links with Moss, following a decision earlier by the high street chain Hennes and Mauritz (H&M) to drop her.

"Rimmel London is shocked and dismayed by the recent press allegations surrounding Kate Moss' behaviour. We are currently reviewing her contract", said a statement.

The top model, who has a daughter of nearly three, has so far declined to comment on the allegations, which are being investigated by Scotland Yard.

Britain's The Mirror newspaper published photographs last week to support the claim that Moss had been snorting cocaine in a West London recording studio.

On Thursday, the Sun newspaper published new allegations about drug-fuelled parties at her country mansion in Gloucestershire, western England.

It alleged that powerful crack cocaine had been smoked there openly.

Commenting on the allegations, her lawyer Gerrard Tyrell told The Sun: "The allegations that you put to me are specifically denied by my client."

Moss, seen in New York earlier this week, has kept a conspicuous absence from London Fashion Week this week.

Deneuve, praising Moss in the chatshow Thursday as "one of the best models" she'd ever seen, said what she did with her body was her private affair and had "nothing to do with her work".

She did not believe that a comparable campaign by the press against an individual would be possible in France.

"They know that to do that to her (Moss) is really killing her... really destroying a great part of her work", said the 61-year-old French star.

Indo-Asian News Service

Petrol sniffing ravaging Australia's Aborigines
DPA

Sydney, Sep 23 (DPA) A petrol-sniffing epidemic in outback Australia is taking the lives of hundreds of young Aborigines and leading some thinkers to wonder whether it would be better to disband remote communities overrun by addiction, violence and despair.

"It's like a real strong smell that goes in and mucks up your brain," says Aaron Williams, a former petrol-sniffer from Yuendemu in central Australia. "You can't listen, you can't talk properly. It's that gas that makes you weak and weak."

Eventually, the carcinogenic effects can be so dangerous that sniffers end up in wheelchairs needing round-the-clock care. Many are left with permanent brain damage.

It started with young men about 20 years ago, but reports are emerging of children as young as five getting high on the aromatic hydrocarbons in petrol.

Pregnant women also sniff. Mothers douse a rag with petrol to shut their babies up at night. Teenage girls trade sex for a litre of petrol.

Williams, now a health worker, has got behind a push to ban the sale of standard petrol in outback areas where Aborigines live. Instead, petrol low in aromatics would be sold.

A switch to what's called Opal fuel in central Australia would cost the government about $7.6 million (10 million Australian dollars) a year in subsidy payments.

A proponent of the idea is Greens leader Bob Brown. He reckons the high cost would be worth it, even a cheaper option than looking after the crippled and brain damaged.

"It's a scourge affecting hundreds of young indigenous people in central Australia," Brown said. "It smashes families. It breaks up communities. It causes enormous distress."

The government is unconvinced. Bans can always be circumvented, officials say. They argue that Aborigines themselves must tackle the problem. It can't be that hard to take a bottle of petrol away from a five-year-old, they argue.

The experience in Yuendemu shows how difficult it is to effect change. 

Petrol sniffers are sent by elders to an outstation 160 km from the main community where there simply isn't any petrol. But Williams says that many young Aborigines who have gone through the programme relapse into old ways when they return.

"They get off it, then get back on to it," he told Australia's AAP news agency.

Petrol sniffing isn't the only problem in outback communities. Or even the most intractable one. Alcohol does more harm.

In the northwest corner of New South Wales, where the average age of death for Aboriginal men is 33, alcohol-related deaths for Aboriginal men are eight times the national average.

Rosemary Neill, who has written extensively on Aboriginal issues, has wondered whether rampant petrol sniffing is just the latest symptom of terminal decline in remote Aboriginal communities.

"Are remote indigenous communities viable?" she asks. "With levels of murder, suicide, child abuse, unemployment, truancy and illiteracy that would not be tolerated elsewhere, are they doing their residents more harm than good?"

Neill notes that welfare dependency is so endemic that at Mutijulu, where there have been three recent petrol-sniffing deaths, hardly anyone is employed. And yet Mutijulu is near the Uluru tourist magnet and ringed by hotels for those wanting to climb the rock or see it at sunset.

Sociologists talk of an "existential" crisis among the 2.3 percent of Australians who say they are indigenous. Life has lost its meaning and this is reflected in the appalling statistics for welfare.

It's an outlook summed up in a comment from Richard Trudgen, an Aborigine and a Northern Territory health worker: "If you have got no purpose to live, you have got nothing to go out there and go for," he said.

Indo-Asian News Service