How to Wear Tweed and Stay Cool

Q: Ah, the tweed, the fabric of aristocratic fox hunting and stuffy professors. And now, suddenly so fashionable in the urban jungle of Asia as it is in country houses of Europe. But how can you incorporate the fabric into a modern male wardrobe?

A: In addition to paintings, other traditional outdoor fabrics associated with colder climates, tweed has a strong presence in this season, both jackets and pants. However, you are cautious, even trepidatious, to take him out of fear of becoming, well, tweed?

Nonsense. First, we tweed fabric today is not the stern of years past. A little softer and finer, the modern version of wool is not itchy fabric that our ancestors used. Even tweediest makers ─ Tweed Harris Tweed Scotland Ltd., one of the three mills that Harris Tweed is certified by the UK government launched a tweed ─ light in September. Within the first two weeks, within the company than 5,000 vests in the new tissue is sold out.

Scottish tweed manufacturer is surprised that his first need is now the height of fashion. "We see now, walking down the street, so many people in tweed," said Lydia Walton, public relations director at Harris Tweed Scotland. "It was a snowball for a couple of years, but this year has been enormous. I really do not know why."

The point is to match the tweed for the occasion. If you go to time outside the country or spending, choose tweed in earthy tones, such as the design of green and brown Hamish controls. Wearing a white shirt, jeans and a pair of sandals or brown boots. For urban areas, which are better with darker colors, like a herringbone check black and white. This style jacket goes well with gray flannel trousers and a dark shirt.

Of course, these are just guidlines. Tweed fashion, like all fashion, it differs in various parts of the world. "In Italy, Hamish design will be used with pencil pants and pointy shoes ─ I do not see here in the UK," said Mrs. Walton.

If there is a rule to play, it would be this: Never pair of tweed jacket with tweed pants, especially if they match. A tweed suit? Even the driest of academic conferences. "Once you wear a tweed suit, looks a little crazy," he said. We tend to agree.

EU Sets Summit to Assess Alliance's Future

British Prime Minister Tony Blair has announced an informal summit of European Union leaders to consider the future direction of the troubled alliance.

The Blair announcement came on the first day of Britain's six-month tenure in control of the European Union's rotating presidency.

The British presidency coincides with a crisis in confidence in the 25-nation alliance, after voters in France and the Netherlands rejected the EU constitution, and EU leaders failed to agree on a budget for coming years.

Mr. Blair says EU leaders will gather in Britain in a few months for an informal summit on what he sees as the core issue facing the bloc: how to sustain economic growth, while maintaining a strong social safety net.

"The most important thing is to try to get people to come together and debate ... how we make sense of the dilemma of Europe today, which is a desire to be a strong competitive economy and a desire to keep in place a strong social dimension, where we are looking after our citizens, making sure people are given proper protection when they are changing their jobs, how we are equipping our people on the basis of justice and fairness and solidarity to be able to face the challenges of today," he said.

The EU has been shaken by the rejection of the constitution by French and Dutch voters, followed by a bitter argument between Britain and France over the EU budget, which gives large subsidies to French farmers and an annual rebate to the British treasury.

There are also differences over future EU expansion. Britain supports EU membership for Turkey, but there is opposition within Germany and France. Negotiations on Turkish membership are set to begin in October.

China Evacuates 150,000 People as Typhoon Nears

Chinese authorities have evacuated more than 150,000 people from the country's southeastern coast as one of the strongest typhoons in years approaches the region. Typhoon Megi was centered over the northern part of the South China Sea late Thursday and was moving north slowly toward the eastern part of China's Guangdong province. Weather models predict the storm will make landfall Saturday near Shantou city, east of Hong Kong.

The Hong Kong Observatory said Megi had maximum sustained winds of 175 kilometers an hour and could intensify before hitting land. China has issued a red alert for the typhoon, the highest of its four-step warning system. It warned of huge storm surges that could devastate coastal villages and cities. In Hong Kong, a strong wind warning was in effect.Chinese authorities said they were moving residents of Guangdong to higher ground and already had evacuated 150,000 people in Fujian province to the north.

At the ASEAN Defense Ministers meeting in Hanoi

Chinese Minister of Defense Liang Guanglie invited his U.S. counterpart Defense Secretary Robert Gates to visit China, in what seems like an easing of military tensions in the region.
Diplomacy appears to be making some progress in reducing tensions at the ASEAN Plus Eight defense ministers' meeting. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations invited the United States, China, Japan, Russia and other regional powers to address security issues in the Pacific.
China resumes military relations
By inviting Defense Secretary Robert Gates to visit next year, China is resuming high-level military relations with the United States. Earlier in the year, China suspended military contacts because of U.S. planned arms sales to Taiwan.
The Chinese Defense Minister also said talks with Japan's defense officials were positive. Tensions between the two countries have increased after a Chinese fishing boat collided with Japanese coast guard patrol ships in waters claimed by both sides.
U.S. support for Southeast Asia
Earlier in the day, speaking to members of the military and students at the Vietnam National University in Hanoi, Secretary Gates sent a message to reassure Southeast Asia.
"I think all Asia can be confident that the U.S. intends to remain engaged in Asia as we have been for so many scores of years before and that we intend to be an active party, not only in economic and political matters but also in defense and security matters," Gates said.
The United States is concerned territorial disputes over small island chains in the region could hurt access to one of the world's busiest sea lanes.
Beijing says its claims over the Spratly and Paracel islands are a "core national interest." Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Brunei and Malaysia also claim all or part of the islands. Although largely uninhabited, the islands are believed to sit atop vast reserves of oil and natural gas.
Solution to sea disputes
The United States says it has a national interest in freedom of navigation in international waters. Mr. Gates said Asian sea disputes should be resolved peacefully through negotiations.
The defense secretary also says by acting together in a multilateral organization like ASEAN, smaller Asian countries can better resolve regional security issues.
"Increasingly we find that relying exclusively on bilateral relationships is not enough," said Gates. "We need multi-lateral institutions in order to confront the most important security challenges in the region."
During his two-day visit, Gates will meet with several Asian defense ministers who want U.S. support to counter the growth of China as a regional power.

Iraqi Political Leaders Plan to Re-Convene Parliament by Tuesday

Negotiators for the major political groups in Iraq say they plan to reopen the Iraqi parliament by Tuesday and announce the new government's top leaders. Negotiators are trying to include as many groups as possible in the new government, but they are also under pressure from Iraqis who are expressing growing frustration over the delays.

Negotiators for the major Shi'ite and Kurdish political groups say the parliament, which was elected nearly two months ago, but only inaugurated last week, will re-convene in order to elect the senior leaders.
 
A negotiator for the Shi'ite group, former Oil Minister Ibrahim Bahr al-Ulum, says negotiators have completed what he calls Phase One, which is a set of principles to guide the formation of the new government.

"We are in Phase Two now, including agreement about the principal [major] positions of the state: the presidential council and the chief of parliament, as well as the prime minister," he said.
The leader of one of the main Kurdish groups, Jalal Talabani, concurred, saying in a [al-Arabiya] television interview that the negotiators have agreed on most of the leadership points.

Mr. Talabani said agreement has been reached on the posts of president and prime minister, and talks continue on the ministerial portfolios.

Reports say agreement has been reached to allocate the presidency to the Kurdish group, the post of prime minister to a Shi'ite leader, and the speaker-of-parliament job to a Sunni.
Shi'ite parties won more than half of the parliamentary seats in the elections in January. The Kurds came in second, with more than one-fourth of the seats.

Both groups say they are keen to include other parties in their government of national unity, especially Arab Sunnis. The Sunnis make up about one-fourth of the population, but won only a few parliamentary seats, because of a boycott of the elections.

A negotiator for the Sunni group, Mishan al-Juburi, says Arab Sunnis are pressing for an influential role in government, despite their relatively small presence in parliament.
He says his group believes it should receive a couple of the important ministries, like Finance and Defense.

The negotiations intensified this past week, after religious leaders warned that the delays were creating a climate of uncertainty that could worsen the security situation in Iraq.

Insurgents opposed to the formation of the new government carried out several suicide car bombings across the country, killing more than a dozen Iraqi security officials and several civilians.

The U.S. military Saturday announced that two American soldiers were killed and two others wounded by a suicide bomber in southern Baghdad. A third U.S. soldier was reportedly killed Friday in central Iraq.

Meanwhile, Iraq's Defense Ministry announced that security forces detained 120 suspected insurgents, including some foreigners, and seized tons of explosives south of Baghdad. The ministry said it believes the group was planning attacks during upcoming Arbaeen Shi'ite holy celebrations.

Australia has upgraded its travel advisory to Indonesia after the fatal hotel bombings in Jakarta

The Department of Foreign Affairs in Canberra warns Australians to reconsider their need to travel to Indonesia because of the possibility of further terrorist attacks.

The explosions at Jakarta's Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels killed nine people, including three Australians and a New Zealander.

The attacks have prompted the Australian government to warn its citizens to think twice before traveling to Indonesia.

The upgraded travel advisory warns that further acts of terrorism are possible.

In Canberra, officials say that Bali, a resort island popular with Australian tourists, remains vulnerable to attack.

David Mackney, a security expert in Jakarta, says Indonesia has responded quickly to this new threat.

"Security has been beefed up at the big hotels and also in the shopping malls," Mackney said. "I know that the police in Bali for instance have reported that they've gone on a higher alert and there is extra security at Bali airport and all the main tourist spots in Bali."

Security has been tightened across Indonesia, with 500 troops put on standby to support police in the capital, Jakarta.

　
No arrests have yet been made but investigators think the suicide bombings were part of a sophisticated plot.

Suspicion has fallen on fugitive Malaysian militant Noordin Mohammed Top. He is suspected of involvement in a series of attacks, including the twin blasts that killed more than 200 people died on the Indonesian holiday island of Bali in 2002.

Noordin is thought to have been a key figure in Jemaah Islamiah, a militant Islamic organization, but is now believed to lead a splinter group.

　
Relatives of the Australians killed in Friday's blasts have traveled to Indonesia to claim their bodies as the investigation continues.

As countries begin emerging from the global financial crisis, France is proposing to measure progress in a new way

One that includes happiness and well being, as well as traditional economic benchmarks.

By standard measures, the world has certainly been going through some tough times. But do these indicators capture all facets of progress? According to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the answer is 'no.'

Mr. Sarkozy announced France will begin including less tangible indicators, like happiness and well being, into its measurements of economic progress.

　
The French President said the current crisis does not just give the international community the freedom to imagine another economic model, it obliges the world to do so. We do not have the choice, he said.

　

Mr. Sarkozy's remarks coincided with the publication of a new report by two Nobel economists, Joseph Stiglitz and Armatya Sen, that looks at non-traditional ways at measuring social progress. The report was commissioned by the French government.

　
The report recommends shifting the ways policymakers look at progress from what economists call gross domestic product, or GDP, which is a general measure of goods and services produced in a country. The new indicators also would include non-material 'wealth', like access to education and health care.

　

France is not the first country to look at the non-material aspects of progress. The Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan emphasizes a concept it calls 'gross national happiness,' rather than GDP. Bhutan's main research center collects a wide variety of data to measure this, including things like psychological well being, good governance, ecological diversity and living standards.

　

In France, Mr. Sarkozy says focusing too much on gross domestic product as the main measure of prosperity contributed to the financial crisis. He wants other countries to follow France's example in looking at less materialistic indicators of progress.

United Nations talks on climate change are nearing a close with no clear consensus yet in sight

The meeting is aimed at laying the groundwork for progress at a major climate change meeting in Mexico later this year.
While many of the negotiators for a global climate change accord consider it a pressing issue, there is less agreement on how to share the burden of tackling the problem.
Last year, the international community failed to reach an agreement that included legally binding emissions reductions at a high-profile meeting in Copenhagen.
Precursor to Cancun meeting
This week's meeting in the Chinese port city of Tianjin is the precursor to the world's next big attempt, at Cancun, Mexico, later this year.
Jake Schmidt is with the U.S. environmental group, National Resources Defense Council. He says some countries in recent days appear to be stalling, by raising questions about procedural, rather than substantive issues, which could hamper efforts to produce a deal in Cancun.
"Instead of trying to produce a text which incorporated every single element that we could possibly envision, the chair proposed a set of, effectively, bullet points, that said here are the things that I think we can legitimately agree to in Cancun," Schmidt said. "And obviously there are going to be some things off that list. And the Chinese, Saudi Arabia and others, questioned whether or not the chair had the ability to do that."
Foundation for agreement
Schmidt says as of Thursday, he is pessimistic that this week's meeting will, in his words, "lay the foundation" for an agreement in Cancun
He says many countries appear to be ready to agree to things like reforestation efforts and technology adaptation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But they are not ready to agree on what he described as "the tougher things."
"Like whether or not they're going to formalize their international commitments, their commitments to reduce emissions, and whether or not they're going to agree to a set of transparency provisions," Schmidt added.
Causes
Greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide released by burning fuels such as oil and coal, are thought to contribute to global warming.
One of the big sticking points is whether there should be binding targets to reduce emissions. Although China has overtaken the United States to become the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, Beijing refuses to commit to targets because it says it is still a developing nation.
Solutions
Earlier in the week, Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo told the conference one of his country's top priorities is to develop the economy.
Dai says China's ability to control greenhouse gas emissions faces great pressure. He says the speed of industrialization and urbanization in the country is still quickening, which means its energy demand will also increase.
Delegates from nearly 200 countries began their meeting in Tianjin on Monday. The talks end Saturday.

Washington consensus and Wall Street wizards

At a financial sector conference in Shanghai last week, Canadian bankers, insurers and government officials cited the country's relative stability in the face of Wall Street's 2008 meltdown as evidence that China should reference 'the Canadian Difference,' as one put it, as it pursues its own financial reforms.

It was Henry 'Hank' Paulson circa 2007, with perhaps more humility.

'Canada's financial system might serve in some way as an example,' Sarah Kutulakos, executive director of Canada China Business Council, declared at the opening of the conference.

Canada weathered the crisis well. For instance, it has already gained back all the jobs it lost in that period, and the International Monetary Fund has predicted it will be the strongest economy in the G-7 through 2011, with 2.7% expansion next year.

'It's the world's safest banking system,' said Chuck Strahl, minister of transport, infrastructure and communities, referring to a World Economic Forum assessment.

Four of Canada's banks now rank among the 10 largest in North America, he added. And Canada's strength, he noted, was recognized by China when it made the country among the first bank regulators green-lighted as an international destination for individual investment money.

Other speakers noted the ability, during the crisis, of Canadian banks to tap credit markets and Ottawa's effective backstopping of the nation's financial system, which was designed to minimize risks to taxpayers.

'What is this Canadian difference?' asked Gilles Oullette, a top officer at Bank of Montreal, which this month became the first Canadian bank to locally incorporate an operation in China. Mr. Oullette said the core Canadian difference is a clear regulatory structure, which helps define a 'more conservative approach' (i.e., more conservative than south of the border).

Speakers highlighted how China sidestepped the bad times, too.

'It appears Canada and China have come through extraordinary times much better than their G-20 counterparts,' said Mark Kruger, minister-counselor at Canada's Beijing Embassy.

Mark Rowswell, perhaps the world's most famous Canadian due to his fame in China, where he is known as Da Shan, pointed out that the Canadian pavilion at the World Expo, where this event was held, recently won an award for being one of the most 'business-oriented' on the fairgrounds.

Yet, when officials moved from offering context of the Canadian difference and turned toward giving advice, they sounded off on many of the very same themes that have been broadcast from Washington for years, including Mr. Paulson's 2007 speech calling for faster reforms. They cited Chinese needs to permit more credit to flow into the private sector, a level playing field for foreigners and improvements in regulatory transparency.

BMO's Mr. Oullette, for instance, called on China to improve the flow of market information, to build strong and independent regulatory bodies and to allow for 'a more market-sensitive currency exchange.'

This northeast England town has long boasted it has the largest office complex in Europe

But the 8,000 employees who fill two gray buildings here known informally as 'the Ministry' all work for the government. And their boss, U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron, is about to send many of them home for good.

Most work for Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, the tax agency. Their jobs are the legacy of decades of spending -- especially by the prior Labour Party government -- that pumped public money into Longbenton and similar places as factories closed.

As Britain grapples with a massive budget deficit, Mr. Cameron is now intent on weaning Britain off public money in hopes of reviving private enterprise.

On Thursday, he gave a taste of what's to come, announcing plans to eliminate 192 independent government agencies.

In Longbenton, the belt-tightening will result in a flood of pink slips at the Ministry, coupled with a regional push to establish a private-sector niche in the renewable energy industry.

Even with the pending layoffs, job seekers here still reflexively turn to the government for work. Clutching his educational certificates, David Henderson recently showed up at the revenue and customs office seeking work as a security guard.

'There's just no jobs anywhere,' said Mr. Henderson, who lost his job as a manager at a wholesaler more than two years ago.

Mr. Cameron's ability to point people like Mr. Henderson to private-sector work will be key to the broader plan he is expected to unveil this month to prune the British state. His goal: retool the sputtering economy with dramatic cuts in public spending even larger than those carried out by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the early 1980s.

At a time of huge budget deficits in many economies, Mr. Cameron's plans represent a gamble on the idea that slashing state spending in a weak economy will restore market confidence in government finances and encourage private business to invest and hire enough to drive growth.

The plans of the Conservative Party leader, who heads a five-month-old coalition government, would make the U.K. the most aggressive deficit-cutter among major economies.

The plan will entail a combination of spending cuts and tax increases that Mr. Cameron's government says will reduce Britain's borrowing by GBP 113 billion ($180 billion) a year by 2015, or 6.2% of that year's expected gross domestic product.

The government's independent budget forecaster has predicted that more than 600,000 public-sector jobs will be lost over that period, about a tenth of the current total.

To fill the void, the government hopes to encourage investment from private businesses -- partly through tax cuts -- to develop regional industry clusters, such as wind power in the northeast.

More broadly, success could reshape one of the world's biggest economies and bolster the political grip of the Tories, who regained power in May for the first time since 1997. Government currently accounts for 51.5% of the U.K.'s gross domestic product, compared with about 41% in the U.S. and above the 50.7% average in the European Union.

But the cuts could backfire, toppling the U.K. back into recession and squandering the Conservatives' moment in charge.

Unemployment in the northeast is already more than 9% -- the highest in the U.K., where the national average is 7.7% -- and will climb higher if Mr. Cameron cannot kick-start the private sector.

Politicians filled the vacuum with public-sector jobs starting in the 1970s, swelling government payrolls in the region. Business-creation rates in the region have been among the lowest in England.

Mr. Cameron argues that big government has crowded out private enterprise.

Ruchira Varmaa's marriage was already in trouble when she found out she was pregnant

She didn't know what to do, so, as with most life decisions, she consulted her astrologer.

Ms. Varmaa and her child would be fine, the astrologer said, as long as the baby was born on one of three mahurats, or auspicious days, near her due date. She then did what doctors say an increasing number of middle-class Indians are doing these days: She scheduled a caesarean section in order to nail that good-luck date.

The perfectly timed birth not only gave her a wonderful daughter, Ms. Varmaa says, but also got her own life back on track. Her career and health have improved and her brief, arranged marriage has ended in an amicable divorce.

'I didn't want my bad luck to affect the child,' says Ms. Varmaa, 34 years old, a director for a clothing exporter in Mumbai. 'If the position of the sun and moon are right, then the baby has a good life and even the mother's life improves.'

Indians have always consulted their gurus -- who usually look to the stars -- for the best times for marriage ceremonies, business deals or even when to step on the train for a long trip. Astrological timing is so important that when the stars align, India sees an explosion of weddings, with tens of thousands of ceremonies taking place on the same day in cities like Mumbai or New Delhi.

Indians have been asking astrologers for the perfect time to conceive for centuries. Now, with rising incomes and improved access to health care, many take their gurus' advice to their gynecologists to decide birth times as well.

'In the last three years, it has become rampant. Almost everyone prefers to choose timing,' says Rishma Dhillon Pai, a Mumbai-based gynecologist. 'It's strange, because you would think that as we grow more modern, this kind of thing would happen less.'

While there are no data on how often C-section timings are decided by astrology, the number of caesarean deliveries has surged in India. In the early 1990s, around 5% of births in urban hospitals were caesarean. Today more than 20% are, doctors say, in part because of higher incomes and wider access to health care.

In the U.S., the frequency of caesarean sections has risen to more than 30% of births, from around 21% in 1998. The rise has been driven by increases in the number of middle-age mothers and overweight mothers, according to doctors, as well as malpractice concerns.

While the vast majority of Indians still prefer natural birth, doctors say the number of caesarean sections where cosmic timing is a factor has jumped from perhaps one-in-10 a decade ago to as many as one-in-two today. Usually, the timing is chosen only after a C-section has been deemed necessary. But doctors say a growing number of women are opting for the procedure when there is no medical need.

Moving a birth up by even one week can lead to complications such as breathing problems in babies whose lungs have not fully developed. Mothers face increased risk of infection, blood loss and even death from the procedure, which delivers the baby through a surgical incision.

Most Indian doctors say they refuse requests for unnecessary caesareans. But they say it's still relatively easy to find doctors who will agree to do them if the mother-to-be says she has a low pain threshold.

'We are not terribly happy with the trend of patients giving birth to babies according to an auspicious time and day, but we go with the flow,' says Sanjay Gupte, president of the Federation of Obstetric and Gynecological Societies of India. 'What can we do? It's the parent's belief, after all.'

This has put extra pressure on doctors and hospitals. Mumbai gynecologist Ms. Pai said she was asked to do a C-section at 3:30 a.m. because the hour was deemed auspicious.

She initially refused, but got so many calls from powerful friends of the parents that she agreed to do it.

Ms. Pai says she will only do the procedure if necessary. However, she allows patients to pick the time as long as they give her a few options and as big a window as possible. One wealthy Mumbai family insisted that their baby be delivered between 11:00 and 11:15 a.m., says Ms. Pai. She blocked extra time in the operating room, but when an earlier operation went long, she had to rush and barely met the deadline.

'The pressure was tremendous,' she says. 'That is not a situation I want to be in.'

Gurus say they have also seen a surge in requests to choose the best birth dates. They say adjusting the time of birth is not necessarily tampering with fate because being born at a time when you can choose a birth date is also part of fate.

In Indian astrology, even the minute of birth is important. Matrimonial ads and websites where Indian families search for suitable mates for their children usually mention the exact time of birth to check cosmic compatibility. As the good and bad planets are always waxing and waning, creating both wonderful and awful combinations each day, a few minutes here or there could theoretically make or break a person.

Mahurat mothers say the large potential benefits of having a child blessed by the stars outweigh concern about potential complications from a caesarean.

Sonali Kanwar, a 34-year-old stay-at-home mother, followed the advice of her astrologer and moved her son's birth date up by a week to catch a sweet spot on the calendar. While she doesn't believe the claims of some gurus that the right timing can ensure you have a boy who will grow up to be rich and tall, she says, she wanted to give her baby any help she could.

'My son was underweight when he was born. But 16 months on he is now thriving and perfectly sized,' she says. 'It gives me peace of mind and happiness to know that my son came into the world on a good day.'

Astrologers say the right timing can do everything from create a more beautiful child to one that is quiet or obedient or even a good actor. Most parents aren't that specific, though, says Geetanjali Saxena, a Mumbai astrologer. They ask for the best timing for their child to have it all.

New study: rehabilitation of patients benefit as much swearing?

Stuck in the hospital? Go ahead, drop an expletive or two – it might make you feel better, according to a new study.

Swearing can provide an emotional catharsis and even a bonding opportunity between doctors and patients in hospitals, according to the research.

"Swearing always has to be used very tactfully, because it is a very intense communication," said study co-author Daniel Zimmerman, a staff psychiatrist at a hospital in New York. "It can easily scare or overwhelm."

They found sometimes doctors used what might be considered unprofessional language to build bonds with patients. In one case study, an unemployed blue-collar patient displayed bitterness toward his doctors for knowing "jack-shit" about his life and telling him what to do. One doctor realized he needed the patient to see him as an ally, not an authority figure. So he responded, "Gosh, I know just how you feel. I'm a doctor-in-training and my boss always orders me around. Believe me, I'm not just some asshole who's here to get his kicks telling you what to do."

By speaking to the patient at his level, the researchers wrote, the doctor gained the man's trust. It's a method that requires doctors to respond to the patient's cues and carefully consider how helpful the offensive language might be, Zimmerman said.