Home-grown belly dancers take to the stage in Europe
The News Review:
- Home-grown belly dancers take to the stage in Europe
- Excitement mounts worldwide for last instalment in Star Wars series
- Macquarie Bank’s million-dollar pay hikes
Home-grown belly dancers take to the stage in Europe
Cape Times – Cape Times (subscription) – May 18, 2005
The dancing costumes were mostly imported from the Middle East. But at this London belly dancing lesson the instructor was from the US and her group of students mostly Europeans. “Today we are going to learn the Egyptian style of belly dancing,” Sharie Marie, better known as Asmahan in the Middle East’s five-star hotels, told her students. “It is the queen of belly dancing schools, involving a much more elevated understanding of music and is based on a ballet style,” she said…
“Immigrants from Algeria, Morocco and Turkey are credited for bringing belly dancing to countries such as France and Germany. In London, it flourished courtesy of Lebanese artists who fled their country after the eruption of the 1975-1990 civil war. Nowadays, however, home-grown talents are setting the tone. One of these is Layla, a French-Russian student of Asmahan who performs at a handful of London’s Egyptian, Moroccan and Iranian restaurants, where she usually competes with Russian and Brazilian dancers. A 22-year-old Sorbonne graduate, Layla can earn up to 250 a night, dwarfing what she makes from her daytime job as a bank clerk and a French language teacher.
Excitement mounts worldwide for last instalment in Star Wars series
Jamaica Observer – May 18, 2005
For example, ticket sales have been only average in the Czech Republic – beyond Hollywood’s orbit while a former Soviet bloc state. The movies were shown there only after the 1989 Velvet Revolution. In authoritarian China, which has a policy of promoting home-grown films, few newspapers have talked about the upcoming release. The official Xinhua news agency’s Internet site, picking up a Chinese newspaper report, said last month that 300 copies were going to China – 200 of them in English. The report said it was the first time that the number of Chinese copies had been eclipsed by English ones. Even France – which has resisted the invasion of English terms and Hollywood’s expanding influence – has fallen under the spell. All three major dailies featured front-page photos of Star Wars characters Monday.
Macquarie Bank’s million-dollar pay hikes
NEWS.com.au – May 18, 2005
News Corporation executive chairman Rupert Murdoch earned $US20. 6million in 2004 but he and the company are now firmly ensconsed in the US. Australia’s biggest home-grown investment bank, Macquarie has pioneered an aggressive style of financing that allows it to collect fees at every stage of large, complex deals. On Monday, it collected $50million in fees for advice on the $3. 1billion purchase of the European directories business, Yello Brick Road, by a consortium of investors led by its own Macquarie Capital Alliance fund. Macquarie is valued by the sharemarket at $11billion, but claims that if its “family” of specialist funds is included, its market value climbs to $42billion, placing it among the five biggest companies in Australia. But it is facing increasing competition for talent, with investment bank Babcock & Brown listing on the sharemarket and aiming to emulate the Macquarie model.