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PARIS — Is this the beginning of the end for fur?

With more and more fashion houses going fur-free, San Francisco banning fur sales in the city and British MPs considering outlawing all imports of pelts after Brexit, the signs do not seem good for the industry.

After decades of hard-hitting campaigning against fur, animal rights activists believe they scent victory.

Last week Donna Karan and DKNY became the latest in a flood of luxury brands to say they were planning to go fur free, following similar announcements by Gucci, Versace, Furla, Michael Kors, Armani and Hugo Boss in recent months.

US-based animal rights group PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), which is famous for its spectacular anti-fur protests, declared that “2018 is the year that everyone is saying goodbye to fur”.

“Times are changing and the end of fur farming is within reach!” it told its 687,000 Instagram followers.

The British-based Humane Society International said the tide turned when Gucci declared it was going fur-free in October. Another hammer blow came this month when Donatella Versace said that “I don’t want to kill animals to make fashion. It doesn’t feel right.”

“Such influential brands turning their backs on cruel fur makes the few designers like Fendi and Burberry who are still peddling fur look increasingly out of touch and isolated,” said the society’s President Kitty Block.

Fendi’s Karl Lagerfeld shows little sign of second thoughts, however, and has said he will use real fur as long as “people eat meat and wear leather”.

‘Leather is next’

But PETA, which also campaigns for veganism, has warned the leather industry that is also in its sights, saying “You are next...”

And Professor Nathalie Ruelle, of the French Fashion Institute, told AFP that it was telling that the new fur-free brands “did not say anything about exotic leathers [such as crocodile, lizard and snakeskin]”.

Of the big designers, Stella McCartney, a vegetarian and animal rights activist herself, has pushed the ethical envelope the furthest, refusing to use fur, leather or feathers.

But vegans want to go further still, with a ban on all animal products, which for some also means wool.

But the fur industry is not taking this lying down and has become much more vocal in its bid to counter animal rights groups’ social media campaigns.

The International Fur Federation (IFF) took Gucci to task when it went fur-free, asking if it “really wanted to choke the world with fake plastic fur...”

Philippe Beaulieu, of the French fur federation claimed fur-free was a marketing gimmick “trying to surf on emotion” to please millennials.

Fake fur, he said, was the real danger to the environment. “Brands who stop fur push synthetic fur which comes from plastic, a byproduct of the petrol industry, with all the pollution and harm to the planet that that entails.”

China’s passion for fur

In contrast, fur is natural and more and more durable and traceable, he said.

Arnaud Brunois, of the Faux Fur Institute, which he set up to counter the IFF, disputes this.

He insisted that “from an ecological point of view it was better to use a waste product from oil... than farm 150 million of animals then skin them and finally treat the pelts with chemicals”.

“It is part of the real fur industry’s marketing campaign to denigrate faux fur,” he added.

These days imitation can sometimes pass for the real thing as the British designer Clare Waight Keller proved in her fake fur-heavy Givenchy show at Paris Fashion Week earlier this month.

Luxury brand expert Serge Carreira at Sciences Po university in Paris said “fur was marginal for most of the fashion houses who have stopped using it”.

For instance, it only accounted for 10 million euros ($12.3 million) of Gucci’s 6-billion turnover in 2017, or 0.16 per cent.

While fur coats are now rarer on the streets of cities in the West, coats with fur collars — either fake or real, and sometimes a mixture of both, activists claim — are everywhere.

In China, however, the picture is very different.

Fur sales grew “phenomenally” there over the last decade, said IFF CEO Mark Oaten, and despite levelling off still dwarfs all those elsewhere combined.

The world’s biggest fur consumer is now also far by its it largest producer in a industry worth $30 billion globally in 2017.

Older women who eat more vegetables may be less likely to develop hardening of the arteries, an Australian study suggests. 

Researchers surveyed 954 women aged 70 and older. They also used ultrasound to assess the thickness of the walls of the carotid artery in the neck and the extent of plaque accumulation. Thinner artery walls and less plaque buildup are associated with a lower risk of heart attacks and strokes. 

Compared to women who had less two servings of vegetables a day, women who consumed at least three servings daily had carotid artery walls that were about 0.036 millimeters, or 5 per cent, less thick, researchers found. With three servings of vegetables, maximum artery thickness was 0.047 millimetres lower, they report in the Journal of the American Heart Association. 

In addition, each daily 10-gramme (or about a third of an ounce) increase in consumption of cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, and cabbage was associated with 0.8 per cent lower average artery wall thickness. 

“We were excited to find out that intake of cruciferous vegetables seemed to be the most beneficial,” said lead study author Lauren Blekkenhorst, a nutrition researcher at the University of Western Australia in Crawley. 

“However, this does not discount the importance of other vegetable types, as we know increasing a variety of all vegetables is important to maintain good health,” Blekkenhorst said by e-mail. “Our research suggests that recommendations to include a couple of servings of cruciferous vegetables amongst the recommended amount of vegetables may help to optimise the vascular health benefits.” 

Less than one in ten people consume the minimum recommended five servings of vegetables a day, Blekkenhorst added. The women in the study were no exception. 

Food questionnaires asked women to describe their typical vegetable intake in a range from “never eating vegetables” to consuming them “three or more times a day”. 

Overall, women in the study consumed an average of about 200 grammes a day of vegetables, or about 2.7 servings. 

The study was not a controlled experiment designed to prove whether or how vegetable consumption might directly impact artery health or the risk of cardiovascular disease, heart attacks or stroke. 

It is possible that when people eat more vegetables, they have healthier arteries because veggies are filling and there’s less room in their diet for processed junk food that can damage arteries, Blekkenhorst said. 

Vegetables are also full of vitamins and minerals that have been shown to reduce inflammation and oxidative stress, factors that can contribute to cardiovascular disease, she added. 

Another limitation is that researchers relied on participants to accurately recall and report on how often they ate vegetables and what types they typically consumed, an approach that can be unreliable. 

Even so, many previous studies have linked higher plant-based diets and higher vegetable consumption to a lower risk of developing heart disease or dying from it, said Nour Makarem, a researcher at Columbia University in New York City who was not involved in the study. 

“This study shows that this beneficial effect of vegetables may be due to their influence on the arteries,” Makarem said by email. “In particular, this study shows that higher intakes of vegetables in general and cruciferous vegetables in particular are associated lower risk of thickening and stiffness of the walls of arteries.” 

PARIS, France — Global health leaders declared war on “lifestyle diseases” on Thursday, decrying the impact of tobacco, alcohol and soft drinks on the world's poor, while calling for taxes to curb consumption and finance healthcare.

In half-a-dozen studies in The Lancet, a leading health journal, experts detailed the link between poverty and non-communicable diseases (NDCs) such as stroke and diabetes, and made the case for consumer taxes opposed by industry and many politicians.

NDCs, which also include heart disease and cancer, "are a major cause and consequence of poverty worldwide", said Rachel Nugent, vice-president of RTI International, a non-profit health policy institute in Seattle, and chair of The Lancet Taskforce on NDCs.

Many of the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals, which run to 2030, will remain out of reach unless governments invest in policies that break the chains binding unhealthy habits and so-called "lifestyle" diseases, she said. 

"Every year, almost 100 million people are pushed into extreme poverty because of out-of-pocket health spending," Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the World Health Organisation (WHO), wrote in a comment, also in The Lancet.

"The costs of treating NDCs are a major contributor to this global scandal."

NDCs are responsible for 38 million deaths — nearly half before the age of 70 — each year, a large share of them caused or aggravated by smoking, excessive drinking and/or unhealthy diets, according to the WHO. 

One of the UN's 2030 goals is to reduce deaths from NDCs by a third.

In 2011, world leaders at the UN general assembly pledged to develop national plans for the prevention and control of NDCs, and set targets to benchmark progress. But few have followed through.

"There has been a broad failure globally and in countries to act on the commitments made in the 2011 Political Declaration," Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of The Lancet, and senior editor Jennifer Sargent, wrote in an editorial.

Harm of taxes 'overstated' 

One of the most controversial remedies proposed for getting people to cut back on smoking and the consumption of alcohol or soda pop is point-of-sale taxes.

Opponents argue such levies penalise the poor most of all, and amount to a regressive tariff. 

The new studies show a more nuanced reality.

Research looking at the impact of price hikes in 13 poor, emerging and wealthy countries, for example, found that — for alcohol and sugary snacks — low-income households were more likely than wealthy ones to cut back, leading to incremental health gains.

But even if they pay more as a percentage of their income, families can benefit in other ways, the researchers argued. 

"The extra tax expenditures involved should not deter governments from implementing a policy that may disproportionately benefit the health and welfare of lower-income households," said Franco Sassi, a researcher at Imperial College Business School in London.

Additional tax revenue gained should be set aside for "pro-poor programmes", he added.

For former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has given away more than a billion dollars to curb tobacco use over the last decade, the benefits are obvious.

"Raising taxes on tobacco is the most effective way to drive down smoking rates, particularly among young people," he told AFP. "It is also the least widespread of all the proven tobacco control policies.

"If we can help more governments raise tobacco taxes, we could make a very big difference in smoking rates, and also raise revenue that countries can invest in other vital services," he added.

Tobacco claims nearly seven million lives yearly from cancer and other lung diseases, accounting for about one-in-10 deaths worldwide, and a million in China alone, according to the WHO.

"The evidence suggests that concerns about higher taxes on tobacco, alcohol and soft drinks harming the poor are overstated," said Nugent.

Infants and toddlers in rear-facing car seats are well-protected even in rear-impact collisions, crash test results suggest. 

Doctors have long advised parents to put infants and toddlers in the back seat of vehicles in rear-facing car seats as long as possible, at least until they’re around two years old or too large or heavy to fit in that position. While experts generally agree this is the safest position for these tiny passengers, research to date has focused much more on the effectiveness of rear-facing car seats for head-on or side-impact collisions and offered a less clear picture of how children fare in rear-impact crashes. 

Rear-impact collisions are rare and less deadly to children than other types of crashes, researchers note in SAE International. But one lingering concern about rear-facing car seats in rear-impact collisions is that babies’ heads might smack into the back side of the front seats in the vehicle, causing head or neck injuries. 

For the current study, researchers performed a series of crash tests of rear-impact collisions in a lab using four car seats commonly used in the US — the Evenflo Embrace and the Maxi Cosi Mico AP/Mico Max 30, infant seats used only in the rear-facing position, and the Diono Radian and Safety 1st convertible car seats. 

“We found that the rear-facing car seats protected the crash test dummy well when exposed to a typical rear impact,” said lead study author Julie Mansfield, an engineer at the Injury Biomechanics Research Centre affiliated with Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Centre in Columbus. 

The car seats supported the child-size dummy throughout the crash and did their job to keep the head, neck, and spine aligned, Mansfield said by e-mail. And, a lot of the crash energy was absorbed through the car seat interacting with the vehicle seat, so that reduced the amount of energy transferred into the occupant, which is important for preventing injuries. 

“We already know that rear-facing car seats have very low injury rates when we look at real cases in crash databases,” Mansfield added. “This study just helped us understand exactly how they are working in a rear-impact crash.” 

In a frontal crash, occupants are pulled toward the front of the vehicle. For a rear-facing child in this scenario, a child is cradled into car seat and the forces are distributed evenly throughout the child’s back. 

“With a rear impact, we would expect occupants to be ‘pulled’ toward the rear of the vehicle according to basic physics,” Mansfield said. “When a child is in a rear-facing carseat in this scenario, the car seat actually stays with the child and continues to support the head and spine.” 

Sometimes the car seat rotates upward, but still keeps the child safely inside the shell, Mansfield added. The bottom portion of the car seat also interacts with the vehicle seat in which it is installed, and a lot of the crash forces are absorbed through this interaction with the soft vehicle seat. 

“That means less crash forces are transferred to the occupant, which is critical for reducing the risk of injury,” Mansfield said. 

One limitation of the study is that researchers also only tested crash scenarios with one type of vehicle, and results might be different with other types of cars or with different car seats than the ones used in the crash tests. 

Still, the results should reassure parents that rear-facing car seats can protect kids even in rear-impact collisions, said Kristy Arbogast, co-scientific director of the Centre for Injury Research and Prevention at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. 

“These results provide confirmation that even in rear impact crashes, rear facing child restraints provide excellent protection,” Abrogast, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by e-mail. 

“Current recommendations are that children should remain rear facing until two years of age or the maximum height or weight specified by the child restraint manufacturer,” Abrogast added. “These data do not provide any reason to change that recommendation.”

Technological inventions have brought us all closer — this is an undisputed fact. With the advent of social media, long lost friends and acquaintances are able to get in touch at a moment’s notice, including the ones you have been trying to avoid. Moreover, with the click of a button, you can find yourself included in a family WhatsApp group that you had no intentions of joining. Ever! 

All of us are saddled with certain relatives, connected to us by birth or by marriage that are simply insufferable. Ten minutes in their company, where they praise themselves, their older child, themselves, their younger child, themselves, their spouse, themselves, the older child once again, and so on, has one climbing the walls! 

In the earlier days, after such an encounter, one could evade them successfully for the next several lifetimes but now; it is almost impossible to do so because of the long reach of our smartphones. They work everywhere on the planet, therefore, you can run but you can never hide. 

A few years ago, my husband and I discovered that we were added to a private messaging group that consisted of our cousins. Both of us did not recognise any of the people in the unit, because the names we called them by, and the ones registered against their profiles, did not match. I thought they must be my husband’s relatives and he thought they were mine and so, in mutual confusion, we accepted the request. 

Soon, the notifications started flying, fast and furious, which we automatically ignored. But one evening, out of sheer curiosity, I followed a conversation and found to my horror, that the person who was pontificating nonstop, was none other than the one I had been dodging for over a decade. 

He was older and balder but his monologues still spilled forth forcefully, especially after the copious amounts of alcohol that he regularly consumed. Not having made much of his life, he was now living vicariously through his children and everything that they did, was shared with the rest of us, in a detailed manner. Shaky videos, blurred photographs and out of focus pictures were posted repeatedly, for the benefit of anyone who was interested in viewing them. Also, at the drop of a hat, he was ready to pick up a fight. 

Going through the messages, I learned that he intensely disliked the short nickname given to him by his parents and answered only to his full and formal title. It was only after I read this that I put two and two together to figure out his real identity. The intervening years, since I had last suffered his company, had not been kind to him, and the smoking and drinking had taken a toll on his appearance. 

When I explained this to my spouse, he did not believe me and thought that I was making it up. So the next time the cousinly group notified me, I called him around to observe carefully, as I participated in the chat. 

“Hello Kullu”, I typed, interrupting Kullu’s steady soliloquy. 

There was a moment’s pause. 

“This is Kuleshwar Nakuleshwar,” Kullu replied. 

“My son got first division in his tenth grade,” he boasted. 

“Congratulations Kullu,” I wrote. 

“Don’t call me that,” he snapped. 

“I will block you,” Kullu warned. 

“Hi Kullu,” my husband typed, in deliberate uppercase. 

The chat window took five full seconds to disappear. 

“Problem solved,” he concluded, handing me the phone.

CAIRO, Egypt — Influential Egyptian novelist Ahmed Khaled Tawfik, widely considered the first contemporary Arab writer of horror and science fiction, has died at the age of 55.

Since his death on Monday, condolences have poured in from fellow authors and fans, many of whom said his thrillers filled a gap in Egyptian literature during their adolescence.

“Egyptian and Arab culture has lost a great novelist who enriched culture in Egypt and the Arab world,” Egyptian Culture Minister Inas Abdel-Dayem said.

“He was one of the most prominent writers of thrillers and youth stories... [and] was renowned for his enjoyable and captivating style.”

Among his most well-known works are “Utopia”, “Fantasia”, and “The Supernatural” series, whose main character Refaat Ismael is a medical doctor like Tawfik.

“He helped shape my personality,” said 31-year-old Sameh Afifi, who read Tawfik’s work when he was a teenager.

For him, Refaat Ismael, an otherwise ordinary man who lives a life full of paranormal experiences, “was the first character to personify logic... a scientist who is old, weak and ugly, and has severe anxiety. He was very real”.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, the US embassy in Egypt extended condolences to “the family and friends of one of Egypt’s most well-known and influential writers”. 

Tawfik was born in the Nile Delta city of Tanta on June 10, 1962. He graduated from medical school in 1985 and received his PhD in 1997.

PARIS, France — When it comes to its handling of the scandal over how its users' data was harvested to help elect US President Donald Trump, Facebook gets an almighty thumbs down from crisis management experts.

Public relations specialists questioned by AFP were damning in their verdict of how the world's biggest social network has dealt with the fall-out of the revelations that Cambridge Analytica obtained users' personal information to try to manipulate US voters.

Slow and unconvincing explanations they say have left Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg dangerously exposed.

While the news that the data of 50 million users had been hijacked broke in the The Observer newspaper on March 17, it took Zuckerberg five days to publicly address the firestorm by apologising first on Facebook and then CNN.

That is an eternity in the digital age, said Marie Muzard, head of the MMC communications agency.

"The most basic of basics in crisis management is that every hour that passes without reacting allows a little more sound and fury to gather," she said.

What makes that all the more ironic was that much of that fury was gathering on Facebook itself.

"Because Facebook is a communications platform it has especially a responsibility to be timely and proactive in its response," said Seth Linden, president of New York-based Dukas Linden Public Relations.

"It's one of the most influential brands in the world, which made the lack of a timely response even more negatively impactful."

'Not convincing' 

The manner of Zuckerberg's mea culpa and his attempts to explain the breach have been far from convincing, according to Laure Boulay of the Paris-based L'Atelier de l'Opinion (Opinion Workshop).

Instead the crisis has "highlighted the kind of smokescreen" behind which Facebook has worked, she said.

"You can see they need to restore confidence, but Facebook is in a very weak position because it was not transparent enough before all this happened about how it worked and what its teams were doing," she added.

Muzard was even more damning.

"Zuckerberg was smart enough to hold up his hands up and try to offload some of the responsibility onto the researcher Aleksandr Kogan and Cambridge Analytica. Yet, pleading naivety and saying that they never thought the data would be used to swing elections is very problematic.

"It is just not credible for a company as smart as Facebook to say that," she said.

"If we are to believe that it means that Zuckerberg has created a monster that he cannot control, like Frankenstein. And if we don't swallow that, it implies is that he may be lying," she added.

With the face of the social network having to face the music alone up until now, Zuckerberg risks being burned, experts warned.

His problems grew further on Friday after the leak of a memo from a high-ranking executive hinting that Facebook was determined to grow despite risks to users.

Many commentators have noted the conspicuous absence of Zuckerberg's right-hand woman, Sheryl Sandberg, as the crisis has deepened. She is the architect of the internet giant's hugely profitable advertising business based on exploiting its users' data.

The bestselling self-help author had been regarded as the savvy, emotionally intelligent "adult" of the company in contrast to the youthful geeky Zuckerberg.

Zuckerberg vulnerable 

"The crux of the crisis is the almost hero status of Zuckerberg and Sandberg," Boulay insisted.

"They have been weakened and we are now practically in the narrative of the fallen idol. The way the company is totally identified with its founder rather than those who actually run the company has left it fragile in the face of the crisis," she added.

Muzard warned that Zuckerberg is personally vulnerable if the "crisis of confidence lingers on. He might find it hard to hold on if shareholders start getting out. Things can happen very quickly. His equivalent at Uber did not survive a series of crises, and because Zuckerberg personifies Facebook there is no real fall guy to take the bullet for him".

He is therefore taking a big gamble by agreeing to testify before the US Congress, even if Facebook has also ramped up its lobbying of politicians.

"There is tremendous pressure on him," said Linden, who has prepared other company bosses to face grillings by lawmakers.

Ideally, he said Zuckerberg would need a month of coaching.

"He must have the patience, knowledge and delivery needed to get through this experience. He must understand the nuances of key congressional committee members' style and their state's needs, and he must be informative without being unintentionally condescending or unclear in his message," Linden said.

"He must also have the right physical posture and tone of voice. Even with the best preparation, it will be a physically and emotionally exhausting," he predicted.

Women with slightly elevated blood pressure before they get pregnant may have an increased risk of miscarriage even when they are not diagnosed with hypertension, a US study suggests. 

Researchers examined data on 1,228 women with at least one previous pregnancy loss who were trying to conceive. Out of the 797 participants who became pregnant during the study, 188, or about 24 per cent, had a miscarriage. 

Even when their blood pressure was in a healthy range before pregnancy, each 10mmHg (millimeters of mercury) increase in systolic blood pressure — the “top” number — was associated with an 8 per cent higher risk of miscarriage, the study found. 

Each 10mmHg increase in diastolic blood pressure — the “bottom” number — was associated with an 18 per cent greater chance of miscarriage even when women didn’t have hypertension before conception. 

“Our study adds to evidence suggesting the importance of addressing high blood pressure among young women, both for their future cardiovascular health and potentially for their reproductive health as well,” lead study author Carrie Nobles of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in Bethesda, Maryland, said by e-mail. 

The American Heart Association defines hypertension, or high blood pressure, as a systolic reading of 130mmHg or higher and diastolic readings of 80mmHg or higher. Systolic pressure reflects the pressure blood exerts against artery walls when the heart beats. Diastolic pressure indicates the pressure when the heart rests between beats. 

At the start of the study, the average systolic blood pressure was 112mmHg and the average diastolic pressure was 73mmHg. 

Most participants were white and overweight or obese, and they were 29 years old on average. 

Roughly two-thirds had experienced one pregnancy loss, and the rest had gone through two miscarriages before joining the study. 

Among the women who did conceive during the study, those who again had a miscarriage had slightly higher blood pressure than women who had a live birth, researchers report in Hypertension. 

The study was not a controlled experiment designed to prove whether or how slight elevations in blood pressure might contribute to miscarriages. Researchers lacked data to examine the connection between blood pressure and different types of pregnancy loss. 

Because all of the women had at least one previous miscarriage, it’s also possible that the results might not apply to women without a history of pregnancy loss, Simon Timpka, a researcher at Lund University Diabetes Centre and Skane University Hospital in Malmo, Sweden, said by e-mail. Timpka wasn’t involved in the study. 

Even so, the results underscore that a healthy lifestyle is essential for women who are trying to conceive, said Dr Suzanne Steinbaum, a spokesperson for the American Heart Association’s Go Red for Women campaign. 

Women should exercise regularly and follow the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension diet or a Mediterranean-style diet to help maintain a healthy weight and keep blood pressure and cholesterol at healthy levels, Steinbaum, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by email. Both diets emphasise cooking with vegetable oils with unsaturated fats, eating nuts, fruits, vegetables, low-fat dairy products, whole grains, fish and poultry, and limiting red meat and added sugars and salt. 

All women of reproductive age should take steps to keep their blood pressure at a healthy level, even if they are not trying to conceive and don’t have a history of miscarriage, said Dr Laura Benschop, a researcher at Erasmus Medical Centre, Rotterdam, in the Netherlands who was not involved in the study. 

“Previous studies [in women with hypertension] showed that a high blood pressure increases the risk for miscarriage,” Benschop said by e-mail. “The current study examined women with normal blood pressure, and results show that women with a higher preconception or early pregnancy blood pressure, though within the normal range, are more at risk for a miscarriage.” 

Giving way to hot hatchbacks, larger premium super saloons and estates, and performance SUVs and crossovers, the small fast saloon was formerly a relatively common feature of many a car company’s line-up, and an attainable entry into practical high performance motoring. Of the scant few carmakers catering to this segment, both Audi and Subaru have built their reputations on turbo charged four-wheel-drive rally success. But whereas the Japanese maker’s WRX STI is a cult favourite catering to a particular market for mid-range performance cars, the Audi RS3 Sedan however takes a more premium approach.

Sculpted style

More powerful than the Subaru WRX STI, the Audi RS3 is at the same time both more powerful and more committed to the saloon body style than its German Mercedes-AMG CLA45 rival. Similarly based on a front-drive derived platform borrowed and modified from hatchback service, the both the RS3 and CLA45 employ four-wheel-drive to better channel prodigious power. However, and with without the CLA45’s pretensions to being a four-door coupe, the RS3 Sedan strike a more discernible character and offers more practicality and passenger space, and better driving visibility for parking and maneuvering.

A somewhat reserved design with a palpable sense of the dramatic, the RS3 Sedan’s bodywork is sculpted and chiselled, with defined ridges and character lines along the bonnet, waistline and sills. Upright but with an arcing roofline that descend to a stubby rear deck and bootlid spoiler, the RS3’s jutting rear bumper and fascia feature slim lights, dual oval big bore tailpipes and rear air splitter. From front, its’ corporate Audi face features a broad and tall hexagonal honeycomb single-frame grille flanked by big air intakes and slim moody LED headlights.

Prodigious and charismatic

Powered by an enhanced iteration of Audi’s familiar and now mightier than ever turbocharged direct injection 2.5-litre 5-cylinder, the RS3 Sedan’s engine is mounted transversely and drives all four wheels to develop enormous traction when launching from standstill. Boosted to 2.35-bar pressure and with quick-spooling turbo allowing for almost lag-free responsiveness from idling engine speed, the RS3’s fire-breathing five-pots develop a brutal 394BHP at 5850-7000rpm and 354lb/ft torque at 1700-5850rpm through a swift and slick shifting 7-speed automated dual clutch gearbox, with escalating and sportier response shift response and paddle-shift manual mode settings.

Rocketing of the line with beguiling briskness, the RS3 Sedan shatters the 0-100km/h acceleration benchmark in just 4.1-seconds and with optional speed de-restriction, can attain 280km/h, but when driven in moderation, is able to return comparatively modest 8.3/l/100km combined cycle fuel efficiency. Rasping and growing with a distinct 5-cylinder signature burble, the RS3 pulls meaningfully and cleanly from low-end cruising to its high rev limit. Meanwhile in mid-range it is abundantly muscular and capable of overtaking with effortless disdain and a torrent of torque, as it builds power with explosive urge at it top-end plateau.

Rapid and committed

Built on Audi’s and Volkswagen’s lightened modular MQB platform incorporating more aluminium construction and front MacPherson and rear multi-link suspension, the RS3 additionally features adaptive dampers, which along with other steering, gearbox and engine, can be set to various modes of sportiness and response. Brutally quick and reassuringly sure-footed, the RS3’s Quattro four-wheel-drive drives with a slight rear bias in normal conditions for added agility through corners. However, it is also able to distribute power between front and rear for both nimble handling and tenacious road-holding through corners and in adverse weather conditions. 

Capable of covering ground at a very rapid pace, the RS3 Sedan is agile and tidy into corners, where front tyres grip hard and body lean is well-controlled and poised throughout. Distributing power as and where necessary, it remains confident and committed through corners, before blasting off into the straight. Taking well to an aggressive driving style, one can turn tight and early into a corner to point the RS3 in the right direction and to pivot its weight, while its four-wheel-drive finds finds plenty of traction to effectively put power down to tarmac.

Reassuring and settled

Reassuringly stable at speed and when cruising, the RS3’s steering is meaty and precise and brakes very effective and resistant to fade. Riding on the firm side, the RS3 is however more forgiving and compliant than its smaller, sportier and tauter TT RS Audi stablemate. Smooth and comfortable over minor road imperfections, the RS3 also remains settled and buttoned down on vertical rebound, while more jagged speed bumps are acceptably well absorbed for such a high performance car. Refined and quiet inside bar the evocative burbles and exhaust soundtrack, the RS3 is well insulated from noise and vibrations.

Tastefully sporty inside and out and with its saloon body style more likely to appeal to Jordanian and Middle East drivers than a hatchback design, the RS3 Sedan is uncluttered inside. Wirth clear instrumentation, one can access most controls and driving modes through the RS3’s intuitive and well-equipped infotainment system. Using quality materials and finish, the RS3’s has a distinctly sporty ambiance, including chunky flat-bottom steering wheel, prominent use of metal trim and comfortably supportive and body hugging sports seats. Space is good in front and rear for this compact segment, while safety and assistance feature standard and optional advanced systems.

Specifications

Engine: 2.5-litre, transverse, turbocharged 5-cylinders

Bore x stroke: 82.5 x 92.8mm

Compression ratio: 10:1

Valve-train: 20-valve, DOHC, direct injection, continuously variable valve timing

Gearbox: 7-speed automated dual clutch, four-wheel-drive, electronic multi-plate clutch and differential lock

Ratios: 1st 3.563; 2nd 2.526; 3rd 1.679; 4th 1.022; 5th 0.788; 6th 0.761; 7th 0.635; R 2.789

Final drive, 1st, 4th, 5th, R / 2nd, 3rd, 6th, 7th: 4.059:1 / 3.450:1

Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 394.5 (400) [294] @5850-7000rpm

Specific power: 159BHP/litre

Power-to-weight: 260.4BHP/ton (unladen)

Torque, lb/ft (Nm): 354 (480) @1700-5850rpm

Specific torque: 193.5Nm/litre

Torque-to-weight: 316.8Nm/ton (unladen)

0-100km/h: 4.1-seconds

Top speed: 280km/h

Fuel consumption, urban / extra-urban / combined: 11.3 / 6.5 / 8.3-litres/100km 

CO2 emissions, combined: 188g/km

Fuel capacity: 55-litres

Length: 4479mm

Width: 1802mm

Height: 1397mm

Wheelbase: 2631mm

Track, F/R: 1559/1528mm

Headroom, F/R: 993/858mm

Loading height: 672mm

Aerodynamic drag co-efficient: 0.33

Luggage volume, min/max: 315/770-litres

Unladen / kerb weight: 1515/1590kg

Steering: Electromechanical variable assistance rack & pinion

Turning Circle: 11-meters

Suspension, F/R: MacPherson struts / multi-link, anti-roll bars

Brakes, F/R: Perforated, ventilated discs, 370 x 34mm / 310 x 22mm

Brake calipers, F/R: 8-/1-piston

Tires: 235/35ZR19