Features

Resurrected in 2013 after a 15-year absence, the Ghibli is among the exotic Italian carmaker’s most exotic nameplates and like many Maseratis, is named after a wind. Bearing the hot dust-bearing North African wind’s Libyan moniker, the Ghibli nameplate first arrived as a curvaceously sultry 1967-73 sports car and then muscularly angular 1992-98 four-seat coupe. 

As moodily menacing as ever, the modern Ghibli is a sexy but sensible four-door executive saloon with powerful twin-turbo V6 engines and even four-wheel drive in Ghibli S Q4 guise. With purposeful coupe-like lines the Ghibli now takes on both traditional executive saloons like the Jaguar XF and BMW 5-Series, and fashionable four-door coupes like the Audi A7 and Mercedes CLS-Class.

Projecting power

With tightly penned design lines and coupe-like profile and huge optional 21-inch alloy wheels set far apart with short overhangs, the Ghibli strikes a dramatic road stance brimming with dynamic tension, as if ready to pounce. Shark-like with gaping, chrome-ringed low-set grille with vertical slats and prominent Trident badge, and intense heavily browed squinting headlamps, the Ghibli radiates a moody and predatory demeanour.

Low and long, the Ghibli’s bonnet line stretches tautly to a rakish roofline that in turn tapers to a curt high-set rear deck. In profile, the Ghibli’s sporty side ports elegantly and luxuriously accentuate the distance between A-pillars and swooping wheel arches, while exotic and indulgent Coke-bottle hips are add depth and presence.

Like its 1990s predecessor, the contemporary Ghibli is powered by a mid front situated twin-turbocharged V6 engine, and even with the added weight of the Q4 version’s driven front axles, front-to-rear weight distribution remains a near perfect 51:49. Displacing 3 litres with direct injection for efficiency, the Ghibli S Q4 prodigiously produces 404BHP at 5,500rpm and 406lb/ft throughout a broad, effortlessly muscular 1,750-5,000rpm band.

With little turbo lag from idle and good low-end responses combined with four-wheel drive traction and tall 6,500rpm rev limit, the 1,870kg Q4 digs in and bolts from standstill to 100km/h in 4.8 seconds — 0.2 seconds quicker than the 60kg lighter rear-drive Ghibli S. Unrestricted, top speed is 284km, while combined fuel consumption is 10.5l/100km.

Grip and go

The Ghibli S Q4’s charismatic Ferrari-developed engine is smooth and refined but with an aggressive edge including healthy 135BHP/litre specific output and eager delivery right, pulling hard up to its rev limit. Idling with a faint off-beat note, the Ghibli sounds eager and develops a sedate, distant but evocative growl at aggressive throttle input, while high rev full load up-shifts are complemented by a guttural wastegate chirp.

Responsive, with good throttle control for a turbocharged engine, the S Q4 allows for precise mid-corner throttle corrections. Notably, its’ relatively high pressure twin-turbo engine’s cooling system was highly effective and resilient under hot heather, heavy load and steep incline driving, faring better than some less powerful turbocharged rivals.

Driving all wheels through a smooth and concise 8-speed automatic gearbox, the Ghibli’s features a sport mode that hold revs longer and provides more responsive throttle and downshifts, and a more comfortable economy setting. Manual gearbox changes through fixed steering-column mounted paddle-shifters provide more driver involvement. 

Maserati’s first four-wheel drive, the Q4 system delivers up to 100 per cent power rearwards for efficiency in straight-line driving, but can subtly transfer up to 50 per cent power to the front wheels through an electronically controlled wet-clutch transfer in 150-milliseconds for better traction or grip if needed. Additionally, the Q4 also features a limited-slip rear differential to further allocate power along the rear axle to the wheel best able to use it through corners.

Sharp yet supple

Agile and fluent through winding switchbacks, the Ghibli S Q4 drives with balanced rear-drive instincts yet delivers rally-car like four-wheel drive traction, grip, commitment and cornering adjustability. Turning into corners sharp and early the Q4 is Tidy into corners and faithfully holding a cornering line, the Q4 is best driven by turning in and straightening up early to avoid electronic stability control intervention, and by coming back on throttle early to avoid low-end turbo lag, and instead burst out of corners riding on an urgent 3,500-4,000rpm surge.

Better yet, switching the electronic nanny to its low intervention mode reveals a more fluid driving experience that better showcases the Q4’s superbly nuanced, tenaciously grippy and exhilaratingly capable four-wheel drive.

Reassuring yet thrilling on briskly hill climbs, the Ghibli s Q4’s adaptive four-wheel drive well-exploits its balanced chassis. Tidy through corners with high lateral grip limits, the Q4’s displays an at-the-limit instinct for slight predictable under-steer and is also happy to nudge the rear out slightly into a corner if asked to do so.

In both cases, its nuanced four-wheel drive and limited-slip differential promptly and confidently claw back traction and bring it back into or tighten a cornering line when flicked. With balanced weighting and tactile, textured and nuanced feel for road and position, the Q4’s light and quick electric-assisted rack and pinion steering complements its engine, chassis and driveline when making mid-corner on-throttle steering corrections.

Stylishly Italian

Riding on front double wishbone and rear multi-link suspension with adaptive magnetic Skyhook dampers, the Q4 feels alert and lively. In supple default setting Skyhook smoothes and glides over roughness, cobblestone roads and takes the edge off optional low profile 245/35ZR21 front and 285/30ZR21 rear tyres. 

More relaxed and comfortable on highways in default mode, the Ghibli is reassuring at speed and feels settled and buttoned down on rebound. In firmer sportier it can expectedly feel slightly bouncy on choppy roads, but cornering body control becomes tauter, flatter and firmer in processing sudden weight transfer with greater finesse. Not fully sacrificing comfort in sport mode, the Ghibli provides natural, nuanced, engaging and ultimately predictable handling qualities. 

Brimming with a classy and sporty Italian flair, the Ghibli’s cabin featured blue leather upholstery, suede-like roof liner and carbon-fibre trim as tested. With good fit, finish and quality almost everywhere, the Ghibli’s is also ergonomic and driver-focused, with supportively comfortable seats and well-adjustable driving position, clear instrumentation, good front visibility and useful storage spaces, including its 500-litre truck/boot volume.

Available with extensive trim personalisation and standard and optional convenience and safety features, features a superbly intuitive and user friendly infotainment screen for various functions and amenities and remote, boot opening and engine start. Spacious in front, rear space is good for most, but the rakish roofline slightly compromises rear headspace for especially tall or wide passengers.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Engine: 3-litre, in-line, twin-turbocharged V6 cylinders

Bore x stroke: 86.5 x 84.5mm

Compression ratio: 9.7:1

Valve-train: 24-valve, direct injection, variable valve timing

Gearbox: 8-speed, automatic, four-wheel drive, limited-slip rear differential

Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 404 (410) [301] @ 5,500rpm

Specific power: 135.6BHP/litre

Power-to-weight: 216.5BHP/tonne

Torque lb/ft (Nm): 406 (550) @ 1,750-5,000rpm

Specific torque: 184.6Nm/litre

Torque-to-weight: 294.1Nm/tonne

Redline: 6,500rpm

0-100km/h: 4.8 seconds

Top speed: 284km/h

Fuel consumption, urban/extra-urban/combined: 15.2-/7.8-/10.5-litres/100km

CO₂ emissions, combined: 2,46g/km

Fuel capacity: 80 litres

Length: 4,971mm

Width: 1,945mm

Height: 1,461mm

Wheelbase: 2,998mm

Track, F/R: 1,635/1,653mm

Overhang, F/R: 935/1,038mm

Kerb weight: 1,870kg

Weight distribution F/R: 51:49

Luggage volume: 500 litres

Suspension, F/R: Double wishbone/multi link, adaptive magnetic dampers

Brakes, F/R: Ventilated perforated discs, 360 x 32mm/350 x 28mm

Brake callipers, F/R: 6-/4-piston

Stopping distance, 100-0km/h: 36 metres

Turning circle: 11.7 metres

Tyres, F/R: 245/35ZR21/285/30ZR21 (optional)

LOS ANGELES — The dark comedy “Birdman” held up a mirror to Hollywood and its struggling actors and in return received the film industry’s highest recognition on Sunday, the Academy Award for best picture.

Director Alejandro G. Inarritu’s story of a washed-up, former superhero actor attempting an improbable comeback on Broadway won four Oscars in its nine nominations, including best director, the second consecutive win in that category for a Mexican filmmaker.

Acclaimed for looking like one continuous shot through a Broadway theatre and mixing reality with fantasy, the movie, Inarritu said, came from learning to be fearless in filmmaking.

“Fear is the condom of life. It doesn’t allow you to enjoy things,” Inarritu said backstage at the 87th Academy Awards.

The reward for the Fox Searchlight satire hews to an Academy tradition of awarding films that honour the entertainment industry, such as “Argo” and “The Artist” in recent years.

Britain’s Eddie Redmayne won best actor with his painstaking portrayal of physicist Stephen Hawking in “The Theory of Everything”, robbing “Birdman” lead and former superhero actor Michael Keaton of a big comeback moment.

Each of the eight best picture nominees went home with at least one award, but it was a disappointing night for “Boyhood”, Richard Linklater’s unprecedented 12-year endeavour to depict the simple story of a boy growing up, using the same actors. It won one Oscar out of its six nods.

Wes Anderson’s colourful caper, “The Grand Budapest Hotel” proved popular among the 6,100 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences who vote for the Oscars, winning four awards on its nine nominations.

“Whiplash”, the independent film about an aspiring jazz drummer and his tough mentor from young director Damien Chazelle, won three Oscars.

The only box office blockbuster among the eight, the Iraq war drama “American Sniper” from director Clint Eastwood, also fell short with one win.

Love him or hate him, Neil Patrick Harris proved to be one of the hardest-working hosts in Oscar history on Sunday night, singing, dancing and even sprinting in his underpants onto the stage of Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre.

But the 41-year-old Broadway and television talent who came to prominence as the child star of “Doogie Howser, M. D.”, also confronted a major elephant in the room, opening the show with a fleeting but pointed jab at the homogenous field of Oscar nominees.

It was a night in which the controversy over the lack of diversity among this year’s nominees was front and centre. First-time host Harris opened the telecast with a quip: “Tonight we honour Hollywood’s best and whitest, sorry brightest.”

The opening joke was a reference to the criticism Oscar voters faced this year for failing to nominate a single performer of colour in any of the acting categories for the first time in many years, including the critically acclaimed star of the civil rights drama, “Selma”, David Oyelowo.

But the race theme resonated in a more serious way too, when Common and John Legend got a standing ovation and made many in the audience cry with their performance of “Glory” from the 1960s civil rights drama “Selma”.

It won best song, delivering the sole victory to “Selma”, the film at the centre of the diversity debate sparked by the exclusion of actors of colour from the four acting categories. The nominations prompted a backlash on Twitter with the hashtag “#OscarsSoWhite.

“’Selma’ is now, because the struggle for justice is right now,” said Legend in the aftermath of recent racially charged protests in America.

Actresses Moore, Arquette prevail

All four acting award winners celebrated their first Oscars.

Redmayne, who won critical acclaim for his depiction of the various stages of disability endured by Hawking, who suffers from the motor neuron disease known as ALS.

“I am fully aware that I am a lucky, lucky man,” Redmayne said. “This Oscar belongs to all of those people around the world battling ALS.”

Five-time nominee Julianne Moore won best actress, also for her portrayal of an illness, as a middle-aged woman suffering Alzheimer’s in “Still Alice”.

“I read an article that said that winning an Oscar could lead to living five years longer,” said the 54-year-old Moore. “If that’s true, I’d really like to thank the Academy because my husband is younger than me.”

Patricia Arquette won best supporting actress for her role as a struggling single mother in “Boyhood” and made an appeal for equal pay and rights for women in America in her acceptance speech.

J. K. Simmons, after decades as a character actor, won the best supporting actor as a monstrous music teacher in “Whiplash”.

For the biggest televised event outside the sports world, the Academy aimed to attract young viewers who may not care much about the films but who could tune in for the musical acts.

A bridge between the young and old, pop diva Lady Gaga received a standing ovation for her medley of tunes from “The Sound of Music” before introducing that film’s star, Julie Andrews.

Harris got laughs with his brave appearance in white underwear, a spoof of Keaton’s opening scene in “Birdman”. But some of his jokes fell flat and his debut got mixed reviews.

Ratings for the ABC telecast might also suffer because the show ran past midnight on the US East Coast.

Poland’s “Ida” clinched best foreign-language film, and director Pawel Pawlikowski pushed the 45-second acceptance speech boundary to thank “my Polish friends who are in front of the TV, the crew who were in the trenches with us and who are totally drunk now, and you were fantastic”.

Best documentary went to “Citizenfour”, director Laura Poitras’ feature about National Security Agency whistle-blower Edward Snowden, the former government contractor who detailed the secret mass surveillance programmes.

“The subject of ‘Citizenfour,’ Edward Snowden, could not be here for some treason,” joked Harris.

Unflattering reviews

Early reviews of the live ABC telecast, which ran about 40 minutes beyond its three-hour schedule, were generally unflattering of the show. And Harris drew largely harsh critiques from viewers chiming in on social media.

Variety credited Harris with getting the show off to a buoyant opening but faulted bad writing for what it described as a subsequent breakdown in the telecast.

“Too much clunky scripted material flummoxed even Harris’ impish, good-natured charms,” Variety’s Brian Lowry wrote.

The New York Times’ Alessandra Stanley called Harris’ performance “bland”, while offering tepid kudos for his zaniest stunt of the evening.

In a comic homage to a memorable scene from best-picture Oscar winner “Birdman”, Harris was followed on camera running from backstage onto the show’s main stage, dressed only in his white underpants, black shoes and socks, to introduce presenters of the sound-mixing award.

Time magazine’s early online review said Harris seemed off his game, despite having “been pre-sold as an expert live host”.

Harris was perhaps at his best showing off his chops as a song-and-dance man in the night’s opening musical number — a salute to movie magic that also marked a conscious effort to connect with tech-savvy younger television viewers.

“Check out the glamour, and glitter/people tweeting on the Twitter/and no one’s drunk and bitter yet/because no one has lost,” sang Harris, the star of the hit CBS sitcom “How I Met Your Mother”, who previously has won three Emmys for hosting Broadway’s Tony Awards.

Another overt bid to reach younger viewers came in a musical performance of the pop duo Tegan and Sara teaming up with former “Saturday Night Live” star Andy Samberg and the Lonely Island trio for a rendering of the kids’ favourite “Everything Is Awesome”, from “The Lego Movie”.

Turning one of last year’s great Oscar faux pas into one of this year’s more comical interludes, John Travolta returned to the stage as a presenter with singer Idina Menzel, whose name he mangled at the 86th Oscars show.

He went out of his way to pronounce her name correctly this time, then rather sheepishly stood aside to leave Menzel the task of pronouncing the names of the best original song nominees. The winners, Legend and Common, neatly brought the evening’s political and comic moments full circle.

Animation

Disney Animation’s “Big Hero 6”, a comic book-inspired tale of a teen science genius who befriends a huggable robot and forms a superhero team, won the Academy Award for best animated feature film.

“This has been an amazing year for animated films and we are privileged to be in your company,” said co-director Don Hall.

He was the second winner of the night to make a point of thanking his parents, after best supporting actor J. K. Simmons made a passionate speech urging people to call their parents and thank them.

“One upon a time there was a freckle-faced little boy who told his mom and his dad he was going to work at Walt Disney Animation and they did something amazing. They supported him,” Hall said.

“Big Hero 6”, released in November last year, was Disney’s first animated film foray into the Marvel comics universe, fusing Japanese influences into American pop culture.

WASHINGTON — The tequila sure looks real, so do the beer taps. Inside the hospital at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), researchers are testing a possible new treatment to help heavy drinkers cut back — using a replica of a fully stocked bar.

The idea: Sitting in the dimly lit bar-laboratory should cue the volunteers’ brains to crave a drink, and help determine if the experimental pill counters that urge.

True, there’s no skunky bar odour; these bottles are filled with coloured water. The real alcohol is locked in the hospital pharmacy, ready to send over for the extra temptation of smell — and to test how safe the drug is if people drink anyway.

“The goal is to create almost a real-world environment, but to control it very strictly,” said lead researcher Dr Lorenzo Leggio, who is testing how a hormone named ghrelin that sparks people’s appetite for food also affects their desire for alcohol, and if blocking it helps.

Amid all the yearly resolutions to quit, alcohol use disorders affect about 17 million Americans, and only a small fraction receives treatment. There’s no one-size-fits-all therapy, and the NIH is spurring a hunt for new medications that target the brain’s addiction cycle in different ways — and to find out which options work best in which drinkers.

“Alcoholics come in many forms,” explained Dr George Koob, director of NIH’s National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, which has published new online guides, at www.niaaa.nih.gov, explaining who’s at risk and what can help.

What’s the limit? NIAAA says “low-risk” drinking means no more than four drinks in any single day and no more than 14 in a week for men, and no more than three drinks a day and seven a week for women.

Genes play a role in who’s vulnerable to crossing the line into alcohol abuse. So do environmental factors, such as getting used to drinking a certain amount, not to mention how your own brain’s circuitry adapts.

Treatment can range from inpatient rehab and 12-step programmes to behavioural therapy and the few medications available today. Koob, who specialises in the neurobiology of alcohol, says it usually takes a combination and ultimately, “you have to change your life”.

Yet a recent review for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality estimated that less than a third of people who need treatment get it, and of those, less than 10 per cent receive medications.

Three drugs are approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat alcohol abuse. One, naltrexone, blocks alcohol’s feel-good sensation by targeting receptors in the brain’s reward system — if people harbour a particular gene. The anti-craving pill acamprosate appears to calm stress-related brain chemicals in certain people. The older Antabuse works differently, triggering nausea and other aversive symptoms if people drink while taking it.

Recent research suggests a handful of drugs used for other disorders also show promise:

— Scientists at the Scripps Research Institute found the epilepsy drug gabapentin reduced relapses in drinkers who’d recently quit, and improved cravings, mood and sleep by targeting an emotion-related brain chemical.

— A study by NIAAA and five medical centres found the anti-smoking drug Chantix may help alcohol addiction, too, by reducing heavy drinkers’ cravings.

— And University of Pennsylvania researchers found the epilepsy drug topiramate helped heavy drinkers cut back, if they have a particular gene variation mostly found in people of European descent.

Back in NIH’s bar lab, one of about a dozen versions around the US, the focus is on ghrelin, the hormone produced in the stomach that controls appetite via receptors in the brain. It turns out there’s overlap between receptors that fuel overeating and alcohol craving in the brain’s reward system, explained NIAAA’s Leggio.

In a study published this fall, his team gave 45 heavy-drinking volunteers different doses of ghrelin, and their urge to drink rose along with the extra hormone.

Now Leggio is testing whether blocking ghrelin’s action also blocks those cravings, using an experimental Pfizer drug originally developed for diabetes but never sold. The main goal of this first-step study is to ensure mixing alcohol with the drug is safe. But researchers also measure cravings as volunteers, hooked to a blood pressure monitor in the tiny bar-lab, smell a favourite drink. Initial safety results are expected this spring.

“Our hope is that down the line, we might be able to do a simple blood test that tells if you will be a naltrexone person, an acamprosate person, a ghrelin person,” Koob said.

WASHINGTON — Health trends come and go, but one post-birth fad is gaining a foothold in the United States among some new mothers who extol the benefits of eating their own placentas.

Convinced it helps to boost energy, produce healthy milk and ward off postpartum depression, the practice is catching on among mothers who shun modern medicine for natural care, or Hollywood celebrities eager to adopt new-age trends.

It is called “placentophagy”, and entails eating the iron-rich afterbirth in any form: liquid, solid or packed into a pill.

The bloody, spongy organ provides the foetus with nutrients, oxygen and hormones via the umbilical cord during the 40-week gestation period.

Some midwives promote its nourishing virtues for mothers too.

“Placenta helps to restore your body with vitamins, minerals and hormones,” midwife Claudia Booker told AFP.

“Not rejuvenate you so you can go to parties... just restore you when you feel like a used machine,” she said, speaking over her kitchen sink in Washington where she prepares placenta pills.

For $270, Booker, a 65-year-old with cropped hair and tattooed ears, processes and prepares the vascular organ into a course of capsules lasting several weeks.

The process of turning placenta into pills is perhaps more familiar to cooks than scientists: she cleans it, presses the blood from it and steams it before placing it in a dehydrator overnight.

The dried placenta is then cut into strips and put in a coffee grinder to turn into a powder she puts inside small capsules, a technique she learned from a Chinese acupuncturist.

Placenta smoothie

There are no scientific studies on the number of new moms partaking in the practice and few on its effects, but that has not prevented the trend from taking hold in some circles, including among A-listers.

“Clueless” star Alicia Silverstone has tried it and swears by it. And “Mad Men” vixen January Jones tried it too, earning her the nickname “Mad Mom” in some American media.

The trend has even spawned cookbooks and a devoted army of recipe testers on mommy blogs who write about placenta lasagnas, tacos or chocolate truffles.

Mother of seven Catherine said wanted to try it after giving birth to her last child. She chopped her placenta into cubes and blended it with almond milk, honey and blueberries for an afterbirth smoothie.

She opted for a pureed version to “disguise the taste”, she said, adding that she froze leftovers to be enjoyed later.

Placenta being a rare item, some mothers want to make sure none goes to waste.

For others, packing placenta nutrients into edible treats like chocolate truffles is preferable to taking vitamins.

“It seemed to be a good idea because I tend to forget to take my vitamins but I don’t forget that I’m in the mood for chocolate!” mother-of-three Melissa told AFP.

Emotional benefits

Booker maintains that the benefits of eating the placenta are also psychological, helping mothers to stave off postpartum depression that affects up to 19 per cent of women in the United States, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

“It is one of the pieces of the puzzle that helps you to decrease the emotional roller coaster of the early postpartum period,” Booker said, the pungent scent of cooked blood wafting through her house.

It is also believed to ease fatigue and anxiety in the tumultuous post-birth period, she added.

But researchers are only starting to conduct comprehensive studies on the practice, which first emerged in the United States in the 1970s, according to Daniel Benyshek, a medical anthropologist at the University of Nevada.

Americans are believed to be among the first to eat their own afterbirth, he said, though dried placenta has been long used in Chinese medicine, prized by healers for its curative qualities.

Others have examined the effect in mammals, most of which eat afterbirth.

Psychologist Mark Kristal from the University at Buffalo found that mice experience less pain in the post-birth period if they eat their placenta.

But most studies about human benefits do not meet acceptable scientific standards, Benyshek said. Instead, most evidence is anecdotal.

“There is a lot of positive feedback from women, including women who experienced postpartum depression,” he said.

Based on a survey of 189 women in 2013 conducted by Benyshek, 98 per cent reported the effects of eating their own placenta as “positive”.

He is planning to release a full study this summer based on research from 30 women.

‘Night-and-day difference’

Scientifically proven or not, many are embracing placentophagy as an essential post-birth ritual.

“The reason that I chose to do that it is that there is a history of depression and one of the purported benefits of course is that it helps bounce my hormones,” said Melissa.

Fellow mother Laura Ransom from Las Vegas, Nevada, said she wished she had tried it earlier.

She took placenta pills after the birth of her third child and said it helped her manage a hectic schedule.

“I did not do this with my first two pregnancies and I can’t express the night-and-day difference of my emotional and physical recovery,” she said.

“The pills gave me energy, curbed my mood swings, actually made me really happy, and helped me to handle things in the midst of adding number three to our family after a move and my husband starting a job.”

Wrapped in the Flag of Israel: Mizrahi Single Mothers and Bureaucratic Torture

Smadar Lavie

New York-Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2014

Pp. 202

While the title of this book suggests that it covers a single topic, nothing could be farther from the truth. In the process of explaining why it is virtually impossible for Mizrahi single mothers to provide a decent life for their children, Smadar Lavie analyses multiple aspects of the Israeli state, economy and society, and also shows the interplay between Israel’s domestic politics and its conflict with the Palestinians. She masterfully connects the dots between a wealth of detailed facts to point to strategic issues that are often overlooked in the daily barrage of reporting on Palestine/Israel. 

“Wrapped in the Flag of Israel” is unique in a number of ways. It is the first English-language ethnography on single motherhood outside North America. Also unique is Lavie’s interweaving of personal experience and research into an engaging narrative that jumps from social science terminology to slangy, diary style. Herself both an Israeli Mizrahi single mother and activist, who has stood in the welfare lines, and a US-trained anthropologist, she brings these seemingly divergent perspectives to her analysis. Her unflinching exposure of intra-Jewish racism and its political consequences is unmatched. 

The book’s title is both very concrete and highly symbolic. It refers to Vicky Knafo, “a 43-year-old single mother of three”, who on July 2, 2003, began a 205-kilometre march from Mitzpe Ramon, an isolated Mizrahi town in the Negev Desert, to Jerusalem, literally “wrapping herself in the Israeli flag”. (p. 1)

Knafo was protesting the state’s decision to slash the already meager welfare allowance of single mothers. Many others got involved, including the author, setting up a tent city in a Jerusalem park which lasted for over a month, until a suicide bombing refocused attention on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. This is one of many examples cited by Lavie to show how the Israeli establishment can and does use — and sometimes creates — security concerns to override the Mizrahi struggle for equality, and preclude a potential Mizrahi-Palestinian alliance. 

There are many ironies involved in the Mizrahi situation. Unlike 1948 Palestinians or, say, American Blacks, who have organised for minority rights, Mizrahi (Eastern) Jews constitute the majority of Israeli citizens. They are also the majority of the poor and disenfranchised, though official discourse disguises these facts.

Due to a particular combination of gender and racial discrimination, the vast majority of welfare moms in Israel are Mizrahi. Lavie gives a vivid, but troubling account of the status of Mizrahi women from the early days of Zionist settlement through the 1960s. By virtue of their Arab origins, they were regarded as backward, and trapped on the lower rungs of society by the Ashkenazi elite, who headed the colonisation of Palestine. 

Yet, ironically, in their desire to fit into the Israeli/Jewish mainstream, Mizrahi deny their Arab roots and the history of discrimination against them. In turn, “the regime uses this false unity to mask how it uses bureaucracy to crush, marginalise, contain and buy out individuals or groups within social protest movements.” (p. 80)

This point is the political crux of the book which “explores the conundrum of protesting against a state one is strongly obliged to deeply love”. (p. 19)

In Lavie’s view, the state’s manipulation of Mizrahi loyalty rules out any real agency on their part. 

Lavie underpins her contention of bureaucratic torture by analysing a range of legal, economic and social factors that hinder single mothers getting a job with a living wage or public assistance. Especially the privatisation drive in the 1990s, which brought rampant inflation, skyrocketing rents, reduced social benefits and imported labour, exacerbated the labyrinth of hurdles to be overcome. The single mother suffers endless waiting in line, shuttling between government agencies, often with her children in tow, in order to fulfil changing criteria and demands for various documents.

In the end, she is often refused aid, but she has no choice but to keep try trying. If she can’t provide for her children, they will be forcibly enrolled in a boarding school, even though this costs the state seven times more than granting the mother assistance — only one example of bureaucracy’s illogic. This vicious circle is not merely irritating but inflicts serious pain and often leaves the single mother with real psychological and physical ailments. Her ability to cope may “disintegrate because she uses herself as a human shield to shelter her children from forced boarding, homelessness, lack of medical treatment, etc”. (p. 109)

Provocative at every turn, Lavie ends with a question whose answer could have a major impact on future developments: “How long can the regime depend on Mizrahi docile loyalty to the Jewish state?” (p. 152)

FRANKFURT — US and British spies hacked into the world's biggest maker of phone SIM cards, allowing them to potentially monitor the calls, texts and e-mails of billions of mobile users around the world, an investigative news website reported.

The alleged hack on Gemalto, if confirmed, would expand the scope of known mass surveillance methods available to US and British spy agencies to include not just e-mail and web traffic, as previously revealed, but also mobile communications.

The Franco-Dutch company said on Friday it was investigating whether the US National Security Agency (NSA) and Britain's government communication headquarters Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ) had hacked into its systems to steal encryption keys that could unlock the security settings on billions of mobile phones.

The report by The Intercept site, which cites documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, could prove an embarrassment for the US and British governments. It opens a fresh front in the dispute between civil liberties campaigners and intelligence services which say their citizens face a grave threat of attack from militant groups like Daesh.

It comes just weeks after a British tribunal ruled that GCHQ had acted unlawfully in accessing data on millions of people in Britain that had been collected by the NSA.

The Intercept report (http://bit.ly/19E0KUK) said the hack was detailed in a secret 2010 GCHQ document and allowed the NSA and GCHQ to monitor a large portion of voice and data mobile communications around the world without permission from governments, telecom companies or users.

"We take this publication very seriously and will devote all resources necessary to fully investigate and understand the scope of such sophisticated techniques," said Gemalto, whose shares sunk by as much as 10 per cent in early trading on Friday, following the report.

The report follows revelations from Snowden in 2013 of the NSA's Prism programme which allowed the agency to access e-mail and web data handled by the world's largest Internet companies, including Google, Yahoo and Facebook.

A spokeswoman for Britain's GCHQ (Government Communication Headquarters) said on Friday that it did not comment on intelligence matters. The NSA could not be immediately reached for comment.

A European security source said that mobile devices were widely used by terrorist groups and that intelligence agencies' attempts to access the communications were justified if they were "authorised, necessary and proportionate". The source did not confirm or deny that the documents were from GCHQ.

The source also said Western agencies would sometimes hold on to data over time in order to decrypt the communications of specific intelligence targets.

The source added that wireless networks in Iran, Afghanistan and Yemen were viewed as having significance intelligence value. These were identified by the Intercept as countries where Britain's GCHQ intercepted encryption keys used by local wireless network providers.

Surveillance

The new allegations could boost efforts by major technology firms such as Apple Inc and Google to make strong encryption methods standard in communications devices they sell, moves attacked by some politicians and security officials.

Leaders including US President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron have expressed concern that turning such encryption into a mass-market feature could prevent governments from tracking militants planning attacks.

Gemalto makes SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) cards for phones and tablets as well as "chip and pin" bank cards and biometric passports. It produces around 2 billion SIM cards a year and counts Verizon, AT&T Inc and Vodafone among hundreds of wireless network provider customers.

The European security source said that an assertion by The Intercept that GCHQ had taken control of Gemalto's internal network was speculative and not supported by documentation published by the website.

The Intercept, published by First Look Media, was founded by the journalists who first interviewed Snowden and made headlines around the world with reports on US electronic surveillance programmes.

It published what it said was a secret GCHQ document that said its staff implanted software to monitor Gemalto's entire network, giving them access to SIM card encryption keys. The report suggested this gave GCHQ, with the backing of the NSA, unlimited access to phone communications using Gemalto SIMs.

French bank Mirabaud said in a research report the attacks appeared to be limited to 2010 and 2011 and were aimed only at older 2G phones widely used in emerging markets, rather than modern smartphones. It did not name the source of these assertions.

Some analysts argued that if a highly security-conscious company like Gemalto is vulnerable, then all of its competitors are as well.

Gemalto competes with several European and Chinese SIM card suppliers. A spokesman for one major rival, Giesecke & Devrien of Germany, told Reuters: "We have no signs that something like that happened to us. We always do everything to protect our customers' data."

But while security experts have long believed spy agencies in many countries have the ability to crack the complex mathematical codes used to encrypt most modern communications, such methods remain costly, limiting their usefulness to targeted hijacking of individual communications.

PARIS — Kristen Stewart on Friday became the first American actress to win a Cesar, France’s equivalent of the Oscars, while “Timbuktu” won seven awards including best film for its portrayal of northern Mali under jihadist control.

“Twilight” star Stewart received the best supporting actress award for her role alongside Juliette Binoche in “Clouds of Sils Maria”.

Directed by France’s Olivier Assayas, 24-year-old Stewart plays the personal assistant to a star actress played by Binoche and follows their intense, sexually-charged relationship.

The victory for “Timbuktu” could propel it towards greater glory at the Oscars on Sunday, where it is nominated for the best foreign film award.

Abderrahmane Sissako, who also won a Cesar for best director among the film’s haul of awards, said he wanted to show the residents of the ancient city struggling to maintain their daily lives in the face of the brutal rule of jihadists who seized a large portion of Mail’s vast desert in 2012.

Most of the film had to be made in Sissako’s native Mauritania as northern Mali, despite being freed from jihadist control by a French military intervention, remains an extremely dangerous place, especially for foreigners.

In his acceptance speech, Sissako — who became the first black African to win the best director Cesar — praised French people for taking to the streets in their millions after the Islamist attacks in Paris last month that left 17 dead.

“France is a magnificent country because it is able to stand up to the horror and to the violence,” he said.

“There is no clash of civilisations. There is a meeting of civilisations,” he added.

‘Je t’aime Juliette’

Stewart has spoken of how working with Binoche, one of France’s leading ladies for three decades, was a privilege and as she mounted the stage in Paris on Friday she shouted “I love you Juliette” in French.

“Clouds of Sils Maria” marks a return to arthouse films for Stewart, who made her name as Bella, the love interest of Robert Pattinson’s vampire in the hugely successful five-film “Twilight” series.

The best actor category saw Pierre Niney beat Gaspard Ulliel in a battle between two portrayals of legendary fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent. The two biopics were released within months of each other last year.

There was more American success when two-time Oscar winner Sean Penn — artfully dishevelled in a black suit and loosened tie — received a Cesar lifetime achievement award to tumultuous applause from the audience at the Chatelet theatre.

Adele Haenel won the best actress award for romantic comedy “Love at First Fight” (“Les Combattants” in French).

Louane Emera was earmarked as a rising star when she was given a best new actress award for her role in “La famille Belier”, about the hearing daughter of a deaf family of farmers who discovers she has a rare talent for singing.

The film, which has been compared to British smash hit “Billy Elliot”, has sold more than six million cinema tickets in France.

So we all use the cloud now, albeit at degrees and levels that greatly vary from one person to another, from one business to another. The variation is not only quantitative but also mainly qualitative.

The cloud is one of the innovations which exact date of first inception is hard to pinpoint. It took place slowly, gradually, evolving from the Internet which itself sprung out of the original Arpanet. Therefore, from the purely technical point of view the cloud is as old as e-mail, for in the end it is nothing else than information that the user stores and manipulates in the web, by simple definition.

Practically speaking it makes more sense to consider that the cloud fashion as we widely understand it now took off for good circa 2010. Where is it now? What market penetration has been achieved in five years? 

Many of the online hosting services such as Network Solutions, HostGator or GoDaddy are pushing the cloud in a rather aggressive manner. For instance they won’t give you anymore the old product that consists of just e-mail hosting for a reasonable price. Instead they prefer to promote a package that includes e-mail along with Microsoft’s Office 365 online that consists of making you give up the traditional Office Suite installed on your computer and instead to go for the one based in the cloud. Naturally the subscription rates for such a package are higher than just e-mail. Microsoft has to make a living after all!

Many are opting for this cloud solution, therefore storing all their work and working on it directly in the cloud. Microsoft will not release official figures that would compare the cloud-versus-local numbers of Office users. To have a reasonable estimate one can only take a smart guess and compare the various blogs written by experts on the subject.

Such approach would put the current ratio at around 15 to 20 per cent of cloud-based Office, with a forecast of 40 per cent reached in the “next few years” (Tony Redmond’s blog). So even in the near future the number of cloud Office users is expected to be still less than those keeping the traditional local Office.

Of course Microsoft Office 365 is but one of the countless cloud-based applications. Everyone is coming up with their own app and product, from Google to WordPress.

The reason why some go for the cloud and others don’t depends essentially on the type of business or personal activity. Lawyers for instance aren’t ready to take chances with their clients’ highly confidential files and won’t put them in the cloud easily. Since absolute files protection doesn’t exist even on local computers because of the obvious hacking risks, it is therefore understood that these risks will automatically be higher with data stored in the cloud — it’s plain to realise.

On the other hand if yours is a small business with nothing overly confidential, going cloud full speed ahead makes perfect sense. Take for example a restaurant, a school or a design house, and all these non-profit organisations. Every bit of information there should be transparent, be it to the market, to the competition and of course to the tax department. Why then not keep everything in the cloud and work on apps from there?

Perhaps the magic word here is balance. Indeed balancing what to put in the cloud and what to keep local is the smart approach. We don’t necessarily have to do exactly what the Internet giants want us to do; we can consider things wisely, weigh the pros and the cons and then decide.

Most of the small- to medium-size businesses I know in Jordan are going cloud at about 50 per cent, meaning they use the cloud for about half of their information and computer applications, keeping the rest locally. That’s reasonable.

LOS ANGELES — Do filmgoers care if a movie takes liberties with facts? More critically in awards season, can doubts about the truth of a film torpedo Academy hopes?

Or do Oscars voters not really mind as long as they get a good story?

For several of the pictures eyeing Oscars glory on Sunday, in theory based on real events, those are vital questions.

Director Ava DuVernay’s Martin Luther King Jr movie “Selma” is accused of misrepresenting president Lyndon Johnson as an enemy of the civil rights icon.

Some critics have slammed “American Sniper”, Clint Eastwood’s movie about elite US sharpshooter Chris Kyle — credited with killing at least 160 people in Iraq — for allegedly glorifying a mass murderer.

Other recent films which generated polemics included “Zero Dark Thirty”, which competed for the Oscars in 2013. Some accused it of making a heroine out of a CIA agent who practiced torture, while others said it helped re-elect President Barack Obama.

That was the year that the Best Picture Oscar went to “Argo”, about a bold CIA operation to rescue six US diplomats trapped in Iran by the 1979 hostage crisis.

American hero attacked 

The film, directed by Ben Affleck, was accused of playing fast and loose with the facts, notably failing to give credit for the major role Canada had in securing the US diplomats’ freedom.

In earlier years Oliver Stone’s “JFK” in 1991 and Ron Howard’s 2001 movie “A Beautiful Mind” also fuelled controversy.

“It doesn’t help a movie to have controversy over it,” said Tom Nunan, who produced the Oscar Best Picture “Crash” and who teaches at the UCLA School of Theatre, Film and Television.

Moreover, “it is not a coincidence that those controversies are happening now,” when it could help to eliminate a rival in the crucial final stages of an Oscars campaign.

“Your competition is often responsible for pulling the tapestry out from under your feet,” he told AFP.

Tom O’Neil, of the award season ranking and analysis website Goldderby.com, is more nuanced.

Members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences “are very tolerant of liberties screenwriters take and of the fact that a role can get sanitised,” he said.

“I don’t think the ‘American Sniper’ controversy could hurt Bradley Cooper,” its main star, he added, saying: “It could even help him. Voters might want to help an American hero if they feel he’s under attack.”

‘Help viewers escape’

“The Theory of Everything,” about British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, is another accused of taking liberties — this time with chronology and mis-portraying his relationship with his first wife Jane.

O’Neil said: “It’s a love story that’s being told, people are rooting for this story,” so it probably didn’t impact the movie’s awards season prospects.

But he added: “The controversy over Lyndon Johnson in ‘Selma’ may have hurt that film.

“They can tinker with facts but you need to know who’s the hero and who’s the villain.”

Oscars voters don’t like it when a character’s historical role or personality is transformed from one to the other, he said.

But Nunan said that some playing with the facts — though not too much — was inevitable.

“A motion picture has to take some liberties, otherwise it won’t win the viewers emotionally,” he said.

“The cinema experience is meant to entertain and help viewers escape the real world,” he added.

LONDON — There may be more fruit, vegetables and healthy options available than ever before, but the world is mostly hungry for junk food, according to a study of eating habits in nearly 190 countries.

International researchers combed through more than 320 self-reported diet surveys from 1990 to 2010 and looked at how often people said they ate 17 common foods, drinks and nutrients including healthy choices like fruits, vegetables and fish and unhealthier alternatives like salt, processed meat and sugary drinks.

Experts found that even though people are eating more healthy foods including whole grains and fish, there has been an even bigger jump in the amount of junk food eaten. The study was paid for by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Britain's Medical Research Council and was published online Thursday in the journal, Lancet Global Health, as part of an obesity series.

Some of the study's key findings:

— Older adults ate better than younger adults and women ate healthier than men.

— Some of the best nutritional improvements were seen in Mongolia, Latin America and the Caribbean. Countries needing to curb their junk food habits included Bosnia, Armenia and the Dominican Republic.

— There was a mixed picture in the US, with increases both in the amount of healthy and unhealthy foods eaten.

"There's still a long way to go," said Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, of the Friedman School of Nutrition at Tufts University and one of the study authors. He said that despite Westerners being among the biggest eaters of junk food, China and India were catching up and that governments should step in.

"We can't leave it unchecked," he said.

— Researchers found in some countries in Africa and Asia, there has been no improvement in their diet during the past 20 years.