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NEW YORK – People who eat a vegetarian diet tend to have lower blood pressure than non-vegetarians, according to a new review of past studies.

Researchers said for some people, eating a vegetarian diet could be a good way to treat high blood pressure without medication.

Vegetarian diets exclude meat, but may include dairy products, eggs and fish in some cases. They emphasise foods of plant origin, particularly vegetables, grains, legumes and fruits.

High blood pressure contributes to a person's risk of heart disease, stroke, kidney disorders and other health problems. For many people, the only treatment has been medication, but that means costs and possible side effects, lead author Yoko Yokoyama told Reuters Health in an e-mail.

"If a diet change can prevent blood pressure problems or can reduce blood pressure, it would give hope to many people," Yokoyama said. She is a researcher at the National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Centre in Osaka, Japan.

"However, in order to make healthful food choices, people need guidance from scientific studies," she said. "Our analysis found that vegetarian diets lower blood pressure very effectively, and the evidence for this is now quite conclusive."

According to the American Heart Association, blood pressure readings under 120mm Hg systolic and 80mm Hg diastolic (120/80) are considered normal. High blood pressure starts at 140/90.

The new review, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, combined results from 39 previous studies, including 32 observational studies and seven controlled trials.

"Observational studies show what happens when people have chosen their own diets and stuck with them, often for years," Yokoyama said. "Controlled trials are different — a diet is given to people who had not tried it before, and that will show the effect of beginning a new way of eating."

Together the studies included close to 22,000 people.

The researchers found that in the observational studies, people who had been eating a vegetarian diet had an average systolic blood pressure that was about 7mm Hg lower than among meat-eaters and a diastolic blood pressure that was 5mm Hg lower.

Participants in the clinical trials who were given vegetarian diets to follow had, on average, a systolic blood pressure that was 5mm Hg lower and a diastolic blood pressure that was 2mm Hg lower than participants in control groups who were not on vegetarian diets.

"Unlike drugs, there is no cost to a diet adjustment of this type, and all the ‘side effects' of a plant-based diet are desirable: weight loss, lower cholesterol, and better blood sugar control, among others," Yokoyama said.

She said a plant-based diet is typically low in fat and high in fibre, so it helps people lose weight, which, in turn, causes a healthy drop in blood pressure.

"But there is more," Yokoyama said. "Plant-based foods are often low in sodium and are rich in potassium, and potassium lowers blood pressure."

The same foods are also very low in saturated fat — the type of fat in meat and cheese — and eating less saturated fat means blood can circulate more easily, she explained.

"I would encourage physicians to prescribe plant-based diets as a matter of routine, and to rely on medications only when diet changes do not do the job," Yokoyama said. "And I would encourage everyone to try a plant-based diet, and especially to introduce plant-based diets to their children — they could prevent many health problems."

Alice Lichtenstein, director of the Cardiovascular Nutrition Laboratory at Tufts University in Boston, said the results of the review are encouraging, but added that it didn't take sodium in the diet and lifestyle factors into account.

"Individuals who adhere to vegetarian diets are likely to use fewer processed foods, the major source of dietary sodium, and adhere to healthy lifestyles behaviours such as maintaining a body weight in the optimal range and engaging in regular physical activity," Lichtenstein told Reuters Health in an e-mail. She was not involved in the new research.

"Until we understand the contribution of these factors we can't attribute the effect observed solely to adhering to a vegetarian diet," Lichtenstein explained.

"We certainly would not encourage substituting a slice of quiche for a grilled chicken breast for dinner, due to the sodium, calories and saturated fat," she said.

What's more, the findings do not mean that people taking blood pressure medication should go off their drugs in favour of diet changes without talking to a doctor.

Yokoyama said doctors who would like to prescribe diet changes need tools.

NEW YORK — Samsung is banking on people shaping up this spring.

The company on Monday unveiled its new Galaxy S5 smartphone, which is set to go on sale in April, along with a pair of fitness-themed watches. And many of the features included on the devices focus on fitness.

Considering America’s continued fascination with fitness and fitness products, this is probably a good idea. What Samsung has attempted to do is combine the best attributes of the top-of-the-line fitness trackers currently on the market with those of its own phones and smartwatches.

The S5 and the watches were unveiled at an event at the Mobile World Congress wireless show in Barcelona, Spain. I had a chance to briefly test out all three products in New York on Monday.

The S5 includes a built-in heart rate monitor, pedometer and fitness tracker, though I’m not sure how useful they actually are. For instance, to check your heart rate, you hold your finger over a sensor on the back of the phone — something I can’t imagine doing in the middle of a jog.

True fitness buffs will probably head straight for Samsung’s Gear Fit smartwatch, which also does all of those things, but in a much more user-friendly way. Want to check your heart rate? Just open up the app for that and it gives you a reading within seconds.

While many people have become accustomed to wearing fitness bands either constantly or for their workouts, I think a lot of them would balk at going running with, or perpetually being tethered to, a phone as big as the S5.

It’s worth mentioning too that the Fit Gear is very nicely styled. I have to admit, I wasn’t a fan of Samsung’s first Galaxy Gear smartwatch, because it felt heavy and clunky and was just too big for a normal-sized woman’s wrist. But the Fit solves that problem. It’s thin, light and features a curved color screen. If you don’t mind wearing something like a Fitbit Force or a Nike FuelBand, you won’t mind this product either.

The trade-off is you can’t place or answer a call from the Fit, but it will notify you of things like calls, e-mails and text messages. There’s also no camera.

Samsung’s new Gear 2 watch also comes with basic fitness features including the heart rate monitor and pedometer. While it’s still too chunky for me, it is significantly lighter and thinner than the original version. Unlike the Fit, you can still place calls from it and shoot pictures and video from its camera.

And unlike Samsung’s first smartwatch, the new ones pair with a host of Samsung phones, giving consumers more options for their primary device.

Samsung also plans to introduce a slightly cheaper version called the Gear 2 Neo, which won’t have a camera or come in as many colours. The company has yet to announce pricing for any of the new products.

Fitness aside, the S5 phone includes some other significant upgrades from its predecessor. Some of the biggest changes are in its camera. Its 16 megapixels make it sharper than the S4, which had just 13. It’s also designed to focus faster and lets you blur the foreground or background of an image to emphasise a subject.

The phone also has a fingerprint sensor to use in place of a pass code to unlock the phone or make mobile payments. And it is splash and dust resistant, which is bound to prolong the phone’s life for many people.

An added incentive for parents is the phone’s “Kids Mode”, which lets you hand your phone off to your child without fear that they’ll stream something inappropriate from your Netflix cue or access your e-mail.

In short, the S5’s improvements might be enough to entice current Samsung fans to upgrade their devices, while its fitness features could draw some converts as well, especially those interested in purchasing a smartwatch to go along with it.

BARCELONA, Spain — BlackBerry will release a low-cost phone in Indonesia in April and plans a broader release of a phone that restores a beloved row of control keys with a track pad.

The Indonesia phone, the Z3, will sell for less than $200 without subsidies, the company said Tuesday. It will later expand to other markets in southeast Asia. BlackBerry Ltd. CEO John Chen said a version with faster, 4G connectivity is planned for the rest of the world “sometime in the future before I die”.

It’s the first phone made under a new five-year partnership with Foxconn, the Taiwanese company that assembles products in vast factories in China.

Meanwhile, Chen said it will restore the keys in a new phone he termed “Classic”. He said the new Q20 is a response to lacklustre sales of last year’s Q10, which has a physical keyboard but lacks the track pad or keys for functions such as going back. He said the company got many complaints about that.

BlackBerry also announced plans to expand its services for businesses needing secure communications, particularly in regulated industries such as health care and financial services. There are plans, for instance, to go beyond securing just e-mail and messaging.

It’s part of the company’s plan to focus on its strengths in business services. BlackBerry Ltd. strayed from that as it tried to lure consumers with new devices.

The BlackBerry was the dominant smartphone for on-the-go business people and other consumers before Apple introduced the iPhone in 2007, showing that phones could handle much more than e-mail and calls. BlackBerry was slow in modernising its operating system, and once it did, the much-hyped system flopped.

Chen was brought in as CEO late last year after talks to sell the company collapsed. Although he has been credited with turning around Sybase, a data company that was sold to SAP in 2010, Chen has acknowledged that reviving BlackBerry will be his most “complicated” challenge.

In the latest quarter, ending November 30, BlackBerry Ltd. reported a $4.4 billion loss and a 56 per cent drop in revenue. But the company said it had plenty of cash to engineer a turnaround.

The new partnership with Foxconn will help reduce much of BlackBerry’s manufacturing costs. Foxconn, known for its manufacturing contract work on Apple’s iPhones and iPads, will jointly design and manufacture most BlackBerry devices and manage inventory of the devices.

Chen said BlackBerry will now target the heavily regulated industries that require greater security. It will simplify its pricing and let people upgrade to the latest systems for free this year. It will also offer free services this year for companies that had left BlackBerry for rivals.

BARCELONA – Smartphone makers are fighting for space on your wrist and your head, lucrative real estate for a new wave of high-tech devices if only they can persuade you to wear them.

Manufacturers unleashed a battery of new wearable devices at the world’s biggest mobile fair in Barcelona, Spain, trying to carve out new revenue sources in developed markets where smartphone sales are slowing.

From smart bracelets that track your fitness to watches and glasses that let you take a call or check text messages and e-mail, these gadgets are the new stars of the February 24-27 Mobile World Congress.

Wearable devices first became commercially viable in 2013, said David Sovie, head of electronics and technology at Dublin-based consultancy group Accenture.

“I think 2014 is when you will start to see more mass market, or at least wider adoption of these technologies,” he said.

According to an Accenture study of 23,000 consumers in 23 countries, there is a large appetite for such products, with 46 per cent saying they were interested in smart watches and 42 per cent in smart glasses.

The first target is fitness fanatics, wooed with bracelets that record the number of steps they take, the distance travelled, calories used, or even their heartbeat.

US firm Fitbit, leader with more than 60 per cent of the market for wearable fitness devices, has invited congress visitors to join a contest by strapping on a bracelet during their stay in Barcelona. The winner is the competitor who has moved most.

“We will have 1,000 participants by the end of the week,” said Benoit Raimbault, head of marketing for Europe, stressing that the bracelet prods you to “move more, eat better and sleep better”.

“Today the market for fitness bands is growing well and this segment will be exploited over the next years,” said Annette Zimermann, analyst at technology consultants Gartner Inc.

Sony Mobile revealed on the opening day of the fair its SmartBand SWR10, a bracelet that comes with an application allowing users to log events and photographs taken during the day as well as tracking how far they walk and checking their sleep cycle.

Smart watches, connected by wireless Bluetooth technology to the smartphone, are still trying to find a mass market, however, said Zimermann. “Smart watches still lack good design and functionality so uptake of those devices have been very slow,” she explained.  

Research house Canalys nevertheless predicts a boom in connected bracelets and watches, with  sales surpassing 17 million units this year and approaching 45 million in 2017.

“It’s about having an independent product that works as a standalone and does not need to be connected to your smartphone,” said Archana Vidyasekar, specialist at analysts Frost & Sullivan.

“I think that is going to define the success of the market in the consumer industry.”

The first elegant smartwatch

Samsung was one of the first heavyweights to enter the market, releasing last September its Galaxy Gear smartwatch, which lets a user read text messages and e-mails, check online services such as the weather and make calls. 

But with a lukewarm reception from critics and, according to analysts, disappointing sales, Samsung launched a new version Sunday, the Gear 2, which includes a camera, TV remote control and a heart rate sensor.

Chinese smartphone maker Huawei revealed a connected watch of its own on the same day, a TalkBand, to be sold for 99 euros ($136).

Hours later, South Korean manufacturer LG said it would launch its first smartwatch in 2014.

Small Finnish firm Creoir says its model, Ibis, is “the first elegant smartwatch”.

“All the connected watches are with sports designs or geeks designs; my wife wouldn’t wear that,” said Creoir marketing chief Ismo Karali.

Already famous though not yet on sale, Google Glass is the showpiece of the third category of wearable device: connected glasses that let you check your e-mails, for example, with no more than a glance.

“I have been using it for about a month, but they are very intuitive, I gave it to my six-year-old daughter and she was able to figure it out within minutes,” said Cameron Green head of mobile business at technical standards group GS1, who has been testing the Google Glass.

BARCELONA, Spain — Samsung’s new smartphone will have a built-in heart rate monitor as the Korean electronics company tries to turn its devices into lifestyle products.

The Galaxy S5 also has a larger screen than its predecessor, at 5.1 inches (12.95cm), instead of 5 inches, and a sharper camera, with a resolution of 16 megapixels, up from 13 megapixels.

Samsung Electronics Co. is also unveiling a fitness band, Gear Fit, to complement two new computerised watches announced Sunday.

Samsung, the world’s largest smartphone maker, made the latest announcement during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.

BARCELONA, Spain — Sony is borrowing innovations from its audio and camcorder businesses and incorporating its new Xperia Z2 smartphone with noise-cancelling technology and ultra-high-definition video recording.

Noise cancellation works with an in-ear headset sold separately for 60 euros ($82), while the Z2’s built-in camera can capture video in so-called 4K resolution, an emerging standard that offers four times the details as current high-definition video.

Kazuo Hirai, president and CEO of Sony Corp., described Sony’s new lineup as “products that are built on the shoulders of 60 years of design, engineering and artistic excellence”.

Monday’s announcement at the Mobile World Congress wireless show in Barcelona, Spain, comes just weeks after Sony said it was selling its Vaio personal computer operations and making its Bravia TV business a subsidiary company. Sony also plans to cut its global workforce by about 3 per cent, or 5,000 people, by the end of March 2015.

Sony, once an electronics powerhouse when its Walkman music players defined what portable gadgets should be, has had difficulty keeping up with Samsung and other rivals in various consumer electronics.

Phones are no different. Despite favorable reviews, Sony phones haven’t had much traction in an industry dominated by Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co.

With the Z2, Sony is trying to innovate on hardware, while many of the groundbreaking features in rival devices have been in their software.

The Z2 sports the same 20.7 megapixel camera found in its predecessors, the Z1 and the Z1s. Most other smartphone cameras have eight to 13 megapixels. The Z2 is waterproof, like the Z1 phones, and its screen is slightly larger, at 5.2 inches  (13.2cm) diagonally instead of 5 inches (12.7cm).

At Monday’s announcement event, Sony also demonstrated a SmartBand fitness accessory that works with a Lifelog app on the phone to record your day. You see key moments on a timeline, including photos taken and messages sent and received. As your day progresses on the timeline, you see the number of steps and calories burned to that point.

Sony also announced a high-end tablet and a separate, mid-range smartphone.

The tablet is also called the Xperia Z2 and features a 10.1-inch screen, larger than most full-size tablets. It is also waterproof. The Wi-Fi-only model weights 426 grams (0.94 pound), which is lighter than Apple’s lightweight iPad Air, despite the Z2’s larger size.

Sony’s Xperia M2, meanwhile, is meant as a cheaper alternative to the Z2. Its camera isn’t as powerful, at only eight megapixels, and the screen is only 4.8 inches. Still, the camera is the same as what the iPhone offers, and it’s larger than the iPhone’s four inches (10cm).

Sony is making a version of the M2 with two SIM card slots, something in demand in emerging markets, where plans vary so much that people often have service with multiple carriers and use what’s most economical for the circumstance.

Both Z2 devices and the SmartBand will be available in March, while the M2 is slated for April. The SmartBand will sell for 99 euros ($136). Prices for the phones and tablet weren’t announced, nor were any specific US plans. Sony sometimes makes phones available in the US later than elsewhere around the world.

Launched last year, the third generation Kia Carens is a compact- to mid-size multi-purpose vehicle (MPV) with a more stylish European-influenced design. In addition to sharper lines and aesthetics, the new Carens’ form is more similar to an overgrown hatchback than a saloon-based MPV or re-modded van. Better to drive than before, the new Carens is also better packaged and space efficient, with versatile seating and optional seven-seat format. Offered in three engine options including 1.5  and 2.0 petrol engines, the Carens’ best engine option was however the European market 1.7-litre CRDi turbo-diesel engine, with six-speed manual, rather than automatic transmission.

The case for diesel

Well-kitted, even basic trim Carens feature MDPS electric steering with adjustable levels of resistance, remote central locking, adjustable steering wheel, front seatback pockets, AC, CD player with MP3, USB and Bluetooth compatibility, rain-sensing wipers, rear view camera, front and curtain airbags and electronic driver aids including stability and traction control, hill-start and brake-force assist systems. Middle row seats get three-point side seatbelts but a two-point belt for the middle passenger. Range-topping EX spec includes side mirrors indicator lights, Xenon headlamps, LED running and rear lights, rear-side window blinds, 10-way adjustable driver’s seat, child monitoring cabin mirror, leather upholstery and front parking sensors.

Quicker, more efficient and often cleaner than petrol versions of same models, modern turbo-diesel cars like the Carens 1.7 CRDi also deliver more generous mid-range torque, which is particularly suitable for multi-passenger MPVs and is more useful for daily driving, commuting and hilly terrain like Jordan’s. Offering similar efficiency as hybrids without the extra weight, complication and cost, turbo-diesels outsell petrol cars in Europe, and one wishes that “clean” low-sulfur diesel becomes available to Jordanian motorists, so that diesel passenger cars might become legal. If they were to be legalised, one feels they should benefit from similar import duty incentives as hybrids.

Well-packaged

A more purposeful and dynamic looking car than the one it replaces, the new Carens is more tightly penned and packaged, starting with its new chrome outline and honeycomb “tiger grille” corporate face, more bulging and complex bonnet landscaping. Smart big alloy wheels, low side skirts and black lower rear bumper cladding add a hint of sporting flavor that is reflected by the tailgate spoiler at the end of its flowing roofline arc. Lending presence, the Carens’ high flanks are visually broken to avoid a slab-sided look by a sharp crease below the waistline, and subtle lower flank moldings.

Restrained and tastefully styled and appointed, the new Carens has a European sensibility, including sparing use of chrome details and the absence of faux wood, and instead uses piano black dashboard panels mixed with strategically placed soft textures and some less prominently placed hard plastics. Sensible and business-like inside, the Carens’ thick contoured steering wheel falls nicely to hand, while build quality seems good and function, button and instrument layouts and ergonomics are user-friendly. Dark interior colours look best, while an optional panoramic sunroof gives an airier ambiance without restricting first and second row headspace owing to the Carens’ high roof.

Practical and economic

Practical, versatile and compact, the Carens seats seven with optional 50:50 split folding third row seating. Lower, shorter and narrower than before, the Carens’ 50mm longer wheelbase however provides excellent front and second row head and leg space. Third row space is convenient for shorter passengers or children. Second row 60:40 split folding seats slide and tilt to manage space between rearmost rows. Minimum window-line cargo capacity is 103-litres behind the third row, expanding to 492-litres and 1667-litres behind second and first rows, in addition to an under-boot storage compartment. The front passenger seat also folds flat to increase capacity.

Powered by a modern 1.7-litre common-rail turbo-diesel for-cylinder engine, the Carens 1.7CRDi develops 134BHP at 4,000rpm and a massive 243lb/ft torque throughout 1,750-2,500rpm, and returns frugal 5.4l/100km derv-drinking and low 144g/km carbon dioxide emissions on the combined cycle. With little diesel clatter audible at idle, the Carens CRDi feels refined and smooth in delivery once turbos are spooled. A six-speed manual gearbox slips easily into gear and its clutch pedal is light and biting-point intuitive, and can better control the turbo-diesel engine to avoid low-rev turbo lag and better exploit its rich and muscular but slightly narrow mid-range torque band.

Compact and comfortable

With shorter final drive gearing for first and second gear helping the turbo-diesel spool up quicker, the Carens CRDi achieve a 10.4-second 0-100km/h time and once into its high torque mid-range sweet spot, pulls indefatigably up inclines and when overtaking on highways, and can reach 191km/h. Low-revving, the CRDi builds up to maximum power quickly, by when one shift up and back into its rich mid-range. Stable and refined on highways, where it is most economic, the Carens CRDi is a good long-distance cruiser, while its compact and well-packaged dimensions make it easy to maneuver and park in tight urban settings.

Driven on narrow and winding Monte Carlo roads, the Carens was agile, maneuverable and slipped through snaking lanes and often congested roads well. While front visibility is good, thick rakish front pillars slightly affect front-side views close to the kerb, but small front quarter windows help. A comfortable and supple ride, the Carens well-absorbs bumps and cracks. Steering is light, quick and accurate but reassuring at speed. Turn-in is tidy, even with the heavier turbo-diesel engine, and while some body lean is evident through corners, the Carens feels composed, and lighter and more nimble than expected considering its 1,522kg weight.

BARCELONA  – Fresh from a $19-billion (14-billion-euro) takeover by Facebook, mobile messaging service WhatsApp said Monday it will launch free voice calls by mid-year.

The introduction of free calls, revealed on the opening day of the four-day World Mobile Congress in Barcelona, Spain, would match rival application Viber's similar offering.

"We are going to introduce voice on WhatsApp in the second quarter of this year," WhatsApp founder Jan Koum said.

Facebook, whose 29-year-old billionaire creator Mark Zuckerberg was the star speaker on the opening day of the industry fair, announced a stock and cash purchase of WhatsApp on Wednesday.

"Five years ago we had no users, no product," said Koum.

"Today we have 465 million active users," he said, adding that the company still had no marketing, relying mostly on word of mouth to prosper.

WhatsApp had not planned any changes in the light of the Facebook takeover, Koum said.

"Mark really understands that for WhatsApp to stay successful it really needs to stay independent," he said.

Viber, one of WhatsApp's key rivals, offers free voice and messaging.

Japanese online shopping group Rakuten announced this month it would buy Viber's Cyprus-based developer, Viber Media, for $900 million.

Gertrude

Hassan Najmi

Translated by Roger Allen

Massachusetts: Interlink, 2014, 282 pp.

This intriguing novel is based on real knowledge of the life and times of Gertrude Stein, the famous American writer, intellectual and art collector, who spent most of her life in Paris. It is also rooted in the whimsical notion of "what if?" What if Stein had found a Moroccan lover during the short vacation she took with her life-long companion, Alice Toklas, in Tangier? What if she had invited him to visit her in Paris? What if he had actually gone? By using the "what if?" device, Moroccan author Hassan Najmi opens a new, if admittedly fanciful, perspective on Stein. Most of her biographers are Westerners, but in this novel, first published in Arabic in 2011, she is viewed through Arab eyes. 

"Gertrude" has many themes and layers. On one level, it is about the East-West (or, more accurately, North-South) encounter, for it is hard to believe that Najmi randomly named Stein's fictitious lover Muhammad, such a common Arab name and one so full of religious/cultural overtones. The author must have meant the relationship between them to symbolise "the enormous gap between East and West where almost everything keeps them apart, except, of course, for wars, explosions, and arms seizures!" (p. 33) Yet, the novel also illustrates that there are many points of attraction in the personal sphere. 

Despite his centrality in the novel, Muhammad is not the narrator. After returning to Morocco, he "lived in a perpetual Parisian mist, even when Paris itself was thousands of kilometres away and Tangier swaggered on its modest way under the clear blue sky". (p. 32) Wallowing in memories, he is unable to write the story himself, and entrusts the task to a friend to whom he has confided his Paris experience in detail. This creates another layer to the story — the writing process. It also increases the distance between lived reality and text, and injects one of many ambiguities present in the book. One cannot be sure that Muhammad's friend is conveying his experience accurately. It is not even certain that he will write the book. While doing research about Stein, he meets an American diplomat and embarks on a rather torrid affair with her. He seems to be following in Muhammad's footsteps, but not quite. Sometimes, one wonders which relationship he is narrating as the text shifts from past to present and to different points-of-view. 

The uncertainty of writing the tale is added to the basic ambiguity of the relationship between Muhammad and Stein. One doesn't know if she really meant it when she invited him to visit her. Once arrived, his role in her Paris apartment is highly ambiguous, a cross between butler, companion and lover. The reasons why she eventually makes him feel he should leave are equally unclear. 

What is very clear and also delightful is how Muhammad throws himself into his new life in Paris, developing an appreciation for the art on Stein's walls and befriending the writers, intellectuals and artists, American and European, who gather in her salon — Picasso, Matisse, Apollinaire, F. Scott Fitzgerald and many others. "Muhammad was relishing his new life with the person he loved, without being entirely sure of anything… One can be in love without needing to ask questions." (p. 204) His spontaneity and sincerity are endearing, and stand in marked contrast to the artifice of these artists and poets. While they live by recreating life in various art forms, Muhammad simply lives. Picasso's portrait of Gertrude, which adorns the book's cover and is subject to various interpretations, comes to symbolise this contrast as well as the ambiguity of her personality and relationship to Muhammad.

"Gertrude" adds to the lore about American writers and artists in self-imposed exile, most recently Woody Allen's film spoof, "Midnight in Paris", and Paula McLain's more serious "The Paris Wife", as well as previous writing by and about Paul Bowles who settled in Tangier. But while their experience was fruitful, the results of Muhammad's reverse journey remain ambiguous. Bowles was known to encourage local writers, most famously Muhammad Choukri, author of "For Bread Alone", whereas Stein is portrayed as reeducating Muhammad, but not encouraging either his independence or creativity, calling to mind some American writers who loved Tangiers but not the inhabitants. 

Najmi's novel poses many questions, from whether the relation between North and South can be equitable, to why people leave their own country and what they find out about themselves and others in the process. While much new literature focuses on hybridity and cross-cultural exchange, Najmi chooses to remind that North-South relations are still unequal in many cases. 

Sally Bland 

BARCELONA — Microsoft will update its Windows system this spring to address some of the gripes people have had when they use devices without touch capabilities.

Windows 8 and last fall’s 8.1 update were designed for a touch environment. But some of the gesture commands don’t translate well when using traditional mouse and keyboard controls.

Among other things, Microsoft Corp. will add search, power and settings buttons to the Start page, so that users don’t have to figure out how to pull those functions like a sock drawer from the right. There also will be easier, touch-free ways to close apps.

Microsoft is also updating its Windows Phone system this spring to work better in corporate environments and to bring features desired in fast-growing emerging markets.

The announcement came Sunday ahead of the Mobile World Congress wireless show in Barcelona, Spain.

Many of the changes are geared at reducing manufacturing costs.

In essence, Microsoft is relaxing hardware requirements. For instance, there will be no longer a requirement that phones have a physical camera button and three control buttons on the front. That can be done through software instead, the approach used in many Android phones. Meanwhile, tablets and personal computers won’t need as much memory and storage as before.

Microsoft is also allowing phones to support two SIM cards, something in demand in China, India and other emerging markets where prices and plans vary so much that people switch services constantly for the best deals. For developed markets, Microsoft plans improvements for corporations, including VPN support on phones so people can access work networks securely.

More details on the phone changes are expected at Microsoft’s Build conference for software developers in April. Microsoft didn’t immediately disclose the name of either Windows update or confirm that they will be free for existing users, as they have been in the past.

Microsoft also announced the availability of a Facebook Messenger phone app in the next few weeks.

Microsoft used Mobile World Congress two years ago to release a test version of its Windows 8 operating system, months before its October 2012 debut.

The system was a response to the growing popularity of smartphones and tablet computers, which have been siphoning sales from personal computers running Windows. Windows 8 emphasises touch controls, just like mobile devices, and borrows much of its look and feel from Microsoft’s Windows Phone system for smartphones.

Many consumers, however, hate having that approach on PCs. Research firm IDC blamed Windows 8 for accelerating a decline in PCs — by 14 per cent in the first three months of 2013, the first full quarter with Windows 8.

Just one year after the Windows 8 launch, Microsoft issued a free update to address some of the gripes. The system now lets people run more than two apps side by side, for instance, and its Internet Explorer browser lets people open more than 10 tabs without automatically closing older ones. Windows 8.1 also introduced new features, including a universal search to access files stored on the computer along with Web content on the Internet.

Joe Belfiore, Microsoft’s vice president of operating systems, said many of the gripes have come from people who use non-touch devices. Although 40 per cent of Windows 8 devices sold in the U.S. are now touch-enabled, he said the new update will make it easier for the remaining, non-touch users.