Features

Different from the average bland run of the mill SUVs and crossovers that dominate city roads, the genuinely off-road capable SUV carries a sense of authenticity and peace of mind to drive in adverse conditions. More so, the off-road SUV brings a sense of excitement and adventure that crossovers cannot replicate. Fitting such a description, albeit in different ways, sizes and price points, the Lada Niva Travel, BAIC BJ40 Plus and Haval Dargo are among the most interesting SUVs to arrive in Jordan in recent months.

Lada Niva Travel

A wholly Russian-owned automaker independent of the Renault group once again as of recent days, Lada’s latest Jordanian offering however arrived in recent months. First developed as a joint venture with General Motors and launched in its latest iteration in 2021, the Lada Niva Travel is intended as a more comfortably refined, better equipped and more modern vehicle to supplement the brand’s old school Niva Legend legacy model.

It would, however, be a misconception to think of the Niva Travel as a soft-edged crossover. It is instead a slightly less hardcore sister model to the iconic Niva Legend, and rides on similarly rugged live axle and coil spring rear suspension. A tiny five-door SUV of the mountain goat philosophy, the Niva Travel easily maneuvers through narrow and inhospitable terrain, and features generous off-road angles, 220mm ground clearance and 500mm water fording capability. 

Powered by Lada’s familiar and uncomplicated longitudinally mounted 1.7-litre four-cylinder engine, the Niva Travel develops 80BHP at 5,000rpm and 94lb/ft at 4,000rpm. Accelerating through 0-100km/h in 19-seconds, it can attain 140km/h. Driving all four wheels through a 5-speed manual gearbox, the Niva Travel’s extensive off-road ability also benefits from a locking centre differential and low gear ratios for even more demanding inclines and low traction conditions.

Specifications
Engine: 1.7-litre, in-line 4-cylinders

Gearbox: 5-speed manual, four-wheel-drive,

Drive-line: Low ratio gears, locking centre differential

Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 79 (80) [58.8] @5,000rpm

Torque, lb/ft (Nm): 94 (127.4) @4,000rpm

0-100km/h: 19-seconds

Top speed: 140km/h

Length: 4,099mm

Width: 1,804mm

Height: 1,690mm

Wheelbase: 2,450mm

Ground clearance: 220mm

Wading: 500mm

Kerb weight: 1,485kg

Suspension, F/R: Double wishbones/solid axle, coil springs

Tyres: 215/65R16

Price, on-the-road: JD17,500

BAIC BJ40 Plus

Faintly familiar with a tapered bonnet, and boxy, upright and utilitarian design similar to a Jeep Wrangler and distant hints of Land Rover to its grille, the BAIC BJ40 Plus’s influences, however, coalesce to its own distinct character. One of the China’s most impressive vehicles to reach Jordan, the BJ40 Plus is an authentic and capable off-road SUV with body-on-chassis construction and coil sprung solid rear axle.

Smooth and forgiving on road, with a faintly rippled ride at the rear and tidy turn-in from its double wishbone front suspension, the BJ40 Plus dispatches lumps, bumps and potholes in its stride and feels better settled on rebound than one would expect. With removable roof, fold-down windshield, safety bars and commanding driving position, it meanwhile allows one to enjoy a configurable and truly open air driving experience.

Powered by an abundant and responsive Saab-derived 2.3-litre turbocharged four-cylinder engine driving rear or all four wheels, the BJ40 Plus feels quicker on the move than its already brisk 9.5-second 0-100km/h acceleration time suggests. An adept off-roader with excellent off-road angles, generous 210mm ground clearance and axle articulation, the BJ40 also features low gear ratios and a locking rear differential for more extreme off-road and low traction conditions.

Specifications
Engine: 2.3-litre, turbocharged in-line 4-cylinders

Gearbox: 6-speed automatic, four-wheel-drive

Drive-line: Low ratio transfer, rear electronic differential lock

Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 247 (250) [184] @5,300rpm

Torque, lb/ft (Nm): 258 (350) @1,900-4,500rpm

0-100km/h: 9.5-seconds (estimate)

Top speed: 170km/h (estimate)

Length: 4,630mm

Width: 1,843mm

Height: 1,861mm

Wheelbase: 2,730mm

Ground clearance: 210mm

Approach/break-over/departure angles: 37°/23°/31°

Kerb weight: 2,095kg (estimate)

Suspension, F/R: Double wishbone/solid axles, coil springs

Tyres: 245/65R17

Price, on-the-road: JD34,000-35,000

Haval Dargo 2.0T

Known domestically as the Dagou in China and Big Dog in Australia, Haval’s chunkiest, most aggressively styled SUV was, however, launched in recent months in the Middle East as the Dargo. A portmanteau for “dare to go”, the Dargo’s scowling, squared-off design goes all out to project a tough and rugged persona. Similarly stylised inside, the Dargo’s cabin is however sophisticated and well-equipped with convenience and infotainment features.

Styled with assertive sensibilities, the Dargo is, however, not quite the traditional SUV one might initially imagine. It is instead built using unibody construction, independent rear suspension and a transverse engine layout, similar to most crossovers. Closer to a so-called “soft roader” in front-wheel-drive guise, the four-wheel-drive Dargo however earns its off-road capable SUV credentials with its limited slip centre differential, locking rear differential and 200mm ground clearance

With centre and rear differentials allowing it to keep going in low traction conditions and even with one rear wheel raised, the top spec Dargo is meanwhile powered by generous 2-litre turbocharged four-cylinder engine mated to a 7-speed dual clutch auto gearbox. Producing 196BHP at a 5,600-6300rpm plateau and 240lb/ft throughout a broad 1,500-4,000rpm band, it carries its 1,815kg mass through 0-100km/h at a fairly quick pace in 9.2-seconds.

Specifications
Engine: 2-litre, turbocharged transverse 4-cylinders

Gearbox: 7-speed dual clutch automated, four-wheel-drive

Drive-line: Limited slip centre differential, locking rear differential

Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 196 (198) [146] @5,600-6,300rpm

Torque, lb/ft (Nm): 240 (325) @1,500-4,000rpm

0-100km/h: 9.2-seconds

Top speed: 195km/h

Length: 4,620mm

Width: 1,910mm

Height: 1,780mm

Wheelbase: 2,738mm

Ground clearance: 200mm

Approach/break-over/departure: 24°/22.5° /30°

Weight: 1,815kg

Suspension, F/R: MacPherson struts/multi-link

Tyres: 235/60R19

Price, on-the-road: JD37,500

By Dr Tareq Rasheed
International Consultantand Trainer

Research proves that our mood affects our physical, mental and emotional lives. How well you manage your emotions is your ticket to achieving your objectives in life.

The Mode Dynamics Model

•Child: Raising a child with the mentality of worry and fear will keep the child in a disturbing mood throughout life and interactions. Parents should always help their kids grow positively and emotionally aware. Parenting modes should encourage self-awareness 

•Coping: Here, people surrender themselves to the will of others; thus, they try to avoid being with others and do not control their choices. This mode can lead to depression and other mental health issues

•Healthy Adult: People with this mode control, manage and achieve. They have a high degree of assertiveness, care for themselves and others

To help change your mood and get to the Healthy Adult Mode, let’s revisit some helpful tools…

The Control Triangle

I apply the Triangle of Control, which is composed of three entities: 

•God: Everything is under God’s control. Give thanks and move ahead

•Me: I control my reactions 90 per cent of the time 

•Environment: Whatever the environment (external circumstances) throws at me, I will never give the environment more than 10 per cent because I can choose, control and move ahead. Yet, people who feel hopeless give the environment 90 per cent of the control. But they cannot change their parents, spouses, colleagues. What they can change is their reaction and control

The Proactivity Model

This is a beneficial model to help you be in the Healthy Adult Mode as it provides you with the tools that help you control your reactions and even change them positively. The elements you need are: 

•Self-Awareness: By enhancing your self-awareness, you are helping yourself know your motivators, fears, strengths and weaknesses. You start working on investing your points of strength and utilising motivators to manage negative moods

•Desire: People in the Healthy Adult Mode share their desires and speak positively with themselves to motivate their inner voice and be achievers 

•Free will: By consistently applying the concept of “I am free to choose”, successful people change whatever obstacles they face into manageable challenges. Our greatest power is the freedom to choose

Emotional Intelligence

We can also positively impact our mood by applying our skills in emotional intelligence:

•Ability to manage and control negative emotions (stress, fear, anger, worry, boredom)

•Self-motivation by creating a positive environment for ourselves: Choosing our relationships and friends wisely and nurturing a positive environment all around

•Communicating with positive people and nurturing positive relationships ourselves

•Managing our emotions by practising gratitude, empathy and kindness, accountability (to all your choices and steps in life), optimism and patience — one of the most important secrets of success in challenging times is to be patient, remembering that hard times yield lessons to help us grow, move and achieve

The most important one who deserves your attention is you! If you lose yourself through negative emotions, you risk losing everything and everyone you care about.

Reprinted with permission from Family Flavours magazine

POHANG, South Korea — A head pops out of the toilet, a woman gets pregnant from birth control pills — South Korean Booker Prize nominee Bora Chung’s short stories are full of horror, inspired by her own lonely life.

An academic specialising in Slavic literature, Chung was considered a “genre writer” and excluded from South Korea’s mainstream literary scene. Until recently, she was relatively unknown to local readers.

Her stories — which combine science fiction, horror and fantasy — are not considered “pure” literature by Seoul’s cultural elite. But her life took a dramatic turn when her 2017 collection “Cursed Bunny” caught the eye of translator Anton Hur.

Hur’s English edition of the book, released by British publisher Honford Star, has been named a finalist for this year’s International Booker Prize.

Only two South Korean writers — Han Kang (“The Vegetarian”) and Hwang Sok-yong (“At Dusk”) — have previously been nominated for the honour, and both were far more established and well regarded domestically.

“Cursed Bunny” has not won any prizes in South Korea, and Chung mostly earned a living teaching at a university and translating Russian literature.

“I certainly don’t think Chung is aiming to write ‘pure’ literature, and her work is all the richer for it,” Jeremy Tiang, one of the judges for this year’s International Booker Prize, told AFP.

The collection’s blend of genres was “viscerally rooted in the real fears and pressures of everyday life”, he added. 

Chung said the anthology was ultimately about the innate loneliness of being human.

She spent nearly a decade overseas as a graduate student, living year-to-year and unsure of her next move, which profoundly shaped her imagination as a writer, she told AFP.

“I wasn’t sure if anything was actually waiting for me in South Korea even if I wanted to return,” she said.

“I was constantly nervous about the future, and because this lasted for nine years, I became very used to the state of being lonely,” she added.

A graduate of Seoul’s Yonsei University, Chung holds a master’s degree in Russian and East European studies from Yale and a PhD in Slavic literature from Indiana University, both in the United States.

She was deeply inspired by Soviet Russian writer Andrei Platonov’s 1928 novel “Chevengur”, about a poor orphan whose quest to find a communist utopia ultimately fails and ends in a bloodbath.

The Booker Prize Foundation says Chung’s collection uses the fantastical to address the horrors of the “patriarchy and capitalism of modern society”.

Her characters include a father who locks up his daughter and exploits her for business, a designer who falls in love with a robot companion she’s invented and a woman who is constantly shamed after becoming pregnant due to the side effects of birth control pills.

Another character faces the horror of repeatedly seeing a creature appear in her toilet bowl, claiming to be her child. 

In her own life, Chung said the prospect of falling pregnant felt like a serious threat during her years overseas.

“To me, it was horror,” she told AFP at her apartment in the South Korean port city of Pohang before leaving for the United Kingdom to attend the awards ceremony set for Thursday.

“All I could think was if I suddenly fell pregnant and gave birth, I would just die with my child. I would just be on the streets and die,” she said.

“I had no ability to raise a child, didn’t have a partner, had no support network and I was a foreigner.”

‘A very hard sell’

Chung’s nomination rides a global wave of enthusiasm for South Korean culture, from Netflix’s “Squid Game” to Bong Joon-ho’s 2019 Oscar winner “Parasite”, as well as Han’s “The Vegetarian”, which won the International Booker in 2016.

But Hur said “Cursed Bunny” was “actually a very, very hard sell” given what he characterised as a lack of interest in Korean literature.

“I did everything I could to promote the book, whether it was on social media, at Oxford University where I won a translator’s residency... and the many literary festivals I dragged the author to so that we could sell just one more book,” he told AFP. 

Chung, who is married to a labour rights activist, prefers to spend her spare time attending political rallies.

“I feel at ease at rallies as I get to be with a lot of people who share the same thoughts as me,” said the author, who met her husband at a rally.

Chung’s years overseas, meanwhile, have made her painfully aware of cultural differences, and her work seems to ask: If culture and language are such barriers to intimacy, then what hope do humans have of understanding robots?

STOCKHOLM — In one of the longest awaited musical reunions, Swedish pop legends ABBA return to the concert stage on Friday in London but only as avatars of their 1970 selves shimmering with shiny costumes, glitter and platform boots.

While fans will hear the quartet’s real voices, the band will not be on stage. Concert-goers will see “ABBAtars” projected as holograms, looking like they did at the peak of their fame.

“We put our hearts and souls into these avatars and they will take over now,” 77-year-old band member Bjorn Ulvaeus told AFP in an interview in Stockholm ahead of the premiere.

Fans will once again be able to see Agnetha Faltskog, Bjorn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad — whose first initials form the name ABBA — perform hits from the 1970s and 1980s, as well as their recent comeback album, at the “ABBA Voyage” show in London.

The group announced the reunion in September last year, dropping the new singles “I still have faith in you” and “Don’t shut me down”.

They then released the 10-track album “Voyage” two months later and announced plans for the high-tech concert at a specially-built London arena.

Other attempts at concert hologrammes have received lukewarm reviews, but the group hopes fans will feel they’re seeing the real deal.

“This is one of the most daring projects that anyone has done in the music industry ever,” said Ulvaeus, who wrote most of the group’s biggest hits with Benny Andersson.

“How it will be received by the audience, I don’t have a clue,” he said. 

“But I think that they will feel an emotional pull from the avatars, they will see the avatars as real people.”

In addition to re-recording their songs for the show, the quartet also spent hours in a studio dressed in leotards, having their movements digitally recorded to reproduce them on stage.

The avatars will appear in the band’s kitsch 1970s outfits and are also expected to don futuristic get-ups, according to trailers.

The show will run seven days a week until early October in the purpose-built theatre ABBA Arena in east London.

“I don’t know about the others but, me, myself, I felt more nervous a month ago than I do now,” Ulvaeus said, adding: “I know that we have done our utmost.”

The hologrammes are the product of a years-long project, designed in partnership with a special effects company founded by Star Wars creator George Lucas.

The concert was recorded using 160 cameras and five weeks of performances.

For Ulvaeus, who is also setting up a circus musical in Stockholm about Pippi Longstocking, the main character in an eponymous series of children’s books by Swedish author Astrid Lindgren, the overwhelming amount of archival ABBA footage means it is not strange to see his 40-year-younger self on stage.

ABBA broke onto the international scene in 1974 when they won the Eurovision Song Contest with “Waterloo”, powered by a flood of British votes.

They went on to record a string of hits, including “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!”, “Dancing Queen” and “The Winner Takes it All”, before breaking up in 1982.

They long steered clear of a reunion despite their music’s enduring popularity, fuelled by a hit compilation album in 1992, the “Mamma Mia!” movies starring Meryl Streep, Colin Firth and Pierce Brosnan and a spin-off musical.

Notching up several hundred million album sales over 50 years, ABBA helped put Sweden’s pop music industry on the map. 

The country remains the third-biggest exporter of music after the United States and Britain.

In London, concert-goers will be treated to a 90-minute show, with a dozen live musicians on stage backing up the avatars.

Will the quartet ever perform together again for real? 

“ABBA has no plans. It is what it is,” Ulvaeus said.

NEW YORK — As a child, punk-poet icon Patti Smith was instructed never to accept anything from strangers — which meant one day she was forced to decline a campaign button she coveted and everyone else had.

While dejectedly walking to her New Jersey family home, she vowed to her future self that she would soon acquire her own medals to add to her lapel. 

On Saturday, the 75-year-old rock legend made good on that promise, as France’s ambassador to the United States Philippe Etienne bestowed her with the Legion d’Honneur, his country’s highest order of merit.

Smith regaled a rapt audience with that touching anecdote after her medal ceremony in central Brooklyn, where crowds gathered for the “Night of Ideas”, an annual marathon of philosophy and performance put on by the French embassy’s Villa Albertine in partnership with the Brooklyn Public Library.

“It’s an indescribable honour, I understand the gravity of it,” she told AFP backstage, after delivering a spirited performance alongside her daughter Jesse on piano and her long-time collaborator and guitarist Lenny Kaye.

“For someone... who has been greatly shaped by French culture, French literature, French art and film, just my whole life — it’s especially meaningful,” she continued. 

“I embraced France my whole life, and to receive an embrace like this in return is a wonderful thing.”

For more than half-a-century, Smith has been celebrated as an artist’s artist, adored for her music, songwriting, poetry and deeply introspective, raw writing that in 2010 won the US National Book Award for her stirring memoir “Just Kids”.

The book sees Smith excavate memories from her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe, the late photographer with whom she shared a deep friendship, romance and creative bond.

“I feel like it’s very fitting to have such an accolade here in Brooklyn — it’s only a couple of subway stops away that Robert Mapplethorpe and I lived at 20-years-old,” she told the audience. “At night, when Robert couldn’t sleep, he would ask me to read him French poetry... I remember those nights so clearly.”

Smith also felt a particular kinship to the venue of Saturday’s ceremony.

“It’s also fitting that it should be a library, because coming from a very rural area of South Jersey, with very little culture in the ‘50s and mid-’60s, I depended on the library to open and expand my world,” she said.

In typical Smith fashion, she honoured the artists who came before her in closing her acceptance speech, having opened with a performance of her 1996 song “Wing”.

The rock laureate read the final letter by spiritual-surrealist poet Rene Daumal, which he wrote to his wife before his death.

“Seeing that you are nothing you desire to become,” Smith read. “In desiring to become, you begin to live.”

Following the ceremony Smith — donning her signature black blazer atop a black vest, along with combat boots and her long, gray hair flowing as a few small braids framed her face — delighted fans with a show that included her hit “People Have The Power”, which she wrote with her late husband, Fred “Sonic” Smith.

Speaking to AFP, she said that while “artists can always inspire people, they can rally people, give people hope... in the end, it’s not artists who make change, it’s the people”.

“Through voting, through initiative, through mass marches — it’s the people that make change.”

Citing the on going pandemic and the “pain of war”, Smith said “we are living in a very troubled world”, underscoring climate change as the great crisis of our time.

“There are heat waves right now that are unprecedented... there’s tremendous famine, and violent weather patterns we’ve never seen,” she said. 

“The only way it can be solved is a global effort, and I think more than anything... that is the most important thing that people have to address.

“However small the gesture, every gesture is important.”

Smith is set in the fall to release a new book entitled “A Book Of Days”, a visual collection inspired by her beloved Instagram account.

These days “I’m writing just as always,” she told AFP, “writing songs, writing poems, writing another book — I’m always busy, always doing something”.

After her performance, Smith said the medal inspired her to do “more work, better work”, and it “felt very fitting to work right after I received it”.

“I still feel like I’ve got a little, you know, that post-performance adrenaline,” she smiled, “but also just the excitement and happiness... of receiving such an honour.”

“That I would be chosen to, you know, be a sort of a mini-ambassador for the country is really a great joy for me,” she said. 

“So you leave me a happy girl.”

NEW YORK — Pop sensation Harry Styles is set to release his third album Friday, a balmy collection whose twangy synths and soft acoustics compliment personal lyrics in his most intimate record yet.

The one-time boy band heartthrob to the teenage masses has grown into a heartthrob for all, and the dulcet tones and tender adulations of “Harry’s House” betray a pop star in love.

The album conjures the sonic equivalent of a warmly lit California afternoon by the pool, all the while showcasing Styles’s increasingly honed songwriting skills — which increasingly vie to make you blush.

“I feel like it’s kind of a collection of all of my favourite things and very much like the album I’ve always wanted to make, so I’m really happy,” Styles said after performing Thursday morning on the “Today” show’s stage at New York’s Rockefeller Plaza.

“It’s definitely the most personal record I think I’ve made,” he told the show. “Obviously, the pandemic and everything kind of added to the way it was made. It was made by a few people in a small room.”

“I think it’s the most free I’ve ever felt making music.”

Styles, born in England, catapulted to fame as part of the group One Direction, which reigned from 2010-2016 and remains one of the best-selling boy bands of all time.

Styles released his first solo album in 2017 and jumped to the top of the charts, following up with 2019’s “Fine Line” which also posted resounding commercial success.

And as his solo career blossoms, Styles has come to embody an emotionally available crooner whose charisma, gender-fluid style and sense of compassion have seen him dubbed a champion of inclusion.

In his new song “Boyfriends” he casts himself as the dreamy antithesis of...all boyfriends, running through the faults of toxic masculinity and presenting himself as an ally to the heartbroken.

Emotional, but make it sexy

But he’s much more than a bleeding heart — Styles is thirsty.

After the thinly veiled ode to cunnilingus he gave with his second album’s hit “Watermelon Sugar”, the artist’s lustiest references on “Harry’s House” include wet dreams, orgasms, erotic choking and side boob.

“Green eyes, fried rice,” he sings on the bop “Music for A Sushi Restaurant”.

“I could cook an egg on you.”

It’s just one of many lyrical choices that read peculiar but in practice just works, a testament to the artist’s sharpened poetic chops and burgeoning willingness to bare the contours of his desires.

Styles is thought to be dating Olivia Wilde, who cast him in the forthcoming psychological thriller “Don’t Worry Darling” which she directed.

“I bring the pop to the cinema / You pop when we get intimate”, he sings in the chorus of the pulsating disco track “Cinema” — a sex ballad of a song that appears to reference his relationship with her.

But for all his suggestive lyrics Styles — whose ascent into celebrity has paralleled a growing scrutiny of the way famous artists are hounded over their personal lives — prefers to keep his private matters just that.

He’s faced probing over his sexuality and love life for years, but in a recent interview he said he finds these lines of questioning “outdated”.

“The whole point of where we should be heading, which is toward accepting everybody and being more open, is that it doesn’t matter,” he told Better Homes and Gardens in an interview published last month. “It’s about not having to label everything, not having to clarify what boxes you’re checking.”

That attitude is certainly working for Styles, who as his third album drops counts himself among the globe’s most endearing pop stars.

His consummate likability was on full display as he headlined last month’s Coachella festival, donning a chest-baring, multi-coloured disco ball of a jumpsuit to tease his new music before a sea of screaming, hormone-addled fans.

“It’s big in here, innit?” he quipped, laying on the charm he’s imbued into his music — coy yet sexy, modest but glam, a modern pop star on top of the world.