WEDNESDAY 4 JANUARY 2017 MARKETPLACE | 6 FOOD | 8 HOLLYWOOD | 12 Aspetar offers medical services at Qatar ExxonMobil Open Baking whole fish in foil easier and tastier than steaming it Email: [email protected]M A As A D | 12 RESTORATION TOURISM IN JAPAN Ordinary citizens in Japan can now observe repairs and excavations at historical sites that were until recently closed to the public. P | 4-5 Syrian star turned pizza boy dreaming of Hollywood ending
Transcript
WEDNESDAY 4 JANUARY 2017
MARKETPLACE | 6 FOOD | 8 HOLLYWOOD | 12Aspetar offers medical
Ordinary citizens in Japan can now observe repairs and excavations at historical sites that were until recently closed to the public.
P | 4-5
Syrian star turned pizza boy dreaming of Hollywood ending
MARKETPLACEWEDNESDAY 4 JANUARY 2017 03
Baba Chapatea opens 7th branch in Al Wajba
Baba Chapatea, Qatar’s home grown café is opening its 7th branch at Al Wajba located next to Woqod Petrol station.
Famous for serving signature Par-athas and ‘the original Karak’, Baba Chapatea’s latest branch has been targeted to the pit stoppers from the nearby area in Al Wajba.
At the opening, the Managing Director and Co-Founder Yoonus Salim Vappattu said, “opening in Al Wajba was one of the strategic
moves where we are trying to fill the increasing demand of our cafés in different parts of Qatar.”
“We keep in mind the accessi-bility of our patrons and would continue to open more branches in coming months as we grow,” said Salim Vappattu.
“As we are spreading I’m delighted to say that our recent addition to the menu, traditional Qatari breakfast, QR1 Sada Karak and Masala chai will be quite appealing to all Baba Chapatea
patrons,” added Yoonus.“I like to associate myself with
success and opening of Al Wajba branch. It only means that we are a force to be reckoned with and we will continue to grow and expand. I want everyone in Doha to try the original Karak because it is the best in the country! TRUST ME!” added the brand ambassador of Baba Chapatea, Hamad Al Amari.
Baba Chapatea had started in the year 2013 with its first outlet in Al Wakra. Last year it added
second outlet in Wakra too. This year, 2016, it opened 4 more out-lets in Matar Qadeem, Muaither, Abu Hamour and Al Aziziya.
Baba Chapatea plans to open more cafés in coming months in Qatar and in GCC as franchised outlets.
The new Al Wajba branch, located at Woqood petrol station would be in take-away style oper-ating from 5am to 12 midnight, with all the items available from the menu.
COVER STORY WEDNESDAY 4 JANUARY 201704
Yomiuri Hiromasa Takeda
& Hisashi Kiyooka Japan News
Ordinary citizens in Japan can now observe repairs and excavations at historical sites that were until recently closed to the public. A number of municipal governments
and other entities have opened these sites with the aim of promoting tourism.
At Shokoji temple in Takaoka, Japan, about 20 visitors gasped in surprise. “This must be really tough work,” one of them said after observ-ing roofing repairs at the temple.
Designated as an important cultural prop-erty by the government, Shokoji has been undergoing preservation and repair work since 1998 in a 23-year project. Repair of a priests’ lodging house, which has a kitchen, entrance and library among other features, began in 2005. For the past three years, the temple has been accepting public tours.
Visitors are allowed inside the construction shelter that covers the lodging house so they can get a close look at the kitchen and other parts of the house.
Shokoji dates back to 1471, when priest Ren-nyo — known as the originator of the restoration of the Honganji school of Buddhism — estab-lished Doyama Gobo temple in what is now the
city of Nanto in Toyama Prefecture. The temple was once the base of major uprisings by Bud-dhism adherents in the Sengoku warring states period (1493-1573). The temple was relocated to its current site in 1584.
Twelve of the temple’s structures, designated
as important cultural assets, were built in the mid- to late Edo period (1603-1867), and have been badly damaged.
“Usually, the temple is quiet,” said Koji Omaki, senior director of the public corporation tasked with the preservation and utilisation of Shokoji.
Omaki, who guides tours at the temple, said 4,000 people visited the temple last year to see the repair work, clearly demonstrating the effect of opening the project to the public. The open-ing of the Hokuriku Shinkansen also helped increase the number of visitors, especially from the Kanto region. The temple has recently been included on the itinerary of package tours.
“The place is magnificent, and I felt the deep faith that our ancestors had,” a former local teacher said. “I can understand the significance of the preservation.”
Omaki said, “If you observe the restoration work, you can understand what it means.”
In some cases, visitors can observe repairs being carried out on cultural properties that were damaged in natural disasters.
The two-kilometre-long stone wall at Kom-ine Castle in Shirakawa, Fukushima Prefecture, collapsed in 10 places in the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake.
In addition to the collapsed sections, repairs were needed at six other places on the wall. Res-toration of those sections continues with the aim of completing the work in fiscal 2018.
Restoration work attracts tourists in Japan
COVER STORYWEDNESDAY 4 JANUARY 2017 05
The Shirakawa municipal gov-ernment allowed restoration work to be observed once in 2011 and again in 2012. But since 2014, res-toration work has been opened to the public once a month.
Visitors to the castle subse-quently increased to about 70,000 in fiscal 2015 compared to slightly more than 50,000 in fiscal 2010.
“The castle is the symbol of our city,” said Isao Suzuki, a municipal government official. “Showing the progress of restoration work will give city residents hope and make people realise the importance of cultural assets.”
In October, soil was removed from around large rocks to show
visitors how small stones were used to stabilise large ones.
“It is a valuable experience to see how the large rocks are stacked,” said Yoshikazu Endo, a civil engi-neer from Motomiya, Fukushima Prefecture. “I stopped by during a trip,” said Takashi Sugiyama, a company worker from Asaka, Saitama Prefecture. “By providing more of these types of opportuni-ties, interest in culture assets will grow.” Only ruins can now be found where the huge five- or six-tier Sumpu Castle used to stand in what is now the city of Shizuoka. The cas-tle is known as a residence of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the first shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate, after
he handed over power to his son Hidetada.
The castle was destroyed in a 1635 fire and has never been rebuilt. The elevated ground used as the foundation for the castle, now part of the Sumpu Castle Park, was bur-ied in the Meiji era (1868-1912).
To uncover the history of the castle, the Shizuoka municipal gov-ernment on August 9 began excavations, which are carried out on weekdays and every fourth Sat-urday and Sunday of the month, and are open to the public. By having visitors observe the excavation work, the city government hopes to increase public interest in the castle and use revenue
from tourism to help finance the excavation. On November 26, a 67-metre-long stone wall that stands 5.6 metres at its highest point could be seen running from north to south. “This wall dates back 400 years,” a volunteer said.
Researchers and other people working on the excavation wear uniform bibs bearing the Tokugawa
“Mitsuba Aoi” crest (three leaves of the hollyhock).
At the visitors’ centre at a cor-ner of the excavation site, people can view a video outlining the exca-vation as well as unearthed artifacts.
“We have to come up with ideas to attract people from around the country,” said Hideatsu Hasegawa, a researcher for the excavation project. As of the end of November, 22,900 visitors had observed the excavation. Normally, excavation work is shown to the public only at certain times with on-site guidance. Access to the sites, which are sim-ilar to civil engineering sites, is limited because of safety concerns. At the Sumpu Castle ruins, the exca-vation work revealed rock walls and created 10-metre-wide trenches. The trenches are used to separate visitors from where the excavation is being carried out to ensure safety. “Whenever an inter-esting item is unearthed, the workers at the excavation site want as many people as possible to see it,” Hasegawa said. The excavation work will continue until March 2020.
MARKETPLACE/COMMUNITY WEDNESDAY 4 JANUARY 201706
As part of its on-going partnership with the Qatar Tennis Federa-tion (QTF), Aspetar continues to provide
comprehensive world-class med-ical services at the ATP Qatar ExxonMobil Open.
Running from January 2 to 7, the tournament features some of the world’s greatest tennis play-ers, including world number one Andy Murray, defending champion and world number two Novak Djokovic, and ATP Qatar Exxon-Mobil Open 2012 champion
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.Working alongside Qatar Red
Crescent staff, Aspetar’s team of experts includes sports medicine physicians, physiotherapists, mas-sage therapists, podiatrists, emergency medical staff, and paramedics.
Commenting on the occasion, Dr. Mohamed Ghaith Al Kuwari, Acting Director General of Aspe-tar, said: “We are proud to continue our work with the Qatar Tennis Federation. Since 2011, Aspetar has been the official and exclusive Medical Partnerfor the Qatar ExxonMobil Open as part of our long-term partnership agree-ment. This is an extension of our on-going efforts to provide inte-grated sports medical care in support of all local and interna-tional tournaments held in Qatar, while ensuring fast, on-the-spot reaction to any injury obtained during play.”
As part of its efforts to prevent injuries and ensure players are fit to compete at their highest per-formance level, Aspetar is also offering customised physiotherapy solutions. Players can receive treat-ment at Aspetar’s state-of-the-art rehabilitation facilities, designed to treat injured athletes from all over the world.
Held consistently since 1993, the ATP Qatar ExxonMobil Open has become a pacesetter on the ATP World Tour’s 250 series and repre-sents the highest prize-money event of the Tour.
In addition to its support for the ATP Qatar ExxonMobil Open 2017, Aspetar will provide medical sup-port to the WTA Qatar Total Open 2017, which is scheduled to take place in February.
Aspetar offers medical services
at Qatar ExxonMobil Open
Q-Malayalam organises event for kidsQ-Malayalam, a socio-literary organisation of Keralites in
Qatar, organised ‘Minnaminnikkoottam’, a unique cul-tural and literary event for children, at the FCC recently.
Around 35 children participated in the event, who presented a variety of programmes like reviews of fiction, songs in English and Malayalam, cinematic dance, story stelling, poetry recita-tion in English and Malayalam, instrumental music and elocution, etc. Reviews of famous novels like God of Small Things, Kite Runner, A Thousand Splendid Suns, Secret Garden were pre-sented, and also of several famous Malayalam works.
The programme, which lasted several hours, was different in that it was completely managed by children, who acted as the comperes too. Certificates were distributed to all the par-ticipants. The programme was sponsored by the Quality Hypermarket.
MARKETPLACEWEDNESDAY 4 JANUARY 2017 07
Qatar Airways and Qatar Duty Free (QDF), the official airline and retail sponsors of the
Qatar ExxonMobil Open Men’s Tennis 2017, are welcoming fans to the first tournament of the 25th annual ATP World Tour 250 Series in Doha.
Held at Khalifa Interna-tional Tennis and Squash Stadium from January 2 to 7, the exciting tournament is the first in the prestigious ATP World Tour 250 Series that takes place across the globe. The Qatar ExxonMobil Open Men’s Tennis 2017 will show-case the world’s best professional tennis talent, including defending cham-pion Novak Djokovic, world number-one Andy Murray, David Goffin, Dustin Brown, Fernando Verdasco, Ivo Kar-lovic, Jeremy Chardy, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Tomas Berdych among others.
Both Qatar Airways and QDF are helping celebrate the tournament with dedicated interactive booths located in the Publ ic Vi l lage Area .
Qatar Airways invites tennis enthusiasts to play their own virtual Qatar ExxonMobil ten-nis tournament, with an exciting and interactive stand hosted by its award winning cabin crew.
QDF welcomes visitors to capture the moment with their nearest and dearest inside its tennis inspired photo booth, as well as giving visitors the oppor-tunity of becoming a QDF
Millionaire. With its easy to play game, successful game winners at QDF’s tent go into the draw to win a QDF Millionaire Ticket and a chance to take home $1m.
Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive Akbar Al Baker, said:
“I am thrilled to partner with the Qatar Tennis Federation to once again bring the prestigious Qatar ExxonMobil Open Men’s Tennis t o u r n a m e n t t o o u r
home — Doha. This important extension to the ATP World Tour 250 Series celebrates the very finest in men’s tennis, provid-ing international and local audiences a thrilling six-day fes-tival of elite sport. Important sporting events such as the Qatar ExxonMobil Open Men’s Tennis 2017 tournament help establish Qatar as a world class sporting and entertainment des-tination and I wish all competitors the best of luck in what I am sure will be an exhil-arating competition.”
Senior Vice-President Qatar Duty Free Luis Gasset said: “Qatar Duty Free is excited to participate in this global event and I welcome everyone to visit our stand to celebrate this special occasion. Qatar Duty Free has prepared a wonderful experience that will offer visitors to the QDF tennis booth the chance to become a QDF millionaire.”
The tournament will host a total of 32 players in the Main Draw and 16 teams for the Doubles with the world-class event set to attract thousands to Doha for the duration of the competition.
Qatar Airways & Qatar Duty Free celebrate
ExxonMobil Open Men’s Tennis Tournament
FOOD WEDNESDAY 4 JANUARY 201708
Sara Moulton
AP
When buying fish, many of us tend to opt for the ease of fil-lets. The prospect of buying, prepping and deboning a whole fish might seem not just
novel, but also daunting. Ditto for the prospect of steaming a whole fish, a precarious project for even experienced cooks.
So here I propose baking your whole fish rather than steaming it, and wrapping it in foil to keep it moist. It’s much easier to cook it this way. It also has the added benefit of creating an instant sauce.
But let’s start at the beginning. You’re at the store checking out the fish on display. How can you tell if a whole fish is fresh? Its eyes should be clear, not cloudy, and its gills should be brightly colored, red or pink.
Once you’ve picked your winner, ask the fish-monger to clean it for you. He’ll clip off the gills, scrape off the scales and remove the guts. If you don’t plan to head home right away, ask for a bag of ice to place next to the fish, which will keep it cold.
You begin prepping your fish by scoring it, slicing deeply into the flesh. This will allow the marinade to penetrate to the core and for the fish to cook evenly. I’ve called for traditional Chinese flavorings here, but you’re welcome to adjust them to your tastes. If, for example, you’re not a fan of chilies, leave them out. If you hate cilantro, swap in another fresh herb. The soy sauce is key because it contributes salt as well as flavor, which helps to season the blandish fish. Then after just 20 minutes in the marinade, the fish is ready for the oven.
How will you know when it is done? Pull the pan out of the oven, open up the foil carefully (it will be steamy inside) and poke the fish with a small, sharp knife. If the knife slides in easily all the way to the bone, the fish is done. If there’s some resistance, cook it a little longer. When the fish has indeed finished cooking, you’ll be rewarded not only with beautifully fragrant flesh, but also with a store of savory liquid on the bot-tom of the pan.
Carving the fish isn’t a big deal. Begin by gen-tly scraping off the skin from the top of the fish
with a knife and discard it. Then, using a spoon and starting at the backbone edge, lift the flesh off in chunks and transfer it to plates. After you have removed the top fillet, you can lift off the bone easily in one piece to expose the bottom fillet. Once cooked, the fillets will come off the bone without a struggle.
After you have filleted the fish, ladle some of the cooking liquid over each portion and dig in. It’s a treat any day of the year.
Baked whole fishIngredients
Two 1- to 1 1/2-pound whole striped bass, branzino or trout, gutted, scaled and gills removed
into matchsticks3 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce2 tablespoons unseasoned rice vinegar1 1/2 tablespoons sesame oil2 to 4 tablespoons serrano or jalapeno chilies,
with seeds and ribs4 scallions, white and green parts, cut into
thin strips
1 cup chopped fresh cilantro, leaves and stems
MethodHeat the oven to 400 F. Line a shallow bak-
ing dish large enough to hold both fish with foil. Lay both fish on the counter. Working in 1- to 2-inch intervals, use a sharp knife to slash both sides of each fish perpendicular to the backbone (a 20-degree angle down the rib cage). Transfer the fish to the prepared bak-ing dish.
In a small bowl, combine the garlic, gin-ger, soy sauce, vinegar, sesame oil, chilies, scallions and cilantro. Stuff some of the mix-ture into each slash on both fish, as well as into the cavity (most of the seasoning should go in the slashes). Cover the pan with foil and let the fish sit at room temperature for 20 min-utes. After 20 minutes, bake the fish on the oven’s middle shelf for 20 to 24 minutes, or until the fish is just cooked through (you can pierce it easily with a knife).
To serve, use a small knife to gently scrape off the skin, then use a spoon to lift off the fil-lets (they will come up in chunks), and transfer one to each of 4 serving plates. Pour some of the juices from the pan over each portion.
Baking whole fish in foil easier and tastier than steaming it
LIFESTYLEWEDNESDAY 4 JANUARY 2017 09
#PeninsulaQatar Instagram Photography Contest
Scan & Watch
Al Khor Park
Qatar National Museum
Scan the QRcode and watch The Peninsula videos
Every week we will pick one winner and publish the winning photo on our social media platforms and in our print edition.
1 . Follow The Peninsula Instagram @peninsula_qatar 2 . Take photos around Qatar and publish in your Instagram account with hashtag #PeninsulaQatarContest
jeyeyjey
Photo by:
4 little-known Google services1) Google Input Tools: With Google Input Tools you can type on the
Web in any language of your choice. You can even add words to a cus-tom dictionary for future use. The service works offline and has a Chrome extension, Android app, and a Windows program that you can install.
2) Google Keep is a killer notes app that works on desktop and mobile. Its bright, beautiful design will keep you feeling good about your to-do lists — even when nothing gets crossed out — and you can even set reminders that will integrate with your Gcal.
3) You can set a timer on Google — and get an alarm to sound when time is up — by Googling any amount of time followed by “timer.”
4) Google Ngrams is a fun tool that lets you search for words in 5.2 million books published between 1500 and 2008 so you can see how they’ve been used and changed over time.
HEALTH WEDNESDAY 4 JANUARY 201710
IANS
A modest increase in dietary zinc - about four milli-grams - can help reduce everyday wear and tear
on our DNA, says a study.While most DNA damage is
harmless, some can have serious ramifications and a decrease in the body’s ability to fix this wear and tear may be an important compo-nent of ageing.
“We were pleasantly surprised to see that just a small increase in dietary zinc can have such a signif-icant impact on how metabolism is carried out throughout the body,” said lead researcher Janet King, Senior Scientist at Children’s Hos-pital Oakland Research Institute in California.
“These results present a new strategy for measuring the impact of zinc on health and reinforce the evidence that food-based interven-tions can improve micronutrient
deficiencies worldwide,” King noted.
Zinc is ubiquitous in our body and facilitates many functions that are essential for preserving life.
It plays a vital role in maintain-ing optimal childhood growth, and in ensuring a healthy immune system.
Zinc also helps limit inflamma-tion and oxidative stress in our body, which are associated with the onset of chronic cardiovascular diseases and cancers.
Around much of the world, many households eat polished white rice or highly refined wheat or maize flours, which provide energy but do not provide enough essential micronutrients such as zinc.
In the absence of sufficient zinc, our ability to repair everyday wear and tear on our DNA is compromised.
In the six-week study, the sci-entists measured the impact of zinc
on human metabolism by counting DNA strand breaks.
They used the parameter of DNA damage to examine the influ-ence of a moderate amount of zinc on healthy living.
The findings -- published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutri-tion -- showed that a modest increase in dietary zinc reduces oxidative stress and damage to DNA.
IANS
Taking certain Omega-3 fatty acid supplements during pregnancy can reduce the risk
of childhood asthma by almost one
third, says a study.The study found that women
who were prescribed 2.4 grams of long-chain Omega-3 supplements during the third trimester of preg-nancy reduced their children’s risk
of asthma by 31 percent.Long-chain Omega-3 fatty
acids, which include eicosapentae-noic ac id (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), are found in cold water fish, and key to regulating human immune response.
“We’ve long suspected there was a link between the anti-inflamma-tory properties of long-chain omega-3 fats, the low intakes of Omega-3 in Western diets and the rising rates of childhood asthma,” said one of the researchers Hans Bisgaard from Copenhagen Univer-sity Hospital, Denmark.
“This study proves that they are definitively and significantly related,” Bisgaard said.
For the study, the researchers analysed blood samples of 695 Dan-ish women at 24 weeks’ gestation
and one week after delivery. They then monitored the health
status of each participating child for five years, which is the age asthma symptoms can be clinically established.
The study used rapid analytical techniques developed and per-formed at the University of Waterloo in Canada to measure lev-els of EPA and DHA in pregnant women’s blood.
The testing also revealed that women with low blood levels of EPA and DHA at the beginning of the study benefited the most from the supplements.
For these women, it reduced their children’s relative risk of developing asthma by 54 per cent, showed the findings published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Omega-3 supplements for mothers cut asthma risk in kids
Little extra zinc in diet may reduce DNA damage
BOLLYWOODWEDNESDAY 4 JANUARY 2017 11
Sandeep Sharma
IANS
From a waiter and pick-pocket to a goon, gangster and a reporter -- in a career spanning over 15
years, Nawazuddin Siddiqui has showcased his versatility. Now soon to be seen as a school teacher in “Haraamkhor”, he says he has never focused on building a set image for himself in Bollywood. And that’s what gives him a chance to experiment with every project
in an age of digitisation. “I have never thought about creating an image for myself in Bollywood. I am an actor and just want to exper-iment with roles. I am ready to do all type of roles,” Nawazuddin told IANS in an interview.
“I don’t want to build any image for myself. I don’t want people to say,
‘He does only a certain type of role’. I don’t want only to be the hero of the story. An actor’s weakness is the different roles that he can’t do. But I am keen to grab only those roles as I am here to challenge myself,”
added the critically-acclaimed tal-ent. He credits his acting skills to his training at the National School of Drama. “You gain a lot through training,” said the 42-year-old, who is endorsing social commerce plat-form addsbook.com.
The National Award-winning actor said he is happy with the dig-ital world, but he does not like it when people use social media plat-forms to troll each other.
“It’s bad that people waste most of their time on various social media platforms looking through and com-menting on others’ posts. That’s what we call the wrong use of digitalisa-tion,” said the actor, best known for his roles in films like “Dekh Indian Circus”, “Gangs of Wasseypur “,
“Talaash”, “The Lunchbox” and “Manjhi - The Mountain Man”.
“One negative impact of digital media is that people have the liberty to say what they want to. There aren’t any restrictions.
“I understand that people have freedom of speech, but people should have some sense while say-ing anything. People nowadays give reviews of films on social media. But are they capable enough to do that; do they have those kind of skills,” Nawazuddin questioned.
Looking at the positive aspect of the digital boom, he said: “Digital media is bringing out hidden talent which was unapproachable for the industry people.”
Nawazuddin’s first release for the new year is debut director Shlok Sharma’s “Haraamkhor”, which hits screens on January 13. After that, he will be seen with Bollywood super-star Shah Rukh Khan in the much-awaited “Raees”.
“I have huge expectations from ‘Raees’. It’s an entertaining film, and I enjoyed shooting for it,” Nawazud-din said.
How was it working with Shah Rukh?
“Shah Rukh Khan is the best co-actor. The response that he gives to you while performing scenes is ter-rific. (Otherwise) I have seen most of the times that while shooting, actors don’t listen to your dialogues or see your expressions, and are mainly concerned about their lines,” he said.
Nawazuddin also said: “What-ever appreciation I get for my role in ‘Raees’ will be just because of Shah Rukh Khan. He has respected his character a lot. Also, the chem-istry between us is good”.
Nawazuddin has also been roped in to star in the film adapta-tion of Sujit Saraf’s novel “The Confession of Sultana Daku”.
“I have signed on to play Sultana Daku in the film adaptation. The film’s story is beyond dacoity,” said the actor, who also has “Munna Michael” in the pipeline.
IANS
Veteran actor Gulshan Grover says super-star Salman Khan and actress Sonakshi Sinha are good painters.
“As an artist, I can admire and praise the craft but I am not a painter. However, so many Bol-lywood actors are good in this craft. Salman is a good painter and I have heard that Sonakshi is also good at painting,” Gulshan said, who was here to inaugurate an art exhibition.
On the professional front, Gulshan was last
seen in the web series “Bad Man”, which was directed by Soumik Sen.
“It is the first mockumentary feature film in India for the digital web audience. I am very happy to work in this venture. ‘Bad Man’ trav-elled many film festivals like San Francisco film festival where I was awarded as Best actor. It was also the opening film at Vancouver Film Festival,” Gulshan said.
Gulshan will next be seen in the film “Behen Hogi Teri”, which will also feature actors Raj-kummar Rao and Shruti Hassan.
Salman Khan & Sonakshi Sinha good painters: Gulshan Grover
Digital media is bringing out hidden talent: Nawazuddin
HOLLYWOOD WEDNESDAY 4 JANUARY 201712
AFP
It’s an all-too-familiar Hollywood story: the out-of-work actor eking out an existence in cheap housing, earning minimum wage delivering pizzas, desperate for his big break.
But for Jay Abdo -- one of the Arab world’s biggest stars before the conflict in Syria made him just another anonymous refugee on the mean streets of Los Angeles -- it has been par-ticularly tough.
Just a few years ago, the 54-year-old actor could not walk the streets in any Middle Eastern country without being mobbed by fans or dine out without being offered free meals.
A household name and a veteran of 43 mov-ies and more than 1,000 TV episodes, Abdo was admired not just for his acting skills but his will-ingness to speak his mind in public.
“I had a pretty beautiful life,” he told AFP. “People loved me, on screen and on talk shows when I spoke to people and expressed my cul-ture and points of view.”
Known in Syria by his real first name, Jihad, Abdo is best known for his role in “Bab al-Hara” (“The Neighborhood Gate”), one of the biggest soap operas in history, with up to 50 million viewers per episode.
His path to Hollywood started in 2011 as ten-sions in Syria were escalating in the wake of the Arab Spring uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt.
His wife, painter and human rights lawyer Fadia Afashe, was a senior official in Syria’s department of culture, and found herself hav-ing to flee Bashar al-Assad’s brutal regime after being caught meeting opposition activists dur-ing a trip to France.
TortureShe went to study public policy at the Uni-
versity of Minnesota in Minneapolis, intending to return to Syria after graduating.
But Abdo himself was beginning to become a major annoyance to Assad’s crumbling regime after turning down numerous invitations to back the president at rallies and TV talk shows.
Matters came to a head when he gave an interview to the Los Angeles Times during a trip to Beirut in which he accused Syria’s secret serv-ice of torture and corruption.
Strangers threatened him on his return to Syria, his car windows were smashed and he faced repeated demands to apologise to Assad on television.
Having seen friends arrested or disappear -- some are still missing -- he uprooted in October 2011, leaving behind almost all his wealth and property, to join his wife in Minneapolis.
The couple applied for asylum and drove for three days to Los Angeles with everything they owned so Abdo could find work.
“I met so many people who were shocked
that my name was Jihad,” he says, explaining why he became Jay.
“They didn’t know it was Christian and I was named after a Christian lawyer in Damascus -- a very good friend to my family.”
Even with a more palatable name, more than 100 failed auditions followed as the couple lived a desperate existence on just $3 a day.
It took more than a year to find work with a florist and delivering pizzas for Domino’s, earn-ing up to $300 a week.
‘Destiny brought me’Abdo’s break finally came when he landed
a part alongside Nicole Kidman and James Franco in “Queen of the Desert,” Werner Her-zog’s biopic of the British archeologist Gertrude Bell, due for release in spring.
“All my scenes were with Nicole,” Abdo says. “I can’t praise her enough. She’s very sweet, extremely professional, a very good hearted woman -- very smart and sharp. Above all, she supported me from the first minute.”
Herzog has since described in interviews finally grasping how famous his Syrian hire was
when they visited a souk in Marrakesh during filming in Morocco.
“Everyone wanted a photo with him. The mer-chants in the souk gave us everything for half price,” the filmmaker told The Wall Street Journal.
In a sign that Tinseltown really does like its happy endings, the actor’s career is finally back on track.
He has a part in the Amazon television series “The Patriot” and “Bon Voyage,” a short film he made with Swiss director Marc Raymond Wilkins, has just been shortlisted for an Oscar.
Last year, he appeared alongside Tom Hanks in “A Hologram for the King,” a comedy about a failed corporate salesman trying to do business in Saudi Arabia.
Devastated by the worsening plight of the Syrian people in the five years since he escaped the Assad regime, Abdo is unsure whether he’ll ever return. But he believes he couldn’t be in a better place.
“From the beginning, Hollywood wasn’t my objective,” he said. “I didn’t plan to come here. It’s destiny that brought me.”
Syrian star turned pizza boy dreaming of Hollywood ending
TECHNOLOGYWEDNESDAY 4 JANUARY 2017 13
Brian Fung
The Washington Post
Amazon is exploring the use of giant airships to serve as mobile, flying warehouses that could help the online retail
giant deliver more of its goods by drone.
You might already be familiar with Amazon’s drone delivery serv-ice, which recently received a demo in the United Kingdom for the first time. But the idea for a fleet of large airships, disclosed in filings to the US Patent and Trademark Office, expand on those ambitions dramatically.
Imagine you’re at a baseball game and wanted to buy a meal or a jersey without ever leaving your seat. The system Amazon describes would allow you to place an order and receive the i tem
within minutes. From its so-called “airborne fulfillment centres” hov-ering near the stadium, Amazon would dispatch a drone with your purchase.
The drone would float or glide most of the way, then turn on its propellers and navigate itself to you directly.
While Amazon’s existing goal with drone delivery is to get you your stuff within 30 minutes, air-ships could potentially reduce that time even further.
Unlike Amazon’s land-based warehouses, which by definition
can’t move around, airborne fulfill-ment centers could respond to surges in demand even before they occur, according to the patent filing.
Large gatherings of people for a specific event, such as a concert or a sports game, are one example Amazon highlights as a clear-use case. But Amazon also appears to believe that using airships could reduce the costs of drone delivery in general.
In looking to airships, Amazon draws upon a long technological tradition dating back to the 19th century, when some of the world’s first self-propelled dirigibles were created.
Sending drones out from a ground-based facility requires sub-stantial energy, the filing says, because the drone must have its propellers spinning constantly to stay aloft. What’s more, having to make a return trip to the warehouse with no payload onboard could be a wasteful expense.
By contrast, Amazon believes it could be more efficient to deploy
drones from airships; the drones could float or glide most of the way down to earth by way of gravity, rather than using their own power.
The airships would have to be resupplied periodically, of course. Amazon envisions still more air-ships - smaller ones - that could shuttle more drones, products and other things needed to keep the air-ships functioning up to the larger carrier.
A diagram (second illustration below) from Amazon’s patent fil-ing that shows how the whole system could work.
There’s no word on when such a system might debut; an Amazon spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Some patents never even lead to actual products. But companies such as Facebook and Google have floated the use of airships and drones to beam Internet connec-tivity down to earth, so it was likely only a matter of time before Ama-zon began thinking about how to apply the same technology to its business.
Amazon’s latest idea is a flying warehouse
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