Seoul, Nov 26 (AP/UNB) — North and South Korea are making a first joint bid for an international recognition of Korean traditional wrestling.

South Korean culture officials on Monday said a UNESCO committee is set to determine whether to add the Korean wrestling to its list of "Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity" this week.

The Koreas had earlier pushed separate bids for the sport's UNESCO recognition, but the cooperation follows an easing of tension on the divided peninsula amid a flurry of exchanges this year. Local media reports said South Korea had first proposed the joint bid during a leaders' summit at the Korean border village in April.

The Koreas were originally a single country before their separation in 1945. Split along the world's most heavily fortified border, the countries now have linguistic, cultural and other gaps.

They use different English Romanization rules. The wrestling's English spelling is "ssirum" in North Korea and "ssireum" in South Korea. According to South Korea's Cultural Heritage Administration, the Koreas use both spellings for their combined bid.

North Korea has won UNESCO recognitions of two Korean cultural assets — the Korean folk tune "Airrang" and the making of Kimchi. The two are among the 19 items that South Korea has received UNESCO recognition for, according to South Korean officials.

In the Korean wrestling, participants with a belt around their waists and thighs use their hands, legs and other body parts to bring down their opponents to the sand ground. In South Korea, it gained wide popularity the 1980s, threatening the long-running popularity of baseball and soccer.

Dhaka, Nov 24 (UNB) - A Haute Couture event raising charity for children, inspired by the Mother Teresa Charity Fund, took place at the city’s Le Meridien Hotel on Saturday, where strutting their stuff on the catwalk were a group of people we may be more used to seeing in far more staid circumstances.

Indeed, it was a cross-section of the diplomatic corps stationed in Dhaka that took a break from their usual business of negotiations and maintaining friendly relations among nations to don the creations of six Bangladeshi designers -- Farah Anjum Bari, Shaibal Shaha, Lipi Khandker, Kuhu Plamondon, Chandana Dewan and Maheen Khan.

 

The programme kicked off to the soothing tunes of the American band ‘Soul Shack’ on the rooftop of the chic hotel where the audience represented a cross-section of Dhaka’s intelligentsia containing artists, journalists, the fashionable elite, and of course the faces of the city’s Diplomatic Enclave, and expatriate hotspots.

Sandra Tabajara, the spouse of the Brazilian Ambassador to Bangladesh, who herself was also a key figure in organising the event, set the mood for the evening ahead with a graceful speech, lauding the fact that everyone related to the event was “working for children who are in great need”.

Maheen Khan, long regarded highly for not just her creations using indigenous fabrics like khadi, but also her personal elegance and grace, echoed Sandra’s sentiments, reaffirming with her that the greatest joy does indeed spring, not from acts motivated by the self, but rather a cause greater than ourselves.

That took us into the main event if you like – a bold and magnificent fashion show where some of the most prominent ambassadors, the ones conveying endlessly to improve our human rights record or something, threw off inhibitions and rocked the attires they were asked to promote.

Later another set of embassy heads along with their families graced the floor showcasing their national costumes -- Russia, Bhutan, China, Iran, the Maldives, Morocco, Myanmar, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Vietnam and obviously Brazil.

After this segment, the ramp closed with all the models on stage where Sandra Tabajara once again thanked everyone related to the show, lauding their efforts and support for a greater cause.

UNB bumped into numerous key figures who partook in different portions of the event, including the hosts, designers and models before and after the event.

Ambassador Joao Tabajara de Oliveira Junior, prior to the fashion show, mentioned that he was ‘enthusiastic’ about the whole event and said he always feels great to join people to work for common yet noble goals, in this case, helping the children.

The Ambassador also credited the fruitfulness of the show to his spouse, Sandra, saying “She did an amazing job working for the needy children.”

Kuhu Plamondon, whose work was due featuring in the fashion show later, said she was too excited as her longtime friend, Tehmina Khan along with Shaheen and Sabrina, would be rocking stylish dresses designed by her (Kuhu) and also expressed happiness for being connected with an event for good reason.

Everyone related to this show should be inspired by their works, she added.

Maheen Khan said she feels proud as through this program the designers are representing Bangladesh.

“At the end of the day, I feel lucky for being part of a great team,” she added.

Lipi Khandker, another prominent designer, mentioned that it was her first work in any charity show and it gave her a good feeling.

Chandana Dewan, the woman behind the label CHONDON, said the show she witnessed was a lively one, lauding the models who worked for free for a greater cause.

To Shaibal Saha, the crafts and fashion designer of Indigo, the whole programme was an ‘unorthodox experience’ for which he credited the hosts saying that events of such scale should happen more frequently.

“It’s an unbelievable journey which I expect to return to,” the designer said.

Managing Director of Bay Eastern Ltd. Farah Anjum Bari joined UNB prior to the show, saying she felt compelled to contribute to society and the children in need through this event.

UNB also happened to get insights from Azra Mahmood, one of the top models of the country who termed the programme as “Brilliant” and said it was indeed a great initiative and being able to be part of which is a great honour to her.

Celebrated actress Tarin, who dignified the stage walking down the ramp, also shared her views about the show with UNB. She said even though many top models of the country were absent, the event itself “set it apart as many of the embassy officials partook as models which was a great sight to enjoy.”

All this had been possible with the patronage of the Brazilian Embassy in Bangladesh, the support of the Spouses of Head of Missions (SHOM). Cosmos Group, REVIVE, Bashundhara Group, Mutual Trust Bank Limited, Dhaka Page3, Bay Developments Ltd, Bangladesh Heritage Crafts Foundation and Le Meridien Dhaka were the sponsors of the event, while United News of Bangladesh (UNB) was the media partner.

Rome, Nov 24 (AP/UNB) — So versatile were Leonardo da Vinci's talents in art and science and so boundless his visionary imagination, he is known to the world as the universal genius.

But not to Italy's nationalist-tilting government, which is livid about plans by the Louvre museum in Paris for a blockbuster exhibit next year with as many as possible Leonardo masterpieces loaned from Italian museums to mark the 500th anniversary of the Renaissance artist's death.

"It's unfair, a mistaken deal," Italian Culture Ministry Undersecretary Lucia Borgonzoni said of a 2017 agreement between a previous government and the Louvre. "Leonardo is an Italian genius," she told The Associated Press this week.

Borgonzoni is a senator from the League, the "Italians-first" sovereignty-championing party in the nearly six-month-old populist government.

She was elaborating on comments earlier this month, in Italian daily Corriere della Sera, in which she said of Leonardo: "In France, all he did was die."

Leonardo was born in 1452 in the Tuscan town of Vinci, Italy, and died in Amboise, France, in 1519.

Borgonzoni criticized how as part of the 2017 arrangement, Italy also pledged to program its own exhibits so they won't compete with the Louvre mega-show.

The Louvre declined to comment on Italy's objections, nor say which artworks it requested from Italy, noting it's nearly a year before the four-months-long exhibit opens on Oct. 24, 2019.

Exhibit curator, Vincent Delieuvin, part of the Louvre's staff, also serves on the Italian Culture Ministry's committee which evaluated proposals from museums worldwide for the celebrations. He didn't reply to an emailed request for comment.

"While respecting the autonomy of museums, national interests can't be put in second place," Borgonzoni told Corriere. "The French can't have everything."

And it appears they won't get all they want.

The Uffizi Galleries in Florence is considering loaning the Louvre several Leonardo drawings. But director Eike D. Schmidt said his museum is nixing the Louvre's request for its stellar trio of Leonardo paintings because "simply, these works are so extremely fragile. No museum in the world would ever lend them."

Last summer, when the three Leonardos were moved one flight up in the Uffizi so they would have a room all to themselves, the transfer required preparations "like it was an expedition to Mount Everest, or a space trip to the Moon," with restoration experts on hand just in case anything got damaged, Schmidt said in a phone interview.

One of the three paintings, "Adoration of the Magi," only came back to the Uffizi last year, after five years of restoration work in Florence.

In 2007, when "Annunciation," a painting on wood by a 20-year-old Leonardo depicting the Archangel Gabriel proffering a lily to the Virgin, was about to leave the Uffizi for a Tokyo exhibition, a senator from the conservative Forza Italia (Let's Go Italy) party and several Florentines chained themselves to a museum gate in a vain attempt to thwart the precious masterpiece from being flown to Japan.

The Uffizi director at the time opposed that loan, but the then-culture minister decided that the painting's transfer as good for Italy.

For the 2019 celebrations, the Uffizi will loan an early Leonardo work, "Landscape Drawing for Santa Maria Della Neve," to the Leonardiano Museum in Vinci. Depicting the countryside near Vinci, the drawing is displayed only for a few weeks every four years because of fears prolonged exposure to light will damage it.

Schmidt sounded hopeful the Louvre would understand the Uffizi's refusal.

"We fully understand why the 'Mona Lisa' cannot travel," he said, referring to the Louvre's star Leonardo painting.

But while the Louvre won't ever let the portrait of the woman with the fascinating smile leave its confines, it did send two other Leonardo paintings to Milan for an exhibition during the 2015 Expo in that northern Italian city. In all, the Louvre has five of his paintings, the most of any one museum.

Anniversary committee head Paolo Galluzzi, who directs the Galileo Museum in Florence, insisted that nationalism wasn't a factor in evaluating anniversary proposals.

"Many could claim him. He was born in Vinci, trained in Florence, and developed in Milan," Galluzzi said by telephone. "Politicians have different optics," but in the "world of culture and science we don't bother with these things."

Ultimately, he said, what is being celebrated next year is a "universal genius."

New York, Nov 24 (AP/UNB) — Behind every great book are the books which influenced it. The "micro-learning" app and platform blinkist.com has been compiling literary sources for such classics as "A Clockwork Orange," ''Oliver Twist" and "1984."Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" was inspired by each of her parents — William Godwin's "An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice" and Mary Wollstonecraft's "A Vindication of the Rights of Women."

One of the defining novels of the Civil War era, Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin," drew in part upon one of the defining memoirs, "The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave." Douglass' book, which remains standard reading in many schools, also was cited by Toni Morrison for her Pulitzer Prize winning historical novel "Beloved."

"We were noticing the attention around the 200th anniversary of 'Frankenstein' and got to thinking about the nonfiction works which help author of fiction," says Blinkist writer-editor Tom Anderson. "We think of those books as the unsung heroes."

Charles Dickens' portrait of extreme wealth and poverty in London in "Oliver Twist" was in part modeled on Edward Gibbon's "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." Anthony Burgess drew upon fiction and nonfiction for his terrifying "A Clockwork Orange," his sources including Aldous Huxley's futuristic classic "Brave New World" and B.F. Skinner's landmark of psychology "Science and Human Behavior."

Tolstoy's "War and Peace" reflected the author's reading of the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer, along with works about Napoleon and French history. According to Tolstoy scholar Ani Kokobobo, the author was "captivated" by Schopenhauer and his belief that "death is the only reality," a viewpoint expressed by the cerebral Prince Andrei Nikolayevich Bolkonsky in "War and Peace." Kokobobo also noted that "War and Peace" was a response in part to such French scholarship as Adolphe Thiers' "History of the Consulate and the Empire of France Under Napoleon," which Tolstoy believed exaggerated Napoleon's stature and military ideas.

"Tolstoy did not believe in this 'great man' theory, also propagated by Thomas Carlyle, and thought that victory and defeat were not determined by a sole heroic leader, but rather by the collective alignment of the will of thousands," said Kokobobo, editor of the Tolstoy Studies Journal.

George Orwell's 1984, the Dystopian political novel which has become a best-seller again during the Trump administration, reflects in part the British author's reading of two nonfiction studies: James Burnham's "The Managerial Revolution" and Halford Mackinder's "Democratic Ideals and Reality: A Study in the Politics of Reconstruction."

In a recent telephone interview, Orwell's son, Richard Blair, said his father was "the most voracious reader" who "absorbed enormous amounts of books." Orwell Society committee member Les Hurst said that "1984" shows how Orwell adapted the ideas of others to his own. He noted a passage from the Mackinder book, which came out just after World War I: "Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island; who rules the World-Island commands the world." Orwell borrowed Mackinder's framing for one of the most famous epigrams from "1984": "Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past."

"The Mackinder book sat in Orwell's mind for several years," Hurst said. "Orwell was able to translate those words, able to extend Burnham's concepts of power and power worship and to take ideals of geopolitics and perform this great imaginative leap, from geography and cast into the past and into the future. He takes something with two dimensions and turned it into something that is three dimensional."

San Francisco, Nov 24 (Xinhua/UNB)-- As the morbidity rate of type 2 diabetes keeps increasing, about 40 million people with the disease will not have access to insulin for treatment by 2030, a recent study from Stanford University suggested.

Researchers simulated burden of the disease from 2018 to 2030 across 221 countries using data from the International Diabetes Federation and 14 studies which represent more than 60 percent of the global type 2 diabetes population.

According to the study, the number of people with type 2 diabetes worldwide will increase from 406 million in 2018 to 511 million in 2030.

About 79 million people will need insulin to control their condition, while only 38 million will be able to get it if access to insulin remains the same, researchers predicted.

"These estimates suggest that current levels of insulin access are highly inadequate compared to projected need, particularly in Africa and Asia, and more efforts should be devoted to overcoming this looming health challenge," said Sanjay Basu, lead author of the study.

"The number of adults with type 2 diabetes is expected to rise over the next 12 years due to ageing, urbanization, and associated changes in diet and physical activity," he said, urging more governmental actions. "Unless governments begin initiatives to make insulin available and affordable, then its use is always going to be far from optimal."