Singapore chef breathes fresh air into APEC summit

Singapore, a culinary melting pot that prides itself on spicy and pungent dishes, is cutting back on onions, garlic and chillies when it feeds Asia-Pacific leaders this weekend.

"A lot of onions in the cooking we try and reduce, because you know, it doesn't give you good breath," the summit's executive chef Jess Ong told AFP in an interview.

Garlic is on the blacklist to make sure the Asian-inspired dishes do not foul the air when the 21 leaders from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum converse.

US President Barack Obama, Chinese President Hu Jintao and Russia's Dmitry Medvedev are among the summit participants, although Obama's schedule remains in flux and whether he will break bread with the others remains in question.

Preparing meals for APEC leaders is always daunting for host countries because the members represent hugely diverse food traditions in Asia and the Americas, stretching from China to Chile via Papua New Guinea.

"It's not a culinary adventure. They have a meeting, they want to recognise the food that they will eat, they do not want to look at the food and say 'I'm not sure I can down this dish'," said Ong, 51.

Onions and garlic aside, the chilli content of local delicacies served at the summit will also be toned down, and the guests can choose between cutlery and chopsticks.

But there will be no compromise on the essential flavour of the dishes, insists Ong, a 30-year industry veteran whose clientele has included the late Princess Diana.

"The element of our local specialities is delivered in a different format.

"This is a variation, rather than heavy, sweet, spicy, hot. So it becomes infused with olive oil, chilli, lemon grass, but very subtle integration."

The leaders' menu this weekend cannot be disclosed in advance, said Ong, who is executive head chef at the main APEC venue, the Singapore International Convention and Exhibition Centre.

Luncheon and a banquet dinner are scheduled for Saturday. Obama will still be en route from a visit to Tokyo, and his only APEC repast could end up being lunch at Singapore's Istana presidential palace on Sunday.

A four-course lunch for APEC ministers last Wednesday featured seared barramundi fish with ginger scallops, mushroom dumpling, wilted water spinach, hot and sour coulis, radishes, baby carrots and asparagus.

Ong did drop a hint of what might be in store for the leaders.

For health-conscious Obama, Ong recommends the local delicacy "yu sheng" -- a colourful salad consisting of raw fish slices, thinly cut vegetables, sweet-and-sour sauces and strips of crackers.

"It's clean, it's healthy, it's tangy, it's about as Singaporean as you can be," he said of the dish, which is traditionally served during Lunar New Year parties and was created by Chinese immigrants in Singapore. (AFP)

Reality TV show exposes racial divides in China

Lou Jing sings Shanghai opera and speaks fluent Mandarin, but when she competed to be China's next reality TV pop star, it was not her voice that was criticised -- it was her black skin.

The daughter of a Chinese mother and an absent African-American father, 20-year-old Lou caused a media storm when she was named one of Shanghai's five finalists for "Let's Go! Oriental Angel," an "American Idol"-style show.

But her fame has been for all of the wrong reasons, after her appearance sparked a vigorous and often vicious nationwide debate on whether she was even fit to be on Chinese television because of the colour of her skin.

Ahead of US President Barack Obama's first visit to China, Lou's experience has put a spotlight on perceptions of race in the country and the challenges the Asian giant faces as its economic boom fosters a more ethnically diverse society.

"I am Chinese," Lou told AFP in an interview. "But when I read the comments, I started to question myself. I never questioned myself before. This time I started to think about how I am different from others."

Even though Obama is wildly popular among the Chinese people and the country is rapidly expanding its ties with Africa, commentators said Lou's story exposes deep racism in China, where the ethnic Han are in a vast majority.

"In the same year Americans welcomed Obama into the White House, we can?t even accept this girl with a different skin colour?" wrote Hung Huang, a talk show host and magazine publisher often described as "China's Oprah Winfrey."

"We tend to be biased against those who are darker-skinned, while admiring races that are paler than us. It is a deeply rooted evil within us," Hung wrote on her blog.

China Daily columnist Raymond Zhou called it "outright racism," saying the bias against dark skin had defined notions of beauty, but was also an offshoot of class discrimination: field labourers were tanned while the rich were pale.

"Many of us even look down on fellow Chinese who have darker skin, especially women. Beauty products that claim to whiten the skin always fetch a premium. And children are constantly praised for having fair skin," he wrote.

Lou said she feels tougher and more mature after her experience, but added if she could do it all over again, she would not have gone on the show at all.

An instructor at Shanghai Drama Academy, where Lou studies broadcasting, put forward the mixed-race beauty and a handful of classmates to appear on the television talent show, without asking first.

She was selected for the top 30 nationwide, but was not among the 12 contestants chosen by judges for the next round.

Lou said she was not surprised by the judges' decision, but was shocked by the thousands of web postings that followed, most of them negative and many of them expressing racist views.

"I couldn't help crying. I felt hurt. I never meant to offend anyone," she said.

Although Lou is still working towards her dream of being a television presenter, she said the episode had left her less optimistic about whether she can find a place on China's airwaves.

"They want a TV host who is considered traditionally beautiful," she said.

"Ever since I appeared on TV, I realised that maybe I don't fit the image of a TV host. Many believe a TV host should have white skin, high nose and big eyes."

Lou said she would follow Obama's visit to China, listing the US president -- himself of mixed-race descent -- as one of her heroes alongside her mother and Winfrey, whose show she watches over the Internet.

She said Obama's autobiography had inspired her, but added that she was unconvinced she could change people's minds about race.

"He convinced people that he has the capacity to change what people thought of African-Americans. Compared to him, I don't have that capacity for change because the Chinese media is too powerful," she said. (AFP)

'Let them eat vegetables', Bardot tells EU

Brigitte Bardot, one-time French screen goddess turned animal rights activist, wants the European Union to institute a "Vegetarian Day" as part of the battle against global warming.

In a letter this week to European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barrosoa, Bardot said "a few weeks before the Copenhagen climate summit, I would like to draw your attention to the need to question cattle-farming, whose effects on the environment are of concern."

Quoting studies by the World Bank and the UN food agency FAO, Bardot said in the letter which was released Friday that cattle-raising not only caused high carbon emissions but also polluted soils and the water table.

"If 'developped' nations were to reduce their meat consumption, there would be less famine, which kills almost six million children each year," Bardot wrote.

"Our collective duty is to act at all levels, including by promoting a vegetarian diet," she added.

"A European 'Vegetarian Day' would be a strong symbol." (AFP)

Buenos Aires okays gay marriage in Latin America first

An Argentine judge paved the way for gay marriage when she granted a homosexual couple permission to marry in a first for Latin America, the world's biggest Catholic region.

Buenos Aires, known for its active if low-key gay movement, became the region's first city to approve civil unions for gay couples in 2002. It was followed by Villa Carlos Paz in the north and the southern province of Rio Negro.

Those civil unions grant gay couples some, but not all, the rights enjoyed by heterosexual married couples.

Friday's ruling by Judge Gabriela Seijas ordered the civil registry to make official the marriage of Alejandro Freyre, 39, and Jose Maria Di Bello, 41, who had been denied their request because they were both men.

It could increase pressure for lawmakers to take up a stalled gay marriage bill in Congress.

"We are very happy, moved, but we also feel the heavy weight of responsibility because it's not just about us, it's encouraging legal equality in Argentina and the rest of Latin America," Di Bello told AFP.

The couple had filed a complaint in April.

In the rest of Latin America, Mexico City, the Mexican state of Coahuila and the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul also allow civil unions for same-sex couples.

Uruguay became the first country in the region in late 2007 to legalize civil unions for gays. In January 2009, the Colombian Constitutional Court recognized a series of rights for homosexual couples, including social welfare rights.

But no Latin American country authorizes marriage between gays.

Seijas deemed that "the law must treat everyone with the same respect according to their particular situation" and declared unconstitutional two articles of the civil code, including one stating that marriage is only between a man and a woman.

"All you have to do is change the words 'man' and 'woman' with the word 'party,'" said Di Bello, who along with his partner is HIV-positive.

The Catholic church is especially powerful in Argentina, a country whose population is 91 percent Catholic.

Bishop Baldemoro Martini charged that "same-sex unions do not contribute to the public good; they put it especially at risk."

The landmark decision could still be struck down if there is an appeal.

But Buenos Aires Mayor Mauricio Macri, a conservative, said the government would make no such move.

"The world is heading in this direction," he told reporters.

Several homosexual groups hailed the judge's ruling.

"I am very happy and I join the feeling of Argentine gays, who were repressed for many years," said Marcelo Cerqueira, president of Gay de Bahia, one of the most active gay rights groups in Latin American giant Brazil.

"For us in Brazil, we have no expectations, neither in court, nor in the medium or long term."

The decision by Seijas "is incredibly courageous, we didn't expect it," acknowledged Di Bello, who fell into his partner's arms when he learned of the verdict. (AFP)

Madoff's magnificent spoils go under the hammer

From diamond-encrusted watches to satin jackets emblazoned with his name, the personal goods of Wall Street swindler Bernard Madoff go under the hammer Saturday in New York to raise money to help pay those who lost their fortunes.

Collectors and curious members of the public gathered Friday for an open viewing of the objects in a room at the Sheraton Hotel in New York as police marshals kept a strict eye on the crowds.

Some two hundred lots are up for grabs and auctioneers are hopeful they can raise some 500,000 dollars -- a mere drop in the ocean compared to the 21.2 billion dollars the court-appointed liquidator says his investors lost.

"I am going to bid on a vintage Rolex, and on the Audemars which I would like to keep for me, and maybe on the jacket," said Chuck Spielman, president of "Only Yesterday" Classic autos in San Diego, California.

"It all depends how the bidding goes. My wife is looking at some purses."

Dian Gilmore, executive director of the American Board of Certification, came from Iowa for a congress of the Commercial Law League of America and took time off to wander around the displays.

"This is part of history. We came out of curiosity," she said.

Madoff, it seems, had a weakness for luxury watches. Around 20 are on display, including a Rolex estimated to be worth some 75,000 dollars, a Blancpain, a Patek Philippe model with a platinum frame, a Audemars Piguet and several Cartiers.

The catalogue of spoils reflects the gaudy life enjoyed by Madoff and his wife Ruth as a result of his decades-long, multi-billion-dollar Ponzi scheme.

It includes diamonds, fur coats, crocodile-skin belts and numerous items of jewelry.

On a more personal note, there was a blue satin New York Mets baseball team jacket emblazoned with "Madoff" on the back. Estimated price: 500 to 720 dollars. Nearby was a Mets cap embroidered in silver.

The Madoff name along with that of his wife appears on many other goods, ranging from golf clubs to beach boards to personal stationary.

Ruth Madoff's furs, all neatly hanging in plastic bags, attracted little interest, but the crowds were fawning over her designer bags bearing labels such as Hermes, Prada, Chanel or Vuitton.

"I would buy some bags for my son's girlfriend, for my ex-wife," said Tony Almeida, retired, from New Jersey.

"I don't think it's bad luck, I want to be able to say I have Bernie's purse."

One young onlooker, overwhelmed by the amount of ostentatious luxury on display, laughed: "This is not Madoff's. It must have belonged to a drug trafficker, although you see no difference."

Gaston and Sheehan auctioneers are handling the sale at a Sheraton hotel in New York, but the goods were seized by the US Marshals Service to raise compensation for hundreds of investors cheated by Madoff.

Properties, including a Manhattan penthouse and Palm Beach retreat, have also been seized. A Long Island beach getaway sold for eight million dollars.

Madoff, now serving a 150-year prison sentence for fraud, claimed just before his arrest last December to have been managing 65 billion dollars. However, much of that appears to have comprised phony funds.

The world of art however would seem not to have been one of the Madoffs' passions.

Apart from a few photographs, some sketches valued at 70 to 200 dollars, some copies of African masks and a heron sculpture bearing a 25- to 28-dollar price tag, there were no art works to be found among the sale. (AFP)

Mock funeral for Venice's dwindling population

Hundreds of people turned out on Saturday in Venice for a symbolic funeral procession to highlight the Italian city's dwindling population.

A cortege of gondolas carrying empty coffins, decorated with wreaths, crossed the city to the sound of songs and poems in the Venetian dialect.

The event's organisers said they wanted to draw public attention to the problems experienced by the northeastern city, where the population recently fell below 60,000.

"In Venice, houses cost twice as much as they do on the mainland, and it's too much for the middle class," Pierluigi Tamburrini, of the Venessia.com citizens' group, told AFP.

"We are asking for more action from the city authorities to help residents. We don't want the tourist monoculture we have at the moment -- we have to develop other areas."

A US university used Saturday's gathering of Venetians to collect DNA samples for a project researching the origins of central and western European populations. (AFP)

Lebanon tourism up 43% in 2009

More than 1.5 million tourists visited Lebanon in the first 10 months of 2009, or 43 percent more than the same year-earlier period, the tourism ministry said on Saturday.

"This number marks a 42.7 percent increase for the same period from 2008 and an 84 percent increase from 2007," a ministry statement said.

A record one million tourists landed in the tiny Mediterranean country in July alone, the ministry said.

The ministry has said Lebanon hopes to have hosted two million tourists by the end of 2009, a figure roughly equivalent to half the country's population.

Most visitors are Lebanese expatriates and tourists from the oil-rich Gulf, but the tiny Mediterranean country has also gained popularity as a holiday destination among Europeans.

Tourism in Lebanon had taken a beating in recent years after a string of assassinations that began with a Beirut bombing that killed former premier Rafiq Hariri in February 2005.

In 2006, Israel and Lebanon's Shiite militia Hezbollah fought a devastating summer war and the following year the army battled with Al-Qaeda-inspired Islamists in a Palestinian refugee camp.

However, tourism made a dramatic recovery in 2008 with the arrival of 1.3 million visitors to the country once dubbed the "Switzerland of the Middle East." (AFP)

Internet supermarket booms in bad times

The Internet global supermarket is booming because people and businesses are looking for bargains and new outlets in bad times, a new report says.

And the this great global shopping mall can only expand rapidly as mobile phone use explodes, the Chinese get involved and advertisers jump in, the OECD forecasts.

But the e-trade revolution is being held back by hidden frontiers, ranging from concerns over privacy of personal information, language problems, delivery costs and taxation and regulation barriers.

As the Christmas spending spree, vital to many retailers and manufacturers around the world, gets under way, the OECD also highlights other worries for consumers.

For example, Santa Claus may never turn up with the goods, or the purchases may be defective, or payment details may be stolen.

These are among the obstacles to increased cross-border trade, paradoxically even within the European Union, which the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development lists in a report on a conference under the heading: "Empowering e-consumers."

The report found that the financial crisis had breathed new life into electronic commerce, with sales rising in Europe, the United States and China at a time when the store-based retail sector struggles as consumers' disposable income shrivels.

"The financial and economic crisis appears to be giving a e-commerce a boost as consumers search for ways to reduce expenditures by purchasing items online," the OECD said, adding: "The savings can be substantial."

It cited a study showing that shoppers in Britain, Germany and France can save 17 percent by buying electronics goods, DVDs and clothing on online trading platforms rather than in physical stores.

In the United States on-line sales for 80 retailers rose an average of 11 percent in the first quarter of the year, according to another study.

One site, Craigslist, is forecast to report sales of 100 million dollars this year, a 23 percent increase from 2008. Another platform, Amazon, had net sales of 177 million dollars in the first quarter alone, up 24 percent from the first quarter 2008.

The OECD cites a study by the Forrester research group predicting that western European consumers will buy 123.1 billion euros' worth of goods online by 2014, for an average annual growth rate of 9.6 percent.

China too has experienced a jump in online retail activity. The online auction and retail website of the country's leading e-commerce company, Alibaba Group, reported a 131 percent rise in transaction volume in February compared with a year earlier.

Helping to spur electronic commerce is the growth in mobile phone use. The number of mobile phone subscribers grew at an average rate of 30 percent a year from 1993 to 2007 in the 30 industrialised economies in the OECD.

But the OECD warned that the future of e-commerce is not entirely secure, maintaining that its fate "depends for a large part on the level of confidence that consumers have in on-line shopping."

It noted that half the cross-border complaints and disputes filed with the European Consumer Center Network stemmed from purchases made over the Internet.

"Delivery problems and dissatisfaction with the products purchased were the leading reasons for the complaints, accounting for 75 percent of the total," the OECD said.

Customers voiced dissatisfaction with non-deliveries, misrepresentation by online retail sites and difficulties contacting merchants.

While the Internet may have made it easier to buy products from foreign businesses, consumers have shown themselves to be reluctant to do so, according to the OECD, which cited language barriers, higher shipping costs, regulatory barriers and scams and misleading practices as key constraints.

Last year 33 percent of EU consumers purchased products online but only 7.0 percent bought goods from another country, the report said.

While many countries have e-commerce laws and regulations, such practices risk becoming outdated given the speed at which new products and services are created.

The study found that most countries, apart from the United States, do not have specific regulations to protect the privacy of children.

It said many online retailers ask consumers to confirm their age simply by ticking a box, with no follow-up measures to ensure that the information is accurate.

Another area of growing concern for the sector, according to the OECD, is the use of behavioral techniques that track a consumer's purchasing habits in order to tailor advertising to his or her interest.

But there is little doubt about the economic impact of online advertising. A recent study cited by the OECD found that the contribution to economic activity of online advertising amounts to 300 billion dollars in the United States. The US online advertising sector directly employs more than 1.2 million people. (AFP)

Sri Lanka's African slave families fade away

In a village deep in west Sri Lanka, one of the island's few remaining communities of African descent breaks into song -- a poignant elegy to a disappearing culture.

The music starts with a slow, gentle rhythm played on a tambourine, spoons and coconut shells, before it builds to a climax with dancers swinging their hips, hands and feet wildly.

The performance is a direct link back to the tiny minority's distant African past.

"We are forgotten people," Peter Luis, 52, said. "We are losing our language and, having inter-married many times, our children are losing their African features."

The population of African-Sri Lankans -- now numbering about 1,000 -- is mainly descended from slaves brought to the island after about 1500 by Portuguese colonialists.

They are known as "Kaffirs", but the term is not the savage racial insult here that it is in other parts of the world, notably South Africa.

"We are proud of our name. In Sri Lanka, it is not a racist word like the word negro or nigger," said Marcus Jerome Ameliana, who believes her ancestors came to Sri Lanka, then known as Ceylon, as Portuguese slaves.

The slaves were also used as soldiers to fight against Sri Lanka's native kings, in the first stage of a long history of oppression under a series of imperial masters.

When Dutch colonialists arrived in about 1600, the Kaffirs worked on cinnamon plantations along the southern coast.

After the British took over Sri Lanka in 1796, the Kaffirs were further marginalised by an influx of Indian labourers who took most work on tea and rubber estates.

Lazarus Martin Ignatius, 82, remembers her grandfather telling how their ancestors were chained up and forced by the Dutch to take on the Ceylonese army.

Her memories, like those of most other Kaffirs, are fragmented, and she speaks a lyrical creole language with a mix of native Sinhalese and Tamil.

"We never learnt how to read or write, only to speak. Now young people go to school. They marry outside the community, so I think education comes from that influence," the frail Ignatius told AFP.

Louisa Williams, 17, dressed in jeans and a pink T-shirt, said she may train to become a traditional Kaffir dancer but admitted she rarely uses the dialect.

"I like to dance and will perhaps join a local dance troupe," she said. "I have heard about my ancestors from aunts and uncles, but I only speak a few words of creole like 'water', 'eat' and 'sleep'."

The future looks bleak for the Kaffirs, according to Anuthradevi Widyalankara, senior history lecturer at the University of Colombo.

"They have been denied education so they have a lack of interest in sustaining their language or culture -- unlike some other minority groups," Widyalankara told AFP.

Widyalankara, who is writing a book on the ethnic group, said the Kaffirs had assimilated over generations, having married Tamils and Sinhalese in Sri Lanka.

But in the palm-fringed village of Sirambiadiya, about 100 Kaffirs remain, living in modest brick houses and earning a living as labourers and cleaners.

At lunchtime, the men chat and doze in hammocks as the women sing catchy creole tunes while preparing a meal on outdoor stoves.

Their songs, mostly repeating a few basic lyrics, speak of love, the sea and wildlife, explained George Sherin Alex, 43, one of the village dancers.

The performing arts remain one of the few expressions of the Kaffirs' roots, Shihan Jayasuriya, a senior fellow of the London-based Institute of Commonwealth Studies, told AFP.

"Music and dance seem to be the best indicators of African ancestry, other than their physiognomy. Their other cultural traits are not African because they have adopted local customs and habits," Jayasuriya said.

The Kaffirs were originally Muslims, but now they practice a range of faiths from Catholicism to Buddhism, and wear typically Sri Lankan clothes of long skirts for the women and sarongs for the men.

No one knows how many Africans were brought to Sri Lanka, but their descendants survive only in pockets along the island's coastal regions of Trincomalee, Batticaloa and Negambo, according to Census Department officials.

Jayasuriya, who has done extensive research on the African diaspora in the Indian sub-continent, said the Kaffirs' predicament is centred on their struggle to find a place in post-colonial Sri Lanka.

"They have become disempowered because their patrons, the European colonisers have left the island. They have lost their role as a part of the colonial machinery," said Jayasuriya. (AFP)