Saudi businesswoman on TV
JEDDAH: Along with the new season of “Al-Saudiyyat Gheir” on Al-Aan TV, Maha Al-Shalabi — the presenter of the show — will host Izdihar Batobarah, a high profile Saudi businesswoman who was the first woman to establish a real estate company in Saudi Arabia. The episode will shed light on her personal experience in managing her firm and the challenges she had faced. The show will be broadcast on Saturday (Jan. 23) at 10.15 p.m. on Al-Aan TV. The episode focuses on several subjects including what encouraged Izdihar to enter the field of real estate, whether she experienced difficulties because of the lack of acceptance by men in her career, why she calls herself the “ambassador of self-governing,” and how she evaluates her experience in this field.
The guest of the program illuminates on her experience in the elections referring to serious attempts to Saudi women to take leadership positions at the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry. She will also focus on why she blames the media for not disseminating the culture of elections, how she believes the female winners will serve their presence, what are the difficulties of their careers and what did this experience add to her career.
The program will also meet the President of the World Federation of Trade and Industry in the Middle East, Khalaf Al-Otaibi, who will speak about the participation of Saudi businesswomen in the elections and specifically the experience of Batobarah.
‘Love Story’ author Segal dies
LONDON: “Love Story” author Erich Segal, whose popular romantic drama coined the phrase “Love means never having to say you’re sorry,” has died of a heart attack at the age of 72. Segal, who also wrote the screenplay for the Beatles’ animated film “Yellow Submarine,” died at his home in London on Sunday, his daughter Francesca Segal said. Segal had been suffering from Parkinson’s disease for many years.
The US-born writer was a classics professor at Yale University when he wrote the book “Love Story,” which was made into a 1970 hit film starting Ryan O’Neal and Ali MacGraw.
The movie, which won an Oscar and was nominated for six others, tells the story of a wealthy young man, Oliver, who becomes estranged from his father when he marries Jennifer, a woman from a less privileged background.
But the tale takes a tragic twist when Jennifer develops leukemia and eventually dies. Oliver’s father has a change of heart when he hears what has happened and races to see him, telling his son he is sorry to hear the sad news.
This is when Oliver replies: “Loves means never having to say you are sorry.”
Celine Dion is decade’s top earner
LOS ANGELES: Canadian pop diva Celine Dion is the top earner of the decade in the music world.
With her total earnings of $747.9 million from albums and concerts, Dion has left the likes of U2, Britney Spears and others way behind to top the Ultimate Top 10 list of the Los Angeles Times.
But the Top 10 is not “the final word’’ on artists’ finances, the Los Angeles Times said Tuesday.
In the Ultimate Top 10 list, Dion is followed by US country music star Kenny Chesney with $742 million.
Third on the list is Dave Matthews Band from Virginia, with total earnings of $737.4 million.
The Beatles are number four on the list, with $627.3 million, including $392 million from sales of 30.2 million albums, $221.4 million earned ex-Beatle Paul McCartney, and $13.6 million by Ringo Starr.
U2 is fifth with $609.7 million, Bruce Springsteen seventh with $588.3 million, and The Rolling Stones eighth with $569.6 million.
Britney Spears is the last on the list with earnings of $494.3 million. “Despite a rocky decade personally and professionally, Spears pulled in $195.7 million at the box office and sold $298.6 million worth of albums for the 10-year period,’’ the Los Angeles Times said.
In Celine Dion’s earnings of $747.9 million, $522.2 million came in from concerts and $225.7 million from album sales during the decade. She has sold more than 200 million albums so far.
The best-selling female artist of all time, Dion is the youngest of the 14 kids born into a poverty-stricken musical family in a small town near Montreal.
Dion was guided to greatness by Angelil (whom she later married despite age difference of 26 years) who sold his house to finance the young girl’s first album in 1981.
Amy Winehouse pleads guilty
LONDON: British singer Amy Winehouse on Wednesday admitted attacking a theater manager at a Christmas pantomime.
The 26-year-old Grammy winner pleaded guilty to common assault and public order charges at Milton Keynes Magistrates’ Court, reports said.
Winehouse assaulted 27-year-old theater manager Richard Pound after disrupting a performance of “Cinderella” at the Milton Keynes Theater in central England on Dec. 19. The “Back to Black” singer was arrested four days later.
Winehouse was given a two year conditional discharge and ordered to pay 85 pounds ($140) in costs and 100 pounds in compensation to Pound.
Winehouse’s musical career has been overshadowed by a torrid personal life, which has made her a tabloid favorite, and regular brushes with the law.
William eyes Sydney real estate
SYDNEY: Britain’s visiting Prince William said Wednesday he was so thrilled by his warm welcome to Sydney that he’d like to buy a house in the Australian harborside city.
William, 27, told guests at a traditional Australian waterfront barbecue in his honor that he had enjoyed “the most warm welcome ever, not just with the weather but with all Sydney people.” The prince was mobbed by hundreds of well-wishers when he arrived at the gathering, which offered him stunning views of the city’s famed Opera House and Harbor Bridge on the second day of a three-day whistlestop tour of Australia.
The open-air barbecue topped off a two-day stay in Sydney for the young prince, who last visited Australia in the arms of his late mother, Princess Diana, when he was just nine months old in 1983. William requested the unofficial trip as a way to get to know the country and its people, taking in a poor inner-city Aboriginal neighborhood and rehab center for drug addicted youth as part of his less-than-conventional itinerary.
The prince took a self-deprecating dig at his musical tastes after a rap jam performance by hip-hop artists at a youth dug rehab center, saying his choice of music often made him the butt of jokes. “I can’t do any beatboxing, I’m not so good at that,” he told Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, referring to the vocal percussion stylings of the hip-hop trio before them.
- Compiled from agencies
