CAIRO: Schools following the Technology for Improved Learning Outcomes (TILO) program have achieved a 45 percent success rate in the past four years, according to Dina Kafafi, TILO director of Smart Schools and Technology Partnerships. As part of the program, 277 Egyptian schools are now decked out with one-lab computer classrooms and interactive software that …

Milan fashion designers are sticking to the traditional and familiar in their menswear collection for next winter. The mood reflects the austerity all around, but it’s not all gloom. There are flashes of color and glamour to lighten spirits. "When you talk about austerity, I don’t think it needs to be down in the dumps …

By Gersende Rambourg / AFP Ten months after John Galliano was sacked over a racist outburst, Dior has yet to name a new chief designer – but sales are booming. Which begs the question: how long can the French fashion house thrive without a couturier at the helm? At Paris Fashion Week in September, Christian Dior’s …

Technology lovers stopped and stared as the world’s first high-performance hybrid luxury sedan glided silently down a street outside the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Wednesday. The eye-catching Karma designed in California and built at a Finland plant that also produces Porsches oozed high-end style while packing environmentally-sensitive engineering under the hood. "It …

Social media is giving a voice to models who, for the most part, have built their careers as pretty, non-speaking faces. They’ll tweet what they had for breakfast, post behind-the-scenes photos on Tumblr and use Facebook to cultivate "friends" around the world. Tech-savvy fashion followers are eating it up, gaining entry to a world that …

An appetite-curbing hormone found in the gut may help overweight and obese people shed weight, lower blood pressure and reduce cholesterol levels, according to a study released Wednesday. Known as glucagon-like peptide-1, or GLP-1, the hormone is naturally secreted from the intestine when we eat. Recently, doctors have begun to use GLP-1 to treat patients …

Chinese entrepreneur An Yanshi is convinced he has found the key ingredient to produce the world’s most expensive tea — panda poo. The former calligraphy teacher has purchased 11 tons of excrement from a panda breeding center to fertilize a tea crop in the mountains of Sichuan province in southwestern China, home to the black …

American hip hop mogul Kanye West has launched an epic rant on Twitter, posting dozens of colorful and cryptic but ultimately hopeful messages, on everything from his jones for fashion to his quest to change the world. Never shy about expressing himself, the multi-Grammy winner went on an 86-tweet bender in the space of about …

By Robert MacPherson / AFP All you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun, the New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard once said. It’s also the formula for a best-selling book of portraits of American women and the guns in their lives. Saucily titled but seriously presented, “Chicks with Guns” is going into …

Simply eating healthier may improve the behavior of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder if therapy and medication fail, said a study published Monday in the journal Pediatrics. Researchers, however, said that their review of recent controlled scientific studies had shown conflicting evidence on the impact of supplements and restricted diets — in some cases …

A Chinese postage stamp depicting a dragon with its fangs and claws bared has drawn sharp criticism on the nation’s microblogs, with many saying it puts too frightening a face on their rising country. The commemorative stamp went on sale Thursday ahead of the new Chinese year of the dragon, which begins on January 23, …

France’s top diet guru Pierre Dukan is urging the government to grade students on their weight in a bid to curb growing obesity. In a book to be published Thursday, Dukan suggests that students in their last two years of high school be awarded extra marks if they manage to maintain an acceptable Body Mass …

As the economy splutters, fashion will naturally turn to solemn grays and blacks, right? Wrong, according to fabric gurus who unveiled their top trends for spring-summer 2013 in Paris on Thursday. "We don’t believe for a minute that fashion is going to turn all austere, that consumers are going to start dressing all in black," …

Art student Andrzej Sobiepan didn’t want to wait decades for his work to appear in museums. So he took matters in his own hands, covertly hanging one of his paintings in a major Polish gallery. By Wednesday, the young artist was getting plenty of attention after a nationwide TV channel reported on his stunt at …

An intrepid boy reporter, a black manservant and his paralyzed aristocrat master, and French actors adrift in Hollywood helped make 2011 France’s best box office year in nearly half a century. A whopping 215.6 million cinema tickets were sold last year in France — whose population is 65 million — with two homegrown comedies taking …

I am told over lunch with a friend from out of town, the hilarious Dubai-based reporter Tom Gara, that in Hong Kong, dim sum and lunch are a sight to see and experience. During lunch hour in downtown Hong Kong, hundreds of restaurants, cafes and shops, whose purpose throughout the day can be anything from …

Check-ups during pregnancy tend to focus around the waist. But there’s growing debate about which mothers-to-be should have a gland in their neck tested, too. Numerous studies since 1999 have found that an underactive thyroid can raise a woman’s risk of miscarriage, premature birth, or a lower IQ for her baby — even if it’s …

Elton John is working on a biopic about himself and would like Justin Timberlake to take on the lead role, he said in an interview published Sunday. The British veteran star also spoke about his and partner David Furnish’s love for their son Zachary — whose first birthday was on Christmas Day — saying the …

CAIRO: Thousands of Egyptians packed Cairo’s Tahrir Square under a blaze of fireworks to ring in the New Year, capping a roller coaster year of political upheaval and deadly clashes but also the first steps towards democratic rule. "We’re here to welcome the New Year together, Christians and Muslims," said one woman holding an Egyptian …

Pressing play, my sister begins showing the first few minutes of a home video — our trip to France and Italy in 1995. We throw our heads back in laughter, discuss our bizarre choice of clothing and animatedly point out funny moments to our husbands, those that missed the awkward years of our lives. I …

By Jake Coyle/AP It took Rooney Mara two and a half months and five screen tests to land the sought-after role of Lisbeth Salander. The competition for the fierce heroine of “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” included some of the biggest names in Hollywood. The director, David Fincher, is well known for his extreme attention …

Move over azuki and sweet sticky rice. While Japanese pastry chefs may have started using cocoa a few centuries after the West, this once foreign flavor has captivated Japan’s confectionery world. Japanese chocolate makers and pastry chefs were the star guests at the 17th Salon du Chocolat held in Paris this week. One of them, …

Doctors in a domed laboratory in Canada are designing a virtual world where they hope to one day treat traumatized children with colorful avatars using toy-like medical gadgets. Sensory stimulation could be used to make a burn victim feel she is encased in a block of ice. Three-dimensional images of a child’s bedroom at home …

Cheetah, a chimpanzee said to have performed in the "Tarzan" films of the 1930s, has died at the age of 80, according to the Florida sanctuary where he lived. "It is with great sadness that the community has lost a dear friend and family member on December 24, 2011," the Suncoast Primate Sanctuary in Palm …

Tablet computers and electronic readers promise to close the book on the ink-and-paper era as they transform the way people browse magazines, check news or lose themselves in novels. "It is only a matter of time before we stop killing trees and all publications become digital," Creative Strategies president and principal analyst Tim Bajarin told …