| Abu Dhabi: East Leans West
This ambitious venture raises difficult questions. Did Dubai's unsuccessful 2006 effort to buy a company that operated six U.S. ports, which infuriated many American politicians, increase Abu Dhabi's emphasis on cultural outreach? Further, culture has always followed money—where would Florence have been without the Medicis?—but can money really buy culture? That is, will the museums and campuses and theaters edify and enlighten not only the 3 million yearly “cultural tourists" whom Abu Dhabi hopes to attract by 2015, but also the UAE's 825,000 citizens? The government promoters have no doubt. The complex, they feel, is essential to closing what one advisor calls the “knowledge gap" between Abu Dhabi and the West and countering Islamist extremism. “We want an impact on our society, not just on visitors," says the American-educated al-Muhairi over cappuccinos topped with chocolate and gold flakes at the majestic Emirates Palace Hotel.
Foxy Brown Pleads Innocent; Faces Seven Years In Prison
5.On October 25, 2006, Brown was sentenced to three years probation and anger management counseling. Orders of protection were authorized by the court for the manicurists [19].
6.On December 23, 2005, Brown was handcuffed in a Manhattan, New York courtroom after a verbal confrontation with the judge. Brown was in court to finalize a plea deal stemming from the August 2004 incident. Judge Melissa Jackson thought Brown was chewing gum and asked her to get rid of it. Brown responded by opening her mouth and sticking her tongue out, not as a sign of disrespect but to show, as she subsequently claimed, that she had no gum in her mouth. Judge Jackson ordered Brown cuffed to a bench for fifteen minutes, but when a female court officer attempted to handcuff her they got into a heated exchange over a bracelet the rapper was wearing.
The Clock is Ticking on Some Now-Or-Never Tax Breaks
Despite the stock market's wild ride this year, 2007 is expected to be a record year for mutual fund distributions, according to Tim Roseen, of Lipper, a mutual-fund analysis firm. Now is a good time to scour your portfolio in search of losses you can use to offset taxable gains. If your investment losses exceed your profits, you can use them to offset up to $3,000 of ordinary income and carry over any unused losses into future years. Normal year-end tax planning calls for paying next year's deductible expenses, such as January's mortgage interest, property taxes and state income taxes, in the current year. But you don't want to do that if you are subject to the alternative minimum tax. The AMT, a parallel tax system with its own set of rules, does not permit deductions for state and local taxes, home-equity loan interest (unless the borrowed money was used to finance home improvements) or personal exemptions -- worth $3,400 this year -- for yourself, your spouse and your children.
Gandhi grandson quits peace group
Arun Gandhi, the fifth grandson of the revered pacifist, said Friday the board of the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence based at the University of Rochester had accepted his offer Thursday to step down as president. Gandhi was on a panel of scholars, writers and clergy who discuss a new topic weekly on the Washington Post's ''On Faith'' page and his comments, posted Jan. 7, drew a torrent of criticism. He wrote that Jewish identity ''has been locked into the holocaust experience -- a German burden that the Jews have not been able to shed. It is a very good example of [how] a community can overplay a historic experience to the point that it begins to repulse friends." Describing Israel as ''a nation that believes its survival can only be ensured by weapons and bombs,'' Gandhi asked whether it would ''not be better to befriend those who hate you?'' ''Apparently, in the modern world so determined to live by the bomb, this is an alien concept,'' he wrote.
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