HM Quran contest a boon for society
By Hasan Kamoonpuri

The Quran through its sublime teachings builds a society based on God-consciousness, brotherhood, patience, love, compassion, support for the oppressed masses, opposition to oppressors, strong family and friendship bonds, respect to parents and elders, and a penchant for knowledge and wisdom. The young participants in the contest have all Quranic verses on their finger tips. Ask them where the Quran advises mankind to co-operate with one another in righteousness and never offer a helping hand in anti-social and corrupt practices, and pat will come the reply. Ask them where and how many times the Quran tells people to give charity and have peace of mind and soul through God-consciousness and thy will cite exact verses.

This contest coupled with many Quran schools across the Sultanate provide a great opportunity for people to discuss the critical issues nations and individuals face and to create a road map for moving forward together in the light of sublime Quranic guidelines. Today, as always in the past, the Glorious Quran is a key factor for all round development of human society.

Peace and tranquility of heart
The Glorious Quran serves as a spiritual and all round catalyst in every nation and community in which it is upheld, respected and acted upon. It is the critical enabler to achieve the peace and tranquility of heart and soul. Without this peace of soul, man can hardly move forward in the true sense of progress. Materialism and capitalism have failed to provide this food — peace and tranquility — of heart and soul. If Oman has successfully retained its cultural roots, it is because this nation is committed to Quranic values to a great extent.

Not only in Oman, but throughout the world, the Glorious Quran is the world’s most often-read book. It is the world’s No 1 book in terms of readership. In addition, more than nine million people have memorised the Glorious Quran by heart. Revealed to the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) in the 7th century, and revered as being God’s final Scripture and Testament, its words have been lovingly recited, memorised, and implemented by Muslims of every nationality ever since.

The word ‘Quran’ means ‘recitation’ and the verse of the Quran that was revealed first is a command: “Read! In the name of your Lord…” This directive marked the beginning of a new age in human communication, learning and development. Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) said: "The Holy Quran is superior to everything other than Almighty Allah. The best of you are those who have learned the Holy Quran and teach it to the others. Surely, these hearts rust like rusted irons. Surely that which gives it lustre and polish is the recitation of the Holy Quran." The Prophet (pbuh) recommended the recitation of the Holy Quran along with understanding their meanings.

Magnetic attraction of Quran
The Glorious Quran is the Book of Guidance for all of humanity for all times. That is why it does not address just the Arabs, in whose language it was revealed. In fact Arabs today do not comprise more than 13 per cent of the world Muslims population. Today, every fourth person on the Earth is a Muslim and every third nation is Muslim. Muslims form the world’s largest community of people in terms of practicing a faith and the second largest in terms of just professing a faith. Experts say given the magnetic attraction of the message of the Glorious Quran, it is certain that the Muslim population will continue to increase and that Islam will become the world's largest number of followers.

The key reason for this steady rise is not an increase Muslim population, but mainly the growing numbers of people who are turning to Islam, a phenomenon that has gained momentum, following worldwide Islamic awareness movements and a quest for God-consciousness around the world. This awareness has turned people's attention around the world to Islam. Fed up with materialistic ideologies, people in Europe, Americas, Asia and Africa are talking a lot about what kind of a system Islam is, what the Quran says, what obligations come with being a Muslim, and how Muslims are required to conduct their affairs.

This interest has naturally brought about a rise in the number of people worldwide turning to Islam. The process of returning to spiritual values, which the world has been experiencing for a long time, has become a turning to Islam. The Glorious Quran, the last and final Divine revelation, is the book of guidance and wisdom. It calls man to the truth and instructs all human beings to adhere to the values which this mighty revelation contains. From the day of its revelation 14 centuries ago to the Day of Judgement, the Quran will remain as the sole guide for humanity.

An average herding household owns around 150 goats. Some families own about 500. Most goat owners in Dhofar are women who usually shepherd them every day. Originally the move was motivated by rich green pastor that enrich both the milk, a daily food stable, and the butter which is used with rice in the evening meal, supper, the main meal, or to make ghee, saman. The saman is believed to be medicinal, and is traditionally used for improving memory, especially in children, for treating allergies and, when mixed with turmeric, healing stomach ulcers.
Today herdsmen move to save expenses, for they no longer need to buy fodder for the goats.

Herding
Women shepherds take goats out to the pastor early morning when the sun is already warm and after milking and suckling the young, shetar. The shetar are weaned after 40 days and graze alone for two more months after which they are herded with the ewes. Goats are also sold for cash. The current price of a goat in Salalah animal market is about RO 70-90 depending on size.

There is an increasing demand for Dhofari goats in the Northern Oman too. The grazing range vary between 3 and 5 kilometres every day, depending on pastor. After evening milking goats are kept in warm enclosures and a kerosene lamp is lit to keep wolfs away. A portion of milk is given away to visitors who frequent goat camps every evening. The milk is never sold. Another is use of the milk is to make saman.
— Photographs by Mohamed Alian

Wimbledon’s oldest brand wins style stakes
By Zoe Wood

The heart of the Fred Perry chief executive is with the steely headed Murray but his (business) head wonders what a new British tennis champion on the block means for the cult fashion brand, founded by Britain's last tennis great. "Some of the staff want Andy to win a five-set final with Roger (Federer), but others want him to 'just' lose a five-set final because then Fred would still be the man," says Flynn.

Flynn was Murray's proud sponsor long before "Murray mania", with the brand acting on the advice that the skinny 17-year-old, as he was then, "was going to be a great tennis player. We figured if anyone British was going to win Wimbledon, it would be best if he was wearing Fred Perry." But, unlike many of the other brands emblazoning tennis whites at Wimbledon this year, Flynn says endorsing Murray is not about flogging tennis gear. "There is no relationship between sponsoring Andy and selling large amounts of tennis clothing. Andy is a Fred Perry-type person.

"His characteristics, particularly as a teenager, reflected the brand's in that he was quite individual and rebellious and knew his own mind. That's synonymous with us. It's not just about us taking on a tennis player because we don't have an army of tennis players." Fred Perry might not have an army of tennis players but it does have a legion of rude boys and indie kids (although their vintage varies). Indeed, its cultural reach has never been more potent. Damon Albarn sported a classic Fred Perry polo shirt for one of Blur's triumphant comeback gigs last month, while the company also designed a "special" Specials shirt to coincide with the ska band's reunion tour earlier this year (the extra-large sold out first).

The brand is based in London's Covent Garden in a neat sidestreet opposite the celebrity hang-out, the Ivy. The building, an old Wesleyan chapel, is identified only by a discrete laurel wreath on a brass plaque. "We like to do that, we're a low-profile brand; it reflects our customers' attitude," says Flynn. But the imposing doors open to reveal organised chaos and an office bursting at the seams (it will soon move to larger headquarters nearby). Fred Perry memorabilia, from his rackets to one of his three Wimbledon winner's medals, decorates the walls, while dismembered mannequins form a disorderly queue at the receptionist's desk.

This year promises to be vintage Fred Perry thanks to the confluence of Murray's success as well as the resurrection of Blur and the Specials. But the brand also had a good year last year — and the year before that. Mods and rude boys don't die, it seems, they just go underground. "Cool people like cool music and that never really goes away," Flynn says. "Britpop has had two or three waves in terms of who listens to it, but it always shrinks back to a core following. If you went to one of the Specials' gigs you might have thought you were at some sort of strange Fred Perry sales convention. Half the audience were wearing our shirts. Some of them were 18, but others were in their 50s and 60s."

The 59-year-old Flynn, with his strong glasses, polo shirt (Fred Perry, naturally) and black suede shoes would not have looked out of place in the crowd. There are no management theory books in his office; instead, the shelves are filled with books on mods, such as The Soul Stylists, and the graffiti art of Banksy. Flynn, who started his career at Marks & Spencer, has run the business since 1993, when he was promoted to chief executive to lead a turnaround. The brand had become loss-making and had lost direction, neglected under the huge umbrella of the conglomerate Figgie International: "It had betrayed its fan base. It had lost the connection with why it existed in the first place, and a lot of counterfeit product was in circulation."

Back to health
He has since nursed it back to health and remained on board when it was bought by its Japanese distributor, Hit Union, in 1995. The brand is now making a profit of £10m on sales of £75m in the year to March. Despite the recession, it has seen "double-digit" like-for-like sales growth in its stores this year, although the weak pound is affecting its export business.

Murray mania aside, it is music rather than sport that has given the brand, started by Perry in the late 1940s, staying power. Over the years it has been appropriated by numerous youth sub-cultures, from mod to rude boy via the football terraces and Britpop revivalists. It claims to be the first brand to cross over from sports to casualwear, after mods adopted its now famous polo shirt, complete with laurel emblem and striped collar, as their uniform (it could be worn all night and still look fresh in the morning).

The brand's change of direction was compounded by the start of the Open era in tennis in 1968. Fred Perry decided not to pay athletes to wear its clothes, heralding the arrival of Italian brands such as Fila, Ellesse and Sergio Tacchini. Flynn is tactful on the dubious fashion parade at Wimbledon this year, not least Federer's bling bag and silky waistcoats: "Andy wanted something classic. Roger looks smart in a 'European gent' type way, whereas Andy looks Centre Court."

In many ways, Flynn's role is that of brand custodian and making sure it does not do anything to alienate fans: "The brand is so closely interlinked with music. You can't exploit that relationship but what you can do is make sure you don't do anything that destroys it." Polo shirts account for up to 25 per cent of Fred Perry sales, with 60 per cent of business done overseas. The classic shirts mean different things in different markets, says Flynn, with its conservatism going down a storm in Italy's more conventional menswear market, while for Japanese mods it is part of a more eclectic look. "The same things are worn in completely different ways."

In the UK, Fred Perry has a small network of stores in high-profile locations such as Covent Garden and the London shopping centres Westfield and Bluewater. It also has a designer range, Laurel, which is sold separately and has involved collaborations with designers such as Commes des Garcons and Raf Simons.

The Laurel sub-brand enables aficionados to delve deeper into the brand's heritage, for example buying a version of the polo shirt that is still made in Britain to the original slimmer cut and colour palette. A Laurel polo shirt costs up to £70 versus £45 for one in the main range. "For the fans, it is quite important to still be able to buy the burgundy with white and ice (blue) or navy tipping colours (on the collar)," says Flynn.

Recession has tested the mettle of fashion brands, with famous names from Christian Lacroix to Aquascutum suffering financial woes. "A brand needs a reason to live," says Flynn. "Our sporting heritage and music roots give us a very strong reason. "If you find out what the true attachment is between customers and your brand, there is no reason why that should not continue forever."
— Guardian News & Media 2009

Japan students rush for English-language education

Michael Ringen, an English teacher, gives a lesson (left). Masanori Fujii, an official of education business Benesse
Corporation, teaches at the cram school. (Right) Japanese businessmen and women are seen during lunch break in Tokyo. — AFP

But one thing he is sure about: he wants to go to Yale University where he expects a more pro-active learning environment than in Japan, one that stresses lively debate and independent thinking. "I don't like the Japanese education system of passively listening to lectures," he said. More and more Japanese parents and students are thinking the same way, said Masanori Fujii, of the cram school company Benesse Corp, which offers customised "Route H" courses at an average of 2.5 million yen ($28,000). "Most of them are high school students and their parents, but some are parents of ninth graders, eighth graders or even sixth graders," he said.

While many families across Asia who could afford it have long sent their children abroad for an English-language education, Japan now lags behind India, China and South Korea in sending students to US universities, according to the US Institute of International Education. But the tide is turning, said Fujii, with a new wave of students worried that a Japanese-only education will leave them ill-prepared in an increasingly globalised world. "The recent trend is different from the past in that top students are hoping to leave Japan," he said.

Of the 10,000 top high school students who took a mock university entrance exam last year, five per cent were also hoping to apply to prestigious US and British universities such as Yale, Princeton, Oxford and Cambridge, Fujii said. Their number is set to rise in future as the government is planning to introduce English-language education at elementary schools from 2011. While the percentage may not seem huge yet, it has ended the virtual monopoly Japan's universities once enjoyed over the best and brightest academic talent, putting some educational institutions on the defensive.

Education at home
In 2005, the elite University of Tokyo for the first time teamed up with other hallowed learning institutions for a national tour to recruit high school students in provincial cities. The university wanted to remind young Japanese that "there are many Japanese colleges which offer education and research as good as that of foreign universities or better," the university said in a statement.

Tokyo University also said it would aim to strengthen education in English, "an international language in the academic world". "Japanese universities are under pressure to improve their quality of education in an increasingly globalised world," said Hideo Kageyama, professor of education at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto. "It's also difficult for Japanese universities to attract smart students from Asian countries such as China and India. Japan should discuss how to improve education with the view that it is competing with other countries on the educational front." Cultural purists worry about the rush for English and a Western education.

A "fervour for education in English without a national strategy is a recipe for the decline of Japanese," wrote novelist Minae Mizumura, who recently caused a stir with her essay "When the Japanese language goes extinct". "We already have a solid translation culture in which almost any kind of intellectual dialogue can be read and spoken in Japanese," she said.

"But if everyone tries to speak English, the richness of Japanese could be reduced to a local language in which no intellectual conversations take place." Yukio Otsu, a linguistics professor at Keio University, agreed that "not all Japanese have to speak English". But he added that "it's natural to choose a university in an English speaking country if a top school of your specialised field happens to be there.

And one's mother tongue doesn't disappear that easily." Masayasu Morita, executive supervisor of the "Route H" course, said exposing more Japanese students to foreign universities would enrich, not threaten, the educational environment at home."This kind of competition between colleges across borders could contribute to improving the quality of Japanese education," he said. — AFP

A never ending spending story
By Kathryn Hopkins and Patrick Collinson in London

Consumer spending psychologist Donna Dawson says: "What we are seeing in the shopping habits of these women is not escapism or avoidance of the truth — it is actually more shrewd and calculated than that. When the economy is insecure, people and jobs can fall with it, and so these women have gone into 'survival mode', polishing up their images to ensure their economic and emotional survival. Also, a woman knows that investing in herself is the best way to boost self-confidence, especially in troubled times."

Sophie Stringer, a 28-year-old freelance researcher for a non-profit organisation, has continued to buy smart clothes during the recession as she believes it is important to look your best when "you are your only representative". She has also recently joined a gym for the first time in her life to keep herself fit and healthy, as sick days are a no-no when you're not permanent staff. Sophie says: "When you're working for yourself you're your own brand to an extent, so I look after myself ... and tell myself it's an investment."

She says she justifies buying clothes and shoes for work and would get miserable if she was constantly telling herself, "no, you can't". Another reason women are continuing to spend in the recession is that they have been less affected by job cuts than men. Professor John Philpott, chief economist at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, refers to the ongoing economic crisis as a "man-cession".

"The redundancy rate for men has more than doubled. The number of men in work has fallen by 2 per cent, the number of women in work by 0.6 per cent. The number of men unemployed has increased by 45 per cent, the number of women unemployed by a quarter," he said. "This pattern is mainly explained by the relative buoyancy of part-time employment and the growth in public sector employment — types of employment in which women are strongly represented."

High street spending has also been boosted by steep falls in the cost of servicing mortgages, even though bills are going up elsewhere. Research published by Halifax reveals that the average cost of running a home (mostly the mortgage) has fallen from 28 per cent of average earnings last year to 23 per cent of earnings today. The typical family now spends £7,298 on mortgage, gas and electricity bills, and maintenance compared to £8,766 last year — freeing up £1,468 to spend elsewhere.

Down on the high street, many shoppers regard saving as pointless when interest rates are so low. "I'm spending more on cosmetics, jewellery and clothes than a couple of years ago. It makes me feel better," says Harriet Lane, a 27-year-old school nurse from Oxford. "I can't see the point in saving because of low interest rates. I don't have much disposable income, so what I do have I would rather spend on treating myself," she says. Lane says that buying small things such as jewellery and make-up can make a big difference to her psychologically, especially when there is a lot of doom and gloom in the news. But she has also increased her spending to take advantage of cut-price deals in shops hit by the crunch.

"I have definitely noticed that in the last six months websites and shops have had more sales. I'm quite easily persuaded. It encourages people like me to spend," she says, adding that she now rarely buys anything full price. Quite how much of this spending is being financed by debt is not known, but there are worrying signs that the "green shoots" of recovery — real or false — are once again encouraging more relaxed attitudes to debt.

According to the Post Office, the research revealed that "over 15 million women have not reduced the number of credit cards they use during the credit crunch, and nearly 3 million are borrowing money from a relative to keep their finances topped up." For the first time in six months, Brits took out more debt than they repaid during the first part of 2009, financial adviser website unbiased.co.uk said this week. The first quarter of the year saw new debt rise to £2.7 bn, while savings levels dropped to an all time low.

Beccy Boden Wilks at the National Debtline says she still regularly deals with individuals hypnotised by our spending culture: "Over the years I have worked with young women that were funding a lifestyle they couldn't afford. One girl went on a shopping trip to New York when she was in debt. It's expensive to go to New York anyway, let alone to go shopping."

Schizophrenia, bipolar disorder share genetic roots

One of the studies traced schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, in part, to the same chromosomal neighbourhoods. “These new results recommend a fresh look at our diagnostic categories,” said Thomas R Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), part of the National Institutes of Health. “If some of the same genetic risks underlie schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, perhaps these disorders originate from some common vulnerability in brain development.” The trio of studies, the SGENE, International Schizophrenia (ISC) and Molecular Genetics of Schizophrenia (MGS) consortia shared their results — making possible meta-analyses of a combined sample totalling 8,014 cases and 19,090 controls.

All three studies implicate an area of Chromosome 6 (6p22.1), which is known to harbour genes involved in immunity and controlling how and when genes turn on and off. This hotspot of association might help to explain how environmental factors affect risk for schizophrenia. For example, there are hints of auto-immune involvement in schizophrenia, such as evidence that offspring of mothers with influenza while pregnant have a higher risk of developing the illness, said a NIMH release.

“Our study was unique in employing a new way of detecting the molecular signatures of genetic variations with very small effects on potential schizophrenia risk,” explained Pamela Sklar of the Harvard University and the Stanley Centre for Psychiatric Research, who co-led the ISC team with Shaun Purcell. “Individually, these common variants’ effects do not all rise to statistical significance, but cumulatively they play a major role, accounting for at least one third — and probably much more — of disease risk,” said Purcell. These three reports, each funded in part by NIMH, appeared in the July 1 edition of Nature. — IANS