There will be no revealing costumes at US singer Gwen Stefani's concert in Malaysia this month, a newspaper said on Saturday, after a Muslim student group demanded that the event be cancelled as being too obscene.
Although Malaysia is a moderate Muslim country with sizeable non-Muslim minorities, conservative groups often frown upon departures from strict Koranic injunctions.
Malaysian mobile phone firm Maxis Communications, which is promoting the Aug. 21 show as part of Stefani's Sweet Escape tour, promised it would feature no revealing costumes, the Star newspaper said.
Malaysia's official guide for performers says women must be covered from the top of the bosom to the knees, the Star said.
Jumping, shouting and the throwing of objects are barred, while performers may not hug, kiss or wear clothes with obscene or drug-related pictures or slogans, it added.
Ethnic Malays, who are by definition Muslims, make up just over half of Malaysia's 26 million people.
O.J. Simpson dreamed up the idea for If I Did It and actively collaborated on the aborted book, including a hypothetical account of his ex-wife's murder, his ghost writer said in disputing Simpson on how the book was created.
Pablo Fenjves, whose role as ghost author has emerged since the book was pulled from publication last year, contradicted Simpson's characterization of himself this week as a reluctant, mostly passive participant in crafting a key chapter that pictures Simpson holding a bloody knife at the crime scene.
"O.J. read the book, his book, several times. I made every change he asked for, and he signed off on it," Fenjves, a Hollywood screenwriter, said Thursday.
"The whole book, the whole idea for a book, originated with O.J. Simpson and a couple of his handlers," he said.
Simpson was acquitted in 1995 of criminal charges of murdering ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman but was found liable for their deaths in a civil trial two years later. The former football star has sought to distance himself from the book project in recent months.
The book was scrapped at the last minute amid public outrage at what was seen as commercial exploitation of a grisly murder.
Rights to the book passed to Goldman's relatives last Monday, after a long legal fight.
In a rare Internet interview streamed live last Tuesday over the Web site Market News First, the Juice said publishers at HarperCollins approached him about doing a book and that he said yes because he needed the money, believing it would never actually materialize.
Simpson said he consented to a chapter about the night of the crime as told by him only after publishers agreed to label it as hypothetical. He said he found the chapter riddled with "major holes" but declined to correct them for fear making it too accurate would be taken as an indication of guilt.
"I find it completely unnecessary to defend myself against this man," Fenjves said when pressed about Simpson's comments. "All I can say is if there are errors in the book, it's because O.J. didn't correct them, or worse, he fed them to me. But that's fine, too. It's his book. Self-delusion is a wonderful thing."
On a brighter note, Hong Kong actress Cecilia Cheung (張柏芝) has given birth to a baby boy, fathered by fellow star Nicholas Tse (謝霆鋒), a manager at Tse's record label EEG said.
The baby, who weighed 2.9kg, was born late Thursday. Tse was quoted by Chinese news Web site Sina.com Friday as saying he had married Cheung.
The couple appeared together in famed Chinese director Chen Kaige's (陳凱歌) mythological epic The Promise.- Agencies
Taiwan’s overtaking of South Korea in GDP per capita is not a temporary anomaly, but the result of deeper structural problems in the South Korean economy says Chang Young-chul, the former CEO of Korea Asset Management Corp. Chang says that while it reflects Taiwan’s own gains, it also highlights weakening growth momentum in South Korea. As design and foundry capabilities become more important in the AI era, Seoul risks losing competitiveness if it relies too heavily on memory chips. IMF forecasts showing Taiwan widening its lead over South Korea have fueled debate in Seoul over memory chip dependence, industrial policy and
“China wants to unify with Taiwan at the lowest possible cost, and it currently believes that unification will become easier and less costly as time passes,” wrote Amanda Hsiao (蕭嫣然) and Bonnie Glaser in Foreign Affairs (“Why China Waits”) this month, describing how the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is playing the long game in its quest to seize Taiwan. This has been a favorite claim of many writers over the years, easy to argue because it is so trite. Very obviously, if the PRC isn’t attacking Taiwan, it is waiting. But for what? Hsiao and Glaser’s main point is trivial,
May 18 to May 24 Gathered on Yangtou Mountain (羊頭山) on Dec. 5, 1972, Taiwan’s hiking enthusiasts formally declared the formation of the “100 Peaks Club” (百岳俱樂部) and unveiled the final list of mountains. Famed mountaineer Lin Wen-an (林文安) led this effort for the Chinese Alpine Association (中華山岳協會). Working with other experienced climbers, he chose 100 peaks above 10,000 feet (3,048m) that featured triangulation points and varied in difficulty and character. The list sparked an alpine hiking craze, inspiring many to take up mountaineering and competing to “conquer” the summits. A common misconception is that the 100 Peaks represent Taiwan’s 100 tallest
In a sudden move last week, opposition lawmakers of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) passed a NT$780 billion special defense budget as a preemptive measure to stop either Chinese leader Xi Jinping (習近平) or US President Donald Trump from blocking US arms sales to Taiwan at their summit in Beijing, said KMT heavyweight Jaw Shaw-kong (趙少康), speaking to the Taipei Foreign Correspondents Club on Wednesday night in Taipei. The 76-year-old Jaw, a political talk show host who ran as the KMT’s vice presidential candidate in 2024, says that he personally brokered the deal to resolve
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