Israeli PM defiant on Jerusalem

The PM says Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem “is unquestionable”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected a reported US request that a building project in Jerusalem be halted.

The project involves building 20 apartments in the mainly Arab East Jerusalem area, which was captured by Israel in 1967.

Last week US officials told the Israeli ambassador that the project should be suspended, Israeli media said.

But Mr Netanyahu rejected this in comments at his weekly Cabinet meeting.

“We cannot accept the idea that Jews will not have the right to live and buy (homes) anywhere in Jerusalem,” he said.

“Unified Jerusalem is the capital of the Jewish people and the state of Israel. Our sovereignty over it is unquestionable.”

Israel has occupied East Jerusalem since 1967. It has annexed the city and declared its east and west Israel’s eternal capital.

This undermines the efforts being exerted to revive the peace process Saeb Erekat, Palestinian negotiator

This is not recognised by the international community, with the east of the city considered occupied territory.

Palestinians hope to establish their capital in East Jerusalem, as part of a two-state peace deal with the Israelis.

They say Israel uses settlement and demolition orders to try to force them from the area.

‘No credibility’

The project in question concerns a block of 20 apartments in the Sheikh Jarrah district of the city.

Israeli officials said the US State Department summoned Ambassador Michael Oren last week and told him that the construction should not go ahead.

There was no immediate comment from the US.

But Israel has come under pressure from the Obama administration to freeze settlement activity on land that Palestinians want for a future state.

Palestinians say peace talks cannot proceed until settlement activity halts.

A senior Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, said Mr Netanyahu’s comments had further undermined efforts to re-start the peace process.

The decision to pursue this project, he said, reflected Israel’s defiance of international calls for a halt to settlement activity.

“This undermines the efforts being exerted to revive the peace process and this undermines the credibility of those involved in making the peace process continue,” he said.

About 268,000 Palestinians live in East Jerusalem, alongside 200,000 Israeli Jews.

Saudi judge condemns ‘immoral TV’

The most senior judge in Saudi Arabia has said it is permissible to kill the owners of satellite TV channels which broadcast immoral programs.

Sheikh Salih Ibn al-Luhaydan said some “evil” entertainment programs aired by the channels promoted debauchery.

Dozens of satellite television channels broadcast across the Middle East, where they are watched by millions of Arabs every day.

The judge made the comments on a state radio program.

He was speaking in response to a listener who asked his opinion on the airing of programs featuring scantily-dressed women during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

“There is no doubt that these programs are a great evil, and the owners of these channels are as guilty as those who watch them,” said the sheikh.

“It is legitimate to kill those who call for corruption if their evil can not be stopped by other penalties.”

Royal dilemma

Given his position as the country’s most senior judge, the sheikh’s views can not be easily dismissed.

Clerics like Sheikh al-Luhaydan represent a huge dilemma for the Saudi royal family, our correspondent adds.

On the one hand, Saudi rulers need their support to claim that they rule in the name of Islam.

But on the other hand, fighting militant Islam can be difficult when the country’s top judge calls for the beheading of those he views as immoral broadcasters.

All because the lady loves a foreign accent

Courtesy BBC

By Samanthi Dissanayake BBC News

It is the stuff of escapist fantasy. A tall, dark and handsome type sweeps a cream-and-roses Home Counties heroine off her feet. In its 100 years of publishing, the exotic alpha male has been a staple of the Mills and Boon romance.

The tale of the passionate desert sheikh who sweeps secretary Janna Smith h off her feet in Violet Winspear’s 1970 romance Tawny Sands is perhaps the quintessential Mills and Boon story.

Silent film sex symbol Rudolph Valentino in The Sheik

“His tone of voice was softly mocking, but she knew he didn’t really jest. He was Raul Cesar Bey and the further they traveled into the desert the more aware she was of his affinity with the savage sun and tawny sands.”

Shocking, suggestive, the tale of their love was wildly popular with a generation of romance readers.

It is also typical of a taste for foreign pleasures when it comes to romantic fiction.

It’s 100 years since Mills and Boon published their first book. Sold in 109 countries and translated into 26 different languages, it is arguably Britain’s best-known publishing house worldwide.

From early in the company’s history, its winsome heroines have looked beyond Britain’s shores to find love.

Nobody can quite identify the very first Mills and Boon romance to feature an exotic hero or location. But Dr Joseph McAleer, author of Passion’s Fortune: The Story of Mills and Boon, says it was probably in the 1910s, following the lead of Hollywood cinema and its preoccupation with desert sheikhs and jungle escapades.

The fascination still exists today with the best-selling title of the June 2008 Modern Romance series being Desert King, Pregnant Mistress by Susan Stephens.

“Exotic locations gave great scope to authors to be a bit racier. It is usually an English person going into the tropics to experience this different culture,” Dr McAleer says.

“But they never lose their moral foundation. The heroines normally wind up reforming the sheikh.”

Steamy scenes

In 1915 Louise Gerard wrote The Virgin’s Treasure, the story of Dr Keith Harding, who leaves England for Africa to treat tropical diseases.

A fine wartime romance

“This was not England but the tropics where blood was hotter and where incredible things happen with amazing swiftness” Gerard writes, preparing the reader for the steamy scenes to come. It was only in the 1930s that Mills and Boon became a dedicated romantic fiction publishers. Since then, enigmatic sheikhs, brooding Spaniards and sardonic Greek tycoons have become a staple of their storylines.

These international tales have tended to mirror broader social trends. The experience of World War II enhanced the possibilities of love abroad. WAAF Into Wife, by Barbara Stanton, follows the fortunes of Mandy Lyle, who falls under the spell of Count Alexei Czishkiwhizski, leader of a Polish squadron.

“With horizons being broadened and more international travel, the romances set in rose-covered cottages did not have the same cache as Greece, Ibiza, and South Africa,” Dr McAleer says.

The exotic and the international became a key measure of the ultimate romantic lead.

“The alpha male has to be larger than life, an incredibly heroic figure. He was usually fabulously wealthy with a mystery about him,” says Dr McAleer.

Greek shipping magnates emerged in the 70s and 80s, and the Mediterranean hero rose in popularity as package holidays became the norm.

The growth in air travel also saw the rise of the air hostess/pilot romance, with many tender words lavished on the captains holding passengers’ lives in their manly hands.

It could happen to you…?

Nowadays, Italians and Spaniards remain popular heroes and at least one sheikh romance a month is published. Even Russian oligarchs have made an appearance.

“As the world has become more globalised our settings have had to become more exotic, more luxurious and exciting. Where our heroes were once millionaires, now they have to be billionaires,” says Clare Somerville, marketing director for Mills and Boon.

Middle Eastern tycoons feature frequently but hail fictional countries and kingdoms – there is little room for the realities of the region’s geopolitics in escapist fiction.

The company’s largest markets have been the UK, United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Demographically, North America is the biggest market but with the launch of English-language editions in India earlier this year, Mills and Boon acknowledges this could change.

The real aim of romance is to provide escape and entertainment Violet Winspear

As India’s middle classes exercise their consumer muscle, so the company wants to expand its roster of romantic heroes.

“We are also looking at the Indian prince idea. He is a clear extension of the alpha male and we are looking at launching this next year,” says Ms Somerville.

It is also running a competition to find new local authors in India. Mills and Boon novels are translated in China, and for some years now its romances have graced Japanese bookshelves in the form of manga comics.

Exotic escape

Mills and Boon claim its readership all over the world look for the same thing: identification with the heroine and intense romantic relationships.

You’re not in Liverpool now, Shirley

Violet Winspear, one of Mills and Boon’s best-selling authors in the 1960s and the author of Tawny Sands, set many of her books in Greece, Spain and North Africa.

But she was a spinster who reputedly never left south-east England – instead she meticulously researched her far-flung settings at the local library.

Miss Winspear caused considerable controversy when explaining her archetypal hero – the sort of men “who frighten and fascinate” and “the sort of men who are capable of rape: men it’s dangerous to be left alone in the room with”.

Although this comment would haunt her, Dr McAleer says she thought hard about what exotic themes brought to her readers. In a letter to her publisher, she wrote: “Who on earth can truly identify with a sardonic Spanish Don, a handsome surgeon, a dashing Italian or a bittersweet Greek? The real aim of romance is to provide escape and entertainment, not to dish up ‘real life’ and ‘real life people on a plate with egg on it’!”

Shirley Valentine would surely agree.

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