N Ireland man strikes chord with rock connoisseurs

DOWNPATRICK, NORTHERN IRELAND, Nov 20: When Belfast’s George Lowden built a rudimentary guitar at the age of 10, little did he know that one day some of the world’s biggest rock stars would be queuing up to pay top dollar for his work.

"It had nails for frets and fishing line for strings and I pranced around the garden pretending I was one of the beatles," said Lowden, now a greying 52-year-old father of five, as he whittled a sliver of rare tropical wood in his workshop.

At his home, deep in the northern Irish countryside, Lowden produces the rolls-royce of acoustic guitars for a customer list that reads like a who’s who of rock music: Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, U2’s the edge, Mark Knopfler of dire Straits, and northern Ireland’s own Van Morrison, amongst others.

The guitars are cherished by fans for their pure, "open" sound, "fast response" and good looks. They have even spawned their own website, the cult of Lowden, where fans pick over the finer points of the instruments in near-obsessive detail.

Lowden cheerfully admits that when he first started making his own guitars in the early 1970s he "hadn’t a clue" what he was doing.

"I got hold of a ‘how to’ book, some wood, and just got started."

There followed a painstaking process of trial and error.

"I had to learn everything the hard way, but when you learn that way, it sticks," Lowden said.

"Every guitar I made I changed the design for the next one — new body shapes, new bracing designs inside, changing the thickness of the wood and so on."

Working from a room in his flat, Lowden financed his endeavours by selling his early efforts to friends and local musicians, before arriving at a design that became the template for a series of instruments still in production.

In 1976 he got his first real break, when a friend walked into a folk music shop in Paris carrying a Lowden guitar.

"They tested it against their own stock and immediately ordered six up-front and four a month thereafter," Lowden recalled. "I was in business."

He hired and trained a handful of apprentices and increased his output, working for several years from a tiny studio on northern Ireland’s east coast.

By 1980 his guitars were attracting fresh attention from abroad, and on the advice of some music business friends, Lowden licensed his designs to a small company in Japan, which for five years turned out top-notch instruments to his specifications.

The arrangement ended when the 1980s vogue for electronic music caused a slump in the acoustic guitar market, but it introduced Lowden to the superior quality of Japanese tools, which he has used ever since: "it’s the laminated steel," he explained. "centuries of Samurai tradition."

Lowden then set up a fully-fledged factory in northern Ireland, producing fewer than 1,000 guitars a year but competing at the high end of the market with sector leaders such as us giants Martin, Taylor, and guild.

Lowden still relishes the challenge he set himself as a child and takes around 10 orders a year from Aficionados who want an instrument hand-crafted by the man himself.

These guitars are highly-prized, compared by some to violins made by Stradivarius, and that’s reflected in both the waiting time —currently two-and-a-half years — and the price.

A top of the range guitar made to order by Lowden costs 17,000 dollars — up to five times the price of a factory-built Lowden and a far cry from the 85 he got for his prototypes.

Happiest in his workshop with just the whisper of a Dehumidifier unit for company, he constructs each of the made-to-order guitars from hand-carved woods such as walnut, rosewood, cedar, and other more exotic timber such as Hawaiian Koa, chosen for their tonal and aesthetic qualities.

Each custom-made model is distinguished by the buyer’s choice of Motif on the fingerboard — fishes or butterflies, for example, inlaid in silver, mother-of-pearl or abalone shell.

Randy Hall, proprietor of specialty guitars near Washington DC, explained why, as well as selling Lowdens, he is the proud owner of at least 10.

"They have a really unique sound due to their design and build, a lot of harmonic overtones and richness — I always use the analogy of a celtic harp or a hammered dulcimer," he said.

"Some guitars you really have to attack, to overplay, but with these you can underplay and get the sound you want. They also look absolutely gorgeous."

The master guitar maker does not play the guitar himself, saying designing and building them takes all his time and effort.

"When I was in my teens I fancied myself as Ireland’s answer to eric clapton, but disillusionment set in fairly quickly," he said with a wry smile.

"All I ever really wanted was to build the best guitars possible." (AGENCIES)

Germans struggling again over Nazi guilt

BERLIN, Nov 20: How long should Germans be held accountable for the holocaust?

The question has taken on a new urgency in the wake of a row over a right-wing politician’s anti-Jewish speech and a blighted attempt by a leading German company to atone for its Nazi links by helping to build a memorial to murdered Jews.

Sixty years after six million Jews were killed in Nazi concentra-tion camps, the Christian democrat party expelled member of Parliament Martin Hohmann for saying Jews, like Germans, could be seen as a people of "perpetrators."

But Hohmann, an obscure backbencher, got an unexpected outpouring of support for his view that it was time Germans stopped being blamed, and blaming themselves, for the holocaust.

Hohmann was condemned by German leaders, from Centre-left President Johannes Rau to fellow conservatives, for a speech which was seen to belittle the holocaust.

Nevertheless, an underlying question has begun to resound, from Berlin to the black forest: Can Germans ever win redemption?

"Certainly there is a yearning by some to draw a line and stop belabouring the past," Rau said. "After all, they say, the perpetrators are no longer alive and neither are the victims. But we’ve got to do everything to fight that mentality.

"There is no ‘collective guilt’ but there is a ‘collective shame’ and that won’t change," Rau said, adding he was shocked by Hohmann’s speech. "there may be anti-semitism everywhere, but our inhibition threshold must be higher than elsewhere."

The chemical company degussa has discovered that the answer to the question of redemption for German firms is: "not yet".

In the Hitler era, Degussa was the parent company of a firm which made Zyklon B Hydrogen Cyanide gas pellets used in the extermination camps.

Degussa has a long postwar record of trying to atone for its past, and was a founding member and key contributor to a 2.6 billion euro (3 billion dollars) fund to compensate Nazi-era slave labourers.

But recently, Degussa’s Nazi links prompted trustees to strip it of a prestigious contract to treat the pillars of a holocaust memorial in central Berlin with anti-Graffiti paint.

Weeks later Degussa faced another public humiliation when it was revealed that it had provided material for the pillars and their foundations.

Following an anguished debate, trustees decided to continue using Degussa materials rather than scrap 25 completed pillars.

It was a public relations Fiasco for the company, one of many German firms whose histories are tainted by links to the Nazis.

Hohmann, ironically, had tried to stop the holocaust memorial supported by Degussa.

"We’ve had three generations of penance until now and it shouldn’t be six or seven," he said in 1999.

German historian Arnulf Baring criticised the CDU for ejecting Hohmann and said the reaction was exaggerated.

"Naturally his speech was problematic," baring told Bavarian television. "But his ouster is a farce. It appears we live in a dictatorship of like-mindedness."

But Wolfgang Benz, head of Berlin technical university’s anti-semitism research centre, said Hohmann went beyond anything a German politician had said since Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.

"For the first time we’ve seen a member of Parliament present an anti-semitic way of thinking," he said.

Hohmann, who will now sit alone in Parliament, has long demanded drawing a line under Germany’s Nazi past — but his calls were largely ignored.

In a speech made in 2000 and recently unearthed by Der Spiegel magazine, he said: "The Nazi era is bring increasingly instrumenta-lised as time goes on to force Germans to behave in a certain way."

Just before the CDU voted by a four to one margin to throw him out he made a last-ditch appeal to conservative deputies: "I cannot accept the thesis that Germans share a collective guilt." (AGENCIES)

Ranil offers Kumaratunga role in peace process

COLOMBO, Nov 20: Adopting a conciliatory approach, Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe today offered his arch rival President Chandrika Kumaratunga a broader role in the peace process with Tamil rebels in a bid to resolve the ongoing power struggle that has crippled the country for the past two weeks.

Reversing its policy of excluding the President and her party from the peace process, the Wickremesinghe Government is prepared to forget past and involve Kumaratunga and her people’s alliance party in the decision-making, Government Spokesman G L Peiris told reporters here.

"Vituperative politics should be a part of history," he said.

"There should be a role for her excellency and her party in the decision-making process. There is a clamour for it in the country."

Terming the development as "good", a spokesman for the President’s office said the office was awaiting a full transcript of Peiris’ news conference.

"The president has all along been saying that she is willing to work together," Janadasa Peiris said. "She has also emphasised the need to let peace process go on," he said.

Government spokesman Peiris said the idea was not to form a national Government but to establish national consensus on dealing with the economy and the peace process.

He said a four-member committee appointed this week to arrange modalities for the President and Prime Minister to work together would be providing suggestions to improve the cohabitation arrangement. He said it had not decided yet exactly how the responsibility would be shared.

The Government had earlier said it should exclusively handle the peace bid and Wickremesinghe withdrew from leading the initiative after Kumaratunga took over the three key portfolios of defence, interior and information. She also suspended Parliament for two weeks till yesterday.

"The country has gone through a period of political convulsions," the Government spokesman said. "Now is the time to restore calm, stability and serenity."

Peiris said their "change of heart is natural."

"The objective at that time was different. We were talking about the establishment of a ceasefire. That is now in place and the all the benefits we have today are derived from that ceasefire agreement signed between the Prime Minister and the leader of the LTTE."

He said as the two sides discuss core political issues, there would be a role for the opposition whose support was essential to rewrite the constitution to accommodate the demands of the rebels. (PTI)

US Court issues arrest warrant against Jackson

NEW YORK, Nov 20: In a development that could have major implications on his singing career, the authorities in California have slammed 45-year-old "king of pop" Michael Jackson with "multiple counts" of child molestation, issued arrest warrants, asked him to surrender to the Santa Barbara Sheriff and hand over his passport.

The singer, who attained superstardom in 1980s with his album "thriller," was said to be in Las Vegas where he is recording a video for his latest album "number ones."

A television network quoted a friend of his as saying that Jackson, who has been involved in such controversies earlier too, would surrender within a day. He is said to be "making arrangements in consultations with his attorneys." The bail is set for three million dollars.

Jackson had faced similar charges about a decade ago but the case was settled outside Court and reportedly involved payment of millions of dollars.

However, authorities say this time things are different as the family of the child allegedly molested is not after money but wants justice to be done. The authorities have also sought help from people who have any knowledge of this or other such cases.

Meanwhile, Jackson’s spokesman Stuart Backerman described the allegations as "outrageous" and said the singer would prove them to be wrong.

"The outrageous allegations against Michael Jackson are false. Michael would never harm a child in any way. These scurrilous and totally unfounded allegations will be proven false in a Courtroom," he said.

The authorities did not release any details of the alleged victims but the child was said to be 12 or 13 years old. It was also not clear whether the child is male or female. No details about the incident were released.

The charges follow disclosure made by the child to a therapist who reported them to the authorities as is required under the law.

Each of the sex molestation charges is punishable by three to eight years imprisonment.

"Mr. Jackson has been given the opportunity to surrender himself to the Santa Barbara Sheriff’s department within a specified period of time," Sheriff Jim Anderson told a crowded press conference which was telecast live across the nation.

"Get over here and get checked in," district attorney Thomas W Sneddon Jr advised Jackson.

The accusation involved lewd or lascivious acts with a child under 14.

Stacy Brown, identified as a Jackson family friend, told MSNBC television network that the singer would turn himself in sometime today even as dozens of camera crews were camping at the airport and closely watching every passenger who got off the arriving airplanes.

"As you can imagine this has to be one of the most horrible days of his life," brown said but asserted that Jackson was in "really, really good spirits, ready to tackle it and confront it and prove his innocence."

Officials declined to say where and when the alleged crime was committed and reports said affidavits containing details would be sealed for 15 days to enable investigations to be completed.

But Brian Oxman, who had earlier represented the Jackson family, told CBS network that the case involves alleged molestation of a 12-year old boy at Jackson’s Neverland Ranch, the storybook playground where singer has been known to hold sleepover parties with children. Oxman is not representing him at present.

As the allegations surfaced, CBS pulled a Jackson music planned for next Wednesday for his greatest hits.

About 70 laws enforcement officers had searched the 12.3 million dollar ranch for 12 hours Tuesday to find evidence but was not clear whether they were able to lift any.

In a documentary telecast by ABC network earlier this year, Jackson had said he had slept in a bed with many children.

"When you say bed, you are thinking sexual. It’s not sexual, we’re going to sleep. I tuck them in .. It is very charming, it’s very sweet." (PTI)

Los Angeles shrinks from Lapdance ban

LOS ANGELES, Nov 20: The Los Angeles city council has backed down from a controversial plan to ban lap dancing by near-naked strippers at the city’s numerous adult clubs, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The move came after strip club owners threatened to put the issue on a citywide ballot and raised 400,000 dollars to fight the proposed ban.

The council now hopes to for a compromise with owners that would better regulate the city’s 40 strip clubs, which have drawn complaints of public sex and prostitution in surrounding neighbourhoods.

The ban approved in September was set to take effect January 1 and would have required strippers to stay at least two metres from customers in the city’s adult businesses, effectively outlawing lap dancing. It also would have banned direct tipping of dancers, prohibited private ‘’vip’’ rooms and required clubs to renew their permits every year and to hire state-licensed security guards.

According to the report, the compromise would eliminate the two-metre rule, but touching of breasts and genitals would be prohibited, and annual license renewal would make it easier for the city to crack down on operators who break the law. (DPA)

Big blast near Kurdish offices in Iraq town

KIRKUK, IRAQ, Nov 20: A huge explosion apparently caused by a car bomb rocked an area near the offices of a leading Kurdish party in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk today.

The blast, near the offices of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), threw a cloud of black smoke from two cars into the air, a correspondent at the scene said. (AGENCIES)

EU researchers call time on watch and cargo fraud

BRUSSELS, Nov 20: European union researchers have developed a technology to call time on luxury watch counterfeiters and ensure shipping containers are carrying what they claim to, officials said.

Miniature radio transmitters, originally developed to record tampering with drums of uranium and plutonium, have been modified to form hard-to-forge watermarks for watches and shipping containers.

The seals, which the eu is patenting, provide a unique identification for shipping containers and store information on what is inside and when the container was last opened.

A European Commission spokesman said wider use of the seals would be considered as part of new rules to be agreed with the United States to prevent cargo shipments being used for terrorist attacks.

The new seals allow customs officers to use an antenna linked to a handheld computer to activate the transmitters and read stored information about the cargo — and whether the container has been opened since it was last inspected.

The same technology, on a smaller scale, also acts as a high-tech version of the serial numbers found on the backs of expensive watches.

As well as putting up another barrier to making a convincing counterfeit, the transmitter can broadcast a link to a database containing optional details of the watch’s owner. (AGENCIES)

Lewinsky says her past has hurt her love life

NEW YORK, Nov 20: Monica Lewinsky says her White House liaison is a liability on the dating scene.

The intern infamous for her affair with US President Bill Clinton said in the December issue of GQ magazine that she dates occasionally but her romantic relationships have been short-lived.

Lewinsky, 30, said in the interview she sympathized with the men she meets, saying she, too, would be intimidated by the tales of her past.

"If I were a guy and I’d heard all those things about a girl, I don’t know that I’d want to take her out," Lewinsky told the men’s magazine.

But Lewinsky also admitted she is impatient when men are not as responsive to her as she would like them to be.

"The one thing I don’t do well with, with a guy, is ambivalence," she said. "I want to shake them and say, ‘C’mon, just like me do what I say"’

In the nearly six years since news of Lewinsky’s dalliance with Clinton Broke, leading to his 1998 impeachment and later acquittal by the US senate, Lewinsky has designed handbags and, most recently, hosted a reality TV show.

But the woman that nearly cost Clinton the oval office said she wanted to dispel rumors that the scandal had made her wealthy.

"One of the huge misconceptions about me in the past few years is that I have made a fortune from this," Lewinsky said. "People who have this idea that I have millions of dollars or even a million, or close to a million, are off their rocker." (AGENCIES)

New species of living Baleen whale discovered

LONDON, Nov 20: Japanese scientists have identified a new species of living Baleen whale after examining the skeletons of several specimens caught in the 1970s.

Shiro Wada and researchers at the National Research Institute of Fisheries Science in Yokohama said the specimens resembled fin whales although they were smaller.

But after examining their DNA, the shape of their skull and the Baleen plates they use to filter plankton from the water they were convinced the specimens were a new species.

The comparison "separated them from all known Baleen whale species," Wada said in a report published in the science journal nature yesterday.

The researchers also separated other similar types of Baleen whales — Bryde’s whale and Eden’s whale — into two distinct species.

Baleen whales have no teeth and use the Baleen plates that hang down from the roof of their mouths to gather food.

New scientist magazine described the research as a stunning find and said it reinforces how little is known about the world’s fauna, including its greatest mammals.

"We are in the midst of a major rethink about what constitutes a species, and where the boundaries lie between them," the magazine said in its latest issue. (AGENCIES)

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