Female figures in the public eye have been keeping the media busy over the past week.
Britain’s Duchess of York is to make a six-part documentary show for US television about her struggle to rebuild her life after a scandal over selling access to the British royal family.
The Oprah Winfrey Network — a new cable channel due to launch in January — said on Friday the documentary would be called Finding Sarah and would debut in the first three months of 2011.
“Sarah Ferguson, The Duchess of York, will share with our viewers her personal struggle to rebuild her life,” Lisa Erspamer, chief creative officer of the network said in a statement.
“With the help of experts Dr Phil McGraw, Suze Orman, Martha Beck and others, the Duchess will open up about her recent public troubles and explore her lifelong battles with weight, relationships and finances. She will look to put the past behind her and move forward to a positive future,” Erspamer said.
Ferguson, 50, is the ex-wife of Britain’s Prince Andrew, the second son of Queen Elizabeth II. She was caught in an embarrassing British newspaper sting in May in which she was filmed appearing to ask for, and accept, US$40,000 in cash in exchange for access to Prince Andrew, who is also a British trade envoy.
The couple divorced amicably in 1996 after 10 years of marriage, and have two grown children.
Also in the spotlight is French
first lady Carla Bruni. A new unauthorized biography of the Italian ex-supermodel paints an unflattering picture claiming she lives a solitary life, neglects her charitable works and forces her husband to socialize with her former lovers.
Carla, a Secret Life by former journalist Besma Lahouri discloses that following her marriage to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, a presidential adviser was assigned to help rebrand Bruni, whose former lovers include Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton, as a demure political wife.
It also alleges that Bruni, 43, has had extensive plastic surgery despite denials, and had a 20-year relationship with a Paris surgeon.
The disclosures appeared in a report published on Saturday in British newspaper the Times, which has, along with the French weekly Marianne, been given the book ahead of publication.
Describing, Bruni as a “female Don Juan,” the book, which the author says the Elysee Palace tried to discourage, says she has maintained contact with former paramours.
“Since he married the woman that some called a ‘man-eater,’ [Sarkozy] has to put up every day with this burdensome tribe. Singers, philosophers, lawyers, bosses, men of the press or politics.”
No less than three such men were house guests at Bruni’s Riviera villa last year during Sarkozy’s first holiday there.
Bruni had finally met her match in her marriage to Sarkozy with a “man even more unpredictable than her,” Lahouri said.
After their whirlwind romance and 2008 marriage, the Elysee Palace embarked on a carefully managed image makeover of the new first lady led by presidential aide Pierre Charon.
“Carla had warned me ‘they are going to say a lot of things about me, about my past life. Things, photographs are going to come out’ ... So we had to help give her a new image. That of a shy young woman,” he told Lahouri.
Behind the scenes, however, the book says she lives a solitary life and Lahouri describes her foundation to fight AIDS as “an empty shell.”
In other celebrity news, Britney Spears has denied a bodyguard’s accusations that she sexually harassed him and abused her children, saying Thursday in a statement on her Web site that authorities looked into his claims but found no reason to act.
The statement said the pop singer and her attorney expect Fernando Flores’ sexual harassment and intentional infliction of emotional distress lawsuit to be dismissed.
“This lawsuit is another unfortunate situation where someone is trying to take advantage of the Spears family and make a name for himself,” the statement read. “The Department of Children and Family Services conducted a proper investigation surrounding Mr Flores’ accusations and have closed the case without further action.’’
Spears did not say when the investigation was conducted and the department doesn’t release details of its inquiries.
Flores claimed in his lawsuit that Spears repeatedly exposed herself to him and made other unwanted sexual advances. He also claimed she used his belt to discipline her young sons, Sean Preston and Jayden James, and acted inappropriately in front of them.
The bodyguard’s employment with Spears appeared to be brief — his court filings state he started working for her in February, and by June he was no longer on her security detail.
Flores is reportedly seeking unspecified damages.
Spears’ ex-husband, Kevin Federline, has also denied through his attorney that any abuse occurred and called Flores’ accusations “baseless.”
That US assistance was a model for Taiwan’s spectacular development success was early recognized by policymakers and analysts. In a report to the US Congress for the fiscal year 1962, former President John F. Kennedy noted Taiwan’s “rapid economic growth,” was “producing a substantial net gain in living.” Kennedy had a stake in Taiwan’s achievements and the US’ official development assistance (ODA) in general: In September 1961, his entreaty to make the 1960s a “decade of development,” and an accompanying proposal for dedicated legislation to this end, had been formalized by congressional passage of the Foreign Assistance Act. Two
March 31 to April 6 On May 13, 1950, National Taiwan University Hospital otolaryngologist Su You-peng (蘇友鵬) was summoned to the director’s office. He thought someone had complained about him practicing the violin at night, but when he entered the room, he knew something was terribly wrong. He saw several burly men who appeared to be government secret agents, and three other resident doctors: internist Hsu Chiang (許強), dermatologist Hu Pao-chen (胡寶珍) and ophthalmologist Hu Hsin-lin (胡鑫麟). They were handcuffed, herded onto two jeeps and taken to the Secrecy Bureau (保密局) for questioning. Su was still in his doctor’s robes at
Last week the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said that the budget cuts voted for by the China-aligned parties in the legislature, are intended to force the DPP to hike electricity rates. The public would then blame it for the rate hike. It’s fairly clear that the first part of that is correct. Slashing the budget of state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) is a move intended to cause discontent with the DPP when electricity rates go up. Taipower’s debt, NT$422.9 billion (US$12.78 billion), is one of the numerous permanent crises created by the nation’s construction-industrial state and the developmentalist mentality it
Experts say that the devastating earthquake in Myanmar on Friday was likely the strongest to hit the country in decades, with disaster modeling suggesting thousands could be dead. Automatic assessments from the US Geological Survey (USGS) said the shallow 7.7-magnitude quake northwest of the central Myanmar city of Sagaing triggered a red alert for shaking-related fatalities and economic losses. “High casualties and extensive damage are probable and the disaster is likely widespread,” it said, locating the epicentre near the central Myanmar city of Mandalay, home to more than a million people. Myanmar’s ruling junta said on Saturday morning that the number killed had
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