Sex and the City Premiere

Even before the screening of the Sex and the City movie, critics were poised with pens above notebooks, when the four leading ladies, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis and Cynthia Nixon stepped onto the red carpets at Leicester Square yesterday, scrutinizing their fashion choices for the evening.

Starring as the protagonist of the movie, Sarah Jessica Parker stood out from the rest in a green tulle and feather dress by British haute couture designer Alexander McQueen and an eye-, and branch-catching headpiece by Philip Treacy.

The much-awaited movie, which spun off the highly successful, Emmy award-winning television series of the same name, about four high-powered, sartorially-adored ladies in their late 30s to 40s in New York City, has premiered across the pond, at London’s Leicester Square.

The mostly female fan base have embraced it, saying that Sex and the City is a realistic portrayal of the sexual behaviours and lifestyles of modern women, while others felt the show caricatured the modern woman, with shallow values and priorities.

That said, some die-hard fans were allowed a private screening during the Oprah Winfrey show, where one gushed, “I saw it on Saturday night at a private screening. Women wept, cheered. It's the Neiman Marcus catalogue on steroids!”

It seems that the critics are separated into two camps – those who embrace the frothy nature of the movie, and those who don’t.

Celia Warden of The Telegraph pronounced, ‘It was coarse, sentimental, and outrageously materialistic - just as we hoped and expected it would be.’

On the other hand, The Times reviewer, Will Pavia, who gave it two stars out of five, wrote, ‘there may be a problem with stretching Sex and the City into a two hour and twenty minute film - it can feel like a never ending dinner party: however pleasant the courses, after a while you can hardly eat another one.’

It seems that overall, director Michael Patrick King, who directed the television series as well, has achieved what he set out to do. He told film reviewer Emanuel Levy that “I want people leaving the movie theatre feeling, ‘all right, great, that was a lot - that was drinks, appetizer, and main course, and dessert, dessert, dessert!”

Burmese Cyclone

Nearly 30,000 people have perished in the disaster that is Cyclone Nargis, according to official Burmese reports. Thousands of survivors are still at risk, lacking food, water and shelter.

After nine days of negotiating with the military junta in Burma, the US have finally managed to gain permission to land its aid aircraft, including water, mosquito nets and blankets in Rangoon, where Cyclone Nargis hit on the night of Friday May the 2nd.

According to the Burmese local online newspaper The Irrawady, official reports say the death toll is 29,000, but United Nations estimates say it could be up to 102,000, with aid agencies like Oxfam fearing it could rise to 1.5 million if help does not arrive.

The US is not the only one who has tried to send aid, : the UK has pledged £5 million to help Burma, in what Foreign Minister David Miliband calls a "humanitarian catastrophe of genuinely epic proportions".

However, the military junta in Burma, in power for 15 years, is reluctant to accept help. They are sticking to their stand - foreign aid is acceptable, foreign workers are not, with the BBC reporting that the Minister for Economic Development believes that “delivery of relief goods can be handled by local organizations”. This means that while monetary contributions, can be received by those affected, medical aid in the form of foreign doctors and nurses are not allowed.

Burma, with its unsettled political climate, is that of military dictatorship, which The Economist calls the "world's most paranoid regime", has strained political relations with the Western world. Not only have they refused foreign aid, they have strict rules about foreign media, deporting BBC's Asia bureau editor Paul Danahar from Rangoon on the weekend after a week of reporting on the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis.

The European Union, in light of this disaster, will hold a meeting tomorrow, while ASEAN (The Association of South-East Asian Nations) says it will discuss this issue next Monday.

Trouble for the Labour Party

Labour has clocked its lowest share of the votes since the 1960s, delivering a resounding blow to Gordon Brown's future prospects as Prime Minister.

Both the Tories and LibDem managed to get a higher percentage of votes than Labour in England and Wales, with the Tories at 44%, LibDem at 25% and Labour at 24%.

While this may be disheartening news for the Labour campaign, they are determined to point out that local elections rarely predict the results of the general elections, especially since voters turnout is 35%.

Labour's chief whip Geoff Hoon said: "There's no crisis. This isn't something that's going to affect the fundamental stability of the government."

The Tories, on the other hand, are determined to emphasise how this shows their party gaining popularity, hailing David Cameron the "Prime-Minister-in-waiting". Mr Cameron has also labelled this as the Conservatives' 'big moment'.

They have managed to turn votes in Hull and St Albans, signalling progress in the traditionally Labour north.

All rests now in the London elections, where the Tories and Labour candidates are neck to neck.

The Hobbit Fans

Fans of JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit have been stirred into frenzy recently, with the announcement of the start of production of the movie. Many fans on The Internet Movie Database site have expressed their concerns, with some proposing a boycott of the movie if either Peter Jackson won’t be directing, Ian Mckellan won’t star as Gandalf, or Howard Shore, the Oscar-winning composer for Lord of the Rings won’t be composing the score for The Hobbit.

With the confirmation of Pan’s Labyrinth’s Guillermo del Toro, known for his dark-fantasy style, as director, it certainly looks like that particular group of 3 would not be catching it in the cinemas in 2010, even though Mckellan has been rumoured to agree to a reprisal of his role. Peter Jackson is overseeing the production of the movie after reaching an agreement with New Line Cinema despite a financial feud stemmed from The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Other fans at the online satirical news magazine The Spoof have taken a more light-hearted approach, poking fun at the media’s obsession with it. They have come up with a mock cast, with Adam Sandler playing the role of Gollum, the creepy underground creature, claiming that ‘Del Toro wanted to bring in a younger audience and feels that the "Jewishness" that Sandler will bring to the role will make the audience feel the tension’.

The Spoof has also not spared the production behind The Hobbit from ridicule, purporting that “they need some lovable characters so that McDonalds can base toys on them for their happy meals and get a lot of merchandising out of the film."

New Social Networking Phenomenon

Yuwie, the new social networking phenomenon, is paying users to browse others' profiles, inviting friends, leave comments, upload photos - everything that people already do. Yuwie's founder, Korry Rogers, pounced on the fact that teenagers are using popular sites like Myspace and Facebook almost obsessively, that they've become the new target space for advertisers.

While other networking sites are reaping massive profits from advertisers, with Facebook earning a reported US$150 million in 2007, Yuwie, which started in June 2007, plans to half its profits and share that amongst its users.

Mr Rogers, a web designer from Oklahoma, explains, "If someone only refers three of their friends, who refer three of their friends through 10 levels, that one person will collect a percentage of advertising revenues from about 88,000 end-users, which could be about $8,800 [£4,427] per month for that person." Users receive money through a Paypal account, which means that under 18s can get paid, even without what a legal definition of a job.

Yuwie, as of March 2008, has over half a million users and increasing exponentially. Its success would depend on the popularity of their applications available to the user, which now consists of a comments section, photo album, and a layout that can be personalised. The Yuwie creators are now looking to install applications that will rival that of Facebook and Myspace, to promote itself as the social networking site for youngsters.

Wikileaks Phenomenon

Time Magazine proclaimed it "could become as important a journalistic tool as the Freedom of Information Act."

Swiss bank Julius Baer is desperately trying to shut it down, or as they put it, "it just wanted stolen and forged documents removed".

This phenomenon, known as Wikileaks, is as elusive and indestructible as Nightcrawler, the shape-shifter from the comic X-Men. It is accessed by typing "Wikileaks" in the Google search engine, and by finding the website with the word "wikileaks" in it, be it "wikileaks.de", "wikileaks.cz", or "wikileaks.org".

It protects itself from being shut down by having numerous mirror domains, from Belgium, the UK and Czech Republic. The deleted main Wikileaks site could be accessed, slightly less conveniently, by using its IP number (88.80.13.160).

The code it uses to disguise itself is, ironically derived from the US Navy, one of the many government sites whose secrets Wikileaks expose.

However, that has not stopped Swiss bank Julius Baer from trying to shut it down - they went after the root of the site, Dynadot, to close one of its sites, "wikileaks.org". The Californian judge hearing this case has ruled in favour of the Swiss bank, but hours later, called for a second hearing this Friday.