Harbin, China | 

Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan |Kyrgyzstan hoped for a fillip for its tourism  after the distinctive headgear traditionally worn by its men, the ak-kalpak, won UNESCO intangible heritage status.

Inclusion on the prestigious global list "has some very positive aspects for us -- including for tourism, to attract tourism to our country," said deputy culture and tourism minister, Maksat Uulu Damir.

"This gives the international community a chance to get to know our mountainous country."

UNESCO annually announces a list of cultural artifacts that encapsulate the spirit and heritage of their countries. Those added this month included traditional Thai massage.

The embroidered high hat is already so revered in its Central Asian homeland that it has its own national day.

Usually made from felt, the four-panelled hat symbolises "the peaks of the magnificent Kyrgyz mountains, forever snow-capped," former presidential advisor and regular ak-kalpak wearer Topchubek Turgunaliyev told AFP.

A locally made ak-kalpak costs from $20, although cheaper synthetic versions made in China are also sold at bazaars. 

Ak-kalpak day has been celebrated on March 5 since 2016 when crowds carried a 3-metre-high ak-kalpak hat around the centre of the capital Bishkek.

The hat is also set to be protected by domestic law.

A parliamentary committee has approved a bill raising the status of the ak-kalpak, putting it on a par with the national anthem and flag.

During a parliamentary debate, one lawmaker proposed punishing any act of disrespect to the hat with a fine of 1,000 soms, or around $15.

The bill, which lawmakers are expected to approve, followed a scandal in 2017 when a dog taking part in a show was photographed wearing the hat.

In April, a Kyrgyz-born mixed martial arts fighter Valentina "The Bullet" Shevchenko also offended some when she briefly put on the hat, traditionally only worn by men, during a visit to the country.

There have also been calls in the parliament to bestow the same status on the elechek, a women's turban made from a long piece of white cloth that wraps underneath the chin.

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© Agence France-Presse

Bastogne, Belgium | 

Seventy-five years after the snow bound hills of the Ardennes saw the bloody turning point of World War II, surviving veterans gathered for perhaps the last time.

On Monday, they were honoured by a king, a grand duke, two presidents, two prime ministers and a US defence chief at solemn ceremonies in both Belgium and Luxembourg. 

The Battle of the Bulge was the last German offensive of the war, and the Siege of Bastogne was the scene of a heroic and now famous defence by American paratroopers.

"Outnumbered nearly five-to-one, lacking cold-weather gear, and short on food, ammunition, and medical supplies, the American paratroopers refused to give up," US defence secretary Mark Esper said. 

"Many of these men perished amid the thundering forests of the Ardennes," said Esper, himself a more recent combat veteran of the 101st Airborne, which in 1944 held the line bravely.

"And since the battlefield fell silent long ago, most of the veterans of that era have passed. However, we are blessed to have with us today a group of heroes who still walk among us."

Today, Belgium, the United States and Germany are allies, and Germany's President Frank-Walter Steinmeier took part at a memorial at Mardasson in chill fog and driving rain.  

"It is with sadness that I bow my head to all these dead ... victims of the hate and fury that was born in my country," said Steinmeier, accepting German responsibility for unleashing the war. 

Veterans, historians and military enthusiasts marked the now legendary close-quarters battle of Bastogne with a spectacular series of weekend re-enactments ahead of Monday's ceremonies.

Bastogne's rescue in late December 1944 by General George "Old Blood and Guts" Patton helped seal his reputation as an American military giant.

But the out-gunned paratroopers of the 101st Airborne -- who held the pocket for a week against advancing German armour -- also claim a share of the glory.

Esper was an officer of these "Screaming Eagles" in the 1991 Gulf War, but on Monday he paid tribute to his comrades from an era that is passing from memory into history.

- 'Nuts!' -

The Belgian town of Bastogne, close to the Luxembourg border in the Ardennes hills, is the focus of the commemoration, as it was of the fighting.

On December 16, 1944, German forces -- which had been falling back before the Allied advance from France since June's D-Day landings -- counter-attacked.

Their goal was to seize the port of Antwerp to deny it to Allied resupply ships, and five of their roads north converged on the small Belgian town.

By December 20, the battle-hardened but lightly armed US paratroopers were surrounded and a German Panzer general demanded their surrender.

"Nuts!" was the one-word reply from the US commander, and the ensuing week-long siege lasted until Patton's Third Army came to the rescue.

On Monday, Philippe, King of the Belgians, and Belgium's prime minister Sophie Wilmes were joined at the Mardasson Memorial by Esper and Steinmeier, and senior envoys from Britain, Canada and France.

The king praised the courage and "determination of our liberators" and recalled the need to always oppose the racist ideology embodied by Nazism.  

In the afternoon, the convoy crossed the border to the Luxembourg Military Cemetery and Memorial in Hamm, Patton's last resting place, received by the duchy's Grand Duke Henri and Prime Minister Xavier Bettel.  

General Patton died in a road accident during the 1945 occupation of a defeated Germany, but was buried in the Ardennes with comrades from his famous victory. 

His granddaughter Helen Patton has spent the days leading up to the memorial greeting veterans on battlefield visits.

The then 59-year-old Patton reached the summit of his glory when he relieved Bastogne and the survivors of the 18,000 encircled men.

- Artillery barrage -

The overall Battle of the Bulge would rage across the Ardennes for six weeks -- drawing in 600,000 American and 25,000 British troops against 400,000 Germans -- until the Allies prevailed in January 1945.

Between 15,000 and 20,000 German troops died, against between 10,000 and 19,000 Americans.

And 3,000 Belgian civilians perished under artillery bombardments or in massacres carried out by the Waffen-SS in villages like Houffalize.

The Bastogne fighting has been recounted by veterans interviewed for the book and television series "Band of Brothers" and entered US military folklore. 

But 75 years on, the number of former combatants and witnesses who can attend ceremonies is declining, and Belgium's War Heritage Institute has invited as many as they still can.    

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© Agence France-Presse

Los Angeles, United States |Superman's very first movie cape was sold for nearly $200,000 Monday alongside a collection of rare Hollywood memorabilia, the auction house said.

The prop from Christopher Reeve's "Superman", which went for $193,750, headlined Monday's sale of about 400 cinephile items at Julien's Auctions in Los Angeles.

Only six capes in total were used while shooting the film, which came out in 1978.

Multiple costumes from "Star Trek" also found buyers. These included the uniform worn by Patrick Stewart for his role as Captain Jean-Luc Picard, which sold for $28,800. 

Leonard Nimoy's Romulan costume from "Star Trek: The Next Generation" sold for $20,000.

Dan Akroyd's jumpsuit from "Ghostbusters II" also went up for auction and was sold for $32,000, according to Julien's Auctions, which specializes in Hollywood collections and memorabilia.

Although it was originally announced as an auction headline item, the pipe of Bilbo Baggins, played by Ian Holm in the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, was not sold at the auction.

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© Agence France-Presse

Berlin, Germany |A few notes scribbled in his notebook are all that German composer Ludwig van Beethoven left of his Tenth Symphony before his death in 1827.

Now, a team of musicologists and programmers is racing to complete a version of the piece using artificial intelligence, ahead of the 250th anniversary of his birth next year.

"The progress has been impressive, even if the computer still has a lot to learn," said Christine Siegert, head of archives at Beethoven House in the composer's hometown of Bonn.

Siegert said she was "convinced" that Beethoven would have approved since he too was an innovator at the time, citing his compositions for the panharmonicon -- a type of organ that reproduces the sounds of wind and percussion instruments.

And she insisted the work would not affect his legacy because it would never be regarded as part of his oeuvre.

The final result of the project will be performed by a full orchestra on April 28 next year in Bonn, a centrepiece of celebrations for a composer who defined the romantic era of classical music.

"It's completely new territory," said Dirk Kaftan, conductor of the Beethoven Orchestra, which will perform the piece.

"We musicians are in two minds about it."

Beethoven, Germany's most famous musical figure, is loved in his homeland and critics of the project are concerned about protecting Beethoven's legacy.

The "national duty" to prepare for the anniversary was even written into a right-left coalition agreement to form a govenment six years ago.

The year of celebrations officially begins on December 16 -- believed to be his 249th birthday.

But a press preview on Friday at the Beethoven House Museum in his native Bonn following a renovation offered insights into his genius, including the notebooks he used to communicate after going deaf in 1801 -- 26 years before his death.

- 'Scope for improvement' -

Beethoven began working on the Tenth Symphony alongside his Ninth, which includes the world-famous "Ode To Joy".

But he quickly gave up on the Tenth, leaving only a few notes and drafts by the time he died aged 57.

In the project, machine-learning software has been fed all of Beethoven's work and is now composing possible continuations of the symphony in the composer's style.

Deutsche Telekom, which is sponsoring the project, hopes to use the findings to develop technology such as voice recognition.

The team said the first results a few months ago were seen as too mechanical and repetitive but the latest AI compositions have been more promising.

Barry Cooper, a British composer and musicologist who himself wrote a hypothetical first movement for the Tenth Symphony in 1988, was more doubtful.

"I listened to a short excerpt that has been created. It did not sound remotely like a convincing reconstruction of what Beethoven intended," said Cooper, a professor at the University of Manchester and the author of several works on Beethoven.

"There is, however, scope for improvement with further work." 

Cooper warned that "in any performance of Beethoven's music, there is a risk of distorting his intentions" but this was particularly the case for the Tenth Symphony as the German composer had left only fragmentary material.

Similar AI experiments based on works by Bach, Mahler and Schubert have been less than impressive.

A project earlier this year to complete Schubert's Eighth Symphony was seen by some reviewers as being closer to an American film soundtrack than the Austrian composer's work.

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© Agence France-Presse

Qiandaohu, China | The caviar on the menu of Michelin-starred restaurants may come from an unexpected place: China.

The country has endured embarrassing food scandals in recent years, but its sturgeon eggs have gained the respect of caviar connoisseurs around the world.

It has also become pricier for US buyers as Chinese caviar is among the slew of products hit with 25 percent tariffs in the US-China trade war.

The bulk of China's production comes from a picturesque lake ringed by mountains in eastern Zhejiang province where industry leader Kaluga Queen breeds the giant fish.

The brand was created in 2005 by experts who worked for the ministry of agriculture and it now produces more than a third of the world's caviar, making China the global leader.

The company's sturgeon farm is a 20-minute boat ride away from the shore in Qiandaohu, or Thousands Islands Lake.

Qiao Yuwen, a breeder, stood at the edge of the pools where the animals live until they are between the ages of seven and 15. 

The biggest sturgeons can grow to be four meters (13 feet) long and weigh 300 kilos (660 pounds).

"They're like our babies. We see them from when they're very young, so it's hard when they are sent to be slaughtered," Qiao said.

"But there's also, of course, the satisfaction of having contributed to making an exceptional product," he said before throwing pellets containing shrimp, peas and vitamins to the fish.

- 'Price of a Ferrari' -

For a long time, Iran and Russia fished sturgeon in the wild in the Caspian Sea.

But the fish population was nearly decimated by overfishing and poaching after the Soviet Union, which had regulated fishing, fell in 1991.

Sturgeon fishing in the Caspian Sea was banned in 2008 while sturgeon farms have sprung up everywhere, with Italy, France and China among the world leaders in the industry.

Kaluga Queen has 300 employees looking after some 200,000 sturgeons.

Once they reach sexual maturity, females are fished out and taken to a laboratory where they are stunned before their bellies are sliced open to extract the black eggs.

The roe is then washed, sorted, salted and placed in boxes.

Kaluga Queen produced 86 tonnes of caviar last year, most of it destined for exports, with half going to the European Union, 20 percent to the United States and 10 percent to Russia.

Depending on the species, the price per kilo varies between 10,000 and 180,000 yuan ($1,420 to $25,600). 

Sturgeons producing the most expensive caviar can carry as much as two million yuan worth of eggs.

"It's the price of a Ferrari," said Xia Yongtao, the company's vice president.

- 'Very good caviar' -

Kaluga Queen has walked a "long road" to win the trust of customers since the company produced its first jar in 2006, Xia said.

Chinese caviar had to overcome scepticism from foreign clients who were used to headlines about food scandals, from contaminated milk powder to soy sauce containing arsenic and rice tainted with cadmium.

"A few years ago, customers were reluctant when we talked about Chinese caviar," said Raphael Bouchez, president of Kaviari, a Paris-based supplier to renowned restaurants.

Bouchez convinced customers by explaining how Chinese producers raise fish and use methods that respect the environment.

"Chinese caviar, it must be said, is a very good caviar," Bouchez said.

"That said, many of the chefs still do not want it. They prefer to have caviar from France, Uruguay, or elsewhere," he said.

Today, Kaluga Queen has an annual turnover of 220 million yuan and counts among its customers German airline Lufthansa and L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon, a two Michelin stars restaurant in Shanghai.

Distributors supply other restaurants around the world, and one buyer said he had delivered one shipment to Kim Jong Un, according to Xia.

French chef Guy Savoy, whose Paris restaurant has three Michelin stars and is rated the best in the world, uses Chinese caviar with skate wings and scallops.

"The label 'made in China' does not matter," Savoy told AFP. "The important thing is the quality of the breeding. Those supplied to us are of remarkable quality."

Lily Liu, Kaluga Queen's marketing manager, hopes someone else can try her company's caviar.

"We hope that Donald Trump will taste our caviar and say: 'I like it! Let's reduce tariffs and help Chinese caviar conquer America!"

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© Agence France-Presse

Vancouver, Canada |The world's first fully electric commercial aircraft took its inaugural test flight on Tuesday, taking off from the Canadian city of Vancouver and offering hope that airlines may one day end their polluting emissions.

"This proves that commercial aviation in all-electric form can work," said Roei Ganzarski, chief executive of Seattle-based engineering firm magniX.

The company designed the plane's motor and worked in partnership with Harbour Air, which ferries half a million passengers a year between Vancouver, Whistler ski resort and nearby islands and coastal communities.

Ganzarski said the technology would mean significant cost savings for airlines -- not to mention zero emissions.

"This signifies the start of the electric aviation age," he told reporters.

Civil aviation is one of the fastest growing sources of carbon emissions as people increasingly take to the skies and new technologies have been slow to get off the ground.

At 285 grammes of CO2 emitted per kilometre (mile) travelled by each passenger, airline industry emissions far exceed those from all other modes of transport, according to the European Environment Agency. The emissions contribute to global warming and climate change, which scientists say will unleash ever harsher droughts, superstorms, and sea-level rise.

The e-plane -- a 62-year-old, six-passenger DHC-2 de Havilland Beaver seaplane retrofitted with an electric motor –- was piloted by Greg McDougall, founder and chief executive of Harbour Air.

"For me that flight was just like flying a Beaver, but it was a Beaver on electric steroids. I actually had to back off on the power," he said. 

McDougall took the plane on a short loop along the Fraser River near Vancouver International Airport in front of around 100 onlookers soon after sunrise. 

- Environmentally-friendly flying -

The flight lasted less than 15 minutes, according to an AFP journalist on the scene.

"Our goal is to actually electrify the entire fleet. There's no reason not to," said McDougall.

On top of fuel efficiency, the company would save millions in maintenance costs, as electric motors require "drastically" less upkeep, McDougall said.

However, Harbour Air will have to wait at least two years before it can begin electrifying its fleet of more than 40 seaplanes.

The e-plane has to be tested further to confirm it is reliable and safe. In addition, the electric motor must be approved and certified by regulators.

In Ottawa, Transport Minister Marc Garneau told reporters ahead of the maiden flight that he had his "fingers crossed that the electric plane will work well."

If it does, he said, "it could set a trend for more environmentally friendly flying."

Battery power is also a challenge. An aircraft like the one flown on Tuesday could only fly about 100 miles (160 kilometers) on lithium battery power, said Ganzarski.

While that's not far, it's sufficient for the majority of short-haul flights run by Harbour Air.

"The range now is not where we'd love it to be, but it's enough to start the revolution," said Ganzarski, who predicts batteries and electric motors will eventually be developed to power longer flights. 

While the world waits, he said cheaper short-haul flights powered by electricity could transform the way people connect and where they work.

"If people are willing to drive an hour to work, why not fly 15 minutes to work?" he said.   

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© Agence France-Presse

“Tis the season to gather n celebrate!”

With only a few days left just before the most wonderful time of the year, ease your plans with special Holiday deals where it’s a lot better at Novotel Manila Araneta City.

Bring the whole family to gather around Holiday spreads of joy to share delectable dishes,  scrumptious desserts and  delightful conversations at Food Exchange Manila for either or both Christmas Eve dinner feast from 6PM to 9PM at Php 2,588 nett per adult and Noche Buena Buffet from 11PM to 1AM at Php 1,988 nett per adult.

Now, who says, you have got to stay alone on Christmas Day? If you have nowhere to be, prepare that outfit and jointhe Friendsgiving Table where you can meet new acquaintances and cheerful hotel staff who are also celebrating on duty at the Food Exchange Manila.

After filling yourself with the best of the season, why not take the fun by the 6^th Pool Bar or at Sabor Bar de Vinos with a few more yuletide cocktails or local drinks. You may opt to cozy in at your own room with their package deals with buffet breakfast starting at Php 6,550.00 nett. As a brand promise, children 15 years and below also gets to stay and have breakfast with you for free!

The end of this decade deserves to be celebrated! So raise your glass when you Party N Celebrate at the NYE Countdown at the Monet Grand Ballroom for only Php 2020 nett.

Go on, leave your Holiday stress behind. For inquiries and reservations, please call (02) 8990 7888 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. More information about Novotel Manila Araneta Center, its facilities and services are available via www.novotel.com, www.accorhotels.com, or www.novotelmanilaaranetacenter.com.

Another First this Christmas at Araneta City

To give you and your loved ones a personal first experience of a heart-stopping show with daring and thrilling performances, Araneta City is set to bring the China National Acrobatic Troupe for a Christmas show entitled “The All-new Grand China Acrobatic Circus.

One never-to-missed act is the Rose Bud contortionist, a mythical fox in a trance of contortion and coquetry. Another jaw dropping act is the Peking Opera’s Huadan (heroines) in Diabolo where performers in majestic suits intrinsically play the Chinese Yo-yo.

The All-new Grand China Acrobatic Circus will run from December 25, 2019 to January 4, 2020 at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.

Enjoy a 25% discount on every purchase of ten (10) tickets by using a Mastercard Debit, Credit, and Prepad card in any Ticketnet outlets. The promo can also be availed via www.ticketnet.com.ph and the Araneta City Mobile app by using the promocode MCARANETA25.

Interested buyers may also call 8911-5555.

Novotel Hotels, Suites & Resorts offers destination hotels designed as comforting and energizing places where guests can ‘press pause’ and take time to enjoy the moments that really matter. The brand’s wide array of hotels, suites and resorts offer a multitude of services for business and leisure guests alike, including spacious, modular rooms with natural and intuitive design; 24/7 catering with nutritious choices; dedicated meeting spaces; attentive and proactive staff; family zones for the youngest guests; multi-purpose lobbies; and accessible fitness centers. Novotel, which has over 530 locations in more than 60 countries is part of Accor, a world-leading augmented hospitality group offering unique experiences in 4,900 hotels and residences across 110 countries.

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