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Joining the league of international stars like Victoria Beckham, Madonna and Jennifer Lopez, Bollywood actress Kareena Kapoor is all set to launch her own web site.

The site would inform netizens about the actress’ latest fashion trends.

‘Kareena’s official website is going to be on an absolutely tech savvy format. It’s going to be on the lines of the sites of international stars like Victoria Beckham, Madonna and Jennifer,’ a source close to the actress revealed Tuesday.

The source added: ‘Her website is going to be more fashion oriented. The site will have updates not only of Kareena’s fashion trends but also other trends that take place all over the globe’.

The actress has been known for her fashion presence even in the fashion fraternity and looks forward to sharing her trend sense with her fans through the site.

‘She has sound knowledge about the fashion industry and the web site will give her a chance to share her fashion knowledge with her fans. There have been a number of occasions when Kareena has even actively participated in designing her own costumes for films,’ said the source.

Kareena is also the brand ambassador of a global fashion retail chain Globus.

A 1,000-year-old carved rock crystal ewer, one of only seven known surviving examples, fetched 3.2 million pounds ($5.6 million) at auction on Tuesday, Christie’s said.

The ewer is the same one that came up for auction in Britain in January this year, when it was catalogued as a 19th century French claret jug and valued at 100-200 pounds.

In fact experts now believe it is an extremely rare ewer from the Fatimid dynasty which ruled parts of northern Africa and the Middle East in the 10th-12th centuries.

Reflecting its importance it sold in January for 220,000 pounds, although auction house sources said that transaction was later “annulled by agreement”. They gave no further details.

Christie’s said the ewer, which sold to an anonymous client in the saleroom, was made for the court of the Fatimid rulers of Cairo in the late 10th or early 11th century. It was embellished in enamelled gold mounts made in 1854 by a French silversmith.

By the middle of the 11th century the Fatimid state had become so impoverished that much of the contents of the Royal Treasury had to be sold, including ewers, the auctioneer added.

The ewer was carved by hand from a single piece of rock crystal, and is decorated with cheetahs and link-chains.

Of the other six surviving examples, one is in London’s Victoria & Albert Museum, two are in the treasury of the Basilica of San Marco, Venice, one is in the Cathedral of Fermo, Italy, another is in the Louvre in Paris and one was stolen from the Museum of Limoges, France, in 1980.

There was one other known ewer, but it was dropped by an employee of a museum in Florence in 1998 and shattered irreparably, according to reports.

In April, rival auction house Sotheby’s sold a 12 century key to the Kaaba in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, the holiest site in Islam, for 9.2 million pounds, setting a new record for an Islamic work of art at auction

Pakistani actor Rashid Farooqui says that the country’s moribund film industry has got a new lease of life ever since Bollywood movies were allowed to be screened there.

Farooqui, a well-known name in the field of plays and television sector, made his big screen debut with director Mehreen Jabbar’s ‘Ramchand Pakistani’. He is here for the release of ‘Ramchand Pakistani’, opening Thursday.

‘You see, normally we don’t indulge in entertainment during the holy month of Ramadan. But people have made an exception this year to watch Akshay Kumar-Katrina Kaif starrer ‘Singh Is Kinng’. The film is running to packed houses in Pakistan,’ Farooqi told IANS.

Farooqui said that many cinema halls closed for years are now being re-opened to run Bollywood movies, thus giving a shot in the arm to the country’s hard-hit exhibition sector.

The actor also said that he was optimistic Bollywood movies would in the long run indirectly help revive Pakistan’s lifeless film industry.

‘To start with, Bollywood movies have drawn people to the movie houses again. This has resuscitated the exhibition as well as the distribution sectors. Money pouring in these two sectors would now inspire the local producers to revive their production houses and it would give a boost to our movies,’ he explained.

Farooqui said it might take time for the trend to take roots.

‘Of course, we will not be able to make blockbusters like Bollywood because, compared to India, our population is less, so it would not be practical for us to make mega-budget movies,’ he said.

But, if Bollywood movies can have commercial successes in Pakistan, so can Pakistani movies have in India and it would be an added bonus for Pakistani filmmakers.

‘But we do not have actors like Bollywood stars to attract moviegoers to the theatres. Stars are born when movies are successful, or you can say movies become successful when they have stars with crowd-pulling aura. We have neither at present.’

Farooqui is known in Pakistan for his histrionic talent. He candidly said that he could hone his acting talent by watching the movies of such Bollywood actors like Sanjeev Kumar, Om Puri and Naseeruddin Shah.

Is he not impressed by Dilip Kumar and Amitabh Bachchan?

‘They are so great that you are in awe of them and not able to observe them dispassionately to be able to dissect their acting talents’ Farooqui said.

Ace superstar Mohanlal will lead a team of film personalities on a month long European trip staging 10 shows.

‘We are leaving Wednesday night from Chennai and would be in England, Ireland, Switzerland, Austria, Italy and Germany,’ said the superstar to IANS in the midst of his practice session at a hotel here.

The show is being organised by the Parayil Group and has been named as ‘Mohanlal’s Daily Delight’. The other stars accompanying him include Mukesh, Jagadeesh, Vineeth, Swaraj Venjaramoodu, Jyothirmayi and Lakshmi Gopalswami.

‘There will be five stage shows in England and one each in other countries and it would be more music oriented and comedy,’ said Mohanlal.

The first show would be in Manchester on Oct 5 and the last one on Oct 26 in Germany.

‘While from Germany, Mukesh and myself will move on to Dubai to stage a play ‘Chhayamukhi’, the others will return,’ added Mohanlal.

It would be refreshing for the superstar to return to England where his recent film ‘Akashagopuram’ was fully shot earlier this year.

It seems Paris Hilton has found herself a new BFF (Best Friends Forever): Ellen DeGeneres.

Just a few days before the premiere of Hilton’s new show ‘Best Friend Forever’, the stunning socialite was spotted enjoying lunch with the talk show host.

According to the grapevine, the two mingled like best of pals, while they binged on food at West Hollywood’s Apple restaurant.

“They laughed and hugged like long lost pals,” Fox News quoted an onlooker, as saying.

The same night, the hotel heiress partied with her beau Benji Madden for an advanced screening of her upcoming horror film ‘Repo’.

Hilton’s upcoming show ‘BFF’ will have 20 hopefuls competing to be her best pals.

Hits and misses are always part of the game and I am happy that the HDIL India Couture Week ended in a positive note last Sunday. Perhaps the Fashion Design Council of India may want to consider a change of venue when they start preparing for next year’s couture shows.

I felt that the charm of a museum or a palace, just to cite examples, should complement couture. I would love to see shows being held at the Asiatic Society in Mumbai.

Its tall pillars and long verandahs would be perfect to add to the grandeur of couture shows. Mumbai as the host city is a good idea, as I feel the FDCI should make its presence felt more there.

The quality of the venue is as important as the quality of the shows. Also, perhaps designers should do the shows on a bigger scale.

I was told that all designers in the Couture Week were given Rs 22-25 lakh by the sponsor to make their presentations really grand. Unfortunately, only a few seemed to have put that money to good use.

Some shows looked as if they had either made a profit out of it or spent the same amount, perhaps elsewhere! When I walk out of shows at fashion weeks, I always feel that some of the models should have retired long ago. Unfortunately, at this event, too, I felt the same.

They neither had the body or the ramp presence to take the shows forward. Why is it that models wait to be dumped? Why can’t they retire gracefully as Mehr Jessia did at a time when the industry was in awe of her? In my part of the country, Kerala, there is a saying: “When your tone of voice is at its best, you should stop singing.

” This should apply to fashion, too. Our fashion designers and choreographers should realise this.

Just because they are either friends or they party or do something else together should not mean that they should be in shows. Or is it because they are ‘big’ names? Some big names proved to be bigger disappointments for me.

Why do Western designers put girls in their teens on the runway? Everything is perfect at that age, that’s why. Here, even models in their late 20s and 30s still walk.

And most don’t have a body or a walk that’s striking. As for the creations, some were extremely nice and some really bad.

It should all be good, in fact. Perhaps, the FDCI should have a jury to select designers and models so that entry is filtered properly.

A jury chosen from various fields of lifestyle will be a good idea. A beginning has been made with the Couture Week.

Now the FDCI should take it overseas. How about some designers from here taking off to the Paris couture runway next time? I guess the aim should be that high!.

North Korea and erstwhile friend China may not be as close as “lips and teeth” anymore following Pyongyang’s 2006 nuclear test, but a Chinese film has won best picture title at a festival in the reclusive Communist state.

The Pyongyang International Film Festival awarded the best film and best director prizes to Chinese movie “The Assembly” by well-know director Feng Xiaogang, Chinese and North Korean state media said Friday.

The film, featuring the heroics of a group of Communist soldiers at the end of the Chinese civil war in the late 1940s, has already been a big box office hit in China.

Relations between China and neighboring North Korea, once described as being as close as “lips and teeth,” have soured in recent years, especially since North Korea began a controversial nuclear program.

Other films honored included the British movie “Atonement,” a wartime romance staring James McAvoy and Keira Knightley, and Iran’s “Mainline,” a drama about drug abuse, North Korea’s official KCNA news agency said.

Movies are near to the heart of leader Kim Jong-il, a fan of Daffy Duck, Steven Spielberg and Elizabeth Taylor. Kim is thought to have a library of about 20,000 films that includes all of the James Bond movies, intelligence sources have said.

In recent years, the North has screened about 70 films from about 30 countries at the festival. That include its own movies as well as films from Europe, the United States and the Asia-Pacific region.

The event, once called “The Film Festival of Non-Aligned and other Developing Countries,” used to show obscure films from far-flung corners of the world.

In recent editions, it has grown more international, and added TV documentaries as well as movies that play on the global film festival circuit. North Korea stages parties for the festival but participants say the events lack any luster.

Los Angeles officials on Friday declined to press felony charges against rap singer Kanye West stemming from his arrest after a scuffle with photographers at Los Angeles International Airport this month.

West, however, could face a lesser charge of a misdemeanor crime, said Frank Mateljan, spokesman for the L.A. City Attorney’s Office.

The Grammy winner was arrested at the airport on September 11 after rushing at a photographer and grabbing his camera. In the ensuing struggle, West threw the camera to the ground.

West, 31, was booked on suspicion of felony vandalism and released on bail the same day.

The Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office, which handles felony cases, has referred the case to the City Attorney’s Office, which handles misdemeanor prosecutions, Mateljan said.

“We’re in the process of reviewing the case that was sent to us, I don’t anticipate a decision until sometime next week,” he said.

Ekta Kapoor has caused quite a few eyebrows to be raised for her rather different take on the Mahabharata, but the television tsarina defends her interpretation saying no one has a copyright on the Indian epic.

‘Thank god nobody has a copyright on the original story. I bow to Ved Vyas for the way he has written the Mahabharata but he is no more in the world to object to my show,’ Ekta told reporters.

Ekta has interpreted the epic in her own way. Going against the original storyline, she depicted the dramatic ‘Draupadi Cheerharan’ scene in the very first episode of her show that airs on 9x entertainment channel.

‘The Mahabharata has a huge background to it and we just decided to start from the high point in the story - the humiliation of a woman,’ the producer said.

Ekta, who has made several TV serials like ‘Kyunkii Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thii’ and ‘Hum Paanch’, says her show is her own perception of the epic.

‘I read various versions of the epic, Oriya, Tamil and others along with three of my researchers. Every version has taken a different view of the story and so have I.

‘The epic is full of moments and one can beautifully play with them and still bring out the same beauty. I’m sure Ved Vyas was a better writer than me and he had a strong sense of creativity.’

Although there is no copyright issue involved in the Mahabharata, B.R. Chopra, the first one to make a TV series on the epic, has got a copyright on the title Mahabharat, which he finalised after consulting a numerologist.

Since Ekta is also a keen follower of numerology and astrology, she thought it was wise to consult her specialist, Sanjay B. Jumaani, before finalising the title ‘Kahaani Humaaray Mahaabhaarat Ki’.

The show has been digitally enhanced using a variety of special effects. The sets are lavish and the characters have been given a fresh look.

The cast includes leading TV actors like Ronit Roy, Sakshi Tanwar, Chetan Hansraj, Jaya Bhattacharya and Kiran Karmakar.

The fall TV season officially starts Monday, and NBC will pop the cork with its returning “Heroes” (a two-hour opener airs Monday at 9 p.m. EDT). CBS is ringing in the new year with “The Mentalist” (premiering 9 p.m. EDT Tuesday) and “Gary Unmarried” (8:30 p.m. EDT Wednesday). NBC hits the road with its new-model ‘Knight Rider‘ (8 p.m. EDT Wednesday).

Back for its third season, “Heroes” is confronting high expectations from its besotted fans. And also a bit of resistance from former and would-be fans who couldn’t make heads or tails of the show last season.

“Message: We care,” the producers have been saying as they promised to get “Heroes” heroic again.

But to judge from the season premiere (a second hour airing Monday wasn’t offered for review), the series has met with only mixed success.

The look and style of “Heroes” is as grand as ever. Everything about the show’s design, including the lettering for the captions and the eerie three-note musical signature, feels like part of a marvelously unified package.

If only that package could contain the series’ plodding mishmash of a story. At the risk of sounding feeble-minded or, even worse, un-cool, I again ask the question I’ve asked about “Heroes” so many times before: What is going on?

The murky, brooding, free-range narrative seems to glory in its abstractions. The action hop-scotches around the world, and back and forth through time. The internal logic of the show seems always ready to defer to the situation at hand. And the characters have multiplied like roaches.

There’s a grandiose goal at the bottom of it all (saving the world, y’know), in the face of fierce opposition. But is this existential tug of war really going anywhere? Couldn’t everybody stop, relax their scowls and take a chill pill — just once?

I’ve always admired “Heroes” for its epic, sprawling vision — up to a point. But an occasional save-the-world pronouncement isn’t sufficient to maintain coherence. Not with this scattered affair.

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“You’re a psychic,” someone says to Patrick Jane.

“No,” he replies. “Just paying attention.”

Later in the premiere of “The Mentalist,” he goes a step further: “There’s no such things as real psychics.”

Used to be, Jane marketed his skill for observation by masquerading as a psychic, making good money by “speaking with the dead” and other parlor tricks.

Now he’s trying to redeem himself as a consultant with the California Bureau of Investigation. He wants to nab the serial murderer dubbed Red John, who leaves a shocking signature in blood at the scene of each crime and killed Jane’s family while Jane was winning fame with his hoaxes.

He’s already cracked a couple of cases, so his effectiveness is acknowledged, albeit grudgingly, by the cops he works with. Meanwhile, he can be hard to handle. He’s flighty, cheeky, charming but sometimes insultingly blunt, a mite mysterious, and altogether disinclined to follow rules.

A character like that provides a great showcase for an actor, and Simon Baker (”Smith,” “The Guardian“) is terrific in the role. Just watch him looking at things (he’s a good-looking guy), sifting through clues, the wheels in his brain almost visibly whirring.

No wonder by-the-book senior agent Teresa Lisbon is torn between letting him into her unit, or giving him the boot, or (maybe) sleeping with him. She’s played by Robin Tunney (”Prison Break“). Tim Kang, Owain Yeoman and Amanda Righetti play other members of the unit.

But you don’t have to be psychic to see that “The Mentalist” is all about Baker’s performance — and whether he will get scripts as good as he deserves.

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Jay Mohr commands a pair of facial expressions that serve him well in comedy: an impish smile and hollow-eyed bemusement. He makes the most of both in “Gary Unmarried.”

A better-than-you’d-think sitcom saddled with a worse-than-mediocre title, it finds Mohr playing the titular Gary, a recently divorced guy learning how to navigate his new world. Gary and Allison (Paula Marshall) share custody of their two kids, an 11-year-old daughter and a 14-year-old son.

Then things get really complicated as Gary meets and falls for lovely Vanessa (Jaime King) while Allison turns up engaged to Dr. Krandall (Ed Begley Jr.), their couples therapist.

“I’m not sure what makes me more mad,” Gary tells him after learning the truth, “the fact that you’re sleeping with my ex-wife, or that you made me keep a dream journal.”

Sure, it may sound like “The New Adventures of Old Christine” as told from a man’s perspective. If you consider that a good thing, all the more reason to check out “Gary Unmarried.”

It’s fast-moving and clever, and feels like, in the future, it could take some unexpected twists.

But couldn’t the show have found a better name?

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There isn’t much point reviewing “Knight Rider.” Any interested viewers can click their way to the Hulu Web site, where NBC has already made the first episode available for screening (because the network is so proud of it, or maybe wants to make an end run around snarky critics). Whatever, you’ll know within a minute or two if “Knight Rider” is your cup of tea.

It has that beautiful car accessorized with artificial intelligence, transformative engineering, the voice of Val Kilmer and a pushy personality. The dashing young hero who looks great in a tux and is never at a loss for witty retorts. His gorgeous partner, who shares with him a bittersweet romantic past, and is equally adept at throwing a punch or throwing on a cocktail dress and looking like a million for the party at the consulate.

There’s also lots of cartoony gunplay, explosions and turbocharged computer effects. Bad guys who go, “We can do this the easy way, or the very, very hard way.” And a missing data “package” that (as we are repeatedly told) is “vital to national security.”

Along with its real star, “Knight Rider” features attractive bipeds including Justin Bruening (”Cold Case”), Deanna Russo (”NCIS”), Sydney Tamiia Poitier (”Veronica Mars“) and Bruce Davison (”Breach”).

It’s based, of course, on the 1980s hit that starred David Hasselhoff, which (who knows?) might have been based on the 1960s sitcom “My Mother, the Car.” Or not. But the real inspiration is the product-placement deal struck with a major auto maker. “Knight Rider” isn’t so much an action-adventure show as a high-octane commercial.