American journalist Elizabeth Hawley, whose fifty years chronicling summits and tragedies in the Himalayas earned her the moniker “the Sherlock Holmes of the mountaineering world”, died Friday aged 94. Hawley built a reputation as one of the most authoritative voices on Himalayan mountaineering Hawley built a reputation as one of the most authoritative voices on Himalayan mountaineering after moving to Nepal in 1959 as a journalist, where she continued to live up to her death. “She had a very peaceful death,” Dr Prativa Pandey, who looked after Hawley at the end of her life, told AFP. She passed away at a hospital in Nepal’s capital Kathmandu in the early hours of Friday, a week after falling ill with a lung infection. She later likely suffered a stroke, Dr Pandey said. Hawley founded the Himalayan Database, a meticulous archive of all summits in Nepal’s mountains that she managed until five years ago. Known for ferreting out the truth from climbers claiming to set new records, her word on summits in the fabled mountains was considered final, though she never climbed any peaks herself. Every climbing season Hawley — behind the wheel of her 1965 sky-blue VW Beetle — would drive to mountaineers’ hotels in Kathmandu to grill them before and after their expeditions. “I guess I am quite forceful, I come to the point and if someone thinks they can evade my questions, they can think again,” she told AFP in a 2014 interview. Elizabeth Ann Hawley was born on November… [Read full story]
Action adventure film "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows" led a trio of sequels at the box office over another underwhelming weekend that saw ticket sales fall from last year. Robert Downey Jr.'s follow-up to the 2009 hit "Sherlock Holmes" pulled in an estimated $54.7 million around the world, distributor Warner Bros. said on Sunday. That included $40 million from the United States and Canada, where the movie topped the domestic charts, plus $14.7 million from six international markets. "Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked," the third film in the popular family franchise, rung up a global total of $38 million…... [read more]
The world's most famous detective is uncovering money at the box office. "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows" quietly surpassed the $100 million mark domestically Wednesday. Its total is $106,674,000 in North America, and $49 million internationally. The PG-13 adventure sequel from Warner Bros. is the first film of the holiday season to hit $100 million domestically and continues to be the highest-grossing domestic movie of December. Paramount/Skydance's "Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol" had grossed about $86.2 domestically million as of Tuesday. Worldwide, that picture is a monster, grossing about $170 million internationally, for a total of more than $256…... [read more]
by Duong Trong HueSherlock Holmes, a fictional detective born out of Sir Conan Doyle's imagination, is revered for his logical reasoning and sharp observations that have solved many a murder mystery.Once, his assistant Watson brought him a hat from a crime scene. After meticulously studying the hat, Holmes guessed that the hat's owner was an intelligent man but his fortune was declining. When Watson asked for explanations, Holmes told him that the hat had a large perimeter, which indicated that its wearer had a large brain. The hat also looked old and dusty, which might mean that its owner could…... [read more]
Talk Around Town (10-12-2006) Vina Sherlock Holmes cracks cases in capital by Ta Quynh Hoa At the office of detective Nguyen Minh Long, I met a couple who had arrived in a panic over their missing 12-year-old son. The only clue he had left behind was a letter complaining that his parents didn't understand him, and he was tired of their rules. To the parents' relief, the boy was discovered in a game shop two days later. This was one of many such cases that Long and his colleagues have received. Long's company provides a range of services related to…... [read more]
Benedict Cumberbatch made his long-awaited comeback as Sherlock Holmes on Wednesday, but the hit BBC series still left fans scratching their heads over how the super-sleuth managed to cheat death. LONDON: Benedict Cumberbatch made his long-awaited comeback as Sherlock Holmes on Wednesday, but the hit BBC series still left fans scratching their heads over how the super-sleuth managed to cheat death. The show's creators teased fans by depicting some of the more far-fetched ways Holmes may have survived, in a nod to the speculation that has swept the Internet since he leapt from a rooftop a year ago in an…... [read more]