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PARIS — An obscenely powerful hybrid sports car, a family-friendly SUV with enough space for seven adults, and an electric vehicle that promises to keep going for over 500 kilometres on a single charge — those are some of the notable vehicles shining on the display stands under bright overhead lights at the Paris Motor Show.

Executives at this year’s show are talking about how the industry can adapt to — or, better yet, profit from — disruptive change such as electric engines, networked vehicles, car sharing, and autonomous driving. All that could start coming together between 2020 and 2025, some think.

Right now, however, they have some cars they want to sell.

Here are five of the vehicles getting the most attention at the Paris Mondial de L’Automobile, which runs through October 16. If you are lucky enough to be in the City of Light, an adult ticket costs 16 euros ($17.90).

Ferrari Laferrari Aperta

This limited edition of the Ferrari’s LaFerrari supercar offers the pleasures of open-top driving in a car that performs pretty much like a Formula One racer. It’s a hybrid, meaning its electric motor assists the monster 12-cylinder internal combustion engine to add even more powerful acceleration. 

The car does 0-100kph in less than three seconds, and offers a top speed of 350kph. With the top off, aerodynamic design channels away the airflow so that the two occupants can conduct a conversation even at high speeds. That’s if they’re not relishing the finely tuned roar of the engine, or its “soundtrack”, as the company puts it, promising “full, harmonious sound that’s more intoxicating than ever”. All 200 are already sold at prices of 1.8-2 million euros ($2-$2.2 million).

Porsche Panamera 4 E-Hybrid

It’s a comfortable four-door sedan. No, it’s a high-performance sports car. If it’s the Panamera, it’s both. The all-wheel drive car draws on the technology used in the company’s 918 Spyder supercar so that the electric motor continually adds power; the car accelerates to 100kph in just 4.6 seconds and reaches a top speed of 270kph.

It can go up to 50 kilometres on just the battery — making the vehicle a little quieter than, say, the company’s 911 sports car — and emits a relatively low 56 grammes per kilometre of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas blamed by scientists for global warming. The vehicle goes on sale in November. The price in France is 110,222 euros ($123,680).

Jaguar Land Rover Discovery

The first complete redesign of the Discovery in 12 years, this family oriented large SUV has room for seven adults in three rows. The seats can be rearranged remotely through a smartphone app even when the operator is outside the vehicle, and the second and third rows can fold flat in 14 seconds. The suspension automatically lowers the car 4 centimetres to make it easier to get in and out. There are six charging points, places to store iPads, 9 USB ports, and a 4G Wi-Fi hot spot that can handle up to eight devices. There’s no shortage of power for towing, with three diesel variants of 180, 240 and 258 horsepower and a 340 horsepower gasoline engine. Prices start at 50,900 euros and head north to 74,300 euros.

Opel Ampera-E

This is the European version of the Chevrolet Bolt five-door hatchback going on sale this year in the United States and early next year in Europe. It has attracted attention by getting a range rating of 383 kilometres under the US standard on a full charge; the company promises a 500 kilometre range as measured by the European standard. It claims drivers can add 150 kilometres in 30 minutes of charging.

Those distances may not be equalled in everyday driving, with the European test standard, for example assumptions relatively gentle acceleration. Many obstacles remain before all-electric vehicles reach widespread acceptance. Will this car be a significant jump toward making electrics seem more practical to price-conscious regular car buyers? As always, the market will provide the answer. The US manufacturer’s suggested retail price is $37,495.

BMW X2

BMW showed off a potential new addition to its X-series of SUVs and crossovers, this one offering a sportier take with a flat roofline and big air intakes giving the grill a wider, more aggressive look. The company calls it a “sport-activity coupe”, referring to its lower roofline — more like the sloping shape of a coupe than a boxier SUV. BMW tweaked the trademark kidney shaped twin grilles, flipping them upside down so that they narrow from bottom up. 

The look is enhanced with a different slant to the windshield and lower stance. “The BMW X2 is really tapping into a new market, the sort-of coupe style SUV. It is showing that SUVs are not just about being practical, they can be fun and they can be sporty as well,” says Jim Holder, editorial director of Autocar, automotive magazine. It’s still a concept car, meaning no date for it to go on sale or price information.

PARIS — A study presented at a scientific congress recently reported a link between long naps and a higher risk of diabetes, though it couldn’t say if daytime sleeping was a symptom or a cause.

People who slept more than an hour each day were 45 per cent more likely to develop type 2 diabetes, a debilitating condition associated with overweight and a sedentary lifestyle, the study found.

Individuals with diabetes are unable to naturally regulate their blood sugar levels. 

Without treatment, the disease can lead to blindness, nerve damage, kidney failure, heart disease and premature death.

The meta-analysis — a review of existing scientific literature — by Yamada Tomahide of the University of Tokyo and colleagues, covered more than 300,000 people of Asian and European origin from around the world.

For naps of less than 40 minutes, the link with diabetes disappeared, they noted.

Experts not involved in the research noted that the statistical correlation revealed nothing about cause and effect.

The study, they added, has yet to be published in a peer-reviewed science journal.

“It can falsely appear that their illness followed increased napping, rather than the other way around,” said Benjamin Cairns, a researcher at the Cancer Epidemiology Unit of the University of Oxford.

“This could mean that long naps appear to cause diabetes or other diseases, even when only the reverse is true.”

Naveed Sattar, an expert on metabolic disease at the University of Glasgow said the results should be taken with a generous pinch of salt.

“It’s likely that risk factors which lead to diabetes also cause napping,” he wrote in a comment distributed by the non-profit Science Media Centre.

Only clinical trials — experiments in which scientists could test the impact of napping by comparing two or more groups of people — can reveal whether too much day-time sleeping is bad for health.

“Without proper trials, we simply will never know the answer,” Sattar said. 

The study was unveiled at a meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes in Munich, Germany.

The Weight of Paradise
Iman Humaydan
Translated by Michelle Hartman
Massachusetts: Interlink Books, 2016
Pp. 244

In “The Weight of Paradise”, Iman Humaydan tells the story of three women, a great love, an expired love, a fleeting but fateful love and a potential one. Noura and Maya are both writers concerned with human rights, particularly for women, but they never meet. Sabah, who connects them, is uneducated but experiences first-hand what they write about. All three long for truth, justice and passionate love. All are haunted by the past.

Noura, a journalist, comes to Beirut in the early 70s, to escape repression in her native Syria. The story she most wants to tell is why her sister, Henaa, committed suicide after becoming pregnant by an army officer. Inspired by her Armenian grandmother’s mantra: “Life is a right”, Noura publishes the story but pays with her life in 1978. (p. 125)

Prior to her murder, she meets and marries Kemal while on assignment in Turkey, and gives birth to their child in war-torn Beirut, before they manage to reunite and immigrate to France as planned. Kemal and the child hold the keys to the story’s future. 

Maya returns to Beirut from Paris in 1994, and is working on a film about reconstruction of the downtown. Instead of sorting out her fraught relation with her son after the death of his father, from whom she was estranged, she throws herself into absorbing the stories of others, the present and former residents of the buildings being demolished to make room for the new. “She didn’t understand why the company had asked her to document the memory of these places, without noticing that it was in fact completely erasing this memory”. (p. 44)

Still, she finds her own purpose when she discovers a small suitcase filled with mouldy letters, photos, diaries and miscellaneous papers in a half-destroyed house. With long experience in restoring antique books, she carefully unfolds and reads them all, leading her to Sabah’s house in an old quarter overlooking the downtown. Seeing these artefacts unleashes Sabah’s memories of Noura and her own life. 

Born in Mardin, Sabah almost suffers a fate similar to Henaa’s after she takes off on a grand motorcycle tour with her lover. Instead, her family marries her off to an impotent cousin in Beirut. She makes the best of it, but when the war breaks out, her husband is kidnapped, putting her at the mercy of gang-like militias who take over the area. Noura is one of her few friends. The day she is killed she entrusts all her papers to Sabah, who adds some of her own, leaves them at her employer’s house, and tries to forget the pain of the past as she is again left alone to witness the horrors of the war raging below her. 

The three women’s stories illustrate their shared conviction that life is a right, but also the many threats to this right, violations which Humaydan has protested in her previous novels — killings, forced disappearances, sectarianism, repression, false morality and intolerance. In this novel, she adds another dimension by broadening her scope beyond Lebanon to encompass Syria and Turkey.

By virtue of her characters’ origins and migrations, she shows the demographic and cultural commonalities of these three diverse societies, but also how diversity is threatened by the same factors that threaten life, plus the ethnic intolerance generated by narrow nationalism. Armenians, Kurds and the Arabs of Antakia all figure into the narrative as do the Jews of Beirut who left after the departure of the PLO, which had afforded them protection.

In his love letters to Noura found in the suitcase, Kemal writes of the perpetuation of violence that has destroyed much of the region’s potential. Referring to the massacres against Armenians, he notes, “When a regime starts to make such bloody choices, stopping is difficult — indeed impossible”. (p. 59)

The structure of this novel is intriguing: the characters’ stories mostly unfold in retrospect via memories, diary entries and letters, interspersed with chapters in now-time, creating a fragmentation that conveys the real ruptures in their lives. This focuses attention on their similarities rather than their differences. At some points, the individuals blur into a generic human daunted by man’s inhumanity to man. Humaydan skilfully draws together many stories and themes to reach a conclusion which is actually a new beginning.

The act of writing is also a theme in the novel. Noura writes in her diary that “good writing begins with despair. It’s the compass of writing — that’s when we know that the blue hour, that moment between twilight and darkness, dawn and morning light, is near and that words are waiting to come out into the light”. (p. 131)

While writing the truth can set one apart from family, land one in prison, tear up one’s life or end it, it can also pave the way to healing. Humaydan writes to reveal truths that are often forgotten or deliberately hidden. She writes to reveal another version of people’s history that has been distorted by authoritarian states and false nationalism. She writes to reveal the possibilities for love and compassion if people insist on looking for them.

WASHINGTON — A new study finds that great apes show some key abilities to see the world from someone else’s point of view — a trait that once was considered uniquely human.

An international study found that chimpanzees, bonobos and orangutans seem to have this ability, even when they know that point of view is dead wrong. It’s called theory of mind, or the ability to know that others have different beliefs and perspectives.

Researchers in the Japan, the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom put a specific part of theory of mind to the test — understanding that someone else may have false beliefs — and the apes passed, according to a study in Thursday’s journal Science. While apes had shown other aspects of understanding others’ perspectives, previous studies had not shown them to grasp the complex concept of understanding others’ false beliefs, said study authors Christopher Krupinye and Fumihiro Kano.

It’s a concept humans develop around age 4 or 5.

Researchers tracked the eye movements of the apes as they watched 40-second movies that showed someone in a King Kong costume trying to fool a man. The man watches King Kong either hide a rock in a box or — in a different version of the experiment — hide himself in a hay bale. Then, after the man leaves, King Kong moves the rock or moves out of the bale.

So at this point, the man doesn’t know the rock or King Kong has moved — but the ape watching the movie does. When the man returns, the ape looks at where the man last saw the rock or King Kong, showing that it can anticipate the man’s false belief that the rock or King Kong remains in the same place.

That shows that the ape is getting the concept of others’ false beliefs, and this is a “critical” aspect of cognition, said Kano, a comparative psychologist at the University of Kyoto.

“Apes have some understanding of others’ actions and can predict others’ actions even when those individual are acting on misinformation,” said Krupinye, who conducted psychological research at Duke University and is now at the Max Planck Institute in Germany. “This kind of skill is central to a lot of sophisticated human behaviour that we use in cooperative context and culture and communications.”

But this may not be a full understanding of others’ false beliefs, Kano cautioned.

Yale cognitive science professor Laurie Santos called the test results “really remarkable” and “very surprising” because tests in the past have not found primates understanding someone else’s false beliefs. But Santos said she’s reserving judgement because the study’s sample size is small — 29 apes — and there is no good explanation why the apes pass this test and failed other, similar ones.

Joel Fagot and Raphaelle Malassis at Aix-Marseille University said in an e-mail that it was “a very exciting study on an important question, but this study is probably not THE definitive demonstration of false belief in apes”.

It’s a bit like hybrid cars, a good compromise between the too expensive fuel consumption and the not-yet-perfected fully electric car. New inkjet printers with refillable ink bottles come as a solution that makes sense, somewhere between the inadmissibly expensive traditional ink cartridges and the ideal world where we would not be printing at all.

For many years we have been listening to advice and recommendation not to print on paper unless really necessary. Up to a certain extent it is working rather well. There is no doubt that most of us have learnt how to avoid printing e-mails, photos and virtually any digital contents that we use and share electronically. Online banking alone is saving the world tremendous amounts of paper and ink. Especially since electronic messages and online banking statements and digital transactions receipts have become legal documents, perfectly accepted in a court of law.

Still, we have not yet made it to the point where we do not need to print anything at all.

Printers manufacturers have acknowledged the situation and the trend, and are responding with solutions that make sense and that significantly reduce the running cost of the equipment. It is saving users money and at the same time protecting the environment a little more. It may be only a drop in the ocean of the COP21 Paris Conference on climate change that has just received a new boost this week with the European Parliament signing the global treaty, but like with any big endeavour, every bit counts.

Epson, the current leader in the inkjet market, is making printers that use fixed inks of bottles that can be easily refilled by the user. Compared with the previous ink cartridge system, this solution presents a double advantage. The first is that refilling bottles that remain installed in the printer saves the user the cost of the expensive cartridges that are complex and are costly to manufacture. Moreover, the empty cartridges must be discarded and replaced with new ones; hence the negative impact on the environment.

The second advantage is that the new inks chemical formulation is simpler and allows for many more pages printed per volume of ink. The two innovations combined result in actual savings of about 60 per cent compared to the older cartridge system. This is a significant contribution to the consumers’ pocket and to the protection of the environment. Besides, the company’s refillable ink bottle system is aptly called EcoTank.

Epson’s tour de force is to have managed, despite the change, to maintain printing quality that is equal or superior to that of the cartridge printing system.

Whereas laser printers are still very popular in the business environment, more particularly when it comes to black-only printouts or very large volumes of printing, if only because they are fast, inkjet printers on the other hand — though slower than lasers — remain the first choice at home, in small offices and whenever high quality colour photographs must be printed. Because they use toner and not ink, laser printers cannot print on special, top quality stationery like glossy photo paper that inkjet printers can easily handle. Hence the efforts of companies like Epson to design more cost-efficient and environment-friendly models.

SAN FRANCISCO — Google took on rivals Apple, Samsung and Amazon in a new push into hardware Tuesday, launching premium-priced Pixel smartphones and a slew of other devices showcasing artificial intelligence prowess.

The unveiling of Google’s in-house designed phone came as part of an expanded hardware move by the US company, which also revealed details about its new “home assistant” virtual reality headset and Wi-Fi router system.

The San Francisco event marked a shift in strategy for Google, which is undertaking a major drive to make Google Assistant artificial intelligence a futuristic force spanning all kinds of Internet-linked devices.

“We are evolving from a mobile-first world to an AI-first world,” Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai said.

“Our goal is to build a personal Google for each and every user.”

Rick Osterloh, the head of a new hardware division at the California-based Internet giant, added, “we believe that the next big innovation is going to take place at the intersection of hardware and software, with AI at the centre.”

Pixel will be available with a 5- or 5.5-inch display, starting at $649 for US customers, similar to the latest iPhone models. Pre-orders began Tuesday in Australia, Canada, Germany, Britain and the United States.

Made by Google

By using its own name on handsets, Google is aiming for a bigger slice of the competitive smartphone market, dominated by Samsung and Apple.

Until now, Google’s flagship devices had used the Nexus brand with hardware partners that have included China’s Huawei and South Korea’s LG. The California group also sought to expand in the smartphone market by purchasing Motorola in 2011, but sold the unit less than three years later.

Unlike past smartphone alliances, Google stressed that it had complete control of Pixel from start to finish, contracting with Taiwan-based HTC to manufacture handsets.

“Google today demonstrated that it’s finally serious about hardware,” said Jan Dawson at Jackdaw Research. “The Pixel phones are clearly being positioned as peers to the iPhone.”

The new Pixel phone is “the first phone made by Google inside and out”, said Sabrina Ellis of the Pixel product management team.

By producing both the hardware and Android software, Google is making a more direct assault on Apple and its tightly controlled ecosystem.

Besides being the first smartphone to ship with Google Assistant, it will come with unlimited storage for photos and videos and be compatible with the company’s new Daydream virtual reality platform.

Pixel has a “smart” camera for sublime photos, and a programme to make it easy for users to switch operating systems, a move aimed at encouraging iPhone users to convert to Android.

However, Google may find it challenging to gain market share, analyst Patrick Moorhead of Moor Insights & Strategy said.

“Aside from the camera, the new Google Pixels are pretty undifferentiated compared to Samsung and iPhone 7th generation phones,” he said. “They don’t exactly swing anyone around the room.”

Apple’s world

Gartner analyst Brian Blau said “the most exciting part” of Tuesday’s announcement was the assistant, which showcases Google’s strength in artificial intelligence.

“It’s a different tactic from Google, taking the stance that they want to have that direct relationship with their customers,” he said.

“It is clearly a step into Apple’s world” of controlling hardware and software and services, he added.

Google also showed off a new Daydream View headset into which compatible smartphones can be slipped to serve as screens for virtual reality experiences.

View headsets are made of soft cloth, purportedly inspired by casual clothes. Daydream View bundled with a controller device will be available in November.

Google added to the coming hardware line-up with a modular Wi-Fi system that lets a set of interconnected mini-modems be spread around homes to make signals strong in all spots.

“Unlike a single, central router, multiple Google Wi-Fi points do a better job of delivering connectivity to all parts of the home,” Google executive Mario Queiroz said.

The Internet giant also introduced its Google Home virtual assistant, which will be a direct challenge to popular Amazon Echo devices.

Google described Home as a voice-activated assistant that enables users to tap into the company’s online capabilities to answer questions, manage tasks, control devices in homes, stream videos and more.

“Much like Amazon Echo, Google Home is less a story about a wireless speaker and more about a point of access to a virtual assistant,” IHS Markit senior analyst Paul Erickson said.

“Ultimately, it will be the virtual assistants that are the trump card, and Google Assistant is expected to only grow in superiority to Alexa when it comes to personalisation and everyday usefulness for mainstream users,” he added of Amazon Echo’s voice-activated programme.

Google Home was also synced to work with the freshly unveiled Chromecast Ultra device for streaming high-resolution online video to television screens.

I came to a sobering realisation recently. Quick calculations revealed that by the end of this week, I would have lived with the same man for thirty continuous years. Three decades of going through the ten thousand, nine hundred and fifty shades of life! Together! Now, isn’t that something? 

In fact, on paper it seems much more exciting than it actually is, this living- together-in- marital-bliss kind of balderdash. The term itself is an oxymoron, which means that it is a figure of speech that juxtaposes elements that appear to be contradictory, but contain a concealed point. And the point here is that there is no bliss in matrimony, for the first twenty odd years at least. There are a lot of other things: like laughing, fighting, sulking, appeasing, placating, bickering, joking, crying, arguing, exercising, eating, drinking, reading and so on. But is it all blissful and euphoric? Not by any stretch of the imagination. 

But let me tell all the diehard romantics not to lose heart because after the initial training years, which can stretch from fifteen to twenty, depending on each couple, things become easier. A whole lot easier let me add. And that is because by then we all age gracefully into a state of semi deafness and semi blindness and with this natural decline, we don’t see or hear each other’s faults as clearly as we once did. The result is that we no longer have the compulsive urge to point them out. So if there are no mistakes, there is nothing to correct, and therefore, there is less friction. 

It is precisely at stage that long married couples start resembling each other. Believe me, it’s true. If two people who are living together are amicable all the time — eat the same food, watch the same television serials, listen to the same music, laugh at the same Pammi Aunty jokes — it is but natural that they think alike and begin to look alike too. 

I used to get very perturbed when people in the Gulf countries asked me if my husband and I had a “cousin marriage”. In our culture, marrying your cousin is considered a sacrilege, completely and indisputably. I would get horrified but after replying in the negative I tried to look for physical similarities between my spouse and me. There were none. Outwardly, we were as different as chalk and cheese. 

But of late I started noticing what the strangers must have detected earlier on, that is, our mannerisms have become, sort of, identical. My husband scrunches up his eyes the same way as I do when I don’t understand something. His bout of coughing always culminates in a giant sneeze, like, well, mine. He puts a hand in front of his mouth whenever he is about to utter a white lie, like I do, and he compliments the chef, if he has cooked a good meal, in the exact same fashion, as me. 

“Some people renew their vows on their silver wedding anniversary,” I informed my husband. 

“That is the twenty fifth year,” my spouse stated. 

“We forgot,” I complained. 

“Seven rounds of the holy fire in the Vedic tradition? ” he questioned. 

“Seven rounds of the holy fire,” I repeated. 

“That can be easily remedied,” he said 

“How?” I asked, checking if his hand was in front of his mouth. 

“By making fourteen rounds of the holy fire,” he deadpanned. 

“Seven clockwise and the rest anticlockwise,” I agreed.

AMMAN — “Thirty-Six Interpretations” — the current exhibition which opened at Wadi Finan Art Gallery hosting Jordanian artist Omar Najjar’s first solo exhibition in the Kingdom — runs through October 17. 

Najjar’s latest exhibition is named so since each painting was “treated as an individual work, hence the 36 interpretations in the gallery” whereby the artist’s works mark a new milestone in his career.

His latest exhibit portrays scenes from nature, including “Sunflowers”, “The Beautiful Sea”, “Wet Clothing” as well as the “Wedding Audience”. Najjar’s paintings this time employ a wide variety of delightfully warm colours: strong shades of red, orange, and yellow all mix powerfully to denote a sense of warmth in early Fall. There is no underlying theme. Each painting is different. “I never try to impose any theme. They are personal views of life and vignettes that intrigue me,” Najjar explains, noting that each scene and each experience in life is different. “The way I personally experience each scene gives it a different result.”

In an interview with The Jordan Times, Najjar talks of his evolving work and emphasises that this latest exhibition could be his new self. 

“Each painting is new. I do not try to force a certain style. I explain the scenes I envision. We all experience the same things in a different way, so I try to express how scenes speak to me. I try to isolate each painting and treat it separately,” he said.

“Each time it takes different ways to reflect the core or essence, in terms of colours, shapes, proportion, scaling, mixing, pallet, texture… in other words, I harness whatever skills and emotional energies it takes to reach something we can all relate to.”

The artist says his art employs an expressionist method while trying to reach an objective result. 

“I try to find things of interest that we can all relate to in terms of subjects. Things we experience. I try to find meaning to experiences people live, and I feel people need to feel and understand my work,” Najjar said.

“You will end up with a different result each time: when each painting is treated individually, each has its own soul, and you justify your brushstrokes in following the meaning. The end result is open; it is brought on by the subject matter itself,” he added.

Born in Nablus in 1992, Najjar graduated from Jordan University’s Fine Arts Department. He has been developing his approach for the past few years and specialises in oil painting. He participated in several exhibitions locally and abroad, including Qatar, Lebanon and the UAE. Last year, together with his sister Marwa, they held their first exhibition together under the name “Najjars”.

He explains that what pleased him most about last year’s nearly sold out exhibition was that everyone expressed the same warm feelings. “It gave me pleasure that everyone understood me and the meaning of my artworks. I never impose objectivity on people because my paintings are alive and have lives of their own. Therefore, they will touch each person at a different level in a different way.” 

“Contemporary Expressionism” is the term often used to describe the work of Najjar. Broad brushstrokes hint at a story without giving the details fully. “I do not like to put a label on paintings nor the idea of imposing a technique. I always wondered how one can paint different experiences in the same technique!”

He continues, “I do not reach an objective result. I try to be objective in my subjectivity. It’s always a personal view in trying to reach an objective result. You can never reach an ultimate truth or explanation of a scene, but we try to get closer to it.”

Najjar stressed again that there is no one definition of anything. “I do not agree with trying to give meaning from one aspect only through theme or technique. The end result should not be pre- determined.”

Hence, art enthusiasts have the chance to reflect upon common experiences through his work in “Thirty-Six Interpretations” which continues until October 17 and perhaps add 37 or more interpretations of their own!

WASHINGTON — Hollywood star Leonardo DiCaprio and US President Barack Obama joined forces on Monday night on the White House lawn, calling for a strong and rapid mobilisation to curb rising worldwide temperatures.

“We are really in a race against time,” said the US president, who has made the fight against global warming a priority of his two-term administration.

Obama’s appearance with DiCaprio, who visited the White House to screen a new documentary, occurred as the Paris agreement on climate change is soon to come into force.

Nearly a decade after his first environmental documentary “The 11th Hour” hit screens, the actor and producer, who won an Oscar earlier this year for his role in “The Revenant”, screened his new climate change flick “Before the Flood”, which includes cameos by Obama and Pope Francis.

The meeting between Obama and DiCaprio took place as part of a festival on the White House lawn, titled South by South Lawn, which is meant to celebrate creativity and innovation and is modelled after the tech, movie and music conference South by Southwest, which is held every year in Austin, Texas.

“Urgent action must be taken,” said DiCaprio, a vocal Democrat, before turning his sights on the US presidential election on November 8.

“If you do not believe in climate change, you do not believe in facts or in science... and, therefore, in my humble opinion you should not be allowed to be in public office,” he said.

The reference was a thinly veiled allusion to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who has openly questioned the existence of global warming and the impact human activities have on it.

Obama has long insisted that world leaders take bold steps against global warming, acting against inertia or recalcitrance.

“Climate change is almost perversely designed to be very hard to solve politically,” Obama said.

“The natural inclination of political systems is to put that stuff off as long as possible,” he added.

Obama did, however, warn against a too austere approach, acknowledging that some people had legitimate concerns on the impact of an environmental transition, such as those who can’t afford to buy a low-emission Prius or Tesla.

He also urged against the temptation to wait for revolutionary technological advances before adopting change, noting that an energy transition, by definition, would come bit by bit.

“If we just had the energy efficiency of Japan, we could reduce our energy consumption by 20 per cent,” he said.

The main component of Obama’s “Clean Power Plan”, which requires US power plants to undergo drastic reductions in CO₂ emissions, has been placed on hold as it works its way through the US court system.

Critics of the plan say the restrictions it imposes are too costly, both in terms of implementation and job losses, for regions that live off the production of fossil fuels.

The Paris Agreement on Climate Change — in which Obama was a key player by sealing an agreement with the world’s other biggest polluter, China — is on the verge of entering into force. 

India, the world’s third-largest producer of greenhouse gas, ratified the agreement on Sunday, making it the latest big polluter to formally sign on.

The accord, sealed last December in Paris, needs ratification from 55 countries that account for at least 55 per cent of the planet’s greenhouse gas emissions responsible for climate change.

With India’s move, a total of 62 countries accounting for almost 52 per cent of emissions have now ratified the agreement to commit to take action to stem the planet’s rising temperatures.

“I anticipate that this agreement will actually go into force in the next few weeks... much faster than many of us anticipated,” Obama said Monday evening.

The Paris agreement requires all countries to devise plans to achieve the goal of keeping the rise of temperatures within 2^oC  above pre-industrial levels and strive for 1.5^oC  if possible.

Long-expected and first hinted at with the 2003 Kubang concept, Maserati’s first production SUV stormed onto global markets arrived earlier this year and very soon after debuted in Jordan. Named Levante after the notable wind — as is tradition at Maserati — the Italian brand’s SUV certainly has the power and moody charisma to be compared to a force of nature, especially in range-topping Levante S guise as featured here.

Anticipated to significantly expand the Modenese carmaker’s sales and broaden its client base and appeal, it was crucial that Maserati gets it right in terms of character. Given a heritage steeped as much in racing lore as it is a luxury product the Levante succeeds in treading a fine line between a sense of exoticism on the one hand, and real-world accessibility, practicality and ability, on the other.

Dramatic disposition

Dramatic and with a strong sense of occasion about it, the car’s theatrically assertive fascia is strongly inspired by 2014 hungry and menacing Maserati Alfieri coupe concept. Likewise, the Levante is also based on Italian Maserati architecture rather than a Jeep Grand Cherokee platform borrowed from its parent Fiat Chrysler Automobiles group American portfolio, as some erroneously expected after the second Kubang concept was unveiled in 2011. 

Brutally fast and distinctly sporty on-road but unexpectedly capable off-road, the Levante S is built on a shared platform with Ghibli and Quattroporte luxury sports saloon sisters, and features a modified version of the same sophisticated and rear-biased Q4 four-wheel drive system. Predatory and shark-like in appearance, the Levante’s design is focused on a vast, aggressive and dramatic hexagonal grille with prominent trident badge.

Flanked by heavily browed slim headlights with inwardly tilted LED running lights, the Levante’s grille features widely spaced vertical slats, behind which automatically closing radiator slats — that help achieve class-leading CD0.31 aerodynamics — are clearly visible. Featuring a luxuriously long bonnet with sculpted surfacing, prominent wheel arches and rakish roofline, the car’s road-hugging stance and sense of urgency, is complemented with a large tailgate spoiler and quad big bore tailpipes.

Brutal and brisk

A taller and more aggressively proportioned aesthetic relation to the Alfieri concept, both current Levante variants are powered by a Ferrari-built 3-litre direct injection twin-turbo V6 engine. With a significant 79BHP advantage over the entry-level model, the more powerful Levante S develops 424BHP at 5750rpm. Underwriting its urgent power accumulation, the veritable and tsunami of torque of the Levante S peaks at 369lb/ft throughout a broad and flexible 1,750-5,000rpm mid-range plateau.

With broad grippy tyres, tenacious four-wheel  drive, aggressive lower gears and quick-spooling twin-turbos, the Levante S launches off-the-line with brutal vigour. Disdainful of its 2109kg heft, the Levante S rockets through the 0-100km/h sprint in just 5.2 seconds and is capable of a 264km/h top speed, compared to the standard Levante’s 6-second acceleration and 251km/h maximum. Meanwhile, a smooth and responsive 8-speed automatic gearbox allows for relatively modest 10.9l/100km combined fuel efficiency.

Rasping, crackling and growling, the Levante S’ mightier output lends it a peakier and more hard-edged character than the standard model. Driving the 345BHP entry-level Levante, one seems to rely more on its ample mid-range torque. Just as muscular and effortless in mid-range versatility, the car’s more urgent, visceral and volcanic power build-up, however, seems to more noticeably entice one to more aggressively reach for towards it top end.

Tidy composure

Stable, planted and buttoned down on rebound, the Levante S is a natural high-speed cruiser. Aiding its handling precision, ride comfort and cabin refinement is a 20 per cent stiffer structure than the Maserati Ghibli saloon, which also lends its more rugged rigidity to cope with demanding off-road driving. With sophisticated double wishbone front and five-link rear adaptive air suspension, it well-absorbs road imperfections and automatically lowers to a 175mm ride height at speed.

Featuring firmer damper and front anti-roll bar rates than the standard model, the Levante S drives with stiffer and more hard-edged control through switchbacks. Sure-footed with sharper responses and lateral control, it turns in tidily and intently with quick accurate steering. Flatter through corners, the Levante S heroically well-contains its 2.1-tonne weight, with little body role for its segment, and benefits from ideal weight distribution and a low centre of gravity.

Tidy into corner with rear-drive like balance, its sophisticated adaptive Q4 four-wheel drive system sends 100 per cent power in default conditions for agility. Meanwhile, huge 265/45R20 front and 295/40R20 tyres developing huge levels of reassuring roadholding, aided by its Q4 system, which can reapportion up to 50 per cent power frontwards to maintain traction and pullout of corner. Additionally, a mechanical limited-slip rear-differential re-distributes power along the rear axle as needed.

Class and capability

Further aiding cornering agility is an automatic torque vectoring system selectively braking inside wheels through corners. Additional driver assistance systems include stop/go adaptive cruise control, parking assistance, rear and surround view cameras, hill descent control and blind spot, lane departure and forward collision warnings. With hunkered down yet ergonomic driving position, and long high bonnet, a low-set front-facing camera usefully provides enhanced visibility for steep inclines and low speed manoeuvring in tight confines.

Re-distribute power to maintain traction over loose surfaces and steep inclines, the Levante S proved capable on dirt and gravel trails during test drive in Italy. With two air suspension off-road ride height ground clearance rises from 210mm, default, to 247mm to easily traverse deep ruts and rocks, and increase wheel travel and ground contact, while improves approach, departure and ramp angles. Pre-set off-road modes also re-calibrate drive-line and electronic stability systems for off-road driving.

A large luxurious sports SUV, the Levante is refined in both ambiance and quality luxury materials, with classy yet sporty design, intuitive and user-friendly layouts and instrumentation, and extensive personalisation possibilities. Driving position is well-adjustable, supportive and comfortably focused, while rear seat access and head and legroom proved particularly good, even compared to taller more traditional SUVs. Generous equipment levels including heated/ventilated seats, panoramic sunroof, high resolution 8.4-inch touchscreen and Harmon Kardon and Bowers & Wilkins sound systems.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Engine: 3-litre, in-line, twin-turbocharged V6 cylinders

Bore x stroke: 86.5 x 84.5mm

Compression: 9.7:1

Valve-train: Chain-driven 24-valve DOHC, direct injection, variable valve timing

Gearbox: 8-speed, automatic, four-wheel drive, self-locking rear-differential

Gear ratios: 1st 4.71; 2nd 3.14; 3rd 2.11; 4th 1.67; 5th 1.28; 6th 1.0; 7th 0.84; 8th 0.67

Reverse/final drive: 3.3/2.8

Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 424 (430) [316] @5,750rpm

Specific power: 142.3BHP/litre

Power-to-weight: 201BHP/tonne

Torque lb/ft (Nm): 427.8 (580) @1,750-5,000rpm

Specific torque: 194.7Nm/litre

Torque-to-weight: 275Nm/tonne

Redline: 6,500rpm

0-100km/h: 5.2 seconds

Top speed: 264km/h

Fuel consumption, urban/extra-urban/combined: 15-/8.5-/10.9 litres/100km

CO2 emissions, combined: 253g/km

Length: 5,003mm

Track, F/R: 1,624/1,676mm

Kerb weight: 2,109kg

Suspension, F/R: Double wishbone/multi-link, adjustable air springs

Brakes, F/R: Ventilated, perforated discs, 380 x 34mm/330 x 22mm

Brake callipers, F/R: 6-/1-piston

Tyres, F/R: 265/45R20/295/40R20 (as tested)