THE supply of hessian bags to wrap tobacco for sale will normalise next week, an official at Propak has said.

According to Propak, the sole suppliers of hessian bags, the next consignment of packaging material arrives in Zimbabwe today while farmers will start accessing the wrappers on Monday.

Propak ran out of the wrappers last month.

The company has secured funds from banks to purchase the material from Bangladesh and India.

Propak managing director Mr Patrick Maenzanise yesterday said they expected a consignment of 300 000 wrapping bags from India.

"We are also receiving returns from processing companies such as Tobacco Processors Zimbabwe and this will reduce the pressure," he said.

Propak has been failing to meet increased demand for the packaging material since auction floors opened earlier this year than previous seasons.

Other observers have said lack of competition has also resulted in Propak allegedly taking its clientele for granted.

"We were not prepared for the marketing season which opened in mid-February.

"We met the demand in the initial stages since the crop was sold two days per week but when the selling days were increased, we could not meet the required volumes," Mr Maenzanise said.

He said they would give first preference to farmers who had already paid for the commodity.

"We have to clear the backlog first before we serve new customers.

"There has been panic from farmers and we are afraid they may want to hoard the commodity," he said.

Starting next week, Propak will be assisted by Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board officials and police to maintain order at its selling points.

Due to the high demand for hessian bags, Mr Maenzanise said, Propak had to limit the number an individual or company could purchase.

"At first we sold a maximum of 50 bags per individual and had to cut to 25 so that more people could get the material," he said.

The shortage of hessian bags has seen daily deliveries to auction floors falling

On Wednesday, farmers thronged Propak premises in search of hessian bags.

Mr Maenzanise said stock being sold by vendors was sub-standard and could tear during transportation or storage.

"Farmers should be patient and stop buying the packaging material from unlicensed vendors and retailers as the bags, besides being expensive, may be contaminated," he said.

Irvine, CA, May 11, 2010 --(PR.com)-- On April 13, 2010, Laga handbags were displayed to the world on Oprah Winfrey’s TV show, by comedian Chris Rock’s wife, Malaak Compton-Rock. Without even showing a logo on the show, demand for their handbags in the last three weeks has risen exponentially. For any retailer this short mention would be a dream come true solely because of the effect it would have on their bottom line. For Laga Handbags, the exposure they have received from the Oprah show brings them one step closer to achieving their mission: To help 1,200 women in Indonesia regain their livelihood and rebuild their lives
Roy and Louise van Broekhuizen started Laga Handbags as an outreach to help the women of Indonesia who were devastated by the effects of the Tsunami in 2004. With a plan to help those in need and their recent media exposure there seems to be no doubt that they will achieve this goal faster than anticipated. Roy, who does not pay himself or his wife Louise a salary, said: “I never imagined we could take Laga this far. To be able to build better lives for these women who survived one of the worst disasters is all we ever wanted.”

Laga Handbags is providing women with a valuable sustainable new skill set. Every woman employed by Laga Handbags, in various villages throughout Aceh province, goes through a two week training program to teach them how to use the single pedal treadle sewing machines and how to create the intricate patterns Laga Handbags is known for. If a woman has no experience sewing, other job opportunities (stocking boxes for example) are found in the factory for them as they go through extended training. After the two-week program, many of the women are hired to be a part of the handbag embroidery staff.

Every woman employed by Laga Handbags is grateful for the opportunity to learn a skill that will allow them to support themselves and support their families. After the devastation of the Tsunami, which claimed the lives of thousands of men, women, and children in Aceh province, Sumatra, Indonesia, many of these women did not have the desire to live. They were faced with rebuilding their lives without those who had always provided for them and unsure of how to create a livelihood. Jurina, a member of the Laga Handbags embroidery staff, was struggling to feed her son after the death of her husband in 2000. Following the Tsunami, she lost many other family members including her sister-in-law who also had a young child. Jurina is now the only family left for her son Mukram and her nephew Fajri. Eager to make a new life for herself after the Tsunami, she took the opportunity to join the Laga Handbags training program without hesitation and with immense excitement. Today she not only makes a more than fair living wage, but her son and nephew are able to attend school full time and have a chance at a bright future.

These women are able to express themselves through the artwork and intricate design of each Laga bag. Like the women, no two bags are exactly alike. The Laga embroiderers will now always have the means and skills to provide for their families. Roy excitedly added, “Words cannot express how excited these women are knowing that America and the world now knows what they are doing. The Laga women have become local celebrities in their own rights throughout their villages. They are leading fuller happier lives, which is all we can ask for.” Thanks to Laga Handbags, the lives of these women have been forever changed for the better.

Every cultural tribe has its day on the front pages, its moment in the full unforgiving glare of being where-it's-at. The hippies had Woodstock in 1969; the acid house generation had the summer raves of 1988 – and the Wags had Baden-Baden in 2006, when the wives and girlfriends of the England football team stole the attention of the entire British media from right under their spouse's noses.

It ended badly, both for the footballers and for their better-looking halves. The term Wag, previously an innocent acronym of "wives and girlfriends", became a totem of a shallow, consumerist and celebrity-obsessed culture. Four years on, as he names his provisional World Cup squad, Fabio Capello has made great show of sidelining the Wags, the implication being that Alex, Coleen, Carly et al wrecked their boys' focus and fitness in 2006, presumably by clattering into their hotel rooms giggling and tipsy on their Louboutins and then disturbing the athletes' beauty sleep by wanting to hold late-night marital conferences about what best to wear to brunch with the girls the next day – an analysis which strikes me as both far fetched and misogynistic, but never mind. This time, the Wags are apparently to be accommodated in a sort of holding pen out of harm's way, possibly in Mauritius, and only allowed to visit the players for one day after each game.

But against all the odds, the Wags are back in the fashion game. Those who assumed Coleen Rooney, Abbey Clancey and other footballers' partners would be happy to while away the rest of their lives spending their mornings at the gym and the afternoons at the beauty salon, treading water in the back pages of the trashier gossip weeklies while real life moved on without them, have been proved wrong. In the four years since the last World Cup, they have regrouped, adjusted to the new cultural terrain, dialled down their aesthetic to suit a sobered world and are back where they belong – setting trends.

Like it or not, the Wags matter. They are far and away the best style bellwether we have, because they occupy the strategically important territory between cutting-edge fashion and the mainstream. Yes, their look is derivative, but that's the whole point. Lady Gaga's stage wardrobe and the more outre output of Paris fashion week do influence what you wear, but they have to go through a whole sequence of filtering processes along the way. What makes the Wags important for fashion-watchers is that they have an appetite for new trends, but that this is always tempered by a strong sense of vanity. Unlike, say, Agyness Deyn, they will never even consider wearing a dress that does not enhance their cleavage, or shoes that are anything but leg-lengthening. Unlike the fashion avant-garde, their status is dependent as much in looking attractive as in looking on-trend, and this makes them a truer reflection of real women's concerns.

The Wag look of 2010 is a far cry from the teeny hotpants and enormous handbags of the old days. For a start, the new Wag is often to be found in trousers. This is an extraordinary turnaround, since trousers – with the exception of super-tight designer jeans and velour tracksuit bottoms for the gym - were conspicuously absent from the Wag wardrobe a few years ago. This spring, within a time period of a few weeks, a Wag icon, an ex-Wag and a current Queen Wag – Victoria Beckham, Cheryl Cole and Abbey Clancey – were all photographed not just in trousers but in a peg-leg trouser shape, loose at the hip and tight at the ankle.

On the fashion desk we're calling the look for summer 2010, which the Wags have nailed, Daytime plus. Daytime plus is a pair of harem-ish or skinny trousers, with very fashion-forward shoes: either chunky platform heels, or ankle boots, or a cut-out hybrid of the two. On the top, this is paired with a tailored jacket, a new arrival in the Wag wardrobe which projects a sober, I'm-on-the-school-run-just-like-you message. Under the jacket will be a loose, very fine-weave Alexander Wang-ish vest top. This is important because (a) the filminess of the vest layer is essential for showing a bit of breast curvature, an aesthetic to which the Wags are wedded and (b) those filmy vest layers are surprisingly expensive, but are a status symbol which only those who spend time flicking through the rails in Cricket or Matches will clock. For slightly more dressed-up occasions, the Wag look once revolved around Herve Leger dresses which were not so much body-conscious as anatomically-accurate, and supersized blow-dries. For summer 2010, the Wags who are nailing it – see Stacey Giggs at the Manchester United Player of the Year Awards – have updated the look with looser, cooler dresses and hair given edge with great accessories.

The Wags may not be allowed out on the tiles in Cape Town this summer, but if you think that'll keep them out of the limelight, you're dreaming. I'm backing the girls to win.

Celebrate summer with bright bold hues. Inject color into your wardrobe — vibrant turquoise, watermelon, hot pink, lemon, fresh pistachio, tomato, indigo, and orange are great colors for the season. Try wearing them alone or combine a pop of color with soft pastels or nudes. If you’re the type who is afraid of bold colors, start with accessories. Slowly introduce color into your wardrobe with belts, shoes, bags or even with nail polish. I like the new bags of United Colors of Benetton (stores located at SM Megamall, TriNoma, Bonifacio High Street, Robinsons Galleria, and Ayala Center Cebu). The adjustable straps make it perfect for the woman on the go. And whether you’re in the city or the beach, these bags instantly spell summer.
What’s the best moisturizer that’s affordable? It’s summer and I really experience dryness of skin. I want something that can just be pulled out of my bag and applied again and again. What do you recommend?
Use baby oil. I prefer Johnson’s Baby Oil, which is not just for babies. Of course, the true purpose of baby oil is to soften and protect baby’s skin, so it certainly won’t hurt yours.

For extremely dry elbows or knees, baby oil can be useful. Try mixing baby oil with your regular lotion and have it in your bag all the time as your remedy for all things dry.

Calcutta police’s bomb disposal squad was tested for two-and-a-half hours on Thursday afternoon by a briefcase containing a cellphone charger and a voter identity card that was found abandoned on a city pavement, coinciding with a terror alert.

By the time the mystery of someone’s missing briefcase was solved, traffic along the busy Shakespeare Sarani stretch was thrown haywire while man, machine and sniffer dogs stood on the Maidan staring at the harmless articles that an X-ray scan had shown to be a possible circuit.

“The X-ray scan around 4.40pm confirmed that there were no explosives inside the briefcase but it did indicate that there could be a circuit, complicating things,” said an officer of the bomb squad.

The identity card revealed trader Tekan Chand Dugar, 80, as the owner of the briefcase. He had lodged a complaint with Bhowanipore police station after losing the bag in the afternoon. “The person who stole it took the Rs 8,000 he found in the briefcase and dumped it on the pavement,” said an officer.

Shakespeare Sarani police station received a call around 3.15pm about the abandoned bag being found on the pavement next to Sri Aurobindo Bhavan, opposite The Kenilworth hotel. But it wasn’t until 5.40pm that the suspense ended. “We needed a bomb trailer to carry the bag to the Maidan. The trailer was delayed because of traffic snarls,” claimed an officer.

Lalbazar has convened an emergency meeting with mall managers on Friday to discuss “security issues”. Home secretary Ardhendu Sen confirmed that the government had received intelligence on a possible terror attack at the airport.

Security has been stepped up in “crowded places and marketplaces”.