Newsweek International articles from December 2002

Newsweek International archives from December 2002

A Deadly Spree.(letters)(Letter to the Editor)
December 9, 2002... Readers of our Nov. 4 cover story on Washington, D.C.'s alleged snipers spoke out on gun violence, the rule of "innocent until proven guilty" and the death penalty. One reader thought we were too harsh on police officers. "Blame those who took...

The Angry Republic.(Germany and public opinion of Gerhard Schroder)
December 9, 2002... "Schroder is stupid." That's how a Berlin daily, Die Welt, sums up German public opinion. A more intellectual--and vicious--insult these days is to compare Chancellor Gerhard Schroder to Heinrich Bruning, the hapless Weimar-era chancellor whose...

Rage in the Streets.(Islamic protests in Europe)
December 9, 2002... Just as night fell and the Ramadan fast was set to break last Tuesday, murder shattered Antwerp's fragile calm. A deranged white neighbor shot Mohamed Achrak, 27, as the popular young teacher stood outside his parents' home. As word spread,...

Sale of the Century.
December 9, 2002... It's a developer's dream: 20,000 square meters of premium property in the heart of Rome. Simply convert the Colosseum into a colossal shopping mall. (Need parking? Raze the ruinous Roman Forum nearby.) And why stop at the capital? A spectacular...

Japan's Military Complex.
December 9, 2002... The students met secretly to avoid the campus radicals. Outside the gates of Kobe University, they boarded two minibuses last month and rode to an underground parking garage guarded by members of Japan's de facto Army, the Self-Defense Force....

Medicine Man.
December 9, 2002... Beyond the circle of lantern light, the darkness is absolute. Daniel Mattin (not his real name), sitting cross-legged in a small hut, listens to the freakishly loud chorus of tropical birds and trees rustling in the night breeze. A shaman...

The Truth About Smog.("When Smoke Ran Like Water" by Devra Davis)(Book Review)
December 9, 2002... Devra Davis peered into the South African bush trying to find a lion she had been told was no more than 20 feet away. No matter how hard she looked, she couldn't see it--until it suddenly roared and charged her vehicle at a seemingly impossible...

Scrap the Constitution.(Japan needs new constitution)
December 9, 2002... On Aug. 14, 1945, the day that Japan surrendered to the allies, The New York Times ran a cartoon that celebrated the American victory--and the work still to be done. The artist depicted Japan as a hideous beast whose fangs were being extracted...

The Parent Killer.(AIDS in Cambodia)
December 9, 2002... Bun Saroeurn survived two decades as a soldier in Cambodia's ruthless civil war. But his luck in the jungles won't save him from the country's latest enemy--HIV/AIDS. Like many other veterans of the war, he frequented brothels on the Thai...

New Moral Order?(foreign assistance tied to morality)
December 9, 2002... The United States has given the world McDonald's and Levi's, pop culture and genetically modified foods. It exports democracy and free markets and has marshaled a worldwide drive against terror. But America's work is apparently not done....

The Age of Fundamentalism.
December 9, 2002... The holy warrior speaks simply and directly, cleaving the world neatly in two. "This is a religious struggle, a clash of cultures," he intones. Luckily, God is on the right side, having "put a hedge of protection around us." Osama bin Laden,...

Aliens in the Palace!(invasive fish species threat to native Japanese fish)
December 9, 2002... Tokyo's imperial palace has always been the crowning symbol of all things Japanese. But these days the 13 moats that surround the palace are an exception. In the past few years alien fish--bluegills and black bass imported from the United...

Singing Arias About Genocide.(Brief Article)(Critical Essay)
December 9, 2002... Few subjects seem less suited to the sweeping grandeur of opera than Auschwitz. Yet this weekend London's Royal Opera House will premiere "Sophie's Choice," based on William Styron's best-selling Holocaust novel. In the book, bedraggled lines...

Secrets of The Bismarck.(director James Cameron)(Interview)
December 9, 2002... In May 1941, Germany sent its mammoth new battleship Bismarck into the North Atlantic. In its first action, it sank the Hood, the flagship of the British fleet, killing all but three of its 1,418-man crew. But in one of the decisive naval...

Boot Camp for Gonzos.(jouranilsts at Quantico Marine Base)
December 9, 2002... I'm sprinting across an open field, the roar of helicopter rotors so deafening that I can't tell where the machine-gun fire is coming from. "Get down! Spread out!" shouts a young sergeant. I trip over one of my squad mates and face-plant almost...

Perspectives.(Brief Article)
December 9, 2002... "It was like being back home." Jerusalem resident Kelly Hartog, who survived last week's bombing of the Paradise resort hotel in Kenya "I am not ashamed of who I am--not one bit." U.N. weapons inspector John (Jack) McGeorge, on his prior...

Periscope.
December 9, 2002... STRIKES A Wakened Giant Stagnant pay and unease at the prospect of labor-market reforms are pushing Europe's largest unions toward confrontation. This summer's walkout by a million Spaniards was the country's first general strike in...

Picking A Home Theater.(Hardware Review)(Product/Service Evaluation)
December 9, 2002... Home theaters aren't just for movie moguls anymore. With a big-screen television, DVD player and a surround-sound system, you can live like you're one of the rap stars on "MTV Cribs." But you don't need to take out a second mortgage to get that...

Cape No Cod?(fish alternatives)(Brief Article)
December 9, 2002... By now environmentally correct diners know to "take a pass on Chilean sea bass." But Tip Sheet's Jennifer Barrett found that many other menu favorites also face extinction: Atlantic Cod Overfishing has destroyed its Atlantic habitat,...

Warm Front.(leg warmers)(Brief Article)
December 9, 2002... It's a "Flashdance" flashback. Leg warmers, thankfully not seen outside the ballerina set since the bleakest days of the '80s, are suddenly popping up everywhere--from cheap-chic stores like Urban Outfitters to the haute houses of Chanel and...

A New Affair Of The Heart.(Brief Article)
December 9, 2002... We all know that it's important to keep cholesterol under control. But the dirty little secret of cardiology is that more than half the people who suffer heart attacks have normal cholesterol levels. So how do you know if you're at risk? A...

Russia's Problems.
December 16, 2002... Our Nov. 11 report on Russia's hostage crisis and Fareed Zakaria's column on Chechnya garnered passionate praise from readers. Of the former, one wrote, "You restored my faith in the Western press." Another complimented Zakaria: "I'm not a...

The Blue Banana.(expanding Europe's economic heartland)
December 16, 2002... In the beginning, there was the blue banana. First glimpsed by cosmonauts, then photographed by satellites, it's a curve of light across the night-shadowed Old World that stretches from Manchester, England, down through the Rhineland to Milan...

In Praise of Cities.(European Renaissance)(Brief Article)(Column)
December 16, 2002... MacShane is minister for Europe for the British government. Long ago it was the springtime of nation-states. Today the excitement is about "enlargement" and the rise of regions. Tomorrow? Look to the renaissance of cities. Not since the...

Build It and Hope They Come.(border town planning)
December 16, 2002... Locals call it the "Prairie Express." A shiny new stretch of subway whisks travelers from downtown Copenhagen to a near-wasteland on the city's outer fringe, site of the giant Bella Center. There delegates of the European Union will gather for...

China's Cyber Crackdown.
December 16, 2002... Paul Baranowski sits in a small Toronto basement apartment surrounded by three computers hooked up to an LCD monitor and stacks of computer manuals. He describes his workspace as "minimalist," but there's nothing small about his mission....

Death by Numbers.(Philippines economy)
December 16, 2002... President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo likes to be thought of as a hands-on leader. So a few months ago she went to a downtown Manila fish market to prove that food prices had not shot up. She was pleased with what she found: the price of the least...

Power to the People.(Venezuela politics)
December 16, 2002... Hugo Chavez looked like a politician living on borrowed time last week. A general strike called by Venezuelan opposition leaders--the country's fourth in the past 12 months--shuttered shops and business offices in the capital city of Caracas...

Let's Not Forget Bali.(terrorism)
December 16, 2002... Raslan is a Kuala Lumpur-based lawyer and columnist. This time last year the world was recovering from the shock of the World Trade Center attacks, and New York was getting back on its feet. But New York--the world's premier financial,...

Trouble Brewing.(coffee industry)
December 16, 2002... To protest how little their coffee is worth, farmers recently assembled in Acapulco, Mexico, to crush an 8 million-pound hill of coffee beans into fertilizer. With new growers flooding the global market, the official price of a pound of coffee...

Back to 'La Dolce Vita'.(Italian cinema)
December 16, 2002... In Federico Fellini's 1976 film "Casanova," a giant Medusa rises out of a Venice lagoon and looms menacingly over Donald Sutherland's character. Back then the film was considered a work of genius for creating such dazzling effects. Directors...

'We Need to Be In Baghdad'.(Kurdish politics)(Interview)
December 16, 2002... The ethnic Kurdish northern third of Iraq has been independent of Saddam Hussein's rule for a decade, thanks to a U.S. and British enforced no-flight zone. But as America gears up to force a regime change in Baghdad, Kurdish groups fear they...

Shop or We'll Drop.(consumerism)
December 16, 2002... Kuntzman is a columnist for the New York Post. Americans are nervous about the economy right now. Unemployment is ticking upward, wages are down and the stock market is performing like a once great Olympic sprinter who just turned 60 and...

Perspectives.
December 16, 2002... "Every day there is a new massacre." Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat, on the latest incursion by Israeli troops into Gaza. Ten people died, including two U.N. workers. "If the U.S. has minimum levels of fairness and bravery, it should...

Periscope.
December 16, 2002... IRAQ The Question of When Now that Iraq has released a declaration of its weapons of mass destruction, many expect the war clock to really start ticking. But despite its recent drumbeating, the Bush administration appears to have...

Not Your Grandma's Mink.
December 16, 2002... For fur lovers, the 1980s and 1990s were harsh years. Groups like PETA took to splashing ink on minks and parading hideous images of suffering animals outside fashion shows. The 1990s brought a wave of minimalism that forced many to put their...

It's A Moka Makeover.(espresso machines)(Brief Article)
December 16, 2002... Italians don't mess with espresso. That may explain why their aluminum stove-top coffee maker (moka) has gone unchanged for nearly 70 years. Now, thanks to an uptick in home coffee consumption in Italy, designers have reinvented the humble pot....

An Electoral Tsunami.
December 23, 2002... Most readers of our Nov. 18 report on the U.S. elections criticized the Republican victory. "Bush's triumph is a sad commentary on U.S. politics," wrote one. Another faulted "an election decided by TV advertising, a president obsessed with...

The Death (and Birth) of Europe.(European Union membership)
December 23, 2002... It will be the end of Europe," Valery Giscard D'Estaing famously declared, referring to Turkey's bid to join the European Union. He's right, though not in the way he intended. His Europe is indeed nearing its end. That's not merely because...

Who Are We?(Europeans "a state of mind")
December 23, 2002... On the last day of this year's Ryder Cup, the biannual showdown between European and American golfers, a strange cry rose from the crowd: "Eur- ope, Eur-ope." Unfamiliar as it was, the cheer appeared to work. Europe won. And at the award...

The Official Story.(Grozny Chechnya Russia)
December 23, 2002... Our small group of journalists sat on benches in a huge, empty hangar draped with Russian military banners, listening as two high-ranking officers in green camouflage gave us a situation report on the rebellious republic of Chechnya. We had...

The Two Koreas.(Roh Moo Hyun, Millennium Democratic Party vs. Lee Hoi Chang, Grand National Party South Korea)
December 23, 2002... The bickering started during the evening-news hour. Lee Seung Jae, a 39-year-old banker, sat watching TV with his father when center-left presidential hopeful Roh Moo Hyun's image flashed on the screen. "He was looking at Roh and shouting,...

A Land With No Sides.(Japanese politics)
December 23, 2002... Junichi Saito knows all about freedom of choice. At the Tokyo electronics store where he works, customers encounter a mind-boggling array of high-tech gadgets tailored to their every need. In politics, however, Japan is like a North Korean...

Following a Higher Law.(Sharia in Indonesia)
December 23, 2002... The West Java Regency of Cianjur is known throughout Indonesia for its fragrant, slightly sticky rice. But something else is growing in these fertile highlands, and the rest of the country is watching with great interest. Cianjur is one of...

Japan's Dying Industry.(the funeral business)
December 23, 2002... Seated in a Tokyo conference room, Sawako Takahashi leafs through glossy brochures advertising handmade urns and Western-style coffins. For three hours she and her silver-haired friends contemplate their own deaths, helped by an entrepreneurial...

Khomeini's Children.(Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran)
December 23, 2002... Ali is a typical college student. There are dirty dishes stacked in the sink in his studio apartment in Tehran. A bedroll is tucked against the wall, and textbooks are scattered across an office desk. Tom Waits and Metallica CDs, along with a...

Don't Hold the Mayo!(Japan's favourite Mayonnaise Kitchen )
December 23, 2002... Kouji Nakamura mixes a cocktail in his shaker, squeezes a bit of mayonnaise into it, gives it a good shake and voila! "This is mayogarita," he declares, putting down a glass of milky white stuff that smells like vinegar. Next he concocts a...

You Need This Gadget.(sha-mail)(Brief Article)
December 23, 2002... One recent afternoon, 21- year-old Tokyo college student Takako Koyasu was taking a stroll on campus when her cell phone rang. Her friend was asking whether she should buy a military-style winter coat she had just found in a downtown store....

Confronting Smallpox.(biohazard precautions United States)(Brief Article)
December 23, 2002... The defeat of the deadly smallpox virus still stands as one of modern science's most stunning achievements. The wretched disease engulfs the body in pustules that itch and ooze and often blind or disfigure victims who survive. Smallpox killed a...

You Say Rum, I Say Tuzemak.(on European Union rules)(Brief Article)
December 23, 2002... Across Europe, countries young and old are finding Brussels bureaucracy a little hard to swallow. Rules and regulations governing everything from hygiene to sugar levels to labeling threaten to erode age-old traditions. A taste of the food...

Bush Whistles Dixie.(George W. Bush United States)
December 23, 2002... When it comes to foreign policy, George W. Bush has broken radically with the bipartisan tradition of liberal internationalism, shared by both his father and Bill Clinton. Even before 9-11, he was repudiating treaties, ignoring the United...

A Christian in The Holy Land.(Michel Sabbah, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem in 1988)(Brief Article)(Interview)
December 23, 2002... When Pope John Paul II appointed Michel Sabbah as the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem in 1988, it was the first time the Holy Land's indigenous Roman Catholics were led by a fellow Palestinian. Previously, Rome had always sent an Italian to fill...

Battle of the Tiny Tots.(education America)(Brief Article)
December 23, 2002... A few months ago, an acquaintance called to ask if I'd put in a word for her daughter, whom I'd never met. "The thing is, it's such a major step in her educational career," the lady said apologetically. "I'm not sure she'll get in without...

Perspectives.(international quotations)(Brief Article)
December 23, 2002... "Hope begins with a paycheck." U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell pledging $29 million in aid to the Middle East "One thing is clear, this has nothing to do with electricity." Paik Jin-hyun, a professor at Seoul National University, on...

Periscope.(on Henry Kissinger Washington D.C.)
December 23, 2002... POLITICS Kissinger's Clients White House aides were taken aback last week when Henry Kissinger abruptly stepped down as chair of the independent commission to investigate the 9-11 terrorist attacks. But some administration sources say...

A Bustling Shangri-La In Winter.(China)(Brief Article)
December 23, 2002... It can be bitterly cold in Beijing in November, and yet the hotels last month were jammed with tourists from around the world. China is now a major travel destination (the Chinese boast it'll be the world's most heavily visited place in...

Picture Perfect.
December 23, 2002... Wouldn't it be great to have a single flat-panel display that could connect to your PC, your DVD player and your videogame console? Sony's SDM-V72W/B Personal Entertainment Display ($999; sonystyle.com) is a sleek black LCD monitor that easily...

A Loving Feeling.(AndroGel)(Brief Article)
December 23, 2002... We know estrogen replacement can be risky for women, but should men be leery of testosterone therapy? Use of testosterone drugs has soared since 2000, when an ointment called AndroGel came on the market. Many, including retiree Frank Basler,...

Gearing Up For Winter.(Brief Article)
December 23, 2002... Sure, the days are shorter--not to mention colder. But a true sports enthusiast knows there is no off-season. These handy new products can keep you in the game all winter long, whether you're golfing, running, hiking--or just trying to look...

Who's With America?
December 30, 2002... Fareed Zakaria's Nov. 18 column, contrasting Asian and European reactions to U.S. policy on Iraq, led many readers to protest vociferously. An American in Asia wrote, "It's folly to believe the world is behind us." A European said, "We worry...

More Than a Prayer.
December 30, 2002... Nicholas Bloy had second thoughts about launching a private equity fund that abided by the tenets of Islamic law, or Sharia. His skepticism was understandable: a truly Muslim fund couldn't invest in a multinational corporation like Vivendi...

Counting Change.
December 30, 2002... Parker is editor of Islamic Banker. If you doubt that Islamic banking is on the upswing, just ask the global banking majors. Powerful international banks and investment houses--names like Citigroup, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs--are...

When One Isn't Enough.
December 30, 2002... Hong Mei's 9-year-old daughter desperately wanted a younger sibling. Yi Yi would come home from school, cling to her mother's side and ask, "Why can't I have a little sister?" Hong and her husband, a private entrepreneur, finally decided to...

Hold the Fries.(McDonald's Corp.)
December 30, 2002... As a symbol of American conquest, it's easy to forget how McDonald's was first received overseas. Back in 1974, Britons queued for hours at the opening of a Mickey D's in London. When the Golden Arches sprang up in Moscow not long after the...

Looking Inside.
December 30, 2002... At first light, Morteza wakes up his two daughters, Shirin, 11, and Laleh, 18, for prayers in their central Tehran home. All three frequently pray together, kneeling on the floral carpet in their living room and bowing toward Mecca. The routine...

Another Decade Of Diversity.
December 30, 2002... The big bang is done. The champagne's been drunk. A new Europe stretches from Lisbon to Latvia. And now what? The reality is that the EU's troubles are just beginning. History suggests that successful international cooperation rests ultimately...

A Voice of Conscience.(Imre Kertesz)
December 30, 2002... For decades, novelist Imre Kertesz was unknown even in his native Hungary. When he published a semiautobiographical novel in 1975 called "Fateless," it went almost unnoticed. But two weeks ago Kertesz made literary history when the Swedish...

The Spirit of Giving.
December 30, 2002... In Hollywood, we celebrate Christmas by sending elaborate gifts to people who don't need them. Every agent, studio executive, network president and entertainment lawyer sends every writer, actor, agent, studio executive and network president...

Selling the United States.
December 30, 2002... The consensus among George W. Bush's advisers is that America must do a better job of making friends. Millions of Muslims view America as corrupt, brutal and arrogant, indifferent if not outright hostile to Islamic concerns. Twice lately the...

Perspectives.
December 30, 2002... "States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an Axis of Evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world." President George W. Bush, in his State of the Union address, on Iraq, Iran and North Korea "After all, this is the...

Periscope.
December 30, 2002... ECONOMICS New Year, New Tears? After another grim year, everyone from America to Europe to Asia is hoping for an economic rebound in 2003. Unfortunately, the global economy looks to be two-faced next year: Europe, Japan and much of...

Forcing the World To Sit Up and Listen.(Jeffrey Sachs)
December 30, 2002... Jeffrey Sachs is a macroeconomist by training, an expert in the vagaries of business cycles and international finance. But give the man 10 minutes onstage, and a scholarly symposium starts to feel like a revival meeting. "Let me take you to...

Stopping Type 1 Diabetes.(Brief Article)
December 30, 2002... The long-term effects of diabetes can be devastating--nerve damage, blindness, kidney failure, cardiovascular disease. But a radical new treatment may be able to halt the progression of one form of the disease. In a small study in The New...

Forcing Open Windows.
December 30, 2002... Can anyone compete with Microsoft in the world of software applications? For years now, Bill Gates & Co. have had clear sailing: the Windows operating-system monopoly has helped make their key products--like Word and Outlook--into unbeatable...

A World Is Born.
December 30, 2002... The palindromic year now closing is palindromic only if you count by the arithmetic of the Christian era, and in few years has it been more evident that these numbers (written now in Arabic instead of Roman script) are relative. The past 12...

An Heir To Power.(Zeng Qinghong)
December 30, 2002... Zeng Qinghong? Isn't he a pop singer?" asks Qing Qing, a thirtysomething Chinese woman from the northeast, with conviction slowly fading from her face. Most Chinese could be forgiven for not knowing the bespectacled and seemingly affable man...

Fighting Argentina's Fat Cats.(Elisa Carrio)
December 30, 2002... It is difficult to imagine Elisa Carrio as a teenage beauty queen. The 46-year-old Argentine congresswoman is famously unkempt in her grooming and dress habits--and in a society that places a high premium on fashion and physical beauty, the...

The Tipping Point.(Jalaluddin Taheri )
December 30, 2002... For 30 years, Ayatollah Jalaluddin Taheri delivered sermons to the faithful from the shimmering blue-tiled Friday mosque in Isfahan, Iran. On July 8 he delivered a different message--his resignation. In a bitter letter, which was printed in...

Recovering From The Tech Bubble.(Kai-Uwe Ricke)
December 30, 2002... Among the class of new CEOs at struggling European technology giants, none will be more intriguing to watch in 2003 than Deutsche Telekom's Kai-Uwe Ricke. He shares almost nothing with his flashy and argumentative predecessor from Sony, Ron...

Brain Maker.(Jonas Frisen)
December 30, 2002... Jonas Frisen had his eureka moment in 1993. Back then, scientists suspected that there was a special type of cell in the brain that had the power to give rise to new brain cells. If they could harness these so-called neural stem cells to...

Changing the Rule of Law.(Souad Salah)(Souad Salah)
December 30, 2002... With her glasses, plump rosy cheeks and white crocheted higab, Souad Salah looks more like a grandmother than a revolutionary. But don't be fooled: this 56-year-old Egyptian scholar is quietly challenging the Islamic establishment. Currently...

The Tenor in Cowboy Boots.(Salvatore Licitra)
December 30, 2002... There aren't many men who could fill Luciano Pavarotti's shoes. But Italian tenor Salvatore Licitra seems destined to do just that. Last May, New York's Metropolitan Opera flew the 34-year-old Sicilian over on the Concorde to be on standby for...

Final Bows.
December 30, 2002... PEGGY LEE, 81 The songwriter Alec Wilder once said Lee had a voice like a streetwalker you'd pass by--but if you stopped, you'd never leave. "Now, I don't exactly think of myself as a streetwalker," Lee said, "but I think I know what he...