Newsweek International articles from July 2003

Newsweek International archives from July 2003

A Gallic Response.(Letter to the Editor)
July 14, 2003... Our May 26/June 2 story on French-U.S. tension over the Iraq war led readers to defend France. One who found the piece "fair" said, "Both Bush and Chirac were wrong." Wrote another, "Most of us here supported Chirac's position." And, "We...

Silvio Slips Up.
July 14, 2003... Silvio Berlusconi had a plan. Once Italy took over the rotating six- month presidency of the European Union--which it did last week--the wildly controversial prime minister would launch his very own rehabilitation from his new bully pulpit. The...

Return of the Jews.
July 14, 2003... Each evening, from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m., Ariel Gorelik studies the Talmud in a room with 30 other young men. What's strange is that he's doing it not in New York or Tel Aviv but in Berlin. Eight years ago the 23-year-old left his home in...

Troubled Seas.
July 14, 2003... Scientists aboard the research ship Tangaroa had set out from Australia in search of a particular underwater mountain. It was located in the Norfolk Ridge, out in the middle of the Tasman Sea, and sonar maps suggested that it was just what they...

Those Prying Eyes.
July 14, 2003... Is Uncle Sam playing the role of Big Brother in Latin America? It seems that way to many government officials and private citizens in Mexico and nine other countries in the hemisphere. A Georgia-based data- collecting company named ChoicePoint...

A Deadly Habit.
July 14, 2003... Sitting in a plush leather chair and smoking a Cuban cigar in his office in Jalalabad, Nanghyal, 38, looks the part of a drug-mafia don-- and until recently, he was. Now after 15 years he is bailing out of the opium-trafficking business. He...

The Battle Isn't Over.
July 14, 2003... Who'd have thought that a 100-foot-long ocean creature with a heart the size of a small car would be the first cause celebre for conservationists? In 1982, with 13 major species of whales teetering on the brink of extinction, the International...

Portrait of a Tribe.(Audiovisual Review)
July 14, 2003... Cloistered in the rain forests straddling the Venezuela-Brazil border, the Yanomami are one of the last indigenous tribes living in relative isolation from modern civilization. They number about 20,000, spread across a few hundred villages, and...

Something About Harry.(Book Review)
July 14, 2003... Everyone hates hype, but it was mighty hard to get mad at the hoopla surrounding the June 21 publication of J. K. Rowling's "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" (870 pages. Scholastic). OK, there's always going to be a certain level of...

Pigs With Six Kidneys.(Margaret Atwood calls her latest book, "Oryx and Crake" speculative fiction)(Biography)
July 14, 2003... Though some of history's edgiest writers--including George Orwell and Aldous Huxley--created scary, dystopic novels, none has had the temerity to pull off two conflicting visions of the future. Except for Margaret Atwood. In her 1985 best-...

Arnold Reloaded.(Arnold Schwarzenegger as possible candidate for governor of California)(Column)
July 14, 2003... In all the ways that count in Hollywood--money, basically--he's 10 times the star Ronald Reagan ever was, and he's 10 times more handsome than pro wrestler turned Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura, so Arnold Schwarzenegger has to be considered a...

The Waiter Was Wired.(parents in India hire private investigators to monotor children )(Column)
July 14, 2003... Away at medical school, 23-year-old Swati Mohan (not her real name) reveled in her newfound freedom. She drank, experimented with drugs and engaged in premarital sex--all big taboos for someone raised in a traditional Indian family. Best of...

The Two Russias.(Moscow and the rest of Russia have two separate economies)(Column)
July 14, 2003... Five years ago, Moscow's Gorbushka Market was a window on the lawless Russian economy. Merchants trafficked pirated CDs under the trees or peddled smuggled stereos from the backs of trucks--dodging cops and tax inspectors. These days the...

Is South Korea Socialist?(Editorial)
July 14, 2003... It was shaping up as a good spring for the vocal minority in South Korea. Actors shaved their heads and marched against a plan to allow more Hollywood movies into the country. Bank employees in red headbands and sky-blue shirts banged sticks in...

Ghosts of the Heartland.(Russia's northern population in decline)(Column)
July 14, 2003... The village of Nikolskoye isn't easy to find. Its nearest neighbors will tell you to turn right at the forest edge, follow the trees that ring a large field and hope for the best. If you do find the village, you'll see about two dozen houses, a...

Glasnost in the Air.(Turkey's human rights reforms)(Editorial)
July 14, 2003... Bayram Altinc, who lives in Kazanci, southeastern Turkey, was 15 when he nearly landed in prison for saying he's a Kurd. At school last December he was summoned to lead his classmates in their daily pledge of allegiance to the Turkish Republic....

The Last Word.(an interview with Gen. Wesley K. Clark )(Interview)
July 14, 2003... For a self-described "nonpolitical" person, Gen. Wesley K. Clark finds himself in an unusual position: considering a run for the White House. Earlier this year, a grass-roots organization started a campaign to persuade the four-star general to...

Singing the Internationale.(tenants band together to protect rights)(Column)
July 14, 2003... Communism in Europe collapsed 14 years ago, so I had to come to America to experience a real Marxist class struggle. In February a wealthy businessman bought the building where I live in Manhattan, along with a dozen others. Having spent $109...

Global Buzz.
July 14, 2003... Some Problems deserve to have dollars - or euros or renminbi - thrown at them. Around the world this month, tensions are being addressed with cash. China With remittances from SARS-hit cities down, farmers need help. Beijing will...

Perspectives.(quotations from around the world)(Brief Article)
July 14, 2003... "Bring them on." U.S. President George W. Bush, challenging the Iraqi militants who have been staging attacks against U.S. troops "We need a serious attempt to develop a postwar plan in Iraq and not more shoot-from-the-hip one-liners."...

Periscope.(Russian political campaigns; global politics and economics; reopening the Iraqi National Museum)(Column)
July 14, 2003... RUSSIA Hardball, Kremlin Style Moscow's political class is abuzz with conspiracy theories these days. So what's new? The rumors all involve the Russian parliamentary elections scheduled for December. It would seem that in Moscow,...

How To Go For the Gold.(planning to go to the 2004 Olympics in Athens?)(Directory)
July 14, 2003... The hottest ticket in the world next summer will be a seat to the first Summer Olympic Games to hit Athens, Greece, since 1896. Organizers were able to fill only about half the 600,000 requests they received for the first batch of tickets to go...

Yuppie Camping.(Brief Article)
July 14, 2003... Rugged outdoor types may sneer, but upscale camping is enjoying a worldwide boomlet. Some places where campfires and 500-thread-count sheets will make everybody a happy camper: Australia Tyrconnell brings white linen, draperies and dining...

Cruising Nowhere.
July 14, 2003... In a world still creeping out of recession, many of us don't have the time or money for a long cruise on the Love Boat. So how about a quickie instead? Many cruise lines offer two- to four-day nonstop "cruises to nowhere" that leave and...

The Net's Cool Tool.(Google launches new version of Google Toolbar)(Product/Service Evaluation)
July 14, 2003... Since its launch in 1999, Google has been one of the most indispensable sites on the Web. Now it's about to become an even more indispensable homepage on your browser. Last week the company launched version 2.0 of the Google Toolbar...

The HRT Decision.(hormone replacement therapy)(Column)
July 14, 2003... This year has brought a steady drumbeat of bad news linking hormone- replacement therapy to an increased risk of heart disease, blood clots, stroke and breast cancer. NEWSWEEK sifts through the studies: What should women still taking HRT...

International Mail Call.(Letter to the Editor)
July 21, 2003... Our June 9 cover story on Iraq's missing WMD won praise from readers angered by the invasion. "Bush and Blair attacked a sovereign state that wasn't at war," wrote one. "There's no link with Al Qaeda," opined another. A third blasted "the...

Tony Blair vs. the BBC.(Editorial)
July 21, 2003... Richard Sambrook had hoped to take the day off. The BBC's news director had been working 17 days straight, fighting an increasingly bitter battle against the Blair government over his organization's coverage of the Iraq war. But last Wednesday...

The Invisible War.(Editorial)
July 21, 2003... Suicide bombings are now threatening to become a fixture of Russia's war against the Chechens. Two weekends ago two suicide bombers killed 14 and wounded dozens of others at a Moscow rock concert. Then last week a member of the Moscow bomb...

A Country's Rebirth.(El Salvador has become a viable nation with a future after 11 years of civil war)(Column)
July 21, 2003... The story of Isaias Sandoval Alas says a lot about what has happened in El Salvador in the 11 years since the end of a brutal civil war. The son of poor peasant farmers, Sandoval spent the 1980s roaming the lush hillsides and extinct volcanoes...

Alone in the Crowd.(Tung Chee-Hwa's leadership in jeopardy.)
July 21, 2003... In Hong Kong's central business district, people usually line up at Prada, Salvatore Ferragamo and other luxury retailers to shop for the latest fashions. But recently people have been forming a different kind of queue in this tony...

The People's Voice.(Interview)
July 21, 2003... Anson Chan is still remembered as one of Hong Kong's finest leaders. As chief secretary, she headed up the territory's civil service in the No. 2 post under the last British governor, Chris Patten, and then later under Tung Chee-hwa himself....

Looking for a Fall Guy.(Pakistani Prime Minister Zafrullah Jamali may be on the way out)(Column)
July 21, 2003... Reclining in his crimson leather chair, Pakistani Prime Minister Zafrullah Jamali appeared almost to be enjoying himself as the speakers from the opposition benches in the National Assembly rose one after the other to blast President Pervez...

U.S. Brands on the Run.
July 21, 2003... Does the rising tide of anti-Americanism hurt American multinationals? The vocal antiwar protesters would like to think so, but there hasn't been much evidence for a broader consumer turnoff, until now. In an annual survey conducted since 1998,...

Turning Down the News.(Israel boycotts the BBC.)
July 21, 2003... The BBC promo made Gideon Meir leap from his chair. The media point man for the Israeli Foreign Ministry was at his office late last month when it flashed on the screen--a series of rhetorical questions pointing to Israel as the one country in...

In Search of Noah's Ark.
July 21, 2003... Ten thousand years ago, the Black Sea was a freshwater lake in the middle of a vast, low-lying basin. Its fertile valleys and lush pastures would have given Neolithic hunter-gatherers a perfect opportunity to make the leap to a more settled,...

A Laugh a Day...
July 21, 2003... Hiraku Ohta, a 61-year-old retired engineer living near Tokyo, has had diabetes for 26 years. He tried jogging and low- calorie diets to lose weight. It worked for a while, until he had to endure the stress of a job transfer. For the past 18...

The Next Asbestos?(The use of nanoparticles.)
July 21, 2003... It's a common summer scene on beaches around the world. A mother kneels next to her young boy or girl and applies a thick layer of sunscreen to the child's exposed skin. She's probably read about the rise in the incidence of skin cancer and...

Do It, But Do It Right.
July 21, 2003... Tepperman is senior editor at Foreign Affairs magazine in New York. At each stop on his Africa tour last week, President George W. Bush hinted--without quite committing himself--that he's about to send peacekeepers to war-racked Liberia....

Inventing Hippie Chic.(Biography)
July 21, 2003... At a time when fashion designers routinely stage shows in railway stations or hire actresses and musicians to moonlight as models, couture as theater is something of a cliche. Not so back in the 1960s, when the presentation of a new collection...

The Warrior.(Tony Blair's popularity falling in Great Britain but not in the United States.)
July 21, 2003... It was Thursday, March 20. The United States had begun bombing Baghdad in the predawn hours. According to a new inside account of the prime minister at war, "Thirty Days," by the British journalist Peter Stothard, the assault started sooner...

Sidney Brichto.(Interview)
July 21, 2003... With an estimated 3,000 translated versions of the Bible, does the world really need another? London-based American Reform Rabbi Sidney Brichto thinks so. Over the past two years, Brichto has published eight volumes of "The People's Bible,"...

Not So Black and White.(Observations on a cross country trip.)
July 21, 2003... It was my brother's birthday. The Big 40. So I stirred myself from relaxing in L.A. sunshine and headed east. "How was your flight?" people asked. "Actually," I said, "I didn't fly. I drove." To which they'd reply: "Why?" I asked myself...

Perspectives.
July 21, 2003... "This was a mistake." CIA Director George Tenet, taking blame for faulty intelligence in the president's State of the Union address that claimed Iraq got uranium from Niger "We need to find out what the president knew and when he knew it."...

Periscope.
July 21, 2003... AFRICA Continental Motives? On his whirlwind tour of Africa last week, President George W. Bush pledged $15 billion to fight AIDS, denounced the American slave trade as "one of the greatest crimes in history," toured a wildlife park,...

Steeping Perfection.
July 21, 2003... Andrew Stapley has a confession to make. Every morning the British scientist kick-starts the day with a brew of tea. But his technique puts speed above tradition. No heaped spoons of loose tea, no elegant china teapot. "I do it the lazy way,"...

Books.(Book Review)
July 21, 2003... Summer is here. What could be better than a good book on the beach? We sampled new arrivals at bookstores around the world. Here are some of our favorites: "Truth," by Hideo Yokoyama. A collection of five short page-turners about the...

Some Like It Raw.(Brief Article)
July 21, 2003... Forget tofu--there's a new trend among health-obsessed foodies in the United States: gourmet raw, or "living foods," restaurants. These cutting-edge eateries use only vegetables, nuts, seeds and fruits in their dishes, not heating anything...

Mail call.(Letter to the Editor)
July 28, 2003... Staying Healthy We received a favorable prognosis for men's health from readers of our June 16 cover package. A cancer survivor wrote: "It's time we took better care of ourselves than we do of our cars." Chimed another: "Older doesn't have...

Breaking The News.(Media industry enjoying more freedom in China)(Column)
July 28, 2003... It started at the 21st century Herald. In March its editors decided to run a controversial interview with Li Rui, a former secretary to Mao Zedong. In the interview, Li criticized top leaders and accused the Communist Party of being...

Stay at Home, Europe.(America's strict immigration policies may be alienating some of its closest allies)
July 28, 2003... Like other British citizens, Ali Hasan did not require a visa when he landed at John F. Kennedy International Airport in May. An employee of Human Rights Watch, he was en route to the organization's New York headquarters. He had traveled to...

Taylor's Last Stand.(Liberia's Charles Taylor set to flee the country)
July 28, 2003... The headquarters of Liberia's two main intelligence agencies look like the other government buildings in downtown Monrovia: they're falling apart. Still, they were a center of attention in the waning days of Charles Taylor's disastrous regime....

A Rare Chance For Change.(Western powers can help stabilize West Africa)(Editorial)
July 28, 2003... Morrison is the Africa program director for the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. The crisis in Liberia has its roots in a broader regional decline that, over the course of the 1990s, has severely undermined West...

And They Shall Lead...(Iraq's new Governing Council is unveiled)
July 28, 2003... Seated before an audience at the Baghdad Convention Center, the 25 members of Iraq's new Governing Council looked, at first glance, like an admirable exercise in representative nation-building. It was the council's unveiling, and its members...

An ounce of prevention.(biochip developed by Laboratorio Lazer can detect gene that causes familial hypercholesterol)
July 28, 2003... How do you explain those rail-thin people who eat nothing but fish and vegetables, and who yet somehow manage to rack up dangerously high cholesterol levels? They suffer from an inherited disorder, called familial hypercholesterol. According to...

A Mideast Mandela?(Israel under pressure to free Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti)(Editorial)
July 28, 2003... Fadwa Barghouti was accustomed to 1 a.m. phone calls. The wife of Israel's most prominent Palestinian prisoner, Fadwa had spent months lobbying people on the phone and in person on her husband's behalf. This time Yasir Arafat was on the line,...

Russia's Latest Oil Gusher.
July 28, 2003... It's amazing who you meet on the flight to the oil-boom island of Sakhalin. Sakhalin Airlines is packed with opportunity hunters like Jeetendra Khemlani of Mumbai, future manager of the island's first Indian restaurant, the Taj Mahal, due to...

A Grab For Power.
July 28, 2003... In racing, they call it the "moment"--the split second when a driver almost crashes but by reflex or miracle manages to avoid a disaster. Bernie Ecclestone, the legendary Formula One chieftain, has seen his share over the course of his long...

The Right Stuff.
July 28, 2003... TRUE or FALSE? 1. The body needs cholesterol. 2. The best way to reduce cholesterol is to limit cholesterol-rich foods, such as eggs. 3. To lower your cholesterol, you should stop eating all meat. 4. Any total cholesterol...

Making A Big Splash.(Biography)
July 28, 2003... Francois Ozon has made six films in the past five years, each completely different from the last. Yet his imprint is unmistakable. Eschewing the typical navel-gazing style of French auteurs, Ozon makes movies the old- fashioned way: with...

Sex and Sanctimony.(Venezuelan soap opera combines melodrama with social conscience)
July 28, 2003... In his flowered shirt and snowy beard, Manoel Carlos could have stepped off a tropical-cruise ship. Round and tanned, he looks as placid as Buddha. But it's only an illusion. For months now, Brazil's top television writer has been cooped up in...

Challenging the Qur'an.(scholar's new book a commentary on the Qur'an's early genesis)
July 28, 2003... In a note of encouragement to his fellow hijackers, September 11 ringleader Muhammad Atta cheered their impending "marriage in Paradise" to the 72 wide-eyed virgins the Qur'an promises to the departed faithful. Palestinian newspapers have been...

Home cures that work.(Chinese high-cholesterol remedies)
July 28, 2003... Every day, Fan Zhenglun drinks a bitter green brew, part water and part crushed "pseudoginseng." Practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine consider this plant, local to southern China, an effective way to lower cholesterol, and Fan, the...

Dr. Lee Jong-wook.(new director of the World Health Organization)(Interview)
July 28, 2003... Leading the troops at the World Health Organization has never been an easy job. Now 58-year-old Dr. Lee Jong-wook wants to make it a dirty one, too. On July 21 Lee will replace former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem as director-general of...

How Not to Build a Nation.(Coalition Occupation of Iraq)(Editorial)
July 28, 2003... When Paul Bremer, the Bush administration's top civilian in Iraq, abruptly reversed course and allowed the Iraqis to set up a "governing council" last week, he wasn't reflecting some conversion on the part of the administration to the merits of...

A 'Genuine' Identity Crisis.(fake ID accepted in secure buildings in Manhattan)(Column)
July 28, 2003... The man with the allied security arm patch wanted to see my identification. In New York, the city with the hole where the World Trade Center stood, a guy with an Allied Security patch, or some other real-looking imitation police badge or...

Perspectives.
July 28, 2003... "I think the intelligence I get is darn good intelligence." President George W. Bush, responding to charges that his administration knowingly included faulty intelligence in his State of the Union address "He said 'bring it on'. Well, they...

Periscope.(9-11 report; notable deaths; Singapore's social reforms)
July 28, 2003... Exclusive: Failure to Investigate? The FBI blew repeated chances to uncover the 9-11 plot because it failed to aggressively investigate evidence of Al Qaeda's presence in the United States, especially in the San Diego, California, area,...

You want statins with that?(statins help ward off cardiovascular disease and could be used as a treatment for other disorders)
July 28, 2003... Life was treating Harry Barninka just fine. In the mid- 1990s, the Sao Paulo insurance broker was in his mid-50s, prospering and reasonably fit, carrying 80 judiciously arranged kilos on his 1.8-meter frame. He exercised regularly, consulted a...

Playing hooky.(helpful hints to get you away from the computer without anyone being the wiser)(Brief Article)
July 28, 2003... Remember when you were a kid, able to enjoy all of those lazy days of summer? Nowadays, the closest you get to blue skies and white beaches is that photograph on your screen saver. With modern technology, it doesn't have to be that way; here...

For the landlocked.(ersatz beaches all across Europe)(Brief Article)
July 28, 2003... Everybody loves the beach. But not everybody can go on vacation at the same time--OK, except in France in August. Not willing to wait, last summer the city of Paris set up a an ersatz beach on the banks of the Seine. Nearly 2.5 million people...