Newsweek International articles from March 2001

Newsweek International archives from March 2001

Letters.(Letter to the Editor)
March 5, 2001... Manila's New Beginning Our Jan. 29 report, on the people's revolution in the Philippines, prompted scores of Filipino readers to write in and share their joy, their hopes, their sense of deja vu. "I was moved," wrote an expatriate. "I...

Bordering on Chaos.(Venezuela's border with Colombia)(Brief Article)
March 5, 2001... Colombia's civil war has turned personal for Otto Ramirez. The Venezuelan rancher, 57, never wanted any part of the armed conflict that has killed 35,000 Colombians over the past decade. Even so, he finally saw no choice but to fight--or give...

Reliving Bloody October.(Orr Commission examines Israeli police behavior)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
March 5, 2001... Inside the crowded hearing room at the Supreme Court in Jerusalem, emotions were stretched taut. As an inquiry began last Monday into the shooting deaths of 13 Arab Israelis in October, policeman Alexander Shvatzinsky was testifying about his...

Africa's Imperiled Dream.(democracy dying in Zimbabwe)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
March 5, 2001... The work permit stamped in my passport was still valid. But last week, without any official explanation, I was expelled from Zimbabwe, a "prohibited immigrant." I broke no laws during the nine years I lived in Zimbabwe, working mostly as a...

Riding the Seoul Train.
March 5, 2001... Ho's long road to freedom began atop a mountain of French trash. Back in 1993, when Pyongyang tried to raise foreign exchange by taking in French garbage for $200 a ton, a curious Ho joined college buddies in combing through the refuse. They...

'Could You Take Us To South Korea?'.(two North Korean orphans rescued from China)(Brief Article)
March 5, 2001... Up near the Chinese border with North Korea, where thousands of refugees ford the Tumen River, I crossed my own line. That was where I first met Park Chun-shik and Park Son-hee, two North Korean orphans, while on assignment in China in 1998....

Cash From the Closet.(corruption in Irish politics)(Brief Article)
March 5, 2001... Charles Haughey loved to spend. And the former Irish prime minister spent big. Before retirement he'd acquired a 171-acre island off Ireland's west coast, a private yacht and a 10-bedroom Georgian mansion. Other costly indulgences included...

Raising A Lemon.(Korean car manufacturers struggle to regain popularity)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
March 5, 2001... It was out of embarrassment that Hyundai decided to launch "Operation Dave or Bust." The year was 1998 and the South Korean carmaker was in big trouble. Its U.S. sales had fallen 65 percent from their peak 10 years earlier, and Hyundais had...

Style Icon?(Valentino Mario)(Brief Article)(Interview)
March 5, 2001... During his 40-year career in fashion, the Rome-based designer Valentino dressed some of the 20th century's great style icons, including Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Audrey Hepburn, and along the way has become an arbiter of good taste and...

Where Cheap Is Also Chic.(vintage clothing and fabrics in British fashion)(Brief Article)
March 5, 2001... Sally Sage's wedding dress was beaded cream silk, shot through with rot and mildew after 40 years in her attic. Last week she cried as she watched a model parade it on the catwalk, closing her son's show at London Fashion Week. Designer Russell...

All Work and Plenty of Play.
March 5, 2001... MAXIMOG This super-high-tech expedition vehicle can go almost anywhere on the planet and beam information via a 50-foot pneumatic mast. If the going gets really tough, a BMW off-road motorcycle is strapped to the back. MIND'SPACE ...

Riders on the Storm.(Kurds from Iraq escape to Europe)(Brief Article)
March 5, 2001... The 33-year-old doctor took off his blue overcoat to answer a visitor's question. Why had he fled northern Iraq, paying smugglers $2,000 to take him through Turkey to "somewhere in Europe"? He rolled up the sleeve of his plaid shirt. Why had he...

How to Rescue Turkey.(political process evaluation)(Brief Article)
March 5, 2001... Turkey is already paying a very heavy price for a crisis that seemed, at first blush, a simple clash of personalities between two of our leaders. Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit and President Ahmet Necdet Sezer clashed at a stormy meeting of the...

The American Dream in Living Color.(Colin L. Powell)(Brief Article)
March 5, 2001... Colin Powell's status as Secretary of State, the designated representative of the most powerful nation on earth, totally supersedes his color--at least outside the United States. In America, the view is not only more parochial but...

Electric Charges.(Vatican Radio air pollution case)(Brief Article)
March 5, 2001... Is the vatican above Italian law? Well, officially, yes, thanks to its extraterritorial status in Italy. But a serious case has come up. Italian officials charge that Vatican Radio--which transmits the papal word to the masses--is violating...

Mad Cows and Englishmen.(hoof-and-mouth disease outbreak, United Kingdom)(Brief Article)
March 5, 2001... Even Noah had to deal only with floods. In the past five years Britain's farmers have suffered the wrath of the elements (biblical floods last autumn), a herd of mad cows (BSE) and, now, an outbreak of hoof-and-mouth disease. As the slaughter...

Outside the Sambadrome: Rio's Counter-Carnaval.(Rio de Janiero, Brazil)(Brief Article)
March 5, 2001... This week, when the annual Carnaval Parade gets underway in Rio, an alternative festival will take life in the city's streets. Beyond the floodlights of the publicity-soaked official parade, freelance merrymakers don homemade costumes and put...

Imagine No Possessions.(Michael Landy performance art exhibition)(Brief Article)(Interview)
March 5, 2001... British artist Michael Landy just destroyed everything he owned: from his Saab 900 down to his dirty socks. "Breakdown," his latest exhibit, was set in an unused shopping space on London's Oxford Street. For two weeks a conveyor belt...

Men in Masks.(Zapatista National Liberation Army, Mexico)(Brief Article)
March 5, 2001... The Zapatista rebels have been holed up in the jungle for years, protesting the plight of Mexico's Indians. But without their main rival--the long-ruling PRI--they've lost the spotlight to the new president, Vicente Fox. The solution? A march...

Letters.(Letter to the Editor)
March 12, 2001... The Verdict: Greed Is Not Good Responding to our Feb. 5 story on the recent U.S. job layoffs, many readers fingered corporate America. "You exposed how brutal some managers can be and how 'loyalty' is obsolete in today's business world,"...

The Plan To Refloat Venice : The city is sinking, the sea is rising, and even the government is finally acting to save a national treasure. The Moses Project.(Brief Article)
March 12, 2001... The chic Quadri restaurant in Venice's Piazza San Marco, or St. Mark's Square is known for its signature saffron scallops, its baked gelato--and its Wellington boots. For much of the last year the restaurant's ground- floor cafe, patronized by...

Destroying the Afghan Past : The Taliban take aim at Buddhist antiquities".(Brief Article)
March 12, 2001... Carved into cliffs deep in the parched Hindu Kush mountains of Afghanistan, the towering Buddhist statues of Bamiyan seemed as if they might survive forever. The fifth-century sculptures--the tallest standing Buddhas in the world--have held...

The Teflon Shield : TRENCH WAR: With activists on the march, multinationals are desperate to deflect the brand-bashing attacks of the anti-global protesters. Here's how the prototypical Teflon multinational does it.(IKEA)
March 12, 2001... IKEA is a curious success story. The lines at the Swedish stores are endless, its furniture requires an engineering degree to assemble, yet its $8.5 billion global sales empire is expanding rapidly. Even more interesting is its reputation. It...

Swoosh Wars : EXCLUSIVE - In an operation modeled on the Clinton campaign machine, Nike takes on its enemies.
March 12, 2001... The campus radicals met their shadow from Nike in Chicago. It was day six of a barnstorming summer "Truth Tour," accusing Niketown megastores of selling sneakers and clothes made in sweatshops. Starting out from New York, the 10 college...

Death of the British Farmer : Disease is just the latest crisis besetting rural life. The world of an endangered species.(Brief Article)
March 12, 2001... There was no mistaking the pall that hung over British farming last week. Fed by the carcasses of thousands of pigs, sheep and cows, funeral pyres pumped black smoke into the sky as the country battled the latest scourge to its agriculture...

A Continental Casualty : The costly assault on Europe's keystone agriculture pact.(Brief Article)
March 12, 2001... Not a single case of foot-and-mouth disease has been confirmed on the Continent. Yet the slaughter has already begun. Last week France started killing 50,000 sheep that may, or may not, have come in contact with the virus. Sanitary "national...

An Explosive Wake-up Call : Are angry investors targeting a telecom tycoon.(Brief Article)
March 12, 2001... The Chinese instructions on the explosive are clear: "Light the fuse, wait 15 seconds, stand 40-50 meters away." That's exactly what someone has been doing in Hong Kong over the past two months. In that time police have found fireworks,...

The Japan Connection : ="Europeans disappointed with clunky wireless Internet services are about to get an infusion of smart Tokyo-style technology. Will it make a difference?(Brief Article)
March 12, 2001... Europeans wondering what to do with their agonizingly slow wireless Internet phones might want to check out what's going on in Japan. The country is hooked--chiefly to NTT DoCoMo's i-mode service. Already almost 20 million Japanese use i-mode...

Indonesia's Island Fever: The refugees created by ethnic violence could be the country's next time bomb.
March 12, 2001... The scenes from Borneo last week were both horrific and horrifyingly familiar. Gangs of local Dayaks in the Indonesian province of Central Kalimantan hunted down ethnic Madurese with spears and machetes. Hearts were ripped out of corpses;...

The Birth Of A New Taipei : Citizen pressure has created a clean, green city.
March 12, 2001... There's more than one way to appreciate a tree. On a recent Saturday morning, as he leads 25 parents and schoolchildren along a street next to Taipei's Ta-An Forest Park, Jerome Su stops before a flowering sweet-gum tree. He crushes an aromatic...

Grandmother, Lord, Rebel.(Caroline Cox)(Brief Article)
March 12, 2001... The government of Sudan would use slavery whether or not we redeem some of the enslaved. It is an ideological, not an economic, policy.--Baroness Caroline Cox Baroness Caroline Cox, a deputy speaker of Britain's House of Lords, recently...

MAIL CALL.(Letter to the Editor)
March 19, 2001... 'Fright, Despair and Eventually, Hope' Our cover story on addiction generated much praise for its comprehensive coverage. "Your Special Report was superb for its breadth of views from political, clinical and personal perspectives," said...

Justice Delayed in Belgium.(child murder case)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
March 19, 2001... No one knows when--or if--Marc Dutroux will ever stand trial for some of Europe's most notorious crimes against children. Five years have passed since police searched a house owned by the convicted car thief and child molester in Marcinelle,...

Strangling the Mekong.(Mekong River in environmental danger)(Statistical Data Included)
March 19, 2001... Great civilizations have flourished along the banks of the Mekong River. The Cambodian kings who once ruled most of Southeast Asia built their glorious temples near the shores of the Tonle Sap lake, the Mekong's pumping heart. Later the...

Making the Trains Run.(public works in China)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
March 19, 2001... Dams are not the only massive infrastructure projects beloved by Beijing. China's leadership has hatched several grand schemes: a pipeline to move fresh water from southern China to the north, the highest railway in the world--to Tibet, a plan...

The Grass-Roots Battle.(lowering cost of AIDS drugs in Africa)(Brief Article)
March 19, 2001... At first she struggled to raise the nearly $1,000 a month she needed for an AIDS treatment regime to keep her alive. Once she nearly died from the medicine's side effects, and briefly she had to stop taking any drugs because she couldn't afford...

Dereliction of Duty.(lack of funding for China's schools)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
March 19, 2001... After a massive explosion blew apart a primary school in Jiangxi province last Tuesday, killing 38 children and four teachers, parents reported seeing the tiny hands of the corpses still clutching fuses. The kids, they say, had been forced to...

The True Face of Islam.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
March 19, 2001... Islam may be one of the world's most important religions, but in the West, at least, it has an image problem. Hizbullah in Lebanon, Hamas in the West Bank, fundamentalist violence in Indonesia, the "mullocracy" of Iran, all are seen as...

Rhinoplasty With Rhinos.(foreigners come to South Africa for plastic surgery)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
March 19, 2001... After struggling to raise three children on her own, Diana Davison decided this year to spend some savings on herself. So the British woman and a friend, Kathleen Rosenthal, headed for South Africa, where last week they found themselves...

Paying for AIDS.(costs of AIDS drugs)
March 19, 2001... On Jan. 11, just after London-based GlaxoSmithKline became the world's largest drug company, its new CEO, Jean-Pierre Garnier, spoke to the company's 100,000 employees via satellite. There was the predictable pat on the back for surviving a...

A Modest Proposal.(United States could help poorer countries fight disease)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
March 19, 2001... While America debates the disposition of $5 trillion in budget surpluses over the next decade, tens of millions of impoverished people in Africa will die needlessly of AIDS and other killer diseases because they lack the minimal income needed...

Paris's Urbane Renewal.(profile of Bertrand Delanoe)(Brief Article)
March 19, 2001... Sitting in his campaign headquarters--a onetime cafe near Paris's trendy Marais district--Bertrand Delanoe lights a Davidoff cigarillo and contemplates the cities he adores: New York because "it's a melting pot," Los Angeles because "it's...

Prague.(Czech city becomes international center for film production)(Statistical Data Included)
March 19, 2001... In a blizzard-swept forest, 600 Allied soldiers trudge through frozen mud toward the Stalag 3 prison camp. Inside the barracks, an American GI looks through a window as German guards drag his struggling buddy beyond view. A shot rings out. The...

Sharing Turkey's Pain.(discussion of economic conditions in Turkey and Argentina)(Brief Article)
March 19, 2001... Shades of 1997. Once again, there's hand-wringing over a global financial crisis, loose talk of spreading "contagion" and toppling dominoes. The lira's crash in Turkey sets the next most vulnerable economy awobble--Argentina. After that, who...

The Legacy of Mir: FALLING STAR.(Mir space station to be brought down)
March 19, 2001... People who have lived on the Mir space station say that things seem particularly three-dimensional up there. The main living quarters, about the size of a Greyhound bus, are decorated with carpeting on the floor and lights on the ceiling, but...

Craters Ahead.(future of space stations)(Statistical Data Included)
March 19, 2001... Many aspiring cosmonauts probably feel like Refat Ganyadinov right now. Posing for a photograph last week by a model of Mir in Star City, Russia, the 12-year-old declared that he's got what it takes to become a cosmonaut: "To be a cosmonaut,...

AFTER JAPAN'S MEGA-COLLAPSE.(interview with Yukio Hatoyama)(Brief Article)
March 19, 2001... Last week, Japan's Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori said he would move up the leadership elections for his ruling Liberal Democratic Party--a face-saving way of resigning, probably by early next month. That opens the door for Yukio Hatoyama, head of...

Perspectives.(quotations on current events)(Brief Article)
March 19, 2001... "I am Al Gore, and I used to be the next president of the United States of America." Al Gore, addressing the prestigious Bocconi University in Milan "One House down, and now the Senate to go." President George W. Bush, on the House of...

Oxymoronic?(Oxford Union Debating Society and its tradition of eclectic guest speakers)(Brief Article)
March 19, 2001... Michael Jackson addressed the Oxford Union Debating Society last week. His topic: childhood. This "last bastion of free speech," which has hosted the likes of Winston Churchill and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, now stands accused of dumbing itself...

New Visions.(Cambridge University to broadcast lectures over the Web)(Brief Article)
March 19, 2001... The world's most watched coffeepot is soon to brew its last cup. Cambridge University's project--an Internet video feed of a common-room coffeepot, recognized as the world's first Webcam experiment--is going offline after nearly a decade. But...

Tedious Ted.(Ted Turner,)(Brief Article)
March 19, 2001... Is Ted Turner, who owns more cattle range than anyone in America, suffering from "foot in mouth" disease? On Ash Wednesday, seeing foreheads touched with ash at work, he began babbling about "Jesus freaks." It's not his first swipe at...

Brat, 50, Still Likes Overalls.(interview with the creator of television program Dennis the Menace)(Brief Article)(Interview)
March 19, 2001... Dennis the Menace, the American comic kid, just hit the midcentury mark. Dennis has come a long way; his capers have been chronicled in 19 languages and 48 countries. peri spoke to creator Hank Ketcham, who's now 80: How was Dennis born?...

A Wunderkind Goes Home.(interview with U.S. Treasury Secretary - Lawrence Summers)(Brief Article)(Interview)
March 26, 2001... It was something of a homecoming when former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers was named president of Harvard University. Summers, 46, earned his Ph.D. there in 1982. A year later the economist became the youngest tenured professor in...

Show Us The Money.(foreign investing in American economy)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
March 26, 2001... Americans have always wondered just how much the rest of the world really loves them. Well, we're about to find out. As the U.S. economy slows, people from around the globe will have to decide whether they want to keep putting their savings...

Perspectives.(quotes)(Brief Article)
March 26, 2001... "You should not confuse corruption with bribe taking." Russia's Interior Minister Vladimir Rushailo, arguing that officials are corrupt only if they have links with organized criminal gangs "He was one of us." Russian newspaper...

Bring On the Big Guns.(slaughter of animals to control foot-and-mouth disease)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
March 26, 2001... In the heyday of empire, British snipers picked off colonials during the American Revolution. They took out the French in the Napoleonic Wars and kept troubled Irish dissidents at bay. But now, the crisis is at home. "We should adopt a policy...

This Is Definitely Not a Love Song.(mafia songs)(Brief Article)
March 26, 2001... Rap isn't the only musical form dominated by the gangsta. Last year "Il Canto di Malavita" ("The Song of the Bad Life")--a CD of traditional mafia songs--was released worldwide. And now an elusive foursome is going on tour with the tunes,...

The United Snacks of America.(favorite snack foods and drinks)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
March 26, 2001... Americans have always had favorite snacks, but now they're formalizing their relationships. Take Oceanside, California, which in January chose Coca-Cola as its drink of choice, awarding the local bottling company exclusive rights to sell in the...

Painting a New Portrait of President Putin.(Vladimir Putin)(Brief Article)
March 26, 2001... Collectors and cult watchers, take note. Worshipful portraits of President Vladimir Putin are available at bargain prices from the Soyuz Tvorchestva, a Moscow art gallery. Two local artists decided to pay tribute to their leader with a revival...

Mail Call.(Letter to the Editor)
March 26, 2001... Bin Laden's War Goes Global Not all Muslims have a secret agenda for world conquest," e-mailed one reader in response to our Feb. 19 coverage of Osama bin Laden's growing terror network. Many thought the package was "one-sided" and...

Thou Shalt Buy Stocks.(Japanese stock prices)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
March 26, 2001... As stock prices in Japan collapsed to a 16-year low last week, Tokyo stepped in to pump up the market and rescue the country's sinking banks. That should have been welcome news to Oki Matsumoto, a former partner at Goldman Sachs who, three...

All Hail 'Delinkage'!(European economy not linked to United States)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
March 26, 2001... What a contrast! In 2000, the new economy was to end the business cycle. High growth, employment gains, low inflation forever seemed to be the promise. One quarter into the new year, the New Economy is on its way into the abyss, as they say....

Turning on the Gas.(ExxonMobil Corp. closes Aceh natural gas fields)(Statistical Data Included)
March 26, 2001... Abdullah Syafi is the most-wanted man in Indonesia. But when the supreme field commander of the Free Aceh Movement rumbles into a jungle hideout on his motorcycle, he's dressed for peace, not war. The 45- year-old Muslim rebel, who has fought...

The Wheels of Justice.(human rights violations in China)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
March 26, 2001... When the United States sponsors a resolution condemning China at the meeting of the United Nations commission on human rights that opens in Geneva this week, not much is going to happen. Washington has never been able to muster enough support...

Fire in the Mountains.
March 26, 2001... Sulejman Ramadani, 41, was opening his garage door one day last week when a sniper's bullet pierced his forehead. Now the engineer's two sons, 4 and 2, have no father. The Ramadanis are ethnic Albanians, like most of their neighbors in...

The Gangsters' Paradise.(crime in Albania)
March 26, 2001... Nestled on Albania's southern coast just 45 miles across the Adriatic from Italy, the crumbling port of Vlore is a smuggler's paradise. Countless sandy coves hidden along the rugged shoreline provide ideal loading bases for high-powered...

The Space Siren.(X-33)(Brief Article)
March 26, 2001... The Delta Clipper was a squat little rocket shaped like an inverted ice-cream cone. It never did much. One day in June 1995, out on the White Sands missile range in New Mexico, it rose slowly on a plume of exhaust to a modest height of 2,800...

Trading with the Good China.
March 26, 2001... The last time China invaded India, even the Himalayas didn't prove much of a barrier. Red Army troops poured across mountain passes in 1962, occupying a huge swath of Indian territory--some of which China still holds--and stopping only when...

Minding the Teens.(sexual assault against fashion models)
March 26, 2001... Fifteen-year-old Maja was probably never going to make it as a supermodel. But the pert blonde had something special that caught the eye of a model scout in her hometown of Ljubljana in Slovenia. Massimo Mandelli, owner of the Milan-based Flash...

Trouble in the Barn.(foot and mouth disease)(Brief Article)
March 26, 2001... It all started with a few pigs on a British farm in Essex. But by last week outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease had been reported as far afield as Argentina, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia (not to mention France). The World...

Shangri-La.(expedition in Tibet)
March 26, 2001... Shangri-La. Just say the word, and it conjures visions of a snowcapped paradise. As a geographic place, Shangri-La never actually existed; it was the setting of James Hilton's 1933 fictional bestseller "Lost Horizon," which was made into an...

The New Latin Labor.(cesarean sections)(Statistical Data Included)
March 26, 2001... Nuevo Leon is Mexico's richest state. Picturesque mountains rise over its industrial parks, BMWs cruise its five-lane highways and automatic- teller machines offer the country's highest daily withdrawal limit. And Nuevo Leon holds another...