Newsweek International articles from March 2002

Newsweek International archives from March 2002

Moments to Remember.(Winter Olympics 2002)(Brief Article)
March 4, 2002... A SKATING STUNNER: Sixteen-year-old American Sarah Hughes (center) was not expected to win the women's figure-skating competition. Michelle Kwan of the United States and Russia's Irina Slutskaya were the heavily hyped favorites. But while Kwan...

Founding Fathers.(Convention on the Future of Europe)
March 4, 2002... The Delaware Indians called him wegh-wu-law-mo-end, the "man who tells the truth." That quality seems to have been as rare in 18th-century American politics as it is today. Which perhaps explains how Charles Thomson, an obscure Pennsylvanian...

Where Are You Now Charles de Gaulle?(role of France in a unified Europe)
March 4, 2002... Valery Giscard d'Estaing descended into an inferno of his own making last week, a little hell called Vulcania. The vast new museum-cum- amusement-park devoted to seismic excitements is in France's nowhere land, the Auvergne, where cattle roam...

Where's the Light?(art in Paris)
March 4, 2002... As Gene Kelly said in the old movie musical "An American in Paris," "Brother, if you can't paint in Paris, you'd better give up and marry the boss's daughter." From the mid-18th century on, the City of Light's powerful Academy and magnificent...

If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It!(European Union)(Brief Article)
March 4, 2002... From the United States in 1787 to Eastern Europe in 1989, new constitutions have almost always come in response to crisis. Yet nothing threatens the European Union today. The single market is a success. The single currency is a reality....

South Africa's Lonely Rebel.(President Thabo Mbeki)
March 4, 2002... Thabo Mbeki long has savored this moment in the day. Just after the close of office hours, when the 9-to-5 workers have departed, he summons his close companions for a sundowner. His drink is a tall Scotch. The group may change, but most often...

Going Back to War.(Colombian government attacks Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia)(Brief Article)
March 4, 2002... Everything has a limit--even the patience of Andres Pastrana. For three years the Colombian president tried to negotiate a settlement of the country's 38-year civil war. He bowed to the Marxist rebels' demand for a haven, letting the...

Barefoot Lawyers.(Chinese farmers launch lawsuits)
March 4, 2002... The riot in Liushugouzi unfolded all too typically. Last May a band of local officials descended upon the village in Shandong province to collect overdue taxes and fees--the bane of China's farmers. The authorities set up a "special court" in...

Keeping the Lid On.(labor unrest in China)(Brief Article)
March 4, 2002... The kind of labor unrest that has roiled China since 1997, when state- owned factories began shedding millions of jobs, did not pause for the recent Lunar New Year festival. In one bizarre incident in Guangzhou, seven hotheaded migrant laborers...

Sacrifices of a Street Fighter.(Thandeka Mantshi)(Brief Article)
March 4, 2002... She was lost in the crowd of protesters outside Parliament last week. As township activists shouted under the noonday sun, not afraid to stand up to demand that President Thabo Mbeki launch an all-out war against AIDS, Thandeka Mantshi stood...

Nothing But Music.(Sigur Ros)(Brief Article)
March 4, 2002... The sun had set more than seven hours earlier over the desolate main drag of Mosfellsbaer, Iceland. But inside the town's tiny one-room tavern at about 10 p.m., the entertainment was just beginning. Seated at six long candlelit tables,...

Wine, Food and Art.(Robert Mondavi)(Brief Article)(Interview)
March 4, 2002... He is the uncrowned king of U.S. vintners, revered for his premium wines, his business acumen and his mythic energy. A first-generation Italian-American, Robert Mondavi graduated from Stanford University to build a family wine business with his...

The Curse of the Shanghai Communique.(United States relations with China)(Brief Article)
March 4, 2002... Last week President George W. Bush arrived in Beijing 30 years to the day after Richard Nixon landed in the Chinese capital for what he called "a week that changed the world." By all accounts, there were neither surprises nor important results...

Are Teflon Tony's Days Numbered?(Tony Blair)(Brief Article)
March 4, 2002... At 10 Downing Street, one of Tony Blair's closest aides, Alastair Campbell, keeps a file of newspaper clippings headlined Blair's worst week. It's grown to quite a collection since 1997, when the prime minister came into office on the strength...

Slippery Slope.(Iranian Olympic skier)(Brief Article)
March 4, 2002... I'm from a small ski resort in northern Iran, where my brothers and father taught me to ski when I was 5. At 18, I was bitten by the Olympic bug. Now, at 22, my goal is not to win a medal. It is to perform better than the countries that have...

Letters.
March 4, 2002... Hero or Reluctant Ally? I thought your article "Pakistan's Striving Son" (Asia, Jan. 28) could not have been more appropriate. Despite 50 years of wretched and corrupt misrule by bigots and fascists--both elected and otherwise--the...

Perspectives.(various; politicians/celebrities quotations)(Brief Article)
March 4, 2002... "Let's go home." President George W. Bush, wrapping up a trip to the Great Wall of China, where he spent about 20 minutes "Danny's senseless murder lies beyond our comprehension. Danny was a beloved son, brother, an uncle, a husband and a...

Periscope.(various world news events)
March 4, 2002... Al Qaeda's Supporting Acts Was September 11 supposed to be only one of a series of carefully timed Qaeda attacks on American targets? That theory is gaining currency among investigators in the wake of law-enforcement crackdowns around the...

Dracula Forever.(Romania planning theme park)(Brief Article)
March 11, 2002... In the restaurant Medieval Terasa, in the center of Sighisoara, the menu offers up bloody pork chap. This is not a misspelling. "Chap" is the underside of a pig's neck--not the same as a pork chop. And here it is served seasoned with "Dracula"...

St. Petersburg's Revenge.
March 11, 2002... "The Russian Ark" may just be one of the craziest movies ever made. It was set entirely in the famed Hermitage art museum, with hundreds of period- costumed actors romping through three centuries of Russian history. But the real madness in its...

A New Hanseatic League.(Baltic States)(Brief Article)
March 11, 2002... Back in the early 1990s, an ambitious Finnish company called Elcoteq decided to lower its costs by moving production overseas. First it looked to the Far East, as companies did in those days. Then it considered Russia, though only briefly. The...

The Wired World of E-stonia.(Brief Article)
March 11, 2002... The state chancellery of Estonia, looming over Tallinn's medieval Old Town, is an 18th-century palace. But inside, check out the world's most high-tech cabinet room, where ministers gather every Tuesday in a tableau that begs the question,...

Mugabe, By Any Mean Necessary.
March 11, 2002... Scenes from a guerrilla war. An old blue bus, with a sign on the windshield declaring its destination to be hard times, rattles down a highway in eastern Zimbabwe. By the roadside, a soldier drills chanting youngsters as local villagers look...

"I Am a Proud African".(President Robert Mugabe)(Brief Article)(Interview)
March 11, 2002... Fresh from a campaign rally last weekend, President Robert Mugabe met for 90 minutes with NEWSWEEK's Newton Kanhema. Excerpts: KANHEMA: What effect has the issue of the assassination plot had on the election campaign? MUGABE: When the...

Japan's Forest Ire.(allergy producing cedars)(Brief Article)
March 11, 2002... Hidden behind a white surgical mask and a pair of goggles, Misako Onishi declares in a feeble voice, "This is a living hell." For the usually perky 32-year-old Tokyo resident, the onset of spring means a runny nose, a sore throat, twitchy eyes...

Saddam the Builder.
March 11, 2002... Iraqi engineer Nouzad Ariel is something of an expert on sputtering economic engines. A quarter century ago, as the chief maintenance officer for an Iraqi glass company, he spent several months in Japan near the height of its postwar boom. The...

A Toast to Trouble.(Mexican economy)(Brief Article)
March 11, 2002... Jorge Estrada remembers how quickly Mexico fell apart during its last recession. In late 1994, after the debt-choked government devalued the peso, Mexicans began losing their businesses, homes and cars. Desperation set in. To make up for lost...

Boom in the Gloom.(Indonesia)(Brief Article)
March 11, 2002... Most foreigners look at Indonesia and see the failing state evoked in international headlines: a place choking on smoke from forest fires, drowning in debt and struggling to quell ethnic rebellions and to recover from the Asian financial...

Bureaucracy Beater.(digital identification cards in China)(Brief Article)
March 11, 2002... Thirty-one year old Hong Kong businessman Alfred Wong loves golf, but the wait to join local clubs can take a decade, and he refuses to pay the $650,000 it costs to buy a membership. Instead, once a week Wong makes the one-hour commute to the...

The Threat of a Linux Generation.(increased usage of the Linux operating system)(Brief Article)
March 11, 2002... Even computer programmers can sometimes let their emotions get the better of them. "If I made a great product, and Microsoft offered me a lot of money, I would spit in their faces," says Brett Slatkin, a student at Columbia University in New...

Now Your Dog Can Bark Out Some E-mail.(Bowlingual: wireless device decipher's dog's sound and sends signal for help)(Brief Article)
March 11, 2002... You are in a meeting in Osaka, hundreds of miles from your home in Tokyo. Suddenly an e-mail message on your mobile phone signals trouble: a burglar has broken in. You call the Tokyo police, and they arrive just in time to catch the intruder....

Brother vs. Brother.(Hindu-Muslim relations and political unrest in India)(Brief Article)
March 11, 2002... The scenes from the Indian state of Gujarat last week seemed a decade old. The torching of a trainload of Hindu activists killed 58 passengers and sparked a bloody cycle of retribution. The last time Hindus and Muslims had attacked each other...

School By The Book.(islamic schools)
March 11, 2002... Two dozen soldiers stand guard at the main gate of Istanbul University. They are posted there every day to watch the students walk through the great Ottoman arch. The troops will stop any young woman student who dares wrap her head in a scarf,...

An Admiral on Alert.(U.S. Pacific Fleet Admiral Dennis Blair)(Brief Article)
March 11, 2002... As Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, Adm. Dennis Blair oversees an area that stretches from Hawaii to Afghanistan. Last week in Washington, in a wide-ranging interview, Blair said he believed that the United States should have gone...

South Africa Is Not Zimbabwe.(though two often linked by association)(Brief Article)
March 11, 2002... If things go as planned, Zimbabweans will go to polls this weekend to choose a president. After months of state-sanctioned political terror, President Robert Mugabe has made it clear he'll stop at nothing to win. If he does, Zimbabweans lose a...

It's a Dog's Life.(Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show visited)(Brief Article)
March 11, 2002... For a guy, Frankie isn't exactly macho. He's used to having his nails done to perfection, his teeth cleaned to a brilliant sparkle. But that's nothing compared with his hair. Ever since he was young, he's had his splendid locks rolled carefully...

Letters.
March 11, 2002... Melinda Gates is following an understandable human desire to do something about the terrible conditions in which she saw people living in India ("Bill's Biggest Bet Yet," Special Report, Feb. 4). But it should not be forgotten that the...

Perspectives.
March 11, 2002... "Learn from us how to burn Muslims." Graffiti on a wall on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, the capital of India's Gujurat state, where more than 400 lives have been lost in Hindu-Muslim clashes "I said to them, 'I would advise you not to...

Periscope.
March 11, 2002... EU VS. US Power Diplomacy--Or Just Politics? Talk about disdain. The very public flap between Europe and the United States over Iraq doesn't do justice to the word. When George Bush delivered his "axis of evil" speech to Congress,...

'The German Titanic'.(Gunter Grass's new book Crab Walk)(Brief Article)
March 11, 2002... It was the worst tragedy in maritime history, six times more deadly than the Titanic. When the German cruise ship Wilhelm Gustloff was hit by torpedoes fired from a Soviet submarine in the final winter of World War II, more than 10,000...

Putin's Next Test.(Vladimir Putin, Russia)
March 18, 2002... Boris Berezovsky is working hard. The man who once was Russia's most powerful business tycoon and political kingmaker lives in London, exiled under a cloud of growing criminal investigations. Yet he's doing his best to stay a player. Recently...

Fasting to Death.(prisoners conduct hunger strike to protest prison reform, Turkey)(Brief Article)
March 18, 2002... Basak Otlu never goes anywhere alone. She walks stiffly down the steeply sloping streets behind Istanbul's Taxim Square with her friend Mustafa, who has the same limping walk and the same haunted look in his eyes. Former political prisoners,...

Havel's Exit Strategy.(Vaclav Havel, Czech Republic)(Brief Article)
March 18, 2002... He was the hero of 1989, the philosopher king of Czechoslovakia's bloodless, cheerful and inspiring "Velvet Revolution." And soon, little more than a year from now, after 12 years in the Castle high above Prague, Vaclav Havel will step down as...

From Chips to Paella?(United Kingdom may consider sharing rule of Gibraltar with Spain)(Brief Article)
March 18, 2002... A red double-deck bus trundles down Winston Churchill Avenue. The policemen in the main square wear the outsize helmets of the British bobby. Orderly queues form at the Truly British fish 'n' chips shop. Take away the warm winter sunshine...

Israel's Reluctant Warriors.(Israeli reservists protest occupation of West Bank)(Brief Article)
March 18, 2002... Tepperman is senior editor at Foreign Affairs in New York. When Dick Cheney arrives in Israel next week, he'll find himself in a country all but paralyzed politically. As the body count mounts and the region slides toward war, Ariel Sharon...

Turning the Clock Back To Chaos?(Shining Path party becomes active again in Peru)
March 18, 2002... Mario Ayala Otarola is running scared. The mayor of San Miguel de Ene fled his isolated village in the jungles of eastern Peru last December. He had heard that a column of Shining Path guerrillas operating in the area planned to assassinate...

The Ties That Bind.(history of Korean influence on Japan)
March 18, 2002... She was a daughter of Korea's Paekche kingdom, a foreign princess betrothed in a political marriage to a Japanese prince. As a second wife, Takanono Niigasa struggled to evade palace backstabbing until her husband became emperor in A.D. 770....

Doomed From Within.(relations between Hindus and Muslims, Gujarat, India)(Brief Article)
March 18, 2002... Varshney is director of the Center for South Asian Studies at the University of Michigan. His book "Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life: Hindus and Muslims in India" was just published by Yale University Press. In recent years, relations...

The Secret of a Rock.(search for the oldest records of life on earth)
March 18, 2002... The hunt for the oldest records of life is not a simple task," wrote the eminent paleontologist J. William Schopf in his 1999 book "Cradle of Life: The Discovery of the Earth's Earliest Fossils." "Like trying to solve a really complicated...

The Shackles of Freedom.(experience of women in post-communist Eastern Europe)(Statistical Data Included)
March 18, 2002... When Natasha M.'s circle of friends met at the University of Kiev back in the 1980s, they were full of hope for the post-perestroika era. Over late-night sessions in local cafes, they discussed their dreams of glamorous travel, successful...

Personalizing Purses.(the trend in handbags)(Brief Article)
March 18, 2002... When Anya Hindmarch's close friend had a baby, the London accessories designer came up with a novel gift: a satin handbag with the baby's photo on it. It wasn't a big stretch for Hindmarch; her eponymous company had been printing kitschy photos...

No More Overstuffed Sofas.(modern interior design, China)(Brief Article)
March 18, 2002... The green teahouse in Beijing is not a typical Chinese teahouse. Founded by Suzhou native Zhang Jinjie on the site of a former mansion, it combines elegant Chinese design with music, fusion food and gourmet teas. Ginkgo leaves litter the floor,...

Focus on Style.(Brief Article)
March 18, 2002... Fitting Rooms Miyake Reborn On the site where Issey Miyake launched his flagship Tokyo store 26 years ago, the Japanese designer has just reopened a shop to showcase his new line, Fete. Featuring pleated clothes that come only in black...

How the Mighty Fell.(The Oligarchs: Wealth and Power in the New Russia)
March 18, 2002... Russia's oligarchs were outsiders who became the ultimate insiders. Some of them started off as furtive traders in contraband goods. A few years later they morphed into multimillionaires, emerging from their lavish villas and chauffeured...

Nowhere to Turn for Help.(Brief Article)
March 18, 2002... "Marziya," 36, is hiding at Samarkand's only women's shelter, a private home tucked behind an unmarked iron gate. Her husband began beating her in 1992, at the height of Uzbekistan's economic turmoil. Although the Qur'an prohibits alcohol, "he...

Bush Is No Hypocrite.(George W. Bush, tariffs on steel imports anger trading partners)(Brief Article)
March 18, 2002... In the annals of trade there haven't been many reversals quite like this. George W. Bush from the start has billed himself a free trader. He led the way to a new round of world-trade talks at Doha, Qatar, in November. Now he looks like a total...

'A Fearfulness in the Air'.(Arundhati Roy)(Brief Article)(Interview)
March 18, 2002... Arundhati Roy emerged from jail last week unbowed. The Booker Prize- winning author of "The God of Small Things" had spent 24 hours in a crowded cell after India's Supreme Court sentenced her to a "symbolic" term for contempt as a result of a...

Mind Games And The Quality Of Justice.(Brief Article)
March 18, 2002... On the old radio show "The Shadow," Lamont Cranston possessed the power to "cloud men's minds." If he has a latter-day incarnation, it is Slobodan Milosevic. As Western peacemakers have learned over the years, he is a wily adversary, skilled at...

The Dish On Diners.(Brief Article)
March 18, 2002... The preacher was break-dancing. "Save Jones Diner!... Save Jones Diner!" We chanted along, some imitating his break-dance moves, all of us packed cheek to cheek into a tiny, subway-car-sized eatery in lower Manhattan. The Rev. Billy is no...

The Message of the Books.
March 18, 2002... NEWSWEEK's story "The Lonely Rebel" (World Affairs, March 4), seeking to rubbish President Thabo Mbeki, begs one question: why? Rudimentary fact checking would have averted errors; e.g., I do not chair the cabinet's AIDS panel of ministers, and...

Perspectives.
March 18, 2002... "What do you want us to do? Sit back and play dead?" Raanan Gissin, spokesman for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, on why Israeli forces bombed Palestinian territories, killing at least 40 people "It is just about the Republican right wing in...

Periscope.(Interview)
March 18, 2002... Arthur Andersen: Begging for Business Enron employees thought they had it bad. But imagine being an Arthur Andersen partner trying to persuade accounting clients to stick with an outfit that used to be your typical boring Big Five firm, but...

Colombia's Hard Right.
March 25, 2002... Alvaro Uribe Velez--slight and bespectacled--looks more like a high- school math teacher than a hard-charging ideologue. But there's nothing wimpy about his message: from the moment he declared his candidacy for Colombia's 2002 presidential...

'I Have Been Honorable'.(Brief Article)
March 25, 2002... Alvaro Uribe Velez is a man with a short fuse. During an hourlong interview with NEWSWEEK's Joseph Contreras in a Bogota hotel suite, the 49-year-old presidential candidate bristled over questions concerning allegations of past and present...

Betting the Farms.(Brief Article)
March 25, 2002... This seed corn is tall and lush, growing under irrigation. The soybeans flourish in the care of diligent field hands. More than 150 head of fat brown steers fill a pen, and the newly renovated piggery has grown to 113 sows and seven boars....

Good Enough to Eat?(Brief Article)
March 25, 2002... Ranchers know they're in trouble when their sales pitch amounts to: "Our beef won't kill you." Yet that's the message dozens of foreign meat merchants brought to the annual FOODEX trade show in Tokyo last week. SAFE. NATURAL. HEALTHY....

The Aussies Take Hollywood.
March 25, 2002... They are, after all, officially known as the awards of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. But when the Oscars are presented Sunday, many of the tearful acceptance speeches could have a distinct Australian twang....

Hold The Tofu, Please.(Brief Article)
March 25, 2002... These days, even some of the most quintessential American roles go to Australia's leading men: Gibson plays a U.S. lieutenant colonel in Vietnam and Crowe a schizophrenic MIT professor. Why not? They've got the accents, the training--and the...

Over Troubled Waters.(Brief Article)
March 25, 2002... In ancient times, sailors lived in fear of the violent and treacherous passage between Calabria on the Italian mainland and the island of Sicily. Homer wrote of a whirlpool that swallowed ships whole, and a six-headed monster lying in wait for...

A Long Road to Athens.(Brief Article)
March 25, 2002... Like many other Afghans, former basketball star Maliha Baraki faces a long road back to the competitive world. The Taliban did not spare sports when they attempted to turn Afghanistan back into an eighth- century medieval fiefdom. They...

Turning Off The Lights.(electric power in Europe)
March 25, 2002... When Tony Blair turns on his lights in Downing Street, the power comes from Electricite de France. Reason: when Britain opened its energy market to competition in 1990, the French company leapt in. But fat chance for a British company to light...

The Unfinished War.(Afghanistan)(Brief Article)
March 25, 2002... At the tail end of operation Anaconda, some American victories were a bit Pyrrhic. One platoon from the U.S. Army's 10th Mountain Division was mopping up Al Qaeda positions along a ridgeline dubbed the Whale last week when they came across a...

'How Bad Things Can Happen'.(Review)
March 25, 2002... A key scene in the movie "A Beautiful Mind" purports to show how mathematician John Nash came up with the equilibrium theorem that won him the 1994 Nobel Prize. Attempting to pick up women at a Princeton bar in 1948, the young Nash realizes...

False Spring.(war on terrorism far from over)(Brief Article)
March 25, 2002... Hitchens is a columnist for Vanity Fair. In Washington, March is sometimes the cruelest month. The air softens, the low sky opens up and spreads a bit, and the cherry blossoms begin to burgeon along the avenues and riverbanks. The trees...

Race in the Boardroom.
March 25, 2002... I wish to thank your team for the article "Race in the Boardroom" (Business, Feb. 18). I am the first of my race to have a full-time position at the University level in Austria. In the 15 years I've been on the faculty, I've noticed that racism...

Perspectives.
March 25, 2002... "May God bless our coalition." U.S. President George W. Bush, ending a speech to more than 150 diplomats on March 11. The quote was widely interpreted by the European press as an effort to strengthen an increasingly divided coalition against...

Periscope.(News Briefs)(Interview)
March 25, 2002... First Person Global by Caille Millner Modernizing the Old Missiles The uproar over the Bush administration's leaked Nuclear Posture Review has bewildered top Bush advisers. While international headlines blare the news that the Pentagon...