Newsweek International articles from October 2002

Newsweek International archives from October 2002

Killing Taliban POWs.
October 7, 2002... Readers of our Aug. 26 cover story on Afghan war crimes unanimously admired our investigative report. "Kudos!" cheered one. Another, stunned by our "journalistic integrity and thoroughness, ordered [his] first-ever subscription." Many felt the...

China's Family Ties.
October 7, 2002... Clan roots run strong--and deep--in the village of Da Kengkou, in Anhui province. Nine out of ten families in the village are surnamed Hu. A thousand years ago, so legend goes, the Hus erected a clan temple here. A soothsayer, steeped in the...

A Tide of Civic Pride.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2002... When I returned to China in the late 1990s after an absence of nearly a decade, I was struck immediately by one change. The use of public space was much different. In Shanghai, where I'd lived in the 1980s, there were far fewer political...

Ready for a Role Change?
October 7, 2002... If you think your job is thankless, try working at the International Monetary Fund. Not so long ago the IMF was the pin-striped fireman of global finance, dashing from one national conflagration to the next, and mostly praised for its work....

Dream House.(Beit Palestine, or House of Palestine)(Brief Article)
October 7, 2002... Construction has stopped on Beit Palestine, or House of Palestine, the grand mansion commissioned by Munib Masri, a patriarch of the most influential Palestinian family on either side of the Jordan River. Nearly complete and perched atop the...

Going Its Own Way.
October 7, 2002... Here's the CW. George Bush "went ballistic" over Germany's independent demarche on Iraq, as one White House aide puts it. But has a historic relationship been irreparably harmed? No, say most spinmeisters. Chancellor Gerhard Schroder had an...

The New Berlin Republic.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2002... A transatlantic rift with America. Strains with France and Britain. Murmurings of a new German Question. The problems facing the Berlin Republic are serious--and familiar. Bismarck would sympathize. Too big to fit comfortably into the...

Opus Dei in the Open.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2002... Many of the greatest Roman Catholic saints--Dominic, Francis of Assisi, Ignatius of Loyola--were also founders of great religious orders. To this August list Pope John Paul II will add the name of Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer, the Spanish...

Back to the Future.
October 7, 2002... Sept. 12 started out like any other day for Sergey Kukura, the finance director of one of Russia's largest oil firms, LUKOil: he plunked down onto a soft leather seat in the back of his chauffeured automobile. But as his black Mercedes S600...

A Tale of Two Survivors.
October 7, 2002... Roman Polanski always knew that he was going to make a Holocaust movie. As a child he escaped the Jewish ghetto of Krakow and lived through the bombing of Warsaw. His parents were taken to the concentration camps. His father survived. His...

A Lesson With Punch.(The Pianist)
October 7, 2002... The most frequent criticism of any film that is based on a powerful personal memoir is that the screen version takes too many liberties with what was written, resorting to troubling distortions or outright inventions. Not so in the case of...

Masters of Old Britannia.(On a Grander Scale: The Outstanding Career of Sir Christopher Wren)(Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self)
October 7, 2002... More than three centuries ago, Britain abolished its monarchy for a decade, and the experience proved so traumatic that the country never attempted it again. The fledgling republic, ravaged by civil war, expired as a ferocious hurricane swept...

Art on a New Level.(Mori Art Museum)(Brief Article)
October 7, 2002... David Elliott is the talk of Tokyo. At gallery and museum openings around town, people rush over to shake his hand and chat. Most of the major newspapers have profiled him. As the first director of the Mori Art Museum, slated to open a year...

Dakar's Superstars.(Orchestra Baobab )
October 7, 2002... Back in the 1970s, Senegal's Orchestra Baobab was hotter than the steamy Dakar clubs where the group performed. Since independence in 1960, Cuban and salsa music had been all the rage in the tiny coastal African nation. French governors of the...

Slow Death.(economics Middle East)(Statistical Data Included)
October 7, 2002... One of the most potent threats to Middle East stability doesn't come in a canister or chemical-weapons factory. It wasn't hatched by militant Islamists inside madrasas or sleeper cells. It is largely ignored by diplomats and heads of state, yet...

Flames of Redemption.(Iraq and the Middle East)(Brief Article)
October 7, 2002... One of your endearing qualities is your impatience," a suave and influential Saudi told some U.S. academics last week. But the Arabs are different from Americans, he warned. Arab leaders know what fragile old mosaics their societies really are....

How War Will Open Arab Eyes.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2002... Even a full-scale American propaganda blitz couldn't convince the Arab "street" that overthrowing Saddam Hussein is just or logical. Some Arabs are proud that Saddam has weapons of mass destruction and plans to build more. So the more the Bush...

The Bionic Man.(human-machine research)(Brief Article)
October 7, 2002... To get an idea of the lengths Kevin Warwick will go to to satisfy his scientific curiosity, check out the purple two-inch scar on his left wrist. Last March surgeons hammered a tiny silicon chip studded with 100 electrodes directly into one of...

Advantage, Beijing.(foreign relations in competition with Taiwan)(Brief Article)
October 7, 2002... The tiny Polynesian nation of Tuvalu hardly seems like a place roiling with international intrigue. A necklace of nine atolls strung across the South Pacific, the country has just 10,000 inhabitants, 10 miles of dry land and a lone airstrip...

Europe's Gouging Gap.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2002... The food strikes didn't make an impression. Neither did the cappuccino boycotts. It wasn't until Rosa Berlusconi told her son, Silvio, that pasta prices had trebled since the euro's launch that the Italian prime minister took action. To combat...

Inspections That Work.(Brief Article)(Interview)
October 7, 2002... No one has to convince Robert Gallucci that Saddam Hussein is a dangerous man. In the past 10 years, he's come to know the wily dictator's methods well. In 1991 Gallucci served as deputy executive chairman of the United Nations Special...

Southern Charm.(art of being a Southern gentleman)(Brief Article)
October 7, 2002... This summer I embarrassed my Brooklyn-born girlfriend at a wedding in South Carolina. I had dragged her down to Charleston to meet some friends from the University of the South, two of whom were walking down the long aisle into holy matrimony....

Perspectives.
October 7, 2002... "Most of it was pulp fiction, I'm afraid." George Galloway, member of the British Parliament, on Prime Minister Tony Blair's dossier against Iraq "This is the guy that tried to kill my dad." U.S. President George W. Bush, on Iraqi...

Periscope.(international short news pieces)
October 7, 2002... TERROR The Iraqi Connection In the weeks after the September 11 attacks, security officials around the world were on highest alert. So when a 37-year-old Iraqi national named Ahmad Hikmat Shakir stepped off a plane in Amman's Queen...

Making Scents.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2002... Hollywood hits a new l'eau. The gardenia-scented potions from Kai have won fans like Barbra Streisand, Jennifer Garner and Tyra Banks. "It's just a yummy smell," Banks says. But the real draw was exclusivity: only one Malibu shop carried it....

Letters.
October 14, 2002... Our Sept. 2 piece on the hawks in the Bush administration drew fire from several readers--all doves--who called the president's men "warmongers." One doubted if "Iraq actually harbors weapons of mass destruction." Another warned, "Taking on...

Under the Jackboot : Russia's 'forgotten war' in Chechnya turns uglier--and looks increasingly likely to spread beyond its borders. A report from the front.(Statistical Data Included)(Illustration)
October 14, 2002... It was the kind of story that people in Chechnya know only too well. In the deep of night, Russian troops clad in camouflage uniforms and masks surrounded the village of Krasnostepnovskoye. After a brutal search for presumed rebels, they...

Power and Privilege : Life is tough in Pakistan, for everybody but the generals. The election of a new Parliament will do little to rein in the military, whose spending is strangling the country.(politics)(Statistical Data Included)(Illustration)
October 14, 2002... A score of Pakistani peasants, dressed in shalwar kameez and turbans, stood nervously before a table piled high with land contracts. They had come to the sprawling Military Farms--a 17,000-acre dairy, meat and grain-producing agribusiness in...

Learning From the Student : If Japan wants to stave off a banking crisis, it should look at the path taken by its former star pupil, South Korea.(economics)(Illustration)(Statistical Data Included)
October 14, 2002... Ever wonder what makes Japanese financial markets succumb to near-death spasms every six months like clockwork? Why, each March and September, stock prices in Tokyo tumble, bankers sweat the latent losses hidden on their balance sheets, and...

No Bank Is Too Big to Fail : Japan's new 'economic czar' on reform and the Korea model.(Brief Article)(Interview)
October 14, 2002... He now carries the burden of Japan on his shoulders. Heizo Takenaka was appointed Japan's "economic czar" last week, amid new warnings of imminent financial crisis. He spoke to NEWSWEEK's George Wehrfritz and Hideko Takayama in his office which...

Now, the Hard Part : Afghan women have come a long way since the days of the Taliban. But the rights they've won are more fragile than ever.(Islamic law)(Statistical Data Included)(Illustration)
October 14, 2002... Pudgy and pale-skinned, Fahima sits forlornly in a damp, concrete-walled cell in the Kabul Women's Prison. Her dark eyes peer out from beneath a black head scarf. There are seven other women and 12 children in the small cell, among them...

'Carp' Diem : The Eternal City suffers an acute crisis of identity.(Rome, Italy)(Brief Article)(Illustration)(Statistical Data Included)
October 14, 2002... From the Ponte Sisto in Rome, the view of St. Peter's is postcard perfect. The ancient bridge across the Tiber was built from remnants of various pillages--a chunk of marble from the Colosseum, a cornerstone from an ancient temple. Savor the...

Turning History Into Tourism : South Africans have been quick to commercialize the country's traumatic history of apartheid.(travel industry)(Illustration)(Statistical Data Included)
October 14, 2002... Renate Horst wanted to visit Africa, but she wasn't only interested in running around the bush looking for zebras and hippos. "I told my travel agent I didn't just want to be a tourist. I wanted to go where ordinary people don't get to go,"...

Battle Against the Bugs : Scientists have succeeded in unraveling the genome of the malaria parasite and the mosquito that carries it. But vanquishing this deadly foe will be no simple task.(medical research)(Statistical Data Included)(Illustration)
October 14, 2002... Nomthandazo Ngwenya's reaction upon learning one day last week that she had contracted malaria was to chastise herself for not figuring it out. "For 10 days I had diarrhea, stomach pains, no strength, sweats and cold shivers, and a splitting...

Masters of Old Britannia : Two new biographies explore a golden age of discovery.(On a Grander Scale: The Outstanding Career of Sir Christopher Wren and Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self)
October 14, 2002... More than three centuries ago, Britain abolished its monarchy for a decade, and the experience proved so traumatic that the country never attempted it again. The fledgling republic, ravaged by civil war, expired as a ferocious hurricane swept...

Meals From Underground : Hong Kong gourmands turn to 'secret eating societies'.(private dining)(Brief Article)(Illustration)
October 14, 2002... To find Hong Kong's hottest restaurants, don't bother checking the phone book or strolling through the city's entertainment districts. These days, the most sought-after tables are hidden away, several floors above ground, in the city's cramped...

Terror's Urban Jungle : Pakistan's problems are visibly concentrated in its lawless commercial capital, Karachi. Can anyone stop the rot?(War on Terrorism)(Brief Article)(Illustration)
October 14, 2002... The tragedy of 9-11 brought home the danger posed by failing states like Afghanistan and Pakistan, where poverty, chaos and corruption formed petri dishes for would-be radicals. Now Pakistan's largest city and commercial capital--the sprawling...

Addicted to Japan : Vuitton has tied its fate to the world's riskiest rich nation.(Louis Vuitton S.A.)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
October 14, 2002... On a hot night in August, Japanese movie star Ryoko Yonekura breezed through a wall of fans and a spray of paparazzi flashes into the splashiest party Tokyo had seen in years: the opening of the new Louis Vuitton store in Omotesando. Outside,...

Oil Meets Oxbridge : Blair: The British leader and Bush are on their own.(Tony Blair and George W. Bush)(Brief Article)
October 14, 2002... When George W. Bush first met Tony Blair, at Camp David in February 2001, they looked like the odd couple of geopolitics. The world swiftly pegged them as terminally incompatible: the oil patch meets Oxbridge. Well, the Bush-Blair special...

'Heck, I'd Be Mad, Too' : 'Heck, I'd Be Mad, Too'.(Bill Esrey)(Brief Article)(Interview)
October 14, 2002... The United States has had no shortage of corporate critics in recent months. From fraud to rigged IPOs to simple, naked greed, a stream of negative revelations has badly tarnished the image of the U.S. boardroom. Up until now, many of the...

Koloman, Running.(Short Story)
October 14, 2002... It is just before dusk and the forest is still. I am walking with my nephew Koloman along a trail through the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York. A carpet of fallen leaves muffles our passage--yellow, red and brown. Their colors in the...

Perspectives.(Brief Article)
October 14, 2002... "I think Muhammad was a terrorist." The Rev. Jerry Falwell, an American evangelical Christian leader, on the founder and holy prophet of Islam "The cost of a bullet, if the Iraqi people take it on themselves, is substantially less than...

Periscope.(various; world news)(Statistical Data Included)
October 14, 2002... RUSSIA A Loss for Liberty It's no secret in Moscow that Russian President Vladimir Putin has long had a beef with Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty. It's no surprise either: one could hardly have expected the ex-KGB officer to embrace a...

So Real It Almost Hurts.(sports video games)(Brief Article)
October 14, 2002... Fall is Nirvana for fans of American sports, and not just because of the World Series and the kickoff of the NFL, NBA and NHL seasons. Autumn is also the time when armchair quarterbacks and poolside point guards start playing the latest...

Beyond The Light.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
October 14, 2002... Since 1996, 6 million people worldwide have had Lasik surgery to repair their vision. It's an impressive number for a procedure that involves peeling back a layer of the eye to allow a laser to reshape the surface of the cornea. But it's only a...

Memories of 9-11.
October 21, 2002... Our anniversary report on 9-11's fallout led readers to muse on an annus horribilis. Many e-mailed their love, support and admiration. Wrote one, "I grieve with America... I love your country... your freedom." Others took issue with U.S....

Learning From East Timor.(Brief Article)
October 21, 2002... East Timor is still more an idea than a reality--surviving, for the moment, on the kindness of friends. A former Portuguese colony forcibly annexed by Indonesia in 1975, the tiny state became independent in May- -the first new country of the...

A Place in the Sun.
October 21, 2002... Suddenly, it's a point of pride to be French. Not European, mind you. Not a global citizen, certainly. But tricolor-waving, baguette-toting, looking-down-a-long-de Gaullean-nose French. And why? Because those who have tended to treat France as...

Waiting for Showtime.
October 21, 2002... If you want the quick version of what the U.S. Air Force is up to at Incirlik air base in southern Turkey, skip the briefing-room slide show and check out Hassan's souvenir emporium in the Alley, a strip of shops and restaurants just outside...

Deciphering the Bones.(mass grave of Napoleonic soldiers)(Brief Article)
October 21, 2002... The skeletons were twisted around each other, many frozen in a fetal position as if they were trying to stay warm. There were skulls and tibias, femurs and ribs, all piling up in the claw of the tractor breaking ground for an elite Vilnius...

Flat on its Back.(Japanese economy)(Brief Article)
October 21, 2002... Something fundamental has changed in the way the world sees Japan. Last Friday, at the close of a nail-biting week in which Japanese stocks plunged to levels not seen in a generation, the Bank of Japan, led by outspoken governor Masaru Hayami,...

Longing to Return.(Iraqis artists abroad)(Brief Article)
October 21, 2002... Up the dank stairs of a London public-housing block, past the signs warning against littering and drugs, artist Faisal Laibi Sahi has cultivated a little corner of Baghdad. Inside his tiny apartment, bold cobalt and russet oil paintings of...

Reagan Had It Right.(Ronald Reagan)(Brief Article)
October 21, 2002... In early 1982, German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt traveled to Washington to discuss the crisis in Poland, where communist authorities had imposed martial law and outlawed the Solidarity movement. At a breakfast with Secretary of State Alexander...

China's Changing of the Guard.
October 21, 2002... Becoming the leader of the People's Republic of China is all about survival. In the 53-year history of the regime, China's two pre-eminent leaders--Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping--collectively anointed no fewer than eight men as their successors....

Can Lula Lead?(Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva)
October 21, 2002... These are trying times for businessmen in Brazil, but Michael Haradom isn't suffering. He owns a prosperous agricultural-chemical factory in So Paulo ($50 million in sales last year), a handsome home and four cars. Haradom might be expected to...

Pushed to the Edge.(Japanese economy)
October 21, 2002... A hundred yen doesn't fetch much in Tokyo these days: a few pencils, a plastic hairbrush, the cartoon stickers popular with teens or a stake in one of Japan's biggest companies. Even for the equivalent of 80 cents, few investors think shares in...

Michael Dell.(Brief Article)(Interview)
October 21, 2002... In 1984, Michael Dell dropped out of college and started a computer company. He was 19. His chances of succeeding may have seemed slim. But by breaking conventions and taking risks--both at home and increasingly, in overseas markets--Dell has...

Hidden in Plain Sight.(Bonnie Greer)(Brief Article)(Interview)
October 21, 2002... When playwright and author Bonnie Greer first discovered the famous painting "Portrait d'une Negresse" by Marie Benoist, she was shocked that such a striking image of liberty and nobility had been created at the beginning of the 19th century,...

Bluestone Luck.(Brief Article)
October 21, 2002... Cutler writes for Nerve and The Nation. Most weekends from April though December, come rain, shine or global warming, my husband and I leave the world's favorite terrorist target-- Manhattan--and retreat to an obscure little village...

Voting With Their Feet.(China)(Brief Article)
October 21, 2002... China hands don't like to miss the next big thing. These days many foreign Sinologists are consumed by speculation that the Chinese Communist Party is on its last legs. The hard times in the Chinese countryside will get harder, so the theory...

Suffering a Bumpy Ride.(Zhu Rongji)(Brief Article)
October 21, 2002... Zhu Rongji began his tenure as China's prime minister with a promise. During his now famous March 1998 press conference at the National People's Congress, the bold and freewheeling Zhu pledged that within three years he would turn around...

An Offer They Can't Refuse.(Brief Article)
October 21, 2002... A bloodless transition of power is no mean feat for an authoritarian government that lacks the dubious benefit of being a dynasty. China appears to have managed it once again. But this does not solve the problem inherent to any dictatorship:...

Perspectives.
October 21, 2002... "You can smell the bodies of those who died." A local photographer on scene at the bomb attacks in Bali that killed at least 100 people "Colin Powell's committed to come into the house of the master." Singer Harry Belafonte, criticizing...

Periscope.
October 21, 2002... POLITICS The Anxiety Election The atmosphere in Washington--home of the damaged (and repaired) Pentagon, the anthrax attacks and now the sniper killer--is emblematic of the country. A theme is coalescing in these final weeks of the...

Coming Of The Ultracar.(Brief Article)
October 21, 2002... For downright ostentatiousness, Mercedes's new Maybach 62 is hard to beat. The front and back seats recline to a near-horizontal position-- and the front ones vibrate for a soothing massage. There's a DVD player and three screens, silver...

FAMILY / Taking Some Comp Time.(educational software)(Bibliography)
October 21, 2002... Educational software promises to make playing on the computer fun and informative (think of it as homework disguised as a videogame). More than 600 titles come out each year--see childrenssoftware.com for more info. Which ones are worth buying?...

China's Split Personality.(booming coastal provinces and economically depressed rural areas)
October 28, 2002... For those who know China well, there is no greater sin than to suggest that the country does not make sense as a single colossus. Wonder aloud if it would be better off being chopped into smaller and more manageable states, and your Chinese...

The Kids Are Not All Right.(China's rich children)
October 28, 2002... Peering out over her purple-hued Chanel sunglasses, Maggie Cong saunters into China's ritziest shopping center as if she has entered her own private oasis. Huge crowds are jostling for business on the Shanghai streets outside, but Plaza 66 is...

How to Make a Metropolis.(promoting new cities in China's rural areas)
October 28, 2002... As far as most people are concerned, Xinji is halfway to nowhere--that is, if they've even heard of the place. It's a landlocked former county seat in Hebei province, the heart of China's grain belt, some 250 kilometers southwest of Beijing....

Women Need Not Apply.(factory closings and layoffs in China's northeastern cities)
October 28, 2002... Xiao Wang's eyes well up with tears as she tells her story in a Beijing coffee shop. In 1999 the young beautician left her home in northeast China for the bright lights of the Chinese capital. Three years and a string of low-paying jobs later,...

The Blood Ties That Bind.(China's AIDS epidemic )
October 28, 2002... At first, Ruili seems a lot like any other provincial Chinese town. You might not even guess you were teetering on the very edge of the Chinese Empire. Members of China's ethnic majority, the Han, are a minority in this little city on Yunnan's...

After The Dalai Lama.(Tibetan political life)
October 28, 2002... The Dalai Lama is, fortunately, a very healthy man. Still, Tibetans often discuss life after the Dalai Lama. Such talk has been all the more commonplace in recent years, since Beijing began saying it would never negotiate with His Holiness,...

Barbarians From the North.(Chinese immigrants )
October 28, 2002... Five hundred Chinese refugees huddled together on the rickety boat that carried Tang So away from his native home in southern China. Famine and ruthless Japanese troops had driven the young farmer to the seas, where after more than two months...

Bigger May Not Be Better.(vision of a future China)
October 28, 2002... For 500 years or more the West has had difficulty understanding China, or guessing correctly what China's future would be. We are unlikely to do better nowadays. We have stationed professional diplomats and consuls in Beijing and other major...

Don't Worry, Be Happy.(China's future)
October 28, 2002... Every day the headlines warn us about the awesome social, economic and environmental problems confronting China. But however much I read the papers, I still find it difficult to change my view: I am bullish on China. To be a bear on China's...

Ten Years From Now.
October 28, 2002... Our Sept. 16-Sept. 23 special double issue on futurology excited most readers. Some complimented us, others quibbled with our predictions. One thought that we didn't give future studies enough respect. But most letter writers simply said thank...

Will Europe Go Nuclear?(countries once again looking at nuclear energy)
October 28, 2002... Want to play British Energy minister, boys and girls? Go www.sparkingreaction.info. Click on the games icon and then hit powering up. "Britain's nuclear power stations are getting old," you're told. You need new power plants to replace them....

Bad For Its Image.(online gambling operations and money laundering concerns in Costa Rica)
October 28, 2002... Costa Rica has long been recognized for its idyllic charm. The small, central American nation is democratic, stable and well-known for its progressive environmental policies. More than half a million U.S. tourists visited the country last year,...

The Stupid Loan Bubble.(Motorola and Nokia vs. the Uzans)(wireless operator Telsim)
October 28, 2002... In the walnut-paneled meeting room of a futuristic building outside Istanbul, Murat Hakan Uzan ponders the charges that put his powerful Turkish business clan at the center of one of the most sensationally unraveling deals of the Internet age....

Dreams of Going Home.(Cape Town's District Six neighbourhood)
October 28, 2002... The moment was a long time coming. Crammed into a Moravian church near downtown Cape Town, 2,000 people waited anxiously to hear which 24 among them would be the first selected to return to their old home, known as District Six. For decades...

Dazed and Confused.(Indonesia's Megawati Sukarnoputri)
October 28, 2002... Megawati Sukarnoputri is passionate about her garden. But when two powerful bomb explosions killed more than 180 people on the resort island of Bali on Oct. 12, the Indonesian president dropped her pruning shears and attended to the duties of...

The Amazon Fortress.(Amazon Vigilance System)(surveillance and telecommunications coverage of rain forest)
October 28, 2002... Brazilian air force Brigadier Marcos Antonio de Oliveira will not likely forget the day in 1989 when he flew into Roraima, a rugged frontier territory in the Amazon rain forest. "There were planes everywhere--in the air, on the tarmac, parked...

The Fine Art of Shopping.(exhibit looks at high culture and mall culture)
October 28, 2002... Every mall rat knows that shopping is an art: finding the perfect cashmere sweater, staking out a spot early at the end- of-season shoe sale. Now a new exhibit at Frankfurt's Schirn Kunsthalle celebrates shopping as a work of art. Called...

A Rose Takes Root.(Shakespeare & Company plan open-air playhouse)
October 28, 2002... When the Globe Theater opened in London in 1997, no one knew what to expect. Critics smelled a gimmick in the heavily hyped reproduction of Shakespeare's famous stage and worried that the venue would be more concerned with tourist pounds than...