Newsweek International articles from September 2001

Newsweek International archives from September 2001

Mail Call.(Letter to the Editor)
September 3, 2001... The Keeper of the Lighthouse Readers offered praise for both Katharine Graham and our July 30 tribute to her. "She was admired by people across the political spectrum," wrote one. "We should strive to live as she did--with dignity,...

Dealing With Bad Guys.(Xhavit Hasani and Ljube Boskovski on opposites sides of Macedonian/Albanian conflict)
September 3, 2001... If the NATO mission in Macedonia goes down in flames, it might well be due to two men on opposing sides of the ethnic divide. The Albanian, Xhavit Hasani, 50, is a woodcutter from the hills with an elementary- school education, a rude way of...

Let Europe Do It, Please.(United States' diplomacy in Balkans only symbolic)(Brief Article)
September 3, 2001... Everyone agrees. If it weren't for the Americans, NATO wouldn't be sending yet another mission to the Balkans. The peace plan crafted between Macedonians and Albanians is the result of intense U.S. diplomatic pressure, coming after months of...

The Spread of China Inc.(Haier Inc. establishes American headquarters)
September 3, 2001... The U.S. headquarters of Haier Inc. in midtown Manhattan is a little bit unusual. For one thing, it's hard to get to the receptionist's desk: there are a half dozen black, three-foot-high compact refrigerators blocking the way. Each appliance...

A Shoe Industry's Slow Death.(China taking over industry from Philippines)(Brief Article)
September 3, 2001... Shoes mean a lot to the Philippines, and not just because Imelda Marcos once owned 3,000 pairs. In the 1880s, a wealthy landowner in the town of Marikina, a suburb of Manila, took a trip to England and brought back a pair of handsome shoes. But...

Talking Is Dangerous.(physician charged with blasphemy by Islamic extremists, Pakistan)(Brief Article)
September 3, 2001... Confined to a small death cell in Rawalpindi's Adiala jail, Dr. Shaikh Muhammed Younus's last hope of escaping the gallows lies with his petition to a Pakistani high court. The 45-year-old medical professor was sentenced to death last week on a...

The Nerd Who Saved Brazil.(Arminio Fraga Neto)(Statistical Data Included)
September 3, 2001... No one ever said life in the emerging markets was easy, but these days have been especially bruising for Brazil. To the south, Argentina, a major trade partner, is deep in recession and teetering on the edge of default. To the north, the United...

Getting Brazil Back On Track.(Arminio Fraga Neto)(Brief Article)(Interview)
September 3, 2001... If he had followed family tradition, Arminio Fraga Neto might have been peering through a microscope rather than poring over flowcharts. His grandfather served as Brazil's Health minister, and his father was a renowned dermatologist. But Fraga...

Durban Bound.(World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance)
September 3, 2001... For months Mary Robinson has talked of a "breakthrough," a global "coming together," a hope that has always hinged on a rather extraordinary presumption: that the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related...

Beautiful But Deadly.(over-farming of olives)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
September 3, 2001... In ancient times, to eat an olive was to touch the gods. The Greeks believed it was Athena, goddess of wisdom and war, who gave mankind the divine fruit. They used it to anoint their bodies. The Romans, too, coveted the precious crop, and later...

The Solidarity of Self-Interest.(reparations for African Americans in light of United Nations World Conference Against Racism)(Brief Article)
September 3, 2001... For nearly a decade, U.S. congressman John Conyers Jr. has led a lonely crusade, pressing Congress to consider the case for reparations for black Americans. For most of that time his efforts have been utterly dismissible--as quixotic as the...

The Dot-Com Witch Hunt.(Brief Article)
September 3, 2001... When bad things happen to nice people in the United States, they hire the nastiest lawyer they can find. So it's no surprise that when the dust from the dot-com crash settled, Americans began searching for defendants to sue. Over the past few...

Partying For Profit.(Ibiza's rave clubs)
September 3, 2001... On Ibiza, the Spanish Mediterranean island that is the summer dance- club capital of the world, the scene still looks pretty wild. At dawn on Tuesday 10,000 scantily clad youths are still dancing to the electronic rhythms spun by DJ Fatboy Slim...

Rumble in the Himalayas.(study forecasts massive earthquakes in India)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
September 3, 2001... Images of the devastating earthquake that hit Gujarat, India, last January have yet to fade from memory: buildings reduced to rubble, weeping relatives, the occasional dust-and blood-covered survivor miraculously plucked from the wreckage. That...

The Bard as Capitalist Tool.(Tina Packer)(Brief Article)(Interview)
September 3, 2001... Each summer some of the finest theater professionals in the business trek up to Edith Wharton's Berkshires estate to work with Tina Packer. After an acting career that included work with the Royal Shakespeare Company and BBC Productions, the...

Nouveau Beach.(the Hamptons)(Brief Article)
September 3, 2001... Ah, the Hamptons. Warm, desultory days by the pristine beaches, surrounded by the rich and famous. A summer playground for affluent New Yorkers that attracts the cream of Hollywood and the peripatetic aristocracy of Europe. There's...

Cyberscope.(Brief Article)
September 3, 2001... TRAVEL Eat, Surf and Be Merry Planning to answer your e-mail while on holiday in New York? That may not be easy. The Internet may have been invented in the United States, but America is one of the least likely places where a traveler...

Perspectives.(Brief Article)
September 3, 2001... "Genocide finding could commit USG [U.S. government] to actually 'do something'." Department of Defense memo from 1994, declassified last week, showing U.S. governmental knowledge of the scope of impending violence in Rwanda, as well as a...

Half Empty, Half Full?(World economy)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
September 3, 2001... Can the world be any closer to the cliff of recession? By most indications, prospects have never been bleaker. A dramatic slowdown in Europe. German retail sales dropped almost 2 percent in June. The Confederation of British Industry slashed...

DICTATORS - OUT OF CONTROL.(Alexander Lukashenko )(Brief Article)
September 3, 2001... President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus is Europe's last standing dictator--and proud of it. PERI lets him hoist himself on his own petard: * On opponents of his regime: "It's no problem to chase them out of the country," proclaimed...

Nobody's North.(Northern Ireland)(Brief Article)
September 3, 2001... What a crushing blow to Northern Ireland's quaintly patriotic unionists. These Ulstermen and -women, mostly Protestant, simply can't stomach a future without a British queen. Now comes the news--Britain itself couldn't care less anymore. A poll...

I Say, 'Jump,' You Say, 'How High?'.(Marine training)(Brief Article)
September 3, 2001... Three Italian marines have been charged with manslaughter in the deaths of two Army soldiers from an elite Alpinists unit in Kosovo two weeks ago. The overeager Marines allegedly ordered the two to jump ship--from a helicopter hovering at 60...

Check Mates.(titans of chess)(Brief Article)
September 3, 2001... The three titans of chess--Garry Kasparov, Vladimir Kramnik and Anatoly Karpov--will face off in Moscow in December to resolve once and for all who's master of the game's universe. (Oh, and also to pay tribute to their teacher, Mikhail...

Talking Dead.(Jim Morrison)(Brief Article)
September 3, 2001... June de Young, a California-based psychic, has been inundated with visitors this year--the 30th anniversary of the Doors' singer Jim Morrison's death. Why? Because she channels the legendary "Lizard King" to hundreds of fans. PERI went along...

The Severance Package.(protestors in China, Peru use amputation to make point)(Brief Article)
September 3, 2001... What happened to good old-fashioned placards and peace signs? A group of 20 young South Korean men recently lopped off the tips of their pinkies to protest Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit to a disputed war memorial. Last week,...

This Is Not My Beautiful House...(squatters occupy executive's home)(Brief Article)
September 3, 2001... These are tough times in real estate--even for top economists. Gavyn Davies, chief international economist at Goldman Sachs and deputy chairman of the BBC, received a rather rude surprise when he checked out one of his townhouses in London...

Mail Call.
September 10, 2001... No Place Like the New Big Apple Readers of our Aug. 6 package on how new immigrants have changed New York City's boroughs wrote to applaud our coverage and share their own New York moments. One letter writer complimented us: "More such...

The Berlin Question.
September 10, 2001... The sign doesn't mince words: EUROPE'S FASTEST ELEVATOR. And fast it is. It takes just 20 seconds to zip up to the top of the 25-story DaimlerChrysler building, one of a crop of brand-new sky-scrapers sprouting from the heart of the New Berlin....

Berlin's Unquiet Ghosts.(Brief Article)
September 10, 2001... Even as a New Yorker, it is hard not to be struck by the raw, often- confusing, always-compelling energy of the new Berlin. Yet exciting as the city's transformation may be, the past is a relentless intruder. A walk through Berlin becomes a...

The Never-Ending Story.(Jews of Berlin)(Brief Article)
September 10, 2001... My family and I arrived in Berlin on a memorable day: July 4, 1989, four months and five days before the fall of the Berlin wall. For me, the very name Berlin evoked deeply ambiguous emotions. I had come to be formally recognized as the winner...

Taking On The Machine.(civil engineering fiascos)(Statistical Data Included)
September 10, 2001... The road to Osaki village skirts Aso Bay beneath hills blanketed with lush forest. Like most of Japan's remote Tsushima Island, the area is breathtakingly beautiful--until the undulating shoreline yields to a hideous construction site directly...

The Betting Connection.(government gambling revenue)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
September 10, 2001... For decades, gamblers helped finance small-town Japan. Take the city of Hiratsuka just outside Tokyo, where the local government sponsored betting on bicycle races to help fill the coffers. Now fat-pocket gamblers are turning away from the...

Why the Caged Bird Sings.(Mexican illegal immigrants)(Statistical Data Included)
September 10, 2001... I met Ana in 1998. She had been living in New York for three years, plotting ways to become a legal U.S. resident. The Bush administration could end her wait with some form of legalization for undocumented aliens, but for now she would rather...

Haitian Murder Mystery.(Brief Article)
September 10, 2001... Bodies have disappeared. Suspects have died mysteriously. And the cast of characters who may have conspired to kill Haiti's most prominent journalist, Jean Leopold Dominique, is more colorful than any mystery writer could dream up. More than a...

See Ya, Suckers.(Statistical Data Included)
September 10, 2001... In a matter of months Taechang's northern adventure went from promising to bewildering. In March last year the South Korean company struck a deal with North Korea to open a mineral-water-bottling factory near scenic Mount Kumgang. The water...

An Industry in Embryo.(stem cell research)(Brief Article)
September 10, 2001... For the scientists at Reliance Life Sciences, an eight-month-old medical-research lab in Mumbai (Bombay), the sudden attention from the U.S. medical-research establishment has been intoxicating. In the outfit's fourth-floor conference room late...

The Great Provocateur.(Brief Article)(Review)
September 10, 2001... The go-go bars and whorehouses of Patong Beach are filled with a swarm of hulking, white-skinned Westerners. Moving through the crowds, Americans, Swedes and Australians grope the throngs--and thongs--of Thai prostitutes. Strolling along the...

The Forces of Disorder.(crime in Venezuela)(Brief Article)
September 10, 2001... Lately, the gang known as Los Pegadores (the Hitters) had been hijacking as many as three trucks a week on the freeway that winds from Caracas down through the coastal mountain range to the port of La Guaira. But Thursday, Aug. 23, was a bad...

Raping Borneo.
September 10, 2001... Indonesia's wildlife never had it easy under the dictator Suharto. For 32 years he controlled a logging-and-mining apparatus that steadily eroded the forests and polluted the rivers of this 17,000-island archipelago. The country's population of...

Rebuilding The Colosseum.(Rome)(Brief Article)
September 10, 2001... The Colosseum is like Rome itself. After all these centuries, it never runs out of surprises. One of the latest turned up on a second-tier corridor only a few weeks ago: an amateurish but detailed drawing scratched into the wall. The subject is...

The Unlikely Pacifist.(Brief Article)(Interview)
September 10, 2001... Only two months ago, NATO called him a terrorist. Now Ali Ahmeti, the political leader of the Macedonian National Liberation Army (NLA), garners praise from Western diplomats as a reliable partner for peace. As one observer put it, he "has the...

Letter From America.(policing in New York City)(Brief Article)
September 10, 2001... A few weeks ago my mother called to say there was a warrant out for my arrest. She received the news from Gladys, her 85-year-old landlady, who barricaded herself inside her Brooklyn apartment and refused to come out and speak with the two...

'Don't Mail Me, I'll Mail You'.(Brief Article)
September 10, 2001... Remember the non-hierarchical workplace? Internet companies made the idea fashionable a few years back: no titles, no offices and even a lowly assistant can challenge the decisions of the chief executive officer. Many management gurus predicted...

Perspectives.(Brief Article)
September 10, 2001... It should have more oomph in it than this." John Williamson, partner at the Wolff-Olins brand consultancy in London, on a planned slogan for euro notes and coins which was unveiled, along with the currency, in Frankfurt, Germany, last week:...

Spin (Out of) Control.(NATO and Macedonia)(Brief Article)
September 10, 2001... Last week British paratrooper Ian Collins, 22, was killed on the first day that NATO began collecting weapons from Albanian guerrillas in Macedonia. Officials blamed a gang of youths who threw a concrete slab off a bridge onto a British jeep....

Whip It!(flogging punishment)(Brief Article)
September 10, 2001... Flogging has long been an accepted punishment in Iran. Just swilling booze will get you 50 to 100 lashes. But some reformist government ministers argue that public whipping's bad PR--especially while Iran courts foreign investors. The...

Notes From the Global Recession.(Brief Article)
September 10, 2001... Whither the global economy? No one's quite sure, but it's getting messy. With neither rhyme nor reason, PERI offers the week's offbeat Recession Watch. PLEASE HOLD: Nigeria's telecommunications giant, NITEL, cut off all police hot lines in...

Fake ID.(Little League scandal)(Brief Article)
September 10, 2001... Dominican Republic-born Danny Almonte was the talk of America last week, but not because he recently pitched a perfect (no hits or walks allowed) game in the Little League World Series. It's his age. After much speculation, an official from the...

Holiday Bargains?(homeless tourism)(Brief Article)
September 10, 2001... When planning your next holiday, consider spending four homeless nights in one of your favorite European capitals. The Dutch company Kamstra Travel offers the chance to live like a vagrant on the streets of London, Paris, Brussels, Prague or...

Pig Farmer-In-Chief.(East Timor leadership)(Brief Article)
September 10, 2001... East Timor's independence hero Jose Alexandre (Xanana) Gusmo has always shunned government. When he recently caved to popular pressure and announced his candidacy for president in next year's election, he stressed that he'd rather raise pigs...

Fear of Flying.(Aaliyah plane crash)(Brief Article)
September 10, 2001... The controversy surrounding Aaliyah Haughton's death in a plane crash is far from over. It turns out the 22-year-old American R&B superstar was hesitant to board the tiny Cessna from the Bahamas to Miami, Florida. One friend who was with her at...

If You Smoke, Don't Tell Dr. Abe.(includes multiple articles)(Brief Article)
September 17, 2001... From the moment Kayoko Ito took her first drag on a cigarette, she felt she could quit anytime. But she never did. Then she signed up for Sotsuen Net (QuitSmokingNet), a mobile-phone-based service for those who wish to break the habit. Four...

Mail Call.
September 17, 2001... The Newest Imports in Europe Our Aug. 13 package on Europe's immigration policies prompted many readers to share their concerns with us. "Germany plans amendments, but the changes are merely cosmetic," wrote one immigrant. Some Europeans...

A Social 'Neutron Bomb'.(HIV infections in Russia)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
September 17, 2001... Elena Yaskevich hunches over her desk and lights up another cigarette. Her office phone, one of Moscow's few drug-addiction hot lines, rings once again. She begins yet another round of questions, the same as the last. "How old is your...

The Open-and-Closed-Door Show Trial.(Brief Article)
September 17, 2001... When Afghan judges allowed nearly 70 people into a courtroom in Kabul last Saturday--including foreign journalists, diplomats, eight Western aid workers accused of spreading Christianity and their relatives--they were among the first to witness...

Putting on the Gumshoes.(Japan)(Brief Article)
September 17, 2001... Yasuo Sumida is hot on a suspect's trail. His target--a middle-aged man in a dark suit--enters a department store in central Tokyo and heads for the furniture section, where he spends the next half-hour idly perusing tables, chairs and sofas....

A Survivor Abandons Ship.(Kim Jong Pil)(Brief Article)
September 17, 2001... Playing king is not so easy in South Korea. Of the country's last six presidents, one was assassinated, one was exiled, two were sent to jail and one disgraced. But playing a kingmaker is a different story. No one understands that better...

Out of the Closet.(gay activist Noel Chen)(Brief Article)
September 17, 2001... The protest certainly made for good TV. Last month gay activist Noel Chen was led--tied up, hooded and pulled by a leash--to the gates of the central police station in Hong Kong. His comrades bound him spread-eagled to the iron fence in order...

Trouble in Shangri-La.(Tibet)(Brief Article)
September 17, 2001... The weary Tibetan monks were panhandling a long way from home. In desolate Qinghai province several weeks ago, they sadly displayed ID cards and photographs from the Buddhist community at Sertar in Sichuan province, a 35-hour bus ride away....

Hash Makes a Comeback.(marijuana)(Brief Article)
September 17, 2001... Abu Ali is back in business. Wading through a fertile field in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, the 30-year-old farmer squeezes the bud of a seven-foot-high plant and rubs the sticky juices between his fingers. The fragrant, spiky-leafed crop extends...

Fast Fashion.(Amancio Ortega Gaona)
September 17, 2001... At 11:15 on a Wednesday morning in May, in an industrial park outside the port of La Coruna in northwestern Spain, a 65-year-old man in casual business attire shambled out of his office and into a room with a TV set. Fifteen minutes later the...

How Many Germans Does It Take to Make a Czech Car?(Skoda Automobilovy Koncern Ltd.)(Brief Article)
September 17, 2001... Every schoolkid knew the jokes. What do you call a Skoda convertible? A Dumpster. How do you double a Skoda's value? Fill the tank. For a generation of Western motorists, the Czech carmaker was a rare export rattlebug that ranked barely ahead...

The Art of Autumn.
September 17, 2001... Movies The Fellowship Of the Ring Let the fantasy wars begin. The first installment of New Line's $300 million "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, this long-awaited film, starring Ian McKellen, Liv Tyler and Cate Blanchett, promises to hew...

A Victory for One, Not Many.(East Timor)(Brief Article)
September 17, 2001... Once upon a time the result would have been clear cause for celebration: a tiny country frees itself from the shackles of a colonizing power and, in free and democratic elections, brings its freedom fighters to power. But in East Timor, that...

The New 'Silk Road' of Death.(heroin smuggling)
September 17, 2001... Col. Ulbaidulo Ahmadov climbs out of his rickety Soviet-era military vehicle. Ahead, down a long hillside of parched grass and across the shallow river Pandj, is Afghanistan, the source of roughly 75 percent of the world's heroin. Keeping it...

Feeding North Korea.(Catherine Bertini, United Nations. World Food Program)(Brief Article)(Interview)
September 17, 2001... Millions of North Koreans depend on Catherine Bertini for their next meal. As executive director of the U.N. World Food Program, she oversees a humanitarian operation that has sent more than $900 million in food aid to that nation since 1995...

The Boringness of Computers.(Brief Article)
September 17, 2001... Technologies come and go, but fame is even more fleeting. Back in the 1980s when a few techies with connections to the Defense Department were playing around with computer networks, who cared? It wasn't until Web browsers made it possible to...

Letter From America.(Brief Article)
September 17, 2001... Melissa, my lovely fiancee, is the bourbon drinker in the family. She also holds a grudge. So the other night she reached into the closet where we keep the emotional baggage and reminded me that four years ago I went to Scotland without her to...

Perspectives.
September 17, 2001... "Cooperation is not a nicety. It's a necessity." Mexican President Vicente Fox, urging the U.S. Congress to work with Mexico on stamping out illegal drugs "The great achievement will be to get an agreement at all." Mary Robinson, U.N. High...

From Bad--to Worse?(unemployment)(global recession)(Brief Article)
September 17, 2001... The startling jump in U.S. unemployment has jolted stock markets and Finance ministries around the world. Economists no longer mutter merely about global recession. With all big economies now sagging, the D word is creeping into the lexicons of...

Praying For a More Stable Currency.(Turkey)(Brief Article)
September 17, 2001... It seems neither the IMF nor the Turkish government can prop up the plummeting lira. What to do but pray? So sayeth the Friday sermons, uniform in Turkey's state-controlled mosques: "The national currency is the symbol of national pride." Many...

Sleepin' Space.(Mini Station 1)(Brief Article)
September 17, 2001... Well, fly us to the moon. MirCorp just announced plans for an operational commercial space station by 2004. Dubbed Mini Station 1, the heavenly "hotel" will cater to "citizen explorers"--meaning citizen millionaires. (Dennis Tito recently paid...

A Pawn or a Predator?(Eriberto Mederos)(Brief Article)
September 17, 2001... Was Eriberto Mederos, 78, a coldblooded torturer who gladly did Fidel Castro's bidding, applying electro-shock treatment to political prisoners in Cuba in the 1970s? Or just a humble orderly who followed doctors' orders? Stay tuned for the...

Bad Heir Days--Kaddafi's Kids.(Brief Article)
September 17, 2001... It's not easy keeping the kids under control during the summer, even for Muammar Kaddafi. His son Motassim has roiled Sardinia's Porto Cervo with his boorish behavior: getting thrown out of the club Sottovento for shouting at waiters, blocking...

Scary Gary.(Gary Condit)
September 17, 2001... Congressman Gary Condit's recent TV appearance didn't do much for his career. But it sure made BuyCostumes.com happy. The company was suddenly deluged with requests for a Condit Halloween mask. BuyCostumes. com will make only about 1,000...

Sex Ed.(school principal's sex change)(Brief Article)
September 17, 2001... Dr. Donald Reed, a Chicago school principal, returned to work this fall... as Deanna Reed--after a summertime sex-change operation. Five years ago that would have been unheard of. But now, according to the International Foundation for Gender...

Desperate Times, Deplorable Measures.(Holy Cross Girls' Primary School in Belfast)(Brief Article)
September 17, 2001... No ordinary day at school: Roman Catholic children attending Holy Cross Girls' Primary School in the largely Protestant Ardoyne area of Belfast had to be escorted to classes by Royal Ulster Constabulary security forces last week. Loyalist...

Hot Off the Press.(Polish-language edition of Newsweek)(Brief Article)
September 17, 2001... Our Polish-language edition is off to an exuberant start. NEWSWEEK Polska, published with Germany's Axel Springer, sold out its first print run of 400,000 within 24 hours of hitting newsstands on Sept. 3. Editor Tomasz Wroblewski's mission: to...

Knock Out... and Knock Off the Pounds.(boxing video game)(Brief Article)
September 17, 2001... Videogames might help hand-eye coordination, but they rarely do a body good-- until now. New at arcades across America, MoCap Boxing (short for "motion capturing") uses wired gloves to count the calories you burn as you pound an on- screen...