For decades China has battled militants of the Muslim, Turkic-speaking Uighur minority who seek an independent homeland. After the U.S. launched its “war on terror” in 2001, China began to brand the separatists “international terrorists,” with Washington’s approval. But it never proved a foreign link. After the recent raid, however, the official Xinhua news agency claimed that Al Qaeda had helped train 1,000 ETIM fighters.
There were earlier signs of a possible Uighur-Qaeda link. Since 2001, the U.S. has detained nearly two dozen Uighurs at Guantánamo Bay. (Most were captured in Afghanistan and Pakistan.) But last year cracks appeared in what had looked like a growing U.S.-China alliance after the U.S. released five Uighurs and refused Beijing’s demands to repatriate them. Washington feared they’d be tortured, and now questions whether ETIM are “international terrorists” after all. “Some officials in Washington feel they’ve been misled by the Chinese,” says Dru Gladney, a Pomona College expert on Chinese minorities. “There’s little evidence that ETIM is linked with Al Qaeda.”
In fact, some experts say ETIM actually disintegrated after its leader was killed by Pakistani troops in 2003. Even if it didn’t, it’s not clear why it would set up shop inside security-obsessed China, rather than in Afghanistan. Gladney says China has “lost credibility” on the subject, but it’s not likely to change its course. Set to host the 2008 Olympics, Beijing is determined to stamp out any threat of disruption, terrorist or otherwise.
The spat between Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and George W. Bush is obscuring the fact that the Americas are dividing along many lines. Chávez has so many moderate Latin rivals, led by Brazil, that some analysts talk of a new Tordesillas line: that was the imaginary border drawn by Pope Alexander VI between Spanish and Portuguese holdings in the New World, back in 1494.
This trend threatens the summit this week of Mercosur, the regional trade group that just accepted Venezuela and its ally, Bolivia. But Chávez is not the only spoiler. The group is led by Brazil and Argentina, whose disputes continue to hold back the region. While trade within Mercosur is growing, trade with the outside is growing faster. To hedge their bets, junior partners Uruguay and Paraguay are flirting with the bilateral trade deals that Washington is dangling before many Latin nations. That’s probably not a bad move, since the new Tordesillas line could last another 500 years.
The Nobel Prize is a lot more than a medal. Winners get $1.4 million and the world’s best résumé line. Here’s another thing to file under “life’s not fair”: Nobel winners also live longer. New research from the University of Warwick says that academics who get the fateful phone call from Sweden stick around about two years longer than colleagues who don’t make the final list. The effect mirrors what’s been seen before in Oscar winners, whose life spans grow with every statue they take home. (Tom Hanks will be with us forever.) Since only four people have ever won multiple Nobels, though–and one, Marie Curie, had a shorter life because of her prize-winning work on dangerous radiation–the researchers couldn’t document a truly identical trend. Still, they were able to figure out that, as with Oscars, it wasn’t the cash that did the trick. Apparently, the key to long life among Nobel laureates was simply having the bragging rights.
The research has some lessons for mere mortals, too: it throws new light on an ongoing argument about why people of high social status tend to live longer, regardless of how much health care they get. One theory holds that winners–of prizes, but also in the game of life–are so buoyed by their achievements that their brains are “buffeted against any subsequent adversities,” says the University of Toronto’s Donald Redelmeier, who studies the Oscar phenomenon. In other words, stress doesn’t bother these folks as much. Redelmeier’s own explanation? After you’ve reached the pinnacle, you behave more carefully. “You’d be quite disinclined to be seen drunk in public if you’ve got a Nobel Prize,” he says. Unless, of course, you’re tipsy from a little celebratory champagne–or, for that matter, a toast to your longevity.
Since its arrival in April 2005, Super Columbine Massacre RPG!–a downloadable videogame re-creating the school shooting–has drawn outrage. Last week it was cut from the finalists at Utah’s upcoming Slamdance Guerrilla Gamemaker Competition, but six of the other 14 finalists quit in protest, saying games should be able to tackle real-life tragedies, just like indie films. Jonathan Blow, one of the dropouts, says that as long as games are seen as “just for kids … we’re not going to get where we need to go.”
A discussion of the game has been added to the festival, but Slamdance president Peter Baxter says SCMRPG! is out. “Just consider the [victims’] families,” he says. SCMRPG! creator Danny Ledonne has told other finalists that he plans to go to the festival anyway and distribute copies of his game.
Claudia Roden is a Francophone Egyptian Jew whose ancestors were spice traders, and she’s a one-woman window on the Middle East. Her new cookbook, “Arabesque: A Taste of Morocco, Turkey, and Lebanon,” offers fresh insight on a region many view in terms of politics and religion. With 150 recipes and dozens of essays on unfamiliar ingredients and customs, “Arabesque” whisks the reader through history, from the ancient Phoenicians to the kitchens of the Ottoman sultans, from ninth-century Baghdad to the Lebanese civil war in the late 1970s and'80s. For example: couscous, she writes, was brought from Ethiopia to North Africa in the seventh century by conquering Arab armies, perfected by Berbers and was recently voted the most popular dish in France. There’s also a brief taste of politics: among both Palestinians and Israelis the subject of falafel can spark debates as vehement as those about Jerusalem.
Where can you find a Saudi breakdancer, a Lebanese temptress and a narcoleptic sheik? At Ikbis (“click” in Arabic), a new Web site that lets Arabs join the file-sharing craze. Internet use in the Middle East has increased fourfold in the past six years, with more than 20 million logging on each day. The first Arabic-language service of its kind, Ikbis has already struck a chord–more than 1,000 files went up within a week of its November launch, and the site now tops 30,000 page views a day. Like YouTube, Ikbis attracts humorous clips. But politics are never far behind in the Mideast; users have shared George W. Bush parodies and home movies of the recent wars in Lebanon and Gaza. The Saddam execution video was up briefly, before administrators took it offline. (“We all agreed that reality needs to be conveyed somewhere, but not on Ikbis,” site co-creator George Akra wrote in an e-mail.) Ibkis’s creators say they hope to provide a public forum for a region where a tight lid is kept on public expression. “I think we’re all, globally, just starting to understand the power of these digital tools,” says Ahmad Humeid, an Amman-based graphic designer and one of the site’s founders.
The battle between rival high-definition DVD technologies continues, but new hybrid players and discs that can handle both formats may bring peace. The obstacle: price.
3: Number of movie studios that have chosen to release new DVDs using the Blu-ray format exclusively.
2: Number of studios that are producing DVDs using both Blu-ray and its rival format, HD-DVD.
1,200: Price in U.S. dollars of LG’s new hybrid player, which can handle both HD-DVD and Blu-ray.
400: Price in U.S. dollars of Toshiba’s lowest-priced HD-DVD player.
title: “International Periscope” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-01” author: “Jessie Hamm”
Unseemly CEOs
More accustomed to being praised than pilloried, Jack Welch tried to make the uproar over his perks-for-life retirement deal go away last week. In effect, he decided to give it all back (though he’ll keep his $9 million annual pension). He’ll write GE a check every year for about $2.5 million for all the stuff he was getting for free–the $15 million Manhattan penthouse, the 737s, the helicopter, the limo.
But as it turns out, Welch is not the only former CEO getting perks for life. After he cut his deal with GE six years ago, compensation pros were quick to dig his new contract out of SEC documents shareholders rarely scrutinize. Soon CEOs were waving Welch’s deal in front of their own boards, demanding similar treatment, pay consultants and corporate directors tell NEWSWEEK. While no CEO admits to mimicking Welch’s contract, the executive elite began getting similar deals. IBM’s then CEO Lou Gerstner renegotiated his contract to extend his perks for 20 years after retirement. Larry Bossidy, the former Honeywell CEO, cut a perks-for-life deal, which he says is much less generous than Welch’s. Emerson Electric’s former CEO Charles Knight–who approved Gerstner’s deal as an IBM director–got his perks extended 15 years beyond retirement. “Jack’s contract became the gold standard,” says one pay consultant.
So will other CEOs now give up their perks, too? Gerstner declined to comment. Bossidy insisted to NEWSWEEK his perks are reasonable and “worth dramatically less than Jack’s.’’ Through a spokesman, Knight denies patterning his retirement on Welch’s, and contends his deal is fair.
The SEC, which is investigating Welch’s contract, is considering tougher disclosure rules for all retirement deals. But even if the SEC determines the Welch deal was legit–as Welch and GE insist–critics say it is still immoral. “It’s like someone who goes to an all-you-can-eat buffet and stuffs their pockets, their pants and themselves,” says Charles Elson, director of the Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware. “It may be legal, but it’s extremely rude.” Given how many shareholders have lost their savings recently, some better manners might be in order.
Middle East
Arafat’s Alamo
The noise of bulldozers tearing down walls crackled through the phone line as Nabil Abu Rdeneh, Yasir Arafat’s chief aide, described the situation as “serious, difficult.” This understatement came as the Israeli dismantling of the Palestinian Authority HQ stretched into a third day. Rdeneh told NEWSWEEK the Israeli objective “is to bring about the end of the Palestinian Authority.”
What does Israel want? The immediate demand was for Arafat to turn over 20 “wanted men” holed up in the compound. He refused. It was thought his West Bank intelligence chief, Tawfik Tarawi, allegedly one of the principal figures behind the funding and training of guerrillas who carried out attacks on settlers in the West Bank, was among those he was protecting. But sources tell NEWSWEEK Tarawi fled the HQ hours after the Hamas suicide attack in Tel Aviv last Thursday.
A European diplomat who has been a key intermediary in past negotiations believes that the standoff could go on for weeks. If Arafat gives up the wanted men now, “it would destroy [his] image on the street,” says the diplomat. So the familiar question is being asked again: will this be Arafat’s last stand?
Korean Peninsula: The Forgotten Ones Not only Japanese were infuriated when North Korea apologized last week for the kidnapping of 13 Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s. In South Korea, 486 people have allegedly been abducted by the North since the end of the Korean War, and families of the missing have never received an inkling of an apology from Pyongyang. Their anger isn’t directed solely at Kim Jong Il’s regime–it’s aimed at their own leader, Kim Dae Jung, because he’s never even asked for one.
Seoul publicly acknowledges that the victims were kidnapped for the same reason as the Japanese abductees–to train a cadre of North Korean agents capable of blending into other societies.(Much of this info came from spies who had been found out.) But the South has thus far been unwilling to broach the touchy subject with the North, and the families accuse Kim of worrying more about his “sunshine policy” of reconciliation with Pyongyang than about their loved ones. Last Thursday a dozen families who’d lost relatives wrestled with police to enter the National Unification Ministry in Seoul. It was a display of violent emotion, frustration from the sparse news they’d had on the fates of those they’d lost. With a letter of protest in hand, they demanded the issue be placed on the agenda in North-South talks. Officials countered that some of the families had actually been able to meet their relatives because of the rare reunions that have come out of the “sunshine policy” over the past two years. But to families of the lost, chance encounters along the DMZ are not reward enough.
Turkey
Sidelined Contender
What makes a coup a coup? Ask a Turkish politician–after four of them over as many decades, they’re experts on the subject. They might say (quietly) that the common denominator is the country’s ultrasecularist and politically powerful military. So when the leading contender in November’s parliamentary elections-former Islamist Recep Tayyip Erdogan–was banned from running last week, the obvious question was, has the Army struck again?
Three years ago, under the notorious catchall treason law, Article 312, Erdogan was imprisoned. His crime? Reciting a well-known poem with a religious theme during a public speech. The article also stipulates that those convicted are forbidden to hold political office for life. However, the law was abolished as part of an EU- inspired reform package passed this summer. Erdogan swiftly appealed to have his conviction struck from the record, stopped calling himself an Islamist and began his run to become Turkey’s next prime minister.
Enter the judiciary, a vehemently conservative group, many members of which share the Army’s secularist ideas–and suspicion of Islamists. Taking an uncompromising view of Turkey’s half-reformed and often contradictory legislation, the Supreme Court ruled that Erdogan’s conviction must stand, disqualifying him from public office–along with dozens of other Islamists and Kurdish activists.
If the intention was to hurt Erdogan, it’s seriously backfired. “Night is always followed by bright morning,” said a buoyant Erdogan in a nationwide television address, predicting that “we are coming to power” despite the ban. His AK party, which has Islamist roots, is already leading polls with 24 percent to the next rival’s 16 percent–and early indications are that Erdogan’s martyr status will only increase the party’s popularity. Deputy leader Abdullah Gul could well become Turkey’s next prime minister.
The big loser will likely be the country’s EU hopes. Ankara has been trying to get the EU to set a date for accession talks at its Copenhagen summit in December–but one of the major criteria is that candidates be “functional democracies.” In Turkey’s case, dysfunctional may be a better word right now.
Television
Tune In, Vote Out
A television network in Argentina has an answer for apathetic voters: change the channel. Next week, America TV begins its broadcast of “The People’s Candidate,” a democratic variation on the unending slew of reality programs. The winner of this game (or civic service) won’t be taking home a million bucks, but rather a chance to win a post in the country’s legislature as a representative from Buenos Aires. More than 1,000 people applied for slots, a number whittled down to the 16 who will appear on the show’s late-September-to-December run. Viewers get to phone in votes for their favorite candidate, narrowing the field down to four finalists, one of whom will win a fully funded campaign.
Are they qualified for stints as local politicos? A team of expert judges (the station’s own famous TV journalists) says yes. Not just anyone can apply. Candidates must meet the legal requirements: minimum age of 25 and residence in the capital. They must also present a practical platform. (Read: no far-out radicals bent on singlehandedly reshaping the pension system.)
What worries some cultural critics is that whoever ends up becoming “the people’s candidate” has a fair shot at winning the election, scheduled for March 2003. Candidates need only around 125,000 votes to secure a seat in the house, equivalent to just 1 percent of a TV-ratings point. Even scarier, because the offices are filled by proportional representation, enough votes for the TV contestant–and thus the People’s Party–means the winner could name other members of the house. (There are 12 seats up for grabs.)
The producers concede that if the show flops, the campaign of the wanna-be congressman goes with it. But if it’s a hit, the voice of the people will be heard in the volume from their television sets.
title: “International Periscope” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-11” author: “Miriam Gullickson”
Ties to a Qaeda Chief
The feds charged Uzair Paracha last week with providing cover for a suspected Qaeda terrorist in the United States. But they didn’t reveal their suspicion that Paracha and his father have ties to senior members of Al Qaeda, including 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. Paracha–possibly through his father, Saifullah–may have been recruited by Mohammed. The FBI believes Paracha’s role was to help maintain the cover of a key Qaeda operative based in Baltimore who was planning attacks in the United States after 9/11.
After his capture in March, Mohammed told U.S. interrogators about possible “sleeper agents” he had set up inside America. He had recruited operatives who had easy entry to U.S. territory as green-card holders (like Paracha) or U.S. citizens. Mohammed said one element of his sleeper network involved using Paracha’s father’s import-export firm as a cover for smuggling explosives into the United States, according to an FBI report on Mohammed’s interrogations.
Shortly after Mohammed started talking, U.S. investigators rounded up some of the suspects identified by the Qaeda chief, including Paracha and Iyman Faris, a Columbus, Ohio, truckdriver whom Mohammed had assigned to surveil the Brooklyn Bridge and then to buy acetylene torches that could be used to cut its suspension cables. Last week the Feds charged Paracha with providing support to Al Qaeda, including conspiring with two unidentified Qaeda operatives to acquire ID papers that would help one of the terror suspects enter the United States. According to a government source and Paracha’s lawyer, the suspect whom Paracha is accused of helping with the ID papers is Majid Khan, a former Baltimore resident now in custody overseas, whose family owned gas stations in Maryland. According to FBI documents, Mohammed told interrogators that he and Khan had planned to simultaneously blow up the underground storage tanks of several gas stations. Though his lawyer says Paracha is not a terrorist and was unaware of any planned attacks, he concedes that Paracha did phone U.S. immigration authorities on Khan’s behalf–a call that prosecutors allege was part of an attempt to keep Khan’s U.S. immigration status regular so he could get back into the country. Paracha’s father has not been heard from since his arrest in Pakistan last month. Farhat Paracha insists neither her husband nor her son was involved in terrorism.
WMD
Perilous Proximity
For all the energy the United States is spending searching for WMD in Iraq, Washington doesn’t seem to care all that much about the WMD right under its nose. Nearly 1,400 Russians from the town of Shchuchye are suing the Kremlin for compromising their safety when authorities began to improperly dispose of nearly 2 million artillery shells full of nerve gas stored nearby. Two lawsuits are seeking $50 million in damages. But the real culprit may be Washington, which a decade ago pledged $800 million to build a factory to dismantle the shells. It was never built, and the plaintiffs charge the government violated the law by disposing of the weapons without it.
Lack of financial transparency is part of the problem: a recent study by Russia’s Audit Chamber found that tens of millions of dollars in funds earmarked for Shchuchye projects have been misappropriated. But a lack of political will is even more critical. The financing for Shchuchye has repeatedly been held up on Capitol Hill for a variety of reasons, most often congressional accusations that Russia is failing to disclose details of its ongoing chemical-weapons research.
Meanwhile, locals continue to complain of a host of illnesses like hair loss and skin and lung ailments. (Doctors allow that these might be caused simply by the fear of living in such proximity to toxins.) Although the courts in Moscow haven’t been receptive to their complaint so far, there is still an outside chance that the Shchuchye suit could set a legal precedent. That would cause both Moscow and Washington serious headaches: Russia has more than a hundred weapons sites that are similarly in need of cleanup.
Iraq
Chalabi’s Ambitions
Bush administration factions are skirmishing over how big a postwar role should be played by Ahmad Chalabi, the former exile who heads the pro-American Iraqi National Congress. One particularly divisive issue: Chalabi’s relationship with the ayatollahs who run neighboring Iran. Last January, according to INC sources, Chalabi met in Tehran with officials from several ministries, who told him they worried that post-Saddam Iraq could become a base for anti-Iranian agitation. Chalabi assured them that he would “try to prevent this.”
U.S. government officials say that intelligence reports about Chalabi’s visit to Iran suggested he had assured the Iranians that their influence would be “safeguarded” in a postwar Iraq. Sources say the INC leader’s enemies in Washington–who include the CIA and State Department–used the intelligence about his Tehran visit to press the White House to block moves by Chalabi, which were backed by Pentagon conservatives, to set up a prewar government-in-exile. Some sources say officials in the office of Vice President Dick Cheney were particularly dismayed at Chalabi’s alleged soothing of Iran. An administration source denied that Cheney aides were distressed over intelligence about Chalabi’s visit to Tehran. A White House official said that while some administration factions might favor Chalabi, it is the policy of President George W. Bush and national-security adviser Condoleezza Rice that Chalabi’s leadership ambitions be given no greater weight than those of rival contenders.
Alliances
Courting Anew
The great divide seems to be narrowing. President George W. Bush, addressing reporters in Texas last week, went out of his way to praise Germany, that second-to-last bastion of bloody-minded Old Europe. “I want to say something about Afghanistan,” said Bush, taking his cue from no question in particular. “Germany has taken a very active role in Afghanistan, and we’re very thankful for that. As NATO steps forward, Germany has assumed a big responsibility. And we really appreciate the German participation.” He added that Germany’s participation is “important” and “robust.”
So what gives? It seems only yesterday that Washington and Berlin were at each other’s throats over Iraq. But apparently the United States is tired of being hammered as a unilateralist, and has even realized it needs Old Europe–at least Germany. So it is launching a charm offensive to woo the Germans back into its camp. Bush wants to work with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder, a senior administration official tells NEWSWEEK, and aides are close to finalizing a “bilateral” between the two next month at the opening of the U.N. General Assembly in New –York. “We want some things from Germany,” says a U.S. State Department official. More help in Afghanistan is one. Another would be German support for a second U.N. resolution, should it come to that, on rebuilding Iraq.
A top administration source confirms that Bush will also meet with French President Jacques Chirac, burying the hatchet over Iraq (at least publicly) but with far less warmth and political consequence than with Schroder. The aim is to keep France happy, while breaking down the Franco-German axis of anti-Americanism, says the official. As Bush put it last week, he looks forward to “thanking Chancellor Schroder” for his country’s recent assistance. Chirac might have to settle for one of those photogenic handshakes and pats on the back, signifying a whole lot of nothing.
ABORTION
To Pop or To Protest?
It’s known as the star pill for its distinctive shape. And for a growing number of Latin American women, Cytotec has become a symbol of hope. Most countries in the region have strict anti-abortion laws, and an estimated 6,000 women die from illegal abortions each year. Now word is spreading that popping Cytotec–an ulcer-fighting drug also known by its generic name, misoprostol–may be a safe alternative. Taking eight to 16 pills can induce a miscarriage within days.
Although reliable data are unavailable, anecdotal evidence suggests Cytotec use is on the rise: some pharmacies in the Dominican Republic report selling as much of it as they do aspirin or cold remedies, and a 1999 survey of 500 women who were hospitalized for abortion complications at a So Paulo medical school found that 91 percent had taken the drug. Part of the reason is price: abortions can cost anywhere from $300 to $1,000 in clandestine clinics; Cytotec pills run a dollar a pop. But obviously the greater motivation is convenience and anonymity. The pills are sold over the counter in most of the region.
Anti-abortion groups are condemning the practice, and they have the backing of some well-respected medical journals, which have published articles warning of side effects like nausea, fever and hemorrhaging. But many experts, including Dr. Marsden Wagner, the former World Health Organization director of Women’s Health, argue in favor of the pill. Just look at the alternative, they point out. “The reality in the Third World is that if a poor woman doesn’t have the Cytotec, she’s going to get a back-alley abortion, which has 10 times the risk,” says Wagner. Even the FDA has changed U.S. Cytotec labels to recognize this alternate use. “Medically, there are no reasons not to do this.”
TECH
Dial M for Molester
Cell-phone abuse is getting out of hand around the world. U.S. gyms are banning camera phones for fear that people will take inappropriate photos of unknowing subjects. In June a Melbourne man pleaded guilty to taking pictures of young girls changing at a suburban pool, while eager readers in Japanese bookstores reportedly click away at pages of their favorite magazines to get out of buying them. Web sites in Asia have appeared boasting of out-of-focus “upskirt” shots of unaware women taken by cell phones, while one American Web site showcases camera-phone images of women’s backsides. Saudi Arabia does not want to bother with the gadget’s implications; camera phones have been banned in the whole country.
Bullies have gone high tech, too, using text messages and voice mail to threaten their victims long after school is out. This type of bullying has surged over the past two years, according to Glenn Stutzky, a school-violence expert at Michigan State. “With regular bullying, kids could go home at the end of the day and find some peace,” Stutzky says. “Now, there’s no escape.” A 2002 British National Children’s Home study found that one in four children in the United Kingdom were bullied by cell phone or the Internet. From his experience in the field, Stutzky says cell bullies are often middle- or upper-class, and the majority are female. He says that girls usually prefer more subtle methods, so cell phones make the perfect tool.
Toys
Flavas of the Week
All was not well in Barbie dreamland. The buxom-but-wholesome blonde’s worldwide sales were down 8 percent, and last year’s tween-geared spinoff, My Scene, didn’t do the trick. Mattel needed something to woo girls from Bratz, MGA Entertainment’s pouty-lipped anti-Barbie that was stealing away girls ages 9 to 11. Mattel’s solution: an anti-Barbie of its own. The result is Flavas (pronounced flay-vuhs), a line of six edgy, hip-hop-inspired dolls. Their breasts are smaller, their hips are wider and–how to put this?–baby’s got back. The dolls flaunt midriffs and sport flashy bling-bling. “Younger girls want the fantasy of Barbie,” says Jerry Bossick, a Mattel senior vice president. “Older girls want a doll that represents realistic aspirations.” There’s no Barbie Dream House here–Flavas come with a cardboard cutout wall with graffiti.
Some think these Flavas leave a bad taste. “When I saw the dolls I was in shock,” says Raquel Wilson, editor in chief of hip-hop e-zine Verbalisms. “They completely misrepresent the culture.” She takes issue with the superficial treatment of the movement, and notes that the term “flava,” which means personal style, is no longer commonly used.
Q&A: James Brown
The Godfather of soul is almost the grandfather of soul. In his 50-year career, he’s racked up 119 hit singles, earned a Grammy lifetime achievement award and an induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But the septuagenarian isn’t ready for retirement just yet. He’s touring again this summer and is set to star in a reality show that is now in development for VH1. Brown recently waxed lyrical with NEWSWEEK’s Karen Fragala at his home in South Carolina. You’ve worked with rappers before. Would you collaborate with P. Diddy or Dr. Dre?
No. I love them very much, but they don’t understand the music. It’s all one note.
Are there any artists out there now worth listening to?
I like Lenny Kravitz a lot. He’s good for the system. He’s got mixed parents.
Tell me about your friendship with Elvis.
I admired the man because he made it. He had the feel of a black man. He was a great performer. I was lucky that he was like Hertz and I was like Avis. He had it made, but I had to try harder.
How did your childhood in the American South–picking cotton and living in your aunt’s brothel–influence the path you took in life?
Everything I know now, and even more, I know because I went through all that. The one who went through the school of hard knocks is the one most likely to succeed–if the hard times don’t knock him down.
BRITAIN
Answered Prayers?
Talk about a divine intervention: in England all believers and nonbelievers may soon enjoy an extra day off from work. Parliament recently passed the Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations Act of 2003 to protect Britons from religious discrimination in the workplace, guaranteeing every employee a religious holiday. As of December, the country’s faithful will be allowed to celebrate the festival of their choice without fear of getting fired.
It sounds reasonable, but only up to a point, says Ray Silverstein, an employment-law specialist for Browne and Jacobson, the consulting firm that commissioned a recent report on the negative impact of the law on Britain’s businesses. The law defines religion as “any religion, religious belief or similar philosophical belief” that fits such criteria as having “collective worship.” That means the 390,000 Britons who listed “Jedi Knight” as their religion in the 2001 Census might legally claim the release of the next “Star Wars” DVD as a religious holiday. The law may also cause confusion for bosses unfamiliar with obscure beliefs, like the guy in the mailroom who claims he’s a Druid and takes off to Stonehenge every summer solstice.
Employers have a strong incentive to grant requests; should bosses be unrelenting, employees will be able to proceed to an employment tribunal to receive damages. Of course, the law asks for employees to be reasonable about their claims. But try telling that to a grown man dressed like Boba Fett.
title: “International Periscope” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-04” author: “Luis Marion”
One unpublicized reason the Bush administration issued last week’s warning about new Qaeda hijacking threats is that U.S. intelligence acquired evidence from terrorist hideouts showing how Osama bin Laden operatives would try to smuggle weapons through U.S. airport checkpoints. According to federal officials, what particularly scared analysts was the discovery, at Qaeda lairs overseas, of hand-carried travel items (including cameras and boomboxes) that had been modified to conceal small weapons. Terrorists could retrieve them after going through security and use them to commandeer planes. A Homeland Security Department bulletin sent to airlines and leaked to the media claimed that U.S. intelligence had no reason to believe that such equipment had actually been deployed. But sources told NEWSWEEK the fact that terrorists had gone to the trouble to manufacture weapons-smuggling devices was sufficiently alarming to warrant the hijack warning.
U.S. officials wouldn’t say where the physical evidence was discovered. But they did acknowledge that one key source for intelligence was Ali Al Ghamdi, Al Qaeda’s reputed leader in Saudi Arabia and a suspected mastermind of the May 12 Riyadh bombings. Al Ghamdi, also known as Abu Bakr, gave himself up to Saudi authorities in late June. Officials indicated Al Ghamdi’s information about the threat was corroborated by other sources, including electronic intercepts. Some officials caution, however, that, like other Qaeda captives, Al Ghamdi could be making up the threats to fool or curry favor with interrogators. Officials also say public disclosure of the hijacking threats, which supposedly were to be carried out in late summer, may have disrupted the terrorists’ plans.
The warning suggested hijackings could occur at several locations around the globe, including the Eastern United States, Britain, Italy or Australia. Several U.S. officials told NEWSWEEK their understanding was that one reason Al Qaeda was still interested in hijackings was that the bin Laden network always liked to “return to the scenes of the crimes”–and particularly to finish off targets that it might have missed in earlier attacks. One target the terrorists might want to revisit is the Capitol building. A law-enforcement official said that investigators were “99 percent certain” that the hijackers who commandeered the 9/11 plane that crashed near Pittsburgh intended to crash it into the Capitol. A spokeswoman for the Capitol Police said her agency was aware of possible Qaeda designs on the Capitol and that security in the complex was on heightened alert even before the latest threats surfaced.
–Mark Hosenball
Global Buzz: The ‘Don’t Count Your Chickens’ Edition
Memo to popular leaders in Latin America and iron-fisted ones in Iran: Times may be good now, but don’t get too cozy. Just look at Liberia.
Argentina Kirchner is cruising so far. But upcoming elections will rouse his many enemies just when he needs support for tough, IMF-mandated policies.
Colombia Uribe is riding high, too. But voter fatigue might scuttle a crucial reform referendum. If so, the prez will be a lame duck by winter.
Iran Inflation and unemployment are sky-high, and fuel and food subsidies will last only while oil prices are as well. When they fall, so could hard-line clerics.
Liberia To make any intervention work, Washington must force an inclusive political dialogue. Fat chance: Either government or rebel thugs will continue to rule.
China: Bye-bye, Beidaihe
Right about now, the mandarins of the Chinese Communist Party should be swimming and schmoozing at Beidaihe, the seaside enclave 175 miles from Beijing where the country’s rulers traditionally meet at the end of each summer. In years past, leaders from Mao Zedong to Deng Xiaoping to Jiang Zemin have used the informal talks at Beidaihe to consolidate their rule, make personnel promotions and discuss the fall’s policy agenda. So those who spend their time reading tea leaves in Beijing are more than a little curious about why current President Hu Jintao canceled the meeting this year for the first time in decades.
Why the change? Some analysts see a pattern developing. When British Prime Minister Tony Blair arrived in Beijing on July 20, Hu welcomed him with a small, private dinner rather than a typically lavish banquet. Canceling Beidaihe could similarly reinforce Hu’s image among the populace as a no-nonsense technocrat, more concerned with results than pomp and circumstance. It could also be meant to send a message to Jiang–with whom Hu has so far had a somewhat contentious relationship. Hu is keen to gain political capital by appealing to the masses and lower-ranking party members, in contrast to Jiang’s association with wealthy private entrepreneurs, says Sinologist Victor Shih.
Given a hiccuping economy and the recent SARS scare, frolicking in the waves now would likely send the wrong message to ordinary folks, says Mei Renyi, a professor of diplomatic relations at Beijing Foreign Studies University. What’s certain is that despite having been president since March, Hu remains an enigma. And this year at least, he’s not going to reveal any more by stripping down to his swimming trunks.
–Jen Lin-Liu and Melinda Liu
Scandals: A Pyrrhic Victory?
Redemption finally arrived last week for Motorola and Nokia, victims of one of the largest swindles in history. After a trial that capped a twisted chain of events that began five years ago, a U.S. federal judge ruled that the two companies–which had loaned $2.7 billion in cash and equipment to the Turkish telecom firm Telsim–had been the victims of “a huge fraud” perpetrated by Telsim’s owners, Turkey’s mega rich Uzan family. To the delight of the two telecom giants, the judge ordered the Uzans to pay $4.26 billion in damages. The judge also ordered jail time for the Uzans for failing to comply with court orders.
However, enforcing the rulings on the clan will be difficult. Based out of Turkey, the Uzans dispute the jurisdiction of the New York court and have vowed to appeal the ruling. And for Motorola and Nokia, collecting from the family–or any of the 130 shell companies they control–won’t be any easier, as much of their business is located in Turkey. Motorola is even contemplating going after banking giants UBS and ABN AMRO, which may have “aided and abetted” the Uzans with their fraud, according to Motorola chief litigator Howard Stahl. (UBS denies any role in the scam, and ABN AMRO declined to comment on client activities.) Given how difficult it could prove to take on just one family like the Uzans, Motorola should be prepared for many more days in court if it does go after the big boys.
–Samuel Lowenberg
Iraq: Family Affairs
When Saddam Hussein’s two widowed daughters, Raghad and Rana, pitched up in Amman, Jordan, last week with their nine children, they took to the airwaves to praise their father and bemoan the “treason” that led to his fall. They left the impression they had just arrived from a hideout in Baghdad. In fact, NEWSWEEK has learned, they were in the Iraqi capital for a month after it fell to American forces, and then joined their mother, Saddam’s principal wife, Sajida, in neighboring Syria. Sajida remains there, though Syrian authorities are insisting that she keep a low profile. (Sources say Sajida refused to accept asylum with her daughters while her husband was still on the run.) Washington has thus far shown little interest in the female members of Saddam’s extensive family; his daughters were granted refuge in Jordan only after the arrangement was vetted by U.S. authorities. Nevertheless, Damascus is sensitive to suspicions that it may harbor Iraqi fugitives, and doesn’t want Washington to think Saddam might join one of his wives.
–Rod Nordland
Exhibits: King of Cool and Kalakuta
Even by the standards of the Age of Aquarius, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti was wild. So perhaps the only surprise about a vibrant exhibit in his honor at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York is that it’s taken so long for such a project to be put together. In his mid-’70s heyday, the Nigerian musician widely regarded as the father of Afrobeat was a sex symbol and political dissident, performing in leopard-skin briefs, indulging in giant marijuana spliffs and surrounding himself with gaggles of girls. He married 27 women in a single ceremony in 1978, and set up a commune in Lagos called the Kalakuta Republic, which he declared independent from Nigeria. Fela even tried to run for office as the “Black President.” His death was as dramatic as his life, induced by an AIDS-related illness in 1997.
The exhibit, titled “Black President: The Art and Legacy of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti,” does the flamboyant singer justice. In addition to photos, videos and a listening station devoted to Fela’s infectious music, the tribute boasts a collection of works, all inspired by Fela, by more than 30 contemporary artists from around the world. British-born artist Satch Hoyt invites viewers into a giant cylinder filled with images of Fela and his 27 wives and music from the Afrobeat master. Barkley Hendricks’s portrait of Fela looking out past a microphone, one hand on a joint and another on his crotch, sums up the artist as best one can. Adorning his chest is an inverted image of Africa–blood red, in flames and encircled by barbed wire. It’s a fitting image for a musician who reveled in sensual excess but continued to rail against Africa’s injustices with powerful cries from the heart.
–Jonathan Adams
Pets: Hello, Kitty
In November, Japanese toy company Takara will introduce the Meowlingual, a handheld device that translates kitty cries into human speech. A microphone picks up a cat’s meow, an “animal-emotion-analysis system” categorizes the digital voiceprint into one of several moods by comparing it to a database, and an LCD screen displays a human phrase for that emotion.
Sound ridiculous? Perhaps. But Takara has already tried it on dogs with the Bowlingual, which hit shelves in Japan last fall. The device offers up “translations” like “Go ahead, make my day,” when your pup is peeved, and “I don’t like it when you ignore me,” when it’s feeling unloved. The version for cats is still being finalized. “It’s a little bit trickier to determine cats’ emotions,” says Takara spokesperson Kennedy Gitchel. The Meowlingual’s phrases will likely be a bit more “spoiled or finicky” he says. If it takes off, Takara is considering translators for fish and plants.
–Jonathan Adams
Books: And Now You Know
Ever wonder how to say “I love you” in Hindi? Whether blondes win more often than brunettes in the Miss America pageant? If corundum’s harder than topaz? The answers all lie in “Schott’s Original Miscellany.” Part encyclopedia, part anthology, part lexicon, the book is a collection of inconsequential tidbits that you never knew but will love knowing. It doesn’t arrange its miscellany in any particular order, so it’s the ultimate book for browsing. The result is as hilarious as it is addictive. (You find yourself exclaiming such absurdities as “Check out these war cries of some Scottish clans!”) “The book has no purpose,” says 29-year-old Ben Schott, “Schott’s” Schott. “So if it has charm, that’s it.” It has, in abundance. The book was an unexpected No. 1 best seller when it debuted in Britain in November and has been so successful that Schott now has a weekly column in London’s Daily Telegraph and has food- and sports-themed installments on the way. Schott spent hours in the British Library to conceive such brilliant entries as “Curious Deaths of Some Burmese Kings” and “Husbands of Elizabeth Taylor” (“husbands complete to January 2003,” the text notes). His methodology was as random as the entries. “I’d go from book to book,” he says. “The most interesting fact is always in the book next to the one you’re reading.” Or simply on the next page of “Schott’s Original Miscellany.”
–Elise Christenson
Beyonce Knowles
Twenty-one-year-old popstress Beyonce Knowles is singing her way across the globe, promoting her hit debut solo album, “Dangerously in Love.” The founding member of female band Destiny’s Child is literally everywhere; she’s even hosted a global MTV feature called “Meeting Mandela: A Staying Alive Special,” in celebration of Nelson Mandela’s 85th birthday. Beyonce spoke to NEWSWEEK’s Ginanne Brownell about her destiny:
How did you feel doing the MTV special?
It was a huge honor, and I wanted to be a part of it because I admire [Mandela] so much. Anything he asks of me I would love to do.
Your solo album seems to have gone to No. 1 everywhere. Are you psyched?
I am. It is still surreal. I’m very happy that I love my album because this is gonna be my first album for the rest of my life.
Were you scared to go solo?
Of course. I have been in Destiny’s Child since I was 9 years old–over half of my life. We are way more than a singing group; we depend on each other.
You were Foxxy Cleopatra in “Austin Powers in Goldmember.” Do guys ever tell you you’re shagadelic?
They use song titles all the time, like “I’ll say your name, Beyonce”–all of those corny things. It gets old.
How’s your destiny shaping up?
I cannot complain about anything.
title: “International Periscope” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-07” author: “Doris Cardoza”
While most of the world was focused on the images of destruction being rained down upon Baghdad and other Iraqi cities last week, some in Washington had half an eye on the Korean Peninsula, waiting to see whether a second front might break out halfway around the world. The reasoning: if Kim Jong Il’s regime wanted to go nuclear at last–a step that many analysts fear is not far away–what better time than when the U.S. military is tied up in a major conflict? “I think North Korea learned a lesson from Iraq in dealing with the United States,” says Han Sung Joo, former South Korean foreign minister. “If you’re going to fiddle with nuclear weapons, you better finish fast.”
The South Korean military ratcheted up its alert level last week, while Japanese forces anxiously kept an eye out for the test launching of a long-range missile, another provocative step that many feared Pyongyang might slip in during hostilities in Iraq. Seoul tried to send a clear message to the North: braving strong domestic opposition from his anti-American supporters, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun welcomed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq as “inevitable,” then offered to deploy two South Korean battalions–engineers and medics–to assist in postwar reconstruction. “The government reaffirms its stand to support the international action,” he told his people in a nationally televised address. In supporting the U.S. invasion, Roh signaled that his administration would stand united with U.S. President George W. Bush in any future Korean crisis.
Ironically, America’s awesome military might–bolstered by images of tank columns speeding across Iraq’s southern desert unopposed–may be driving the Korean Peninsula closer to a crisis; Pyongyang certainly doesn’t want to wait around to meet Saddam Hussein’s likely fate. Says Chung Chung Wook, former Blue House national-security adviser: the North “could be moving faster to make [its nuclear status] a fait accompli before the end of the war in Iraq.” But so far, at least, Pyongyang hasn’t tested the waters, most notably by not beginning to reprocess some 8,000 spent fuel rods that could quickly produce weapons-grade plutonium. When the fighting in Iraq began, the North’s official (and usually vitriolic) news agency merely reported the conflict based on foreign wire dispatches. “They feel a sense of crisis and they know the U.S. can be tough and decisive,” says Chang Yong Hoon, a North Korea watcher at the Yonhap News Agency in Seoul, who notes that Pyongyang toned down its anti-U.S. rhetoric following a tense encounter between an Ameri–can spy plane and four MiG jet fighters in international airspace three weeks ago. But the silence could just as well be strategic, meant to lull Washington’s suspicions. “The next few weeks are critical,” says Derek Mitchell, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “We will see if they intend to provoke or step back.” Only then will the world know how Kim plans to play the second gulf war.
–George Wehrfritz with B. J. Lee
Health: Covering Up a Cold
When the Chinese professor checked into his room at Hong Kong’s Metropole Hotel, he had no idea that his presence would soon set off a global panic. But after a week of investigation by health officials and medical researchers, Hong Kong health authorities believe that it was this visitor from Guangdong province who was a key source of the mysterious flu like illness that the World Health Organization has declared a “worldwide health threat.” The disease, dubbed severe acute respiratory syndrome, is difficult to diagnose because the symptoms–coughing, shortness of breath and fever–are so common. As WHO researchers raced against the clock last week, the outbreak spread to 15 countries, at last count killing 15 of the 655 people who had contracted the pneumonia. But progress is being made. Virologists in Germany and Hong Kong believe they have identified the killer germ as belonging to the Paramyxoviradae family, which –includes the mumps and measles virus. And WHO officials are optimistic about developing a test to detect the illness in its early stages.
But the answer to limiting the spread of such global contagions may not lie in the laboratory alone. Scientists now believe that the Chinese gentleman from Guangdong may be the link to a similar outbreak that sickened as many as 300 people in the southern Chinese province last year. Although it began in November, Chinese health officials did not provide the WHO with a report on the epidemic until February. Worse yet, Chinese authorities appear to have ordered local journalists not to report on the widening illness. One Chinese journalist, who did not wish to be identified, told NEWSWEEK she had information on cases in cities the government had yet to admit. “I really want to make a report about it, but I have to be careful,” she said. “I don’t want to get myself in trouble.” As long as Beijing continues to try to hide its health crises, we may all have reason to feel ill.
–Sarah Schafer and Alexandra A. Seno
Trade: Is Doha Dying?
In recent weeks, onetime allies have split over the war against Iraq. Now it seems the last round of world trade talks–launched in Doha, Qatar, in 2001–are unraveling, too. The World Trade Organization has missed interim deadlines on its schedule, and will likely miss a key one at the end of this month, when talks on liberalizing agriculture were to have decided on the formulas to use for cutting tariffs and subsidies. “We are completely at a gridlock,” says one participant, noting that there is some bad chemistry these days. Negotiators are sniping at each other. When a delegate rehashes a procedural dispute, others put their heads in their hands or go get a cup of coffee. At the Cato Institute in Washington, trade expert Brink Lindsey warns that the impasse could render the WTO irrelevant: “It could be considered the new United Nations.”
Despite the bitterness over Iraq, though, the stalled trade talks are unlikely to escalate into trade wars. In August the WTO ruled that the European Union could levy up to $4 billion in punitive sanctions against the United States, in retaliation for U.S. tax subsidies to its exporters. U.S. officials warned that this issue could become the “nuclear weapon” of trade wars, but there’s zero likelihood it would be unleashed at this time of crisis in the Atlantic alliance. No matter how the Iraq war goes, trade negotiators will feel compelled to do their part to repair the alliance and the global economy when they gather again at the next trade summit, this September in Cancun. Says Sergio Marchi, Canada’s ambassador to the WTO, “I don’t think we will have the luxury to practice the politics of vindictiveness.” Still, the impasse could very well last longer than the war does.
–Karen Lowry Miller
Heroin: Hitting Record Highs
After the fall of the Taliban last year, observers were quick to note a revival in Afghanistan’s onetime premier export: opium poppies, the raw material for heroin. This year’s crop could be even bigger: last week officials from neighboring Pakistan’s Anti-Narcotics Force predicted that Afghanistan is headed for a record high in poppy production this summer. This follows two recent reports detailing last year’s increased poppy cultivation, released by the United Nations’ International Narcotics Control Board and the U.S. State Department. “Expect another bumper crop” this year, says INCB Secretary Herbert Schaepe.
With general security in the country at a minimum, drug control has fallen by the wayside. Afghan officials argue that they need increased aid for infrastructure, and insist it’s important to compensate farmers for growing other crops. But with the Bush administration having allotted only $300 million to Afghanistan in its new budget, and pledges of more than $1 billion still waiting to be honored by other countries, the world seems uninterested. Europe and the United States might want to recall a lesson of the past: it is at their own risk that they ignore Afghanistan. Drug-control agencies predict that continued large harvests could prompt a decline in street prices and a rise in purity in the heroin brought into Europe. Of course, that’s no guarantee that U.S. officials will care then either. Most American heroin comes from Colombia and Mexico.
–Malcolm Beith
Cuba: Castro’s Crackdown
After months of trying to burnish Cuba’s human-rights image and expand trade ties with America and the E.U., Fidel Castro’s regime has launched its harshest crackdown on internal opposition in years. Authorities arrested over 80 dissidents last week on charges of collaborating with U.S. diplomats to undermine the government. Given that the dragnet is likely to harm Havana’s prospects for admission to an E.U. trade pact, some U.S. officials are baffled by Castro’s action. “It’s self-defeating, and it doesn’t make any sense,” said one Cuba expert at the State Department. “Perhaps they’ve decided the regime is under a very serious threat, and they may know better than we do.”
That sounds like a reach. Some of the people picked up were from the Varela Project, a coalition of dissident groups that last year called for a referendum on democratic reform inside Cuba. Their petition drive generated world headlines but died quickly after Castro dismissed it out of hand. Other analysts wonder whether this crackdown is Fidel’s way of telling Washington that Cuba isn’t Iraq. “[They have long] said they wouldn’t give any political space to any opposition that might lead to regime change,” says Cuba specialist Max Castro of the University of Miami. “They are reaffirming that message: they’re not going to allow this to happen.”
–Joseph Contreras
Gambling: Hit Me One More Time
Any visitor to Las Vegas knows that sinking feeling: why am I still betting when I know I’m going to lose even more? Conspiratorial excuses abound: the dealer’s dodgy; casinos are a fountain of free drink; the oxygen levels are brought down to impair judgment; the inside of a gambling hall looks the same day and night so one can’t keep track of time. But a team of scientists has now come up with a better answer: our brains release dopamine–the feel-good chemical–when we receive an unexpected reward. So we keep on betting.
Following on from the theory proven by Ivan Petrovich Pavlov and his famous dogs (expectancy of a reward leads to increased physical stimulus–in the dogs’ case, drooling), scientist Christopher Fiorillo and a team of colleagues recently conducted tests on monkeys at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. They wanted to see if the lack of that expectancy could also play a factor in the triggering of neurons containing dopamine.
The monkeys looked at various sets of images, after which they were trained to expect a treat (a drop of juice) according to which image was displayed. As expected, when they received that anticipated reward, dopamine surges were detected. But Fiorillo and his team found that dopamine levels increased even more as they reduced the certainty of reward. Their results were published to much scientific acclaim last week in the journal Science. According to Fiorillo, this could be a reason why humans still excitedly gamble even when we know the house will win–our sense of reasoning is clouded by the possibility of even greater pleasure from the unlikely reward. Of course, telling that to the guy who just mortgaged his house for a hand of blackjack might not be a risk worth taking, regardless of the reward.
–Malcolm Beith
Poetry: Words to Fight For
At one time soldiers turned to poetry to assuage their loneliness and fear of war. During World War I, at Verdun, the Somme and Passchendaele, British troops carried well-thumbed copies of Shakespeare, Keats and Homer’s “Iliad” in their kit bags. And during lulls in the brutal trench warfare, they scribbled down poems of their own. Now an exhibit at London’s Imperial War Museum (through April 27) revives the works of 12 of the best soldier-poets from World War I, creating a fresh and excruciatingly timely perspective of life on the battlefield.
Just four of the poets in “Anthem for Doomed Youth” are well known today: Rupert Brooke, Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen and Robert Graves. The others reveal some welcome new gems: a manuscript found on Charles Hamilton Sorley when he died on the Western front in 1915 at the age of 20 describes “millions of mouthless dead”–an image that contrasts starkly with Brooke’s patriotic lines, “If I should die, think only this of me: That there’s some corner of a foreign field that is forever England.” Through letters, photographs, musical recordings and paintings, we come to know these young soldiers, vicariously experiencing their trauma as each is laid low by shelling, blood poisoning or gas attacks. (Only four survived to old age.) By bringing together for the first time their possessions–the blood-soaked map found on Julian Grenfell’s corpse; the watch, stopped at 7:36, when an explosion killed its owner, Edward Thomas–this poignant exhibit reminds us how the Great War forever extinguished the ancient image of battle as glorious.
–Tara Pepper
Art: An Epic Life
The Prophet Muhammad wasn’t the only member of his family to spread the teachings of Islam. He had an uncle named Hamza who ostensibly did the same. Hamza’s epic life was recorded in a series of 1,400 illustrations known as the Hamzanama, commissioned by the Mughal Emperor Akbar in the 16th century. For the first time in 300 years an exhibit at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, “The Adventures of Hamza: Paintings from the Mughal Court” (through June 8), brings together 68 of those surviving paintings. They are a heartening reminder of the region’s brilliant and tolerant past.
Akbar, whose empire once stretched from modern-day Kabul through Kandahar and Lahore to Delhi, was so captivated by the tales of Hamza’s adventures that he hired more than 100 artists to record them over a period of 15 years. A staff of Persians supervised the native Hindu artists, giving the works a uniquely vivid style: the Indians’ fluid, lively lines combine with the precise, angular Persian forms, creating bold and energetic images. Heroes charge into battle on elephants and tigers, using cobras as reins; cities are sacked, sorcerers and demons defeated. The works haven’t lost their power to enthrall, not least by demonstrating that religious amity can produce wonderful artistic innovations.
–Tara Pepper
Faith Popcorn
Forget about how the war with Iraq will transform the Arab street for a minute: how will it change the American street? After extensive demographic research, leading “futurist” Faith Popcorn has come up with an outline of the American of Tomorrow. NEWSWEEK’s Malcolm Beith talked to her about where Americans are headed:
Is patriotism on the rise?
You see this anti-French thing that’s happening now? It’s growing. [It’s] not just anti-French but pro-American.
How will pop culture change?
Look to the 1940s. It’s almost going to be a redo. It’s gonna be romance, a baby boom, cigarettes, brandy, tight little relationships, staying at home and cuddling.
A return to the nuclear family?
A return to the new nuclear family. The nuclear family–Mom, Dad and kids–is only 24 percent of families in America. This is a new version–unrelated parents, grandmothers, same-sex parents–but they will be cuddling too.
Will Americans learn to balance threats of terrorism and war with everyday living? Your report does mention a rise in unbridled sexuality, drug use and alcohol intake.
[People are saying,] “Who knows? Who cares? I’ll open my good bottle of champagne.” [They’re] feeling a little reckless, [thinking] “Maybe I’ll take a day off.”
So Americans are learning to live a little more like the French?
Oh, don’t say that. That’s your quote, not mine.
Terrorism: Stateside Smuggling
Last week FBI agents in Texas launched a frantic search for a purported group of Iraqi agents who allegedly were attempting to smuggle chemical weapons in from Mexico. The report was based entirely on the word of a single Mexican informant, but it triggered high-level concerns in Washington. So far, the bureau has come up empty and by the weekend, top officials were uncertain as to whether the Iraqi smugglers even exist.
The Iraqi smuggling scare first surfaced two weeks ago when the Mexican informant reported to the FBI that he learned from a contact in a major “human smuggling” organization that a group of about a half-dozen Iraqi nationals had recently paid more than $5,ooo apiece for help crossing the U.S.-Mexican border near Laredo, Texas, say law-enforcement sources. The informant said he was told that the unidentified Iraqis “may have some unknown chemicals.” Mexican police, working with the FBI, tracked down the Mexican smuggler whom the informant claimed had provided him with the information. The smuggler denied the informant’s claim and passed an FBI polygraph. One reason the claim is being taken seriously, officials say, is intelligence suggesting that terrorist groups are increasingly concentrating on the porous U.S.-Mexican border. And in debriefings since his recent capture, 9-11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed has told interrogators he discussed bringing operatives through the Mexican border.
While some U.S. intelligence officials think Al Qaeda has been seriously disrupted by Mohammed’s arrest, there is still deep anxiety. Late last week the FBI launched a worldwide manhunt for Saudi national Adnan al-Shukrijumah, who had lived in Florida until the spring of 2001–and then left the country. Officials say Qaeda documents seized overseas suggest he was trying to attend the same Oklahoma flight school as Zacarias Moussaoui. Concern about him increased even more when Mohammed identified him as one of his operatives. The problem is, one official said, “we don’t know where he is.”
–Mark Hosenball and Michael Isikoff
Security: Revealing New Rays
Searching for nuclear weapons, particularly “dirty bombs,” has never been a simple task. Just ask the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Mohamad ElBaradei or the hordes of New York City cops on the lookout last week as the United States raised its terror-alert level. But scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory may have found a more efficient way of finding nukes–using something called muon radiography. X-rays are good, but they cannot penetrate dense objects. Muons–subatomic particles extracted from the remains of cosmic rays–can. And since they refract differently as they pass through substances of varying densities, muons can detect carefully concealed plutonium- or uranium-based objects, the Los Alamos team announced in Nature last week. Muons even have better eyesight than Superman, passing through lead with ease.
The findings, funded by money set aside after the September 11 attacks, has been met with optimism by security experts. But despite the evident benefits of muon radiography–no health dangers, lower costs than X-rays and an ability to pass through almost everything –it may be some time before we see the m-ray in action; the scientists have completed only small-scale tests so far. Muon scans are also slower than X-rays: they need minutes to pass through some containers (X-rays can do so in seconds). Still, the Los Alamos scientists insist the potential pros far outweigh the cons. Muon radiography will soon be “one more arrow in the quiver for inspecting packages and the like,” says Los Alamos’s William Priedhorsky.
–Malcolm Beith
Markets: Shaky Optimism
Thinking about war makes investors bearish. But war itself often brings out the bull. Last week was no exception, as the FTSE 100 jumped 17 percent and the Dow posted its best weekly performance in 20 years. But will it last? Many observers say that action in Iraq has taken some uncertainty out of the market, but hasn’t cured fundamental problems, like the continued exposure of post bubble excesses, poor personal savings and large current-account gaps. Also, if the United States has to shell out massive amounts of money to rebuild Iraq, it will make it harder for the U.S. economy to lead a global recovery. And a new report by London-based research firm Capital Economics points out that the all-important U.S. consumer-confidence figures remain at their lowest levels since October 1992. Capital predicts little or no growth in the March numbers, released this week. European confidence may be slightly higher than America’s, it argues, but a worsening situation in Germany means those numbers are also likely to fall in the medium term. So, while confidence figures on both sides of the pond may rally temporarily, “the improvement is unlikely to last for long.” Which brings us to the third truism for wartime markets–wariness and celebration are usually followed by a hangover.
–Rana Foroohar
Extra Anchovies: Hold the Dolphin
For years Sicilian fishermen have been unintentionally trapping more than sardines and anchovies in their nets. Dolphins, in particular, are constantly being caught sleeping with the fishes and causing untold damage to the fishermen’s nets. According to past research, the average Italian fisherman accidentally catches a dolphin at least once every three years, losing up to 40 percent of his annual income in the resulting net damage.
But it seems this year’s winter tides may have washed in a solution. Scientists believe that they have finally found a way to keep the unwanted dolphins at bay. After months of study, experts at Italy’s National Research Council recently announced the development of an electronic whistle that will act as a dolphin deterrent. And while previous sonar efforts have failed because the clever marine mammals realized the sound was simulated due to its obvious repetition, scientists say the new wave is likely to work. In three months of testing, the software for EMMA (electroacoustic prototype for controlling the behavior of marine mammals) proved consistently successful, annoying the dolphins enough to keep them away, but also emitting sounds that were random in both sequence and volume. Just wait until the sonar becomes widely available at the Italian seaside next year. Dolphin and human alike might finally be on the same wavelength.
–Nicole Martinelli
Italy: Why Do They Do It In the Road?
It’s tough being a young Italian in love–there’s just no privacy. Ask the 90 percent of Italians between the ages of 20 and 24 who still live at home. As a result, Italians will do it anywhere, especially in the car. But while surveys say 88 percent of Italians have car-copulated at least once, back-seat sex has continued to come under fire from officials. In 1999, one Italian court even ruled that unless the car windows are covered up it can be considered an obscene act. (Italy’s sexier streets and parking lots have since seen a huge rise in ad hoc entrepreneurs selling newspapers to drape over the windshield.)
Finally, it seems some local governments are coming around, too. Next month the town of Vinci in Tuscany will become home to Italy’s first “Love Park.” The town’s mayor, Giancarlo Faenzi, appropriately announced the plans on Valentine’s Day, and efforts are currently underway to make good on his word by mid-April. But don’t expect Italians to come running to this official love shack right away–it’s not exactly the height of romance, involving some “minor adjustments” to a sports-center parking lot on the outskirts of town. The minor adjustments: soft lights, extra trash cans and condom dispensers to provide a love haven away from home. Still, Italians may come to appreciate their new getaway when they remember the alternatives: either the local polizia looking over their shoulder as they sneak their lover a kiss, or Mama watching every move as she makes more manicotti.
–Nicole Martinelli
Books: Love That Grover!
The candidate admits that he fathered an illegitimate child, though his supporters say he made the confession only to cover for a randy old friend. He wins anyway (his opponent was charged with premarital sex), and once in the White House he marries the dead friend’s daughter, his former ward, who is only 21 years old at the time.
And they say obscure U.S. presidents are boring! (That one was Grover Cleveland.) This winter Times Books begins publication of short (150 pages) biographies of all 42 men who have held the office of president of the United States. Even someone with a casual interest in American history should be intrigued. In such a small space, most of the dull stuff doesn’t make the cut.
We learn that John Quincy Adams was trapped into his marriage to an Englishwoman; Rutherford B. Hayes was almost succeeded by disgraced former president Ulysses S. Grant; when Ike ordered federal troops to desegregate Little Rock, Arkansas, schools in 1957, he was opposed by Sens. Lyndon B. Johnson and John F. Kennedy.
The casting is inspired. General editor Arthur Schlesinger Jr. has assigned Warren G. Harding to Watergate’s John Dean, Herbert Hoover to historian William E. Leuchtenberg and Abraham Lincoln to novelist E. L. Doctorow. Even with a scant 150 pages, William Henry Harrison is going to be a little harder to cover. He died one month after assuming office.
–Jonathan Alter
title: “International Periscope” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-06” author: “Lou Barber”
The Turks have good reason to lay it all on the line. The ruling AK Party has pulled out all the stops to ensure that the country meets all of Brussels’s criteria for new members, pushing through crucial human-rights laws and persuading Turkish Cypriots to vote for reunification. There’s “no excuse” for the EU to deny Turkey membership for noncompliance, says a senior Ankara policymaker.
But where there’s a will, there’s a way. France, the Netherlands and Austria are resisting the admission of a large Muslim country to their Christian club, as are Germany’s opposition Christian Democrats. Turkey hopes that last week’s visit by British Prime Minister Tony Blair will help turn the tide. Turkish P.M. Recep Tayyip Erdogan also hopes to sway Europe’s Turko-skeptics at his mid-July meeting with French President Jacques Chirac.
Failure could spell his political demise. “Erdogan’s pro-European policy will become untenable if the Turks are rejected in December,” says a European diplomat in Ankara. A “no” from Brussels would be seen by the man in the street as an unforgivable insult. No wonder the Turks are refusing to give an inch. “My government has delivered what it promised,” said Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul last week. Now, says another aide, it’s time for the EU to do the same. –Owen Matthews and Sami Kohen SPAIN Oh, to Be King Again Some people just can’t accept defeat. Take former Spanish prime minister Jose Maria Aznar. Two months after the shocking election upset of his handpicked successor, he still seems to think he’s in charge, swaggering about the international stage. In April he called President George W. Bush to warn that terrorists would do their best to disrupt the U.S. presidential election in November. Just last week he dropped in on his “Texan friend” Dubya at the White House, and chatted up pals Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld. Aznar repeatedly contradicts Spain’s new government and rails against its decision to withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq. They would have stayed there “if I was still prime minister,” he told reporters as the last of his country’s troops went home.
Perhaps someone should tell Aznar he’s not the man anymore. Although it’s not unusual for former Spanish leaders to meet with foreign heads of state, Aznar’s high profile is growing tiresome to many at home–and to Europeans who welcome the change of government and want to work with Spain’s new leaders. “There is nothing so ’ex’ as an ex-prime minister,” says John Palmer of the European Policy Center in Brussels. “Aznar is yesterday’s man, and the views he represents on the Middle East and Iraq are simply not shared.” Ouch. That’s got to hurt a leader once heralded as a potential successor to Kofi Annan atop the United Nations, as well as a potential candidate for president of the EU come June. He may soon have to kiss those prospects goodbye, too. –Eric Pape
VENEZUELA Covering All the Bases Rightly or wrongly, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has long believed that external forces are out to get him–and accordingly has prepared for possible attacks. Facing what he insists is a slow-motion “invasion” backed by counterrevolutionary forces in the United States and Colombia, Chavez last week announced plans for a 100,000-strong reserve force, an increase in military spending and weapons training for civilians. He then proceeded to call on every “patriotic” Venezuelan to take up arms.
The reason behind Chavez’s call to arms–the mid-May arrest of about 100 Colombians wearing Venezuelan military garb but armed with just one 9mm pistol–can probably be dismissed as paranoia. But the Venezuelan leader is facing a threat of another kind: he is seeking to avoid a possible recall referendum on his presidency. This weekend hundreds of thousands of signatories from a December referendum petition must confirm their names if the poll is to take place in early August. (Election officials say some signatures were fake, so they want voters to sign again.) Ever wary that the opposition might just reach the magic number of 2.4 million signatures, Chavez is prepared: last week he also pushed through a new bill that adds an extra 12 judges to the Supreme Court and simplifies appointment and dismissal procedures, which will allow him to pack the court with supporters. Even if the electoral council approves the referendum, the court could well toss it out. If that causes the opposition to take to the streets to protest, Chavez–thanks to his newly formed citizens’ brigade–should have no shortage of armed “patriots” to dissuade them. –Phil Gunson
DEALS From Shore to Shore Offshoring, it seems, is turning into a two-way street. A new report from consultants TPI finds a striking jump in deals involving Asian companies’ sending work to the United States. In the first quarter of 2004, 13 such agreements were signed, for a total of $3.2 billion–as much as for all of last year. While companies in Australia and New Zealand have long been active exporters of service work, this time more than half of the Asian contracts came from Thailand, India, the Philippines and China. And established Western giants like IBM and Hewlett-Packard are the ones winning the bids. Duncan Aitchison, head of international business for TPI, believes that this is the beginning of a sweeping trend. “Every new movement needs its poster children to get started,” he says.
While the sharp jump surprised TPI analysts, they note that it makes perfect sense. Asia is starting to create global giants of its own, and for these companies to compete, they need the same sort of cost effectiveness and flexibility that outsourcing gives to Western rivals. TPI tracks deals of more than $50 million, and found that Asian companies accounted for about a third of the global total of 51 new contracts worth $9.9 billion in the first quarter. The big new Asian players include Bank of India, which signed a 10-year, $150 million deal with HP. China Mobile did a one-year, $510 million deal with Motorola to upgrade and manage its network. Even Japan–the world’s second-largest economy but still one of its most insular–is starting to contract abroad: in February, insurer Mitsui Life hired IBM to process policies in a $330 million, 10-year deal. –Karen Lowry Miller
BOARDROOM Sticking It To the Boss It’s hard to be a CEO in Germany. Nowhere in the world are corporate chiefs more likely to get fired for poor performance these days–as Wolfgang Urban, dumped last week as head of retail giant Karstadt-Quelle, can testify. According to the annual “CEO Succession Report” released by consultants Booz Allen Hamilton last week, one in 12 German CEOs got pink slips last year–the highest national rate recorded since the survey began in 1995. The rate of performance-based firings was up Europewide even as it fell in the United States (to one in 30) and Japan (one in 170). Nowadays, the study says, only 40 percent of European CEOs will retire by choice; the rest will be fired or forced out in a merger.
Rob Schuyt, coauthor of the Booz Allen study, worries that Europe’s new “aim, fire, ask questions later” school of corporate governance has gone too far. CEOs who work in fear can’t do their jobs properly, he says. Others wonder: why should bosses be any different from so many of their employees? Welcome to the brutal global job market, sirs. –Stefan Theil
AIR SAFETY Crowded Skies The skies above Europe are getting dangerously congested. The issue resurfaced last week when an official report blamed Skyguide, a Swiss air-traffic-control organization, for a midair collision two years ago in which a charter flight carrying Russian children collided with a DHL cargo jet above a town in southern Germany. The report said that lack of emergency training, staff shortages and organizational failings were to blame.
Skyguide issued an apology, but the pressures on it and similar organizations are set to grow dramatically. Eurocontrol, the Brussels-based group responsible for coordinating air traffic in 33 European countries, says their systems will reach capacity within a decade, while flights over the Continent will have doubled by 2020. Most of the growth will be in Eastern Europe, where rising incomes and a boom in low-cost airlines are putting more and more people in the air. To make matters worse, many Eastern European controllers are poorly trained, and the more-qualified ones are likely to seek better-paid jobs in Western Europe. Says Shane Enright, aviation secretary of the International Transport Workers’ Federation, “It’s a problem that needs to be incredibly quickly addressed.” Vertical separation between aircraft has already been reduced from 2,000 to 1,000 feet because of traffic. –Clint Witchalls SPACE Just This One Time It’s not as bright as Hale-Bopp or as famous as Halley, but the comet NEAT does have two things going for it: it’s never before been seen from Earth, and after this year, it’ll never be seen again. Neither will LINEAR, a second comet tagging along behind it. Most comets, like Hale-Bopp and Halley, fly by Earth on a regular basis because of their elliptical orbits. But about a quarter of them “just whiz right by” and never return, says David Eicher, editor of Astronomy magazine. When he calls them “once in a lifetime,” he’s not kidding.
What makes NEAT and LINEAR even rarer is that they’re visible to the naked eye. Most one-time flybys aren’t bright enough to see without a telescope. But since early May, Northern Hemisphere stargazers have had a clear view of NEAT low in the southwest sky, and LINEAR will be shining brightly into early June near the stars Procyon and Alphard. (Southern Hemisphere viewers already got a glimpse of both comets in April; later this summer they’ll get another.) The comets’ cores are only a mile or two across, but their tails of water vapor and rock stretch for hundreds of thousands of miles. Instead of cruising by Earth, they’ve been hanging out for the past 4 billion years in the Oort Cloud, a shell of comets surrounding the solar system. Other comets there are probably waiting for their own one-time-only Earth shows. And yes, that’s pretty neat. –Mary Carmichael
TECHNOLOGY Plug In And Pray If they won’t come to church, the church will have to come to their computers. That’s the thinking at the Methodist Church of Great Britain, which is sponsoring the Internet’s first virtual church (churchoffools.com). Users can slip into an “avatar,” or computer character, “kneel” down in worship and listen to a sermon. With church attendance at abysmal lows–only 7 percent of Brits regularly show up for services–church leaders hope the Internet will help interest young people in organized religion. Even the Church of England is launching its own “i-church” in July, which will offer interactive services among other things. “The church is recognizing that it has to be where people are, and people are spending more and more time online,” says Alyson Leslie, the Anglican church’s “Web-pastor.” So far, the response has been promising: the Church of Fools got 68,000 visitors from across the globe in its first two days. Whether attendance will remain high, only God knows. –Liat Radcliffe
EXHIBITS Cemetery Scenes Some of Hungary’s finest sculptures tower over the monumental crypts at Budapest’s Kerepesi Cemetery. So perhaps it’s no surprise that Clara Aich, a Hungarian photographer, chose this burial ground as the subject of her new collection (“The Eternal Muse: The Women of the Kerepesi Cemetery”), which is simultaneously showing at Budapest’s Burial Museum and Hamilton, New Jersey’s, Grounds for Sculpture.
Aich does more than just represent an ornate burial ground of Hungary’s wealthy and influential; she draws on her personal connection to the cemetery–her family was forced to flee from communist rule but their dead are now buried in a crypt there–to give her photos an intense sensation of grief. “I returned to find solace in the familiar grounds where my parents and grandparents are buried,” she says. “I lingered over sculptures that I’d first seen with my mother, and discovered others that had long escaped everyone’s notice.” –Vibhuti Patel
Q&A: Sofia Vergara After making waves on Univision’s “Fuera de Serie,” Sofia Vergara, the 31-year-old Colombian actress, model and single mother, has found a new home in Hollywood. She appeared in last summer’s “Chasing Papi,” and plays a “first-class stewardess” in the upcoming comedy “Soul Plane.” NEWSWEEK’s Malcolm Beith chatted her up:
Do you prefer film to TV?
It’s very different. I like both. It’s work.
You’re from Barranquilla. So is Shakira–
Yeah, I’m friends with her.
Is there something in the water in Barranquilla? I mean, two of the world’s most beautiful women?
[Laughs] It’s in the food. Sancocho. It’s a soup.
Your nickname is Sofia Viagra–
It’s funny, the first time I read it in a magazine, I was like, “What the f—?”
Are there any other men in your life besides your son?
Not right now, no. I’m single.
But where are you?
New York.
Ah, no, no, no. [Long-distance] relationships don’t work.
Do you ever make it out here?
I’ll be there next week for work.
Well, uh, how about I give you my number, and you can call me?
[Giggles] Ah, hold on… [Shuffles around as if looking for a pen.] You’re not married, right?
No, of course not.
OK, tell me.
OK, if you call me, vamos a rumbear [party]–
Ah, bueno, a rumbear! We’ll drink aguardiente.
The Price of Power A Stanford study showing how Alberto Fujimori allegedly used bribery to stay president of Peru hints that paying off the media should be job No. 1 for despots. Amount of Typical Bribe (US$): TV channel: $9 million Cable news channel: 2 million Election-board member: 50,000 Supreme court-justice: 35,000 Politician (opposition party): 20,000* Politician (own party): 20,000* Justice minister: 5,000 Tabloid-newspaper headline: 4,000 * Monthly Source: John McMillan and Pablo Zoido, Stanford University
title: “International Periscope” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-31” author: “Kendrick Wilson”
Under the leadership of Sadr, the Mahdi Army was considered a containable force, susceptible to political bargaining. But as Sadr has leaned toward moderation—his party now has 30 seats in the National Assembly—men fighting under his militia’s banner have become more aggressive. In interviews with NEWSWEEK, Mahdi Army members, Iraqi politicians and Western officials describe an organization in which local commanders are increasingly independent from Sadr, splintering into cells of fighters committed to civil war. There are at least four offshoot Mahdi leaders in Sadr City alone; some groups are taking orders from Iran. There’s similar fragmentation in the largely Shiite cities of Najaf and Basra. According to a U.S. military intel official in Najaf, Coalition forces have been attacked by individuals who get their inspiration from the Mahdi Army but are not official members—men with “an AK-47, an RPG and a Sadr poster,” says the official, requesting anonymity because of the issue’s sensitivity. The situation is so volatile that, according to the U.S. officials, Sadr now fears for his own safety and position.
The United States is targeting militia-run death squads in the new Baghdad security operation. Meanwhile, a suicide bombing in Najaf last week brought renewed calls among some Shiite leaders for the Mahdi Army and other militias to take over more security operations. But it’s difficult for the United States to turn over control to an increasingly uncontrollable force. —Michael Hastings and Scott Johnson
France: Jacques Du Jour The presumptive future president of France looks buff (we’re being kind here) in a bathing suit. Until last week, leading contenders Nicolas Sarkozy and Ségolène Royal had spent the Lebanese war at the beach, fawned over by paparazzi. Not the real president, Jacques Chirac, however. A month ago, his 39-year political career seemed to have been reduced to a bad joke. Race riots, mass job protests, murky corruption scandals—instead of a grand exit, Chirac looked to be shuffling off into the sunset.
No more. Thanks to his aggressive, attentive and hard-knuckled handling of the Israel-Lebanon conflict, he’s enjoying a robust comeback. His poll ratings are up 11 points lately. And if French troops lead the coming intervention in the Levant, he can probably expect another boost. This doesn’t mean Chirac will be seduced into another run for office. He’s clearly on the way out in 2007—but he wants to go gracefully, head high. A flag-waving foreign intervention might well salve glum France and its battered leader’s legacy—if it can stop the bleeding in Lebanon, too. —Tracy McNicoll
Health: New Map In 1854, Dr. John Snow’s map of the incidences of cholera in London showed a cluster of cases around a particular water pump—a source of the outbreak. It was proof that sometimes the answer to the question “Why?” can come from first solving a different puzzle: “Where?”
Now two research groups have published new “cancer atlases.” The American Cancer Society’s global report showed graphically that while the “risk of getting cancer is higher in the developed world … cancers in the developing world are more fatal.” Experts think higher incidence rates in rich countries spring partly from lifestyle choices, like physical inactivity, unhealthy diets and more-prolonged tobacco use. —Jonathan Mummolo
Aid: A Slow Developer Japan may be the second wealthiest country in the world, but according to the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Global Development, it’s also the stingiest. This year’s Commitment to Development Index, just released by the CGD and Foreign Policy magazine, ranked Japan last—for the third year in a row. So what did Japan—the world’s largest aid donor just six years ago—do wrong? The CDI rankings of the world’s 21 richest countries judges how well they help improve lives in the developing world by looking at their policies not just in foreign aid but trade, investment, migration, environment, security and technology. Japan has high barriers on imported goods—its rice tariffs average 900 percent—and a low tolerance for immigration. Its foreign aid is the smallest as a share of income, and it has a poor environmental record. Still, Japan’s not the only one falling short. Says CDI’s David Roodman: “Even the best could do better.” —Allan Madrid
Wall Street is worried. The world’s biggest IPOs are moving to London and Hong Kong instead of New York. Some are quick to blame the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, but critics say cost is the bottom line. ^The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which regulates public companies and their accounting practices, is scaring big business away. WRONG: Cost is the real culprit. U.S. underwriting fees are the highest in the world, and IPO discounts are higher in the United States than Europe, which means worse pricing for the seller. ^ American and foreign companies are willing to pay top dollar for access to the U.S. investor base and prestigious New York stock exchanges. WRONG: A company doesn’t have to be listed on the NYSE or NASDAQ to snare U.S. investors. Savvy American investors and hedge funds trade shares all over the world. Moreover, overseas markets are increasingly stronger and more competitive.
Faces: New Guy In Town If yahoo searches are anything to go by, there’s a new hottie on the rise. Channing Tatum, star of the upcoming dance movie “Step Up,” has developed a cult following—even though he has yet to open a movie (he’s had supporting roles in “Coach Carter” and “She’s the Man”). Coming from the pages of Abercrombie & Fitch, he’s the first male model turned actor to generate Hollywood heat since Ashton Kutcher. “Tons of crazy girls have said to me, ‘Channing Tatum is in your movie? Oh, my God, he’s so hot!’ " says “Step Up” director Anne Fletcher. “When you go onto MySpace, it’s insane how many people love this boy.” Tatum is also about to start filming a movie in which he plays a sergeant back from Iraq. “We just wrapped six days of boot camp. I smell like a horse,” he says. —Ramin Setoodeh
