Empty Title

title: “Empty Title” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-22” author: “Brent Bickers”

UNDERHILL: Why did you take up the Jubilee 2000 cause? BONO: It began about 18 months ago. I had just made a speech to my band about how I wouldn’t get distracted from our next record. Then along came this idea–that we could harness all this energy and sense of anticipation for what is really an arbitrary date and actually make something of it, so that when we wake up on Jan. 1, 2000, we’d feel that last night was more than just fireworks and champagne.

What is the movement’s appeal? It’s so depressing to watch the nightly news and see that this suffering is never-ending. People put their hands in their pockets and yet it doesn’t seem to be enough. That feeling of impotence can either lead to depression or anger. In my case it was anger. I was angry when I discovered that for every $1 in government aid to Africa the African countries owed $9 on their loans. I was overjoyed when we raised $200 million with LiveAid. Then I discovered that Africa pays $200 million a week servicing its debts. It would be incredible if 1999 could be remembered not for the destruction of two countries–Kosovo and East Timor–but for rebuilding 50 of the poorest nations on earth.

Your deadline is just three months away. Do you think you have a real chance of success? Already Jubilee 2000 has put together what must be the broadest coalition since the ending of apartheid. You have economists like Jeffrey Sachs; pop stars like myself and Quincy Jones; churchmen like Billy Graham; the Dalai Lama and His Holiness the Pope. The Cologne Initiative [a G7 proposal this summer to extend existing debt-relief programs] was a great start, but I would like Bill Clinton and Tony Blair to see it as just the first stage. I believe the political will is there. I have spoken to Jim Wolfensohn [president of the World Bank] and I sense that he will go the distance if the politicians match him. When people are left out of the loop of potential prosperity they turn very easily to other ideologies. Let’s have some preventive medicine before we have to spend 10 times as much on a cure.

The campaign has attracted scores of celebrities. What has been their impact? As Bob Geldof has said, we can’t command a constituency–but we are heard by one. And it’s a very large one. I have to say that the people of influence I have met over the last six months have been surprisingly open. But I don’t think they’re open to me; it’s to the idea. After a few minutes it is not a pop star they are hearing; it’s an idea. Smart people know a great idea when they hear one. Paul Volcker [former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve] burst out laughing at the idea. He said “I hated it in ‘62, I hated it in ‘72.” But he then went on to furnish me with the telephone numbers of people I could talk to. People know it’s an idea whose time has come, awkward as it is for those in the banking community. For them, it’s a central tenet not to cancel debts. But facing reality is another tenet. Africa is beyond a catastrophe. Everyone accepts that fact. If you are not going to get anything back in 10 years it’s better to get nothing back now.

Critics say it’s naive to assume that any savings from debt relief will be used on worthwhile projects. Conditionality is crucial. We accept that. The onus has to be on the debtor countries to be transparent; to prove that the money freed up is going on infrastructure, health and education. If they can’t, they won’t enjoy debt relief. Sudan can’t be relieved of its debts in the middle of a war.

Many of the ruling elites who first borrowed and misspent the money are still in power. This is a stick as well as a carrot. It will encourage the new leadership in Africa, like Presidents Obasanjo [of Nigeria] and Mbeki [of South Africa], and mortify regimes who are not allowed to make use of debt relief because of their oppression of their own people.

What was the attitude of the pope? He has been talking about this since 1987. The idea of Sabbath economics [including the relief of debts at regular intervals or “jubilees”] is at the very heart of Judeo-Christian thinking. The pope was saying that in all the fanfare and fireworks this millennium was also a jubilee year. At a certain point you have to face this as a moral, not an intellectual, question. At a time when planet Earth is enjoying a prosperity unimaginable 100 years ago it will say much about our moral torpor if we can’t make this happen.

title: “Empty Title” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-01” author: “Goldie Miller”

“We have hit rock bottom. We have no choice but to rise, and rise we shall.” Pakistan’s new military leader,Gen. Musharraf Parvez,during a nationwide address explaining why he led the coup that overthrew Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his government

“There is much pain in my heart. I am sad not just for the victims, but for those who were from East Timor who conducted this against their own people.” Eliziu Gusmao,who witnessed a massacre in a church in Suai, East Timor

“The United States is good. We try to do our best everywhere.” Secretary of StateMadeleine K. Albright,speaking to victims of the August 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi

“This is a perfect environment for criminals. I’m quite sure that the big Audis and Mercedes you see are not all legal.” Sven Frederiksen,the recently appointed U.N. police commissioner in Kosovo, expressing concern about the rapidly increasing level of crime in the country

“I am not some extraordinary being who came down from the heavens to turn hopes into realities.” Outgoing Indonesian PresidentB. J. Habibie,during a speech before Parliament in which he defended his record and begged for forgiveness

“Just like a string of pearls crashing to the floor… it’s all over the place.” Ronald Reagan’s daughterPatti Davis,describing her father’s mental deterioration as he battles Alzheimer’s disease

“I was so happy. I don’t have the money, but I hope and believe I can raise it somehow, by saving, getting a loan or even borrowing from friends if I have to.” Ali,a Turkish engineer, as he preregistered to serve two months in the Turkish military, instead of the normal 18 months, if he can pay $8,250. Turkish officials hope the move will help raise money to cover the more than $4 billion of damage following the earthquake in August.

“This is Darwin’s natural selection at its very best. The highest bidder gets youth and beauty.” PhotographerRon Harris,under fire from mainstream infertility groups for auctioning fashion models’ eggs to would-be parents over the Internet for up to $150,000

“He’ll wear them whenever he deems fit.” White House spokesmanJake Siewert,on President Clinton’s decision to don cowboy boots at a teen-violence conference

“I’ve got my windows open.” Nicolas White,a BusinessWeek editor, recuperating at home after being trapped in an elevator at Rockefeller Center for 40 hours with only a package of Life Savers and three cigarettes for sustenance

title: “Empty Title” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-06” author: “Hector Ruiz”

Many commentators emphasize the differences between the plan put forward by the Finnish president and ratified by the Yugoslav Parliament, and the Rambouillet proposals in the name of which the bombing was initiated. And there are nuances of some consequence. The NATO forces are entering Kosovo on the basis of a U.N. mandate rather than an agreement between Belgrade and the Atlantic Alliance. Kosovo is explicitly described as a part of Yugoslavia, albeit an autonomous one (Point 5); the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Yugoslavia are affirmed (Point 8). The provision for a referendum at the end of three years has been abandoned, and the initial insistence on complete NATO control has been watered down to some extent by a series of U.N. mandates and the presence of Russian forces.

But even where the peace plan still parallels the Rambouillet accords it threatens near-permanent American involvement in an endless set of predictable conflicts and possible guerrilla war. The turgid language of the accord was designed to be impenetrable, so that each party could interpret the inevitable ambiguities as favorable to itself. This diplomatic device is not without precedent, but it is a special problem when it involves parties that have refined their volatile passions for centuries in the crucible of mutual slaughter. The Petersberg plan provides for four stages of political evolution: (1) an interim reign over Kosovo by a designated administrator; (2) an international civil presence; (3) substantial autonomy for the people of Kosovo within Yugoslavia, under the aegis of the U.N. Security Council; (4) the development of provisional democratic self-governing institutions.

Every aspect of this scheme is a potential land mine. According to Point 8, the political framework is supposed to take full account of the Rambouillet accords and the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. How can those objectives possibly be reconciled? Rambouillet provided for the occupation of Kosovo by NATO and a referendum on the future of Kosovo at the end of three years. The peace plan stops at autonomy and repeatedly affirms Yugoslav sovereignty. But the KLA fought and suffered for independence, not autonomy. After what its members and the population of Kosovo endured during the ethnic-cleansing campaign, remaining within Serbia will be inconceivable to them. The additional provision of Point 8, for the “demilitarization of the KLA” by NATO, is even more difficult to imagine happening.

If any of these provisions are to be realized, they must be imposed by American and other Allied military forces. We will be in the ironic position that, having fought on the side of the Albanians for their autonomy, we may find ourselves resisting them (or perhaps even fighting against them) over the issue of their independence. And having gone to war to defend the Albanian population against Serbian ethnic cleansing, we may now be obliged to protect the Serbian population against the rage of their Albanian neighbors. Unless we are willing to sustain a near-permanent military occupation, ethnic cleansing of the Serbian population could well be the outcome.

The confusion is magnified by another provision of Point 8 that envisions “negotiations between the parties.” But who are these parties? Presumably they are the Serbs and the Albanians. It adds that deadlock “should not delay or disrupt the establishment of self-governing institutions”–a provision that could paradoxically guarantee deadlock. The agreement is silent as to who should shoulder the task of imposing such self-governing institutions–implicitly leaving that responsibility with the United States. Not only are we imperceptibly on the road to replacing the Ottoman and Austrian empires in the Balkans; in time, we may face the same hostility from the native populations that they did.

The projected command arrangements compound the ambiguity. The military forces, in the words of the U.N. resolution, will be substantially NATO’s. Additional troops from Russia will be assigned under uncertain command arrange-ments.To prevent the partition of Kosovo, Russian troops will not be given a separate area–unless they pre-empt the decision by occupying a part of Kosovo unilaterally, as they seemed to be doing last week. Moreover, the role of all these forces is vague and their rules of engagement are defined by the Security Council.

Analogies to Bosnia are misleading. The Dayton agreement ending the Bosnian conflict was negotiated and approved by all the parties. In Kosovo, NATO has imposed an agreement on both sides. In Bosnia, the three armies ended up on homogeneous territories specifically assigned to them by the Dayton accords. In Kosovo, there is no such equivalent solution. Nor are there armies to separate, since Serb forces will presumably have left. NATO’s task–to confirm the departure of Serb forces, to disarm the KLA and to protect Kosovo’s borders–is likely to bring them into conflict with Albanians seeking to influence events in Kosovo or Macedonia. All this may place our troops squarely in the middle of a civil guerrilla war, posing the same dilemma we encountered in Somalia.

Arrangements for civil administration contain comparable potential conflicts. The enormous tasks of reconstruction will fall to the civil administrator appointed by the U.N. Secretary-General “in consultation with the Security Council” and operating under a mandate established by a U.N. resolution. The administrator will need to organize a police force and oversee the restoration of essential services in a totally devastated country. As indigenous Kosovar institutions come to life, they are likely to challenge the civil administrator’s authority in the name of independence. What if the KLA emerges as the police force of the autonomous authority? And, as Serbia recovers, it may challenge–possibly with Russia’s backing–the civil administrator in the name of Yugoslav sovereignty.

The situation in Kosovo differs from Bosnia in yet another important respect. Bosnia was, in a way, sui generis. The evolution of Kosovo is bound to have a profound impact on its neighbors. The immediate impact is likely to be on the Albanians in Macedonia, who comprise about a quarter of the population. They are likely to demand, at a minimum, the same status for themselves that the Kosovars are given. And the disintegration of Macedonia could ignite another Balkan explosion. Comparable pressures can be expected from the smaller Albanian minority in Montenegro. As well, there exists a drive toward a greater Albania, encouraged both from Tirana and by emigre Albanians supplying much of the financial muscle.

Aware of these tendencies–and as a sop to Russian and Yugoslav self-respect–the West has conceded Belgrade’s sovereignty over Kosovo in order to keep it from emerging as an independent international presence. But the plan cannot possibly work smoothly. Russia and Yugoslavia will have every incentive to affirm Yugoslav sovereignty, while America and NATO cannot indefinitely stand in the way of Albanian self-determination.

In short, if we try to implement the U.N. resolution for any length of time, we will emerge as the permanent party to arcane and bitter Balkan quarrels. It would be far wiser to cut the Gordian knot and concede Kosovar independence as part of an overall Balkan settlement–perhaps including self-determination for each of the three ethnic groups of Bosnia. In such an arrangement, the borders of Kosovo and its neighbors should be guaranteed by NATO or the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. As in Bosnia, the international forces would then patrol both sides of these borders for at least a substantial interim period.

Moving the issue to a definite resolution as quickly as possible is all the more important because of the hostility of the international environment. Most nations either supported or tolerated the Dayton accords. This is not the case in Kosovo. Russia may have thrown in the towel on seeking to shape the immediate outcome significantly. But it feels deeply humiliated; Kosovo has become a public symbol of Russia’s loss of influence and public degradation by the West. It has no incentive to facilitate the arrangement once it is in place. Rather, Moscow is likely to seek occasions to obstruct it or to oppose elsewhere what it perceives as America’s hegemonic tendencies. From the U.S. point of view, the quicker the Kosovo issue is removed from the Russo-American agenda, the better for our long-term relations. And Russia should have no interest in perpetuating a state of affairs in which it can embarrass us but cannot prevail.

The same is true, to a lesser extent, of China, which rejects the unilateral manner in which NATO intervened in what Bei- jing perceives as the internal matters of Yugoslavia. Indeed, most of the nations of the world will have an incentive to create obstacles to the application of the Rambouillet principles enshrined in the Kosovo agreement. Countries concerned that they may be the subject of unilateral NATO action may distance themselves from us after the dust settles. They may have an incentive to acquire weapons of mass destruction as the surest deterrent to America’s conventional superiority. How ironically history repeats its patterns. During the cold war the democracies relied on nuclear weapons to balance an assumed Soviet conventional superiority. In the post-Kosovo period it is the smaller countries which may turn to weapons of mass destruction in response to America’s overwhelming technological edge in conventional weaponry. For all these reasons, it is imperative to undertake a major assessment of how to relate the new foreign policy to an international consensus.

Even the Atlantic Alliance will never be the same after Kosovo. The Clinton administration skillfully held the Alliance together through more than 10 weeks of bombing. But the decision of the European Union’s heads of state at Cologne to accelerate a unified European defense and foreign policy reflects deep uneasiness about Europe’s relative impotence in face of the imperious American tactics. A serious European effort to build autonomous centers of decision would be far from undesirable provided Europe backs up its new organizations with appropriate resources. But it also requires a new thoughtfulness on both sides of the Atlantic if the vital American interest in close transatlantic cooperation is to survive.

For the foreseeable future, America will have a division and a half of our soldiers on near-permanent sentry duty at the fringes of the Balkans. We should therefore temper triumphalism with some reflection on the need to establish geopolitical priorities. Before we treat Kosovo as the model for a new era of humanitarian diplomacy, we should examine where else either the diplomacy or the strategy might apply. There are some 22 million refugees around the world and scores of ethnic conflicts. To which of them would a comparable mix of force and diplomacy be relevant? Where else could we bomb for 10 weeks without U.S. military casualties, a prohibitive risk of escalation or creating untenable precedents? The demonstration of what democracies can accomplish when aroused will stand us in good stead in the years ahead. But the ultimate legacy of Kosovo will depend on whether our diplomatic endgame matches the display of our power.

title: “Empty Title” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-17” author: “Maria Brown”

title: “Empty Title” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-11” author: “Clara Krane”

“I’m not responsible for solving the secular-religious problems of Israel.’’ MayorAbdel Karim Sidrof Jericho, the oldest city in the world, expressing his disapproval for plans to build a wedding chapel in the city that will cater to secular Israelis who don’t want to be married by an Orthodox rabbi

“It’s war between us. It’s like oil and water, like sharks and men, like…” Japanese sanitation workerHirano,describing the battle being waged on Tokyo streets between humans and crows who nest on power lines, disrupt commuter trains and strew trash over the streets during their nightly forays for dinner

“I can’t imagine that Saddam Hussein would be worried about being overthrown by Iraqi exiles trained in civil affairs brandishing fax machines.” Rep. Benjamin A. Gilman, chairman of the House International Relations Committee, criticizing the administration’s first direct military training program for Iraqi opposition leaders that will focus on organization not action

“We have come to never go away.’’ Igor Sergeyev,Russian Defense minister, explaining Russia’s determination to see their war in Chechnya through to the end

“It is natural that, as the years pass, we should increasingly consider our ’twilight’.” PopeJohn Paul II,79, reflecting on rites of passage as people age, in a letter addressed to “my elderly brothers and sisters,” released by the Vatican last week

“All we did was defend this place for 40 years.’’ American Ambassador to GermanyJohn Kornblum,responding to German charges that the United States is domineering and arrogant

“They thought it was cool, that someone could open fire on a school.” Sarah Jedd,a 15-year-old student at Cleveland’s South High School, on the four white students arrested for allegedly plotting a killing spree at their predominantly black high school last week

“It is a tragic case, a pure act of God.” London coronerDr.Paul Knapman,in a report on the deaths of two Thai women struck by lightning in Hyde Park in September, which found that the metal underwires in their bras conducted an electrical charge to their hearts

“You can be seriously disfigured or whatever and women will still be attracted to you.” ActorBen Affleck,on fame in the November Playboy

title: “Empty Title” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-04” author: “Anita Parks”

“Drive in no traffic and leave the turn signal on, it doesn’t make any difference.” Former senator John Glenn, who at 77 years old became the oldest man to travel in space last year, joking about why space would make a good old-folks home

“It gives the whole profession a black eye, but then nothing Simpson does surprises me anymore.” John Kelly, an attorney for Nicole Brown Simpson’s family, upon learning that O. J. Simpson recently made radio and television commercials for law firms

“I have ways of persuading other than being diplomatic.” Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, on the tactics he planned to employ on a trade mission to Hollywood, his first such trip

“I heard about all these perks of Congress. I’m still waiting for them to show up.” Rep. James Rogan, Republican of California, arguing that a representative’s $136,700 annual salary is insufficient

“The minister’s life is not in danger from any medical condition. You can applaud if you want.” Dr. Abdul Alim Muhammad, personal physician of Minister Louis Farrakhan, at a press conference called to answer rumors that the Nation of Islam leader is gravely ill

“Him? Eh. Her? I’d walk across hot coals for her.” Former presidential spokesman Mike McCurry, on his opinions of Bill and Hillary Clinton, respectively

“He wasn’t in a good mood.” Restaurateur Paul Vulaj, on boxer Evander Holyfield, who ate at Vulaj’s restaurant after fighting Lennox Lewis to a draw in a bout everyone except the judges thought Holyfield lost

“He made a good decision.” Businessman Lodwrick Cook, on former president Bush’s decision last year to accept stock in Cook’s firm in lieu of an $80,000 speaking fee. The stock is now worth $14.4 million.

“It’s too bad the guns found on your premises were not used on you and your family.” From an anonymous 1968 letter to the late Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, who held liberal views on race and abortion, that was among documents from his FBI files released last week

title: “Empty Title” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-18” author: “Kenneth Tamborlane”

title: “Empty Title” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-26” author: “James Houston”

title: “Empty Title” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-22” author: “Debra Christenson”

“Elian is safe… He will be reunited with his father.” Attorney GeneralJanet Reno,after federal agents seized Elian Gonzalez from his Miami relatives’ home

“Have a happy Easter. Have a really happy Easter.” New York MayorRudolph Giuliani,when asked to comment on his wife, Donna Hanover’s starring role in “The Vagina Monologues,” a racy off-Broadway play written by a Hillary Clinton supporter

“I broke my promise to always tell the truth.” Sen.John McCain,apologizing for his failure to call for the removal of the Confederate flag over the South Carolina capitol because he feared losing the state’s presidential primary

“We have no classified program that relies on aliens from outer space.” Pentagon spokesmanKen Bacon,on an Internet posting of the first detailed satellite images of Area 51, a top-secret Air Force site believed by UFO buffs to conceal extraterrestrial artifacts

“When discussing dictators, we will never again say, ‘He’s an s.o.b., but he’s our s.o.b.’ " Lino Gutierrez,a senior State Department official, on the importance of building democracy in Latin America

“For the first time in 14 years, he can go to bed without fearing that he will be executed.” Brian Powers,lawyer for convicted murderer Terry Williams, after the Supreme Court commuted his death sentence on the ground that Williams’s trial lawyer mishandled the sentencing phase of the case

“You got me.” NovelistChristopher Buckley,to Secretary of Defense William Cohen, after Cohen spotted his 1991 novel, which he had signed and presented to Buckley, for sale for $3,500 on an Internet site

“We have no leadership, just a crazy old man who is scared of losing power.” Obey Mudzingwa,an opposition member, on Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe, who, opponents believe, is encouraging upheaval over land redistribution so he can establish martial law and stay in power

“Wouldn’t it be nice to live in the safest town in America?” Ignatius Piazza,founder of Front Sight, Nev., billed as the nation’s first gun-resort community, with plans for 177 home lots, a K-12 private school, 12 shooting ranges, an assault tower and 400 yards of training tunnels

title: “Empty Title” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-30” author: “Rickey Hinkle”

GRAB YOUR SCISSORS: Never use too much or too little paper, says pro wrapper Ellen Timberlake. Wind a two-yard string around boxes for an accurate perimeter measure.

NO BOX? NO PROBLEM: Try this “soft wrap,” says Christine Fritsch, of Kate’s Paperie in NYC. Make an envelope out of the paper. It’ll look just like a pillow under the tree.

FIND THE RIGHT PAPER: Not the most accomplished wrapper? Stay away from stripes or patterns–you’ll drive yourself crazy lining them up. Stick to solids, especially for oversize items. “Wrapping big things is like wrassling a bear,” Timberlake admits.

GET CREATIVE: Let toys peek out, or draw on craft paper. Just remember, Fritsch says, “Gift bags are dirty words.”

title: “Empty Title” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-23” author: “Anamaria Bowyer”

“I don’t want to prejudge the report. But my gut feeling about Saddam Hussein is that he is a man who deceives.” President George W. Bush, on what he expects from United Nations inspections in Iraq

“I have had nightmares. A lot of time I wake up dreaming that the FBI wants to arrest me.” Abdallah Higazy, an Egyptian exchange student convicted of lying to federal investigators and held as a September 11 detainee, on why he filed a civil-rights lawsuit against five FBI agents, seeking $20 million in damages

“The doll is a good representation of the president–there are two or three of his Bushisms.” Talking Presidents.Com Inc. co-founder Jim Wessling, on the enormous success of his company’s talking President George W. Bush doll, which has sold out for Christmas

“My hope is that by the decision to step aside now, the Joint Commission can proceed without further controversy.” Former secretary of State Henry Kissinger, in a letter to the president, resigning as chairman of a panel investigating the September 11 attacks, citing potential conflicts of interest with his private-sector clients

“I take full responsibility for my remarks and only hope that people will find in their heart to forgive me for this grievous mistake.” Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, on making an off-the-cuff statement that appeared to endorse segregation

“I just never gave up.” Thirteen-year-old Iran Brown, the youngest victim of the Beltway sniper shootings, on his recovery process

“If one or more of the people who attacked me tonight happen to be reading this, I’d be really curious to know why you attacked me. You could anonymously sign on to the boards and describe the attack from your perspective. I’m honestly very curious.” Recording artist Moby, in a statement on his Web site, on being mugged by two strangers believed to be Eminem fans

“I think I’ll eat cake.” Belmont, Calif., resident Angelo Gallina, on what he planned to do after, in a single day, winning the $17 million SuperLotto Plus jackpot and the $126,000 Fantasy 5 top prize

“I went from nothing to a pile of money as high as the World Trade Center. And then just like the World Trade Center–poof!–it was gone overnight.” Media mogul Ted Turner, on the declining value of his stock, mostly since Time Warner merged with AOL two years ago

title: “Empty Title” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-09” author: “Maria Griggs”

Lars Nilsson: Putting the Nina Ricci label back on track

Founded in 1932, Nina Ricci became renowned for its charming lady-like silhouette. But in recent years the label lost its way. Now, thanks to Lars Nilsson, Ricci is suddenly back on track. After his ultrafeminine debut in Paris last week–lace camisoles, swishy skirts and elegant suits in luscious tangerine and sugary pink – major American retailers, who haven’t sold Ricci lately, stopped by for a second look. “We thought it was a very pretty collection–very Nina Ricci,” says Joan Kaner of Neiman Marcus.

Born in Sweden, Nilsson, 37, came up the old-fashioned way. Trained in classical couture, he started in 1989 at Christian Lacroix, where he fetched bolts of fabric and crawled on his knees pinning hems. He went on to Christian Dior, where he worked for John Galliano, then moved to New York. After stints with Ralph Lauren and Bill Blass–where executives fired him despite his popular Holly Golightly cocktail wear–Nilsson was hired by Puig, which owns Ricci. Two months later, he was dreaming up frocks for women to wear next spring.

Nilsson’s passion is for old-style couture. “I’ve always loved well-made things,” he says. “And that’s what couture is: the ultimate of all those things.” But his ideas come from modern sources; he regularly visits contemporary galleries to take in artists like Cy Twombly. His guiding principle? “Bill Blass told me, ‘Believe in yourself and do what you believe in’,” Nilsson says. Sound advice, and it seems to be working.

–Dana Thomas

Clothes for Every Age

Ralph Rucci: Supplying an antidote to the micromini

Ralph Rucci’s clothes are beautiful, wearable and chic. But some critics complain that they’re not “young.” Don’t get him started. “I find that the fastest way to date your work is to become involved in the typical vocabulary of ‘modern’ and ‘young’,” he says. “To assume that young is a short skirt and a chiffon blouse is ludicrous.”

For Rucci, young and modern is a mind-set, and his “metier” is to design clothes for all women–corporate and artsy alike. His spring line emphasized warmer fabrics and sober colors, like caramel double-faced wools and black patent leathers over billowy, pastel linens and chiffons. Rucci’s designs also have a strong Eastern influence–the result, he says matter-of-factly, of having lived several past lives in Japan. Tacked on the concept board in his Manhattan office are photos of geishas and Japanese armor that he’d like to reproduce in leather. Among his most striking spring pieces were wide skirts with a Rorschach print that resembles a Japanese ink drawing.

Recently, Rucci launched a couture line that shows twice a year in Paris–a rare honor for an American. Designing for unconventional couture clients, he says, allows his clothes to be fantastical and practical at the same time. When fashion gets its fill of microminis and see-through dresses, Ralph Rucci is where they’ll come running.

–Anna Kuchment

Not Afraid Of Color

Eley Kishimoto: A duo that dares to be different

No one would ever describe Eley Kishimoto as “muted.” From their stained-glass window-pane jackets to their candy-cane tights, the husband-and-wife team of Mark Eley and Wakako Kishimoto have followed their own colorful path since starting out in 1992. London’s V&A recently recognized them with a retrospective. They have collaborated with everyone from Alexander McQueen to Gianni Versace. They have also designed for New Look, an affordable High Street brand, and created a houseware line.

Brit Eley, 37, and Japan-born Kishimoto, 37, met in New York in the ’80s, then reconnected in a London pub in 1990. Two years later, they were married and used wedding money to launch their label. Eley says they share the aim of the Russian constructivists: to bring art into life. Outfits like their zebra-stripe trench coat with cheetah polka-dots do just that.

–Emily Flynn

Slickers With Style

Proenza Schouler: Two distinct minds, one elegant vision

For spring 2004 Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez rolled out wafting, shimmery skirts paired with geometric bodysuits. But the star of the show was a glossy yellow rain slicker covered with thousands of patent leather sequins. “We are really into outerwear,” says Hernandez of Proenza Schouler. “A coat is all one big shape, like a sculpture, and you can make it into whatever you want.”

McCollough and Hernandez, each 25 years old, have had the meteoric rise of every young designer’s dreams. Discovered even before they graduated New York’s Parsons School of Design, they sold their senior thesis collection to Barneys New York–where it promptly sold out. Since then, they have become America’s most talked-about young fashion team, winning top awards and accolades from celebrities like Liv Tyler and fashion arbiters like Vogue’s Anna Wintour. Their look combines classic American sportswear with a twist of tailored elegance.

McCollough and Hernandez work eerily well together, they say. They begin each design cycle by rifling through folders at the New York Public Library’s Picture Collection for inspiration. Then, they separate and sketch on their own. When they bring their designs together, they often find they’ve sketched identical pieces. “It’s crazy, it’s really weird,” says Hernandez. “We have a reserve that we both have access to.”

But don’t look for any Proenza Schouler stores or corporate buyouts anytime soon. “We’re so happy where we are,” says McCollough. “We don’t care about expanding, as long as we have the funds to keep doing what we want.” One thing in the works is a shoe collection–to complete their “total image.”

–A. K.

Art That Functions

Julie Verhoeven: Creator of the must-have handbag

Julie Verhoeven has long been known in Britain for her newspaper illustrations of saucer-eyed girls wearing enviable clothes. “I like drawing clothes,” Verhoeven, 34, says simply. Now she gets to design them as well. After studying illustration, she served as John Galliano’s assistant, a Selfridges window designer and a freelance illustrator. She got her big break last year when–working with Marc Jacobs–she created the season’s must-have Louis Vuitton bag, adorned with appliqued grass and flowers. Italian manufacturer Gibo asked Verhoeven to design its fall line. Shown last month, it draws on her artsy background: tailored pantsuits splattered, Pollock-like, with paint; silk blouses with lava-lamp dots. Still, she says, art and fashion are not the same: “At the end of the day, clothing does have to function.”

–E.F.

The Quiet Australian

Martin Grant: A vision of understated elegance

Martin Grant is fashion’s quiet man: the demure 37-year-old Australian turns out collections of understated elegance. “His clothes are very clean and well cut,” says socialite Lee Radziwill, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’ sister.

Grant got his start as a boy in Melbourne, where his grandmother, a dressmaker, taught him to sew. His spring-summer show in Paris last –week–silk shirtdresses, silver mini-trenches and liquid satin gowns–was a tribute to her: “She always wore shirtdresses,” he said. At 15, Grant left home to assist a local designer. Ten years later he moved to Paris and opened a small boutique, where he became known for his sculpted wool coats and slender shifts.

Grant’s following is growing fast. His first runway show last March earned fawning reviews and abundant orders. Barneys New York just hired him to design its in-house collection. “Before, I was establishing myself,” Grant says. “Now it’s time to push it forward.”

–D. T.

Strong But Also Sexy

Zowie Broach and Brian Kirkby: Boudicca’s brains

Named after an ancient British warrior queen, Boudicca unites the contradictions of its namesake: masculine suits made from feminine fabrics; top hats crowning glimmering dresses; erotic lace frocks trimmed with black-leather bands. With their latest collection, Boudicca’s Zowie Broach and Brian Kirkby, both 37, not only won top plaudits around Europe but also landed a coveted American Express sponsorship. Just in time, too: the romantically involved couple–a fiery item off the catwalk as well–have been struggling financially since they graduated from Middlesex Polytechnic in 1997 and started Boudicca in London’s East End.

The pair have a political point to make. They titled one collection “It Pays My Way But Corrodes My Soul,” dressing their models in mannequin faces to represent the anonymous corporate world. Broach and Kirkby have signed anti-globalization petitions and even protested at the 2001 G8 summit in Genoa. How the Amex sponsorship will impact their political involvement remains to be seen. But one thing is clear: strong and nonconformist, they aim to make statuesque suits and peacock headdresses the uniform of the 21st-century woman.

–E.F.

Mature for His Age

Zac Posen: Designing clothes with confidence

Zac Posen’s idol, French couturier Madeleine Vionnet, dressed Hollywood’s most glamorous stars of the 1930s and ’40s. At 22, Posen has already won over the current crop of screen divas, like Halle Berry and Julianne Moore. The bias cut, which Vionnet invented, permeates his collections of draped, form-conscious clothing. For spring 2004, thinking of “seashells, water, boardwalks and sunsets,” Posen rolled out a line of short, fluttery gowns in pastel colors. “His dresses have a grace and an ease,” says Kal Ruttenstein, fashion director at Bloomingdale’s, which has displayed Posen’s fall 2003 collection in its windows. “We really believe in him.”

Posen believes in himself, too. Well-connected and a regular presence on the party circuit, he oozes confidence. Asked to describe his ideal client, he e-mailed from Paris: “Talented, beautiful, strong and intelligent… [that’s] the definition of the Zac Posen woman.”

–Anna Kuchment and Jaime Cunningham

title: “Empty Title” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-20” author: “George Farrow”

“The Iraq contract process looks like Dodge City before the marshals showed up.” U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, arguing for more transparency in the bidding process for Iraq contracts

BLACK TIE/SHORT DRESS. Wording on invitations to a U.N. cocktail reception in New York last week for Gerhard Schroder, hosted by the German mission

“I thought for sure this was the Big One. But it looks like we got by with just a few broken dishes and windows.” Sachiko Katsuta, a restaurant owner in Kushiro, Japan, after a massive magnitude 8 earthquake hit the northern island of Hokkaido

“It’s an organization that has no qualms about dropping bombs… on the densest neighborhoods in the world.” An Israeli pilot, identified as Capt. Alon, on why he was ashamed to be a member of the Air Force. Twenty-seven pilots declared recently that airstrikes in the West Bank and Gaza were “immoral” and refused to take part in them.

“Amina is free today.” Hauwa Ibrahim, one of the lawyers of Amina Lawal, who was acquitted of adultery–and a sentence of death by stoning that had stirred international outrage–by a Nigerian court

“What she has done for me is surely the most beautiful proof of love in the world.” Vincent Humbert, referring to his mom’s ending his life by an overdose of sedatives, in his book “I Ask the Right to Die,” released last week. The book–and Humbert’s death last Friday–have renewed debate in France on euthanasia.

“It’s a creation better than the Taj Mahal, antibiotics, Apollo 11 and computers together.” Yoga guru Bikram Choudhury, praising the ancient spiritual practice during the recent World Yoga Championship in Los Angeles

“I don’t remember saying that. I think I was drunk.” Rock star Alanis Morissette, after she said, “Thank you, Brazil,” at the end of a show in Peru

title: “Empty Title” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-30” author: “Melvin Justus”

“We don’t have a Patriot Act in the NBA. That means you’re innocent until proven guilty.” NBA Commissioner David Stern, on whether Kobe Bryant should play for the Los Angeles Lakers this season despite facing a potential trial for a sexual-assault charge

“Am I in enemy territory?” Veteran White House journalist Helen Thomas, after loud applause met her declaration that George W. Bush is “more conservative than any president I’ve ever covered” in a speech at Brigham Young University

“There are much fewer communists than before… We also have gorgeous secretaries.” Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, on why U.S. businessmen should invest in his country

“Even my dog wants to hump you.” Talk-show host Sharon Osbourne, to Latin pop heartthrob Julio Iglesias Jr.

“I have defended telemarketers. Feel free to call me; someone is always there.” Tucker Carlson, cohost of CNN’s “Crossfire,” who instead gave the number for Fox News’s Washington bureau. Fox retaliated by publishing Carlson’s home phone number on its Web site.

“It wasn’t the second helping on all-you-can-eat but the third.” Red Lobster chairman Joe R. Lee, on what caused an all-you-can-eat crab promotion to sap the company’s profits, prompting the seafood chain to replace its existing president

“I have a perfect part for you in my movie ‘Terminator 4’.” California gubernatorial candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger, to candidate Arianna Huffington, possibly alluding to “Terminator 3,” in which his character plunges a woman’s head into a toilet bowl. Schwarzenegger claims the comment was meant to be complimentary.

“I’ll be at the front door when you get home from work, wearing only what nature gave me.” Excerpt from a faux personal ad, circulated via e-mail, for a “single black female” named Daisy. More than 15,000 men have called, only to discover that the ad refers to a black Labrador retriever and the number belongs to the Atlanta Humane Society.

“I was trying to keep her out of my lap. She was trying to get next to me and lick my neck. No, I’m only kidding.” Liberty County, Ga., Sheriff J. Don Martin, on the visit Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck made to his office to inquire about a gun permit

“If you catch him, just give me four seconds with Saddam Hussein.” Actor Bruce Willis, after offering $1 million to the soldier who captures the ousted Iraqi leader

“Thank you, Brazil!” Singer Alanis Morissette, in Lima, Peru

title: “Empty Title” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-04” author: “Coy Johnson”

Portal had it right; though it was a closely held secret, FDR was suffering from congestive heart failure and high blood pressure. Churchill, however, could not quite contemplate life after Roosevelt. “Our friendship,” Churchill wrote the president in the early months of 1945, “is the rock on which I build for the future of the world so long as I am one of the builders.” Given the times in which they lived–an era of war, attacks on civilian populations, and ideological conflict–I believe (and my new book, “Franklin and Winston,” argues) that Roosevelt and Churchill repay close attention, for their times are like our times, and together they managed to bring order out of chaos.

To meet Roosevelt, “with all his buoyant sparkle, his iridescence,” Churchill once said, was like “opening a bottle of champagne.” Theirs was a remarkable comradeship, “forged,” as Churchill put it to Eleanor Roosevelt the day the president died, “in the fire of war.” From September 11, 1939, to April 11, 1945 (the eve of Roosevelt’s death), the two carried on a correspondence that produced nearly 2,000 messages. By war’s end Roosevelt and Churchill would spend 113 days together, celebrating Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s in one another’s company. Amid cocktails, cigarettes and cigars, they met, often secretly, from Casablanca to Quebec, talking to each other of war, politics, the burden of command, their health, their wives, and their children.

Reflecting on her father and Roosevelt for me, Mary Soames, the Churchills’ youngest daughter, crystallized the complexities of the relationship by quoting a French proverb: “In love, there is always one who kisses, and one who offers the cheek.” Churchill was the suitor, Roosevelt the elusive quarry. The dynamic also reflected political reality: America was on the rise, Britain in decline, and Churchill believed London’s future depended on proximity to Washington.

Today an American president and a British prime minister are again at the center of a global conflict. The Roosevelt-Churchill relationship sheds light on the art of leadership, on the birth of the American empire and on Britain’s role as our junior partner (Churchill’s last words to his last cabinet: “Never be separated from the Americans”; it is Tony Blair’s creed, too). George W. Bush and Blair are playing parts first written and acted by Roosevelt and Churchill–and the current stars could learn some crucial lessons from the Great Men of World War II. Among them: allies (even annoying ones) matter; be candid with your people; appreciate nuance.

Bush and Blair have one essential point completely in hand: sometimes leaders must project power when public opinion–both elite and mass–is against it. Lesser politicians and the press are prone, in Churchill’s phrase, to spin around with “the alacrity of squirrels.” Without Churchill’s defiance from May 1940 forward–defiance fueled by his prayers that FDR would eventually enter the war–Adolf Hitler might well have struck a deal legitimizing the Third Reich’s early and widespread conquests. And without FDR’s deft maneuvering to nudge Americans toward engaging the evil unfolding in Europe, we could be living in a different–and much more troubled and troubling–world.

Other lessons, though, are also important. Often put out with the Americans, and perpetually frustrated by the French, Churchill said, “The only thing worse than Allies is not having Allies!” Roosevelt understood this, too: America could not go it alone. In his last inaugural address, FDR said: “We have learned that we cannot live alone, at peace; that our own well-being is dependent upon the well-being of other nations, far away… We have learned the simple truth, as Emerson said, that ’the only way to have a friend is to be one’.”

They both trusted their nations to handle the facts on the big things. “The British people can face peril or misfortune with fortitude and buoyancy,” Churchill noted, “but they bitterly resent being deceived…” In the winter of 1942, a time of defeats for the democracies, FDR said: “The news is going to get worse and worse before it gets better. The American people must be prepared for it and they must get it straight from the shoulder.” Another gift Churchill and FDR shared was a capacity to think on several different levels–and several moves ahead–as they debated how to rebuild other countries, laying the foundations of postwar peace and creating the United Nations.

Of course, it is always tempting for the present to disparage the leaders of the moment by idolizing the heroes of the past. But Roosevelt and Churchill were men long before they were monuments. FDR once came upon Churchill in the White House as the Englishman, fresh from his bath, was pacing around naked–“completely starkers,” recalled an aide. Roosevelt apologized and began to retreat. Stopping him, Churchill said, “You see, Mr. President, I have nothing to hide from you.” After the holiday, Roosevelt told Churchill: “It is fun to be in the same decade with you.” It was a decade in which the two men confronted evil and triumphed together when apart they might have failed. Taken all in all, the two men and their friendship can help guide us all forward, through the darkness of war and terror toward light.

title: “Empty Title” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-16” author: “Francine Dalton”

Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement, is a time of deep reflection and symbolism about the challenges that life presents. In the midst of another cycle of violence in Israel, that symbolism rarely felt heavier. A suicide bomb in the northern port city of Haifa left at least 19 dead on the Sabbath before Yom Kippur, and pushed the Israeli government another step closer to removing Palestinian Chairman Yasir Arafat.

In public, the Bush administration recited the usual condemnations and offered the familiar condolences. But in private conversations with the region’s leaders, there is a sense that the United States has reached the end of the line. The White House is stuck with an Israeli leader it will not oppose and a Palestinian leader it cannot abide. The White House used to talk about peace in the Mideast. Now the talk focuses on how to stop the region from falling into the abyss.

In a written statement, President Bush never mentioned Arafat by name, focusing instead on “the responsibility of Palestinian authorities to fight terror.” But in private, it was all Arafat, all the time. White House officials called Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s aides, urging them to hold off their official government policy of expelling, or even killing, Arafat. They also called Arab leaders, pressing them once again to persuade Arafat to crack down on terrorism.

It’s a refrain that has grown stale to many in the region. Arab leaders insist they can lean on Arafat only as much as the Bush administration leans on Sharon. The United States pleads with Sharon to think of “the consequences” of his actions. (Translation: Arafat’s removal will set the region on fire.) But the White House believes it has little leverage. “Not only is Israel a sovereign state, but it’s a democratic state,” said one senior administration official. “The Israeli people elected Sharon to bring security.”

In spite of their bluster, the Israelis admit they look to the Bush White House before they strike. And what they are seeing is a green light, as long as Arafat remains untouched. “If Israel will step up its actions and perhaps occupy certain areas, I don’t think this will be objected to by the U.S. and even Europe,” says a senior Israeli official, “whereas deporting Arafat is still something that would create a major, major problem.” In a land of twisted symbols, the Israeli delay in expelling Arafat looks like self-restraint. But it remains a long, long way from peace.

–Richard Wolffe and Dan Ephron

Britain: Choosing New Ties

Since teaming up with U.S. President George W. Bush on Iraq, British Prime Minister Tony Blair has had to live with being called the presidential “poodle.” Now the charge is really sticking. So it’s no wonder the news that Bush is coming to London for a state visit in November has elicited yowls of anguish from Blair’s own Labour Party. “That’s the last thing we need,” a Labour National Executive Committee member said last week during the annual party conference. Some partisans want Blair to pick a fight.

That won’t happen. It’s not Blair’s style. But a whole host of issues on which Blair and Bush disagree are popping up anyway. A case in point: while Washington took a hawkish line on Iran’s suspect nuclear program last month, Britain sided with France and Germany in a slightly softer approach. Another: Blair recently joined the French and Germans once again in edging closer to an agreement on an EU military capability somewhat independent of NATO. Meanwhile, a welter of trade disputes, from genetically modified foods to farm subsidies, remain; the Kyoto accord on climate change and–most prominently–the Mideast also loom large. Britain takes a much less complaisant view of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon than Washington.

Distancing himself from Bush will undoubtedly help Blair repair some of the damage his stand on Iraq caused in Europe. But as long as Iraq remains on the front pages, the effort is likely to remain somewhat of a long-term project.

–Stryker McGuire

Thailand: Smuggled SAMs

With less than three weeks to go before Bangkok hosts the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has been ridding the capital of beggars, stray dogs and street hawkers. But what’s really being swept under the rug is more serious: terrorism. Last week local papers reported that six hand-held surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) had recently been smuggled into the country from Cambodia for use in a possible attack on the summit, which will be attended by world leaders including George W. Bush, Tony Blair and Vladimir Putin. Thaksin has dismissed the press reports as “rumors.”

But NEWSWEEK has learned that components for at least six SAMs have been smuggled into Thailand within the past few months, most likely from Cambodia and Laos. A senior member of Bangkok’s Crime Suppression Division says Jemaah Islamiah–the Qaeda-linked terrorist group responsible for last year’s Bali attacks–was involved in the SAM smuggling. Thai police have since had to seal the country’s borders in order to prevent the remaining parts from getting in. “We’ve been forced to put tighter security on the APEC meeting–tighter than –what we planned for,” the source says. Thaksin can only hope it’s not too late. Critics compare his attitude to that of Indonesia’s President Megawati Sukarnoputri, who denied any terrorism problem–until JI operatives killed 202 people on Bali.

–Joe Cochrane

Recall: Judgment Day

By the time it was over, the California recall election, which began as a kind of amusing freak show, settled down into a more familiar spectacle: a spitting match between two desperate pols. With a few days to go before they would have to choose the person to lead them out of an unprecedented fiscal crisis, here is what Californians heard from the “front runners.”

Gov. Gray Davis expressed deep disappointment that Arnold Schwarzenegger had been accused of groping countless women over the years. At first, Arnold’s aides tried to denounce the allegations. Within hours, though, the actor issued an apology–a “mea sorta culpa.” He admitted that he had on occasion “behaved badly,” while claiming that “a lot” of the stories weren’t true.

The second blow came in a story recounting an interview Arnold gave for the 1977 documentary “Pumping Iron.” Asked to name his heroes, he allegedly responded, “I admired Hitler, for instance, because he came from being a little man with almost no formal education, up to power. And I admire him for being such a good public speaker and for his way of getting to the people and so on.” Schwarzenegger said last week that he “couldn’t imagine” making such comments “because I have always despised everything Hitler stands for.” Arnold claimed he was the victim of a smear; Davis, who is renowned for his willingness to play down and dirty to pull out a win, angrily denied any involvement in planting the stories.

–Karen Breslau

Health: Don’t Hang Up Yet

It seems like eons ago that every other headline warned us we’d drop dead from excessive mobile-phone use. But just as we’ve come to realize the harmlessness of the handset, along comes science to scare us again. This time it’s an experiment conducted by Dutch technological research institute TNO, which last week revealed that low-level radiation similar to that emitted by a third-generation cell-phone tower can cause headaches and nausea. In the TNO tests, participants were exposed to four levels of radiation: none, two levels typical of most mobiles currently in use and higher, third-generation levels. The tests were double blind–neither the researchers nor the subjects were aware of who was exposed to which signal. The result: a significant increase in subjective complaints by those who endured the third-generation rays.

So it is time to hang up your nifty new mobile? Not unless your mother-in-law’s on the other end. Past studies have reported negative health impacts of cell-phone use but none have been scientifically confirmed, says John Moulder, a professor of radiation oncology at the Medical College of Wisconsin who has done extensive reviews of research in the phone field. But most tests to date have focused on radiation from handsets, which although more powerful, aims at the head. Radiation from cell-phone towers affects the whole body of anyone within the transmission area, albeit at a much lower level. “I was surprised by this finding,” says Moulder. “No one else has ever seen any effects on anything at these sorts of exposure levels.” The next step is for independent confirmation of the Dutch team’s results, which the mobile-phone industry was quick to call for last week.

–Jonathan Adams

Music: A Classy Classical Kid

Hayley Westenra isn’t–and never was–your average teen. At 10, she busked on New Zealand’s streets to earn pocket money, later recording songs for family and friends with the proceeds. Now she’s 16, and “Pure,” her first international album, has become the world’s fastest-selling classical debut.

At first glimpse of the wide, winsome smile on her album cover, one would be forgiven for thinking of Westenra as just another classical-lite teen being groomed to spice up the biz. Global sales of classical music are rapidly eroding, and labels are desperate for new stars with sparkly styles to bring in a much-needed younger audience. But it’s worth repeating that Westenra isn’t your average teen–and she’s not your average classical popster. Her album includes sentimental ballads, but also two beautiful traditional Maori songs. The emotional range of “Pokarekare Ana” is simple, but Westenra’s rendition sends shivers down the spine. She’s even bravely tackled the tricky Kate Bush classic “Wuthering Heights.” Though she doesn’t quite get to the guts of the song’s deranged wildness, Westenra makes up for it with a piercing clarity and forcefulness. To be sure, “Pure” might not captivate the purists. But beyond the sugary pop there’s a ton of star quality in this teen’s outstanding voice. It makes us hope she’s here to stay.

–Tara Pepper

Books: Critical Cartoons

John carefully crossed off reasons not to become a terrorist. “1) High school? What a joke. 2) My mother? She could care less. 3) My job at the Shop Rite? Hell no, leaving that would be like being paroled…” So goes the story of John Snedel, a new comic book character inspired by the story of John Walker Lindh, the California kid who joined the Taliban. In the comic “Johnny Jihad,” cartoonist Ryan Inzana recounts Snedel’s journey from a teenage delinquent in New Jersey to a recruit of the Qaeda-inspired Ul Jaamat and finally to a CIA spy in Afghanistan after his arrest.

Illustrated in stark black and white, John’s tale allows Inzana to voice his critique of U.S. foreign policy. Take one depiction of Afghanistan, where he intersperses frames of U.S. bombers with those of planes approaching the Twin Towers to morally equate September 11 and the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. Parallels are also drawn between the American culture of violence and the country’s history of involvement in foreign conflict–a link personified by John’s father, who returns from Vietnam a drunkard and first introduces young John to a rifle. But by no means is this book an apologia for radical Islam either; John is dismayed by the brutality and hypocrisies of Taliban rule and, rather too simplistically, renounces Islam. Clearly antiwar, and sometimes verging on anti-American, the book may offend some. But its skilled drawings and wit bring to life the misguided motivations–and hesitations–of a would-be terrorist, and the empty promise of salvation through violence.

–Liat Radcliffe

Fairy Tales: Once Lost, Now Found

Some bad news: in Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid,” the mermaid doesn’t get her prince. In fact, she dies. More bad news: that’s not the only one of Andersen’s stories that has been told wrong. “Andersen was lost,” says Jeffrey Frank, who, with his wife, Diana, faithfully cotranslated Andersen’s most famous stories in the new “Stories of Hans Christian Andersen.” “He was a literary genius and they lost the whole spirit of him,” says Frank.

There’s no single culprit–Andersen’s stories were changed by Victorian translators for tone and decency; they were spliced by publishers to fit with illustrations, and they went through so many shoddy interpretations that the originals were all but lost in translation. Some stories, like “The Princess and the Pea,” were even incorrectly attributed to other authors. (It was included in an 1843 Grimm brothers’ collection.) The Franks’ edition finally sets the stories straight, and a valuable opening essay clarifies the tale most often told wrong–Andersen’s own life story.

–Elise Soukup

Anthony Hopkins

Sir anthony Hopkins has played them all: Picasso, Nixon, Dickens, Hitler, Lecter, the old British guy sometime around the turn of some century… even Zorro. It’s no wonder NEWSWEEK’s Barry Brown had a few questions for the wise Welshman:

How do you create your characters? A lot of research?

No. I might do a bit of research, but I just make sure I know the text well. More than well. Then it’s up to the director to interpret it as well as he may.

You’ve accomplished so much. Any goals unfulfilled as yet?

None at all. I enjoy doing what I do now more than ever because I am detached from it. I am not in turmoil over it. I’m much more laconic or fatalistic about it. A movie is just a movie. It’s not a cure for cancer.

What makes you laugh?

Everything. I come from Britain. I like the ridiculous.

What’s been your greatest experience as an actor?

Working with Oliver Stone. We did “Nixon” together. That was a powerful experience.

Do you dream of directing?

No. It’s too much like hard work.

What’s your favorite line from a movie?

I did a movie once called “Hearts in Atlantis.” I’m not a writer, but there was one line I added: “We’re just passing through. That’s all we’re doing, we’re just passing through.” I think a good epitaph for all human beings is: “What the hell was that all about?”

title: “Empty Title” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-08” author: “Cameron Hilty”

Like weeds after a forest fire, inventions often spring up during times of war, depression or other sudden calamities. If business blows a valve in the dot-com bust, then human ingenuity will shuffle sideways into the fields of defense or homeland security. The pampered global consumer of the 1990s, blowing his pocket money on gizmos, becomes the hapless terrorist suspect of the ’00s, having his shoes scanned and his body gently riddled by unheard-of T-rays (terahertz waves).

There was no way to predict that line of development, but technology’s map creates its own blank spots. Success breeds unexpected opportunities that only a visionary could see. The inventor thrives in this environment because he is small, nimble and expendable, and he doesn’t cost much. Qualities like that are hard to automate. “These days you certainly have lots of big teams, but also small groups of one or two people,” says physicist Freeman Dyson of the Institute for Advanced Study, and a fellow of the World Economic Forum. “The individual is as important as he ever was.”

To understand the individual inventor, it helps to consider the life cycle of inventions. The first phase is the question mark–the fertile realm of basic science, free intellectual inquiry and new developments in materials and manufacturing techniques, borrowed from distant lines of work. It is a rather whimsical world of open-ended tinkering, learned curiosities, amateur hobbies, technological cross- pollination, entertainments and even children’s toys. Inventions in their question-mark phase don’t make money. Nobody knows what they’re good for yet. The question mark is of no more use than a newborn baby. The infant-mortality rate is huge for question marks. Patent offices worldwide are crammed with nifty innovations that go nowhere at all.

Wealth and fame don’t reach the inventor until his baby becomes a rising star. This is where everyday people take notice that their world is being changed. Vast, sudden fortunes can be made here, because the owner and developer of a rising star has stolen a march on the competition. A military rising star, like radar or the A-bomb, can win wars. The Apple I computer was a question mark, but the Apple II, equipped with a working spreadsheet, jumped off the shelves. With a rising star, demand grows, supply is rare and consumers pay big premiums without a second thought.

The third phase, the cash cow, is not news. In this mature period, inventors are given the National Medal of Technology and quietly retired back to the lab. If they unwisely try to stay in full control of a cash cow, they’ll be underpriced, outcompeted and run out of town by canny chief executives who have M.B.A.s and can manage big, serious industries. A cow is dependable, but she is a creature of the milk stall and the corral. Cash cows live in herds. A cash cow is not a star anymore, merely a large, rather profitable industry. Automatic dishwashers are cash cows; nobody bothers to give them that wonder-word “automatic” anymore because a dishwasher sells on cost, convenience and reliability, not on high-tech pizzazz. Visionaries are not needed for cows; their imagination is even troublesome.

In the dead-dog phase, one of two things happens. The technology may become completely obsolete and defunct, in which case people rapidly forget that it ever existed (typewriters, the telegraph). Or, it can become so predictable and so well-understood that anyone can build it. At this point the rate of return on investment crashes, because the invention is a mere commodity. Clocks and running water are technology, so are forks and roads. But they are not romantic inventions.

Established business people have plenty of smarts, and they know their customers well. They often watch the question marks at trade shows. They contemplate a rising star in horror. They behave as they do because that is good business-management practice. To gamble on a question mark or buy out the rising star, they have to kill and publicly eat their own sacred cash cow. That’s a terrifying prospect for an established industry. The whole structure of many –companies is built around the cow, the way that the Sioux and Comanche built their home, food and clothing around the buffalo. Every employee has been fully trained to a high pitch of efficiency in pushing and herding the cow. The promotions department has a sacred brand name to uphold. The salespeople have established channels. The stockholders want steady paying assets, not some dynamic outfit ready to roll the dice on their life savings.

Aviation is a classic example of an industry that’s run through much of this cycle. Aviation had a very long question-mark phase–Montgolfier hot-air balloons, gliders, children’s helicopter toys. The Wright brothers built bicycles for a living, and conquered the sky as a hobby. Once the rising star took flight, though, every nation wanted in. Money was no object in a technology as glamorous as manned flight.

Governments subsidized research and development for military purposes. The first world war was a tremendous boon to aircraft development. Almost overnight, fragile flying kites built by hobbyists turned into rugged, brutal bombing and strafing machines. After the Great War came a glamorous barnstormer period when ex-military airplanes and pilots lived and died on pure technohype. Charles Lindbergh was a world hero. Millions of everyday people paid good money just to see an airplane, or to go aloft just for the sake of having flown for a while.

Then came the jet age, the rocket age, the space age–and then, not a whole lot. Aviation had entered its cash-cow phase. The supersonic Concorde has been mothballed, after a tremendous career of unalloyed money loss. Boeing’s Sonic Cruiser fared even worse. The first major innovation in civilian aircraft in decades, the Sonic Cruiser died as a question mark and never flew off the drawing board. Deregulation added no vitality to the plodding airline industry. The hub system, dominated by oligarchs, froze into place. An airline ticket became a commodity. The airlines haven’t looked this feeble and sick, ever; their crisis rivals the downfall of the passenger railroads.

Where have all the inventors gone? They haven’t gone away, just underground. These days innovation is coming from just about everywhere but the aviation industry. The Air Force hated the darling of Afghanistan, the unmanned Predator. That’s why the patron of tomorrow’s robot aircraft was the CIA. In the question-mark labs of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and in academia’s engineering departments, attention turns to aircraft tinier and slower than any ever known, basically video cell phones with wings and maybe armed with 22-caliber pistols. These lines of aviation invention are truly off the wall, and have little to do with the stolid, shrinking, conglomerated world of the big defense contractors. They were not invented here; they came over the transom from Silicon Valley. After a hundred years of manned flight, it takes a major leap to reinvent aircraft as unmanned microchips with teensy little wings.

These guys don’t need or plan to make money or sense. Their rocketship-hobby labs are not traditional enterprises in business, science or government, but eccentric bursts of raw Jules Vernian invention that will cheerfully consume tens of millions of rising-star dollars. This practice is every bit as romantic as art for art’s sake, for this is techno for techno’s sake, when only the useless is beautiful. It is invention for the sheer joy of what technology can do in the way of stretching the probable and blowing our minds. That’s why the lone inventor compels us in ways that good sense, comfort, profit, military security, predictability and mere industrial rationality never can. We live in a technological society, and we cannot help but stop and marvel when our genius comes from the heart.

title: “Empty Title” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-22” author: “Paul Hanson”

I don’t know how many fans of the theater were put off by the prospect of secondhand smoke wafting down from the boards. But since most New Yorkers couldn’t afford seats close enough to be affected (the price of Broadway tickets these days is a scandal in itself), we realized the notice served another purpose altogether. The theater was simply making sure it was legally protected in case some tourist in the front row took offense–and sued.

Farfetched? A couple of weeks later an indignant letter writer to The New York Times asked why the actors actually needed to smoke. If the scene called for smoking, she fulminated, couldn’t they just hold unlit cigarettes and pretend? Fair enough, I suppose. After all, when a script calls for a fatality, no one actually obliges an actor to die. Yet something worries me here. The issue isn’t just to smoke or not to smoke. It’s the whiff of the puritanical, or worse. Run-amok public morality, coupled with the fear of litigation, is turning America into a nanny state. And this nanny is Nurse Ratchet.

In the land where Thomas Jefferson proclaimed the best government to be one that governs the least, we now see the most persnickety intrusions into daily life. You can’t smoke in public places, including bars and restaurants. You can’t use a cell phone in your car, though that’s about the most useful place in the world to have one. (“Hell-oo? How the heck do I get to your place? Your directions are hopeless!”). Laws of all sorts prohibit all kinds of behavior at the workplace, from casual touching to off-color jokes.

Home is no haven, either. It is illegal in several cities to be in a state of undress if a peeping Tom across the way claims he glimpsed you. Neighbors are now legally entitled to report “inappropriate” noises coming from your apartment. The city of San Francisco encourages hairdressers to report domestic violence if they find suspicious bumps or scratches on their clients’ heads. Public schools have even legislated anti-bullying ordinances governing all sorts of commonplace juvenile behavior–name-calling, teasing and even “shunning,” or avoiding kids you don’t like. What’s next–dirty looks?

Such rules, however unenforceable, have the effect of inhibiting normal human contact. In Nurse Ratchet’s nanny state, teachers are terrified of hugging children for fear of being fired. (The state of Michigan bars teachers from touching a child for any reason.) The descendants of Buffalo Bill and Wyatt Earp now ban seesaws, lest their kiddies hurt themselves. For seven years now, New Yorkers getting into taxis have listened to maddeningly grating recorded voices instructing them to fasten their seat belts and “get a receipt from the driver.” The tone is guaranteed to irritate.

Here, at least, a backlash has set in. Spurning the blandishments of such luminaries as Placido Domingo and Joan Rivers–as if anyone would listen to her–67 percent of New Yorkers refuse to “buckle up,” according to the Taxi and Limousine Commission. Showing rare common sense, the city has thus decided to phase out the announcements. No longer will the hurried businessman leaping into a cab be harried by the canned voice of Michael Buffer screaming “Let’s get ready to rrrummmble!”

Call it a small victory against the nanny state.

title: “Empty Title” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-26” author: “Angelo Schulze”

I went back through the Pentagon in November 2001, and one of the senior military staff officers had time for a chat. Yes, we were still on track for going against Iraq, he said. But there was more. This was being discussed as part of a five-year campaign plan, he said, and there were a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia, and Sudan. So, I thought, this is what they mean when they talk about “draining the swamp.” It was evidence of the Cold War approach: Terrorism must have a “state sponsor,” and it would be much more effective to attack a state than to chase after individuals, nebulous organizations, and shadowy associations.

He said it with reproach–with disbelief, almost–at the breadth of the vision. I moved the conversation away, for this was not something I wanted to hear. And it was not something I wanted to see moving forward, either.

What a mistake! I reflected–as though the terrorism were simply coming from these states. Well, that might be true for Iran, which still supported Hezbollah, and Syria, complicit in aiding Hamas and Hezbollah. But neither Hezbollah nor Hamas were targeting Americans. Why not build international power against Al Qaeda? But if we prioritized the threat against us from any state, surely Iran was at the top of the list, with ongoing chemical and biological warfare programs, clear nuclear aspirations, and an organized, global terrorist arm.

And what about the real sources of terrorists–U.S. allies in the region like Egypt, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia? Wasn’t it the repressive policies of the first, and the corruption and poverty of the second, that were generating many of the angry young men who became terrorists? And what of the radical ideology and direct funding spewing from Saudi Arabia? Wasn’t that what was holding the radical Islamic movement together? What about our NATO allies, whose cities were being used as staging bases and planning headquarters? Why weren’t we putting greater effort into broader preventive measures?

The way to beat terrorists was to take away their popular support. Target their leaders individually, demonstrate their powerlessness, roll up the organizations from the bottom. I thought it would be better to drive them back into one or two states that had given them support, and then focus our efforts there.

And if we wanted to go after states supporting terrorism, why not first go to the United Nations, present the evidence against Al Qaeda, set up a tribunal for prosecuting international terrorism? Why not develop resolutions that would give our counterterrorist efforts the greater force of international law and gain for us more powerful leverage against any state that might support terrorists, then use international law and backed by the evidence to rope in the always nuanced Europeans that still kept open trade with Iran and the others?

I left the Pentagon that afternoon deeply concerned. I hoped the officer was wrong, or that whoever was pushing this would amend his approach.

That did not happen. After the president delivered his 2002 State of the Union address, the policy was locked in concrete. There were no obvious connections between Iraq, Iran, and North Korea–President Bush’s “axis of evil”–beyond the suspicion that they each harbored ambitions to acquire weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them. In fact, in proliferation terms, by early 2002 both Iran and North Korea were greater threats compared to Iraq. The president’s use of the term “evil” was also perplexing to many Europeans. Europeans, living on the same continent, were pragmatic, not ideological, in outlook, seeking survival, democracy, and prosperity. The “axis of evil” label seemed to foreshadow a religious-inspired campaign against sovereign states, something that could not only wreck international commerce but also pose domestic problems in European states with large Islamic populations.

And so, barely six months into the war on terror, the direction seemed set. In Afghanistan and later in Iraq, the United States would strike, using its military superiority; it would enlarge the problem, using the strikes on 9/11 to address the larger Middle East concerns; it would attempt to make the strongest case possible in favor of its course, regardless of the nuances of the intelligence; and it would dissipate the huge outpouring of goodwill and sympathy it had received in September 2001 by going it largely alone. And just as the Bush administration suggested, it could last for years.

title: “Empty Title” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-30” author: “Nancy Poole”

There’s just one problem with all these British achievers–they’re all Americans. According to a recent study by Britain’s Cranfield School of Management, 32 percent of women who sit on the boards of companies on the FTSE 100, an index of the largest British companies, are from overseas. (Though no comparable figure exists for men, experts estimate it’s much lower.) The majority of those women are American. As one well-known British headhunter puts it, “If you want to sit on a board in Britain, you’d better be American–or have a title.”

Historically, American women have always done well in Britain. The country’s first female M.P. was Nancy Astor, a spunky Virginian who came to the old country, married well, and as an outsider was perhaps better poised than her British sisters to break the rules of political convention and still be accepted. Likewise, many American executive women in Britain today say that not being British gives them an excuse to skirt London’s stifling business etiquette. “You can get away with a lot more, especially if you use the stereotypes to your advantage,” says Allyson Stewart-Allen, an American marketing entrepreneur married to a Labour M.P. “When discussing a potential project, I can say to clients very early on, ‘I know it’s so American of me to ask, but what’s your budget?’ That’s not usually done here. They can then laugh at how American I am, but I still get to ask my question.”

American bluntness can be a big selling point for men or women (though some say it’s more palatable when delivered by the latter). The fund-management firm Barclays Global Investors chose Stewart-Allen over a British man for a job currently underway, which involves retraining staff to be more direct when pursuing new clients. That’s not an unusual situation. “Americans have a great ability to jump into the heart of an issue, while we sort of flounder around a bit,” says Alastair King, a managing director at Galahad Capital who has worked on several projects with another American, Lucy Marcus of Marcus Venture Consulting. When asked if this approach causes culture clashes, King says, “Our culture is acclimatizing to them, rather than the other way around.”

Americans in Britain are in a strong position to play the role of change agents. Bravo succeeded in transforming formerly stuffy British raincoat maker Burberry into a fashion label worn by such celebrities as Kate Moss and Sean (P. Diddy) Combs. Cassani proved a major airline could compete with the cheap carriers when she took over Go for British Airways. Tyson, a former economic adviser to Bill Clinton, is updating tenure and fund-raising procedures at the London Business School. Beverly Malone, also a former Clinton adviser (on health care), is pushing the issue of better pay for nurses as head of Britain’s (and the world’s) largest nursing union.

During the late-’90s boom, several younger American women capitalized on the European desire to adopt Yankee business culture. The women launched start-ups and networking groups, and generally became more comfortable with hype and the limelight. A California-born venture capitalist named Julie Meyer founded First Tuesday, which staged high-profile mixers for dot-com types. Before a series of overambitious deals she led unraveled, Floridian Robin Saunders was the It Girl of London finance, turning the German bank West LB into a player. An April study by the research group Catalyst found that American female executives, in contrast to their European counterparts, believed choosing highly visible projects was one of the five most important ways to get ahead.

The study also found that European women were slightly less optimistic about career prospects than Americans. This reflects what may be the most important reason behind the clout of American women in Britain–the relative lack of opportunities for British women. Women hold 12.4 percent of board seats in the United States, but only 6.2 percent in Britain. Likewise, while 45 percent of Fortune 500 companies have more than one woman on their boards, only 15 percent of top British companies do.

Julie Mellor, head of Britain’s Equal Opportunity Commission, ascribes this to an old boys’ culture: “British boards have not professionalized their selection process.” British firms also are not legally required to report the number of women and ethnic minorities that they hire, as many American firms are. Ironically, many American women say that a less modern, diverse and competitive business culture is one reason for their success. “Quite frankly, Britain is a pretty easy place to come and do a good job,” says venture capitalist Ruth Storm, an American who began her career in London 19 years ago as a typist.

No doubt British women could make an impact if there were more of them on the executive track. American women have been in the workplace in large numbers for a longer period of time. While 72 percent of American women with dependent children work, 65 percent of British women do. After a second baby, 56 percent of American mothers with two children (and at least one preschooler) choose to work, compared with 47 percent of Britons. British women also take much more time off for maternity leave, and spend more time with their kids during the day. And British mothers engage in part-time work in much higher percentages than American women do.

It’s clear British women are on a slower track, but the reasons are hotly debated. Mellor blames inadequate child care and a lack of career opportunities. Others, like London School of Economics researcher Catherine Hakim, believe British women simply prefer a more balanced life. Lesley Knox, a British high flier, is one of many who are trying to find the right way forward. After several big jobs, including a directorship at Kleinwort Benson, she’s begun moving into non-executive-director roles so she can spend more time with her young daughter. “British women are trying really, really hard to get the balance right, and maybe American women just don’t fuss as much about it anymore,” she says. She’s got a point. In the best-selling novel “I Don’t Know How She Does It,” a Lon-don fund manager and mother frantically uses a rolling pin to “distress” store-bought mince pies into looking homemade for her child’s school party. It’s hard to imagine many working Wall Street moms fretting so about her reputation as a baker.

Europe is not as ready to embrace the unconflicted businesswoman. A survey of European directors shows that stereotypes of women’s abilities and a lack of female role models are among the top barriers to advancement. Yet the trends that attract Americans–globalization and modernization–may eventually put more British women in positions of power. British and European Union legislators are encouraging companies to get more aggressive about hiring and promoting women. The EOC is quietly pushing the issue of women on corporate boards and campaigning for better child care. Progressive companies like British Telecom, British Petroleum and Shell have launched mentoring programs designed to get even more women into the uppermost ranks. Someday, British women may hold as much power in British business as American women do.

title: “Empty Title” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-30” author: “Guy Nixon”

There’s just one problem with all these British achievers–they’re all Americans. According to a recent study by Britain’s Cranfield School of Management, 32 percent of women who sit on the boards of companies on the FTSE 100, an index of the largest British companies, are from overseas. (Though no comparable figure exists for men, experts estimate it’s much lower.) The majority of those women are American. As one well-known British headhunter puts it, “If you want to sit on a board in Britain, you’d better be American–or have a title.”

Historically, American women have always done well in Britain. The country’s first female M.P. was Nancy Astor, a spunky Virginian who came to the old country, married well, and as an outsider was perhaps better poised than her British sisters to break the rules of political convention and still be accepted. Likewise, many American executive women in Britain today say that not being British gives them an excuse to skirt London’s stifling business etiquette. “You can get away with a lot more, especially if you use the stereotypes to your advantage,” says Allyson Stewart-Allen, an American marketing entrepreneur married to a Labour M.P. “When discussing a potential project, I can say to clients very early on, ‘I know it’s so American of me to ask, but what’s your budget?’ That’s not usually done here. They can then laugh at how American I am, but I still get to ask my question.”

American bluntness can be a big selling point for men or women (though some say it’s more palatable when delivered by the latter). The fund-management firm Barclays Global Investors chose Stewart-Allen over a British man for a job currently underway, which involves retraining staff to be more direct when pursuing new clients. That’s not an unusual situation. “Americans have a great ability to jump into the heart of an issue, while we sort of flounder around a bit,” says Alastair King, a managing director at Galahad Capital who has worked on several projects with another American, Lucy Marcus of Marcus Venture Consulting. When asked if this approach causes culture clashes, King says, “Our culture is acclimatizing to them, rather than the other way around.”

Americans in Britain are in a strong position to play the role of change agents. Bravo succeeded in transforming formerly stuffy British raincoat maker Burberry into a fashion label worn by such celebrities as Kate Moss and Sean (P. Diddy) Combs. Cassani proved a major airline could compete with the cheap carriers when she took over Go for British Airways. Tyson, a former economic adviser to Bill Clinton, is updating tenure and fund-raising procedures at the London Business School. Beverly Malone, also a former Clinton adviser (on health care), is pushing the issue of better pay for nurses as head of Britain’s (and the world’s) largest nursing union.

During the late-’90s boom, several younger American women capitalized on the European desire to adopt Yankee business culture. The women launched start-ups and networking groups, and generally became more comfortable with hype and the limelight. A California-born venture capitalist named Julie Meyer founded First Tuesday, which staged high-profile mixers for dot-com types. Before a series of overambitious deals she led unraveled, Floridian Robin Saunders was the It Girl of London finance, turning the German bank West LB into a player. An April study by the research group Catalyst found that American female executives, in contrast to their European counterparts, believed choosing highly visible projects was one of the five most important ways to get ahead.

The study also found that European women were slightly less optimistic about career prospects than Americans. This reflects what may be the most important reason behind the clout of American women in Britain–the relative lack of opportunities for British women. Women hold 12.4 percent of board seats in the United States, but only 6.2 percent in Britain. Likewise, while 45 percent of Fortune 500 companies have more than one woman on their boards, only 15 percent of top British companies do.

Julie Mellor, head of Britain’s Equal Opportunity Commission, ascribes this to an old boys’ culture: “British boards have not professionalized their selection process.” British firms also are not legally required to report the number of women and ethnic minorities that they hire, as many American firms are. Ironically, many American women say that a less modern, diverse and competitive business culture is one reason for their success. “Quite frankly, Britain is a pretty easy place to come and do a good job,” says venture capitalist Ruth Storm, an American who began her career in London 19 years ago as a typist.

No doubt British women could make an impact if there were more of them on the executive track. American women have been in the workplace in large numbers for a longer period of time. While 72 percent of American women with dependent children work, 65 percent of British women do. After a second baby, 56 percent of American mothers with two children (and at least one preschooler) choose to work, compared with 47 percent of Britons. British women also take much more time off for maternity leave, and spend more time with their kids during the day. And British mothers engage in part-time work in much higher percentages than American women do.

It’s clear British women are on a slower track, but the reasons are hotly debated. Mellor blames inadequate child care and a lack of career opportunities. Others, like London School of Economics researcher Catherine Hakim, believe British women simply prefer a more balanced life. Lesley Knox, a British high flier, is one of many who are trying to find the right way forward. After several big jobs, including a directorship at Kleinwort Benson, she’s begun moving into non-executive-director roles so she can spend more time with her young daughter. “British women are trying really, really hard to get the balance right, and maybe American women just don’t fuss as much about it anymore,” she says. She’s got a point. In the best-selling novel “I Don’t Know How She Does It,” a Lon-don fund manager and mother frantically uses a rolling pin to “distress” store-bought mince pies into looking homemade for her child’s school party. It’s hard to imagine many working Wall Street moms fretting so about her reputation as a baker.

Europe is not as ready to embrace the unconflicted businesswoman. A survey of European directors shows that stereotypes of women’s abilities and a lack of female role models are among the top barriers to advancement. Yet the trends that attract Americans–globalization and modernization–may eventually put more British women in positions of power. British and European Union legislators are encouraging companies to get more aggressive about hiring and promoting women. The EOC is quietly pushing the issue of women on corporate boards and campaigning for better child care. Progressive companies like British Telecom, British Petroleum and Shell have launched mentoring programs designed to get even more women into the uppermost ranks. Someday, British women may hold as much power in British business as American women do.

title: “Empty Title” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-28” author: “Robert Lanzi”

Quids, Pros and Cons

In Istanbul, terrorists hit British targets, leaving behind devastation and carnage. At Westminster Abbey in London, President George W. Bush consoled the families of British troops who died in Iraq this year. Around Trafalgar Square, antiwar protesters vilified not just Bush, but Prime Minister Tony Blair as well. For Britain the costs of its post-9/11 partnership with the United States were excruciatingly plain last week. Less obvious, even to many Britons committed to paying dearly if need be, is what Britain gets in return.

In public, Blair belittles the notion that the U.S.-U.K. alliance should be treated like “some scorecard,” where every quid deserves a quo. But NEWSWEEK has learned that the Blair government has quietly sought concessions from Washington on a variety of matters, including greater military cooperation, and has been rebuffed. Disagreements over military intelligence became so serious last summer that the issue was placed on the agenda of the July Bush-Blair summit so the two leaders could deal with them personally. Bush agreed to “better information-sharing” at the time, but military sources tell NEWSWEEK that progress has been meager.

More ambitiously, NEWSWEEK has learned, Blair wants Washington to recognize the unique closeness of the U.S.-U.K. partnership by having the United States treat the British as if they were American in all matters of defense. This extraordinary license would apply to “people, intelligence and products,” as one source put it. Blair has been pushing for this ever since the end of major hostilities in Iraq, and Downing Street believed it had secured agreement from Washington. In private, Blair is complaining that nothing has happened. The real-world consequences of inaction are no small matter. In Iraq, for example, U.S. military commanders still do not have Pentagon authority to share fully with the British their intelligence on Iraqi insurgents.

Like the British prime minister, the White House pooh-poohs the scorecard approach to alliance-watching. “I don’t understand the criticism of Blair,” said one senior Bush administration official. “He clearly didn’t go into Iraq for political gain. He is only doing it because he thinks it’s important. That speaks rather well of him. If he says he wants to make the world a better place, maybe that is what he’s trying to do.” Further, by allying itself with America, Britain punches well above its weight. “The U.K. matters,” said the official.“In the 1950s British power appeared to be ebbing. Now British power seems to be growing. He’s gained a tremendous amount.” Of course, that’s how the White House sees it. Many Brits don’t agree at all. For Blair, his new challenge is to ensure that Britain’s losses don’t overwhelm its gains.

GEORGIA

A Rough Weekend

For 30 years he has been Georgia’s dominant political figure. It took a raging mob only about 30 minutes to drive Eduard Shevardnadze unceremoniously out of the country’s Parliament. As NEWSWEEK went to press, the standoff between Shevardnadze and tens of thousands of opposition protesters was continuing, as outrage grew over allegations of fraud in the impoverished country’s Nov. 2 parliamentary elections. With the former Soviet republic teetering on the brink of civil war, Russia sent Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov to Georgia within hours of Shevardnadze’s declaration of a state of emergency.

Moscow’s quick support came after weeks of calculated silence. Shevardnadze, though one of the Kremlin’s least favorite foreign leaders, apparently won a pledge not to meddle from Georgia’s giant northern neighbor. Russia, which has three military bases and 4,500 troops in Georgia, is potentially in a position now to act as a peacemaker among Georgia’s notoriously fractious political clans and perhaps get a friendly Georgian leader, something it hasn’t had since the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union. “They want a buffer country, one that will cover the southern flank of Russia,” says Dmitry Trenin, an expert at Moscow’s Carnegie Center.

That would certainly be in keeping with the Kremlin’s strategy to reassert influence over the former Soviet republics. In recent years the Russians have used mainly military sticks, most often by supplying weapons to separatist movements or taking sides in civil wars. To this day, 30,000 Russian troops remain in countries stretching from Tajikistan in the east to Moldova in the west. Last month President Vladimir Putin opened the latest Russian military outpost, a 500-man air base in Kyrgyzstan, to much approving hoopla at home.

Now, with Russia wallowing in record oil revenues, Moscow is increasingly likely to use economic levers to get what it wants. Russia provides an estimated $5 billion in subsidized natural gas annually from state-controlled Gazprom to former Soviet states. The biggest recipient is neighboring Belarus, where dictator Alexander Lukashenko is demanding $2.1 billion in aid before moving ahead with closer economic and military links. Pumping money into neighboring economies, no matter how badly run, is smart, says former Russian prime minister Yegor Gaidar. Simply put, he says, “It makes sense to have friendly neighbors.”

TAIWAN

War of Words

When Chinese officials last week denounced Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian as a “splittist” whose pro-independence activism could “trigger war,” the invective was all too familiar. But Beijing’s real target may have been a new one: Chen’s rivals in the pro-unification Chinese Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang (KMT). Less than five months before presidential elections, the KMT reversed its position on the controversial matter of reforming Taiwan’s Constitution, which Beijing fears is only a prelude to declaring independence. Lien Chan, the party’s chairman and presidential hopeful, pledged to unveil a new draft constitution and challenged Chen (who has made rewriting the Constitution a main plank in his re-election platform) to debate their versions of the island’s supreme law. Led into exile by Chiang Kai-shek in 1949, the KMT ruled Taiwan for half a century, always clinging to its claim to be China’s sole legitimate government. But after slipping from power in 2000, the KMT now seeks to woo back voters by reasserting Taiwan’s sovereignty (which Beijing disputes) and embrace a welling sense of Taiwanese pride (which Beijing sees as nationalism). Lien says he’s still committed to eventual reunification with the mainland. Tell that to Beijing.

HEALTH

A Shot in The Arm

Ebola is a terrifying word: it calls to mind phrases like “extensive internal bleeding” and “rapid death.” Last week, scientists at the National Institutes of Health started the first human trials for a vaccine. What kind of a person would volunteer to test a vaccine for a disease that kills nine of every 10 people infected? To find out, NEWSWEEK’s Michael Hastings talked to Steve Rucker, a 36-year-old nurse and one of only two people to volunteer. Excerpts:

HASTINGS: Why would you want to have anything to do with Ebola?

RUCKER: Good question. It actually looked like an exciting opportunity.

What did your mom say?

[Laughs] Actually, my family has been fine.

How did it work?

A lot of people have asked me, “Will they be giving you Ebola to see what happens?” They definitely will not be doing that. This is a new generation of vaccines. It’s not like the old vaccines where they have some of the virus in the vaccine.

So you’re not in harm’s way?

No, absolutely not. This study is simply to see if the vaccine is safe for human beings.

Would you want to test it for real?

If a team from the NIH takes this vaccine to an Ebola outbreak, I’ve asked them if they’d consider including me. I’d be on the plane the next day.

So getting the Ebola vaccine has been a good thing?

I would definitely recommend this to other people.

CURRENCY

The Dollar Drops Big

DOLLAR AT A RECORD LOW AGAINST THE EURO. So read the front page of the Nov. 19 Financial Times in a bold black headline that once might have announced war. In one of the largest single-day currency moves in years, the U.S. dollar fell to $1.19 against the euro. The main trigger: a report that, in September, foreigners bought the lowest level of U.S. assets in five years. How in the world is the United States going to finance its burgeoning $5.1 billion current account deficit, traders wondered?

If that alone wasn’t enough to spook the markets, the Bush administration’s continuing march to a trade war seems to have finished the job. To right its trade imbalance, analysts say, the United States may have no choice but to export more and import less, which could provoke a vicious cycle of protectionism. Just last week, as the European Union and Japan moved to retaliate against Washington’s steel tariffs, the United States slapped import quotas on certain Chinese textiles. “The market is more worried that the Bush administration is willing to take protectionist measures than about any underlying economic argument,” says Aziz McMahon, currency strategist for ABN Amro in London, referring to the dubious foundations of the U.S. recovery–massive tax cuts and an exploding federal budget deficit. How will all these anxieties play with the greenback? John Llewellyn, global chief economist for Lehman Brothers, has been predicting that the dollar could easily fall to $1.30 against the euro by the end of 2004, but now thinks the move “could go well beyond that.”

Horse Racing

Love for A Loser

Haruurara, a petite 7-year-old Thoroughbred racehorse in Japan, is nothing if not consistent: she’s never won a race. Since she started running in 1998 she’s lost 97 competitions in all. But her luck turned around in June after she was profiled by a local reporter. She didn’t start winning, but she achieved cult status. After a slow economy in Japan for more than a decade, her countrymen share her pain. And they like a sure bet–even if it is a losing one.

The horse that never wins now has a reputation as a lucky charm: workers bet on her and keep the tickets to ward off being sacked. Last week the Kochi horse-racing union sold out 500 of her lucky horsetail charms within three hours. “We had no idea the loser horse would become such a star,” says union director Hidehiro Maeda.

Major dailies, TV networks and magazine reporters now flock to Haruurara’s stable. Already, two books about her are expected to come out in December (one by an award-winning novelist), and the NHK public-broadcasting system has started work on a documentary. The horse is inundated with food, fan letters and even cash. “I have never won in any competition in my entire life,” one 71-year-old woman writes. Looks like the only unlucky thing Haruurara can do now is win.

FILM

Bridging the Basque Divide With a Ball Game

Director Julio Medem said he wanted to start a healthy “dialogue” with his new documentary, which chronicles the violent three-decade conflict between the Spanish government and Basque separatists. Well, he certainly got people talking: Spain’s Culture minister publicly condemned the film; a journalist and a professor Medem interviewed tried to get their appearances cut out, loudly objecting to what they called the film’s pro-Basque bent. Members of ETA, the terrorist wing of the Basque movement, wouldn’t even agree to be interviewed. All in all, maybe not the healthiest dialogue on record.

Luckily, “The Basque Ball: Skin Against Stone” has received a warmer reception from critics. Still, the hostile reaction from the principals may be the film’s strongest endorsement. Medem interviewed some 70 people–usually against the stunning backdrop of Basque country–and by focusing on those caught in the middle of the conflict, he provides a more nuanced view of Basque nationalism. We hear not only from Daniel Mugica, who bitterly describes his father’s assassination by ETA in 2001, but also Anika Gil, who alleges she was stripped and tortured during her five-day detention by Spanish police in May 2002. Medem always returns to the pelota court, the traditional Basque game in which a ball is furiously thrown against the wall from one player to another. In that to and fro lies the arc of a dialogue that has been frustrated again and again.

ARCHEOLOGY

Unearthing Egypt’s God of, Er, ‘Fertility’

He is politely called the god of “fertility,” but the Egyptian deity Min had a lot more on his mind than agriculture. Invariably depicted with a large, erect penis, he was the god Pharaoh would pray to when he needed Egyptian women to conceive more soldiers for his Army. Ninth-century Arab travelers who visited the temple to Min in Upper Egypt, built by Ramses II about 1300 B.C., came away wowed–but the site was long ago lost and buried by the modern city of Akhmim. A tantalizing trace turned up 15 years ago during an excavation for a post office, in the form of a giant statue of Ramses’ Queen Meritamon. But no further discoveries were made at the site.

Until three months ago, that is, when authorities nabbed a grave robber who had broken through the wall of a crypt in Akhmim’s cemetery. They recovered the head of a large Ramses statue and notified Zahi Hawass, the head of Egypt’s powerful antiquities department. Hawass’s exploratory excavation established that this was, indeed, the site of the famous temple. Next year he plans to begin exhuming and moving thousands of graves to get at the temple, whose size can only be guessed at from the distance between where Meritamon’s statue was found and the Ramses head: 150 meters. As Hawass recounts in his new book, “Secrets From the Sand,” even some educated modern Egyptians believe in the power of the god Min. One Cairo doctor credits a Min statue with helping his wife conceive a son. What will happen if they unearth an entire temple dedicated to Min, the gods only know.

Q&A: Dustin Hoffman

This month Dustin Hoffman costars with Gene Hackman in “Runaway Jury,” his 2,750th movie. No? Fine, then you count ’em. Next year he’ll be in the much-anticipated “J.M. Barrie’s Neverland”; recently he nearly flew away (assisted by wires) with NEWSWEEK’s Nicki Gostin.

I don’t want to scare you but…

Are you the mother of my child?

No, but when I first came to New York I went to your production offices to try and meet you. Is it creepy being interviewed by an ex-stalker?

No, but you didn’t really stalk me. Well, it makes me feel that you’re not so ex.

Have you ever been called up for jury duty?

Yes, but I never went. I was always working.

What’s been your favorite role?

You always want to learn something, so I would say “Tootsie.” The crew started bringing friends on the set and introducing me as Dorothy Michaels. How brutal.

See? Guys are pigs.

Yes, that was an insight as to how men will just erase you. Had I met myself at a party I would have ignored me, and I thought I was an interesting woman. I went home and I said to my wife, “I’ve missed out on a lot of interesting women.”

You know what? You still wouldn’t have gone out with them.

That’s not true. That’s not true.

Is Al Pacino the Italian you?

I won’t even answer that, because he’ll probably send out a hit on me no matter what I say.

title: “Empty Title” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-07” author: “John Grajeda”

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on those responsible for the two truck-bomb explosions that killed at least 27 in Istanbul

“The U.S. paved the way for these attacks… the U.S. is the one that started it all.”

Istanbul resident Zehra Toprakceker, 24, while weeping at the home of a friend killed at the British Consulate

“The ‘Velvet Revolution’ has taken place in Georgia.”

Opposition leader Mikhail Saakashvili, comparing the 1989 ousting of communists in Czechoslovakia to the situation in the former Soviet republic, after his supporters seized the Parliament building

“I actually think Bush is the greatest threat to life on this planet that we’ve most probably ever seen.”

London Mayor Ken Livingstone, who refuses to recognize George W. Bush as the lawful president of the United States

“I thought I was losing my mind.”

Philadelphia native Judi Roberts, on being diagnosed with an extremely rare disorder called “foreign-accent syndrome,” after a stroke left her with a British accent

“The donkey is doing just fine.”

U.S. Col. Peter Mansoor, on the animal used in a rocket attack against Baghdad hotels, injuring at least one. Rockets were set to a timer and hidden under produce in an unmanned donkey-drawn cart.

“Lies run sprints, but the truth runs marathons.”

Pop icon Michael Jackson, in a statement, after being booked on charges of child molestation

“Of course we can’t expect anything better from a nation of salmon eaters who have turned into international busybodies.”

Mangala Samaraweera, a confidant of Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga, on Norway’s role in the country’s peace process

“It just sort of escalated… and I sort of lost my cool at that point.”

California resident Charles Booker, on why he sent threats to hunt down and castrate employees of a Canadian company he says flooded his computer with penis-enlargement ads. He was arrested and prosecuted in the first case of “spam rage.”