It seemed like a swell idea at the time. President George W. Bush’s pageantry-filled Nov. 19 to Nov. 21 state visit to Britain was planned long before the war in Iraq–and the U.N. nastiness that preceded it. Since then the political ground under both Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair has shifted dramatically. Bush is no longer untouchable, and Blair has been badly damaged by the ongoing mess in Iraq and his “poodle” closeness to Bush. Add to that a huge antiwar protest planned –not to mention a fresh tabloid scandal concerning Prince Charles’s personal life–and a Bush visit to Britain is looking less fortuitous every day.
Bush and Blair will put the best possible face on the visit. Right now what Blair needs to do is distance himself from Bush, not hug him close. Many of Blair’s Labour backbenchers would like him to pick a fight with Bush. Others are urging him to push aside the president and rekindle ties with Blair’s natural political allies in America: the Democrats. That’s not Blair’s style, but it’s “no accident,” as one Labour minister put it, that Bush is not expected to make a formal address to Parliament.
Bush stands a better chance of capitalizing on the visit. The TV pictures beamed back to America are likely to paint him in exactly the sort of serious-world-leader hues his handlers are hoping for as he heads into an election year. Still, there are two storms brewing. Antiwar demonstrations could attract protesters in very large numbers. And the accident-prone British royal family could provide Bush with some unexpected embarrassments. Last week, amid rumors that a British tabloid was prepared to air a former royal servant’s salacious allegations against a “senior royal,” Charles’s private secretary issued an unprecedented statement from Buckingham Palace: a denial of an allegation (which he wouldn’t describe) that Charles was involved in a presumably compromising “incident” (which “did not take place”).
It’s hard to say whether this scandal manque has legs. Until last week, the gossip among royal courtiers centered on Queen Elizabeth II’s disappointment that, for security reasons, the White House wouldn’t allow Bush to accompany her on the traditional horse-drawn carriage ride. If the charges stick to Charles, the besieged royal family could be forgiven for wanting to join Bush in the safe confines of his bulletproof limo.
–Stryker Mcguire and Liat Radcliffe
Sri Lanka: An Island in a Storm
Sri Lanka’s sudden political crisis seemed to cool almost as quickly as it erupted last week. Two days after stunning Sri Lankans by declaring a state of emergency, the island nation’s feisty President Chandrika Kumaratunga replaced it with less severe measures increasing the armed forces’ powers. Her bitter political rival, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, promised to take his conflict with the president to Parliament and not into the streets. Even the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam stayed calm, issuing no war chants or even official statements. Yet the country still totters on the brink of catastrophe. Kumaratunga’s sacking of Wickremesinghe’s ministers of Defense, Interior and Information and her 10-day suspension of Parliament have dealt a severe blow to the nation’s hopes for peace after two decades of bloody civil war.
With Kumaratunga now in charge of the Defense portfolio, it will be extremely difficult for Wickremesinghe’s government to continue negotiations with the Tigers. “The Tigers will allege that the Sinhalese political class can never be trusted to give any meaningful concessions,” says Narayan Swami, an expert on Sri Lankan affairs in New Delhi. He adds that intelligence reports from the north and the northeast indicate that the Tigers are recalling their cadres from government-controlled areas back to rebel –bases in case fighting resumes.
For his part, Wickremesinghe says that he will reconvene Parliament immediately to prove that his majority still stands. If Parliament backs him, as expected, Kumaratunga could take more drastic constitutional measures. “The most important thing is for the two sides to move fast to restore some stability into their relationship,” says Saravanamuttu Paikiasothy, executive director of the Center for Policy Alternatives. More likely, a dangerous uncertainty will prevail in Sri Lanka.
–Ron Moreau
Italy: A Prime Minister Versus the Godfather
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has gone gangbusters. In the past two weeks Italian authorities have netted nearly a dozen members of a national terrorist group, 31 people accused of being part of an ultraviolent Sicilian mob and three close associates of Italy’s most-wanted man, 70-year-old Bernardo Provenzano. Anti-mafia law-enforcement sources tell NEWSWEEK that they are now homing in on Provenzano, a.k.a. Binnu the Tractor, who has been on the lam for 40 years. Sources say when Michelle Aiello, a health-clinic owner, was taken into custody on Nov. 5, Provenzano’s primary access to health care may have been cut off, which may in turn flush him out of hiding. (Aiello’s clinic near Palermo allegedly treated the Tractor for cancer.) And last month authorities arrested the Tractor’s reputed right-hand man, Salvatore Sciarrabba, 53, in a dawn raid in Palermo.
Landing Provenzano would be a PR coup for the beleaguered Berlusconi, who’s been publicly accused of being too close to the mob. Berlusconi has responded by taking a hard line against organized crime. As his Interior minister, Giuseppe Pisanu, boasted last week: “We have inflicted considerable damage on the mafia recently.” Last Thursday, Berlusconi signed an anti-mafia pact in a photo op with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Rome. But Italians would still rather see a mug shot of Provenzano in handcuffs.
–Barbie Nadeau
Iraq: Payback For Pain?
His eardrum was broken, his knee ligament torn and Capt. Dale Storr was so tired of being beaten that he hoped his Iraqi captors would simply kill him. But Storr, a U.S. Air Force pilot who’d been shot down during the 1991 gulf war, managed to survive 33 days as a prisoner of war. Now he and 16 other former POWs want to hold Saddam Hussein’s regime responsible. Last year, they filed a lawsuit under a federal law that lets U.S. citizens sue terrorist nations for damages. In July a federal court ruled for the POWs, awarding them and their families more than $900 million.
But this summer when the POWs filed a second lawsuit to collect the money from Iraqi frozen assets, the Bush administration balked. It argued the money was needed for the reconstruction of Iraq instead. In fact, most of the money had already been shipped to Baghdad, where U.S. soldiers are handing out cash to civil servants and military pensioners. A federal court recently sided with the White House, barring the POWs from collecting. Now the White House is trying to throw out the POWs’ whole case against Iraq–a move the POWs believe will wipe their torture out of the law books. (A Justice Department spokesman would not comment on the lawsuit.)
Storr and his friends say they don’t care about the money–though they’d planned to use it to start a foundation to help future POWs–but they’re bitter that the government seems so cavalier about their torture. “It’s sending the wrong message to the troops out there,” Storr says.
–Donatella Lorch and Debra Rosenberg
Science: Mother Knows Best
If anyone ever needed science to throw her a bone, it’s the woman in this photo. She’s tired, she’s overworked, she’s stuck in a supermarket with a screaming toddler. We’re betting she’s lucky if she gets to skim Parenting; she’s probably way too busy to read Physiology & Behavior. Which is too bad, because the latest issue contains some of the best news a mom could ever hear.
According to research done by Craig Kinsley at the University of Richmond in Virginia, mother rats are less susceptible to stress than those who have never given birth. The discovery comes on the heels of studies showing that mother rats also have sharper memory and spatial skills. After motherhood, the rodent brain undergoes what Kinsley calls “dramatic alterations.” As levels of estrogen and oxytocin surge, connections between neurons become more dense, and the glial cells, which support the neurons, proliferate. Just being around babies may somehow encourage the brain to perk up, says Kinsley. Female rats exposed to pups sprouted hundreds of new hippocampal neurons–even if they’d never given birth themselves. (Males grew new nerve cells, too, but only about 12 of them. Sorry, Dad.)
Of course, it’s dangerous to read too much into the studies. Then again, the evolutionary advantages of “smart motherhood” are clear for humans and rats alike. Pregnancy hormones are largely the same across species, and early MRI scans of pregnant subjects (of both species) have shown similar brain patterns. And as Kinsley says, “I always think of humans as rats with two legs.” And, of course, better brains.
–Mary Carmichael
DVDs: No–Praise You, Spike
For years, music- video directors have been dismissed: they’re all flash, no substance, and they grow up to become lousy movie directors. The trouble is, almost every truly innovative filmmaker these days breaks into the biz through music videos–so the rap is a bit like slagging a butterfly for starting out as a caterpillar. Worse, it kicks to the curb some of the best cinema made in the past decade: the music videos themselves. Finally, some of the masters are getting their due. The first batch of Palm Pictures’ “Directors Label” DVD series has just been released, anthologizing the short-form work of Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry and Chris Cunningham–the holy trinity of video directors.
The Jonze DVD is surely the prize of the bunch. For the first time, the “Adaptation” director’s hilarious, high-concept videos–including his man-on-fire clip for Wax’s “California,” the bizarrely choreographed routines in Fatboy Slim’s “Praise You” and, of course, the coolest video ever made, Christopher Walken’s deftly delivered dances in “Weapon of Choice”–are gathered in one place. But the true grace of the series is the spotlight it shines on the two less heralded, but no less talented, mavericks. You might never see a creepier five minutes of film than Cunningham’s video for Aphex Twin’s “Come to Daddy,” and the hit British zombie flick “28 Days Later”–with its snatching, wall-eyed killers–owes a clear debt to his “Afrika Shox” clip for Leftfield. Then there’s France’s Gondry, who’s now finishing up a Jim Carrey movie. Buy his DVD, and brag to your pals that you knew about him back when he was blowing minds with Bjork videos.
–Devin Gordon
Homo Sapiens: ‘Quest’-ion and Answer
It’s a quandary that goes back to the ancient Greeks: what makes Homo sapiens unique? Plato famously thought he had the answer, arguing that humans were the world’s only hairless and featherless creatures to walk on two feet. Not so, said his rival Diogenes, brandishing a plucked chicken. And so the debate went on for the next 2,350 years.
It continues today, which is why we have “Quest: The Essence of Humanity,” a new book in which biochemist Charles Pasternak plays Plato. He begins by recounting the four traits most anthropologists point to as distinctly human: bipedalism, agile hands, sophisticated vocal cords and big brains. But they aren’t enough alone; each has a proverbial plucked chicken of its own in the animal kingdom. The crucial difference, Pasternak argues, is how we’ve used those gifts in the service of our curiosity–and how they’ve helped us conquer the globe. “All organisms search for food and mates,” he says. “But we search for purely intellectual reasons. We’re constantly tinkering. We can’t stand still.” One might say the same for Pasternak’s prose, which skips around from DNA to Minoan civilization to GM crops in search of evidence. The book even dares to predict the decline of the West. (Our dumbed-down society discourages “questing,” says Pasternak.) Out in his native Britain for several months, the book has already caused a stir and has its own Diogenes, philosopher Mary Midgley–which means the quest for the definitive answer is probably still on.
–Mary Carmichael
Film: A New Border
There’s been a lot of talk about the role of “New Europe”–European governments bickering over the Iraq war, debates on European Union expansion next spring–but little attention has been given to the human impact of this new era. Luckily German filmmaker Hans-Christian Schmid was curious enough to seek out life in a changing Europa, directing the new film “Distant Lights.” It is at once vivid, engrossing and exhausting. Set along the River Oder, a natural border between Germany and Poland, the films tells the story of two colliding worlds. The border town of choice, Frankfurt (not to be confused with the financial capital) is “such an interesting contrast,” says Schmid. “It is one of the poorest cities in Germany, but to people in the East, it is like a gate to the golden West.”
As the film progresses, what at first seems like a convoluted collection of story lines becomes a clever juxtaposition of vignettes: the German businessman who thinks his life is over because his store has been repossessed, a Polish father so desperate to please his daughter that he cheats Ukrainian refugees out of their savings, an interpreter so disheartened by her job that she is willing to sacrifice everything–including her career and her love–to help an illegal immigrant get to Berlin. But for all the heartbreak of “Distant Lights,” there is also hope and possibility. And what the film captures best is that although a huge, foreboding, figurative wall still separates Europe, it’s now moved a little farther east.
–Ginanne Brownell
Stephen Fry
Stephen fry may not be the most famous actor in the business, but he’s certainly one of the most British. With starring roles in “Gosford Park” and “Peter’s Friends,” not to mention Oscar Wilde in “Wilde,” Fry has established himself as the go-to guy when Hollywood needs a butler to bring a “cuppa.” NEWSWEEK’s Barry Brown called on him recently:
What’s the difference between British and American humor?
In America, you see the roots of the borscht belt in the one-liner in shows like “Friends” and “Frasier”–that clever, burnished wit. British sitcoms feature losers. The average American comic hero–Jim Carrey, Eddie Murphy–they come in the room and they have the biggest d–k in the room and then immediately go for the nerd and humiliate him. The British hero is that nerd with the smallest d–k in the room.
You’ve acted, directed, written–which do you enjoy most?
Directing is the most enjoyable. Most people think film directors spend most of their time on the set–looking through a lens or talking to an actor. But that’s the tip of the iceberg. You spend far more time in preproduction and postproduction.
What do you enjoy most about comedy?
Woody Allen once said, “I know the secret to a happier life–better jokes.” Comedy is the most direct route to another human being. Comedy is an incredibly important part of the human armor–like opposable thumbs.
