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Web-only Exclusives November 30, 2000 From Our Correspondent: Hirohito and the War A conversation with biographer Herbert Bix From Our Correspondent: A Rough Road Ahead Bad news for the Philippines - and some others From Our Correspondent: Making Enemies Indonesia needs friends. So why is it picking fights? |
FEBRUARY 18, 2000, VOLUME 26 NUMBER 6
Newsmakers:
You Can't Knock Her
Japan's first female governor wins the final round
more stories
SOUTH ASIA: Grace Under Fire
TIBET: Due Obeisance Paid
Passage
ALSO IN ASIAWEEK
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SOUTH ASIA: Grace Under Fire
"I'm not scared. I'm a soldier," Gen. Pervez Musharraf told Karan Thapar on India's state-owned Doodarshan television station. The sitdown interview - the first on Indian broadcast media since Musharraf seized power in Pakistan in October - was a media coup for both men. Thapar, known for his confrontational on-air style, got to grill the general while Musharraf repeatedly made his point that if the Kashmir issue is not resolved, there's little basis for resolving other disputes with New Delhi. "Is there a possibility of developing warmth or trust when the main cause of mistrust remains?" he asked Thapar. Musharraf's cool style under pressure won him points at home and possibly in India. Even when he caved in to pressure he was a winner. "I would like to meet Mr. [PM Atal Behari] Vajpayee, we should meet," he conceded to Thapar after repeated coaxing.
TIBET: Due Obeisance Paid
This young man obviously knows how to handle touchy diplomatic situations. It's almost like he has done it before. In his first public sermon the 17th Karmapa Orgyen Trinley Dorje publicly hailed the Dalai Lama, his main competitor for the karmic limelight. Speaking through an interpreter, Dorje said the Dalai Lama is the highest Buddhist spiritual leader and recognizes his teachings as the true path to world peace. Nor did the 14-year-old monk hesitate to alienate his former host, China, when he identified individual freedom as the prerequisite for world unity. The young man, known to much of the world as the Karmapa Lama, arrived in the northern Indian hill town of Dharamsala, where the Dalai Lama is based, on Jan. 5 after a dramatic flight from Tibet across the Himalayas. He and his followers soon set up camp in nearby Sidhbari amid tight security.
Passage
• DIED Ustad Allarakha Khan, 81, the world's foremost tabla player, in Bombay, of a heart attack, on Feb. 3. The musical star performed with such diverse musicians as Yehudi Menuhin and the Beatles. He was an acknowledged master of the tabla, the small set of traditional Indian drums played with the hands.
• DIED Nikaido Susumu, 90, former vice president of the Liberal Democratic Party, of heart failure in a Tokyo hospital, on Feb. 3. Nikaido was a close aide to the late PM Tanaka Kakuei, who was disgraced in the Lockheed scandal in the 1970s. He played a key role in restoring Sino-Japanese diplomatic ties in 1972. Nikaido left politics in 1996, after serving 16 terms in theHouse of Representatives.
• RESIGNING Perfecto Yasay, embattled head of the Philippines' Securities and Exchange Commission, will leave the post on March 25. In January Yasay alleged that President Joseph Estrada told him to exonerate a friend in a stock probe. Estrada denied the claim. He has repeatedly sought Yasay's resignation. Yasay said he would resign when Congress passes a revised Securities Act. Yasay denies he was pushed out - although the securities bill has still not been enacted.
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