The World is Talking About…

Havana is Talking About...TV

Cubans Risk Raids to Get Satellite TV

Police in Havana to close these illegal windows on the world.

By Eloise Quintanilla, Christian Science Monitor

Havana,  Cuba - Before the police raid, the Perez family paid $7.56 per month for a DirecTV window on the world.

Daniel, a literature major at the University of Havana, watched the Chicago White Sox on ESPN. His mom, Marisel, never missed an episode of "La Fea Más Bella" (The Prettiest Ugly Girl), a popular Mexican soap opera on Univision. And Daniel's younger brother was an avid fan of the VH1 music videos.

Now, they are stuck with four Cuban TV channels – and two of those are devoted to educational programming.

"Cuban TV is boring.... There isn't much variation," says Daniel Perez (who fears arrest, so asked that his family's real name be changed). "I like being in the loop, knowing about the newest trends and feeling like I'm in touch with the world."

Having a satellite TV, cellphone, or Internet connection at home is illegal for most Cuban citizens. But that hasn't stopped the spread of such services on the black market.

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Books about Cuba on my shelf:

• Blue Cuban Nights by Ted Ferguson (2002)
• Mi Moto Fidel: Motorcycling Through Castro's Cuba by Christopher P. Baker (2001)
• Traveling on the Edge: Journeys in the Footsteps of Graham Greene by Julia Llewellyn Smith (2001)
• Chasing Che: A Motorcycle Journey in Search of the Guevara Legend by Patrick Symmes (2000)

Kalmykia is Talking About...Chess

In Russia, a Checkerboard Field of Dreams

In the only Buddhist region in Europe, regional president built a chess kingdom and then watched them come

By Peter Finn, Washington Post

Elista, Republic of Kalmykia, Russia - The obsessive energy of one man -- Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, former car dealer, present-day multimillionaire, Buddhist impresario and president of the Russian republic of Kalmykia -- has turned this remote corner of southern Russia into the Caesars Palace of chess. Now he is hosting his dream event, a $1 million bout to determine the undisputed chess champion of the world.

The contest, which is being followed online by chess fans worldwide, has proved as controversial as its sponsor. Replete with trash-talking grandmasters, it was almost aborted by a slugfest over bathroom breaks and allegations of cheating.

But for Ilyumzhinov, who has also been president of the World Chess Federation for 11 years, the uproar has had the side benefit of attracting yet more publicity for his chess kingdom, a desolate expanse of steppe and desert that runs to the Caspian Sea. "It's a great moment for the chess world," he said in a recent late-night interview that bounced from Buddhism to the $50 million Chess City the 44-year-old president has built here in the capital, Elista, to encounters he claims he has had with UFOs and aliens. ("They wore yellow suits," he said.)

Kalmykia is the only Buddhist region of Europe, the faith having come here with Mongolian migrants. It has the continent's tallest Buddhist temple -- built, like so much here, by its president, who glides around town in a white Rolls-Royce Silver Spirit.

"Rolls-Royce is a good car," Ilyumzhinov said, calling the Silver Spirit and the five other Rollses he owns his only personal indulgence -- apart from chess, which in one of his first decrees as president he made a school subject. "It helps children study well in other subjects -- math, physics," said Ilyumzhinov, who was a regional chess champion in his teens....Read more...

 

Paris is Talking About...Smoking

Comment: Well, this seems familiar. Here in Tokyo, where smoking is still very common, many of the wards have gone so far as to prohibit smoking on the public streets. This has led to the sight of "Smoking Rooms" -- sponsored by Japan Tobacco -- in some commercial areas, where smokers go inside a storefront or standalone bus-shelter-like structure on the sidewalk to smoke. Given the price and rents of commercial real estate in Tokyo, this cannot be cheap.

Smoking No Longer Très Chic in France

Today, nearly 80 percent of the French support the idea of a smoking ban in public places.

By Elaine Sciolino, New York Times

Paris, France - Jean-Paul Sartre smoked. So did Colette, Cocteau, Camus, and Coco Chanel.

One of the most memorable scenes in French films is Jean-Paul Belmondo lifting his head, dragging on a cigarette and rubbing his thumb back and forth across his lips in Breathless. (He smokes about two dozen times in the movie.)

There is something about smoking that seems very French.

But as in other European countries, smoking in public increasingly has fallen out of favor here. This week, after a five-month governmental inquiry, a parliamentary committee approved a proposal to ban smoking in public areas.

Under the measure, cafes, hotels, restaurants, discos and casinos could designate spaces for smoking only if they could be “hermetically sealed areas, furnished with air-extraction systems and subject to extremely rigorous health norms.”

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said he would decide quickly how to proceed on the matter. “The French people would not understand if we do not make a decision” in the face of the research, he told members of Parliament on Monday.

But not everyone here agrees. To diehard smokers and many tobacconists and bar and restaurant owners, the campaign reflects the loss of a core French value — the rights of the individual.

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Kabul is Talking About...Muppets

Muppets Teach Children a Land Mine Lesson

A British charity helps avert tragedy with a children's video on how to spot mines buried throughout Afghanistan.

By Rachel Morarjee, Christian Science Monitor

Kabul, Afghanistan  - "Bang!" The little puppet boy steps on a mine, and now he only has one leg. The Afghan children watching the video at a school on a Kabul hillside gasp.

Puppets have long been used to entertain and to teach children basic lessons such as how to count and the letters of the alphabet.

Now in Afghanistan the creators of Muppet stars Miss Piggy and Fozzy Bear have teamed up with two charities to teach children a lesson in survival: how not to get killed or maimed by the millions of land mines still buried in the Afghan soil.

"The Story of the Little Carpet Boy," loosely based on Pinocchio, is the brainchild of No Strings International, a British charity set up to reach children in war-torn areas and teach them vital life lessons through puppetry.

"It's hard to get a crowd of children to listen to an adult, but the minute you bring a puppet out, kids just light up," says Johnie McGlade, founder of No Strings.

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Tokyo is Talking About...Neighborhood Preservation

Now, something from my own backyard, as it were. No, I don't hang out here and I've only been there a couple of times -- I usually think of it as a transfer station between Shibuya and Kichijoji on the Keio Inokashira train line that I'm always passing through -- but I keep meaning to drop by some weekend and explore the streets and back-alleys to see what I can see.

For someone else's look at the neighborhood, check out "The cool sounds of 'Shimo'" by Steve McClure of the International Herald Tribune (February 4, 2004). Find out about Pizza of Death Records, and yes, the label's name does make perfect sense once you know the story.

Splitting a Hip Neighborhood, in More Ways Than One

"Until now, nobody cared if we destroyed the culture and environment of Tokyo," says urban planning professor. "People are gradually coming to understand that these things matter, too."

By Martin Fackler, New York Times

Tokyo, Setagaya Ward, Japan - With its vintage clothing stores, live music clubs and cheap noodle shops, Shimokitazawa is Tokyo’s answer to Greenwich Village, an epicenter of youth culture in one of Asia’s trendiest metropolises.

The neighborhood is popular for its cozy residential feel, drawing hordes of students and young office workers, who regularly throng its maze of narrow lanes and alleys.

Its tiny shops, many in converted houses or low-rise apartments, often bear names that recall a counterculture across the Pacific: the Village Vanguard Diner, Haight Ashbury, Mojo Rising.

But a shadow has fallen straight across the heart of this pulsing neighborhood. In four years, city officials plan to start building an 81-foot-wide thoroughfare that will slice Shimokitazawa in two.

The road has set off a rare battle for preservation in a country where big construction projects have long been welcomed as progress and used to grease the wheels of politics.

The fight pits boutique and bar owners, among them the first bearers of hippie culture to the neighborhood three decades ago, against city hall and older residents who resent the relative newcomers.

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See also:

• "The cool sounds of 'Shimo'" by Steve McClure of the International Herald Tribune (February 4, 2004)

Burundi is Talking About…Hair

The 'do,' Burundi-style

For the people of this central African nation, attending to hairstyles is a favorite pastime.

By Melanie Stetson Freeman, Christian Science Monitor

Bujumbura, Burundi - On a recent afternoon in the dustry suburb of Kamenge, Burundi, every seat in the 112 Boys hair salon is filled.

Just next door in Ja Rule salon - named after a popular American rap artist - a woman gets a short unisex trim. For 500 Burundi francs (about 50 cents), customers can get the popular Marine cut - a buzz, a bit longer on top. More difficult hairstyles cost a bit more.

In one of the poorest countries in the world, hair styling apparently is a popular business to get into - requiring little overhead or tools. Many hairdressers are self-taught. On this busy thoroughfare, it seems that every other business cuts or styles hair…

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Japan is Talking About…Korean Men

Japanese Women Catch the 'Korean Wave'

Male Celebrities Just Latest Twist in Asia-Wide Craze

By Anthony Faiola, Washington Post Foreign Service

Tokyo - Thin and gorgeous in a slinky black dress, Mikimoto pearls and a low-slung diamond Tiffany pendant, 26-year-old Kazumi Yoshimura already has looks, cash and accessories. There's only one more thing this single Japanese woman says she needs to find eternal bliss -- a Korean man.

She may just have to take a number and get in line. In recent years, the wild success of male celebrities from South Korea -- sensitive men but totally ripped -- has redefined what Asian women want, from Bangkok to Beijing, from Taipei to Tokyo. Gone are the martial arts movie heroes and the stereotypical macho men of mainstream Asian television. Today, South Korea's trend-setting screen stars and singers dictate everything from what hair gels people use in Vietnam to what jeans are bought in China.

Yet for thousands of smitten Japanese women like Yoshimura, collecting the odd poster or DVD is no longer enough. They've set their sights far higher -- settling for nothing less than a real Seoulmate…

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