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Jordan: not just a pretty film set

Tom A. PeterNovember 2, 2009 07:40Updated May 30, 2010 13:12
AMMAN, Jordan — In its quest to attract international filmmakers, Jordan likes to emphasize the freedom it offers directors by not interfering with the content of their films, like some Arab nations do. Asked the limits of this openness, Linda Mutawi, production services supervisor at the country’s Royal Film Commission, is upfront: “No hardcore porn.” Her colleague Nada Doumani, communication and culture manager at the RFC, interjects, saying that to date Jordan has never stopped a movie because of its content.

So then Naomi Watts turns to me and says...

Tom A. PeterNovember 2, 2009 07:42Updated May 30, 2010 13:12
AMAN, Jordan — The night before the big shoot, I got a call from the extras coordinator. I was to show up the next day on set as a business traveler passing through Jordan’s Queen Alia International Airport on his way to Iraq. As someone who regularly travels to Iraq on business via Queen Alia, this didn’t seem all that complicated: To my mind, she was asking me to wear what I do just about every day — a pair of khaki pants and a plaid, collared shirt.

PM's first policy speech: Where's the beef?

October 29, 2009 12:30Updated October 29, 2009 12:30
Top News:  Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama delivered his first policy speech at the Diet on Monday, pledging that policymaking would now be in the hands of lawmakers rather than bureaucrats, as well as laying out a foreign policy vision of Japan as a bridge between Asia and the West.

Savoie's choice: abduct or fight?

October 27, 2009 06:45Updated May 30, 2010 13:11
TOKYO, Japan — Under normal circumstances it would be impossible to summon any sympathy for a man who snatches two young children as they walk to school with their mother. But what if the “abductor” is the children’s father, and the mother, his former wife, herself the subject of an arrest warrant?

On Location: Tokyo — Blue light special

Aya ShojiOctober 23, 2009 09:36Updated May 30, 2010 13:11

DPJ steers Japan away from U.S.

Gavin BlairOctober 14, 2009 15:21Updated October 14, 2009 15:21
Top News: The new government has shown it may be serious about a break from Japan’s past security relationship with the US. The administration has decided that in January, it will withdraw from refueling U.S. ships supporting the Afghan war in the Indian Ocean.

The rising sun also sets

October 6, 2009 18:10Updated May 30, 2010 13:10
NEW YORK — As if Barack Obama doesn’t have enough foreign policy headaches, the United States now faces the prospect of trouble in Asia from a surprising quarter: Japan. For decades, since the post-war U.S. occupation of Japan ended in 1955, successive governments in Tokyo have had three things in common: a willingness to host American troops on their soil, a dependable streak when it comes to supporting U.S. foreign policy positions on the international stage, and the fact that they were run by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).

2016 Olympics: Three funerals and a party

October 2, 2009 16:00Updated May 30, 2010 13:09
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After years of intense preparation, millions of dollars, euros, yen and reais spent — as well as plenty of politicking at the highest levels — the International Olympic Committee on Friday awarded the 2016 Olympics to Rio de Janeiro. The IOC vote in Copenhagen, Denmark, triggered immediate reactions across the four candidate cities: Chicago, Tokyo, Madrid and, of course, among the throngs and thongs on Copacabana Beach.

Hatoyama impresses at the UN and G20

Gavin BlairSeptember 30, 2009 18:01Updated September 30, 2009 18:01
Top News: New Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has received generally good press for his international debut at the G20 summit and his speech at the UN, including his reiteration of Japan’s anti-nucle

The 2016 Olympics: The betting odds

October 1, 2009 07:22Updated May 30, 2010 13:09
BOSTON — President Barack Obama will travel to Copenhagen on Thursday to lobby International Olympic Commission voters on behalf of Chicago’s 2016 Olympic bid — a last-second appeal before the IOC awards the Games on Friday. Ever since Obama’s election, the Chicago 2016 campaign had been counting on its hometown hero to sway IOC voters, as former British Prime Minister Tony Blair did for London 2012 and former Russian President Vladimir Putin did for Sochi 2014 in the last two triumphant Olympic campaigns.
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