Rated R, directed by Tony Scott, with Robert Redford (Nathan Muir), Brad Pitt (Tom Bishop), Catherine McCormack (Elizabeth Hadley), Stephen Dillane (Charles Harker), Larry Bryggman (Troy Folger), Marianne Jean-Baptiste (Gladys Jennip), running time: 126 minutes.
Nathan Muir is a CIA operative about to retire when he discovers his young protege, Tom Bishop, has been captured by the communist Chinese. Familiar with the workings of the CIA at even its highest echelons, Muir works to free his young friend, while fondly recalling the time he spent honing Bishop's skills as an operative. Muir and Bishop's friendship had been forged while travelling the world teaching and learning the game of espionage, but a woman, with whom they both fell in love, tore their friendship apart. When Muir learns that Bishop has turned rogue and tried freeing a prisoner in China, the anger Muir feels toward Bishop is quickly washed away as he sets out to rescue his old friend.
PHOTO COURTESY OF MATA
By global standards, the traffic congestion that afflicts Taiwan’s urban areas isn’t horrific. But nor is it something the country can be proud of. According to TomTom, a Dutch developer of location and navigation technologies, last year Taiwan was the sixth most congested country in Asia. Of the 492 towns and cities included in its rankings last year, Taipei was the 74th most congested. Taoyuan ranked 105th, while Hsinchu County (121st), Taichung (142nd), Tainan (173rd), New Taipei City (227th), Kaohsiung (241st) and Keelung (302nd) also featured on the list. Four Japanese cities have slower traffic than Taipei. (Seoul, which has some
Michael slides a sequin glove over the pop star’s tarnished legacy, shrouding Michael Jackson’s complications with a conventional biopic that, if you cover your ears, sounds great. Antoine Fuqua’s movie is sanctioned by Jackson’s estate and its producers include the estate’s executors. So it is, by its nature, a narrow, authorized perspective on Jackson. The film ends before the flood of allegations of sexual abuse of children, or Jackson’s own acknowledgment of sleeping alongside kids. Jackson and his estate have long maintained his innocence. In his only criminal trial, in 2005, Jackson was acquitted. Michael doesn’t even subtly nod to these facts.
Writing of the finds at the ancient iron-working site of Shihsanhang (十 三行) in New Taipei City’s Bali District (八里), archaeologist Tsang Cheng-hwa (臧振華) of the Academia Sinica’s Institute of History and Philology observes: “One bronze bowl gilded with gold, together with copper coins and fragments of Tang and Song ceramics, were also found. These provide evidence for early contact between Taiwan aborigines and Chinese.” The Shihsanhang Web site from the Ministry of Culture says of the finds: “They were evidence that the residents of the area had a close trading relation with Chinese civilians, as the coins can be
The March/April volume of Foreign Affairs, long a purveyor of pro-China pablum, offered up another irksome Beijing-speak on the issues and solutions for the problems vexing the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the US: “America and China at the Edge of Ruin: A Last Chance to Step Back From the Brink” rang the provocative title, by David M. Lampton and Wang Jisi (王緝思). If one ever wants to describe what went wrong with US-PRC relations, the career of Wang Jisi is a good place to start. Wang has extensive experience in the US and the West. He was a visiting
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