Word: important
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...when police arrested Thieu, 38, then raided his house, hauling off reams of documents and more than $250,000 in cash. The charge: his Dong Nam Telecom Trade and Service Co., the sole domestic distributor for Nokia and Samsung, was accused of dodging at least $6.5 million in import and value-added taxes last year...
...back-channel trade creates problems for the majors nonetheless. Legitimate albums that make it through the red tape of Beijing's draconian import procedures must vie not only with pirated copies but also with saw-gash versions. "It means we're competing in essence on three fronts," says an executive for a major label, who declined to be named. Michael Jackson's 2001 Invincible album, for example, was imported to China through official channels, after Sony Music removed several tracks with explicit lyrics to appease the Ministry of Culture. After the album flopped, large quantities of unsold European copies turned...
...announcement, supporters of a total ban feel that their chances are now much improved: "I think that gave it more of a sense of a clear and present danger," says Kansas Senator Sam Brownback, who plans to reintroduce his bill quickly. His legislation would make it illegal even to import products derived from cloning done overseas--which some say raises the possibility that if scientists in Britain find a cure for Alzheimer's, American patients will be barred from getting...
...December NBC persuaded the cast of Friends to sign on for one more season. The development was of such cultural import, it cued a pensive editorial in the New York Times. In the February issue of W, an uncharacteristically unwholesome-looking Jennifer Aniston says she remains perplexed by the media interest and irate at the paparazzi: "There are days when you drive out of your driveway and there's a car ... just waiting for you, and you think, 'This is what your life has come to? You're going to follow someone to the market and to the doctor...
...beluga ban wouldn't affect Asian restaurants and food stores: they can always buy from European suppliers. Hong Kong's House of Fine Foods, the territory's largest caviar importer, says its customers are already content with such lesser grades as osetra and sevruga caviar, which come from the same region as beluga. "We do get requests for beluga," says managing director Gephard Scherrer, "but out of the 1.5 tons we import, only about 80 kilograms is beluga." Strict controls started in 1998 have already boosted caviar prices. Tokyo had several specialty caviar restaurants before the Japanese economy deflated. Only...