Word: sharpness
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...where cowboy film geeks meet up with cheeseball Hollywood wannabes. The encounter in which the film's hack director (a brilliantly smarmy Mark Setlock) discovers his star, Sheena, in a Hooters-style hangout, enlists her for his film and promptly gets rolled by her in contract negotiations, is as sharp and modulated a satire of Hollywood hucksterism as anything this side of David Mamet. Unfortunately, the play doesn't quite know where to go after that. The focus shifts to Sheena's surly, pill-popping, wheelchair-bound mother, who is outraged (not very credibly) at her daughter...
Depending on the source, Japan's mythic "Lost Decade" lasted from 1989 to 2003, or sometime later if the exact bottom of the real estate market in the Asian nation is taken into account. Because the period began with easy access to capital followed by a sharp drop in the stock market and property values, it is now being compared to what many economists believe began in the US two years ago. They fear, probably with good reason, that GDP growth will simply stay in a narrow band of extremely modest growth or no growth at all and the lack...
...expert at go, or Japanese chess, a player needs patience, strategy and a sharp wit, which devotees to the game hone into a personal style. Kaoru Yosano, Japan's new economic czar, is a 7 dan, the highest level of go master. Given his reputation at the game, it's little surprise that Yosano can juggle three cabinet posts in the Japanese government: minister of the economy, minister of finance and head of the Financial Services Agency, which oversees banking. Facing what he calls "the biggest economic crisis since the Second World War," Yosano, 70, peers into the ever-deepening...
...sharp increase in the number of attacks over the past few years has jolted aid officials, some of whom are wondering whether they might soon be driven out of conflict areas altogether. "Vast parts of Sudan, Somalia and Afghanistan are without humanitarian assistance because it has become too dangerous to operate there," says Peter Buth of the emergency team of Médicins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Holland. "It is incredibly frustrating." The surge in attacks, says the ODI report, "highlights the dearth of viable options to keep staff secure in the most volatile contexts, where humanitarian...
...soldiers crept into the village of Loi Kolay under the light of a crescent moon, slipping into defensive positions around a darkened house, gun sights trained on the rocky cliffs above. Four sharp knocks on the wooden door echoed through the silent valley. "Niazamuddin, we know you are in there!" the interpreter shouted. After a few tense moments, the tribal elder appeared. For months the village leaders of the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan's northeastern province of Kunar had complained about the U.S. and Afghan armies' searching of houses, a practice that went against tribal custom. Niazamuddin had suggested that...