Sexy soul sisters shine in Shinjuku


Masuo Kamiyama

Stroll down the street in Shinjuku's sprawling adult entertainment zone, Kabukicho, and you're likely to be propositioned by a horde of aggressive black touts, who entice passers-by with offers of the area's many corporeal delights.

A more recent development appears to be the rapid emergence of black hostesses, who are making inroads on the Chinese and other Asians who had previously serviced customers.

"They're from Kenya, Nigeria, Cameroon, Ethiopia and other places," a source at one of the local clubs tells Asahi Geino. "There seem to be around 50 or 60 such girls working in Kabukicho."

Most of the hostesses work at a type of establishment referred to as an "international club," ostensibly inexpensive watering holes that operate similarly to Japan's native cabaret clubs. The posted signs indicate a price of 4,000 yen for 90 minutes of fun.

To ensure you get what you want, advises Asahi Geino, be sure and request "Afurika no ko" (an African gal) to the maitre d' upon entering.

In the reporter's case, this request resulted in an introduction to Kerrie, a stunning 26-year-old from Ethiopia who, he insisted, bore a striking resemblance to supermodel Naomi Campbell.

Kerrie's revealing costume with its plunging neckline displayed plenty of dusky skin and an impressively deep cleavage.

"Will you buy me a drink?" she urged our reporter, batting her long eyelashes furiously. Swallowing hard, the reporter nodded dumbly in agreement.

Kerrie polished off her glass of wine in minutes, and promptly cajoled the dumbstruck reporter for a refill. After she imbibed five in about an hour, at 3,000 yen a pop, his bill, with tax and service charges added, came to over 20,000 yen -- quite a bit more than the 4,000 yen promised on the sign posted outside. Not an outrageous rip-off by Shinjuku standards, true, but typically deceptive.

"They'll usually try to get a customer drunk while getting the hostesses to keep ordering drinks to inflate the tab," explains Taro Chikuzen, a writer familiar with the latest trends in crimes by foreigners in Japan, who adds that the previous July in Shinjuku a Nigerian club owner was arrested after padding a customer's bill to the tune of 230,000 yen.

"After the police and Immigration Bureau teamed up in a major sweep, the Chinese, who were getting too powerful, disappeared from the area," says Akira Hinago, a reporter who covers the Kabukicho scene. "But now the Africans have been moving in to fill the vacuum. And because their visa status is legal, it's harder for the cops to clamp down on them."

Get rid of one foreign hood, sighs Asahi Geino, and another one will just pop up in his place. As this game of leapfrog is likely to continue, all the usual caveats against Shinjuku swindlers continue to apply.

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Iraq's Divide at the Top




Iraq's national unity government is the cornerstone of the U.S. exit strategy. But the week's events only highlight that national unity is its name, not its nature.

That Iraq is spinning dangerously out of control is no longer a matter of debate; the question has become how to stabilize it and limit the damage. The bipartisan Iraq Study Group, headed up by former Secretary of State James Baker, is supposed to offer up some answers next month when it presents its much-anticipated report. But the events of the past week underscore how difficult even damage-control in Iraq has become.

U.S. policy in Iraq depends largely on the ability of the elected government to forge a national unity compact that can end both the insurgency and the sectarian violence that continues to claim hundreds of casualties every week. And right now the signs of that government being able to achieve that goal are not looking good.

The gloomy assessment of the situation in Iraq offered in the Senate this week by U.S. intelligence chiefs was echoed by events on the ground: The mass abduction of dozens of people inside the headquarters of the higher eduction ministry — by men wearing uniforms of the Interior Ministry police no less — highlighted the absence of security or government control even in the heart of the capital. And the reported arrests of senior police officers that followed — as well as sharply divergent accounts by different cabinet ministers of how many people had been kidnapped, how many had been released, and whether any had been killed or tortured — suggested that different arms of the government (often broken down on sectarian lines) are not reading off the same script.

That impression was reinforced Thursday when Interior Minister, Jawad al-Bolani, a Shi'ite, issued an arrest warrant for leading Sunni cleric Harith al-Dari, accusing him of fomenting terrorism and sectarian violence. Al-Dari is the head of the influential Muslim Scholars Association, who while condemning terror attacks on Iraqi civilians has nonetheless openly backed insurgent attacks on U.S. forces as "legitimate resistance." The arrest warrant was greeted with howls of protest by the Sunni parties participating in the government, who denounced it as a sectarian attack. Some Sunni leaders even warned that if it were not rescinded, they would quit the government.

Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih, a Kurd, hastened to distance the government from the warrant, perhaps mindful of the importance of leaders such as al-Dari for the government to have any real chance at tamping down the insurgency through a political accommodation of the Sunnis. And the government tried to stem the controversy Friday by clarifying that it had only issued an investigation warrant, not an arrest warrant; one official insisted that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki didn't know that any warrant was going to be issued. But the damage has already been done. It didn't help matters that the announcement had been made in a dramatic late-night television appearance by the Interior Minister, who warned that "this is the government's policy against anyone who tries to foment division among Iraq's sects." After a meeting of ministers on the security situation reportedly broke down into a Sunni-Shi'ite shouting match on Tuesday, President Jalal Talabani has moved to convene an urgent conference of Iraqi political leaders to address the crisis. >

But the failures of the Iraqi government are only one part of the challenge facing the Administration in setting an Iraq policy capable of delivering stability and offering the prospect of bringing home American troops. What are widely believed to be the Baker group's basic assumptions — that the U.S. can no longer achieve the goals defined by the Bush Administration at the outset of the war; that achieving stability will require a regional consensus in which Iran and Syria would be important stakeholders — have already entered conventional wisdom in U.S. debates over Iraq. Since the U.S. election, talk-shows and op-ed pages are filled with proposals ranging from partitioning Iraq to backing a friendly authoritarian regime taking power, from "phased withdrawal" of U.S. troops to force the Iraqis to get the job done to sending thousands more troops in the hope of reversing the slide into chaos. But Baker has made clear that there is no simple formula that can fix the mess in Iraq — the reality on the ground has already moved beyond U.S. control.

While the U.S. remains the single largest power center in Iraq, that power is not sufficient to impose Washington's will. There are too many other actors in the field who have enough influence of their own, or in combination, to prevent the U.S. from prevailing. Those power centers range from the Sunni insurgency and the Shi'ite militias to the Iraqi government and Iraq's neighbors, first and foremost Iran.

So, whatever direction Baker proposes, it is less likely to be a comprehensive blueprint than aprocess for the various stakeholders in Iraq to build consensus on how to establish a measure of stability. And that will necessarily be a long and drawn-out discussion, during which the security needs will remain unchanged and urgent. That may have been why President Bush's basic message on Iraq this week boiled down to this: Don't expect results in a hurry.

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Today in history - Nov. 18

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Today in history - Nov. 18

The Associated Press

Today is Saturday, Nov. 18, the 322nd day of 2006. There are 43 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

On Nov. 18, 1928, Walt Disney's first sound-synchronized animated cartoon, "Steamboat Willie" starring Mickey Mouse, premiered in New York.

On this date:

In 1820, U.S. Navy Capt. Nathaniel B. Palmer and his crew discovered the frozen continent of Antarctica.

In 1883, the United States and Canada adopted a system of Standard Time zones.

In 1886, the 21st president of the United States, Chester A. Arthur, died in New York at age 56.

In 1903, the United States and Panama signed a treaty granting the U.S. rights to build the Panama Canal.

In 1936, Germany and Italy recognized the Spanish government of Francisco Franco.

In 1966, U.S. Roman Catholic bishops did away with the rule against eating meat on Fridays.

In 1978, California Congressman Leo J. Ryan and four other people were killed in Jonestown, Guyana, by members of the Peoples Temple; the killings were followed by a night of mass murder and suicide by more than 900 cult members.

In 1987, the congressional Iran-Contra committees issued their final report, saying President Reagan bore "ultimate responsibility" for wrongdoing by his aides.

In 1991, Shiite Muslim kidnappers in Lebanon freed Anglican Church envoy Terry Waite and Thomas Sutherland, the American dean of agriculture at the American University of Beirut.

In 1999, 12 people were killed when a bonfire under construction at Texas A&M University collapsed.

Ten years ago: One-time CIA station chief Harold J. Nicholson was charged with selling top secrets to the Russians for more than $120,000. (Nicholson later pleaded guilty to espionage and was sentenced to 23 1/2 years in prison; he was spared a life sentence for cooperating with investigators.)

Five years ago: Phillips Petroleum Co. and Conoco Inc. announced they were merging in a deal to create the third largest U.S. oil and gas company.

One year ago: The Republican-controlled House spurned a call for an immediate pullout of troops from Iraq in a 403-3 vote hastily arranged by the GOP that Democrats denounced as politically motivated. Suicide bombers killed more than 50 worshippers at a pair of Shiite mosques in Iraq. Eight months after Robert Blake was acquitted at a criminal trial of murdering his wife, a civil jury decided the actor was behind the slaying, and ordered him to pay Bonny Lee Bakley's children $30 million. Tropical Storm Gamma formed off the coast of Central America.

Today's Birthdays: Sen. Ted Stevens (news, bio, voting record), R-Alaska, is 83. Actor Brad Sullivan is 75. Actress Brenda Vaccaro is 67. Actress Linda Evans is 64. Country singer Jacky Ward is 60. Actor Jameson Parker is 59. Actress-singer Andrea Marcovicci is 58. Rock musician Herman Rarebell is 57. Singer Graham Parker is 56. Actor Delroy Lindo is 54. Comedian Kevin Nealon is 53. Actress Elizabeth Perkins is 46. Singer Kim Wilde is 46. Rock musician Kirk Hammett (Metallica) is 44. Rock singer Tim DeLaughter is 41. Actor Owen Wilson is 38. Singer Duncan Sheik is 37. Actress Peta Wilson is 36. Actress Chloe Sevigny is 32. Country singer Jessi Alexander is 30. Actor Steven Pasquale is 30. Rapper Fabolous is 27. Rapper Mike Jones is 26.

Thought for Today: "Your way of giving is more important than what you give." — Vietnamese proverb.

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