Tuesday, March 16, 2004 - 10:23 AM JST

Ya just gotta loooove a guy named, "DADA" , ha, ha.
Of course Idi Amin did not rack up the zillions of yen debt that Japan just forgave, but he was responsible for it.

Quote: http://www.wbj.pl/?command=article&id=21650&type=wbj


...a politician boasting of a career in boxing has challenged an opponent to a duel. Idi Amin, a bloody tyrant whose presidency in the 1970s made Uganda one of the world's poorest countries, famously invited Julius Nyerere, the then leader of Tanzania, to take him on in the ring. Idi Amin had been his country's heavyweight champion, so it was probably wise of the bespectacled Nyerere to decline the kind invitation.... the conclusion of the Amin boxing challenge was rather different to what he expected. Far from beating Nyerere to death, as Amin claimed he would, the Ugandan tyrant was driven out of his country by Tanzanian troops and died in comfort in Saudi Arabia last year.

Tuesday, March 16, 2004 - 11:31 AM JST

And in other Japanese "Gifting" news....

Japan's Checkbook Shifts From China to India
Bloomberg / Mar 15
India is reaching an important milestone and it's doing it at China's expense. Asia's No. 3 economy is overtaking its No. 2 as the largest recipient of low interest-rate loans from Japan.
It's a backhanded compliment for China. After 25 years of sizeable development assistance from Japan, its economy is now deemed stable enough to operate with less help....
Politics are certainly a factor, too. It doesn't sit well with some Japanese that their government subsidizes China's boom.