Newsweek International articles from December 2006

Newsweek International archives from December 2006

Mail Call.(Letter to the editor)
December 4, 2006... Another Vietnam? Readers of our Oct. 9 report on Bob Woodward's "State of Denial" vented their anger at Bush's war. Comparing it to Vietnam, one recalled, "How many innocent civilians were lost!" And, said another, "heads would roll in a...

Drifting Toward Extremism; Malaysia and Indonesia are known for their gentle version of Islam. So why is the mainstream worried?
December 4, 2006... Byline: Joe Cochrane and Jonathan Kent The meeting of the united Malays National Organization, the ruling pro-Muslim party in Malaysia, was a shocking display of divisiveness. Some UMNO delegates at the rally, which ended Nov. 17, gave...

Trouble in Paradise; Too much thrift is a bad thing, more Norwegians say.
December 4, 2006... Byline: William Underhill Siv Jensen is the blond-haired, blue-eyed, 30-something scourge of Norwegian politics. In a country that more than any other seems the very model of a modern, well-run European social-welfare state, she's an...

Do It Our Way; Tough new demands out of Beijing are raising fresh doubts about whether China is still open for business.
December 4, 2006... Byline: Sarah Schafer (With Rachel Makabi in New York) A wave of economic nationalism has hit China, leading many businessmen to wonder whether Beijing is rethinking its opening to the outside world. In recent months, China has suddenly...

Hugo Faces His Toughest Test; Like so many populists in Latin America, ChAvez loves the Venezuelan poor as they are, and wants to keep them that way.
December 4, 2006... Byline: Jorge G. Castaneda; Castaneda is Global Distinguished Professor of Politics and Latin American Studies at New York University. Next sunday Hugo Chavez will put his electoral charmed life on the line. Since 1998, when he was elected...

The Coming Coup d'Etat? Once again, the generals are muttering angrily about how the government is undermining the secular state--and Turkey.
December 4, 2006... Byline: Zeyno Baran is a Senior Fellow at Hudson Institute. Turkey is a haunted land. too often in its history, the past has been prologue. It may be so again. Almost 10 years ago, the Turkish military ousted a popularly elected Islamist...

Time to Accept The Obvious; To be pro-growth, we need to be pro-green. The costs of action are smaller than the cost of business-as-usual--by a factor of five to 20.
December 4, 2006... Byline: David Miliband Climate change raises issues of science, economics and politics. By the month the debate moves on: 2007 will be a key year. And the science is now unambiguous. At the recent 12th annual United Nations Conference on...

The Last Word: George Martin; A Labor of 'Love'.(Interview)
December 4, 2006... Byline: Jessica Au At 80, producer Sir George Martin--a.k.a. the "fifth Beatle"--couldn't care less what anybody thinks. In a career that has spanned almost half a century, Martin has produced more than 700 records and worked with artists...

Global Investor: Don't Throw The Bums Out; No party in power is likely to succumb to Robin Hood economics, no matter what it says in the rabble-rousing campaign phase.
December 4, 2006... Byline: Ruchir Sharma (Sharma is head of global emerging markets at Morgan Stanley Investment Management.) George W. Bush's troubles have obscured the truth about incumbents everywhere. In stark contrast to the popular revolt that swept...

The Good Life: Gift Guide.
December 4, 2006... It's that time of year again: the season of shopping stress. Well, We're here to help. Why fall back on another cashmere sweater or coffee-table art book when you can give a mink clutch or even a personal submarine to the loved ones on your...

Perspectives.(Brief article)
December 4, 2006... Our bellies are full of blood. Baghdad resident Imbrahim Tabour, responding to a barrage of insurgent attacks that killed over 200 Iraqi civilians in a single day last week "We are here because we don't want to give this land to Syria or...

Periscope.(poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko)
December 4, 2006... Byline: Mark Hosenball, Michael Isikoff and Owen Matthews, John Barry and Gretel Kovach, Sami Yousafzai, Julie Scelfo, David Gates Russia: Isotope of Death Until a few days ago, U.S. and British government investigators had never heard...

Digital Music: Beyond 'Squirting'.(Microsoft's digital music player Zune)
December 4, 2006... Byline: Steven Levy (Editor's note: Levy's book, "The Perfect Thing," is about the iPod.) Have you squirted a song yet? That's the question Microsoft hopes your friends will ask you as you ponder which digital music player to acquire....

Communication: Virtual Meeting.(Cisco's TelePrescence)(Brief article)
December 4, 2006... Byline: Emily Flynn Vencat This isn't your father's videoconferencing--it's more like sitting across the table from somebody a thousand kilometers away. Cisco's TelePresence, launched in October, uses ultra-high-definition life-size...

Feeling Global Heat.(Letter to the editor)
December 11, 2006... Our Oct. 16 cover story on wildlife endangered by global warming elicited gratitude from concerned readers. One, finding the report "important and relevant," urged, "Maintain the balance of life on earth." Another protested "the exploitation of...

Who Lost Turkey? It's a slow-motion 'train wreck,' and the imminent crash of Ankara's EU bid is a disaster for everyone.(Cover story)
December 11, 2006... Byline: Owen Matthews (With Sami Kohen in Istanbul) Benedict XVI stood, shoeless, side by side with the Mufti of Istanbul beneath the cavernous great dome of onetime Constantinople's famed Blue Mosque, palms upraised in the traditional...

Revenge of the Euro; Forget the U.S. dollar. Up, down--who cares? If America catches a cold, Europe barely sniffles.
December 11, 2006... Byline: Emily Flynn Vencat The crowds mobbing new York's most famous toy store buzz in European accents this year. Inspired by the rise of the euro--which shot up an additional 3 percent last week, to a 20-month high of $1.32--the Germans,...

Casinos Royale; The war for Asian gaming supremacy now has a second front: Singapore, where three business groups (including one from glitzy Las Vegas) are vying for a license.
December 11, 2006... Byline: Sonia Kolesnikov-Jessop In a conference room at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Singapore last week, strategists for the Las Vegas-based consortium Eighth Wonder prepared for battle. Executives dashed about with stacks of paper or...

Shaped by Sunflowers; How van Gogh inspired the expressionists.
December 11, 2006... Byline: Ginanne Brownell When Vincent van Gogh painted "Poppies in the Field" in 1889, neither the artist nor his subject had much relevance in the world. He was a troubled Dutch painter without much of a following, and his brash red...

The Last Word: Sheik Harith al-Dhari; A 'Psychological Crisis'.
December 11, 2006... Byline: Michael Hastings Harith al-Dhari is a wanted man. In early November, the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government accused the influential Sunni leader of inciting terrorism and issued a warrant for his arrest while he was out of the...

The Good Life.(sample sales; Oslo, Norway; Santorini restaurant)
December 11, 2006... Byline: Sana Butler, William Underhill, Rebecca Hall, Tara Weingarten, Megan Cokely, Akiko Kashiwagi Shopping: Sample the Goods By Sana Butler Want to buy a pair of $1,600 Balenciaga black python stilettos for $175? Then head to a...

Perspectives.(Brief article)
December 11, 2006... Byline: Quotation sources: L.A. Times, AP, N.Y. Times, Entertainment Weekly "Benedict did for the Muslims what John Paul did for the Jews. " Cardinal Roger Etchagaray, comparing Pope Benedict XVI's prayer in Istanbul's famous Blue...

Periscope.
December 11, 2006... Byline: Babak Dehghanpisheh; Fareed Zakaria; Joseph Contreras; Michael Hastings; Keith Naughton; Lee Hudson Teslik Lebanon: The Christian Tinderbox If Lebanon flares into civil war, once again, the spark may well ignite inside the...

Games: Virtual Thievery.
December 11, 2006... Byline: Silvia Spring Keep a close eye on your magic wand, or somebody will steal it. World of Warcraft and other Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games have recently become the target of criminals who seek in-game currency, or...

Biology: Edible Cotton.(Brief article)
December 11, 2006... Byline: Fahad Faruqui If it weren't poisonous, cotton would make a terrific food. Its seeds are rich in high-quality protein, and the plant is hardy. Nearly 80 countries produce 44 billion kilograms a year. That's enough to feed 500...

Super Silicon.(Brief article)
December 11, 2006... By firing a laser at a hunk of silicon, physicists at the National Center for Scientific Research in Grenoble, France, turned this ordinary material into a superconductor at room temperature. Scientists had been trying for decades to make...

The Full Force of Peace; The tsunami hit Aceh so hard, it shocked the warring province to cease shooting and go to the polls.
December 18, 2006... Byline: Joe Cochrane Not long ago, rebels like Sofyan Dawood risked a bullet in the head if they appeared in public in the war-torn Indonesian province of Aceh. But then something unexpected happened: the decades-old separatist war that...

Getting Back On Track; Forget 'off ramps' and 'on ramps.' Women--and the companies that need them--are recognizing that the key to long and successful careers is maintaining contact even during breaks.(Cover story)
December 18, 2006... Byline: Emily Flynn Vencat (With Megan Cokely) You'd never guess that Mishal Husain is on maternity leave. It's 9:30 on a Tuesday morning, and the attractive 33-year-old BBC World News presenter boasts perfectly coifed hair and is already...

Lessons We Have Learned; Accomplished leaders in their varied fields share their hard-earned wisdom about success, failure and not letting yourself off the hook.(Cover story)
December 18, 2006... Ruth Simmons President, Brown University So often in the workplace, women assume that they have to be just like everybody else and downplay whatever is unique about them. I think it's just the opposite. Whatever I've accomplished in my...

Buried Treasures; Afghan artifacts that survived occupation, war and Islamic fundamentalists.
December 18, 2006... Byline: Amber Haq Pierre Cambon peers at the intricately carved second-century ivory statuettes, his eyes sparkling. The head curator of Afghan arts at Paris's historic Musee Guimet is contemplating the elegance of the sculpted female...

The Burden of Spain; From Goya to Picasso, Iberia has been ... different.
December 18, 2006... Byline: Vibhuti Patel Spain has never been quite European: it lies on the Continent's fringe, isolated from outside influences. Its culture has thrived in a bubble. That heritage is brought to vibrant life in a grand show at New York's...

The Paper Chase; A new right to information pits an angry public against an infamous bureaucracy.(India)
December 18, 2006... Byline: Sudip Mazumdar India may be the world's largest democracy, but its citizens have been reeling under malevolent governance for decades. Simple tasks like renewing a passport or obtaining a driver's license or a subsidized food card...

An Alluring 'Perfume'; The film adaptation of Patrick Suskind's cult novel has the power to nauseate as well as captivate.
December 18, 2006... Byline: Jessica Au Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is out roaming the dark streets of 18th-century Paris when something catches his nose. Sniffing the air, he follows the intoxicating aroma down a deserted alley to find that it belongs to a young...

When Is Big Too Big? Europeans declare war on the SUV. We don't want to be American, they say, and drive cars sized for Texas.
December 18, 2006... Byline: William Underhill Ken Livingstone is no friend to the motorcar. London's mayor has spurned his official limo and imposed a whopping charge on drivers entering the city center. But he reserves his particular scorn for the bugaboo of...

Last Word: Fredrik Reinfeldt; Any society that can't provide for the people living there will see people moving out.(Sweden)(Interview)
December 18, 2006... Byline: Fredrik Reinfeldt Throughout the 1990s, the so-called Swedish model was the talk of Europe. High taxes meant nothing to a nation that enjoyed the benefits of heavily subsidized schooling, health care and pensions. But when the...

And Now Come The Realists? The problem was not blunt language. It was his gift for making enemies out of allies.(John Bolton)
December 18, 2006... Byline: Denis Macshane (Macshane, a Labour M.P., was British minister for Europe until 2005.) When Donald Rumsfeld quit, no one in Europe noticed. He had long been a dead man walking. But it was different with the news that John Bolton had...

Periscope.(Editorial)
December 18, 2006... Byline: Tony Emerson, Sarah Childress, Jonathan Alter, Matthew Philips Letter From the Editor I'm a 200-pound guy, not real girly, but I sometimes compare myself to the classic "woman who has it all." Great spouse, kids, job. No time....

Global Investor William Hess: Why Paulson Will Hit a Wall; We have a pretty good idea what Paulson wants: a looser yuan, trade access and IP protection. But Beijing is not in a position to give.(Henry Paulson)
December 18, 2006... Byline: William Hess; HESS is a senior analyst based in Beijing with the China Regional Service of Global Insight. During the recent u.s. congressional campaign, Democrats indulged in a degree of China-bashing, and won as outsiders....

The Good Life.(New Year's Eve celebrations)(luxuries)
December 18, 2006... Byline: Jessica Au, Rebecca Hall, Stryker McGuire, Barrett Sheridan, N'Gai Croal Travel: Let Them Jam Times Square By Jessica Au With 2007 peeking around the corner, it's time to start making plans to ring in the new. For the...

Leading the Way; These women have battled to reach positions of power in places ranging from the haute kitchens of France to the corporate ladder at Google and a concert hall in North Korea. In their own words, they tell how they got there.(Cover story)
December 18, 2006... Byline: Maria Celeste Arraras, Cynthia Carroll, Sarah Chang, Helene Darroze, Marina Mahathir, Marissa Mayer, Renee Reijo Perra, Gwen Sykes Maria Celeste Arraras Broadcast journalist I was fortunate to grow up in a family with a...

Science and the Gender Gap; A generation ago, women physicists and chemists were rare in the lab, but their number is increasing every year.
December 18, 2006... Byline: Barbara Kantrowitz and Julie Scelfo To get a sense of how women have progressed in science, take a quick tour of the physics department at the University of California, Berkeley. This is a storied place, the site of some of the most...

'This Topic Annoys Me'; After years of fielding questions about the role of gender in her career, one fed-up astrophysicist explains why she's done talking about being a female scientist. Forever.
December 18, 2006... Byline: Janna Levin (Janna Levin teaches physics and astronomy at Barnard College in New York City. She is the author of "A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines" (Alfred A. Knopf, 2006).) I don't ever want to talk about being a woman scientist...

Perspectives.(Brief article)
December 18, 2006... Byline: Quotation Sources, Top To Bottom: AP, Reuters, CNN, AP, BBC It's a tough sell. Lee Hamilton, co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group, on whether the Bush administration will heed the recommendations of the panel's new report "The...

Everyone's a Star!(video recording and broadband internet broadcast private behavior to the world)
December 18, 2006... Byline: Steven Levy Plenty has been said about comedian Michael Richards's racial outburst in a Los Angeles comedy club, but not as much on the speed and thoroughness with which the news spread. The enabler of this ubiquity was a...

Long Ranger.(Tesla Motors electric Roadster with lithium-ion batteries)(Brief article)
December 18, 2006... Byline: Monique Mugnier Somehow engineers at Tesla Motors in California found room in the firm's new electric Roadster to fit enough lithium-ion batteries--7,000 of them--to power the vehicle for 400 kilometers between chargings. Have...

Pre-Solar Meteorites.(Brief article)
December 18, 2006... Meteorites fall to earth all the time, but few stay as pristine as the one that landed on frozen Tagish Lake in Canada six years ago. Astronomers recently reported in the journal Science that the rock may have formed at the outer edge of the...

International Mail Call.(Letter to the editor)
December 18, 2006... Our Oct. 23 cover story on North Korea's nukes prompted many readers to blame U.S. foreign policy. "Banish all those horrid weapons!" urged one. Taunted another, "Pot calling the kettle black?" A third faulted "Bush's adamant refusal to talk...