Newsweek International articles from January 2007

Newsweek International archives from January 2007

Mail Call.
January 8, 2007... How to Leave Iraq Readers praised Fareed Zakaria for his Nov. 6 story on the way out of Iraq. One suggested, "Bush should appoint him his political adviser." Another recommended a "change of regime in America." Most others congratulated...

Running Out of Time; South Korea's protectionist instincts are complicating trade negotiations between Seoul and Washington.
January 8, 2007... Byline: B.J. Lee When South Korea reopened its lucrative beef market to the United States in late October, ending a nearly three-year ban stemming from the outbreak of mad-cow disease, American beef exporters were upbeat. After all, beef...

Morality vs. Money; Nations say they attack Internet betting for sake of the children. But they also run gambling operations.
January 8, 2007... Byline: Silvia Spring When the French police arrested two Austrian on-line-gambling executives on September 15, they did it in the name of protecting France from "the explosion of money games in a heedless manner." Indeed every recent...

The New Generation; A 'second wave' of entrepreneurial firms is poised to drive the economy. And they aren't in the outsourcing sector.
January 8, 2007... Byline: Ron Moreau and Sudip Mazumdar India's rise as an economic power is known the world over, thanks largely to the global ambitions of its biggest corporations. But names like Infosys, Tata and Reliance aren't necessarily as important...

Norwegian Gold; The Barents sea could become Europe's natural-gas Klondike--and an alternative to Russia.
January 8, 2007... Byline: William Underhill In the new age of energy scarcity, geography shapes politics. That's why Jonas Gahr Store travels with his own maps. Not for Norway's foreign minister the standard picture of a Europe centered on the Alps and the...

The New Middle East; As the Iraq war helps bring the American era to a close, a new order will begin to emerge in the region.
January 8, 2007... Byline: Richard N. Haass (Haass is president of the Council on Foreign Relations.) It is early 2008. The new U.S. strategy for Iraq, outlined by President George W. Bush in January 2007, in the wake of the Iraq Study Group report, has...

Let the Good Times Roll.
January 8, 2007... Byline: Jeffrey E. Garten (Garten is the Juan Trippe Professor of International Trade and Finance at the Yale School of Management.) Ten years ago, when the "big bang" hit London, a burst of deregulation reversed years of stagnation in the...

The Good Life.(includes multiple articles )
January 8, 2007... Byline: Ginanne Brownell; Barrett Sheridan; Jessica Au; Paul Tolme Charity begins at home, but it may be more fun to donate your time in an exotic locale. Volunteer vacations not only afford opportunities to work with locals and see sites...

Perspectives.
January 8, 2007... We will not let Mogadishu burn. Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, on his military's advancement into Somalia's capital after Islamist troops vanished last week "I've reached my own conclusion that this is the best way to serve...

Periscope.(includes multiple articles)
January 8, 2007... Byline: Maziar Bahari; John Sparks; Jerry Adler; Mark Hosenball; Sean Smith Iran: Trumped by Mayor Pothole Iranians are deserting the president they elected by a landslide in June 2005. Not only did university students heckle Mahmoud...

Slow and Steady.
January 8, 2007... Byline: John Sparks This is the time of year when technology mavens pass judgment on the year's top innovations and list the best of the best--the YouTubes, Wiis and hypoallergenic cats. And they tantalize us with what's coming--a smarter...

Nanotech: Super Threads.(Brief article)
January 8, 2007... Byline: -- Patrick White Superman's "s" never showed so much as scuff. But a superstrong, superlightweight fabric capable of stopping a speeding bullet has eluded researchers for decades. They found their magic thread back in 1991, when...

Mail Call: A Matter of Faith.(Letter to the editor)
January 15, 2007... Readers of our Nov. 13 cover story on evangelicals drew a line between public and personal morality. "It is deplorable to involve religion in politics," one said. Another noted: "The problem is not God. The problem is ungodly people using the...

The Capital Of Cool; Hip, happening Buenos Aires is luring writers, artists and musicians from around the world.
January 15, 2007... Byline: Brian Byrnes The cobblestone streets of Buenos Aires's historic San Telmo district don't sing only with the seductive sounds of tango music anymore. A local band called Los Alamos plays country-roots rock in rowdy beer bars,...

Coming In From The Cold; Germany exhibits a startling amnesia about its communist past and some revanchist secret police.
January 15, 2007... Byline: Stefan Theil What do German kids learn about the communist dictatorship that oppressed half their country for 44 years, chiefly through the instrument of the notorious Stasi, the ubiquitous secret police whose 265,000 agents and...

Netting Friends Online; Online networking isn't just for kids. Socialites of all ages are seeking each other out on the hottest sites.
January 15, 2007... Byline: Emily Flynn Vencat (With Jessica Au in London and Akiko Kashiwagi in Tokyo) Like millions of teenagers around the world, Sue Bloom spends several hours socializing online every day. She posts pictures, meets new friends, updates...

The Upbeat Upperclass; An exclusive poll shows Latin power players buoyant on their future, despite simmering unrest. Will it last?(Cover story)
January 15, 2007... Byline: Joseph Contreras (With Mac Margolis in Rio de Janeiro) A new outlook has taken hold of Latin America's elite, which is now decidedly bullish. That's the finding of a new Zogby International poll published exclusively by NEWSWEEK and...

The Wrong Plan For Schools? Critics say new education-reform plans don't address crucial issues affecting students.
January 15, 2007... Byline: Christian Caryl and Akiko Kashiwagi For Ayumi Yabe, now 18, the agony started back in first grade. A boy in her class singled her out for harassment. "Go die!" he'd scream at her--and a crowd of others soon joined in. As she got...

More Diapers, Please; Mainlanders are swamping Hong Kong maternity wards.
January 15, 2007... Byline: George Wehrfritz October was a trying month for the obstetrics team at Hong Kong's Prince of Wales Hospital. On average, six women from mainland China entered its maternity ward every day, most just hours before giving birth--a...

Attack Of the Aliens; Migrating species may be the biggest threat to plant and animal life on the planet.(Cover story)(Report)
January 15, 2007... Byline: Mac Margolis (With William Underhill in London, Jason Overdorf in New Delhi, Karen MacGregor in Durban, and Quindlen Krovatin in Beijing) Tall and tan and fat and ugly, achatina fulica is not something you'd want to behold on the...

Counterinsurgency: The Great Goat War; With helicopters and hunters, the Galapagos killed off one invader. But 295 remain.(Cover story)
January 15, 2007... Byline: Jimmy Langman On Isabela Island, the feral goat used to be public enemy No. 1. No creature has done more to sully the pristine ecology of the biggest island of the GalApagos. First introduced by whalers back in the 1700s, a handful...

Policy: A Scene Set For Change; As China pushes 'Green GDP,' officials fear careers may depend on cutting the costs of pollution.
January 15, 2007... Byline: Jonathan Ansfield and Melinda Liu (With Benjamin Robertson in Beijing) It wasn't exactly the Oscars. The entertainment kicking off the second annual "Green China Champions" awards show, televised in late December, was three...

Models: A Big Step to the Left; As the wave of Latin unrest reaches Chile, this redoubt of economic conservatism starts building a welfare state.
January 15, 2007... Byline: Jimmy Langman It's hardly surprising that Chilean President Michelle Bachelet didn't take them seriously at first. They were just a bunch of chiquillos --kids--decked out in their black-and-white high-school uniforms complaining...

Last Word: Bjorn Ulvaeus; An Enduring Note.(Interview)
January 15, 2007... Byline: Ginanne Brownell It's one of the only four-letter words that will automatically elicit a smile from kids and adults alike: ABBA. Although the Swedish four-piece band has neither released a new record in more than two decades nor...

It's Germany's Big Moment.
January 15, 2007... Byline: William Drozdiak (Drozdiak is president of the American Council on Germany.) The eminent historian Fritz Stern of Columbia University recently mused that the West has never faced a more formidable array of threats with such a weak...

Global Investor: Why Bears Are Wrong; It's fashionable to disdain the market crowd, to be contrarian. But I would argue that stock markets in the long run are canny old things.
January 15, 2007... Byline: Barton Biggs It was a good year for world equity markets. most major indexes were up in the mid-double digits, and many emerging markets did even better. Some investors (including yours truly) expect this year to be more of the...

The Good Life.(Marrakech, Morocco; Quebec city)
January 15, 2007... Byline: Florence Villeminot, Akiko Kashiwagi, Barrett Sheridan, Ginanne Brownell, Jessica Au ADVENTURE: Winter Winds By Florence Villeminot Start the new year high--real high. Cold weather is the best time for hot-air ballooning....

Perspectives.
January 15, 2007... Byline: Quotation sources: BBC, AP (4), Reuters I didn't want to take this position. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, on his wish to vacate his office before his term is completed "There is no government in the world that...

Periscope.(international news )
January 15, 2007... Byline: Malcolm Beith, B. J. Lee, Karla Bruning, Jonathan Mummolo, Nick Summers MEXICO: The Guns of Felipe Calderon Can President Felipe Calderon pull an Alvaro Uribe? Since taking office on Dec. 1, the embattled Mexican president has...

Phones: Too Much Data?
January 15, 2007... Byline: B. J. LEE The technological utopia promised by proponents of the coming generations of cell-phone technology is something that most people can only dream about. South Koreans, thanks to their vaunted high-tech society and a couple...

Surveillance: Video Evidence.(Brief article)
January 15, 2007... Byline: Jessica Bennett Video surveillance is proliferating, so it's no surprise that it's having a bigger presence in the courtroom. "Video evidence [has become] the single most powerful kind of evidence there is," says Harold Ruvoldt, a...

Mail Call: Fathers and Sons.(Bush I and II)(Letter to the editor)
January 22, 2007... Our Nov. 20 cover story drew criticism of President Bush over Iraq. "Western security is in jeopardy due to one stubborn man. We had better save democracy instead of Bush's presidency," one said. Another agreed: "We can be grateful for any...

A Blessedly Boring Year.(Viewpoint essay)
January 22, 2007... Byline: Jorge Castaneda (Castaneda is Global Distinguished Professor of Politics and Latin American Studies at New York University.) In the last year or so, 11 Latin American countries held presidential elections. Citizens in Brazil,...

No More Mr. Nice Guy; Vladimir Putin slaps down hapless Belarus. But eventually the hard-fisted Russian president will find that the name of this game is blowback.
January 22, 2007... Byline: Owen Matthews (With Stephen Glain in Washington) From the way Aleksandr Lukashenka was talking, you'd think war had just broken out. "We will not surrender our country to anyone who wants to tear it to pieces!" railed Belarus's...

A Great Leap Leftward; Will Venezuela follow ChAvez down Castro's path?
January 22, 2007... Byline: Phil Gunson May Day, 1961: Fidel Castro announces that Cuba will become a socialist state, and soon declares himself a Marxist. Last week Venezuelan President Hugo ChAvez embarked on a new six-year term with a fiery speech echoing...

Buddhist Economics; Thailand is now charting a 'middle path' set out by its beloved king. But will new measures bolster the shaky junta, or simply kill the economy?
January 22, 2007... Byline: George Wehrfritz Thailand's finance minister, Prodiyathorn Devakula, said the new rules were meant merely to "close loopholes." But that's not how foreign business leaders saw it last week, when he briefed them in Bangkok on plans...

Woman Waging Peace; Swanee Hunt's memoir explores some painful events.
January 22, 2007... Byline: Karen Fragala Smith Swanee Hunt's life story is as modestly opulent as a meal of black-eyed peas and corn bread served on fine china. Her father, a self-made oil magnate, preached hard work and frugality yet jetted around the world...

Searching for Answers; A reporter's lucid account of her kidnapping in Iraq.
January 22, 2007... Byline: Karen Fragala Smith During the 28 days that Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena was held in Baghdad by a group calling itself Mujahideen Without Borders, protesters marched in Rome, and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi appealed to...

The Relief Cycle; When the going gets tough, Neapolitans head to the opera. No wonder the San Carlo's got La Scala beat.(Teatro di San Carlo)
January 22, 2007... Byline: Barbie Nadeau Last fall, when the Naples police were mopping up blood from the cobblestones near Piazza Plebiscito after a fatal Camorra shoot-out, the orchestra at the nearby Teatro di San Carlo opera house was preoccupied with...

Off to the Graveyard; Footballing genius David Beckham is headed across the Atlantic. Is this a new beginning--or just the end?(joined Los Angeles Galaxy)
January 22, 2007... Byline: Malcolm Beith (With Patrick Falby) And so, an era is over. After more than a decade of delighting English football fans at Manchester United and Spanish aficionados at Real Madrid, David Beckham is coming to America. But is it the...

Escaping a Moral Mess; Scientists may have found a way out of the quandary over whether to destroy embryos or cure people.
January 22, 2007... Byline: Mary Carmichael Stem-cell research is divided into two major camps: one focused on cells from adults, the other on the controversial technique that destroys embryos. Now there may be a third way--a new category of stem cells that...

Ali Saleem: The Talking Game.(Interview)
January 22, 2007... Byline: Zahid Hussain Begum Nawazish Ali isn't your average Pakistani widow. Dressed in a glamorous sari, skimpy blouse and flashy jewelry, she's known more for her taboo innuendos than her adherence to strict societal norms. Oh, and she's...

Fidel V. Ramos: We Were the First Iraq.(Interview)
January 22, 2007... Byline: Marites Vitug The Philippines has had four leaders in the two decades since the fall of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos, but only one who did not disappoint. During his tenure from 1992 to 1998, Fidel Ramos got the economy moving,...

The Good Life: The Age of Recovery.
January 22, 2007... Byline: Emily Flynn Vencat; Barbie Nadeau; Jason Overdorf; Esther Bintliff; Rebecca Hall; Steven Levy Thailand: First the Coup, Now the Vacation Thailand has had a rough few years. SARS hit in 2003, followed by the tsunami in 2004....

Perspectives.(Brief article)
January 22, 2007... We haven't made any progress... We've lost ground. Outgoing State Department terror coordinator Henry Crumpton , on the U.S.-led war on terror "Fatherland, socialism or death--I swear it. I swear by Christ--the greatest socialist in...

Periscope.(Rumors of a 'Secret War'; Middle East: Closing Quick; Television: Total Tune-In )
January 22, 2007... Byline: Mark Hosenball, Michael Hirsh, Babak Dehghanpisheh and Richard Wolff; Stephen Glain; Ginanne Brownell and Esther Bintliff; Matthew Philips; Joshua Alston; Nicki Gostin Rumors of a 'Secret War' Has George W. Bush ordered up a...

Wi-Fi: Fight for Privacy.
January 22, 2007... Byline: Benjamin Sutherland Is an angry ex-boyfriend bad-mouthing you? It could be a lot worse, especially if you're part of the growing legions who access e-mail via wireless Internet connections. Eavesdropping on Wi-Fi networks is...

Investing: Tech Me Up Again.(securities forecats)(Brief article)
January 22, 2007... Byline: Linda Stern Tech stocks have had a nice run. In the last five months of 2006 they were up 20 percent, outperforming the market significantly. Some investment pros are predicting more growth ahead. Standard & Poor's Scott Kessler...

A Single Piece of Plastic...(Conix One, a new type of inhaler)(Brief article)
January 22, 2007... Byline: Jesse Ellison A single piece of plastic could revolutionize the delivery of vaccinations worldwide, according to U.K.-based Cambridge Consultants, who recently unveiled Conix One, a tiny inhaler that has no moving parts, costs only...

International Mail Call: The Politics of Dress.(Letter to the editor)
January 29, 2007... Readers of "Beyond the Veil" questioned the reasons Muslims give for covering up. "The veil is being used by women in the West as a political statement to emphasize their Islamic roots," one said. Another declared: "God does not care about the...

Low Cost, Long Hop; This man offers flights from Europe to Asia for less than $100, which could revolutionize long-haul travel.(Tony Fernandes, Air Asia X)
January 29, 2007... Byline: Jonathan Kent Tony Fernandes comes across as slightly cocky. But then the 42-year-old has earned the right to be. In five short years he's transformed air travel in South East Asia, and if his latest gamble pays off he'll soon be...

A Man With Vision? France's president wields enormous power. Nicolas Sarkozy and his rival could use it to force change. Why they won't.
January 29, 2007... Byline: Denis MacShane (MacShane, a Labour M.P., was Britain's Europe minister until 2005. He has written a biography of Francois Mitterrand.) The pictures on the BBC news last week were grim. Third World despair as queues of hungry,...

A Carnival in Beirut; Dueling Christmas trees and a battle of the bands. Lebanese find common ground even amid civil strife.
January 29, 2007... Byline: Rami Khouri (Khouri is director of the Issam Fares Institute of Public Policy and International Affairs at American University in Beirut.) A major ideological war now defines the Middle East. Coalitions of countries and movements,...

Davos Special Report: 7 Ways to Save the World; The need for more energy and rising greenhouse gases pose a dual challenge to global prosperity. A new vision of conservation--of doing more with less--may be the key.(Cover story)
January 29, 2007... Byline: Stefan Theil (With Akiko Kashiwagi in Tokyo, Quindlen Krovatin in Beijing and Stephen Glain in Washington) Forget the old cliche that conserving energy is a form of abstinence--riding bicycles, dimming the lights, lowering the...

Davos Special Report: We're No 'Monster'; A Kremlin insider defends Russia's powerful energy giant--and its controversial policies.(Interview)
January 29, 2007... Byline: Owen Matthews Alexander Medvedev is deputy chairman of Gazprom, the huge company at the heart of Russia's emerging energy empire. Last week he announced that profits rose 43 percent in 2006 to $37.2 billion, even as European...

Singapore Swing; The island's economy is booming. So why are so many citizens worse off than they were 10 years ago?
January 29, 2007... Byline: Sonia Kolesnikov-Jessop Tiny Singapore, with its population of 4.3 million, is often lauded for the way it has embraced globalization to maximum advantage. In the last decade, the city-state has opened its doors wide to foreign...

The Internet Trembles; A quake that snapped undersea cables wiring Asia to the world has exposed the vulnerability of the Net.
January 29, 2007... Byline: Jonathan Adams In 1866, the British ship Great Eastern lowered a grappling hook by rope down to the frigid Atlantic Ocean floor far below. Its quarry: a line that had snapped the previous year during one of the first attempts to...

The Sounds of Stories; You may not know Gustavo Santaolalla, but chances are you've been moved by his distinctive movie scores.
January 29, 2007... Byline: Mac Margolis When celebrated Mexican film director Alejandro GonzAlez InArritu set out to score "Babel," the final and most ambitious chapter of a trilogy that began with "Amores Perros" and "21 Grams," he had his work cut out for...

Last Word: Frederik de Wahl; I want my free TV.(Interview)
January 29, 2007... Byline: Ginanne Brownell In 2003, a Danish company called Skype changed the way we make phone calls, offering a free Internet-based communications system to users around the world. Having already established its reputation with the launch...

Global Investor: Off the Radar: The No. 1 Risk.
January 29, 2007... Byline: Jeffrey E. Garten (Garten is the Juan Trippe professor of international trade and finance at The Yale School of Management.) Earlier this month I spent several days in Singapore meeting with government and business executives for a...

The Good Life.(mountaintop resorts in Morocco)(Aurum Singapore, molecular restaurant in Southeast Asia)(Milan)
January 29, 2007... Byline: Sana Butler, Amber Haq, Joshua Alston, Kenzie Burchell, Sonia Kolesnikov Jessop Hotels in High Places The best way to feel on top of the world is actually to stay there. Mountaintop resorts may be tough to reach, but the views...

Humanizing the Enemy; Clint Eastwood's wrenching new war movie depicts the Battle of Iwo Jima from the Japanese point of view.(Letters from Iwo Jima)(Movie review)
January 29, 2007... Byline: David Ansen Clint Eastwood tells the story of the Battle of Iwo Jima from the Japanese side in "Letters From Iwo Jima." You can view it as a bookend to his recent "Flags of Our Fathers," or on its own. Either way, it's...

Following the Flock; De Niro directs Damon in the ambitious role of a spy as troubled as the American agency he works for.(The Good Shepherd)(Movie review)
January 29, 2007... Byline: David Ansen Director Robert De Niro and screenwriter Eric Roth's "The Good Shepherd" is nothing if not ambitious. In two hours and 40 minutes of grave, shadowy images, it attempts to tell the story of the formation and...

Tales Out of School; Eyre's wicked 'Scandal' will keep you guessing.(Notes on a Scandal)(Movie review)
January 29, 2007... Byline: David Ansen The aptly named Barbara Covett, a stern and lonely teacher at a shabby London secondary school, is a master of both deception and self-deception, which makes her a very dangerous and pathetic woman. Played with...

International Perspectives.
January 29, 2007... "We must give a soul to Europe; we have to find Europe's soul." German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the new European Union president, on the importance of adopting an EU constitution "The Chinese are telling the Pentagon that they don't own...

International Periscope.(terrorism in China)(Venezuela's trade policy)(study finds Nobel laureates live longer)
January 29, 2007... Byline: Melinda Liu, Mac Margolis, Mary Carmichael, Jonathon Mummolo Terror: Big Trouble in Western China Does the international war on terror have a new front? Earlier this month, police in western Xinjiang province swept down on a...

Music: Common Hero.(Guitar Hero 2, learning guitar through software)
January 29, 2007... Byline: Steven Levy Legend has it that the iconic blues guitarist Robert Johnson was granted his otherworldly chops by Satan himself, at a deal forged at a Mississippi crossroads. The price was his soul. In 2007, one does not have to cut...

Electronics: Chips Everywhere.
January 29, 2007... Byline: William Underhill Over the last 30 or so years, British entrepreneur Hermann Hauser has backed about 100 ideas, including three companies that have hit the billion-dollar mark. Plastic Logic, a Cambridge-based outfit launched six...

Energy: Holding Tight.(Brief article)
January 29, 2007... Byline: Rebecca Hall Nuclear power is enjoying a renaissance as a green alternative to coal, but what should be done with all the radioactive byproducts? One idea is to combine them with radiation-resistant ceramics and bury them...