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NEWSWEEK: International Editions: Highlights and Exclusives, April 7, 2008
COVER: The New Pragmatists (Pacific edition). Hong Kong Bureau Chief George Wehrfritz and Special Correspondent Jonathan Adams report that Asians in South Korea, Malaysia and Taiwan are rallying to new leaders promising growth-something the region once took for granted. Voters in Asia are kicking out incumbents like never before. As maturing economies combine with the global slowdown to put a brake on the pace of development, Asians are electing pragmatic managers-in-chief who promise a return to the good old days of fast growth, job security and social mobility, Newsweek reports.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/129612 (Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080330/NYSU002 )
COVER: The World According to John McCain (Latin America and Atlantic editions). Senior Editor Michael Hirsh reports on the two sides of John McCain's personality. There's the pragmatist: worldly-wise and witty, determined to follow the facts to the exclusion of ideology-a man willing to defy his own party and forge compromise. And then there is the zealous advocate, single-minded about pressing his cause, sometimes erupting in outrage at detractors and willing to stand alone-without any allies, if need be. But these two McCains can also make him a powerful force for change.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/129660 Interview with John McCain: http://www.newsweek.com/id/129661
COVER: 'Veltrusconi' (Atlantic: Italy edition only). Paris Bureau Chief Christopher Dickey and Special Correspondents Barbie Nadeau and Jacopo Barigazzi report that if the two candidates running for Italy's prime minister title-center-right former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi and center-left candidate Walter Veltroni-came together they just might be able to save Italy from a mountain of economic and political woes.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/129616
The 52-Year-Old Italian Up-Start. Special Correspondent Barbie Nadeau talks with former Rome mayor Walter Veltroni, who would be Italy's youngest elected prime minister if he wins against 71-year-old Berlusconi in April's elections. Veltroni is blanketing the country with his message "Si puo fare," borrowing from Barack Obama's "Yes we can" slogan. "I honestly believe we are facing our last chance. This country has been in a difficult situation for a number of years. It is a country that cannot seem to realize growth when it needs to," Veltroni tells Newsweek. "We have talented entrepreneurs, we have hard workers, but it is all blocked by a political system that has kept it blocked for a long time."
http://www.newsweek.com/id/129618
The Businessman's Prime Minister. Special Correspondent Jacopo Barigazzi talks with media mogul Silvio Berlusconi on his run for another term as Italy's prime minister about the country's economy. "The scenario is negative in general. In particular it is negative for Europe, and Italy has even more negative factors," he tells Newsweek. "We have insufficient infrastructures. We have an inefficient public administration. Then there's a very high public debt. In the world's imagination, the garbage in Naples has turned Italy into a country covered with trash, which does damage to our tourism industry."
http://www.newsweek.com/id/129617
The Prime Minster Vanishes. Tokyo Bureau Chief Christian Caryl reports that as Japan's economy stalls, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda has gone missing in action. Even members of his own party are starting to whisper that it's time for the caretaker prime minister, appointed last September, to go. Unlike the can-do pragmatists sweeping into office elsewhere in Asia, Fukuda has offered little more than drift.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/129614
China's Dangerous Game. Beijing Bureau Chief Melinda Liu reports that China's well-oiled propaganda machine has roared into overdrive. With the 2008 Olympics just over four months away, Beijing is now scrambling to try to repair its international image following the outbreak of violent protests in Tibet. To justify its crackdown, the government has portrayed the upheaval as a ruthless conspiracy spun by the exiled Dalai Lama, triggering bloody, racially motivated attacks by Tibetans against Han Chinese. And, so far, the tactic has worked.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/129615
Slowing the Money Trail. Latin America Regional Editor Joseph Contreras reports that the warning lights of a downturn in remittances to Latin America are starting to flash. According to the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Latin American and Caribbean migrants sent a record $66.5 billion to their native countries last year. But for the first time since the bank began monitoring these transactions in 2000, growth in remittance flows failed to reach the double-digit percentage gains they had made in previous years. Tightened security borders, the economy and tough immigration rules are all to blame.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/129658
The Opium Brides of Afghanistan. Afghanistan Correspondent Sami Yousafzai and South Asia Bureau Chief Ron Moreau report that in the country's poppy- growing provinces, farmers are being forced to sell their daughters to pay loans. Afghans disparagingly call them "loan brides"-daughters given in marriage by fathers who have no other way out of debt. The government's stepped up effort to eradicate poppy crops has hurt many poor farmers financially, many of whom cannot repay debts and have had to take drastic measures to survive.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/129577
GLOBAL INVESTOR: Today's 'Culture of Poverty.' Senior Writer and Columnist Daniel Gross writes that social scientists, policy wonks and politicians for decades have studied and debated what's come to be known as the culture of poverty. "We don't hear as much about the culture of poverty these days. Perhaps it's because the market turmoil is making us all feel a little poorer. Or perhaps it's because a highly visible group is now exhibiting all the outward appearances of the underclass: the overclass. Forget welfare queens and the culture of poverty. Think Wall Street kings and the culture of affluence," he writes.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/129681
WORLD VIEW: Kosovo's Dark Meaning. Contributing Editor George F. Will writes that with Kosovo's secession from Serbia, the disintegration of Yugoslavia, a "nation" largely created, by Woodrow Wilson, is complete. "But peace might be a casualty of the principle behind Kosovo's secession-the 'right' of ethnic self-determination," he concludes.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/123473
THE LAST WORD: Lawrence Summers. The former U.S. Treasury Secretary speaks with Newsweek about the global credit crisis, and the prospects for recession, and for a new era of tighter regulation. "It's likely we're in a recession and that it will last less than a year, but that is some considerable distance from a certainty. The strains on the financial system associated with lack of capital make it more likely, based on historical parallels, that the recession will be protracted." He points out that, "Those who have held out hope for a decoupling between the rest of the world and the United States are likely to be disappointed ... My guess is that the world economy as a whole is going to slow down this year, and the length and depth of that slowdown will depend very much on how the American economy performs."
http://www.newsweek.com/id/129624
SOURCE Newsweek
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