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INTERNATIONAL EDITIONS: HIGHLIGHTS AND EXCLUSIVES, JANUARY 28, 2008
COVER: The Party’s Over. (All overseas editions). Editor-at-Large Evan Thomas writes that President Bush has left the GOP in a precarious state. But the party’s candidates can learn much from his failures. “It is too late to reinvent the party’s core beliefs,” writes Thomas. “But the GOP candidates can embark on a more humble mission: to show, in effect, some humility. By examining Bush’s hubris, his almost willful disregard for annoying counterarguments, the Republican candidates can demonstrate a greater level of critical open-mindedness and self-awareness—they can show that they are not deluded by wishful thinking and Manichaean narratives.”
http://www.newsweek.com/id/96527
How My Party Lost Its Way. Guest Columnist Michael Gerson writes that the Republican Party’s current struggles stem from the Bush administration. The party “became closely identified with President Bush—and President Bush became closely identified with Iraqi violence and chaos. The slow response to rising sectarian conflict in 2005 and 2006 left an impression of stubbornness in a losing cause.” he writes. “Now the frustrations of the last two or three years—the resentments of every group that has felt ignored, marginalized, helpless, slighted or unfairly blamed—are being taken out on the Republican presidential candidates. As each one of them steps forward from the crowd, he is greeted by ideological sniping.”
http://www.newsweek.com/id/96377
Fishing for a Way to Change the World. Newsweek excerpts the forthcoming book by Slate editor-in-chief Jacob Weisberg “The Bush Tragedy.” The book explores all the factors that contributed to President George W. Bush’s downfall, from his family to his circle of political advisors.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/96372
A Dispute Over the Dream. Contributing Editor Ellis Cose writes that the angry tone of the campaigns reflected not just the tightening of the race, but also something considerably more emotional: the feeling by many supporters of both candidates [Clinton and Obama] that this campaign is about making history and that the other candidate stands in the way,” he writes. Cose, however, adds that few people he has spoken to thought race or gender would be the determining factor.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/96026
China’s One Child Left Behind. Beijing Bureau Chief Melinda Liu reports that a growing number of China’s rich and powerful are breaking the country’s famous one child policy. Although penalties for breaking the rule remain steep, many more are starting to ignore them, either because they have the money or the connections to do so. While this phenomenon may be a sign of China’s growing riches, it’s also threatening the viability of the one-child policy and enraging ordinary Chinese, who see it as yet another difference between the haves and have-nots.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/96336
The New Gordon Brown. London Bureau Chief Stryker McGuire reports that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is resolved to turn his fortunes around and once again reinvent himself in the eyes of the British electorate. Brown and his advisers settled on a back-to-basics plan to re-launch the prime minister and his government agenda. It would also be back to basics in the sense that he would return to the task of improving public services like health and education.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/96337
The Populists Retreat. Latin America Regional Editor Joseph Contreras reports that Latin America’s left-leaning leaders have not entirely shelved their populist-flavored political agendas. But the fact that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and others have taken their feet off the accelerator has emboldened many of their once demoralized political foes, suggesting Latin America’s radical leaders may find themselves on the defensive for some time to come.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/96338
The Great Moqtada Makeover. Baghdad Bureau Chief Babak Dehghanpisheh reports that U.S. commanders are engaged in talks with the Shiite militants for the first time since 2003 about “splitting the seams” within Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army—the Shiite militia—and working with moderates in the group to isolate the radicals, similar to the strategy adopted to tame the Sunni insurgency. Although Sadrists deny any dialogue with Americans, American commanders hope they can turn Sadr’s Shiite supporters the same way they have former Sunni insurgents.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/96370
The Slow Fall of the Greenback. European Economics Correspondent Rana Foroohar and Correspondent John Sparks report that the U.S. dollar’s weakened state is ushering in a new economic era. Since the end of World War II, the dollar’s unique role as the defacto international currency has afforded Americans a tremendously privileged place in the world. The strength of the greenback, and of the American economy, underpinned U.S. global hegemony in politics and culture. Big American banks like Citibank used to fund Third World governments—now those governments are buying Citibank on the cheap.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/96339
THE MONEY CULTURE: To The Rich, From America. In a letter to America’s wealthy, Senior Editor and Columnist Dan Gross writes that despite tax breaks, cuts on the levies on dividends and capital gains, signs indicate that they are not doing their part to help the economy by spending in the U.S. “Just when the economy has started to take on water—and we don’t know if we’ve just sprung a leak or we’ve hit an iceberg—it seems like the wealthy are piling into the lifeboats. So consider this a plea not to abandon us…after all we’ve done for you, it’s the least you can do,” he writes.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/96364
GLOBAL INVESTOR: Avoiding the Abyss. Barton Biggs, famed Wall Street strategist and managing partner with Traxis Partners, writes that many respected gurus are warning that the housing and stock-market party bubbles have well and truly burst, and an abyss looms. “The result, they say, will be a leaderless and extremely dangerous world, fraught with political uncertainty and soaring oil prices,” Biggs writes. “I concede that the case for the abyss is possible, but I view it as very unlikely.”
http://www.newsweek.com/id/96346
WORLD VIEW: We're Fighting the Wrong War. Newsweek International Editor Fareed Zakaria writes that the positions U.S. presidential candidates worked out for Iraq last summer, now feel stale, since events on the ground in Iraq have changed. “Every candidate is committed to ‘ending the war’ and bringing our troops back home. The trouble is, the war has largely ended, and precisely because our troops are in the middle of it…The real questions that candidates need to answer are these: How do they interpret this new reality? What would they do to maintain the new stability? What does all this mean for U.S. foreign and military policy in the next few years?”
http://www.newsweek.com/id/96371
THE LAST WORD: Ibrahim Gambari, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, was recently appointed as a U.N. point man on Burma to urge junta to respect human rights and recognize the opposition led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. He says the junta can do more to follow the U.N. recommendations. “The curfew has ended, the military has been removed from the streets, a large number of detained people have been released…So far, they’ve taken some steps—not as far as we want and not on all fronts—but they have taken some steps.”
http://www.newsweek.com/id/96344
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