Pressroom

INTERNATIONAL EDITIONS: HIGHLIGHTS AND EXCLUSIVES, JULY 28, 2008 ISSUE

2008-07-20T18:01:38Z

To book guests, contact Brenda Velez at 212-445-4078—Brenda.Velez@Newsweek.com—or Grace Huh at 212-445-5831—Grace.Huh@Newsweek.com. Articles are posted on www.Newsweek.com.

INTERNATIONAL EDITIONS: HIGHLIGHTS AND EXCLUSIVES, JULY 28, 2008 ISSUE

COVER: Obama Abroad. An Emerging World View. Newsweek International Editor Fareed Zakaria writes that in the realm of foreign policy, Barack Obama has been made out to be a softheaded idealist. John McCain and his campaign, conservative columnists and right-wing bloggers all paint a picture of a liberal dreamer who wishes away the world’s dangers. Zakaria disagrees. “Over the course of the campaign…Obama has elaborated more and more the ideas that would undergird his foreign policy as president,” he writes. “What emerges is a world view that is far from that of a typical liberal, much closer to that of a traditional realist. It is interesting to note that, at least in terms of the historical schools of foreign policy, Obama seems to be the cool conservative and McCain the exuberant idealist.” Zakaria adds that McCain is a pessimist about the world, “seeing it as a dark, dangerous place where, without the constant and vigorous application of American force, evil will triumph.” To Obama “countries like Iran and North Korea are holdouts against the tide of history. America’s job is to push these progressive forces forward, using soft power more than hard, and to try to get the world’s major powers to solve the world’s major problems.”

http://www.newsweek.com/id/147763

As part of the cover package, ten international writers, professors and government officials contributed essays on how their country would view an Obama presidency.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/147678

· Timothy Garton Ash, a professor of European studies at Oxford University, writes that the good news from Britain is that they’re all Obamamaniacs now. But enthusiasm for Obama is “equaled by skepticism about his country. That means there’s a lot of ground for him to make up.”

· Dominique Moïsi, senior adviser to the French Institute of International Relations, writes that Obama should know how much he is loved in France. (85 percent of Frenchmen would vote for him, according to one poll). “You not only incarnate the best of America but give us hope for the full integration of our own black and Arab citizens.”

· Josef Joffe, publisher-editor of Die Zeit in Hamburg, writes that Obama can change the tune of U.S. foreign policy. “But he can’t get rid of the brass and the kettledrums, so when he visits, he might gently prepare Berlin for the dissonances to come.”

· Tom Segev, Israeli historian and a columnist for Haaretz writes, that when Obama arrives in Israel, he’ll find Israelis are as eager for change as his supporters at home. And that most Israelis “feel deeply dependent on America and will not risk major policy differences with the United States. That means Obama may find them open to a new, more rational approach to the Middle East conflicts.”

· Marwan Muasher, the former foreign minister of Jordan and author of “The Arab Center: The Promise of Moderation,” writes that Obama, while in the Middle East, should begin a candid dialogue and to learn about the area’s aspirations. “As you rightly articulated, the United States’ approach to the Middle East needs to be reoriented.”

· Ali A. Allawi, Iraq’s minister of Finance from 2005-06 and author of “The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace,” writes, “Obama should realize that the picture of Iraq he’ll get from meetings with military commanders, U.S. diplomats and senior Iraqi leaders will be incomplete, offering him only a glimpse of the country’s true conditions.”

· Ashraf Ghani, the former Finance minister of Afghanistan and current chairman of the Institute of State Effectiveness, writes that Washington and Obama should recognize that Afghanis are “frustrated by the waste and lack of transparency in the international aid system…Growing violence, especially civilian casualties (many inflicted by international forces) are making us feel less secure. So are rising food prices and a youth-unemployment rate of 40 to 60 percent.”

· Michael Anti, a Chinese political blogger and Nieman Fellow at Harvard, writes that the one key fact Obama should remember is “trade is now central to the U.S.-Chinese relationship. China needs more trade—not just for its economy or its government, but for the sake of its civil society as well.”

· Shekhar Gupta, editor in chief of The Indian Express, writes that the first thing Obama needs to know about India is that he doesn’t need to fix America’s battered image there—and it is a big reason he should have included India in his travel plans.

· Luis Fernando Verissimo, a Brazilian journalist and author, writes that if Obama came to Brazil—and he should—they would impress him with their bigness in everything. “We might even cause him to ponder just what all this bigness and ambition means for the United States.”

Mediterranean Bridge Building. Special Correspondent Eric Pape reports on French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s recent actions between France and Israel. Until very recently, France and Israel have had bitterly difficult relations. But Sarkozy has changed all that by very publicly embracing the Jewish state. He takes every opportunity to reassure Israel, whether on Iran’s nuclear ambitions or by calling talk of a politique arabe “nonsense,” as he did in his 2006 political book “Testimony.” Last month Sarkozy lauded the universal values of Judaism in a speech before the Israeli Knesset. Sarkozy used the occasion to tell Israel: “The French people will always be [there] when your existence is threatened.”

http://www.newsweek.com/id/147680

BOOK EXCEPT: “Stalin’s Children: Three Generations of Love, War, and Survival.” In this book excerpt, Moscow Bureau Chief Owen Matthews writes about his family’s experiences while living in Russia and the effect on his life there now. “Twenty-six years after my mother finally left Moscow to marry my father, I moved in the opposite direction, back to Russia. For much of my time there, I thought I was in a story without a narrative, a constantly changing slide show of phantasmagoria that Moscow was projecting onto my life for my personal delectation. But in fact…I have found myself, time and again, tripping over the roots of experience that I shared with my parents and grandparents.”

http://www.newsweek.com/id/147688

WORLD VIEW: Poisonous Relations. In the last eight years, Russia has had serious rows with almost half of the EU’s 27 member states. Contrary to popular opinion these have affected both longtime members of the EU and new, write Andrew Wilson, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, and Mark Leonard, executive director at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “Indeed, it seems that too often Russia has been able to punch above its weight by using underhanded divide-and-conquer tactics—while Europe has failed to recognize that collectively it is much stronger than its members are when they act alone…Europe needs to figure out a way to come together to fight back.”

http://www.newsweek.com/id/147692

THE LAST WORD: Marc Sageman, author, “Leaderless Jihad.” Sageman says he focused on the dynamics of small groups, like the leaders of the 9/11 operation who were in Hamburg, and not on the overall leadership of Al Qaeda. “I realized it was a bunch of guys that got together and wanted to do something. They were all very enthusiastic and not just passive recipients of other people’s orders. They generated their own ideas. They went to Afghanistan looking for Al Qaeda, and when they connected, then Al Qaeda gave them some direction.”

http://www.newsweek.com/id/147690

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MEDIA LEAD SHEET/JULY 28, 2008 ISSUE

2008-07-20T16:41:37Z

MEDIA LEAD SHEET/JULY 28, 2008 ISSUE (on newsstands Monday, July 21). To book correspondents, contact Brenda Velez at 212-445-4078—Brenda.Velez@Newsweek.com—or Grace Huh at 212-445-5831—Grace.Huh@Newsweek.com. Read the issue and Web exclusives at www.Newsweek.com.

COVER: “Murder in the 8th Grade” (p. 40). Associate Editor Ramin Setoodeh recounts the complex story behind the Larry King shooting, which became the most prominent gay-bias crime since the murder of Matthew Shepard 10 years ago. Earlier this year the lives of students at Oxnard, Calif.’s E.O. Green Junior High School were shaken when fellow student Brandon McInerney killed openly gay student Larry King. Now the community is working to piece together what went so terribly wrong and McInerney is waiting to be arraigned this week, charged with first-degree murder and a hate crime. The cover story examines whether schools are prepared to help younger kids cope with issues of identity and sexuality. Homosexuality is becoming much more accepted and kids are becoming so comfortable with the concept of being openly gay that they are coming out younger and younger. One study found that the average age when kids self-identify as gay has tumbled to 13.4; their parents usually find out a year later.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/147790

DANIEL GROSS: “A Chicken Little Tale for Adults” (p. 19). Senior Editor Daniel Gross writes that since the creation of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) 75 years ago no insured deposit has been lost. But now, anticipating a rise in business, the agency has called dozens of veterans out of retirement and is hiring. Five banks have failed this year, and Sheila Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., expects more. Ninety banks are on the FDIC’s problem list. “After several years on the D-list, deposit insurance is hot,” Gross writes. “The FDIC’s Web site last Monday tallied a record 9 million hits … Traffic was driven by concerns about IndyMac, the big California lender taken over by the FDIC on July 11, and by general concerns about banks’ health.”

http://www.newsweek.com/id/146907

POLITICS: “The Story Of His Life” (p. 26). Chief Political Correspondent Howard Fineman profiles Mark Salter, John McCain’s speechwriter, former Senate chief of staff, coauthor, biographer and closest adviser. Salter calls himself a “friend” to the presumptive GOP nominee, but that doesn’t do their relationship justice. “The only person closer to McCain is his wife,” says former senator Warren Rudman, a longtime friend to both men. McCain and Salter are stylistically similar and share a world view: they like to operate in intimate settings, with a loyal band of brothers. Which is a good thing, since they’re up against Barack Obama, who so far seems more deft, organized, popular and blessed by destiny.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/147768

“Why Won’t Juan Come to the Phone?” (p. 28). Reporter Jessica Ramirez and White House Correspondent Holly Bailey report on why John McCain’s Hispanic outreach chief Juan Hernandez has been keeping a low profile since the presidential hopeful needs to win over the Latino community. A recent Gallup poll shows McCain with only 29 percent Hispanic support. But that was before the big debate on immigration reform, and disparaging conservative remarks that angered Latinos.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/147770

IRAQ: “After the ‘Surge’” (p. 32). Senior Editor Nisid Hajari reports on the current precarious peace in Baghdad. Some of the better off neighborhoods have not seen sectarian killings for a couple of months and in areas such as the Karrada district families can picnic in a new park on the Tigris. But ordinary Iraqis are as unsure as anyone about what to make of this existence—a “peace” in which masked men still run tense checkpoints, towering T-Walls blot out neighborhoods from view and the lawnmower buzz of drones fills the air. “In Baghdad earlier this month, as the last of the ‘surge’ brigades prepared to leave, the war I saw seemed to be entering a confusing interregnum period,” Hajari writes. “Suicide bombers continue to wreak havoc, killing at least 50 people last week. But the conflict is now hazier, more unpredictable, more political.”

http://www.newsweek.com/id/147834

INSIDE BUSINESS: “Seeing Shades of the1930s” (p. 34). Gross writes that the government’s effort to keep Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac afloat has a lot in common with the New Deal. Last week Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson told Congress of their latest efforts to rescue the financial sector. The question now is, “Will the crisis inspire a fundamental restructuring of the vital, symbiotic relationship between Washington and Wall Street, as happened during the New Deal? Or will these responses prove a temporary blip, as when the government bailed out the savings and loan industry in the late 1980s?”

http://www.newsweek.com/id/147759

“What Should Uncle Sam Do?” (p. 36) Participants in Newsweek’s Business Roundtable assess the damage from the economic crisis and offer solutions. Guest columnists include Robert Reich, Secretary of Labor under Bill Clinton, and author of “Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life;” Larry Lindsey, former governor of the Federal Reserve and former economic adviser to President George W. Bush; Jeremy J. Siegel, professor at Wharton Business School; John Snow, former Treasury secretary under George W. Bush, now chairman of Cerberus Capital Management; Robert Rubin, Treasury secretary under President Clinton and now chairman of the Citi executive committee board; and Peter Wallison, general counsel for the Treasury and the White House in the Reagan administration, now Arthur F. Burns fellow in financial policy at the American Enterprise Institute.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/147760

LETTER FROM LONDON: “The Royal Squeeze” (p. 39). Contributing Editor Barbara Kantrowitz reports how even Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II is feeling a financial pinch despite a net worth estimated at $650 million. With so many ordinary Brits struggling to pay their own rising household costs, a recent royal plea for cash to redecorate Buckingham Palace’s State Rooms, which haven’t been spruced up since the Queen took the throne in 1952, incited critics. When the recent budget was released, an antimonarchist group called Republic claimed that the real cost was triple the official estimate. Although supporters of the monarchy contend that the royals justify their tab because they bring in tourists, Republic noted that only one royal residence, Windsor Castle, is among the country’s top 20 tourist attractions, and it’s only 17th.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/146305

BOOKS: “It's Still Not Easy Being Green” (p. 49). Setoodeh reports on the 100th anniversary of “Anne of Green Gables” and Canada’s Prince Edward Island’s festivities honoring the book, including two different Anne musicals, an Anne fair and a parade earlier this month. “That ‘Anne’ has survived so long … is a small miracle ... It’s rare to find a best seller with a strong heroine anymore, in large part because, although girls will read books about boys, boys won’t go near a girl’s book, no matter how cool she is,” Setoodeh writes. “The literary smart girl is still showing up in literature, but she’s often the sidekick,” says Trinna Frever, an “Anne of Green Gables” scholar. “It is a reflection of a culture that’s placing less value on intelligence, and also treating intelligence as a stigmatized quality.”

http://www.newsweek.com/id/147758

MUSIC: “When Wynton Met Willie” (p. 52). Senior Writer Lorraine Ali interviews Wynton Marsalis and Willie Nelson about their new album, “Two Men With the Blues,” a live recording culled from two concerts they played at Lincoln Center last year. “I like playing with Wynton,” says Nelson, “because you know the piano player won’t show up drunk, and whatever comes out of it, it’ll be worth the listen.”

http://www.newsweek.com/id/146901

TIP SHEET: “Surviving the Bank Crisis” (p. 54). Contributing Editor Linda Stern reports on the many ways people can get their finances in order now that the federal government has moved to shore up mortgage-buying giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.

http://www.blog.newsweek.com/blogs/tipsheet/default.aspx

# # #

Cover Release: MURDER IN THE 8TH GRADE

2008-07-20T14:45:00Z

Contact: Brenda Velez

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

at 212-445-4078 Sunday, July 20, 2008

Cover Story: http://www.newsweek.com/id/147790

BEING OPENLY GAY AS A CHILD RAISES A NEW SET OF ISSUES THAT

PARENTS, TEACHERS AND STUDENTS MAY NOT BE PREPARED FOR

----

OXNARD SHOOTING LEADS TO QUESTIONS OVER HOW TO HELP

YOUNG STUDENTS COPE WITH SEXUAL ORIENTATION

COVER: MURDER IN THE 8TH GRADE

New York— The lives of the students at Oxnard, Calif.’s E.O. Green Junior High School were shaken earlier this year when fellow student Brandon McInerney killed openly gay student Larry King. Now the community is working to piece together what went so terribly wrong and McInerney is waiting to be arraigned this week, charged with first-degree murder and a hate crime. In the July 28 Newsweek cover, “Murder in the 8th Grade,” (on newsstands Monday, July 21) Associate Editor Ramin Setoodeh recounts the Larry King shooting, which became the most prominent gay-bias crime since the murder of Matthew Shepard 10 years ago, and examines whether schools are prepared to help younger kids cope with issues of identity and sexuality.

Kids like King are so comfortable with the concept of being openly gay that they are coming out younger and younger. One study found that the average age when kids self-identify as gay has tumbled to 13.4, and their parents usually find out a year later. Even as homosexuality has become more accepted, the prospect of being openly gay in middle school raises a troubling set of issues. Kids may want to express who they are, but they are playing grown-up without fully knowing what that means. At the same time, teachers and parents are often uncomfortable dealing with sexual issues in children so young. Schools are caught in between. How do you protect legitimate, personal expression while preventing inappropriate, sometimes harmful, behavior? King was, admittedly, a problematical test case: he was a troubled child who flaunted his sexuality and wielded it like a weapon—it was often his first line of defense. But his story sheds light on the difficulty of defining the limits of tolerance.

At 15, King was small—5 feet 1 inch—but very hard to miss. In January, he started to show up for class decked out in women’s accessories. On some days, he would slick up his curly hair in a Prince-like bouffant. Sometimes he’d paint his fingernails hot pink and dab glitter or white foundation on his cheeks, would proudly wear stiletto heels and thought nothing of chasing the boys around the school in them. The staff at E. O. Green was struggling with finding a balance between his right to self-expression and preventing it from disrupting others. Legally, they couldn’t stop him from wearing girls’ clothes, according to the California Attorney General’s Office, because of a state hate-crime law that prevents gender discrimination. King pushed his rights as far as he could. During lunch, he’d sidle up to the popular boys’ table and say in a high-pitched voice, “Mind if I sit here?” In the locker room, where he was often ridiculed, he got even by telling the boys, “You look hot,” while they were changing, according to the mother of a student.

King was eventually moved out of the P.E. class, though the school didn’t seem to know the extent to which he was clashing with other boys. One teacher describes the gym transfer as more of a “preventative measure,” since King complained that one student wouldn’t stop looking at him. In other classes, teachers were baffled that King was allowed to draw so much attention to himself. Some teachers thought King was clearly in violation of the dress code, which prevents students from wearing articles of clothing considered distracting.

King’s coming out proved to be a fraught process, as it can often be. For tweens, talking about being gay isn’t really about sex. They may be aware of their own sexual attraction by the time they’re 10, according to Caitlin Ryan, a researcher at San Francisco State University, but those feelings are too vague and unfamiliar to be their primary motivation. These kids are actually concerned with exploring their identity. ‘When you’re a baby, you cry when you’re hungry because you don’t know the word for it,” says Allan Acevedo, 19, of San Diego, who came out when he was in eighth grade. “Part of the reason why people are coming out earlier is they have the word ‘gay,’ and they know it explains the feeling.” Like older teenagers, tweens tend to tell their friends first, because they think they’ll be more accepting. But kids that age often aren’t equipped to deal with highly personal information, and middle-school staffs are almost never trained in handling kids who question their sexuality. More than 3,600 high schools sponsor gay-straight alliances designed to foster acceptance of gay students, but only 110 middle schools have them. Often the entire school finds out before either the student or the faculty is prepared for the attention and the backlash. “My name became a punch line very fast,” says Grady Keefe, 19, of Branford, Conn., who came out in the eighth grade. “The guidance counselors told me I should not have come out because I was being hurt.”

The obvious question now is whether King’s death could have been prevented. “Absolutely,” says Superintendent Jerry Dannenberg. “Why do we have youngsters that have access to guns? Why don’t we have adequate funding to pay for social workers at the school to make sure students have resources? We have societal issues.” Many teachers and parents aren’t content with that answer. For them, the issue isn’t whether Larry was gay or straight—his father still isn’t convinced his son was gay—

but whether he was allowed to push the boundaries so far that he put himself and others in danger. They’re not blaming Larry for his own death—as if anything could justify his murder—but their attitude toward his assailant is not unsympathetic. “We failed Brandon,” a teacher says. “We didn’t know the bullying was coming from the other side—Larry was pushing as hard as he could, because he liked the attention.”

What happened to King and McInerney was certainly extreme, but it has implications for schools across the country. “If we’re going to be absolutely sure this isn’t going to happen again,” says Elaine Garber, 81, who has served on the school’s board for 48 years, “this has got to be discussed some more.”

# # # (Read cover story at www.Newsweek.com.)

INTERNATIONAL EDITIONS: HIGHLIGHTS AND EXCLUSIVES, JULY 21, 2008 ISSUE

2008-07-13T16:33:18Z

To book guests, contact Brenda Velez at 212-445-4078—Brenda.Velez@Newsweek.com—or Grace Huh at 212-445-5831—Grace.Huh@Newsweek.com. Articles are posted on www.Newsweek.com.

INTERNATIONAL EDITIONS: HIGHLIGHTS AND EXCLUSIVES, JULY 21, 2008 ISSUE

COVER: The U.S. Doesn’t Need A War President (All overseas editions). In this second annual “What You Need To Know Now” special report, Newsweek International Editor Fareed Zakaria opens with an essay about whether the next U.S. president should be a war president. “We are in a struggle against Islamic extremism, but it is more like the cold war than a hot war—a long, mostly peacetime challenge in which a leader must be willing to use military power but also know when not to do so,” Zakaria writes. He calls Dwight Eisenhower the wisest American president during the cold war, and his greatest virtues were those of balance, judgment and restraint. “In a sense, the warriors are pessimists,” he writes. “In the old days they were scared that communists would destroy America. Today they rail that Al Qaeda and Iran threaten our way of life. In fact, America is an extremely powerful country, with a unique and extraordinary set of strengths. The only way that position can truly be eroded is by its own actions and overreactions—by unwise and imprudent leadership. A good way to start correcting the errors of the past would be to recognize that we are not at war.”

http://www.newsweek.com/id/143747

The Stories We Tell Ourselves. Newsweek Editor Jon Meacham writes about presidents and historical memory. He asks the two U.S. presidential candidates which presidents they think of as inspirational figures. Republican John McCain says Lincoln, TR and Ronald Reagan; he says he doesn’t want to be like Herbert Hoover. Democratic candidate Barack Obama shares McCain’s love of Lincoln. He cites Hoover, Buchanan and Andrew Johnson as examples to avoid.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/143866

True or False? Candidates Think Flip-Flopping Is the Only Way to Win Elections. Editor-at-Large Evan Thomas writes that the 2008 election was supposed to be different. John McCain and Barack Obama were the refreshing outsiders, the antipoliticians who fulfilled the public’s desire for change. It may be inevitable that presidential candidates become less free-spirited as they enter the general election. Candidates who speak their mind often regret it. A casual bit of frankness can be hung around a candidate’s neck like a badge of shame, Thomas writes. Answer: True.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/143863

True or False? Candidates Should Never Flip-Flop. Senior Writer and Political Correspondent Jonathan Darman writes that before true believers start getting glum about Obama and McCain flip-flopping on some issues, it is worth remembering that flip-flopping has a noble history in this country. Lincoln, Lyndon B. Johnson and Bobby Kennedy all switched positions on significant issues. Those were conversions of courage, but changing one’s mind in politics is more often lambasted than lionized. The muddle of our modern political coalitions has made it virtually impossible for ambitious politicians not to change their position on some issue as they rise from local to national prominence. Answer: False.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/143864

True or False? Global Warming Is a Cause of This Year’s Extreme Weather. Senior Editor and Columnist Sharon Begley writes that whenever someplace is hit with extreme weather, scientists trip over themselves to absolve global warming. This pretense has worn thin. The frequency of downpours and heat waves, as well as the power of hurricanes, has increased so dramatically that “100-

year storms” are striking some areas once every 15 years, and other once rare events keep returning like a bad penny. As a result, some climatologists now say global warming is to blame. Answer: True.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/143787

Who Was More Important: Lincoln or Darwin? Senior Writer Malcolm Jones poses the question about who was more influential: Abraham Lincoln or Charles Darwin? They were both revolutionaries—two men who upended realities that prevailed when they were born. So, considering the joint magnitude of their contributions, it is hard not to wonder: who was the greater man?

http://www.newsweek.com/id/143742

With Fear and Trembling. London Reporter William Underhill reports on the upcoming Anglican Conference in England, where the talk will be of irreconcilable differences. For a powerful conservative faction of Anglicans—including many who have refused to attend the conference—the hierarchy has ducked the question of homosexuality for too long. Either it’s acceptable or it’s an affront to the Bible’s teachings. So while schism won’t be on the official agenda at the Lambeth Conference, it will be on the mind of every bishop who attends.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/145806

South Korea’s One-Term Trap. Special Correspondent B.J. Lee reports that South Korea’s new president, Lee Myung-bak, only in office five months, is already being tagged a lame duck. His power base has collapsed amid massive demonstrations that have hobbled the country. But his fall from grace is a common story for South Korea. Indeed, the track record for South Korean presidents is so poor that the young democracy has produced no elder statesmen whose reputations outlive their service. The problem rests not with the men but the institution they occupy.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/145807

INTERVIEW: Anwar Ibrahim, Malaysia’s former deputy prime minister turned opposition leader. Ibrahim talks about the new allegations of sexual misconduct that have surfaced. “The sodomy allegation may have been prompted because the police chief and the attorney general are privy to my initial complaints against them [from 1999]. The former volunteer in my office who made these latest sodomy allegations has been part of Najib’s apparatus, and we have evidence to that effect.”

http://www.newsweek.com/id/145814

Following the Herd in China. Special Correspondent Duncan Hewitt reports that the economic downturn in China is unique in terms of its sheer size and scope. How China handles the fallout from this megabubble could have consequences which reach far beyond its retail investment community. Most of the people buying these shares are the middle class and wealthier consumers that China—and the rest of the world—was counting on to boost domestic consumption and rebalance the world economy. Now, with some households seeing as much as 50 percent of their wealth destroyed via market losses, there are early signs that they’re being more cautious about spending.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/145812

WORLD VIEW: The Plot Against Turkey. Mustafa Akyol, the deputy editor of the Turkish Daily News, writes about the long-simmering constitutional crisis that is boiling over in Turkey. Over the past several weeks, Turkish authorities have arrested two dozen members of a covert ultranationalist group named Ergenekon for allegedly plotting to provoke a military coup by staging political assassinations and whipping up social turmoil. The charges, if proved, point to a brazen conspiracy to undo the liberal reforms implemented by the AKP in recent years as part of its effort to move Turkey toward entry into the European Union.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/145817

THE LAST WORD: Henrique Meirelles, head of Brazil’s Central Bank. The former BankBoston executive talked about Brazil’s low inflation rate. “From the beginning we adopted a very severe disinflation program, so inflationary expectations were under control before the recent cycle of commodity price increases got underway. Since the first quarter [of 2008], the Brazilian Central Bank also made it clear that it wouldn’t hesitate to tighten monetary policy if necessary.”

http://www.newsweek.com/id/145815

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MEDIA LEAD SHEET/JULY 21, 2008 ISSUE

2008-07-13T16:04:44Z

MEDIA LEAD SHEET/JULY 21, 2008 ISSUE (on newsstands Monday, July 14). To book correspondents, contact Brenda Velez at 212-445-4078—Brenda.Velez@Newsweek.com—or Grace Huh at 445-5831—Grace.Huh@Newsweek.com. Read the issue and Web exclusives at www.Newsweek.com.

COVER: “What He Believes” (p. 26). Senior Editor Lisa Miller and Senior White House Correspondent Richard Wolffe report that although Barack Obama has spoken often about the importance of religion, questions about what he believes in and how he arrived at those beliefs persist. In the new Newsweek Poll, 12 percent of voters incorrectly believe he’s Muslim; more than a quarter believe he was raised in a Muslim home. Obama’s reticence in revealing much about what he believes is understandable considering that his religious biography is unconventional. Born to a Christian-turned-secular mother and a Muslim-turned-atheist African father, Obama grew up with plenty of spiritual influences, but without any particular religion. Having been baptized in the early 1990s at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, Obama is a Christian. Although he severed ties with Trinity, his spiritual life survives through prayer and the bible. In an interview with Newsweek, Obama says he prays daily for the protection of his family and that he is carrying out God’s will, “not in a grandiose way, buy simply that there is an alignment between my actions and what he [God] would want.”

Cover:http://www.newsweek.com/id/145971

Interview:http://www.newsweek.com/id/145967

Poll:http://www.newsweek.com/id/145737

POLITICS: “At Arm’s Length” (p. 34). National Correspondent Allison Samuels reports on the complicated relationship between Barack Obama and the Rev. Jesse Jackson as well as the misgivings of one generation of black leaders about the next. The men have different approaches to politics: Jackson is old school, an unyielding civil-rights-era fighter ever on the lookout for injustice. Obama—like other younger black politicians who came up after Jim Crow—is less heated, a results-oriented pragmatist who is willing to compromise and who sees the old guard’s combative style as obsolete.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/145844

JONATHAN ALTER: “Obama’s No-Brainer on Education” (p. 35). Senior Editor and Columnist Jonathan Alter writes that with the general election underway, Barack Obama has a chance to show that he can move at least as far toward real change in education as John McCain. “Obama needs to embrace a Grand Education Bargain—much higher pay for teachers in exchange for much more accountability for performance in the classroom.” Good teachers need more resources. But, Alter adds, “they also need to be removed from the classroom when they fail to improve. Obama occasionally says as much, but goes fuzzy when it comes to how.”

http://www.newsweek.com/id/145843

MILITARY: “A Smarter Way to Fight” (p. 40). Senior Editor Michael Hirsh reports that American-style counterinsurgency is going global. After years of fighting a fierce, conventional war against the leftist guerrilla group known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the country’s military used a complex, unconventional ruse to free 15 hostages earlier this month without firing a shot. While the government of President Alvaro Uribe deserves a lot of credit for its recent successes, the dramatic shift in strategy over the last two years also has much to do with a quiet U.S. effort to school allies in counterinsurgency and Special-Operations tactics.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/145874

INTERNATIONAL: “Why Vietnam Loves McCain” (p. 42). South Asia Bureau Chief Ron Moreau reports that just about everyone in Vietnam knows who McCain is, and many of them want him in the WhiteHouse. That goes for ordinary Vietnamese, senior bureaucrats and people who met him during his captivity for more than five years at the Plantation and the notorious Hanoi Hilton. They like the way McCain pushed Washington to normalize relations in the 1990s and the way trade has mushroomed from $1.5 billion in 2001 to $12 billion last year, and they believe he’ll help them even more if he wins.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/145875

PROJECT GREEN: “Beyond Backpacking” (p. 44). General Editor Anna Kuchment reports that as more people become environmentally conscious, green travel has shifted from being a trend to becoming part of mainstream culture. Today a hotel in Times Square is just as likely to call itself green as a lodge in the Costa Rican rain forest.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/145868

MEDICINE: “The Woman Who Died in the Waiting Room” (p. 48). Reporter Jeneen Interlandi reports that Esmin Elizabeth Green’s death in the waiting room of the G Building at Brooklyn’s Kings County Hospital Center, after waiting almost 24 hours for a bed, should not have come as a surprise. Public hospitals across the country have struggled to provide acute psychiatric care to the poor and uninsured since the early 1960s, when large mental hospitals began closing their doors en masse. But with insufficient outpatient services and a dearth of community-based support, many have ended up in overtaxed emergency rooms. And with just 50,000 inpatient psychiatric beds for tens of millions of people across the country, the mentally ill typically wait twice as long for treatment as other patients.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/145870

SHARON BEGLEY: “Lies, Damned Lies and …” (p. 51). Senior Editor and Science Columnist Sharon Begley writes about how new statistical tools will help ferret out mistakes in traditional statistical analysis methods. “Traditional tools of statistics work fine when analyzing mere thousands of data points,” Begley writes. But “in the new century, we’ve had a whole new class of problems, with 100,000 times more data than we used to see,” says Bradley Efron of Stanford University. “That is especially true in genomics, which spews out data like there’s no tomorrow,” Begley writes. “In the Wild West that is genome research, statisticians are the new sheriffs in town.”

http://www.newsweek.com/id/145865

SCIENCE: “Common Scents” (p. 52). Correspondent Anne Underwood reports on a new book on the science of smell, “What the Nose Knows.” Author and self-described “smell chauvinist” Avery Gilbert believes few people adequately appreciate their sniffers. Most of what we perceive as flavor in food does not come from the tongue, which picks up only the basic five tastes. Instead, it comes from aromas of food being drawn up into the nose from the back of the throat, then exhaled through the nostrils.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/145867

MOVIES: “Bat Trick” (p. 54). Senior Editor Devin Gordon interviews “The Dark Knight” director Christopher Nolan who talks about the making of the latest Batman installment and why he chose the late Heath Ledger to play The Joker. “I’d met Heath a couple times over the years…One time he gave me a speech that a lot of young actors have given me, where they basically say that they haven’t achieved, as serious actors, what they want to before they’re pushed into being movie stars. And of all the actors who’ve given me that speech, he’s the only one that I would actually want to pay $10 to see give that kind of performance,” Nolan says. “People were a little baffled by the choice, it’s true, but I’ve never had such a simple decision as a director.”

http://www.newsweek.com/id/145508

TIP SHEET: “How to Grow It Alone” (p. 61). Associate Editor Christina Gillham reports that vegetable gardening is gaining popularity with a younger set of green thumbs looking to reduce their carbon footprint and ensure that their food supply is healthy and safe. For those who are interested in starting gardens but find it somewhat daunting, the National Gardening Association (garden.org) suggests starting small, with some raised beds in an area that gets at least six hours of sunlight a day, as well as using organic seeds from seedsofchange.com or johnnysseeds.com.

http://www.blog.newsweek.com/blogs/tipsheet/default.aspx

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