NEWSWEEK: International Editions: Highlights and Exclusives, Dec. 31, 2007-
Jan. 7, 2008
COVER: What's Next: China (All overseas editions). Newsweek International
Editor Fareed Zakaria writes that China's ascension to a global superpower is
no longer a forecast but a reality. Three decades after its emergence from Mao
Zedong's Cultural Revolution, China has grown from one of the world's poorest
countries to the second most important country on the planet. A team of
correspondents and guest columnists share their thoughts on China and its new
place as a superpower. http://newsweek.com/id/81588
(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20071223/NYSU001 )
Mao to Now. Beijing Bureau Chief Melinda Liu writes about the vast changes
she has witnessed since 1979. Starting with the Gang of Four trial, she has
seen China's slow emergence from the wreckage of the Mao years, the horrific
bloodletting at Tiananmen Square, the rise of nationalist sentiment and
handover of Hong Kong, and Beijing's gradual attempts to integrate itself into
the world. Liu also shares the story of how her family became separated from
her brother Guangyuan in 1949 and was reunited 30 years later.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/81589
Olympian Ambitions. Sports Editor Mark Starr writes that although China
has been gearing up for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and has high hopes of
knocking the United States off its Olympic perch, there is far more at stake
in Beijing than athletic supremacy. The Games are its chance to "sell the
world on a more benevolent vision of China."
http://www.newsweek.com/id/81590
Where a Future President Learned About the World. Newsweek excerpts the
upcoming book "The China Diary of George H.W. Bush," in which the former
president chronicled his experience in Mao's China between October 1974 and
December 1975. During his trip, Bush wrestled with a tough, impenetrable
Communist regime; a populace that was alternately warm and xenophobic; and the
repercussions of the American defeat in Southeast Asia. The experience began
to clarify his views on the workings of the international system -- and, more
important, America's place within it.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/81591
A Race We Can All Win. New York CityMayor Michael R. Bloomberg
contributes a column in which he writes, "Just as a growing American economy
is good for China, a growing Chinese economy is good for America. That means
we have a stake in working together to solve common problems, rather than
trying to browbeat or intimidate the other into action. And it means we should
seize on opportunities to learn from one another."
http://www.newsweek.com/id/81592
NATIONS TO WATCH: The End of The Affair. Africa Bureau Chief Scott Johnson
reports that like a number of emerging markets, South Africa's made great
progress in recent years-but its leadership is faltering dangerously. And many
South Africans have started to feel that their country is gradually tilting in
the wrong direction.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/81553
The Free-Spending Lula. Special Correspondent Mac Margolis reports that
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is still wildly popular, but
some troubling signs are emerging. Gone are the fiscal conservatives and
champions of lean government who once had his ear. Enter the
"developmentalists" who clamor for a stronger bureaucracy and greater state
intervention into the market.
NEXT 2008: Newsweek looks at the big ideas and bright stars that will
together shape and define the year ahead.
-- Xi Jinping, recently anointed the likely successor to Chinese President
Hu Jintao as party chief in 2012. He is popular within the party and
viewed as market-friendly and prudent.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/81558
-- YouTube and its political director Steve Grove are shaping coverage of
the 2008 presidential campaign in ways unimagined in 2006.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/81595
-- The European Union. The U.S. presidential election may lead to an
overhaul of U.S. foreign policy and Europe may have the opportunity to
shape American policy for the next generation.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/81560
-- Bertrand Delanoe, Paris' mayor, turned a place derided as a "museum"
into the world's suggestion box for popular festivals and has become
one of France's most popular politicians.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/81559
-- David Miliband, Great Britain's secretary of State for Foreign and
Commonwealth Affairs and possible future prime minister.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/81593
-- General Motors Vice Chairman Bob Lutz has become the unlikely champion
of the Chevy Volt, a 150mpg plug-in electric car that GM is fast-
tracking for production in 2010.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/81580
-- Immigration. As the immigration debate heats up the campaign trail, we
should be asking broader questions about assimilation and ensuring that
people, once outsiders, don't forever remain marginalized.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/81598
-- Sovereign Wealth Funds. Economists estimate that SWFs collectively held
about $2.5 trillion in assets last summer, making them larger than the
hedge-fund industry and some are starting to act like private-equity
funds, amassing big stakes in blue chips and buying entire companies.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/81371
-- Videogame development company Harmonix invigorated the music-videogame
category with Guitar Hero I and II, and reinvented the genre with their
latest game, Rock Band.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/81373
-- Adaptation to climate change. Since it is too late to stop global
warming, people will have to find ways to adapt to the rapid climate
changes in order to survive.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/81390
-- The Sanger Institute's Tim Hubbard is leading an international team
that will probe deeper than ever before into the mysteries of the human
genome.
-- Amy Adams, Oscar nominee for her role in 2005's "Junebug" and star of
Disney's "Enchanted."
http://www.newsweek.com/id/81582
-- Future Los Angeles Philharmonic music director Gustavo Dudamel.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/81375
TRANSITION: Noted in Passing. Newsweek looks back at the significant
figures who died this year including former U.N. secretary-general Kurt
Waldheim, classical mime Marcel Marceau, fashion icon Liz Claiborne and opera
great Luciano Pavarotti.
http://newsweek.com/id/81584
WORLD VIEW: Goodbye to Global Free Trade. The post-World War II economic
order took free trade as its ideal. But now mercantilism is making a comeback,
as governments try to manipulate markets to their advantage, writes
Contributing Editor Robert J. Samuelson. "It's a significant and ominous
development affecting the world economy," he writes. "Even as countries become
more economically interdependent, they're also growing more nationalistic.
They're adopting policies to advance their own economic and political
interests at other countries' expense."
http://www.newsweek.com/id/81372
THE LAST WORD: Tony Blair, former British prime minister. Tony Blair, the
new representative of the United States, Russia, the European Union and the
United Nations to the Palestinians, told Jerusalem Bureau Chief Kevin Peraino
that what's most important to Palestinians is that they "have someone who can
deal with the Americans and the Israelis." "I find that the ordinary
Palestinian is so desperate to get his situation improved that it's an
advantage that you've got somebody who can actually liaise with the Israelis
and the Americans," he says.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/81549
SOURCE Newsweek
Brenda Velez, +1-212-445-4078, Brenda.Velez@Newsweek.com, or Grace Huh,
+1-212-445-5831, Grace.Huh@Newsweek.com, both of Newsweek
