Economist, June 3 Outside investors have ignored India in favor of China in the past, but no longer, according to the cover package. A well-educated workforce, 1.1 billion consumers, and economic reform make investors salivate, but an editorial raises a few red flags. “India has been a daunting place to do business, its entrepreneurs chained down by the world’s most bureaucratic bureaucracy, lousy infrastructure and lousier Fabian economic ideas,” the author concedes. … Timor-Leste’s recent unrest mirrors its violent succession from Indonesia seven years ago, an article reports. Fired army officers are threatening civil war, and guerilla rebels are making life there more volatile. “Timor-Leste has collapsed through a combination of incompetent and faction-ridden government, deep poverty and lingering splits that go back to the independence struggle,” the author writes. Another piece looks at how Australia, which sent forces to Timor-Leste, is increasingly in the business of cleaning up messes in the South Pacific without much thanks.— M.M.
New York Times Magazine, June 4 A piece follows the legal saga that unfolded after a chance meeting between a former Ethiopian political prisoner and her torturer, a government administrator during the Red Terror of the late 1970s. Kelbessa Negewo didn’t recognize waitress Edgegayehu Taye when they both worked in an Atlanta hotel in the early ‘90s, but she remembered him as the architect of her torment and imprisonment for allegedly working against the so-called revolution that brought a group of military officers to power. After a protracted fight, Kelbessa faces deportation and the fate to which he ascribed the then-22-year-old woman—an Ethiopian prison cell. … An article lauds Wal-Mart’s plan to sell organic products since quashing the “elitist” label that organic foods carry by making them readily available will widen the global market and lower prices. “The vast expansion of organic farmland it will take to feed Wal-Mart’s new appetite is also an unambiguous good for the world’s environment,” the writer adds.— M.M.
The New Yorker, June 5 A feature on new Sony CEO Sir Howard Stringer asks whether he can reverse the fortunes of a brand caught flat-footed by Apple and its iPod. He is counting on a successful debut for the PlayStation 3, which he sees as more than a high-priced video-game system. Stringer claims that Sony’s goal is “to build a Sony computer with enough processing power to achieve multiple objectives—in a networked world, tying in lots of applications.”… A profile on the controversial Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci—famous for her antagonistic interviews with world leaders such as the Ayatollah Khomeini, Henry Kissinger, Yasser Arafat, and Indira Gandhi—says that she has aliented much of the European intellectual class with her recent invectives against Islamic fundamentalism. For example, she writes that Europe is in danger of ending up “with minarets in place of the bell-towers, with the burka in place of the mini-skirt.”—D.S.
Weekly Standard, June 5 Most Republican politicians are not keen on passing a constitutional amendment that would limit marriage to a man and woman, but a piece by Fred Barnes explains why they should be. A recent Gallup Poll reveals that two-thirds of Republicans want a ban on gay marriage, which could be a deciding factor in who scores the Republican presidential nomination in 2008. Barnes advises Republicans to take the president’s lead and support the amendment—a stance that may cause a ripple in his marriage, since the first lady opposes a ban. … The cover piece claims that polygamy is a threat to democracy and predicts that if gay marriages become a reality, polygamists will start demanding state-sanctioned unions. … In an editorial, William Kristol notes that although things are starting to look up for the president domestically, it’s time for the him to get his act together on the foreign-policy front, which will be crucial to his legacy.— Z.K.
New York, June 5 The cover is devoted to predicting what the five boroughs will look like within the next decade: lots more open space, superstar architects constructing the city landscape, an emphasis on bringing back a neighborhood feel, and the world’s biggest landfill transformed in to an urban oasis. … A profile chronicles how being infected with HIV transformed Regan Somers Hofmann from a horse-loving ad-exec-turned-writer to the managing editor of Poz, a magazine that historically catered to gay men infected with HIV. She hopes to make the magazine more inclusive. … Kurt Andersen tries to find some coherence in the FCC ruling process and fails. “Exactly why is Bono’s ‘fucking brilliant’ unacceptably ‘indecent and profane,’ while all the variations in Saving Private Ryan … are, as the FCC ruled lat year, ‘not indecent or profane’?” he asks.— Z.K.
Time, June 5 A report follows up on the Haditha tragedy that the magazine first reported on in March. Marines from Kilo Company are accused of killing 24 Iraqi civilians after one of their soldiers was killed by an IED. The military is conducting a detailed investigation, and the article focuses on discrepancies in the Marines’ accounts, a probe of the company’s leader, and what caused a lapse in discipline from such battle-hardened troops. … A photo essay that’s part of the cover package shows the toll of civil warfare in the Congo, where those not felled by weapons often fall victim to malnutrition, disease, and physical abuse. … Increased subsidies and publicity have led to an increase in the adoption of foster teens, who are more prone to violence and have histories of running away and substance abuse. Connecting emotionally with an older child is also difficult for parents; foster teens sometimes feel guilty about supplanting the bond with a birth parent, the writer notes.— M.M.
Newsweek, June 5 An article looks at renewed violence in Somalia between secular warlords and Islamist militants. At issue is U.S. funding of intelligence missions by anti-Islamist warlords in search of radical Muslims. “Some officials fear that America may be inadvertently creating a new jihadist haven in Somalia by generating an anti-U.S. backlash,” writes the author, who adds that American efforts to win “hearts and minds” by building schools and medical facilities there are also compromised by the violence. … A piece examines the connections between defense contractor Brent Wilkes—who has been identified as “Co-conspirator No. 1” in the fraud case of California Rep. Randy Cunningham—and recently resigned CIA Executive Director Kyle Foggo. Foggo’s lawyer says Wilkes is under suspicion of paying for Foggo’s vacations in exchange for defense contracts. “[F]ederal prosecutors want to find out more about how Wilkes tapped into what may be one of Washington’s sweetest post-9/11 honey pots—secret defense and intelligence contracts that are often awarded without competitive bids or oversight but with plenty of congressional meddling.”— M.M.
