On June 21, reporter Maziar Bahari was rousted out of bed and taken to Tehran's notorious Evin prisonaccused of being a spy for the CIA, MI6, Mossadand NEWSWEEK. This is the story of his captivityand of an Iran whose rampant paranoia underpins an ever more fractured regime.
Wearing a white kurta and a blue turban, India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, 77, appeared relaxed on the eve of his state visit to Washington, which takes place this week. Many Indians worry that the Obama White House, unlike the previous two American administrations, may tilt toward China instead of India. Singh sat down in his Delhi residence last week to discuss with NEWSWEEK's Lally Weymouth how he believes India and the United States can work together to further their strategic partnership and why he believes it is critical that the U.S. not leave Afghanistan. Excerpts:
Woodrow Wilson's foes called him an ideologue, a hypocrite, and a coward. His admirers thought he was the hero who put forth the best hope for the world. Teddy Roosevelt labeled him a "prize jackass"; when Wilson died, eulogists compared him to Icarus. Today Wilson inspires feelings that are just as extreme and contradictory. His name has become a flashpoint in the debate over using American might to spread American ideals. Obscured by Wilsonianism, however, is the man himself.
College degrees are supposed to last a lifetime, but should tuition loan payments? How some schools got away with charging interest rates of up to 18 percent.
Abortion-rights activists were not caught unaware on the anti-abortion-funding amendment to the House health-care bill, and they are likely to stop it in the Senate.
Obama knows the long odds against a right-wing populist winning the presidency, no matter how good she looks in a skirt (or running clothes), brandishing a gun. He shouldn't be too cocky, however, because the death of the center is ultimately a problem for him and the whole country. If the Palinistas seize the GOP, they probably cannot take the White House. But their brand of no-prisoners partisanship sure can tie up Congress.
But the problem with populism is not just that it stirs prejudice against the "big cities" where most Americans actually live, or against the academies where many of them would like to send their children. No, the difficulty with populism is that it exploits the very "people" to whose grievances it claims to give vent.
Scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Lab are betting $3.5 billion in taxpayer money on a tiny pellet that could produce an endless supply of safe, clean energy. For some, that's hard to swallow.