NEWSWEEK: International Editions: Highlights and Exclusives, April 14, 2008

COVER: The Superclass in Action (All overseas editions). Newsweek examines how a new global elite is mobilizing to fight the credit crisis -- and reshape the world. David Rothkopf, author of "Superclass," writes that the group includes the heads of the biggest financial institutions and corporations, top government officials, central bankers and other top economic officials, media barons, tech entrepreneurs, religious leaders, cultural icons and more. Overall, the list reveals a marked shift from public to private power. But "as their power grows, so does the possibility of a backlash against the superclass; 2008 has been a year of challenges for the ideas and institutions they represent -- markets are melting down, energy reserves are being renationalized, protectionism is growing," he writes.

    http://www.newsweek.com/id/130637

Attack Of the Judges. Moscow Bureau Chief Owen Matthews and Special Correspondent Sami Kohen report that Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya -- the chief prosecutor of Ankara's Court of Appeals -- has set into motion a series of events that effectively puts the Turkish government on trial. Last month he filed an indictment with Turkey's constitutional court that seeks to shut down Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party for "undermining Turkey's secular constitution." At base, this is a conflict over who runs Turkey. But the roots go far deeper than the endless debate over secularism versus religion. This is also a conflict over whether the Turkish people can be trusted to choose their own rulers and policies -- or whether their democratic choice is to be managed by a class of self-appointed guardians.

    http://www.newsweek.com/id/130633

The Dark Side of the Olympics. Beijing Bureau Chief Melinda Liu reports that in recent weeks China has been acting less like a budding superpower than a tin-pot dictatorship -- petulant, preachy, defiant. Global audiences have seen images of truncheon-wielding riot police, sent to Lhasa and other Tibetan areas to quell anti-Beijing protests that began on March 10. When Beijing was awarded the Olympic Games back in 2001, the hope was that their staging would push China to open up. But precisely because Beijing is grimly determined to hold a picture-perfect Olympics, the government has declared war on any who pose a problem.

    http://www.newsweek.com/id/129615

Sacrificed To the Surge. Special Correspondent Silvia Spring and Baghdad Correspondent Larry Kaplow report that although the Iraq government and U.S. forces are in charge of the country, the local militias or Sahwa hired to watch the streets are subjecting women to often- medieval mores. "We are becoming like Afghanistan was in the 80s," says Zainab Salbi, the Iraq-born founder and CEO of the activist group Women for Women International.

    http://www.newsweek.com/id/130602

Storm Warning. Hong Kong Bureau Chief George Wehrfritz and Special Correspondent Jason Overdorf report that the world could be one crop failure away from an actual food crisis, and market panic has already started. Changes in India's monsoon cycle or a major storm battering the Philippines or Bangladesh at the wrong moment would put serious strains on global grain reserves already depleted to levels not seen since the 1970s. Global markets are behaving as if a food shock is imminent. Experts blame a variety of factors for today's food crunch, including soaring demand for bio- fuels and the rise of China and India.

    http://www.newsweek.com/id/130641

One Sure Thing: Death to Taxes. Special Correspondent Mac Margolis reports that taxpayer unrest is spreading in Latin America, and governments will have to contain their appetites for taxing and spending, or face a whirlwind of turbulence. The days of Latin America's famous tolerance for governments' helping themselves to the national larder may finally be fading. While complaining about taxes is nothing new in the Latin America, now ordinary citizens and business leaders are striking back.

    http://www.newsweek.com/id/130636

Digging Up the Dirt. Special Correspondent Kim Burney and Africa Regional Editor Scott Johnson report on the South African forensics team - - Missing Persons Task Team -- set up three years ago to complete the unfinished business of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC): to find and exhume the hundreds of people "disappeared" at the hands of the apartheid government and whose cases were heard by the TRC. Within South Africa, however, the team's work is raising uncomfortable questions, clashing with the official TRC histories and undermining the amnesties granted a decade ago, which could set in motion new prosecutions.

    http://www.newsweek.com/id/130640

THE GOOD LIFE: Styling in The Rain. Newsweek previews fashionable and fancy rainy season gear from coats to umbrellas and boots, so you can stay dry and avoid looking drear.

    http://www.newsweek.com/id/130650

GLOBAL INVESTOR: High Finance Laid Low. Contributing Editor Robert J. Samuelson writes that resenting or blaming the titans of finance is only half the story of modern finance. "The paradox of finance is that its advantages and disadvantages are tightly commingled," he writes. "The idea that enlightened government regulation can outlaw this cycle is at best an optimistic exaggeration."

    http://www.newsweek.com/id/130622

WORLD VIEW: Turkey's Judicial Coup d'Etat. Turkey is at war with itself again, over religion and politics in Turkish life, and the consequences for both itself and its friends could be devastating. "The nation's chief prosecutor prepared an indictment of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) for allegedly violating the Constitution's principle of secularism," writes Morton Abramowitz, senior fellow at the Century Foundation, and Henri J. Barkey, chair of the International Relations Department at Lehigh University. "Though it is legal to pursue such a case, it is, to many Turks, quite simply a judicial coup ... jeopardizing the country's political and economic stability, already suffering from world market pressures."

    http://www.newsweek.com/id/130643

THE LAST WORD: Luis Alberto Moreno. The Colombian president of the Inter-American Development Bank speaks with Newsweek about the global spread of market turmoil and what's next. "First, let's just recognize a fact of life: if you have a recession in the biggest economy in the world, the likelihood of spreading elsewhere is high ... Latin American economies today are better prepared than in the past to deal with this ... [Latin America] can face up to the situation differently than in the past. But a short recession is one thing. If it's a long recession, that's something else." He points out that, "I think we're talking ourselves into a recession ... Technically speaking, a recession is two quarters of negative economic growth. The real question is how long the slump in the United States takes place."

    http://www.newsweek.com/id/130642