NEWSWEEK International Editions: Highlights and Exclusives, September 15, 2008 Issue

NEW YORK, Sept. 7 NY-Nwswk-Internationl


NEW YORK, Sept. 7 /PRNewswire/ -- COVER: The Biggest Experiment Ever.
(Atlantic and Latin America editions) Senior Editor Fred Guterl, London
Reporter William Underhill and Special Correspondent Sarah Garland report on
the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a huge collider in Geneva that scientists are
expected to throw the switch on this week. The $8 billion project pushes the
limits of technology -- superconducting magnets that operate at close to
absolute zero, the temperature at which atoms cease all movement, and can
accelerate particles to energies not seen for 14 billion years, and
instruments that can detect faint whispers of particles far smaller than
atoms. Those advances came, in large measure, from the United States. The
coming decades may be different. The LHC is a symptom of America's decline in
particle physics and Europe's rise. Many scientists and educators fear that it
also signals a broader decline in scientific leadership on the part of the
United States.  The LHC has transformed Geneva into something of a scientific
mecca. According to the European Organization for Nuclear Research, more than
9,000 scientists have been working on the project, not only from nearby Europe
but from countries as diverse as India, Russia, Japan, Israel and Turkey.


http://www.newsweek.com/id/157514?tid=relatedcl



What We'll Find Inside the Atom. The telescope that Galileo built in the
late 1500s had the magnifying power of a pair of inexpensive binoculars
available in any Wal-Mart, but it was enough to open up a new world.  Like
Galileo's telescope, the LHC will give scientists new insight into a new world
of the very small and, indirectly, of the very large, reports Leon Lederman,
who won the Nobel Prize for his work in particle physics in 1988. The
machine's reach and sensitivity may well reveal a new world, a gift to the
21st century. To appreciate what impact the LHC is likely to have in the
coming decades, it's necessary to take a look at the fundamental questions it
was built to answer. Only by venturing into the labyrinth of particle physics
can we get a sense of how deeply this tool will look into the nature of the
physical world.


http://www.newsweek.com/id/157516



Forecasting the Fate of Mysteries. Six physicists weigh in on the impact
of the LHC and where science goes from here.


http://www.newsweek.com/id/157518?tid=relatedcl



COVER: Green Car Nation (Pacific edition only). Tokyo Bureau Chief
Christian Caryl and Special Correspondent Akiko Kashiwagi report that Honda's
FCX Clarity, one if the most advanced hydrogen-fuel-cell cars in the world, is
just one of a number of next-generation green automobiles that are beginning
to come off assembly lines in Japan.  These vehicles have been around for
years, but now Japanese automakers are going to the next level, entering the
green-car mass market, in many cases years before their competitors. Their
edge may help re-ignite their nation's economy, report Caryl and Kashiwagi.


http://www.newsweek.com/id/157508



The 10 Big Myths of Russia, Its Leader, And Its New Power. Denis MacShane,
Labour M.P. for Rotherham, writes that today's Russia now stands revealed as a
bully, wrapped in nationalism and cloaked with its leader's arrogance. But
Russia has always been a great mythmaker-from setting up Potemkin villages in
the 18th century to fomenting great fear that Sovietism would conquer the
world after 1945. MacShane lists 10 of the biggest myths about today's Russia,
including: Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is the big winner of the incursion
into Georgia. Yes, Putin has shown who runs Russia. But he has united Europe
after the years of division created by George W. Bush.


http://www.newsweek.com/id/157497



'We Want to Believe.' French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, who helped
negotiate Nicolas Sarkozy's controversial accord between Russia and Georgia,
says in an interview that the word realpolitik "is a little pejorative. I
don't believe our policy deserves that qualifier. We completely changed
transatlantic relations, which have become a lot more trusting, easier. I was
very proud to be with the U.S. Congress when Sarkozy described our relations
with America. Is that realpolitik? No. It's what we really thought. Was
stopping the war in Georgia realpolitik? You could say that. But above all it
was urgent."


http://www.newsweek.com/id/157510



Georgian Army, American Made. National Security Correspondent John Barry
reports that Lt. Col. Robert Hamilton, who ran the U.S. military training
program in Georgia until six weeks ago, finds the charge ironic from Russia
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that the U.S. secretly provoked the conflict
with Georgia and perhaps even prepared Georgia's forces for it. Not only did
the U.S. not attempt to train or equip the Georgian forces for a conflict with
Russia, but the U.S. deliberately avoided training capabilities that were seen
as too provocative to Russia, Hamilton says. Now the U.S.-with or without its
European allies-is being pushed to build a Georgian army that could face the
Russians, next time.  U.S. military involvement in Georgia grew step by step.
In a further irony, it began with a mission designed to placate Russia.


http://www.newsweek.com/id/157500



The Rude Awakening. Chief European Economics Correspondent Stefan Theil
reports on the European Union's weakly worded resolution on the Russian-George
conflict  and the reaction to it. The one measure the 27 leaders could agree
on at their emergency summit in Brussels was to suspend talks on a planned EU-
Russia agreement regulating such things as trade and visas-a largely symbolic
act considering the talks have been stalled for more than a year. But the more
interesting news was how closely aligned EU members were compared to the last
emergency summit in 2003, when the continent's split over the Iraq War led to
the worst foreign-policy crisis in the EU's history.


http://www.newsweek.com/id/157498



All Politics Isn't Local. Special Correspondent Jaimie Seaton and Hong
Kong Bureau Chief George Wehrfritz report on Thailand's recent demonstrations
to oust Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej. The campaign to remove Samak-whose
imposition of emergency rule last week edged the country of 65 million toward
a potentially bloody confrontation-is in the broadest sense a struggle over
globalization. The dynamic is akin to that seen earlier this year in South
Korea, where leftist groups nearly toppled newly elected President Lee Myung-
bak for opening the local market to American beef. And there's a bit of Hugo
Chavez in the antigovernment People's Alliance for Democracy, which disagrees
with Samak's regime on free trade, the role of foreign investors and the
suitability of Western-style democracy in the kingdom.


http://www.newsweek.com/id/157506



WORLD VIEW: Playing Russian Roulette in Kiev. Dmitri Trenin, a senior
associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and author of
"Getting Russia Right," writes that the most recent round of chaos in Russia
and Georgia reflects the vast schism that has long existed in Ukraine. "On the
parliamentary floor this month, while one faction proudly sat against the
backdrop of the Georgian flag, another faction's leader moved to recognize
Abkhazia's and South Ossetia's independence. Though such fault lines are
nothing new in a diverse and fractious nation that counts no fewer than three
Orthodox churches, plus a Greek Orthodox community that recognized the pope's
authority, the trouble in the Caucasus may this time create a political
earthquake with enormous consequences."


http://www.newsweek.com/id/157509



THE LAST WORD: Randy Scheunemann, GOP Presidential nominee John McCain's
top foreign policy adviser. An early supporter of the Iraq War, Scheunemann
also lobbied Washington (for a time even while working for McCain) on behalf
of the Republic of Georgia. He discussed what happens when American interests
conflict with American ideals. "I question the premise. I don't think there's
a tension between ideals and interests. When you conduct military action as a
last resort, you have to look at what interests are at stake, what values are
at risk, how likely you are to achieve your goals, and at what cost. McCain
doesn't have an ideological approach; he evaluates each situation
differently."


http://www.newsweek.com/id/157519



SOURCE  Newsweek