Innholdsfortegnelse for 06/05/2016 i Newsweek International

Aleppo, Syria—Government-led airstrikes killed at least 18 civilians and wounded more than a dozen others in the rebel-held neighborhood of Hayy Aqyul on April 22, threatening an already fragile cease-fire. Since the partial cease-fire was enacted in February, sporadic clashes have broken out in Aleppo, prompting the opposition delegation to walk out of peace talks with the Syrian regime moderated by the U.N. in Geneva. The opposition has demanded that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad step down as part of a political transition, while Assad’s delegation insists on a government of national unity.…

Los Angeles—Julya Baer couldn’t hold back tears at a vigil celebrating the life and music of Prince, hours after learning the pop superstar was found dead at his Paisley Park estate in Minnesota on April 21. Born Prince Rogers Nelson, the singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist had a momentous career that earned him pop icon status. He recorded 39 studio albums and sold more than 100 million records worldwide; received seven Gram-mys and an Academy Award; and, in 2004, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He was 57.…

ADMIRAL HARRIS HAS CALLED THE ISLANDS “THE GREAT WALL OF SAND.” IT WAS NO coincidence that the leak came just a week before Defense Secretary Ashton Carter set forth in April on a high-profile trip to Asia, which would include a helicopter flight to a U.S. aircraft carrier sailing through disputed waters in the South China Sea. According to a detailed account in the Navy Times, the U.S. Pacific Command’s chief, headquartered in Honolulu, has become increasingly agitated not just by China’s boldness in installing military facilities on islands it has constructed in the South China Sea—in waters claimed by other countries—but also at what the commander perceives to be a wholly inadequate U.S. response to Beijing’s behavior. According to the piece—not denied by anyone subsequently—the commander, Admiral Harry Harris,…

NEUROGASTRONOMY The ORBITOFRONTAL CORTEX is one of the most mysterious regions of the human brain, but neuroscientists hypothesize that it’s where all of our senses are integrated and then given value and meaning. Research also suggests it plays a role in controlling social behaviors like mood, drive and responsibility. DNA Most of what you see in typical images of the brain is the gray matter. But the WHITE MATTER, found below the gray stuff, is equally essential. It’s composed of bundles of axons that transport signals between gray matter areas of the brain. White matter is also thought to affect learning and mental illness. BIG DATA The CEREBRAL CORTEX is the furrowed, outer layer made up of gray matter. It is responsible for higher-order functions like information-processing and language. Scientists…

SCIENTISTS WERE ABLE TO USE BRAIN SCANS TO PREDICT A PERSON’S ABILITY TO REASON AND THINK. “CAN THE HUMAN BRAIN understand the human brain?” asks David Van Essen. “Perhaps never.” Despite those doubts, Van Essen is co-principal investigator of the Human Connectome Project (HCP), an international effort to map out the “wiring” of the human brain. Among the goals is to reveal what, exactly, all the different parts of the brain do. Van Essen calls himself a “brain cartographer” and compares the brain to the Earth: The planet’s surface, with its many geographic rumples and folds (known to us as valleys and mountains), is analogous to the wrinkles of the brain. While these geographical features are significant, the need-to-know information “is the political subdivisions and social organization—what we think of…

1 CHECK IN The St. Regis Langkawi opened in April on the southern tip of the Malaysian island, making it the first all-suite luxury resort in the archipelago. The 85 suites and four villas all have spectacular views, and the island offers plenty to explore: trek in the jungle or wildlife parks, or charter a yacht to other islands. Prices on application. 2 RESTUP Designers William Waterhouse and Louisa Loakes have created an elegant cherrywood daybed ($5,505), complete with herringbone patterned upholstery. Sleeping alone has rarely been so stylish. 3 DIVE IN Look good on the dance floor—and the ocean floor—with Tudor’s classic diving watch, the Heritage Black Bay Dark ($4,133 with leather strap; $4,418 with steel bracelet). Also available in blue bezel, red bezel, black and bronze.…

Jerusalem—Israeli security officials inspect a burned-out bus on April 18, hours after a small explosive device was detonated on board, injuring at least 20 people, according to Israeli police. Two days after the bombing, and following the bomber’s death in an Israeli hospital, Palestinian militant group Hamas praised Abdel Hamid Abu Srour, 19, for the attack. It was the first bus bombing in Israel since November 2012 and raised fears of an escalation in violence after months of knife attacks.…

ON MARCH 24, a convenience store owner in Glasgow posted a status update to his Face-book page: “Good Friday and very happy Easter especially to my beloved Christian nation.” Asad Shah continued, “Let’s follow the real footstep of beloved holy Jesus [Christ]...and get the real success in both worlds.” To Shah’s Facebook friends, the exuberant message was not much of a surprise. Shah, who identified as a Muslim, was a member of the Ahmadi religious community. The Ahmadi faith is generally tolerant of other religions—and Shah was particularly welcoming. In December, a neighbor tells Newsweek, he gave every visitor to his shop a personalized Christmas card. That same day, however, an unwelcome visitor was on his way to Shah’s shop. The man was later named by his lawyer as Tanveer…

“I’VE BEEN ACCUSED OCCASIONALLY OF TRYING TO SET OFF WORLD WAR III.” LAST SPRING, I spent a week in Washington, D.C., hoping to interview national security reporters and former CIA officers for my upcoming book, Spooked: How the CIA Manipulates the Media and Hoodwinks Hollywood, and one of the people I contacted during that quest was Duane Clarridge, who died from cancer on April 9. Known as much for his love of safari suits and cigars as for his spy-craft, “Dewey” was the CIA’s former Latin America director and the founding leader of the agency’s counterterrorism center during the 1980s. He was also one of the most high-profile culprits of the Iran-Contra scandal, in which Reagan administration officials illegally sold missiles to Tehran to help raise cash for anti-Communist rebels…

GINA MULLIN ALWAYS KEPT CHOCOLATE IN HER DESK DRAWER FOR AN AFTERNOON PICK-ME-UP, but a few years ago, in between rounds of chemotherapy, the Hershey’s kisses stopped tasting quite right. “I couldn’t even swallow,” she says. “That’s how bad it was.” Mullin, 50 years old and a single mother of three daughters, was diagnosed with Stage II breast cancer in 2005. Seven years later, the cancer returned, this time affecting her brain, liver, lungs and spine, and doctors say she’ll need chemotherapy every three weeks for the rest of her life. The aggressive care brings many challenges, but Mullin, once a prolific home cook, says her diminished enjoyment of food is one of the hardest. Years of cycling through treatments have dulled her sense of taste and smell. Everything she…

Karachi, Pakistan—Policemen stand guard as a health worker administers polio drops to a child during a vaccination campaign on April 21, a day after eight gunmen on motorcycles shot dead seven policemen protecting vaccination workers. Islamist militants have repeatedly targeted such programs, claiming they are a Western conspiracy to sterilize Pakistani children. Nearly 80 health workers have been killed since December 2012. Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a splinter group of the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the April 20 attack. Pakistan is one of only two countries, along with Afghanistan, where polio remains endemic.…

ROCKET TRAVEL was supposed to zip us around the solar system like Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, but that future never materialized. In fact, for most of the past few decades, space travel has been pretty blah: No one has even walked on the moon since 1972, and Mars seems as far off as it was for Galileo. Even the space shuttle is grounded. But there has been one huge leap: The declining cost of putting something in orbit. That is opening up space to the private sector and making it possible to put all sorts of new things up there. The shuttle promised to be able to put stuff in low Earth orbit, where most satellites live, for $1,000 per pound. It never got close—NASA’s numbers led to a…

“I HATE BEING A SCAREMONGER, BUT THIS THING REALLY SCARES ME.” WHEN ANGOLAN JOURNALIST and human rights activist Rafael Marques de Morais visited a morgue in the city of Luanda in March, he saw 235 bodies being carried out in five hours. The crowded Angolan capital, chaotic at the best of times, was in the throes of a massive outbreak of yellow fever and malaria, and by Marques’s account, it was hard to say who was dying of what. “People died of one disease, and [hospital staff ] would write down another,” he says. Angola has been grappling with its worst yellow fever outbreak in three decades, a crisis that the World Health Organization (WHO) recently warned “constitutes a potential threat for the entire world.” The big fear is it…

MAGGIE WORTHEN was a week away from graduating from Smith College in May 2006 when she suffered a massive stroke. Her classmates found her unconscious on the floor of her dorm room, unable to speak or move. A CT scan revealed that the stroke in the otherwise healthy 22-year-old was brought on by a blood clot in the basilar artery, a critical blood vessel in the back of her head that supplies oxygen-rich blood to the brainstem, the part of the brain that controls the body’s basic life support system. It took 12 hours before neurosurgeons at the closest trauma center were able to remove the clot and restore blood flow to Maggie’s brain. She was in a deep coma, kept alive by the ventilator that told her lungs to…

“THERE IS A DIRECT LINK BETWEEN YOUR HEAD AND YOUR SOUL, TO YOUR HAND.” I AM AN UNASHAMED Helvetia-phile; show me almost anything Swiss and I will show you something made to exacting standards. After all, this mountainous, landlocked country is the classic appellation d’origine contrôlée of horology, and the attention to detail required of the country’s master watchmakers infuses every aspect of life here. The commitment to precision is one reason Swiss goods are so reliable. It is true even of the cigars—I have never had a cigar from Davidoff (whose parent company is headquartered in Basel) that did not draw anything other than perfectly—and it is equally true of the crayons and colored pencils, as I found a couple of years ago when I toured the Caran d’Ache…