Newsweek International 04/12/2019

1970 This March 23, 1970, cover story about the women’s movement was written by Helen Dudar, a freelancer. At the time, Newsweek editors didn’t believe that any of the staff ’s female researchers, newspaper clippers or mail girls were up to the job of writing a story. Even as the magazine hit newsstands, though, 46 female staffers announced they were suing for gender discrimination—the first such suit filed against a U.S. employer. “In the ’60s and ’70s, only men were hired as writers,” says Lucy Howard, who was then a researcher. “It was the system, and we accepted it—until we didn’t.” “Margaret Montagno was the person who kept us together, kept us focused, cut through our dithering with a few pithy sentences. And she was brave enough to be the…

Brexit protesters rally around an effigy of Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May on March 23. The country has been mired in political paralysis over a deal to leave the European Union; on March 29, Parliament rejected a withdrawal agreement for the third time. The deeply unpopular May had offered to resign as an incentive for lawmakers to back her proposal, but it still failed. As of press time, the U.K. had until April 12 to propose a new way forward.…

RACKETEERING, MILLIONS OF DOLLARS, celebrities, the Ivy League: The alleged conspiracy by the wealthy and well-connected to ensure their children’s admission into elite colleges goes beyond Hollywood scandal. The story inflamed already smoldering concerns about the ways that money corrupts the supposedly meritocratic college admissions process. If any aspiring students across America—and around the world—still believed that every applicant had the same shot, they and their parents now know for certain that that’s not the case. There are already calls for reform. But the process of taking privilege out of the system might bring an end to something else: affirmative action. Race-based affirmative action, a concept introduced in the 1960s during the civil rights movement, has been steadily losing public support to alternative, race-blind methods of college admission. A February…

AS A YOUNG MAN WORKING AT Newsday in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Robert Caro caught on to something that his peers seemed to be missing: True political power doesn’t come from voters or televised congressional hearings. Exhibit A was Robert Moses, the master builder who spent billions creating nearly every piece of modern infrastructure in and around New York City—without once facing a public election. Fascinated, Caro would go on to research and write The Power Broker, the seminal, award-winning biography of Moses, beginning a nearly 60-year investigation into what power is and how it’s obtained. His revered 1,000-page tomes about Lyndon Johnson would follow, but his career as America’s authority on political power almost didn’t happen. “Robert Moses didn’t want me to write about him and really…

“Thanks to our superior technology, we can create products that tackle environmental issues”Naoki Sugiyama, President, Musasino Co. Ltd. From the 1960s up to the turn of this century, Japan was the world’s largest shipbuilding nation, at one point producing about half of all new ship tonnage in the world. However, Japan’s dominance has subsided in recent years as its global market share of CGT (compensated gross tonnage) has fallen to 20 percent, with China now the leading global shipbuilder. Ahead of Japan in second place is South Korea, whose shipping industry has been buoyed by government financial support in recent years due to the impact of the 2008 economic crisis on demand for new vessels. Recently Japan, backed by the EU, took a case against South Korea to the World…

“What distinguishes Japanese monozukuri is the knowledge and craftsmanship that have been cultivated throughout the years. I also believe that Japan’s manufacturing strength resides in the stability of its SMEs”Kanzo Shimizu, President, Nichiei Kakoh Co., Ltd. Japan’s global reputation for its manufacturing prowess, underpinned by the dedication to monozukuri (craftsmanship), is often associated with the big players like Toyota, Sony and Panasonic. But the true strength of Japanese manufacturing lies with the multitude of SMEs that provide high-quality parts and components to these larger companies to build their final products. While most of these SMEs are not as well known as Japan’s giants, they form the backbone of the service sector and are a crucial part of the manufacturing and export supply chain. In 2016, the Economic Census for Business…