Newsweek 07/27/2018 - 08/03/2018

1946 George Bernard Shaw, the Nobel Prize–winning playwright, activist and free thinker, had a major birthday in 1946, and Newsweek celebrated with the pricelessly odd cover line, “Naughty at Ninety.” The profile described Shaw’s career as “one of the fullest and most extraordinary in the history of English letters.” Shaw’s elliptical response: “I have produced no permanent impression because nobody has ever believed me.” The Irish writer behind the aphorism “youth is wasted on the young” would die in 1950. 1970 Newsweek feared our “elemental right to privacy” was imperiled. How quaint! “We may end up with 1984 long before we actually get there,” a law professor warned in the article, which cites “snoops, bugs, wiretaps, dossiers [and] data banks” as threats to our innocence. Fast-forward to iPhones, Facebook, Alexa... 1976 Five…

China has been in its best period of development in modern times, while the world is undergoing the most profound and unprecedented changes in a century. Against this backdrop, China enjoys many favorable external conditions to carry out diplomatic work presently and in the years to come. President Xi Jinping made this assessment at the country’s highest-level meeting on diplomatic work. On June 22-23, the Central Conference on Work Relating to Foreign Affairs was held in Beijing. In a keynote speech, Xi stressed that the banner of a community with a shared future for mankind should be upheld to help make the global governance system fairer and more reasonable, and the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road, known as the Belt and Road Initiative, should be solidified…

1 Uphold the authority of the CPC Central Committee as the overarching principle and strengthen the centralized, unified leadership of the Party on external work 2 Advance major country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics to fulfill the mission of realizing national rejuvenation 3 Take preserving world peace and pursuing common development as the purpose to promote the building of a community with a shared future for humanity 4 Enhance strategic confidence with socialism with Chinese characteristics as the support 5 Forge ahead with the Belt and Road construction following the principle of achieving shared growth through discussion and collaboration 6 Follow the path of peaceful development on the basis of mutual respect and win-win cooperation 7 Develop global partnerships while advancing a diplomatic agenda 8 Lead the reform of the global governance system with the concept of fairness…

“It’s perverse to dangle cheap credit in front of naive young people.” AROUND THE CORNER FROM THE FEDERAL courthouse in downtown Washington where media crews have spent the past year recording the many comings and goings of President Donald Trump’s indicted associates, another, far less heralded legal struggle unfolded with arguably greater ramifications for American democracy than anything special counsel Robert Mueller discovers. This was the plight of the 234 people rounded up and jailed during street protests on Trump’s Inauguration Day last year. All, including some reporters, medics and legal observers, were charged with felony rioting and conspiracy, and a few with criminal vandalism, counts that made them theoretically subject to consecutive prison sentences totaling 60 years or more. A private study later concluded that police were overwhelmed by sporadic violence,…

“When everyone has a bachelor’s degree, no one does.” TOTAL U.S. STUDENT DEBT NOW stands at $1.5 trillion. Without the support of the federal government, most of this debt would never have been possible. Even so-called unsubsidized student loans are, in fact, heavily subsidized, compared with, say, credit card debt. Yet, strangely, almost no one argues that America has gotten its money’s worth. Our student loan programs’ main payoff is complaints. Parents, students and activists fret that this crushing debt has to be repaid. Student loan programs have saddled a generation of young people with onerous financial obligations—commitments that prevent them from starting a family or moving out of their parents’ basement. Wouldn’t it be better if college were affordable for everyone? Yet many of these same critics also blame student loans for…

Genetic research has nearly excluded an entire continent. An effort to remedy that could CHANGE THE FUTURE of cancer treatment—and of medicine Charles Rotimi FIRST REALIZED THE FUTURE WAS PASSING HIM by around 2005. The Human Genome Project had recently finished spelling out an entire set of human DNA. Following that breakthrough, scientists in six countries across the globe had begun collecting blood samples to find genes responsible for various conditions, including serious diseases, which could lead to treatments. And Rotimi, who was leading that collection effort in Africa, had the sick feeling that history was repeating itself. He wasn’t concerned about himself so much as his homeland. In the past, African patients have had poor access to medical advances, even as scientists use them as research subjects. Rotimi worried that genetics…