Newsweek 2/26/2016

New York City—Bernie Sanders meets with the Reverend Al Sharpton at Sylvia’s Restaurant in Harlem on February 10, the day after the senator’s victory in the New Hampshire Democratic primary. Although Sanders is supported by influential members of the African-American community such as Cornel West, rapper Killer Mike and writer Ta-Nehisi Coates, as the primary race moves south he will have to contend with Hillary Clinton’s long-standing appeal among minority voters. The Congressional Black Caucus has endorsed Clinton, who also plans to meet with Sharpton.…

Monterrey, Mexico—Police stand guard on the perimeter of the Topo Chico prison as inmates watch from a rooftop after a riot on February 11. At least 49 inmates died and 12 were injured in the riot, which occurred a week before Pope Francis’s first official visit to Mexico, during which he planned to visit a prison in Ciudad Juárez. One prisoner was shot dead and dozens more were killed in a fight between members of the Zetas drug gang and another gang, involving knives, bottles, chairs and other makeshift weapons, according to Jaime Rodriguez Calderón, governor of Nuevo León state.…

New York City—NYPD officer Peter Liang reacts on February 11 as a guilty verdict is read during his manslaughter and official misconduct trial for fatally shooting an unarmed black man, Akai Gurley, in a darkened public housing stairwell in 2014. The verdict meant the rookie cop was automatically fired from his job and could face up to 15 years in jail. Nationwide, outrage over police shootings and interactions with minority communities has spurred protests and turned the Black Lives Matter movement into a presidential campaign issue.…

Maputo, Mozambique—Sara Matlavane rakes in front of her family’s barren land, where corn would normally be ready to be harvested, on February 8. Her family of 11 typically grows corn, beans, peanuts and watermelons, but the crops have failed since last year. About 14 million people face hunger in southern Africa from a drought exacerbated by one of the strongest El Niño events of the past 50 years. Across large parts of Zimbabwe, Malawi, Zambia, South Africa, Mozambique, Botswana and Madagascar, rainfall is at a 35-year low.…

IT SAYS SOMETHING ABOUT THE HEALTH, OR LACK THEREOF, OF THE GLOBAL ECONOMY THAT THE YEN IS STILL SEEN AS A “SAFE HAVEN” CURRENCY. THE MEN WHO oversee China’s economy are a prideful lot. Smart and competent, the products of their country’s most elite institutions and, in some cases, elite Western schools as well, they have overseen a growth miracle for more than three decades, lifting the world’s most populous country from penury to being the second-largest economy. While a financial crisis crippled most of the developed world in 2008–2009, China sailed on, barely scratched. But now, though they may not like to admit it, Chinese policymakers must look across the East China Sea at Japan’s economic turmoil and wonder if what they are seeing is the late stages of a disease…

“[THE RUSSIANS] ARE PLAYING A GAME OF ROPE-A-DOPE: TELLING THEIR OPPONENTS TO TALK THEMSELVES OUT WHILE THEY GO IN FOR THE KILL.” THE BALANCE has shifted in Syria’s civil war—Russian airpower has tipped the scales decisively in favor of the Damascus regime. In the days before a partial cease-fire was brokered in Munich, President Bashar al-Assad troops backed by Iranian Revolutionary Guards moved to encircle Aleppo, the biggest city still in rebel hands, as Moscow’s warplanes pulverized rebel positions. “The Syrian airplanes are attacking with bullets. The rockets are from Russian airplanes,” Dr. Rami Kalazi, a neurosurgeon in Aleppo, tells Newsweek by telephone. “The past four days were stressful. Two or three massacres every day, at least, 40 or 50 people [being brought to the hospital] a day.” The government onslaught on…