WHAT THE WORLD IS READING

Newsweek8217;s China-watcher Melinda Lui sees parallels in 8216;Locking Down Tibet8217;, between the current protests and those in 1989, when such violence last erupted, not least 8220;Chinese authorities8217; habit of overreacting which threatens to keep making things worse8221;. With panicky Chinese authorities cracking down everywhere else, Lui asks: 8220;if they have to lock down the entire country in order to hold a protest-free Olympics, will Chinese authorities declare success?8221;

Newsweek sees the possible electoral defeat of the pro-independence president, Chen Shui-bian on March 22 as a turning point for Taiwan. His Democratic Progressive Party is likely to lose to the KMT8217;s Ma Ying-jeou, the Hong Kong born candidate who promises 8220;to open Taiwan8217;s economy to the giant next door and to take a more moderate tone with Beijing8221;. Newsweek says Ma8217;s victory represents a victory for China8217;s President Hu who has been courting Taiwan and 8220;cool off one of the world8217;s most dangerous flashpoints8221;.

The Economist8217;s 8216;The no colour revolution8217; celebrates the electoral setback for Malaysia8217;s ruling party, United Malays National Organisation UMNO. Winning opposition parties, including Ibrahim Anwar8217;s multi-ethnic liberal reformers, campaigned for a 8216;colour-blind8217; nation: 8220;the result may herald new thinking about the institutionalised racism of the pro-Malay affirmative-action policies8221;

Time and Newsweek check out the Democrat presidential candidates8217; credentials for answering the 3 am emergency phone call and find them 50:50. While Clinton played a small but valuable role in Bosnia, Macedonia and Northern Ireland, Obama, Newsweek says 8220;has shown sophistication on foreign policy8221; in the Senate.

Time offers 8216;10 Ideas That Are Changing the World8217;. It foresees world population stabilising at 8 billion by 2050 through voluntary sterilisation, the end of extreme poverty by 2025 and global goodwill warming. There8217;s also mandatory health schemes by employers, self-reliance without customer services, movies without motion picture heroes George Clooney, where are you? and reverse radicalism which reclaims extremists.

The Economist says the My Lai massacre by American troops in Vietnam, 40 years on, lingers as a reminder of an occupational hazard facing foreign troops. The New Yorker, online, prints 8216;Karl Hoecker8217;s Album8217;. Hoecker was adjutant to the commandant of Auschwitz from May 1944, to January 1945, when Jews were disposed of at the rate of 1,32,000 a month. The photographs project the orderariness of evil: Hoecker enjoying a laugh with female recruits, eating blueberries yes, blueberries and petting his German sheperd, Favorit.

In The New Republic8217;s 8216;Ballad of a Dead Man8217;, French writer and philosopher Bernard Henry-Levi, recalls his meeting with the mass murderer 8212; Ivaacute;n Riacute;os, recently executed by his own security chief and bodyguard in Colombia. Rios8217; Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia FARC has killed and kidnapped hundreds.

Levi finds something lethal but seductive about the learned young Marxist: 8220;I can still see him, his emaciated silhouette, his coiffed hair, his impeccably maintained beard, speaking like a teacher,8221; as he justified targeted kidnappings and the trafficking of cocaine. 8220;Rarely in my life have I come up against rationality gone so mad.8221;