newsweek europe - 26 february 2016 vk com stopthepress

8/17/2019 Newsweek Europe - 26 February 2016 Vk Com Stopthepress

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26.02.201

Checkmate in Syria / Build a Better Brain

THE SINKING FORTUNESOF CHINA AND JAPAN


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Newsweek (ISSN2052-1081), is published weekly except one week in January, July, August andOctober. Newsweek (EMEA) is published by Newsweek Ltd (part of the IBT Media Group Ltd), 25 CanadaSquare, Canary Wharf, London E14 5LQ, UK. Printed by Quad/Graphics Europe Sp z o.o., Wyszkow, Poland

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CLOSING ARGUMENTS: HillaryClinton supporterswave signs duringBernie Sanders’sspeech on February5 in Manchester, NewHampshire, daysbefore the first presi-dential primary.

32 El Chapo’s Narco Mafia What Mexico’s top drug lord has in common

with Michael Corleone and Tony Soprano.by Roberto Saviano

40 Inside JobsLook at how Bernie Sanders and

Hillary Clinton worked Congress, and you’llfind they’re a lot more alike than they both

want you to think. by Emily Cadei

B I G S H O T S

4 New York CityNo Waffling

6 Monterrey, MexicoCage Fight

8 Maputo,MozambiqueCrop Duster

10 Siliguri, IndiaA Day He’ll AlwaysRemember

P A G E O N E

12 AsiaThe Sick Menof Asia

16 RussiaCheckmate in Syria

19 ZikaOld Viruses,New Threats

20 MilitaryNot Missingthe Boat

24 BritainMade in Germany

28 IRAA Wolf inWolf’s Clothing

N E W W O R L D

48 InnovationTenacious C

50 HealthThe Halo Effect

54 WildlifeWalled Out

D O W N T I M E

56 ArchitectureLet’s Get High

58 MusicThe Staplesof Life

60 Travel

Cape Wonder

62 StyleThe Chicest Link

64 Rewind25 Years

COVER CREDIT: PHOTOGRAPH BY NIGEL COX FOR NEWSWEEK

FEBRUARY 26, 2015 VOL.166 NO.08


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BIG

SHOTS

MEXICO

EMILIO VAZQUEZ

Cage FightMonterrey, Mexico—Police stand guard on

the perimeter of theTopo Chico prison as

inmates watch from arooftop after a riot on

February 11. At least49 inmates died and

12 were injured in theriot, which occurred

a week before PopeFrancis’s first official

visit to Mexico, duringwhich he plannedto visit a prison in

Ciudad Juárez. Oneprisoner was shotdead and dozens

more were killed in afight between mem-

bers of the Zetas druggang and another

gang, involvingknives, bottles, chairs

and other makeshift

weapons, accordingto Jaime Rodriguez

Calderón, governor ofNuevo León state.


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BIG

SHOTS

MOZAMBIQUE

KADIR VAN LOHUIZEN

CropDuster

Maputo,Mozambique—

Sara Matlavane rakesin front of her family’s

barren land, wherecorn would normally

be ready to be har-vested, on February

8. Her family of 11typically grows corn,

beans, peanuts andwatermelons, but

the crops have failedsince last year. About

14 million people facehunger in southern

Africa from a droughtexacerbated by one ofthe strongest El Niñoevents of the past 50

years. Across largeparts of Zimbabwe,

Malawi, Zambia,

South Africa, Mozam-bique, Botswana andMadagascar, rainfall

is at a 35-year low.


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BIG

SHOTS

INDIA

A DayHe’llAlwaysRememberSiliguri, India—

Indian bystandersrun as a wild elephantwith a tranquilizerdart in its backsidegoes for a stroll onFebruary 10. Theadult male elephantwandered out of thenearby Baikunthapurforest in northeastIndia, damaging over40 houses and shopsand trampling several vehicles over thecourse of seven hours

before it was sedatedand transported bywildlife officials backto the forest.

DIPTENDU DUTTA


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MILITARY ASIA RUSSIA IRA ZIKA BRITAIN

P A G E O N E

NEWSWEEK 02/ 26 / 20 1 6

this magazine called it in a cover story in1988.) The miracle economies of East Asia—Japan, South Korea, Taiwan—had led the way,and China was gearing up to follow. And eventhough Japan fell down in the early 1990s andhas not been able to get up, China seemed tofulfill the prophecies, racing ahead with yearafter year of rapid growth. Which makes thecurrent economic plight of both countries all

the more stunning: Japan and China are nowthe sick men of East Asia.

That is not to say that their plights are iden-tical, but the similarities are greater than thedifferences: Both growth miracles were drivenby domestic investment, which fed export-ledgrowth; both countries suppressed domesticconsumption and elevated savings rates to fuelthat investment-led growth. Both countriespiled on debt to do so. Moreover, for decadesnow, Japan has been an aging society with a

THE MEN WHO oversee China’s economy are aprideful lot. Smart and competent, the productsof their country’s most elite institutions and, insome cases, elite Western schools as well, theyhave overseen a growth miracle for more thanthree decades, lifting the world’s most populouscountry from penury to being the second-larg-est economy. While a financial crisis crippledmost 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 theEast China Sea at Japan’s economic turmoil andwonder if what they are seeing is the late stagesof a disease that they themselves have caught—and have yet done very little to treat.

There was a time, late into the 20th century,when Western pundits, academics and politi-cians convinced themselves that the 21st cen-tury would be Asia’s. (“The Pacific Century,”

THE SICK MEN OF ASIA

As Japan resorts to negativeinterest rates and stocks tumble,China must be worried that it’son the same economic track

BY

BILL POWELL


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NEWSWEEK 0 2/26/2016

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MONEY IS POWER: China has allowed the

renminbi to weakenslightly in recent

months, raising fears globally that other

countries may deval-ue their currencies

to keep up with eachother on exports.


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PAGE ONE/ASIA

NEWSWEEK 0 2 / 2 6 / 20 16

shrinking workforce, detracting from its grossdomestic product growth. China over the nexttwo decades will be much the same.

The effects of the disease Japan has not beenable to shake for nearly 30 years are again onfull display. On January 29, the Bank of Japanannounced that it would implement a policy ofnegative interest rates in order to forestall yetanother onset of deflation. For years, Japan heldto a zero interest rate policy (ZIRP) and massiveinjections of yen into both the bond and stockmarkets to try to stimulate growth and, thus, at

least a little inflation.Since late 2012, Prime Minister Shinzo

Abe’s hyped “Abenomics” promised structuralreforms that were also supposed to help boostgrowth. They haven’t. The fact thatZIRP has now turned into NIRP (neg-ative interest rates, which meansbanks must pay the central bank inorder to hold their excess cash, inthe hope they will instead lend themoney to companies) was an admis-sion that everything the government

has done over the past three yearshasn’t worked.The dire plight of Japan is hard to

overstate. If the current quantitativeeasing policy of the Bank of Japancontinues for the next few years—and central bank chief HaruhikoKuroda seems committed to it—then the assets(government bonds and equities) on the cen-tral bank’s balance sheet by 2018 will be greaterthan Japan’s economy.

The Bank of Japan buys virtually all the debtthe government issues and holds roughly 60

percent of the equity market’s exchange-tradedfunds. Japan’s fiscal deficit is nearly 8 percent ofGDP, and gross government debt will be 260 per-cent of GDP by the end of fiscal 2016.

Yet real household income in Japan is morethan 6 percent lower than it was in 2013, justafter Abe came to power; 37 percent of the work-force is on part-time contracts, and the labormarket is contracting by 1 percent per year. Littlewonder that household spending is anemic andbusiness investment weak, despite the fact that

IT SAYS SOMETHING ABOUT THE HEALTH, ORLACK THEREOF, OF THEGLOBAL ECONOMY THATTHE YEN IS STILL SEEN AS A “SAFE HAVEN” CURRENCY.

companies are sitting on record amounts of cash.The move to NIRP set off a mini-panic in

Japan’s markets; it seemed to dawn on every-body that nothing the government had done hadbeen effective, so why would NIRP be any differ-ent? From February 8 through February 12, theNikkei stock index fell by 11 percent, and yieldson the benchmark 10-year Japanese government

bond turned negative on February 9.The only market outlier was the Japanese yen,

which rose sharply against the dollar, despitethe adoption of NIRP (currencies usually tradelower if their countries’ interest rates are low ornegative). It says something about the health,or lack thereof, of the global economy that theyen is still seen as a “safe haven” currency. Thisis because Japan, despite its ongoing economiccalamity, is still a creditor nation—and becauseit’s now very unlikely the U.S. Federal Reservewill raise interest rates anymore in the wake ofan intensifying global deflationary whirlwind.

“In Japan and, frankly, in every other [majordeveloped economy], policymakers don’tseem to know what to do now, except more ofwhat they’ve been doing, even though it’s not

working,’’ said a senior adviser to a large U.S.hedge fund whose job is to assess governmentpolicies in the world’s largest economies.

The week the carnage intensified in Japan—and quickly spilled over to most of the rest ofthe world’s markets—China was on vacation

for its lunar New Year break. But an email Ireceived from an adviser to the People’s Bankof China captured reality well enough: “This isdefinitely spoiling my holiday,” he wrote. Thenotion that China will inevitably follow Japaninto “lost decade” territory drives elite Chineseto distraction. The two countries are, despitelarge and growing trade ties, fierce economicand geopolitical rivals.

And Beijing is not nearly in the distress thatplagues Tokyo—at least not yet. The country is


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still growing at somewhere around 6 to 7 per-cent per year. But that growth rate is decelerat-ing more rapidly than the government wantedor expected. And just as Japan’s growth model—heavy capital spending and exports—eventuallyran into the rocks, so too has China’s, as Beijingacknowledges. The problem for Beijing, as it has

been for Japan from the early 1990s onward, isrising indebtedness and slowing growth. Cur-renly, it takes about 2.5 renminbi of new creditto generate one renminbi of additional outputin China, according to Anne Stevenson-Yangand Carlo Reiter of J Capital Research, a Chi-na-focused investment research boutique.

That means that at a time when most econo-mists believe debt growth needs to slow markedlyin China, an additional $1.7 trillion in new loansis necessary merely for the government to hit its6.5 percent growth target this year. Complicatingmatters for Beijing is the fact that an increasing

amount of new debt is being issued merely toservice existing debt—a sure sign, in the minds ofmany analysts, that a debt crisis looms.

And to top it off, capital flight from China isaccelerating. In January, China’s official foreignexchange reserves fell by nearly $100 billion to$3.2 trillion, the lowest level since 2012. Everymonth, says Stevenson-Yang, nearly half of whatthe government calls “total social financing” (theoverall amount of credit issuance in the economy)“flees across the border.” That in turn means that

the amount of new debt needed to meet the gov-ernment’s 6.5 percent target is likely much morethan 54 trillion renminbi. The inevitable result ofChina’s still-expanding debt burden, says MichaelPettis, professor of finance at the GuanghuaSchool of Management at Peking University inBeijing, will be “much slower growth going for-

ward” than most people now anticipate.China is not yet as sick as Japan. Its consum-ers are better off—personal income is still grow-ing, driving retail sales growth of more than 10percent last year. And China’s transition froman investment-led, manufacturing economy istaking place: In 2015, for the first time, servicesand consumption amounted to more than halfof China’s GDP, at 50.5 percent, up from 41.4percent a decade ago. The issue for Beijing,however, is that the rate of growth in consump-tion and services may still be less than whereit needs to be. That’s why the government last

month promised that a new round of what itcalled “supply-side” reforms. (What exactlythey would be was anyone’s guess.)

Sharp reversals of fortune, as Stevenson-Yangwrote recently, “have been an enduring part ofChinese culture, literature and political theorysince the earliest writings.” What Beijing, andthe entire global economy, must hope is that thereversal of fortune now underway is not nearly assevere as Japan’s was. If it is, the two sick men ofAsia may take the rest of us down with them.

+

ALL THAT GLITTERS: Stores like this

have gained froma 67 percent surge

in China’s goldimports from Hong

Kong, as stockmarket turmoil has

driven people tosafer assets.


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PAGE ONE/RUSSIA

NEWSWEEK 02/ 26 / 20 1 6

THE BALANCE has shifted in Syria’s civil war—Russian airpower has tipped the scales deci-sively in favor of the Damascus regime. In thedays before a partial cease-fire was brokered inMunich, President Bashar al-Assad troops backedby Iranian Revolutionary Guards moved to encir-cle 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. RamiKalazi, a neurosurgeon in Aleppo, tells Newsweekby 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 the nearbytowns of Nubl and Zahra threatens to cut off Aleppo from the last remaining road link to Tur-key—and thousands of residents have chosento escape before the fighting engulfs Aleppo.According to the United Nations, more than

45,000 refugees reached the Turkish border inthe first nine days of February, with tens of thou-sands more internally displaced in the rebel-heldcity of Idlib. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ofTurkey said if Syrians “reach our door and haveno other choice, if necessary, we have to andwill let our brothers in.” But in practice, Turkishauthorities have been allowing only a trickle ofthe most recent wave of Syrians into their coun-try, corralling most of the newcomers in giantcamps on the Syrian side of the border. Ankara

has also balked at EU plans to have Turkeyaccept more refugees in exchange for aid.

“We have taken 3 million Syrians and Iraqis intoour home. How many did you take?” an emotionalErdogan said to an audience of Turkish officials,denouncing a recent call by the U.N. for Turkeyto take more refugees. “Syria has turned into a...

genocide. The Assad regime is the reason forthis problem. What does the United Nations say?‘Open your door to those massed at your door.’”

The assault on Aleppo triggered a renewedflurry of diplomacy led by U.S. Secretary of StateJohn Kerry, who has been trying for months tobroker a cease-fire and develop a road map fora transitional government and, ultimately, newelections. In Munich, Kerry managed to reach a“cessation of hostilities” deal that would allowhumanitarian aid into besieged rebel-held towns,but which did not exclude continued Russianbombing and would not go into effect for a week.

In theory, Moscow backs the plan. In practice,though, many observers fear that Russia’s truetactic is to play along with talks while doing all itcan to help Assad’s forces win on the ground.

The Munich deal allows Russia to continuebombing “terrorist” targets—chosen in Moscow.“They are playing a game of rope-a-dope,” saysthe University of Oklahoma’s Joshua Landis,author of the influential Syria Comment blog.“Telling their opponents to talk themselves outwhile they go in for the kill.” Russia’s Defense

CHECKMATE IN SYRIA

Russia’s intervention in Syriahas proved decisive, and even the

Kurds are turning to Moscow

BY

OWEN MATTHEWS

@owenmatth Additional reporting by Lucy Westcott in New York


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SCHOOL’S OUT: Astudent inspects

damage at hisschool in Injara,

near Aleppo afteran airstrike that

killed 12 children inJanuary, according

to the Syrian Ob-servatory for Hu-

man Rights, whichblamed Russia.

+

Ministry said its planes were flying around 510sorties a week from an airbase near Latakia, andthe Russian Foreign Ministry’s spokeswoman,Maria Zakharova, insisted that Moscow “hasstill not received convincing evidence of civiliandeaths as a result of Russian airstrikes in Syria.”

In addition to its decisive air support, Russiahas been supplying state-of-the-art T-90 tanks to

the Syrian army. “Capitalizing on the superiorityoffered by T-90 tanks, Syrian government troopsand their allies encircled the important townsof Khan Tuman and al-Qarasi near the Aleppo-Damascus road,” Iran’s semiofficial Fars newsagency reported. Russia has also been active onthe ground, building cooperation between Assadand some of his former enemies. The official Syr-ian government news agency announced earlierthis month that Russian officers met with Kurd-ish officials in northeast Syria to discuss militarycooperation with Assad’s government. Accordingto the report—which the U.K.-based Syrian Obser-

vatory for Human Rights confirmed—Russia hasdeployed 200 troops to the Kurdish-controlledtown of Qamishli on the Turkish border to secure

a military airport for Russian use. At the sametime, the self-proclaimed government of Kurd-ish-held northern Syria, known as the RojavaSelf-Ruled Democratic Administration, openedits first overseas representative office in Moscow.

Much of northern Syria is controlled by the PYD,or Kurdish Democratic Union Party. The PYD hasclose ties to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK,

which has been fighting a 30-year insurgencyagainst Turkey. The Kurds are officially part of

“THE RUSSIANS AREPLAYING A GAME OFROPE-A-DOPE: TELL-ING THEIR OPPONENTTO TALK THEMSELVES

OUT WHILE THEYGO IN FOR THE KILL.”


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PAGE ONE/RUSSIA

NEWSWEEK 0 2 / 2 6 / 20 16

Iraq (which was voted down by Ankara’s parlia-ment). “If...Turkey had been present in Iraq, thecountry would have never have fallen into its cur-rent situation,” Erdogan told reporters. Currently,there was “no need for a similar motion for Syria,”he continued, because “such authority has alreadybeen given” to the Turkish army, if necessary.

Ultimately, though, the game-changer in Syria,

Russian airpower, may keep Turkey out of thequagmire. “In the past five years, there have beenseveral times people thought that Turkey will bedrawn into a military intervention in Syria,” saysAkyol, author of Islam Without Extremes: A Mus-lim Case for Liberty. “Ankara has always opted forcaution. Now, with Russia involved, there is evenmore reason for caution.” Turkey has recentlysigned military alliance agreements with SaudiArabia and Qatar “against common enemies,”but it’s unlikely those countries will intervene mil-itarily to help Sunni rebels without Washington’ssay-so. And despite escalating calls in Washington

to create a “safe zone” in northern Syria with U.S.and Turkish troops, the risks of direct conflict withMoscow are too high for that to happen.

“On September 30, when Russia went intoSyria, [President Barack] Obama said, ‘We willnot fight a proxy war with Russia over Syria,’” says

Landis. “This is our policy, and it will remain so.”Meanwhile, signs are increasing that Syria’s

rebels are crumbling under the onslaught. Thelifting of sanctions on Iran will likely allow Tehranto boost its support for its proxies in Syria and Iraq,and fuel is in desperately short supply in rebel-

held areas of Aleppo, according to local reports.When Aleppo fell to rebels in 2012, many pre-

dicted the end of the Assad regime. Now, aftera war that has claimed more than 250,000 lives,sent more than 4.5 million refugees abroad anddisplaced another 6.5 million within Syria, theroles are reversed. The latest cease-fire, if itholds up, will likely serve as a prelude for thecapitulation of Aleppo to Assad’s forces—andwith it the beginning of the end of the MiddleEast’s bloodiest war in a generation.

the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, whichincludes Arab and Assyrian groups. But the U.S.is leery of giving the PYD too much support forfear of antagonizing its NATO ally Turkey—eventhough the Kurds have shown themselves to bethe most effective, as well as the most moderate,rebel fighters on the ground in both Syria and Iraq.

Syria’s Kurds, says Landis, “are in the businessof winning. They are very interested in takingmore territory around Afrin and Kobani. Theyneed all the help they can get”—including fromthe Russians. “America is a fickle ally.”

Assad may not favor Kurdish independence—his ambassador to the U.N. said in February theKurds should “put ideas of autonomy out of theirminds.” But for Russia, the Kurds are a poten-tially valuable ally. And Moscow’s airpowercould transform the Kurds’ fight against theIslamic State militant group in the same way ithas boosted Assad’s war machine, with dramaticresults for the PYD’s main battlefront againstISIS and the Nusra Front, Al-Qaeda’s franchisein Syria, in the country’s northeast.

The Turks, meanwhile, are horrified by what

Mustafa Akyol, a columnist for the daily Hurri- yet newspaper, called “a perfect disaster for Tur-key”—the triple whammy of a massive influx ofrefugees, a revived Assad regime and an indepen-dent Kurdish area on their border. Could Turkey,with the second largest military in NATO, putboots on the ground to contain all three threats?Russia’s Defense Ministry spokesman, MajorGeneral Igor Konashenkov, warned in early Feb-ruary that he had “significant evidence to suspectTurkey is in the midst of intense preparations for amilitary invasion into Syria.” He cited surveillancepictures of military buildup near the Reyhanli

checkpoint. Konashenkov also said that “mili-tants [in] Aleppo and Idlib are being supplied witharms and fighters from Turkish territory.”

A Turkish invasion remains unlikely, thoughAnkara has considered limited intervention inSyria before: In 2014, it shut off access to You-Tube after leaked audiotapes revealed ministersallegedly discussing how to stage a provocationto justify military action in Syria. In February,Erdogan praised a 2003 plan that would haveestablished a U.S.-Turkish buffer zone in northern

“WE HAVE TAKEN3 MILLION SYRIANS

AND IRAQIS INTOOUR HOME. HOWMANY DID YOU TAKE?”


22/69

TWO

NUMBERS

Year ZIKA

was first

identified

Year EBOLA

was first

identified

NEWSWEEK 0 2 / 2 6 / 2 0 1 6

EBOLA AND ZIKA WERE FOUND LONG AGO. SO WHY ARE WE STILL SO FAR FROM A CURE?

The worldwide threat ofEbola and Zika is new, but these infectious dis-eases have been aroundfor decades. The Ebola virus was discoveredin 1976, in what is nowknown as the DemocraticRepublic of the Congo. And researchers studying yellow fever in Uganda’sZika forest isolated that virus nearly 70 years ago.

In both instances,scientists were intrigued, but the need to studyeach independently wasn’t urgent enough tomerit sufficient funding.Ebola was well-containedin small villages. Zikacaused relativelymild and short-lived

symptoms. This is why,up until these recent out- breaks, researchers stud-ied them in the context oftheir virus categories.

Viruses of the samegenus may display thesame symptoms. Ebolais a filovirus, a genus thatalso includes Marburg; both cause hemorrhagicfever. A Zika infectionlooks a lot like otherflavivirus infections, like West Nile, dengue and yellow fever. But from amolecular standpoint,the variety of virusesin each category is stillslightly different, mean-ing scientists are morelikely to find preventionand treatment options by

focusing on just one virusrather than the entiregroup. But they can’treally do that, becausemoney and manpowergo where the immediateneed exists. “You can’tput a full-court presson every single microbethat’s out there,” says Dr. Anthony Fauci, directorof the National Instituteof Allergy and InfectiousDiseases (NIAID).

But when a viral dis-ease explodes, research-ers reallocate money inexisting grants to focuson it. Until recently,nearly all the funding forflaviviruses went towardresearch for West Nile,dengue and yellow fever,

since Zika was consid-ered “inconsequential,”Fauci notes. But Zika isno longer the redheadedstepchild of flaviviruses.This month, PresidentBarack Obama askedCongress for $1.8 billionto combat it, with $200million to fund an accel-erated vaccine-testingprogram.

The NIAID, Fauci says, will adapt the tools itused to develop a vaccinefor West Nile a few yearsago. “By no means are westarting from scratch,” hesays. He expects to havea vaccine candidate forZika by the summer.

SOURCE: WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION

Old Viruses, New Threats

BY

JESSICA FIRGER

@jessfirger


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NEWSWEEK 02/ 26 / 20 1 6

IN LATE , escalating Chinese threats againstTaiwan prompted President Bill Clinton to stagea show of American support for the beleagueredisland that Beijing’s leaders couldn’t ignore.Clinton sent two aircraft carrier battle groupssteaming into the conflict zone, their heavilyarmed fighter jets poised on deck for takeoff.

One battle group, led by the carrier USS Nimitz ,sailed down the middle of the Taiwan Strait, lessthan 50 miles from the Chinese mainland, whilethe second stood in reserve off Taiwan’s easterncoast. Chinese officials decried what they called“foreign intervention” in their long-standingclaim to Taiwan. But lacking the weapons to

NOT MISSING THE BOAT

A Chinese missile designed to destroy anaircraft carrier from 900 miles away maydemand a change in U.S. military strategy

BY

JONATHAN BRODER

@BroderJonathan


24/69


PAGE ONE/MILITARY

deter the American warships, theyhad little choice but to heed Clin-ton’s show of force and back away.

China’s loss of face in the Taiwancrisis spurred its development of along-anticipated family of anti-shipmissiles unveiled at a military paradein September. One of the missiles,

the Dongfeng-21D, has a maneuver-able warhead that can seek and closein on its target at 10 times the speedof sound, making it almost impos-sible to intercept. According to U.S.naval intelligence, the missile candisable and possibly sink Americancarriers. Another anti-ship missilein the parade, the YJ-12, skims thesurface of the water and then accel-erates to more than twice the speedof sound as it homes in on its target.

With Chinese military officials

warning their American counter-parts of possible clashes in the con-tested waters of the South ChinaSea, some military experts areseriously questioning whether Bei- jing’s new missiles have renderedthe aircraft carriers and their airwings ineffective in the event of amajor conflict with China. With theNavy planning to order a new fleetof expensive carriers, key lawmak-ers are questioning whether that

is wisest investment. “We simplycannot afford to pay $12.9 billionfor a single ship,” says Republican

Senator John McCain of Arizona, chairman ofthe Senate Armed Services Committee.

The Navy doesn’t like any suggestion that itscarriers may be going the way of the tall ship.There is no piece of military hardware moreemblematic of American power than the air-craft carrier. While China, Russia and a fewother countries have one or two smaller carri-ers, none approaches the size or capabilities ofAmerica’s fleet of 10 so-called supercarriers.

These nuclear-powered behemoths, longerthan three football fields, and carrying up to 90warplanes and a crew of 5,000, are seagoingairbases that have projected American power tothe farthest corners of the globe since the end ofWorld War II. They are the symbol of Americannaval power, and the Navy reaffirmed its com-mitment to the carrier force earlier this monthwith a request for continued funding of threenew Ford-class aircraft carriers in the Penta-gon’s $583 billion fiscal 2017 budget proposal.

Yet China’s new missiles—and fresh intel-ligence that Russia, Iran and North Korea areworking on similar weapons—are promptingan unprecedented debate over the future ofcarrier-based warfare. Some skeptics now arguethese iconic ships and their attack aircraft are outof date. Today’s carriers, they note, were builtduring the Cold War to stay far away from enemyterritory yet accommodate heavy, long-rangestrategic bombers like the A-3 Skywarrior, whichcould fly up to 2,000 miles to strike targets deepinside the Soviet Union.

But after the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991,the Navy dropped its requirements for long-range aircraft. Under the assumption that itscarriers could sail unchallenged across theworld’s oceans in a post–Cold War world, the

Navy opted for lighter attack aircraft like the F-18Super Hornet, with a range of no more than 500miles. That approach worked well until a fewyears ago, when China fielded its Dongfeng-21D

missile, with a range of 900 miles that puts U.S.carriers squarely within its kill zone. “We essen-tially missed the boat on our assumptions in the1990s,” says Jerry Hendrix, a retired Navy cap-tain who has studied the role of carriers in battle.

Hendrix, now a defense analyst at theWashington-based Center for a New AmericanSecurity and the leading critic of current carrierdoctrine, argues the Navy should scrap plansto buy the larger Ford-class carriers at a costof around $13 billion each, and instead spend

THE MISSILE’S WAR-HEAD DROPS IN ONITS TARGET VERTICALL

AND AT HYPERSONICSPEED, MAKING IT VIRTUALLY IMPOSSIBLTO INTERCEPT.

+CARRIER KILLER: The Chinesemilitary showedoff its new DF-21Danti-ship ballis-tic missiles at aparade in Sep-tember commem-orating the 70thanniversary ofthe end of WorldWar II.


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NEWSWEEK 0 2 / 2 6 / 20 16

$5 billion each for several smaller carriers thatcould operate safely outside the range of Chi-na’s killer missiles. And instead of current andfuture shorter-range carrier-based aircraft, he’scalling for heavily armed combat drones thatcan fly longer distances. “There’s two decisionsthe Navy should be making right now—get awayfrom the Ford-class design because the ship is

too damn expensive and get us back to some-thing that is cheaper, and buy back range, whichmeans purchasing an aircraft that can actuallyspan the missile’s 900-mile distance.”

+

COMING UP SHORT: Two F-35C Lightning IIwarplanes prepare tolaunch from the USSNimitz. The U.S. Navyplans to buy dozensof the F-35C fighters,but their range is nomore than 650 miles.

The Navy has no such long-range aircraft andno plans to buy one. Over the next few years, itplans to buy dozens of F-35Cs, the carrier-basedvariant of the next-generation stealth fighterthat has been plagued by mechanical problems,production delays and huge cost overruns. Thefirst F-35C squadron is on schedule to be opera-tional by 2018, but the fighters will have a range

of no more than 650 miles—still well within therange of China’s carrier-killer missile.

In what would be a bold and controversial move,Hendrix suggests the Navy dump the troubled


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F-35C variant and replace it with carrier-basedkiller drones that would cost far less and fly muchfarther and longer that the manned F-35Cs. TheNavy, he notes, has an experimental drone thatcan fly 1,500 miles loaded with 4,000 poundsof precision munitions. By enlarging that mod-el’s wingspan and weight, he says, it could carry6,000 pounds of smart munitions and fly 2,000

miles. An unmanned tanker version could refuelthe killer drones in flight, increasing their range.“These are all things that we can afford withinthe budget that we have now,” he says.

At a time when the threat from Chinese anti-ship missiles is growing and Pentagon budgetsare shrinking, Hendrix’s vision of a new carrierforce—outlined in two papers he wrote last yearfor the Center for a New American Security—have drawn considerable attention in defensecircles. But Hendrix and his supporters are upagainst some powerful interests, starting withthe Navy, which defends the capabilities of its

carriers and their air wings. Asked recently by Newsweek if China’s anti-ship missiles had madeU.S. carriers obsolete, Chief of Naval Opera-tions Admiral John Richardson emphaticallyanswered: “No!” He says the Navy’s newest war-ships have advanced missile defense systems tocounter the Chinese threat, as well as sensorsand targeting technology that provide data tocommanders, pilots and ship crews in real time.

“The Navy’s carriers remain relevant in today’sever-changing world due to their flexibility,adaptability and lethality,” says Commander

William Marks, a Navy spokesman.“The aircraft carrier is still the onlymaritime force capable of executingthe full spectrum of military opera-tions to protect our country.”

Bryan McGrath, a retired navalofficer who commanded a destroyer,disputes Hendrix’s claim that thenew Ford-class carriers will be pro-hibitively expensive. For the $13 bil-lion that each new carrier will cost,“you get a nuclear-powered air basethat floats and moves and lasts for 50

years,” he says. “The utility that we get from thoseplatforms is certainly worth the costs that we pay.”

He agrees with Hendrix on the challenge posedby shorter-range carrier-based aircraft. “Jerry isright,” he says. “The airplanes that currently flyoff the aircraft carriers have insufficient rangefor the threat we will face in the next decade.”But he parts company with Hendrix over thesolution. Rather than scrap the F-35C, McGrathproposes making changes to its engine that willgive it greater range. “Do what we’ve done for

70 years, which is to change the weapons systemof the aircraft carrier to meet the threat,” he says.

Hendrix and other defense experts are deeplyskeptical that the Navy has an effective defenseagainst the Dongfeng-21D. The Navy’s defensesystems, they note, are geared toward inter-cepting cruise missiles closing in at a horizon-tal trajectory. After a ballistic launch high intothe atmosphere, the missile’s warhead drops inon its target vertically and at hypersonic speed,making it virtually impossible to intercept. “Ifthere is a way to defend against it, I’m not aware

of it,” Hendrix says.He says there is one more factor that argues

against an expensive new fleet of aircraftcarriers—the unacceptable political cost if oneof them is destroyed. He says current and for-mer administration officials have told him that ifthere were even a 10 percent chance that sendinga carrier into battle would get it sunk or disabled,they would advise the president against it.

“The loss of an aircraft carrier, with images ofa thousand American dead, or just having it dis-abled, with all its airplanes and radars knocked

out and huge gaping holes in it, is such a heavypolitical blow that we probably wouldn’t riskit unless it was for the actual defense of thecontinental United States,” he says. “So we’vecreated an asset that we cannot afford to losebecause it’s become such an iconic symbol ofAmerican power that to have that symbol dam-aged or destroyed would undermine the legiti-macy of America’s role in the world.” And that,he says, is “the calculus that no one in uniformwill talk to you about.”

DEFENSE EXPERTS AREDEEPLY SKEPTICAL THATTHE NAVY HAS AN EFFECTIVDEFENSE AGAINST CHINA’SDONGFENG-21D MISSILE.


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IT’S NOT OFTEN you see the words “Trump isright” on protest banners in Britain, whose Par-liament recently debated banning the Republi-can front-runner from entering the country. Butas the freezing rain drives down on an industrialestate on the outskirts of Birmingham, whatstands out above a huddled mass of silent march-

ers are dozens of iterations of Donald Trump’slurid visage, born aloft and plastered with theslogan. Another popular banner reads, “Protectour children.” A third: “Nazism=Islamism.”

The 200 or so demonstrators trudging downthe road are supporters of PEGIDA, a far-rightGerman group whose name is an acronym forPatriotic Europeans Against the Islamization ofthe West. Founded in October 2014 in Dresden,the group hosts weekly rallies—which it refersto as “evening strolls”—for locals opposed toMuslim immigration to Germany, sometimesattracting as many as 25,000 supporters. But on

February 6, the group went international for thefirst time: Besides holding a rally in Dresden,affiliate groups staged protests across Europe,in the Netherlands, France, the Czech Repub-lic, the Republic of Ireland and the U.K., amongother countries.

Europe’s refugee crisis has boosted PEGIDA’spopularity. More than a million migrants andrefugees entered European Union countries in2015, many of them Muslims from Syria, Iraq andAfghanistan. Governments have struggled to

stem the flow and to cope with the large numberof new arrivals. Far-right and anti-immigrationparties argue that the influx is a danger for a hostof reasons, from pressure on public services tomigrants’ sexual mores. Anti-immigrant pop-ulist groups like the Dutch Freedom Party andthe Sweden Democrats have surged in support.

The former is leading the polls, while the latterenjoyed a spell in the fall as the largest party andnow hovers around third place. (Although grow-ing in popularity, neither has ever commandedmajority support in its country.)

Now PEGIDA and its affiliates want to builda street movement that extends beyond thenational boundaries that tend to constrainEuropean far-right groups. At a conference inthe Czech Republic in January, delegates fromanti-Islam movements across Europe, includingseveral PEGIDA groups and the Czech groupBloc Against Islam, signed a memorandum

swearing “to protect Europe, the freedom ofspeech and other civic freedoms as well as ourway of life together.”

Leading the charge in Britain is Tommy Rob-inson, founder and former leader of notori-ous far-right street group the English DefenceLeague (EDL). Robinson, whose real name isStephen Yaxley-Lennon, is now heading upPEGIDA’s fledgling U.K. group. Sitting in apub on the outskirts of Luton, a town north-west of London, he tells Newsweek he has been

MADE IN GERMANY

An anti-Islam organizationfrom Dresden is exporting its

hate to cities across Europe

BY

JOSH LOWE

@JeyyLowe


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misunderstood. “I’m not far-right. I’m just opposed to Islam.I believe it’s backward and it’sfascist,” Robinson, 33, says. “Thecurrent refugee crisis is nothingto do with refugees. It’s a Mus-lim invasion of Europe.”

Robinson has a lot of work todo to repair his reputation. Fromthe group’s founding in 2009to 2013, Robinson and the EDLstaged semiregular demonstrations in severalBritish towns and cities. The EDL leadershipalways said it was running a peaceful, democraticprotest movement opposed only to Islamic ide-ology. But whatever its stated intentions, angrycrowds, often drunk, would turn up at the group’smarches and cause havoc. Videos posted by the

Guardian in 2010 showed young men attackingpolice at an EDL rally in the town of Stoke-on-Trent. One video showed supporters elsewhereshouting racist abuse about people of South Asianorigin. EDL protests, which sometimes drew asmany as 2,000 supporters, were often marked byviolent clashes with anti-fascist groups.

“EVENING STROLLS”—FOR LOCALS OPPOSED TOMUSLIM IMMIGRATION—SOMETIMES ATTRACT AS

MANY AS 25,000 SUPPORTERS

+

CROSS PURPOSES: PEGIDA and a Czech

right-wing populist group organized an

anti-Islam protest inPrague in February.


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NEWSWEEK 0 2 / 2 6 / 20 16

Robinson left the EDL in October 2013, sayingthat its chaotic demonstrations were “no longerproductive” and that he had concerns about thedangers of far-right extremism. “While I wantto lead the revolution against Islamist ideology,I don’t want to lead the revolution against Mus-lims,” he told the BBC in 2013. But when he sawPEGIDA’s more disciplined demonstrations inDresden—the group bans alcohol at its marchesand walks in silence—he was impressed. Hecondemns the use of violence during protestsand says he wants to “show the British public

this is an organization for you.”Another of PEGIDA’s leaders in Britain, Anne

Marie Waters, is also keen to present its argu-ments as almost moderate. “It is what we share asEuropeans, as Westerners. Democratic civiliza-tion, that is what we’re there to defend,” she says.

Analysts say this approach could pay off.“They immediately make themselves lookmore legitimate,” says Daphne Halikiopoulou,an associate professor of politics at ReadingUniversity who specializes in the far right. But,

she says, the movement will become successfulonly when it attracts members of the middleclass, ordinary people who feel insecure butalso want to know that “it’s not going to be hoo-ligans getting drunk and breaking things up.”

If those are the parameters for success, theU.K.’s PEGIDA chapter has had a promisingstart. The march in Birmingham on February 6was peaceful. Former EDL members were pres-ent but appeared to like the new strategy. FrankDay, who says he was arrested three times atEDL rallies, tells Newsweek, “There’s nothing

more impressive than silence in the face ofhysteria.” Most attendees largely marched insilence, then politely applauded speeches fromRobinson, Waters and the party’s third leader,Paul Weston. They also appeared to be follow-ing the alcohol ban.

Coming over as respectable is important toPEGIDA groups throughout Europe. An orga-nizer for PEGIDA Netherlands, who calls him-self Edwin Utrecht to protect his identity afterreceiving threats, says police crackdowns on

+

KNOW YOUR RIGHT

WINGS: Robinson,a PEGIDA leader inBritain, says he’strying to turn backa Muslim invasionof Europe.


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demonstrations could put off people who aren’thard-liners. “We want to have the normal peo-ple on the streets,” he says.

Knowing the EDL’s history of violence, thepolice are taking no chances. At the February6 rally in Birmingham, there was a large policepresence that included officers armed with trun-cheons and helmets. They ensured that a left-wing

counterdemonstration remained several hundredmeters away from the PEGIDA march route.

During Robinson’s speech, one attendee wasoverheard complaining about the remote loca-tion and the quiet nature of the demonstration.Scuffles broke out at some of the other protestsin Europe that day. More than a dozen peoplewere arrested in Calais, France; in Prague,around 20 masked assailants attacked a centerthat collects donations for refugees.

So what exactly do these PEGIDA affili-ate groups want? At this point, there’s little inthe way of a formal Pan-European policy. The

groups share a pessimistic view of the scale andlong-term impact of immigration to Europe fromMuslim countries. Robinson, whose hometownof Luton has an unusually large Mus-lim population for the U.K., styleshimself as a kind of prophet. “I’veseen what’s coming,” he says, refer-ring to Luton’s reputation as a hot-bed for racial tensions and Islamistextremism. (A Luton-based cell wasallegedly linked to the 2005 LondonUnderground bombings.)

The British PEGIDA leadership en-dorses a Trump-style ban on Muslimimmigration to Britain. “Deliberatelyimporting people without checking what theirbackgrounds are, [people] who are in their ownreligious and political terms sworn enemies ofthe West,” says Weston. “What on earth is theWest doing inviting any of them in at all?” He alsosays he’d like to see a ban on all Muslims hold-ing public office in Britain.

Robinson, meanwhile, is keen on segregat-ing Britain’s male prisons into Muslim and non-Muslim inmates; he has alleged that during his

own prison stay, Muslim inmates threatened andphysically assaulted him. He also wants to closedown any Islamic courts operating in Britain. (Nolegally binding Sharia courts exist in Britain, butan estimate in 2009 by British think tank Civitassaid there were at least 85 Sharia bodies offer-ing religious guidance, family mediation andother services.) Rather than try to prevent British jihadis from leaving for Syria and Iraq, Robinsonwould cheerily wave them off: “Send them all,mate. I’d be chartering jets for ’em.”

Shot through PEGIDA’S ideology is a deepdistrust of elites, whose “rules,” according tothe declaration signed in the Czech Republic,“have brought only poverty, unemployment,corruption, chaos and moral collapse.” In hisnew autobiography, Enemy of the State, Robin-son recounted his own experiences of perceivedinjustice at the hands of the authorities. “Myoverarching crime, at least in the eyes of theBritish establishment, has been to be a patriot,”he wrote at the beginning of an account thatchronicles his convictions for traveling to the

U.S. on someone else’s passport and for mort-gage fraud. Robinson argues that the legal sys-tem has treated him more harshly than other

people because of his political beliefs. He is fac-ing another charge, of assault, which he denies.His trial is set to begin April 14 .

One quiet protest does not make a revolution,or even a Trump-sized political movement. ButPEGIDA hopes that a new wave of anti-Islamdissent will swing the political conversation itsway and attract the moderate supporters that atraditional far-right group could never hope togain. It plans to return to the Birmingham loca-

tion on a monthly basis, starting in April.Robinson says that in 10 years mainstream

politicians will be implementing the ideas heand others like him are calling for. Already in2016, Denmark’s parliament has approved pro-posals to confiscate refugees’ valuables to payfor their stay, and German Chancellor AngelaMerkel is trying to make it easier to deportasylum-seekers who commit crimes. The likesof Robinson and PEGIDA are still on the fringes,but their voices will likely get only louder.

“I’M NOT FAR-RIGHT. I’M JUST OPPOSED TO ISLAM.I BELIEVE IT’S BACKWARD AND IT’S FASCIST.”


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NEWSWEEK 02/ 26 / 20 1 6

THE WEIGHIN before one of the Clash of theClans fights on February 5 at the Regency Hotel inDublin looked like the prelude to any other low-level boxing match. Shaky amateur footage fromthe event shows the crowd’s favorite, 25-year-oldJamie Kavanagh, stepping down from the scales.He is wearing blue briefs emblazoned with

the Superman logo. Suddenly, gunshots erupt,drowning out the heavy metal music blaring inthe background. Kavanagh, along with otherspectators, runs across the room in fear. Outsidethe venue, a child is heard saying: “Daddy, helpme. Daddy, Daddy, what was that?”

At least six men stormed the event that day,shooting dead a 33-year-old man named DavidByrne and injuring two other people beforefleeing. As police began investigating, the BBCreceived a surprising claim of responsibility. OnFebruary 8, a call came in to the British broad-caster. The man identified himself by using a

code word. He was a spokesman, he said, forthe Continuity Irish Republican Army (CIRA),a small militant group that has not accepted the1998 peace agreement that largely brought anend to the decades-long conflict in NorthernIreland. The spokesman said the group targetedByrne as payback for his alleged involvement inthe murder of another republican, Alan Ryan,in September 2012. “This will not be an isolatedincident,” the man told the BBC. “The Continu-ity IRA will carry out further military operations.”

The news of a call to the BBC after the assas-sination of an alleged political enemy wasfamiliar to many British and Irish citizens. Suchevents were all too common throughout the1970s, 1980s and 1990s, the decades in whichthe conflict over Northern Ireland’s status wasat its most bloody. More than 3,500 people were

killed during what became known as the Trou-bles. Many people who watched the footage ofthe chaos at the Dublin weigh-in had assumedthat the main Provisional IRA and its splintergroups and opponents were long since finished.Then, on the same day as the CIRA’s claim ofresponsibility, came another act of violence:Four men entered the Dublin house of EddieHutch Sr. (the brother of Gerry Hutch, a formercareer criminal) and shot him dead in an appar-ent revenge attack. The CIRA immediatelymade a second statement, contradicting its ear-lier one. “We have absolutely no involvement

in criminal feuds,” it said. “We see the falseclaim that the CIRA were involved in this actas another attempt to tarnish the name of theorganization.”

There were clues that this claim was true. Thevictims—Byrne and Hutch Sr.—had links to twowell-known criminals, convicted robber GerryHutch and convicted drug dealer Christy Kina-han. Last August, Hutch’s nephew Gary Hutchwas shot dead at an apartment complex inSpain’s Costa del Sol. Gary Hutch had allegedly

A WOLF IN WOLF’S CLOTHING

Did Dublin gangsters try to foolpolice by pretending to kill in

the name of a united Ireland?

BY

MIRREN GIDDA

@MirrenGidda


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ON GUARD: Ireland’s Gardaí

stepped up patrolsin north inner-city

Dublin after twomurders in four

days, which weresuspected to be

the result of gang violence.+

worked for Kinahan, who lives in Spain. Byrnewas known to police as an associate of Kinahan.And Gary Hutch may not have been the only tar-get: Kinahan’s son was also at the weigh-in, buthe managed to escape. A statement from theIrish police said that the February 8 murder ofHutch’s brother, Eddie, might have been retal-iation for the boxing match shootout. Politics

does not seem to have been a primary concernof any of these men.

In the immediate aftermath of the CIRA state-ment on the shooting, one thing didn’t appear toadd up: the location. The CIRA tends to carry outits attacks in Northern Ireland, which it believesshould be part of a united Ireland. It was there,on March 9, 2009, that the group carried out itslast high-profile attack, shooting dead police-man Stephen Carroll in County Armagh. Thatkilling seemed to be part of the republicandissidents’ ongoing, if spasmodic, campaignagainst representatives of the British state. (In

March 2014, the group tried and failed to killa policeman in Belfast using a car bomb.) Butthe murder of Byrne, in the Republic of Irelandrather than the British province to the north, didnot quite fit that political framework. And mean-while, Ryan was not even a CIRA member. Thelater killing of Hutch Sr. suggests that the recentkillings are likely more a battle between gangs

than anything to do with politics.Ireland’s problems with gang violence

achieved widespread prominence because of

“THEY ARE NOTTHE IRA. THE IRA AREGONE, AND THEIR WEAPONS ARE GONE.”


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calling itself the Continuity IRA has claimedresponsibility for the attack at the RegencyHotel,” said Adams, who has always denied hisown rumored senior leadership role in the Pro-visional IRA. “They are not the IRA. The IRAare gone, and their weapons are gone.”

In recent years, there has been a surge indissident republican violence, particularly in

Northern Ireland. (There are at least two othersplinter groups that do not accept the peacedeal.) From September 2014 to October 2015,Northern Irish police recorded 15 bombingattacks, seven of which targeted police. Ana-lysts fear that this year could see more violence.April 24, 2016, marks the centenary of the Eas-ter Rising, a five-day rebellion in 1916 againstBritish rule in Ireland. Security experts havevoiced concerns that the approaching anni-versary could trigger an increase in dissidentrepublican-led attacks.

These fears may explain why many initially

believed the caller who claimed responsibilityfor the CIRA was part of the group. Some thinkthe caller was a criminal trying to send policedown a blind alley. This much, however, isknown: Republican groups have long had con-nections to Irish and Northern Irish criminal

gangs. “The link between organized crime andterrorism in Ireland is stronger than one mightthink,” says Andy Oppenheimer, author of IRA:The Bombs and the Bullets. “The terrorists havealways had connections to criminal gangs.Every terrorist group has to have a supply chain

of weapons, materials and money.”In the days after Byrne’s death, Dublin

remained on a state of high alert. In south Dub-lin, Kinahan’s turf, the city council asked peopleconnected to the convicted criminal to moveout, fearing that the cycle of revenge may con-tinue. Armed police patrolled the streets, withcheckpoints manned across the capital. Therecent killings may turn out to have nothing todo with sectarian violence in the north—but fornow Dublin has its own troubles.

the work and death of Veronica Guerin, aninvestigative reporter for an Irish newspaper,the Sunday Independent. Guerin wrote aboutseveral of Dublin’s criminals, including GerryHutch. On January 30, 1995, the day after herarticle on him was published, Guerin openedher front door to find a gunman before her. Theman shot her in the leg. A year later, on June 26,1996, a man riding a motorcycle shot and killedher as she waited in her car at a red light on theoutskirts of Dublin. Guerin’s murder shockedmany in Ireland and led to the government cre-

ating the Criminal Assets Bureau, a unit withinthe police service that identifies funds obtainedthrough criminal conduct.

As the 10th anniversary of Guerin’s deathapproaches, Ireland’s police, the Gardaí, seem nocloser to ending the gang violence. And a Gardasource, who asked to remainanonymous, tells Newsweek thatit does not believe the dissidentrepublicans had anything to dowith this current feud.

The CIRA emerged in 1986

following a split in the politicalparty Sinn Féin, which analystshave long considered the politi-cal wing of the IRA. (The partyis polling in third place aheadof Ireland’s general election onFebruary 26.) In 1986, Sinn Féinvoted to end its policy of political abstention-ism and take its elected seats in the Irish Par-liament. Dissenting party members formed anew party they called the Republican Sinn Féin.The Council on Foreign Relations, a U.S.-basedthink tank, says members of that new party then

set up the CIRA as its military wing—an allega-tion the party denies. The CIRA didn’t begin itsattacks until 1994, when the Provisional IRAagreed to a cease-fire.

Despite its somewhat marginal status withinthe broader republican movement, the CIRAconsiders itself the rightful heir to the origi-nal IRA. But Sinn Féin has disavowed it. Priorto CIRA retracting its confession, Sinn Féin’spresident, Gerry Adams, issued a statementabout the shooting. “I understand a group

FROM SEPTEMBER 2014 TOOCTOBER 2015, NORTHERN

IRISH POLICE RECORDED 15BOMBING ATTACKS, SEVEN OF WHICH TARGETED POLICE.


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Over 400,000 people have crossed the Mediterranean

during 2015, undertaking unthinkable journeys from

countries like Syria, that have been torn apart by war

and persecution.

These families are fleeing for their lives, risking the

treacherous sea and land crossings. Many having

no choice but to board over-crowded, flimsy boats

to give their children a chance of safety. For some,

this desperate journey will be their last. Almost3,000 people have drowned trying to reach safety

in Europe. The crossing is dangerous but for

many families making this journey is the only

choice they feel they have.

UNHCR is on the ground providing life-savingassistance but we need your help.

You can help provide shelter, food, water and medical

care to vulnerable families arriving in Europe.

With so many in need and as more continue to make

this journey, your donation today is vital and will help

UNHCR to save lives and protect families who have

been forced to flee their homes.

$120 can provide emergency rescuekits containing a thermal blanket,towel, water, high nutrient energy bar,dry clothes and shoes, to 4 survivors.

PLEASE GIVE WHAT YOU CAN TODAY.

VISIT DONATE.UNHCR.ORG

“It was dangerous to do the crossing but do you know what?Compared to everything we have witnessed, all the things happening

at home, nothing could be as bad. We knew we had to try.”

Mahmoud, father and Syrian Refugee

REFUGEE CRISISIN EUROPEFAMILIES FORCED TO FLEE THEIR HOMES


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EL CHAPO’S

NARCO

MAFIAWHAT MEXICO’S TOPDRUG LORD HAS IN COMMONWITH MICHAEL CORLEONEAND TONY SOPRANO

BY ROBERTO SAVIANO


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NEWSWEEK 0 2 / 26 / 20 16

+

LEADIN: Mint fugiti tem dolorum eum inctempore vit fuga. Fuga. Ut resciae soloritem ipsapit, sam eosdolupta sae sit es doluptas ea que perrum ipsaepre

est, offic tenimet aspel et que odit libus.

A VIDEO showing the hideout of Joaquín Guz-mán Loera (aka “El Chapo”), filmed October 6 bythe Mexican navy and broadcast by the Mexicannewspaper El Universal , is incredible for its details.Films shot by law enforcement in the hideouts of

mafia bosses are usually very similar—there’s greatexcitement, even when, as on this occasion, securityforces suspect that the boss and those who helpedhim while he was on the run are long gone. There’sthe care taken not to touch anything: That’s whythey usually enter with video cameras rolling, so thateverything is documented; so that nothing, even thesmallest clue, can be removed or misplaced. Youcan always hear the breath of the person behind thecamera, who is usually filming with one hand andholding his weapon with the other.

The video of the unsuccessful raid on El Chapo’s

hideout three months before his capture opens withan aerial shot of Las Piedrosas, a town in the Mexi-can mountain range called Sierra Madre Occiden-tal. Then it cuts to the events on the ground: Armedmen come out of a helicopter, hunting for something.When they get inside a one-story building in the mid-dle of a clearing, we can see a spartan kitchen, spartan

like the rest of the dwelling. And then a room withraw plaster walls, and a clothes rack with brightly col-ored shirts, a dozen of them. The first, closest to thedoor, seems to be the exact one El Chapo had wornonly four days earlier, during an interview with actor

Sean Penn for Rolling Stone. (The brand is Barabas.)The flat-screen TV on the wall, along with the shirts,seems surreal in such simple surroundings.

And then we see two beds made of concrete, oneof which is covered with a dark sheet. On that bed,there is a pale duvet, a blue backpack, some toiletpaper and my book about the global drug trade:

ZeroZeroZero, a significant part of which is devotedto Mexico and, therefore, to El Chapo. To his rise,to his business endeavors and to his spectacularcriminal career, but also to his cartel’s internal

+

THE GREAT ESCAPE: El Chapo humiliated the Mexi-can government this past July by escaping froma maximum-security jail via a 0.7-mile-long tunnel,30 feet underground, that ended at this building.


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struggles and to the need for a successor.El Chapo’s prison breakouts don’t surprise me

as much as his arrests, which seem to owe more tothe internal demands of the Sinaloa cartel than tothe investigative work of the Mexican police. In thepast few years, while the boss has been in and out ofprison, the cartel hasn’t suffered significant upheavalbecause in its upper ranks a strong,

unyielding and much more discreetleader remained: Ismael “El Mayo”Zambada, the brain and, most likely,new leader of the organization. Thecommand certainly will not be passedon to El Chapo’s sons, Iván Archivaldoand Jesús Alfredo, who seem to bevictims of exhibitionism with no eco-nomic vision, traits that are a poor fitfor a mafia boss. Fond of luxury, nicecars and beautiful women, they use

social media to send threatening messages to thegovernment and to express their blustering desire toshow off. However, they appear to have more follow-ers on Twitter than in the organization.

In this context, El Chapo’s arrests and escapesseem like a theatrical spectacle, the plot of whichwe must strive to interpret beyond the government’sTwitter proclamations.

MAFIOSO READING LIST

WHEN EL CHAPO was captured in January and theOctober video was released, I was in Italy, whereI am guarded at all times because of threats to mylife over my first book, Gomorrah, about the ItalianMafia. Italy’s Arma dei Carabinieri (military police),who keep close track of anything that involves mysecurity, woke me up in the middle of the night totell me about the film.

I admit that my first reaction was surprise. WasEl Chapo in such a hurry to get away that he didn’ttouch anything, or did he want to leave clues behind?

I didn’t wonder about it much, but I’ve heard a greatrange of hypotheses about why my book was there.One theory concerns my appearance on MexicanTV: In interviews after El Chapo’s previous capture inFebruary 2014, I had pointed out the pressing need toextradite him to the United States. Perhaps his lawyerprocured the book to offer him further informationabout me and what I had written about him.

Some people say he was worried about the ZeroZeroZero TV series, a French-Italian joint ven-ture that is currently in the writing stage and dueto air in 2018. Others say the book belonged to his

son, who had seen my interview on CNN. Otherhypotheses range from speculation that Penn gaveit to him to the absurd suggestion that El Chapo wasa source for my book.

Regardless of the theories, I felt as though mywork had been sullied, as though it had attracted theattention of the wrong person. El Chapo knows ElChapo’s life. He knows cocaine’s power. He doesn’tneed me to explain those things to him. My bookwas directed at others, and yet I had to once againcontemplate the natural interest all bosses havein knowing and controlling what is said and writ-

ten about them. And not only that—I

also had to account for the habit offugitive bosses to read, to keep bookswith them, to study, to listen to classi-cal music. Fiction has accustomed usto the idea of mafiosi as criminal ani-mals, mostly uneducated, but that’snever been the case, and today, morethan ever, it’s not the case.

Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hun-dred Years of Solitude and a book byItalo Calvino were found in the bun-

FICTION HASACCUSTOMED USTO THE IDEA OF

MAFIOSI AS CRIMINALANIMALS, MOSTLY

UNEDUCATED. THAT’SNEVER BEEN THE CASE.


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ker of Pasquale Condello, boss of Italy’s ’Ndrang-heta mob, and Camorra boss Francesco Schiavone,known as Sandokan, had dozens of essays on Napo-leon. Cosa Nostra boss Pietro Aglieri read onlytheological works, favoring Saint Augustine. TheCamorrista Raffaele Cutolo had Hobbes, Plato’s

Republic and Hitler’s Mein Kampf in his cell.Mafia bosses are experienced businessmen who

read, examine, study, analyze and try to use theinformation circulating about them to construct

a twin narrative. On the one hand, it must presentthem to civil society as men who have tons of womenand money and are forced into criminal choices bythe world’s iniquity. On the other hand, it must givea forceful and unequivocal message to their mem-bers and rivals alike: I am the strongest and mostbrutal. I punish and seek revenge. They write about mymonstrosity, so fear me.

That’s why, when approaching a project dealingwith criminal power, the first task of a journalist,screenwriter and even a director is to read. One

must study not only criminal history but also, and

above all, the ways in which mafias have learned tocommunicate with their members and with the restof the world. Because mafias do communicate, con-tinually, utilizing the most popular channels, includ-ing social media, to create consensus, to legitimizethemselves and to terrorize.

It’s no surprise that El Chapo was thinking abouta film to tell his story; it’s no surprise that he wantedto meet Sean Penn, a famous Hollywood actor. Thiswas not about vanity but about his need to come outin the open, to tell his story, to send a strong signal:

+

EASY RIDER: In July’s escape, El Chapo droppedthrough a hole in the shower of his cell, right, and

rode a motorbike on rails through the tunnel. Hisengineers flew to Germany to learn tunnel building.


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I’m alive. I’m here. I’m not hiding like a rat. I’m thestrongest. Bosses want movies about themselves notbecause they think they can improve their image butbecause they know it is the only way tomake others clearly perceive them as thereal main characters of this world. In anarticle, or during a trial, a boss is reducedto only one dimension. But in a film or a

TV series, even when the protagonist is amurderer, a criminal, he may neverthe-less be observed from multiple points ofview. Michael Corleone, Tony Sopranoand Tony Montana are all lead characterswho thrill audiences because they arecomplicated, strong and vulnerable.

When Rolling Stone published Penn’sinterview with El Chapo, the reactions were imme-diate. The first and most common was annoyance:What does Sean Penn have to do with the Mexicanmafia? Why him? Why not a journalist or writer whoworks on these issues? And why did Mexican actress

Kate del Castillo arrange the meeting? Why didn’t alawyer act as mediator? El Chapo’s desire to standout and be interviewed and the plans for a film allsuggest an apparently vain man who is more likely tofollow his whims than to take care of business deals.

And yet to anyone who read the interview, the realmotive for the choice is clear: El Chapo did not wanta difficult interlocutor. Even at the risk of seemingridiculous, he wanted to tell his story, to talk withoutbeing contradicted and without having to respondto sensitive questions about the organization of theSinaloa Cartel, his assets or the code he lives by.

If you asked me whether I would have interviewedEl Chapo while he was a fugitive, I would respond,“Maybe yes, if I had had the real chance to do sowithout being used as a channel for messages.”Penn’s error was not in doing the interview, nor wasit that he refrained from judgment. It was arrivingunprepared, unable to ask complex questions. It wasa lack of awareness.

And that lack of awareness also prevented himfrom understanding that joining the ranks of writ-ers who take on mafia stories doesn’t make you abetter person. It doesn’t grant you professionalrecognition or personal prestige. On the contrary,

it closes doors, and it exposes you to constant criti-cisms, not the least of which is that of speculating,exaggerating and inventing.

CUTTING DEALS WITH BEASTS

THE REALITY of the global drug trade is so complexand extreme that it sometimes seems unbelievable.Today, Mexico is the center of this world, and ElChapo is its most famous boss. He is living proofthat calling the Mexican cartels “narcos” is inaccu-rate. They are mafias. The difference is not always

clear to those reading the news, but it can be clar-ified like this: Gangsters are motivated by money;mafiosi are driven to construct a system of power

(in which money is only one tool).Understanding the difference is an

important step toward grasping why ElChapo is interested in knowing what theworld says, thinks and writes about him,

as well as why the interview granted toPenn held immense value for him. Whyhe was interested in producing a film,something that might have compromisedhis ability to remain on the lam. Why,through his lawyer, he had asked PatrickRadden Keefe to collaborate on a biogra-phy. The author and journalist refused,

and, writing in The New Yorker , he reflected on afundamental point: He needed the freedom to beable to talk about the man Joaquín Guzmán Loeraand not about El Chapo—that is, about the myth.

This distinction is important, especially with

respect to the role the United States could, but doesnot, have in the fight against organized crime. Oftengovernments are moved to act by pressure from pub-lic opinion, but in the U.S. public opinion is cluelesswhen it comes to understanding this criminal phe-nomenon. Americans have a partial vision of mafiasand drug trafficking because in the U.S., unlike Mex-ico or Italy, they don’t kill journalists, they don’t killpriests, they don’t kill judges. And this creates a pub-lic perception of the mafia as an organization that ismerely theatrical, one that doesn’t present a threatto democracy or hold power over life and death.

EL CHAPO’S SONS

APPEAR TO HAVE

MORE FOLLOWERSON TWITTER

THAN IN THE

ORGANIZATION.

THE FUGITIVE: Italian author Roberto Saviano hasbeen under police protection since going under-

cover in his hometown of Naples and the surround-ing area to write about the ‘Ndrangheta.

+


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The biggest mistake you can make is to believethat mafia bosses are simply war machines or char-acters of folklore, because in doing so you under-estimate them. The criminal economy isa winning economy; the drug trade totalsmore than $300 billion a year worldwide, sothese bosses inhabit the very top of the pyr-amid. In the United States, the bloodshed

is nothing like that on Mexico’s scale; thekilling is mostly internal, but the drug lordspollute the economic system:

In 2012, banking giant HSBC agreed topay a fine of $1.92 billion for money laun-dering linked to drug cartels. Between2007 and 2008, HSBC Mexico moved $7billion to the American branch of the bank, a largepart of which came from the Sinaloa cartel.

In 2009, Antonio Maria Costa, executive directorof the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime,said there were clear signs that during the globalfinancial crisis many banks were saved thanks to liq-

uid capital from drug trafficking.In 2010, Wachovia Bank agreed to pay the U.S.

federal authorities $160 million (the result of for-feiture and a fine) for failing to apply the properanti-money-laundering protocols and allowingtransactions linked to drug trafficking. Wachovia,

like HSBC, was used by the Sinaloa cartel to laun-der hundreds of millions of dollars.

The drug lords’ goal is to reinvest drug traffickingrevenue in legal activities. And the Ameri-can banking system is completely defense-less against this aggression.

Additionally, there is a direct linkbetween the survival of Central and South

American drug cartels and the UnitedStates’ enforcement strategy. Consider thehistory of El Mayo’s son, who, in contrastto El Chapo’s offspring, seems to be theone with the characteristics of a mafiosochief. His story is worth knowing preciselybecause it concerns the United States.

Up to his arrest in 2009, Vicente Zambada Niebla,known as “El Vicentillo” (“Little Vincent”), was aprominent member of the Sinaloa cartel until he wasextradited to the U.S. in 2010 to face drug traffickingcharges. Once there, he started making devastatingstatements. For example, he talked about the exis-

tence, since the end of the 1990s, of a deal betweenthe Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) andthe Sinaloa cartel in which the anti-drug agencyallegedly guaranteed immunity to the cartel’s leadersin exchange for information about their rivals.

Zambada’s trial was delayed multiple times, and

SEAN PENN’S

ERROR WAS NOT

IN DOING THE

INTERVIEW.

IT WAS ARRIVING

UNPREPARED.


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in the end he negotiated a plea bargain, pleadingguilty and receiving a reduction in his sentence

(which could be cut to as little as 10 years, com-pared with a life sentence) in exchange for not con-testing a forfeiture judgment of more than $1.37billion and pledging to collaborate with U.S. author-ities. His story about the deal brokered in the ’90snever convinced me in its entirety, but if the DEAdid strike an immunity deal with Zambada and theSinaloa cartel, it would mean the U.S. essentiallyagreed to allow the cartel to operate undisturbed inMexico as long as it was subdued on U.S. soil. Thisis the kind of flawed logic known as the “poisonedwell”—that is, we poison the wells in Mexico to

obtain clean water in the U.S.The events surrounding Little Vincent’s stay inthe U.S. demand careful reflection on the futureof El Chapo if he is extradited. First of all, evenif his lawyers don’t put up a fight, the extraditionwill take at least six months, a period during whichMexico certainly wouldn’t be the most secure placefor guarding a criminal of his caliber: He couldescape again, or he could fall victim to an internalfeud behind bars. Then, if he was extradited, theUnited States would have to prove itself capableof handling El Chapo, granting him a fair trial andkeeping him secure in prison.

Even more important would be to prevent himcontinuing to rule the cartel from a prison cell. U.S.authorities would also have to resist the temptationof doing a deal, of pursuing domestic peace at theexpense of combating drug trafficking in Mexico.It won’t be easy, but it is essential to avoid makingsuch a pact with El Chapo, to understand that a lifeof crime, a life on the run, a life spent trusting no oneand always being ready to sacrifice anyone, includingone’s own children, transforms a man into somethingextremely dangerous and decidedly inhuman.

THE END OF WHAT?

IMMENSE POWER, infinite assets: All that is over forEl Chapo, at least for now. In January, another videowas released, this time filmed in another of his hide-outs. A video camera shows us the places where theMexican boss spent his final moments of liberty. He’snot in the shot. In the shot, there are armed men,weapons firing, shouts, heavy breathing and con-

fused excitement. Again. The video camera freneti-cally darts around to show all of the exits; nothing canbe left to chance. And then another video, very short:A bare-chested El Chapo is transferred from a car tothe helicopter that will bring him back to prison.

The Sinaloa cartel’s No. 1 man is once again incaptivity. We don’t know for how long, but we canfollow the moves made by his cartel, which mustreorganize, and quickly. Who will succeed El Chapo?His right-hand man El Mayo? And will El Chapo’ssons sit around and watch that happen,d or will theybegin a bloody feud?

And what can we do? What is our role in all of this?

To observe, to be vigilant, to pay attention and tonever quit asking questions and looking for answers.To insist that everything be brought into the spot-light because it’s in the shadows, in the gray areas,where the most terrible pacts are signed.

ROBERTO SAVIANO is the author of Gomorrah, about

the Neapolitan Mafia, and ZeroZeroZero, about the global

cocaine trade. Since the publication ofGomorrah in 2006, he

has lived under police protection because of threats to his life

by the Camorra. This article was translated by Kim Ziegler.

+THE DEPARTED: Six months after El Chapo slippedout of the Altiplano prison, he was recaptured aftera raid on a compound in Los Mochis, in Sinaloa. Heslipped out but was caught on a highway nearby.


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INSIDE JOBS

B E R N

I E

S A N

D

E R S


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LOOK AT HOW BERNIE SANDERS AND HILLARY CLINTON WORKED CONGRESS, AND YOU’LL

FIND THEY’RE A LOT MORE ALIKE THAN THEY BOTH WANT YOU TO THINK

Ph ot og raph s by M. SCOTT BRAUER

by EMILY CADEI


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and Bernie Sanders was on the Senate floor inveighing against the financialbailout known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, in October2008. “The masters of the universe, those brilliant Wall Street insiders whohave made more money than the average American can even dream of,have brought our financial system to the brink of collapse,” Sanders railed

in his now-familiar Brooklyn accent, in which jobs becomes jawbs and dol-lars sounds like dah-llahs.

Now “these multimillion-ahhs,” he continued, “are demanding that themiddle class...pick up the pieces that they broke!”

As Sanders spoke, a young aide behind him propped up posters featur-ing sinister-looking close-ups of select fat cats. Treasury Secretary HenryPaulson (“Goldman Sachs rewarded him with a $35 million bonus in2005,” the caption read) and Richard Fuld, the former CEO of LehmanBrothers (“$354 million in total compensation over the past five years”)were just two of those singled out.

Sanders’s colleague, Hillary Clinton, came to the floor the same day,more somber than the Vermont senator, less theatrical and brandishing

no posters. “The costs of inaction are far too great,” the New York Demo-crat said in defense of TARP, explaining more than blaming. “Essentially,what we are doing here, in an intangible way, is restoring trust and confi-dence and, in a very tangible way, helping to restore credit.”

THE

FINANCIALSYSTEM WAS IN A MELTDOWN,

as a “doer.” Pressed at the first Democraticdebate, in Las Vegas, on whether she is reallya progressive or more of a moderate, Clintonresponded with a none-too-subtle diss: “I’m aprogressive. But I’m a progressive who likes toget things done.”

Their differences on key votes have alreadybecome campaign fodder. Clinton has tried to

make the case that Sanders isn’t the consistentliberal he’s playing in the primary, highlightinghis vote against a 2006 immigration reform billthat Latino groups favored and Clinton sup-ported. In 1993, it was the Vermont “socialist”who voted against the Brady Act mandating afive-day waiting period for handgun purchasesto enable background checks. Clinton wasn’t inCongress at the time, but her husband, PresidentBill Clinton, signed the bill into law.

Sanders counters by noting that Clinton votedto authorize the Iraq War in 2002; he opposed i

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