"Chinese rail is sprawling, modern, and elegant," writes Tom Zoellner in the March/April issue of Foreign Policy. But, he adds, "those who consider China's empire of rail a model of infrastructure development ought to take a more critical look -- and that countries gazing with understandable envy at the sleek marvels crisscrossing the Middle Kingdom should measure twice before they cut their first piece of rail."
Zoellner explores the corrupt, convoluted, and financially troubled world of Chinese railroads in his piece, "High Speed Empire."
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY ADAM FERRISS.
Following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran's secular world all but disappeared from view. Today, much remains forbidden, especially for women: They are not permitted to socialize with men in public or reveal too much hair from under the headscarves they are required to wear. Security forces troll the streets to enforce these restrictive laws.
In "Iranian Mystique," Iranian photographer Hossein Fatemi take us behind closed doors, where young Iranians, including women, engage in the taboo: smoking, dancing, drinking, mingling with the opposite sex.
"As early as 1906 ... crowds gathered under the stars in Yangon's narrow back streets to watch grainy images projected onto cotton sheets," writes Burma-based journalist Francis Wade. "But what started as pure theater evolved into a film scene far more substantial -- and political."
In "The Reckoning," Wade looks at how Burma's film industry has evolved over decades of censorship, and how a cadre of intrepid filmmakers is probing their country's dark past.
Above, Burmese actress Grace Swe Htaik looks at a painting of herself at the Motion Picture Museum.
LAUREN DECICCA
"I heard terrifying rumors -- of children who strangle parents in their sleep or eat the hearts of their siblings. Of swarms of children flying through the skies at night, steal money or deliberately cause illnesses like HIV or polio," writes journalist Deni Béchard. "These children, people said, are sorcerers."
In his piece "'On Va Tuer Les Demons' -- "We Will Kill the Demons," Béchard travels to Kinshasa to investigate the strange phenomenon of "child sorcerers."
DENI BECHARD
"In the past, AIPAC could convincingly maintain to Jews, Democrats, and official Washington that America's interests and Israel's interests, as articulated by their governments, were similar if not identical."
In "Zionist Movement," author John J. Judis takes a long look at how AIPAC is severing its historical roots, and potentially weakening its influence in the process.
Above, the American Zionist Emergency Council is pictured holding a protest against British policy in Palestine, in New York in July 1946.
FPG/HULTON ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES
"Last November, a rocket built from a decommissioned U.S. intercontinental ballistic missile lifted off from Wallops Island, Virginia, carrying not nuclear warheads headed for the Soviet Union, but rather 29 small satellites bound for orbit," writes Zach Rosenberg. One of those satellites, he adds, was built by high school students.
In his piece, "The Coming Revolution in Orbit," Rosenberg looks at how space exploration went from being an exclusive club to a DIY playground.
CHRIS THOMPSON/SPACEX
Pirate prisons in the Somali region may be, ironically, generating more security risks, reports Jillan Keenan.
In "Puntland is for Pirates," Keenan goes to Somalia to figure out why convicted high-seas bandits are being sent back to the place that profits from their crimes.
JILLIAN KEENAN
"Ever since launching the war on terror in 2001, the United States has struggled to define -- let alone defeat -- what has proved to be a maddeningly amorphous enemy," writes Foreign Policy's own Ty McCormick in the latest edition FP's regular feature, "Anthropology of an Idea."
In "Al Qaeda Core: A Short History," McCormick explains how the franchise operations of the world's most infamous terrorist organization became more potent than the mothership.
ILLUSTRATION BY SARAH KING
"Academics may produce incisive foreign policy analysis," writes Foreign Policy Executive Editor Peter Scoblic, "but if a research paper falls in the forest... well, Washington couldn't care less."
Convening a roundtable of nine current and former deans of public policy schools in the United States, Scoblic facilitated a lively discussion about how academics do and do not influence foreign policy. His piece "Does the Academy Matter?" features an edited transcript of that conversation, with plenty of related visual data to chew on.
In this issue's column, Foreign Policy CEO and Editor David Rothkopf argues that the policy makers are worryingly underprepared to meet the increasingly technological demands of the communities.
"The structures organizing the world are rapidly approaching their sell-by dates," he writes in "Disconnected. "And the people who should be leading that process are among the least qualified to do so."
ILLUSTRATION BY MATT CHASE
In the developing world, writes author Charles Kenny, "kids in private schools are learning far more than their friends stuck in government-financed classrooms."
Kenny looks at why this is -- and why parents in poor countries are paying to send their kids to private school -- in his piece "Learning Curve."
KUNI TAKAHASHI/GETTY IMAGES
"An ironclad treaty is the only way to save the planet," argue proponents of climate change policy.
"Don't count on it," argues David Shorr, in "Think Again: Climate Change." Shorr takes on global climate policy, and explains why the glacial pace of climate diplomacy isn't ruining the planet.
Above, the Mexican village of La Pintada is pictured after a landslide buried part of it in Sept. 2013.
PEDRO PARDO/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
