Exclusive: A Talk with Bhutan’s Leader

Scientists who study “canine cognition” say your dog really does love you

26.05-02.06.2023
ALBANIA €6.25 CZECH REP CZK180 HOLLAND €7.00 LEBANON LL10,000 NORWAY NKR119 SERBIA RSD1035 SWITZERLAND CHF10.60
AUSTRALIA $11.00 DENMARK DKR57 HONG KONG HK80 LITHUANIA €8.99 OMAN OR 3.250 S LEONE SLL30,000 UAE AED42
AUSTRIA €10.00 EGYPT E£ 65.00 HUNGARY FT1,800 LUXEMBOURG €7.90 POLAND PLN29.99 SINGAPORE $11.95 UK £5.99
BAHRAIN BD3.5 FINLAND €7.60 IRELAND €7.00 MALTA €7.00 PORTUGAL €7.00 SLOVAKIA €6.50 US $10.99
BELGIUM €7.00 FRANCE €7.50 ISRAEL NIS35 MONTENEGRO €8.30 QATAR QR65 SLOVENIA €8.50 ZIMBABWE ZWD4.00
CHINA RM80 GERMANY €7.50 ITALY €7.00 MOROCCO MDH70 MALAYSIA RM27.90 SOUTH AFRICA R55.00
CROATIA HKR70 GIBRALTAR £6.05 KUWAIT KD3.00 NEW ZEALAND $14.00 ROMANIA LEI 42.00 SPAIN €7.00
CYPRUS €7.00 GREECE €7.50 LATVIA €6.50 NIGERIA $3.40C SAUDI ARABIA SR35.00 SWEDEN SKR119
Airline
technology
that opens
the world of
e-commerce
shipping.
Every online shopping site is looking for reliable
solutions for fast delivery of their products.

Airlines and their supply-chain partners own the

assets to meet the growing demand for speed in
delivery by e-commerce retailers worldwide.

Connecting this demand with an airline’s supply

of capacity can bring a nice revenue increase
via air cargo.

SmartKargo provides the technology and know-how

to help airlines and their partners connect from the
desktop to the doorstep.

Learn more
Contact us at hdq@smartkargo.com or scan the
QR Code below to read a case study.

Enabling e-commerce. Delivered.

INTERNATIONAL EDITION
M ay 2 6 - J u n e 0 2 , 2 0 2 3 _ VO L . 1 8 0 _ n O. 1 6

FEATURES

20
For Love of Dog
The hot new field of “canine
cognition” brings scientific
insight to the burning
question dog owners have:
Is it only puppy love?
by ADAM PIORE

This Issue Features

Four Unique Covers

36
LOOKING AHEAD
The Newsweek “We are not obligated to

Interview:
remain carbon negative
but we genuinely feel

Lotay Tshering this is the right way

forward. Being carbon
ILLUSTRATIONS Brit Spencer negative is our wealth.”
Bhutan’s PM on climate change and the
PHOTOGRAPHS Clockwise from top
left Catherine Ledner/Getty; Getty; rivalry between neighbors India and China ABOVE Photograph by Danish
SensorSpot/Getty; Rich Legg/Getty by DANISH MANZOOR BHAT Manzoor Bhat/newsweek

NEWSWEEK (ISSn2052-1081), is published weekly, 40 times a year—except one week in January, February, april, May, June, July, September, December and two weeks in March and august. newsweek International
is published by newsweek Magazine LLC, aldwych House, 71-91 aldwych, London, WC2B 4Hn, uK. Printed by MRC Print LTD, The Old Police Station, Water Street, newcastle under Lyme, Staffordshire. ST5 1Hn. For article
Reprints, Permissions, Licensing, Back/Bulk Issues Newsweek.com/licensing Brian Kolb Newsweek@EnveritasGroup.com
 INTERNATIONAL EDITION
M ay 2 6 - J u n e 0 2 , 2 0 2 3 _ VO L . 1 8 0 _ N O. 1 6

D E PA RT M E N T S
▾ In Focus ▾ Periscope ▾ Culture

06 Tijuana, Mexico 10 Health 44 Uncharted

A New Frontier Climate Change Coastlines Seen
Is Making Your from Above
08 Seoul, South
Allergies Worse
Korea 48 Ukraine
Young Monks 16 Russia Show Business
Has Prigozhin Goes to War
Peshawar,
Finally Gone
Pakistan 63 Talking Points
Too Far?
Powder Keg Michelle Obama,
Jane Fonda
Central Islip,
and More
New York

GR AY MALIN
Havoc on the Hill 64 Parting Shot
Ke Huy Quan

GLOBaL eDITOR-In-CHIeF _ Nancy Cooper associate editor _ Jon Jackson

DePuTy eDITOR _ Diane Harris
VICe PReSIDenT, BRanD CReaTIVe _ Michael Goesele
VICe PReSIDenT, DIGITaL _ Laura Davis
ManaGInG eDITOR _ Melissa Jewsbury
OPInIOn eDITOR _ Josh Hammer
SPeCIaL PROJeCTS eDITOR _ Fred Guterl
GLOBaL PuBLISHInG eDITOR _ Chris Roberts
EDITORIAL
Managing editor _ James Etherington Smith (U.K.)
executive editor, engagement and Innovation _ Alex Hudson
executive editor _ Alfred Joyner
Deputy Publishing editor _ Paul Rhodes
Director, Podcasts and Radio _ Jesse Edwards
Senior editor, autos _ Eileen Falkenburg-Hull
enterprise editor _ Ritu Sehgal
editor, national Security & Foreign Policy _ Bruno Battistoli
newsletter and editions editor _ Emeri Montgomery
newsletter Producer _ Pronita Naidu
Senior editorial Operations Manager _ Connie Sideras
Deputy Managing editor _ Leea Jackson
Senior news editor _ Alfred Joyner
Deputy Publishing editor _ Paul Rhodes
Senior editors _ Peter Carbonara, Shane Croucher,
Meredith Wolf Schizer, H. Alan Scott
Senior editor, Data Projects _ Rob Minto
Senior editor, Life & Trends _ Marc Vargas
Senior editor, My Turn _ Jenny Haward
Senior editor, Politics _ Jenni Fink
editor, Misinformation Watch _ Yevgeny Kuklychev
audience editor _ Emily Kaiser, Ben Kelly
autos editor _ Jake Lingeman
news editor _ Rod Ardehali, Matthew Cannon
Live Blogs editor _ Alex Backus
night editor _ Margaret Weaver
Weekend editor _ John Fitzpatrick, Jason Lemon
Deputy editors, Opinion _ Jason Fields, Philip Jeffery,
Ramsen Shamon, Batya Ungar-Sargon
Deputy editor Life & Trends _ Charlotte Nisbet
Deputy Planning editor _ Remi Odejimi
Deputy Weekend editor _ Anna Commander
Deputy editor, national Security & Foreign Policy _ Tom O’Connor
Deputy entertainment editor _ Megan Cartwright
asia editor at Large _ Danish Manzoor
audience editor, Trends _ Rebecca Flood
SeO editor, Life _ Rebecca Nicholson
associate editors, My Turn _
Monica Greep, Carine Harb
editor at Large _ Naveed Jamali
Contributing editor _ John Feng
Contributing editors,
Opinion _ Lee Habeeb
Publishing editors _ Adrian Croft, Ed
Cummins, James Debens, Yannick
Demoustier, Bruce Janicke, Emma
Lee-Sang, Anthony Murray, Jason
Nuckolls, Dom Passantino, Anthony Phillips,
Manasa Rao, Dave Siminoff, Grayson Thomas, Sam Wilson
C R E AT I V E
Director of Photography _ Lauren Joseph
Art Director _ Carrie Bremner
Contributing art Director _ Michael Bessire
Photo editors _ Adrian Callaghan, Kristen McNicholas
Photo Researcher _ Rhyne Newton
Digital Imaging Specialist _ Katy Lyness
CORRESPONDENTS
Chief Royal Correspondent _ Jack Royston
Congressional Correspondent _ Alex J. Rouhandeh
Diplomatic Correspondent _ David Brennan
Russia & ukraine Correspondent _ Michael Wasiura
White House Correspondent _ Daniel Bush
SENIOR WRITERS
Jack Beresford, Jamie Burton, Brendan Cole, Katherine Fung,
Khaleda Rahman, nick Reynolds, anna Skinner, Ryan Smith
WRITERS
Melissa afshar, anders anglesey, Giulia Carbonaro, alyce
Collins, ellie Cook, James Crawford-Smith, David H.
Freedman, aristos Georgiou, alice Gibbs, Lauren Giella,
Meghan Gunn, Leonie Helm, Matthew Impelli, Gerrard
Kaonga, Fatma Khaled, Thomas Kika, Soo Kim, Kaitlin
Lewis, Sophie Lloyd, nick Mordowanec, Tom norton, ewan
Palmer, aleks Phillips, adam Piore, Darragh Roche, Meghan
Roos, Winston Ross, Roberto Saviano, aila Slisco, andrew
Stanton, Jessica Thomson, Maria Volpe, Robyn White
VIDEO
Director, Video _ Jessica Durham
Deputy Directors, Video _ Jon Jenkins-Lowe (U.K.),
Maghen Reynolds (U.S.)
Motion Graphics Producer _ Eleanor Shere
Senior Video news editor _ Nandini Krishnamoorthy
Senior Video Producers, news _
Olivia Cataldo, Alexis Sogl
Senior Video Producers, Lifestyle &entertainment
_ Alyssa Hodenfield, Luke Smith
Video assignment editor _ Tiffany Latta
Video Producers _ Mickey Hutchings, Julius Kumi-Darfour,
Rose Lee, Liz Macro, Jevh Maravilla, Renae Whissel
SOCIAL MEDIA
Head of Social Media _ Mark Muir
Deputy Head of Social Media _ Grace MacRae
Social Media Coordinator _ Devin Robertson
Social Media associates _ Shea Donovan, Jack Haley
PuBLISHeD By
Newsweek Magazine LLC
Chief executive Officer _ Dev Pragad
Global Chief Commercial & Growth Officer _ Kevin Gentzel
Chief Strategy Officer _ Dayan Candappa
Chief Operating Officer/Chief Financial Officer _ Alvaro Palacios
Global General Counsel _ Rosie Mckimmie
Chief Technology Officer _ Michael Lukac
Chief Information Officer _ Sujay Nelson
Chief of Staff _ Ryan Kinney
Chief Revenue Officer _ Jason Webby
SVP Finance / General Manager eMea _ Amit Shah
SVP, Human Resources _ Leiann Kaytmaz
SVP, Product _ Luciano Costa
Global Head of Programmatic and Partnerships _ Jeremy Makin
Vice President, Strategy _ Nalin Kaul
Managing editor, Content Hubs _ Kyle McGovern
associate Director, Strategy _ Adam Silvers
Vice President, Digital Marketing _ Kevin Hickman
Senior Manager, Strategic Partnerships _ Patricia A. Hartendorp
Director of Rankings _ Josh Smith
Senior Sales Director _ Chantal Mamboury
Head of Subscription Operations _ Samantha Rhodes
newsstand Manager _ Kim Sermon

2 NE WSWEEK .COM
 AND S 6%
Newsweek is where diverse voices and opinions meet — a place where curious and open minds come to get
a broader understanding of the key issues shaping our world. We provide a forum that enables you to find
common ground by participating in good-faith debate with others across political, social and cultural divides.

ON
NLY
2.48
PER WEEK

Order now at Newsweek.com/Try

▾ ▾ ▾ ▾
Every issue delivered Ad-free browsing on Exclusive access to the Plus all newsletters
to your door Newsweek.com Newsweek app and podcasts

6XEVFULSWLRQVDUHFKDUJHGDQQXDOO\DWbLQWKH(XUR]RQHLQWKH8.86LQWKH86$DQG86LQDOORWKHUWHUULWRULHV2ƪHULVRSHQWRQHZVXEVFULEHUVRQO\DQGH[SLUHV'HFHPEHU
6HUYLFHLQFOXGHVGHOLYHU\RISULQWFRSLHVSHU\HDUSOXVDFFHVVWRQHZVZHHNFRPDQGWKH1HZVZHHNDSS([DFWVDYLQJFRPSDUHGWRFRYHUSULFHYDULHVGHSHQGLQJRQ\RXUFRXQWU\RIUHVLGHQFH
 Rewind

The Archives
“Elizabeth II will have reigned one year, three months, and 27 days
1953
when she is crowned on June 2. In that time, she has already
learned how much work—and what little fun—there is in being sovereign,”
said Newsweek on her coronation. The longest-reigning monarch in the
country’s history, she ruled until her death at age 96 last September. King
Charles III’s coronation took place earlier this month, on May 6, at
Westminster Abbey with all the customary British royal pageantry. Charles
became the 40th reigning monarch to be crowned at the church since 1066.

1972

“After President Nixon’s return from

his historic China visit, Newsweek
began preparing a special report on
[the Moscow Summit,] the second
leg of the President’s global peace-
keeping mission,” said the magazine.
Now, with China backing Russia in the
war in ukraine, relations between the
superpowers stand far from detente.

1993

“Today’s wars are fought over tiny

strands of high-strength glass, called
fiber-optic cable, and the pulses
of light that they transport,” said
N E WSWE EK ARCHIVE (3)

Newsweek. Technology—particularly
cyberspace—is a significant
consideration in modern warfare.
The recently leaked Pentagon
documents onto a Discord server, for
instance, are a testament to this.

4 NE WSWEEK .COM JuNE 02, 2023

 In Focus
THE NEWS IN PICTURES

T I J UA NA , M E X I C O

A New Frontier
A migrant climbs over the border fence into the United States after
fetching groceries for other migrants waiting to be processed on May
10. On May 11, President Joe Biden’s administration lifted Title 42, the
strict immigration policy implemented by former President Donald
Trump that denied entry to asylum seekers on the basis of the COVID-19
pandemic. Stemming from the Public Health Act of 1944, Title 42 granted
federal officials emergency powers to prevent the spread of diseases.
Along the border, authorities are preparing for an unprecedented surge
of migrants seeking asylum from political instability and poverty.

▸ GUILLERMO ARIAS

AFP/G E T T Y

6 NE WSWEEK .COM
June 02, 2023
In Focus
SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA
Young Monks
Monks pray during a ceremony
to prepare children to live as
Buddhist monks for three weeks
at Jogyesa Temple on May 9, part
of the Buddha’s annual birthday
celebration where children ages 6
and 7 shave their heads and learn
in-depth about Buddhism. The
novices kicked off their duties
May 11 at the gwanbul ceremony,
during which a statue of the
baby Buddha is bathed in water.
▸ CHUNG SUNG-JUN
8 NE WSWEEK .COM
PESHAWAR , PAKISTAN
Powder Keg
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)
party activists and supporters of
former Prime Minister Imran Khan
clash with police during a protest
against Khan’s arrest on May 9. The
former prime minister was charged
with corruption, igniting unrest in
several major cities. On May 11, in
a crucial win for Khan’s supporters,
the country’s Supreme Court ruled
his arrest unlawful and ordered
he be released from custody.
▸ ABDUL MAJEED
CENTRAL ISLIP, NEW YORK
Havoc on the Hill
Representative George Santos of
New York addresses the press as
he leaves federal court on Long
Island on May 10. Santos was
charged with a 13-count indictment
for wire fraud, money laundering,
theft of public funds and making
materially false statements to
GE T T Y (2); A FP/GE T T Y
the House of Representatives. He
pleaded not guilty. If eventually
convicted on the charges, he
could face federal prison time.
▸ M I C H A E L M . S A N T I AG O
JunE 02, 2023
NE WSWEEK .COM 9
Periscope N E W S , O P I N I O N + A N A LY S I S
 “My money is on Prigozhin being found dead.” ▸ P.16

H E A LT H

Pollen
Proliferation
You’re not imagining it. Your seasonal allergies ARE getting worse.
Blame climate change

Achoo! This spring, seasonal allergy symptoms are as bad as they’ve ever been for many people…or worse.
Tissues, antihistamines, nose sprays, inhalers and eye drops are constant companions for the grow-
ing number of people who suffer from allergies. Around 40 percent of all people have at least one allergic
condition today, and unfortunately, the outlook for the future isn’t much brighter. But why? Acclaimed
medical anthropologist Theresa MacPhail investigates the history of allergies and traces the causes
of their increasing prevalence in her book, allergIc: our IrrItated bodIes In a changIng world
(Random House). She explains why there’s an uptick in all allergic conditions—food allergies, asthma,
eczema, environmental allergies and more—and what we can do about it. In this excerpt from her
book, MacPhail focuses on why climate change is a leading cause of your increased hay fever symptoms.

If you’ve felt as though your eyes were confusing to our immune systems, helping to drive
itchier, your nose was stuffier, or your sneez- the increase in the global rate of all allergic con-
ing fits have been getting worse over the past few ditions throughout the last century. They’ve found
GE T T Y; TOP RIG HT: M IK HAIL SVE TLOV/GE T T Y

years, you’re probably correct. The reason likely
has something to do with changes to the average
pollen load (the amount of pollen in the air), the
air quality itself (whether on average it is good, fair
or poor) and the indirect effects of climate change
on everything from the number of mold
spores to crop production to trapped heat
to the circulation of air. by
Scientific researchers have amassed evi-
THERESA
dence showing that recent environmen- M AC P H A I L
tal changes are both overwhelming and
that the changes to the air we breathe correlate with
an increased risk of developing allergic disease.
Perhaps some of the strongest evidence in sup-
port of the idea that our environments are to a cer-
tain extent causing the increase in all our allergies
comes from studying our white blood
cells themselves.
New research (2020) from the Well-
come Sanger Institute, a leading non-
profit research institute in the United
Kingdom, shows that the more our

Photograph by A SHLE Y COOPER NE WSWEEK .COM 11

Periscope
T cells have reacted to an antigen (say,
dust mites) in the past, the faster they
react in the present.
Researchers found that when
“naïve,” or inexperienced, T cells were
given a specific chemical signal, they
first responded to it by calming down
or limiting the immune response. But
with more “experienced” T cells, or
cells that had encountered the anti-
gen before, the reaction was the total
opposite. Those more experienced
immune cells ramped up inflamma-
tion. In other words, the more times
you’re exposed to cedar pollen and
particulate matter, the worse your
reaction to them might be. In places
with heavy pollen loads and poor air
quality, that means more respiratory
allergies, more asthma—and perhaps
more severe symptoms.
The fact that so many asthma
patients also struggle with respi-
ratory allergies doesn’t surprise
researchers. Dr. Robert Schleimer,
former chief of the Division of
Allergy and Immunology and now
professor at Northwestern’s Feinberg
School of Medicine, explains that
an asthma patient has a 90 percent
probability of having hay fever.
Schleimer explains, “The unified
airway hypothesis argues that aller-
gic inflammation, when it occurs
in the respiratory tract, tends to
occur everywhere in the entire
respiratory tract.”
The theory is also supported by
more than two hundred years of
observations and scientific research
on hay fever, asthma and the rela-
tionship between exposure to anti-
gens in the air and the development
of respiratory allergy. And because
of climate change, agricultural
growing seasons—especially in the
North—are elongating. EPA maps
from 1995 to 2015 show an average
increase of 21 days in the pollen
12 NE WSWEEK .COM
BOOKS
immune systems, can make dif-
ferent decisions about an allergen
Q A
even though everything else is
& the same: diet, environment and
genetics. When I come into contact
with something, some of my cells
will decide that it’s harmless
and some will decide it’s not. So
really, our immune response is
Theresa about tipping that balance with
MacPhail
more cells deciding something is
a problem than tolerating it. And
BY MEREDITH WOLF SCHIZER we largely have no idea why our
cells are making those choices.
Q _ Climate change is one factor Allergic conditions are common
causing increased respiratory aller- in families, even if members don’t
gies. What about the equally dra- all suffer from the same ones. Is
matic rise of eczema and food and there any way to prevent them?
drug allergies? Is our natural envi- What can we do to limit allergies?
ronment to blame for them as well? There aren’t any hard and fast ways
A _ Climate change is just one factor to avoid developing an allergy, but
that is contributing to the problem. we do know that in general more
For our skin and gut, changes in exposure to more things early on
our lifestyles and other man-made in life are better. Letting our kids in-
environmental changes are adding teract with other kids, cutting back
to the stresses on our immune on unnecessary antibiotics and
cells. There are more than 85,000
chemicals listed under the ePA’s
Toxic Substances Control Act, and
obviously we’re interacting with
things we wouldn’t have even 70
years ago. Also, the types of food
we eat are dramatically different,
and we’re consuming more pro-
cessed foods than ever before. For
example, most Americans don’t get
enough natural fiber in their diets
and that can dramatically affect
the normal bacteria in our guts. It’s
just everything all at once, com-
bined, that is making things worse
for our ancient immune systems.
What’s the most surpris-
ing thing you learned when
researching this book?
The fact that our own individual T
cells, key components of healthy
June 02, 2023
 antimicrobial cleaning products,
playing with dogs…these all cor-
relate with lower rates. But again,
there’s a lot we still don’t know. I
would tell anyone who has kids with
allergies not to feel guilty about
what they have or haven’t done. You
didn’t cause your child’s allergies.
Allergies can be very expensive
for the patient, from special food
to essential medications. The
mental load can be extraordinary
too, yet it is so often hidden. What
can be done to offer support?
I think educating more people
about the economic and emo-
tional burdens that come along
with a moderate to severe allergy
diagnosis would go a long way to
alleviating some of what allergy
patients have to cope with. Rec-
ognizing that allergies are actually
more of a problem for people than
we have been socialized to think
they are would be a terrific start.
And never assume someone is
faking or exaggerating an allergy.
Try to remember that folks with
allergies don’t want to ruin your
cookout—they’re just trying to
protect themselves or their kids.
Advice to minimize food allergies
has changed over the last 20 or so
CLOCK WI SE FROM LEF T: SD STUDIO; GE T T Y; R AN DOM HOUS E
years—first recommending com-
plete avoidance of allergens like
peanuts for young children and
now encouraging early exposure
(in most cases). If you were a new
parent, how would you assess all
the different guidance coming out?
Why is there so much change?
Being a parent is more difficult
than ever. All the latest guidance
is based on what we currently
know—and that can and probably
will change as we learn more. But
that’s just how science works. We
keep trying to figure out
the basic biological mech-
anisms behind allergy and,
as we do, we’ll be able to
give better advice. But for
now, early introduction
of trace amounts is doing a better
job of preventing serious allergic
reactions than the former advice
to hold off until they are older.
Is exposure to allergens generally
recommended as a treatment for
all types of allergies now? How is
that consistent with—or at odds
with—the idea that the body’s
immune system gets hyperre-
active with more exposure?
This is a tricky one! Immunothera-
py—or the process of introducing
trace amounts of an allergen and
gradually increasing those amounts
over months to years to induce
tolerance—doesn’t actually work
for everyone. Immunotherapy
shots for respiratory allergies are
especially difficult to predict; they
INSPIRED Author MacPhail has a personal
interest in allergies; she suffers from them. In
the spring, “we’re basically coated in pollen.”
have far worse success rates than
immunotherapy for something like
peanut allergy. The other thing to
remember is that even if treat-
ment is successful, that tolerance
isn’t permanent or stable without
regular maintenance doses.
In your book you say that pets
have allergies, too. Do all ani-
mals get allergies? Do pet own-
ers need to worry about their
furred companions suffering?
As far as we know, no animals “in
the wild” develop allergies—just
the ones that live alongside us.
Typically, the symptoms are itch
for dogs, birds and horses, and
cough or wheezing for cats. Usually,
the culprit is their food. Allergies
in pets seem to be on the rise,
so pet owners should definitely
be on the lookout for anything
unusual. Your vet may be able to
help with their worst symptoms.
Are your environmental allergies
worse lately, too? Do you have
any tips for managing them?
Absolutely. I used to have a pretty
easy time of it, but in the last
year or two as pollen loads have
increased and the pollen seasons
have lengthened, I definitely have
noticed a lot more itching and
wheezing and sneezing. I start
taking my meds early, before
the pollen season starts, and I
take showers immediately after
coming home if I’ve been spend-
ing a lot of time outdoors. We’re
basically coated in pollen when
we get back home, so it’s not a
bad idea if you’re suffering.
NE WSWEEK .COM 13
Periscope
season in Minnesota, 15 days in Ohio
and six days in Arkansas. A study con-
ducted at the University of Maryland
between 2002 and 2013 and involv-
ing 300,000 respondents showed
that hay fever increased whenever
the timing of spring changed. The
prevalence of hay fever increased
by as much as 14 percent when
spring came early.
Take ragweed—one of the big-
gest natural environmental triggers
of respiratory illness. Ragweed is a
flowering plant native to the Amer-
icas. It is notorious both for its
proliferation and for its pollen. In
many ways, the story of ragweed in
the past 200 years has become the
paradigmatic example of how envi-
ronmental changes can have an enor-
mous impact on allergies. Ragweed
is very sensitive to any changes in
the level of carbon dioxide, or CO2.
Its production of pollen intensifies
with higher CO2. Rising levels of CO2
in our atmosphere, while terrific for
ragweed, are disastrous for allergy
sufferers everywhere.
But the problem doesn’t
stop with ragweed.
Dr. Richard Primack, a biology
professor at Boston University,
knows a lot about pollen—both per-
sonally and professionally. When he
was a graduate student studying the
ribwort plantain, a flowering spe-
cies of plant that grows best in envi-
ronmentally disturbed landscapes,
he developed a severe respiratory
allergy to its pollen. It’s one of the
occupational hazards, he tells me, of
being a botanist.
When I call him, it’s mid-fall and
70 degrees and he’s eager to talk
about the production cycle of nat-
ural allergens. The topic is right up
his research alley. Dr. Primack’s biol-
ogy lab at BU focuses on the effects
climate change has on the timing of
14 NE WSWEEK .COM
H E A LT H
biological events like spring pollina-
tion. When I ask him about the pro-
liferation of pollen and mold spores,
he’s more than happy to discuss the
many changes he’s observed over the
past four decades.
In sum, if you think your seasonal
respiratory allergies have been get-
ting worse each year, you’re probably
right. Pollen and mold spore levels
have indeed been shifting. Several
climate factors are currently inter-
secting to compound the problem.
Warming Temperatures
Most obviously, the temperatures
are warming. Spring seasons are, on
average, happening much sooner—
beginning as early as February in
some locations—so plants and trees
that respond to warmer tempera-
tures are flowering earlier, too. At
the other end of the growing season,
fall temperatures are much milder,
which allows plants to flower for
extended amounts of time.
“In the New England region, where
I’m from, there would generally be
cold weather starting in late Sep-
tember and a killing frost some-
time in early October,” Dr. Primack
explains. “And that would really stop
all the grass plants, the ragweed and
other pollen-producing plants from
“It’s just everything
all at once,
combined, that is
making things
worse for our
ancient immune
systems.”
flowering. And what’s happening
now with climate change is that the
weather is fairly warm throughout
September and into October. This
year, we had warm conditions and
plenty of rainfall in October, so
plants like ragweed just kept growing
and producing more flowers.”
When plants like ragweed emit
pollen long into the fall months, it
means extended misery for those of
us who suffer from ragweed allergy.
But climate change is not just creat-
ing a bigger problem for respiratory
allergy sufferers. What other aller-
genic plant loves the new weather
patterns? Poison ivy.
“Poison ivy is just dramatically
more common now than it was
when I was growing up,” Dr. Primack
says matter-of-factly. “These types of
plants are spreading, they’re more
prolific and they’re in places where
they didn’t occur before.”
Air Pollution
Some plants benefit from air pollu-
tion itself. More circulating CO2 is
advantageous for plants like ragweed
and poison ivy. But plants also really
love higher nitrogen levels.
“In the past, soil nitrogen was a
limiting nutrient for many plants,”
Dr. Primack says. “But because of
increased burning of fossil fuels—
like oil, coal and natural gas—there’s
more nitrogen dust being generated.
And this dust, when it falls on the
ground, fertilizes the soil. So plants
like ragweed are able to take advan-
tage of higher nitrogen in the soil,
greater amounts of CO2 in the air
and warmer temperatures to grow
more prolifically than they did in
the past and to produce more pollen.”
Invasive Plants…and Mold
A bevy of environmental changes
have also produced better breeding
June 02, 2023

grounds for more invasive species
of plants. Places like Southern Cali-
fornia, Arizona and New Mexico are
seeing increased levels of pollen due
to an influx of invasive species of
grasses—like Bermuda grass, which
produces more pollen and can
cause worsened allergic symptoms.
The Midwest is seeing the effects of
milder weather with grasses flower-
ing much later than they typically
do. And in the South, with its already
high levels of humidity, things are
getting wetter and hotter—a bad
combination for those of us with
mold allergies. Those are ideal con-
ditions for mold growth and there
are more mold spores in the air.
In essence, then, there isn’t a sin-
gle area within the United States that
isn’t seeing the direct effects of cli-
mate change on allergens. And while
we may all be dealing with slightly
different problems—from mold
GE T T Y
to ragweed to oak trees to invasive
grasses to poison ivy—they’re all
pointing us toward greater irritation.
The Future of Pollen Counts
Pollen levels, in general, are expected
to double by 2040, and the pollen
will be more “potent” (its peptide
levels will rise, likely worsening our
immune system reactions). A recent
study suggested that longer pollen
seasons will lead to more emergency
room visits for allergic asthma. The
study focused on oak pollen, which
already sends approximately 20,000
people to the emergency room each
year in the United States alone.
Research done at the Mayo Clinic
in 2017 linked climate change to an
increase in CO2 levels that led to an
increase in fungal growth. The study
found that exposure to fungus lowers
cell barriers, causing cell inflamma-
tion that can worsen allergies. Cli-
mate change is also causing worse
flooding and higher temperatures
NO RELIEF Hay fever increases
with changes to the timing of
spring —as much as 14 percent
with early spring weather.
around the world. And that means
more mold, as we’ve already begun
to witness in places like Chandigarh,
India, and in New Orleans, where
allergy rates began to skyrocket after
Hurricane Katrina. Climate change
is also altering weather patterns,
and storms exacerbate respiratory
allergy and asthma symptoms—a
phenomenon called thunderstorm
asthma. Rainfall ruptures bioaero-
sols and lightning strikes fragment
pollen grains, then increased winds
distribute those ruptured fragments
for miles and miles. In 2016, a thun-
derstorm asthma event in Melbourne,
Australia, sent more than 10,000 peo-
ple to the emergency room with dif-
ficulty breathing over just two days.
Ultimately, the natural environ-
ment matters deeply to the develop-
ment of allergic irritation. What our
bodies are regularly exposed to—or
not exposed to—has a significant
and lasting effect on our immune
functions. But climate change and
its dramatic effects on pollen is only
one part of a much more compli-
cated story behind the recent spike
in allergies. The countless changes
we’ve made to our man-made envi-
ronments (such as our homes and
offices) and our lifestyles over the
last two centuries are wreaking just
as much havoc on our immune func-
tions as changes to the natural envi-
ronment. It’s a complicated puzzle
that needs our immediate attention,
especially if we’re all going to breathe
easier anytime soon.
▸ Adapted from the book allergic.
Copyright © 2023 Theresa MacPhail.
Published by Random House.
NE WSWEEK .COM 15
Periscope

RUS S I A

How Prigozhin
Turned on Putin
The mercenary group chief has been loudly
blasting Russia’s military leadership–and his old friend
and sponsor. He may finally have gone too far

Russian tycoon yevgeny PRi- more munitions on May 5, hours

gozhin’s relationship with his
longtime ally President Vladimir
Putin appears to have reached a
breaking point, with the one-time
caterer resorting to publishing
expletive-ridden videos on social
media to get his voice heard amid
the war in Ukraine.
Prigozhin, who earned the nick-
name “Putin’s chef ” thanks to his
catering contracts with the Kremlin,
heads the notorious paramilitary
outfit the Wagner Group. He has
been pouring his fighters
for months into the city
of Bakhmut in eastern
Ukraine alongside conven-
I S A B E L VA N
tional troops as part of a BRUGEN
push by Moscow to secure
its first major battlefield
victory since the summer of 2022. He
was viewed by the Kremlin as a key
instrument in the war.
But cracks began to show in the
businessman’s relationship with the “What if it turns out that the grand-
Kremlin when he displayed an appe-
tite for politics, launching attacks
on Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei
Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff
Valery Gerasimov. These strains grew
exponentially when Prigozhin threat-
ened to withdraw from Bakhmut over
a lack of ammunition.
after publishing an expletive-ridden
clip standing in front of rows of what
he claimed were his fighters killed in
battle in Bakhmut. He had previously
aimed his attacks only at Shoigu and
Gerasimov, blaming them and their
failure to provide more ammunition
for the deaths of his fighters.
Days later, on May 9, Victory Day—
Moscow’s annual celebration of the
defeat of Nazi Germany during
World War II—Prigozhin again com-
plained about a lack of ammunition,
publishing videos shortly
before and immediately
by
after Putin’s speech in his catering companies. He enjoyed
Moscow’s Red Square. Pri- a rapid ascent in Russian society,
gozhin suggested that his amassing a huge fortune and emerg-
fighters still lacked ammu- ing last year as a key player in the
nition and that they had war started by the Russian leader.
been threatened with state treason Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fel-
for desertion if they tried to retreat. low at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia
Russian generals, Prigozhin said Center and founder of R.Politik,
in his scathing attack, are traitors. a Russia-focused political analy-
sis firm, says Prigozhin’s recent
father is a real a******?” he added. string of furious and profane vid-
“Obviously, grandfather is a refer- eos shows that the he has no direct
ence to Putin,” Vlad Mykhnenko, an contact with Putin.
expert in the post-Communist trans- “The only way to express his dis-
formation of Eastern Europe and the sent, disagreement, his anger, is to
former Soviet Union at the U.K.’s go public. That is why he has to post
University of Oxford, tells Newsweek. so many videos where he shows how
Putin and Prigozhin’s relation- fierce he is and how things have
AFP/G E T T Y

A furious Prigozhin directly ship goes back to the 1990s, when gone wrong, how difficult it is for
addressed Putin in his appeal for the latter served the Kremlin with him and his guys,” she tells Newsweek.

16 NE WSWEEK .COM JuNE 02, 2023


Political Ambitions
Oxford’s Mykhnenko says the Wag-
ner Group was only brought into
the war by the Kremlin after Russia
suffered a “humiliating defeat in the
battle of Kyiv in the spring of 2022,”
after which Prigozhin and his fight-
ers were provided with full govern-
ment support for recruiting inmates
from maximum security prisons and
for obtaining tanks, aircraft, com-
bat helicopters, heavy artillery and
unlimited munitions.
Things changed, however, when
the Kremlin establishment sensed Pri-
gozhin had greater ambitions, and he
was seen as becoming more danger-
ous in terms of his political persona.
“The main activity of Prigozhin
during this conflict has always been
Photograph by SERGEI ILNITSK Y
trying to capitalize on the war and
amass more assets and resources
in Russia itself—to get a formal
government post, or a big political
leadership role, i.e., to convert his
military assets into tangible eco-
nomic and political assets inside Rus-
sia,” Mykhnenko says.
“The main activity of
Prigozhin during this
conflict has always been
trying to capitalize on
the war and amass more
assets and resources
in Russia itself.”
EXPIRATION DATE? Wagner Group
founder Yevgeny Prigozhin. Russia’s
military leaders are tired of him and his
usefulness may be coming to an end.
Eventually, he says, the Kremlin
started to “manage him” and “min-
imize his overgrown influence.”
Mykhnenko adds, “The decision by
Putin to reinstate [Valery] Gerasimov
and other generals, whom Prigo-
zhin openly clashed against, as chief
commanders of the Russian war in
Ukraine back in late 2022 was the
beginning of Prigozhin’s end.”
Carnegie’s Stanovaya says Prigo-
zhin decided that he’s better than
the state, and that he can chal-
lenge and replace it.
“Putin, who had to deal with a lot
of complaints about Prigozhin, just
reacted and rebalanced the situation
in favor of security services. He tried
to achieve this kind of unity,” she says,
pointing to Prigozhin’s claims that
Wagner Group has been blocked from
recruiting from prisons.
“[Prison recruitment] was more of
a problem with security services, who
really resented this practice. For them
it was unacceptable, and with time,
they found a way to convince Putin
to stop it,” Stanovaya says, referring
to the Federal Penitentiary Service,
Justice Ministry, Prosecutor Gener-
al’s Office and Federal Security Service.
On the one hand, Russian officials
are “really scared” of Prigozhin, and
believe that he represents a threat to
the state, to Putin’s regime and to Rus-
sia’s stability, Stanovaya says. “But on
the other hand, with this war, which
seems with time, more and more
unpredictable, and maybe doomed
to fail for Russia, he says things that
seem right. In the long term, he
may become more attractive, mean-
ing that people start thinking that
maybe he’s not so wrong about the
NE WSWEEK .COM 17
Periscope
state of affairs.”
Prigozhin has also recently taken
aim at the Kremlin for “breeding new
PMCs [private military companies]”
instead of giving “200,000 soldiers,
as I asked” under the command of
the Wagner Group. “They are trying
to somehow dilute the Wagner PMC
so that it is not one big force that
can play some role in domestic pol-
itics,” he said late last month on his
Telegram channel.
Mykhnenko says the Wagner
Group’s most experienced fighters
and instructors have been lured away
to other Russian government-funded
paramilitary organizations, “thus,
cannibalizing Wagner.”
Prigozhin’s Fate
S t a n o v a y a s a y s t h e Wa g n e r
Group is likely doomed to with-
POWER TRIO From left: Russian Defense
Minister Sergei Shoigu, President
Vladimir Putin and Chief of the
General Staff Valery Gerasimov.
RUSSIA
“My money is on
Prigozhin being found
dead in a Russian
state-staged ‘suicide,’
with a pistol in his
hand and a ridiculous
suicide note.”
draw from Bakhmut.
“It will suit Putin and the general
staff—they are fed up with him. And
if we take the military logic, the army
doesn’t really need Wagner now.
They are really exhausted, and their
morale is very low. So I think that
it’s a question of time when he will
have to withdraw.”
Early in May, reports emerged that
General Roman Gavrilov, the former
deputy commander of the Russian
National Guard, and General Mikhail
Mizintsev, former deputy minister
of defense, had joined the Wagner
Group after their reported dismissals
from the civil service.
“Prigozhin must have thought these
actions would strengthen Wagner’s
power standing within the Russian
bureaucratic machinery. However, it
could be as much a prelude or begin-
ning of the ‘hostile takeover’ of Wag-
ner by the Kremlin,” Mykhnenko says.
“Mizints ev c ould have b e en
implanted on purpose to take con-
trol,” he continues, noting that
on May 5, retired General Viktor
Sobolev—currently a member of the
State Duma (Russia’s rubber-stamp
parliament)—said all “volunteer bat-
talions” and Wagner should be for-
mally reassigned to Russia’s defense
ministry “to prevent any munition
supply problems.”
U l t i m a t e l y, P r i g o z h i n h a s
“overstretched himself ” and
his “physical life will be abruptly
and involuntarily ende d so on
enough,” Mykhnenko says.
“My money is on Prigozhin being
found dead in a Russian state-staged
‘suicide,’ with a pistol in his hand and
a ridiculous suicide note,” Mykh-
RUSSIAN P RE SIDE NTIAL PRE SS AN D INFORM ATION OFFICE /AN AD OLU AGENCY/GE T T Y
nenko says. “Moscow could also pro-
vide Ukraine with Prigozhin’s precise
geolocation within a 70-kilometer
HIMARS rocket range to finish him
off and provide a ‘heroic’ propaganda
recruiting boost to the ‘new’ emas-
culated Wagner.”
“The only other realistic option
would be to allow Prigozhin to return
to Russia, before being blown up in a
car bomb like [writer Darya] Dugina
and [politician Zakhar] Prilepin.”
Newsweek has contacted Rus-
sia’s foreign ministry for com-
ment via email.
▸ Isabel van Brugen is a newsweek
reporter in Kuala Lumpur. Follow her
on Twitter @isabelvanbrugen
JUNE 02, 2023
 HE
FOR T

OF

D OF
W FIEL
H E H OT N E
T

BY

ADAM E
PIOR
GE T T Y

20 NE WSWEEK .COM Photograph by INSIDE S T UDIO

 VE:
RS HA
N DOG
OW N E

P P Y L O V E ?
I T JUST P U
S T I O
NG Q UE
RNI

BRING
S SCIE
NT IFIC IN
SIGHT
T O T HE BU
IS
NI TION’
E CO G
‘C ANIN

NE WSWEEK .COM 21

probably impossible to
know exactly what your dog
is thinking. But a few years
ago, Gregory Berns, a neuro-
scientist at Emory Universi-
ty, decided he wanted to try
and find out anyway.
The catalyst was Bern’s diminutive pug Newton, a
fawn-colored pooch with a friendly disposition and a
small black mole on his cheek vaguely reminiscent of
a young Robert De Niro. Every night for more than a
decade, Newton climbed into bed with Berns and his
wife and nestled his meatball-shaped head into the
crook of the neuroscientist’s armpit, before passing
out and snoring loudly. The routine continued even
after Newton grew so arthritic that he relied on a ti-
ny-wheeled cart attached to his hind legs to tow him-
self around and required assistance to get into the bed.
When Newton finally passed away at the ripe old
age of 97 (in dog years), Berns was so devastated that
he began to ruminate on the nature of their relation-
ship. Yes, he really had loved that little guy intensely.
But had Newton, he wondered, felt the same way
about him? Berns tried not to dwell on the question.
It was sad to contemplate the possibility that for
Newton their relationship might have come down
to nothing more than a hankering for dog treats or
a new chew toy. And how could one ever really know
SCIENCE
what went on in the head of an animal?
A few months later, while watching news footage
of a trained dog participating in the military oper-
ation to capture Osama bin Laden, Berns had an
epiphany. If a dog could remain calm during a mili-
tary raid, perhaps he could train his new pet terrier
to lie still in an MRI machine long enough to scan
her brain and see how she thinks.
Since then, Berns has scanned the brains of more
than 100 dogs, published the results in two books and
established himself as a pioneer of the rapidly grow-
ing field of research called “canine cognition,” which
is revealing new insights about the often-enigmatic
behaviors of our fabulous furry four-legged friends.
Today there are Canine Cognition labs at Yale,
Duke, University of Arizona, University of Ports-
mouth, Barnard College, University of Florida and
a wide array of leading scientific institutions around
the globe—and the study of dogs in general is one of
the fastest growing areas in the broader field of ani-
mal behavioral science. A new international consor-
tium called the ManyDogs Project, with researchers
IT’S THE DOG’S DAY in Austria, Poland, Italy, Canada, the U.S., Argentina
The study of dogs has and a number of other countries, recently complet-
ballooned into one of
ed its first major collaborative study and plans to
the fastest growing
areas in the more
publish it later this year.
general field of animal The insights emerging are confirming things
behavioral science. many dogs owners have long suspected and are fun-
damentally changing what scientists thought they
knew about dogs. Far from being dumb creatures
with good noses, as previously thought, they’re ac-
tually smart in specific ways that make them ideal
human collaborators and companions. Over the mil-
lennia, they have evolved to be cooperative animals,
endowed with the neural machinery to understand
abstract ideas and complex social dynamics. They’re
able to read and assess human emotions with great
accuracy, can understand some language and are FROM LE F T: FL A SHPOP/G E T T Y; CHAD L AT TA /G E T T Y
even capable of making rudimentary signals.
The new dog science is also addressing the issue
most prominently on the minds of Bern and dog
owners everywhere: Does my dog really love me?
Dogs Are No Dummies
Humans Have been domesticating dogs for at
least 32,000 years—more than 10,000 years longer
than horses. Today the U.S. alone is home to an esti-
mated 90 million pooches (roughly one for every four
Americans), many of whom have owners who treat
JUNE 02, 2023
 T H T O
S M A R E N O U G
F A M I LY, W H I C H I S
TA S K . ”
“DOGS A SURVIVE IN A HUMUITE COMPLICATED
R E A N
U A L LY A Q
ACT

NE WSWEEK .COM 23

them like mini people, dressing them in raincoats,
TALKIN
sweaters and booties (the global pet clothing market
“IF WE’RE
topped $5.2 billion in 2021). They confide their deep-
SOCIAL INTEHE WAY THAT THEY L WORLD.”
est secrets, rearrange vacation schedules to accom-
modate their idiosyncrasies and shower them with
gifts and luxuries such as dog houses and rawhide.
MAN-LIKE IN T
HU
SON A
Scientists who study animals have tended to turn
REA
their noses up at dog cognition. This attitude was
driven in part by the mistaken belief that domes-
tication had dumbed dogs down. In a famous 1985
experiment, University of Michigan researchers
found that wolves could unlock a gate mechanism
after watching a human do so, but domesticated
dogs didn’t seem to get it. The implication was that
the dogs were stupid.
All that changed in the late 1990s and early
2000s, thanks to a series of groundbreaking exper-
iments by ethnographers Vilmos Csányi and Ádám
Miklósi and their collaborators at Budapest’s Eöt-
vös Loránd University.
Csányi and his wife were hiking one winter in the
Hungarian mountains and stopped to pet a partic-
ularly gregarious stray. The dog followed them for
five miles through the snow before Csányi picked
24 NE WSWEEK .COM
him up and carried him the rest of the way home.
Flip, as they called him, was white and brown and
had stumpy legs and resembled an Ewok, a cute
furry biped from Star Wars. Flip quickly became an
indispensable member of the household and won
over all their friends and family. What was it about
this “fuzzy male of low stature, surely a mixed breed,”
Csányi wondered, that made him so magnetic?
Flip seemed to be living proof that the conven-
tional wisdom about dogs—that they were unintelli-
gent—was wrong. The ability of canines to insinuate
themselves successfully into the lives of their human
owners seemed like an amazing feat of evolutionary
magic. “Dogs are smart enough to survive in a hu-
man family, which is actually a quite complicated
task,” recalls Miklósi. “Wolves can’t do that. Estab-
lishing a specific social relationship with another
species is quite challenging.”
Csányi and Miklósi decided to examine the
process by which humans and dogs forge strong
emotional bonds. As ethologists, they were familiar
with the extensive scientific literature on “attach-
ment,” the process by which parents and children
of different species formed lasting emotional bonds.
G UT
ABO
GS E VERY
LIGENCE, DO
AR
L
O UT THE SOCIA
B
Huma owners and their dogs, they theorized,
Human
)520 /( ) 76(1 625 6327Ǭ*( 7 7 <)/ $ 6+323Ǭ* ( 7 7 <
formed bonds in the same way—growing close
through a process that mimicked that of a human
parent and child.
Their theory was inspired in part by Flip’s behav-
ior at home, which struck Csányi as uncannily famil-
iar. “When my children were 2 or 3 years old, they
wanted all of my attention. They wanted to touch
me, they wanted me to touch them,” he recalls. Flip’s
behavior was “very similar.”
In an early experiment, Miklósi and Csányi
placed dogs and their owners in an unfamiliar
room with interesting things to explore and took
- 8 1 ( Ʒ ƹ  ƹ Ʒ ƹ ƺ

PAIR BONDING notes. The dogs and their owners exhibited be-
Dogs have a facial haviors virtually identical to what developmental
muscle that allows them
psychologists had long observed in well-adjusted
to widen their eyes like
babies. Left: A maltese
human infants and their mothers. The dogs used
bichon. Below: Terrier the owners as a secure base, venturing out and
(right) and human. coming back as they explored the new surround-
ings, all the while staying connected through eye
contact and watching carefully for cues. The impli-
cation was clear: Dogs had hacked the human sys-
tem designed to respond to cuteness and bonding.
In recent years, scientists have extended this line of
research. When a dog and a human are bonded, each
touch and each bit of eye contact causes their bod-
ies to release the powerful hormone oxytocin—the
“love chemical” that also promotes bonding between
mother and child and is known to lower heart rate
and blood pressure. Petting increases levels of the hor-
mone dopamine, sometimes referred to as a feel-good
chemical, and endorphins in both dogs and humans.
Other studies have found that dogs have evolved
two to three times as many fast-twitch facial muscles
as wolves, which gives them greater latitude for expres-
sion. A special facial muscle allows them to widen their
eyes in ways that way human babies do, eliciting the
SCIENCE
same high-pitched voices and facial expressions that
parents use with infants. Dogs at shelters that are bet-
ter at making these “puppy-dog” eyes are more success-
ful at finding new homes. Dogs given oxytocin, mean-
while, tend to gaze at their owners more, which causes
the owners to look back, setting off a virtuous cycle
of more oxytocin and dopamine release and bonding.
The ability of dogs to bond with members of oth-
er species is not limited to humans, as any dog own-
er who also has a cat will tell you. In his 2005 book, If
Dogs Could Talk, Csányi describes a dachshund-like
canine named Jumpy whose owners frequently
cooked rabbit stew, a delicacy Jumpy enjoyed for
years. Then, one Easter, they obtained a live rabbit
who temporarily became Jumpy’s favorite playmate.
When they turned that rabbit into stew, not only did
Jumpy recognize and refuse to eat his new friend,
but he went on a “silent and dejected hunger strike
for three days,” Csányi wrote. Jumpy has refused to
eat rabbit meat ever since.
Social Intelligence
It’s not just that dogs are so cute we can’t resIst
them. Research has also confirmed that dogs are
hardwired for cooperation and friendship, remark-
ably attuned to our emotions and limitations and,
it seems increasingly clear, capable of learning and
remembering complex rituals and information.
For his part, Csányi immediately noticed how
quickly Flip seemed to grasp and adapt to the rules
of the house. The Csányi home was crammed full
of small objects. Although Flip was energetic and
“prone to excitement,” he never knocked anything
over or broke anything. When Csányi commanded
Flip to fetch an object from a table—say, a ball or a
toy—he invariably grabbed it with “exquisite care.”
And if, in the process, anything else had been acci-
dently moved, he would “immediately stop and ask
for help by looking at me or barking.”
This type of behavior led Csányi and Miklósi to
question the iconic Michigan experiment compar-
ing the intelligence of domestic dogs and wolves.
Perhaps the dogs had been able to open the gate
mechanism after watching humans do it. Maybe
they just didn’t want to break the rules.
Csányi and Miklósi recruited 28 dogs and their
owners and set up a complicated contraption that
required dogs to pull on the handles of plastic dish-
es on the other side of a wire fence to obtain meat.
NE WSWEEK .COM 25

“IT’S A CHALLENGE TO FIGURE OUT HOW DOGS THINK AND WHAT THE WORLD IS LIKE TO THEM,
Outdoor dogs, who spend most of their time in the
yard and thus are presumably more accustomed
to acting as independent agents, outscored their
indoor cousins about a third of the time, while the
most obedient domesticated dogs looked to their
owners for permission to reach through the fence.
When they got it, however, they matched the per-
formance of their more independent cousins.
To figure out how much the dogs could under-
stand, the experimenters hid food in one of several
containers, then brought the dogs into the room
and had them guess which container had the food.
To help them, researchers offered various cues, al-
ternatively staring at, nodding toward or pointing
to the correct container. When researchers use these
tests on human infants, they quickly catch on to the
hints. Apes and chimpanzees, by contrast, almost
never do without extensive training. Dogs, like tod-
dlers, are quick learners. They soon learn to heed the
pointing, bowing, nodding, head turning and glanc-
ing gestures from humans to find the hidden food.
26 NE WSWEEK .COM
KELLY/NOBLE SOUL PHOTOGR APHY/GE T T Y
The pointing experiments provided the first
direct evidence that dogs have the brainpower
FROM LE F T: SEN SOR SPOT/GE T T Y; CHAD L AT TA /G E T T Y; S EN SOR SPOT/GE T T Y; TIFFANY
not only to understand abstract ideas, but also
to ascribe motivations to members of an entirely
different species, according to Evan MacLean, an
evolutionary biologist and cognitive scientist who
is the founder and director of the Arizona Canine
Cognition Center. It also suggested that studying
dogs could give us insight into sociability and what
allowed humans to be so successful.
“If you think about it, pointing is a fundamentally
cooperative kind of behavior,” MacLean explains. “If
I point out something for you, as a human, when
you’re trying to figure out what that means, you
SMARTER THAN CHIMPS without thinking about it assume that I have a co-
Dogs have the operative motive. I know something about the world
brainpower to that you don’t, and the reason I’m doing this is be-
ascribe motivations
cause I want to help you in some way. That is cooper-
to people. Left to
right: Dobermann,
ative behavior at its core. Other animals can’t do that.”
border collie, English Dogs pay close attention not just to human ges-
bulldog, chihuahua. tures, but to human facial expressions as well. In
JUNE 02, 2023
 SCIENCE
BECAUSE THEY HAVE EVOLVED TO MAKE US THINK THAT THEY ARE LIKE US.”
recent years, researchers have shown that dogs can
distinguish expressions of happiness, anger and
disgust. They can tell when a person is sad or cheer-
ful. Their hearts beat faster when they see photos
of expressive faces than neutral ones. They avoid
angry faces and pay more attention to fearful ones.
All this helps explain why guide dogs are so effec-
tive at helping blind people navigate the world and
avoid stepping into traffic and how therapy dogs
can comfort traumatized children, prisoners serv-
ing life sentences for violent crimes, senior citizens
fading into dementia and stressed-out college stu-
dents cramming for exams: because they can read
human emotions and respond appropriately.
Good Judges of Character
evidence is growing that dog smarts are not
limited to social and emotional intelligence. It appar-
ently extends to far more complex behavior as well.
Dogs are capable of making rapid, simulta-
neous judgements of the kindness or potential
helpfulness of humans they meet—just as Flip ap-
parently did when he decided to adopt Csányi and
his wife on that Hungarian mountaintop. They also
seem to be capable of accumulating sophisticated
mental files on individual people and using that
information to guide behavior.
In humans, the ability to evaluate character is
foundational, emerging as early as five months. Zach-
ary Silver, who recently earned his Ph.D. at Yale and
will soon open a lab at Occidental College, recent-
ly used pairs of actors to test the ability of dogs to
make character judgments. One actor would pretend
to steal a clipboard or actively harm somebody else,
while the other would be friendlier, handing some-
one a clipboard they are looking for. Both actors
would then simultaneously offer the dog a treat. Of
37 dogs tested, two thirds preferred to take food from
the friendly actor. Other experiments have found
that dogs will eventually stop following cues from
human individuals who too often mislead them.
“If we’re talking about social intelligence, dogs
NE WSWEEK .COM 27
28
NE WSWEEK .COM
JUNE 02, 2023
FROM LE F T: PM IM AG E S /GE T T Y; FL A SHPOP/G E T T Y
SCIENCE

are very human-like in the way that they reason

about the social world,” says Silver.
Of course, dog owners have already figured this
out. For instance, most people who have shy dogs
know that their pets often watch their interactions
with strangers closely and are more likely to make
a friendly approach to someone after seeing their
owner have a positive interaction. Yet they seem to
understand the relationship is different—they nev-
er seem to want or expect to follow home human
friends, no matter how familiar and beloved, if those
friends don’t reside with their primary caregivers.
With dogs, communication goes both ways. In a re-
vised version of the pointing experiment, owners would
leave the room while researchers hid food in plain sight
of the dogs. Typically, when an owner returned and was
asked to look for the food, the dog tried to signal by
running back and forth between the hiding place and
the owner or using their eyes to indicate the location.
The eagerness of dogs to help their owners was
brought home to Csányi one day when he took THE MIND OF DOG to guess the situation, owners and nonowners alike
a bad fall on an icy staircase. Flip ran to his side, The question of were right about a third of the time—about twice
how much dogs can
licked him and stayed with him until he could get the rate of chance.
understand—and why
up. For years afterward, whenever they came to the some dogs understand
“When dogs are vocalizing, they’re really expressing
same icy steps, Flip would return to his owner’s side more than others—is different kinds of inner states,” Milóski says. “They try
and closely watch him until they had passed the one of the hottest areas to communicate something about their emotions.”
danger zone. During the summer, however, Flip of current research. Dogs seem to have a big capacity to learn new
Left: Jack Russell
seemed to recognize the danger was absent. ways of expressing themselves. Miklósi has shown
terrier. Above: Pug.
Barking is another effective avenue of expression. that with just a little bit of training, dogs can be
In an experiment with Hungarian mudis, a herding enticed to mimic a wide range of human actions
dog that resembles German shepherds and border spontaneously, such as bowing, jumping, lifting a
collies, Miklósi recorded the dogs while playing limb, turning in circles—even learning to operate
with other dogs, anticipating food, encountering a machine that dispenses balls.
an intruder and several other situations. When he
played the recordings to volunteers and asked them The Limits of ‘Genius’ Dogs
A sheepAdoodle nAmed Bunny hAs recently At-
tracted eight million followers on TikTok for her
apparent mastery of language. (A sheepadoodle is

S DOGS
a mix of old English sheepdog and poodle.) Bunny

EED OF
BR RAINS THAT ARE
seems to express her needs and wants by press-

“DIFFERENT
ing buttons on a mat, originally designed to help

HAVE B TO
children with difficulty communicating, linked to

AS.”
specific words, such as “walk.” Researchers at U.C.

IRED ARE
SORT OF PR EXCEL IN DIFFERENT
E-W San Diego are currently evaluating the claims and
studying the extent to which nonhumans can use
these tools to communicate.
It sounds like a silly TikTok thing, but the ques-
tion of how much dogs can understand—and why
some dogs understand more than others—is one

NE WSWEEK .COM 29

of the hottest areas of current research.
It started a decade or so ago with the discovery
of a border collie named Chaser that was extraordi-
narily smart. John Pilley, a behavioral psychologist
at Wofford College in South Carolina, trained Chas-
er to identify and retrieve 1,022 toys by name (he
wrote it all up in his 2013 New York Times bestseller
Chaser: Unlocking the Genius of the Dog Who Knows
a Thousand Words). Chaser was also able to discrim-
inate verbs used to describe a desired action—such
as “pull” or “fetch.” When asked to fetch a specific
toy Chaser had never heard of, the dog was also ca-
pable of inferring which toy the experimenter want-
ed if it knew the names of all the other toys present,
D AM E N TALLY .
G A F UN OF BEHAVIOR
I N IS
“POINTCOOPERATIVE KIND DO THAT.”
N ’ T
OTHER AN IM AL S C A
presumably by a process of elimination.
Chaser kick-started a quest among some research-
ers to find more examples of “genius dogs” to study. In
2021, Miklósi, set up a website to find smart dogs (he’s
still seeking candidates) and launched a high-profile
“genius dog” contest that was covered by CNN and oth-
er media outlets during the pandemic, pitting dogs
with big vocabularies against one another. So far, he
has identified 40 dogs from around the world. Where-
as the average dog may know the names of one or two
objects, a genius dog will know four to six names and
can quickly learn 80 to 100 with training. It usually
takes 10 or 15 minutes to learn the name of one object
and the dogs retain them memory for about a month.
The “cognitive trick” by which they are learning re-
mains an active area of exploration, and to draw con-
clusions he first needs to recruit more dogs.
Some experts remain skeptical about many claims
people make about their dog’s abilities. Amritha Mal-
likarjun, a postdoc at Penn Vet Working Dog Center
at the University of Pennsylvania, which specializes
30 NE WSWEEK .COM
SCIENCE
in training and studying search-and-rescue dogs,
bomb sniffers and other service dogs, says that, in
general, people tend to overestimate the capacity of
dogs to understand speech. Miklósi admits that only
an extremely small percentage of dogs are capable
of learning 100 words or more.
Dogs may never recite Shakespeare, but they do
seem to have an affinity for different languages.
Mallikarjun has demonstrated that dogs raised in
English-speaking households show far more inter-
est when people speak in Spanish (and vice versa),
because, she thinks, it is novel to them. “They can
certainly learn the idea that a spoken utterance cor-
responds with an action or an item, but they cannot
speak language” in a technical sense, says Mallikar-
jun. In most cases, dogs understand the tone, and
often can figure out the meaning of words by the
context. But most dogs can’t actually distinguish
between nouns and verbs without cues.
“I can certainly train a dog to step on a button if
they want to go outside,” she says. “I can also train a
dog to ring a bell if they want to go outside, which
is what a lot of people have already done. Or you
just wait until your dog comes over to you. Because
generally we understand our dogs pretty well. Chas-
er was the only dog thus far that’s basically been
able to show the idea that there’s an action that can
CLOCK WI SE FROM TOP LE F T: S EN SOR SPOT/GE T T Y; CHAD L AT TA /GE T T Y; SEN SOR SPOT/GE T T Y (2)
go with an object, and they’re separate.”
Inside the Doggie Brain
As brAin imAging technologies continue to Ad-
vance, they’re offering tantalizing clues about what
goes on in canine brains. Dogs, research shows, see
the world in radically different ways than people do.
Philippa Johnson, an associate professor of diag-
nostic imagining at Cornell College of Veterinary
Medicine, recently produced the first atlas of the ca-
nine brain. She’s found that the temporal areas of the
brain—those involved in long-term episodic memo-
ry and emotions—are roughly comparable in dogs
to those of humans. This explains how dogs bond so
well with humans and understand emotions. Howev-
er, a dog’s frontal cortex—the seat of abstract reason-
GALLERY OF ing, problem solving and imaginative thought—is
CUTENESS far smaller than that found in humans. To Johnson,
Clockwise from
this suggests dogs are “much more present” than hu-
top left: American
pit bull; mastiff;
mans, blissfully immune to worrying about what will
miniature pinscher happen beyond the next meal or cuddle.
puppy; mixed breed. However, other areas of the brain are far larger in
JUNE 02, 2023
 SCIENCE

dogs than in humans. These include those involved
in visual processing, fine-motor function and smell.
Johnson has also done extensive work mapping the
“white matter” connections in the canine brain, which
sheds light on what areas most often work in tandem.
Perhaps most notably, she has identified a major
track in dogs that is not present in humans. It pro-
vides a direct connection between the visual cortex
and the olfactory lobes, involved in processing smells.
She’s also found direct connections, not found in any
other species, between the nose and the spinal cord.
An odor entering a dog’s nose will sometimes be pro-
cessed in the visual areas of the brain, which is why
some blind dogs seem to retain some ability to “see.”
More broadly, this means that the moment-to-mo-
ment experience of a dog probably involves an in-
tricate interweaving of sights and odors.
Indeed, if dogs have a superpower, aside from
social cognition, it would be their sense of smell. A
dog’s nose is a million times more sensitive than that
of a human. The average person is equipped with five
million olfactory receptors—tiny proteins capable
of detecting individual odor molecules—clustered
in a small area in the back of the nasal cavity. By
contrast, the average dog has 300 million olfactory
One study found that small adult male dogs tend-
ed to pee higher relative to their body size than larg-
er adult male dogs to exaggerate their height and
competitive ability. In another study, researchers
showed dogs pictures of other dogs whose pee they’d
sniffed. The dogs who sniffed the pee were surprised
if the size of the dog in the picture did not conform
to the mental image in their head, Wilson says.
There’s so much information in pee that Wilson and
her colleagues refer to it as the “pee-mail” system. A
dog will often pee its reply on the same spot.
There is, of course, a wide variability between
one dog’s brain and another’s. Erin Hecht, head
of the Evolutionary Neuroscience Laboratory and
the Canine Brains project at Harvard, has been
studying how human breeding has affected canine
brain development. In research published in 2019,
she looked at 62 pure-bred dogs from 33 different
breeds and found substantial differences in the
sizes of different brain regions and networks, de-
pending on whether they had been bred for hunt-
ing, herding, guarding or companionship.
One network included reward regions of the
brain that would be involved in social bonding to

“WHEN PEOPLE WANT TO KNOW ‘WHAT IS MY DOG THINKING,’

receptors—60 times more than humans—extending
from the nostrils all the way to the back of the throat.
By some estimates 35 percent of a dog’s brain is dedi-
cated to smelling, compared to 5 percent for humans.
That’s why dogs have been used for centuries to
sniff out outlaws, explosives and drugs, find avalanche
victims and rescue individuals trapped under build-
ings. In recent years, they’ve even been trained to sniff
out cancer and COVID-19. Clara Wilson, an expert
on canine olfaction at the Penn Working Dog group,
found that dogs can smell human stress. In experi-
ments, a dog presented with a piece of cloth swabbed

FROM LE F T: FL A SHPOP/G E T T Y; SEN SOR SPOT/GE T T Y

from the back of a person’s neck and breathed on can
usually tell whether or not that person had recently
been asked to perform a difficult math task.
Dogs, Wilson notes, also use their sense of smell
to keep track of time. They can tell the difference
between an odor that’s 12 hours old or four hours
old. That’s how they know when it’s time to go out
for a walk and when their owner is due home from
work. Often, on walks, they are sniffing out urine
from other dogs, which contains copious amounts
of information, such as whether a dog was in heat,
stressed out, happy or sick.

32 NE WSWEEK .COM
 humans, training and skill learning. These regions
would be more pronounced in companion “lapdog”
breeds, such as the Maltese and Yorkshire terrier. A
second network, associated with active smelling and
tasting in pursuit of a goal, was larger in scent hunt-
ers, such as beagles and basset hounds. A third set of
areas—used for eye movement, vision, spatial navi-
gation and motor areas involved in moving through
a physical environment—was larger in dogs bred for
sight hunting, such as whippets and Weimaraners.
A fourth network included high-order brain re-
gions that might be involved in social action and
interaction, including areas that appear to be acti-
vated when dogs are presented with human faces
and vocalizations, which was also linked to com-
panion breeds like the Maltese and Yorkshire terri-
er. A fifth set of regions involved in fear, stress and
anxiety, which regulate behavioral and hormonal
responses to environmental stressors and threats,
was well developed in breeds historically used for
fighting, including boxers and bulldogs. And a sixth
network, involved in processing smell and vision,
was linked to dogs with historical police and mili-
tary functions like boxers and Doberman pinchers.

I THINK WHAT THEY’RE ASKING IS, ‘DOES MY DOG LOVE ME?’. THE ANSWER IS ‘ABSOLUTELY.’”
“There’s way more variation across dog brains than
there is across any other species,” she says. “And so this
is the result of human breeding. We have made them
this way, and different breeds of dogs have brains that
are sort of prewired to excel in different areas.”
“It’s a challenge to figure out how dogs think and
what the world is like to them, because they have
evolved to make us think that they are like us,” she adds.
“They’ve evolved to mimic human psychology in some
ways. That doesn’t necessarily mean that that’s actual-
ly what’s happening in their brains. We have to try to
take off our human color glasses to understand what’s
going on with them, and that’s hard for us to do.”
Does My Dog Love Me?
All the reseArch findings in the world About
how much dogs understand language, read human
intent and are keen judges of character did not satisfy
Gregory Berns. He still sought an answer to his Big
Question about Newton. When his beloved pug looked
LET THERE BE LIGHT
Praise lights up the
reward centers of a
dog’s brain. Left: A fluffy
dog with its human.
Top: Pit bull.
up at him with those puppy-dog eyes, was it true love?
Since Newton had already crossed the Rainbow
Bridge, Berns turned his attention to Newton’s suc-
cessor, a pet terrier named Callie. He trained Callie
to lie still in an fMRI scanner. Berns fed her, praised
her and left her alone in the huge donut-shaped
machine and monitored the reward areas of her
brain to see when they lit up the most.
The results were unambiguous: kind words from
Berns lit up Callie’s reward centers just as much as
the dog treats, demonstrating that Callie—and by
extension, Newton—loved him just as much, if not
more, than a scrumptious piece of food.
“When people want to know ‘what is my dog think-
ing,’ I think what they’re asking is, ‘does my dog love
me? I love him,’” Berns says. “The answer is ‘absolute-
ly.’ It’s remarkably similar to how we experience the
relationship. They have these social bonds that with
us, that they find them intensely rewarding.” Science,
in this case, is telling us what we already knew.

JUNE 02, 2023 NE WSWEEK .COM 33

 We asked readers to send us their Buddy
funniest, sweetest and most adorable Brett Gursky
photos of their pooches and tell
“I love my dog like he’s my son.
us why they love them so much. He’s the sweetest, funniest,
Here’s a sampling of the responses. happiest, most loyal dog.
Every moment with him is
filled with laughter & fun.”
Cheyenne
wendy richard
“My 9-year-old Dogue de
Majorque is adorable,
protective, lovely and dedicated
to her family. We are blessed
to have her by our side.”

Mia & Bimba Mocha & Latte Mona Peach

Juan PaBlo Molina darlene BerGano laura Vazquez katie costello

“Mia, a pitbull, and Bimba, a
springer spaniel are our
two pets. Unconditional
love, that’s just it.”
(Photos are before and after
“fun in the mud.”) “Momma
wanted to name us Mocha
and Latte. So we tried to look
like a Mocha and Latte.”
“She is full of life and energy,
the ultimate curious explorer,
a sweet and funny companion.
She has the biggest personality
for a six-month-old pup.”
“Peach loves every dog and cat
she’s ever met, rests mid-
walk whenever and wherever
she feels like it and snuggles
by laying fully on you.”

Bodie
alexandria bacKus
“Bodie is the biggest goofball.
Seeing his mischevious face
makes any day better! He
got me through COVID and a
very difficult time in my life.”
ALL PUP PHOTOS COU RTE SY OF THE IR PARE NTS
Spike
“YaquiGirl american”
“Spike is a rescue and
has been my buddy ever
since. He is the boss.”
JUNE 02, 2023
Katsu & Chestnut
wenG Gomez
“I never imagined dogs could
make me feel so loved. While
everyone is busy with their
lives, they are there, ready for
a hug to make me feel better.”
Stax
J. benedict, K. wallman
“When we stop petting Stax
he starts whining. He always
greets us and others with
a toy in his mouth. We love
him for all his quirks!”
PETS
Max
michal lechowicz
“He’s a total couch potato—8
a.m. is too early to go outside,
prince must sleep to 10-11. Not
friendly for foreigners but for
family is a big Winnie the Pooh.”
Sweet Pea
miKi PhaGan
“Sweet Pea, 13, is quite a
curmudgeon but so protective
of our granddaughter, 15
months. He watches over her—
an old man found new purpose.”
Lucy
roGer rinehart
“Lucy is the perfect companion
for our empty-nesting years.
Her greatest joy is hanging
out. She encourages us to take
walks and never met a stranger.”
Travis
sandra swietliK
“Travis loves people almost
more than anything. Cheese
will forever be his first
love. He makes me cry, laugh,
rejoice and feel so loved.”
NE WSWEEK .COM 35
COU RTE SY OF PRIME M INI STER’S OFFICE , BHUTA N
 THE

INTERVIEW

bhutan’s prime minister discusses

how the carbon-negative kingdom deals
with climate change and a growing rivalry
between neighbors india and china

by
danish
manzoor
bhat

- 8 1 ( Ʒ ƹ  ƹ Ʒ ƹ ƺ NE WSWEEK .COM 37
 only wish greenhouse gases needed
visas and passports,” Bhutan’s Prime
Minister Lotay Tshering lamented to
Newsweek in an interview in the high-
est country on earth.
Mountainous and heavily forested
Bhutan has been called the first carbon negative
country, meaning that it takes in more of the carbon
dioxide that fuels global warming than its limited in-
dustry pumps out. But its location in the Himalayas
exposes it all the more to the impact of climate change
resulting from the emissions of other countries.
While low-lying nations are often seen as early
victims of climate change as a result of rising seas,
in Bhutan it is the accelerating pace with which gla-
ciers are melting that is a problem. The lakes they
are feeding threaten to burst and cause flash flood-
ing that can be catastrophic for Bhutan’s people and
its agriculture. Steep slopes in the country, which
has an average altitude of nearly 11,000 feet, make it
prone to landslides during heavy rainfall—with the
instability potentially exacerbated by earthquakes.
“We are challenged with a lot of natural disasters
38 NE WSWEEK .COM
The Full Interview
Scan the QR code below to
access the video version of
Newsweek’s conversation
with Bhutan Prime
Minister Lotay Tshering.
that come in and surprise us,” Tshering said.
The natural elements are far from the only chal-
lenges in Bhutan, which faces one of the most in-
tricate geopolitical balancing acts anywhere given
its location sandwiched between the world’s most
populous countries—and increasing rivals—India
to the south and China to the north.
Friendly with India, with which it does well over
80 percent of its trade, Bhutan is locked in border
negotiations with China, which claims a swathe
of the country of about 775,000 people—a little
more than the population of Seattle. Although Bhu-
tan has no formal ties with the United States, the
U.S. State Department says the two countries have
warm, informal relations.
Ever diplomatic in his language, Tshering said, “I
think how peaceful we are, and the kind of society we
have is not something that we alone built up. It’s our
neighbors who helped us build it. It’s our neighbors
who help us stay the way we are, and it is our neigh-
bors’ goodwill that has resulted in where we are today.”
The Buddhist kingdom is the home of the
world’s youngest monarch, 43-year-old Jigme
JUNE 02, 2023

“ We are not obligated
to remain carbon negative
but We genuinely feel this is
the right Way forWard. being
carbon negative is our Wealth.”
Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, and is run by Tsher-
ing, who at 53 still finds time to practice medicine
as a kidney doctor. On weekends and some week-
days, he can be found conducting surgeries at the
Jigme Dorji Wangchuck National Referral Hospital
in the capital, Thimphu.
Tshering has said one inspiration for his work
was the late Roman Catholic nun Mother Teresa,
known for her charitable works and now canon-
ised as a saint. He is also married to a doctor.
Tshering was elected in 2018. Well-known na-
tionally, in part for his appearances to give advice
as a doctor on television, Tshering entered politics
only around five years earlier, paying back his train-
ing fees when he resigned as a civil servant and say-
ing he would try to fix Bhutan’s systemic problems
and not only those of individual patients.
Despite its challenges, Bhutan has long been
committed to prioritizing what it calls Gross Na-
FROM TOP : LYN SE Y AD DARIO/G E T T Y; COURTE SY OF PR IM E M IN I STER’ S OFFICE , BHUTAN
tional Happiness (GNH) over Gross Domestic Prod-
uct (GDP)—a concept that Tshering spoke about,
among other topics, with Danish Manzoor Bhat,
Editorial Director, Asia of Newsweek. Their conver-
sation has been lightly edited for clarity.
Q: Prime Minister, if I ask you to define the rela-
tionship that Bhutan shares with three countries;
India, the United States of America and China,
how would you respond?
A: I don’t think one country can do without being
dependent on others, forget being neighbors. Now
you’ve given me three countries, the United States of
America, India and China. We are physically between
India and China. So, we have a lot of advantages to
take from our two neighbors and these two neighbors
are the most populated in the world. Two neighbors
whose economies are growing at an unprecedented
pace. So, we take lot of pride and excitement in it.
The United States of America is also “the”
THE
INTERVIEW
economy right now and leader in the world global
power, and we have lot of goodwill with all Ameri-
cans and the government of America and the lead-
ership there. So, I think it’s a win-win situation.
For us, it will be very difficult to pick one from the
three. And for that matter, genuinely, it is wrong to
pick one from all good neighbors or good countries
in the world. So, they are all good for us.
Q: Prime Minister, Bhutan is landlocked. You’ve
got India on one side and China on the other. Yet
your country has been able to stay out of trouble.
How do you achieve it?
See, it all depends. How tall you are, depends on
how short your neighbors and friends are. How
short you are, depends on how tall your friends are.
I think how peaceful we are, and the kind of society
we have is not something that we alone built up.
It’s our neighbors who helped us build it. It’s our
neighbors who help us stay the way we are, and it is
our neighbors’ goodwill that has resulted in where
PROTECT AND SERVE we are today. I think being landlocked can be dis-
Opposite: Nearly 75 advantageous and at the same time, advantageous.
percent of Bhutan is So, I’m happy to share with you that we are on the
covered by protected
side of advantages. It’s a huge advantage for us and
national forest. Below:
the Prime Minister (here,
knowing the fact that we are packed between two
performing surgery) is most fastest growing economies in the world. We
also a practicing doctor. are positioned in the most advantageous way.
NE WSWEEK .COM 39
 THE

INTERVIEW

Q: We see your amicable relations with India, but know how many constitutions in the world have
China is now claiming almost 10 percent of Bhu- this vision. We have been preserving our pristine
tan’s territory. Where do you see that going? environment for generations. Yes. I also admit that
A: We have very good relations with India histori- when the whole world was getting industrialized,
cally and geographically. And I was very happy to we did not, and we could not. So, if we had indus-
have Indian Prime Minister [Narendra] Modi visit trialized like any other nation in the world, would
us as the first country after elections, and I also re- we have been carbon negative today? I doubt. But
ciprocated being in New Delhi as my first destina- thank God that we did not or could not industrial-
tion after elections. This relationship should go on ize. That’s why we remained poor for a little longer.
forever. We do not worry whichever government But now we have the richness that no other nation
comes to power in Delhi, whichever government has—72 percent of Bhutan is under forest cover.
comes to power in Thimphu, the relationship be- What will we do in the future? We have already
tween the two countries will go on forever and that committed to the U.N. and all climate bodies and
is something that we all take for sure.
And I’m very happy to share that,
with China, we have friendly relations.
As boundary talks have progressed very “ The world knows us Through The
smoothly, we had the technical level of concepT of gross naTional happiness.
visits from Thimphu to China a month we go around being very happy,
back and the progress was very good. coming from a place ThaT is peaceful.”
The next stage will be their technical
team coming to Thimphu and then
sorting out whatever timeline that we
have agreed upon in China. And then after that is to
physically demarcate the boundary between the two
countries. I don’t think there are any two countries
in the world that are resolving the boundary demar-

F RO M TO P : PAU L A B RO N ST E I N /G E T T Y; SA JJA D H U S SA I N /A F P/G E T T Y; A RU N SA N K A R /A F P/G E T T Y

cation in such a timely manner as Bhutan and China
are. A lot of credit for this of course goes to my pre-
decessors, His Majesties the Kings, but a bigger share
goes to the bigger neighbors, to their positive think-
ing towards us, their friendly feeling for us, and their
genuine goodwill gestures. I’m grateful to all of them.

Q: Prime Minister, the biggest conversation around

Bhutan has always been climate change. As this
country is intrinsically carbon negative, what is
the message that you have for the world?
A: I mean, when you talk about climate change in
Bhutan, it rightly stands out for many individuals
and countries in the world who are very climate
sensitive. I think I’ve taken note of this, that Bhutan,
is being naturally carbon negative when the whole
world is trying to become carbon neutral by 2050.
Many countries in the world can never be carbon
negative, but we are. Thanks to my predecessors
and His Majesties the Kings. If you go through our
constitution, it mandates us to spare at least 60
percent of the country under forest cover. I don’t

40 NE WSWEEK .COM
have pledged to keep the country as green as we
have now forever. The 72 percent of the country
under forest cover is again further protected as
national parks, biological corridors, biodiversity
hotspots and we have legal instruments in place
to protect them forever—at certain places, even at
the cost of some inhabitants. Some rural villages
have ancestrally been living there and they’re at a
little disadvantage. We are looking for ways and
means to support them or if possible, to even relo-
cate them. So that they will also be contributing not
just to Bhutan, but to the whole world.
At this time, I only wish greenhouse gases need-
ed visas and passports to cross international bound-
aries. Greenhouse gases emitted elsewhere on this
planet are affecting us. Being resource constrained,
adaptability is very important. Our resilience has
also been threatened. We are challenged with a lot
of natural disasters that come in and surprise us.
JUNE 02, 2023
This is part and parcel of life, but we are genuine,
we are determined that we will remain like this.
The biggest threat to our carbon negativity is the
emission from cars. We have a National Program
on introducing more electric vehicles now. Let us
see how far we can go in attempting to add 60–70
percent electrically powered cars on our roads and
replace petrol/diesel ones. We are also exploring
hydrogen technology that is evolving very fast. I
would like to focus more on and invest more in that.
CLIMATE CHALLENGE
We are not obligated to remain carbon negative;
Left, from top:
Secondhand pollution
we can do what we want to do. But we genuinely
from neighbors like feel that this is the right way forward. Being carbon
India (here, smog in negative is our wealth.
New Delhi) is a concern, In the whole world, a lot of money, a lot of re-
so Bhutan is investing
sources are being pumped into reducing green-
more in green energy
like wind turbines.
house gas emissions and reducing the level of emis-
Above: Novice Buddhist sions so that we bring the whole world to carbon
monks practice the flute. neutrality by 2050. Many big emitters have also
NE WSWEEK .COM 41
 THE

INTERVIEW

pledged. China and India have also pledged. That’s

very difficult. Pledging that we will be carbon nega-
tive forever is a little easier for us than it is for India
and China to pledge becoming carbon neutral by
2060 or 2070. That is a bigger commitment.

Q: Is GNH or gross national happiness the only

indicator that the world should look at when it
comes to Bhutan?
A: The whole world knows us through the concept of
gross national happiness. And we also go around be-
ing very happy, coming from a place that is a peaceful
one. More than us telling the world I think it all de-
pends on the world and what they want to learn from
us. So learning is not only by teaching, but by willing-
ness to listen. So, this is very, very subjective. And I for
one, ever since I knew myself, do not have the habit
of preaching anything. I only go around practicing
what I believe in, and then it’s up to individuals like
yourself to tell the world what we have today. “Parts of Bhutan have Been suffering from Brain
Q: What are the priorities of Bhutan as a nation
for its near future? educating your children, if you do not have to worry
A: I don’t think any nation can progress or prosper when you’re sick, that is the first step to prosperity.
without having a dependable, resilient, robust econo-
my. In Bhutan, we have come up through a unique path, Q: Speaking of education; what new initiatives is
a unique tradition, unique culture, unique environ- your government planning to take to ensure that
ment that resulted us in having carbon negative status human resource from Bhutan is ready for the
today. A unique system which allows us to go around world and the technological challenges?
talking about the principles and philosophy of gross A: We have realized that technical and vocational
national happiness. So, since we have these few unique training is something that is really required. We
features that no nation on this planet has, I would like have also realized that [the] definition of literacy is
to say Bhutan’s future priority is to be rich, to be tech- changing, we must have digital knowledge. We have
nologically driven, to have resilient, robust economy started a major shift. We are ICT-izing [Information
but grounded to our unique features. That should and Communication Technology] the whole educa-
make our economy totally different from others. tion system, so we must change the curriculum, we
FROM TOP : TRI STON YE O/GE T T Y; PAUL A BRON STEIN/G E T T Y

have to ITC-ize the teachers, we have to digitalize the

Q: I have noticed while speaking to the locals that
education and health care is free for all citizens.
So how do you manage that?
A: Yes, when I said Bhutan has a lot of unique features,
“health and education” are among them. His Majesty
the King, the successive monarchs, have always be-
lieved that the best social equalizers are health and
education. We have state-funded free health care and
education in the country. We want to give the best of
education and keep it free. We want to offer the best
of health care and give it to the citizens of the coun-
try for free because if you do not have to worry about
infrastructure, and we have to change the mindset of
the teachers and the learners. Two years ago, 2020 on-
wards, we introduced coding system in all the schools.
Formal school starts from age five in Bhutan. From
pre-primary, a 5-year-old now gets exposed to coding,
he or she may not realize but it’s there. His Majesty
gifted a “code-monkey” system to all the schools. We
managed to have ICT labs in all the remote schools.
We would like to have dependable, reliable inter-
net connections, which is a challenge for now, but
we will get there. Almost all the schools are now con-
nected with fiberoptics. We would like to digitalize

42 NE WSWEEK .COM JUNE 02, 2023

 the content, so the students are able to use it. We
are also telling our teachers that they are now no
more the source of information. It is already there
on your phone. Teachers should now be facilitators
between the information and the information seek-
ers. I think we are going through a major revolution
in the education system. And again, it will be for free.
Q: A lot of skilled youngsters, educated outside of
Bhutan, do not want to come back, many are leav-
ing. Do you see that brain drain as a challenge?
A: For me, it is not a new trend. Parts of Bhutan have
been suffering from brain drain for decades. With glo-
balization, there’s a similar trend. They’re going to plac-
es and countries where they have better opportunities.
Is this the challenge for us? Definitely. It will be a
disaster for us if we don’t change our mindset. His
drain for decades. it will Be a disaster for us if we don’t change our mindset.”
A MODERN KINGDOM Majesty the King has commanded, initiated, and is
Left: Bhutan’s King
now leading major transformation in the country.
Jigme Khesar Namgyel
Wangchuck on his
All public sectors, civil service, financial institutions,
wedding day in 2011. central bank, judiciary. Everything’s getting trans-
Below: The country formed because we must meet the expectations of
provides free education our educated Bhutanese youth. As a result of this
to all (here, girls
transformation, the rate of brain drain will decrease
play at recess at a
school in Thimphu).
because the Bhutanese people will have opportu-
nities in-house. I don’t think there is one single
Bhutanese who is going out because they don’t like
Bhutan. They all love Bhutan, love their motherland.
They all love His Majesty the King. But since there
are no opportunities as per their expectation, they
are going out, leaving their loved ones behind.
Q: Are there any specific focus sectors that you are
looking to expand in or seek support in?
A: We are attracting investments at any level pos-
sible to invest in Bhutan on renewable energy, hy-
dro-energy and are now focusing more on solar
and wind energy also so we can have energy surplus
coming from renewable sources.
We would like to focus on agriculture, riding on
technology. Same with education. We intend to fo-
cus a lot on STEM- [science, technology, engineering
and mathematics] subjects, STEM-related education.
Humanities have their own requirement, but a
majority focus on humanities alone will not take
Bhutan forward. On that note, we have been shar-
ing our needs with all the countries in the world,
the closest being India. We would welcome help
with more STEM-related subjects, trainers, experts,
teachers. We are going through a digital transfor-
mation. We are almost done with having a “Nation-
al Digital ID” system for citizens and tourists. That
digital ID system being the spine, has a big digital
component in health. We call it electronic patient
record system so that everything is digitally record-
ed and will help the country in resource allocation.
In education we have education management sys-
tems, learning information management systems,
where the milestones will be recorded, subjects that
they are inherently good at will be analyzed, so that
we can channel them in the right fields.
NE WSWEEK .COM 43
 Culture HIGH, LOW + EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN

UNCHARTED

The Most Scenic

Coastlines to
See From Above
Memorial Day is the official start to summer—and with it, beach season. There’s
nothing quite as calming as the sound of the surf and the feel of the sun and
sand to transport you to an easier lifestyle, far from everyday pressures. The
beach itself is a symbol of happiness that is universally joyful, nostalgic and
calming. With the images shot from doorless helicopters in his new book,
Coastal, Gray Malin tries “to capture these feelings,” and says, “I hope my
aerial photography continues to bring viewers back to the places they love and
motivate[s] them to go to the places they still want to see.” From the teal blue
waters of Lake Michigan to the white sand beaches of Perth, Australia, here
are some of his favorite coastlines to help “make every day a getaway.”

La Fontelina Beach Club

CAPRI, ITALY
TOP RIG HT: D IA DIPA SUP IL /G E T T Y

When I flew over the island of Capri

there were very few beaches as it’s a
rocky island, so it was mesmerizing to see
these blue umbrellas staggered on top
of the rocks against the deep blue sea.
(See #06 on following spread)

44 NE WSWEEK .COM P h o t o g r a p h s b y G R AY M A L I N
Ke Huy Quan Talks Representation
“The more you see, the more you understand, and the less you’re afraid of it.” ▸ P.64
Culture

04

Aquinnah Beach
MARTHA’S VINEYARD

03 For a relatively small island, Martha’s

Vineyard is extremely rich in history
Charlevoix as well as chock-full of fun “must-
Channel Ferry sees and dos.” Don’t miss Aquinnah
MICHIGAN
%HDFKIDPRXVIRULWVUHGFOLƪV$QG
I grew up spending wherever you end up, be sure to eat
my summers on Lake a lot of the local catch and enjoy this
Michigan and have a beautiful slice of American heaven.
lifelong connection to the
Midwest. The stunning
teal water of the Great
Lakes and the sweeping 4
3
sand dunes are this
area’s best kept secret.
2

01

Surfing Waikiki
HAWAII
1
The beauty of the
Hawaiian Islands is beyond
comparison; there is such
a serene, relaxing energy
WKHUH,YLVLWDVRƱHQDV,
can to breathe the fresh
air, recharge and reconnect.
Hawaii really embodies
the same spirit I try to
evoke in my work—to make
every day a getaway.

05
5 Joatinga Beach
RIO DE JANEIRO
Rio de Janeiro has a beach
culture unlike any city I have ever
visited. Locals spend sunrise
to sunset thriving under the
02 sun. It’s part of their Brazilian
Bixby Bridge identity—a way of life.
BIG SUR, NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
The ultimate road trip along
&DOLIRUQLDpV3DFLƬF&RDVW+LJKZD\
must include a drive through
Big Sur National Park. There
LVDFHOHVWLDOHQHUJ\DORQJWKH
FRDVWOLQHQHDU%L[E\%ULGJHWKDWLV
contagious and provides long-
ODVWLQJPHPRULHVIRUDOOZKRYLVLW

46 NE WSWEEK .COM

08
Dubai Beach Club
DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
The beaches of Dubai are very difficult
to access by air, so I consider myself
incredibly lucky to have had the
opportunity to capture their beauty
and share the experience through my
photography. I have seen so many
fabulous umbrellas in my lifetime,
but I have never seen any like these,
reminiscent of puffs of meringues.
6 06
La Fontelina
Beach Club
CAPRI, ITALY
8
(See previous spread)
7
07
King’s Bath
CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA
There are so many sides to Cape Town. It
is exquisitely stunning yet rugged. The
coastline is enhanced by many natural
pools that the locals use for swimming
since the ocean water can be quite cold.
From above, these pools look dazzling
set against the crashing waves and
earthy tones of the rock formations.
09
Phang Nga Bay
PHUKET, THAILAND
Visiting some of the most beloved
beaches in Phuket requires a boat
to gain access to the islands. One
of the most popular areas to visit
by boat is Phang Nga Bay National
Park, a geological wonder filled with
islets, sunken caverns and startling
rock formations made of limestone
that rise vertically out of the water. Adapted from COASTAL©
Gray Malin.
Published by Abrams.
11
Milford Sound
NEW ZEALAND
The first time I visited New
Zealand I did three helicopter
rides in three different
regions; one over the North
Island, one over the top of
the South Island and one over
Queenstown. Unfortunately,
the weather was not great
9 when I shot Queenstown,
so I returned six weeks later
to photograph this area.
10
Rottnest Island
PERTH, AUSTRALIA
The land down under is one of the
most memorable and remarkable
places I have ever been—especially
the natural beauty and sense of
limitless adventure throughout
the country, including the
serene beachscapes of Perth.
10
11
47
Culture

UKRAINE On the mOrning Of february

24, 2022, when Russian tanks

Pop Culture Goes to War crossed the Ukrainian border and

Since Putin’s invasion, the songs have gotten
more serious, the comedy has gotten grimmer and
any sense of kinship with Russia has died
b y MICHAEL WASIURA
headed for Kyiv, Ukrainian pop star
Jerry Heil, then 26, was best known for
songs that were funny and self-aware.
“Okhrana Otmena,” for instance–
which translates roughly as “You’re
Canceled”—is about a boy who calls
a girl the wrong name in bed. Other
songs were about things like shopping
and being a vegan.
“Now though, even when people ask
me to perform my prewar stuff at con-
certs, I personally can’t bring myself
to do it,” Heil told Newsweek in late
March before a concert in the west-
ern Ukrainian city of Ivano-Frankivsk.
“It’s a different time and culture has to
reflect that difference. I have to reflect
that difference, because I’m different
now, too. I grew up a lot in the past
year, right along with Ukraine itself.”
“I remember waking up about a
minute before the first explosion
and not understanding why I was so
nervous,” she said. “Then I heard the
first bomb go off and was like, ‘Is that
fireworks?’ I came to my window and
literally saw the beginning of the war.
The sky was on fire.”
Heil was living in a rented house in
a small town just north of Kyiv, not far
from Bucha and Irpin, towns whose
names later became bywords for Rus-
sian barbarity. She and her brother
decamped to their childhood home
and after failing to convince their
parents to evacuate, set off for the
country’s Western border. As a male of
military age, Heil’s brother could not
leave the country, but she did, carrying
her music gear into Romania on foot.
“The first song I wrote after the
start of the war was called ‘Putin, Go
Home,’” she said, based on a Ukrainan
football chant whose words translate
as “Putin is a d***,” Heil said. “I wanted
to translate it to be a little more polite

48 NE WSWEEK .COM JUNE 02, 2023


OUTSPOKEN Opposite: Singer-songwriter
Jerry Heil. Above: Director Oleg Sentsov after being
released in a 2019 prisoner swap with Russia.
so that I could sing it on stage in
Europe. The verses were in English,
too, because I understood that it
was important to attract the world’s
attention to what Russia was doing
in my homeland.”
Since then, Heil has given more
concerts than she can count, donat-
ing the proceeds to the war effort back
home while fighting to ensure that
Western listeners do not lose interest
in the Ukrainian cause.
Her story is not unique. On Feb-
ruary 27, 2022, the day Russian
forces first occupied Bucha, Andriy
Khlyvnyuk, vocalist in the rock band
BoomBox and a Territorial Defense
Forces volunteer, was in Kyiv, wearing
a New York Yankees baseball cap and
carrying a rifle. Standing in front of
the capital’s 11th-century Saint Sophia
FROM LE F T: IRYN A SHEPE TKO; STR /N URPHOTO/GE T T Y
put his skills to work organizing a
public fundraising campaign that
has provided Ukrainian forces with
tens of millions of dollars’ worth of
gear, including Turkish-made Bayrak-
tar drones and British armored
personnel carriers.
Before the war, Ukrainian culture
was marked by loud, political argu-
ments on nearly any topic; since then,
not a single prominent cultural fig-
ure or politician has come out against
resistance to Russian aggression.
‘Europe Is Such
a Strange Place’
It is a far cry from the situation in
Russia. Despite a Kremlin-controlled
propaganda apparatus that has largely
hidden the war’s gruesome reality
from most citizens, many members
of the cultural elite have publicly crit-
icized their government.
Rappers Morgenshtern, Noize MC
and Oxxxymiron; singer Zemfira and
television presenter Maxim Galkin
are among those who have officially
been designated as “foreign agents” by
the authorities. Countless more have
fled the country.
At a recent Moscow concert, lead
singer Alexander Ivanov of the group
Naiv encouraged his audience to learn
about the case of 13-year-old Masha
Moskaleva. After she drew a picture at
school showing Russian rockets fly-
ing toward a Ukrainian mother and
the army.” In response to Ivanov’s
comments, the crowd at the Naiv con-
cert chanted “f*** the war.”
Still, polling from the independent
Levada Center routinely finds that
more than 70 percent of respondents
“personally support the actions of the
Russian armed forces in Ukraine.”
Authorities have found ways to
mute even those willing to speak out.
Last September, 74-year-old singer and
Soviet-era icon Alla Pugacheva pub-
licly asked to join her husband, Galkin,
on the “foreign agents” registry. Rather
than risk alienating Pugacheva’s large,
pension-aged and nostalgia-minded
audience, the Kremlin turned her
down. Moscow has managed to turn a
so-far disastrous war of conquest into
an effective tool of repression at home.
Widespread support for the war
among Russians has led many Ukrai-
nians to cut ties with friends and
relatives across the border, and that
bitterness has spread to Ukrainian
popular culture.
“There are a lot more dead Russians
in my jokes now,” comedian Anton
Tymoshenko tells Newsweek. “We’ve
all gone a lot darker.”
Comedian Hanna Kochegura
offered an example. Since the start of
the war, Ukrainian performers have
traveled abroad to raise money for
the military. When Kochegura was
in Poland, she was taken aback by the
presence of Russians out in public.

Cathedral, he delivered an a cappella
performance of the independence
anthem “Oh, the Red Viburnum in
the Meadow.” Filmmaker and Crimea
native Oleg Sentsov, who had spent
five years in Russian captivity for his
opposition to the 2014 annexation of
his home, was not far away. After help-
ing to defend Kyiv in the early weeks
of the full war, Sentsov’s service sent
him to the embattled city of Bakhmut.
Television presenter Serhiy Prytula
daughter, her father was sentenced to “It was really triggering,” she says. “I
two years in prison for “discrediting hadn’t heard Russian accents in real
life in months, and my first psycholog-
ical response was: ‘The enemy’s here;
they’re going to kill me.’ That’s how
my brain responds now; that they’re
“They can shoot all potential murderers.”
“Europe is such a strange place,” she
dreams, but we says now in her act. “There are Rus-
won’t let them sians just walking around, going about
their business, and nobody is killing
break our spirit.” them. In Ukraine, that simply doesn’t

NE WSWEEK .COM 49
Culture
happen. In Ukraine, you can kill Rus-
sians—legally—because Ukraine is
the greatest country in the world.”
The End of Ambivalence
“When you launch a genocidal war
against your neighbor, it tends
to spark these kinds of feelings,”
Frederick Kagan of the Institute
for the Study of War tells News-
week. “Putin has done more for
Ukrainian nationalism and a sense
of Ukrainian identity than centuries
of Ukrainians were able to do, and
now we’re watching the emergence
of a Ukrainian identity that regards
itself as fully independent from
Russian identity.”
It wasn’t all that long ago that the
two countries’ overlapping histories
served as a uniting factor. Even after
Ukraine became an independent
REFUSENIKS Spectators hold up
posters during an antiwar concert
by Russian musicians Noize MC and
Monetochka in Warsaw, Poland, 2022.
50 NE WSWEEK .COM
UKRAINE
“Putin has done
more for Ukrainian
nationalism and a
sense of Ukrainian
identity than centuries
of Ukrainians were
able to do.”
state in 1991, Ukrainians contin-
ued to flock to Russia for economic
opportunities. Artists a generation
older than Jerry Heil often lived,
worked and earned most of their
money north of the border. Presi-
dent Volodymyr Zelensky himself
made his name in the late 1990s in a
Russian comedy sketch competition
where troupes vied to advance to a
championship in Moscow.
“Before 2014, there was a lot of
ambivalence in Ukraine about Rus-
sia,” Kagan says. “Even before 2022,
there were prospects for friendly
relations between the two states if
the Russians had been prepared to
approach it in a non-imperialistic
fashion. Now I think we’re genera-
tions removed from the prospect of
having any sort of friendly relations
between the states or the people.”
By the time Jerry Heil was devel-
oping a career in the late 2010s,
there was enough of a domestic mar-
ket that she could produce songs in
her native Ukrainian and prosper,
but that didn’t require a total rejec-
tion of all things Russian.
When Heil was a student at the
Kyiv Conservatory, she started a You-
Tube channel that featured a series
of chorally arranged a cappella
covers of other artists’ songs. One
of those artists was Monetochka, a
Russian pop singer who in January
2023 was placed on the Kremlin’s
list of “foreign agents” due to her
opposition to the “special military
operation” in Ukraine. Before the
war, she and Heil might have been
collaborators, possibly even friends,
but that is impossible now.
“Russian culture is based on lies,
and I don’t want to be connected to
it in any way,” Heil said. “We learn
it in our literature classes, in our
history classes, how for centuries
Russia was trying to kill our his-
tory, to kill our best people, to kill
our traditions.”
In the lyrics of one song released
last year, she sings, “They can bomb
happiness, they can shoot dreams, but
we won’t let them break our spirit/
Everyone will eat what they have
sown/Everyone will eat what they
JA NE CK SK ARZ YN SKI/AFP/GE T T Y
have sown/Everyone will eat what
they have sown.”
▸ Michael Wasiura is a foreign corre-
spondent living in Ukraine and cov-
ering the war for newsweek. Follow
him on Twitter @michael_wasiura
JuNE 02, 2023
 EXTRAORDINAIRE.
YOUTH IS BACK.

firmer wrinkles
skin fade
97% 88%

* Results from self-evaluation tests on 40 women after 28 days.

moisturized radiant
skin skin
97% 97%

PATENTED

Available at neimanmarcus.com and bergdorfgoodman.com


High-mix, low-volume: Japanese monozukuri
prevails in competitive global landscape
The ‘Made in Japan’ brand has long
been synonymous with high quality.
And behind the superior Japanese
quality that Nippon manufacturers
offer is the monozukuri philosophy,
which focuses on craftsmanship,
attention to detail and the constant
pursuit of innovation to meet cli-
ent, market and societal demands.
And while Japan has faced stiffer
competition in recent decades
from regional competitors that
have surpassed it in mass produc-
tion markets, Japanese companies
still dominate when it comes to
high-mix-low-volume manufactur-
ing and niche B2B fields where
monozukuri quality still prevails.
“In terms of price, we cannot,
as a Japanese company, compete
directly in the arena of mass pro-
duction, but the Chinese weakness
is that they have to mass produce
or else they cannot have a return on
investment from the facility,” says
Masuya Mori, President of Sanden
Retail Systems, a manufacturer of
Integrated systems facilitating manufacturing automation
“We find joy and
satisfaction in solving
our customer’s problems.
It has led us to invent
dedicated peripheral
equipment for a wide
variety of workpieces.”
Kaname Matsumoto,
President, Matsumoto
Machine Co., Ltd.
When it comes to factory machin-
ery and automation solutions, Japan
still rules the roost thanks to small,
agile and innovative companies like
Matsumoto Machine, which supplies
chucking solutions, rotating solutions,
holding solutions, special parts, ele-
commercial cooling and heating
systems. “Japanese companies have
shifted themselves to high-mix-low-
volume manufacturing. That is the
only way to compete with Chinese
mass production. I believe one of
the means for Japanese companies
to survive and compete against the
Chinese mass production is to have
high-mix-low-volume, high-quality,
value-added products.”
Monozukuri is indeed key to this
endeavor. Giving his take on the
monozukuri concept, Ryukichi Sato,
President of Enuma Chain, says:
“There are two types of monozu-
kuri in our opinion: one is for major
manufacturers, and the other is for
end-users who use our products.
We are a manufacturer of indus-
trial and motorcycle chains, and we
supply them to a great many major
manufacturers, including Kawasaki,
Kubota, Toyota Industries and Is-
eki. In terms of our manufacturing,
we believe that our monozukuri
is to provide the highest quality
With expertise in machine tool peripheral equipment specialized in chucking,
rotating, and holding technologies, Matsumoto Machine offers its clients
integrated solutions to improve factory productivity and efficiency.
ment parts, and system integration
to its manufacturing clients.
Autotilting rotary table
In 1948, Eiichi Matsumoto estab-
lished the company with a mission to
increase productivity and enterprise
value for its clients. Seventy-five
years on and that mission still guides
Matsumoto Machine and current
president Kaname Matsumoto,
with the company at the forefront
of developing factory automation
and robotics solutions for Japanese
companies facing an ever-increasing
shortage of human operators due to
the nation’s aging population.
“Production line efficiency and ro-
bot utilization are the main business
while meeting the demands of each
manufacturer and being nurtured
by the manufacturer.”
Fine-tuning is another mono-
zukuri concept when it comes to
the pursuit of the highest quality,
as highlighted by Yasuhiko Isobe,
President of Mutoh Holdings, a
manufacturer of inkjet printers.
“The technology we possess is
able to make very fine adjust-
ments. We are able to combine the
strengths of Japanese chemical
manufacturing with the strengths
of Japanese electronics and me-
chanical expertise. These elements
need to be finely tuned in order to
bring out the best features of a
large-scale, large-format printer,”
he says. “I personally feel this
ability to fine tune has become
the core competency of Japanese
monozukuri and the reason Japan
will remain a leading power.”
To consolidate its monozukuri
competencies, Moripax, which
specializes in plastic trays for the
for us right now. By analyzing the
functions of automation in manufac-
turing, new ideas can spring forth,”
says Mr. Matsumoto. “Matsumoto
Machine already has a proven track
record for system integration for
customers’ existing production lines.
In the future, I see an escalation in
this segment and we are looking
positively at system integration and
factory automation.”
Smart
terrace AIO
Among the latest solutions de-
veloped by Matsumoto Machine
are ROBO-QJC, an automatic chuck
jaw replacement system, and Smart
Terrace AIO, a one-stop solution
that makes use of the company’s
extensive experience and for which
CONTENT BY THE WORLDFOLIO
Masuya Mori,
President, Sanden Retail Systems
logistics industry, established its
Technovation Center in 2021. “The
Technovation Center is the core
site for our monozukuri where all
key functions for one-stop monozu-
kuri are gathered (planning, design,
mock-ups, mass-production proto-
type, QA),” explains president Yuko
Sumida. “Once a customer approves
a prototype, we can then move on
to mass production. QA follows,
and then finally we can deliver the
product to the end user. Our group
can offer a one-stop shop for pack-
aging needs. That is why I say ‘total
packaging’ is a core strength.”
Mr. Matsumoto
sees applications
for clients in sev-
eral industries. “It
is used in the metal
machine processing
industry, however,
I would say that Big bore
we are looking to rotary table
diversify that and the equipment
can be utilized in a number of dif-
ferent applications.”
In terms of global expansion ef-
forts, Matsumoto Machine has grown
its customer base in the U.S. since it
established a presence there in 1989,
and aims to find more international
partners that can support its ambi-
tions to bring Japanese monozukuri
(manufacturing craftsmanship) to
more clients around the world.
mmkchuck.com/en

Teikoku ready to provide next-gen
pumping globally
Teikoku Electric provides fully customizable canned motor pumps for a range
of industries.
“When we take on a
client, we hand-make
each unit.”
Yoshihiro Koroyasu,
President & CEO,
Teikoku Electric
Mfg. Co., Ltd.
Japan excels when it comes to niche
B2B manufacturing markets, where
small, agile and innovative Japanese
Head office
SMEs can offer clients high-mix,
low-volume customized products.
Since these markets are small, larg-
er players normally stay away, as
highlighted by Yoshihiro Koroyasu,
president of canned water pump
manufacturer Teikoku Electric,
whose products are used in several
industries such as fine chemicals,
petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals,
power generation and food.
With over 50 years in the busi-
ness and a proven track record
worldwide, Teikoku Electric pro-
vides canned motor pumps that
are fully customizable in order to
meet the often complex require-
ments of its customers.
API685 Canned Motor Pump
“Most of our clients are in the
chemical industry, and their de-
mands are not only hard to satisfy,
but also diverse in nature. Often
they will ask us for products that
can meet American standards.
Large companies do not really
want to meet these demands as
they find them too niche and too
customized to individual clients’
needs,” Mr. Koroyasu says. “That
is why when we take on a client,
we hand-make each unit. We are
operating on the complete oppo-
site end of standardization. Large
companies simply cannot address
these kinds of highly complicated
requests, and we find our clients
are very happy with our custom-
ized approach.”
These days, client and industry
demands are indeed largely influ-
enced by green policies. Mitsubishi
Heavy Industries, for example, has
introduced an initiative involving
the mixing of ammonia with coal
to produce power while reduc-
ing the amount of coal. “We as
a company have many years of
experience in pump production, so
we want them to use our pumps
Metering Pump
CONTENT BY THE WORLDFOLIO
in their process. Specifically, we
mean the pumps used to supply
ammonia,” adds Mr. Koroyasu.
Teikoku Electric’s clients can
also use its pumps in biomass Head office factory
power generation as well as off- “When liquid or water enters
shore wind power and in the trans- our competitor’s products, it has
portation of ammonia for hydro- direct contact with the motor, and
gen power. As such, Mr. Koroyasu thus their motors have a short life
hopes to see his company play a expectancy. For maintenance, the
bigger part in the green energy clients need to replace the motor
revolution in the coming years. itself, which is significant in terms
“Unfortunately, being an SME, we of cost. Our products are canned,
are only able to acquire a tiny part so access to the motor is blocked,
of the market share for the power especially for liquids like water,” the
industry, but I am hoping that the president explains. “The life expec-
mix of ammonia and coal that I tancy of our motors is much longer
mentioned earlier starts to take than our competitors. I would say
Canned Motor Pump standard type cutaway model
off so that we may capture a larger that our competitor’s wet motor
share of the market with our pumps. pumps have a life expectancy of
This business is an entry point for around five years, however, our
us to establish a large presence in canned motor pumps can expect
the power industry. Biomass energy a lifespan of around 10 years or
and wind power are also key points more. That is double the amount
for the future of the power industry, of our competitors, and that cost
so I can see these also becoming saving is appreciated by our clients.”
entry points for our company.” As the company looks to grow
One particular product that internationally, Australia, China,
has great potential in the power the U.S. and India hold the most
industry is the company’s Type BP potential for Teikoku Electric, which
Vertical Boiler Circulation Pump, already has seven overseas sites.
which can upgrade and replace Mr. Koroyasu adds: “We want to
wet stator-type boiler circulation enhance production and service
pumps used in power generation businesses at these sites as each
stations. A major advantage is the still has extra room for growth.”
fact that the pump requires little
to no maintenance, a process that
is costly and time-consuming for
many clients. www.teikokudenki.co.jp/english
 CONTENT BY THE WORLDFOLIO

Swacoo to develop high-precision

materials for EVs
Swacoo aims to leverage its technological capabilities as a manufacturer of materials
for electronic devices to attract customers for in-demand components for next-
generation electric and self- driving vehicles.
“Our strategy is to find
prove its production techniques tric vehicles (EVs). Company presi- new businesses and
and quality control. dent Kazuaki Ikegamii sees major
Having built up its excellent tech- develop new products
nological know-how over the years together with device/
developing parts and materials for module manufacturers
office printers, lithium-ion batteries and raw material
(LiBs) for electronic devices, and manufacturers.”
camera lenses for digital cameras
and cellphones, the company today Kazuaki Ikegamii, President,
Parts for office equipment
continues to work with smartphone Swacoo Co., Ltd.
Swacoo has had its finger on the
pulse of change since its establish- OCA for displays business opportunities when innova-
ment in 1971, providing high-preci- opportunities for business growth tion occurs,” he explains. “By having
sion processed parts and materials through two main strategies: low- a tight-knit relationship with these
for a range of electronic devices. cost processing technology for parts providers and presenting them with
In the 2000s, with the spread for EV LiBs; and patented optical Swacoo’s technology, know-how,
of mobile phones and smartphones, film technology for large electronic and capabilities, we want to con-
Swacoo acquired production ca- displays in said vehicles. tinue moving forward and finding
pacity and quality control know- “Our strategy is to find new new markets globally.”
how by supplying LCD backlight Optical film for large displays businesses and develop new prod-
parts and OCA for displays for ma- makers and Japanese device, mod- ucts together with device/module
jor companies. These partnerships ule, and materials manufacturers, manufacturers and raw material
helped Swacoo to significantly im- while also shifting its focus to elec- manufacturers, and there are great www.swacoo.co.jp

The finest quality for the highest precision springs

Mikuro Spring is a leading spring manufacturer and a pioneer in this field that is now searching for new
opportunities in sophisticated industries.
technologies and micro spring
manufacturing techniques,
working with local companies

Spring and human hair
When it comes to being a pioneer
in the field, look no further than
Mikuro Spring, a leading spring
processing manufacturer found-
ed in the 1950s. Society has
moved on a lot in that time and
with it so too has the company,
deploying its products success-
fully in a variety of applications
worldwide — including electri-
cal and medical devices, and au-
tomotive parts — pulling on joint
efforts to achieve its success.
“We do not only rely on our
own strength,” explains company
president Takuya Kojima, high-
Wavy spring
with similar ideas and establish-
ing partnerships through M&A
activities. We know this is chal-
lenging and timing is crucial.”
“We want to become a leading company in spring With a new plant being built to
solutions for the semiconductor testing industry.” double the capacity, the outlook
for the coming years is bright.
Takuya Kojima, President, Mikuro Spring Co., Ltd. “Our main goal right now is
to become a leading global com-
lighting the world’s smallest su- many things, with many stages, pany and I would like to achieve
perfine springs his company pro- to reach our level of excellence.” that in the next five years,” says
duces. “We also rely on the mutual More collaboration is desired, Mr. Kojima. “We want to intro-
efforts of our suppliers. We are says Mr. Kojima, particularly duce more of our products and
blessed that we have such good with overseas partners. technologies to the world.”
surroundings with a number of “We want to expand to the U.S.
companies that complement our and Europe by setting up an R&D
technology. It is a combination of center to promote our unique https://mikuro-spring.com/en

Tomei Plant
in Tochigi, Japan
Nano-level precision reaching
the diamond standard
When it comes to the processing of diamond powders for polishing, grinding and cutting, Tomei Diamond Corporation
sets the standards on which clients in the automotive, construction and semiconductor industries depend.
Since pioneering the production of
artificial diamonds for industrial
use in 1961, Tomei Diamond Cor-
poration (TDC) has excelled in the
processing of diamonds for polish-
ing, grinding and cutting. The com-
pany’s ultra-precision materials are
indispensable to manufacturers in
the semiconductor, automotive and
construction industries, who highly
value TDC’s ability to provide mate-
rial of consistent quality and shape
that ensures precision down to the
nanometer and micron level.
Over the years, TDC has devel-
oped a variety of materials, includ-
ing PCD for non-ferrous metal cut-
ting tools, cBN powder for grinding
abrasives for ferrous metals, PcBN
for cutting tools for ferrous metals,
and boron-doped CVD diamonds
for use as an electrode material.
ISBN-V
“We have focused on the research
and development of industrial syn-
thetic diamonds, especially micron
and nanodiamond powders, and
have built up a reputable position in
the precision field,” states TDC rep-
resentative director Hiromi Ishizuka.
“Another strength we have is that we
have our own unique development
and improvement capabilities. Our
diamond powders have sharp edges,
or as we call them angular acute edg-
es, which makes them serve multiple
high-end purposes. Our production
may take longer compared to other
companies, but we ensure that the
shape and size is the most appropri-
ate for diamond powders.”
TED-2
In the case of the semiconductor
industry, applications for diamond
powders include tools used for
grinding ingot periphery, diamond
wire saws, wafer-edge chamfer-
ing, back grinding and dicing. In
the case of SiC (silicon carbide)
semiconductors, diamond powder
is sometimes used for wafer polish-
ing itself, so it is expected that the
use of diamond powder will further
increase in the SiC era.
“Our main target is semiconduc-
tors since this industry has a lim-
ited number of players. We have
been collaborating with many of
the major Japanese players in this
industry,” adds Ms. Ishizuka. “From
this point, we also aim to expand
and collaborate with overseas
companies. Our products are used
for cutting silicon material, but we
are now focusing on the next gen-
eration of semiconductor material,
silicon carbide, to which we are
providing a new type of solution
for cutting, grinding and polishing.”
Indeed partnership and collabo-
ration will be key to TDC’s success,
with the company working with
peers as well as customers to en-
hance product development. As each
customer has different toolmaking
know-how, TDC works in partner-
ship to provide abrasive grains tai-
lored to the customer’s specific prod-
ucts, and through trial and error,
products with superior performance
are developed as a result.
cBN Cup
Type Wheel
Regarding application research
in the field of ultra-high pressure,
TDC is looking for partners who
want to use its ultra-high pressure
facilities for research and devel-
opment. “We do this because the
development of new products in the
field of ultra-high pressure means
that we can expand the market in
which we can operate,” Ms. Ishi-
zuka explains. “We receive various
inquiries from public and private
research institutes and private com-
CONTENT BY THE WORLDFOLIO
“Specialized areas
require high quality
and uniqueness which
further inspires our
development skills.”
Hiromi Ishizuka,
Representative Director,
Tomei Diamond Corporation
panies, and provide total support
until development is realized and
the product is commercialized.”
With 90% of its sales coming
from the domestic market, TDC
aims to grow its presence globally,
with the company establishing an
office in Georgetown, Kentucky in
2022 to support its expansion in
the U.S. semiconductor market.
PCD Special Type
“When we did a global search, we
discovered that the U.S. has the most
flourishing semiconductor industry.
Considering that the national gov-
ernment is leading the advancement
in the semiconductor industry, we
decided to have our base in the U.S.,”
the TDC director reveals. “We feel
the importance of the international
market, and we are aware that we
should focus more on growing our
overseas bases and have a bigger
international sales ratio.”
www.tomeidiamond.co.jp/en
 CONTENT BY THE WORLDFOLIO

Fittings firm TAKIGEN out to

contribute to the EV revolution
A manufacturer with expertise in products such as handles, locks and hinges, TAKIGEN
is now looking to apply its know-how to fittings for electric-vehicle chargers.
Standard EV charger Lock
Since TAKIGEN was founded in
1910, it has established itself as
a leading manufacturer of indus-
trial fittings.
The extensive range of approxi-
mately 8,000 types of sealing
fittings – handles, locks, hinges,
etc. – are professionally manu-
factured for customers in a wide
range of industries.
Customer feedback is key to
product development at TAKI-
GEN, whose quality commitment
is typical of manufacturing in
Japan. While competitors else- “We really take good
where in Asia may offer lower aftercare of the
prices, can they provide the same customers after we
dependability? release the product, so
“Japan is unique for its qual- that our customers feel
ity control,” President Mitsugu
Tanaka says. “Not only in terms safe in our hands.”
of functionality and appearance,
but also the materials we use. Quick EV charger lock Mitsugu Tanaka, President,
TAKIGEN MFG. CO., LTD.
“Companies in China and Korea industry, for which the company
have been able to copy products now produces fittings for electric- functions that have never been
like ours, but our custom- vehicle (EV) charging stations. available before. The company is
ers continue to purchase “We have been making a developing new fittings in areas
our products because, holder for the charging gun such as solar power generation, re-
even though they may for the past eight years,” chargeable batteries and robotics.
be more costly, they are Mr. Tanaka says. “When “If we don’t have a keyword for
defect free and safer.” it comes to charging sta- something, we create it,” Mr. Tana-
TAKIGEN’s clients tions, we are behind in Japan ka says. “Through our research, we
hail from sectors such compared to Europe, but this aim to develop good products that
as heavy electrical ma- equipment will be increas- will be suitable for that market.”
chinery and semi- ingly installed here.”
conductor manu- Takigen is working
facturing – as well Make new products on EV-related products
as the automotive with TAKIGEN create because they require www.takigen.com

JASCO: the surface treatment specialists

Since its foundation in 1968, JASCO has continued to support the development of environmentally-friendly plating.
“We are proud that
our high quality and
track record of zinc
plating-related agents,
the mainstay of anti-
corrosion technology
today, are among the
best in the industry.”
Shigeyoshi Wada, President,
Nippon Hyomen Kagaku
A firm that regards itself as a B2C
company, in the last half century
JASCO has established an inter-
national reputation as a surface
treatment specialist.
According to company presi-
dent Shigeyoshi Wada, however,
what really sets JASCO apart is
its “unique” after-sales follow-up
services: “Our business is not just
selling products. We take care of
our customers and users moving
forward to ensure that we can
address any challenges or issues
related to our products.”
And with the majority of the
company’s clients coming from the
automotive and electronic sectors,
seismic changes are afoot.
While stressing a desire to keep
one step ahead of competitors, Mr.
Wada also emphasizes the impor-
tance of continuity. The shift to
electric vehicles (EVs), he says, will
not eliminate metal from cars, and
metal requires surface treatment.
For OEMs manufacturing engine
vehicles, therefore, JASCO remains
a pivotal link. Mr. Wada adds: “Our
company can meet various requests
by providing one-stop services. We
might be a small group, but we
have a long history and have accu-
mulated significant expertise over
the years” – expertise which OEMs
specializing in the development of
engine vehicles necessarily lack.
50th anniversary logo
Looking to the future, JASCO
will continue to target Japanese
manufacturers, particularly those
working abroad, providing surface
treatments which local competi-
tors cannot match in terms of qual-
ity. “In many cases,” Mr. Wada
explains, “these local companies
cannot satisfy regulations from
U.S. and European companies,” a
state of affairs which has led to
JASCO significantly expanding its
U.S. and European customer base.
JASCO’S anti-corrosion
technology in use
And with the company soon to
celebrate its 60th anniversary, Mr.
Wada has no doubt that JASCO’s
customer base remains key.
“As surface treatment profes-
sionals,” he concludes, “we believe
that increasing customer conve-
nience will lead to growth.”
www.jasco-kk.co.jp/english

Taiyo Fastener: crafting cost-effective, quality
and sustainable connections through hitozukuri
Taiyo Fastener is leveraging technology and sustainability to drive innovation across its supply chain with a
clear understanding of the investment in employee, partner and societal happiness.
Taiyo Fastener, founded in
1972, has been manufacturing
high-quality fasteners for over
35 years in Japan. President
Kenji Mabuchi shares how the
company practices monozu-
kuri , which has evolved into a
modern manufacturing philos-
ophy focused on quality, cost,
and delivery (QCD) and grew
from the craftsmen brought in
at the beginning.
“I believe that monozukuri
is hitozukuri , making things is
making people,” the president
says. “Since we want to pass
down the technologies that
were brought by these engi-
neers, we tried to put them
into a written format, known
as Taiyo Fastener’s philosophy.”
The company’s automation
of production lines, focus on
employees’ health, and the
adoption of new technologies
have allowed it to adapt to the
changes brought by Japan’s ag-
ing population.
“Automation enables us to
do the production process
with fewer people. Our oldest
employee is 76 years old, but
he is still healthy and work-
ing so actively,” the president
reveals. “Although our official
retirement age is 60, we have
a system that allows our em-
ployees to continue working
later. Breaking from our male
tradition, we have recently been
actively hiring young women as
operators for the production
line, so that they will be able to
use the machines.”
The arrival of COVID-19
proved to be an important
time for the company, with
positive actions being under-
CONTENT BY THE WORLDFOLIO
For this development, col-
laboration with other businesses
is seen to have a significant role.
“In the domestic market,
we have a lot of friends and
partners, and overseas we have
a good joint venture in Thai-
land,” says the president. “We
are trying to produce products
through that company and ex-
port them to Europe and the
US. Listening to the customers
“Our management philosophy is: promote in those markets also helps in
happiness, both economically and that of our the expansion of our products
employees; contribute to the prosperity of in Japan and Thailand.
our business partners; and contribute to the “We have some friends in
development and happiness of society.” Indonesia with whom we can
collaborate on development. We
Kenji Mabuchi, President, Taiyo Fastener would like to continue this kind
of relationship and internation-
taken despite a slight decline defective products after mass ally we are looking at Asian
in revenue. production. In our case, we try countries, especially Indonesia
“We were able to provide not to send defective elements and Vietnam.”
employees with educational to the next step during the pro- “We do pay attention to SDGs
training to nurture the next duction process. We only take and product development ear-
generation of leaders, and man- the good ones to the next phase marks sustainable longevity
agement strategy training to and this avoids producing defec- and environmentally friendly
deepen the thinking of executive tive products, which controls materials. We manufacture ti-
candidates,” says Mr. Mabuchi. the quality.” tanium screws, for example.
“In addition, we launched a new Titanium is a material that can
product development project, achieve corrosion resistance,
fostered awareness of taking strength, and weight reduc-
on new challenges, and created tion. Our other screws are also
a foundation for cultivating a used in JAXA’s unmanned lunar
spirit of challenge, creating a probe ‘OMOTENASHI’.
new flow for our company.
The need to continually inno-
vate to keep pace with industry
developments is clear and Taiyo
launched a new product, the Ka-
pal Bolt, which is cost-effective,
sustainable, and saves on labor.
“We try to approach and lis-
ten to the needs or problems of
companies that could be our po- With clear management phi-
tential customers so that we can losophies of promoting happi-
deliver their requirements to the ness and prosperity to employ-
production line,” explains Mr. ees, partners and society as a
“It’s taking shape and I hope Mabuchi. “We focused on the la- whole, Mr. Mabuchi is devoted
that we can continue this and bor cost compared to the cost of to them being achieved before
build a strong corporate entity the fasteners themselves. Even he steps away as president.
as a company.” though the labor cost in China “We support people all over
Returning to the theme of and Southeast Asia is still low, the world with unlimited pos-
quality, the president high- it has recently risen. We thought sibilities. ‘Always by you’ is our
lights a key difference with that we should concentrate on watchword.”
Taiyo Fastener. how to shorten the labor time
“Manufacturers in China and for the workforce and the Kapal
Taiwan pick out and get rid of Bolt does that.” www.taiyo-fastener.co.jp

Game-changing digital press solutions
For both digital and conventional presses, providing sustainable solutions is Miyakoshi’s specialty. This unique
machine builder in Japan has made inroads into the global flexible packaging and labels market.
Packaging example of MJP30AXF
Innovation often involves tak-
ing a traditional industry and
revamping it for the modern
age. One of the companies push-
ing its sector forwards with its
holistic approach is Japanese
printing machinery firm Miya-
koshi Printing Machinery.
Pr i n t i n g i n J a p a n d a te s
back centuries and the coun-
try was the first in Asia to
adopt the Gutenberg press.
Miyakoshi, founded in 1946,
taps into the industry’s tradi-
tion of monozukuri with its
machinery for printing and
post-printing processes. The
company was Japan’s first to
develop digital inkjet printers
and it has continued this for-
ward-thinking approach with
its custom-made label printing
presses that come equipped
Hikari Dendoki: trading firm supports
Japan’s key semiconductor players
Toshihiro Nakao, President,
Hikari Dendoki Co., Ltd.
As a trading company specializing in
production goods for customers such
as semiconductors and electronics,
in line with post-
printing process-
ing, along with
its data printing
solutions.
Sustainability is of
great concern in the print-
ing industry, especially with
labels and flexible packaging
printing, and company presi-
dent Toru Miyakoshi reveals his
firm is focusing on providing
eco-friendly solutions. Miyakoshi
is developing presses based on
water-based ink and drying tech-
nologies such as its MJP30AXF
inkjet printer for flexible pack-
aging. These water-based ink
Hikari Dendoki provides products
and services to some of the biggest
Japanese companies in the industry.
With partnerships with the
likes of ROHM, Tokyo Electron,
Oriental Motor, NSK and IAI,
Hikari Dendoki gathers top-level
market information so that it can
make the best proposals to its
clients to ensure the selection of
the optimal combination.
“I think that is one of our great-
est strengths,” says president Toshi-
hiro Nakao. “We gather informa-
tion about technological innovation
MEL13A
presses drastically reduce car-
bon emissions.
The company is also embrac-
ing the AI revolution with its
“Yaless AI” system and off-
set label press MLP13M. As
Mr. Miyakoshi details: “This
system assists inexperienced
operators to sustain good print
MJP30AXF
and with that knowledge we make
proposals that contribute to the
customers’ monozukuri.”
An acute understanding of cus-
tomer needs is also a key facet
of Hikari Dendoki’s success, with
the company providing technical
training to its sales reps on all
relevant areas, such as mechanics,
motion control, and networking,
before deploying them to deal
with clients face-to-face and learn
about their specific requirements.
Mr. Nakao adds: “We work quick-
ly to match customer needs and
CONTENT BY THE WORLDFOLIO
quality and at the same time
reduces label stock wastage by
more than 30%.” Miyakoshi’s
growth has enabled it to create
a European subsidiary based
in Spain, and the two arms of
the company worked together
to develop its compact and
cost-effective MEL13A label
printing machine. By produc-
ing 80 percent of its mechani-
cal parts in-house, Miyakoshi
both reduces costs and en-
sures quality.
The company is targeting
further growth in Europe and
China, with an eye on potential
development in Southeast Asia,
but Mr. Miyakoshi stressed that
expansion must be made with
a guarantee that quality stan-
dards can be maintained.
https://miyakoshi.co.jp/english
give the best advice on products,
like which is the cheapest, the fast-
est delivery time, the smallest, the
best combination, we give them as
much information as they need.”
HIKARI DENDOKI Co., Ltd. contrib-
utes to the manufacturing industry
through face-to-face sales, and con-
tinues to shine for the benefit of peo-
ple and society.

Quality and precision: the Mutoh Way
Founded in 1952, Mutoh Holdings has established itself as a world leader in large-format inkjet printers.
“Mutoh promotes the
development of original
technology, expertise
and design quality, and
establishes production
systems that are able
to flexibly and quickly
respond to user needs.”
Yasuhiko Isobe, President,
Mutoh Holdings Co., Ltd.
A company that crafts high-
quality, high-precision prod-
ucts, Mutoh Holdings special-
izes in large-format inkjet
printers, following the Japa-
nese principle of monozukuri
– the pursuit of perfection in
manufacturing. For customers
in Japan and around the world,
the Tokyo-based firm is also
a trusted provider of printer
supplies and maintenance, 3D
printers, design and measure-
ment devices, and IT solutions.
Head office
“Mutoh Industry was estab-
lished upon the development of
the Drafter®, which is a draft-
ing board used for designing,”
says the company’s president,
Yasuhiko Isobe. “That was 70
years ago, and all our growth
since then has led to what we
are today – a hardware and
software manufacturer with a
primary product that integrates
a range of different technolo-
gies. Our large-format printers
can adapt to any type of ink.”
In Mr. Isobe’s view, mono-
zukuri comes down to Japa-
nese manufacturers’ devotion
to honing their products.
“For things like printers, the
technology needs to be
precise without leeway,”
he explains. “Let’s say our
large-format printers take
10 hours to make. Five of
those hours are required for
assembly, so you might ask
what we do with the remain-
ing five. We spend that time
fine-tuning and checking.”
While Mutoh has established
overseas locations in Europe,
the United States and Australia,
its commitment to a meticulous
manufacturing process means
its factories have remained on
home soil. “Our production re-
quires the kind of engineering
expertise that can only be found
in Japan,” Mr. Isobe says.
Mutoh is dedicated to ensur-
ing that its products contribute
to a greener future. The use of
eco-friendly inks is key to this
drive, starting with the switch
from solvent ink to eco-solvents.
“Solvent ink isn’t environmen-
tally friendly,” Mr. Isobe says.
“It contains volatile organic
compounds and when they dry
out, a chemical vapor is emitted.
It’s been the preferred choice,
especially for large signs and
displays, because it’s highly re-
sistant to sunlight. However, ink
with the same performance now
exists in an eco-friendly form.
“Another new type of ink
we’re focusing on is UV ink;
it dries up and stabilizes im-
mediately after printing using
UV light, so it’s considered eco-
friendly. However, it doesn’t
h ave a s t ro n g re s i s t a n c e
against sunlight, so we have yet
to utilize it for printing signage.
There’s also water-based ink
that’s very eco-friendly,
but there’s a limited
XPJ-1462UF
amount of media that it can
be printed on. Normal paper is
fine, but magazine paper that
has a sheen doesn’t absorb the
ink, so it’s not printable on this
kind of media.”
Among the newest printers
to come off Mutoh’s produc-
tion line is the XPJ-1462UF, the
industry’s first ever medium-
sized UV flatbed. “The plan for
the next two to three years is to
transition to mostly eco-friend-
ly inks,” Mr. Isobe concludes.
MF-900
The company’s latest prod-
ucts also reflect the rise of
3D printers. For example, the
new Value 3D Magix MF-900
is able to model carbon fiber-
containing materials – a ca-
pability that’s highly sought
CONTENT BY THE WORLDFOLIO
after by customers wishing
to create prototypes for jigs
and parts.
“As of today, we consider
3D printing to be booming,
even if business-wise it’s yet
to be that lucrative,” Mr. Isobe
says. “In fact, we act as an
agent for an American large-
scale 3D printing company. For
now, the use of 3D printers is
confined to making models or
mockups, and as a 3D printer
dealer we have incorporated
their use, but that use is limited
to the production of parts that
require less sophistication. In
terms of 3D printers, our focus
is not on large-scale and is
more directed to mid-to-small-
scale printers.”
Among the IT products de-
veloped by Mutoh, there are
a range of CAD tools, as well
as the firm’s state-of-the-art
VerteLith RIP software, which
offers users complete control
over the printing process –
from workflow optimization,
to color and layout manage-
ment, to job preview functions.
What’s more, customers can
also subscribe to Mutoh Club,
an exclusive web service that
provides news and release
information, allows you to
check your printer’s status re-
motely with the Mutoh Status
Monitor, and makes the latest
manuals and printer drivers
available for download.
When it comes to interna-
tional business, Mutoh doesn’t
plan to branch out from the
t h re e ove r s e a s re g i o n s i n
which it is already present,
Mr. Isobe says: “Our emphasis
right now is on North America,
Europe and Australia. The rea-
son we’re focused on devel-
oped nations is that we provide
not only printers, but also ink.
If we sell in Asia to countries
like China, they tend to only
purchase the printer and not
the ink. They want to cut costs
and therefore use cheaper, in-
ferior ink. That business style
is not desirable for us.”
www.mutoh-hd.co.jp/en

For King Printing, the power of printing is strong minded people
King Printing has been providing tailored printing solutions since its foundation in 1917.
Window display
For more than a century, King
Printing has provided the print-
ing industry with its special ma-
terials and unique know-how.
With high-quality, large-for-
mat inkjet printing and precise
color tuning, allied to a com-
pany structure that prioritizes
Reproduction of cultural properties
The block-building system for the future
Staying true to its BBS concept, NKE Corporation produces high-performance factory devices.
The thousands of individual parts
which make up complex manu-
facturing systems are the building
blocks of companies around the
world. Japanese firm NKE has built
its success through the creation of a
system to seamlessly merge these
individual blocks into tailor-made
solutions for its customers.
BBS concept
Founded in 1968, NKE’s expertise
is in factory automation devices and
components. However, the compa-
ny’s true added value comes from its
Block Building System (BBS) con-
cept. This system develops “blocks”
by identifying predictable, stable,
CONTENT BY THE WORLDFOLIO
“We believe in the
power of visual
communication to
create a more enjoyable
and beautiful world.” Outdoor ads
establish strong links between
Yuki Mitsuhiro, President, the company’s domestic and
King Printing Co., Ltd. overseas branches so that facili-
ties, equipment and materials
are better aligned. “By doing so,
it will enable us to provide the
client satisfaction, the firm is ing our organization in order to same high-quality products and
now looking to consolidate its maintain high standards.” services anywhere in the world.”
presence in the overseas market. Having entered the Taiwanese King Printing will challenge the
The secret to King Printing’s market in 2011, the company is care and sensitivity with which
success, however, according planning the next steps in its inter- Japanese companies develop
to company president Yuki national development. Mr. Mitsuhiro their products so that they can
Mitsuhiro, is its highly skilled adds: “We plan to enter a South- be replicated on a global level.
employees. “Ul- east Asian coun-
timately, people, try this year, and
rather than sys- aim to expand
tems, contribute our business to
to products, so four more coun-
I’m focusing on tries by 2030.”
educating peo- U l t i m a t e l y,
ple and foster- High-speed UV inkjet printer the aim is to www.kingprinting.co.jp
and common basic patterns in a seeks to “leave
seemingly complex system and only meaning-
standardizing them into a ful tasks to hu-
reproducible form. man beings and
These blocks, let machines do
such as cylin- what machines can do”.
ders, conveyors, Conveyor An example of this prin-
and air grippers, ciple in action is the com-
become NKE’s “standard units” with pany’s Airsapo back brace, which “Our engineers have a
a high degree of performance and contains an artificial muscle built passion to contribute to
reliability. The blocks are then used using the BBS concept and increas- society and solve social
to create modular solutions and es the wearer’s physical mobility. problems using the
equipment for customers, lowering
costs and increasing profitability. technology they have.”
The BBS approach standardizes the
response to any variable, ensuring a Michikazu Nakamura,
logical, coherent, and reproducible President, NKE Corporation
operational process. given to the company’s engineers
NKE places its focus on the de- and their passion for monozukuri.
tails of the monozukuri process to The company has expanded into
identify each customer’s needs, China, Thailand and Vietnam, and
and has people at the heart of its Mr. Nakamura says NKE is always
“Humanized Automation” principle, on the lookout for opportunities to
which has been key to the com- grow in other countries where it can
pany’s expansion into fields such as learn from the local market.
nursing and agriculture. Company Airsapo
president Michikazu Nakamura ex- The innovative ideas NKE pro-
plains that humanized automation vides come from the freedom www.nke.co.jp

Moripax aims to change the future of logistics
with total packaging solutions
Playing a hidden but indispensable role behind the scenes, Moripax aims to change
the future of logistics through its innovation, while also becoming a key supporter
of a sustainable circular economy.
Supporting its B2B clients, Moripax
specializes in the supply of plastic
trays – niche products that are es-
sential in several industries.
Two companies fall under the
group’s umbrella: Moripax and
Morioka – the former a trading
company established in 1979, and
the latter a manufacturing firm es-
tablished in 1959. Having expertise
as both a trader and manufacturer
has been key to the group’s suc-
cess. “Another core strength of our
company is the total packaging we
offer to our clients, as well as the
design and plans we can create for
clients in our Technovation Cen-
ter,” adds president Yuko Sumida.
Tray for thin-glass
Ms. Sumida is one of the few
female presidents in Japan’s still
largely male-dominated execu-
tive world, having taken over in
2019 following the sudden and
tragic death of her father, the
Tray for parts
former president, who oversaw
the development of the company’s
thermoforming method and ex-
pansion into several industries.
“Thermoforming as you know is
a huge industrial sector, yet niche
at the same time. It is essential, yet
there are many different players
with specific needs and applica-
tions,” she says.
“My father saw an opportunity
to expand our thermoforming ca-
pabilities to other fields beyond
pure packaging. Now we have
applications for our technology
in the automotive, medical, and
even the semiconductor industry.”
The loss of her father marked
a big turning point for the com-
pany, with Ms. Sumida’s biggest
achievement thus far being the
establishment of the Technova-
tion Center, which is represen-
tative of the company’s goal of
changing the future of logistics,
and a fulfillment of an idea start-
ed by her predecessor. “We lost
him, so as his daughter, I wanted
to be the one that brought his
dream into reality.”
“The Technovation Center is
the core site for our ‘monozukuri’
where all key functions are gath-
ered (planning, design, mock-ups,
mass-production prototype, QA).
Before, these functions were scat-
tered in different factories, caus-
ing longer lead times, information
was misled and quality was not
stable, along with other effects.
Sewing goods
After combining these functions
together, our possibilities and ca-
pability of ‘monozukuri’ has been
broadened and we are able to
work more closely with our clients
to meet their packaging needs
by offering a one-stop shop for
packaging solutions. That is why
I said ‘total packaging’ is a core
strength,” she explains.
CONTENT BY THE WORLDFOLIO
“We have applications
for our technology
in the automotive,
medical, and even
the semiconductor
industry.”
Yuko Sumida, President,
Moripax Co., Ltd.
QA tools
Collaboration is also key to
the company’s product develop-
ment. Ms. Sumida highlights the
importance of nakama (com-
rades) throughout Moripax’s
history, and the Japanese en-
terprise – which already has
operations in Hong Kong and
China – aims to gain more global
partners as it expands its inter-
national operations.
As a plastic-related enterprise,
environmental concerns are an
inevitable issue for Moripax.
Partnerships, both domestic and
international, will also be key for
the company when it comes to its
ambitions in supporting green and
sustainable development. “We
have tried to build this sustain-
able platform with our stakehold-
ers because it is something we
cannot achieve alone,” adds Ms.
Sumida. “Through collaboration,
we affiliate with companies so we
can achieve this goal together.”
www.moripax.co.jp

Fire and Disaster Prevention Specialists Aim
for the Next Generation of Disaster Prevention
Since its foundation in 1955, NDC continues to provide fire safety
solutions to a wide range of industries.
“We are a total
solutions provider
for fire and disaster
prevention that
answers all needs.”
Eiichi Tohyama, President,
Nippon Dry Chemical Co., Ltd.
Founded in 1955, Nippon Dry
Chemical delivers solutions for fire
safety across numerous industries
and has risen to the challenge of
differentiating its products from
others on the market.
The highest security is made in Japan
Starting with high-quality surveillance cameras, Japan Security System has expanded into AI to ensure optimal
safety and efficiency.
Hiroyuki Takahata,
Senior Vice President,
Japan Security System Co., Ltd.
Founded in 2001, Japan Secu-
rity System (JSS) has grown
to become a leader in video
surveillance in Japan. These
days, its products can be found
all across the country, includ-
ing public offices, apartments,
department stores, convenience
stores and hospitals.
“We noticed the demand for
greater quality products and rec-
ognized the lower quality of im-
ported cameras, so we decided to
CONTENT BY THE WORLDFOLIO
“This is my most demanding chal- cal in explaining how
lenge,” says company president Ei- the fire suppression
ichi Tohyama, who introduces us to agent works,” says
the Quick splasher, as “a firefighting Mr. Tohyama. “We
device like never before”. know the logic, we VESDA
“Quick splasher can prevent know the chemistry, and we are
gasoline fires before they start. It able to explain to customers which environment by introducing new fire
is filled with 2.5 liters of fire sup- system would be the most appro- detection technology like VESDA
pressant, which can be instantly priate one for them.” and providing customers with an
emitted from two nozzles over a Given that the industry is some- environmentally friendly PFOA-
wide area in as little as 1.8 seconds. what conservative, the president free fire extinguishing agent, Mr.
The foam or Aqueous film highlights the importance Tohyama believes NDC can change
forming foam covers the of collaboration for effec- the conventional approach to fire
oil surface and suppresses tive disaster prevention. prevention and aim for the next
gasoline evaporation. The “We are joining with generation of disaster prevention.
danger of gasoline fires is that an Australian company called “If we were able to achieve this
the vapor is quick to inflame. Xtralis, a 100% subsidiary mission, Japanese society would
After 10 seconds, it catches of Honeywell, to obtain the become much safer,” he says, with
fire, and boom, it’s over.” rights to market a product positive hopes for the coming years.
Of course, multiple firefight- called VESDA – Very Early
ing solutions are needed and Smoke Detection Apparatus –
the technical team at NDC which allows them to detect
are well equipped. trace amounts of smoke.”
“Analysis of the most With a mission to im-
appropriate agent is criti- Quick splasher prove Japan’s fire protection www.ndc-group.co.jp/english
Edge AI Color barcode Chameleon CodeR
take matters into our own hands. “The facial image platform Izumi Kaku, President,
We still procured the components collects data including gender, Japan Security System Co., Ltd.
from overseas, but then modified emotional states and number of
and reassembled them, with all visits,” explains Mr. Takahata. “It ture will see the company con-
of the fine tuning being done in- is useful in terms of marketing tribute to a safer and more se-
house here in Japan. That is the and resource planning. cure environment through their
feature of our ‘Made in Japan’ “It also helps us offer our cli- security cameras while also pro-
series, which we want to make ents services to, for example, as- viding solutions through soft-
available to over- certain remotely ware and hardware to promote
seas markets.” if our cameras a more digitalized society.
As digital are functioning “In five years I would like to
technology ad- as expected. It be able to share the good news
vances, JSS is has definitely and many exciting stories that
looking to AI enhanced our will put a smile on faces.”
solutions to en- business.”
hance its prod- Mr. Takahata
uct offering. Main products believes the fu- www.js-sys.com
 N E WS M A K E R S

Talking Points
“WE WILL “I CAN GET MUCH
REMAIN BEST MORE DONE WHEN
I’M ON MY OWN.”
FRIENDS.” —Jane Fonda on staying single
—Finnish Prime Minister
Sanna Marin and husband
Markus Räikkönen on divorce “If you
want to
change
the game,
“People never know you can’t JANE FONDA

what to do with
me, and I enjoy that.” just work
FROM LE F T: ROD IN ECKE NROTH/GE T T Y; RICHAR D C A RT WRIG HT/ABC /GE T T Y; DIMITRIOS K AMBOURI S /GE T T Y

—BROADWAY STAR J. HARRISON GHEE

from the “This tangled web
outside.” around Justice Clarence
—M ICHELLE OBAMA ON HER Thomas just gets worse
CHILD-FOCUSED HEALTHY and worse by the day.”
FOOD AND BEVERAGE
—Illinois Senator Dick Durbin
COM PANY, PLEZI NUTRITION

J. HARRISON GHEE

“The federal government “OUR IMMIGRATION

is pouring billions into SYSTEM IS
the electric vehicle DESIGNED TO
transition, with no DETER MEXICAN
strings attached and no
commitment to workers.” IMMIGRATION.”
—United aUto workers —Ariel Ruiz Soto, a policy analyst at
president shawn Fain the Migration Policy Institute

MICHELLE OBAMA

NE WSWEEK .COM 63
Culture

PA RT I N G S H OT

Ke Huy Quan
Fresh oFF his oscar win For EvErything EvErywhErE All At OncE, What first interested you about
Ke Huy Quan isn’t wasting time. He’ll next be seen in American Born American Born Chinese?
Chinese (May 24 on Disney+). Based on the graphic novel of the same name by A lot of people in the Asian
Gene Luen Yang, the series follows teenager Jin Wang (Ben Wang) who is “trying community are very familiar with the
to find his own identity” when he’s introduced to Chinese mythological charac- Monkey King story. So, to be able to
ters that overturn his life. “It’s about family. It’s about love. It’s about kindness.” tell a version of [it] and introduce
Quan plays Freddy Wong, an actor from a popular ’90s sitcom whose character it to the American audience, that
was based on painful Asian stereotypes. “Back then, a lot of the roles that were was really exciting for me.
available to Asian actors were stereotypical, and oftentimes the butt of the joke.”
But, Quan says so much has changed since then. “That’s why it’s important Did similarities stand out to you
to have representation. The more you see, the more you understand, and the between your character and career?
less you’re afraid of it.” And Quan’s openness and vulnerability in sharing his When I was first approached with
story during the awards season shows how much has changed. “For some odd this character, it scared the sh**
reason, and I couldn’t even explain it, I just wanted to tell the world my story.” out of me. A lot of times I had to
tell [showrunner] Kelvin [Yu], way
too similar guys, back off, don’t
go there, because at times I felt
like I was holding up a mirror to
myself. But it’s important; this
character shows what happens
when you have portrayals like this.
“When I was first
approached Have portrayals of Asian stories in
Hollywood changed for the better?
with this A lot has changed in the last 10
character, it or 20 years. I’m very grateful,
scared the sh** and I don’t think we need to put
out of me.” blame on what happened in the
past. Back then we were looking
through different lenses, we’re very
different now, and we’ve evolved.

Where do you keep your Oscar?

I fantasized about that little golden
statue for a long time. I couldn’t
AM Y SUSSM AN/ BA F TA /G E T T Y

believe that I was able to bring it

home. It’s in my home office because
I have so much respect for what
it stands for, so it’s really high up
on my shelf. Sometimes I cannot
believe it has my name on it. It’s my
new best friend. —H. Alan Scott

▸ Visit Newsweek.com for the full interview

 Tomorrow's
capital projects
can't be built
with yesterday's The US government is investing
technology. trillions of dollars in capital programs.

Build a better tomorrow with Aurigo Masterworks Cloud

BUILD FASTER I BUILD SMARTER I BUILD STRONGER

Aurigo Masterworks, the leading capital planning and construction project

management software, empowers America to build smarter for tomorrow. Easy BUILD A BETTER
to use and configure, it's the power at your fingertips that helps you plan, build and TOMORROW
maintain your city’s capital assets.
Elegance is an attitude
Jennifer Lawrence

LONGINES DOLCEVITA