In The News

India’s Kinder and Gentler Globalization

Pratap Bhanu Mehta August 3, 2004
Upon assuming office in May, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s first official action was to visit drought-stricken farmers in an impoverished state of India. This visit was to signal the new administration’s desire to focus on farming and poverty alleviation – without detracting from efforts to attract foreign investment. As Pratap Bhanu Mehta, President designate of the Center for Policy...

Aid Agency Quits Afghanistan over Security Fears

Ewen MacAskill July 29, 2004
The international aid agency Doctors without Borders has announced its decision to pull out of Afghanistan for security reasons. After 24 years of working in the country – the organization stayed through the Soviet-Afghan war, the rule of the Taliban, and American military intervention – the group is just now leaving because they say that the line between military and aid workers has been...

Myanmar: Sanctions Won't Work

Jeffrey Sachs July 27, 2004
Fourteen years ago Myanmar’s National League for Democracy (NLD) won an election against Myanmar's incumbent military government. After the elections, however, the military annulled the results, leading the US to impose economic sanctions against Myanmar’s government. Economist Jeffrey Sachs, head of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, argues in this op-ed that the USA should not...

Rwanda Savors the Rewards of Coffee Production

Carter Dougherty July 27, 2004
In the mid-1990’s global coffee production skyrocketed, leading to falling prices and the impoverishment of many of the world’s coffee growers. At the same time, however, specialty coffee began capturing a larger share of the American market and created great wealth for growers in countries like Rwanda, where high altitude and rich soil allow for the growth of quality coffee. Beyond fortuitous...

Latortue Leads Delegation Urgently Seeking Cash Aid

Michael A.W. Ottey July 20, 2004
Haiti's interim Prime Minister, Gerard Latortue, has asked for $924 million while at a two-day international donors conference that ends today at World Bank headquarters. Latortue says the money is part of an estimated $1.3 million necessary to get the country back on its feet after the fiscal mismanagement and political upheaval brought on by the administration and subsequent flight of...

U.S. Is Accused of Trying to Isolate U.N. Agency

Christopher Marquis June 21, 2004
In advance of a July 15 deadline on funding for international health programs, it appears that US President George W. Bush will continue to withhold monies from the United Nations agency responsible for population control issues. The UN Population Fund has been a target of US conservative religious groups for its supposed support of coerced abortions in China. The Bush administration cut...

US Nation-Building Abroad – Part II

Fawaz A. Gerges May 28, 2004
The Abu Ghraib prison, once the stage for atrocities committed by Saddam Hussein, has been turned into a symbol of brutal occupation by a foreign force. The story of abuse by American soldiers broke at the worst possible time for the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, writes Middle East specialist Fawaz A. Gerges, in the second installment of a multi-authored, three-part series on US...