In The News

'We should remain calm'

Eckart Lohse March 26, 2004
In an interview with the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, interior minister Otto Schily says Germans know they are living in a "threatened community." While terrorism poses an "epochal threat” which will last for a long time, Schily says he doesn't want people "to lead lives filled with fear and worry, and to lose their zest for life." He claims the...

Terror Fight to Intensify

William Pratt March 26, 2004
Official anti-terror plans emerge in Germany following a report that three Moroccans suspected of planning the Madrid bombings had lived in Germany. The three men had previously been identified by German officials as “potentially violent Islamists”. With the fear that Germany could be used as a potential base and/or target for future terrorist attacks, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has begun...

Poppy Barons on the 'Speed' Boat

Larry Jagan February 16, 2004
The notorious Golden Triangle in Southeast Asia has long produced a large portion of the world's illicit drugs. Although authorities in Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, and Laos have had substantial success in ending opium poppy growing, newer technologies are allowing for the production and trafficking of synthetic drugs. Poppy barons have discovered that trafficking in methamphetamines can be...

The Underbelly of Globalisation

Tony Woodley February 7, 2004
17 men and 2 women from China died off Morecambe Bay in northwest England when they were out picking cockles (bivalve mollusks found in wet sand). "This is not a migration issue. It is an exploitation issue." says Tony Woodley, general secretary of the UK's Transport and General Workers' Union. He criticizes both the "reckless employers" who benefit most from hiring...

As It Wields Power Abroad, U.S. Outsources Law and Order Work

Andrew Higgins February 2, 2004
The US seems unwilling to face the hardships of maintaining a police force in Iraq. Instead, it has delegated the charge of keeping order to DynCorp, a multinational police contractor headquartered in California. DynCorp was subcontracted by the Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, or INL, a division of the US State Department. Since 1994, the INL has dispatched...

World Opinion Is Fragmented on Tighter Security for Visitors

Elaine Sciolino January 7, 2004
New security procedures designed to prevent potential terrorists from entering the United States have met with mixed reaction around the globe. Beginning this week, the US is requiring that visitors from all but 27 countries be fingerprinted and photographed upon entry to the US. Washington is also pushing foreign and American carriers to accept armed US marshals on board US-bound airplanes....

Australia Tips in with Bt250m to Help with People Trafficking in ASEAN

Jim Pollard December 18, 2003
Trafficking in humans brings thousands of people against their will from Southeast Asia to Australia each year to serve as sex workers or virtual slaves. To help prevent such gross human rights abuses at the source, Australia has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Thailand and other countries in the region and promised to devote 8.5 million Australian dollars to an anti-trafficking...