In The News

To Fuel the Mideast’s Grills, Somalia Smolders

Marc Lacey July 25, 2002
When a bag of charcoal fetches US$10 in the Middle East, and a full ship’s worth is valued at US$1 million, there is no wonder that charcoal is called Somalia’s “black gold.” But what might be good for individual citizens living in a war-torn county is hardly good for the country and its environment. The U.N. estimates that forestation in Somalia has shrunk from 14% of the land to 4% in a decade...

Net Users Try to Elude the Google Grasp

Jennifer Lee July 25, 2002
The stories about two people ‘meeting’ over the internet (and later falling in love) are countless and even old. Scandals and tragedies over personal information being disclosed without one’s approval, however, are beginning to alarm people. Search engines like Google and Altavista, portals through which over 3 billion pages can be accessed, yield thousands of results upon typing in a person’s...

In the U.S. Nowadays, Little Love for France

Emily Eakin July 6, 2002
The US and France have a long history of harboring snide cultural stereotypes, one that scholars trace back as far as 1797. And neither country is averse to verbally bashing the other whenever the two disagree politically. Thus, the spate of anti-Semitic incidents and a rise of anti-Americanism in France as a result of the war in Afghanistan have conspired to re-ignite francophobia in the...

The War on Terrorism Takes Aim at Crime

James Dao April 7, 2002
The United States has expanded the global war on terrorism to include fighting drug and crime syndicates that operate in countries across Asia, the Middle East, Europe and the Americas. Officials are targeting these networks because evidence shows a complex nexus between crime, drugs, and terrorism. The link between these networks has strengthened since the end of the Cold War, when terrorist...

Brazil's Prized Exports Rely on Slaves and Scorched Land

Larry Rohter March 25, 2002
Slavery lurks in remote parts of the Brazilian Amazon as laborers are duped into working contracts that exploit them mercilessly. The prime exports of this resource-rich region – exotic woods and beef – have raised many controversies at both national and international levels. Human rights violations and environmental degradation – both difficult to monitor – often go unpunished or are even...