In The News

American Missionaries Pitch Baseball in India’s Cricket Citadel

Phil Reeves June 28, 2003
Is America's favorite pastime destined to become Asia's favorite as well? Maybe. Two American envoys are currently touring India in an effort to introduce baseball into India, a country where cricket is a national obsession and baseball is relatively unknown. In recent decades, baseball leagues have found a foot-hold in Japan, Taiwan and South Korea, and opened doors for profitable...

Friends with the Dragon

C.V. Ranganathan June 24, 2003
Indian Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee’s visit to China has attracted the world's attention. Many are hopeful that a mutual agreement can be reached to thaw cold political relations of the past. In this opinion piece in Outlook India, C.V. Ranganathan, a former Indian ambassador to China, emphasizes the importance of more mutual understanding and cooperation between the two countries....

Anti-Semitic Book Distributed at Rally for Malaysian Leader

Reuters June 22, 2003
American car-maker Henry Ford’s anti-Semitic book, “The International Jew,” was passed out by Malaysian officials at a rally for the departing Prime Minister Mahathir. The book also contains the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” which has long been used to peddle theories of an international Jewish conspiracy in countries such as Russia. Mahathir denies connection with the book’s distribution...

Left to Their Own Devices

Amr Elchoubaki June 20, 2003
The United States has frequently criticized Arab governments for suppressing freedom of expression and pluralism. Yet, when popular movements such as student protests in Iran belie such criticism, the author argues, the US does not see the protests as manifestations of an existing democracy but as expressions of popular revolt,. In Iran, the religious Supreme Guide and democratically elected...

Gay Bombay Comes Out

Zubair Ahmed June 19, 2003
In the last decade, Indian gay men in cosmopolitan cities like New Delhi, Bombay and Calcutta have established international social networks, organizations and Internet forums to create a modern and global gay community. The publication of The Boyfriend, a love story between two men, one openly gay and the other unable to accept his homosexuality, typifies the increasingly unapologetic public...

Not Leading the World but Following It

Laurence R. Helfer June 18, 2003
On the issue of gay and lesbian rights, the US is behind the times, says legal scholar Laurence Helfer. While laws banning homosexual sex and preventing same-sex marriages are still upheld across the US, the recognition of gay and lesbian rights as human rights is increasingly part of a common global culture. Countries around the world – developed and developing, from Canada to Namibia – are...

A Mickey Mouse Approach to Globalization

Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom June 16, 2003
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman argues for a world united by common cultural experiences. But cultural globalization, writes historian Jeffrey Wasserstrom, is not so simple as eating a McDonald's hamburger that tastes the same on every continent. Standardized products like Big Macs and Starbucks coffee hold very different meanings in different countries, argues Wasserstrom. In China...