In The News

Parents, Shopping for Discipline, Turn to Tough Schools Abroad

Tim Weiner May 9, 2003
Wwasps, a Utah-based private school organization, has taken to setting up shop abroad, where rules on student treatment are not as tight as in the US. Beating students’ heads against concrete, enforcing prolonged periods of isolation, and creating affection-less environments are the mainstays of these “behavior-modification” schools, which call themselves “specialty boarding-schools”. Without...

Europe's Identity Crisis

Steven Erlanger May 5, 2003
Europe's left wing has given the right a boost. Popular liberal fears of Americanization and "coca-colonization" have fostered the belief that individual cultures are in danger of extinction. And France's extreme right is exploiting this pervasive anxiety in the current presidential elections. Though Jacques Chirac is sure to win ultimately, the neo-fascist Jean-Marie Le...

Anglosphere: Limits to Globalization

James C. Bennett May 3, 2003
In this essay James C. Bennett addresses the limits of globalization. According to Bennett, amongst the enduring benefits of globalization are innovations in travel, world economy, and medical and technological breakthroughs. However, Bennett argues against a universal paradigm for globalization because globalization often occurs between nations and economies that are similarly positioned in...

A Triumph Over the Romans Seen as the Birth of the German Nation

Hans Riebsamen May 2, 2003
Almost two thousand years ago, the Romans were marching towards Germania, intent on expanding their vast empire. In what is now Germany’s Teutoburg Forest, the region’s residents repelled the empire’s army, forcing the invaders to retreat southward for good. In the 19th century, the story became an important part of “the mythology of German nationalism”. Now, an exhibit at the Archeological...

Why the Security Council Failed

Michael J. Glennon May 1, 2003
The UN was weak and irrelevant long before the divisive US-led war on Iraq made this painfully obvious, International Law scholar Michael Glennon maintains. He explains that Iraq is more a symptom of UN structural problems and changes in its geopolitical environment than a cause.. The UN was created to preside over a multi-polar world and now finds itself dealing with an unrivalled US hegemony...

U.S. Troops Fire on Iraqi Protesters, Leaving 15 Dead

Ian Fisher April 29, 2003
Violent clashes between American troops and Iraqis continue even as the United States moves from a military offensive to a humanitarian and reconstruction phase in Iraq. According to a US official account, a group of mostly armed Iraqis began unprovoked fire at the US troops who were stationed at the US Army headquarters in a largely Sunni neighborhood. US troops returned fire in self defense...

Half in Germany, Half in Poland

Frank Pergande April 25, 2003
Poland’s pending membership in the European Union should, in theory, offer great benefits to towns on the border between Germany and Poland. The divisions created in 1945 had severe economic consequences for some small border towns. EU membership for Poland and cross-border trade between these poor German and Polish towns could make a difference. Studies caution, however, that most economic...