In The News

Hookah Bar Becomes the ‘Anti-Loudoun’

Michael Alison Chandler January 20, 2006
At the Shisha Café and Lounge, like cafés throughout the Middle East, customers smoke flavored tobacco from brass hookahs and water pipes. Yet Sisha is in Virginia, not Baghdad or Beirut. Originally intended to serve the Middle Eastern communities in Loudoun and Fairfax counties, the hookah bar instead became a hit with the college crowd - most of whom are not of Middle Eastern origin. With the...

No Level Playing Field in Football’s Globalisation

Larry Elliott January 14, 2006
In an increasingly prevalent variation on the “brain drain” issue that troubles small, poorer nations, “leg drain” is taking its toll on the world of football. But this trend is a mixed bag. A recent study suggests that globalization has a two-prong effect on the sport: It contributes to increasingly higher salaries for the best football players in Europe, yet also serves as an equalizer for...

Gunning for the World

David Morton January 13, 2006
The National Rifle Association has traditionally represented a highly specific interest group among the US population. Increasingly, though, the NRA has come to link the success of its pro-gun lobbying in the US with similar struggles underway in other nations. NRA leaders have exhibited a sophisticated understanding of increased interconnectivity among world cultures, and the most practiced...

Insults from America

Mike McPhate January 13, 2006
Indian call center employees have discovered an unexpected drawback in their line of work. Of millions of calls, about 5 percent involve bigotry from US customers who are angry about outsourcing and grasp an opportunity to speak their minds. Call center workers hear attacks about cultural inferiority and accusations about reaping the benefits of outsourcing at the expense of US workers. These...

In Asia, English Is Useful But Mandarin Is Rising

Simon Montlake January 13, 2006
Given the innate capacity for language acquisition in schoolchildren, it makes sense to introduce immersion programs at a young age. In many Asian countries, elementary schools already instruct in English, a language seen as widely useful, especially for global business. Now Thailand has started programs to train students in Mandarin, perhaps equally practical in the growing inter-Asian economy....

Educating for the 21st Century – Part I

Sara Schlemm January 12, 2006
Two Yale students recently traveled to India and China, and in this series they write about how, through education, the two emerging countries are preparing for the 21st century. In the first part, Sara Schlemm explores why China seeks to raise the profile of its institutions by opening doors to more international students who wish to study in China. For years, China has seen many of its...

CNBC Business Channel: Global Village Now a Reality

January 11, 2006
CNBC has accomplished a broadcasting-first with Worldwide Exchange. The program, simultaneously broadcast on three continents, has anchors and chief executives conversing between New York, London and Singapore. The fiber-communications technology that makes the show possible has come to define globalization, broadcasting smooth and instantaneous interactions regardless of distance. Previously,...