In The News

Jim Hansen October 24, 2006
People have some measure of control over how much the climate will change, explains Jim Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. In the second of a two-part series, he makes specific recommendations that do require some sacrifice: Humans must end their reliance on fossil fuels; governments can impose carbon taxes in a way that provides incentives to decrease fuel...
Somini Sengupta October 3, 2006
Some middle-class neighborhoods in India’s wealthiest cities have ample plumbing and the infrastructure for supplying water, but not the actual liquid itself. India’s major cities fail to provide reliable tap water throughout the day, and this article from “The New York Times” describes how some women devote entire days planning to secure extra water. In terms of industry and technology,...
Barbara Demick September 25, 2006
Tens of thousands of South Korean men look to China, Vietnam and beyond for wives, in response to a shortage of brides caused by a generation of gender-selective births. Since ultrasounds became widely available in the 1980s, parents in South Korea could screen out undesirable daughters, resulting in a gender imbalance of 113 males for every 100 females. The countryside’s shortage of marriage-...
August 11, 2006
Muslims and non-Muslims alike in the UK share worries about growing Islamic extremism, even though European Muslims as a whole tend to favor moderate Islam, according to a spring 2006 poll on immigration and identity, conducted by the Pew Research Foundation. The results follow a year that included bombings in London and Madrid and the riots sparked by Danish cartoons, but were released before...
Shin Hae-in August 3, 2006
In a world of quick travel and increasing flows of people in and out of countries, South Korea is reflecting on its prejudices toward foreigners and Korean children of mixed race. A nation that has endured centuries of invasions from China and Japan, South Korea has long had a national goal of maintaining a uniquely Korean bloodline. Some citizens worry that recent government revisions to...
Chua Chin Hon July 11, 2006
The Chinese Communist Party has maintained its grip on power in China for 85 years, and by many estimates, is still going strong. Abroad, China’s influence continues to grow, while at home, membership in the party and its local organizations has also increased. Observers point out, however, a myriad of domestic problems facing the CCP that could erode its power: environmental problems, ongoing...
June Kronholz June 30, 2006
Highly successful immigrant researchers, doctors and engineers often wait years for citizenship in the US. The US Labor Department has a backlog of 235,000 skilled-immigrant permanent-residency applications, and the Citizenship and Immigration Service has another backlog of 180,000 cases. About half of the Ph.D. engineers and scientists in the US are foreign born, according to the National...