In The News

The Indians Are Comin’

Sanjeev Srivastava May 10, 2004
Global interest in Indian economic and cultural practices is swelling rapidly, from the labor outsourcing debate to Bollywood film exports. In the United States, India is a topic for newspaper front pages, Indian corporations are traded on the New York Stock Exchange and audiences gather for the country’s art. Delhi is creating regional alliances with China and Pakistan, and all systems are go...

Death Sentence for Medics in Libyan HIV Case

Simon Jeffery May 6, 2004
Five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor were sentenced to death after being found guilty of intentionally infecting 400 Libyan children while working in a hospital in the late 1990s. The scandalous accusation that aid workers would purposefully harm those they are supposed to help has shocked the world. Libyans originally accused the medics of running experiments on children to...

Ranking the Rich 2004

May 3, 2004
The process of helping developing nations is a lot more complex than simply giving foreign aid via public and private donors. Richer nations can benefit or harm poorer nations through policies on security, aid, immigration, environment, technology and trade. In an effort to rate which programs work and which do not, Foreign Policy Magazine and the Center for Global Development (CGD) have...

Asians Offer Region a Lesson – in English

April 25, 2004
According to this Miami Herald article, most of the 21 members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group (APEC) - a group that includes China, South Korea, and Singapore - are making impressive gains in teaching English to their schoolchildren. Economic success in Asian countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Hong Kong can be at least partially attributed to high levels of...

North Korean Ends 'Candid' China Visit

Edward Cody April 22, 2004
Unexpected private talks between North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and leaders in Beijing resulted in what is being called a "broad common understanding." During the talks, Beijing reiterated its desire for a nuclear-free Korean peninsula while also addressing North Korea's 'rational concerns,' a hint at North Korea's desire for security guarantees from the US. For his...

European Sugar Policy Works to Undermine Trade With Asia

April 19, 2004
A recent report by Oxfam, an international non-governmental organization, has concluded that the European Union's skewed sugar regime is heavily subsidized, benefits several big companies, and generally hurts poorer countries. "This is a sugar scandal, and there is nothing sweet about it. The system rewards big companies and rich farmers with EU taxpayers' and consumers'...

Topsy-Turvy World

R Ravimohan April 16, 2004
When R. Ravimohan, a columnist for India's Business Standard, reads anything about the American outcry over the outsourcing of jobs to low-wage countries, he blames one root cause: the wide economic disparity between the developed and developing world. "Given the unshakeable viability of the differences in cost structures of different economies," he writes, "it is but natural...