In The News

In Search of the Iraqi Pie

Charubala Annuncio June 3, 2003
Preliminary work on the reconstruction of Iraq has begun, and firms from a variety of countries are already lined up for possible contracts. This article from Outlook India Magazine discusses the prospects for Indian companies hoping to get some of the lucrative sub-contracts in the reconstruction. Since the contract assignment process is mostly run by the Americans, the authors point out that...

A Tale of Two Visions

Omayma Abdel-Latif May 30, 2003
After the war on Iraq, Arab intellectuals have grouped into two camps and centered their argument on what really is ahead and what the Arab world should do next. While the liberals and democrats are pro-U.S. in many ways and pushing for reforms in the region, the Islamists and radicals are still opposed to Western intervention of any sort and are holding fast to their ideologies. In this article...

Arab Pride, US Prejudice

Abel-Moneim Said May 30, 2003
The Arabs have started a round of heated discussion on the post-war reforms. Divided as they are, says Arab scholar Abel-Moneim Said, they appear to agree on the idea that the U.S. should not be the one to set up reform standards in the region. The Arab world has long been in need of reform, he says, but because of the war and the America's push for "regime change," many Arabs now...

Poverty Doesn't Create Terrorists

Alan B. Krueger May 29, 2003
In his National Security Strategy issued in November 2002, U.S. President George W. Bush asserted that poverty was one of the factors leading to increased terrorist activities. This article in the New York Times, however, argues that civil liberty is the main factor and that wealth has little to do with terrorist activities. The author cites a study which found that many suicide bombers were from...

Global Prosperity at Risk

Ernesto Zedillo May 27, 2003
The upcoming meeting of the Group of Eight must help resolve the contentious trade disputes that threaten to ruin the free trade regime, says Ernesto Zedillo, Director of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization and former President of Mexico. Without intervention by the leaders of the developed world at their June gathering in France, the Doha Round of WTO negotiations will continue to be...

The Essential Agenda

Osama El-Ghazali Harb May 16, 2003
Would granting aid to Iraq now appear as if Egypt and other Arab countries support the Anglo-American occupiers of Iraq? Most Arabs considered the war on Iraq unjustified, says this opinion article from Egypt's Al-Ahram Weekly. But at the same time, they also agreed that Saddam Hussein needed to be brought down. In response to his critics, Egyptian scholar Osama El-Ghazali Harb argues that...

NGOs Must Fight Against Govt Attack

May 15, 2003
The Thai Government has come under criticism from local media for attempting to prevent collaboration between local non-government organizations (NGOs) and their international counter-parts. A series of exchanges between the central government and Thai bureaucrats indicate the government has made repeated attempts to undermine local NGOs, which it criticizes as being motivated by self-interest...