In The News

Superclass and the Inequity of Globalization

David Rothkopf May 14, 2008
The free-market principles that drive global trade of goods, services and ideas often run counter to notions of institutional regulation. According to David Rothkopf, author and visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, this void in global governance has facilitated the rise of a “superclass” of elites, numbering about 6,000, whose actions impact millions of lives. The...

A Strategy to Promote Healthy Globalization

Lawrence Summers May 14, 2008
US workers and voters are impatient with globalization – and the highly skilled, productive workers in the West do not want any competition to dent their top wages. “[Workers’] effort is complemented by capital, broadly defined to include equipment, managerial expertise, corporate culture, infrastructure and the capacity for innovation,” writes Lawrence Summers, Harvard professor and former...

McCain's Gift to the Green Movement

Eric Pooley May 14, 2008
With US presidential candidates in agreement on the need for action on climate change, debate has been limited on the topic, thus disappointing environmentalists. The Republican candidate, John McCain, has had to distance himself from the policies of a fellow Republican – President George Bush. Climate change is one area, with McCain opposing his party’s stance since 2000. With presumptive...

In Hungry World, Japan's Farmers Are Stuck With High-Priced Rice

Blaine Harden May 13, 2008
Japan’s rice market is subjected to intense manipulation. Even as rice consumption is on the decline, farms remain small and protected, the country grows more than it needs and prices are high. Shortages of rice and other foods abound in poor countries, but Japanese rice is unaffordable, with prices more than double those in international markets. Per-capita annual consumption of rice has been...

Bee Emergency: Unexplained Mass Die-Off Hits German Hives

Andrew Curry May 12, 2008
The occupants of about half the bee hives in the German state of Baden-Württemburg have perished, writes Andrew Curry for Spiegel Online. The Rhine Valley is one of Germany’s most productive agricultural regions and bees contribute to pollination of many crops. Beekeepers in Germany and across the border in France express concern about a new pesticide, clothianidin, and question where it’s too...

Designing Asia

Ellen L. Frost May 12, 2008
Growing Chinese economic clout combined with a sympathetic diplomatic posture has helped reorient the power structure of Southeast Asia toward China. A China-led Pacific trade network of port cities, stretching from Australia to India, echoes “pre-colonial 'Maritime Asia,'” explains author Ellen Frost. The re-emergence of maritime Asia is not without challenges – for example, such a...

Africa Plays the Rice Card

G. Pascal Zachary May 12, 2008
With food prices jumping, governments no longer taking their agriculture sectors for granted. In recent years, African governments eliminated duties on imported rice and assumed that wealthy countries would also curtail agricultural subsidies, explains G. Pascal Zachary for Foreign Policy. Many nations in Africa must import rice, but Uganda recognized that many countries subsidize their...