In The News

China’s Lust for Business Learning

Della Bradshaw August 1, 2005
The Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s deprived China’s prospective leaders of thorough training in business and management. Today, many CEOs or board members of major corporations head back to business school. While MBA programs in the US see a decline in application numbers, demand for similar programs in China is surging. As the government seeks to prevent the proliferation of third...

Nothing Will Change Until Musharraf Closes Pakistan's Militant Madrassas

Ahmed Rashid July 22, 2005
After the terrorist attacks on London two weeks ago, British Prime Minister Tony Blair vowed to fight Muslim extremism directly. But as Ahmed Rashid writes, until Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf shuts down his country's extremist madrassas – schools of Islam – all promises of resolve like Blair's will prove fruitless. Particularly because the militant education is not limited to South...

In China, Sophisticated Filters Keep the Internet Near Sterile

Tim Johnson July 14, 2005
The spread of the internet in China has played a large role in that country's economic growth, as well as provided a cheap form of entertainment, communication, and learning for those who have web access. But the internet's popularity has not resulted in the open discussion and political reform that Chinese dissidents had hoped for. Rather, the government has concentrated many resources...

A Passage from India

Suketu Mehta July 12, 2005
Author Suketu Mehta moved to America from India as a teenager with the expectation that it would bring him and his family economic prosperity. As he writes in The New York Times, future generations of Americans may find themselves trying to travel in the opposite direction, as more US companies move jobs to India. In a sense, India's gains from outsourcing are the rewards of decades of hard...

How Africans See the Initiative to Help the Continent

Bashir Goth July 8, 2005
As the G-8 discusses plans to cancel Africa's debt this week, most agree that the world's richest countries can and should aid the ailing continent. In fact, the group agreed to double aid to Africa by 2010. But in the excitement surrounding the G-8 summit, few have asked Africans how they feel about the plan. The answer, supplied by African journalist Bashir Goth, is surprisingly...

Africa Needs an Al-Jazeera

Philip Fiske de Gouveia July 6, 2005
The spotlight on Africa of late has focused on many laudable goals: sustainable development, debt relief, disease prevention and control, and reining in governmental corruption. But promoting democracy and permanently establishing open and honest government, Philip Fiske de Gouveia writes, is inherently linked to a feature which most Africa nations still lack: a free press. The overwhelming...

The Wages of Fundamentalism

Peter Watson June 22, 2005
Author Peter Watson cites religious fundamentalism as a major cause of the recent decline of US leadership in scientific research and innovation. To be sure, a renewed interest in the sciences in Western Europe and Asia has helped them to catch up in previously American-dominated fields. Equally influential, however, has been a renewal of religious fervor in the US. Teachers in Kansas are...