In The News

Wave of Immigrants Breaks Against Italian Island's Shore

Frank Bruni July 11, 2003
Many African immigrants are willing to risk their lives for opportunities in Europe. They come in rickety boats across dangerous waters to the small Italian island of Lampedusa, the gateway through which thousands of immigrants pass en route to the European job market every year. The immigrants arrive on the island's coast in numbers that surpass its population, overwhelming local and...

There is More to Transatlantic Relations Than Security

Jeffrey E. Garten July 9, 2003
Residual anger about the Iraq War needn’t impede economic cooperation between the US and Europe, maintains Jeffrey Garten, dean of the Yale School of Management. According to Garten, accusations of continued American unilateralism are largely exaggerated. US President Bush is currently engaged in multilateral global trade negotiations, regional economic discussions, and anti-AIDS efforts that...

The EU's First-Ever Security Doctrine

Shada Islam July 4, 2003
For the European Union - a body recently divided over the pre-emptive use of military force in Iraq - adoption of a muscular foreign policy doctrine marks a new departure. The strategy represents a more self-confident Europe, determined to match the United States, if not yet in military force, then at least in global influence. The EU doctrine echoes some of Washington's concerns by...

The Great Rainforest Tragedy

Michael McCarthy June 28, 2003
Brazil’s 1.6 million acres of rainforest is the most species-rich habitat on earth. But it has long been threatened by development, logging, and farming undertaken by a burgeoning population mired in poverty. Deforestation has jumped by 40% in the last year, shocking environmentalists and government officials, who have promised to take action against the problem. But the cause of deforestation...

America Goes Backward

Stanley Hoffman June 27, 2003
After the war in Iraq, the US Bush administration is once again criticized by many. In this feature article in the New York Review of Books, Harvard scholar Stanley Hoffmann argues that not only has the administration's unilateralism resulted in anti-Americanism overseas, but also domestic concerns of justice issues, among others. Furthermore, seeing itself as the world's peacekeeper,...

Controlling the Flow

Gamal Nkrumah June 27, 2003
In the same week that European Union (EU) leaders met in Thessaloniki, Greece to discuss migration issues, a vessel carrying African migrants trying to enter Europe sank off the coast of Tunisia, killing some 70 people. This was one of the many vessels operated by illegal immigrant-trafficking gangs in Northern Africa who carry Africans to Mediterranean coastlines. Ironically, top on the agenda...

EU Agrees Radical Farming Reforms

Tobias Buck June 26, 2003
The European Union (EU) has ended year-long negotiations on its common agricultural policy but the world has yet to see its implications. Although the original proposal, drafted by the pro-reform EU farm commissioner Franz Fischler was heavily diluted, he did achieve part of its goal to overhaul Europe's stronghold on billions of Euros in subsidies. France, the biggest beneficiary of the...