In The News

Fresh Water Talks

Gamal Nkrumah June 11, 2004
In parts of North Africa, fresh water is a scarce commodity. Although the region's main pipeline – the mighty Nile River – is perhaps most often associated with Egypt, it actually runs through a host of countries further upstream. In order to map out use rights in an equitable fashion, the ten-country Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) hopes to bring all parties to the negotiation table. But the...

Green Cuisine

Maricel E. Presilla May 27, 2004
The global ties that bind are found in avenues both obvious and unexpected. In this Miami Herald article, chef Maricel Presilla writes of the universality of unripened tropical fruits. From the American South to Latin America to India and Southeast Asia, “each person born in the tropics has a story to tell about green fruits,” says a Columbian horticulturist. Hard peas, mangoes, and papayas have...

WTO Hands a Critical Victory to African Farmers

Gayle E. Smith, Susan E. Rice May 21, 2004
Last September's WTO ministerial meeting in Cancun failed to produce a substantive trade agreement after a group of developing countries banded together to demand the EU and the US discontinue their multi-billion dollar subsidy programs. When the EU and US resisted, the talks fell apart. But the latest ruling by the WTO against US cotton subsidies may help push through the Cancun...

A Tree That Supported Sudan Becomes a War's Latest Victim

Marc Lacey May 15, 2004
Sudan has long been the world's leading producer of gum arabic, a substance necessary to manufacture such diverse products as shampoo, pills, and soda. The Sudanese terrain and climate produce a "resin that cannot be reproduced" artificially or elsewhere. This specialized locale of one of the modern world's most important products is now becoming a serious trouble spot as...

A Transatlantic Divide

David Bowen May 13, 2004
David Bowen, a website effectiveness consultant for Bowen Craggs & Co., writes in this article on corporate website management that European companies use their websites to feature self-criticism in addition to standard self-promotion, resulting in effective counter-arguments against their critics. American companies, on the other hand, often omit any acknowledgement of criticism and instead...

Oxfam Launches Fair Trade Coffee Chain

Tash Shifrin May 13, 2004
The growers of one of the world’s most globalized farm produce –coffee --may benefit from the worldwide concern about their plight. The UK based international development and aid agency, Oxfam and a private coffee company have launched a joint-venture: a chain of fair trade coffee shops named the Progreso Café. Fair trade coffee is the fast growing coffee sector in United Kingdom and provides...

Bavaria Hopping Mad Over World Cup Ban

Elizabeth Goetze April 30, 2004
The 2006 World Cup will be held in Germany, but thanks to FIFA sponsoring contracts, visitors should not expect German food or drink at stadiums. Officials in Bavaria are especially angry that German beer will not be allowed – one government official said that guests of the World Cup must be presented with "distinctively Bavarian cultural assets", and another went even further,...