In The News

Even Labor Unions Can Gain from Free Trade

Tamara Kay December 23, 2003
In the long negotiations before the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), pundits, politicians, and unions alike predicted that NAFTA would bring increased animosity between transnational unions. They would now be competing for the same jobs, the argument went, and so labor solidarity will obviously break down. Instead, says labor scholar Tamara Kay, North America...

Libya to Give Up Arms Programs, Bush Announces

David E. Sanger December 20, 2003
After nine months of behind-the-scenes diplomacy, Libya has agreed to quit its nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons programs. According to US and UK officials, Libya's leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, approached the two countries at the outset of the Iraq War to discuss the issue. Analysts have long suspected Libya of having a nuclear program, despite the country's signing of the...

China's "Peaceful Ascendancy"

Yoichi Funabashi December 19, 2003
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, some international observers have predicted that China would be the next major counter-balance to US power and the only country with the potential to challenge American hegemony on a global scale. But, Chinese officials are now at pains to deny that they have any ambition to reign supreme again in Asia or destabilize the world economically, politically, or...

Sugar, Textiles Sour on CAFTA Deal

Jane Bussey December 19, 2003
US trade negotiators had no sooner finished closing a deal with four Central American countries when US textile and sugar industry representatives began crying foul. The Central American Free Trade Agreement would result in sugar industry job losses in the US, say its critics, and permit Chinese, Mexican, and Canadian textiles assembled in Central America to enjoy favorable import rules when...

Australia Tips in with Bt250m to Help with People Trafficking in ASEAN

Jim Pollard December 18, 2003
Trafficking in humans brings thousands of people against their will from Southeast Asia to Australia each year to serve as sex workers or virtual slaves. To help prevent such gross human rights abuses at the source, Australia has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Thailand and other countries in the region and promised to devote 8.5 million Australian dollars to an anti-trafficking...

Saddam in Custody Offers New Opportunity

Shada Islam December 17, 2003
When Saddam Hussein was in power and was defying the UN, the US and its European allies wrangled over how to bring him into compliance. Now with the Iraqi leader in American custody there is a new opportunity to repair transatlantic relations. But there is also a fresh new hurdle. Writing from Brussels, veteran EU watcher Shada Islam says that the Pentagon's announcement that only nations...

France and Germany Join U.S. in Effort to Reduce Iraq's Debt

Craig S. Smith December 17, 2003
US President George W. Bush's envoy on Iraqi debt relief, James Baker III, seems to have already proved his credentials. After talks with officials in the French and German governments, Baker received assurances that those two countries would do what they can to lessen Iraq's debt burden, which is estimated at $120 billion. $40 billion of that is owed to nations within the so-called...