In The News

How Dangerous is the Bird Flu?

Laurie Garrett February 6, 2004
In recent weeks the avian flu has emerged as a matter of urgent concern for poultry farmers, health officials, and government leaders in Asian countries. Cases of infected poultry have been reported in China, Vietnam, Thailand, and seven other countries, with widespread culling and bans on chicken exports in many of these. But with fewer than twenty human deaths reported thus far, is this...

Global Environmentalism Hits China

Guobin Yang February 4, 2004
Capitalism is not the only '-ism' flourishing in China today. Since the early 1990s, the country's battles against dust storms, deforestation, watershed pollution, and other problems have attracted the attention of both domestic groups and foreign environmental organizations. The government in Beijing signaled its official commitment to sustainable development after the 1992 Rio...

Chicken Exports: Watana Threatens Retaliation

February 4, 2004
As more humans are infected by the avian flu in Asia, Thailand's chicken exports are not faring well. Many countries, including Japan, are rejecting Thai chicken exports until they are assured that the avian flu is no longer a problem. Larger-scale commercial farms and some Thai officials are promoting the use of modern, covered chicken houses to contain the spread of the virus. But the...

Job Description for the Next Pope

R. Scott Appleby February 3, 2004
Historian R. Scott Appleby believes the Catholic Church must ensure the next Pope fulfills a broad range of qualifications, not least of which is the ability to redefine the Church's understanding of current issues. Specifically, three challenges will confront the next Pope, and indeed the Catholic Church. Increased secularization, "indifferent or hostile to religious faith,"...

Immigrants Shouldn't Act like Dracula's 'Undead'

Sunanda K. Datta-Ray February 3, 2004
In a provocative essay, Sunanda K. Datta-Ray, a researcher at the Institute of South-east Asian Studies, argues that the sympathetic worldwide response to the proposed French ban on religious symbols in schools highlights the development of the "globalization of protest" and social movements. Improved communications and the rapid flow of ideas, ideologies and people across national...

A False Alarm: Overcoming Globalization's Discontents

Richard N. Cooper January 29, 2004
Jagdish Baghwati believes that globalization is unambiguously a positive phenomenon and aims to prove it in his recent book, "In Defense of Globalization." According to this review, Baghwati's book also aims to enlighten globalization's critics. Baghwati tackles two major criticisms of globalization: that it causes poverty, and that it depresses wages. He cites data that...

A Rising New Force in World Public Opinion

Immanuel Wallerstein January 28, 2004
The slogan of the World Social Forum reads, "another world is possible" - as in, a world devoid of capitalism and neo-liberal trade policies. From a small group of protesters who successfully scuttled the 1999 WTO meeting in Seattle, the group has quickly grown to global proportions, says social theorist Immanuel Wallerstein. Over 100,000 people attended the most recent WSF meeting in...