In The News

Wal-Mart Invades, and Mexico Gladly Surrenders

Tim Weiner December 6, 2003
Wal-Mart, the largest corporation in America, has revenues that exceed the economies of all but 30 of the world's nations. It dominates about 30% of the grocery business in the US, as well as substantial proportions of other industries. Now, its domestic success is being duplicated in Mexico. Wal-Mart employs 100,164 Mexican workers, making it the biggest private employer in the nation....

An Indigenous World

Moisés Naím November 25, 2003
Despite the spread of disease and exploitation, the rise of global forces has not been all bad for the estimated 350 million indigenous people around the world, says Foreign Policy editor Moises Naim. In fact, in can also empower them. Across Latin America, Naim says, "constitutional changes… have given indigenous peoples far more political advantages than ever before." Globalization...

Teochews Can Take Pride in Successes

Lee Hsien Loong November 24, 2003
Since at least the 1800s, Chinese immigrants speaking the Teochew dialect have moved to many regions of Southeast Asia in search of a better life. Many of them have become the most successful groups in their adopted countries, says Singapore's Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. Sometimes they seem "more than proportionately represented" in top-notch positions such as the Thai...

Sleepy City Has High Hopes, Dreaming of High Tech

David Rohde November 20, 2003
The sleepy farm state capital of Chandigarh may soon become the "technology hub of northern India." In recent years, tens of thousands of jobs have flooded to India from the US and Europe as high tech companies, attracted by cheap, qualified labor, transfer their call centers en masse. India's "first tier" technology hubs, including cities like Bangalore and Bombay,...

Japan Heads to Iraq, Haunted by Taboo Bred in Another War

Norimitsu Onishi November 19, 2003
For the first time since the Second World War, Japan faces the possibility of entering a conflict where Japanese soldiers may kill or be killed. The nation has come a long way since World War II when kamikaze attacks were considered normal and honorable. As a result of Japan's Article 9 of its Constitution, which prohibits the use of force to solve disputes, the country is thought to abhor...

'We must build a global social system' – Bill Clinton

November 19, 2003
Nayan Chanda, editor of YaleGlobal Online, interviewed former US President William J. Clinton on October 31, 2003. The full text of the interview is presented here.

Species Red List Makes Bleak Reading

George Wright November 18, 2003
The World Conservation Union (IUCN) published its latest "red list" of endangered species, expanding the list by 15 percent from last year's. The list now includes 12,259 species classified as critically endangered, endangered, or vulnerable. These species are distributed around the world, but Indonesia, India, Brazil, China and Peru are among the countries with the highest number...