In The News

How Europe's Discarded Computers Are Poisoning Africa's Kids

Clemens Höges December 9, 2009
Twenty years ago, the international community drew up the Basel Convention in order to prevent developed nations from dumping their computer scraps in the developing world. Yet, the last two decades have shown that enforcing such a treaty is difficult. Some countries, such as the US, still haven't ratified the treaty; meanwhile, those who have, such as Germany, still struggle to abide by it...

Globalization: Diseases Spreading From Humans to Animals, Study Finds

October 29, 2009
For the first time since animal domestication 10,000 years ago, a disease has spread from humans to animals. A new study from the University of Edinburgh shows how a version of the staph infection started in humans, spread to chickens, and then spread throughout the global poultry industry. Diseases are a major threat to the poultry industry. One of the study’s authors suggests that the global...

Swine Flu Fears Hit Saudi Religious Tourism

September 30, 2009
Mecca, the birthplace of the prophet Mohammed and city to which many Muslims make a pilgrimage as a tenet of Islam, is gripped with fear about the swine flu. Hotel occupancy rates have fallen 33 to 55 percent compared to last year. And the prime period of Hajj, when the majority of pilgrims convene in Mecca, is still two months away. While Saudi Arabia generally doesn’t attract as many tourists...

Globalization, AIDS, and the Pornography Industry

September 4, 2009
Propelled by globalization, pornography has found an audience among individuals in the far corners of the world with serious consequences. In some places, like in parts of Africa, where electricity is a luxury, villagers have nevertheless viewed pornographic media from California. And the preponderance of such media is having a chilling effect on public health.. In many of these regions, the...

The H1N1 Virus: Varied Local Responses to a Global Spread

Yanzhong Huang September 1, 2009
This past spring, some of the responses to the H1N1 virus, known as the Swine Flu, were surprisingly reminiscent of the SARS epidemic from 2003. That is, some authorities imposed travel restrictions and quarantines to halt the advance of the virus. But as Director of the Center for Global Health Studies at Seton Hall University Yanzhong Huang argues, such methods are a direct contradiction of a...

Armenians Struggle for Health Care and Medicines

Monika Mkhitaryan, Onnik Krikorian August 5, 2009
Faced with unemployment and lower remittances in the current global economic slowdown, Armenians face a vicious health care cycle. Since the country’s independence in 1991, the government has created numerous healthcare programs which generally succeeded in providing for the health needs of its people. About half of the total expenditure on health is financed through the private sector, of which...

Hungry World: A Silent Crisis Calls for Urgent Action

Marshall Bouton July 7, 2009
When the leaders of the eight industrialized countries meet in Italy this week, they will need to urgently address a silent crisis of hunger. With over a billion hungry people around the globe, it is critical that the developed world takes measures to increase agricultural productivity, writes Chicago Council on Global Affairs president Marshall Bouton. Such a solution is ever more pressing given...