In The News

Penchant For Secrecy Harming China’s Image

Frank Ching December 5, 2005
The Chinese government has a culture of secrecy. In the effort to protect delicate information, officials may lie. A perfect example was the explosion at the Jilin Petrochemical Company, and subsequent pollution of the Songhua River. A concerted effort to obscure the nature and magnitude of the disaster suggests that China has a problem. In the name of social stability, China has been lying...

HIV/AIDS: A Truly Global Response Needed For a Global Scourge

Michael Merson November 29, 2005
Two years after its first appearance in 1981, the AIDS virus had spread to 60 countries. It rapidly became a global epidemic that clearly required a global response. Organizing such a response, however, has proved to be difficult. The first fifteen years of the global struggle against AIDS were marred by low funding, political infighting and controversy over prevention methods. The new...

Avian Influenza: Pandemic Skeptics Warn Against Crying Wolf

Dennis Normile November 28, 2005
The threat of a bird flu pandemic has only recently received international attention that many believe is necessary to prevent a catastrophic loss of human life. Skeptics are raising their voices, however, asserting that there is no reason to expect a bird flu pandemic spreading amongst human beings in the near future. One skeptic argues that a repeat of the overcrowded trenches of World War I...

Hundreds of Thousands Used ‘Lethal’ Water

Peter Goff November 28, 2005
Days after a massive chemical spill in industrial northern China, water supplies are still cut off in the major city of Harbin. Residents of Harbin must count themselves lucky, however, because their neighbors upstream learned of the contamination too late to avoid exposure to lethal levels of benezene. The authorities of Jilin and Heilonjiang provinces concealed the danger for 10 days, in...

Asian Countries Gear Up to Tackle Bird-Flu Threat

Nicholas Zamiska November 4, 2005
Asian governments are gradually beginning to confront the possibility of widespread bird-flu infection among humans, and it is their state of readiness, still to be determined, that may prove the most crucial in preventing a global pandemic. Western countries have been preparing themselves for months by stockpiling antiviral drugs, but despite many experts’ warning that a pandemic will most...

China’s Next Big Boom Could be the Foul Air

Jim Yardley October 31, 2005
China’s rise has both staggered and threatened the rest of the world. Sometimes the portrayal of China's military power as a threat has been exaggerated. An announcement by a top Chinese environmental official last week, however, introduced a statistic that is true cause for anxiety. Pollution levels in China could more than quadruple in the next 15 years if China does not slow its energy...

Migrant Birds "Should Not Be Bird Flu Scapegoats"

Mike Shanahan October 26, 2005
Since the avian flu broke international headlines again this year, most reports have focused on the poultry business and how governments can best tighten health standards within the industry. Many scientists are now concerned about the spread of the potential pandemic in the wild, beyond the control of health officials and government regulators. Worse still is the possibility that migratory birds...