In The News

China Steps Up the Fight

May 6, 2003
While other countries seem to have had some success in containing the spread of Sars, China is still scrambling to estimate how many infected persons there are and to find ways of treating all in need. Meanwhile, says this Economist article, the total cost of the epidemic within China is nearly impossible to estimate, as the country's government and many industries remain highly secretive...

Iraqi Nuclear Site Is Found Looted

Barton Gellman May 4, 2003
A specially trained US Defense Department team inspected a major Iraqi radioactive waste repository and discovered that the site had been severely looted. Computers, furniture and equipment appear to have been looted by Iraqi civilians since the beginning of US led military action. However, US authorities remain uncertain as to who might have taken the nuclear materials and why. On site...

China Allows UN Agency to Help Fight Illness on Taiwan

Joseph Kahn May 4, 2003
China approved a World Health Organization (WHO) mission to Taiwan, opening up the ‘territory’ to a UN agency for the first time since 1972. As the number of SARS cases in China has continued to rise, so has the international pressure on China to respond more effectively to the SARS epidemic. At this historical juncture when Taiwan is registering a steady increase in SARS related cases, the WHO...

Anglosphere: Limits to Globalization

James C. Bennett May 3, 2003
In this essay James C. Bennett addresses the limits of globalization. According to Bennett, amongst the enduring benefits of globalization are innovations in travel, world economy, and medical and technological breakthroughs. However, Bennett argues against a universal paradigm for globalization because globalization often occurs between nations and economies that are similarly positioned in...

Sars Gives China a Lesson in Globalization

Frank Ching May 2, 2003
China may have begun opening its economy 20 years ago, but Sars has shown that capitalist economic reforms aren't the only criteria for being part of the global economy. Control of the media is still seen as a basic function and right of the Chinese Communist Party, but it is precisely the party's obsessive control of information that helped fan the spread of Sars after its initial...

More SARS Cases Are Reported; Virus Found to Persist in Patients

Lawrence K. Altman May 2, 2003
More deaths, more new infections in Toronto, and the realization that Sars patients can suffer a relapse capped the bad news about Sars this week. The World Health Organization also reported that countries – including Canada and the US – are being slow about reporting new cases of Sars. New recommendations included treating in isolation patients who test positive for Sars. – YaleGlobal

SARS Unmasks a Wider Scandal

Jasper Becker May 2, 2003
Writing from Beijing, Jasper Becker asks what lessons China will take from the Sars crisis? The crisis, he argues, reveals great flaws in the Chinese government's system of management in non-economic areas. "The half-baked reform of China's health system is nothing short of scandalous and the country is now paying for it," he says. "Peasants - who can least afford it -...