In The News

Sharon Noguchi March 2, 2006
As Japan confronts challenges of a low birth rate, an aging population, and a shrinking labor pool, Sharon Noguchi describes the country’s newfound reliance on illegal workers who are employed in low-wage jobs and unprotected from exploitation. Immigrants from China, Latin America and South Asia seek jobs with employers willing to risk legal punishments in order to hire workers at lower wages....
Shankar Vedantam February 27, 2006
Since the 2001 terrorist attacks the US has implemented a stricter, more time-consuming visa policy citing concerns for national security., However, the recent denial of a visa to Goverdhan Mehta, an Indian scientist who is the president of the International Council for Science, has offered proof that this system remains far from perfect. In a case that caused furor in India just days before a...
Leif Brottem February 21, 2006
The flow of immigrants from the global south to North America and Europe in search of work is often overshadowed by the flow of goods, capital and information. The financial support immigrants provide to developing countries once they settle elsewhere is 50 percent greater than the development aid to those same countries from all other sources. Increasingly, however, the US and the EU are...
Fareed Zakaria February 16, 2006
In March 2000, EU leaders pledged to make the EU “the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-driven economy by 2010.” That goal could be unrealistic. As policymakers debate the rise of Asia and its challenge to the US, Fareed Zakaria, a journalist who specializes in international relations, suggests that the major story of the decade may well be Europe’s economic decline. If current trends...
Harold Meyerson February 10, 2006
Shortly before the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) came into effect in 1994, then US President Bill Clinton optimistically predicted, as more Mexicans gained the ability to support themselves at home, a gradual decline in illegal immigration. Contrary to Clinton’s promise, however, the US has seen a four-fold increase in undocumented Mexican workers in the last decade. Putting...
Tariq Ramadan February 6, 2006
The controversy over the recent Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed should be cast as an issue of free speech versus civic responsibility. The cartoons fly in the face of a Muslim prohibition against making an image of Mohammed or other prophets. They also portray religion as subject for humor – an alien concept in Muslim culture. Scholar Tariq Ramadan calls for restraint and civic...
Craig Barrett February 1, 2006
Discussion about challenges in America’s immigration policies tends to focus on the millions of illegal immigrants. But the more pressing immigration problem facing the US today, writes Intel chairman Craig Barrett, is the dearth of high-skilled immigrants required to keep the US economy competitive. Due to tighter visa policies and a growth in opportunities elsewhere in the world, foreign...