In The News

Industrialised World Must Adapt to Rising China and India

Eisuke Sakakibara February 6, 2003
A former Japanese Finance Ministry official writes that like the industrialization of the late 19th century, the globalization of the last two decades has rapidly altered the world economy. China and India are poised to become important actors in the new economy, but for them to succeed, many things must fall into place. Industrialized nations, specifically Japan, must respond to the emergence...

Hollywood in the Era of Globalization

Allen J. Scott November 29, 2002
Hollywood films represent more than half, and sometimes more than two-thirds of total box-office receipts in major markets. Films that succeed in the US market also tend to succeed in foreign markets. This suggests that a convergence of popular taste may be coming about, though in many countries this phenomenon also occurs against a backdrop of cultural contestation. Hollywood has been a success...

Thais Urged to Spearhead Vaccine Drive

Arthit Khwankhom November 21, 2002
Global health concerns rank high on the agendas of many governments. Many of the tropical diseases prevalent in developing countries, however, are under-researched by large pharmaceutical companies because there are few profits to be made from producing drugs for people in poor regions. But in Southeast Asia, not all are despairing over the lack of interest by large pharmaceutical companies....

Spotlight Falls on a Heavily Globalised Industry

Daniel Dombey November 20, 2002
After the oil tanker, the Prestige, broke in half off the Spanish coast and began gushing forth its slick contents, thousands of fishing families and businesses who depend on the ocean and pristine beaches began asking who should be held liable. As this Financial Times article notes, "the Prestige, registered in the Bahamas, owned by a Liberian company, managed by a Greek company and...

US, Singapore on Brink of Sealing Free-Trade Pact

November 19, 2002
American and Singaporean negotiators spent most of last night negotiating the final terms of the first American-Asian free-trade agreement, which, if all goes smoothly, could be signed as early as next year. The two sides agreed on all but one major issue (that of capital transfers in-and-out of Singapore). Singapore’s geopolitical importance, with its modern technology and peaceful political and...

Emptying the Oceans

Michael Richardson November 17, 2002
World fisheries are suffering. With huge fishing fleets subsidized by governments, ineffective or non-existent multi-lateral agreements to control overfishing, and rampant piracy, the world’s oceans are not merely overfished, they are being laid bare. Add new technology that allows fishers to trawl in waters previously unsafe, and supermarkets that offer big payouts for uncommon fish, and the...

Hathaway Closes Maine Factory, Last Major U.S. Shirt Plant

The Associated Press October 20, 2002
America’s industrial revolution was launched in the early 19th century by men like Francis Cabot Lowell, who set up textile mills with technology copied from Great Britain. Some textile mills still operate in the South, but the closure of the US’s last major shirt maker marks the end of an era in a globalizing world where production is perpetually in search of low-cost labor and rent....