In The News

Terror Takes Toll on Kenya's Tourism Industry

William Wallis December 8, 2003
Kenya's tourist industry used to be able to count on the Christmas season as a peak time of year. Now, after two terrorist attacks in recent years, UK and US officials are telling their citizens not to go, and people are heeding the warning. Hotels are seeing occupancy of 10-25% only, and the whole economy is being dragged down as a result. Kenyans feel unfairly singled out, for, as they...

Backing Down on Steel Tariffs, U.S. Strengthens Trade Group

David E. Sanger December 5, 2003
The fight over US steel tariffs, writes David Sanger in the New York Times, will go down in history as the case that defines the World Trade Organization's power. No case in the eight year history of the WTO has tested its power to quite the same degree, but now it has been tested – and won. Last week President Bush was forced to eliminate steel tariffs that the WTO ruled illegal after the...

Kyoto's Not Dead Yet

December 3, 2003
A senior advisor to Russia's President Putin, Andrei Illarionov, declared this week that Russia was never going to sign on the Kyoto Protocol that aims to limit greenhouse gases. Fortunately for the treaty, Illarionov does not have the final word, and Putin himself has indicated that Russia would be willing to ratify. It seems likely that the Russians are hesitating on Kyoto out of the...

Steel Tariffs Reported On Way Out

David Roeder December 2, 2003
President Bush is likely to avert a trade war by lifting the tariffs he imposed on imported steel in March of 2002. Bush originally established the duties to prevent the loss of steelworkers' jobs. However, keeping the tariffs would likely damage the economy far more by sparking a trade war with the European Union and Japan, both of whom threatened to retaliate by putting $2.3 billion...

Bush Dropping Steel Tariffs to Avert Trade War

Mike Allen November 30, 2003
In response to a WTO ruling that was finalized three weeks ago, the Bush administration has indicated they are likely to drop the 8-30% steel tariffs imposed in 2002. The US faces a trade war with the European Union and Japan if it keeps the tariffs, which target imports from these nations as well as from South America. EU countries are threatening tariffs on products like Florida citrus fruits...

Asia Worries About Growth of China’s Economic Power

Erik Eckholm November 24, 2003
As China continues to move from a planned toward a free market economy, several of its neighbors are finding foreign investment dwindling. The world’s most populous nation has successfully harnessed its great industrial power, and this has attracted hundreds of thousands of high-tech jobs and millions of dollars in investment that formerly went to countries such as Malaysia, Singapore and...

Crunch Time for Thai Fishing Fleet

November 22, 2003
Over the past 19 years, thousands of Thai fishing trawlers and fishermen have been arrested for poaching in the waters of other countries in the oceans off Thailand's coast. The introduction of the dragnet in 1960 allowed Thai fishermen to net large amounts of fish every hour. But the increased catches soon caused a depletion in supply, which forced trawlers further out from shore and into...