In The News

Once a Bright Point, Senegal Teeters Toward a Crisis

Lydia Polgreen June 20, 2008
Historically, Senegal has been one of Africa’s more prosperous and stable nations, winning respect and admiration. Ironically, though, the country's recent investments in five-star hotels and conference centers have backfired. Luxury development is a slap in the face for the poor who struggle daily to survive. Civil groups resist government plans and accuse political leaders of nepotism and...

An Anger in Korea Over More Than Beef

Choe Sang-Hun June 13, 2008
Tens of thousands have turned out in South Korea, to protest US beef imports specifically, amid fears of mad-cow disease, and US manipulation of their government in general. “This is a small country in a strategic location with a deep sense of grievance about being manipulated by the great powers around it,” explains Choe Sang-Hun in news analysis for the New York Times. President Lee Myung-bak,...

Europe’s Old Boys Need to Make Way for Women

Margot Wallström June 9, 2008
Europe has been a progressive leader on many political issues, but women are still underrepresented in continental politics, argues Margot Wallström, vice president of the European Commission in an essay for the Financial Times. In selecting candidates for ministerial positions, top leaders often strive for diversity but overlook glaring gender imbalances, she notes. People naturally tend to...

Grand Designs Should Look to the Future

Chandran Nair May 28, 2008
Governments can spend today’s wealth on today’s luxuries or invest to ensure the comforts of tomorrow. The United Arab Emirates, rich with oil wealth, continues to invest in novel construction, including a sail-shaped hotel, an underwater hotel and a ski resort – all with the help of foreign designers and architects. But with fast-paced economic growth and per-capita carbon dioxide emissions...

Anti-Immigrant Terror in South Africa

Megan Lindow May 21, 2008
South Africa has many shantytowns for the crowds of immigrants from neighboring nations, many hungry, impoverished and desperate for basic opportunity, legal or illegal. But resentment against immigrants is building in South Africa and mobs descend on the poorly protected and impoverished communities with a series of attacks, warning the foreigners to leave the country. “South Africans have been...

Superclass and the Inequity of Globalization

David Rothkopf May 14, 2008
The free-market principles that drive global trade of goods, services and ideas often run counter to notions of institutional regulation. According to David Rothkopf, author and visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, this void in global governance has facilitated the rise of a “superclass” of elites, numbering about 6,000, whose actions impact millions of lives. The...

Games Tensions on Slippery Track

Jason Dean April 28, 2008
Criticism of China’s human-rights record and Tibet policy has provoked an active defense among Chinese people. Without government direction, a strong wave of nationalist sentiment has driven boycotts of Western multinational corporations whose shareholders support the Free Tibet movement, as well as protests outside media outlets deemed to have reported on the issue with bias. In a year that the...