In The News

Arab World Risks Missing its Development Goals

Majdoline Hatoum April 2, 2004
Illiteracy, gender inequality, and unemployment plague Arab countries, despite the region's concentration of oil wealth. Arab leaders addressed these issues at a recent development conference. They proposed various plans and strategies to help Arab countries meet the Millennium Development Goal, which was signed by 189 countries in 2000 as part of the UN's Millennium Declaration. The...

Australia's Greedy Oil Deals in East Timor

April 1, 2004
Ownership and control of the rich gas fields in the East Timor Sea – the subject of recent bilateral discussions between Australia and East Timor – provides a "harsh" but valuable lesson in international relations, says this editorial in Thailand's The Nation. Australia played a critical role in ending violence in East Timor and in ensuring the country's independence from...

A Normal Country

Andrei Shleifer March 30, 2004
In this Foreign Affairs’ essay, Andrei Shleifer and Daniel Treisman argue that the popular image in the west of Russia as a “disastrous failure” needs to be rethought. General belief holds that Russia has failed to leave its communist past behind, and as a result, has transformed itself into “a collapsed state inhabited by criminals threatening other countries with multiple contagions.” Contrary...

A Tale of Two Cities

Kerry A. Dolan March 29, 2004
Forbes magazine compares the stories of a dozen Americans laid off in Silicon Valley because of offshoring to those of their Indian counterparts who gained some of those jobs in Bangalore, India's offshoring hotspot. Before losing their jobs, American workers in the technology industry were going about their usual business –taking home plump checks, closing on a condo, and generally enjoying...

Making Business Work for the Poor

Ernesto Zedillo March 17, 2004
As the debate on how to best alleviate poverty in developing countries continue to rage, Ernesto Zedillo, the director of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization and the former president of Mexico, suggests one commonsense solution – facilitating private entrepreneurship to help people pull themselves out of the informal economy and into the larger formal marketplace. Current difficulties...

AFL-CIO Asks Penalties Against China

Stephen Franklin March 17, 2004
In the latest attack in the outsourcing debate, the AFL-CIO – America's largest and politically strongest union – seeks sanctions against China for allegedly having an "abusive, low-pay system that has cost thousands of American jobs". Using a trade law that has thus far only been used to protect American exports, the AFL-CIO is asking the government to cut trade with China in...

Laissez Unfaire

Arindam Mukherjee March 11, 2004
Globally, the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) is very much in vogue, but India is rethinking its rush to keep up with trends. At present, there are some 250 FTAS globally, a figure that is likely to increase dramatically in the near future. India has made many strides in this area, signing, or committing to sign, various multilateral as well as bilateral agreements. Currently, it is in the process...