In The News

The Long Arm of the US Workplace

Patti Waldmeir February 8, 2004
Along with jobs, "is America also exporting its notion of what constitutes fairness in the workplace," asks the author of this Financial Times article. Whereas only a few years ago, sexual harassment litigations were unique to the American workplace, such cases are more and more common in other countries as well. Even American companies operating in countries without sexual harassment...

The Underbelly of Globalisation

Tony Woodley February 7, 2004
17 men and 2 women from China died off Morecambe Bay in northwest England when they were out picking cockles (bivalve mollusks found in wet sand). "This is not a migration issue. It is an exploitation issue." says Tony Woodley, general secretary of the UK's Transport and General Workers' Union. He criticizes both the "reckless employers" who benefit most from hiring...

UK May Tighten Benefit Controls to Deter New EU Immigrants

Patrick Wintour February 5, 2004
Responding to pressure from right-wing press and the Conservative party, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair now says he will consider measures that would withhold benefits for migrants from EU accession countries when they join the Union in May. Previously supporting the free movement of Eastern Europeans across the EU, Blair found himself isolated when Sweden imposed immigration controls a week ago....

Immigrants Shouldn't Act like Dracula's 'Undead'

Sunanda K. Datta-Ray February 3, 2004
In a provocative essay, Sunanda K. Datta-Ray, a researcher at the Institute of South-east Asian Studies, argues that the sympathetic worldwide response to the proposed French ban on religious symbols in schools highlights the development of the "globalization of protest" and social movements. Improved communications and the rapid flow of ideas, ideologies and people across national...

Headscarf Ban Misses the Point

Shada Islam January 30, 2004
The debate that has raged in France for 15 years over the right of Muslim girls to wear religious headscarves to school has come to a head with a plan to ban the practice. The French ideal of strict separation of church and state has pushed the government to ban this "conspicuous" display of religious identity in state schools. Moreover, some feminists and government officials consider...

Turkish-German Integration Smooths Cultural Divisions

Peter Badenhop January 30, 2004
In an interview with Germany's F.A.Z. Weekly, the Turkish ambassador to Germany, Mehmet Ali Irtemcelik, discusses the importance of integrating German Muslims of Turkish descent, Germany's largest immigrant group, into mainstream German society. The erroneous perception of all Muslims as religious fundamentalists inhibits integration, he says, and it undermines their contribution to...

Africa's Potemkin Deception

Michael Holman January 19, 2004
Just as the Russian Prince Potemkin once created mock villages in the Ukraine and the Crimea to convince Catherine the Great of her empire’s health, so may the continent’s modern benefactors be deluding themselves and the world about its progress, argues Michael Holman, former Africa editor of the Financial Times. Sub-Saharan Africa remains mired in poverty, disease, and debt, yet manufactured...