In The News

Germany a Gateway to Europe for Chinese Businesses

Mark-Werner Dreisörner July 16, 2004
For years German investors have taken advantage of China’s low wages and huge market potential to expand their operations, but a recent trends show investment flowing the other way: from China to Germany. Hamburg alone now hosts over 300 Chinese businesses, and growth in Chinese investment across the country is likely to continue since Germany is seen as a gateway to Europe. Wang Yan of...

Exploding the Myths of Offshoring

Martin N. Baily July 1, 2004
In the heated public discourse in the US on outsourcing the aspect that is most often highlighted is the threat of American job loss to low-wage workers in India. In this essay a former Clinton administration economist Martin Baily and Diana Farrell , director of the McKinsey Global Institute make the case that outsourcing is in fact win-win for both the countries. They say that with the digital...

Power of Information Technology Awaits Unleashing

William Mougayar July 1, 2004
With no conclusive outcome reached at the UN-sponsored World Summit on the Information Society, developing countries will continue to lag behind developed countries in the vital Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector. The author, William Mougayar, an independent scholar and management consultant, opines that the meeting should have focused on important issues such as network...

Gulf Security in a Globalizing World: Going beyond US Hegemony

Michael Kraig June 29, 2004
War and domestic political uncertainty have reigned in the Middle East during the past three decades. But one strategic reality has steadfastly evolved: the rise of the United States as an external guarantor of Gulf security. The continued presence of 138,000 US troops in Iraq after the formal handover of sovereignty is the latest reminder. However, while US military dominance may be...

Can of Worms?

Gamal Nkrumah June 25, 2004
Al-Qaeda may have penetrated deep into the Saudi security apparatus, says this article in Egypt's Al-Ahram Weekly. Officials deny that there is a problem and are working hard to contain the terrorists, even killing Al-Qaeda’s reputed leader in Saudi Arabia last Friday. But the rapid replacement of this man by Al-Oufi, a former policeman and war veteran of Afghanistan, suggests both the...

Key Cocaine Routes Closed, Feds Say

Jay Weaver June 24, 2004
US officials with the Drug Enforcement Administration have arrested another 50 cocaine smugglers, cutting the total supply of cocaine entering the US by 10 percent over five years. Colombia has long been the main source of cocaine for the American market, but smugglers have had to take a circuitous route through the Caribbean island nations to get to their drop off points in southern Florida....

Court Limits Sales on eBay

Kristina Merkner June 18, 2004
A Frankfurt court has decided that it will enforce a German law allowing publishers to fix the prices of their books. An entrepreneurial journalist who had sold about 40 review copies of a book on the online auction site, eBay, was in violation of the law, the court said. There was some legal debate over whether European Union free-trade regulation made the law invalid, but the German book...