In The News

Crimes Under Flags of Convenience

Michael Richardson May 19, 2003
The Sept. 11 attacks on the US may have awakened the world to the dangers of a passenger airliner being turned into a missile, but in malevolent hands a much more traditional mode of transport - a ship on the oceans - could be turned into dangerous tool. On the high seas, ships registered under flags of cash-strapped nations operate with very little oversight or regulation. As Singapore-based...

China Threatens Execution in Intentional Spreading of SARS

Erik Eckholm May 15, 2003
In a remarkable judicial interpretation of existing disease laws in China, the Communist Party has issued new rules allowing for the imprisonment or execution of anyone found to be spreading SARS intentionally. Following severe international criticism for its handling of SARS, China has taken steps to improve the reporting and disclosure of the health threat. The official media has now begun to...

Sars Crisis: A Case of Too Much Democracy?

Sunanda K. Datta-Ray May 13, 2003
In times of crisis, governments tread a delicate balance between democratic ideals that guarantee civil liberties and autocratic measures for the common good. The ways in which Asian countries have responded to the SARS crisis provides an important case in point. China failed to take stringent measures to pre-empt the spread of SARS, and now it faces a national SARS epidemic that has enormous...

The China Syndrome

Paul Krugman May 13, 2003
While American critics of China blame media censorship for Beijing's initial mishandling of SARS, this opinion piece in The New York Times argues that the US is no less vulnerable to the influence of the state. According to economist Paul Krugman, although media companies in the United States are privately owned, they remain deferential to the political regime. The nexus between the US...

A Trusteeship for Palestine?

Martin Indyk May 12, 2003
Worrying that US President Bush’s "road map" agenda for the end to the Israel-Palestine conflict will fall through, Martin Indyk, the former US ambassador to Israel, and other members of the Saban Center's Israeli-Palestinian Workshop have proposed an alternative solution. They suggest a three-year international governing force in Palestine, headed by the UN, IMF, WTO, and various...

U.S. to Blame for Derailing Process of Denuclearisation on Korean Peninsula

May 12, 2003
As the new South Korean Prime Minister begins his first official visit to the United States, North Korea's Central News Agency released a report detailing the central role the United States has played and continues to play in the nuclearization of the Korean peninsula. The report is a scathing indictment of US foreign policy and holds the US solely responsible for undermining North and...

More 'Can I Help You?' Jobs Migrate From U.S. to India

Amy Waldman May 11, 2003
Due to advances in global media technologies, the public and the private sectors in the United States are increasingly subcontracting services to countries with cheap labor. Contractors for the State of New Jersey arranged for telephone operators in Bombay, India to handle calls from the state's welfare recipients. These telephone operators are paid by a US-based company, owned by an...