In The News

China May Fine News Media to Limit Coverage

Joseph Kahn June 29, 2006
The Chinese government has long held power over media, but the controls were typically informal and not written into a law. A proposal from the Standing Committee of the legislature, however, would fine media outlets for reporting “sudden events” without prior authorization from the government. The government has not yet defined “sudden event,” but analysts expect that local officials will apply...

Surveillance Disclosure Denounced

Peter Baker June 29, 2006
US President George Bush denounces “The New York Times” for publishing an article concerning the president’s secret anti-terrorism program that involves access, unapproved by US Congress or the courts, to bank records from nearly 8,000 banks in more than 20 countries. The paper also broke news earlier this year about a government telephone-surveillance program. Supporters of such surveillance...

Distempered Days

Declan Walsh June 28, 2006
Chaos is on the rise in Afghanistan as violent attacks by the Taliban increase, and corruption and the drug trade run rampant through the country. Four years ago, Hamad Karzai was viewed as Afghanistan’s best hope for rebuilding the country, but now many question his leadership. Afghans contend that their president has failed to meet basic needs, and most still live in poverty. Western officials...

Amid Competition, India Cools To Expansion by Chinese Firms

Peter Wonacott June 27, 2006
China and India have the world’s most rapidly expanding economies, and any trade partnerships between the two serve as powerful counterweights to the other’s ties with the US. Some in India, however, are wary of Chinese incursion into strategic industries. India’s Foreign Investment Promotion Board has passed on issuing trading licenses to some Chinese firms, and officials in Beijing have been...

Globalization: When Cure Is Worse Than Malady

Richard Hornik June 27, 2006
The global economic transition to a post-industrial economy has increased pace since the end of the Cold War, but the dislocations caused by rapid globalization rage on. As a consequence, electorates have become deeply divided between those who benefit and those who do not. Politicians find themselves pandering to narrow constituencies with petty, irrelevant legislation to build coalitions, often...

A Shot in the Dark

Mark Tran June 27, 2006
In 2001, the United Nations created a program that aimed to reduce the “trafficking, proliferation and misuse of guns,” and delegates meet again in New York to discuss the possible implementation of an international arms trade treaty. The National Rifle Association (NRA), a powerful lobby group in the US, has decried that the efforts of the action group will “strip all citizens of all nations of...

Why Keep Downloads on the Down-Low?

Victor Keegan June 20, 2006
Less than one percent of the information contained in the archives of the British Library has been digitized because of concerns about digital rights, reports Author Victor Keegan, and he points out how much more information could be available to the world. To Keegan, the current temerity in the digital rights arena is the true “digital scandal.” While businesses operating under the traditional...