In The News

The Crossover Queen

July 25, 2005
Most Latino singers who succeed in the lucrative English-language pop market abandon their origins and cease to cater to the Latin marketplace. Shakira, however, recently broke the industry’s conventional wisdom by returning to the Spanish-language market after selling 13 million copies of her first English album – “Laundry Service” – in 2001. Exercising an unusual level of control over her own...

Camera Phones Lend Immediacy to Images of Disaster

Yuki Noguchi July 8, 2005
The invention of camera phones has allowed everyday people to capture images of great political and social significance in an unprecedented way, sometimes beating professional photojournalists to the punch. Several survivors of yesterday's terror attacks in London recorded images of bombed subway cars and fellow victims on their camera phones. Their pictures were broadcast to the world on...

Africa Needs an Al-Jazeera

Philip Fiske de Gouveia July 6, 2005
The spotlight on Africa of late has focused on many laudable goals: sustainable development, debt relief, disease prevention and control, and reining in governmental corruption. But promoting democracy and permanently establishing open and honest government, Philip Fiske de Gouveia writes, is inherently linked to a feature which most Africa nations still lack: a free press. The overwhelming...

Giving Voice to British Arab Culture – And Its Discontents

Omar Waraich June 29, 2005
When Reem Maghribi, a 26-year-old British Arab designer, realized that Arabs lacked a voice in the United Kingdom, she founded Sharq, a magazine devoted to the promotion of “British Arab Culture.” With an increasing number of British Arabs questioning their identity amidst a climate of “Arabaphobia,” the self-supported publication is offering them the opportunity to delve into their unique...

Viruses, Security Issues Undermine Internet

Ariana Eunjung Cha June 27, 2005
Designed originally by the US Department of Defense as a limited experiment in communications, the internet was not intended to be the global network it is today. Since the system was originally used by only a small community of researchers and friends, the popularized version was not equipped with the security measures necessary to cope with the enormous number of current– largely anonomous –...

Art from China Displays Dreams and Doubts

Caroline MacKinnon June 23, 2005
Chinese identity has undergone major changes in the past several decades as the country has altered its social, cultural and economic landscape. Recently, seventeen Chinese artists exhibited work dedicated to exploring the theme of Chinese identity at the Rufino Tamayo Museum of Contemporary Art in Mexico City. Photographer Xing Danwen showed work that portrayed the similarities in urban...

Don't Mention Democracy, Microsoft Tells China Web Users

Mure Dickie June 13, 2005
In order to steer clear of political censors, Microsoft has banned the use of certain words, among them "democracy" and "freedom," from its new Chinese internet portal. In accordance with central government regulations, Chinese MSN subscribers are restricted from labeling their web sites with words that might be seen as critical of China's Communist leadership. Working...