In The News

South Asians Taking Risky Route to Europe: Via Africa

Caroline Brothers February 26, 2007
The tide of illegal immigrants from West Africa to Spain’s Canary Islands has resumed, yet the ethnicity of recent passengers surprise authorities. South Asians attempting to enter Europe have long taken land passages, but are increasingly becoming customers of the poorly made fishing boats that ferry thousands from Africa to Spain each year. Decreased barriers to travel between South Asia and...

China’s Neo-Colonial Slavery in PNG

Rowan Callick February 15, 2007
China’s growing worldwide investment in natural resources is not a new story and just one of many results of a well-chronicled booming economy. What is new is the phenomenon of Chinese corporations dealing with the people and governments of countries supplying them with these mineral riches. A large-scale nickel extraction scheme in Papua New Guinea (PNG) is one such endeavor, in which conflicts...

America’s China Worries – Part III

Bertil Lintner February 13, 2007
In recent decades, the South Pacific has been a friendly region for the US and its interests, including islands that sit on Asia's doorstep. But the rise of China and its growing interest in the Pacific islands may be emerging as yet another area of possible concern. In this final article of a three-part series, author Bertil Lintner examines how China is moving in the region to fill the...

Managing Globalization: The Global Quest for a Second Passport

Daniel Altman February 7, 2007
With citizenship comes certain rights – and some workers try to accumulate more rights be acquiring citizenship in more nations. Nations tinker with citizenship laws to attract talent, and individuals examine citizenship laws to broaden a job search. For example, people with grandparents of European heritage, would-be soldiers willing to fight for the US in Iraq and pregnant women who travel to...

Migrant Power

January 19, 2007
A new World Bank report shows that migration remains a significant force in Eastern Europe and Central Asia almost two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall. While the initial surge of migration in the 1990s was due to ethnic reconsolidation, there has been a growing movement of workers seeking economic opportunity from the region’s poorer nations. According to the report, the remittances...

An Immigration Raid Aids Blacks – For a Time

Evan Perez January 18, 2007
After federal agents raided chicken and meat processors in 2006, many immigrant workers fled their jobs. In rural Georgia, one company raised wages by $1 and recruited local workers, most African Americans. Since then, company officials have had to deal with more complaints about work conditions, pay disputes and workplace rights, reports this article in “The Wall Street Journal.” Injury rates...

Thailand's Cynical Ploy on Burmese Migrant Workers

Kavi Chongkittavorn December 13, 2006
About 600,000 illegal workers, most from Burma and the rest from Laos and Cambodia, work in Thai factories for about one third of regular wage rates. The Thai government offered to legalize migrant workers from Burma, with the condition that they return first to their homeland and verify citizenship. Such a condition amounts to a death sentence in Burma, a nation under rule of a military junta,...