In The News

Senators Demand Ban on Imports from Burma

Anwar Iqbal June 5, 2003
In the wake of the detainment of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and other leaders of the opposition party in Myanmar, two US senators are proposing a legislation to ban all imports from the country until it improves its record on human rights and democracy. If the bill passes, the US will join business and labor groups that have already united in support of sanctions. Already, many major...

The GM Mirage Will Not Help the Poor

Alex Wijeratna June 4, 2003
It is profits and not an altruistic desire to end world hunger that is behind the emergence of the genetically modified (GM) agriculture industry, argues Alex Wijeratna of the UK based international development agency, ActionAid. Wijeratna's essay adds to the US's concern over export restrictions on GM treated food from the US to countries in the European Union. Recently, US President...

India Fears Impact of Bid to Curb Jobs Exports

Edward Alden June 4, 2003
Following the lead of many other American and British firms, the British insurance company, Prudential, is planning to export jobs from the UK to India. Outsourcing to low-cost offshore centers is saving companies billions of dollars a year, since it allows them to set up shop where labor is plentiful and cheap. Though company executives maintain that outsourcing merely follows economic law and...

Globalization with Few Discontents?

June 3, 2003
As a sub-section of the Pew Global Attitudes Project survey, "View of a Changing World," this article examines the global public's attitudes towards globalization in the past five years. Generally, peoples of the world agree - albeit to different degrees - that after experiencing globalization through trade, finance, travel, communication and culture, they favor an interconnected...

Remake Man

Tad Friend May 26, 2003
In a telling commentary that combines capitalism in Hollywood with the American Dream, a contributor to the New Yorker magazine, Tad Friend, takes the reader through the making of Roy Lee as the "remake king." Lee, a Korean-American, whose parents moved from South Korea to the United States in the late 1960s, has carved out a unique role for himself in Hollywood: It is one that...

Globalization Squeezes Rural Factories, Jobs

David Pitt May 16, 2003
Factories in rural America are experiencing significant layoffs that threaten the stability and growth of the rural American economy. A major factor for this economic downturn is globalization: workers in rural America now compete with workers everywhere. A refrigerator factory in rural Illinois is scheduled to close, leaving 1,600 workers without jobs, and crippling the local economy. The...

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...