In The News

EU Weighs Olympic Boycott Over Tibet

Robert Marquand March 28, 2008
As protesters in Tibet plead for religious freedom and other human rights from Chinese authorities, China insists that the Dalai Lama is the troublemaker, trying to disrupt plans for the August Beijing Olympics. But that claim has not convinced Europe, whose leaders call for restraint and point out that the Dalai Lama did not call for an Olympics boycott, reports Robert Marquand for the Christian...

After Bush

March 27, 2008
The Bush administration has been bedeviled by foreign-policy problems – and the Economist predicts that Bush’s successor will struggle likewise. To be sure, Democrats and Republicans have foreign-policy differences: Democrats oppose the war in Iraq, favoring multilateralism and diplomacy, while Republicans remain committed hawks. Inheriting an overburdened national-security establishment, the...

Nauru Scrambles as Australia Closes Island’s Detention Center

Nick Squires March 27, 2008
A national policy of accepting asylum seekers as refugees is complex. On one level, the policy can be viewed as an endorsement of dissident political claims. On another level, the policy is economic, benefiting some social groups and causing hardship for others. Countries that create detention centers outside their borders do not eliminate the challenges. In 2001, Australia’s government...

Democracy in Decline

Ayman El-Amir March 26, 2008
Most countries of the world are democracies, but recent elections demonstrate the challenges of the political system. The US promoted democracy in its battle against terrorism, and yet entrenched “regimes have borrowed America's fight against terrorism slogan as a way to stifle domestic dissent, arrest the dynamics of change, hamper the progress of basic freedoms and human rights and rig...

No Break for Globalization

Nayan Chanda March 25, 2008
With unemployment and foreclosures skyrocketing, trade deficit woes, more and more Americans are becoming protectionist. Most Americans agree that foreign trade is reducing the demand for American-made goods, resulting in numerous job losses. While there is no question that trade has played a role in shrinking manufacturing jobs, Nayan Chanda points out that "it is only a minor part of the...

Oil May Not Grease Friendship

Amity Shlaes March 24, 2008
Researchers have long pointed to some correlations in international affairs: Oil countries tend not to be entrepreneurial; nations dependent on one industry, such as oil extraction, tend to be hostile with the US; and entrepreneurial nations tend to befriend the US. But such observations were based largely on anecdotal evidence. In a study for the Council of Foreign Relations, Amity Shlaes and...

Let’s Try a Dose. We’re Bound to Feel Better

Jacob S. Hacker March 23, 2008
Republicans have criticized Democratic health-care reform plans that rely on greater government involvement, arguing government will only increase costs and diminish the quality of care. Yet, Yale political science Professor Jacob Hacker suggests that the US government has a role in health care – ensuring care for the elderly. He cites how Medicare’s increases in expenditure rates compare...