In The News

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...

Arcelor Deal With Mittal Creates New Steel Giant

Heather Timmons June 28, 2006
Despite vigorous protest, a global steel giant emerges, now that the controversial merger between India’s Mittal Steel and Luxembourg-based Arcelor is signed and sealed. Arcelor executives and even European government officials rejected the original Mittal offer with stinging insults that revealed the anxieties behind Europe’s protectionist trend. Difficult negotiations followed, leading to a bid...

Congress May Yet Move on Immigration

Gail Russell Chaddock June 28, 2006
US legislators are polarized over immigration reform, but they also recognize that voters on both sides – those who welcome hardworking illegal immigrants who otherwise don’t break laws versus those who want to deport all illegals – are passionate about the issue. Voters question the ability of Congress to act on an obvious and glaring problem, with more than 12 million illegal aliens in the US....

A Bad Time for Conciliatory Gestures

Pierre Heumann June 28, 2006
On the one hand, the Palestinian governing coalition, led by the heretofore hard-line militant group Hamas, has signed a document that implicitly recognizes the existence of the Israeli state, a positive step in relations between the two entities. On the other hand, the Israeli military is massing tanks on the border and cutting off electricity into Gaza, an attempt to pressure Palestine’s Hamas...

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...

Rioting in China Over Label on College Diplomas

Joseph Kahn June 26, 2006
This year, China will produce less than half as many jobs as it will college graduates. No wonder, then, students and families are willing to pay steeper tuition at colleges associated with prestigious national universities. Promised that their diplomas would bear the name of Zhengzhou University, the top school in the province, graduates from Shengda College exploded into riots after receiving...