In The News

Olympics in an Age of Global Broadcasting

Emma Wensing August 10, 2004
For forty years now, the Olympic Games have been televised to audiences around the globe, providing a public forum for assertions of national greatness and claims of superiority. In this context, writes Olympics scholar Emma Wensing, international sport "can be seen as a substitute for war, as physical prowess becomes a measure of a nation’s standing on an international stage." Yet...

Darfur Rebels not Aware of Talks, Welcome Nigeria

August 10, 2004
To address the humanitarian crisis in Sudan’s Darfur region, the Sudanese government and black African rebel groups have agreed to peace negotiations mediated by Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo. The meeting, set to take place in Abuja, Nigeria on Aug. 23, will hopefully end the turmoil that has far claimed 50,000 lives since February 2003. Rebel groups set to participate include the...

Looking for Common Values, a Community Driven ASEAN

Meidyatama Suryodiningrat August 9, 2004
Although members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have signed multiple official agreements over the past 37 years, Meidyatama Suryodiningrat of The Jakarta Post sympathizes with critics who see the organization as “a hopeless powwow, meandering from one headline meeting to another.” Meidyatama writes that the organization has produced myriad declarations of intent without...

Chávez's 'Monitors' Are Really Electoral Tourists

Andres Oppenheimer August 8, 2004
In an upcoming recall election, the Venezuelan public will decide whether current president Hugo Chavez will be allowed to remain in office for the remainder of his term. Preparing for the election, Chavez has placed restrictions on electoral monitoring groups that rank among the strictest in recent Latin American history. The European Union has responded by announcing that it will not dispatch...

Irish Find Big Challenges Facing Small Languages

John Murray Brown August 7, 2004
With the mass emigration that accompanied the potato famine in the mid-1800’s, Ireland’s Irish-speaking population dwindled and was pushed to areas that hug the country’s Atlantic fringes. After Irish independence in 1919, however, study of the language was made compulsory in public schools and, recently, with the relaxation of that requirement, much of the Irish middle class is proactively...

Saudi Surprise

Mohamed El-Sayed Said August 6, 2004
The Saudi government is attempting to rescue U.S. President George W Bush from his ill-fated venture in Iraq by declaring an initiative to send multinational Muslim troops to the war torn country. Criticism of President Bush’s handling of the Iraq War is rising, jeopardizing his chances for reelection this coming November. Saudi Arabia’s proposition could provide Bush with a convenient exit...

Louder than Words

Matthew Tempest August 5, 2004
Mark Curtis, head of the London-based World Development Movement (WDM) objects to Britain’s making economic liberalization a pre-condition to receiving aid monies. He argues that the US, the UK, and even the Asian Tigers achieved economic ascendancy through protection of infant industries, not open markets. To ask developing countries to liberalize their economies or get no aid is unfair....