In The News

Ability to Reason Vital in Fighting Terrorism

Kofi Annan September 23, 2003
At a conference on terrorism held today, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan argued that a clear, rational approach to dealing with terrorism is the only way to defeat it. "The rage we feel at terrorist attacks must not remove our ability to reason. If we are to defeat terrorism, it is our duty, and indeed our interest, to try to understand this deadly phenomenon, and carefully to...

Public Staggered by Costs but Wants to Stay the Course

September 23, 2003
Americans are increasingly open to a major UN role in postwar Iraq, with about half (51%) saying the US should give up some military control to the UN to get other countries to send more troops there. Growing support for an expanded UN role in Iraq comes amid growing public concern over mounting US casualties and the rising cost of the operation. According to a recent study by the Pew Research...

Diplomatic Fantasyland: The Illusion of a Negotiated Solution to the North Korean Nuclear Crisis

Nicholas Eberstadt September 23, 2003
The world has been confronted with three alternative outcomes with concern to North Korea: They become a nuclear power; they dismantle their program through diplomatic negotiation; or they are forcibly disarmed. Unfortunately, the government in Pyongyang has repeatedly proved that it's not going budge easily. A nuclear weapons program in North Korea would be a disaster for both its...

Can Rich Countries Stem the Outflow of Jobs?

Eddie Lee September 23, 2003
Last month, the United States lost 93,000 jobs, many of them in the service sector. This commentary in Singapore's Straits Times attributes this job loss to outsourcing by developed world companies. In an effort to cut costs, many companies are hiring workers in developing countries since they are willing to work for far less than their counterparts in the US and Singapore. As the...

No Good Reason to Dance

Ernesto Zedillo September 22, 2003
In the latest round of WTO talks, the chasm between 'developed' and 'developing' nations over agricultural subsidies proved too large to cross in only one week. The Cancun meeting has thus been largely declared a failure. Ernesto Zedillo, Director of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization and former president of Mexico, says that this difficulty should be taken as a...

Border Security Merging

Jesse Bogan September 22, 2003
Coming into the US can be a confusing experience, with all different agencies competing to check your car for illegal immigrants, drugs, fruit, or terrorists. Now, in a move towards political expediency, the department of Homeland Security is moving to present "one face at the border" through a unified border patrol (CBP). Current immigration and agriculture officials are complaining...

Bush Covers Up Climate Research

Paul Harris September 21, 2003
In an investigation by journalists at the British weekly Observer, emails and internal memos have been uncovered that implicate President Bush's administration in deliberately covering up scientific evidence that links oil and gas emissions to global warming. For years environmental scientists have been warning of global warming, but the Bush administration has always insisted that the...