In The News

Immigrants May Be Forced to Learn German

Aaron Kirchfeld July 11, 2003
Under a proposed bill, all new immigrants and foreigners residing in Germany who receive welfare and unemployment benefits would be required to enroll in a German language course. Reduced welfare and unemployment benefits, apart from difficulty in becoming a permanent resident, would be the penalties for not taking the course. Proponents of the bill believe that language will reduce barriers to...

Your Farm Subsidies Are Strangling Us

Amadou Toumani Toure July 11, 2003
African cotton is the best and cheapest in the world, maintain Presidents Amadou Toumani Toure of Mali and Blaise Compaore of Burkina Faso. Yet cotton farmers in their countries remain impoverished. In a jointly written opinion article for The New York Times, the Presidents of these two African nations solicit Western nations to cut the cotton farm subsidies that lead to overproduction, distort...

Wave of Immigrants Breaks Against Italian Island's Shore

Frank Bruni July 11, 2003
Many African immigrants are willing to risk their lives for opportunities in Europe. They come in rickety boats across dangerous waters to the small Italian island of Lampedusa, the gateway through which thousands of immigrants pass en route to the European job market every year. The immigrants arrive on the island's coast in numbers that surpass its population, overwhelming local and...

Germany Topples EU Immigration Policy

Carola Schlagheck July 11, 2003
Refugees and migrants seeking work in Europe will be welcomed by some countries and rejected by others. In a last minute effort before the completion of the draft EU constitution, Germany successfully prevented the European Union from pursuing the harmonization of immigration policy throughout Europe. Instead, individual national governments will decide whether to allow non-EU nationals to...

Talk of a Washington Split Over North Korea Is Overblown

Victor D. Cha July 11, 2003
Compared with the Bush administration's speedy handling of the Iraq challenge, its response to North Korean provocation has been surprisingly slow. The reason is widely believed to be a split between hawks and doves in the administration. But Korea expert Victor Cha says the division is not as wide as press reports suggest. Everyone in Washington agrees: North Korea must disarm. And,...

Employers Take United Stand in Insisting on Labor Concessions

Steven Greenhouse July 11, 2003
The situation of American workers in several large corporations is a striking illustration of the negative effects of globalization and a more integrated world economy. In large part because of low-cost foreign labor, American corporations are gaining the upper hand in negotiations with worker unions. Even in industries that are thriving, management claims that the pressure to compete requires...

Australia Steps Towards Stopping North Korean Ships

Tom Allard July 11, 2003
An international military force will soon begin intercepting ships transporting North Korean nuclear materials and missiles to other countries. Following the Proliferation Security Initiative's Brisbane meeting this week, Australia, the United States, and nine other nations announced that they will begin military exercises as early as September. The plan serves as the most aggressive joint...