In The News

A Mickey Mouse Approach to Globalization

Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom June 16, 2003
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman argues for a world united by common cultural experiences. But cultural globalization, writes historian Jeffrey Wasserstrom, is not so simple as eating a McDonald's hamburger that tastes the same on every continent. Standardized products like Big Macs and Starbucks coffee hold very different meanings in different countries, argues Wasserstrom. In China...

How May We Put it Down?

M. J. Akbar June 16, 2003
As the US garners global support for its post-war influence in Iraq, is India willing to lend a fighting hand? As India contemplates sending its soldiers to fight alongside American and British troops, M.J. Akbar, editor of The Asian Age, strongly discourages such a commitment. In order to understand the nature of the US-led war in Iraq, Akbar thinks it necessary to look back at nineteenth- and...

Deja-vu All Over Again

Tobias Buck June 16, 2003
At Doha-level trade meetings, the EU’s policies on agriculture are seen as hampering world trade liberalization. To ensure that Europe might have some influence at the next world trade talks, the EU farm commissioner has been pushing to reform widely its position on agriculture. But after yet another round of EU talks, this article argues, it can be expected that it will be an “uphill struggle”...

Showdown for a Tool in Human Rights Lawsuits

Alex Markels June 15, 2003
Multinational corporations (MNCs) are often subject to accusations by human rights and anti-globalization activists. To add to a long list of MNCs brought before US courts, energy giant Unocal currently faces a lawsuit filed by villagers from southeastern Myanmar, in a California court. Unocal is accused of aiding military authorities in Myanmar (Burma) in human rights abuses against local...

Cracking Down on the Terror-Arms Trade

David E. Sanger June 15, 2003
As part of the war on terrorism, the US is watching closely international shipments of weapons. Although just a few months ago Washington permitted a missile shipment from North Korea to proceed to its Yemeni destination, the US is now adapting a strategy of "pre-emptive pre-emption." America is asking its allies to help stop shipments of weapons, drugs, and hard currency connected to...

Not So Fast!

Omayma Abdel-Latif June 13, 2003
The question 'was it a war of occupation or liberation' dominated much of the international debate on the US-led war in Iraq. Now, the debate has reached the local level. The decision by the US administrator for Iraq, Paul Bremer, to appoint a council of Iraqis in an advisory capacity has many local political and religious leaders upset. Leading up to the fall of Baghdad, those in...

Students Roil Iranian Capital in 3rd Night of Protests

Neil MacFarquhar June 13, 2003
Violent and vocal, Iranian students marched in protest again this week. The immediate stimulus was a government proposal to privatize the universities, but, according to one government worker who joined in, "For 25 years we have lived without any freedom. We want social freedom, economic freedom and political freedom." Cell phone calls by protesters to a Persian-language television...