In The News

George Bush's Aqaba lesson – Jethro's 'The Man'

Rami G. Khouri June 4, 2003
In this opinion piece from the Jordan Times, the author offers some advice to visiting US President George W. Bush. "You would do well to remain humble in Aqaba when you're advising the local Arab and Israeli Semites about how to achieve good governance, because this is the place where it all started some three and a half millennia ago," he writes. The region is steeped in...

India Fears Impact of Bid to Curb Jobs Exports

Edward Alden June 4, 2003
Following the lead of many other American and British firms, the British insurance company, Prudential, is planning to export jobs from the UK to India. Outsourcing to low-cost offshore centers is saving companies billions of dollars a year, since it allows them to set up shop where labor is plentiful and cheap. Though company executives maintain that outsourcing merely follows economic law and...

Egypt Warned U.S. of a Qaeda Plot, Mubarak Asserts

Patrick E. Tyler June 4, 2003
Though the Egyptian government has been cooperating with the American CIA for years, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak says that the US failed to heed warnings from Egypt of an imminent terrorist attack against the US prior to September 11. The CIA denies that such intelligence was received, but is currently cooperating closely with Egypt because of the country’s extensive sources within Al Qaeda...

In Search of the Iraqi Pie

Charubala Annuncio June 3, 2003
Preliminary work on the reconstruction of Iraq has begun, and firms from a variety of countries are already lined up for possible contracts. This article from Outlook India Magazine discusses the prospects for Indian companies hoping to get some of the lucrative sub-contracts in the reconstruction. Since the contract assignment process is mostly run by the Americans, the authors point out that...

Policing the Sea Is a Job for Everyone

Tony Tan June 3, 2003
In a speech at the Asia Security Conference, Singapore's Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Tony Tan tried to raise an alarm about the threat of terrorism on the high seas. "Individual state action is not enough," he says. "The oceans are indivisible and maritime security threats do not respect boundaries. The very nature of commercial shipping is multinational."...

Globalization with Few Discontents?

June 3, 2003
As a sub-section of the Pew Global Attitudes Project survey, "View of a Changing World," this article examines the global public's attitudes towards globalization in the past five years. Generally, peoples of the world agree - albeit to different degrees - that after experiencing globalization through trade, finance, travel, communication and culture, they favor an interconnected...

Hands-on Diplomacy

June 3, 2003
Although tensions remain between the US and many of its European allies, it appears that US President George W. Bush is slowly backing away from the notion that American might makes right, says this Mercury News editorial. Despite continued unilateral action in Iraq, Bush has begun utilizing diplomacy to achieve his foreign policy ends in other areas, including courting China and Russia's...