In The News

Anti-Immigrant Terror in South Africa

Megan Lindow May 21, 2008
South Africa has many shantytowns for the crowds of immigrants from neighboring nations, many hungry, impoverished and desperate for basic opportunity, legal or illegal. But resentment against immigrants is building in South Africa and mobs descend on the poorly protected and impoverished communities with a series of attacks, warning the foreigners to leave the country. “South Africans have been...

Deadly Greed: The Role of Speculators in the Global Food Crisis

Beat Balzli April 25, 2008
Investors, sensing opportunity in climbing food prices, made record profits in the commodities markets, including wheat, corn, rice and palm oil. “Commodity speculation spread long ago from standard products like oil and gold to anything edible and available for trade on the Chicago Futures Exchange,” write Beat Balzli and Frank Hornig for Spiegel Online. The futures market allowed farmers to...

Nauru Scrambles as Australia Closes Island’s Detention Center

Nick Squires March 27, 2008
A national policy of accepting asylum seekers as refugees is complex. On one level, the policy can be viewed as an endorsement of dissident political claims. On another level, the policy is economic, benefiting some social groups and causing hardship for others. Countries that create detention centers outside their borders do not eliminate the challenges. In 2001, Australia’s government...

Oil May Not Grease Friendship

Amity Shlaes March 24, 2008
Researchers have long pointed to some correlations in international affairs: Oil countries tend not to be entrepreneurial; nations dependent on one industry, such as oil extraction, tend to be hostile with the US; and entrepreneurial nations tend to befriend the US. But such observations were based largely on anecdotal evidence. In a study for the Council of Foreign Relations, Amity Shlaes and...

World Banker and His Cash Return Home

Jason DeParle March 24, 2008
Remittances, once treated as an insignificant rounding error, eclipse the world’s combined foreign aid by threefold. A migration scholar with the World Bank, Dilip Ratha, calculated the magnitude of remittances and brought them to the world’s attention. Critics suggest that “behind every remittance is a separated family” and argue that remittances contribute to consumption rather than development...

The Global Rose as Social Tool

Roger Cohen March 18, 2008
Roses are also a modern-day global product, grown over thousands of acres in developing nations like Kenya before shipment to supermarkets in Great Britain. The British pay about $10 for a small bouquet while the Kenyans earn about $70 per month. “Look at the global economy one way and Buyaki earns the equivalent of seven bunches of roses for a month's labor,” explains Roger Cohen for the...

Snowplows for Guinea

Bartholomäus Grill March 10, 2008
One philosopher observes that a “taking” form of colonialism has transformed into a “giving” one. Donating funds to impoverished nations should not contribute to poverty, but that’s what has happened throughout Africa. Wealthy donors support projects that either cost additional funds or fail. “But the worst consequence of this aid is that it paralyzes self-initiative and encourages a true...