In The News

New Delhi's Delicate Balancing Act

Stanley A. Weiss May 3, 2007
As a thriving democracy, India has hundreds of political parties and is led by coalition governments. As a result, the party in power must please many special interests, not the least impoverished farmers who represent a majority, reports Stanley A. Weiss, founder of Business Executives for National Security. The government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is trying to defeat multiple problems...

How to Prevent the Next Darfur

Alex Perry May 1, 2007
The violence in the Darfur region of Sudan stems less from ethnic difference and more from a deteriorating environment and a battle over resources, most notably water, argues Alex Perry for “Time.” Perry calls Darfur “the world’s worst man-made disaster,” with the UN reporting that fighting in the region has killed more than 200,000 people and displaced 2.5 million more. Scientists have long...

How Biofuels Could Starve the Poor

C. Ford Runge April 24, 2007
With rising oil prices and growing demand for ethanol as an alternative fuel, US corn producers anticipate a huge boost in profitability. Any spike in corn prices caused by increasing ethanol consumption, however, could devastate the developing world. Billions of impoverished people depend on corn and other staples for their caloric intake, but higher corn prices would decrease affordability of...

Australia and US to Swap Refugees

Barbara McMahon April 23, 2007
Australia and the US have agreed to a program for exchanging each other’s asylum seekers, with the hopes that geographic distance will discourage dangerous voyages and illegal immigration. The US will handle Australia’s asylum seekers from places like Sri Lanka and Burma; Australia will handle the US detainees from Haiti and Cuba. Though the program, the US and Australia will process and resettle...

Arab Nomads, "Not Pro-Anything," Also Suffer in Darfur

Stephanie McCrummen April 19, 2007
Analysts often categorize the violence in Darfur as a conflict between the nomadic Arabs and agricultural Africans of Western Sudan. The victims of the violence, however, belie an overly simplistic division. Intermarriage, commerce and other contacts have long entwined identity throughout the region, but drought, land shortages and government support for the Janjaweed militias, which are guilty...

India’s Skills Famine

James Surowiecki April 18, 2007
Entrepreneurship in India has captured the attention of onlookers around the world. But despite many success stories, the world’s second most populated nation has run into a big challenge – a shortage of skilled workers. Education opportunities are limited, with only 10 percent of Indians pursuing higher education and 30 percent of the population labeled as illiterate. Yet “India’s impressive...

Romania, a Poor Land, Imports Poorer Workers

Matthew Brunwasser April 16, 2007
Foreign investors appreciate Romania for its low labor costs. But once Romania joined the European Union as of January 1, 2007, many of its young, skilled workers moved away to Europe’s wealthiest cities. As a result, some employers – especially those in small dreary factory towns – confront ongoing labor shortages. One factory manager in Bacau solved the problem by contacting an employment...