In The News

Lonely at the Top

Clyde Prestowitz September 13, 2003
Although the US experienced an outpouring of sympathy from much of the world after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, over the past two years it has encountered much resistance to its leadership on issues from Iraq to free trade. The US has lost any goodwill it received after the attacks, says former Reagan administration official and author Clyde Prestowitz, because Washington has pursued a...

African Nations Press for an End to Cotton Subsidies in the West

Elizabeth Becker September 12, 2003
Agricultural subsidies continue to be the keyword for the current round of WTO talks in Cancun. Cotton has become the symbol of the debate, with four African nations who depend on the crop for 10% of their gross domestic products claim the combined 4 billion dollars worth of subsidies provided by the EU and the US to their cotton farmers keep prices below cost. Unsubsidized farmers can not...

Agriculture on the Table at Trade Talks in Mexico

Kevin Sullivan September 10, 2003
Protesters gathered yesterday around the heavily guarded convention center in Cancun where the latest WTO meeting is taking place. The agricultural subsidies of developed countries is at the top of many representatives' agenda. Negotiators from Mexico to Australia are arguing that the US and the European Union's agricultural subsidies hurt their farmers by 'artificially'...

Protests Greet Yet Another WTO Meeting

Pranab Bardhan September 8, 2003
As the World Trade Organization prepares to meet in Cancun, Mexico, backers and detractors of globalization are clashing again, with each side claiming to represent the interests of the world's poor. Those opposed to globalization in its current form point to an increase in inequality and poverty in countries that have opened up to international capital and corporations, while supporters...

Rich Will Pay If WTO Lets Poor Down

James Wolfensohn September 7, 2003
In advance of this week's WTO meeting in Cancun, World Bank President James Wolfensohn writes that the current Doha round of trade talks offers a real opportunity to improve the lot of developing nations. For this to happen, though, he says that both rich and poor countries have to understand what it means to give and take. "Rich countries must show leadership by reducing protection...

SARS: Down but Still a Threat

August 31, 2003
In a recently released report on Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) the Central Intelligence Agency says that although the Sars wave has been overcome it has not been eradicated. Despite the announcement by the World Health Organization that on 5 July the disease was contained, the agency says that many health experts fear it could return again in the fall when cooler temperatures return...

For Zimbabwe’s White Farmers, Time to Move On

Rachel L. Swarns August 4, 2003
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, in an effort to erase the inequalities left by British colonialism, has demanded that white farmers stop working and leave their land. A tiny minority in Zimbabwe, the white farmers control a large percentage of the fertile land, inherited from the days of British rule. While the World Bank and United Nations do condone redistribution of land, half of...