In The News

Asia Takes Starring Role

Kenny Stantara June 11, 2003
Hollywood has recently begun to take notice of South East Asian stars and movies, introducing actresses such as Fann Wong to American cinema and expanding the repertoire of Asian films released in the United States. Southeast Asia’s time in the US limelight is largely due to the influence of major Hollywood names, including actor Tom Cruise and director Francis Ford Coppola, who have ensured...

E-Mail Message Blitz Creates What May Be Fastest Fad Ever

Saul Hansell June 9, 2003
After the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency announced that they would create a deck of playing cards with the names and photos of the top Iraqi leaders to be distributed to border guards, Internet marketing companies all rushed to get reproduction rights. One company, GreatUSAflags.com, along with its partner Lionstone International, sold 1.5 million decks via email within a matter of days,...

The Arch of Globalization

Abdel-Moneim June 5, 2003
In the first installment of a two-part essay, Abdel-Moneim, director of Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies in Egypt, offers five possible genealogies of the US-led war in Iraq. First, he argues, the war was about opening up the Middle East to processes of globalization. Globalization has been uneven, affecting world regions and countries differently, and the Middle East is the...

America's War on Terror Goes Awry in Pakistan

Ahmed Rashid June 4, 2003
Ahmed Rashid, author of Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia and Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia, offers a scathing indictment of US foreign policy in South Asia, post-September 11. Rashid argues that US-led military action and victory in Afghanistan did not eradicate the Islamic fundamentalist ideology of the Taliban. Rather, Taliban's...

In Africa, Pricking the West's Conscience

Somini Sengupta June 2, 2003
A French-led peacekeeping force of 1,400 is expected to arrive in the Democratic Republic of the Congo later this week. The recent surge of violence in the Congo has raised fears that, unless action is taken immediately, another peacekeeping fiasco like the one in Rwanda might take place. The violence that plagues the DRC has made the delivery of aid (in food and medicine) very difficult, making...

Dreams, Deferred

Erika Kinetz June 1, 2003
The recent downturn in the US economy has had a devastating impact on the financial services, telecommunications, and media industries in New York City. In a New York Times feature article, Erika Kinetz offers stories of recent graduates of Queens College who hail from around the globe, and who, in spite of enviable grades and technical skills, remain unemployed. For these graduates, jobs are...

Special Visa's Use for Tech Workers is Challenged

Katie Hafner May 30, 2003
The high technology sector in the United States is amongst the worst hit by the current recession. The recent outcry against the hiring of foreign workers – mostly from India – at comparatively lower wages exemplifies the severity of the crisis of unemployment in the high tech sector. The unemployed within the high tech sector, members of the US Congress. and certain special public interest...