In The News

Globalization and God – Part II

Bruce Mazlish November 28, 2006
A spike in religious violence around the globe leads many observers to assume that secularism has a diminished influence in international politics. But surges of religious fervor in the Middle East, Europe, Africa and the US are a backlash against modernity, whose ideas and freedoms cannot be swept under some global rug and forgotten. In the second part of this two-part series, historian Bruce...

Kazakhs Seek Stronger Ties With Israel

Ruth Eglash November 7, 2006
Kazakhstan is abruptly the center of global attention, thanks to a film set in the US with a British star who is Jewish. British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen poses as a Kazakh television reporter, who is congenial, but also sexist and anti-Semitic. Kazakhstan officials protested the satiric film – “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan” – for an...

US Web Archive Is Said to Reveal a Nuclear Primer

William J. Broad November 3, 2006
Intent on proving that Iraq was pursuing weapons of mass destruction before the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Republican politicians in the US demanded release of an archive of Iraqi documents, and President George Bush gave the nod. Weapons analysts, from agencies such as the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, now describe the release as a...

Spy Agencies Now Share the Wikipedia Way

Greg Miller November 2, 2006
Typically, the US intelligence agencies and the Department of Defense invent gadgets that often find their way into daily American life. But aiming for better teamwork, US spies have turned to open-source software as invented by Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia where anyone can propose, write or edit entries. US Intellipedia, not open to the public, will allow staff of 16 intelligence agencies...

Google Defiant Over Censorship in China

David Smith November 1, 2006
Defenders of free speech reject any controls over the internet. This issue and others were debated by more than 90 countries attending the first Internet Governance Forum in Athens. Companies like Google do business in China despite some censorship, and Google maintains that simply providing a connection is a major first step to creating an open society. To deny access to restrictive regimes only...

The Globalization Index

Paul Laudicina October 19, 2006
The impacts of globalization and roads to integration are almost as varied as the number of countries in the world. “Foreign Policy” and the A.T. Kearney consulting firm have released the sixth annual ranking of 62 countries based on their degree of globalization. The analysis focuses on categories of economic integration, personal contact, technological connectivity and political engagement....

Bush Sets Defense as Space Priority

Marc Kaufman October 18, 2006
The US might be the most powerful nation on the face of the earth, but much of that power depends on a vast array of satellites orbiting high above the planet. Now, President Bush has signed a new National Space Policy declaring that control of the interplanetary void is “as important to the United States as air power and sea power.” Supporters hail the policy as a necessary step toward...