In The News

Once Again Divided

Mohamed Darwish October 20, 2003
It's not only the western media's portrayal of the Iraqi war that has Arab journalists up in arms – some are not so happy at the perceived inaccuracies in other Arab sources. At the Third Arab Media Forum last week in Dubai, discussions disintegrated into shouting matches as journalists struggled to make sense out the role the media should play in wartime. Some journalists accused...

Space Race

September 22, 2003
As America's Global Positioning System (GPS) has become more widely used for both military and civilian purposes, European Union (EU) countries have felt an urge to develop their own satellite system in order not to depend on the US. Recently, China, as well as several other countries, decided to be part of EU's development of the new system known as Galileo. With more competition in...

Call Centre Boom is Here to Last

Rashmee Z Ahmed September 1, 2003
Multinational companies seeking lower-wage labor will be increasingly looking to India to run their telephone call centers, concludes a recent survey by a British market analysis firm. Predicting a "21st-century gold rush" of MNCs moving to India, analyst Evan Kirchheimer says five to seven percent of Western agent positions are expected to be outsourced to India over the next few...

German Companies Look to Iraq

Aaron Kirchfeld August 1, 2003
Germany's efforts to rebuild its once extensive trade relationship with Iraq face many obstacles, not the least of which is residual tensions with the US from the Iraq War. The US and Britain remain reluctant to contract with companies from countries that did not support the coalition. At the same time, the German companies that are receiving contracts remain reluctant to discuss their...

Bilateral Deals are No Threat to Global Trade

Daniel Griswald July 27, 2003
Critics maintain that the Bush administration's efforts to sign bilateral trade agreements with Chile, Singapore, and a few other small nations threaten the global trading system. However, international trade specialist Daniel Griswald argues that bilateral agreements don't threaten the multilateral system, but advance it. Bilateral agreements not only open markets to US exporters, he...

Beijing is Losing the People's War in Cyberspace

John Gittings July 21, 2003
While Beijing spends hundreds of millions of dollars installing surveillance equipment to restrict access to “harmful” information, an emerging civil society is gaining more and more freedom. To this increasingly demanding and sophisticated public, it's a choice between hearing rumors on the street and “going on the web,” and they increasingly choose the latter. Moreover, the growing...

Foreign Influence Growing in Telecom Sector

Yang Sung-jin July 3, 2003
In South Korea, foreign investment firms are putting pressure on the government to allow greater foreign ownership of telecommunication companies. South Korea is one of the leading East Asian countries in deregulation, allowing foreign investment and market forces to have a considerable degree of influence. While the telecommunications sector is currently in much need of capital, some of the...