In The News

US Reviewing Second Dubai Firm

Jonathan Weisman March 7, 2006
The Bush administration has reversed direction by notifying the US Congress about sales with national security implications. That comes after public outrage greeted a proposal that would transfer operations of six US ports to a Dubai company. Now the government says it will investigate two deals in particular: Dubai International Capital's $1.2 billion acquisition of London-based Doncasters...

Hacia Aguas Ignotas

Pratap Bhanu Mehta March 7, 2006

Saudi Oil Facilities: Al Qaeda’s Next Target?

John C.K. Daly March 7, 2006
Osama bin Laden’s January promise of more attacks on the US was soon followed by a failed suicide attack on a refinery in Saudi Arabia. Any attack on Saudi oil facilities would bring immediate harm to the US and the rest of the world. Iraq already provides a powerful example of the deleterious effects of strikes against oil facilities. Since June 2003, Iraq facilities have been hit 298 times,...

On Immigration and Ports, Turning Inward

Dana Milbank March 3, 2006
Powerful sentiments are rising that threaten to turn the world’s most globalized nation inward. Two issues have emerged that capitalize on US fears about jobs and security, both revealing an increasing desire for isolation. Debate over a proposed “guest worker” program aimed at transitioning illegal immigrants to legal status mirrors the objections to transfer of control over six US ports to...

Globalization Rubs Passions Raw

March 3, 2006
Conflict over the Danish cartoon crisis is a result of tension between the process of globalization and the pull of “nativism.” Globalization involves both the movement of people, goods, capital and ideas around the world, and the impact of the changes wrought by this flow. The effects of such exchanges are more immediate because of real-time communications through cell phones and the internet...

Dubai Limps Into Port

March 2, 2006
Intense bipartisan opposition to Dubai Ports Worldwide, a company from the United Arab Emirates, taking control of six US ports represents extreme and uncontrollable fear, according to this editorial from a Singapore newspaper. The uproar has cast suspicion on a moderate Arab country that has been a key US ally in the war on terror. The US ports are controlled by a British company, and the UK...

Will Fight for Oil

Ted Koppel March 1, 2006
The Bush administration has been sensitive to charges that oil was a central determinant of Iraq war policy. Maintaining that oil was unrelated to US action in Iraq is odd, suggests veteran television journalist Ted Koppel, considering that protecting the flow of Persian Gulf oil has been central to US foreign policy since the mid-20th century. And he also suggests that oil is the reason why...