In The News

Other Nations Hope to Loosen U.S. Grip on Internet

Victoria Shannon November 15, 2005
In countless contexts and from every corner of the world, the internet is hailed as a revolutionary force, breaking down traditional barriers of class and nation with an inexorable flow of information. As its accessibility increases, the internet becomes more and more a tool of democracy and international cooperation. But this leveling playing field cannot smooth over an underlying reality: the...

Summit Rhetoric Soars While Economy Sinks

Jeffrey E. Garten November 3, 2005
As the fourth annual Summit of the Americas get under way in Mar Del Plata, a pressing question lingers in the background: Are regional meetings truly worth the trouble? According to Jeffrey E. Garten, Juan Trippe professor in the practice of international trade and finance at The Yale School of Management, world leaders' efforts would be better spent at home, developing and implementing...

As Polar Ice Turns to Water, Dreams of Treasure Abound

Clifford Krauss October 11, 2005
What will be left when the Arctic's polar ice cap is gone? The answer, in the eyes of the nations who border the Arctic Ocean, is untapped economic opportunity. New oil deposits, new fisheries, and new trade routes – including the fabled Northwest Passage – all promise tantalizing riches to what are now barren, frozen outposts. But who will get to tap those riches? Russia, Canada, Norway...

Why Did We Say Nay?

Prem Shankar Jha October 4, 2005
India, once the champion of the Cold War Non-Aligned Movement, has long valued its diplomatic independence and domestic self-sufficiency. Unsurprisingly, then, the world's largest democracy's recent vote – alongside the United States – to censure Iran under the edicts of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty triggered a public uproar. From across the Indian political spectrum, critics...

Africa's Time Has Come…

Larry Elliot September 28, 2005
This year's G-8 Summit saw unprecedented cooperation on development issues, but the progress made at Gleneagles was abruptly disrupted by the London bombings on July 7. After the attacks, Western leaders quickly lost interest in plans for debt relief and improved aid flows, turning their attention towards coping with terrorism and election campaigns. G-8 plans were submitted to a special...

Annan: Summit Expressed Global Unity

Kofi Annan September 23, 2005
The results of the UN's recent world summit are widely derided as a disappointment. Yet they are a significant show of global unity, argues Kofi Annan – and a significant improvement over the pre-conference status quo. Annan writes that observers should not underestimate the difficulty of achieving international consensus – nor should they underestimate the consensus that was actually...

How "Scientific" Are the Millennium Development Goals?

David Dickson September 22, 2005
In the years following the announcement of the UN's Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), much ink was spilled in debating the feasibility of the lofty aims. Recently, Amir Attaran, an analyst of development policy, incited much debate when he issued a scathing critique of the MDGs on the grounds that many of the development targets rested on hazy data. The strongest proponents, including...