In The News

As China's Losses Mount, Confidence Turns to Fear

Ariana Eunjung Cha November 5, 2008
A global credit crisis has prompted consumers worldwide to slow spending, leading to shuttered factories in China. Leaders of China, like those throughout the world, worry that economic crisis could trigger political instability and demands for change. Growth in the domestic national product, whiles till approaching 10 percent, has been slow by Chinese standards. The government has acted...

Chinese Steelmakers Shiver, Indian Miners Catch Flu

Sumant Banerji October 30, 2008
Caution seeps throughout the global financial system, spreading crisis: In the West, homeowners struggle to pay mortgages, especially those of the high-rate, sub-prime variety; armed with less credit and confidence down, consumers in developed nations delay purchases of new cars and appliances. That has slowed steelmaking in China, which in turn has put a stop to purchases of iron ore from India...

Underdevelopment and Aid: Search for a Right Balance – Part II

Edward Friedman October 29, 2008
Africa remains one of the poorest aid recipients of the world, enduring challenges of high rates of disease, inadequate infrastructure and power sources, as well as corruption and poor governance. This YaleGlobal series examines diverse approaches on foreign economic aid emerging from the West and China. In the second article of a two-part series, Edward Friedman, political science professor at...

How Can We Preempt Investment Protectionism?

Ernesto Zedillo October 23, 2008
Nations laden with debt fret about investments by overseas cash-rich sovereign wealth funds. “The most common fears are that the SWFs, being government-owned, may be used not only for the purpose of receiving attractive returns on their investments but also for pursuing geopolitical objectives, gaining control of strategic natural resources or extracting sensitive technologies; that they could...

Brazilian Beef Purchase Is Challenged by the US

John R. Wilke October 22, 2008
Brazil’s JBS Inc. seeks to expand its beef operations into the US, but the US Justice Department, joined by 13 states, is challenging its purchase of a US firm. Concern centers on reducing competitors in the US beef market from five to three, rising food prices and lower prices paid to US cattle farmers. Confronting hikes in food prices, some in US Congress press for more scrutiny of the...

Gulf to the US: Thanks, But No Thanks

Dilip Hiro October 22, 2008
Some financial analysts anticipated the cash-rich sovereign wealth funds of the Middle East to swoop down on giants in the financial and industrial world struggling with a global credit crisis – a notion arousing both fear and hope throughout Europe and the US. But such rescue investments have not materialized, explains author and Middle East analyst Dilip Hiro. Hiro reports that operations of...

A Silver Lining to the US-India Nuclear Deal

Pavel Podvig October 21, 2008
India conducted nuclear research outside the limits of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, and analysts disagree whether a deal between the US and India, allowing for trade and cooperation on civilian nuclear materials, hampers or strengthens that international treaty. “Without a doubt, the U.S.-India nuclear deal presents a serious challenge to the NPT,” writes physicist...