In The News

Arab Opinions

Khaled Dawoud July 30, 2004
Recent opinion polls of six Arab countries show that rising anti-American attitudes in the Arab world are due mainly to American foreign policy, as opposed to American civilization or values. According to the surveys, none of the six Arab countries returned approval ratings of the US above 20%, a statistic due in large part to the fact that America’s Iraq policy now equals its Israel-Palestine...

Berlin to Ban Religious Symbols

Elizabeth Goetze July 23, 2004
Berlin’s ruling coalition of Social Democrats and the Party of Democratic Socialism decided after much deliberation to pass a bill introduced by the city’s Interior Minister, Ehrhart Körting, that bans the display of any religious symbols by those employed in the public sector. Unlike previous legislation passed by several German states, this bill transcends the Muslim headscarf and includes...

'Bad Press' Causing Headaches for Beijing

Paul Mooney July 22, 2004
Although SARS may have served as a wake-up call to China's leaders on the importance of free speech and openness, over the past year and a half Beijing seems to have been backsliding. Writing from Beijing, Paul Mooney notes that one newspaper was shut down in March 2003 for criticizing Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, and Jiang Zemin for being autocratic. Another paper's editors were...

Hmong Journey

Ben Stocking July 18, 2004
Over the next several months, 15,000 of the Laotian Hmong currently living in Thailand will move to the USA, settling in California, Minnesota and Wisconsin, where there are large pre-existing Hmong communities. This population-in-transition is composed of soldiers or the descendents of soldiers who fought alongside American troops during the Vietnam War, a conflict which resulted in the death...

The Big Chill

Clare Longrigg July 14, 2004
The big fridge, product of 1950’s and 60’s American suburbia, has made its way across the pond. British sales of the larger, American refrigerators are booming, specifically in the double-door variety which now constitutes 8% of the growth of the British cooling business. Increased popularity of these appliances is based on interest among a clientele of affluent professionals and young families...

Quo Vadis America?

Immanuel Wallerstein July 13, 2004
The world has long been divided between those who hail the US as a leader of global forces for human freedom and those who see it as an imperialist power. It is only recently, however, under the presidency of George W. Bush, that those who had negative feelings about the US were mostly citizens of Western countries, including the US itself. Social theorist Immanuel Wallerstein argues that an...

¿Quo vadis, Estados Unidos?

Immanuel Wallerstein July 13, 2004