In The News

Technology Gap Forces Flexibility in Teaching

Lori Aratani May 21, 2003
Andrew Hill High School in northern California, USA, which serves some of the area's poorest students and immigrants, has brought technology into its daily teaching, with wireless network installed and laptops equipped in classrooms. Computer use is integrated into the education. With a third of the student-body still in a struggle to master the English language, teaching methods that...

Chinese Beats... on Cuban Streets

May 20, 2003
Chinese migration to Cuba rose significantly in the mid-19th century with the demand for unskilled labor in the island's sugar industry. Over the years, the overseas Chinese community has been involved in Cuba's war for liberation from Spain, endured U.S-friendly Batista's dictatorship and Castro's nationalization project. One Chinese immigrant, Rolando Ziang Lian, reminisces...

The Unseen War

Michael Massing May 19, 2003
In this article, veteran journalist Michael Massing expresses concern about the American media's coverage of the Iraq war. The Coalition Media Center in Baghdad was a very "uninformative" source for the media, as described by Massing, yet its official news briefings – which were usually very upbeat and pro-Coalition – seemed to be accepted as 'the final word' by most...

A Bombing Shatters the Saudi Art of Denial

Neil MacFarquhar May 18, 2003
Until the recent car bombings in Riyadh linked to Islamic fundamentalist group Al-Qaeda, Saudi Arabia’s rulers, the Al-Sauds, had been able to keep up a pretty good balancing act. It seemed they were able to maintain absolute political control while they negotiated with religious leaders the rights to control over the country's social life. However, alarmed now by the terror at home, Saudi...

EU Ministers Snub Matrix Reloaded at Cannes

May 16, 2003
Many associate the French city Cannes with the most prestigious film festival on a global level. At the Cannes Film festival, films from all over the world are viewed, judged and awarded prizes. Apart from films from even the remotest corners of the world, Hollywood too makes an appearance, as the sequel to Matrix, Matrix Reloaded, did this year. While this futuristic drama, with its special...

The China Syndrome

Paul Krugman May 13, 2003
While American critics of China blame media censorship for Beijing's initial mishandling of SARS, this opinion piece in The New York Times argues that the US is no less vulnerable to the influence of the state. According to economist Paul Krugman, although media companies in the United States are privately owned, they remain deferential to the political regime. The nexus between the US...

Parents, Shopping for Discipline, Turn to Tough Schools Abroad

Tim Weiner May 9, 2003
Wwasps, a Utah-based private school organization, has taken to setting up shop abroad, where rules on student treatment are not as tight as in the US. Beating students’ heads against concrete, enforcing prolonged periods of isolation, and creating affection-less environments are the mainstays of these “behavior-modification” schools, which call themselves “specialty boarding-schools”. Without...