In The News

GitHub Revolution: We’re All in Open Source Now

Mikeal Rogers March 8, 2013
Open source software is freely available to all, and new potential is discovered daily by companies, cities, and individuals ranging from artists to developers who work with software code. GitHub, an open software platform for collaboration, “is doing to open source what the internet did to the publishing industry,” explains Mikeal Rogers, an advocate for open source programming, for Wired. “As...

The World Wants Vancouverism – Shouldn’t Canada?

Doug Saunders March 5, 2013
The city of Vancouver touts its diversity, green initiatives, parks and mass transit and remains a popular destination for immigrants, who account for 40 percent of the metropolitan population. Vancouver has managed fast-growing urbanization with good planning that includes eliminating vast parking lots. “Vancouver has been remade dramatically, rendered into a thickly vertical city jammed with...

The Choice: More Immigrants or Fewer Citizens?

Joseph Chamie March 4, 2013
Low fertility rates among countries lead to population decline and higher proportions of older citizens. So the countries with such demographics face a choice: allowing more immigrants, along with the revenue, services and cultural influences they bring or accepting the population decline and economic contraction. “Currently, about 76 countries, including Brazil, Canada, China, Cuba, Iran, Sweden...

Developing Countries and Global Trade

March 1, 2013
With almost any product – electronics, processed food, even some services – designs and components are sourced from multiple countries. A new report from the UN Commission on Trade and Development suggests that global investment and trade have become “inextricably intertwined through international production networks of growing degrees of complexity that now account for some 80 percent of the...

Marketing Berbers Abroad – Avenue for Cultural Preservation?

Jonathan Gifford February 28, 2013
While globalization can have an antithetical role to the preservation of indigenous cultures, a Berlin fashion label has recently played a pivotal role in protecting a native Berber sewing technique. Andrea Kolb, founder of the fashion label Abury, says she conceived of the idea a few years ago, after friends commented enthusiastically on a Berber-made embroidered leather bag purchased on a visit...

Soap Opera Diplomacy: Turkish TV in Greece

Robbie Moore February 27, 2013
Greece’s high rate of unemployment allows ample leisure time for watching television. Yet the economic crisis has also meant that Greek television producers can no longer afford to write, shoot and broadcast television shows. So stations have turned to affordable Turkish shows, which are gaining in popularity among Greeks, explains Robbie Moore for the International, adding that “Some in the...

CIA Shifts Hollywood Gaze to Its Best Side

Richard McGregor February 26, 2013
Portrayed as heroes, not villains, the CIA and the US military have emerged as Hollywood winners, suggests Richard McGregor in the Financial Times: “The shift in the CIA’s popular portrayal is more remarkable for the fact that it coincides with the agency’s drone programme, a campaign of offshore assassinations on a scale that used to provoke public and congressional scandals.” Argo, a movie...