In The News

Myanmar: Sanctions Won't Work

Jeffrey Sachs July 27, 2004
Fourteen years ago Myanmar’s National League for Democracy (NLD) won an election against Myanmar's incumbent military government. After the elections, however, the military annulled the results, leading the US to impose economic sanctions against Myanmar’s government. Economist Jeffrey Sachs, head of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, argues in this op-ed that the USA should not...

Amnesty, National Human Rights Commission to Put Spotlight on Human Rights

Kavi Chongkittavorn July 26, 2004
Irene Khan, secretary general of Amnesty International, berated Thailand last week for its handling of antinarcotics campaigns, suppression of rebels in the south, extrajudicial killings, and failure to protect human rights defenders. On a more optimistic note, however, she expressed hope that Thailand could reemerge as a regional human rights defender, possibly even promoting an “Asean human...

'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...

Protests as Italy Expels Migrants

July 22, 2004
With its long coastline, Italy is one of most Europe’s most vulnerable countries in terms of illegal immigration. Largely African and Asian groups of migrants come via boat from places like Libya, where Italian officials believe up to 2 million more migrants may be waiting for transit into the European Union. In response to the influx of people, Italy put a tough anti-immigration law into...

A Global Power Shift in the Making

James F. Hoge, Jr. July 21, 2004
China has an economy that by 2010 will be double the size of Germany’s. Japan has fed off this growth to pull itself out of its 1990s economic malaise and enjoyed a real GDP growth rate of 6.4% in the last quarter of 2003. Elsewhere in Asia, the “tigers” have recovered from the 1997 financial crisis, and India’s economy is growing at 8% per year with some economists predicting that India could...

America's Korea Policy Needs an Overhaul

Stephen W. Linton July 20, 2004
Despite decades of American economic and military support for South Korea, in recent years younger South Koreans have begun to express virulently anti-US views. It is no longer only in meetings with North Korea's communist government that American visitors to the Korean peninsula confront charges of US economic imperialism, war-mongering, and colonial intentions. In fact, says Korea...

Latortue Leads Delegation Urgently Seeking Cash Aid

Michael A.W. Ottey July 20, 2004
Haiti's interim Prime Minister, Gerard Latortue, has asked for $924 million while at a two-day international donors conference that ends today at World Bank headquarters. Latortue says the money is part of an estimated $1.3 million necessary to get the country back on its feet after the fiscal mismanagement and political upheaval brought on by the administration and subsequent flight of...