In The News

A Restriction on Trade and Security

Donald Weadon August 23, 2006
In response to increasing fears about China as an emerging world power, the commercial export-control agency for the US has proposed new restrictions. Since World War II, the US relied on a multilateral system that controlled military commercial technology. Yet the US Bureau of Industry and Security has shifted to a bilateral approach, restricting the “sale, re-export or transfer” of 47...

Natural Resources Are Fueling a New Cold War

Erich Follath August 22, 2006
The modern world depends on oil and other natural resources for survival – and the most powerful countries travel the globe, searching for supplies. China, surpassed only by the US in oil-consumption levels, has blocked UN sanctions against Sudan to secure oil shipments and increasingly becomes friendly with Iran. When it come to oil, the US and China have policy differences, leading some...

Water, Water Everywhere?

August 22, 2006
One third of the world’s population is already short of water, according to a UN report to be released in November 2006. A main culprit behind the increasing scarcity is agriculture – it requires about 3000 liters of water to grow enough food for a person to eat one day. With an increasing global population, agriculture’s demand for water will double by 2050. World water supplies could be...

Time for India to Reduce Inequality

Pranab Bardhan August 16, 2006
Inequality is relative, depending on how it is measured. Most countries tend to have greater inequality in terms of income rather than consumption – because the citizens of any one country must eat and buy basic necessities, while the wealthy tend to save more. Citizens with more education may have less wealth, yet can better weather economic changes that may eliminate specific jobs. India,...

Migration Laws May Be the End of Globalization

Branko Milanovic August 1, 2006
The first worldwide era of economic globalization ended with the carnage and insecurity of two World Wars separated by a Depression, according to author Branko Milanovic. The end of the current era, he writes, will not necessarily come from global catastrophe, but rather with “an economic retrenchment that brings economic stagnation and consigns billions of people to grinding poverty.”...

Nationalization Without Expropriation?

Raquel Gutierrez July 29, 2006
Bolivia is nationalizing its energy resources by negotiating with government, corporate and individual interests – providing a test case for some of President Evo Morales’ loftiest campaign promises. The process is really a re-nationalization process, according to analysts Raquel Gutierrez and Dunia Mokrani, based on redrafting past agreements between the government and oil companies that unduly...

From East to West

Rana Rosen July 24, 2006
As the nation debates the value of immigration, the US Senate has eased restrictions for nurses from India. Nurses from India used to travel to the Middle East, with less stringent test requirements, to earn high wages, but encountered restrictions and segregation. With countries such as Australia, Ireland and the UK setting higher standards for foreign nurses, some in the nursing profession...