In The News

Across Latin America, Mandarin Is in the Air

Juan Forero September 26, 2006
As a major customer of Latin America’s agricultural, energy and mineral resources, China has become a target of interest throughout South America. As a result, more business people in Argentina, Peru, Colombia and Chile study Chinese language. The US is the leading investor in South America, and English still stands as the second language of choice. Still, China funds all manner of Asian studies...

Chávez-China Oil Deal May Produce Unsuspected Winners

Trevor Houser September 7, 2006
The Venezuelan president announced plans to increase oil exports to China tenfold over the next five years, with the expectation that China will invest in the nation’s oil infrastructure, particularly in developing the reserves of the Orinoco Belt. The heavy tar-like reserves, which require special technology to extract, amount to about 20 percent of the global oil supply. But any agreement...

Globalization Tames the Left in Brazil

Thomas I. Palley September 5, 2006
Brazil elected a progressive president, yet failed to tackle a long legacy of economic injustice. Instead, President Lula da Silva, a trade union activist born into poverty, was timid with economic policies: Playing it safe, Brazil embraced its traditional role of exporting resources abroad and allowing other countries to manufacture and innovate. For example, the nation’s trade patterns with...

More Than Wal-Mart

Robert Kuttner August 23, 2006
Wal-Mart is a symbol of the struggling worker who faces little hope of advancement, both in the US and abroad. The world’s largest retailer offers low prices by paying millions of workers minimum wage and passing many health-care costs onto government programs for the poor. The US government supports the work ethic. Since 1970, the US government decreased employer regulation, eliminated pension...

China Tests US Immigration Plan

June Kronholz August 4, 2006
The US wants to deport 40,000 Chinese immigrants, but China refuses to accept them without asylum-seekers such as Falun Gong members and political opponents as well. China’s refusal undermines US attempts at discouraging illegal immigration. The two chambers of the US Congress have clashed over how to handle the more than 10 million illegal immigrants estimated to be in the country, and...

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...