In The News

Halt of SARS in Vietnam Could Hold Lessons for Other Nations

Seth Mydans May 7, 2003
Vietnam, declared Sars-free by the World Health Organization just last week, is being heralded as an example of efficiency for other countries trying to contain and eliminate the Sars virus. The country was lucky in some regards, but its early containment and prevention efforts should not be underestimated. "It was the speed, the leadership, the transparency, the flexibility, the intensity...

Thai-Malaysian Pipeline: Project Set for Completion in 2005

May 7, 2003
A controversial gas pipeline stretching from Malaysia to Thailand is set to be completed by 2005, if we can believe the contractors in charge. The project has been opposed by Thai villagers whose property it will traverse, and whose Muslim communities would face substantial economic and cultural change if it is completed. If all goes as planned, the pipeline's construction will bring in...

China Steps Up the Fight

May 6, 2003
While other countries seem to have had some success in containing the spread of Sars, China is still scrambling to estimate how many infected persons there are and to find ways of treating all in need. Meanwhile, says this Economist article, the total cost of the epidemic within China is nearly impossible to estimate, as the country's government and many industries remain highly secretive...

When Crises Strike, China’s Leaders Adapt to Survive

Joseph Kahn May 4, 2003
The widespread usage of global media technologies such as the Internet and cell phones in China threaten to undermine the Communist Government’s control of information. The unchecked spread of SARS in China, and from China to other parts of the world, is a striking example of the administrative inefficiency within the Communist Government. Moreover, it threatens the Communist ideology as a...

China Allows UN Agency to Help Fight Illness on Taiwan

Joseph Kahn May 4, 2003
China approved a World Health Organization (WHO) mission to Taiwan, opening up the ‘territory’ to a UN agency for the first time since 1972. As the number of SARS cases in China has continued to rise, so has the international pressure on China to respond more effectively to the SARS epidemic. At this historical juncture when Taiwan is registering a steady increase in SARS related cases, the WHO...

Sars Gives China a Lesson in Globalization

Frank Ching May 2, 2003
China may have begun opening its economy 20 years ago, but Sars has shown that capitalist economic reforms aren't the only criteria for being part of the global economy. Control of the media is still seen as a basic function and right of the Chinese Communist Party, but it is precisely the party's obsessive control of information that helped fan the spread of Sars after its initial...

SARS Unmasks a Wider Scandal

Jasper Becker May 2, 2003
Writing from Beijing, Jasper Becker asks what lessons China will take from the Sars crisis? The crisis, he argues, reveals great flaws in the Chinese government's system of management in non-economic areas. "The half-baked reform of China's health system is nothing short of scandalous and the country is now paying for it," he says. "Peasants - who can least afford it -...