In The News

Solving a Riddle Wrapped in a Mystery Inside a Cookie

Jennifer 8. Lee January 18, 2008
Fortune cookies are popular in Chinese restaurants the world over, everywhere but China. Japanese researcher Yasuko Nakamachi theorizes the absence is because the cookies originated in Japan, as evidenced by references in Japanese literature and art decades before the early 1900s. California restaurants with Japanese owners introduced the dessert between 1907 and 1914, reports author Jennifer Lee...

China Eyes Latin American Commodities

Georg Caspary January 18, 2008
Latin America is rich in natural resources, including oil, minerals and agricultural crops, all desired in the global markets. At the same time, China has become the world's largest importer of cotton, copper and soybeans as well as the second-largest oil importer. Latin America can secure lasting advantages from its commodities sales – including poverty reduction and sustainable development...

Workers’ Paradise?

Kenneth Rogoff January 17, 2008
The expansion of global trade eroded the status of national and local unions. Yet as many workers in the world’s wealthiest nations worry about the status of their jobs, politicians who want to win and stay in office increasingly respond to the anxiety by pandering to unions. “After decades of vilification by economists for raising unemployment and strangling growth, the union movement is now...

World Rides to Wall Street's Rescue

David Enrich January 17, 2008
Nations with hefty savings accounts, including Singapore and Saudi Arabia, are devoting billions to rescuing US banks in trouble, a result of the sub-prime mortgage crisis. “After flooding the world with capital that fed both economic growth and excess, battered U.S. financial institutions now are turning to countries and companies that not so long ago were suffering through their own disasters...

A New Day for a Divided Peninsula

Shim Jae Hoon January 16, 2008
Since taking control of North Korea, Kim Jong Il has isolated his nation, devastated its economy and pursued a nuclear-weapons program that has alarmed the world. In attempting to dissuade the Kim regime from its self-destructive ways, South Korea opted for what became known as a “sunshine policy,” promoting engagement, patience and ample aid. But South Koreans grew weary of shoveling billions at...

Questions for Al Qaeda

Yassin Musharbash January 16, 2008
Perhaps the US presidential campaign has snatched too much global attention. The second in command of Al Qaeda offered to collect questions from friends and foes on four Islamic web sites for one month, starting December 16. “As it builds its Web community, al-Qaida is apparently also looking for user-generated content,” writes Yassin Musharbash for Spiegel Online. The questions will undoubtedly...

Southeast Asian Democratization in the Era of Globalization

Roy Voragen January 16, 2008
Anticipating the consequences of globalization is one way of adapting to the rapid change. Increasingly, individuals acquire wealth not so much through hard work or innovation than by predicting globalization’s intricate twisting paths. Cities and citizens in the developed nations, while they complain about globalization, are better prepared for adapting to the effects than citizens in developing...