In The News

100,000 Heads Are Better Than One

Chris Reidy August 25, 2006
The internet widens the market for any business, increasing the pool of buyers and sellers. Operating on that principle, some websites allow major corporations to post anonymous research challenges, inviting free-lance scientists to volunteer solutions. For example, a Canadian engineer earned $25,000 for providing an easier way for one company to move toothpaste ingredients into a tube. The...

Muslim Myopia

Irshad Manji August 25, 2006
Islamic scholar Irshad Manji does not dispute the claims laid out by mainstream British Muslims last week that the blunders in Iraq and Lebanon provide fuel for extremism. However, she also calls upon Muslim representatives in the West to be accountable for any of their own contributions to violence. Muslim-on-Muslim violence is endemic throughout the world, with Muslims responsible for as many...

Iran’s Lebanon Card

George Perkovich August 24, 2006
The growing success of Islamic extremists throughout the Middle East has emboldened Iran. The country flouts demands from the international community and ignores UN Security Council resolutions. As problems mount in the Middle East, Iran can negotiate on several fronts – for example, the country could promise not to interfere in Lebanon or Afghanistan, if it can proceed with nuclear enrichment....

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...

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...

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...

Middle East: Marching Backward to the Future

Barry Rubin August 22, 2006
The fighting in Lebanon marks a return to an old worldview, a view once espoused by pan-Arab nationalists and now taken up by radical Islamists. The prevailing belief of extremist leaders is that the West is weak and can be defeated by Muslims willing to martyr themselves and engage in large-scale bloodshed. Victory, as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said in a recent speech, requires...