In The News

The Coming Tsunami of Trash

Niall Ferguson August 14, 2006
Oceans provide food, transportation and beauty – and a place to hide trash. Yet the trash is more obvious, particularly plastic, which takes more than a century to degrade and piles up as small islands in some parts of the world. Ocean pollution exemplifies the “tragedy of the commons,” when a public resource gets abused by many and protected by none. The 1994 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea...

Cold, Hard Facts

Peter Doran August 14, 2006
Upon analyzing one small ice-free area in Antarctica, Peter Doran and his fellow researchers found that between 1986 and 2000, it had actually cooled. In fact, during that same time period, it was noted that most of the continent underwent cooling rather then warming. This evidence, coupled with another study that showed Antarctic ice sheets are thickening, caused some to conclude incorrectly...

Pakistani Charity Under Scrutiny in Plot

Dexter Filkins August 14, 2006
The Pakistani charity organization Jamaat ud Dawa won praise for its action in helping victims of the October 2005 earthquake in Kashmir, which killed more than 70,000. But the group also has a militant branch that fights the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir and was labeled a terrorist group by the US in May. Investigators now question whether a group of Britons plotting to blow up commercial...

The First Step Towards Defeating the Terrorists: Stop Blaming Ourselves

Gerard Baker August 11, 2006
Uncertainty abounds in assessing the seriousness of any terrorist threat that has been thwarted. London Times Editor Gerard Baker criticizes those who would either accuse authorities of overreacting to the threat in an effort to boost poll numbers or those who would excuse attacks as a justified reaction to US and UK foreign policy. Indeed, actions by the US and its allies – from the invasion...

Europe's Muslims: Economic Worries Top Concerns About Identity

August 11, 2006
Muslims and non-Muslims alike in the UK share worries about growing Islamic extremism, even though European Muslims as a whole tend to favor moderate Islam, according to a spring 2006 poll on immigration and identity, conducted by the Pew Research Foundation. The results follow a year that included bombings in London and Madrid and the riots sparked by Danish cartoons, but were released before...

When Labor Loses Out to Trade

Gustav Ranis August 10, 2006
International trade raises the standard of living for most people in any country, but inevitably results in a loss of jobs for a few. The challenge for governments is identifying and implementing policies that support readjustment of those few workers at a reasonable cost. International trade accounted for about 4 percent of layoffs in Canada, the US and the EU in 2000, according to the...

Corporate Complicity in Chinese Internet Censorship

August 10, 2006
Human Rights Watch has issued a report, titled “Race to the Bottom: Corporate Complicity in Chinese Internet Censorship,” documenting how Western-based internet companies assist Chinese censorship. The report details how search engines such as Yahoo!, Microsoft, Google and Skype have taken measures to block results containing sensitive terms, censor blogs and text chats, and even released some...