In The News

Learning Globalization From Football

Branko Milanovic April 21, 2006
Football is not only popular, but probably the world's most globalized profession. The most talented Brazilian, Cameroonian and Japanese football players move from country to country more so than doctors, computer scientists, blue-collar workers or bank tellers. On the club circuit, rules have evolved so that international character defines top teams, and statistics show that success...

A US Attack of Iran Will Break NATO in Pieces

Frank Biancheri April 18, 2006
Even a world superpower can use a few allies. European nations, long stalwart friends of the US, express alarm that the Bush administration could consider attacking Iran without extensive diplomacy, consultation with allies, and reasoned responses such as revision of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Any attack on Iran would fracture NATO and isolate the US from its traditional allies, argues...

A Nation of Immigrants Clashes Over the Future

Georg Mascolo April 12, 2006
In 2005, the US arrested 1.2 million people attempting to cross the US-Mexico border in Arizona’s Arivaca Valley. About half that number were successful journeying through the treacherous desert, encouraged by words on the Statue of Liberty that welcome immigrants from the world over – “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free.” The US estimates that 11 million...

Has Globalization Gone too Far?

Nagesh Kumar April 11, 2006
Developed nations express growing resistance to foreign takeovers of national enterprises – from Mittal Steel’s bid for Archelor based in Luxembourg to Dubai Ports World plan to take over terminal operations of six US ports. The resistance contradicts WTO proposals from the West that would have allowed foreign investors to establish or acquire any business entity in any country. Developing...

Businesses Make a Push for High-Skilled Foreign Workers

June Kronholz April 7, 2006
In the immigration bill currently taking up the US Senate's attention, the fate of millions of low-skilled illegal immigrant workers dominates the discourse. The proposal would allow immigrants who arrived in the US before April 2001 to pursue a bureaucratic, but specific 11-year road to citizenship. Immigrants who arrived after the date would have limited options. The US Congress remains...

Climate Change Sparks Scrap for Arctic Resources

Philip Bethge April 7, 2006
A bewildering dispute between Canada and Denmark over the ownership of Hans Island, a configuration of barren rock, could be the beginning of many struggles over territory within the Arctic Circle. Scientists warn of profound environmental changes to come with global warming - melting icecaps, rising floodwaters, species extinction and damage to traditional cultures. The massive Arctic ice sheet...

Globalization’s New Left

Nathan Gardels April 6, 2006
Policies meant to promote globalization – cutting public budgets, deregulating markets and liberalizing trade – have created new wealth, especially in Asia. Beneath the veneer of the growing global middleclass, however, is another story – that of the billion people worldwide who have been disenfranchised as their countries make the “structural adjustments” necessary to compete globally. In...