In The News

Gunning for the World

David Morton January 13, 2006
The National Rifle Association has traditionally represented a highly specific interest group among the US population. Increasingly, though, the NRA has come to link the success of its pro-gun lobbying in the US with similar struggles underway in other nations. NRA leaders have exhibited a sophisticated understanding of increased interconnectivity among world cultures, and the most practiced...

CNBC Business Channel: Global Village Now a Reality

January 11, 2006
CNBC has accomplished a broadcasting-first with Worldwide Exchange. The program, simultaneously broadcast on three continents, has anchors and chief executives conversing between New York, London and Singapore. The fiber-communications technology that makes the show possible has come to define globalization, broadcasting smooth and instantaneous interactions regardless of distance. Previously,...

The Power of Oil

Dilip Hiro January 10, 2006
As demand for oil increases, the dependent countries hesitate to antagonize those with ample supply. As a result, developing nations that are oil-rich have discovered newfound power, with oil politics often taking priority over democracy or human rights. For example, Chinese energy interests protect the Sudan from US anger over the massacre in Darfur. Likewise, some Western capitals are reluctant...

Multinational Corporations: A Key to Global Poverty Reduction – Part II

George C. Lodge January 5, 2006
To combat a growing image problem, multinational corporations must capitalize on their enormous potential for reducing poverty. MNCs can and do change the very conditions that create poverty, yet lack presence in the world’s poorest countries. More recently, NGO leaders and development institutions have come to acknowledge that their own activism in the struggle against global poverty requires...

Prerequisites of Renaissance

Khwaja Masud January 4, 2006
Modern science emerged in 16th and 17th century Europe with the Renaissance and the Reformation. Prior to this, scholasticism dominated intellectual inquiry in an atmosphere of dogmatism and intolerance. By contrast, the Renaissance and the Reformation established a society in which rationalism, pluralism and tolerance thrived. Professor Masud analyzes the history in search of an inherent...

Multinational Corporations: A Key to Global Poverty Reduction – Part I

George C. Lodge January 2, 2006
The legitimacy of multinational corporations has been increasingly questioned in recent years. In this two-part series, Harvard professor George C. Lodge and International Finance Corporation economist Craig Wilson argue that multinational corporations (MNCs) have contributed enormously to reducing global poverty. MNCs exist to provide value for their shareholders, but are also in a position...

Ears of Plenty

December 21, 2005
Throughout human history, grains such as maize, rice and wheat provided the sustenance that allowed successive generations to survive and increase their numbers. Out of these three plants, wheat is the oldest and most broadly dispersed. Wheat tells the story of human agricultural practice, to which the growth and wane of human populations are inextricably linked. Technological innovation, from...