In The News

The Tsunami Report Card

Karl F. Indefurth December 21, 2005
On December 26, 2004, an earthquake of staggering proportions unleashed ocean waves that crashed ashore in Asia and East Africa, killing 225,000 people and displacing 1.7 million more. Quickly, world governments, international organizations and a multitude of non-profits pledged support. Many predicted that unless this effort proved successful, a "second tsunami" of widespread disease...

India to WTO: Help Us Protect Herbs, Tea, Yoga

Eric Bellman December 19, 2005
India is spearheading a drive among developing nations to ensure that the WTO address “biopiracy” at this year’s meetings in Hong Kong. Along with countries like Brazil and China, India is seeking to prevent the international pharmaceutical industry from exploiting its native plants, animals and traditional remedies. Countries like India perceive biopiracy as a threat, particularly if a...

Malaysia Delivers a Short, Important Face-Slap

Connie Levett December 15, 2005
Malaysia has refused to regard Australia as a part of East Asia, and stated that Australia should not expect to become part of any future East Asian community. The leader of Malaysia, Abdullah Badawi, who served as chairman of the recent inaugural East Asia summit, offered geography as a primary reason for rejecting Australian participation. Australia has been jockeying to join the East Asian...

The Vicious Underbelly of Urban Culture

Bronwyn Winter December 13, 2005
On the heels of last month’s riots in France a storm of violence has broken out in Sydney, suggesting that comparisons should be made. Both events involve tensions between Arabs and the wider cultures in which they live. The riots in Sydney, however, make clearer the particular contribution of a long-cultivated urban “machismo” culture that provides an underlying motivation for the violence....

The WTO Can Promote Both Free Trade and Human Rights

Susan Ariel Aaronson December 13, 2005
As protesters flock to the WTO meeting in Hong Kong along with finance ministers and business leaders, many observers, including Susan Ariel Aaronson and Jamie M. Zimmerman, agree with their claims that the WTO should be seeking relevance beyond just trade liberalization. But a wider focus – on human rights, development and labor – need not require any shift away from the WTO's central...

Trade Rounds a Harder Sell

Guy de Jonquières December 13, 2005
As ministers from all around the world gather in Hong Kong to inaugurate the latest WTO trade round, Financial Times columnist Guy de Jonquiéres sees signs of trouble. The meeting has a relatively modest agenda and is being primarily promoted as focusing on development and poverty. But given that the WTO's raison d'etre is liberalization and the creation of opportunities, not aid or the...

Open Letter to the French Minister of the Interior

Edouard Glissant December 9, 2005
This "Open letter" to French interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy comes at a time of global scrutiny for France, and from the pen of two leading Martinican authors, Edouard Glissant and Patrick Chamoiseau (Winner of the French Prix Goncourt for literature in 1997). The duo, well-respected writers and new-wave philosophers of the African diaspora, take Sarkozy and the French Republic to...