In The News

The WSIS: whose freedom, whose information?

Solana Larsen December 9, 2003
In Geneva, more than 130 of the world's governments are meeting in the first phase of the UN World Summit of the Information Society (WSIS), to discuss how to bridge the "digital divide" and bring more telephone and computer technology to poor countries. But the summit has already hit a roadblock, as civil society groups formed an alternate body and wrote an opposing declaration...

Modern-Day Mercenaries

Raenette Taljaard December 9, 2003
From Iraq to Afghanistan, the US and its allies are relying on private military companies (PMCs) to provide a range of security services commonly associated with national militaries. Raenette Taljaard, Member of Parliament in South Africa, cautions that this move toward the privatization of security should not go un-checked. As unregulated non-state actors motivated by profits, PMCs can serve...

Jihad Has Worked – The World is Now Split in Two

Ewen MacAskill December 8, 2003
"Osama bin Laden, two years and three months after the New York and Washington attacks that were part of his jihad against America, appears to be winning," writes the diplomatic editor of the UK's Guardian. The al-Qaeda leader has achieved a good deal of his objectives, says the author. Not only are US troops off Saudi Arabian soil now, but the world is also increasingly...

Backing Down on Steel Tariffs, U.S. Strengthens Trade Group

David E. Sanger December 5, 2003
The fight over US steel tariffs, writes David Sanger in the New York Times, will go down in history as the case that defines the World Trade Organization's power. No case in the eight year history of the WTO has tested its power to quite the same degree, but now it has been tested – and won. Last week President Bush was forced to eliminate steel tariffs that the WTO ruled illegal after the...

A New Opportunity in Cancun's Failure

Balakrishnan Rajagopal December 3, 2003
The failure of September's global trade talks in Cancun may have indicated disagreement on a global level, but the unified voice of a small coalition of countries showed that smaller scale negotiations can be very effective. The emergence of the G-22 bloc of smaller countries, says development expert Balakrishnan Rajagopal, harkens back to the Bandung meeting of 29 formerly colonized...

Kyoto's Not Dead Yet

December 3, 2003
A senior advisor to Russia's President Putin, Andrei Illarionov, declared this week that Russia was never going to sign on the Kyoto Protocol that aims to limit greenhouse gases. Fortunately for the treaty, Illarionov does not have the final word, and Putin himself has indicated that Russia would be willing to ratify. It seems likely that the Russians are hesitating on Kyoto out of the...

WHO Unveils Plan to Fight HIV and AIDS

David Brown December 1, 2003
A program that was deemed "too ambitious" two years ago is set to be implemented by the World Health Organization (WHO). By providing instruction, expertise, and written documents, as well as calling for the training of 100,000 workers for 10,000 clinics, the WHO hopes to provide 3 million people with AIDS treatment by 2005. The WHO will not pay for the treatment itself, but it hopes...