In The News

Greening U.S. Foreign Aid through the Millennium Challenge Account

Nigel Purvis June 5, 2003
Last year, US President George W. Bush proposed the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) as part of his National Security Strategy report. With its goals to provide development assistance to certain developing countries, the MCA calls for an unprecedented increase in U.S. foreign aid. If the MCA is passed by congress, it will undoubtedly play a major role in fighting global poverty. However, says...

The GM Mirage Will Not Help the Poor

Alex Wijeratna June 4, 2003
It is profits and not an altruistic desire to end world hunger that is behind the emergence of the genetically modified (GM) agriculture industry, argues Alex Wijeratna of the UK based international development agency, ActionAid. Wijeratna's essay adds to the US's concern over export restrictions on GM treated food from the US to countries in the European Union. Recently, US President...

Getting to the Core

Geof Wheelwright June 4, 2003
As private companies find themselves growing bigger and bigger, they also find that they now have to account for many extra functions – such as maintaining parking lots, managing cafeterias, etc. – that are not considered their "core" business. Outsourcing, according to this article, can allow personnel to focus on their core functions by letting outside firms take care of the non-...

Hands-on Diplomacy

June 3, 2003
Although tensions remain between the US and many of its European allies, it appears that US President George W. Bush is slowly backing away from the notion that American might makes right, says this Mercury News editorial. Despite continued unilateral action in Iraq, Bush has begun utilizing diplomacy to achieve his foreign policy ends in other areas, including courting China and Russia's...

Globalization with Few Discontents?

June 3, 2003
As a sub-section of the Pew Global Attitudes Project survey, "View of a Changing World," this article examines the global public's attitudes towards globalization in the past five years. Generally, peoples of the world agree - albeit to different degrees - that after experiencing globalization through trade, finance, travel, communication and culture, they favor an interconnected...

Special Visa's Use for Tech Workers is Challenged

Katie Hafner May 30, 2003
The high technology sector in the United States is amongst the worst hit by the current recession. The recent outcry against the hiring of foreign workers – mostly from India – at comparatively lower wages exemplifies the severity of the crisis of unemployment in the high tech sector. The unemployed within the high tech sector, members of the US Congress. and certain special public interest...

Nuclear Confrontations with North Korea

William Perry May 28, 2003
Speaking in a panel discussion at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, William Perry, the former Secretary of Defense of the Clinton administration, said that the Korean Crisis of June 1994 was the only period during the Clinton presidency when the US came close to a major war. That was also the time the US took a diplomatic initiative to peacefully resolve the...