In The News

Synthetic Microbe Lives With Less Than 500 Genes

Robert F. Service March 28, 2016
Researchers have engineered the smallest synthetic microbe with 473 genes known as Syn 3.0. “The microbe’s streamlined genetic structure excites evolutionary biologists and biotechnologists, who anticipate adding genes back to it one by one to study their effects,” reports Robert Services for Science. The microbe was developed through trial and error by inserting and extracting genes from a...

The State of the United States

Richard N. Haass March 28, 2016
The mood of US electorate during the presidential primary season is described as anxious and angry over outsourcing and trade deals, a decline in good jobs, stagnant wages, inequality and polarized politics that prevents good governance. News media tend to focus on negative reports, and the members of public rely on programs and publications that reinforce opinions already held. “An America that...

With Belgian Terrorist Attacks, Strains on a Battered Europe Grow

Griff Witte March 25, 2016
After World War II ended, the nations of Europe were determined to cooperate on making their continent a model of peace and civilization. Terrorist attacks waged by its own citizens as well as millions of refugees from the Middle East, an economy struggling with debt threaten, worries about trade and jobs threaten that model. “A union that has for decades been seen around the world as a beacon...

A Flat World Gets Bumpy With Globalization in Retreat

David Dapice March 24, 2016
Uncertainty and instability threaten the global economy, and monetary stimulus by the central banks, including negative rates, is not delivering growth or confidence. So far, the United States is alone in breaking away from the pack to engage in monetary tightening and gradually lifting interest rates. China employs strict controls to prevent businesses and savers from sending cash outside the...

Washington’s New Friends in Latin America

Patricio Navia March 24, 2016
Barack Obama is taking steps to improve relations with neighbors as the first sitting US president to travel to Cuba since Calvin Coolidge in 1928. “Obama’s visit to Cuba and Argentina this week underlines the United States government’s effort to make new friends and rebuild old relationships in Latin America,” writes Patricio Navia for the Buenos Aires Herald, adding that “as the US did not...

Caught In the Doldrums

Nayan Chanda March 23, 2016
World trade is slowing but “emerging weakness in India’s information technology (IT) and business processing sector is even more surprising in light of the global trend of exponential growth in digital commerce and information flow,” suggests Nayan Chanda, founding editor of YaleGlobal, in his column for Businessworld. He points out that, with IT and business process management representing 9.5...

China’s NGOs Go Global

Reza Hasmath March 23, 2016
Economic growth has transformed China from aid recipient to donor nation, explains Reza Hasmath, a professor of political science: “[T]he majority of China’s overseas development assistance is directed at nations, notably in Africa and Southeast Asia, where it has a substantial stake in accessing natural resources and low cost human capital…. Suffice to say, China’s development assistance is...