It is no secret to American companies that prohibitive costs of providing healthcare to their employees eat into their profit margin: the consulting firm McKinsey and Company estimates that by 2008, top U.S. companies will be spending as much on health care as they made in profits, forcing the...
Click here for the original article on The New York Times website.
It has been approximately two decades since the word “globalization” became standard in business and economic discussions. In the beginning, the word described the challenges facing Western companies that had to compete with lower-priced, sometimes better quality imports from countries like Japan,...
This is a new kind of column on globalization. Its purpose is not to argue whether the spread of market forces around the globe is good or bad, or whether it should be allowed to proceed or stopped in its tracks. Rather...
Recent legislation passed by the Indian government will hamper the ability of poorer nations and individuals to treat the HIV virus. In order to comply with the World Trade Organization's patent licensing policies, India has criminalized the copying of patented drugs, which include the...
The days of cheap treatments for millions of Aids patients around the world are coming to an end, health agencies warned last night, after the Indian parliament passed a bill that makes it illegal to copy patented drugs...
France has a long relationship with the Arab and Muslim worlds—a relationship that has often been marked by hostility and bloodshed. It would be a mistake, however, to see the current French rioting as an outgrowth of conflict between France and Islam. Matein Khalid writes that France's...
WE need another Charles Martel to save the soul of France". The frequent online chatroom references to the Frankish warrior who defeated the armies of Ummayed Spain at the battle of Poitiers thirteen centuries ago and...
An exhibition at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art features works by some of the great names in modern art. The works were acquired by Farah Diba Pahlavi, whose husband was deposed as Iran’s leader in the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Works by Andy Warhol and Jackson Pollock serve as context for a...
Read the article in Vanity Fair.
After weeks of negotiation, the Bush administration and congressional leaders have worked out an agreement on how to include environmental and worker protections in trade deals. “The unusual agreement, which came after weeks of negotiations, would guarantee workers the right to organize, ban child...
Click here to read the article in The New York Times.
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...
A MONTH ago Paris was burning, as riots broke out following the accidental death of two Arab youths. They were fleeing police at the time. Now it's Sydney's turn, as a demonstration over the mugging of two lifesavers in...
Health experts point out that access to family planning and preventing unwanted pregnancies are essential for sustainable development. Member states of the United Nations last year adopted 17 goals on sustainability, including reducing poverty and inequality, while promoting economic growth and...
Read the article from The Guardian.