One concern trumps all others for Americans: a lack of jobs. Resentment is high about the high unemployment rate, ongoing layoffs, declining wages and rising costs even as multinational corporations earn record profits and hire low-cost labor in emerging markets. More US job openings are in retail...
Where have all the protesters gone? Judging by the desultory gathering of activists during last month’s annual meeting of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington DC, one might conclude that opposition to globalisation...
UNICEF estimates the world has about 650 million females who married under the age of 18. Child marriages not only limit individual human rights, but also perpetuate poverty and inequality for entire communities and countries. Nonyelum A. Ujam, who works with the Central Bank of Nigeria and is a...
Not made in heaven: Nigeria’s child bride with newly married husband; Nigeria’s young girls face a bleak future
ABUJA, NIGERIA: The United Nations International Children’s Education Fund, UNICEF, defines a child as any person below the age of 18...
As rural workers flock to the cities, unemployment in China seems unlikely to decline from its current level of 13 percent. The recent WTO membership is not a solution since most new jobs are expected to be in the professional sector. Most of the jobless come from rural areas where they make up 20...
BEIJING - China faces a daunting task of finding jobs for 170 million unemployed people, and its joining the World Trade Organisation (WTO) will do little to relieve the pressure.
This grim picture came through...
Ahmed Rashid, author of Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia and Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia, offers a scathing indictment of US foreign policy in South Asia, post-September 11. Rashid argues that US-led military action and victory in Afghanistan...
Can the latter-day Taliban be charmed? A cartoon in a Pakistani weekly shows a snake from Afghanistan baring its fangs in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province. Courtesy The Friday Times.
LAHORE, PAKISTAN: A year...
Homelessness is a mark of failure for communities in providing basic security. Based on national reports, about 2 percent of the world’s population may be homeless. Another 20 percent lacks adequate housing, reports demographer Joseph Chamie. Such statistics come with a caveat. Obtaining accurate...
Under the open sky: Increasing numbers of people are homeless, in both wealthy and poor cities, from Russia to India
NOTE: This article was updated on 21 January 2020 to include the specific cautionary note from the OECD on using the data for...
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Washington this week could mark a watershed in Indo-US relations. This is the highest level visit since late March, when the US announced its plan to "help India become a major world power in the twenty-first century." Defense...
Ending the zero-sum game: President Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh plan to build strategic relations without antagonizing China or Pakistan
WASHINGTON: The forthcoming visit of India's Prime Minister...
Japan and India are forging closer ties, in part because of shared interests as Asian democracies but also to counter China’s assertive rise and prepare for a decline in US security spending. Harsh V. Pant of King’s College points out that “changing geopolitical realities are now forcing Delhi to...
New Asian alliance: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during recent visit in Delhi (top); Japan could make first military sale by supplying India indigenously developed amphibious aircraft
LONDON: Weeks...
Farmers in the Rift Valley in Kenya have learned an important lesson in globalization in the last week, as a volcanic eruption in Iceland shut down air travel to Europe. At first, many Kenyans thought nothing of it. Then they realized that the flower and vegetables they sell to European markets...
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