China is investing heavily in neighboring Laos, rapidly altering the landscape. “Across Laos, Chinese laborers are building huge malls, dams, factories, golf courses and airports, taking jobs that could easily done by Laotians,” reports Bangkok-based Ken Quimbach for the Global Times. The source of...
Click here for the article in The Global Times.
In response to rockets fired from Hamas, Israel has bombed targets in Gaza, including a strike on the home of leader Nizar Ghayan. The Islamic group, whose charter calls for the destruction of Israel, won a majority in 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections, but the unity government with Fatah...
Click here to read the article in Haaretz.
On the question of Iraq, France and its supporters are vying to fundamentally change the post-Cold War international order, says political commentator Gerard Baker. After examining the recent foreign policy records of those who are challenging American unipolarity – specifically France, Germany,...
Through the miasma of French posturing on Iraq, it is just possible to discern the contours of a coherent world view. This is not based, as the more spiteful critics say, on oil, or commercial interests, or even fears...
The US has refused to cut agricultural subsidies to its farmers for years, and it refused again at the recent WTO meeting in Cancún. Thomas Friedman laments that fact, arguing that a real connection exists between US hypocrisy on world trade issues and the roots of anti-American terrorism....
Click here for the original article on The New York Times website.
Politicians tend to procrastinate when it comes to long-term problems. But rising temperatures are causing immediate problems, as diseases like malaria, cholera, Dengue fever, Lyme disease and West Nile virus make inroads into new territory, including the US, Europe and Canada. Common insects like...
Click here for the original article on The Washington Post's website.
For supporters of globalization, isolationism is usually thought to have negative consequences. But for Eastern Europe, cut off during the Cold War, such isolation had a positive impact on preventing environmental damage that can occur from the influx of invasive species – birds, in this case. A...
Click here for the article in Oregon State University.
Seals are a protected species in Ireland, and some fishermen blame them and even cormorants and other birds for a decline in salmon populations. Salmon swim the oceans and then return to the rivers where their own lives began to reproduce. There, humans and other predators wait to pick off the fish...
Click here to read the article in the Sunday Observer.
Globalization and intense competition across borders has made it more challenging for countries to maintain some cultural traditions. In January 2006, the Spanish government enacted regulations requiring that all federal agencies enforce a strict 45-minute lunch break – allowing workers to head...
Click here for the original article on The Washington Post's website.