Multinational apparel companies like Nike have long been accused of running their factories abroad as sweatshops, milking the desperation of poor workers in the name of the bottom line. In a report released by the company itself, Nike further substantiates the allegations of abuse. The report...
Nike, long the subject of sweatshop allegations, yesterday produced the most comprehensive picture yet of the 700 factories that produce its footwear and clothing, detailing admissions of abuses, including forced...
After the 2008 global economic crisis, leaders vowed to avoid protectionism, but they also took steps to avoid globalization’s negatives. “After two decades in which people, capital and goods were moving ever more freely across borders, walls have been going up, albeit ones with gates,” writes Greg...
Click here for the article in The Economist.
As Russia’s ruble declines in response to western imposed sanctions, Central Asian countries face rising inflation. The economies of countries like Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan rely on remittances from workers in Russia, notes an article originally published by EurasiaNet. As the value of...
Pensioner Jyparkul Karaseyitova says she cannot afford meat anymore. At her local bazaar in Kyrgyzstan’s capital, Bishkek, the price for beef has jumped 9 percent in the last six weeks. And she is not alone feeling the pain of rising inflation....
The precipitous drop in trade last year as a result of the global financial crisis was evidence of the heightened interconnectedness of the world’s major economies. But such interconnectedness was also one reason why trade protectionism – the bogey everyone feared would send the globe into another...
As the world economy edges away from the precipice, we can see the enormity of the catastrophe we averted. In the first 12 months of the financial crisis, world industrial output fell at nearly the same rate as during the first year of the Great...
China’s expansive claims over the South China Sea and ongoing aggression push Vietnam to consider filing a suit with the Hague for violating the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. The international court has already ruled that China’s claims are overly expansive, but the country has not complied...
The spotlight on Africa of late has focused on many laudable goals: sustainable development, debt relief, disease prevention and control, and reining in governmental corruption. But promoting democracy and permanently establishing open and honest government, Philip Fiske de Gouveia writes, is...
Africa has been at the front and center of this year's upcoming G-8 summit. British Prime Minister Tony Blair has apparently made it his personal mission to deal with this "scar on the conscience of the world." In a...
French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault invited international leaders to Paris on May 30 to make plans for reviving the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Peace and economic security go hand in hand. Israel is thriving despite boycotts by some European countries while the economic outlook is...
Blocking the boycott stream: An effort by Daniel Birnbaum, CEO of SodaStream, to employ Palestinians in a West Bank factory fell victim to the boycott movement targeting Israel, top; security wall prevents meaningful employment of Palestinians in...
A common strategy in geopolitical rivalries is to accrue alliances, strengthen positions and counter competitors. Of course, Asia is rich with historic rivalries: India and China, Pakistan and India, Iran and Pakistan, Iran and the US, the US and China. Two ports in the Arabian Sea, one in Iran...
PARIS: Sino-Indian rivalry in the Indian Ocean and India’s naval cooperation with the US draw the world’s attention. But quietly, out of sight, a contest has been building in the Arabian Sea centered between two ports, one based in Pakistan and the...
