http://www.project-syndicate.org/about_us/rss The highest quality commentaries and analysis from distinguished voices across the world en Fri, 03 Jul 2009 22:30:02 GMT webmaster@project-syndicate.org http://www.interglacial.com/rss/about.html http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/feldstein11/English CAMBRIDGE ­– There is a serious danger that the international adoption of cap-and-trade legislation to limit carbon-dioxide emissions will trigger a new round of protectionist measures. While aimed at reducing long-term environmental damage, cap-and-trade policies could produce significant harmful economic effects in the near term that would continue into the future. http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/goldston4/English BRUSSELS – Several years ago, as terrorism, immigration, and unrest in suburban Paris were at the top of the news in France, a French police officer confided to a researcher: “If you consider different levels of trafficking, it is obviously done by blacks and Arabs. If you are on the road and see a black man or a man with Arabic features, you say to yourself, ‘He doesn’t look French,’ and then you might stop him to see if he has papers.” http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/sinn26/English MUNICH – As America’s various rescue plans take hold, stock markets are recovering somewhat. The S&P 500 price/earnings ratio is gradually climbing back to its long-term average of 16. Bank shares in particular are rebounding, and some banks have even succeeded in repaying at least part of their government-provided capital. http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/moisi43/English PARIS – Since the arrival of President Barack Obama in the White House, there has been an undeniable rapprochement between Europe and the United States. But on the deeper and more fundamental level of emotions and values, is it possible that the gap between the two sides of the Atlantic has widened? http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/pachauri1/English NEW DELHI – Today, international action on climate change is urgent and essential. Indeed, there can no longer be any debate about the need to act, because the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), of which I am chairman, has established climate change as an unequivocal reality beyond scientific doubt. http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/eichengreen6/English BERKELEY – There has never been a question about the ultimate purpose of the Chiang Mai Initiative (CMI), the system of Asian financial supports created in 2000 in that Thai city. That purpose, of course, is to create an Asian Monetary Fund, i.e., a regional alternative to the International Monetary Fund, whose tender ministrations during the 1997-98 financial crisis have not been forgotten or forgiven. http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/yehoshua6/English HAIFA – Ever since the Six Day War of June 1967, a small number of Israelis, not all on the left, supported the idea of two states as a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Most of their compatriots rejected it, as did the Palestinians. Israelis justified their stance with this question: Just when did the Palestinians become a nation deserving of statehood? The Palestinians were asking in return: Why should the Jews, a religious community dispersed around the world, have their own state? http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/sachs154/English NEW YORK – One odd and disturbing aspect of global politics today is the confusion between negotiations and problem-solving. According to a timetable agreed in December 2007, we have six months to reach a global agreement on climate change in Copenhagen. Governments are engaged in a massive negotiation, but they are not engaged in a massive effort at problem-solving. Each country asks itself, “How do I do the least and get the other countries to do the most?,” when they should be asking instead, “How do we cooperate to achieve our shared goals at minimum cost and maximum benefit?” http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/nahzi1/English PRISTINA – Hundreds of people disappeared ten years ago in Kosovo, the former Serbian province that is now the world’s newest state. These are not missing persons like the Albanians whom Serbian police executed and buried in secret graves during the Kosovo conflict of 1999. These missing persons disappeared after the conflict, on NATO’s and the United Nations’ watch. Most were Serb civilians. Relatives of most report that they were abducted. http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/skidelsky18/English LONDON – Home to one-sixth of the world’s people, but contributing only one-fortieth of world GDP, Africa is the most conspicuous victim of the global recession. After a half-decade of 5% growth, the continent’s growth rate is expected to halve in 2009. Some countries, like Angola, are contracting. Elsewhere, the crisis has swept away the benefits of several years of economic reform. Many Africans will fall back into desperate poverty. http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/dyson9/English NEW YORK – Forget about innovation and exotic new technology. People still haven’t learned to use the technology we already have. I spent many of my spare hours over the last month adjusting to a new e-mail program after abandoning Eudora and my PC for a Mac with AppleMail. http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/fischer40/English BERLIN – Great speeches are all too often underestimated as being mere words. In fact, they can have powerful consequences. This is obviously the case with President Barack Obama’s recent address to the Muslim world in Cairo, because – mere coincidence or excellent timing? – things in the Middle East have been in flux ever since. http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/bebchuk2/English CAMBRIDGE – The United States government is now permitting ten of America’s biggest banks to repay about $70 billion of the capital injected into them last fall. This decision followed the banks having passed the so-called “stress tests” of their financial viability, which the US Treasury demanded, and the success of some of them in raising the additional capital that the tests suggested they needed. http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/castaneda25/English MEXICO CITY – After 47 years, the Organization of American States, at its annual General Assembly, has repealed its suspension of Cuba’s membership. The so-called ALBA countries (the Spanish acronym for the so-called Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas), which includes Cuba, Venezuela, Honduras, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Dominica, and Ecuador, were able partly to outwit – and partly to “out-blackmail” – Canada, the United States, and the Latin American democracies in getting Cuba rehabilitated. http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/abbas6/English CAMBRIDGE – As its army confronts, ever more bloodily, the Taliban in the Swat Valley, Pakistan is fighting for its very soul. The army appears to be winning this time around, in marked contrast to its recent half-hearted confrontations with Taliban forces in neighboring tribal areas.