Economist.com – Globalization Has Helped Poor, Study Says

Far from creating poverty as critics claim, rapid globalization of the world economy has sliced the proportion of abject poor across the planet, according to a controversial new study released on Monday.

It says that freer commerce, epitomized by the cutting of tariffs and the lifting of trade barriers, has boosted economic growth and lifted the incomes of rich and poor alike.

Philadelphia Inquirer: Jane Eisner | Terrorism’s tenuous link to poverty

…terrorists draw their support and their human ammunition not from the most impoverished, illiterate in their societies, but from the educated and (relatively) well-off. In fact, terrorists are not motivated by a desperate, ill-informed attempt to improve living conditions, but by religious and political fanaticism bred in countries without democratic infrastructures.

Terrorism isn’t an economic crime; it’s a violent form of political engagement.

…Supporting democracy in non-Western cultures is a delicate, risky task. But in this year of terror, on this weekend of independence celebrations, it is one we should embrace with renewed passion.