For A Change articles from February 1997

For A Change archives from February 1997

How to mark the Millenium.
February 1, 1997... On 5 April we shall be 1,000 days away from the year 2000. This spring, the Prince of Wales and the Archbishop of Canterbury will hold their second gathering of religious leaders to consider the spiritual content of the Millennium celebrations,...

Can the truth heal South Africa? ... one country's bold -- and controversial -- bid to come to terms with its past.
February 1, 1997... One Saturday six years ago, James Barton was gravely injured, with 42 other people, in a bomb blast near a Pretoria taxi rank. The taxi rank is used mainly by black commuters to the city. Barton, in race-divided South Africa, is a...

Why Poland needs her Jews: the Jewish community in Poland almost died out after World War II.
February 1, 1997... Some 30 years ago a 16-year-old boy was walking up the Wawel Hill in Krakow, an ancient city in Poland. There the royal castle and a cathedral have stood for the last 800 years. He decided to go along the river near the castle to see other...

Rickshaws in Oxford.
February 1, 1997... Ride a rickshaw around Oxford? Erica Steinhauer smiles gleefully. `Oxford is the quintessence of civilization. The words "rickshaw" and "Oxford" don't usually go together in people's minds.' A trip to India with her daughter over 12 years...

New limbs, new lives.
February 1, 1997... Thirteen-year-old Samnang Yem acts like any other young boy his age. He studies at school, plays volley-ball with his friends and helps his mother at home. Yet one year ago, none of this would have been possible because Yem's leg had been blown...

Free-wheeling Ukrainians.
February 1, 1997... Twenty years ago, at the age of 17, Jaroslaw Hrybalskiy broke his spine in an accidental fall which paralyzed his legs. In the former Soviet states, the handicapped were not of interest. Thus, as an inhabitant of Lviv, a city of 800,000 in the...

Hallmarks of leadership: the Yorkshire city of Sheffield has had a Master Cutler since 1624 ...
February 1, 1997... Sheffield's Master Cutler, Richard Field, is keen to dispel any notion that the city's renowned steel and cutlery industries are in decline. Sheffield, where stainless steel was invented, makes more steel now than it did at the height of World...

Farmers `sow seeds of hope' in Minnesota (International Farmers Dialogue).
February 1, 1997... Harland Anderson, a Minnesota farmer and author of the 1995 US `freedom to farm' law, generated a lively debate when he spoke at an International Farmers' Dialogue in Minneapolis, last November. He said that American farmers wanted full...

Call for business to give `moral lead' (Institute of Business Ethics).
February 1, 1997... The UK's Institute of Business Ethics made a strong plea in November for business to give a moral lead to society, and for more companies to have written codes of ethical conduct. IBE was marking its 10th anniversary with a breakfast in...

His Holiness: John Paul II and the hidden history of our time.
February 1, 1997... His Holiness by Carl Bernstein and Marco Politi Doubleday, [pounds sterling]20.00 This was always going to be one of the most fascinating stories of the 20th Century. When the conclave of cardinals decided in October 1978 to elect the...

End of time.
February 1, 1997... The End of Time by Damian Thompson Sinclair Stevenson [pounds sterling]16.99 Some say it will happen in 1999, some say 2012. A whole church in South Korea confidently expected it in 1992. Some couldn't wait and anticipated it by taking...

Can Romania rediscover its self-belief? Seven years after the collapse of the Iron Curtain, Romania at last has a truly democratic government.
February 1, 1997... Emil Constantinescu's election to the Romanian presidency last November ended the seven years of stagnation that followed Nicolae Ceausescu's overthrow in 1989. The so-called revolution of 1989 had no teeth, because it failed to remove the...

Healthier hospitals: ... (Romania) is getting to grips with one of its most pressing pollution problems.
February 1, 1997... Romania's new rulers face huge challenges, not least on the environmental front. Both the communist past and today's lack of resources have undermined drinking water supplies and exacerbated industrial pollution. Most cars are old and poorly...

From atheism to faith.
February 1, 1997... Russian poet and novelist Zinaida Mirkina's parents were dedicated Communists even before Lenin's 1917 revolution brought that party to power. She says she can trace several early incidents that led her along an unexpected path from atheism to...

Rise up and walk: no one gets through life without scars.
February 1, 1997... We are all life's casualties, to a greater or lesser degree. Some of the scratches we bear are self-inflicted; others are caused by third parties or by external circumstances. Sometimes we recall these hurts very clearly; at other times we only...

Magic worms.
February 1, 1997... The city may not be the easiest place to be green, but all the more important for that. So I greeted with modest enthusiasm my city council's offer of a wormery--large if I had a garden, `junior' if I lived in a flat. It would `naturally...

Long-distance sprinter.
February 1, 1997... Gus Envela Jr is on the fast track--though he may not be sure where it is leading him. The 29-year old citizen of Los Angeles has represented his country, Equatorial Guinea, in four summer Olympics, had featured roles in several movies,...

Should Cambodians forgive?
February 1, 1997... Last year the Cambodian government offered an amnesty to Ieng Sary, the leader of a faction of the Khmer Rouge. The issue raised great controversy. We reprint an abridged version of an article in the `Phnom Penh Post' by the director of...