New Internationalist articles from April 2003

New Internationalist archives from April 2003

From this month's editor.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... I DON'T want to hear any more of that dreary, self-serving litany from the business press and from our political masters. 'Sorry, there's no more money. We simply can't afford to fund the education/healthcare/social- welfare...

Letters.
April 1, 2003... The New Internationalist welcomes your Letters But please keep them short. They may be edited for purposes of space or clarity. Letters should be sent to letters@newint.org or to your local NI office. Please remember to include a town and...

Heart's desire: pregnant with her first child, Reem Haddad seethes at her well-wishers. (Letter from Lebanon).
April 1, 2003... I stood there waiting for the pronouncement which would inevitably come. I put on what I thought was an expressionless face. I was tired of arguing. And, as usual, it came: 'If God is willing, it will be a groom' -- the Lebanese way of wishing...

Southern exposure: highlighting the work of photographers from the majority world.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... This man from Azad Kashmir, like most impoverished people afflicted by leprosy, was unaware that the disease was curable. Many ears elapsed before he somehow heard about the Adelheid Leprosy Centre (MALC) and was able to come to Karachi to seek...

Nigeria's sharia furore. (View from the South).
April 1, 2003... WHEN the Governor of Nigeria's Zamfara State, Sani Yerima, announced in 1999 that his state would adopt the sharia legal system it was a political masterstroke. Yerima's announcement instantly connected him with the deeply religious Muslim...

Let them drink Coke! Fizzy drinks company drains wells in South India. (India).
April 1, 2003... Coca-Cola unleashes its fizzy drinks on the world and invites us to 'Enjoy'. But Veloor Swaminathan and around 200 people of his tribe wince when they hear that slogan. They believe that the Coca-Cola India manufacturing and bottling plant in...

Surgery under way on Cuban healthcare. (Currents).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... The complete health coverage provided to all Cubans free of charge has sharply deteriorated in quality. This Caribbean island nation has one doctor for every 167 inhabitants compared to one per 358 in the United States, one per 437 in...

Trading credibility: accreditation scheme for 'good' mines meets with community distrust. (Mining).
April 1, 2003... IN mid-January this year the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) unveiled a project to certify mines deemed as 'good' performers. The project involves some of the world's most controversial mining companies. Following a trial in Australia, WWF...

Slavery haunts Elizabeth II. (Currents).(Rastafari Brethren of Jamaica seek slavery reparations from Queen Elizabeth II)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... The movement for reparations from countries engaged in the African slave trade is building up a head of steam. Last October more than 500 delegates meeting in Barbados created the Pan African Movement, which voted to launch lawsuits this year...

Ostracize. (Word Corner).(origin of the word)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... On an archaeological dig the most common finds are bones, pottery and oyster shells. Etymologically speaking, all three finds are related. The ancient Greeks held elections to decide if someone was an undesirable citizen. Votes were written...

Globocops unleashed: mass deployment of US troops all over the world. (Military).
April 1, 2003... WHILE the world's eyes are on the hundreds of thousands of US troops in the Gulf region, their deployment in other global hotspots on a scale not seen since World War Two has gone unnoticed. Perhaps it was a coincidence, but in the last...

Seriously ... you couldn't make this stuff up. (Currents).
April 1, 2003... The Kissinger files US satirist Tom Lehrer famously declared in 1973 that when Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize, 'at that moment satire died'. Last September George Bush, demonstrating a highly developed sense of humour,...

The great privatization grab. (Privatizing: Keynote).
April 1, 2003... The worldwide sale of public assets to private interests is larceny on a grand scale, argues WAYNE ELLWOOD. It's time to stop the privateers and revive the notion of the public good. THE Niagara Parkway begins quietly at the southern edge...

I shop, therefore I am. (Privatization: Narcissism).
April 1, 2003... Has the narcissism of the market destroyed our sense of collective identity? Psychiatrist Trevor Turner argues that a preoccupation with self has spawned a new syndrome: malignant self-actualization. THERE is something mad about the modern...

The 'B' word. (Privatization: Bureaucracy).
April 1, 2003... Bureaucracy drives us all crazy. But does that mean selling the family silver to the highest bidder? David Hall suggests a recipe for making the public sector work. WHEN public services go wrong everyone notices. In some countries it means...

Privatization.
April 1, 2003... The last two decades have seen a sea change in the provision of public services across the Western world and more recently, thanks to structural adjustment, across the Majority World too. The private ownership of public assets are at the core...

Bad medicine. (Privatization: Healthcare).
April 1, 2003... It's death by a thousand cuts: privatization is slowly killing the British National Health Service. Allyson Pollock argues that the basic principles of the NHS are worth protecting. SINCE its birth in 1948 Britain's National Health Service...

The weapons.
April 1, 2003... THOSE folks at the World Trade Organization--what will they think of next? First it was the Multilateral Agreement on Investment. Now it's the General Agreement on Trade in Services. GATS is a permission slip for transnational corporations to...

The new apartheid: South Africa's trade unions loudly oppose the Government's sell-off of basic services. But the ANC isn't listening, warns Patrick Bond.
April 1, 2003... THERE has always been a rift between the ruling African National Congress (ANC) and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) on privatization. But it deepened substantially in January when the Government decided to sell the state...

Power splurge: cronyism is alive and well and living in the Philippines. Maitet Diokno-Pascual looks at how privatized electricity has taken consumers for a ride.
April 1, 2003... IN May 2001 Philippines President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo signed into law the Electricity Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA). President Arroyo promised to bring down electricity rates by breaking up the state-owned National Power Corporation....

Crime pays: well, it does if you run the prison. Amanda George describes the opposition to profitable punishment in Australia.
April 1, 2003... IT'S ironic that Australia--colonized 200 years ago to serve as one big British prison--is now a showroom for the world's private prison corporations: giants like Securicor, Group 4 Falck (formerly Wackenhut) and the Corrections Corporation of...

No pain, all gain: Mark Engler sheds some light on the murky world of export credit agencies.
April 1, 2003... BIG companies are happy to collect profits in newly privatized markets but they prefer the public to cover the risks: political instability and popular resistance. Remarkably, pliant governments are happy to oblige. One of their favorite tools...

Bankbusters: the boycott of World Bank bonds is spreading, writes Mihail Dafydd Evans.
April 1, 2003... CAN a bank change? Not without public pressure, say supporters of the World Bank Bonds Boycott. For many countries in the Majority World the Bank is a key source of new funds to support their fragile economies--as well as one of the most...

Norse crossroads: a nationwide movement to defend the welfare state is taking off in Norway, reports Asbjorn Wahl.
April 1, 2003... IN 1999 six Norwegian trade unions formed For Velferdsstaten (For the Welfare State), an alliance to combat 'the destructive policies of neo-liberalism, including privatization and deregulation'. Members included municipal employees, teachers,...

The big picture. (Privatization a Resource Guide).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Neo-liberalism or Democracy? Economic strategy. markets and alternatives for the 21st century, Arthur MacEwan, Zed Books, London, 2000. A dense, detailed but worthwhile introduction to the workings of the global economy and the democratic...

And on the WTO's general agreement on trade in services. (Privatization a Resource Guide).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Facing the facts: A guide to the GATS debates, Scott Sinclair and Jim Grieshaber-Otto, 2002 And GATS: How the WTO's new service negotiations threaten democracy, Scott Sinclair, Sept 2000. Comprehensive, careful research on the WTO's secretive...

Also recommended. (Privatization a Resource Guide).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Public Services International Research Unit, University of Greenwich, Park Row Greenwich, London SE10 9LS. A treasure trove of research and analysis on privatization, public services and globalization, backed by Public Services International...

World beaters: taking aim at the rich and powerful.
April 1, 2003... CHINA these days seems to be opting for the cult of 'nonpersonality'. How else to explain the ascendancy of the colourless 59-year-old Hu Jintao to the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party? Hu is the first General Secretary to start his...

Nastaran. (Mixed Media).(Ensemble Kaboul's CD reviewed)(Sound Recording Review)
April 1, 2003... by Ensemble Kaboul (Ethnomad ARN 64543 CD) The record that the Taliban wanted to ban? In a way, yes, which is one good reason that Khaled Arman and his extraordinary Ensemble Kaboul are based in Geneva. From there they recreate the...

Ararat. (Mixed Media).(Atom Egoyan's film reviewed)(Movie Review)
April 1, 2003... Directed by Atom Egoyan In this unusual film director Atom Egoyan tells the much-neglected story of the Armenian genocide (1915-17) by paying as much attention to the multi-generational effects of this holocaust as to the event itself. Set...

Au Cabaret Sauvage. (Mixed Media).(new album reviewed)(Sound Recording Review)
April 1, 2003... by Lo'Jo (Emma EM12 CD) Not so much a band as a tribe. That's the way. Lo'Jo--a collective that's included circus performers, poets and filmmakers--see themselves. It's an identification that goes with the love of movement and freedom m,...

Russian Ark. (Mixed Media).(review of film shot in St. Petersburg's Hermitage art museum)(Movie Review)
April 1, 2003... Directed by Alexander Sokurov This is an awesome achievement. The entire film is a roving unbroken 90-minute take of the choreographed movement of thousands of actors around St Petersburg's Hermitage art museum--once the Winter Palace,...

Home and Exile. (Mixed Media).(book by Nigerian writer is reviewed)(Book Review)
April 1, 2003... by Chinua Achebe (Canongate, ISBN 841953857) Now that the world's only superpower has resurrected brazen land-grab imperialism, a searching examination of colonialism from the perspective of the colonized is nothing if not timely. In Home...

Fences and Windows. (Mixed Media).(review of book on globalization )(Book Review)
April 1, 2003... Dispatches From the Front Lines of the Globalization Debate by Naomi Klein (Flamingo, ISBN 0007 150474) Three years after the pitched battles of Seattle's WTO conference and the well-timed publication of No Logo--the international...

Husband and Wife. (Mixed Media).(Book Review)
April 1, 2003... by Zeruya Shalev translated from the Hebrew by Dalya Bilu (Canongate, ISBN 184195 285 0) Zeruya Shalev's novel opens in dramatic fashion. Udi Newman, a fit and healthy Israeli tour guide wakes one morning and announces that he can no...

Making waves: interview with Myint Myint Wai.(political prisoner interviewed)(Interview)
April 1, 2003... SHE woke up strapped to a bed. There were sick and pregnant women lying everywhere around her: some sharing the 20 narrow beds that the 'hospital' provided, many others lying naked on the floor. This was a maternity ward with a difference: an...

How to be reconciled with an oil-spill. (Essay).
April 1, 2003... A tanker goes aground; oil devastates the coast; photographers swarm for a few days. And then? Horatio Morpurgo writes from the devastated coastline of Galicia, scene of the latest in a long line of such disasters, and meditates on our...

Bahamas. (Country Profile).
April 1, 2003... JUST a few hundred metres offshore from Nassau, capital of the Bahamas, stands one of the world's busiest tourist resorts. Hotels, a golf course, casinos and even a reconstructed medieval French cloister are incongruously scattered on its 277...