New Internationalist articles from April 2005

New Internationalist archives from April 2005

Dying for a drink? For millions of people across Africa and Asia taking a sip of water could be lethal. But when you're thirsty and the only water you can find is riddled with disease and contaminated with bacteria there's no choice.(Advertisement Feature)(Advertisement)
April 1, 2005... Everyone wants to have safe water to drink and wash in. But over a billion people in the world have no safe water to drink and every 15 seconds a child dies from diseases linked to unsafe water. For us, living in a country where constant...

From this month's editor.(Editorial)
April 1, 2005... I wake up feeling thankful. It's a good feeling but it's descended unannounced. And I can't seem to shake it off. It's been a privilege to meet some of the children featured on these pages in person. They were so generous with their trust...

Abortion and understanding.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
April 1, 2005... I agree with Daniel Bampton (Letters, State of Fear, NI 376) that abortion is part of a wider issue of social inequality and I don't feel that to be anti-abortion is to be 'anti-woman'. He talks about abortion as though it exacerbates problems...

Clout at the UN.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
April 1, 2005... Reforming the UN (The UN at 60, NI 375) could actually begin in one country. There is an opportunity for the UK to use its permanent seat (hard to justify as it stands) in a truly powerful way by placing it at the disposal of the...

Token elections.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
April 1, 2005... I read with interest The Unreported Year 2004 (NI 375). In your 'Middle East' section for March you correctly noted that the Saudi Shura council announced women would be allowed to vote in municipal elections. However, you did not note that...

Creationism.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
April 1, 2005... 1 Re Andrew Foster's letter (NI 375), in which he expresses disapproval of the tone adopted in a Seriously column concerning the promotion of creationist theories in the US. I can appreciate his concern about allowing people to express...

US occupation.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
April 1, 2005... I wish to support George Richards (Letters, NI 375) in his call for an article on the US conquest of the Philippines in 1899. During the Spanish-American War of the late 19th century, US forces helped the Filipinos to conquer the forces of...

Thoughtful summary.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
April 1, 2005... We would like to express our thanks for Judeophobia (NI 372)--an excellent and thoughtful summary. The issue was very timely and needed: we also appreciate that this was a brave publication given recent trends in the overt and covert expression...

Nuclear dumps.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
April 1, 2005... For 30 years the British Government had the sensible policy of never allowing their green and pleasant land to become a dumping ground for the nuclear rubbish of other countries. Here, in South Australia, we know that feeling. Our...

Correction.(Correction Notice)
April 1, 2005... In the world map included with the UN issue (NI 375) we inadvertently omitted Lebanon. We deeply regret the error.

Motherland: a rude shock awaits Reem Haddad in a government office.(Letter from Lebanon)
April 1, 2005... I stared at the woman in frustration. 'But I am Lebanese,' I said. 'I was born in Lebanon and raised in Lebanon. My daughter was born in Lebanon and is being raised in Lebanon. I don't understand.' The woman nodded sympathetically. The...

The waves that woke the world.(CURRENTS SPECIAL REPORT)
April 1, 2005... WHEN the Asian tsunami struck on 26 December 2004 nearly every country on the globe sprung to assist. The people of the world led the way with personal donations totalling nearly $1.8 billion to help rebuild the homes and communities washed...

El Salvador: Romero remembered; 25th anniversary of martyred Archbishop.(CURRENTS)(Oscar Arnulfo Romero)(Obituary)
April 1, 2005... THE bearded assassin hunched down in the back of a dust-streaked red Volkswagen waiting for a clear shot. Inside San Salvador's Hospital de la Divina Providencia, Oscar Romero, the diminutive Archbishop of El Salvador, was celebrating mass in...

NI editorial comment: United Nations of America?(CURRENTS)(Editorial)
April 1, 2005... You could be forgiven for having missed the announcement by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in January that the next Executive Director of UNICEF is to be Ann Veneman, until recently US President George W Bush's Agriculture Secretary. But it...

An invitation to read between the lines.(INTRODUCTION)
April 1, 2005... IT hadn't gone well for 12-year-old Jack. He'd spent a whole morning trying to tell us about his life on the street. But it came out as a bit of a jumble. Later, when the conversation had been transcribed, it turned out that what he had...

Dolgion: 'life is given only once'.(Street children)
April 1, 2005... Dolgion, 14, lives in a sewage pit on the fringes of Mongolia's capital, Ulaanbaatar. The air is hot and fetid, with much of the space taken up by two large heating pipes. An all-engulfing stench of rotting garbage and human waste issues from a...

Fish heads & faith.(photos taken by homeless children)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... Snapshots from the streets--these are just four images plucked from 15,000 photos taken by homeless children. They're the fruit of the Home/Life project set up by Dutch charity Homeless World Foundation which brings together the creativity of...

Tanya: 'it's better to die of AIDS than hunger'.(Street children)
April 1, 2005... Tanya, 14, sometimes sits so still it seems that she's in another world. Her frame is slight and fragile. But in her tattered black T-shirt and faded denim skirt, she appears worldly wise. She describes what she does to stay afloat in...

Ricardo: 'the only thing I hate in the world is the police'.(Street children)
April 1, 2005... Ricardo's scarred hands are always busy--wiping the faces of smaller children, opening doors for others, picking up dropped items and returning them. He is desperately trying to give to others that which he has never had on Montevideo's...

Street children: the facts.
April 1, 2005... Who are these children? The usual image is of young homeless people who live and work on the streets. But it is better to think of street children in terms of their relationship to the street. Some come from street families. Others live...

Nicole: 'I'm out here for a reason; I'm not regretting it any more'.(Street children)
April 1, 2005... Nicole turned 18 panhandling on Toronto's streets. Leaving home meant hard knocks and hunger at first, but she is determined to pull through. ********** I grew up in a small town. My mom and dad split up when my sister was just a...

Rukshana: 'it's easy to fall in love, but very difficult to endure it'.(Street children)
April 1, 2005... Rukshana's life is full of movement. She zips through Mumbai's suburbs working wherever she can. At 15, she is her 11-year-old sister Deepa's sole carer. When she first agreed to talk with us, Deepa had gone missing, leaving Rukshana frantic:...

Lean-Joy: 'I shouldn't lose hope because it won't be forever'.(Street children)
April 1, 2005... No-one would guess that Lean-Joy (17)--neatly dressed and ever-smiling--lives on the streets. But on the outer fringe of Metro Manila's choking urban sprawl, renting a house is prohibitively expensive. When we meet her, Lean-Joy is minding two...

On the NI website: Jessa.(Street children)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... 'The pimp was very kind to us. At first I didn't know she was a pimp. She let us stay in a room to sleep, eat, take a bath. All the children in her room--plenty of girls there--they use marijuana, speed, drugs like that. So even if you don't,...

Jack: 'the kind of life I want'.(Street children)
April 1, 2005... Jack is 12 but looks 9--he is tiny and lean. He had to leave his mother (whom he loves dearly) and six siblings to try and earn his keep. He was drowsy from lack of sleep due to round-up operations in his area the previous night. Suffering from...

So you want to help?(ACTION)(poor children)
April 1, 2005... 1 Join the dots Realize that the unequal global economic system is crushing the poor. The cash worth of 'marginal' people keeps dropping. As it does so, their very lives get devalued. Children are often forced on to the streets by family...

Highlighting the work of photographers from the Majority World.(SOUTHERN EXPOSURE)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... I took this photo on World Women's Day, 8 March 2004. It shows survivors of acid attacks. Such attacks are still made against women who are accused of violating social codes. Here they are staging an 'awareness drama'. Amra aar eka noi ('We Are...

The Edukators.(MIXED MEDIA)(Movie Review)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... The Edukators written and directed by Hans Weingartner Peter and Jan break into wealthy people's homes. They're very professional about it, and well prepared. They case out the places, research and disable alarm systems, use the proper...

From Croydon to Cuba ... An Anthology.(MIXED MEDIA)(Brief Article)(Sound Recording Review)
April 1, 2005... From Croydon to Cuba... An Anthology by Kirsty MacColl (EMI KMBOX1 3CD) While it's still uncertain as to who it was that killed Kirsty MacColl in that speedboat strike in Mexico, what is beyond dispute is that Britain lost one of its...

Ear & Eye: Encounters with World Music.(MIXED MEDIA)(Brief Article)(Book Review)(Sound Recording Review)
April 1, 2005... Ear & Eye: Encounters with World Music edited by Christoph Wagner (Edition Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik/Schott International ISBN 3 7957 0482 0 CD/book) A book, a CD, and the culmination of what German journalist Christoph Wagner...

Extinction.(MIXED MEDIA)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
April 1, 2005... Extinction by Ray Hammond (Macmillan, ISBN 0 333 90726 4) Ray Hammond's sharp, futuristic eco-disaster novel has been given a grim, unwelcome topicality by the horrific devastation inflicted on vast swathes of Asia by the Boxing Day...

Iraq, Inc: A Profitable Occupation.(MIXED MEDIA)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
April 1, 2005... Iraq, Inc: A Profitable Occupation by Pratap Chatterjee (Seven Stories Press, ISBN 1 583222 667 2) Amidst the carnage and chaos that is post-invasion Iraq, one area of the economy is booming; that of the private 'contractors' hired to...

Present/Tense: Poets in the World.(MIXED MEDIA)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
April 1, 2005... Present/Tense: Poets in the World edited by Mark Pawlak (Hanging Loose Press ISBN 1-931 236 39 9) This sharp, passionate and eloquent collection of contemporary political poetry is best left to speak for itself. Here's one example: ...

Big bad world.
April 1, 2005... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Interview with Rana Husseini.(making waves)
April 1, 2005... WHEN Rana Husseini joined the staff of The Jordan Times as a young female reporter in 1993, 'honour' killings were a dirty secret. No-one spoke of the cruelty that surrounded such deaths. No one wrote about the Jordanian women whose lives were...

Fair trade for sale: David Ransom thinks not.(ESSAY)
April 1, 2005... The fair trade movement has grown a good deal faster and further than some of us anticipated, and for at least two reasons. The first is the global justice movement, which has given the international trading system a critical presence in the...

Burma.(COUNTRY PROFILE)
April 1, 2005... BURMA'S people have a rich variety of traditional costumes, corresponding to their dozens of ethnic groups, but their plainer costumes are red and green. Red is the colour for the robes of around 400,000 monks, many of whom file through the...