New Internationalist articles from December 2002

New Internationalist archives from December 2002

Success stories.(Brief Article)(Editorial)
December 1, 2002... HOPE can be a powerful tool for change. Surprising then that after 20 years of activism, I only made this discovery in March this year. It was at the Brisbane Social Forum in Australia, On a hot Saturday morning all colours and voices within...

Letters.
December 1, 2002... 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...

A legacy of learning: Reem Haddad's neighbour has wrought magic out of personal tragedy. (Letter From Lebanon).
December 1, 2002... SHE'S my neighbour and yet I never took the time to hear her story. I had heard a lot about the Danish woman and admired her. It was difficult not to admire Anni Kanafani, a foreigner who decided to live through Lebanon's vicious 16-year civil...

Southern exposure: highlighting the work of photographers from the majority world.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... This photograph of Farid Miah in the arms of his wife Nowshin Akhtar in front of their house in Mirpur, Dhaka, was taken in 1998. It is from one of my ongoing projects, Freedom Fighters: Veterans of the Bangladesh Liberation War 1971. One of...

Windows 10: the have nots. (View From the South).
December 1, 2002... Birth The public hospital in the fanciest neighbourhood of Rio de Janeiro received a thousand patients every day. Nearly all were poor or very poor. In the fall of 1993 a doctor on call remembered: 'Last week, I had to choose between...

Guns among the olives: Palestinian farmers find surprising allies when attacked by Israeli settlers. (Israel/Palestine).
December 1, 2002... HAD they been here at sunset on the last Saturday in October, most Israelis would not have believed their eyes. In the middle of Havarah, a small village south of Nablus deep inside Palestinian territory in the West Bank, 63 Israelis--men and...

Uzbek billiards ban. (Currents).(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... The Uzbekistan Government appears to be distancing itself from a national ban on billiards clubs that has infuriated and baffled players. Although police and tax-service officers have closed dawn the Uzbekistan Billiards Federation, the Uzbek...

Copying corporate behaviour. (Currents).(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... As NGOs struggled for binding international rules to make corporations socially and economically accountable at this year's World Summit on Sustainable Development, yet another story was unfolding to illustrate why such rules are needed. US...

Bank dictatorship. (Currents).(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... The latest Human Development Report from the United Nations focuses on democracy--or the lack of it--around the world. It turns the spotlight not just on governments but on international institutions, pointing to the crisis of public confidence...

Silent killers still stalk: UN apathy over lethal asbestos dust. (East Timor).
December 1, 2002... I FIRST became aware of the terrible legacy of asbestos when my grandfather contracted mesothelioma--a fatal form of cancer--from inhaling a few tiny, virtually unseen asbestos fibres that lodged in his lung. While it takes many years for the...

Tea. (Word Corner).(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... Tea, introduced into Europe from China in the early 1600s, is made from the leaves and buds of the Camellia sinensis. The Mandarin Chinese for tea is ch'a, which survives in English as char. The word tea itself is from the Amoy Chinese dialect...

Can't say no: how the US got their UN resolution on Iraq. (War on Iraq).
December 1, 2002... November's unanimous vote in the UN Security Council supporting the US resolution on weapons inspections in Iraq was obtained through considerable political and diplomatic pressure applied in various capitals. Besides its five...

Righteous testosterone. (Seriously).
December 1, 2002... Amidst news from the US that the Christian right are the biggest backers of a war with Iraq, Seriously thought it was time to take a look at the other opinions of this devout bunch. Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue which mobilizes...

Get it right! (Introduction).(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... THIS month's NI is devoted to people and organizations who are no longer prepared to sit on the sidelines of life. The stories in these pages are about those who get up, go out and grab hold of the problems that confront them and their...

If the clothes fit, wear them: Argentine workers have found a much better way of taking control of their factories than going on strike... going to work. Ivan Briscoe describes a revolution in the making. (Get it Right!).
December 1, 2002... Argentine workers have found a much better way of taking control of their factories than going on strike... going to work. Ivan Briscoe describes a revolution in the making. As recession slashes through Buenos Aires' textile district, one...

How children saved the river: as the rest of China 'develops at all costs', rivers and people take priority in Chengdu's urban plan. Ma Guihua finds out how. (Get it Right!).
December 1, 2002... OLD houses often hold fond memories. That is why people can become nostalgic about the places where they've spent their childhood or the prime of their life. But not 79-year-old Xiang Zhiming, a retired hardware dealer, He no longer gives much...

Brave steps toward peace. (Step Forward Bravely).
December 1, 2002... Scoring goals in Burundi 'I was in the middle,' recalls Adrien Tuyaga. 'Each side wanted I me to join them and-participate in the violence. I thought I would be killing my mother if I joined the Hutus and betraying my father if I joined...

Islands of hope in hydrogen: clean hydrogen energy is just around the corner... if governments have the guts to take on the oil barons. (Get it Right!).
December 1, 2002... THE tiny South Pacific island of Vanuatu has big ideas about its energy destiny. The economically depressed and climatically vulnerable island, which spends nearly as much money on petroleum-based products as it receives from all of its...

Car-free Bogota. (Internationalist News).(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... IN ITS OCTOBER 2000 referendum the majority of voters in the Colombian capital of Bogota said they wanted all cars off the streets between 6.00 am and 9.00 am and between 4:30 pm and 7:30 pm every weekday from January 2015 onwards....

Earthships are taking off. (Internationalist News).(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... HOUSES LIKE THIS ONE (above) are made from recycled material: outer walls are made of tyres rammed with earth and inner walls built using cans, bottles and cement. They are called 'earthships'. According to the Low Carbon Network, Britain...

Solar bridge for peace-building. (Internationalist News).(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... PEACE IS BEING FORGED through joint environmental activism by bringing solar energy to four villages in Palestine, Israel, Jordan and Egypt. Arab-Ka'abneh (West Bank, Palestine) is the first of these village: in March 1999 it received...

Gender awareness boards Montreal's buses. (Internationalist News).(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... THE CITY'S 'BETWEEN TWO STOPS' service reduces women's fear of violence by allowing women to get off the bus at night between two stops at a place closer to their destination. More information: http://www.bestpractices.org

Brazil's doctors of happiness. (Internationalist News).(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... WORKING ONE-ON-ONE with chronically ill children, their parents and healthcare professionals, these 'doctors of delight' help ease the stress of illness by injecting laughter into hospital life. Over 250,000 children have been visited in 9...

Organic farming in city streets. (Internationalist News).(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... CHRISTCHURCH, AOTEAROA/NEW ZEALAND--The world's first organic city--plants colourful arrays of vegetables and herbs in its city flower beds. The city actively promotes an environment free from pesticides, herbicides and genetic engineering,...

Ugandan women on the internet. (Internationalist News).(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... THE INTERNET'S OFFER of libraries of material in English, Chinese and Spanish isn't much use to people living in rural Africa. Now, with just the click of a mouse, a CD-rom program being piloted (see left) in Nakaseke, 50 miles north of the...

Sisters are tapping it for themselves: what has gender got to do with keeping water clean and safe in rural Malawi? Everything, as Raphael Tenthani discovered. (Get it Right!).
December 1, 2002... UPILE Ajibu walks gracefully to her mud-and-thatch hut balancing a tin pail of water on her head. This is the fifth the 33-year-old mother of four has drawn today. 'We normally use only two pails but I keep the others just in case,' she says....

Daring democracy: few local authorities would risk giving citizens control over municipal budgets. But that's what's happening in Brazil--with remarkable results. (Get it Right!).
December 1, 2002... BRAZIL is usually cited in the Western press for its formidable economic problems, spiralling urban violence and dramatic environmental destruction. But it should be getting international recognition for something equally noteworthy--its...

Profit from principle: Katy Salmon goes to East Africa's largest indigenous coastal forest to find out what converted Kenyan farmers from forest vandalism to environmental activism. (Get it Right!).
December 1, 2002... THE subsistence farmers complained that the forest brought nothing but suffering. At night animals came out from behind the trees and destroyed the farmers' cassava, maize and cashew nut crops. 'Elephants can eat and trample all your crops in...

What makes the stars shine? Nicholas You on what works -- and why. (Get it Right!).
December 1, 2002... I STARTED working in developing countries as an architect and planner early in the 1970s. The urban projects that I came across were massive. So was the wasted opportunity. Many of these projects copied a Western model of urban environment and...

An activist's guide to pitching a good news story.
December 1, 2002... JUST before I started preparing for this magazine, I met an activist from Kenya who was colourful, insightful and doing wonderful things in his community. Together with an Australian aid worker, we talked for two hours. Afterwards, the aid...

Shintaro Ishihara. (World Beaters).
December 1, 2002... SHINTARO Ishihara is the best-known maverick of Japanese politics. In a world of bland consensus and carefully controlled speech the 70-year-old Ishihara continues proudly to speak his mind. Let's hope that what he says doesn't represent a...

Specialist in All Styles. (Mixed Media).(Sound Recording Review)
December 1, 2002... by Orchestra Baobab (World Circuit WCD 064 CD) There aren't any realty good explanations as to why Senegal's Orchestra Baobab disappeared for 15 years but there are plenty of reasons to welcome back Dakar's finest. Specialist in All...

Liberte. (Mixed Media).(Sound Recording Review)
December 1, 2002... by Kad Achouri (Stern's Music STCD4001 CD) The way that music may change the world, suggests Kad Achouri, is not through assault but by more gentle methods. To this end, Achouri--now resident in London after leaving France--has come up...

Domicide: The Global Destruction of Home. (Mixed Media).(Book Review)
December 1, 2002... by J Douglas Porteous and Sandra E Smith (McGill-Queen's ISBN 0 7735 2258 1) A sense of place, the authors do well to remind us, is integral to human well-being. 'Familiar objects, structures and environments nurture the self, support the...

Abouna. (Mixed Media).(Movie Review)
December 1, 2002... directed by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun Set in Chad, Abouna--which translates as 'Our Father'--is a small-scale study of two children searching for their father. Tahir and his little brother Amine get up one morning to discover their father is...

The Long Way Back. (Mixed Media).(Book Review)
December 1, 2002... by Fuad al-Takarli (The American University in Cairo Press ISBN 977 424 6462) This fine, complex novel from one of Iraq's most accomplished and subtle writers was first published in Arabic in 1980 and its publication in an English...

Bacardi: The Hidden War. (Mixed Media).(Book Review)
December 1, 2002... by Hernando Calvo Ospina translated by Stephen Wilkinson and Alasdair Holden (Pluto ISBN 07453 1873 8) Bacardi is one of the most instantly recognizable brands in the world; think of rum and the ubiquitous 'bat' symbol pops up...

Making waves.
December 1, 2002... Interview with Raul Gatica Katharine Ainger 'PESSIMISM,' says Raul Gatica, 'is something I buried along with my umbilical cord.' Raul's small, stocky frame contains a humourful and expansive optimist. As an indigenous Mexican...

Night of the gas. (Essay).(1984 pesticide accident in Bhopal, India)
December 1, 2002... It's 18 years since the world's worst industrial accident at a transnational corporation's pesticide plant in Bhopal, India--but the poor are being poisoned by it to this day. Meanwhile the Indian Government is sitting on funds intended for...

Mauritius. (Country Profile).
December 1, 2002... GIVEN his ferociously radical inclinations, the writer Mark Twain has probably turned a few times in his grave to see himself widely quoted in travel brochures as saying: 'You gather that Mauritius was made first, and then heaven, and that...