New Internationalist articles from January 2006

New Internationalist archives from January 2006

Squatter town.(Bangkok slum)(Editorial)
January 1, 2006... 'That sounds really depressing'--was the almost universal response when I told people I was going to spend time in the slums of Bangkok to research this issue. Yet that's not what I found or how I felt. True, there were people with big problems...

Welcome to squatter town: Richard Swift takes the measure of our urban future.(Squatter Town: INTRODUCTION)
January 1, 2006... Here lies hope--or, at least, a sense of new beginnings. Makeshift housing that pops up wherever there is uncontested space. It is now a central feature of the urban landscape. As life based on survival agriculture--so much a feature of the...

At the top of the hill: Gabriela Torres Barbosa lives in one of Rio de Janeiro's many favelas that stretch up the steep hillsides to surround the 'official' city.(BRAZIL)
January 1, 2006... I am really not feeling too well these days. My brain doesn't stop thinking. It seems like I am going crazy. I live in several Brazils at the same time. I wake up, drink English tea and sit down to study for a degree that I could never pay...

Words on the street: from a globesquatters' phrasebook.(Squatter Town: LANGUAGE)
January 1, 2006... From the favelas of Sao Paulo to the mudukku of Colombo, those without property or income survive by building a home wherever they can--often defying the law in the process. Maybe it's in a vacant lot, the yard of an abandoned factory or on top...

Architects of our futures: Robert Neuwirth's two years in squatter communities left him with an abiding admiration.(Squatter Town: COMMUNITIES)
January 1, 2006... The women of Vikas Sagar still live in one-storey huts hacked into the steep hillside above Mahim Bay. They still worry about floods and landslides. They are still concerned about having enough money to make ends meet. But today their homes are...

The lease on life: Richard Swift breaks bread with the resilient squatters of Bangkok.(Squatter Town: THAILAND)
January 1, 2006... Sumon Charoensai sits in a crowded little shop in Klong Toey--Bangkok's largest slum--where he invents foul-smelling natural cleanser for the festering pollution in the city's many klongs (canals). From here, he also fixes computers, sells his...

Africa.(The unreported year 2005)
January 1, 2006... WESTERN SAHARA (Right) This year marked the 30th anniversary of Morocco's annexation of Western Sahara. For those 30 years more than half the population of Africa's last colony have been languishing in refugee camps in one of the bleakest...

East Asia & Pacific.(The unreported year 2005)
January 1, 2006... THE PHILIPPINES (Right) A miner waits anxiously for his colleagues at the entrance to a gold mine in the isolated village of Mount Diwata in the south of the country. A tunnel collapse killed 12 and cut off hundreds of others. Mining...

Latin America & Caribbean.(The unreported year 2005)
January 1, 2006... AMAZON (Top left) Manuel Tavares Silva sits in his boat by a sand bar exposed by the receding Solimoes River, one of the largest tributaries of the Amazon, near the city of Manaquiri in Brazil. During October the worst drought in more than...

North America & Europe.(The unreported year 2005)
January 1, 2006... BRITAIN (Right) In the village of Gonzaga, Brazil, the grieving parents of Jean Charles de Menezes hold up photographs of their son. He was shot seven times in the head and once in the shoulder at close range by London's Metropolitan...

South Asia.(The unreported year 2005)
January 1, 2006... KASHMIR (Right) A girl holds a biscuit as she awaits treatment outside an emergency medical centre in Muzafarabad, capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Fatalities from the earthquake on 8 October are expected to reach over 100,000....

East Europe & Central Asia.(The unreported year 2005)
January 1, 2006... KAZAKHSTAN (Right) Republican guards vote in the capital, Astrana, during the presidential election on 4 December. President Nursultan Nazarbayev won re-election with an improbable 91 per cent of the vote. The opposition claimed there had...

Middle East.(The unreported year 2005)
January 1, 2006... ISRAEL/PALESTINE (Right) Graffiti on the 'separation fence' in East Jerusalem. Despite the removal of Israeli settlements from the Gaza Strip, the wall has grown as a focus for unrest--and for the little-reported peace movement. In April...

Snapshots from shantytown: the people of Bangkok who fight for space and a way of life in the face of top-down planning and skyrocketing real estate.
January 1, 2006... I owe my soul to the company store Put Hi Pong works on a casual basis for the Bangkok Port Authority. He also lives on Authority land in Klong Toey. This makes the Authority both his boss and his landlord. But in October this past...

A tsunami of demolitions: while the Zimbabwe Government may be using bulldozers to flatten the homes of its opponents, Andrew Meldrum discovers that mass evictions are a problem right across Africa.(ZIMBABWE)
January 1, 2006... 'Our tsunami'. That's how Zimbabweans refer to the sweeping housing demolitions that President Robert Mugabe's Government unleashed on poor city dwellers in May last year. Waves of police and army descended on townships in the capital, Harare,...

Urban explosion--the FACTS.
January 1, 2006... For the first time in human history most of us live in cities: many in desperate conditions. The NI takes the measure of urban growth and poverty. The UN Millennium Development Goals aim to improve the living conditions of 100 million...

Squatter citizens; To much of the rest of the world, slumdwellers are 'other': criminals, lazy, usurpers, dangerous, parasites, addicts, drunks--the list is endless. But the vitality and energy needed to survive here are not for the faint-of-heart. NI puts a face to those who are making a difference in squatter towns around the world.
January 1, 2006... MUMBAI, INDIA Sugandhi: 'As soon as my life became better, I wanted to do something to help other women.' As you turn into the narrow lane leading to Sugandhi's house in Kaju Tekdi, Bhandup--an old industrial suburb of Mumbai--it's...

Action.(non-governmental organizations)
January 1, 2006... ORGANIZATIONS Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions An excellent NGO with offices around the world and numerous excellent publications. COHRE's main focus is to expose and fight forced evictions and to advocate for 'housing rights for...

Reconstructing peace: rising tensions threaten both the ceasefire and tsunami reconstruction.(Sri Lanka)
January 1, 2006... TSUNAMI-AFFECTED communities in Sri Lanka are being hit again. A year after the disaster that killed 31,000 Sri Lankans, most of the $3 billion in aid donated specifically for tsunami reconstruction lies unused in banks. One of the problems has...

Speechmarks.(war)(Brief article)
January 1, 2006... All war must be just the killing of strangers against whom you feel no personal animosity; strangers whom, in other circumstances, you would help if you found them in trouble, and who would help you if you needed it. Mark Twain/Sam Clemens...

Forgotten massacre: the Ayatollah's hidden legacy.(Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini )
January 1, 2006... EVERY Friday, families gather on a derelict plot next to the cemetery of religious minorities in the district of Khavaran, in south-east Tehran. They call it 'the rose garden of Khavaran'--for a rose, in a culture where it is often safer to use...

Pop tobacco control.(Uganda)(Brief article)
January 1, 2006... I hate the foul smell of your kiss It leaves a bad smell on your clothes It's killing you and it's killing us We have to stop! The time is now To ratify the Framework Convention On Tobacco Control These are the words from the pop...

Big bad world.(Currents)(Cartoon)
January 1, 2006... Polyp [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Renewables take off.(renewable energy, Global Status Report )(Brief article)
January 1, 2006... Global investment in renewable energy set a new record of $30 billion in 2004. Technologies such as wind, solar, biomass, geothermal and small hydro now provide 160 gigawatts of electricity-generating capacity, about four per cent of the world...

Behind the victory: US troops build up in Latin America as another progressive government is elected.(Bolivia)
January 1, 2006... IN a landslide victory just before Christmas last year, Evo Morales was elected President of Bolivia. He has pledged to nationalize the country's gas reserves, legalize coca leaf production for traditional use, rewrite the constitution with the...

Climate talks nearly derailed by Spam.(Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative, Climate Action Network )(Brief article)
January 1, 2006... Activist Nia Robinson and fellow members from the Youth Committee of the US-based Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative (EJCC) were a little perplexed when they were 'escorted' out of a US delegation side-event at the UN climate...

Bob Geldof.(Worldbeaters.)(Biography)
January 1, 2006... Job: Venture capitalist, media entrepreneur, strolling pop ministrel Reputation: Saint Bob the Gob, shabby but irresistible saviour of Africa Robert Frederick Zenon Geldof was born in 1951 near Dublin in Ireland. Educated at Blackrock...

Interview with Aram Aharonian director general of teleSUR.(Making Waves)(Interview)
January 1, 2006... When South Americans turned on their TVs in November last year, they suddenly found one more channel. Televisora del Sur--more commonly known as teleSUR--is one of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's latest projects. With the aim of providing a...

Prohibited items.(airport checks)
January 1, 2006... On the night of the Day of the Dead in November 2005, Helena Villagra and I had to pass through Miami airport on our way back to Uruguay. We had just been in Honduras, El Salvador and Mexico. Before we flew out of Mexico our four bags were...

The best of 2005.(music, books, movies)
January 1, 2006... Music Yasmin Levy's La Juderia (Connecting Cultures, NI 380) was not only an important (and scholarly) marker of Jewish diasporic music, it was also beautifully performed, the Israeli singer teasing more nuances than you thought possible...

Songs of the Volcano.(Sound recording review)
January 1, 2006... Songs of the Volcano by Papua New Guinea Stringbands with Bob Brozman (Riverboat TUGCD 1040CD) Under the shadow of the Tavurvur volcano of East New Britain in Papua New Guinea, a remarkable project has been taking shape in the form of...

LDA v The Lunatics.(Sound recording review)
January 1, 2006... LDA v The Lunatics by Los De Abajo (EMI/Real World CDRW 134 CD) 'Those From Below'--as the name of this Mexico City band suggests--have been wreaking musical havoc on both domestic and international airwaves since their debut album...

Brokeback Mountain.(Movie review)
January 1, 2006... Brokeback Mountain directed by Ang Lee Bang bang, the boys fight it out--often for the hand of a pretty lady, or to protect her fair charms. Cowboy films had love interest, but rarely convincing love or romance. That was the stuff of...

Head-On / Crossing the Bridge.(Video recording review)
January 1, 2006... Head-On / Crossing the Bridge directed by Fatih Akin Sibel wants freedom, not least sexual freedom. But how? Her father would kill her. Or disown her, and cut her off from her mum. So she concocts a marriage of convenience with Cahit,...

Patterns of Protest: Politics and Social Movements in Bolivia.(Deadly Consequences: The International Monetary Fund and Bolivia's 'Black February')(Brief article)(Book review)
January 1, 2006... Patterns of Protest: Politics and Social Movements in Bolivia by John Crabtree (Latin America Bureau ISBN 1899365 710) Deadly Consequences: The International Monetary Fund and Bolivia's 'Black February' by Jim Shultz (The Democracy...

Witness to AIDS.(Brief article)(Book review)
January 1, 2006... Witness to AIDS by Edwin Cameron (IB Tauris ISBN 1 84511 119 2) At least as many people have died of AIDS as perished in the Black Death of the 14th century. The UN agency UNAIDS estimates that there are more than 42 million people...

2 Girls.(Brief article)(Book review)
January 1, 2006... 2 Girls by Perihan Magden (Serpent's Tail ISBN 1 85242 899 6) Teenage angst in Istanbul. At first glance Perihan Magden's novel seems to be about little more than the pent-up frustrations and inner turmoil of a pair of young women who...

Empire Left & Right: the most ancient form of human domination just won't go away and historians and philosophers of every political stripe have joined battle over its meaning. Richard Swift acts as referee.
January 1, 2006... It seems hard to credit all the talk of Empire. Not so long ago one would have been forgiven for believing colonial history to be a mildly interesting area of academic study, good mostly for the nostalgia of Colonel Blimps or the arcane...

Sordid traditions.(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2006... Horatio Morpurgo's Essay 'The North Caspian--what am I bid?' (NI 384) exposed the totally amoral 'devil or the deep blue sea' nature of the choice faced by so many countries of the former Soviet Union. It basically equates to acceptance of...

Bourgeois blues.(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2006... Reem Haddad in her recent Letter. from Lebanon (NI 384) expects your internationalist readers to sympathize with her because there are fewer shopkeepers in the neighbourhood who would escort her to her residence, carrying her grocery or holding...

Opposing Nazis.(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2006... Re: Pope Benedict being in the Hitler Youth. Mr Kloss (Letters, NI 384) says Hitler Youth membership was enforced (in his case, as in others) by 'edicts from Gauleiter through to the school class teacher'. According to the Fontana History...

Cup that cheers.(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2006... I read with dismay the article by David Ransom (see NI website) on Nestle being awarded a Fairtrade mark for one of their brands of coffee. A reason to be cheerful one might think, finally getting one of the major brands to change in some small...

Greenpeace.(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2006... I wonder how Sharon Beder formed the opinions she expressed in your otherwise excellent edition on BINGOs (NI 383). 'Gone are the days when environmentalists laid down their bodies in front of the bulldozers to save the environment from...

Muscling in.(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2006... Having spent the last two years working for a local NGO in Papua New Guinea I can verify the hard feeling caused by some BINGOs (NI 383) operating in poorer countries. Aside from their secretive, shady dealings with corporations and...

Daily injustice.(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2006... Thank you for highlighting casteism (Combating Caste, NI 380). For more than 2,500 years Dalits (untouchables) have suffered under casteism. Even when India was celebrating its Independence Day in August 2005, houses of Dalits in Gohana (just...

Morocco out!(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2006... 2005 saw the 30th anniversary of the invasion of Western Sahara by troops from Morocco and Mauritania, a tragedy largely forgotten by the wider world [see The Unreported Year supplement with this magazine]. Since 1975 more than half the...

Wider horizon.(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2006... Thank you so much for widening my horizons with the Disability in the Majority World issue (NI 384). I have cerebral palsy and wrote to you previously about the relative silence in this area. Reading the issue was difficult--the statistics are...

In hope of justice.(Letter from Lebanon)
January 1, 2006... I WANT justice. I want to know who killed Rafik Hariri. I want to know who planned it. I want to know why. Most of all, I want to see his murderers humiliated beyond their dreams and admitting their crime at an international tribunal. I...

Ecuador.(Country overview)
January 1, 2006... On a typical Sunday afternoon, Plaza de la Independencia, Quito's main square in the heart of the colonial quarter, is where families come to enjoy a pleasant stroll. Storytellers entertain crowds while indigenous women wearing elegant black...