New Internationalist articles from January 2009

New Internationalist archives from January 2009

'Is the economic crisis going to be the end of green?'.(Brief article)
January 1, 2009... New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has asked, provoking a furious debate online. I've been hearing such rumblings a lot lately. The financial meltdown has certainly eclipsed climate change as the crisis du jour: and if last month's UN...

Enough food.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2009... I've been a fan of the New Internationalist since its founding and was glad to see your coverage of the food and financial crises (Crisis! Crisis!, NI 418). In fact, it's because I so rely on the NI that I am deeply disturbed that you repeat a...

Listen first.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2009... Copies of Through Afghan eyes (NI 417) should be sent to the US and British Governments, to make sure that they read it. The most plausible action on the Afghan situation is first of all to listen to the population and the Taliban. In this...

Lucid Bello.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2009... Walden Bello's 'A meltdown primer' (Essay, NI 417) is the most lucid and informative article that I have read on the Credit Crunch over the past few months. It is particularly interesting for me as a Graduate in mainly Keynesian Economics. Most...

All's not fair.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2009... I read Anna Hutchens' Currents article on fair trade profiting women in Vanuatu (NI 417). The article highlights the hardship faced by many people throughout the world and the undeniable benefit fair trade offers. But having a fair trade system...

Cycling exception.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2009... How I envy the cyclists of Bogota ('Pedal power', NI 417)! If only we had been so forward looking. I live in a village of about 3,000 inhabitants, and am recognized as 'the lady on a bicycle' because choosing to cycle as a regular means of...

The credit crux.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2009... The vast coverage given by the mainstream media to the 'credit crunch' seems designed more to alarm or entertain than to inform. There is little analysis, for example, of whether the source of the problem is an increase in inequality over the...

Beyond belief.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2009... I read Brooks Duncan's article ('Year Zero on trial', NI 415) with disbelief. Brooks Duncan seems to suggest that as long as the aim is to return to some Garden-Of-Eden-past-that-never-was it is ok to kill your fellow man. Oh, wait, I forgot...

Gort & Klaatu's inter-galactic health & safety inspectorate.(ONLY PLANET)(Cartoon)
January 1, 2009... We MUST LEARN all we can about these HUMANS! [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] OK, Klaatu. You do the RESEARCH while I start the CULL! CULL??? Gort--NOOOO! [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Planet-trashing MANIACS! Gort-in THEIR...

Correction.(Correction notice)
January 1, 2009... The Making Waves article published in December 2008 implied that simulations battlefield trainer Major Tom Mouat was stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is, however, working in Britain.

No place like home: for those living 'informal' lives, a sense of belonging is as wide and as long as the Nile, as Maria Golia discovers.(Letter from Cairo)
January 1, 2009... An Egyptian friend of mine once described the rapport between Cairo, its people and Egypt, saying: 'The whole personality is interwoven... As a child I believed that if I laughed in the morning, the laughter would travel up and down the Nile...

Power politics: we have reached the first tipping point towards climate catastrophe--but are being offered a fistful of false solutions by the powers that be. Jess Worth looks to the growing climate justice movement for hope.
January 1, 2009... In the course of researching this magazine I've been charged at by riot police, had a meeting with a Minister and been interviewed on Newsnight, Britain's most prestigious TV current affairs programme. Why? Because 'climate justice' isn't just...

Four principles for climate justice.
January 1, 2009... CLIMATE CHANGE, caused by human activities, is threatening the lives and livelihoods of billions of people and the existence of millions of species. We need to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions dramatically, while at the same time raising...

Degrees of delusion: scientists are warning that two degrees of warming could be catastrophic. Yang Ailun from China and David Spratt from Australia explore why world politicians are setting their thresholds so much higher.(POLITICS)
January 1, 2009... David Spratt: I think the sad truth is that Western governments' view of the climate is largely delusional. They don't understand the evidence. And in many cases they don't understand that they don't understand. Many climate scientists say...

A million mutinies: the answers to the climate conundrum are obvious, claims Sunita Narain. You just need to look in the right place ...(SOUTHERN RESISTANCE)(Viewpoint essay)
January 1, 2009... British economist Nicholas Stern famously said that climate change is the greatest market failure the world has ever seen'. But still, leading economists and policymakers are looking for big answers in the same broken marketplace. Let us be...

Climate justice the facts: it's the poorest of the poor in the world, and this includes poor people even in prosperous societies, who are going to be the worst hit. (1).
January 1, 2009... CLIMATE CHANGE IS HAPPENING NOW * The decade of 1998-2007 was the warmest on record. The top 11 warmest years all occurred in the past 13 years. (2) * This warming is being caused by human activity, primarily the burning of fossil...

A timely death? Carbon trading is a charade that will do nothing to reduce global warming. could it be doomed by the financial meltdown, wonders Patrick Bond, or will Barack Obama help sustain it?(FALSE SOLUTIONS)(Viewpoint essay)
January 1, 2009... In the year leading to the Copenhagen Summit, preventing climate change may now finally get a proper global hearing--but not necessarily with useful outcomes. What could be a last ditch attempt to rely on markets to reduce greenhouse gas...

Leave it in the ground! To stop climate change we have to stop extracting and burning fossil fuels. NNIMMO BASSEY reports from Nigeria, where communities came to this conclusion a long time ago, whilst MEL EVANS is part of a new movement in Britain that's taking a direct approach.
January 1, 2009... Vultures do not need an invitation before they gather wherever carcasses are found. In my land, surging crude oil prices birthed inordinate dreams: of booming production and the accumulation of crude wealth among political elites with a...

System error.(Cartoon)
January 1, 2009... We must be the change we wish to see. That sounds So reasonable! [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] I'm sorting all this trash, but it's not working! Recycle harder, damn it! [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] We need to Stop in industrial...

Just or bust: can the Copenhagen talks deliver climate justice? Danny Chivers casts an eye over the options.(COUNTDOWN to Copenhagen)(Conference Of Parties)
January 1, 2009... The Same Boat Imagine 10 rabbits lost at sea, in a boat carved out of a giant carrot. The carrot is their only source of food, so they all keep nibbling at it. The boat is shrinking rapidly--but none of them wants to be the first to...

Homegrown energy: having rejected electricity privatization, 6,000 families in the south of Brazil now generate all their own renewable energy--and don't charge a cent. Lucia Ortiz tells their inspiring story, and explains why peak oil could be a blessing.(GRASSROOTS SOLUTIONS)
January 1, 2009... They live on the river that forms the border with Uruguay and Argentina--a river in Brazil full of dams already built and being planned, where conflicts over pulp and paper industries are common. The majority living in the upper part of this...

Africa.
January 1, 2009... JANUARY ZAMBIA With flood waters rising throughout southern Africa, aid agencies warn that up to 1.5 million people will be displaced in Zambia and tens of thousands of lives are at risk. TANZANIA A long-running dispute over a contract...

East Asia & Pacific.
January 1, 2009... JANUARY AUSTRALIA The Government makes a national apology to thousands of Aboriginal children--known as the 'stolen generation'--taken from their families and placed in institutions over the past 65 years. MALAYSIA By banning...

Latin America & Caribbean.
January 1, 2009... JANUARY CHILE Indigenous rights activist Patricia Troncoso, serving 10 years in prison, calls off her 111-day hunger strike--the longest in Chilean history--undertaken to draw attention to the plight of the Mapuche people. FEBRUARY...

North America & Europe.(current events)
January 1, 2009... JANUARY NORWAY Up to a quarter of Norway's public limited companies face closure for failing to increase the number of women on their boards, in line with a controversial law requiring a minimum of 37 per cent female representation. ...

South Asia.(current events)
January 1, 2009... JANUARY SRI LANKA The Government pulls out of a Norwegian-brokered ceasefire with the separatist rebel Tamil Tigers, ending a six-year 'window of opportunity' to resolve the conflict. FEBRUARY AFGHANISTAN Taliban insurgents attack...

East Europe & Central Asia.
January 1, 2009... JANUARY GEORGIA Mikhail Saakashvili wins a second term as President despite claims of vote-rigging and thousands demonstrating against the results. His party goes on to win the parliamentary elections in May. UZBEKISTAN Abolishing the...

Middle east.
January 1, 2009... JANUARY SYRIA The UNHCR announces that it is not safe for Iraqi refugees in Syria to return home. Although some 45,000 have already gone back, there are still an estimated one million in Syria, most of whom are not allowed to work legally....

Don't panic: take action! You can play your part in the global movement for climate justice getting involved in local and national campaigns wherever you are. Here are a few tips for taking effective climate action.(TAKE ACTION!)
January 1, 2009... Be ambitious The time for politely advocating incremental reform is past. In order to move rapidly to a zero-carbon society, we need to be demanding massive changes. ignore all accusations of hopeless idealism. Things that seem impossible...

A new, green, democratic deal; Walden Bello and Susan George foresee an economy of the people, by the people, for the people.(Financial crisis)(Interview)
January 1, 2009... Susan George: We are in the midst of simultaneous crises. We have the social crisis of increasing poverty and inequalities. We have the financial crisis. And we have the ecological crisis, which in my view is the most serious of all. These...

Meltdown South: so far, the 'credit crunch' and 'economic downturn' have been framed largely in terms of the Global North. But the Global South matters just as much, if not more. David Ransom sifts the evidence.(Financial crisis)
January 1, 2009... 'The best solution for the crisis not to spread is that rich countries resolve their problems,' suggested Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, President of Brazil, at the G20 meeting in Washington DC on 15 November 2008. 'For the first time,' he went on,...

Diamonds are for never: Sierra Leoneans lose their jewels and land to Swiss mining company.(CORPORATIONS)(Koidu Holdings)
January 1, 2009... Despite its flaws, the Hollywood blockbuster Blood Diamond introduced Western audiences to the role that diamonds played in fuelling Sierra Leone's brutal civil war. That war ended six years ago. But it remains uncertain whether Sierra Leoneans...

Remember, remember the fourth of November.(ANIMAL RIGHTS)(Brief article)
January 1, 2009... While everyone was talking about Obama's historic victory, animal rights campaigners in California had another reason to celebrate. As well as being election day, 4 November was the date of a ballot which saw voters in the Golden State...

Fall-out in Kazakhstan: radiation will continue to affect people living around disused test site.(NUCLEAR WEAPONS)
January 1, 2009... Kazakhstan's nuclear test zone, deserted and largely forgotten, will continue to be a health risk until the huge site is thoroughly cleaned up, say experts. Despite being closed down 17 years ago, academic researchers and pressure groups...

Big bad world.(Cartoon)
January 1, 2009... biG BaD WoRLD Polyp.org.uk [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Hugo's Bank: Chavez champions development bank for Latin America.(ECONOMICS)(Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's Banco Del Sur )
January 1, 2009... As North America slid into economic recession in September, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez met with fellow Latin American leaders 'Lula' da Silva, Evo Morales and Rafael Correa to discuss his Banco Del Sur (Bank of the South). Advocated by...

Healthcare crippled.(AFRICA)(Brief article)
January 1, 2009... The shortage of trained health professionals throughout Africa has become so acute that millions of people will never see a doctor in their lifetime--not even to certify their death. The 15% Now Campaign is pushing African governments to commit...

True tales of a mixed-up world.(Seriously ...[TM])
January 1, 2009... Sock and Awe And so we say a fond farewell to George W Bush, fount of so many absurdities and idiocies that Seriously might wonder how it will survive without him. But at least we can all go out with a bang by emulating the example of the...

Highlighting the work of artists and photographers from the Majority World.(Southern Exposure)(Brief article)
January 1, 2009... For many indigenous groups, such as the Kayapo, painting the body is a means of expression, a method of communication. It can say who you are or what you are doing. It is ritualistic, but it also conveys a social message. It can, for example,...

Worldbeaters: taking aim at the rich and powerful.(Mikheil Saakashvili)
January 1, 2009... The fate of Georgia's Rose Revolution and its charismatic leader Mikheil Saakashvili (known affectionately as Misha) is a classic case of the hangover following the intoxication of power. Saakashvili, a lawyer with a degree from Columbia Law...

Interview: with Jeff Halper.(Making Waves)(Interview)
January 1, 2009... Recently arrested for the nth time for protesting against Israel's oppression of Palestinians, the veteran activist talks about his role in breaking the blockade of Gaza. But the believes some joint initiatives between Israelis and Palestinians...

NI jumbo prize crossword 138 by AXE.
January 1, 2009... Win a Special Map Set--laminated Peters' Map, Peters' Atlas, Seeing Through Maps plus DVD... All correct solutions received by 15th February will be put into a draw--though only the winner will be notified. Post to: NI Crossword, 55 Rectory...

Music.(The Best of 2008)(folk music)(Sound recording review)(Brief article)
January 1, 2009... There was much to praise in 2008's music releases. The re-emergence of Sainkho is always to be cherished and, guesting on Huun-Huur-Tu's Mother-Earth! Father-Sky (Jaro, NI 419), both she and her Tuvan compatriots were in fine fettle. Hector...

Books.(The Best of 2008)(Brief article)(Book review)
January 1, 2009... From A to X: A Story in Letters (Verso, NI 416) showed John Berger as passionate as ever. This heartrending love story was a searing indictment of authoritarianism in all its forms and a beautiful, poetic hymn to the human spirit. The Rebels'...

Films.(The Best of 2008)(foreign movies)(Movie review)(Brief article)
January 1, 2009... As always, there have been very fine films about the world we live in. Linha de Passe (Walter Salas and Daniela Thomas, NI 416) melded the real and fictional to show a family's struggle to survive in Sao Paolo. With a light touch, and moments...

Film.(Mixed Media)('Che')(Movie review)(Brief article)
January 1, 2009... Che-Part 1 (126 mins) Che-Part 2 (127 mins) directed by Steven Soderbergh He's the most chic of revolutionaries and popularized a style of beard, which he sported with long hair and a beret. We get over four hours of the iconic...

Mother-Earth! Father-Sky!(Mixed Media)(Sound recording review)(Brief article)
January 1, 2009... by Huun-Huur-Tu featuring Sainkho (Jaro 4281-2 CD) This quartet of Tuvan throat-singers and musicians make music which is entwined with everyday life on the Steppes. Sporting the ethereal sounds of the doshpuluur lute, the two-stringed igil...

Equatoria.(Mixed Media)(Brief article)(Book review)
January 1, 2009... by Tom Dreyer translated by Michiel Heyns (Aflame Books, ISBN 9781906300012) Tom Dreyer's novel concerns a 1912 expedition to the Belgian Congo by two British explorers, Willis Reed and Guy Nichols. They have been commissioned by...

The White Tiger.(Mixed Media)(Brief article)(Book review)
January 1, 2009... by Aravind Adiga (Atlantic Books, ISBN 9781843547204) Top of the swaying piles of books that pedestrian street-hawkers navigate through Mumbai's traffic jams is Adiga's controversial first novel. Apart from winning the prestigious Man...

The Other.(Mixed Media)(Brief article)(Book review)
January 1, 2009... by Ryzard Kapuscinski (Verso, ISBN 9781844673285) There are probably few better placed to examine 'the Other' than the wandering Polish journalist Ryzard Kapuscinski. After all, until his death in 2007, he spent decades excavating the...

Waitless.(Mixed Media)(Sound recording review)(Brief article)
January 1, 2009... by Empty Boat (Poo Productions, PPLCD 002 CD) The opening sounds of rainfall, the cascades of timbales from 'Agua Pura' (Clean Water) or even a glimpse at the record label's name should give the listener a hint of the direction that the 15...

Concrete dreams: the urbanization of India is in full swing. But, argues Jeremy Seabrook, it relies on an imaginery latitude below the poverty line, a Tropic of indigence, where people 'dwell' rather than 'reside'-and revenge is displacing redress.(Viewpoint essay)
January 1, 2009... In June 2008 India's Finance Minister, P Chidambaram, offered his hallucinatory vision of a poverty-free India, 'an India where a vast majority, something like 85 per cent, will eventually live in cities'. He related this inspirational image to...

Belarus.(Country Profile)(Country overview)
January 1, 2009... In Belarus 40 per cent of the land is still forested, and the wilder areas are still home to wolves, elk, wild pigs, bears and lynx--the Belavezhskaja Pusha nature reserve is Europe's largest stretch of primeval forest. The few intrepid...

At a glance.(Belarus)(Country overview)(Brief article)
January 1, 2009... Leader: President Alexander Grigoryevich Lukashenko. Economy: GNI per capita $3,380 (Russia $5,780, Germany $36,620). Monetary unit: Belarusian Rouble. Main exports: Machinery, vehicles and parts, mineral products, chemicals,...

Star ratings.(Belarus)(Brief article)
January 1, 2009... INCOME DISTRIBUTION FAIR Wages rose recently but about 30% of people live under the poverty line. Many of these, however, live mainly on their own produce outside the monetary system. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] 1994 POOR LIFE...