New Internationalist articles from July 2004

New Internationalist archives from July 2004

From this month's editor.(Editorial)
July 1, 2004... Neither I nor Ian Nixon, the designer of this issue, smoke. We know little first hand of its avowed satisfactions--or the agonies of trying to quit. But does not have to do it to know it? We have witnessed the distressing addictions of...

Trotskyist storm.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
July 1, 2004... 1 Give us some hard evidence of genocide, exploitation or the like, but to target 'the Trots' (Worldbeaters, NI 367) for being good at getting their numbers out and selling papers... It is hardly surprising that they lack a sense of...

No same sex marriage yet.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
July 1, 2004... I would like to highlight one error that I noticed in Eduardo Galeano's otherwise excellent article 'Rainbow Warriors' (View from the South, NI 367). No version of legal marriage exists of same sex couples in Britain. Legislation to that effect...

Fine line.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
July 1, 2004... Sometimes there is a fine line between hard-hitting political caricature and caricature as a means of political propaganda in the tradition of the Nazis' rag Der Sturmer. In his hateful depiction of the Jew in Big Bad World (NI 367) Polyp...

Stolen words.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
July 1, 2004... I'm pleased to see there's been criticism of your use of 'libertarian' to describe the ideology of neo-capitalism (Letters, NI 366, 367). The word was actually coined by the 19th century Anarchist movement--at the time the leading variety of...

What the world needs.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
July 1, 2004... Re: West goes East: Life after Communism, NI 366. The ruling class of the USSR operated with a form of state capitalism, where the economy was geared towards the accumulation of capital under state control. This is neither socialism nor...

Look beyond GDP.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
July 1, 2004... I agree with you that in many (but certainly not all) countries in Eastern Europe, the standard of living has deteriorated ('The Facts', NI 366). Nevertheless, you often use Gross Domestic Product growth figures to back up this argument. GDP...

Beastly beauty.(Letter from Lebanon)
July 1, 2004... I've always felt the pressure and admit to cringing under society's critical eye. In fashion-conscious Beirut, women are expected to look, well, almost perfect. And I--in my jeans, shirt and comfortable shoes--just didn't fit in. 'How do...

Highlighting the work of photographers from the majority world.(Southern Exposure)(Interview)
July 1, 2004... Carlos Reyes-Manzo was born in Chile and has been a photojournalist since 1964. In 1974, during the Pinochet regime, he was imprisoned, then sent into exile in Panama. In 1979 he was kidnapped by the Chilean secret police and, during the flight...

Sonia Gandhi's country.(View from the South)
July 1, 2004... RECENTLY Sonia Gandhi, Italian by birth, Indian by marriage and citizenship, made history. First, she led the Indian Congress Party to a surprise victory in the recent elections, defeating the rightwing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and proving...

The bilateral bypass: the worst features of multilateral trade agreements creep through the back door.(Globalization)
July 1, 2004... A web of bilateral free trade and investment agreements--deals between two individual nations--is spreading quietly and quickly across the planet, with provisions that often go far beyond existing World Trade Organization (WTO) rules. Even...

Grave concerns--Aboriginal deaths in custody.(Currents)
July 1, 2004... For a moment, even the West Australian State Coroner, Evelyn Vicker, was helpless. Just after she handed her report of the inquiry into the death of Donald Keen to the family--murmuring 'I am sorry'--she left the courthouse with tears in her...

Big Brother online: world developments in security surveillance of internet users.(Media)
July 1, 2004... THE internet was supposed to revolutionize the world of news: to allow everyone--Chinese and Cubans included--to access independent information, to exchange news and to escape state control. A new report by Reporters Without Borders questions...

East Timor's medical dump.(Media)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... 'I have a huge number of oxygen cylinders but I don't have any other equipment to go with them. That means the cylinders are unusable.' This is how Scottish anaesthesiologist Dr Alan Thomson diagnoses his working conditions at the Oecussi...

Pollution/masturbate.(Word Corner)
July 1, 2004... The earliest meaning of pollution (early 1300s) was the discharge of semen without sexual intercourse. Masturbate (the earlier English word was mastuprate) is from the Latin manus stuprare (defile with the hand). The modern meaning of...

Social justice for sale: transnationals attempt hijack of world social forums' political space.(Corporate Co-option)
July 1, 2004... EMEGING from the specially built El Maresme/Forum metro station in Barcelona, the signs for the 'Universal Forum of Cultures--Barcelona 2004' point towards a mass of unfinished high-rise buildings. In the midst of this tangle of would-be hotels...

The world's most dangerous password?(Seriously ...)
July 1, 2004... Most of us have seen or read one of those edgy Cold-War thrillers where some psychotic General decides that launching nuclear war seems a sensible idea. Remember all those failsafe measures they had to bypass and those tense showdowns with some...

At least the bullets are getting smarter.(Seriously ...)
July 1, 2004... According to the New Scientist, researchers in Florida have developed a 'smart bullet' which can be fired at a target and then wirelessly transmit back information about its travels. US arms manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, is planning to develop...

Welcome to the Matrix, Neo!(Seriously ...)
July 1, 2004... AP reports that the US has recently launched a new initiative to combat terrorism--enter the 'Matrix' (Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange). The Matrix, incorporates a database of information on hundreds of thousands of individuals...

Smoke gets in your eyes: smoking is a no-brainer, right? Everyone knows it's a bad thing--it's just a matter of education and will power. Not quite. Dinyar Godrej examines the dark side of a deadly industry determined to stay alive.(Keynote)
July 1, 2004... IT began with hurriedly scribbled notes on scraps of paper, shoved into his shoe and smuggled out. The documents Merrell Williams was reading both intrigued and infuriated him--and he knew the information was potentially explosive. Then he got...

Body blow.
July 1, 2004... 'A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure,' said Oscar Wilde. 'It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want?' But tobacco's dissatisfactions are more than psychological--here's what it does to...

No cash in this crop: Kenya's tobacco farmers have been harvesting losses for far too long, says Joe Asila.(Kenya)
July 1, 2004... JANE CHACHA, 46, looks at the large green plants growing luxuriantly on her one-hectare farm and shakes her head in anger. She's still waiting for the riches she was assured would accompany growing tobacco. Ten years after being convinced...

Carve up: tobacco companies are riding a wave in Malaysia, buoyed by social acceptance and mixed messages from the Government. Mary Assunta reports.(Malaysia)
July 1, 2004... 'WHAT would you do if your father or older brother asked you to buy him cigarettes?' NV Subbarow, a rural education officer with the Consumers Association of Penang (CAP), watches a group of nervous pre-teens as they whisper and grimace. Shy...

Big mouth.
July 1, 2004... Path-breaking litigation in the mid-1990s in the US forced big tobacco corporations to unveil secret company documents. Addiction The companies publicly denied that their product was addictive. But in-house the story was quite...

The facts: tobacco is the deadliest consumer product, ill drugs included. It causes an estimated 4.2 million premature deaths a year.
July 1, 2004... USERS * About a third of all adults in the world use tobacco. * Almost one billion of these are men--35% of all men in rich countries and 50% in the Majority World. * Social taboos and limited finances mean fewer women smoke,...

Lost in transit: billions of exported cigarettes go missing each year--to re-emerge in smugglers' hands. Duncan Campbell on a trade that has big tobacco's blessing.(Smuggling)
July 1, 2004... DURING the 1990s, tobacco trade specialist Luk Joossens did some simple homework for the World Health Organization (WHO). The agency was concerned about the explosion of cigarette exports to the South. WHO wanted the lowdown on this deliberate...

Between a rock and a hard place: taking on the tobacco companies in the lawcourts is no picnic, as Dinyar Godrej explains.(Litigation)
July 1, 2004... IN 1992 a group of 52 British pensioners united by common misfortune decided to take on Gallaher and Imperial Tobacco in the law courts. Their misfortune was lung cancer contracted after a lifetime of smoking and their tale was about to become...

Pushing & peddling: David Simpson and Stan Shatenstein survey the dubious means employed by tobacco companies to get their message across.
July 1, 2004... Cigarette advertising is ubiquitous--even in countries whose politicians thought they had banned it. To keep people smoking, and especially to get children and adolescents to start, the tobacco industry must emit a constant barrage of...

Battling the BATmen: the global tobacco industry has fought tooth-and-nail a new international agreement to curb the spread of smoking--to no avail. Bob Burton documents the companies' bullying campaign and the eventual success of little guys who took them on.(Regulation)
July 1, 2004... IT wasn't often that Martin Broughton, Chair of the London-based British American Tobacco (BAT) corporation, received good news. But he was thrilled when he was informed that Mike Moore, recently appointed Director General of the World Trade...

Kick the habit.(Action)
July 1, 2004... The most effective measures to control tobacco are: * banning all promotional activity * restricting smoking in shared public spaces * continual public health education * high taxes * support for quitters ...

Worldbeaters ...: taking aim at the rich and powerful.
July 1, 2004... SAM HUNTINGTON is a 'big ideas' kind of guy. From his lofty perch in the Political Science Department of Harvard University he wields influence that helps shape the political ideas of the US policy elite and intelligentsia. He was a key figure...

Special--new African writing.(Book Review)
July 1, 2004... The Shadow of Imana: Travels in the Heart of Rwanda by Veronique Tadjo translated by Veronique Wakerley (Heinemann African Writers Series ISBN 0 435 91015 9) Mema by Daniel Mengara (Heinemann African Writers Series ISBN 0 435 90923 1) ...

The Corporation.(Movie Review)
July 1, 2004... The Corporation directed by Mark Achbar, Jennifer Abbott and Joel Bakan This blockbuster doc from a team including Mark Achbar--who gave us Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent--takes apart the modern corporation and finds therein a psychopathic...

Undercurrents News Network.(Video Recording Review)
July 1, 2004... Undercurrents News Network produced by Paul O'Connor and Zoe Broughton (available on VHS and DVD) The alternative video news magazine is back after a five-year break--and sizzling with cheeky radicalism. The logo says it all: UNN...

Aiwa.(Sound Recording Review)
July 1, 2004... Aiwa by Aiwa (Wikkid WKDCD 100 CD) While France in recent years has proved a crucible for boiling up some amazing sounds from the collision of Arabic, African and DJ cultures, there have been few bands that have really pushed the envelope....

Trampin'.(Sound Recording Review)
July 1, 2004... Trampin' by Patti Smith (Columbia 5152152 CD) 'Oh my land,' sings/drawls/declaims Patti Smith within bars of the start of Trampin', 'what be troubling you?' The answer? Plenty. Smith is categoric in her castigation of the Iraqi war abroad...

Interview with Wangari Maathai.(Making Waves)(Interview)
July 1, 2004... IT'S a bright morning in Nairobi, and Wangari Maathai, founder of the Green Belt Movement (GBM), long-time campaigner for the environment, civil and women's rights and newly minted government minister, is annoyed. Her mobile phone, work papers...

In greed we trust.(Essay)
July 1, 2004... CHINESE philosopher Lao Tzu wrote 2,500 years ago: 'There is no calamity greater than lavish desires, no greater guilt than discontentment and no greater disaster than greed.' If he's right, we've concocted a mighty sick world for ourselves....

Colombia.(Country Profile)
July 1, 2004... IN late April, troops from the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC)--the country's largest paramilitary group--entered a Wayuu village in the northeast. By the time they left, 12 people had been killed and 30 more 'disappeared'. A...