New Internationalist articles from July 2008

New Internationalist archives from July 2008

Viva Yasuni!(Editorial)
July 1, 2008... It was Sam Martingell, one of our street campaigners, who sowed the seed for this issue. He knew two young people who were desperate to communicate the wonders of Ecuador's Yasuni rainforest, with a view to saving it and the cultures of its...

Managed nukes.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2008... I am all for nuclear disarmament (Dropping the bomb, Nl 412) and think that the renewal of the Trident system is evil and preposterous. However, I cannot completely ignore (even if I don't agree with it), the point of view that in an uncertain...

Humanitarian response.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2008... Congratulations for the brilliant reportage on Burma (NI 411). Dinyar Godrej's story "A shrunken world' identifies that Burmese who have fled human rights abuses in Burma for the safety of a neighbouring country 'survive on the worst jobs...

Timely intervention.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2008... Congratulations for following your instincts and 'remaining convinced that the NI could look deeper than news values....' The timely arrival of the May issue (NI 411), just a couple days after the cyclone in Burma, has been welcomed with...

The devil and the deep blue sea.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2008... Don't buy petrol from Chevron or Total, we are urged, because of their support for the regime in Burma (NI 411), and I would in principle agree with this. I already boycott Esso and Shell. I try to keep my private car use to a minimum anyway,...

The crucified.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2008... Kudos for Terry Eagleton's Special Feature ('Was Jesus Christ a revolutionary? ', NI 411). My theory has a complementary and equally ambiguous result when looking at the four accounts of the crucifixion, the only major story in all four...

Propellers and jets.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2008... Your correspondent Mike Slinn points out (Letters, NI 411) that the aviation industry claims to have reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 70 per cent in the last 40 years, and that we need to encourage further reductions. Both statements are...

Get real.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2008... It seems very clear to me that the plight of indigenous peoples (I will return, NI 410) around the globe can only be remedied by people taking on the big companies so intent on destroying Brazil's rainforests. People need to see beyond the...

Offensive bucks.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2008... A small oversight in your Special Feature 'The people vs Starbucks'-an indigenous people that Starbucks has taken offence to. The Haida owners of a coffee house on the northern coast of British Columbia, Canada, are being sued for copyright...

Refusenik resources.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2008... Boyd Reimer suggests that the first human right should have been 'The right to refuse to kill, or participate in war' (Letters, NI 410). It was not, but we cannot just sit back and accept this as a fait accompli. We need to continue to push the...

A hold-up at the bank.(Letter from Cairo)(Personal account)
July 1, 2008... Until recently, there were two things you never talked about in Egypt: time and money. While it was permissible to discuss things like eternity, you wouldn't dream of announcing the hour you had to wake up or the appointment you had in the...

Endgame in the Amazon; A remote corner of Amazonian rainforest has become a repository of environmental expectations--and fears. Vanessa Baird explains why the eyes of the world need to be trained on it.(KEYNOTE)
July 1, 2008... Yasuni--is this the way beyond petroleum? There's an attractive simplicity to the Ecuadorian leader's proposal. Rafael Correa has said that his government is prepared not to extract nearly a billion barrels of oil from Yasuni National...

Speak to us first! What do locals think of the Ecuadorian Government's proposal to keep the oil in the ground? Fabricio Guaman has been asking them.
July 1, 2008... As a representative of the indigenous movement-I represent 14 'nations,-my main goal is to reclaim and defend our human rights which have been trampled upon. The Yasuni-ITT proposal was born within the indigenous movement. We have been...

Toxic blocks; Following the trail of a little known environmental wipeout, David Ransom explores the terrible record and destructive potential of the oil business in Ecuador.(THE OIL BUSINESS)
July 1, 2008... Trash Yosemite! Contaminate the Lake District! Crush Uluru! Kill the Tiger! You don't hear this kind of thing every day of the week, but it's just what's being proposed (only worse) for the people and bio-reserve of the Yasuni National Park in...

A crude dilemma.
July 1, 2008... The price of oil is hovering at a record $135 a barrel and projections are that it may well rise steadily upwards of $150 by year end. Due to its central importance in so many industries, especially transport, the knock-on effects of high oil...

Costing the earth: as the deadline for gathering pledges for the Yasuni proposal to leave oil in the ground in return for financial compensation fast approaches, pressure is mounting to tap into the global carbon market. But at what cost, asks Adam Ma'anit?(CARBON MARKETS)(Essay)
July 1, 2008... Shortly after Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa's declaration of the Yasuni proposal, some of its official backers--such as the Clinton Global Initiative, the Wallace Global Fund, and the World Resources Institute--started making noises about...

To save Yasuni, the oil must stay in the ground.(ACTION!)(Yasuni National Park)
July 1, 2008... * SPREAD information about Yasuni. Tell political representatives, educational establishments, NGOs, or other groups you are involved with about it. Send a copy of this magazine or Yasuni Green Gold to them (see below for details). ...

From the garden of a woman once fallen: thyme.(As if poetry mattered)(Poem)(Brief article)
July 1, 2008... Woman alone, living in a tenement of enmity. One room of back-biting standpipe flowing strife. Recall one dry Sunday of no rice and peas no meat how you boiled a handful of fresh green thyme to carry the smell of Sunday as...

The Dance.(As if poetry mattered)(Poem)
July 1, 2008... In a field of cinders where Armenian life was still dying, a German woman, trying not to cry told me of the horror she witnessed: "This thing I'm telling you about, I saw with my own eyes. Behind my window of hell I clenched my...

Psalm.(As if poetry mattered)(Poem)(Brief article)
July 1, 2008... How leaky are all the borders we draw around our separate nations! How many clouds cross those boundaries daily, without even paying the toll! How much desert sand simply sifts from country to country, or how many mountain pebbles...

Cyclone survival: women in Orissa have developed the skills to tackle calamity head-on.(DISASTERS)(Orissa, India)
July 1, 2008... When Cyclone Nargis hit Burma on 2 May, the 112-knot winds knocked out power and communication lines and caused widespread destruction reminiscent of the catastrophic tropical cyclone that struck the Indian coastal state of Orissa in 1999. The...

Planktos wiped out.(OCEANS)(Brief article)
July 1, 2008... In January we reported that something fishy was going on with California-based corporation Planktos. The geo-engineering company was planning to release iron into the ocean in order to build up phytoplankton stocks--which would, they claimed,...

The language of elections ...(Word power)(Brief article)
July 1, 2008... ballot-box v. to hit someone so they vote for the right person manifesto n. (Italian) hyperbole MUGabe v. to steal an election recount v. to get a different result suffRAGE n. anger at the right of minority groups to vote

Starved by the system: corporations are making a killing from the world food crisis.(HUNGER)
July 1, 2008... The rising cost of food all over the world has taken households, governments and the media by storm. The price of wheat has gone up by 130 per cent in the last year. Rice doubled in price in Asia in the first three months of 2008 alone, hitting...

Inside China's prisons.(HUMAN RIGHTS)(Brief article)
July 1, 2008... Civil unrest is rising in China, particularly in rural areas where people are increasingly disgruntled because of corrupt or inefficient officials. More and more protesters are demanding freedom of speech and the right to be heard. But the...

A kick in the balls.(MILITARY BASES)(campaigners caught at New Zealand base)(Brief article)
July 1, 2008... Three campaigners were arrested in May for breaking into a military base at Waihopai, New Zealand/Aotearoa. The facility is officially a 'New Zealand intelligence gathering installation' but, according to pressure group Anti-Bases Campaign, it...

Court in the act: Bush's attempts to squash apartheid compensation lawsuit scuppered by judges' corporate ties.(CORPORATE ACCOUNTABILITY)
July 1, 2008... President Bush has failed to halt a $400 billion dollar lawsuit against BP, Barclays, Coca-Cola, Ford and many other transnational corporations, for their activities in South Africa during the apartheid years. The ambitious case was launched in...

Oz broadcaster goes the whole hog on eco guilt-tripping; True tales of a mixed-up world.(Seriously ...TM)(Australian Broadcasting Corporation)(Brief article)
July 1, 2008... For years, Australian intransigence towards the Kyoto Protocol and its foot-dragging on domestic greenhouse gas reduction commitments has been the subject of derision by the international community. But the drought and flood-ravaged country may...

Worldbeaters; Taking aim at the rich and powerful.
July 1, 2008... John McCain has set himself a pretty hard task. It will not be easy to get elected as the next Republican President of the US following the crimes and incompetence of George Bush. But the former 'war hero' turned rightwing 'truth teller' just...

Killer of sheep.(Mixed Media)(Movie review)(Brief article)
July 1, 2008... written and directed by Charles Burnett (80 minutes) Burnett shot this in LA's Watts district in the early 1970s, with a mostly unprofessional cast. Now, 30 years on, it gets to the cinema--Burnett simply hadn't been able to raise the...

Couscous (La Graine et Le Mulet).(Mixed Media)(Movie review)(Brief article)
July 1, 2008... written and directed by Abdellatif Kechiche (151 minutes) Slimane has worked 35 years in the shipyards in Sete, France. He's worn down, can't keep up with the new schedules, and he's laid off. His dream has always been to open a restaurant,...

Chocolate city.(Mixed Media)(Movie review)(Brief article)
July 1, 2008... by Ellie Walton and Sam Wild (46 minutes) This is a wonderful documentary. It tells the story of 400 families who were forced from their housing project in the shadow of Capital Hill, Washington DC, by speculative development. One group of...

Mariza Box.(Mixed Media)(Sound recording review)(Brief article)
July 1, 2008... by Mariza (EMI Music Portugal 517952 23CD 2DVD) Ask anyone who's caught Portugal's fado star Mariza live, and they'll probably tell you that the most spine-tingling moment of the event was when the young singer climbed down from the stage,...

Mr love & justice.(Mixed Media)(Sound recording review)(Brief article)
July 1, 2008... by Billy Bragg (Cooking Vinyl COOKCD452X CD) Actually, two Billy Braggs for the price of one--not so much a double album, as a double-disked album, each platter featuring the same 12 songs, the only difference being the split between the...

Taxi.(Mixed media)(Brief article)(Book review)
July 1, 2008... by Khaled Al Khamissi translated from Arabic by Jonathan Wright (Aflame Books, ISBN 9781906300029) The simple--and brilliant--premise of Khaled Al Khamissi's Taxi is to bring together 58 short fictional dialogues with some of Cairo's...

Anarchy Alive!(Mixed Media)(Brief article)(Book review)
July 1, 2008... by Uri Gordon (Pluto Press, 2008) This is a short and thoughtful account of the latest wave of anarchist thinking and organizing. Despite being buried countless times by its detractors, being buried countless times by its detractors, Right...

Highlighting the work of artists and photographers from the majority world.(Southern Exposure)(Brief article)(Photograph)
July 1, 2008... I shot this image at a stone quarry in Rampura, near Bangalore in India, while researching a story on the living and working conditions of labourers employed in the granite industry. I walked into the pit and came upon two boys operating a...

Interview with Indian community welfare organization on confronting HIV and AIDS in south India.(Making Waves)(human immunodeficiency virus, acquired immune deficiency syndrome)
July 1, 2008... A baby-faced man swaggers into our interview room. His eyes are decked in black kohl; his finely manicured fingernails are painted crimson and his lips a shade of rouge. His mannerisms are delicately feminine and his voice high-pitched. ...

FOK-U: the facade of kindness & understanding A seminar in effective leadership (PR & spin).(public relations)(Essay)
July 1, 2008... OBJECTIVE: To use global issues as political and marketing opportunities. Pulling this off requires the right FOK-U attitude: ignorance is not acceptable, but apathy is: YOU ALWAYS NEED TO KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON, BUT YOU DON'T NEED TO CARE ABOUT...

Timor-Leste.(Country Profile)(Country overview)
July 1, 2008... Tlmor-Leste's landscape is still deeply scarred from the conflict that raged in 1999, after the Timorese population voted for independence from Indonesia. The capital, Dili, became the crucible of an Indonesian-backed scorched-earth...

At a glance.(East Timor)(Country overview)(Brief article)
July 1, 2008... Leader: President Jose Ramos-Horta; Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao. Economy: GNI per capita $840 (Indonesia $1,420, Australia $35,990). Monetary unit: US dollar. Main exports: Coffee, sandalwood, marble. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ...

Star ratings.(life expectancy, sex discrimination, poverty)
July 1, 2008... INCOME DISTRIBUTION POOR The lack of development has been such that there has not been much income to distribute, though rural areas are especially poor. The new coalition government has broken with the previous economic strategy by...