New Internationalist articles from June 2005

New Internationalist archives from June 2005

From this month's editor.
June 1, 2005... IT'S odd. So often debates on migration spin into abstraction. Reality becomes reduced to competing theories and statistics. The NI is not entirely immune from engaging in this kind of argument, so beloved of political parties and the media...

Do something.(letters)(Letter to the Editor)
June 1, 2005... In response to your street children articles (Street children: "our lives, our words", NI 377) I would like to say thank you. The open rawness of their stories made me realize what injustice there is in the world, especially towards children....

Supporting children.(letters)(Letter to the Editor)
June 1, 2005... It was good to see the emphasis put on children's own voices (NI 377) in an excellent edition. From ChildHope's experience of trying to develop appropriate solutions for street children, children's participation is an essential component....

Highlight.(letters)(Letter to the Editor)
June 1, 2005... Thanks for a fantastic issue (NI 377). The presentation of the children's stories as they told them, without analysis or excessive comment from the interviewer/editor was excellently done. The issue as a whole is a highlight from more than 3...

Balut, penoy, palamig.(letters)(Letter to the Editor)
June 1, 2005... Your translations of balut, penoy and palamig (Lean-Joy, NI 377) are not correct. Balut and penoy refer to the stage of development of the egg, not to the kind of bird that laid it; balut being a chicken (or duckling) still in the egg, just...

Fair's fair.(letters)(Letter to the Editor)
June 1, 2005... Although I share David Ransom's concerns regarding the increasing commercialization of the 'fair trade' label (Essay, NI 377), I feel that his example of a year in which global supply is greatly reduced, leading to a lower than market price for...

Incredible courage.(letters)(Letter to the Editor)
June 1, 2005... I read your interview with Rana Husseini (Making Waves, NI 377) which focused on her work to change public attitudes and laws regarding 'honour' killings of women in Jordan and was deeply touched by her incredible courage and commitment. I'm...

An instrument of Bush's will.(letters)(Letter to the Editor)
June 1, 2005... Paul Wolfowitz tried to convince people that his term as an Ambassador to Indonesia proved he had good experience in development matters and promised the world that he will keep the focus on poverty alleviation and economic development. ...

Abortion.(letters)
June 1, 2005... 1 Clare W (Letters, NI 377) does not believe abortion exacerbates problems for women. As part of the wider issue of social equality, I believe that it does. Many cases of women sacked for being pregnant, or forced to abort by employers, go...

The long goodbye: Reem Haddad on an oft-delayed departure.(Lebanon and Syria relations)
June 1, 2005... EVEN now I feel strange writing it without reading, rereading and rechecking my words. For the first time, I will write it: the Syrians had to leave Lebanon. A few months ago, I wouldn't have dreamed of saying it. The dreaded mukhabarat or...

Southern exposure: highlighting the work of photographers from the majority world.
June 1, 2005... This picture was taken in the temporary shelters at Nagapattinam, Tamil Nadu, India, three months after the place was hit by the tsunami on 26 December 2004. I was studying the people who had lost their homes and family members. I wanted to...

Making the news.(VIEW FROM THE SOUTH)
June 1, 2005... IMAGINE this--a Hollywood cliche transplanted to India. An attractive, would-be film star goes to see a producer. He's not really interested, but he's not uninterested either. After making conversation for a while, the young woman invites...

The crowning victory: silencing Nepal's politicians and media is not stopping dissent against the King.(HUMAN RIGHTS)
June 1, 2005... KING GYANENDRA of Nepal dismissed his country's Government on 1 February 2005. Declaring a nationwide state of emergency, the King suspended both people's rights to assemble and freedom of the press. Armed soldiers and police were put on the...

The Vietnamese declare war on Agent Orange.(CURRENTS)
June 1, 2005... This April marked the 30th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War. Yet the war is not over for an estimated two million Vietnamese whose exposure to Agent Orange (the nickname of a dioxin-laced herbicide) has been scientifically linked to a...

Honduras trade protests.(CURRENTS)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2005... On 3 March 2005, the Honduran Congress ratified the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) with the US, becoming the second country after El Salvador to do so. Indignant civil society groups immediately protested that the deal would make...

Cotton worm turns: will the US follow WTO rulings as it urges poor countries to do?(TRADE)
June 1, 2005... FINGER-WAGGING Northern politicians defend the gospel of free trade whenever some Southern government is caught protecting a fledgling industry, scarce jobs or a struggling marketing board. But a March ruling by the World Trade Organization...

Speechmarks.(CURRENTS)(Poem)
June 1, 2005... Trees are poems that earth writes upon the sky We fell them down and turn them into paper That we may record our emptiness. Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931), Lebanese poet

Hell no, they won't go!(CURRENTS)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2005... After the extraordinary intervention of students from a Glasgow high school, the deportation of a family of asylum seekers from Scotland to Kosovo was put on hold. Mr Murselaj, his wife, Tade, and their children Agnesa, 15, Gentian, 12, and...

Word power.(CURRENTS)
June 1, 2005... The language of the environment antarctic adj. descriptive of something that melts quickly cold war n. global warming endangered adj. rare, not cute indigenous adj. in the way smog n. gas with insulatory properties,...

Disney rewrites Carib history.(CURRENTS)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2005... When it was announced that the Disney Corporation was going to film the sequel to its popular Pirates of the Caribbean, there was great enthusiasm on the tiny Caribbean island of Dominica. Dominica has the last remaining Carib community in the...

Bolivia's next challenge to globalization: presidency hangs in the balance as the country refuses to knuckle under to big oil.(OIL)
June 1, 2005... Should I stay or should I go now? If I go there will be trouble An' if I stay it will be double. Come on and let me know. --THE CLASH Is Bolivian President Carlos Mesa holed-up in...

Democracy is a dish best served cold.(Seriously ...)
June 1, 2005... Election time has been and gone in Britain and Seriously's restaurant critics surveyed the electoral menu and found its school dinner plate served up with a lukewarm portion of crusty parliamentary nuggets with cheesy platitudes sauce,...

Out of Africa: introducing nurse Nancy Wambui Itotia, her dilemma--and her country's. Vanessa Baird reports.(immigration to Western countries)
June 1, 2005... LONDON Gatwick Airport, 11 July 2001. Nancy Wambui Itotia is making her way along the slowly coiling snake of a queue to get through Immigration Control. In her hand, a Kenyan passport. In that passport, crucially, a visa allowing her to enter...

Hope FM: a mother and family reunion ...(FAMILY TIES & PRESS FREEDOM)
June 1, 2005... 'You saved me! You saved me! You saved me!' Hope FM is blasting through the taxi's sound system. It's a Christian evangelical station, playing pop music with a religious message, interspersed with soundbite homilies from a smiley-voiced DJ. ...

Kenya profile.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2005... Population: 33.5 million Total area: 582,646 square kilometres Life expectancy: 44 years Adult literacy: 82% GNI per capita: $390 Work: 75% of labour force in agriculture Main exports: tea, flowers, coffee, petroleum...

Acute phase: Nancy visits hospitals she used to know and finds more than she bargained for ...(HEALTHCARE)
June 1, 2005... 'HERE!' Nancy gives me a nudge. 'We are here!' We squeeze ourselves, like toothpaste, out of the matatu collective minibus which halts for a few precious seconds before roaring up the road again. The greyness of Nairobi has given way...

The Kikuyu cradle: back, via some troubled history, to the land where Nancy grew up and where her 90-year-old mother still lives.(HISTORY & POLITICS)
June 1, 2005... 'LOOK, there is a beacon!' says Eliud, Nancy's gregarious and affable eldest brother. My eye scans the hundreds of hectares of Del Monte-owned pineapple plantation, each fruit barely one foot above the ground. Can Eliud really be referring...

Aaieeeeee! Nancy's work abroad provokes a flurry of curiosity among friends. But for cousin Florence it's a life or death issue ...(EXPECTATIONS)
June 1, 2005... NANCY wants to see 'a very close, very old friend' who lives at Banana Hill, where Nancy too used to live. 'She will not believe it when she sees me!' Nancy says as we walk up the hill towards the woman's house. It's a slow process. We...

If ... migrant workers left the rich world what would happen? There are 86 million economically active migrant and immigrant workers, including refugees, in the world today. Nearly half of them are working in North America and Europe.
June 1, 2005... In the fields The rich world relies heavily on migrant workers. Without them significant sections of agriculture would collapse. Every year, approximately 18,000 migrant farm workers from Mexico and the Caribbean arrive in Canada to work...

We are sorry ... we stole your daughter: there is one thing Nancy must do to repair the damage done to custom.(TRADITION)
June 1, 2005... THE way in which Ayub and Winnie (pictured above) got together may not seem at all unusual--they met, fell in love, moved in together, had a child. But for Nancy the absence of the correct protocols according to African custom grates. What...

What is to be done? Back in England, to work ... and some ideas about what needs to be done.(RACE & CONCLUSION)
June 1, 2005... NAIROBI International Airport--and it's time for some difficult farewells. It helps that Nancy has her daughter Ruth waiting for her in England. 'She is my consolation,' she says. Though it took more than one attempt, Ruth was able to join...

Worldbeaters ...: taking aim at the rich and powerful.
June 1, 2005... PAUL WOLFOWITZ as the executive director of the World Bank was just the icing on the cake. The Bush Administration has put any sense of appeasing nervous allies well behind it. Europeans (particularly the ever-compliant Tony Blair) stand in...

100 Myths About the Middle East.(Book Review)
June 1, 2005... 100 Myths About the Middle East by Fred Halliday (Saqi Books, ISBN 0 86356 529 8) Fred Halliday has been a respected commentator on the Middle East for decades; his Arabia Without Sultans remains deservedly a classic and recently he...

Comrades and Strangers: Behind the Closed Doors of North Korea.(Book Review)
June 1, 2005... Comrades and Strangers: Behind the Closed Doors of North Korea by Michael Harrold (John Wiley and Sons, ISBN o 470 86976 3) This book sets out with the admirable aim of demystifying the closed society of North Korea. The world...

The Gruesome Acts of Capitalism.(Book Review)
June 1, 2005... The Gruesome Acts of Capitalism by David Lester (Arbeiter Ring Publishing ISBN 1 894037 20 0) A package of hard numbers encased in simple statements is all it takes in David Lester's The Gruesome Acts of Capitalism to make a...

I Am A Bird Now.(Sound Recording Review)
June 1, 2005... I Am A Bird Now by Antony and the Johnsons (Rough Trade RTRADCD 223 CD) As an androgynous performance artist who sprang out of New York's club scene, Antony (he lost the surname a long time ago) may seem an unlikely pretender to the...

Palindromes.(Video Recording Review)
June 1, 2005... Palindromes written and directed by Todd Solondz Aviva is 12 and wants a baby--someone who'll always love her. She has sex with the son of family friends and becomes pregnant. At her mom's insistence she has an abortion and soon after runs...

Machuca.(Video Recording Review)
June 1, 2005... Machuca directed by Andres Wood In Santiago, Chile, 1973, during the Allende Government, an elite fee-paying secondary school, run by priests, offers free education to boys from a nearby shanty town. The priests' initiative,...

Naked.(Sound Recording Review)
June 1, 2005... Naked by Benjamin Zephaniah (One Little Indian TPLP403CDL CD) Nakedness, for dub poet Benjamin Zephaniah, is something akin to a state of absolute truth. 'Dis is me, revolting in front of you / I'm not much but I give a damn,' he...

Making waves: interview with Dave Logie from Greenpeace Amazonas.(Interview)
June 1, 2005... THE Brazilian Amazon has witnessed many hard-fought contests over its rubber, gems and timber. But in the state of Para--an area nearly twice the size of France--illegal loggers and forest-dependent communities are now literally at war. Soy and...

The bushfires of affluence: Jeremy Seabrook weighs the cost to just a few generations in Britain--and around the world--of being dazzled by consumerism.(ESSAY)
June 1, 2005... As a child, I absorbed from my mother and her 10 surviving brothers and sisters an account of the life of their family, scattered across the countryside of Northamptonshire. A central event in this narrative was the suicide of a distant...

Venezuela.(COUNTRY PROFILE)
June 1, 2005... SPEAKING to a crowd draped in red, Venezuela's President, Hugo Chavez, entertains his faithful supporters with songs, witty banter and anti-US rhetoric during his weekly live television and radio address called Alo Presidente (Hello, Mr...