New Internationalist articles from March 2007

New Internationalist archives from March 2007

Iran.(From this month's editor)(Cover story)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... This issue has been conceived from the start as one that would give Iranians the chance to communicate directly with our mainly Western readership. Iran is routinely demonized in the West, and its people are lost behind the stereotype of the...

The view from Iran: we have been here before: a nuclear stand-off, stubborn leaders on both sides, the drumbeats of war getting louder. Chris Brazier argues that the West is getting Iran wrong.(Keynote)
March 1, 2007... 'I feel cold when I think about the possible war against my homeland,' wrote an Iranian in his blog recently. 'During the bloody conflict between Iran and Iraq I was witness to many victims in our cities... I am really scared when I hear the...

Living in Iran: Western images of life in Iran tend to go no farther than mad mullahs and veiled women. Here Iranian photographers turn their eye on the diversity as well as the difficulty of everyday life.
March 1, 2007... Campaigning T-shirts are by no means a Western prerogative, as this hiker in the hills to the north of Tehran shows. Many Iranians are passionate about hiking--and for the young, heading to the hills can be a way of escaping the eyes of the...

Signed with an X: Noushin Ahmadi Khorasani (pictured below) is one of the organizers of a campaign to gain a million signatures in support of women's rights. Here she describes one day spent going door to door in Tehran.(Women's Rights)
March 1, 2007... I step into an alley in Nezamabad--my old neighbourhood in south Tehran, now full of working-class families and new migrants. I'm a tad hesitant, with a bitter, buried fear of something I haven't yet done. It was in this neighbourhood that I...

Iran the facts.
March 1, 2007... Human development on the up Life has been improving for Iranians since the Revolution in 1979, according to the UN Human Development Index, which covers life expectancy, education and income--though not civil and political rights. The...

The mirage: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's election campaign made all kinds of promises to the poor. So do they think he is delivering? Ali Moazzami visits the deprived districts of south Tehran.(Poverty)
March 1, 2007... 'These are our problems, our issues... but they label them political.' The Mesri family sold a home on the outskirts of south Tehran--one they had struggled for two decades to purchase--to invest in a business. They became tenants in the hope...

Iran--a history.
March 1, 2007... Origins 3500-600 BCE Iran's rich history stretches back to the dawn of civilization in the fourth millennium BCE. The Elamite civilization, eventually focused on the city of Susa in what is now eastern Iran, rivalled its near neighbours...

The fourth generation: two-thirds of Iranians are under 30--and blogging is more popular there than almost anywhere else. Nasrin Alavi has been listening to what they have to say.(INTERNET)
March 1, 2007... An Iranian blogger asks: 'Has everyone noticed the spooky absence of graffiti in our public toilets since the arrival of weblogs?' But unlike graffiti, Iran's blogs are boundless and global. Approximately one in five Iranians have internet...

Solidarity.(Action/Information)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... Groups campaigning for greater understanding and less confrontation with Iran have recently banded together to form Campaign Iran. Their website is at www.campaigniran.org/ [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Concerned that military action against...

BOOKS.(contains brief reviews of books on Iran)(Book review)(Brief review)
March 1, 2007... If this magazine has given you a taste for hearing a multiplicity of Iranian voices instead of just Western commentators pontificating about the place, your next port of call should be Nasrin Alavi's We Are Iran (Portobello Books, 2006). Alavi...

Websites.(blog sites)(Website list)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... Most Iranian blogs are in the Farsi language. But there are some who write in English and these can be accessed at http://blogsbyiranians.com/ The vast majority of those listed are from Iranians in exile and it is telling how many of those from...

NI web extra.(ACTION/INFORMATION)
March 1, 2007... New Internationalist campaigner Zarlasht Halaimzai writes about the plight of her family and other Afghan immigrants to Iran at www.newint.org/features/special/2007/02/20/iran-afghan-migrants/

Write vs wrong: defiant public blitzes junta with letters.(BURMA)
March 1, 2007... A handwritten letter to a military dictator may sound like an ineffective and risky way of conveying defiance, especially in this internet age where emails, blogs and websites have combined to threaten political authority in a number of...

Can't see the wood for the factories.(Deforestation)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... President Yoweri Museveni is fiercely championing controversial plans to destroy some of Uganda's last remaining rainforests in the name of 'development'. Reuters reports that the plans for large-scale plantations of palm oil and sugar crops...

Ban Blair's bomb: year-long blockade of British nuclear weapons base under way.(Tony Blair)
March 1, 2007... 'THE North Gate is temporarily closed,' announced the loudspeakers at the naval base in Clyde. Cheers rang out from the protesters blockading the entrance. 'Only temporarily?' jeered one. The protesters braving the January rain were just...

Olympic whitewash.(China)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... While China has 31 journalists in jail--more than any other country--the Chinese Government has 'pledged to temporarily relax limits on foreign journalists' reporting on the 2008 Olympics, according to PR Watch. It has declined to extend the...

Entire police force disarmed.(MEXICO)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... Tijuana's notoriously corrupt police were forced to surrender their weapons when Mexican President Felipe Calderon sent federal troops into the troubled border city. Calderon started off the New Year trying to overcome the taint from his...

Speechmarks.(Currents)
March 1, 2007... "Nail polish or false eyelashes isn't politics. If you have good politics, what you wear is irrelevant. I don't take dictation from the pig-o-cratic style-setters who say I should dress like a middle-aged colored lady. My politics don't depend...

Grim future: Ethiopia's invasion of Somalia has US fingerprints.(SOMALIA)
March 1, 2007... FOR the average American, the current Ethiopian invasion of Somalia is just another military operation taking place in a distant land in the war against Islamic terror. For many Somalis, this invasion is nothing short of a humiliating...

The language of neocolonialism.
March 1, 2007... Word power 25 AfriCAN adj. able; capable of self-sufficiency. chariTIES n.pl. restrictive links between a BINGO and government. development v. to enable a country to owe you money. GAP year n. journey taken by young Westerners...

Mo better blues: true tales of a mixed-up world.(Seriously ...)(Mohammed Ibrahim)
March 1, 2007... So you're one of Africa's wealthiest individuals, having made a killing in the telecoms industry. You've just sold your company to a Kuwaiti transnational for squillions and now you're experiencing the first symptoms of a syndrome that afflicts...

Anti-slavery pioneers: 25 March 2007 marks the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade in the British colonies. The groundbreaking popular campaign to bring this about began two decades earlier. Clare Goff looks back on what was arguably the first mass political campaign--and argues that those same techniques still need applying to 21st-century forms of slavery.
March 1, 2007... In 1792, more than 350,000 people in Britain--including a third of the population of Manchester--signed a petition calling for the abolition of the slave trade. Support for the cause had swept the country--'a whole nation crying with one...

Bamako.(Movie review)
March 1, 2007... Bamako written and directed by Abderrahmane Sissako In a mock trial in an open courtyard in Bamako, Mali, the people of Africa accuse the G8, the World Bank and the IMF of betraying them with their 'restructuring' programmes of the...

Holy Heathens and the Old Green Man.(Sound recording review)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... Holy Heathens and the Old Green Man by Waterson: Carthy (Topic TSCS562 CD) If English folk music ever had a hierarchy, Norma Waterson and Martin Carthy--along with daughter Eliza Carthy--would be at its very top. Hailing from...

Adjagas.(Sound recording review)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... Adjagas by Adjagas (Ever Records Ever 06 CD) For those outside the Sami cultures of northernmost Norway, Sweden and Finland, the concept of the joik might be difficult to apprehend. It is expressed in music but it's not a song--or...

The Cave of the Yellow Dog.(Brief article)(Video recording review)
March 1, 2007... The Cave of the Yellow Dog directed by Byambusuren Davaa Coming from the makers of the Story of the Weeping Camel, this semi-documentary film set in rural Mongolia is just pure high-altitude delight. A captivating commentary-free story...

The Uncomfortable Dead.(Book review)
March 1, 2007... The Uncomfortable Dead by Subcomandante Marcos and Paco Ignacio Taibo II Translated by Carlos Lopez (Serpent's Tail ISBN 978 1 85242 907 2) This rumbustious political thriller is exciting interest as much for its authorship as...

Dead Horsemeat.(Book review)
March 1, 2007... Dead Horsemeat by Dominique Manotti Translated by Amanda Hopkinson & Ros Schwartz (Arcadia ISBN 1 900850 82 6) Modern crime fiction has taught us that not all detectives speak with an American accent, and not all crime...

Funny Weather.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 1, 2007... Funny Weather by Kate Evans (Myriad Editions ISBN 0 9549309 3 2) Reading cartoonist Kate Evans' Funny Weather I couldn't help making comparisons with Al Gore's documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. Both set out to bring to a popular...

Southern exposure: highlighting the work of photographers from the Majority world.(Toys, a photo-book)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... There is an area of life in some societies when work and play blend with each other. Children and young people learn survival skills at a very early age. Hunting birds with a sling provides food and trains the user in good target practice, an...

Visa quid pro quo.(View from Cochabamba)(Bolivia)
March 1, 2007... Bolivians seeking tourist entry to the US have the pleasure of completing the following steps: 1 Pay $110 (twice the monthly minimum wage) for the honour of submitting a visa application and seeking an interview at the US Embassy in La...

NI prize crossword.
March 1, 2007... 117 by AXE Win a copy of the latest World Guide reference book... All correct solutions received by the 25th of the cover month will be put into a draw--though only the winner will be notified. Post your entry to: NI Crossword, ...

Interview with Sheela Patel: on how her work with Mumbai's pavement dwellers helped spark action all over the world.(Making Waves)(founder of the Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centres)(Interview)
March 1, 2007... 'Working with the poorest of the poor is messy,' says Sheela Patel, co-founder of SPARC--the Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centres. Having witnessed the 'sanitized' approach of governments and NGOs towards Mumbai's pavement...

Only connect.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2007... I was surprised to see in 'The unreported year 2006' (State of the World's Ocean, NI 397) an odd entry under 'Africa', for the month of December. The first sentence was about President Mugabe extending his term of office, the second about the...

Curtains drawn.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2007... It isn't 'good governance found in our Western-style democracy' that makes the difference between corrupt and non-corrupt nations (Corruption, NI 396). The difference is that Western nations, with some exceptions, have been more adept at hiding...

Bias without borders.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2007... I was surprised and appalled to see Reporters Without Borders (RSF) listed on your Action page (NI 396). This organization has been exposed in the last year for its links with US government destabilization agencies the CIA, USAID and NED,...

Two to tango.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2007... Your emphasis on the role of Transparency International in monitoring corruption was misguided (NI 396). Transparency International deals with 'perceived' corruption, not actual. It reassures the West how wonderful its business practices are...

Corruption in Zanzibar.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2007... I have just returned from visiting friends in Zanzibar. Everything was great except for the police. I have never experienced such blatant corruption at every turn. I was furious but was told that if I complained it would make matters worse for...

The value of money.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2007... Thank you, George Monbiot, for an excellent article on the true costs of climate change (Essay, NI 396). Monbiot criticizes the statisticians and others who use economic arguments to support their anti-prevention stance, as well as...

Question of conscience.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2007... Ike Oguine made cogent and valid points in his article 'A visit to my hometown' (View from Osumenyi, NI 396) especially in reference to how often common sense is substituted by excuse-making and superstition. However, I took issue with the...

Letters dissected.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2007... I was struck more than usual by NI 396's Letters. Eight letters, six of which have their own specific points to make about the negative sides of capitalism. There was just one in the positive mode suggesting that 'advertising has a role in...

Trade off.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2007... Albert Tucker's article in Ethical shopping ('Fair Enough?', NI 395) struck a loud chord with me. I visited Nicaragua in November and talked to fair trade coffee producers. They have always been unhappy that so little of the fair trade price...

Smokescreen.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2007... Much praise to NI for the issue on Ethical shopping. Here are more eye-openers: 1 2004: Dow Jones Sustainability Index listed British American Tobacco. 2 2005: Jantzi Social Index (partners with Dow Jones Index) research...

The breadfruit tree.(Letter from Mauritius)
March 1, 2007... The breadfruit tree out front has got too big. 'Glorious, but ridiculous. That's what happens if you miss one pruning season. Trees get out of hand. Now it's gone and grown too tall. Too wide, as well. And generally spreading. Everything's like...

Tajikistan.(Country Profile)
March 1, 2007... In March 2006, a report about Tajikistan's prospects occasioned a remarkable public row between the UK-based commercial risk analysis group, Oxford Analytica, and the US ambassador to the country, Dick Hoagland. Oxford Analytica wrote that...