New Internationalist articles from March 2008

New Internationalist archives from March 2008

Ethical Travel.(From this month's editor)(Editorial)(Brief article)
March 1, 2008... Whenever we make changes to the format of this magazine we await feedback from readers with bated breath. More often than not it doesn't arrive--even when prompted by questions in our regular readers' surveys. I guess this is inevitable--the...

Pro-torture.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2008... David Ransom does his argument no favours by starting with woolly pieties and factual inaccuracies (Keynote, Human Rights in a time of terror, NI 408). Of course, torture has saved lives. Captives from Guy Fawkes to enemy soldiers have spilled...

Revulsion.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2008... Jean Ziegler's piece on the United Nations' involvement with the business/corporate world ('Just don't do it', Corporate responsibility unmasked, NI 407) taints forever its supposed role. Corporate indifference to human rights has been...

Changing corps.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2008... Your corporate responsibility issue (NI 407) did readers a disservice by its often simplistic analysis. The question is not whether we are for or against corporations, but how to change their behaviour. Trade unions and 17 labour rights...

Surely some mistake.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2008... Chris Abbott ('How to Withdraw from Iraq', Special Feature, NI 407) calls for 'an apology from key Coalition governments for the mistakes that have been made'. Mistakes? So sanctions that are estimated to have killed half a million children,...

Unfounded arrogance.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2008... Your first proposal is 'Withdrawal of combat troops' but on the next page you say 'Withdrawal on its own could be as disastrous as the invasion itself' (Special Feature, NI 407). That statement reeks of Western arrogance and is unfounded....

Who's the real enemy?(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2008... One doesn't have to be a Believer to be concerned about what Bailey and others (Letters, NI 407) found offensive in Big babies (NI 405). It's a pity that Humanists--including best-sellers like Dawkins and Hitchens--commonly mistake their real...

Cage rattler.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2008... Wow! NI 405 certainly rattled a lot of cages! But where should one start in rebuffing the religious and political delusionists (Letters, NI 407)? With McCrory, who thinks the religious indoctrination in Northern Ireland's separatist schools was...

Parent figures.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2008... Thanks for printing the letters (NI 407) that illustrate so well what I think your Big babies issue was saying: if you need a parent figure (Jesus, Muhammed, Marx or Bob Geldof) to tell you what to think, you haven't grown up yet. Bill...

Common cause.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2008... Re: Letters, NI 407--aren't we just doing the blind men and the elephant here? Of course the Christian/Muslim/Buddhist/Jewish/you-name-it ethical caring people are wonderful--and the fundamentalist 'the Rapture is coming/kill the...

Conspiracy advocate.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2008... NI 406, unfortunately, dealt with Depleted Uranium exactly as I expected--with bias, exaggeration, and the desperate tone of the conspiracy advocate who senses that the audience is growing restive. You should have pointed out that undepleted...

Wind up the guilt.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2008... 'Guilt Complex' (Special Feature, NI 406) reveals a fascinating perspective on how misaligned we are with our own selves. Adam Ma'anit puts forward some cogent reasons for dismantling the 'guilt industry'. Human beings do seek the...

A world apart.(Letter from Cairo)
March 1, 2008... Back in the 1980s, Cairo's upper class feted lavishly, as often in their flats and villas as on feluccas, the sailboats that ply the Nile, or moonlit desert caravans culminating in dinners beside the ruins of lesser-known pyramids. Nowadays...

To fly or not to fly? We jump on a plane as a matter of routine. Yet the climate-changing emissions from aviation are now a major concern. Chris Brazier wrestles with one of the trickiest issues of our time.(FLYING)
March 1, 2008... The plane is over the English Channel when the pilot's voice crackles over the loudspeakers. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] 'Just to warn you that there's been a bit of trouble at Heathrow with people protesting...

Ten steps to reduce flying: addicted to flying? Can't kick that planet-mangling habit? Read on--there are plenty of things you can (not) do. Let's start with the easy ones ...
March 1, 2008... Rule out commuting by air A NO-BRAINER for most of us but increasing numbers of people are actually commuting by air. Once almost entirely a US phenomenon, cheap air travel has now produced the equivalent in Australasia and Europe. Air...

Problems in paradise: tourism is booming worldwide--but not everyone is happy about it, as Chris Brazier reports.(MAINSTREAM TOURISM)
March 1, 2008... I stood aghast: was this really the same place? The time I spent in Ubud in 1981 is one of my most cherished travel memories. This village in central Bali had a steady trickle of Western visitors even then, attracted by its reputation as a...

What is ethical travel? There are many different versions of the idea, but are any of them to be trusted? Chris Brazier investigates.(RESPONSIBLE TOURISM)
March 1, 2008... 'There was this Kenyan guy who just walked into our office,' remembers Tricia Barnett of Tourism Concern. 'He was a Maasai but also a Christian minister who'd been invited to London on a course. He said: "I want you to help me. My community's...

Another way: 'community-based tourism' rings all the right bells. But does it work in practice? Marwaan Macan-Markar visited the Thai island of Koh Yao Noi to find out.(THAILAND)
March 1, 2008... For nearly a year, Wanni Ruengsamut has been receiving a flow of visitors to her simple wooden house that stands on stilts and is surrounded by the calm waters of the Phang Nga Bay. They are not lost relatives attempting to restore broken...

A New Internationalist travellers' code.
March 1, 2008... 1. AVOID PREPACKAGED, ALL-IN-ONE HOLIDAYS. These might be convenient but they will swallow up almost all your money at the rich-world end and leave very little for the people of the area or country you're visiting. Pay as you go--and put as...

Boycott Lonely Planet!(Brief article)
March 1, 2008... Tourism is a major source of foreign exchange for Burma, despite the military regime's brutal human rights record. The junta has been actively promoting tourism since 1995. Since then more than a million people have been displaced by...

Books.(traveling and tourism)(Brief article)(Book review)
March 1, 2008... Leo Hickman's The Final Call: in search of the true cost of our holidays (Eden Project Books 2007) is enthusiastically recommended as a follow-up to this magazine. Hickman visits key tourist destinations all over the world and asks all the...

Alternative tourism groups.(Brief article)(List)
March 1, 2008... Tourism Concern is the campaigning organization closest to the content of this magazine. It has a long and honourable track record in confronting the travel and tourism industry about its abuses--and in advocating for ethical, alternative...

Aviation/climate groups.(Brief article)(List)
March 1, 2008... Airport Watch Umbrella movement uniting British groups opposed to unsustainable airport expansion. www.airportwatch.org.uk Aviation Environment Foundation British pressure group focusing on environmental impact of flying. www.aef.org.uk ...

High water risin'.
March 1, 2008... Major floods have grown exponentially from just seven in the 1950s to thirty-four in the 1990s. But it's not just floodwaters that are on the rise--the UN projects the number of people threatened by flooding will double to over two billion by...

'Death would be better': hopes raised that domestic violence bill will curb abuse.(TAJIKISTAN)
March 1, 2008... A bill that would make domestic violence a criminal offence in Tajikistan will go before Parliament later this year. Women's groups, including the Association for Gender Development and Preventing Violence Towards Women, drafted the law in...

Caught in the act.(CORPORATE LOBBYING)(Porsche AG, BMW AG and Daimler AG)(Brief article)
March 1, 2008... The disgraceful behaviour of German car manufacturers BMW, Daimler and Porsche has won them the 'Worst EU Lobbying' Award 2007. Their joint offensive to water down and delay the CO2 emission reduction targets proposed by the European Commission...

The language of human migration ...(Currents)(Brief article)
March 1, 2008... Word power 36 asylum-seeker n. person who, having escaped a madhouse, is put into one Brain Drain n. popular game show in Eastern Europe where winners, invariably skilled, get to live in the West customs n. quaint national...

That sinking feeling: climate refugees receive funds to leave islands.(CLIMATE CHANGE)
March 1, 2008... The Papua New Guinea (PNG) Government recently provided $800,000 to help relocate inhabitants from its Carteret Islands. But the islanders were hard-pushed to consider this anything other than a hollow victory. For 30 years they have been...

Global gag.(WORKERS' RIGHTS)(Brief article)
March 1, 2008... Seven Dutch human rights activists face extradition to India and two years' imprisonment for the 'cyber crime' of publishing online testimonies from Indian workers, which expose high work pressure, forced unpaid overtime and physical and verbal...

We have our FB-eye on you ...(PUERTO RICO)(subpoena issued against three Puerto Rican activists)(Brief article)
March 1, 2008... Three Puerto Rican activists were subpoenaed to appear before a Federal Grand Jury in early 2008, leading to fears of a new wave of political repression against the Puerto Rican Pro-Independence Movement. Puerto Rico is an unincorporated...

Egypt steps in: Arab state becomes peacemaker as conflict worsens.(DARFUR)
March 1, 2008... In early January, the United Nations and African Union finally began deploying a joint international force to Darfur. Almost immediately, the Sudanese Government attacked a UN peacekeeping convoy, leaving one man in a critical condition. With...

Speechmarks.(Currents)(capitalism)(Quotation)(Brief article)
March 1, 2008... 'The problem with capitalism is that it best rewards the worst part of us: the ruthless, competitive, conniving, opportunistic, acquisitive drives, giving little reward and often much punishment--or at least much handicap--to honesty,...

Pravda's beef with vegetarianism.(Seriously[TM])
March 1, 2008... The glory days of Pravda--the infamous propaganda rag of the USSR's Communist Party--are long since gone. But even though the newspaper officially came to an end in 1991, in true communist fashion, a number of splinter groups emerged...

NI prize crossword.(New Internationalist)
March 1, 2008... 128 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. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Post your...

Big bad world.(Comic)(Cartoon)
March 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

International Olympic committee.(Worldbeaters)
March 1, 2008... Job: Ruling Body of Olympic Games. Reputation: Volunteer grandees; controllers of the fate of eager cities and athletes; recipients of the generous hospitality of Olympic supplicants. They are possibly the most powerful volunteers in...

Che Guevara: Lucha por la Vida.(Sound recording review)(Brief article)
March 1, 2008... Che Guevara: Lucha por la Vida by Various Artists (Milan France 399 160-2 CD) Released to mark the 40th anniversary of Che Guevara's death in 1967, Lucha por la Vida (Struggle for Life) uses the idea of political revolution as a trope...

Battle for Haditha.(Movie review)(Brief article)
March 1, 2008... Battle for Haditha written and directed by Nick Broomfield Insurgents plant a roadside bomb and wait in a nearby house. Local people debate what to do--some stay, others leave. The bomb explodes, killing US marines. Their comrades...

Cien Anos.(Sound recording review)(Brief article)
March 1, 2008... Cien Anos by Compay Segundo (Rhino 704 3CD + DVD) As Compay Segundo, the most dashing of the debonair gents in the Buena Vista Social Club, didn't actually reach his century--unhelpfully dying at the age of 95 in 2003--the title of...

The Edge of Heaven.(Movie review)(Brief article)
March 1, 2008... The Edge of Heaven written and directed by Fatih Akin Yeter is a Turkish woman working as a prostitute in Bremen, Germany. Ali, an elderly client, offers to match her earnings if she moves in with him. Yeter's daughter, Ayten, a member...

Tambogrande: mangoes, murder and mining.(Movie review)(Brief article)
March 1, 2008... Tambogrande: mangoes, murder and mining produced and directed by Ernesto Cabellos and Stephanie Boyd When a Canadian mining company tried to set up shop in one of the most fertile valleys of northern Peru it seemed like a done deal. The...

Desert of Death: A Soldier's Journey from Iraq to Afghanistan.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 1, 2008... Desert of Death A Soldier's Journey from Iraq to Afghanistan by Leo Docherty (Faber, ISBN 9780571236893) The rather melodramatic title of this memoir is the local name for a barren stretch of country in the south of Afghanistan's...

Why We're Losing The War on Terror.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 1, 2008... Why We're Losing The War on Terror by Paul Rogers (Polity, ISBN 9780745641973) The analysis and perception so signally lacking in Docherty's offering (see left), is provided admirably by Paul Rogers' short, punchy book. Rogers is...

Southern exposure: highlighting the work of artists and photographers from the Majority World.(Brief article)
March 1, 2008... Sumi is a sex worker in Kolkata (Calcutta), India. She works and sleeps in this little room, under the charge of her landlady, Fatima, and she has to pay for her own upkeep. As one of the younger women, she is also treated as little more than a...

Cuban futurology.(View from Havana)
March 1, 2008... It would be interesting to know who first floated the idea that Cuban writers have a special gift for predicting the future. Whenever foreign journalists interview writers from the island, they are invariably asked how they see the future of...

Sir and Madam: on paper, every child in India has the right to education. In practice, millions have little more to rely on than the likes of a remarkable couple in Andhra Pradesh. Barry Langridge wonders why, in the India of economic boom and constitutional protection, it still comes down to charity.(Essay)
March 1, 2008... It is a familiar and embarrassing scene: we five Europeans sit up on chairs while grateful children sit on the floor and applaud us. Some jump up and sing. It is genuine: these children know that we can make their futures possible. One of...

Brunei.(Country Profile)(Country overview)
March 1, 2008... There Is a little hole on the wall of every office, restaurant, reception area, hotel lobby, shop--even in the humblest of the living rooms--which serves as a formidable metaphor for the vicissitudes of power, prestige and privilege in Brunei....