New Internationalist articles from November 2007

New Internationalist archives from November 2007

Depleted uranium.(From this month's editor)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... 'Well, you don't have the torn-off limbs for a start.' I'd asked a campaigner why depleted uranium hadn't achieved the same kind of public presence as the anti-landmines campaign and this was part of her reply. She was right, of course. ...

Howl of protest.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2007... Big babies (NI 405) was an insult to young people and, moreover, was grossly inaccurate in respect of their positive contribution to society. For example (page 4), 'reverting... to a childish state in order to avoid dealing with real-life...

Insulted intelligence.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2007... I am writing to complain about your wholly absurd article on theories concerning the perpetration of 9/11 ('Siren song--conspiracy!', NI 405). It is right that people should occupy themselves with the question of who was responsible for this...

Human Being.(Poem)
November 1, 2007... Am I a human being Or just a piece of flesh for you to smell, taste & touch Am I a human being Or currency to sell to support your vile lifestyle Am I a human being Lost in the labyrinth of sexual power & control ...

Target traffick.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2007... Congratulations on the exposure of factors involved in people trafficking (NI 404). However, to discover that some elements of the UN are involved in this exploitation was shocking ('Meet the traffickers'). Of course this industry would...

Green Scare.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2007... 'Offset your carbon emissions--Trash an SUV' advises cartoonist Polyp (Big Bad World, NI 404). A sound idea no doubt, but don't try it in North America, especially in Oregon, where Jeff Luers was sentenced in 2001 to 22 years and 8 months in...

Religion as cover.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2007... Neil Coode asks how we can reconcile Islam as a 'religion of nonviolence and tolerance' with its track record of'intolerance, persecution and violence' (Letters, NI 404). The answer is simple. Much of what is now being done in the name of...

Hot topic.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2007... Issues of religion and injustice have been hot topics in recent NI articles and letters. Neil Coode suggests that Muslims should be louder in condemning injustices perpetuated in the name of Islam. I agree--just as Christians should be louder...

Disturbing subjectivity.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2007... I found Nick Godwin's rebuttal of Amatullah Matthews' letter disturbing in its pure subjectivity (Letters, Another view, NI 403). He's 'heard Muslim men... stating that any woman who "dishonours" her family should be killed'; he's 'not so far...

Cubans ahead.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2007... I have been aware of the developments in Permaculture in Cuba (Edible Earth, NI 402) since the Green Team from Australia went to the island in the mid-1990s to help with its introduction. While it is clear that necessity drove the interest in...

Riot of colour.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2007... It was hurtful, but not surprising, to see the clothes of Muslim women being stereotyped and vilified in the Big Bad World cartoon (NI 399). A small percentage of the world's Muslim women wear black, mainly in Saudi Arabia or the Emirates, but...

Correction.(Correction notice)
November 1, 2007... In our 'Stop Traffick!' spread (Trafficked, NI 404) we gave the wrong web address for The Truth Isn't Sexy campaign--it should have been www.thetruthisntsexy.com

A marriage of convenience.(Letter from Cairo)
November 1, 2007... My neighbour Selwa is a jovial young woman, hefty and assertive, but when she visited the other day she was upset. She and her family live on the roof. Her father used to be the building's guardian, but he died recently, and Selwa assumed the...

Toxic souvenirs: depleted uranium weapons have left behind a trail of human misery and vituperative debate. What's not known about them is just as disturbing as what is, discovers Dinyar Godrej.(KEYNOTE)
November 1, 2007... Contamination hangs around depleted uranium (DU). The radioactive, toxic substance itself pulses with it--for billions of years. But everything else surrounding it seems contaminated, too--by half-truths, deceptions and downright ignorance....

Don't look, don't find: as crisis after crisis engulfs Iraq, calls for a thorough examination of DU contamination and the huge rise in cancers and birth defects get lost in the din. Doug Weir reports.(HEALTH)(depleted uranium)
November 1, 2007... It is a typical news day: another car bomb has gone off, leaving 80 Iraqi civilians dead. Another 136 are injured. More bad news from Iraq. The mainstream media covers it, as editors realize that there is still some mileage in Iraqi horror...

'We were expendable': Herbert Reed (right) served the US Army in Iraq and now he's sick. He's also sick of the lies and denials of the powers-that-be.(HEALTH)
November 1, 2007... In January 2003 Herbert Reed learnt he was being activated to go to Iraq. Reed, a member of the 442nd Military Police, an Army National Guard unit comprising cops and prison officers from in and around New York, remembers training for it and...

Depleted uranium: the facts.
November 1, 2007... Depleted uranium's uses * Depleted Uranium (DU) is nuclear waste left over after enrichment activities for the nuclear weapons and nuclear power industries. Each kilo of reactor-ready enriched uranium produced leaves behind seven kilos of...

Who's the real criminal? Is it John LaForge, who got arrested for trespass? Or Alliant Techsystems, the arms giant that called the cops on him? The jurors made up their own minds.(ARMS TRADE & ACTIVISM)
November 1, 2007... 'The last time you arrested protesters, they were all acquitted,' I told the officer as four of us were booked for 'trespass'. The cop scoffed and said, 'That won't happen again.' But he was wrong. At trial six months later we were all...

ICBUW: the International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons.(ACTION)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... With more than 80 member organizations worldwide, ICBUW campaigns for an explicit international treaty that would not only ban uranium weapons but also cover the decontamination of battlefields and rules on compensation for victims. In...

Soldiers say no!(ACTION)(European Organization of Military Associations)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... The hazardous nature of DU munitions has made many soldiers reluctant to be around them. EUROMIL, the European Organization of Military Associations, has gone one step further in calling for a complete ban. EUROMIL consists of 34 military...

Building the ban.(ACTION)
November 1, 2007... On 22 March 2007 the Belgian Parliament voted unanimously to ban DU ammunition from 20 June 2009. The politicians may have voted in the law, but it was a group of tireless volunteers who made it happen. Ria Verjauw and Willem Van den Panhuysen...

DU and international law.(ACTION)(depleted uranium)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... Although no treaty explicitly banning DU weapons is yet in force, using DU runs counter to the basic rules and principles enshrined in International Humanitarian Law. These include: * The general principle on the protection of civilian...

Guilt complex: it's time to dismantle the guilt industry, argues Adam Ma'anit--or else be smothered by its monopoly on our lives.(Viewpoint essay)
November 1, 2007... In his thought-provoking essay The Happiness Conspiracy (NI 391), John F Schumaker described the damaging psychological and social effects of a society single-mindedly fixated on the pursuit of personal happiness above all other concerns....

Hell no, we won't go: US war veterans encourage troops to refuse to fight.(IRAQ)
November 1, 2007... Iraq Veterans Against The War (IVAW) recently voted to launch a campaign to encourage US troops to refuse to fight. Garrett Rappenhagen, himself a former US Army sniper who served in Iraq for a year, said that the organization had decided 'to...

Propaganda by any other name.(ZIMBABWE)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... Zimbabwe's government is on a mission to tell the 'true Zimbabwe story', spending millions on publishing propaganda at a time when its failed economic policies have left the country reeling. In March it spent over a million US dollars on a...

Taxing African wealth.(From Radio New Internationalist)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... Most Africans are poor. Everyone knows that. But they needn't be. On current estimates, for every dollar of aid that flows into Africa, five dollars of financial assets flow out into private bank accounts in the rich world--money that's never...

Drugs, guns and money: Colombian rebels provoke hostage crisis.(GUERRILLA WAR)
November 1, 2007... In Colombia, a country numbed to human tragedy, one story is more emotive than ever: the plight of the country's 3,000-plus hostages. Since the murder in June of 11 politicians held in captivity, demands for a humanitarian exchange between the...

Buddhas need a passport.(Seriously)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... A new law was passed in China that brings a whole new meaning to the notion of 'red tape'. The communist nation's State Administration of Religious Affairs recently decreed that from the first of September 2007, all reincarnated beings must...

Speechmarks.(Currents)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... "No-one could make a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little." Edmund Burke (1729-1797), Irish conservative philosopher and Whig politician.

Marching for the monks: Burma's struggle goes global, across cities and cyberspace.(BURMA)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... An international day of action on 6 October saw tens of thousands across the world marching in solidarity with the monks and pro-democracy campaigners in Burma. Protesters in Burma had effectively been silenced by the brutal reprisals of the...

Skulduggery: fuelling corruption in Armenia.(WORLD BANK)
November 1, 2007... It all seemed to be on the up and up for Bruce Tasker. In 2004, he was invited to become a special consultant to an Armenian parliamentary commission examining the use of $3 billion in international donor funds. He accepted the invitation--but...

Interview with Masih Alinejad: on the cost of confronting Iran's patriarchal leaders.(Making Waves)
November 1, 2007... The fashion police really do exist in Iran. Since 1979, women exposing too much hair, revealing anything resembling a womanly curve, or wearing too much make-up can be thrown in jail. When current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ran for office in...

NI prize crossword.(New Internationalist)
November 1, 2007... 125 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.(Cartoon)
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Hillary Clinton.(Worldbeaters)
November 1, 2007... Job: Senior Senator for New York State, candidate for the Democratic Party nomination for President in 2008. Reputation: Ambitious plodder, candidate of the money establishment in the Democratic Party, a pair of 'safe hands' for US...

A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash.(Movie review)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash written and directed by Basil Gelpke, Ray McCormack It's quite possible that the grandchildren of almost all people under 25 will never fly in an aeroplane. Why? Because aviation fuel comes from oil,...

The Witnesses.(Movie review)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... The Witnesses directed and co-written by Andre Techine Thankfully we've moved on from films simply showing that people with AIDS are worthy of love, respect and dignity. The Witnesses explores the distress and confusion of a group of...

Comicopera.(Sound recording review)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... Comicopera by Robert Wyatt (Domino WIGCD202 CD) Robert Wyatt delivers up a real treat in the form of Comicopera, an album conceived as a whole of three acts and stuffed with old friends, including Brian Eno, Paul Weller, guitarist Phil...

Nights at the Circus.(Sound recording review)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... Nights at the Circus by Bishi (Gryphon GRYCD003 CD) Back in the mid-1990s, when Britain's culture wars were located in one long tedious to-and-fro over Britpop, something actually far more seditious and extraordinary was bubbling away...

Mistress.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2007... Mistress by Anita Nair (BlackAmber ISBN 1905147309) Anita Nair's third novel, Mistress, is set in a riverside resort in Kerala, south India, among the artists and dancers of the kathakali dramatic art form. Into this intense and...

Hold Everything Dear Dispatches on Survival and Resistance.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2007... Hold Everything Dear Dispatches on Survival and Resistance by John Berger (Verso ISBN 978 1 84467 138 0) 'The eternal,' according to Spinoza, 'is now', and this book is John Berger writing to the moment. The 'dispatches' collected in...

The Shock Doctrine.(Book review)
November 1, 2007... The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein (Allen Lane ISBN 97807 13998993) Naomi Klein's penchant for grand sweeping theories, evident in her best-selling debut No Logo, is to the fore again in her new book, The Shock Doctrine. Thankfully, so...

Southern exposure: highlighting the work of artists and photographers from the Majority World.(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... It is 11 o'clock, the temperature is rising and the first clashes between police and demonstrators take place. Gatherings are forbidden in the capital Algiers, which has been in a state of emergency since 1993. But today, 7 June 2001, hundreds...

Palestine's Mandela.(View from Tel Aviv)(Marwan Barghouti as Nelson Mandela of Pakistan)
November 1, 2007... The division of the Palestinian territories into a 'Hamastan' in the Gaza Strip and a 'Fatahland' in the West Bank is a disaster. A disaster for the Palestinians, a disaster for peace, and therefore also a disaster for Israelis. ...

Kabul lives: in April 2007 Indian photographer Gauri Gill went to Kabul, Afghanistan, with the writer Shuddhabrata Sengupta. They explored some of the many histories that are still alive in a city that has come close to total destruction.(Essay)
November 1, 2007... We started with the old, exotic city, with its own street of birds--Ka Farushi--which has everything from singing Bulbuls to fighting partridges. I'm sure it looked the same a hundred years ago. We skirted around the glittering new...

Cuba.(Country Profile)(Country overview)
November 1, 2007... In Havana, the Cuban capital, you can run your own private restaurant but it cannot, by law, contain any more than 12 chairs and you are not permitted to serve beef or lobster, deemed the exclusive preserve of state-run restaurants. At...