November - December 2020

New Internationalist

People, Ideas and Action for Global Justice

New Internationalist2 min read
Home Truths
AMY HALL for the New Internationalist Co-operative newint.org An innocent question: ‘How are you feeling about the care magazine?’ my housemate asked me over coffee. ‘Angry’ was my answer. In fact, I’ve spent a large part of the Covid-19 pandemic fee
New Internationalist1 min readPolitics
This Month’s Contributors Include:
Jada Steuart is a journalist and digital strategist from Trinidad and Tobago. She is a contributing writer at Global Voices where she writes articles about Caribbean politics and culture. Audrey Simango is a trainee food scientist, food rights activi
New Internationalist1 min read
New Internationalist
Accounts: Katalin Szombati Administration: Mary Murray Advertising: Michael York Design: Andrew Kokotka Editorial (Magazine and Website): Vanessa Baird, Dinyar Godrej, Amy Hall, Hazel Healy, Jamie Kelsey-Fry, Husna Rizvi Editorial (Publications): Chr
New Internationalist3 min readPolitics
Send Us Your Feedback
Fadhel Kaboub’s sound article (NI 527) proposes these measures: that public money be spent on research and development of low-impact materials; that unjust debt be abolished; that governing money be spent on a Green New Deal; that excessive wealth, s
New Internationalist1 min readCrime & Violence
Why I… Campaign To End Human Trafficking
As the predatory actions of Jeffrey Epstein and friends unfold, we are reminded that human trafficking persists. Sex trafficking gets a lot of attention – even in the movies. But people are also trafficked for labour. Those who are preparing your mea
New Internationalist3 min read
The City Inside You
‘I’m a Jo’burger at heart,’ I remember my friend saying once. It struck me that, at the time of the conversation, he hadn’t lived in Johannesburg in years and was speaking, in fact, from some other city – I can’t remember which – where he was then li
New Internationalist1 min readPolitics
Borderlines
Agricultural labourers from migrant backgrounds in Italy are caught in the crosshairs of a battle… for their wellbeing. At first glance it might seem like a good problem to have. On the one hand, there are NGOs, which want to improve dangerous living
New Internationalist2 min readPolitics
Belarus Dreaming Together
On 9 August something snapped in the people of Belarus. After 26 years in power, ‘Europe’s last dictator’ Alexander Lukashenko had declared himself winner of fraudulent elections once again. It was the last straw – the economy was in trouble, the pre
New Internationalist2 min readPolitics
Introducing… Irfaan Ali
Irfaan Ali finally became the President of Guyana in August this year, becoming the first Muslim ever to head up a Latin American country and overcoming an attempt by the previous government, led by David Granger, to manipulate the vote count. Guyane
New Internationalist1 min read
Seriously?
As Covid-19 continues to put the stoppers on flying, nostalgic would-be passengers are going to bizarre lengths to fill the gaping void left by air travel. In Nigeria’s capital Abuja, resourceful restaurateurs are serving up airline food. Diners at U
New Internationalist1 min read
Inequality Watch
PSYCHIATRISTS PER MILLION PEOPLE HIGH-INCOME COUNTRIES: 127 LOW-INCOME COUNTRIES: 1 Source: State of the World Atlas ■
New Internationalist3 min readCrime & Violence
Currents
Iranian women are calling out perpetrators of sexual violence online, in what has been dubbed Iran’s #MeToo movement. In August, a woman tweeted the name of a Tehrani bookshop owner, Keyvan Emamverdi, followed by the hashtag #tajavoz, the Farsi word
New Internationalist2 min readCrime & Violence
Chile Let The Light In
When arts duo Delight Lab projected the word Hambre (Hunger) onto Santiago’s tallest building mid-pandemic, confined Santiaguinos responded with a chorus of pots and pans. The installation reflected general discontent in the Chilean capital with gove
New Internationalist2 min readMedical
Zimbabwe Doctors Priced Out
Doctor Nunguhuru is a resident in a Zimbabwe hospital. When he developed acute kidney injury in August, he could not be admitted to the public hospital where he works because of a shortage of physicians and nurses. ‘The alternative, private clinics n
New Internationalist1 min readMedical
Reasons To Be Cheerful
In Wales 16- and 17-year-olds can now officially vote in Welsh parliamentary elections. Around 65,000 young people are expected to join the electoral register. The move last June follows Scotland, where currently anyone above 16 can vote in non-Westm
New Internationalist9 min readPoverty & Homelessness
The Hidden Debt Of Care
It’s an essential ingredient for life. It keeps us fed, nurtured and healthy and enables social systems to function. It’s skilled, emotional, exhausting, rewarding work. Work that props up our lives, households, communities and economies. It’s ‘women
New Internationalist1 min readPolitics
Action And Info
globalwomenstrike.net International network campaigning for a living wage for mothers and other carers. wbg.org.uk UK-based network working to build knowledge on feminist economics. theleap.org Campaigning for systemic change in the face of climate c
New Internationalist2 min readPolitics
Care The Facts
Globally women do the equivalent of 6 weeks more full-time work a year than men – this includes unpaid and paid care work.1 Between 1997 and 2012, the time devoted to housework and caregiving declined by 15 minutes per day for women and increased by
New Internationalist2 min readMedical
Finding A Vocation On Home Soil
Ryan Lianko has been a registered nurse for 16 years. Now 38 years old, he had dreamt of working abroad, maybe in the US or Europe, after he graduated in 2003 – a dream shared by millions of Filipinos. Almost 19,000 nurses leave the country every yea
New Internationalist2 min read
The Secret Side Hustle Of Domestic Workers
Lena* is a live-in nanny to a nurse in Vainona, a middle-class suburb of Harare. She has managed her employer’s household in Zimbabwe’s capital for 13 months without receiving any pay. ‘Madam can’t pay my US$20 salary because hers is just $80. I symp
New Internationalist2 min read
‘Our Clients Never Underestimate Our Value’
Paula Mendoza has been a geriatric nurse in Trinidad and Tobago for over 10 years. In 2015, she decided to take her work home with her, quite literally, by opening her house to the elderly. It started off with one client but today Paula owns a compou
New Internationalist6 min readPolitics
Embedding The Economy–with Care
‘It’s the economy, stupid.’ The catchphrase grabs your attention with a jolt. It was dreamed up by a US political fixer named James Carville to help get his boss Bill Clinton elected to the US presidency way back in 1992. It worked and Clinton carrie
New Internationalist2 min read
Passing It On
People across the world struggle to keep on top of their paid work and unpaid domestic duties. Some have the option of freeing up time by outsourcing work to others – often poorer or racialized women – who can in turn struggle to meet their own domes
New Internationalist3 min readMedical
5 Reasons Why Care And The Climate Are Inseparable
The World Health Organization (WHO) predicts that between 2030 and 2050 climate change will cause an extra 250,000 deaths per year from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhoea and heat stress. Healthcare workers are already seeing rising rates of childhood
New Internationalist4 min read
My Ass And The Oceans
As someone who feels an empathetic connection to Mother Nature, I’ve spent far too long trying to persuade my inner circle to be more mindful of the ecological implications of their daily decisions. I try to practise what I preach but, as an exceedin
New Internationalist5 min readCrime & Violence
Care Not Cops
The announcement that the City Council had voted to disband Minneapolis’ police department came after nearly two weeks of protest, triggered by the killing of 46-year-old black man George Floyd by white police officer Derek Chauvin. The collective gr
New Internationalist4 min read
Namibia
Namibia derives its name from the Namib desert (loosely translated, the word means ‘vast place’), which has claims to be the oldest desert in the world, stretching back more than 55 million years. Much of the desert comprises gravel plain and rocky o
New Internationalist1 min readCrime & Violence
What’s The Alternative?
Mobile crisis response teams dispatched through the police-fire-ambulance communications centre. Each team consists of a medic and an experienced crisis worker. whitebirdclinic.org/cahoots Empowering young people directly harmed by violence and the c
New Internationalist9 min readCooking, Food & Wine
How Food Banks Went Global
When Leila arrived at the church hall, the last of the tins were being tidied away. It was her first food-bank visit, but she was late, after taking three buses to reach one that was open outside her work shifts. As parents wheeled in their prams for
New Internationalist1 min readCooking, Food & Wine
Foodbanking: A Complex Landscape
In Britain, ‘food bank’ usually describes a place where someone experiencing hardship can access free food. The Trussell Trust is the biggest network, with over 400 food banks serving 1,200 smaller distribution points with food donated by shoppers an
New Internationalist2 min readCooking, Food & Wine
‘People Just Aren’t Paid Enough’
I’ve experienced hard times in my life. My husband left 10 years ago. As a single parent – my daughter was 19 by then – I was stacking shelves, working seven days a week and I’d have about £10 ($13) left to spend on food. We’d be eating pasta with ma
New Internationalist1 min readPoverty & Homelessness
Action And Info
Right to Food advocates fian.org Network of activist scholars with rich-world charity focus nin.tl/GlobalAlliance Independent food aid providers (UK) foodaidnetwork.org.uk US food bank network nin.tl/TransformationPlan The Rise of Food Charity in Eur
New Internationalist2 min readInternational Relations
War And Peace
Any war is too much war. That said, from 1995 to 2010 there were fewer, less lethal wars each year. This was the peace dividend from the end of the Cold War in 1990, along with a reduced risk of nuclear conflagration and the use of more economic reso
New Internationalist1 min readGender Studies
Southern Exposure
An image from ‘It Is Well: An Ode To Karabo’, a self-portrait series that speaks to the ongoing issue of femicide in South Africa. Lebo Thoka, the young Johannesburg-based photographer, was only 21 when she created it, and it was her first venture in
New Internationalist3 min readEnvironmental Science
Sun Sets On Big Oil
Has BP finally gone beyond greenwash? The oil giant has rolled out some eye-catching pledges lately – most notably an unprecedented proposal to cut its oil and gas production by 40 per cent by 2030, in order to reach ‘net-zero emissions’ by 2050. The
New Internationalist4 min readPolitics
Iyad El-Baghdadi
At the start of the Arab Spring a decade ago you were working in tech start-ups; by the end you were a prominent voice for the movement. How did this happen? The Arab Spring was a moment of awakening. Not just for me, but for an entire generation. I
New Internationalist3 min readMedical
View From Africa
I recently went off-grid for a few days because I started to feel like social distancing was taking its toll. In Kenya, we’ve been in some form of Covid-19 lockdown since March: separated from friends and family, watching the government make a hash o
New Internationalist8 min readMedical
‘You’ve Done Nothing!’
There’s a note of panic in Mari Luz’s voice when she calls. ‘Senorita, it’s arrived,’ she says. She doesn’t have to say more: Covid-19 has reached her small village on the Maranón River, in Peru’s northern Amazon region. I feel an upwelling of panic
New Internationalist3 min readPolitics
View From Brazil
Brazil is fertile ground for QAnon to grow in. Conspiracy theories are widespread among a population with low media literacy and encouraged by a farright government. However, the QAnon conspiracy, which says that Donald Trump is waging a secret war a
New Internationalist5 min readPoverty & Homelessness
Explosive Mix
Mozambique, among the poorest of countries, sits atop the world’s ninth-largest natural gas reserves. Discovered nearly a decade ago off the coast of the northern province of Cabo Delgado, these reserves have been a honeypot, attracting foreign compa
New Internationalist19 min readGender Studies
Why Black matters
We live in an age when self-identification is all the rage. And yet, for many years, there has been a storm growing in sound and fury about the use of the label ‘Black’ by racialized minorities in the UK. It is a Very British Debate which even our US
New Internationalist3 min readPolitics
Andrzej Duda
JOB: President of Poland REPUTATION: Nationalist autocrat with conservative Catholic tastes The 48-year-old Duda squeaked in for his second term as Polish president in July 2020, winning by less than two per cent of the vote against liberal Warsaw ma
New Internationalist3 min readWorld
Spotlight Abduweli Ayup
In a small building painted white in the Norwegian town of Bergen, an unusual Sunday school lesson is taking place. Abduweli Ayup is teaching a group of Uyghur children their mother tongue. Were this lesson happening in China it would be a dangerous
New Internationalist2 min readComputers
View From India
The one smartphone in Kavi’s home belongs to his mother. It broke down a few days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi imposed a sudden, strict lockdown across India to flatten the coronavirus curve. The curve was not flattened – at the time of writing
New Internationalist4 min readPolitics
Books
by Ian Cobain (Granta Books, ISBN 9781846276408) granta.com For those of us not living on the island of Ireland, it has been all too easy since the 1998 Good Friday Agreement to wash our hands of the Troubles. Now, the looming likelihood of a no-deal
New Internationalist2 min read
Film
directed and written by Zeina Durra 85 minutes Hana knows Luxor and some Arabic. She has called a taxi, and the driver knows her. She asks him about his croaking voice and we soon learn that she is a doctor who has been working as a trauma surgeon in
New Internationalist2 min read
Music
by Spaza (Mushroom Hour Half Hour LP + digital) mushroomhour.com Based in Johannesburg, Spaza are fast becoming an icon of the South African city’s pioneering jazz scene. This scene has been nurtured by Mushroom Hour Half Hour – first a pirate radio
New Internationalist4 min read
The Puzzler
7 Kazakh capital, Alma-Ata, is useless to a Greek port (8) 9 Diaspora reversal for Jews, with one from Arabia bringing back a sort of fever (6) 10 Destination in Rio Muni found after switching a label (4) 11 The Parisian comes to regret funky place i
New Internationalist3 min read
Agony Uncle
Q: I’ve recently developed a crush on a close friend of many years. On paper they would make a great partner – I find them attractive, we get on well, enjoy each other’s company and have similar interests. But I am holding back from admitting my feel
New Internationalist3 min read
Exporting Waste Were Banned?
The protesters in the Philippines were emphatic. ‘Take back!’ read their placards. Their anger was directed at 69 container loads of waste, shipped from Canada, mislabelled as ‘plastic recyclables’ but actually just garbage, including dirty diapers,

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