May - June 2022

New Internationalist

People, Ideas and Action for Global Justice

New Internationalist1 min read
This Month’s Contributors Include:
Ken Henshaw works for We the People, an organization based in the Niger Delta, which supports communities affected by crude oil extraction in their demands for ecological justice. Tuğçe Őzbiçer is a journalist from Istanbul, based in London. She cove
New Internationalist1 min read
Something’s Got To Give
NICK DOWSON for the New Internationalist Co-operative newint.org A massive ice shelf on the edge of Antarctica is starting to crack. Fissures began appearing in the ice holding back the Thwaites glacier – a sheet the size of Florida which could raise
New Internationalist1 min read
New Internationalist
Accounts: Katalin Szombati Administration: Mary Murray Advertising: Michael York Design: Andrew Kokotka Editorial (Magazine and Website): Dinyar Godrej, Amy Hall, Conrad Landin, Husna Ara Contributing editors: Vanessa Baird, Chris Brazier, Jamie Kels
New Internationalist3 min read
Send Us Your Feedback
Re: ‘The politics of futility’ (NI 536). We all know that liberal democracy in the US is effectively a plutocracy, where the super-rich control political parties and governments through their wealth. What Neil Vallely calls ‘the politics of futility’
New Internationalist3 min read
The Big Blackout
Back in January, we had an intense heatwave. For a short while Buenos Aires and its surrounding provinces became the hottest part of the world. Air conditioners got cranked up, power consumption escalated and, inevitably, the grid fell short. For one
New Internationalist1 min readInternational Relations
Borderlines
Governments across Europe have offered sanctuary to refugees escaping the war in Ukraine. The EU has announced that Ukrainians can enter without visas and a number of countries have granted them free train travel. It’s been heartening to see the gene
New Internationalist2 min readInternational Relations
Ukraine Kyiv Despatch
Yuri Fedorenko was asleep in his Kyiv apartment on the morning of 24 February, when he was woken up by a telephone call. Having slept through the first Russian bombardments of his city, the 27-year-old artist was confused when his friend told him tha
New Internationalist2 min read
Introducing… Yoon Suk-yeol
An electorate discontented with the self-satisfied political classes can rarely resist the temptation of an ‘anti-politics’ politician, posing as a new broom to sweep away the old corruptions, and promising a new dawn. Take the new president of South
New Internationalist1 min readPoverty & Homelessness
Seriously?
Progressive taxation? Living wages that keep up with inflation? Universal Basic Income? No, free-market thinktank the Adam Smith Institute has come up with an even more innovative solution to global poverty and sovereign debt crises – privatize the m
New Internationalist2 min read
Mexico Institutional Revolution
A landmark vote on union recognition at a General Motors (GMC) factory in Mexico has raised hopes of a collective bargaining domino effect across the country. In the first ever genuine union election at the plant in Silao, central Mexico, the Indepen
New Internationalist1 min readCrime & Violence
Kenya/uk Proper Tea Is Theft
Kenyan tea pickers are taking bosses at a major supplier to court in Scotland over alleged workplace abuses and industrial injuries. Over 800 workers, represented by Thompsons Solicitors, are pursuing a multimillion-dollar negligence action against A
New Internationalist2 min read
Nepal Save The Scavengers
There’s hopeful news for the world’s disappearing vulture populations with the announcement of the first ever Vulture Safe Zone (VSZ) in Nepal. The often unloved scavengers perform a vital clean-up role in the natural world, helping prevent the sprea
New Internationalist2 min read
Sweden Lethal Logging
In Sápmi, a battle is raging to protect the traditional lands of the Sámi people from Sweden’s state-owned logging company, Sveaskog. Repeated calls for it to stop the clear-cutting of lichen-rich forests on reindeer-grazing lands have been ignored,
New Internationalist2 min read
Tanzania Land Locked
Tens of thousands of Maasai in northern Tanzania fear they could be forced off their ancestral lands in Loliondo and Ngorongoro conservation areas, to make way for elite tourism and trophy hunting. In Ngorongoro, four fifths of land currently accessi
New Internationalist1 min readDiscrimination & Race Relations
Reasons To Be Cheerful
In another milestone for what campaign group Culture Unstained has called the ‘unstoppable rejection’ of fossil fuel funding, BP and London’s National Portrait Gallery have announced the end of their 30-year partnership in 2022. It comes after years
New Internationalist12 min read
Beyond Big Oil
This isn’t working. Wherever Big Oil goes, it brings devastation. Spills smother ecosystems; air pollution chokes cities. Earthquakes follow fracking and gas extraction. Plastics clog up seas. Democratic governments are toppled or corrupted, strongme
New Internationalist1 min read
Action And Info
fossilfueltreaty.org Working for a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty lofotendeclaration.org For a just phase-out led by wealthy fossil fuel producers gastivists.org Support for grassroots groups fighting fossil gas platformlondon.org Campaign grou
New Internationalist2 min read
Big Oil The Facts
PETROCHINA 281 SINOPEC 271 SAUDI ARAMCO 230 BP 180 EXXONMOBIL 178 SHELL 170 TOTAL 120 CHEVRON 94 GAZPROM 91 MARATHON PETROLEUM 75 (% share of world total) 1 EXXONMOBIL 23.2 2 SHELL 21.7 3 TOTAL 16 4 CHEVRON 15.7 5 BP 14.9 1 Katharina Buchholz, ‘The b
New Internationalist4 min read
Fossil Fuels – A Journey In Time
For many millennia humanity’s energy came ultimately from the sun. From the photosynthesis of plants, that provided fuel for human and animal labour, to the wood or dung burnt for cooking or warmth. Even wind and water power – used for grinding corn
New Internationalist8 min read
Cut And Run
The two largest transnational oil companies operating in Nigeria’s Niger Delta, Shell and ExxonMobil, are packing up and leaving. Both companies have announced separate plans to sell off their assets as soon as they find buyers, and to leave the Nige
New Internationalist7 min readChemistry
The New Greenwashing
The mission: Keep pumping, fill your pockets What’s missing from our efforts against climate change? The global bureaucracies of corporate climate inaction have a new idea: ‘Blue Carbon’, or more specifically, as the bods at the International Monetar
New Internationalist5 min read
The Fracked Earth
In the early hours of one Monday this February, 50 Mapuche women, men and children of the Fvta Xayem community assembled – some on horseback, others on foot – to blockade the entrances to a fracking site in Vaca Muerta, western Argentina. Standing in
New Internationalist5 min readWorld
Fighting The Fossils
‘Our campaign starts from the principle that the vast gas resources discovered in the Eastern Mediterranean during the last decade should remain underground – fossil fuels are not the future,’ says Manal Shqair, climate activist and the International
New Internationalist5 min read
A Global Just Transition
When it comes to climate change, predicting how things will play out is tricky: how fast is the permafrost melting, how quickly will glaciers slide into the sea, and can cities armour themselves against floods? One fact however is simple: if we burn
New Internationalist2 min readDiscrimination & Race Relations
Star Ratings
Income inequality is among the lowest in Europe, with the top 10% receiving income 6 times higher than the incomes of the bottom 10%. In Russia this figure is 15.4. But inequality has been growing in recent years. Belarus has a high literacy rate of
New Internationalist3 min read
Can We Banish Polluters From Our Billboards?
The fossil fuel companies are lying to us. Again. A recent peer-reviewed study examined the climate claims of ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell and BP in detail – and found that they amounted to little more than greenwash.1 All those adverts and announcemen
New Internationalist3 min read
View From Africa
Across Sudan, thousands of people have been protesting a military coup that returned soldiers to the helm of Africa’s third largest country in October 2021. As the military summarily ousted the civilian leader of government, it was clear that the 201
New Internationalist6 min read
Slapped Down
Daphne Caruana Galizia was on her way to the bank when her car blew up. A bomb had been planted under the driver’s seat while it was parked outside her home in Bidnija, Malta. The investigative journalist was trying to gain access to her accounts whi
New Internationalist6 min readWorld
The Dragon And The Bear On The Roof Of The World
A young foreman from a construction site queues at the SIM-card desk of the glitzy Tcell shop in Tajikistan’s capital, Dushanbe. He’s well-dressed, drenched in perfume, and trailed by three Chinese men, all eager to lay hands on their phones again. ‘
New Internationalist6 min readGender Studies
‘As Long As The World Keeps Running, We’ll Be Here’
As my friends and I climb the old staircase to a bar in Istanbul’s vibrant Taksim district, I’m surprised to hear the establishment’s name. I thought Şahika had shut down but it seems my friends had just stopped going. ‘Queer managers took over,’ the
New Internationalist3 min readWorld
Belarus
A long the Polish-Belarusian border grows Europe’s largest primeval forest: the Belovezh Pushcha, reputedly haunted by a six-armed spirit. Many armies have perished in its swamps, and it was at a summit here in 1991 the USSR passed into history. For
New Internationalist2 min readCrime & Violence
View From India
Let me begin with a cliché: at the pulsating centre of every Indian family are marriages. But who benefits from them? Apart from the wedding planners, caterers, decorators and other related businesses, the main beneficiaries of marriages in our count
New Internationalist7 min readCrime & Violence
Please Continue To Not Sponsor This Child
Did you know you can design your own child? If you visit the website of World Vision, Compassion International or almost any other child sponsorship agency, you will be greeted with an assortment of demographics to select from – age, gender, country,
New Internationalist1 min read
Southern Exposure
Take that! A cholita wrestler sprays her male opponent with foam in El Alto, Bolivia. Cholita is a term referring to an indigenous Aymara and Quechua woman wearing the typical velvet tiered skirts and with long braided hair. Mexican photographer Rodr
New Internationalist19 min read
Is It Too Late?
Back in 1947, a group of scientists associated with the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists started up something called the Doomsday Clock to measure how much closer the human species is getting to perilous catastrophe each year. The original threat wa
New Internationalist3 min readAmerican Government
Hall Of Infamy
JOB: Democratic Senator from West Virginia REPUTATION: Covert Republican and carbon apologist As the world faces crisis upon crisis, The 73-year-old Joe Manchin is the quintessential renegade Democrat: pro-carbon, anti-abortion and firmly opposed to
New Internationalist3 min readCrime & Violence
View From Brazil
When Moïse Kabagambe, a Congolese immigrant, was murdered at a beach kiosk in Rio de Janeiro in January, security camera footage of him being set upon by a group of men armed with sticks went viral. It managed to disturb a portion of Brazilians who s
New Internationalist3 min read
Spotlight steve Chandra Savale Of Asian Dub Foundation
In 1990, a young guitarist called Steve Chandra Savale came across an advertisement in a newspaper which read ‘Black/Asian musicians required for experimental dub noise project.’ He was the only one to reply. At the time, Savale had no inkling that h
New Internationalist5 min read
Books
by Okwiri Oduor (One World Publications, ISBN 9780861543878) oneworld-publications.com Twelve-year-old Ayosa inhabits a world of blurred boundaries. Her memories pre-date her birth; wraiths, ghosts, emotions and nightmares are as real and compelling
New Internationalist2 min read
Film
directed and written by Leah Purcell 109 minutes Leah Purcell has based her film on an outback tale by Henry Lawson, who’s often billed as Australia’s greatest short story writer. His is a simple story about an unnamed woman protecting her children f
New Internationalist2 min read
Music
by Lining Time (Shadow World Editorial Records, LP, DL) hotsalvation.com The only album recorded by a group of five women students going by the name of Lining Time in 1982, Strike is simplicity itself: mostly voices, percussion in the form of woodblo
New Internationalist3 min read
The Puzzler
1 Announce Fourth Team to meet up near Chester (7) 5 High-born Hindu’s place is behind the sending back of urn (6) 11 Hole-in-one at an old African elevated site (9) 12 Flower of Poland is, on reflection, at the rear of earlier conflict… (5) 13 …and
New Internationalist1 min read
Association Words 23
1 Bring to: Manager (7) 5 Saved one’s: And eggs (5) 8 Oxford: One’s jacket (3) 9 Grand Coulee: Busters (3) 10 Tennis: Joint (5) 11 Sabre: Band (5) 12 Six: League (7) 14 Big: And wine (6) 16 Cry blue: Of crows (6) 19 Santa: Ann (7) 21 My own private:
New Internationalist1 min readInternational Relations
Wordsearch 102
The 19 NATO countries were: Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Turkey, UK, USA. ■
New Internationalist3 min read
Agony Uncle
Q: My friend runs a muchloved crafts shop. There’s a sign in the window which says: ‘We pay our taxes – unlike Amazon!’ But recently I worked a shift for her in the shop and my friend said I should encourage customers to pay by cash. When I asked why
New Internationalist3 min read
We Said ‘No’ To Concrete?
Concrete is magic. It gives form to the boldest civic ambitions and allows the wildest flights of architectural imagination; it can house millions or give expression to towering phallic capitalist hubris. It’s also handy if you want to make a patio o

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