New Internationalist

July 2008

Features:

• endgame in the Amazon Is Ecuador’s bold proposal not to exploit a billion barrels of oil in the Yasuní National Park a serious option for combating climate change? If so, the world is going to have to move fast, warns Vanessa Baird.
• ‘speak to us first!’ People from the Ecuadorian rainforest tell Fabrício Guamán what they think of their Government’s proposal to leave petroleum in the ground.
• toxic Blocks No-one said oil was clean. But Ecuador’s experience of extracting fossil fuels is about as bad as it gets, reports David Ransom.
• Costing the earth Adam Ma’anit navigates the snakepits of global carbon trading in the context of Yasuní.
• Letters Burma’s exploited refugees; questing ethical oil; cruciixion issues; get real about indigenous peoples. PLUS: Maria Golia tackles taboos about money in Cairo.
• Currents The companies making a killing from the food crisis; Planktos – RIP; apartheid accomplices Coca-Cola, Barclays, BP et al are heading for court; inside China’s jails; women in Orissa, India, have ways of dealing with calamity. PLUS: Wordpower and Seriously
• Big Bad World PLUS: NI Prize Crossword
• Worldbeaters Presidential hopeful John McCain gets the treatment.
• Mixed media Includes fado diva Mariza’s box of delights and Billy Bragg’s latest; a best- selling novel from Egypt inspired by taxi rides; an earthy fusion of cultures in Abdellatif Kechiche’s ilm from France; and, better late than never, a black- and-white classic from the US gets its release – 30 years after it was made.
• Southern Exposure Blue eyes in a Bangalore stone quarry captured by photographer Selvaprakash L.
• Making Waves Dheepthi Namasivayam interviews the Indian Community Welfare Organization.
• Essay: FOK-U: The Façade of Kindness & Understanding A seminar in effective leadership (PR & Spin) by Peter Greenwall.
• sPeCIAL FeAtURe As if poetry mattered Poems that confront human challenges – an international selection.
• Country profile: Timor Leste