Comfortable in my skin

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Written by Kered Clement
Monday, 14 July 2008 00:00

We may have qualms about its hue and its erratic texture on a not so feel-good day, but it remains unchanged. Whether it’s masked by foundation or glazed by the sun, underneath it lies in its original state - as our existing skin. How would you feel if your skin attracted too much attention, or re-adjusts your personal and racial identity?

The legacy of war: an Iraqi refugee speaks to Billy Briggs and Angela Catlin about her experiences, and a humanitarian crisis continues

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Written by Billy Briggs
Sunday, 08 June 2008 00:00

Zeinab Aboued Allah covers her face with her hands. She is wearing a black abiya and sits on a cushion beside the orange glow of an electric heater. To her right sits the prosthetic limb designed for her after she was caught in a bomb blast in Iraq in 2005. An Iraqi refugee living in Damascus, Zeinab has agreed to be interviewed, but on the strict condition that we protect her family’s identity.

Insensitivity at the helm: the people of Myanmar continue to suffer from the effects of Cyclone Nargis

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Written by Kavin Kanagasabai
Sunday, 08 June 2008 00:00

When Myanmar shifted its capital from Yangon to Naypyidaw, rumour had it that it was due to the forewarning given by astrologers that the former capital city would be greeted with rebellion and ravage. Rebellion sprang up last September, and soldiers shot unarmed protesters who demanded action from the government after it hiked fuel prices by as much as 500% without prior warning or explanation. Ravage, in the form of Cyclone Nargis, lashed the country unforgivingly. In its wake, it left monumental devastation on an unimaginable scale, with tens of thousands either dead or missing and hundreds of thousands without shelter, while condemning millions to the prospect of disease and hunger.

Social Behaviour: Dairy company Danone and Nobel Prize winner’s bank team up for responsible business

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Written by Administrator
Thursday, 29 May 2008 00:00

With all the dirty business practices going on throughout the world, it is often forgotten to highlight those companies that are striving to become more socially responsible.  Noble Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus started the Grameen bank to help companies find more ways of becoming more mindful of their impact. Together with French dairy producer Danone, Grameen Danone Foods has created a business that is bringing the idea of social business to the forefront.

Zimbabwe: Condemn or condone?

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Written by Chi Anyanwu
Thursday, 29 May 2008 00:00

In light of recent election delays and alleged rigging, surrounding nations have not condemned Zimbabwe despite pressure from the West. How did this once acolyte of Africa's economy spiral out of control and what hope remains?

To the moon and back: an American astronaut is one of the stars of improving western health care systems

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Written by Jessica Mansour
Thursday, 29 May 2008 00:00

In 1998, American Wayne's World actor Dana Carvey (no, not Mike Myers - the other one) checked in for double bypass surgery. Imagine his shock two months later when he had to return to hospital for an emergency procedure - because doctors had bypassed the wrong artery. Shocking? Hardly. Perhaps Carvey was lucky. In 1999, the Institute of Medicine released its report, To Err is Human, which estimated between 44 0000 and 98 000 Americans die from medical errors annually.  In 2002, The Commonwealth Fund speculated that due to lack of open disclosure, that figure could be underestimated.

Overqualified and underpaid: where are graduates going?

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Written by Rachel Morison
Wednesday, 28 May 2008 00:00

This week I was contracted for one day’s work at a trendy London fashion PR company. The role involved putting origami birds of varying sizes into boxes and putting labels on the boxes. The dream team undertaking this project were a group of three graduates with backgrounds in film, English literature, and graphic design. Not what any of us had in mind when we graduated from some of the UK’s top universities. The film graduate from Manchester University made a very valid point that she may have been better off not going to university at all but becoming a runner on a film set aged 18 and working her way up, making contacts and learning skills along the way. With more than 2.5 million new graduates emerging from higher education each year, perhaps the more savvy school-leavers should consider heading straight for the workplace and apprenticeships.

Destruction and Displacement in Somalia

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Written by Shafi Said
Wednesday, 07 May 2008 00:00

Driven out of their homes into squalid camps crammed with compact clusters of tiny huts made of twigs, straws and old clothes, the Somalis have become refugees in their own country. Today, displaced mothers, malnourished children, feeble elders, and mutilated men all in their serried ranks lay languishing inside the small slouching huts and walk through the makeshift shelters in desperation, their disconsolate voices diminished by the roars of the blaring guns.

A Nomadic Experience: Seeing Family in Somalia

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Written by Shafi Said
Wednesday, 07 May 2008 00:00

Just before twilight, we left Bosaaso in north-eastern Somalia for the pristine countryside wilderness, or Miyi as it is known in Somali. Accompanied by my brother, I left my hotel, passed by Bosaaso Hospital, a thousand and one restaurants at the edge of the main road, countless hawkers, cars, lorries heading out and entering the city, people, goats, sheep, soldiers, more hotels, carts and finally silence. Except for our short stay at Xalwo Kismaayo while we bought some sweets and mineral water, there were no commotion-filled and eventful streets to be heard, no clamour of voices, no obnoxious Qat sellers, no loud conductors pulling you into their buses - just the noise of rubber eating away the tarmac.

New Zealand: Geographical Isolation, Political Despondency, Economic Dependency?

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Written by Matt Turner
Wednesday, 07 May 2008 00:00

New Zealand is 1250 miles from Australia, 12 hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time and the first major nation to see in the New Year. Add to that a landmass equivalent to the UK but with less than a tenth of the population and you can begin to understand why the country appears and feels isolated.

US presidential hopefuls: what might the campaigns mean for the rest of the world?

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Written by Cara Murphy
Wednesday, 07 May 2008 00:00

After six years of the Bush administration, people throughout the globe are looking forward to a change of American president. With a threatened recession looming and oil and food prices rising, it is more important than ever that the elected American president is willing to renew its ties with Europe and start anew. But in the haze of promises, attacks and counter attacks, the true intentions of the election hopefuls can be easily lost. Added to this is the fact that foreign policy is not seen as a primary concern for campaigners. So, while Europe is hoping that the next US President will have a multinational foreign policy it is not easy to find out the most promising presidential candidates general attitude towards their European allies.

Beyond benevolence?: Benin, independence, and Bush’s visit

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Written by Zak Baruwa
Wednesday, 23 April 2008 00:00

George Bush recently gloated that “he would highlight African success stories” while on his Five-Nation tour of Africa. Pleasantries aside, will the US deliver on its famous words? What did the US pledge in the Benin Case? What should Yayi, probably the fairest and most democratic President in Benin’s 48 years since independence, be asking the Yanks for?

All workers are equal (but some are more equal than others)

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Written by Freya-Grace McClelland
Wednesday, 23 April 2008 00:00

Arriving in England from Poland two years ago, Anna sought a life of opportunity and financial gain. Before she arrived, concerned about finding a job when she did not speak the language well, Anna signed up for an agency in Oxford who had advertised in Poland. Here she cleaned for ten or more hours a day, shared a room with another girl employed by the same agency and had to abide by strict house rules and curfews. Earning ₤5 an hour, her monthly earnings had a heavy tax levy, a tax that went straight into her employer’s pocket. She had no sick pay, no holiday pay and was unable to turn down work. Anna moved to London with a promise of a better job but found again that the agency had a hidden agenda. She had to stay in the agency for a high rent, she had to share with a man she didn’t know and when she asked for time off for a holiday she was told she would have to take a month off unpaid and still pay the premium rent. Two years on, Anna has left the agency and moved out, disillusioned, preferring to take the financial risk of work she herself has sourced. Why? The UK is refusing to legislate to give legal protection to agency workers and, by doing so, failing to prevent such mass scale exploitation.

Sweden, the EU and Iraqi asylum seekers

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Written by Emma C. Naismith
Wednesday, 23 April 2008 00:00

Little Baghdad

Södertälje, a town lying 18 miles outside of Stockholm and with a population of 62,000, is called “Little Baghdad” in the local media. It has an Iraqi population of around 5,000, and nearly the same number of Iraqi refugees as the USA. Sweden has received more Iraqi asylum applications than any other country in the EU; the Swedish government writes on its website that, in 2006, nearly 9,000 Iraqis sought asylum in Sweden, which was around half of all applications in the EU. The UN refugee agency UNHCR also published statistics showing that Sweden had 9,329 applications in 2007. In comparison, the UK had 665 applications, Germany had 817, and France received 69.

Dubai and the fine art of development

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Written by Annex Achieng
Sunday, 13 April 2008 14:00

Trade between China and Africa totalled about £30 billion last year, a six-fold increase since 2000. China now buys about one third of its oil from Africa, mainly from Angola, and the Sudan. But while we are all concentrating on China’s neo-colonisation of Africa, a huge Middle Eastern country is also keen on remaking Africa in its hometown image and they are not shouting about it - yet.

The killings and disappearances of women in Ciudad Juárez are still a mystery unsolved

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Written by Pablo Carballo
Sunday, 13 April 2008 14:00

A female corpse buried under the white sand of the desert, with signs of having been strangled, raped and mutilated: such violent images have become a regular piece of news for locals in Ciudad Juárez in Mexico over the last fifteen years. Hundreds of women have been murdered in what remains one of the weirdest, most macabre serial killings of modern times. According to the official data, there have been 460 murders and some 600 disappearances since 1993; some sources consider that the real number is far beyond those figures and could reach several thousands. Many of those cases, and more mysteriously, whatever links them all, are yet to be clarified.

Beyond the Sea: the plight of the Chagossians

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Written by Natalie Li
Thursday, 13 March 2008 23:50

Situated in the Indian Ocean are some of the remotest islands in the world. Lush and abundant, the Chagos Islands may have once represented a piece of unspoilt paradise. However, during the late 1960s, an entire population was expelled from these islands to make way for a giant American military base in one of the most shocking violations of international law.

Disadvantaged, dispossessed, disappearing: A bleak picture of the state of Aboriginal health in Australia

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Written by Lisa Menning
Thursday, 13 March 2008 23:50

Australia is an affluent nation currently enjoying strong economic growth and a health system that is amongst the best in the world. In contrast, life in Aboriginal communities is scarred by hopelessness - by any measure - housing, education, employment and health. Aborigines lag far behind the general community, but nowhere are the problems more extreme than in Aboriginal health. While most Australians are living longer than ever before, Indigenous Australians are dying almost 20 years before other Australians, and infant mortality rates show increasing inequalities between Aborigines and non-Aborigines.

KENYA: Disrupted elections and 'Made in Kenya' solution

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Written by Annex Achieng
Thursday, 13 March 2008 23:50

African diplomacy seemed to triumph when Kofi Annan and Jakaya Kikwete, Chairman of African Union, saw Kenya's President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga sign a power sharing agreement. The agreement, which has surprised many, sees the position of prime minister - a job to be taken by Mr. Odinga - created. Annex Achieng writes.

Hasta La Victoria Siempre - but must the Cubans fight forever for victory?

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Written by Kate Weir
Thursday, 13 March 2008 23:50

On 24th February, Fidel Castro stepped down as Cuba's president after 49 years in power, handing over the position to his relatively younger brother. 76-year-old Raul has long been his second in command since they stormed the Moncada barracks in order to topple the Batista regime during the 26th of July movement.