Technology justice

A note from the editor

Dinyar Godrej

Shame and seduction

A few months ago, new friends of ours came to visit for dinner. So shocked were they by the squat television in our living room that they insisted we accept a flat-screen version they had going spare.

Now, I’m usually of the ‘use it until it wears out’ school when it comes to my possessions and I was quite fond of the old box we had – its colours were still fine, it did its job. It was far from obsolete.

But perhaps a combination of shame at being perceived as Stone Agers, the inability to say no to a gift and the determination of our friends, meant that a few days later they duly delivered an enormous flat-screen job. The perfectly serviceable old faithful was despatched to the municipal recycling point, where proper recycling is likely to be the last thing that happens to it.

That box has been on my mind quite a bit, especially as this edition is all about technology – appropriate, inappropriate, the excesses of the West, the deprivation of much of the rest.

Also this month, we have coverage of the efforts to declare Ecocide a punishable crime against peace. And a feature on the women fighters of Rojava in northern Syria: democrats and passionate idealists who show a different way is possible even in the direst circumstances.

Dinyar Godrej for the New Internationalist co-operative.
www.newint.org

The big story

Charge your phones here: this man displays the board of sockets which helps him earn his livelihood in Nigeria’s Katsina city. Many vendors invest in small solar units to generate the power. Photo: Akintunde Akinleye/Reuters

Charge your phones here: this man displays the board of sockets which helps him earn his livelihood in Nigeria’s Katsina city. Many vendors invest in small solar units to generate the power.

Photo: Akintunde Akinleye/Reuters

Technology as if people mattered*

The world's poor are still losing out. They need a better deal, argues Dinyar Godrej.

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Features

Women of the Nicolás Bravo community demonstrate their methods of selecting corn plants for seeds during an agroecology training course, Chiapas, Mexico. Photo: Nils McCune

'Because the river told me'

Peasant farmers resisting the violence of agribusiness. By Nils McCune.

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Facts - Mind the technology gap

Technology can be a big enabler – yet the difference in terms of what’s available to rich and poor is vast.

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Male baldness v malaria?

Simon Trace on the skewed priorities of medical research.

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Switched on

Technology, whether low or high, needs to be appropriate and within reach to make a difference.

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Just too dear: sometimes despite energy being available it can be unaffordable. This mother in  Soweto, South Africa, protests against the prices of state utility Eskom.Photo: Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters

The energy fix

What will it take to get electricity to Africa’s rural poor? Ruth Nyambura explores.

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Illustration: Donough O’ Malley

The Disrupted

Jim Thomas on the winners and losers of emerging technologies.

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Portent of doom: a penguin covered in oil following a spill off the coast of South Africa.Photo: Martin Harvey/Alamy Stock Photo

The duty to care for our common home

Femke Wijdekop makes the case for Ecocide to become a crime under international law.

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Nesrîn Abdullah, left, with Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Amina Osse.Photo: Rahila Gupta

Military fatigues and floral scarves

Rahila Gupta meets women fighters in Rojava who are leading the charge towards a radical democracy.

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Web exclusives

Refugees wait outside a police station which serves as their registration centre, Aug.15, 2015, in the town of Kos at the southeastern Greek island of Kos.Photo: Freedom House

‘The best help comes from simple, solidarity movements’

Afghan refugee organizer Yonous Muhammadi speaks to Marienna Pope-Weidemann and Samir Dathi in Athens, Greece.

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Simon, a Kurd from Iraq, in his new shelter.Photo by Sarah Shearman

Inside Dunkirk's new refugee camp

A purpose-built camp offers refugees a sense of relief, but for how long?, asks Sarah Shearman.

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Soldiers in al-Khalil.Photo: PalFest

Caught in the act: Israeli soldier filmed killing Palestinian

Noreen Sadik reports on the aftermath of a very public shooting in the divided city of al-Khalil.

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Run, Palestine, run

A record number of participants claimed their right to freedom of movement at this year’s marathon. Giedre Steikunaite reports.

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Blogs

BP is loath to admit that campaigners have won the art sponsorship PR battle.Photo © Andrew Perry

Artful dodging

Five reasons not to buy BP’s story about the end of its sponsorship deals.

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Opinion

YES: Kelvin Hopkins has been Labour MP for Luton North since 1997. An economist by training, he is on the Left of the party. Most of his working life has been spent within the trade union movement, including five years at the Trades Union Congress. He is a champion of lifelong learning. During his early years he was a jazz musician.

Should Britain leave the European Union?

Kelvin Hopkins and Caroline Lucas go head to head on the question that will be put to British voters in a referendum in June.

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Photo: tinyfroglet under a CC licence

One gas leak too many

Can we end fracking now? asks Mark Engler.

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Regulation Top Trumps

TTIP is a very dangerous game, writes Chris Coltrane.

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Agenda

Moving mountains: in March, trucks began clearing nine months' worth of accumulated rubbish.Photo: Bilal Hussein/AP/Press Association Images

Government garbage U-turn in Lebanon

The sanitation crisis is over, but the government faces further challenges, writes Habib Battah.

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Torture tactics in Tibet

Torture tactics in Tibet

Emily Korstanje reports on China's treatment of political prisoners.

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Rights on bikes

Rights on bikes

Afghan women are cycling to empowerment. By Kelsi Farrington.

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Photo: Collin Reid/AP/Press Association Images

Introducing... Andrew Holness

Richard Swift introduces Jamaica's new prime minister.

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Kenyan flagWikimedia Commons

Stateless Shona in Kenya

Maina Waruru on a community without rights.

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Five years ago in New Internationalist

Chris Brazier remembers our climate change denial magazine.

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Photo: Shumi/photos.lensational.org

Surfer girls defy convention in Bangladesh

Surfer girl Shumi captures her friend on camera.

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Standing with the oppressors

Standing with the oppressors

Britain's ongoing high-level relations with Bahrain is unacceptable, writes Batool Al Musawi.

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Semantically engineered crops

Semantically engineered crops

Louise Sales reports on word games in the GMO industry.

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Banished Petroleum

Banished Petroleum

Jess Worth reports on a victory for campaigners wanting BP out of the arts.

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Photo: Abhishek Jacob under a CC Licence

Reasons to be cheerful

Stories to give us cheer this month.

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Regulars

Letters

Praise, blame and all points in between? Your feedback published in the May 2016 magazine.

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The language of peacekeeping

The importance of communication should not be underestimated, writes Ruby Diamonde.

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Open Window - Xenophobia

Open Window - Xenophobia

Nayer Talal Nayer from Ethiopia with ‘Xenophobia’

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Photo: Jes Aznar

Southern Exposure: Jes Aznar

Poverty and war have hit Filipinos hard, as Jes Aznar shows through his photography.

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Clockwise from top right: A young woman from an animist community listens to a visiting Christian preacher in Maiduguri, Borno state; a boy who lives by a river that has burst its banks in Wase, Plateau state; two men ride a motorbike through Plateau state in rather more comfort than their hen; Pastor Fred Adda addresses his congregation in the International Praise Cathedral in Kaduna; a market scene in Lagos.Photos by Seamus Murphy/ Panos Pictures.

Country profile: Nigeria

Samuel Malik considers life in the self-styled 'giant of Africa'.

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Photo: Seth Wenig/AP/Press Association Images

A word with Gloria Steinem

The feminist pioneer talks to Graeme Green about travel, change and the road ahead.

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Film, Book & Music Reviews

Mixed Media: Music

Mixed Media: Music

The Woman at the End of the World by Elza Soares; Highlife-Jazz and Afro-Soul by Fela Ransome Kuti and his Koola Lobitos.

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Mixed Media: Films

Mixed Media: Films

Suburra, directed by Stefano Sollima; Heaven Knows What, directed by Ben and Joshua Safdie; Mustang, directed by Deniz Gamze Ergüven.

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Mixed Media: Books

Mixed Media: Books

Memories from Moscow to the Black Sea by Teffi; Saving the Media by Julia Cagé; Crossing the Sea with Syrians on the exodus to Europe by Wolfgang Bauer; Counter Narratives by John Keene.

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