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Total number of posts: 22689
Another world is possible
A conversation with Chico Whitaker, founder of the World Social Forum and latest winner of the Alternative Nobel Prize Marco Visscher | Jan/Feb 2007 issue Tension hung in the air. The third World Social Forum (WSF) was to be held the next day and Porto Alegre’s university was preparing for an Read More...
A new uproar over The Da Vinci Code
Protests about the book and movie spread to the Muslim world, uniting disparate believers. Najiba Abdellaoui | Jan/Feb 2007 issue The controversial religious thriller The Da Vinci Code prompted a firestorm of debate across the Arab world. In Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Jordan, the movie Read More...
Laughing at Osama
Muslim stand-up comic Shazia Mirza shatters taboos all around. Tijn Touber| Jan/Feb 2007 issue My name is Shazia Mirza; at least that’s what it says on my pilot’s licence.” This is how Muslim stand-up comedienne Shazia Mirza opened her routine after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. It had taken Read More...
Pulling themselves up by their keyboards
By bringing computers into slums, an Indian physicist shows that illiterate children can educate themselves - and help their country progress. Lex Veldhoen | Jan/Feb 2007 issue The alleys are narrow in Madangir, a slum on the edge of New Delhi. Rickety huts crammed together house emigrants from Read More...
Raging hormones
Everyday chemicals affect children's sexual development Kim Ridley| Jan/Feb 2007 issue Kids these days are growing up too fast— in more ways than one. American girls are reaching puberty up to a year earlier than in previous generations, with some children showing signs of sexual development as Read More...
Supplementing global health
Howard Schiffer and Vitamin Angels are saving the world one multivitamin at a time Matt Kettmann| Jan/Feb 2007 issue What the world needs now is not love, but vitamins. That’s what 40-year-old Howard Schiffer realized in 1994 after an earthquake hit the former vitamin salesman’s hometown of Read More...
This little light of mine
A revolutionary new light bulb uses so little energy it can last decades Tijn Touber | Jan/Feb 2007 issue If Anton Philips, the man who co-founded the global electronics firm bearing his name in 1891, could see his great-grandsons today, he would surely be proud. His direct descendents, Frans Otten Read More...
The Golden Inferno
Ben Okri offers a message from the house that was a country. Ben Okri and Cynthia Jones| Jan/Feb 2007 issue That country was a house with a gutter of earth in front of it. And the shallow gutter was clogged with things that made the air foul and terrible to breathe. There was a dead cow upended Read More...
Why God leaves us alone
And why, according to Deepak Chopra, that's a very good thing Paulo Coelho | Jan/Feb 2007 issue I'm sure that in their heart of hearts, most people wish God would stop interfering in everyday life. This is a concern that reaches far beyond religion. The U.S. president and other born-again Read More...
Is algae the new oil?
An alternative energy is ready to bloom Craig Cox | December 2006 issue Marlborough is a picturesque coastal city on New Zealand’s South Island known for wineries and whale-watching. But oddly enough it’s the town’s sewage ponds that are getting the most attention these days, as a company Read More...