Pride without prejudice – South Asian women Anees Jung * “I have a better life today than I did when my husband was alive,” said Zapathan. A statement like this from a Muslim widow in Bangladesh would have been unthinkable twenty years ago, and I was taken by surprise when Zapathan made it. Sitting on […]
Pirates and the paper chase – international copyright infringment Lucia Iglesias Kuntz Book piracy is a thriving trade in poor nations, sometimes raking in bigger profits than the real thing. In Spanish-speaking countries, publishers and governments are stepping up their campaign to stop the scourge One of Lima’s largest bookshops is on Amazonas Street. It […]
The four pillars of Neptune’s temple – relation of the oceans to humans Jacques Ferrier His breast must have been protected all round with oak and bronze, who first launched his frail boat on the rough sea …. (Horace, Odes, I, III, 9) THE ocean is the largest expense on Earth and the vastest resource […]
Mali: a flickering flame Sophie Boukhari Sophie Boukhari [*] Malian President Alpha Oumar Konare is committed to a culture of peace. But crime has been rising in Mali for several years now and the political climate is getting worse On the edge of the Sahara, donkeys and camels amble around a little square that slumbers […]
‘Christians and spices’; the Portugese in India – 15th and 16th centuries John Correia Afonso CAMOES masterpiece The Lusiads, Portugal’s national epic, tells the story of a small nation which in the space of a little over a century carried its flag and its faith far across the seas to Africa, to Brazil and as […]
What is a minority? – two ways to obtain minority status – Minorities Deirdre Meintel Applied to society, the concept of a minority is not necessarily numerical. Social and historical factors shape a group’s consciousness of minority status IN the West, the issue of minorities goes back to the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, […]
Cambodia: a wound that will not heal Rithy Panh A Cambodian film-maker describes how he came to terms with horror. His country will never recover its lost identity, he says, unless it puts the past on trial I left Cambodia when I was 15 with a spiritual wound I knew would never heal. I had […]
Cinecitta Francesco Bono During the night of 26 September 1935, a terrible fire destroyed the Rome studios of Cines, then Italy’s biggest film company. It was immediately decided to build a new “cinema city” called Cinecitta. The creation of Cinecitta was part of a wide-ranging plan to promote the Italian cinema implemented by the Fascist […]
The Burakumin, Japan’s Invisible Outcasts – Brief Article Richard Werly “Japan’s smooth social fabric is just an illusion,” says Nadamoto Masahisa, who teaches modern history at Kyoto University. “It’s still based on invisible castes and as Burakumin, we’re at the bottom of the ladder.” Alongside his teaching, Masahisa is fighting to defend the Burakumin (or […]
The first Earth Summit – includes related article – Environment and Development: A Global Commitment TWENTY years after the first World Conference on the Environment, held in Stockholm in 1972, the international community is faced with a serious dilemma. On the one hand it is more necessary than ever to increase economic activity in order […]