Returning to Britain was the start of a difficult new journey for the detainees held without charge at Guantánamo. They meet every six months at a London restaurant to swap anecdotes and shake off memories of imprisonment. Oliver Shah reports.
Do you know what apples, almonds, broccoli, cashews, garlic, mangoes, peaches, raspberries and tea have in common? Give up? They all depend on bees to help with their sexual reproduction.
In fact, did you know that every third bite of food that you consume depends on our buzzing buddies, the bees? The busy little gals (the workers are unfertilized females) do a lot for us by pollinating plants and flowers worldwide.
Unfortunately, they’re dying by the millions and no-one knows why. It’s safe to say our world won’t be the same without them.
‘No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more… people’ is a quote often attributed to Albert Einstein, though there doesn’t seem to be any evidence that he actually said it. Not that it matters. The attribution is less important than the content.
This issue examines the mystery of the disappearing bees.
Returning to Britain was the start of a difficult new journey for the detainees held without charge at Guantánamo. They meet every six months at a London restaurant to swap anecdotes and shake off memories of imprisonment. Oliver Shah reports.
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Called the ‘Father of the Green Revolution’, Norman Borlaug died on 12 September. Paul H Johnson argues that the glowing obituaries are only telling half the tale.
Reverend Billy is a bleached-blond dog-collar-wearing cross between Elvis and a televangelist; he’s also a candidate for the New York Mayoral elections this November. NItalks to him about his hopes, fears and crazily eccentric dreams.
Some call it ‘live aid’. Some call it ‘dead aid’. The debate is raging. Vanessa Baird and Jonathan Glennie tell the story so far…
It won’t be easy but Philip Chandler argues that beekeepers themselves need to lead a revolution in sustainability.
Wayne Ellwood investigates the case of the missing bees.
Gathering wild honey is an age-old tradition in South India. Mari Marcel Thekaekara and her husband Stan see how it’s done.
Nick Harvey reports on the position of the Hmong – both inside Laos and the bleak refugee camps of Thailand.
Charlie Parker operates Charlie Bee Honey near Niagara Falls, Ontario. He reflects on his 50 years as a beekeeper.
Pakistan’s army offensive has wrongfooted the Taliban. But the larger war of ideas has yet to be won. Pervez Hoodbhoy explains.
Jonathan Glennie takes on both the aid optimists and the pessimists.
Kicking out asylum seekers and ‘illegal’ immigrants is a political trump card in the rich West – particularly when there’s an election around the corner. Every cut-out custodian of democracy wants to talk tough when it comes to these ‘undesirables’. The argument is that they have no genuine claim to be in a foreign land and face no threat back home. The New Internationalist tracks down individuals who have been returned to their countries, and lets them speak for themselves. These are not the stories of spongers and scoundrels, as the rightwing press would have us believe, but of a gross betrayal of human rights and of persecution and desperation that no courtroom could foretell.
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