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In our Special Features section

Workers on the Isle of Wight occupied their wind-turbine factory in protest at its closure. Danny Chivers reports from the frontline:

‘In a matter of minutes I was being carried bodily off the site by a couple of grumbling officers, and from where I dangled in their grip I could see the rest of the cops and the security guards similarly occupied with my friends. Then suddenly a cheer went up – the plan had worked!’   

Read the whole story at:

www.newint.org/features/special/2009/08/04/less-talk-more-wind/

On the Majority World blog

Sulakshana Gupta met the amazing Mariatu Kamara, whose hands were brutally cut off by rebels during Sierra Leone’s civil war:

‘Her story is a nightmare, only real. She was raped at age 12 by a man who wanted to marry her. The rebels that captured her in the forest left her for dead. She managed to survive and was brought to Freetown for medical attention. It was then that she found out she was pregnant. Shortly after her son was born he died of malnutrition. Mariatu moved to Toronto and was granted residence on humanitarian grounds. She’s learned to use her hands without prosthetics and is studying to be a family counsellor. But that’s what sets her apart from the amputees I see everyday on the streets of Freetown. She was able to leave.’

http://blog.newint.org/majority/2009/07/30/face-of-war/

Waiting at Dubai International Airport, Azad Essa is sick of having to adopt an ‘anti-terrorism kit’ in order to avoid the harassment he witnesses at passport control:

‘While I am watching the circus act play out, wondering when the boy would lose his patience and scream out something random like, ‘Okay Okay! I like looking at granny porn’, I am called to the other counter by another woman to board the flight…  Asking why the boy hadn’t seen his womanizing father for nine years is hardly verifying an already legitimate visa.’

http://blog.newint.org/majority/2009/07/08/anti-terrorism-kit/

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