Regular NI contributor Anna Chen casts the second Stone.
August 2008's Issue
2.6 billion people around the world don’t have a WC or any other kind of decent toilet. Because ‘faecal perils’ land up on hands, feet and lips, two million of them – mostly children – die of diarrhoeal disease every year. The toll in indignity and distress, especially among women, is less measurable but arguably far worse.
Out on the excretory frontier, toilet pioneers are strutting their stuff with goose-necks and waterseals, sanplats and the ecological approach. But they won’t get far unless people – rich and famous, poor and deprived – can be persuaded to confront the unmentionable and call a spade a spade.
This issue of New Internationalist looks at who and what are carrying the sanitary flame in the 21st century.
Every month, we put up a selection of articles from the magazine. To enjoy the complete magazine, subscribe and receive three free issues and a world map. Or buy a digital subscription which gives you unlimited access to all magazines since 2007 and for a year after purchase on your computer or mobile device, in their original full-colour design.
Featured in issue 414
Independence Day + 1
Mari Marcel Thekaekara reflects on the state of the Indian nation in middle age.
- Mari Marcel Thekaekara
- 21 Aug 2008
- 0
Tigers or Neutrinos
A huge new scientific experiment plans to go looking for tiny particles in the middle of India’s oldest Biosphere Reserve, moving mountains of rock and earth as it goes. Tarsh Thekaekara has his doubts about what is being done in the name of pure science.
- Tarsh Thekaekara
- 4 Aug 2008
- 0
We need to talk about... toilets
2008 is the International Year of Sanitation. Or, asks Maggie Black, is it the International Year of Silence and Embarrassment?
- Maggie Black
- 1 Aug 2008
- 0
River Bleeds Black
Bangladeshi photographer Shehzad Noorani exposes the damage done to the Buriganga River.
- Shehzad Noorani
- 1 Aug 2008
- 0
Dignity and the decent facility
Women desperately want toilets – but not as a health aid. Libby Plumb reports.
- Libby Plumb
- 1 Aug 2008
- 0
Mandela’s no tourist
Nelson Mandela gets a birthday present from the US, being repealed from the Terror Watch List!
- 1 Aug 2008
- 0
A lifetime in muck
Unbelievably, people still exist whose task in life is shovelling shit, as Mari Marcel Thekaekara explains.
- Mari Marcel Thekaekara and Stan Thekaekara
- 1 Aug 2008
- 0
Teófilo Acuña
Colombian activist Teófilo Acuña on the danger of confronting paramilitaries.
Tortured for 'refusing to kill'
A conscientious objector from Istanbul was beaten with sticks until he passed out
- 1 Aug 2008
- 0
Rights for albinos
Tanzanian authorities launch a crackdown on anti-albino witch doctors
- 1 Aug 2008
- 0
Dominica
Dominica is a small island both in population and size. Yet the island feels a lot bigger than this, with dozens of mountain peaks, waterfalls and some say a river for every day of the year.
- Sebastian Johns
- 1 Aug 2008
- 0
Maldito Tango
This collection of prowling, lunfardo slang-inflected songs concentrates on an imagined lowlife of Buenos Aires.
- Louise Gray
- 1 Aug 2008
- 0
Virtual Leisure
The début album from the Israeli-born, London-based performance artist Anat Ben-David, is based on a grim paradox, leisure doesn’t exist – it’s virtual
- Louise Gray
- 1 Aug 2008
- 0
The Hangman's Game
Karen King-Aribisala’s debut novel, a dark and brooding meditation on the stories we tell and the effect they have on everyday life
- Peter Whittaker
- 1 Aug 2008
- 0
Body Shopping: The Economy Fuelled by Flesh and Blood
Donna Dickensen’s fascinating overview of the complex world of medical ethics
- Peter Whittaker
- 1 Aug 2008
- 0
My life inside
A masterful piece of film-making that leaves the audience gasping at the injustice of a 99 year sentence for a Mexican ‘illegal’ migrant following the death of the child she was minding
- Richard Swift
- 1 Aug 2008
- 0
For our convenience
Toilets have been around since the days of Elizabeth I. Systems old and new.
- 1 Aug 2008
- 1
An island calling
An explosive mix of politics, religion and sexuality explored through the life of a gay couple in Fiji
- Richard Swift
- 1 Aug 2008
- 0
Kids and money
The horrors of the attitudes towards money of Los Angeles 12-16-year-olds
- Richard Swift
- 1 Aug 2008
- 0
Technofixes: climate solution or corporate scam?
Science is coming up with ever more extraordinary proposals for combating climate change, from laying white plastic over deserts to locking up carbon dioxide in the oceans or shooting it into space. Should we take any of this seriously?
- Jim Thomas and Paul Fitzgerald
- 1 Aug 2008
- 0
Letter to Anna: the Story of Journalist Politkovskaya’s Death
The story of one journalist who tirelessly exposed its horrors and manipulation by the Moscow political class.
- Richard Swift
- 1 Aug 2008
- 0
To Sewer or Not to Sewer
David Satterthwaite speaks out in praise of sewers, and Mayling Simpson-Hébert retaliates on behalf of pits.
- David Satterthwaite and Mayling Simpson-Hébert
- 1 Aug 2008
- 0
Stand up, stand up for toilets...
Toilet champions are not so rare a breed as you’d think. Here are some distinguished exemplars.
- 1 Aug 2008
- 0
The pen is messier than the sword
Maria Golia explains why the pen is messier than the sword in her Letter from Cairo.
- Maria Golia
- 1 Aug 2008
- 0
More from the magazine
Most popular
-
The rise of red-robed Islamophobia in Sri Lanka
2013-04-1526 Lewis GarlandAnti-Muslim fervour is rife – yet is being ignored by the authorities, says Lewis Garland.
-
Britain moves a step closer to combating caste
2013-04-2624 Mari Marcel ThekaekaraMari Marcel Thekaekara congratulates the country’s Dalit community on finally winning legal protection against discrimination.
-
Thatcher is gone but her legacy lives
2013-04-0822 Alan Hughes‘The Wicked Witch is dead’ but although he’s celebrating, Alan Hughes urges us to fight on against everything she stood for.
-
Argument: Is it time to ditch the pursuit of economic growth?
2013-05-0118 HASH(0x8063a31b0) New Internationalist EditorialArgument: Is it time to ditch the pursuit of economic growth?
-
Leave mums alone
2013-05-109 Mari Marcel ThekaekaraAs Mother’s Day approaches in India, Mari Marcel Thekaekara reflects on how motherhood has changed along with the online communication boom.
Radio NI interviews - available in iTunes
If you would like to know something about what's actually going on, rather than what people would like you to think was going on, then read the New Internationalist.
– Emma Thompson –
A subscription to suit you
Save money with a digital subscription. Give a gift subscription that will last all year. Or get yourself a free trial to New Internationalist. See our choice of offers.
North American Office
2446 Bank Street, Suite 653
Ottawa, Ontario
K1V 1A8
Canada
New Internationalist reports on issues of world poverty and inequality. We focus attention on the unjust relationship between the powerful and the powerless worldwide in the fight for global justice. More about our work
© Copyright New Internationalist 1973-2013. Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is licensed under Creative Commons.
Except where otherwise noted, images on this site are © the attributed photographer/illustrator or representative agency. Top of page
