New Internationalist

Rio+20: protection racket?

Twenty years ago the world met in Rio to save the planet – with mixed results. June 2012 sees a major re-gathering – ‘Rio+20: UN Conference on Sustainable Development’ – which might decide a new course. The event is set to be heated and contentious. Corporations and the UN will be pushing a new ‘Green Economy’ agenda that emphasizes economic growth, technology and market-based approaches. What are we to make of it all?

June 2012, Issue 453

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The Big Story

Big business goes to Rio
With the Earth Summit just days away, Danny Chivers chronicles the urgent battle to stop corporates from hijacking the green agenda.
Tools that might help us
Introducing... The Eight Great Greenwashers
Ahead of the Rio +20 Earth Summit, Danny Chivers exposes the canny, crafty and plain deceitful claims of corporations co-opting 'sustainability'.
The good life is the realistic solution
Indigenous activist Ruth Buendia's take on ‘sustainable development’.

Features

Preparing the ground: Left strategy beyond the apocalypse
Richard Swift considers the fall – and future rise – of left politics.
Goodbye welfare, hello workfare
Warren Clark is unimpressed by governments forcing citizens to 'donate' their labour to big business.
Gold fever
A photographic journey to the heart of Ghana’s gold rush, by Jonas Cullberg and Johannes Frandsen.
Abu Qatada: when the net tightens on justice
Britain's counter-terrorism policy is underming the rule of law, argues Simon Crowther.
Why American Jews are falling out of love with Israel
Outspoken scholar Norman Finkelstein speaks to Hazel Healy about his latest book [itals] Knowing Too Much.

Mixed Media

Meet Nadia El Fani: Tunisia's answer to Michael Moore
Sian Griffiths catches up with the exiled director, whose recent film Neither Allah nor Master has rattled violent extremists.

Agenda

US denies safe haven to Mexico’s drug war refugees
Torture recompense comes to Kenyans
Maina Waruru celebrates payouts for persecuted activists on the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture.
Feminists target Nike ahead of the Olympics
NIck Harvey reports on a campaign to harsh the Olympic mellow of sportswear firms who exploit women workers
Hungary’s cultural purge gathers pace
News in brief this month
Defending Korea’s peace island
South Korean villagers are campaigning to keep a military base off the pristine Jeju island.
Reasons to be cheerful

Regulars

Letters
Country Profile: Cook Islands
Black pearls, cruise ships and lively politics: Mary Warren gives the lowdown on the South Pacific atolls
African grannies go solar
Indian activist Bunker Roy is bringing electric light to rural villages by training up grandmothers as solar engineers, reports Georgia Hanias.
Mark Engler
‘Tired of burying black boys.’
Letter from Botswana: 'There's a good side to this HIV'
A new birth offers a sign of hope for Lauri Kubuitsile.
Steve Parry
Comedy for a cause.
Puzzle Page
Southern Exposure
Paco Chuquiure from Peru.
And finally...
British wit Jeremy Hardy on juggling performances and principles.