by Jessica Mosby
- USA -

Nash traveled the world filming the effects of climate change. The footage is startling as a human face is put on the world’s worst natural disasters. The heart of the film is Nash’s interviews with victims of natural disasters. In Bangladesh, “ground zero” for climate change, Nash interviews victims of 2007’s Cyclone Sidr, which killed over 10,000 people and cost $450 million in damages. The victims’ testimony is heart-breaking as they describe losing their families and homes.

by Vera von Kreutzbruck
- Germany -

Howl, a biopic centered on beatnik Allen Ginsberg’s seminal poem and the resulting obscenity trial, was the most moving and intellectually engaging film presented at this year’s Berlin International Film Festival.

by Caitlin Sislin
- USA -

The Navajo Nation, the United States’ largest Native Nation, spans 26,000 square miles in the Southwestern United States. This expansive, sun-baked desert terrain offers a dependable, constantly renewable supply of solar and wind energy which has largely remained untapped – until now.

by Jessica Simon, Intern, The WIP
-USA-

On Wednesday April 21st the Blessed Earth Foundation is presenting Hope for Creation, a live simulcast event for the fortieth anniversary of Earth Day. Wednesday’s event will reach all corners of the globe for a conversation about how to honor and protect our planet. There will be more than 40,000 people in 25 countries taking part.

Blessed Earth is an educational nonprofit based upon a powerful mission to preserve the earth for future generations by returning to a simpler way of life. It was founded in 2006 by The Sleeth Family who made the difficult decision to turn away from many of the comforts of the modern world in order to live a life better geared towards reducing their carbon footprint on the planet. Their personal experiences serve as the basis of a movement to embrace faith by being mindful of how our actions affect the earth.

by Sarah McGowan
- USA -

If you’re one of the millions of Americans affected by the credit crunch – unemployed, uninsured and unsure of your future, or working yourself to death just to live - Shannon Hayes’ book Radical Homemakers: Reclaiming Domesticity from a Consumer Culture couldn’t come at a more opportune time. Equal parts condemnation of consumer culture and celebration of human ingenuity, Radical Homemakers offers a surprising solution to a cycle of consumption that has endangered our health, happiness, economy and planet. Hayes has compiled a litany of data on the waning levels of satisfaction Americans have derived in pursuit of the “American Dream” and the quality of life that we could all enjoy if we abandon our focus on consumerism.

Perhaps what’s most intriguing is that “radical homemaking” seems to be a direct response to the seemingly insurmountable issues of social and ecological justice that result from globalization. After interviewing Radical Homemakers around the country, Hayes found that all were living according to four principal tenets: family, community, social justice and ecological sustainability. Her book compellingly articulates the connection between “Think Globally, Act Locally” and provides a feasible action plan for reclaiming family and home life. By localizing food production and focusing on more community-based sustainability, the Radical Homemaker model offers social change on a local level that could very well have a global effect.

by Aditi Bhaduri
- India -

A debate gripping much of India’s urban middle class has been the controversy surrounding renowned painter M.F. Hussain. Considered India’s Picasso, he received the country’s second highest civilian award – the Padma Vibhushan. But the 95-year-old painter recently relinquished his Indian citizenship to become a citizen of the Gulf state of Qatar. He had been living in self-imposed exile since 2006, when controversy broke out over his depictions of Hindu deities.

by Megan Tady
- USA -

On Tuesday, April 6th a federal court decision put the Internet, and your ability to use it, in jeopardy. It’s a major setback for free speech online and for the prospects of connecting the entire country to broadband.

The Washington DC Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) lacks the current authority to enforce rules that keep Internet service providers from blocking and controlling Internet traffic - a principle called Net Neutrality.

by Mandy Van Deven
- India -

Asma. Rukhsana. Zakia. Duaa. Fereshteh. Somayeh. Heshu. Samera. Amneh, Zahra. Semse.

As an investigative journalist, Rana Husseini had no intention of shifting careers to become a human rights activist until she was given an assignment in 1994 to cover the intentional death of Kifaya, a sixteen-year-old girl in Amman who had been poisoned by her older brother after being raped and forcibly married. The town’s ambivalent response to Kifaya’s murder shook Husseini to the core, and so with the backing of her editors at The Jordan Times, she began to investigate such deaths in order to expose the unconscionable crimes to what she believed was a willfully ignorant public. Ignoring threats of violence that followed each of her published stories, Rana Husseini became the voice of the dead.

by Neeta Lal
- India -

The alleged rape of a nine-year-old Russian girl in January by two Indian men in Goa has ricocheted far beyond India’s resort state. Famous for its sun, sand and surf, since the assault this beach haven has been besieged by public protests. Following close on the heels of the mysterious 2008 rape and murder of British teenager Scarlett Keeling, the incident has sent the media into a frenzy. Local TV channels flashed interviews with the little girl and her mother climaxing in ominous headlines like “No Bikinis On Goa Beaches.”