• Lal Mandi's Gingko struggles for survival; a section of its bark fell off after poor pruning. Photograph by Afsana Rashid. •

The Ginkgo, South Asia’s oldest tree, is located in Lal Mandi’s Kitchen Garden of the Agriculture Department. The species is believed to be 270 million years old, as old as the dinosaurs, while the tree itself is more than 200 years old and is eight feet. The life span of Ginkgo biloba can be as long as 3000–4000 years or even more.

Fida Ali Alamgeer, the Floriculture Development Extension Officer, claims that the Ginkgo is alive and growing, though some experts in the field think otherwise. As evidence, he says that projections of the tree contain Parenchymatous cells, which help in its growth. He says the absence of foliage at the apex gives the false impression that tree is dead.

As the park is located in a low lying area, rain and snow accumulate into a pool of water. Fida says that the Ginkgo grows best in acidic soil, while stagnant water changes the pH value of soil from acidic to alkaline, resulting in slower growth.

Since the stagnant water in the park has retarded the tree’s growth, a two-feet-high mound of earth was formed around the tree. Dense suckers have sprouted on the raised mound, and experts hope to plant them next year under suitable climate conditions.

Barack Obama cast a spell on Germany. Even weeks before his visit to Berlin on July 24th, he dominated the headlines and was the talk of the capital city. Then, after much anticipation, the 47-year-old US senator delivered an idyllic speech, conquering the hearts of most Germans.

• Berliners flocked to the Brandenburg gate to hear Barack Obama's only European speech. Photograph by Vera von Kreutzbruck. •

“He is an incredibly fascinating person,” journalist Peter Intelman, 47, told me at the rally. “I just spoke with a young woman and she said: when he says ‘yes, we can,’ I believe him. He radiates credibility and this is what is so fascinating about him. But I don’t know if he will be able to fulfill his promises.”

Another Obama enthusiast, Fanny, a 22-year-old French law student told me: “Most of the European countries are Democrats so we have more affinities with Obama than with McCain. Besides, I think he can change things. I’m sure that it will be better with him than how it was with Bush.”

• Tibetan writers are using literature and new languages, Chinese and English, to share information about Tibet's struggle for freedom with a wider audience.
Photograph by Sirensongs. •

Their language of choice—Tibetan, English, and surprisingly, now even Mandarin.

“Although the exile Tibetan community [in India] has been very effective in providing a high level of cultural production in religious areas, it is inside Tibet that Tibetan intellectuals and artists have been able to make achievements in secular culture, such as poetry, literature, music, painting, and some forms of scholarship, despite the difficulties they face,” says Dr. Robert Barnett, Director of Modern Tibetan Studies at Columbia University and author of Lhasa: Streets with Memories.

The writings of these poets and essayists have transformed over the past decade from musings about an exotic culture and history, to more real issues of human rights, political policies, and memoirs of people loved and lost. The Tibetan writers of today, regardless of their genre, seem to write with an agenda: to spread the word about the declining situation of the Tibetan freedom movement to readers both inside and out of China.

“I can scream, and nobody can hear me.”

The walls had been closing in on Monica Bejar for years. She and her husband had both crossed over the U.S.-Mexico border for work, like countless other migrants. But only he had secured a green card. For over a decade, Monica’s hopes of obtaining legal status depended, as far as she knew, completely on the man who battered her.

A host of legal binds tightened the grip of abuse. Bejar had banked on the hope that her husband would help her become a legal resident. Instead, to prove a point, he tore up her immigration paperwork and threatened to report her to authorities if she tried to leave. She feared losing her children.

Neil Young does not mince words. During his Freedom of Speech 2006 tour with on-again-off-again band mates David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash, the group energetically performed Young’s new songs titled, “Let’s Impeach the President” and “Lookin’ for a Leader.” But the responses to CSNY’s new songs haven’t all been positive; one woman walked out of the group’s Atlanta concert saying, “Neil Young can stick it up his ass.”

Music, politics, and controversy are all part of the powerful new documentary CSNY Déjà Vu. The film – directed by Young under his filmmaking moniker, Bernard Shakey, and currently playing at theaters nationwide – follows the “four balding hippie millionaires” (as one concert review described the aging rockers) while they tour country with their anti-war message.

Dear Senator Obama,

We write to congratulate you on the tremendous achievements of your campaign for the presidency of the United States.

Your candidacy has inspired a wave of political enthusiasm like nothing seen in this country for decades. In your speeches, you have sketched out a vision of a better future--in which the United States sheds its warlike stance around the globe and focuses on diplomacy abroad and greater equality and freedom for its citizens at home--that has thrilled voters across the political spectrum. Hundreds of thousands of young people have entered the political process for the first time, African-American voters have rallied behind you, and many of those alienated from politics-as-usual have been re-engaged.

You stand today at the head of a movement that believes deeply in the change you have claimed as the mantle of your campaign. The millions who attend your rallies, donate to your campaign and visit your website are a powerful testament to this new movement's energy and passion.

Ms Akullo Flavia, a retail shop owner in a Kampala suburb, stands puzzled in the local market not knowing what to buy for supper. Her initial plan to buy fresh fish is ruined - there is no fish for sale at the stalls. A local hajati, or fish dealer, is disappointed too. She explains that the moon’s recent brightness is helping the big fish to see the net and escape. The little fish that get trapped in the nets are all sold on the beaches at much higher prices to the waiting refrigerator trucks of fish processing companies who export to countries like China and several parts of Europe. Officials from the fisheries department say that even these companies are facing a deficit and only exporting a third of their capacity due to declining fish populations in the lakes and rivers.

There is stiff opposition to the proposed Niger Delta Summit slated to be held in Abuja, Nigeria. The Delta’s most prominent militant group, known as The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), called it a “circus,” and "a face saving measure” by the slow-moving Yar'Adua administration to show that it has a plan to solve the area’s problems. The line of battle has been drawn between the federal government and the militants, with tensions increasing after the deployment of more soldiers and two naval warships to the oil-rich Delta, which militants described as a “callous, wicked attempt to wipe the Ijaw nation from the face of the earth.”

• The environmental devastation from installations like this one in Ikot Ada Udo has left nearly everyone living off the land without a livelihood. Photograph by Kadir van Lohuizen/NOOR. •

To the indigenous Egi women of Ijaw, it is crucial that more come out of the Abuja summit than political posturing. As the women say, “We are farmers, fisherwomen and hunters. With all the flaming and pumping oil into our swamp areas, the oil companies have denied us every living thing. Today, we have no hope, while they are making billions of naira with our gifts from God. They don’t care or hear our cry; they only throw tear gas on us, beat us, and drive us out of our land.”

Paying upwards of $10 USD to see a movie about economics, particularly in these increasingly desperate financial times, hardly seems like a prudent decision – much less a pleasurable way to spend a Sunday afternoon. But if you’re willing to shell out the cash to see the new documentary I.O.U.S.A., which opens in theatres this August, you may be surprised at just how enjoyable and educational a film about America’s economy can be.

The federal debt seems too incredible a sum to even fully grasp; an easier way to understand such an enormous figure is that if the debt was equally divided among the country’s population, each American would owe over $30,000.

If you have no idea or don’t even care that this debt exists, I.O.U.S.A. makes you want to learn. The film’s complex premise and daunting numbers are made more accessible by the use of colorful graphs and illustrations. Creadon effectively contrasts what average people think (or think they know) against experts’ analysis, which keeps the film from being too weighed down by statistics and theories. The film’s tone can be summed up by student activist Mike Tully who yells at passersby in one scene: “Would you like to go on a date with me? No! Would you like to learn about the debt? Yes!”

I live in Northern California, considered one of the wealthiest regions in the United States, where the global intellectual hub of Silicon Valley neighbors the panoramic San Francisco Bay area and where luminaries like Larry Page and Sergey Brin (the “Google Guys”), writer Amy Tan, and comedian Robin Williams call home. Here, millionaires oftentimes still go to work and live in cramped houses due to skyrocketing housing prices. A decent dim sum meal costs at least $20 USD per person and a modest one-bedroom apartment rental costs about $1,500 USD per month. A dollar can probably buy you one can of soda in a deli, but not in a movie theater, where it might be four times as much.

• A man adds extra cuts to the lumps of meat ready for distribution to the less fortunate in the nearby community. 250g of red meat is a luxury for the poor in Jakarta. Photograph by Danumurthi Mahendra •

What a contrast. What a divided world we live in.

It was painful to think of Rehmat Shah Afridi on death row, haggard and ill.

I had worked with him at the English language daily paper he launched from Lahore in 1989, The Frontier Post, originally started from Peshawar, capital of his native North West Frontier Province (NWFP) in the mid-1980s. He was not highly educated but he had a liberal, progressive vision of independent media and had brought one of the country’s finest journalists, Aziz Siddiqui, on board as the editor.

• Rehmat Shah Afridi celebrates his release from prison with his sons. Photograph by Rahat Dar, The News on Sunday. •

Aziz Siddiqui had by then joined the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) as co-director along with his close friend and fellow journalist I.A. Rehman who was Director of HRCP. The organization was among those that protested Afridi’s arrest in 1999 on what most journalists believe to be trumped up charges of drug trafficking. After a district court on June 27, 2001 condemned Afridi to death by hanging, he spent the next three years on death row. There was sporadic news of him once he was convicted. One of his lawyers told me that he was terribly ill at one point and had lost much weight. The Lahore High Court on June 3, 2004 commuted his death sentence on the grounds that trafficking in hashish is not a capital crime. Still, he remained in Lahore’s notorious Kot Lakhpat Jail for nearly a decade, with courts periodically turning down his bail applications, pleas to move him to a prison in Peshawar closer to his family and appeals for proper medical care. He was finally released on bail in May this year.

The results of the September 2007 elections were no landmark victory for female representation in the Moroccan legislature – apart from the 30 female lawmakers elected through a 2002-instituted quota system, only four women were able to squeak into the lower house. Yet, for a country that is determined to lead the Arab pack in gender equality, the executive is a good counterbalance. And the new government counts five female ministers along with two undersecretaries, accounting for 19.2 percent of the total ministerial posts – a percentage that earns Morocco the 39th rank, second to no other Arab country, in the 2008 Women in Politics Report jointly prepared by the United Nations and the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU).

• Anti-corruption crusader, Yasmina Badou has met with resistance by what many have referred to as her “inflexibility and refusal to negotiate” in her attempt to improve Morocco's health care system. Photograph by Houda Andaloussi. •

Just like any Moroccan, I took a deep interest in Yasmina’s proclaimed crusade for reforming the health sector. Born to a family that could pay the doctor’s bill in a city that has the lion’s share of clinics and hospitals, I was under the delusion that high maternal and infant mortality rates were ancient history. Yet, pursuing a Master’s in international development showed me the bitter reality. An ever-ailing health sector, all the more blighted by the flagrant inequalities between the up-to-date private clinics and hospitals and their dilapidated public counterparts, is a good enough reason for Morocco to rank 126th out of 177 countries according to the UNDP-commissioned Human Development Report 2007-08 – this time behind most Arab countries. Among the disquieting facts and figures: the number of physicians per 100,000 people stands at 51 with an extremely disproportionate concentration in the urban areas; among the poorest 20 percent, only 30 percent of births are attended by skilled health personnel compared to 95 percent among the richest 20 percent; the infant mortality rate stands at 62 per 1,000 live births against 24 for the richest 20 percent; and the mortality rate for five years and under stands at 74 per 1,000 infants compared to 26.

On 8-8-08 when the Beijing Summer Olympics begins, the world will see that the Maoist doctrine of the Cultural Revolution has been replaced by capitalism and McDonald’s – all in the name of progress. This Modern China bears a striking resemblance to the West it once condemned. But what will not be proudly displayed in shiny new shopping malls is the reality that modernization comes at the displacement of millions of people who must abandon the only way of life they know and join a new China.

They live in the richest states in the world but cannot afford to buy essential commodities because their countries were busy promoting oil related investments, rather than securing profitable food and agriculture industry.

• Once flush with cash, many families in the Gulf are adjusting to higher prices. Photograph by Biju Hari. •

In the journey to protect and improve oil revenues, many of the important occupations at the core of the regions’ economy before the discovery of oil, such as fishing and farming, were scrubbed. Once these countries realized that oil, as a natural resource, would eventually deplete, they shifted their focus to business and development, leading to an environmental crisis marked by shrinking agricultural lands and reclamation. This problem is especially significant for Bahrain, a tiny island.

Like Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. before them, when Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez organized California’s exploited and marginalized farm workers into the United Farmworkers of America (UFW) in the 1960s they built a nonviolent movement that empowered poor and disenfranchised people to help themselves.

• Dolores Huerta, circa 1968. Photograph courtesy of the Dolores Huerta Foundation. •

During her career with the UFW, Huerta organized field strikes, directed boycotts, and negotiated and administered agreements. Huerta also was one of the first to speak out against pesticides that harm farm workers, consumers, and the environment. Five years ago she left the UFW and started the Dolores Huerta Foundation to teach community organizing. She still works as an advocate for farmworkers, whose pay and working conditions have worsened in recent years.

I spoke with Huerta at Mexican Heritage Plaza in San Jose, California.