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Focus Each step forward in the field of new technologies marks a deeper intrusion into your privacy. This is the price we must supposedly pay for economic efficiency and security. But more and more people are rejecting the tradeoff and the rise of a high-tech surveillance society. In the battle to protect privacy, choose your weapon wisely: legislation, technological tools, activism, media and even humour… The choice is yours in shielding that intimate space—personal liberty—where neither government nor corporation has the right to tread. Dossier concept and co-ordination by Amy Otchet and Sophie Boukhari. All roads lead to the franchise Since the end of the Gulf War, Kuwaiti women have stepped up their campaign for the right to vote. Even the most ardent Islamist activists espouse the cause, touting a different vision of women’s role in Muslim society. Photos by Isabelle Eshraghi, text by Haya al-Mughni. Isabelle Eshraghi is a French photographer. Haya al-Mughni is a Kuwaiti sociologist and author of Women in Kuwait: The Politics of Gender (London: Saqi Books, 2001). Corals under siege Threatened by pollution, overfishing and global warming, coral reefs— a lifeline for millions of people—are dying off at an alarming rate. Christl Denecke, programme fellow at the Coral Reef Alliance (Berkeley, California). Patrolling the reefs Riding on political reforms and foreign aid, scuba diving operators and villagers are taking matters into their own hands to salvage some of the world’s richest reefs. John C. Ryan, environmental journalist. They’re connected, but are they learning? Canada’s ambitious vision of computer learning has made it one of the most connected nations on Earth. But in the country’s classrooms, teachers are not getting the help they need to make the most of new technology. Sean Fine, education editor at the Globe and Mail newspaper (Toronto, Canada). Time for schools to tune into the information age Schools still have to make a quantum leap if they are to prepare students for the information society, says Edwyn James, of the OECD Centre for Educational Research and Innovation. interview by Cynthia guttman, UNESCO Courier journalist. A privacy divide? By Rohan Samarajiva, visiting Professor at Delft University of Technology, Netherlands; director of External Programs, LIRNE.net [Learning Initiative for Reforms in Network Economies]; and former Director General of Telecommunications of Sri Lanka. Otpor: the youths who booted Milosevic It took a generation of 20 year-olds without a manifesto or leader to shake Serbia out of its lethargy. Armed only with slogans and spray paint, they dealt a fatal blow to the dictatorship Christophe Chiclet, French journalist and historian, author of The Macedonian Republic (1999), and Kosovo: the trap (2000), both published in French by L’Harmattan, Paris. Pirates and the paper chase Book piracy is a thriving trade in poor nations, sometimes raking in bigger profits than the real thing. In Spanish-speaking countries, publishers and governments are stepping up their campaign to stop the scourge. Lucía Iglesias Kuntz, UNESCO Courier journalist. Chile: a judge steps in Are illegally copied books like forged banknotes and should they be destroyed? Judges, authors and publishers in Chile are all taking a stand in a heated debate. Francisca Petrovich, Chilean journalist. Testifying from the front Modern wars are fought with huge propaganda machines or through the rule of terror. How can a journalist in the midst of conflict decipher the truth? Shiraz Sidhva, UNESCO Courier journalist. Spôjmaï Zariâb: a pen against a nightmare The Afghan writer Spôjmaï Zariâb is haunted by bitter memories and deeply apprehensive about her people’s future. Exiled in France, she tirelessly denounces the wars that have laid waste to her country, without ever losing hope. Each of her short stories rings like a verdict against the regime of terror imposed upon her compatriots, and against the humiliations inflicted upon Afghan women Interview by Yasmina Sopova.