New Internationalist

My nine-year-old son, Laurie, looked up at me from the sofa the other day. ‘I know!’ he said, apropos of nothing. ‘What if we found something to put into cars that didn’t make the world too hot?’ I’d been talking to him about climate change while wor

‘How to be an internationalist’ (Building a new internationalism, NI 518) needs an important addition to [the seventh point] on climate change. Climate change is driven by climate changers, you and me and the other 7.7 billion of us, increasing at 81

In the popular imagination, migrants are young men and women, setting out to seek their fortune. But there’s another category of traveller: migrant grandparents. Singapore and Sydney are two popular destinations for young Chinese families who want to

In February 2019, the charismatic young Bukele swept to first place in El Salvador’s presidential election, pushing aside the candidate from his former party, the governing leftwing FMLN, and gaining 53 percent of the vote. Bukele ran a savvy social

Blood-red patches stain the streets of Myanmar’s capital Yangon. At first it might look like something from a war zone, but the marks are made by betel nut, a debilitating drug that has long been a problem in the country. Addicts chew wraps known as

When 25-year-old Scottish sex worker Lara Jones (not her real name) first had trouble with a client, she didn’t know whom to turn to. ‘I’d done other jobs where I’d been in a union and that’s where I’d have gone with any issues,’ she says. ‘That’s no

On 14 August 2018, Gilbert Mirambeau, a Montreal-based videographer, tweeted a photo of himself blindfolded, holding a cardboard sign that read ‘Kot Kòb Petwo Karibe a???’ (‘Where is the Petro-Caribe money???’). It’s a question that was quickly picke

The ‘Made in Taiwan’ label was once synonymous with mass-produced products. But following a hugely successful ban on plastic bags introduced in 2018, the country is garnering a greener image: all single-use plastics – straws, water bottles, coffee cu

Britain mobilized to conserve and repurpose energy on a mass scale. Consumption was reduced by rationing – seen as quicker and fairer than taxation – and a powerful propaganda campaign. ‘Dig for Victory’ saw allotment owners more than double to reach

Buddhist temples are shifting investments out of fossil fuels, part of a global ‘divestment’ movement that has so far pulled over $8 trillion from oil, gas and coal companies worldwide. Japan is a key target: three of its biggest banks – Mizuho Finan

Each day, it seems, a new headline in a newspaper or social media feed makes clear just how close we are to environmental destruction. And yet politics seems eternally consumed by the same old nonsense, governments whining about migrants or penny-pin

Last July, as I strolled down Liberation Avenue in Asmara, Eritrea’s capital, a man yelled out at me: ‘The rains may be scarce but at least we finally have peace!’ In the week after the historic visit to Eritrea of the new Ethiopian prime minister, A

LEADER: President Isaias Afwerki. ECONOMY: GNI per capita $1,180 – almost double what it was in 2011 (Ethiopia $740, Italy $31,020). Despite recent growth, poverty continues to be widespread in Eritrea. Monetary unit: Nakfa. Main exports: Gold and ot

After the independence struggle, the government embarked on a programme of mass land reform. This levelled income distribution but increasing population density in the urban highlands makes it harder to maintain. The middle class comprises largely st

There’s nothing wrong with effective activism: having meaningful conversations with people interested in veganism. But we can’t change people who aren’t ready to change by forcing the message down their throats – such as storming restaurants or super

MICHAEL: I’d never argue for the prohibition of social media; after all, it’s been with us for thousands of years. Before posting on Facebook walls we were scribbling on the walls of ancient Rome; well before that, we made our mark on the walls of ca

It has to be said. The Brazilian Left today lacks co-ordination and mobilization, both in Congress and in civil society. So far, President Jair Bolsonaro has been his own strongest opponent. His government spends more time creating ‘facts’ for social

On 4 March, the Kumbh Mela, the largest religious gathering in the world, in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh came to an end. The state’s Bharatiya Janata Party-led government, headed by Hindu monk Yogi Adityanath, had spent a staggering $600

The sentencing of President Trump’s former campaign chair, Paul Manafort, for financial fraud did not really register in Africa’s news media, but it should have. For decades Manafort played the role of kingmaker for some of the most brutal figures on

by Lizzie O’Shea (Verso, ISBN 9781788734301) versobooks.com In this splendid and entertaining book, arrestingly subtitled ‘what Ada Lovelace, Tom Paine and the Paris Commune can teach us about digital technology’, Lizzie O’Shea sets out to construct