This month's big story

Who owns the skies?

A new space race is set to worsen global inequality and extend conflict. We need to return to seeing space as a place for all humankind, argues Nick Dowson.

In November 1572 a brilliant new star appeared in the sky – initially bright enough to be seen during daylight. Its appearance was recorded worldwide and it stayed v...

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A note from the editor

Nick Dowson

Nick Dowson

Starstruck

As we edited this magazine a rocket exploded on its launchpad at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida. This was not owned by NASA but by Blue Origin, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ company, which announced they had ‘experienced an anomaly’. Some euphemism: footage shows a gigantic ball of flame and something that looks very mu...

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Magazine archive

Here are the most recent magazines we've published.

NI 562 - The new space race - July, 2026 The new space race Nick Dowson 1 July 2026 NI 561 - Trade Unions - May, 2026 Trade Unions Henry Fowler 1 May 2026 NI 560 - AI: the people behind the machine - March, 2026 AI: the people behind the machine Decca Muldowney 1 March 2026

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NI 557 - The global far right - September, 2025 The global far right Bethany Rielly 1 September 2025

Recent feature articles

A selection of feature articles from each of the latest New Internationalist magazines.

The launch of the GRACE-FO spacecraft aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in May 2018. The mission is a joint US-German effort which uses twin satellites to measure the mass of Earth and its atmosphere, and any anomalies. Photo: Bill Ingalls/NASA

Who owns the skies?

A new space race is set to worsen global inequality and extend conflict. We need to return to seeing space as a place for all humankind, argues Nick Dowson.

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Placards at a train station during the general strike of 1926. Photo: General Strike Photograph - GS071/People’s History Museum

The general strike

From 1926 to 2026. A century on, Bethany Rielly and Decca Muldowney examine Britain’s only general strike, a walk out with a scale and impact that remains unprecedented in the country’s history. What can movements learn from it today?

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The world’s first hydrogen bomb, codenamed ‘Mike’ is detonated by the US during ‘Operation Ivy’ in the Marshall Islands. Nuclear weapons testing conducted at Bikini and Enewetak atolls in the Pacific Ocean during 1946–1958 exposed local people to radioactive fallout. Photo: Science History Images/Photo Researchers

Flashpoints to fallout

Could the threat of nuclear war be closer than ever? Amy Hall explores how we got here and the pathways out of the crisis.

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London transport users engage with their devices – and indium, terbium, lithium, cobalt, copper and numerous other critical minerals. Photo: PjrTransport/Alamy

Can mining save the world?

They are touted as our way out of climate chaos and essential for making the things we use, from mobile phones to electric vehicles. Vanessa Baird sets out to investigate critical minerals – and the rush to get them.

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Drop the Debt: Protesters call for debt cancellation, wearing face masks of Yoshiro Mori, the then prime minister of Japan. They gathered outside Downing Street, London, during Mori’s meeting with Britain’s leader Tony Blair on 3 May 2000. Photo: Jonathan Evans/Reuters

Who owes whom?

Rising costs, Covid-19 and austerity have pushed too many countries – and households – into unmanageable debt. Amy Hall asks how we got here, and finds a movement shaking off the stigma of debt and getting organized.

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A woman crosses the Qalandiya check point, the biggest in the occupied West Bank, in 2014. Photo: Roger Garfield/Alamy

From accord to apartheid

A new far-right Israeli government’s meddling with the supreme court has Jewish citizens up in arms. But the shredded freedoms of the Palestinian people under Israel’s thumb are still off the table. Zoe Holman looks at how the so-called ‘peace process’ has allowed Israel to deepen its colonial project and regime of control over Palestinian lives.

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From the archives

A selection of articles from the New Internationalist magazine archives.

Illicit crops are still the only option for farmers like Arnulfo Perdomo. Photo: Shahidul Alam/DRIK

War on coca farmers continues

Inside the deeply-rooted economy of cocaine production and trafficking in Colombia, and how it might undermine Colombia’s peace. Bram Ebus reports.

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 Photo: Johannes Jansson

Introducing... Katrín Jakobsdóttir

Iceland's charismatic new Left-Green prime minister has big plans, but will the Left-Green's radical programme survive political wrangling with other coalition partners asks Richard Swift.

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Mixed Media: Film

Mixed Media: Film

No Other Choice; My Father’s Shadow.

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Mixed Media: Books

Mixed Media: Books

Mexico In Transformation; Transcription; Song for a Hard-Hit People; The Roof Beneath Their Feet.

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 Illustration: Sarah John

‘I’m sorry’

Mariam Barghouti reflects on what it means when communities built on hospitality can no longer support their neighbours.

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 Photo courtesy of WISE (World Innovation Summit for Education)

Making Waves: Sakena Yacoobi

Veronique Mistiaen meets Afghanistan’s ‘mother of education’, who for more than two decades has been transforming lives through community-based learning.

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Isaias Afwerki

Worldbeater: Isaias Afwerki

We put the track record of Isaias Afwerki, President of Eritrea – and a liberation fighter turned ruthless dictator – under the spotlight.

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Strike! The Facts

Strike! The Facts

1926; State of the union; Walk out!; Workers under attack.

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Country Profile: Armenia

The photos, facts, and politics of Armenia.

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Only Planet

Only Planet

Omnicorp lab rats, by Marc Roberts.

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