In an explosive interview to New Internationalist, the Kurdish female leader Bese Hozat opens up about peace, the party’s view on the region and the independence referendum in South Kurdistan, and accuses Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the West to have incubated Isis. By Karlos Zurutuza.

Emboldened by a recent study, The Guardian repeats the myth that becoming vegan is the ‘single biggest way’ to reduce your impact on Earth. Chris Saltmarsh and Harpreet Kaur Paul disagree.

The backlash against social media titans is in full swing. But are moves to bring them to heel, including new privacy laws, appropriate? Mike Morel investigates.

Millennials have been condemned to a life of permanent adolescence. Despite the obsession with all things shiny and new, Yohann Koshy argues that young people are using old-fashioned ideas to chart a way forward.

The current clampdown on popular rights mirrors a profound malaise with our system of top-down political representation, argues Richard Swift.

A major US military build-up – including nuclear weapons – is under way in Asia and the Pacific with the purpose of confronting China. John Pilger raises the alarm on an under-reported and dangerous provocation.

Chris Brazier interviews Elleke Boehmer, Professor of World Literature in English at Oxford University.

Does it matter that Google, Facebook and Amazon are so successful? Vanessa Baird examines what their domination means for all of us.

And will Sierra Leone be ready, should the virus return? Hazel Healy travelled there to find out.

Georgia was once hailed as a ‘beacon of democracy’ by Western powers, but geopolitics and economic interests have taken priority over human rights, writes Onnik Krikorian.

After five years of resistance, Indonesia began the construction of an international airport set to destroy the sand-dune ecosystem and houses of residents already forced out of the area, writes Pramilla Deva

Alessio Perrone writes how Islamophobia is driving a wedge between love and secular values.

I Am Not a Witch, directed and written by Rungano Nyoni; Menashe, directed and co-written by Joshua Z Weinstein

What a year! We’re all in need of some light relief – here we pick out the top films, books and music reviewed by New Internationalist in 2017

We review TootArd, from the Golan Heights, with their second album Laissez Passer, and Live at Ronnie Scott’s, by Nitin Sawhney.

Not a sign of progress but a cause for alarm. Amy Booth reports from Cochabamba’s overlong dry season.

A profile of Afghan campaigner for women’s education and rights Jamila Afghani, who started by persuading the imams. Beena Nadeem talks to the unassuming trailblazer

Turkey’s president is one of the political class’s more humourless and intolerant specimens.

This month's fact spread presents details about the internet and the corporate giants who monopolize it.

The West finds much to celebrate about the country, but it has the largest prison population in the Middle East and world’s highest per-capita use of teargas. Zoe Holman reports on the state of Bahrain.

Cartoon by Marc Roberts.