Columns / Country

Articles about Country, ordered by date. Open 'Country' in the New Internationalist magazine app for Android or iOS mobile devices.

Clockwise from top left: Aerial photograph of the luxury Ritz Carlton resort near Manama, with the skyline of the capital in the distance; a Bahraini law student – there are more opportunities for women than in neighbouring Saudi Arabia; locals horse riding in the desert; a demonstration by Bahrainis in London demanding democratic rights in their country; the modern souk in Manama.All photos from Alamy; photographers from top left: Ben Nicholson, Michael Austen, Giuseppe Masci, Peter Wheeler, Jack Malipan.

Country Profile: Bahrain

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.

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NI 508 - Clampdown! Criminalizing dissent - December, 2017
508 - December, 2017
Clockwise from top left: A typical neighbourhood corner shop in Uzbekistan; Tajik bakers selling bread at Siab Bazaar – the main market in Samarkand; friendly smiles from children; the ship graveyard on the former shore of the Aral Sea in Moynak; and two women sheltering from the heat. Photos by Christopher Simmons.

Country Profile: Uzbekistan

Last December, in a ballot described as ‘a sham’ by international observers, the country elected Mirziyoyev as successor of its first post-independence president and long-time dictator Karimov. But things might not get that much better, writes Tina Burrett.

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NI 507 - Humans vs robots - November, 2017
507 - November, 2017
Clockwise from top left: Hargeisa, the capital of Somaliland; a young woman plays basketball at Socsa (Somaliland Culture and Sports Association); a woman selling gold from a stall in Hargeisa market sits behind a display case; Ahmed Yusuf Yasin the former vice-president of Somaliland; and a bride before her wedding sitting with her bridesmaids.Photos by Liba Taylor / Panos Pictures.

Country Profile: Somaliland

Political gatherings will be met with heavy-handed security from state-owned paramilitary groups; and the independence of civil society and media will be greatly restricted. Claire Elder reports on the status of Somaliland.

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NI 506 - Brazil's soft coup - October, 2017
506 - October, 2017
Clockwise from top left: Wealthier nomads visit the capital on holiday, or retire there; the old and the new (and, until recently, the incessant construction) in the Ulaanbaatar skyline; a metal colossus celebrating the construction of the Darkhan Metallurgical Plant; a Mongolian hero of World War Two feeds pigeons in the streets of Ulaanbaatar; but the traditional life on the steppes goes on, as Degi demonstrates how he practises horse riding.Photos by Christopher Simons

Country Profile: Mongolia

Times are hard. High unemployment, rampant inflation and a collapse in the value of the tugrik, reports Tina Burrett and Christopher Simons.

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NI 505 - Bad Education - September, 2017
505 - September, 2017
Country Profile: Afghanistan

Country Profile: Afghanistan

The facts, figures, images and NI assessment of Afghanistan.

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NI 504 - The Equality Effect - July, 2017
504 - July, 2017
Clockwise from top right: The Great Mosque of Algiers, which will contain the world’s tallest minaret, is being constructed in Mohammedia, near the capital, while an older mosque looks on; Nabila Ounas and her son in their new, government-supplied apartment in Cite Kourifa, 20 miles from Algiers; a man walks past a mural commemorating the war of independence against France; satellite dishes cling to the external wall of a tenement building called ‘Les Dunes’, said to be the longest building in Algiers; donkeys transport rubbish from the casbah in Algiers through the narrow streets.Photos by Andrew Testa / Panos Pictures

Country Profile: Algeria

Power rests in the hands of a corrupt military and political oligarchy that denies people the right to self-determination, reports Hamza Hamouchene.

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NI 503 - Homelessness - June, 2017
503 - June, 2017
Clockwise from top left: A bird flies over Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu, with the snow-capped Himalayas in the background; stars emerge over Taumadhi Square in Bhaktapur, one of the three historic city states, which is now in the process of being absorbed into Greater Kathmandu; Rajina Tamang lifts her five-month-old baby girl Devi Yani into the air amid the rubble – all that remains of Kuni village in Dhading District following the April 2015 earthquake, which left more than a thousand villagers homeless; Kuni’s villagers queue to be seen by a Médecins Sans Frontières medical team; back in the capital, the Annapurna temple stands behind a fruit vendor in Ason Tol.Photos: Brian Sokol / Panos Pictures.

Country Profile: Nepal

After the 2015 earthquake, foreign governments and organizations pledged $4.1 billion in gifts and loans, but funds are yet to be disbursed, reports Fiona Broom.

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NI 502 - West Papua - Freedom in sight? - May, 2017
502 - May, 2017
Clockwise from top left: A cycle rickshaw loaded with tyres negotiates traffic in the capital, Phnom Penh; selling lotus flowers, the seeds of which are edible, at the roadside; a typical village on stilts at the edge of the Tonle Sap river; monks and sightseers, also beside the Tonle Sap river; and carrying water in a slum settlement on the outskirts of the capital, with a floating casino on the Mekong river behind.Photos by Chris Stowers / Panos Pictures

Country Profile: Cambodia

Both cash flow and political power have remained concentrated in Cambodia, writes Zoe Holman.

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NI 501 - Populism rises again - April, 2017
501 - April, 2017
Clockwise from top left: Children play in the street outside the ruined Italian Cathedral in Mogadishu; two young women paddle in the Indian Ocean for only the second time in their lives; new recruits training for the National Army of Somalia in the Ministry of Defence compound; President Hassan talks to the press over a bench loaded with swordfish at the opening of a new fish-processing factory.Photos: Petterik Wiggers

Country Profile: Somalia

Somalia today is more like a political marketplace than a modern nation-state, writes Claire Elder.

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NI 500 - The exceptionally brave - 500th issue - March, 2017
500 - March, 2017
Clockwise from top left: FSLN supporters celebrate the 37th anniversary of the Sandinista revolution on 19 July 2016; fruits and vegetables grow well in Nicaragua’s tropical climate; despite harsh criticism, Rosario Murillo’s ‘trees of life’ (see main story) have multiplied over the past three years; separating rice grains from chaff is often children’s job in indigenous communities; Miskito people use artisanal methods to extract gold from rivers and mountains on the Caribbean coast.Photos: top left, Alex McDougall; all others Mira Galanova.

Country profile: Nicaragua

Mira Galanova uncovers a country at a crossroads.

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NI 499 - African village - January, 2017
499 - January, 2017
Clockwise from top left: A song-and-dance group prepare to perform at a church in the Mingkaman camp for internally displaced people (IdPs), which has often held as many as 100,000 people during the conflicts of the past few years; villagers in Unity State in the north watch a plane drop sacks of food aid; the boys looking after African-longhorned cattle are also from the Mingkaman camp, in Lakes State; the dinka women drumming have just had a training session aimed at making them aware that gender-based violence is a crime; Amer Agoot is pictured at the river port of Bor, having been forced to flee an IdP camp when men invaded her hut and robbed her of the little she had left.Photos: Andrew McConnell / Panos Pictures.

Country profile: South Sudan

Eleanor Hobhouse considers the state of Africa's newest nation, five years after independence.

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NI 498 - The coming war on China - December, 2016
498 - December, 2016
Clockwise from top left: A queue at a food market in Caracas where prices are subsidized and regulated by the government; an armed guard in front of storage tanks at the world’s largest oil refinery in Punto Fijo; a fishing boat steers through the Anacystis algal blooms on Lake Maracaibo; a Cuban doctor measuring blood pressure in Caracas – one of thousands of Cubans employed out of oil revenues to improve healthcare for the poor; a family reads while awaiting relocation from a house in Ciudad Ojeda damaged by subsidence following oil exploration.Photos: Piet den Blanken / Panos Pictures

Country Profile: Venezuela

The national government’s prioritizing of the poor and working majority over business elites remains consistent, if less effective – lately with more talk than action.

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NI 497 - Peace in Colombia? Hope and fears - November, 2016
497 - November, 2016
Clockwise from top left: Portrait of a boy from San Nicolas, to the west of Santa Barbara; an orphan from San Pedro Sula, holding photos of his parents; young footballers, also from San Pedro Sula, representing various health threats; children and cows picking through a rubbish dump in the capital, Tegucigalpa; and the cook is Elvira Garcia, from the indigenous Maya Chorti community in Copan province, bordering Guatemala.Photos by Giacomo Pirozzi / Panos Pictures.

Country Profile: Honduras

Hondurans are not searching for the American Dream, they are fleeing from the nightmare of violence and repression in their country.

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NI 496 - World Fiction Special - Exquisite short stories - October, 2016
496 - October, 2016
Left to right, from top: Jessica Agiro washes clothes while keeping her sleeping baby close in Angica village; keen pupils vie for attention at the primary school in Obalang; jumping for joy in the Teso region of central Uganda; a midwife using a Pinard stethoscope in the Aketa health centre; and 40-year-old farmer Tom Opila consults his daughter in the village of Opot, near Obalang.Photos by Mikkel Ostergaard / Panos Pictures

Country Profile: Uganda

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NI 495 - Trade unions - rebuild, renew, resist - September, 2016
495 - September, 2016

Country profile: The Bahamas

Kelsi Farrington on the truth behind the holiday-brochure image.

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NI 494 - Smiley-faced monopolists - July, 2016
494 - July, 2016

Country profile: Ecuador

Greg Wilpert reports on a country diverse in geography, politics and people.

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NI 493 - Love in the time of Ebola - June, 2016
493 - June, 2016
Clockwise from top right: A young woman from an animist community listens to a visiting Christian preacher in Maiduguri, Borno state; a boy who lives by a river that has burst its banks in Wase, Plateau state; two men ride a motorbike through Plateau state in rather more comfort than their hen; Pastor Fred Adda addresses his congregation in the International Praise Cathedral in Kaduna; a market scene in Lagos.Photos by Seamus Murphy/ Panos Pictures.

Country profile: Nigeria

Samuel Malik considers life in the self-styled 'giant of Africa'.

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NI 492 - Technology justice - May, 2016
492 - May, 2016
Clockwise from top: The iconic view of Rio and the Lagoa da Zona Sul; the beautiful game outside a church in Providencia, Rio’s oldest favela; 15-year-old belles from the Cerro-Korah favela attending a debutante ball organized as a good-will gesture by the Pacifying Police Unit; Zumbi da Silva, a former rubbish-picker in Esqueleto who now works in a new recycling co-operative.Photos by Lianne Milton / Panos Pictures.

Country profile: Brazil

Jan Rocha on the challenges and paradoxes in one of the world's most unequal countries.

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NI 491 - Last stand - Saving the world's forests - April, 2016
491 - April, 2016

Country profile: Cameroon

The central African country's long sleep continues, says Ben Shepherd, but the clock is ticking.

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NI 490 - Blood brothers - Saudi Arabia and the West - March, 2016
490 - March, 2016

Country profile: Djibouti

David Styan on life in continental Africa's least-populated state.

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NI 489 - Humanity adrift: why refugees deserve better - January, 2016
489 - January, 2016

Articles in this category displayed as a table:

Article title From magazine Publication date
Clampdown! Criminalizing dissent December, 2017
Humans vs robots November, 2017
Brazil's soft coup October, 2017
Bad Education September, 2017
The Equality Effect July, 2017
Homelessness June, 2017
West Papua - Freedom in sight? May, 2017
Populism rises again April, 2017
The exceptionally brave - 500th issue March, 2017
African village January, 2017
The coming war on China December, 2016
Peace in Colombia? Hope and fears November, 2016
World Fiction Special - Exquisite short stories October, 2016
Trade unions - rebuild, renew, resist September, 2016
Smiley-faced monopolists July, 2016
Love in the time of Ebola June, 2016
Technology justice May, 2016
Last stand - Saving the world's forests April, 2016
Blood brothers - Saudi Arabia and the West March, 2016
Humanity adrift: why refugees deserve better January, 2016
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