Features

As president Bashar al-Assad’s regime tightens its grip on war-torn Syria, Sally Hayden reports from three government strongholds on life for ordinary citizens, who are seeking normality, even if rubble and memories are all they have left.

There has been a dramatic rise in heart disease in Africa over the past 25 years – a situation made worse by fake medicines on the market. Now doctors are beginning to fight for change, as Lea Surugue reports.

It is not rationality that unites us, but the fragility of our physical bodies. Tom Whyman finds a germ of optimism in the philosophy of the Frankfurt School.

The treatment of Myanmar’s Rohingya people has been seen as a genocide in the making. Parsa Sanjana Sajid visits those trapped on the Bangladeshi border.

Is the UN still capable of keeping the peace and protecting civilians? Was it ever? Ian Williams inspects the record.

Aid-by-drone, what’s not to like? Plenty, as Nick Dowson explains.

Mass starvation is making a comeback as a weapon of war. To tackle this great evil we must stop talking about food and over-population, and engage with the politics, argues Alex de Waal.

In 2011, Western donors sat back while 250,000 Somalis died of starvation. Then Turkey stepped in. Jamal Osman reports on the rise of aid from the Muslim world.

What do the numbers look like?

Hazel Healy investigates the challenges facing 21st century humanitarian action.

In 2013, New Internationalist travelled to Mozambique to meet communities pushing back against expanding forestry plantations. Five years on, Nils Adler finds foreign companies have yet to deliver on promises to local farmers.

Noam Chomsky is a renowned linguist, the author of an abundance of books and arguably the most famous dissident intellectual in the United States. He talks to Andy Heintz about US exceptionalism, the best way to approach North Korea and the truth about ‘free trade agreements’.

As of February, Sudanese and Eritrean asylum seekers have begun receiving deportation notices from the Israeli government. What awaits them is either a prison sentence or a journey to Libya’s ‘brutal’ camps, as Nishtha Chugh reports.

Are you a non-black person unsure of how to support black struggles? Kristina Wong has some ideas for you.

Amy McQuire on why life and death are inseparable from land for Aboriginal people in Australia.

Kam Sandhu questions why the British working class is inevitably conceived of as white, despite ethnic minority communities being at the sharpest end of inequality.

In Brazil, young indigenous women are reconnecting with their African roots and finding ways to intervene in the violence that targets their community.

Brazil promotes the myth of a harmonious ‘racial democracy’ abroad, but the killings of black people resemble state-sponsored genocide, writes Vanessa Martina Silva.

Natty Kasambala on the call to action and celebration.

Janaya Khan on building a committed movement.