Features

There are over 27,000 nuclear weapons in the world. Thousands are deployed on land, at sea and in the air, posing the constant threat of nuclear war and radioactive contamination.

With nuclear weapons multiplying again, now is the time to seize the moment and ban them, argues Jess Worth.

Since completing this article, Asfaw Yemiru has finalised plans for putting his new educational ideas into practice. Alex Brodie describes the "Moya" which Asfaw and his pupils will soon begin building.

The author of this article, Asfaw Yemiru, is one of Africa's most extraordinary men. At the age of 10, he was an illiterate beggar-boy on the streets of Addis Ababa. Today, aged 28, he is headmaster of a free school for over 3,000 poor children. Not content with this achievement, Asfaw is now moving his school towards a new concept of education which could have significance not just for Ethiopia but for many other parts of both the developing and the developed world.

Harvests have fallen short of targets in almost all the most populous parts of the world. As food shortages reach crisis point for millions of people in the poor world, Keith Abercrombie spells out the present situation and analyses the underlying issues which threaten to set back the whole process of world development in the Second Development Decade.

Taking up the main themes of his Edinburgh speech on "The Challenge of World Poverty" Roy Jenkins writes on the new European context of that challenge and calls on the enlarged nine-nation community to take the lead in introducing new policies which will work in the best interests of both the Third World and the European Community itself.

As the tension mounts in southern Africa, Zambian Prime Minister Kenneth Kaunda talks to the New Internationalist about the Rhodesian blockade; the racial crisis on the continent; and the key issues facing Zambia itself. Interview by David Martin.

The New Internationalist monthly campaigning page on third world issues.