Features

Calm the panic or delay the inevitable?

The five oil concession regions in Yasuní National Park

No-one said oil was clean. But Ecuador’s experience of extracting fossil fuels is about as bad as it gets, reports David Ransom.

People from the Ecuadorian rainforest tell Fabrício Guamán what they think of their Government’s proposal to leave petroleum in the ground.

Is Ecuador’s bold proposal not to exploit a billion barrels of oil in the Yasuní National Park a serious option for combating climate change? If so, the world is going to have to move fast, warns Vanessa Baird.

Pakistani physicist Pervez Hoodbhoy explores his country’s rocky relationship with nukes.

David Ransom finds a likeness between the addictions of gambling and the speculative impulses of capitalism.

Anti-nuke action across the world

From the Manhattan Project and Hiroshima, to the Cold War, North Korea and beyond, nuclear fission has changed everything.

What are the West’s weapons actually for? asks Paul Rogers.

Activist Angie Zelter celebrates a year-long blockade of Britain’s weapons of mass destruction.

Wayward warheads, mid-air collisions and dangerous detonations.

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.