New Internationalist

Cover for June 2008 - Issue 412

June 2008's Issue

Do we need to worry about nuclear weapons any more? After the end of the Cold War, the world stepped back from the brink of mutually-assured annihilation and nuclear stockpiles were halved. But nukes haven’t gone away. In fact, they are undergoing something of a renaissance. India, Pakistan and North Korea have all recently joined the nuclear club. The US, Russia, Britain, China and France are spending billions on ‘modernizing’ their nuclear arsenals. So why are disarmament campaigners so upbeat? The NI discovers a window of opportunity for banning the bomb – but can we seize the moment before the shutters slam down, perhaps for good?

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Featured in issue 412

My Grandmother – A memoir

Every family has its secrets. So does every nation. But Turkey’s official secret remains extraordinarily potent because public references to the massive event that occurred 93 years ago are forbidden.

Striking out

Nike workers in Vietnam go on strike

The Boy Bands Have Won

A yowl of fury against the Pop Idol-type mediocrity that seems so often to fuel cultural commerce these days.

Nuclear weapons - the facts

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.

  • 1 Jun 2008
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Nuclear weapons: a history

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

Talking warheads

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

The language of World Farming

by Mitchell & Richardson

Bullshit in a bottle

say hello to water called Ethos

  • 1 Jun 2008
  • 0

Trident tested

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

Uzbekistan

In the heart of Central Asia, enclosed by the Pamir mountains to the southeast and desert in the northeast, Uzbekistan was once the seat of vast wealth and influence.

Global warming and the King’s Arms pub

Horatio Morpurgo supplies an environmental missing link.

Standing up to the State

View from New Delhi by Urvashi Butalia

Scared of a star

West Papua’s push for independence

Whoops!

Wayward warheads, mid-air collisions and dangerous detonations.

Three and Out

Colm Meaney is Tommy, an Irishman in London who plans to kill himself. Directed by Jonathan Gershfield

Interview with Brian McLaren

on the need for Christians to engage with the real world

The bomb stops here

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

Kian Amani

Acrobatic extravagance in Tehran, as seen by Iranian photographer Kian Amani.

Big Bad World 412

Polyp takes aim at transport

Swimming Against the Tide

Thoroughly researched and with heart-warming personal accounts, Tom Fawthrop’s Swimming Against the Tide is an inspiration.

Alien vs Predator: Cool Ranch

Seriously.. true tales of a mixed-up world

  • 1 Jun 2008
  • 0

The charm fades

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

Bust! the gambling boom

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

Elie Wiesel (born 1928)

A quote from his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech

Fossil foolery

Fossil Fools Day

  • 1 Jun 2008
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Beijing Coma

Ma Jian has undertaken his most ambitious project yet; a sweeping panorama of China in the years before and after the Tiananmen Square massacre of 4 June 1989.

Who is Harald?

Climate negotiations

Resist!

Anti-nuke action across the world

  • 1 Jun 2008
  • 0

Daniel Variations

Steve Reich’s tribute to murdered journalist Daniel Pearl

Teeny tiny terror

Nanotechnology

  • 1 Jun 2008
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Bloodshot Monochrome

A new collection of poems by one of Britain’s most significant poets

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The Feral Rich

The feral rich… are always with us, but ever richer and more savage. What can we do to stop the feckless rich, as they ravage economies to feather their nests? Jan/Feb 2013's New Internationalist magazine.

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