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Issue 508 of New Internationalist

Reader-owned global journalism

December 2017

Clampdown!

Our latest magazine looks at the shrinking political space around the world.

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Dissent is viewed as illegitimate. Rule of law matters less than edicts purported to reflect popular opinion

You will agree: escalating repression

Mandeep Tiwana on how repression becomes the rule.

Environmentalists killings: Indigenous and other activists gather in front of the Honduran embassy in London in response to the murder of anti-dam campaigner Berta Cáceres in 2016.

Defame, criminalize, murder

How environment defenders are being stopped in the Global South. Leny Olivera and Sian Cowman report from Latin America.

Shrinking political space: the current clampdown on popular rights mirrors a profound malaise with our system of top-down political representation.

Whose streets? The clampdown on popular rights

Across the world political space is shrinking. Richard Swift explains how and why.

Artist Kaya Mar with his satirical portrait Erdoğan, the Turkish Sun King – after France’s absolute monarch Louis XVI.

How Turkey’s citizens lost their rights

The low-down from Turkish writer and analyst Hakki Mahfuz on the country’s crackdown.

Turkey political prisoners: Turkish riot police crack down on people protesting against the purge of academics, outside Ankara University.

İştar Gözaydın: from lectern to prison

Academic İştar Gözaydın’s first-hand experiences of the clampdown in Turkey.

Colonizing civil society

Colonizing civil society

Political strategists brainstorm ways to remove democratic impediments to their bosses’ plans.

Catalonia background: Catalan revolutionaries get ready for action to defend their revolution from Franco back in 1936.

Homage to Catalonia

Taking the long view of fearless resistance. By Kevin Buckland, writing from Barcelona.

ELN interview: Guerrilla leader Pablo Beltrán of Colombia’s ELN talks to Mónica del Pilar Uribe Marín

Guerrillas gamble for peace

‘Each person must say we won’t do this again.’ Guerrilla leader Pablo Beltrán of Colombia’s ELN talks to Mónica del Pilar Uribe...

Arvind Gupta in his lab. Ashok Rupner

Arvind Gupta: making toys from trash

Making learning fun for young minds. Priti Salian reports from a classroom in Bangalore.

University students from the Free Papua Organization and the Papua Student Alliance resist police using water cannons during a protest in Jakarta, 1 December 2016. University students from the Free Papua Organization and the Papua Student Alliance resist police using water cannons during a protest in Jakarta, 1 December 2016. West Papua petition

‘Every signature was an act of courage’

How did West Papuan campaigners build a 1.8 million-strong petition despite Indonesian repression? By Danny Chivers.

World’s largest coalmine: Protesters, including First Nations people, blocking the road to Adani’s Abbot Point coal port.

Plan for Australia’s largest coal mine faces struggle

Australia’s Adani mine must be stopped, argue Tom Anderson and Eliza Egret.

An example of the proposed solar plant for Port Augusta.

From smoke stacks to solar: Port Augusta

South Australia’s coal-fired powerhouse is going solar, reports Dan Spencer.

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