Issue 541 of New Internationalist
Reader-owned global journalism

January-February 2023
The cost of greed crisis
Prices of everyday essentials are spiralling around the world, increasing poverty as they leave wages behind. But misery for many – from fuel poverty to forecasts of famine – means bumper profits for the few. We look through the spin at what’s behind this crisis of inequality, and how we get out of it.
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In the next issue:
Futures: The world we want to see
In this issue

The Big Story
Whodunnit?
Nick Dowson asks where the global inflation crisis has come from and sketches some people-first solutions.
Read nowLessons in resistance: De-privatizing the rain
Structural adjustment 2.0
Debt crises are back with a vengeance as the dollar goes from strength to strength and interest rates rise. As the International Monetary Fund keeps pushing austerity, Zambian journalist Zanji Valerie Sinkala explores whether that’s really a solution to her country’s economic woes.
Read nowWealth Safari
Prices getting you down? Spare a thought for the rich, says Vanessa Baird – those booming profits won’t count themselves.
Read nowOn borrowed rice
Price hikes are leaving many in Sierra Leone unable to even afford food. Alessio Perrone reports.
Subscribe to readThe farmers rise
The mass protests of 2020-21 in India showed the world what solidarity in action can look like.
Subscribe to readBusted: three myths about inflation
Debtors unite
Pushing against the perfect storm
Climate disasters and fossil fuel dependency are ramping up the cost of living crisis. Marianne Brooker looks at the solutions that are there for the making.
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Regulars
Letter from Shapajilla
Stephanie Boyd begins her series from Peru with a dramatic new arrival.
Subscribe to readCountry Profile: South Korea
Cartoon History: Pepsi Number Fever
Jack Dunleavy and Lawrence Dodgson tell the story of the soda giant's botched campaign in the Phillippines.
Subscribe to readThe Debate
Is it morally right to send weapons into a conflict? Symon Hill and Archie Woodrow get to grips with a thorny and salient question.
Subscribe to readSouthern Exposure
Photographer Ayesha Vellani's otherworldly shot of Karachi's modernist National Mausoleum.
Subscribe to readThe Interview
Human rights activist Muhanned Qafesha speaks to Frances Leach about growing up under Israel's occupation in Hebron, Palestine.
Subscribe to readHall of Infamy: Bongbong Marcos
Like father, like son? The new Filipino president is the product of his parent's politics, and the centre-left's failure.
Subscribe to readAgony Uncle
Been feeling guilty about your caffeine addiction? Our Agony Uncle says coffee isn't always a black-and-white issue.
Subscribe to readWhat if...we decolonized mental health services?
Husna Ara rethinks our collective response to distress.
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Opinion
View from Africa
In light of the World Cup, our new columnist Rosebell Kagumire illustrates the dangers faced by migrant workers in the Gulf States.
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Features
16 million and counting...
Dylan Sullivan and Jason Hickel investigate how neoliberal policies have led to the death of millions around the world.
Read nowThe usual suspects
Bolivia may have returned to democracy in 1982, but those whose lives were ruined by previous dictators are yet to see satisfactory justice, as Thomas Graham reports.
Subscribe to readThe long wait of Thomas Kwoyelo
Sophie Neiman visits Gulu, northern Uganda, once the epicentre of the war involving the Lord's Resistance Army, to investigate how a legal case involving a former child soldier has been allowed to drag on for decades.
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Mixed Media
Spotlight
Musical traveller Kishon Khan talks about the levelling ability of the arts with Subi Shah.
Subscribe to readBook Reviews
20 Riot Cops to Nick 2 Chickens by Pete Barker; Ten Planets by Yuri Herrera, translated by Lisa Dillman; Miss Major Speaks by Miss Major and Toshio Meronek; White Torture: Interviews with Iranian Women Prisoners by Narges Mohammadi, translated by Amir Rezanezhad.
Subscribe to readFilm Reviews
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed directed by Laura Poitras; The Felling directed and co-written by Eve Wood.
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Currents
Iran's revolution song
Borderlines
Introducing....Georgia Meloni
Mexico's thwarted pipeline
The West Bank's 'deadliest year'
Joy and trepidation in Brazil
Colombia's historic pact
Acid attack survivors claim their space in India

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