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Issue 523 of New Internationalist

Reader-owned global journalism

January-February 2020

Freedom to move – for everyone

The question of who can move – and settle – is becoming core to all political struggles. As the cruelty inflicted on unauthorized migrant travellers reaches new heights, we unpick the exclusionary border rules that have brought us to this point. In the collection of articles below, we take a deeper look at borders, how they are policed and how they are crossed, regardless. We ask, how did we get here? And look into what it might mean to abolish this system entirely and build something new.

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Included in this issue

Sanie Gashi Mehmeti, a religious guide and teacher, during one of her classes in Lipjan. Photos: Arianna Pagani

After Isis

Most European countries refuse to repatriate the thousands of former ISIS foreign fighters and their families now held in...
A still from Purple Sea, by Amel al-Zakout

Who do you save?

Syrian artist Amel al-Zakout nearly drowned in the Mediterranean Sea after her boat capsized en route to Greece. Volunteer...
Jose Caceres, a migrant who was deported back to Honduras, holds up a picture of his sons. He was separated from his 11-year-old Brayan (right) five months ago as they tried to enter the US. Brayan is now living in a shelter in Maryland. Jim Wyss/Miami Herald/PA Images

Deported by Silicon Valley

Governments are increasingly using surveillance and big data to track immigrants. Gaby del Valle reports from the US, where...
Illustrations: Pete Reynolds

The age of development: an obituary

‘Development’ has long been reframed and hijacked, but, Wolfgang Sachs argues, we need to move beyond its misguided assumptions...
Throughout history migrants have often been treated as a source of disease and ‘contagion’. Immigrant children are examined on arrival at Ellis Island, New York, 1911. Credit: Bettmann/Getty

How fear infected the border

Ruben Andersson traces the roots of a Freudian fixation.
Europe-bound. Migrant travellers from Togo en route to Italy after being rescued by Spanish rescue NGO Open Arms, February 2017. David Ramos/Getty

Freedom to move – for everyone

Hazel Healy unpicks the workings of mobility apartheid.
Source: Unsplash

During a climate crisis, is flying acceptable?

Agony Uncle weighs in on a carbon-conscious reader's dilemma.
Alex Sager imagines a time when all people are free to move.

Open borders, 2050

Alex Sager imagines a time when all people are free to move.
Fifi, with her daughter Mia, bemoans the slow pace of construction. Photos: Tamzin Forster

Barbudans are resisting disaster capitalists

Ever since Hurricane Irma struck in September 2017, residents of Barbuda have been trying to defend themselves against those...
African National Congress (ANC) election posters are seen on street poles in Alexandra township, in Johannesburg, South Africa, April 10, 2019. REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko

Letter from Johannesburg

Yewande Omotoso moves through the unknowable city, looking and listening.
 In the 1960s, Senator Bernie Sanders joined the Young People’s Socialist League, the youth section of the Socialist Party of America.

What if…a socialist became president of the USA?

Richard Swift ponders a pipedream – or a possibility.
Rag pickers collect recyclable material at a garbage dump in New Delhi November 19, 2014. REUTERS/Ahmad Masood

Invisible green warriors

Nilanjana Bhowmick heralds India's most overshadowed environmentalists: waste-pickers

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