New Internationalist

In November 1572 a brilliant new star appeared in the sky – initially bright enough to be seen during daylight. Its appearance was recorded worldwide and it stayed visible to the naked eye for over a year. It is now commonly known as Tycho’s supernova, after Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe, whose contemporary measurements, along with those of Spanish scientist Jerónimo Muñoz, proved it was further away than the moon.

The New Space Race We are seeing a dramatic new push into space, including unprecedented levels of private sector involvement and dramatic increases to the number of satellites in orbit – from around 2,000 at the start of this decade to over 14,000 today. The new space race is dominated by US billionaires – infamous titans of the tech industry. The rest of us get left in the dust as Earth’s skies fill with their debris and the stratosphere is scorched by their rockets.

New Internationalist condemns the coordinated campaign of online harassment targeting our contributor Eiad Husham in response to his journalistic work reporting on the war in Sudan. Husham has reported extensively on the conflict from exile, documenting human rights abuses, the role of powerful external actors in fuelling the war, and centring the experiences of Sudanese people.

She had a difficult start in life. Her father, Harry Bellhouse, suffered bouts of mental illness in a psychiatric hospital that made it almost impossible to keep a job. His wife, Marjorie, having been evicted from a cottage tied to his job, did what she could to support Lesley and her two younger siblings by taking on sewing work, often late into the night.

I have been appalled to watch the US and Israeli bombings in Iran and have felt both very powerless and yet compelled to do something. I shared some anti-war posts on my social media. Lots of people liked them but I also received a very angry message from an Iranian-born friend now living in the diaspora, who said that the intervention was necessary to remove the regime and that I couldn’t possibly understand the nuances because I am not myself Iranian.

Reader-owned global journalism General Strike! A century after Britain’s only general strike, this special edition revisits the dramatic events of 1926 and examines their lasting legacy. As workers around the world face mounting attacks on pay, conditions and union rights, we explore the renewed relevance of the general strike as a tool for resistance and solidarity. Featuring reports from the frontlines of labour struggles in Argentina, the United States and India.

Star ratings Income distribution Literacy Life expectancy Position of women Politics Freedom LGBTQI+ Excellent Good Fair Poor Appalling At a glance Leader: President Gustavo Petro Economy: GNI per capita $7,040 (Peru $7,500, UK $49,470) Monetary unit: Colombian peso (1 COP = $0.00027) Main exports: Oil is the most important product, followed by other minerals like coal and gold, and agricultural goods such as coffee. Population: 52.8 million. Annual growth rate: 1.1%.

As a law student in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh, Lisa Mean felt that she wasn’t learning how to apply the law in practice. She began volunteering with civil society organizations, working as a legal intern, but over time she realized her place was elsewhere. ‘I wanted to work with peace movements... I wanted to participate in peace protests and talk about conservation. That is why I started working with Mother Nature Cambodia,’ she says.

In northern India’s Himalayas, flowers and fruits are in full bloom. But their colours and fragrances are not only bringing joy. Rather, this bloom is being viewed as a warning of mounting climate stress as rising temperatures push seasons away faster. Year on year, the average snowfall has plummeted in these once white-covered mountains, leaving them bare and rocky in many places. What little snow there is melts more quickly and when spring arrives there is less runoff to feed water systems.

JOB: To bring ‘peace and stability’ to the Middle East REPUTATION:Colonial enterprise of Trump shills to help him bypass the United Nations He’s back. Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, has returned to his usual role of propping up the US Empire, this time as a leading figure of Donald Trump’s so-called Board of Peace. Now 72, Blair’s blend of US appeasement and an extreme white saviour complex saw Britain jump head first into the US’s disastrous interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq.