The World Unspun – Détails, épisodes et analyse

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There's a lot of money to be made in the internet. People with good intentions and bad intentions are being driven by profit. So how does this shape our information ecosystem and where does the scope for action lie?

Read #NI552: Disinformation

Host: Maxine Betteridge-Moes

Credits: Maxine Betteridge-Moes (Producer), Nazik Hamza (Audio Editor), Mari Fouz (Logo Design), Amy Hall, Bethany Rielly, Conrad Landin, Nick Dowson (Co-editors), Paula Lacey (Editorial assistant), Samuel Raffnell-Williams (Sound design), Thomas Barlow, Impress (Media consultant)

Guest: Nanjala Nyabola

0:18 Issue highlights

2:30 Telling a global story

7:26 Why does misinformation spread?

12:49 Who are the architects of misinformation?

19:29 How much of a role does language have in our collective fight against misinformation?

23:18 What is your experience with community health workers?

29:39 What are the paths to digital inclusivity?

34:11 Thank you for listening

Further reading from this episode:

Strange and Difficult Times: Notes on a Global Pandemic by Nanjala Nyabola

Entering the Matrix of Misinformation

Red Letter Day (Conrad Landin in New Internationalist. Subscribe to read)

The Philippines Disinformation Machine (Don Kevin Hapal in New Internationalist. Subscribe to read)

Fact-checkers to the rescue? (Samira Sawlani in New Internationalist. Subscribe to read)

How Kiswahili tech terms are pushing for digital rights in East Africa (Maxine Betteridge-Moes in Quartz Africa)

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Fascism is a popular term in political discourse today. For the Turkish journalist and writer Ece Temelkuran, that’s a good thing — except that it comes too late. So how can we recognize a country's descent from democracy into fascism and what does resistance look like?

Host: Maxine Betteridge-Moes

Credits: Maxine Betteridge-Moes (Producer), Amy Hall, Bethany Rielly, Conrad Landin, Nick Dowson (Co-editors), Paula Lacey (Editorial assistant), Samuel Raffnell-Williams (Sound design), Nazik Hamza (Audio Editor), Mari Fouz (Logo Design), Thomas Barlow, Impress (Media consultant)

Guest: Ece Temelkuran

3:18 Meeting Ece

3:31 What is it like living in Berlin currently?

5:16 Ece’s story fleeing Turkey

8:00 What is fascism?

11:19 What is the difference between fascism and authoritarianism?

12:40 What is the counter revolution?

14:55 Fascist friends and global solidarity

18:52 How do we keep up the momentum organising

22:52 What will it take to build a political movement which truly serves the people?

Further reading from this episode:

#NI551 Political Parties

How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Fascism by Ece Temelkuran

Together: A Manifesto Against the Heartless World by Ece Temelkuran

Women who Blow on Knots by Ece Temelkuran (or if you’re in London, go see the stage production at the Arcola Theatre)

Independents’ Day (Conrad Landin in New Internationalist)

Radicalism Jettisoned (Coll McCail in New Internationalist)

How do we continue building international solidarity for Palestine?

#NI552 Disinformation

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Haiti, the land of the only successful slave uprising in history, was also an experiment in neocolonialism. As the country once again makes global news headlines for all the wrong reasons, we spoke to independent journalist Harold Isaac to better understand how Haiti's complex history of colonization, slavery and its crippling ‘independence debt’ to France contributed to the crisis we’re seeing play out on our screens today.

Host: Maxine Betteridge-Moes

Credits: Maxine Betteridge-Moes (Producer), Amy Hall, Bethany Rielly, Conrad Landin, Nick Dowson (Co-editors), Paula Lacey (Editorial assistant), Samuel Raffnell-Williams (Sound design), Nazik Hamza (Audio Editor), Mari Fouz (Logo Design), Thomas Barlow, Impress (Media consultant)

Guest: Harold Isaac (@haroldisaac)

0:41 Meeting Harold Isaac

1:03 Haiti's airport shut down

3:40 Staying safe in Haiti

5:12 Being in Haiti is an act of resistance

6:05 Understanding Haiti's history

7:41 Haiti's revolution

8:50 US occupation

13:39 Fleeing Haiti

15:27 The danger for journalists

16:31 Trump revokes protected legal status for Haitians

18:13 The damage of reparations

24:50 Haiti’s cultural importance

26:35 Structural adjustment programmes shifting Haiti's economic climate

30:51 Do Haitians feel alone?

Further reading from this episode:

Held to ransom: Haiti's cycle of violence (Harold Isaac in New Internationalist)

Country Profile: Haiti (New Internationalist)

Haiti's Lost Billions (Lazaro Gamio etl a. in The New York Times)

#NI554 Debt: Which way out?

#NI545 Decolonize Now

For up-to-date and accurate reporting on the unfolding crisis in Haiti, Harold recommends following Jacqueline Charles (@jacquiecharles), Frantz Duval (@frantzduval) and Radio RFM (@maradiofm)

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The West may be losing control over the world’s resources but it still dominates weapons systems and information. Vijay Prashad explains why some world leaders are effectively arms dealers and how this influences diplomacy.

Read NI553: The Arms Trade

Host: Maxine Betteridge-Moes

Credits: Maxine Betteridge-Moes (Producer, Digital Editor), Amy Hall, Bethany Rielly, Conrad Landin, Nick Dowson (Co-Editors), Paula Lacey (Editorial Assistant), Samuel Rafanell-Williams (Sound Design), Nazik Hamza (Audio Editor), Mari Fouz (Logo Design), Thomas Barlow, Impress (Media Consultant)

Guest: Vijay Prashad

2:44 Introducing Vijay

7:58 Fear fuels war - are we further away from negotiating peace than ever before?

11:21 Trump, NATO, and their impact on the arms trade

15:47 The role of Imperialism

21:12 How does the role of internationalism affect the geopolitical shift?

23: 21 Global movements against the arms trade

28:14 Maintaining faith in humanity

31:07 The good and bad sides of history

Further Reading from this Episode:

How to dismantle the deadly arms trade (Amy Hall, New Internationalist)

Guns or Diplomacy? An interview with Vijay Prashad (Amy Hall, New Internationalist)

Genocide in Gaza: Western Moral Collapse in the Age of Hyper-Imperialism (Palestine Deep Dive interview with Vijay Prashad)

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Samar Alkhdour is a Palestinian activist in Montreal whose campaign against the obstructive and discriminatory Canadian immigration system has been met with nothing but police repression and silence from the government.

Host: Paula Lacey

Credits: Paula Lacey (Producer, Editorial Assistant), Maxine Betteridge-Moes, Amy Hall, Bethany Rielly, Conrad Landin, Nick Dowson (Co-Editors), Samuel Rafanell-Williams (Sound Design), Nazik Hamza (Audio Editor), Mari Fouz (Logo Design), Thomas Barlow, Impress (Media Consultant)

Guest: Samar Alkhdour

Further reading:

NI554 Palestine: From Occupation to Uprising

NI546 Surveillance: Spying on Dissent

How one Gazan mother’s tragedy has fuelled a sit-in action by Nelly Bassily (Disability Visibility Project)

Long waits for Canadian visas leave Gazans in limbo by Anna Mehler Paperny (Reuters)

Joint letter: Urgent changes needed to Canada’s Temporary Residence Visa Program for Gazans Amnesty International Canada

Intended to Fail: Systemic Anti-Palestinian Racism and Canada’s Gaza Temporary Resident Visa Program by Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East

Coalition for No Over Policing Palestine/Police Pas la Palestine

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Following the defeat of a 2023 referendum on an Indigenous advisory body to Australia's parliament, our latest issue scrutinizes the ongoing denial of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander sovereignty. In this episode, guest editor Zoe Holman talks about how she commissioned this Big Story and interviews Senator and Indigenous activist Lidia Thorpe about today's rallying call for Treaty.

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Read NI554: Indigenous Sovereignty in Australia

Hosts: Maxine Betteridge-Moes, Zoe Holman

Credits: Maxine Betteridge-Moes (Producer, Digital Editor), Amy Hall, Bethany Rielly, Conrad Landin, Nick Dowson (Co-Editors), Paula Lacey (Editorial Assistant), Samuel Rafanell-Williams (Sound Design), Nazik Hamza (Audio Editor), Mari Fouz (Logo Design)

Guest: Zoe Holman, Senator Lidia Thorpe

00:00 Help Rewire the World

2:46 Issue highlights and why you should care

9:45 Interview with Senator Lidia Thorpe

10:10 Why work in politics?

12:40 Sovereignty

14:05 The First Nations justice debate explained

17:12 How would a Treaty help in policy terms?

21:14 Confronting King Charles

25:38 The importance of international solidarity

Further Reading from this Episode:

This is not your land (Zoe Holman, New Internationalist)

Truth-telling in the Stolen Country (Zoe Holman, New Internationalist)

Rise from this grave (Tony Birch, Overland)

The last path forward to Treaty (Daniel James, 7am podcast)

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In the years since Syria’s civil war began in 2011, the country has been slowly drifting away from the mainstream media spotlight. But on 8 December, everything changed.

Turkish-backed opposition forces declared Syria liberated from the 24-year rule of President Bashar al-Assad, capturing the capital Damascus in what seemed like the blink of an eye.

So what does the future hold for religious and ethnic minorities in Syria? Will the Kurds realize their dream of self-governance under the defacto HTS authority? What remains of the country's political opposition and labour movements, and how can the international community support a fair and equal redistribution of power for Syrians?

Matt Broomfield and Leila Al-Shami provide some answers.

Guests: Leila Al-Shami and Matt Broomfield

Host: Maxine Betteridge-Moes

Credits: Maxine Betteridge-Moes (Producer), Amy Hall, Bethany Rielly, Conrad Landin, Nick Dowson (Co-editors), Paula Lacey (Editorial assistant), Samuel Raffnell-Williams (Theme music), Nazik Hamza (Audio Editor), Mari Fouz (Logo Design)

0:32 The day everything changed

3:02 Introducing Matt Broomfield

4:36 The Kurdish forces and their role in defeating ISIS

6:08 Turkey's attacks on Syria

7:41 Trump’s impact on the region

11:50 What cards can Turkey play?

12:45 The relationship between the autonomous administration and the HTS

14:03 Israel's expansion and occupation

16:41 How can post-Assad Syria benefit from Kurdish input

20:34 Introducing Leila Al-Shami

26:34 Does a secular society best represent Syria's diverse social fabric?

29:21 How can people on the left in Syria and beyond challenge neoliberal restructuring?

31:33 Nothing can be worse than Assad

33:52 Further reading

Further reading:

The war isn't over (Matt Broomfield, in our forthcoming March/April 2025 issue - subscribe here)

Where to now for Syria’s women? (Zaina Erhaim in New Internationalist)

Riad al-Turk’s Lifelong Struggle for a Free and Democratic Syria (Leila Al-Shami in New Internationalist)

Read NI 526 The Kurds: Betrayed again (New Internationalist, 2020)

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2025 marks 50 years since Morocco invaded Western Sahara, forcibly displacing the Sahrawi people into neighbouring Algeria. Women’s rights and climate activist Najla Mohamed-Lamin joins us from the Sahrawi refugee camps to talk about the multigenerational impact of 50 years of forced exile, and the common struggles of Indigenous peoples around the world.

Read NI554: Treaty / NI545: Decolonize now / NI540: Take back the land

Host: Maxine Betteridge-Moes

Credits: Maxine Betteridge-Moes (Producer, Digital Editor), Amy Hall, Bethany Rielly, Conrad Landin, Nick Dowson (Co-Editors), Paula Lacey (Editorial Assistant), Samuel Rafanell-Williams (Sound Design), Nazik Hamza (Audio Editor), Mari Fouz (Logo Design)

Guest: Najla Mohammed-Lamine

Further reading from this episode:

With all eyes on Gaza, Morocco strengthens its hold on Western Sahara (Maxine Betteridge-Moes, New Internationalist)

Love Locked Up (Maxine Betteridge-Moes, New Internationalist)

Spotlight: Aziza Brahim (Graeme Green, New Internationalist)

A new dawn? Western Sahara and the Arab Spring (Jeremy Corbyn & Stefan Simanowitz, New Internationalist)

War and Peace in Western Sahara (New Internationalist Issue #297) Subscribe to read in our digital archive.

How Sahrawis See the Western Sahara Conflict (Najla Mohamed-Lamin, The National Interest)

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For nearly half a century, the British police embedded agents within progressive political and protest movements; officers deceived activists into intimate relationships, sometimes fathering children, before vanishing from their lives forever. As the Undercover Policing Inquiry continues to unearth new abuses, New Internationalist co-editor Bethany Rielly speaks to two spycops campaigners about their search for justice.

In this episode we also hear evidence given to the ongoing Undercover Policing Inquiry by ex-undercover officer Andy Coles, who is accused of having an intimate relationship with an animal rights activist known as ‘Jessica’ when she was 19 years old. Coles publicly denied the claims in the Peterborough Telegraph after he was unmasked in 2017, dismissing them as ‘lurid’. Despite this, in 2020, the Metropolitan Police upheld a complaint by Jessica, after launching an internal investigation which found ‘credible evidence’ about the alleged relationship. It said Coles would have faced a disciplinary hearing on a charge of gross misconduct if he had not already retired from the Metropolitan Police in 2013. On 18 and 19 December 2024, the ex-officer again refuted the allegations in oral evidence to the inquiry. Other female activists have also accused Coles of making sexual advances on them, which he also denied.

Read NI546: Spying on dissent

Hosts: Maxine Betteridge-Moes & Bethany Rielly

Credits: Paula Lacey (Editorial Assistant), Samuel Rafanell-Williams (Sound Design), Nazik Hamza (Audio Editor), Mari Fouz (Logo Design)

Credit for audio clips of hearings: The Undercover Policing Inquiry (UCPI)

Guests: Tom Fowler, Jessica

The cop who spied on grief (Bethany Rielly, New Internationalist)

Why Spycops victims walked out from the police inquiry (Campaign Opposing Police Surveillance, New Internationalist)

Spycops Info (Undercover policing podcast hosted by Tom Fowler)

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Eighty percent of the world is still powered by fossil fuels, but critical minerals are on the up.

What exactly are critical minerals - and why all the hype?

To mark the launch of our latest magazine, we’re digging deep.

The first episode in this mini series takes you to Peru, where the government is determined to inflict an unpopular copper mine on the people of the Tambo Valley. Contributing editor Vanessa Baird shares what she learned from campaigners and activists about their growing resistance.

Host: Maxine Betteridge-Moes

Guest: Vanessa Baird

Credits: Maxine Betteridge-Moes (Producer, Digital Editor), Amy Hall, Bethany Rielly, Conrad Landin, Nick Dowson (Co-Editors), Paula Lacey (Editorial Assistant), Samuel Rafanell-Williams (Sound Design), Nazik Hamza (Audio Editor), Mari Fouz (Logo Design)

Read NI555: Dig, Baby, Dig! Can Critical Minerals Save the World?

Further reading from this episode:

Can mining save the world? (Vanessa Baird, New Internationalist)

Hall of Infamy: Dina Boluarte (New Internationalist)

Killing of protesters sparks early elections in Peru (Vaness Baird, New Internationalist)

Peru’s anti-forest law rewards crime and screws the planet (Vanessa Baird, New Internationalist)

Avoid Amazon by shopping at New Internationalist’s very own Ethical Shop

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