New Internationalist

Gold trouble

We take a look at our crazy lust for the shiny yellow metal. Once tied to our currency, gold now floats free in value, completely unconnected to any actual use to us in our daily lives. Dipping yesterday, zooming up today, tomorrow who knows? Best buy some just in case.We are now mining more of the stuff than ever before. In an era when we desperately need to rethink core notions of growth and our unsustainable ecological footprint, we are intensifying destructive goldmining for no other purpose than to make a few people rich.

September 2014, Issue 475

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The Big Story

Stop the gold rush
The value we place on this yellow metal is absurd - and dangeorus, argues Richard Swift.
Gold - the facts
Churning up the cloud forest
Roxana Olivera on a Peruvian community's struggle to defend its rights against a mining corporation's dirty tricks.
The myth of ethical gold
Certification schemes notwithstanding, clean gold is a bit of a scam, says Stephanie Boyd.
A tale of two Indias
How sinking cash into gold is rocking the country's economy and deepening the wealth divide, by Jaideep Hardikar.
A 10-step plan to end gold addiction
View from the ridge
Jewellery designer Jane Theobald's meditation on the true price of the shiny stuff.
Bunker economics
Philip Pilkington on the delusion of worshipping the gold standard.

Features

How Mother Teresa is torturing Kolkata
S Bedford reports from India on a dirty truth behind a squeaky-clean image.
An indivisible and living whole, from the mountains to the sea
In New Zealand, one river now has the legal rights of a person. By Jen Wilton.

Agenda

Children swept up in Egyptian repression
Solomon Islands' environmental tussle
Lost identities
Censorship resurgent in Serbia
Introducing Joko Widodo
Swedish far-right power bid
Migrant-baby court battle in Australia
Burmese monks' assault on interfaith love
The big Greek beach sell-out
PLUS: Scratchy Lines by cartoonist Simon Kneebone and Reasons to be Cheerful

Regulars

Letter from Bangui
Ruby Diamonde finds herself in a town with deep scars and an uncertain future.
Country Profile
Mauritania
And Finally
Comedian and activist Josie Long tells Jo Lateu about her passion for social justice and extols the joy of cold-sea swimming.

Opinion

Argument: Would Scottish independence be good for radical politics?
Writer and activist Adam Ramsay and professor and author Jim Gallagher go head to head.
PLUS: Open Window with guest cartoonist Pavel Constantin from Romania
Mark Engler
Why is college so damned expensive?
Chris Coltrane
Buy a share in the fun.
PLUS: Polyp's Big Bad World cartoon

Mixed Media

Music reviews
Bloody Rain by Sarah-Jane Morris; The Island of Dr Electrico by The Bombay Royale
Film reviews
Mystery Road, directed by Ivan Sen; Two Days, One Night, directed by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne.
Book reviews
S Street Rising by Ruben Castaneda; Nowhere People by Paolo Scott; How to be Alone by Sara Maitland; Adventures in the Anthropocene by Gaia Vince.