Features

There are better ways than digging ourselves deeper into a mining hole.

Corruption, pollution and child labour have long blighted the DRC’s cobalt industry. But is there any way of turning the country’s critical mineral wealth into a blessing rather than a burden? Cat Rainsford investigates.

Oasis of life – or zone of sacrifice? The fate of Chile’s culturally and environmentally rich salt flats may be decided by a lithium rush to double output. Vanessa Baird reports from the Salar de Atacama.

The government of Dina Boluarte is determined to inflict a hated copper mining project on the people of the Peru’s Tambo Valley. Why, asks Vanessa Baird?

Rising demand; Where from?; Big dirty business; Real needs?

What does the term ‘critical’ mean, and where will we find these minerals?

They are touted as our way out of climate chaos and essential for making the things we use, from mobile phones to electric vehicles. Vanessa Baird sets out to investigate critical minerals – and the rush to get them.

Once at the forefront of the 2018 revolution, Sudan’s social movements are now providing vital humanitarian aid throughout a devastating civil war. How have they kept their pro-democracy politics alive and adapted to a changing landscape? Eiad Husham reports.

As Norway’s isolated islands leave coal mining behind, Huw Paige asks if it is realistic for them to become a green exemplar for the Arctic.

After the celebrated fall of the Assad regime, questions remain over Syria’s future. As Turkey increases violence in the country’s Kurdish-majority north, Matt Broomfield reports on people’s hopes and fears.

Dario Vacirca examines efforts to prosecute ongoing crimes against Australia’s First Nations.

Alexis Wright gives an epic account of the life and work of a man who took the campaign for Aboriginal rights to the highest levels in her award-winning biography of renowned activist, Tracker Tilmouth.

State and corporate interests across Northern Australia are steamrolling the rights and aspirations of Indigenous peoples in pursuit of economic largesse, Ben Abbatangelo writes.

Veteran activist, academic and actor Gary Foley talks to Zoe Holman about the past and future of Aboriginal resistance.

Senator Lidia Thorpe talks to Zoe Holman about power, Treaty and Australia’s identity crisis.

From the First Fleet’s arrival to today’s fight for recognition, we trace the turbulent history of Aboriginal Australians—a journey of dispossession, resistance, and resilience.

This is not your land. After the defeat of a 2023 referendum on the inclusion of a First Nations Voice in parliament, Zoe Holman traces the claims to self-determination made by Indigenous peoples in Australia, culminating in today’s rallying call for Treaty.

An oil rush is reshaping Guyana’s future, but as profits bypass locals could a familiar history of exploitation, extraction and colonialism be repeating itself? Ben Jacob reports on a nation at a crossroads.

Ten years on from the height of Europe’s refugee ‘crisis’, Greece remains a ‘holding pen’ for people on the move trying to start new lives. Charlie Milner reports from Lagadikia camp, where hundreds are stuck in limbo.

Thousands of men have gone missing in Kashmir since the 1980s. Tauseef Ahmad and Sajid Raina report on the hardships faced by ‘half widows’ as they live with the uncertainty of their husbands’ disappearance.