So I was really lucky, it was my 30th birthday, now I’m 38. Two days later, this guy was unloading the van (of DOPE magazine). And he said “you know what guys, you guys might like this, this is cool stuff, this is DOPE, man. And we’re just giving it out to people so they could just earn something.” For free like, you know and get by. He was so kind, one of the kindest people. We helped him unload some stuff, and then he was like “Hey guys, look, I’m okay. I got other guys to help me out here take it in, so just take some”.

In the cockpit of the Hawk Jet lay a number of unusual objects: a VHS tape, an A4 pamphlet, and a calling card with the names of four women - Andrea Needham, Joanna Wilson, Lotta Kronlid, and Angie Zelter - under "Seeds of Hope: East Timor Ploughshares" and the words "Women Disarming for Life and Justice”. The control panel of the jet had been smashed by a single blow from a hammer.

For the past two years, the UK has been in the midst of an invisible health crisis caused by nitazenes, a group of powerful synthetic opioids which can be up to 500 times stronger than heroin and ten times stronger than fentanyl.

When Zohran Mamdani, the 33-year-old state assemblyman and self-described democratic socialist, decisively won the Democratic primary for mayor of New York City in June 2025, the entire liberal establishment lost their shit. The authorities reached for their fainting hankies, and the insinuation (if not the exact words) of the rulers and their enablers was unmistakable: 'Bolsheviks take over NYC!'

As I write, Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militants have stormed the Zamzam refugee camp, home to over 400,000 displaced people, setting fire to shelters and systematically dismantling one of Sudan’s largest camps. It marks yet another atrocity in a civil war where the RSF and Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) have carved up the country. As is so often the case, those without guns are the ones to suffer most. According to the UN, in 2025, over 30 million people, approximately two-thirds of the population, will require humanitarian aid. Of this, 16 million are children. Around 12 million women and girls (and a growing number of men/boys) are at risk of sexual violence. Since the start of the major escalation in April 2023, more than 12 million people have begun a grim life fleeing war.

T

he downstairs two floors of the global bank UBS's 13-storey headquarters lie empty. In the City of London, this space – dubbed a 'double-height reception' – is barren of activity. Except for the morning, lunch and evening rush hours, this space's predominant captives are bored-looking security guards and receptionists. These voids mainly function as walk-through areas between outside and lifts or escalators. The architect's blurb says UBS resembles a machine, a well-oiled money-making machine. Yet many elephants could roam this bottom room, with space priced at £75/foot. 30% of the building's total floor space (1 million square foot) is not offices. These non-office spaces cost tenants over £22 million/year in rent. Sure, buildings need hallways. But why not put the stairs near the doors? Why let space lie idle?

In an era marked by using social media and instant messaging to talk to each other, there is something quite beautiful about sitting with a group of people writing letters. What makes it even more beautiful and important is that we are writing to prisoners.

Masafer Yatta sits at the southern edge of the West Bank. Spread across multiple villages and hamlets, the rugged landscape, characterised by deep swaying valleys of limestone rock and topped with little vegetation, is home to just a few thousand Palestinians. As a rural community, many residents live off the land, relying on the produce they raise as farmers and shepherds. Olives, wheat, milk, and cheese are harvested for flour and olive oil production, while various vegetables are cultivated in small quantities. Chickens are also part of most households.

My parents brought me to a dingy Council building in Lanarkshire for my first assessment. I’ve been disabled since birth, but prior to turning 16, the questions were directed to my mum and dad as my primary caregivers. Now, as an ‘adult’, according to the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP), I had to endure a 90-minute interview where all aspects of my disability and life were interrogated as if I had committed a crime.

On the 4th of September 1976, the Sex Pistols made their television debut, performing Anarchy in the UK on a late-night music show. Before the first chords were even struck, a young Johnny Rotten, all nervous energy and bile, stared directly into the camera and screamed, 'GET OFF YOUR ARSE!" - an act unleashing a cultural shock-wave that still reverberates today. For thousands of youngsters watching TV that night, it was as if a bomb had detonated in their living rooms—a call to action that demanded an immediate response. 

On 7 September, 2024, fascists in Glasgow staged their most successful demonstration in decades, gathering a few hundred flag-waving and Hitler-saluting specimens of the 'Aryan race' under Union Jacks, St. Andrew's Crosses, Red Hands of Ulster, and even a single, lonely, Irish Tricolour. Fascism in Scotland has never been particularly successful as a movement compared to the rest of these isles, whether the British Union of Fascists in the 1930s, the subcultural "brown wave" of the 1980s-90s, or the present day. But is this demonstration a sign that things may be starting to change? And if so, what can be done about it?

Since the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria in December 2024, the future of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), also known as Rojava, remains uncertain. While there is no shortage of geopolitical analysis about the situation, one crucial voice is often overlooked—the approximately five million civilian inhabitants of the region. Their voice could be crucial for the future of Rojava, an area that has established an administration based on a bottom-up, directly democratic system that aims to empower its citizens. However, evaluating this from afar is difficult, amongst media reports riddled with various biases. Some praise the mass civilian support for the administration near the strategic Tishreen Dam in the west of Rojava, while others accuse the administration of holding a nationalist and separatist agenda. 

Tyre, in Lebanon's south, is a city of ancient and recent ruins. Around every corner, you'll find new apartment blocks twisted inside out by bombs. Plushly decorated front rooms are exposed to the air, sometimes with pictures still on the wall, their inner columns leaning at drunken angles. Buildings bow to the road, ceilings kissing the ground some five floors below. The ruins are the result of an accumulation of airstrikes night after night, week after week, for months.

It's not very fashionable to talk about Covid-19. We'd rather blank out the whole episode. But, if we do, we forget some crucial lessons from the pandemic crisis.