A visitor to NI recently asked: 'Yes, I can see that you produce this magazine but what do you actually do that's going to change anything in the world?'

Another - about a week later - asked: 'And does anything you write make any difference?'

Hard questions. Difficult things to measure. One colleague answered: 'My life is predicated on the belief that it will make some difference'.

Another had responded to the first question by saying that writing and designing were 'doing'. They certainly felt like hard work.

It's a strange prejudice when you come to think of it - the dismissal of the printed word or image as a form of action. Real activism happens on marches and demos, in meetings, on the doorstep or through lobbying politicians. Writing and designing are all a bit airy-fairy, a bit intellectual. And yet when the two activisms come together - the practical and the intellectual - the impact can be considerable. You are far more likely to bring about change - be it in the big wide world or in your own personal world of work, friends, family, community - if you have accessible information that you might actually enjoy reading.

Ironically, this issue of the magazine was to have supported a series of films connected with conflict and the arms trade on Britain's most 'popular' television channel, ITV. But a big cheese in the organization vetoed the idea - saying that NI was 'too much of a campaigning magazine'.

I really don't know whether it's correct to call NI a 'campaigning' magazine. But perhaps the man who did so was of the school which holds that what news people have to do is present audiences with the grim realities - and not give them any sense of what could be done to change them. There is a sort of complicit decorum in such journalism. It just says: 'Here it is, it's this way'. It does not hector or challenge or say: 'Hey, it does not have to be that way, and this is why, and this is how it might be different'.

If the latter is what makes a publication a 'campaigning' one, then NI is happy to plead guilty.

Lethal Lies
Shrouded in secrecy and deceit, the trade in weapons is well-protected at the highest levels. Vanessa Baird finds it alive and killing on the ground in Somalia and examines what can be done to stop it.

That's the way the money goes
A cartoon strip on how you finance the arms trade.

Sssshh.
They have ways of keeping journalists quiet. David Hellier tells the story of how he tried to expose links between the Government and arms dealers.

Inheritance of absence
What does it take to be a soldier? Susan Griffin digs deep into psyche and nature.

Tyrants for clients
Human-rights abusers make the best clients for arms-selling nations.

Nukes on the loose
Almost anyone can get their hands on nuclear weapons these days. And the Big Five do not like it. Darius Bazargan seeks a non-hypocritical way of halting the spread.

A pathology of militarism
A report from the eminent Dr RS Bloom MD, MRCP.

THE FACTS
NI charts the way the guns are going.

Hands of lead, feet of clay
Novelist Jamal Mahjoub writes a short story.

Counterblast
A weapons dealer gives an insider account.

Making peace
How can we turn a world geared for war into one that will make peace possible?

ACTION
Bumper three-page spread on things you can do and groups you can contact.

Letters
Letter from Lagos
Update
Reviews: plus Abdullah Ibrahim classic
Curiosities
Endpiece: by Victor Fung
Country profile: Eritrea

FRONT COVER ILLUSTRATION BY ANNE CAKEBREAD
MAGAZINE DESIGNED BY IAN NIXON
ONLINE MAG MAINTAINED BY SIMON LOFFLER