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‘We've got to get ready for rescue again’
Doctors Without Borders' HANNAH WALLACE BOWMAN tells the Star about the medical charity's imminent return to the central Mediterranean aboard the Sea Watch 4
Despite its life saving mission, the new boat from Sea Watch and United4Rescue, a civil society coalition of over 500 European groups, is unlikely to be welcomed by the Italian and Maltese governments.
Once the bustling heart of Christian pilgrimage, Bethlehem now faces shuttered hotels, empty streets and a shrinking Christian community, while Israel’s assault on Gaza and the tightening grip of occupation destroy hopes of peace at the birthplace of Christ, writes Father GEOFF BOTTOMS
From a lockdown digital project to a vital tool for class solidarity, ROBERT POOLE and HENRY FOWLER reflect on half-a-decade of struggle
After years hidden away, Oldham’s memorial to six local volunteers who died fighting fascism in the Spanish civil war has been restored to public view, marking both a victory for campaigners and a renewed tribute to the town’s proud International Brigade heritage, says ROB HARGREAVES
The June 2025 attacks on Iran have heightened the risk of a wider war, exposed the fiction of a rules-based international order and left ordinary Iranians trapped between external aggression and internal repression, says the Committee for Defence of Iranian People’s Rights
While pretending to seek peace, Europe is heading toward a collision course with Russia – using security guarantees, troop deployments, expropriation and censorship as tools, writes SEVIM DAGDELEN
A WWI hero, renowned ornithologist, medical doctor, trade union organiser and founder member of the Communist Party of Great Britain all rolled in one. MAT COWARD tells the story of a life so improbable it was once dismissed as fiction
“I AM a bit apprehensive. Everything is more uncertain than it was at the beginning of the year, what with the challenges we face around Covid-19 and so on,” Doctors Without Borders’ (MSF) communications manager Hannah Wallace Bowman tells me from the deck of a new rescue ship.
“You never really know what to expect when it comes to search and rescue in the Mediterranean. But this time it does feel — especially with the state hostility towards the work that we’re trying to do — that all bets are off.”
I last spoke with Bowman in October 2019. Back then MSF was working with the European rescue charity SOS Mediterranee aboard their ship, the Ocean Viking. This spring, however, MSF and SOS Mediterranee parted ways, citing differences over how they should respond to the coronavirus pandemic.
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