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
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The day the far right had their chips – but no chicken
After no-mark neonazi ‘Tommy Robinson’ attempted to bully a chicken restaurant for refusing him service, DR LOUISE RAW headed up to Wing Kingz in Milton Keynes with an anti-fascist friend for a bite to eat…
Louise Raw and Tasnime Akunjee try out the Wing Kingz menu
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
The long-term effects of chemical weapons such as Agent Orange mean that the impact of war lasts well beyond a ceasefire
HITLER had his Battle of Berlin, Mosley his Cable Street — yet who could have predicted that the moment of reckoning for would-be British far-right leader Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (“Tommy Robinson”) would come courtesy of a Milton Keynes chicken restaurant?
Wing Kingz had only been open a matter of weeks when Yaxley-Lennon decided to visit with his children on October 30 — apparently overcoming his usual aversion to anything halal, as the meat at Wing Kingz is.
The restaurant was, in a sense, a victim of its own success. The quality of its food and the coolness of its US sports-bar-but-gourmet concept had created such a buzz, word had spread to the Yaxley-Lennon household that this was the place to be.
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