ALEX HALL interviews PAUL HOLDEN, whose bombshell book uses leaked documents to expose how the Starmer faction used systematic dishonesty to seize power and reopen the door to the corrupting ecosystem of corporate lobbying and sleaze

DISCOUNTING immigration and emigration, changes in population are primarily a function of the difference between birth and death rates. For by far the greater period of human existence birth and death rates were high and the population of humans relatively stable. With the development of agriculture and technology, death rates fell and the population grew rapidly.
But following industrialisation birth rates (as reflected in average family size) also began to fall. Population growth in “developed” countries began to slow. In some counties today, as in the 1930s, birth rates are below “replacement” level and populations have started to decline.
The whole process is known as the “demographic transition.” It’s drivers are still a matter of research and debate but go well beyond the availability of contraception. They include factors such as the social and employment status of women, that children are no longer seen as an economic asset (additional “hands”
to work on the farm or in a factory) and the spread of what were initially “middle class” family norms in relation to consumption and lifestyle. The whole process is complicated still further by other factors, particularly religion.

One of the major criticisms of China’s breakneck development in recent decades has been the impact on nature — returning after 15 years away, BEN CHACKO assessed whether the government’s recent turn to environmentalism has yielded results

Under Modi’s hard-right regime, India is going backwards — but not in the state of Kerala, where the communist-led government continues to deliver remarkable results in infrastructure, economic growth, healthcare, welfare, education, science and social harmony, reports PEOPLE’S DEMOCRACY

