Gloucestershire’s phlebotomists have brought their historic strike to a close after almost a year of action, leaving a legacy of determination – and a clear lesson about the power of solidarity in the face of anti-union laws and austerity, says FBU general secretary STEVE WRIGHT
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A most dangerous present in a box
PETER FROST warns us about several threats to our native woodlands
[Flick/hedera.baltica]
With more people dying each year and many spending their final days in institutions, researchers argue that wider access to palliative care could offer a more humane and cost-effective alternative, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT
While public outrage has focused on the abuse committed within Jeffrey Epstein’s orbit, key questions remain unresolved, says JOHN GREEN
In the second part of her critique of Wes Streeting’s TenYear Plan for Health, HELEN MERCER looks at the central planks of this privatisation blueprint
Tens of thousands of students left their classrooms and took to the streets against conscription and rising military spending. NICK WRIGHT reports from Berlin
A call from the World Peace Council to the peace movements of the world
A KIND friend gave me a nice present this Christmas. It was a plant for my garden — a beautifully clipped globe shaped topiary-box tree about a foot high and a foot in diameter.
I thanked her profusely but was a tiny bit worried as I had heard about these imported box plants. They are available at remarkably low prices for such labour intensive products being grown in Asia. Sadly some of them have brought a relatively new insect pest to Britain.
This is the box tree caterpillar that weaves a white web over the plant — and inside that web eats the leaves and often kills the plant. The caterpillar was first seen in Britain in 2008 and was being spotted in English gardens by 2011.
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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
MAT COWARD presents a peculiar cabbage that will only do its bodybuilding once the summer dies down
ALEX DITTRICH hitches a ride on a jaw-dropping tour of the parasite world
Nature's self-reconstruction is both intriguing and beneficial and as such merits human protection, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT