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
Rebutting Tory attack lines: Trident nuclear weapons
With Labour campaigners hitting the campaign trail up and down the country, in the first of a three-part series, IAN SINCLAIR offers some arguments to counter the right-wing anti-Corbyn narrative
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
DURING Labour’s game-changing 2017 general election campaign it is worth remembering one particularly difficult moment for Jeremy Corbyn — when he was questioned by the audience and presenter David Dimbleby about whether he would press the “nuclear button” during BBC Question Time’s Leaders’ Special.
“Jeremy had begun to look uncomfortable,” Steve Howell, then Labour’s deputy director of strategy and communications, noted in his book about the campaign.
This challenging episode won’t have gone unnoticed by the other political parties, of course. Earlier this month The Guardian noted the Conservatives’ 2019 general election campaign will target Labour seats “by painting Corbyn as a threat to national security.”
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RMT’s former president ALEX GORDON explains why his union supports defence diversification and a just transition for workers in regions dependent on military contracts, and calls on readers to join CND’s demo against nuclear-armed submarines on June 7
SOPHIE BOLT explains why Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament is organising a national protest tour at nuclear bases, starting with a demo at BAE shipyard in Barrow, where Starmer and Healey have been banging the drum for war
Speaking to Ben Chacko, CND’s new leader SOPHIE BOLT outlines her organisation’s ambitious plans, from peace camps to base blockades to mass mobilisation, to fight the rising nuclear madness our politicians ignore