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
AS OUR world spirals toward the catastrophe of nuclear war, there has never been a greater need for a new global balancing, a rejection of great power war, exploitation and aggression.
Now, more than ever, we need to reject the brutal unipolar agenda of the US, the dividing up of the world between hostile powers and the suppression of the rights of the many in the interests of the few.
Nowhere is this clearer than the possession of nuclear weapons: only nine states possess these ultimate weapons of mass destruction, yet they can hold the rest of the world to ransom with their nuclear terror.
VIJAY PRASHAD on why the US attack on Iran was illegal and why the attack could actually spur nuclear weapons proliferation
LINDA PENTZ GUNTER reports from Parliament Square, where a rally slammed the hypocrisy of allowing Israel to bomb Iran and kill hundreds to stop it developing nuclear weapons — the same weapons Israel secretly has and refuses to explain



