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
MARCH 8 is the day of renewed commitment to the struggle for gender equality and a world free from poverty, violence, discrimination, injustice and environmental destruction.
The first commemoration of this day took place more than a century ago, in 1911. By 1975 the UN had officially recognised this day as International Women’s Day, with a call on all governments to secure women’s rights and fight gender-based inequalities.
In 2025, the battle still continues. As wars rage in different parts of the world, often to subvert the will of the people, to exploit their natural resources or gain geopolitical advantage, women and their children suffer disproportionately from this violence. The recent rush to increase military budgets, following the threats from the extremist Trump administration, at the expense of services that benefit the people, is a serious threat especially to the working class and women.
The civilian toll climbs past 1,000 as women, children and families are struck in their homes, schools and public spaces – a stark illustration of the human cost of war. AZAR SEPEHR emphasises that the future of Iran is solely determinable by the people of that country and them alone
MOHAMMAD OMIDVAR, a senior figure in the Tudeh Party of Iran, tells the Morning Star that mass protests are rooted in poverty, corruption and neoliberal rule and warns against monarchist revival and US-engineered regime change
In the second of two articles, STEVE BISHOP looks at how the 1979 revolution’s aims are obfuscated to create a picture where the monarchists are the opposition to the theocracy, not the burgeoning workers’ and women’s movement on the streets of Iran



