From London’s holly-sellers to Engels’s flaming Christmas centrepiece, the plum pudding was more than festive fare in Victorian Britain, says KEITH FLETT
Stop the war posturing – Ukraine is a tinderbox
Military brinkmanship is extremely risky – and the Donbass is crawling with neonazis, mercenaries and trigger-happy adventurers. The only sane approach is de-escalation, writes Morning Star editor BEN CHACKO
Ukrainian soldiers examine their tank at a military unit close to Kharkiv, Ukraine
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
From a lockdown digital project to a vital tool for class solidarity, ROBERT POOLE and HENRY FOWLER reflect on half-a-decade of struggle
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
THERE’S an increasingly surreal air to the war scare over Ukraine.
The original roles in the drama seem to be reversed. Back in December Ukrainian Foreign Minister Oleksii Reznikov was warning that “not provoking Russia — that strategy does not and will not work,” claiming that Russia invaded Georgia in 2008 because Nato hadn’t let it join (in fact Georgia began that war by attacking South Ossetia, but these details rarely trouble politicians or journalists).
In December the US seemed much more reluctant to escalate matters. President Joe Biden said it would not deploy troops to Ukraine, and ruled out a military response to any Russian incursion.
Similar stories
Washington plays innocent bystander while pouring weapons and intelligence into Ukraine, just as it enables the Gaza genocide — but every US escalation leaves Ukraine weaker than the neutrality deal rejected in 2022, argue MEDEA BENJAMIN and NICOLAS JS DAVIES
As Britain marks 80 years since defeating fascism, it finds itself in a proxy war against Russia over Ukraine — DANIEL POWELL examines Churchill’s secret plan to attack our Soviet allies in 1945 and traces how Nato expansion, a Western-backed coup and neo-nazi activism contributed to todays' devastating conflict
By honestly telling Ukraine that it will not become a Nato member, Trump and Hegseth have opened the door to a possible end to the conflict but have also altered the political dynamic on both sides of the Atlantic, write MEDEA BENJAMIN and NICOLAS JS DAVIES