Labour will find increases in the state pension age are unacceptable, just as cuts to the Winter Fuel Allowance, personal independence payments and universal credit are — it needs to change direction immediately, writes PCS general secretary FRAN HEATHCOTE

IT IS 10 years this September since Lehman Brothers went bankrupt, bringing global capitalism to the point of collapse.
Although a total meltdown was avoided, the crash triggered a slump of 1930s proportions, and for most economies the last decade has been a lost decade of low growth, low investment, low productivity, debt, deficit, with virtually no improvement in real incomes for the 90 per cent.
The stand-out story of the period has to be the continuing rise of China. Initially also badly hit by the crisis, China recovered rapidly to emerge today as a major economic power, moving steadily closer centre stage in the global order.

We cannot understand today’s world without understanding the rise of China – and we cannot understand China without understanding how it was shaped by the second world war, writes JENNY CLEGG

JENNY CLEGG reports from a Chinese peace conference bringing together defence ministers, US think tanks and global South leaders, where speakers warned that the erosion of multilateralism risks regional hotspots exploding into wider war

