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
US sanctions, Iran and coronavirus
Only an empire as egregious as the US would exacerbate its regime of sanctions against a country in the grip of a deadly pandemic — even mainstream opionion is beginning to raise the alarm, writes IAN SINCLAIR
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
AS Morning Star readers know, the BBC largely reflects the interests and opinions of the British establishment. Nevertheless, occasionally discerning consumers can find important, critical information on one of the corporation’s many platforms.
For example, at the end of February BBC Radio 4’s World Tonight programme broadcast a brief interview about the Britain’s response to coronavirus with Dr Bharat Pankhania, a senior clinical lecturer at the College of Medicine and Health, University of Exeter.
Though he wasn’t asked about Iran, Pankhania, who has over 20 years’ experience working as a consultant in communicable diseases, snuck in an inconvenient truth: “What happens in other countries can come to bite us too,” he said. “I am very concerned about Iran and the health sanctions by the US against Iran. Because when you have uncontrolled transmission of infection in Iran it will affect the Middle East and it will affect us too.”
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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
Freedom now for former PM Mir-Hossein Mousavi and other political prisoners
The media’s shocking lack of interest in US-British involvement in Syria means it has effectively been a secret war, argues IAN SINCLAIR
After the Gaza genocide and unleashing chaos in Syria, the US and Israel prepare to target Tehran next, leaving the Iranian people caught between foreign intervention and continued theocratic oppression, writes GAWAIN LITTLE