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
‘BP has played a major role in the destruction of Azerbaijan’s democracy’
Recently freed human rights defender QIYAS IBRAHIMOV speaks to Ben Cowles about the dangers of political activism in his country and how the West and its corporations are making the situation worse.
Qiyas Ibrahimov speaks with journalists in Baku in April
[Aziz Karimov]
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
THE word flower in the Azerbaijani language is written like this: “Gul.” Were you to change the first letter to a Q, then it would read:“Qul,” which means slave.
One night three years ago, the then 21-year-old journalism student Qiyas Ibrahimov and his friend Bayram Mammadov decided to use this particular quirk of their mother tongue to make a political point.
“May 10 every year is celebrated as the founder of our autocratic regime Heydar Aliyev’s birthday,” Ibrahimov says.
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