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
Namibia: a massacre the world forgot
After Germany lost WWI and with it Namibia, its colonial crimes there were almost buried — until the efforts of the socialist GDR, who in 1974 sent JOHN GREEN undercover to document the nation's past and present struggles
Captured Herero and Nama prisoners circa 1904. The Germans massacred large numbers of the indigenous population: between 24,000-100,000 Hereros and 10,000 Nama were killed in the 20th century’s first genocide.
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
IF WE think about the toxic colonial legacy of European countries, we invariably think of Britain, Spain, France or Belgium — but who knows anything about German colonialism? That will certainly be true for many, at least before they read the recent novel, After Lives by last year’s Nobel Prize winner, Tanzanian-born novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah, who highlights the brutality of German colonialism in Tanganyika.
Germany, just like other colonising nations, has scrupulously evaded examining its colonial past or attempting to come to terms with it.
Before its defeat in World War I, Germany held colonies in what today are 14 separate countries in Africa and among them was South-West Africa (present day Namibia). German South-West Africa had been a colony of the German empire from 1884 until 1915.
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MOLLY DHLAMINI welcomes a Pan-Africanist and Marxist manifesto that charts a path for Africa’s resurgence
JOHN GREEN takes issue with a mainstream novel designed to denigrate the GDR
From Zimbabwe’s provinces to Mali’s streets, nations are casting off colonial labels in their quest for true independence and dignity in a revival of the pan-African spirit, writes ROGER McKENZIE