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

AMIDST the wider multipolar rebalancing of power with the rise of China, a series of major international events taking place in 2020 may mark the year out as a turning point in setting the agenda for the coming decade and for the rest of the 21st century.
As US-led global militarisation casts a cold-war shadow over historic opportunities for major powers to come together, now is the time for campaigns for peace, climate-change action and social justice to push together from below in a movement for international cooperation.
April-May and Sept: DEFENDER-Europe
The US and Nato will launch their new annual DEFENDER-Europe military exercises, involving the largest deployment of US-based forces to Europe in more than 25 years, to be followed later by DEFENDER-Pacific exercises.

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

