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
The right to roam and the protection of nature
DAVE BANGS explains why mass trespassers took to the woods of Oldhouse Warren in Sussex as part of their opposition to a new Center Parcs development
Activists on a mass trespassers through Oldhouse Warren in Sussex as part of their opposition to a new Center Parcs development
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
ON SEPTEMBER 24 300 people trespassed in Oldhouse Warren, part of the erstwhile medieval hunting forest of Worth, right next door to Crawley, and down the road from Gatwick airport and south London.
The mass trespass was organised by Sussex-based Landscapes of Freedom, in tandem with the Right to Roam national campaign.
It took place just after Green MP Caroline Lucas had presented her “right to roam Bill” to Parliament seeking to extend open access to woodland, Green Belt, river banks and more downland.
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CAROL WILCOX argues for the proper implementation of the land value tax, which could see unused plots sold off and landlords priced out of landlordism, potentially resolving the housing and planning crises
Nature's self-reconstruction is both intriguing and beneficial and as such merits human protection, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT
