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
A look at the new ‘Conservative realist’ policy
Britain needs to forget trying to shape nations through military interventions, and start making deals with existing regimes in order to stop Russia and China gaining influence, SOLOMON HUGHES hears at a Tory Party fringe
Minister for the Armed Forces James Heappey at the Camp Bastion Memorial in Alrewas, near Lichfield
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
ARMED Forces Minister James Heappey said at a Conservative Party fringe meeting that Britain would probably have to “hold its nose” and do a deal with the Taliban.
Addressing a packed meeting on Afghanistan, the minister showed how far the Conservative leadership is drifting away from the “neoconservative,” interventionist approaches they embraced after September 11 2001.
Heappey was addressing a meeting of Conservative Friends of Afghanistan, which was “marking the 20th anniversary of British troops in Afghanistan,” but did so like the wake for a failed policy.
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