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
Is ‘naturalness’ worth preserving?
From John Clare country to ancient fenland, Ed Miliband’s solar farm approvals risk industrialising precious rural spaces — we must find greener solutions that don’t sacrifice our countryside’s beauty, writes DAVE BANGS
A reedbed at Chippenham Fen (Pic: Hugh Venables/Creative Commons) and a pasqueflower (Pic Bernard Dupont/Creative Commons)
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
AS I stood on the top of Mount Caburn, a chalk promontory of the South Downs, and looked east, I could see, stretching for many miles, the landscape that has been created over 140 million years. Scarps and combes, floodplains, ridges and rivers.
I could “read” this sleeping giant of a landscape and its deep-time story in all its natural detail, under its soft blanket of woods, pastures, crops, and villages.
I could picture the immense tectonic heavings that had thrust up the Wealden Dome, and I could see the Ice Age torrents, freezings and meltings that had eroded the chalks, clays, and sandstones back to their current forms.
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This year’s march and swim in a reservoir in the Peak District will continue the fight for 'access for all' in a nation where 92 per cent of land remains inaccessible to the public, writes SHAILA SHOBNAM
Rich natural resources built Aberdeen twice, but today it lies almost abandoned, as our city faces a third major transition — and the renewable energy future threatens same old exploitation, warns LARA FLANNERY
Chinese socialist planning and action over decades have created the world’s greatest reforestation programme, writes CARLOS MARTINEZ, and now its lessons in fighting desertification and climate change are taking root worldwide