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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
Ericsson: sham contracts, bribes and Isis
The Swedish multinational has been caught breaking laws against bribery around the globe — but are its actions really that different from the ‘lobbying’ tactics available to corporations legally, asks SOLOMON HUGHES
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
MOBILE PHONE firm Ericsson is in the middle of a vast corruption scandal.
Some details are really shocking — like probably paying off Isis terrorists in Iraq — but I’d like to look at some of the more mundane nuts and bolts of how bribes are paid, because they show how prosecutable corruption is closely related to a more general, systemic corruption.
Corruption features in the international mobile phone business because networks typically rely on licences from governments or subcontracts with national phone companies.
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SOLOMON HUGHES asks whether Labour ‘engaging with decision-makers’ with scandalous records of fleecing the public is really in our interests
US General Stanley McChrystal has been invited to advise on creating a ‘team of teams’ for healthcare transformation. His credentials? He previously ran interrogation bases where Iraqis were stripped naked and beaten, reports SOLOMON HUGHES
Despite using female spokespeople for its campaigns against clinic buffer zones, ADF UK’s board consists entirely of men, with 80 per cent living outside Britain and most funding from its US parent, reveals SOLOMON HUGHES