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
Lockheed's Bosnian beano
Why did a leading arms firm foot the bill for seven MPs to go on a fact finding mission to the Balkans, asks SOLOMON HUGHES
A woman leans on a gravestone in Potocari, near Srebrenica, Bosnia, yesterday
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
ARMS FIRMS want to buy their way into political influence and the All Party Parliamentary Groups (APPGs) are one of the many channels they use.
APPGs are very lightly regulated informal groups of MPs that often rely on outside funding for organising trips and events. MPs on the Committee on Standards are investigating whether APPGs are really a channel for lobbying Parliament.
It’s not hard to find examples: according to the latest Register of MPs’ Interests, at the end of September Tory MPs Sarah Atherton, Bob Blackman, Flick Drummond, James Gray, Sheryll Murray, James Sunderland and Labour MP Sarah Champion had a three-day trip with the Armed Forces APPG “to meet current politicians from Bosnia and Herzegovina and to learn about the Bosnian War.”
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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
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
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