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 mixture of opportunism and strategy
JAMES MEADWAY sizes up Johnson’s speech to Tory Party conference
Prime Minister Boris Johnson is joined by his wife Carrie on stage after delivering his keynote speech at the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester
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
THE Conservatives have wrapped up their annual conference in confident mood.
Well ahead in the polls and determinedly pushing ahead with a new-style Tory economics that shamelessly steals from the left, they are leaving a navel-gazing Labour Party adrift.
They are still the same party underneath the new clothes: Boris Johnson talked up high wages in the afternoon, but that morning his government pushed an estimated 4.4 million people further into poverty, snatching away the £20-a-week universal credit lifeline.
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As fossil fuels have had their day, JOSIE MIZEN makes it clear that it is now the government’s responsibility to initiate the transition to alternative employment in a manner that is organised, efficient and effective
