Snippets of news from around the globe

The Milburn review presents itself as a plan to help young people into work, but Dr DYLAN MURPHY argues it is laying the groundwork for a harsher benefits regime

BOB NEWLAND appreciates an important contribution to the debate about how slavery helped to build the wealth of Western companies and states

WILL PODMORE admires an account of the liberation of Berlin that overthrows the conventional US army-inspired account

MARJORIE MAYO recommends a highly useful guide to the benefits and hazards of different approaches to immigration

PAUL DONOVAN recommends a thorough explanation of why Starmer’s Labour travels light on policy, and bending to knee to neoliberalism

Peter Murrell’s weakness for the allure of prestige goods is symptomatic of modern consumer culture, says MATT KERR

Including races at Epsom and Doncaster

CHRIS SEARLE recommends a work of love and deep admiration for a great musician

A remarkable excavation in the Netherlands has raised hopes of locating the grave of Louis XIV’s famed captain of the King’s Musketeers. JOHN CALLOW introduces the real figure behind the hero of Dumas’s novels

KENNY MacASKILL looks at the depth of the corruption tolerated within the Scottish National Party and the efforts to keep it from public scrutiny

The growing argument that welfare must be sacrificed for ‘security’ is built on nothing but myth, argues MICHAEL BURKE

NADIA JOSEPH welcomes a survey of the role that TV played in the debate over apartheid and race relations in Britain

The real ‘humanitarian threat’ isn’t Cuba but the United States, where poverty, lack of healthcare and illiteracy abound, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER

ROGER McKENZIE draws attention to the much-neglected oral traditions of the global South that define the identity – and therefore the liberation – of its custodians

Established as a landmark victory for the climate movement, the CCC promised to hold governments to account. Today, it is understating the danger of climate chaos and impeding the radical action needed, says IAN SINCLAIR

Labour movement history in Britain shows workers secured reforms through collective pressure and political representation, rather than being gifted from above, writes KEITH FLETT

MARJ MAYO recommends a well illustrated and very positive account of an extraordinary period in local government history

RITA DI SANTO takes us through the prize winners, and takes the temperature of a festival that prioritised narratives of exile, state violence and class division

CLAUDIA WEBBE looks at how Britain’s Nato ally has upped the stakes in its effort to silence domestic dissenting voices

Do frozen colonists carry the virus of empire? Why is monstrosity a great way to describe capital? Was God a dustman?

The US president’s adventurism in Iran began as a display of overwhelming force but has swiftly become a lesson in over-reach, says ANDREW MURRAY

ROGER D HARRIS and SARA FLOUNDERS challenge propaganda against the blockaded socialist island

Burnham launches his campaign to return to Westminster

The HS2 debacle exposes what happens when public infrastructure is handed to private contractors – especially when set against China’s state-led high-speed rail success, says CARLOS MARTINEZ

Pep Guardiola leaving City marks the end of an era of peak modern football, says JAMES NALTON

MIRANDA RICHMOND relishes the gloriously liberated art of Roy Oxlade, and traces his method back to the thinking of David Bomberg, his acknowledged teacher  

Rita Di Santo speaks to Hungarian director LASZLO NEMES about his new film, a portrait of the French Resistance leader and hero, Jean Moulin

With a political crisis engulfing the Labour Party, the case for PR is back on the agenda. TONY BURKE argues trade unions must now engage on changes to our voting system

The Bard does Bearded Theory, and lodges a complaint about bandnames

YVETTE WILLIAMS and JOE DELANEY dissect the institutional dawdling that rubbed salt into the Grenfell open wounds prolonging the agony of survivors

Premier League champions Arsenal will finally lift the coveted trophy this weekend after 22 long years. LAYTH YOUSIF pays tribute to and remembers those who are not here to see it

A lifelong communist and community organiser, Pinder helped shape anti-racist and anti-colonial activism in Britain while dedicating himself to youth work and collective struggle, writes David Horsley

After battling hills, rain and injury in a three-day cycle ride ending at the CWU conference, MATT KERR reflects on why class unity remains the answer to injustice

Through marches, music, schools and political debate, campaigners in Tower Hamlets are using the 90th anniversary of Cable Street to inspire resistance to modern racism. GLYN ROBBINS explains

GAVIN O’TOOLE recommends a methodical unmasking of the US media’s complicity in the Israeli genocide, that should be a template for what’s needed to bring Britain’s corporate media to book

ALEX HALL is amused at the way the UFOs appear exactly where commercial interests, conspiracies, militarism and right-wing media overlap

MARTIN HALL examines the way the Roman orator took on different schools of philosophy

TOMASZ PIERSCIONEK is intrigued by a the changing significance of its vast areas of forest to Russia’s history

ROGER MCKENZIE recalls the one-in-a-generation communist leader murdered at the dawn of a new South Africa 33 years ago last April 10

ANDY HEDGECOCK is astonished by a portrait of contemporary Greece, complete with political protest, organised crime and people trafficking, told from the point of view of — wait for it — runaway poultry

CHRIS SEARLE recommends a new album featuring Pat Thomas and Ahmed, and marvels at the tempestuous power of a live performance

JENNY CLEGG looks at the key points that defined the China-US relationship, for now

The ghosts of Custer’s doomed campaign haunt a modern America still devoted to waging imperialist war, says STEPHEN ARNELL

ANGUS REID applauds the potential of an ambitious show about Gaza, and encourages it to keep its nerve

ROGER McKENZIE looks at how ancient traditions practiced today can be the cornerstone of anti-imperialism in Africa

The Met Police's refusal to act against British nationals accused of war crimes in Gaza is a green light for Israel's genocide, writes CLAUDIA WEBBE

The new Scottish Parliament looks set to continue a cycle of managerial tinkering while public services face the axe, writes STEPHEN LOW

Newly revealed documents reveal that MI5 taught Brazilian secret police the techniques deployed by the 1964-85 military dictatorship in horrific prisons like Rio de Janeiro’s House of Death. SARA VIVACQUA reports

Years of underfunding are eroding Scotland’s local services and deepening inequality in communities, says VINCE MILLS

On the day of the election, MARTIN GOLLAN reflects on the perennial relationship between the far-right and the back-hander

The election offers a critical chance to shape the future of pay, care and community provision in Wales, says Unison’s JESS TURNER

As antisemitism grows, the labour movement must recommit to defence of minorities while navigating the complexities of Gaza and global politics, argues NICK WRIGHT

RUTH AYLETT recommends that this mixture of memoir, diary and poetry by a young Gazan writer be read as widely as possible

As Scotland heads to the polls, the main parties offer variations on the same script, says MATT KERR

David Nicholson spoke to BETH WINTER about her bid to become a Senedd member as an independent running on a community grassroots campaign

ANGUS REID recommends that you discover a uniquely intimate community venue in central Edinburgh for an evening of beer and ambitious jazz

Plaid Cymru’s Caerffili by-election win raised hopes on the left — but the complex realities of Wales suggest the Senedd election may be far less predictable, argues CATRIN ASHTON

Read this book and be aware that this is our history, says RUTH AYLETT

The General Strike exposed the power of the working class — and the limits of its leadership, writes Dr DYLAN MURPHY

ADRIAN WEIR charts the intercontinental trade union solidarity with Cuba and its desperate predicament

ANGUS REID appreciates the political candour expressed in Bansky’s latest and brilliant work of public art

MATTHEW HAWKINS relishes the literary output of autistic writers, and recommends its insight to readers both including and beyond the community themselves

ALEX HALL is fascinated by a lucid and historically convincing account of how rent has dominated capitalist economies from feudalism to modernity

ELLIS RAE recommends a stunning history of the active role played by the British monarchy in establishing and profiting from slavery

MARY CONWAY applauds the timely revival of Miller’s study of people fatally deformed by the economics of survival

SYLVIA HIKINS recommends a fascinating, revealing, superbly acted evening of theatre

JOHN REES replies to Claudia Webbe

GORDON PARSONS salutes the apt return of Brecht’s vaudevillian cartoon drama that retains the vitality of the boxing or the circus ring

While politicians fixate on defence budgets, the real answers lie in peace-building and economic justice, says ALAN SIMPSON

New releases from Kneecap, Sam Blasucci, and Juni Habel

DAVID NICHOLSON recommends the staging of this Wagnerian classic minus one or two insignificant quibbles

CHRIS MOSS joins the hunt in Argentina for the works of Poland’s most enigmatic exile

SYLVIA HIKINS welcomes a survey of successful contemporary worker co-operatives and economy-based co-operative systems

RON JACOBS recommends a book that charts the disparate circumstances that defined the lives of two prominent black Afro-Americans — one a communist, the other an anti-communist

Outsourcing is at the heart of inequality. Only collective unity in the trade union movement can topple the Establishment’s obsession with it, says SAM GURNEY

TONY BURKE talks to Garth Cartwright author of Princes Amongst Men — Journeys With Romani Gypsy Musicians

Bezalel Smotrich’s measures to extend Israeli property law into the West Bank are a continuation of a decades-long project to dispossess Palestinians and preclude statehood, argues HUGH LANNING 

SETH SANDRONSKY recommends a production that looks back at the political Tinseltown in the mid-1970s when US cinema ‘didn’t pander to trends’

Mass strikes over cost-of-living protections have escalated into a broader confrontation over democracy, after the government moved to impose a pay freeze by decree, writes KIVANC ELIACIK

Campaigners urge government to ignore profiteering oil lobbyists and help those hit hardest by rising energy prices

Cuts are sweeping campuses as cash-strapped universities slash staff and politicians fail to act on a growing funding emergency. VINCE MILLS reports

DENNIS BROE observes how cutbacks, mergers and AI create content detached from both reality and history itself

From Vietnam to Iran, US leaders repeat a failed strategy of terror bombing – one that history shows cannot break a determined, resilient society, says DYLAN MURPHY

Long before modern labour movements, England’s farmworkers fought back against their oppression – and for some, like Elizabeth Studham, the price was exile to Australia. MAT COWARD tells the story

MARY DAVIS welcomes a remarkable documentary about the general strike — politically spot on, and featuring accounts from the strikers themselves — that is available for screenings

ANSELM ELDERGILL looks at the legality of the wars in the Middle East and the means used to fight them. It is said that truth is the first casualty of war, so what is the truth with regard to the legality of America’s and Israel’s wars in Iran, Palestine and Lebanon?

PETER MASON welcomes collected writings from Britain’s first black female publisher that focus on the place of black writers in literature

RICHARD SHILLCOCK examines an enjoyable, but philosophically conventional book, and urges Marxists to employ their capacity to embrace the totality in any explanation

MARTIN GRAHAM welcomes, with reservations, a scholarly addition to the unfinished business of understanding how capital works on a world scale

The bard tours Finland and tampers with the cuisine

In his fortnightly Borderlands column, MARK SEDDON visits overgrown forts along Offa’s Dyke and reflects on wars past and present

The Committee for the Defence of the Iranian People’s Rights (Codir) cautiously welcomes the ceasefire, but remains suspicious of US and Israeli intentions

Washington’s response to a downed jet shows a superpower still reaching for overwhelming force even as its wars repeatedly fail, says NICK WRIGHT

Outrage greeted Donald Trump’s suggestion earlier this year that Britain stayed off the front lines. But evidence suggests our forces were at times pulled from the most dangerous fighting — not by military failure, but by pressure at home, says IAN SINCLAIR

Fertiliser chaos triggered by Gulf conflict could send prices soaring and leave millions facing devastating hunger, writes DYLAN MURPHY

With attacks on industry, healthcare and education intensifying, JAMSHID AHMADI warns of a deliberate drive to cripple Iran and calls for urgent global action

JAN WOOLF invigilates images that meditate on Palestine, and the people who witness them

BEN COWLES samples the many sonic and social therapies of Manchester Punk Festival 2026, and is ready again to smash capitalism

A packed fringe meeting at the National Education Union conference heard from Iranian teachers, campaigners and journalists

Including races at Haydock Park, Musselburgh and Fairyhouse

CLAUDIA WEBBE says the US is tightening the noose to destroy Cuban socialism — the need for immediate, international solidarity is urgent

Cypriot lawyer and former central committee member of the Progressive Working People’s Party (Akel) TOUMAZOS TSIELEPIS discusses the case for expelling the British military from Cyprus

The sheer number present on the day, estimated at half a million, points to organisational acumen and bodes well for developing the movement, says DIANE ABBOTT

In the second and final part of his article MIKE SCOTT posits that if we don’t control AI while we’ve got the chance, we could be signing the death warrant for our children and grandchildren

LEO BOIX, ANGUS REID and MARIA DUARTE review Night Stage, Two Women, Kim Novak’s Vertigo, and Fuze

MIKE SCOTT assesses the AI threat to jobs in the first of a pair of articles on the problems it poses

The Morning Star here publishes a speech that would have been given by Stop the War officer and longtime NEU and NUT activist Alex Kenny on the eve of the verdicts handed to Chris Nineham and Ben Jamal this week. He also explains why he couldn’t give it

A setback for IG Metall at Tesla’s Berlin plant has ignited claims of intimidation and raised fears for the future of collective bargaining and workplace democracy, says TONY BURKE

The question for the media, in the US and across the globe, says ROGER McKENZIE, is will they do their job fearlessly and call Donald Trump out?

The PM is drawing cautious distance from Donald Trump over Iran – but history suggests Britain’s support may run deeper than it appears, just as it did during the Vietnam war, says KEITH FLETT

As extremist movements grow on the streets and at the ballot box, the emergence of the Together Alliance points to a vital strategy: unity across trade unions, campaigners and communities, says TONY CONWAY

Midlands trade unionists are turning challenge into opportunity through collective power and renewed confidence, says STUART RICHARDS

Italians reject controversial judiciary reforms in a referendum that boosts the left, reports NICK WRIGHT

RAMZY BAROUD and ROMANA RUBEO analyse how the US has consistently negotiated in bad faith to secure the element of surprise in military attack

Coal-fired stoves in traditional homes are the primary source of extreme levels of air pollution in over-crowded Ulaanbaatar. As more people become climate-displaced, the situation is likely to worsen, write SCIENCE AND SOCIETY

CHRISTOPHE IMMER of the Morning Star’s German sister paper Junge Welt reports on a Berlin conference on the politics of art and the legacy of Marxist critic Hans Hess

Young Communist League general secretary GEORGINA ANDREWS says the far right are filling a vacuum created by Labour’s abandonment of working-class interests — we have to give our class a better offer

PHILIP ENGLISH says military spending will not create the jobs young people need — instead, build an economy based around needs, not profit

PATRICK CHURA reflects on the mass murder of civilians in wartime and his own visit, 10 years ago, to My Lai where US soldiers slaughtered over 500 men, women, children and infants

ALAN MORRISON recommends a consummate, heart-warming collection about a working-class upbringing in the industrial north-east

The media present Starmer as staying out of Trump’s war — but we’re already deeply involved in a conflict that sees the US and Israel kill civilians on a huge scale, argues IAN SINCLAIR

Morning Star international editor ROGER McKENZIE says Trump’s ceaseless belligerence is a desperate effort to prevent the emergence of a multilateral world

The unions are unhappy with the Employment Rights Act 2025 and with good reason. KEITH EWING and Lord JOHN HENDY KC take a close look at why the Bill promised more than it delivered

RAMZY BAROUD looks at how Western media are being forced to kowtow to the Establishment’s war narratives

KATAYOUN SHAHANDEH surveys Iran’s cultural heritage and explains what has been damaged and what could be lost

As the US intensifies its economic and political pressure it is now vitally important to demand the British government intervene to end US aggression, writes GEOFF BOTTOMS

NORMA AUSTIN HART reports from a conference on on the rights of women prisoners in the Scottish criminal justice system

In the second part of her critique of Wes Streeting’s TenYear Plan for Health, HELEN MERCER looks at the central planks of this privatisation blueprint

With more people dying each year and many spending their final days in institutions, researchers argue that wider access to palliative care could offer a more humane and cost-effective alternative, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT

Police face ‘extreme hostility’ as fans clash following Scottish Cup tie

SEVIM DAGDELEN asks why the European Union is targeting the Swiss academic Jacques Baud, cutting off his access to banking services

DR HANA SAADA asks why a war crime against innocent children on this scale does not dominate the world’s coverage of the US-Israeli war on Iran

GORDON PARSONS is intrigued by a biography of the Marxist intellectual and author, made from the point of view of his son

JOHN GREEN argues that the spreading practice of closing bank account without proof of criminality is an infringement of an elementary human right

AARON SMITH discusses why the Protestant diaspora are still part of Yeats’s ‘Indomitable Irishry’, and an integral part of any future united Ireland.

DIANE ABBOTT exposes Keir Starmer's doublespeak on Britain’s involvement in the Iran war but takes heart from the growing organisation of the opposition to it

GEOFF BOTTOMS recommends an inspiring, political and bittersweet account of the munitions factory workers who are the fore-runners of the modern women’s game

MARY CONWAY is spellbound by superb performances in Arthur Miller’s study of the social and personal stress brought about by Nazi Germany’s Kristallnacht

In the second of a series of interviews with leaders of progressive parties in Wales ahead of the May 7 Senedd election David Nicholson talks to Welsh Green Party leader ANTHONY SLAUGHTER

Women’s fight against violence and legal erosion is central to building a democratic and just Iraq, says Dr SALMA SAADAWI

MAISSON HASSAN highlights how amid bombed-out cities and collapsing hospitals, women-led initiatives are keeping communities alive

The civilian toll climbs past 1,000 as women, children and families are struck in their homes, schools and public spaces – a stark illustration of the human cost of war. AZAR SEPEHR emphasises that the future of Iran is solely determinable by the people of that country and them alone

Afghan women living under the Taliban are navigating a system that makes their public existence conditional on male approval, writes SHUKRIA RAHIMI

The pioneering activist understood that freedom could only be won through solidarity across communities. Her legacy offers vital lessons at a time when progressive politics risks losing that shared purpose

The Morning Star republishes PRAGNA PATEL’s speech at the annual commemoration of Claudia Jones on February 22 2026