Durham Miners’ Association chair STEPHEN GUY speaks to Ben Chacko about the Reform threat, what’s needed from Labour and why the Big Meeting will never lose its politics
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China’s Great Green Wall is a vision of hope for the planet
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
Taklimakan desert workers
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Andy Burnham’s message of hope will defeat Reform if Labour delivers the New Deal for Working People in full, says JOANNE THOMAS
General Federation of Trade Unions president and bakers’ union general secretary, SARAH WOOLLEY, guides us through the GFTU’s Summer School happening this week at Quorn Grange Hotel
The government’s latest asylum proposals abandon labour movement values and fuel division by aping Reform UK, writes DIANE ABBOTT MP
Can Andy Burnham’s programme deliver a productive economy – or merely a softer version of capitalism, asks VINCE MILLS
IAN LAVERY MP warns that decades of neoliberal policies have left former industrial communities behind — but a renewed Labour commitment to working people could change the political landscape
IN 1978, China launched its Three North Shelter Forest (Green Great Wall) Programme, aimed at creating a forest chain extending from Xinjiang in the far north-west to Heilongjiang in the far north-east, to prevent further expansion of the Gobi and Taklimakan deserts. This multi-generational project is scheduled for completion in 2050.
According to the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the programme “has greatly increased the forest coverage and effectively combated desertification in the programme area, improved the overall situation of serious wind-sand hazards and soil erosion, enhanced the resilience and adaptability to natural disasters and climate change.”
Further, “thanks to the development of forest and fruit-related industries, tens of millions of local people have been pulled out of poverty.”
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Marking milestones in the histories of China and the United States, this week offers a chance to examine two very different visions of the international order, says CARLOS MARTINEZ
ROGER D HARRIS and SARA FLOUNDERS challenge propaganda against the blockaded socialist island
IAN SINCLAIR recommends an important and timely book for climate politics right now and in the future
One of the major criticisms of China’s breakneck development in recent decades has been the impact on nature — returning after 15 years away, BEN CHACKO assessed whether the government’s recent turn to environmentalism has yielded results