Press freedom is under unprecedented assault worldwide, with 128 journalists killed in 2025 alone and AI-powered surveillance now being used in Gaza to track and target reporters as legitimate war casualties. From Belfast newsrooms spied on by police using Israeli technology to the £5.5m PSNI contract raising alarm bells, Lynda Walker writes how the machinery of repression is closer to home than you think.

On this May Day, John Molloy delivers a searing indictment of capitalism’s broken promises and the “B52 liberals” who abandoned class struggle for the false comforts of the “third way.” From Gaza’s rubble to the oil profiteers of the Iran war, this article argues that the spectre of communism is poised to haunt the “Masters of the Universe” once again if the movement returns to its roots.

Belfast’s May Day is more than a march,. it’s over a century of working-class defiance, solidarity, and hope. Kerry Fleck traces its radical roots, from the 1907 Dock Strike to today’s fight against austerity and division. The 2026 Belfast May Day Festival brings music, arts, community, and resistance together across two weeks of events. This is history alive in the streets. Be part of it.

The fairytale-telling ignored papal preoccupation with the war on Iran crippling the global economy, of consequential concern to a church with worldwide financial interests. The Christian church has radical roots. Within 300 years it became the state religion of the empire that executed its founder, devolving into conservative bureaucracies promoting and protecting church interests within states of various political hues.

THE EU presents itself as a champion of press freedom and human rights, but that image is rapidly fraying. It is increasingly deploying its sanctions machinery against journalists and analysts who challenge establishment narratives — often with devastating consequences for their livelihoods, families, and basic civil rights.

THE peat floor of Francis O’Connor’s set still smells of damp earth as the witches hiss their prophecies. This is the world of Druid Theatre Company’s Macbeth, directed by co-founder Garry Hynes – a production that is by turns magnificent, frustrating, and ultimately worth your time.