For a century, China underwent a series of invasions, revolutions and counter-revolutions. In China, it’s known as the Century of Humiliation.

It was a time of immense upheavals: from the Opium Wars of 1839, through the Taiping Rebellion, the Xinhai Republican Revolution, a Civil War, an invasion by the Japanese which merged into the Second World War; the resumption of the Civil War and, eventually coming to an end with the Communist Revolution of 1949.

Each one transformed the country more comprehensively than seemed possible beforehand.

Rebecca Karl is the author of China’s Revolutions in the Modern World, which tells us not only what happened, but how its participants tried to make sense of it all, and why that still matters for understanding China now – after all, the Chinese Communist Party haven’t forgotten any of it.

She joined Richard Hames to discuss the century that destroyed imperial China and set the stage for the largest revolution in history.

There is much more to explore on the map we’re making for this series, which shows all the people, ideas and event that define China’s history, present, and future. Get it here.

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MIKEL ARTETA has been told Arsenal’s redundancies will help the club “achieve the success we want to create” after it emerged the Premier League champions are set to cut 60 jobs.

Chief executive Richard Garlick informed staff this week that Arsenal’s workforce will be reduced across a number of departments — although the playing and coaching staff in the men’s and women’s teams will be unaffected.

The cuts are set to impact up to 7 per cent of the club’s 871 permanent staff.

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FORMER Sale lock Hyron Andrews has died following a fall while away with his Lions team ahead of their Champions Cup match against La Rochelle in France tomorrow.

The South African Rugby Union confirmed in a statement the 31-year-old had died after falling at the team’s hotel.

Andrews also played for Durban side Sharks before his move to England in 2024, initially on a short-term deal, and had made two appearances for the Lions in this season’s United Rugby Championship.

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Chancellor John Healey is poised to raise taxes on banks in the autumn budget.

Plus: Why housing benefits are broken, Iran is picking apart Gulf infrastructure, ITV releases more undercover footage from inside Reform UK, and the police are looking into a post by the wife of Britain’s national security adviser in relation to Palestine Action.

With Michael Walker, Banseka Kayembe, Jonathan Portes, Steven Methven & Sina Toossi.

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They’re calling it the E motion heard around the world, as the fallout continues from the Green party’s ‘Zionism is Racism’ policy, passed at its conference earlier this month.

The motion has dominated the headlines since making it onto the agenda for autumn conference, eclipsing what the leadership had hoped would be the party’s trademark rent controls policy. It kicked off a briefing war, led by GPEW stalwart and second referendum-enthusiast Caroline Lucas. It also prompted pointed queries from the Equalities and Human Rights Commission.

And now, unwilling to let a good crisis pass him by, prime minister Andy Burnham has piled in, ruling out any future coalition with the Greens while the policy remains in place. Supporters of the motion may greet this news as a strategic win – distance from Labour cements the Greens’ status as an insurgent, anti-establishment force. But there are rumblings of discontent amongst parts of the Green party of England and Wales.

It’s no secret that Zack Polanski (while publicly supportive of the argument that Israel’s displacement of, and genocide against, the Palestinians is the result of racist ideology) needed this motion like he needed a hole in the head. He was careful to neither unequivocally back nor deride the motion, and warned that it may “create a distraction” by putting Green members and pro-Palestine activists in a position of being attacked.

Whatever the virtues of the motion were, and still might be, Polanski was proved right on this latter point. The days leading up to his unsuccessful attempt to become the MP for Holborn and St Pancras were a storm of negative media coverage, in which he was forced to defend his party against accusations of being a threat to Jewish people. It would be wrong to characterise the byelection loss as a direct result of the ‘Zionism is Racism’ motion. But it didn’t exactly help his efforts to get elected either.

What followed were the first stirrings of Green infighting. For those steeped in the factional bloodletting of Labour party politics, this is all fairly tame stuff: Lucas, the night of the count, failing to shut down talk of Polanski stepping down, Ellie Chowns calling on her leader to “step up”. But while the Greens might put the ‘civil’ in civil war, this level of publicly-litigated internal division is new for the party.

What’s more, local Green parties and councils have had to manage the reactions of a significant number of Jewish residents and organisations. Haringey council, led by the Greens, found its attempts at overture knocked back by one local synagogue. “We take it from both the tone and the content of your email that you are deeply embarrassed with the decision taken by your party,” wrote Highgate United Synagogue. “[Your] embarrassment is not enough. If you really want us to feel you do not agree with the racist and genocidal implications of your party’s policy, the least we can expect is for you to publicly resile yourself from that policy and commit yourself and your party colleagues to reverse that policy.”

Enter one Andrew Burnham. Though the early months of his premiership have been marked by his attempts to mend fences with voters alienated from Labour by the party’s moral turpitude on Palestine, the temptation to kick his progressive rivals while they’re down was seemingly too much to resist.

Condemning the motion in the House of Commons at this week’s PMQs, Burnham thundered: “It is wrong, it is antisemitic, and this side of the House will have nothing to do with it.” Polanski, in a statement, hit back, pointing out that he’s the only Jewish leader of a political party and himself a victim of antisemitism – while the prime minister “arms a genocide and locks pensioners up for opposing it”.

Westminster grandstanding has since filtered down to local governance. Yesterday, Labour issued an ultimatum, saying it would scrap any power-sharing deals with Greens in local authorities unless local Green electeds reject the ‘Zionism is Racism’ motion passed by members at conference. According to the New Statesman, such agreements prop up more than a dozen local authorities, including in Bristol. Nice gauntlet you’ve got there, shame if anyone threw it.

Perhaps Alanis Morissette might have something to say about a devolution-loving prime minister imposing the will of the Westminster government on local authorities the minute he thinks it’s advantageous to do so. It’s worth pointing out that it has every chance of backfiring on the Labour party – there are few voters who want to see local government dysfunction inflicted in the name of protecting Israel’s state ideology. Labour lost votes over Gaza, and it might prove unwise for Burnham to remind people of that particular issue.

But we’re at a moment where the interests of Green electeds, and some Green activists, are at odds. The May 2026 breakthrough was powered by thousands of Green members – doorknocking, canvassing, leafleting, and getting out the vote. But that very achievement, getting Greens into councils where they might advance the eco-socialist cause by delivering for voters, is easily imperilled by that selfsame membership attempting to remodel the party in their image. That’s a tension: and one that Burnham is determined to exploit.

You can see how this puts Polanski in an invidious position. On the one hand, there’s making and protecting electoral gains, and establishing the Green party’s credibility by governing effectively. On the other, there’s standing with his members when they’re under ferocious attack by the British establishment (even if he’d rather not have picked this particular battle). But perhaps the looming interest of the EHRC, who wrote to the Greens citing the “many Jewish people [feeling] vulnerable” as a result of the motion, might hint at a way out.

Should the Greens face legal challenge, or EHRC investigation, the tactical case for reintroducing the amendments aimed at protecting Jewish members within the party gets stronger. If Polanski backs it wholeheartedly for spring conference, he might just find a way of mitigating the attack lines on antisemitism – and get back to the things he’d much rather talk about.

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LABOUR faced increasing pressure on Friday to announce a more than 10-fold tax hike on banking profits to at least 35 per cent in this month’s Budget.

Unions, the Green Party and left campaign groups urged Chancellor John Healey to bring the surcharge that banks pay on top of corporation tax in line with the oil and gas levy.

Shares in banks fell by more than 2 per cent on Friday following reports that the Treasury is looking to reverse a Tory cut to the surcharge from 8 per cent to 3 per cent.

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A small child has been found sitting alone on a bed engulfed by smoke and flames moments after Israel destroyed her home in Gaza City, leaving her badly burned and killing her mother.

Dramatic footage captured by Palestinian journalist Ali al-Jaafrawi showed him racing to rescue the girl, later identified as Maryam Ahmed Ghanem, from the burning building. Her mother was 33-year-old Reem Asaad Awad.

“I went back to rescue others and to document what happened, but I suffocated and lost consciousness because of the thick smoke. I saw a woman on fire inside the apartment,” he told Al Jazeera Arabic.

Hospital photos of Maryam with extensive burns on her face have led to widespread condemnation of the attacks.

Children’s educator and YouTube star Ms Rachel, a vocal critic of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, questioned why Maryam’s story had not received greater media coverage. 

“The mainstream news is complicit in this genocide as well as everyone who witnesses it and stays silent,” she wrote on social media. 

The strikes killed four people and injured several others, the Anadolu Agency reported, citing a source from Al-Shifa Hospital. It is unclear if the girl had other relatives who were killed or injured. Her father was killed in a seperate attack at the start of the genocide, the New Arab reported. 

Israel says it was targeting a Hamas member but has not provided evidence to substantiate the claim.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair), a civil rights group, called on US lawmakers to condemn Israel for “burning a Palestinian mother alive while her daughter watched in Gaza.” 

Media reports about the attack have not confirmed the exact cause of the mother’s death. But throughout the genocide in Gaza, Israeli airstrikes have set thousands of buildings and tents alight, burning their inhabitants to death.

In June, an entire sleeping family of five burned to death in their Gaza City home. Last December, Israeli strikes killed five people inside their tents, including two children, in the al-Mawasi displacement camp, a “safe zone” west of Khan Younis. Medical sources at the nearby Kuwaiti Hospital said the bodies of the victims arrived badly charred. 

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers say the military routinely bombs homes knowing multiple civilians are inside, while a UN report in June found that Israel deliberately kills and tortures Palestinian children. 

The IDF has repeatedly violated a so-called ceasefire agreement signed with Hamas in October 2025, killing at least 1,498 Palestinians and injuring more than 5,000, Gaza health ministry figures show.

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News stories from around the globe

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THE 2026 Rugby League World Cup couldn’t have wished for a better opening game. The tournament kicked off on Thursday in Sydney with an exhibition of attacking rugby from Australia and New Zealand, and a sign of what might be to come in November’s final.

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Labour’s threat to end local power-sharing agreements with the Greens in response to its ‘Zionism is racism’ motion could lead to disruption at councils across England and Wales. 

Bridget Phillipson, Labour’s chair, said on Thursday that Greens working in coalition with the party in local councils must “make clear that they reject” the motion. Otherwise, she said, “Labour will bring any such local arrangement to an end”.  

She also echoed a claim by prime minister Andy Burnham that the motion is “antisemitic”. In response, the Greens accused Labour of conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism.

Between 17 and 19 councils could be affected if Labour ends the agreements, according to various media reports. They include Sheffield City Council, which is at “risk of collapse” if Labour ends their coalition with the Greens, the Yorkshire Post reported. 

Wealden Council, which is led by Green party deputy leader Rachel Millward, may also be affected. The council is dominated by the Greens and Lib Dems, with Labour providing two councillors to give the alliance a slender majority. Before Labour joined, the alliance led the council without a majority. 

Millward has already publicly opposed the motion. Green leader Zack Polanski did not vote and has said he wanted amendments, including one aimed at reassuring people within the party who attend Zionist synagogues. Members, not leaders, passed the motion by 1,022 votes to 813 at their annual conference on 4 October.

The motion says Zionism calls for “an ethnonationalist Jewish state” and has led to the “dehumanisation, displacement, dispossession, disenfranchisement and destruction of Palestinians” while creating “racial hierarchies”. 

A Green party spokesperson said in a statement: “For the Labour government to conflate criticism of Israel with antisemitism is disappointing and wrong. Trying to tell local parties what to do and who they can work with is undemocratic. Whilst Labour continue to try to meddle in our internal democracy, arm a genocide and lock up protesting pensioners, we will not take lectures from them.” 

Speaking during prime minister’s questions on Wednesday, Burnham ruled out a national coalition with the Greens because of the motion. 

Polanski hit back at Burnham’s statement on X. “I’m the only Jewish leader of a political party. I’m a victim of antisemitism every day and I’ve made it clear Jewish people are welcome in my party,” he wrote. “You’re a prime minister who arms a genocide and locks pensioners up for opposing it.

“A Labour government who apologised over their actions over Gaza is demonstrating that it was all performative. Andy Burnham still stands with Israel whilst it kills innocent people,” he said.

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Bournemouth 3-0 Sturm Graz
Europa League report
by Layth Yousif at Dean Court

BOURNEMOUTH’S impossible dream became a joyous reality on a never-to-be-forgotten evening on the south coast, as Marco Rose’s Cherries sealed a stirring 3-0 triumph over Sturm Graz in the club’s first-ever European home game.

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The powerful Pacific climate pattern is linked to changes in the jet stream and polar vortex, raising the prospect of a wet, stormy autumn followed by colder, calmer weather, says CHLOE BRIMICOMBE

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Unions call on Labour to stamp out in-work poverty after TUC study shows households have paid nearly £14,000 extra on bills since 2021

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THE STUC has launched a fresh campaign against Scottish government cuts and closures with the “workers’ inquiry.”

The move comes as Scotland’s largest trade union body warned that plans for wholesale reform and of local government and health boards could see as many as 20,000 public sector jobs axed resulting in “reckless” changes to essential public services.

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Brazil’s senate has approved a constitutional amendment ending the country’s six-day workweek, delivering a key pledge by president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva just days before an election run-off. 

The reform, passed on Wednesday, shortens the working week from 44 hours to a maximum of 40 hours and is set to improve working conditions for more than 37 million people. That includes 16 million who work six-day weeks and are now guaranteed two days of rest each week without a reduction to their wages.

The amendment primarily affects workers in low paid industries such as retail and hospitality, one of the groups from which Lula has lost support since defeating far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro in the 2022 election. Bolsonaro is serving a 27-year prison sentence for plotting a failed coup in the wake of his defeat. 

Informal and gig economy workers, including app-based drivers without employment contracts, will not be covered by the new law.

Lula, who will face far-right Flávio Bolsonaro, the jailed former president’s son, for a second round on 25 October, called the reform a “victory for the working class”. 

He said on X the vote was “a historic achievement for millions of workers, who will now have more time to rest, be with their family, take care of themselves and live,” 

The victory may give Lula a much-needed boost; the leftwing incumbent came second behind Bolsonaro in the first round of voting on 4 October and is still trailing him in the polls, albeit by a small margin.

Brazilian trade unions and labour federations welcomed the amendment, which they said followed months of widespread strikes and protests by workers. Advocates have been calling for the policy for years, but it gained more traction in 2023 thanks to a viral TikTok video by pharmacy clerk-turned-influencer Rick Azevedo.  

Bolsonaro long opposed the proposal, calling it an “opportunistic” attempt by Lula to appeal to working-class voters. But he reversed course shortly before the 4 October vote, telling journalists that “most Brazilian workers ‌want to ⁠see the end of the six-day workweek.” 

Seventy-five senators, including Bolsonaro allies, voted in favour of the amendment. The only one to vote against it was former vice-president Hamilton Mourão, who worked under Jair Bolsonaro. 

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PROTESTERS gathered outside Parliament on Wednesday to call on the government to make energy giants pay their “fair share” towards tackling climate change.

Politicians, trade unionists, faith leaders and climate campaigners urged ministers not “give in to industry lobbying for a weaker tax regime” at this month’s Budget.

Make Polluters Pay coalition co-convener Louise Hutchins said that energy giants are cashing in on war-driven price rises while lobbying to pay less tax.

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ANGEL REESE is the biggest star left on the WNBA’s brightest stage as she gets her first chance at winning a pro championship.

It’s been a tumultuous journey, but coming to Atlanta this season has been the perfect move for the three-time All-Star, whose accomplishments this year have quieted many of her critics. Leading the Dream to the franchise’s first title would silence the rest of them. That quest begins tomorrow when the best-of-seven series against the Golden State Valkyries opens in California.

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A child psychotherapist was forced to close her private practice after being arrested for holding a paper sign at a Palestine Action protest, Novara Media can reveal.

Alex Payne, a UKCP-registered integrative child psychotherapist of 16 years and accredited member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, had her professional indemnity insurance cancelled following her arrests at two protests opposing the genocide in Gaza and the ban on Palestine Action. 

She was arrested in October 2025 and April this year under section 13 of the Terrorism Act for holding signs that read: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.”

Amnesty International UK has slammed Payne’s case as “chilling”. 

Palestine Action was proscribed as a terror organisation under Keir Starmer’s Labour government in the summer of 2025, making it the first direct action group in British history to be banned in this way. 

Payne was charged under the Terrorism Act after her arrest in October 2025. She has not been convicted, but with this charge hanging over her, she hasn’t been able to secure alternative insurance. Payne told Novara Media: “I cannot practice as a child psychotherapist without insurance, so I’ve had to prematurely end therapeutic work with children and young people although I pose no risk to their wellbeing.

“It’s ironic to me that a protest motivated by frustration at the Starmer government’s weak response to the suffering of children in Gaza should have led to my work with children having to end.” 

Payne had been insured by Markel International since 2022, via insurance broker Everywhen. She told Novara Media that she has never needed to make a claim, and that she had used Everywhen as her broker for her entire career. 

In emails seen by Novara Media, an Everywhen advisor told Payne that Markel International accepted that the “matter does not relate directly to [Alex’s] professional practice” but had decided that: “Taking the overall circumstances into account, including the two arrests and the ongoing legal proceedings, we do not feel this is a risk we can continue to support.”

Markel International and Everywhen both declined to comment. 

Amnesty International UK’s law and human rights director Tom Southerden told Novara Media: “To see a child psychotherapist facing arrest, and then having to close their practice simply for peacefully holding a placard, is a chilling attack on our freedom of speech.” 

On what moved her to take action, Payne said: “There is a huge cognitive dissonance in helplessly watching a live-streamed genocide and working with vulnerable and sometimes quite traumatised child clients. You see the impact of abuse and neglect on children and on the developing brain. 

“And then you’ve got this tiny strip of land, Gaza, where you’ve got generation after generation of traumatised children growing up into traumatised adults. And it’s very hard to see that happening and not do anything.”

She added: “I feel desperately guilty because I was doing good work with clients that I’ve had for a long time and clients who I just started working with – from eight or nine-year-olds to young adults.”

Payne is not the only person to have faced professional consequences after being arrested on terrorism charges for participating in Palestine Action protests.

Rachel, a social worker and 65-year-old grandma of three who chose not to give her last name due to fear of reprisals, took part in a protest against the ban on Palestine Action in September 2025, in London’s Parliament Square. Like Alex Payne, she was arrested under section 13 of the Terrorism Act for holding a sign that read: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.”  

Rachel immediately informed her workplace of her arrest and was suspended from her job at a local authority in the south-east of England for eight weeks. According to correspondence seen by Novara Media, she’s now back at work with a formal written warning. We are not naming Rachel’s employer to avoid further repercussions. 

Rachel said while senior management at work were “wetting themselves because it was the Terrorism Act”, she was well-supported by other colleagues who understood that her decision to take part in the protest was in line with her core values as a social worker. 

Of her grandkids, Rachel said: “I want them to grow up in a better world than we’ve got now. I don’t want them growing up in a country where they can’t say what their views are.”

She added: “My grandchildren are all under four – they all live in a house with enough to eat, they can all have medical treatment when they need it – and there are children in Gaza of the same age who don’t have any of those things. They don’t have a house, they’ve probably lost parents, they’ve lost siblings, they’ve lost limbs. Politicians don’t always see that actually these are real families and real children.” 

Section 13 of the Terrorism Act covers wearing or carrying an item in such a way as to arouse reasonable suspicion that the person in question is a member or supporter of a proscribed organisation. The offence is punishable by a fine and/or up to six months in prison. 

Southerden added: “Instead of punishing grandparents and social workers, the government should overturn the proscription and focus on reforming our laws so that communities are protected in coming together and demonstrating on the issues they care about.”

Amnesty wrote to employers and professional regulators back in December, urging them to ensure that members of staff “do not face regulatory or other disciplinary action as a consequence of participating in peaceful protests against the UK government’s proscription of Palestine Action”. 

Southerden said: “It’s completely wrong that protesters are facing arrest in the first place, and that injustice is compounded if there are further consequences in their places of work. Peacefully protecting human rights is not misconduct.”

In January, Novara Media reported that disability charity Sense reinstated an employee it had sacked for taking part in a Palestine Action protest, over fears for its “brand reputation”.

At the Labour party conference in Liverpool on 28 September, foreign secretary Ed Miliband told people outraged and distressed by the carnage Israel has wreaked upon Gaza: “You were right.” The night before, outside the conference venue, dozens of elderly people – including 94-year-old Jewish human rights lawyer Margaret Owen – were arrested for holding the same signs protesting the genocide and the ban on Palestine Action.

The Home Office’s own data for the year ending June 2026 shows that terror arrests are up 1,553% – a record high – since the controversial proscription of Palestine Action. 

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CHINA has called for an end to Libya’s long political deadlock and warned that renewed armed conflict could undermine efforts to achieve stability.

Speaking at a United Nations security council briefing on Libya, Sun Lei, China’s deputy permanent representative to the UN, said the country had made progress in political dialogue, but still faced significant challenges in completing its political transition.

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VETERANS of the iconic United States Black Panther Party for Self Defence came together today on the 60th anniversary of its founding.

They gathered in Oakland, California, to highlight the programmes they put in place to support black communities ravaged by racism and economic exploitation.

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Severe drought has been declared throughout the South of England, with reservoir storage levels at record lows for this time of year – is nationalisation the answer?

Plus: Ukraine claims its Starlink access has been severely limited since Trump agreed to buy Russian diesel, Labour Councillors have been instructed not to collaborate with their Green counterparts, and an Israeli election debate gives a stark update on the chances of a two-state solution.

With NoJusticeMTG & Dalia Gebrial.

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BRITISH CYCLING said it has launched an action plan in response to a survey which found there had been a significant fall in morale among several elite riders, with some reportedly calling the environment “toxic.”

The Times reported that a confidential survey, funded by UK Sport and conducted by an independent company earlier this year, found a considerable drop in morale amongst riders and performance staff.

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by Hanan Issa

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SONAY KARTAL thumped two-time grand slam finalist Jasmine Paolini to reach the quarter-finals of the Wuhan Open today.

Kartal has made a brilliant return from six months out with a back injury and dropped only two games in a 6-2 6-0 victory against 15th seed Paolini.

It was an error-strewn performance from former French Open and Wimbledon runner-up Paolini and Kartal took full advantage, winning the final 11 games.

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Snippets of news from the sporting world with JAMIE J

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