PNedit's blog

    24 Feb 2023

    Milan Rai

    Milan Rai surveys some important facts about possibilities for ending the Ukraine War that are often swept under the carpet

    The Ukraine War has had a horrifying impact on the people of Ukraine, and has been a disaster for people around the world hit by rising food and energy costs. 

    There are some important facts about possibilities for ending the Ukraine War that are often swept under the carpet, that are important for us to remember to help find a way out of this tragedy.

    The first and most significant fact is that Ukraine and Russia came right to the edge of agreeing a peace deal back in March…

    04 Jan 2023

    Angie Zelter

    Join 100,000 in London on 21 April to surround Westminster demanding a sustainable future

    This is a moment of huge potential

    On one hand, there are many reasons to feel the future is bleak: recent failure of COP27,  vicious attacks on migrants, unravelling living standards, widening inequality, crashing biodiversiy, and extreme weather events brought about by worsening climate conditions to name a few. On the other hand, there is a unique opportunity to unite across divides for effective action, and there is an amazing potential for change. 

    Along with the peace…

    23 Nov 2022

    Milan Rai

    A review of the polling evidence since 1954

    Below is a list of the UK public opinion polls used to draw up the chart on p17 of PN 2661, reproduced below. This chart showed that, consulting 24 polls during the period 1954 – 2015, only three showed public support for unilateral nuclear disarmament dipping – briefly – below 20 percent (1963: 15 percent / 1964: 16 percent / 2014: 18 percent). The other 21 polls showed much stronger support for British unilateral nuclear…

    26 Apr 2022

    PN staff

    Three campaigning groups respond 

    The news that US billionaire Elon Musk is buying Twitter has sparked a wide range of concerns. One worry has been the emphasis Musk has placed on boosting free speech on the platform. Below are reactions from three different campaigning groups, giving their different perspectives on the issues.

    The EFF (based in San Francisco in the US) says it ‘champions user privacy, free expression, and…

    15 Mar 2022

    Paul Rogers

    Transcript of a Zoom talk by Paul Rogers for Peace News on 10 March 2022

    The talk can be watched here.

    This is an awful subject to try and talk about. What I’d like to try and do, is try and look back and see how we’ve got to here, why it has happened, what has happened and where we are two weeks into this war, and what might happen next and what might be the best sort of outcome we could look for.

    I won’t go into any detail in any one area because…

    02 Mar 2022

    Milan Rai

    Western commentators who rush to condemn Putin’s nuclear madness would do well to remember Western nuclear madness of the past, argues Milan Rai

    [Milan Rai will be giving a Zoom talk about the contents of this article at 7pm GMT on Thursday 17 March 2022. Please click here for more details.]

    On top of the fear and horror caused by the current Russian onslaught in Ukraine, many have been shocked and frightened by Russian president Vladimir Putin’s recent words and actions in relation to his nuclear weapons…

    01 Mar 2022

    PN staff

    Join us on Zoom at 7pm (GMT) on Wednesday 9 March

    When: 7pm (GMT), Wednesday 9 March
    Where: Zoom
    Register here: https://tinyurl.com/paulrogers2022

    Paul Rogers gives an overview of the crisis and how we got here, in the context of the legacy of the Cold War's proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; the impact of human activity on the global ecosystem; the growth of hypercapitalism and resulting poverty and insecurity; the competition for energy resources and strategic…

    24 Feb 2022

    Milan Rai

    The peace movement should oppose Putin's war and NATO expansion, argues Milan Rai
     

    Earlier this month, Yurii Sheliazhenko, executive secretary of the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement, told Democracy Now!: ‘Both great powers of the West and the East share equal responsibility to avoid escalation of war in Ukraine and beyond Ukraine.’

    This is more of what he said: ‘The escalation towards major war in Ukraine is unnecessary. Our government became part of it when we…

    24 Feb 2022

    Peace movement statements on Russia's invasion of Ukraine 

    Ukrainian Pacifist Movement (24 February)

    Ukrainian Pacifist Movement condemns all military actions on the sides of Russia and Ukraine in the context of current conflict. We call the leadership of both states and military forces to step back and sit at the negotiation table. Peace in Ukraine and around the world can be achieved only in a nonviolent way.

    War is a crime against humanity. Therefore, we are determined not to support any kind of war and to strive…

    22 Feb 2022

    PN staff

    Get to know PN people – and things they’re involved in! These Chats are all 6pm – 7pm on Zoom.

    Tuesday 1 March: Claire Poyner & Network for Peace
    Your chance to find out more about PN admin worker Claire Poyner and the UK-wide Network for Peace (which she co-ordinates), following on from our interview with Claire last issue. Claire will be interviewed by PN editor Milan Rai, and then there will be Q&A. 6pm – 7pm. On Zoom. Register here:

    20 Oct 2021

    Rachael Mellor

    Rachael Mellor explores a key information hub for peace campaigners

    Over the years people have found incredible inspiration in the brave words, actions, and leadership of peace heroes - Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr and Mahatma Gandhi, to name a few. They display courage, moral strength and compassion to gain the right to freedom and safety, regardless of political or religious differences. 

    To achieve peace, we must compete against governmental institutions, law and order, high-level corruption, the global arms trade, injustices, human rights…

    12 Aug 2021

    Andrew Bolton

    Allen Lane, 2021; 256pp; £20

    Bob Matthews was an American bomb aimer in WWII. He hit the largest air raid shelter in Kassel, Germany and killed hundreds of civilians. He said, 'I was so distraught that I stayed drunk for nine days and was the sickest drunk in the air force.'   A member of my church, I met him 50 years later and we talked several times. In the end he wrote out his story for me. A humble, family man, he was still deeply struggling with the guilt and shame of what he had participated in. He suffered ‘moral…

    03 Jul 2021

    Tom Huggins-Teasdale

    Tom Huggins-Teasdale finds inspiration in a recent Glasgow demo

    Community is one of those words that carries different meanings to different people. It’s a word that people attribute their own values at times and as such the context it’s used in can be all important. For some, it means the people that live around them. For others, community means the people they choose to surround themselves with, in person or online. 

    While generally positive, it does have one downside. Like any grouping, it means that no matter how many people fit into a…

    03 Jul 2021

    Reece Evans

    A volunteer explains how a group of young people have constructed an oral history of 5 Caledonian Road in London – Peace House – which has been a hub for social activism since 1959.

    Just by Kings Cross in Central London, 5 Caledonian Road (also known as ‘Peace House’) was bought by Peace News in 1959 to be the home of the newspaper and its sister project, Housmans Bookshop. Since then, 5 Cally Road has housed many other groups and campaigns. It’s been a hub for social activism and a refuge for progressive ideas and people. A website and sound installation are going to be launched to tell the story of the building. The 5 Cally Road…

    17 Jun 2021

    Joanna Booth, Rupert Read, Ian Sinclair

    Ian Sinclair, Rupert Read and Joanna Booth explain how they ended up publishing the most comprehensive record of the UK government’s response to the pandemic to date

    After creating and then updating a timeline of the pandemic every week since April 2020, in April 2021 Ian Sinclair and Rupert Read, working with editor Joanna Booth, published a free eBook A Timeline Of The Plague Year: A Comprehensive Record of the Government’s Response to the Coronavirus Crisis

    The impetus for the timeline came from a sense Rupert had, in February-March 2020, of the then emerging coronavirus pandemic in the UK as being, in the …