Rai, Milan

PN: Looking over the postwar period in Britain, is there one experience that stands out as an inspiring advance towards workers' control and industrial democracy?
KC: The obvious thing is the UCS [in June 1971]. The government decided to rationalise the shipyards and close down the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders [with the likely loss of over 6,000 jobs]. The workers announced a work-in, that they wouldn't accept dismissal, and they'd work on and appeal for money from the labour…

How would you describe the state of democracy in Nepal one year on from the jana andolan II?

Symbolically, people-power triumphed, thus giving way to some semblance of a democratic dispensation. Structurally, at least on paper, the interim parliament has almost dismantled the old order that derived much of its powers from the palace. Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, in terms of their aspirations, attitudes and behaviours - the grassroots signs of a democracy in…

PN: What is your background in relation to Darfur?

ADW: I travelled extensively in Darfur when I first went as a PhD student in 1985. I wrote my first book on famine in Darfur. Subsequently I've spent almost all of the last 22 years working on the Horn of Africa.

PN: What are the origins of the Darfur crisis?

ADW: The underlying factors are the economic and political marginalisation of Darfur, including both Arabs and non-Arabs. Darfur…

I’m doing a talk about al-Qa’eda for Peace News Summer Camp which is in two weeks. (Really looking forward to seeing Tracy Curtis perform – I’ve heard Seize the Day and the Carbon…

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A few years ago, we both took part in a “radical peace movement” gathering. Two of the main issues at the gathering were the thorny question of whether there was such a thing as a “peace movement”, and, alongside that, what it meant to be a “radical” peace activist.

It’s clear that there is a traditional strand of peace organisations and activities, which has persisted for decades. Quaker activities (the Religious Society of Friends began in the 1640s), the pacifist Peace Pledge Union…

As PN went to press, over three months into the NATO war on Libya, Libyan rebels said that they were expecting a new peace proposal from the regime, transmitted via a special committee of the African Union (AU), which met to discuss the conflict on 26 June.

The key issue is whether the rebels (and their British and French backers) will maintain their position that Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi (and his family) must not only leave power, but leave the country, before a ceasefire and…

When the idea of the Rebellious Media Conference first bubbled up a year ago, there were two things that we really wanted to achieve with the event. We wanted to inspire people with excellent examples of radical media – the extraordinary achievements of The NewStandard were a prime example (see articles on this page). We also wanted to get a much wider circle of people (activists, journalists and others) engaging seriously with the Chomsky-Herman Propaganda Model of the media. (There are…

The site of the PN75 party
Gail Chester (shiny jacket) comperes the Red & Green Choir
Dennis Gould, anarchist poet These are some pictures from the party on Saturday 4 June. First three: The Catholic Worker building on the Harringay Ladder in North London (in Haringey!) / Compere Gail Chester of Peace News Trustees with the…

Just before PN went to press, the United Nations and the African Union (AU) issued an urgent demand for an immediate ceasefire in the war in Libya, a demand that was being resisted by the NATO military alliance that is carrying out air strikes on behalf of the Libyan rebels.

While the AU was calling for an open-ended ceasefire to allow a negotiated solution to the conflict, the priority for the UN was a short-term, one- to three-day, humanitarian “pause”.

On 12 May, the head…

Claude Choules served in the British navy in the First World War, and then in the Australian navy in the Second World War.

Like Harry Patch, the last First World War veteran living in Britain, who died in 2009, Choules became a pacifist, refusing to celebrate Australia’s war memorial Anzac Day, or to join in commemoration marches.

Choules’s son Adrian told the Telegraph in 2010: “He used to say that while he was serving in the war he was trained to hate the enemy, but later he…

The killing of terrorist leader Osama bin Laden in Abottabad, Pakistan, on 1 May, brought an end to an extraordinary life, and a humiliating search by the US. It did not bring an end, however, to the all-pervasive western propaganda surrounding the al-Qa’eda phenomenon. There were immediate questions about the legality of the US attack on bin Laden’s compound on 1 May but there are also larger and more important questions.

Legality

Concern about the raid by US special…

I was in two minds as to how to write up the interview with Nicolas Kent. Our usual format in PN is to just to present the transcript of the interview, and that’s what we did in the end (for an unusually long three pages), but I was very tempted to write it up in a more traditional journalistic style. These notes are a small move to bringing a bit more of the flavour of the thing over.

When I called up to arrange the interview, Nicolas Kent was very gracious, but it was clear he was…

Two months on, the opinion polls show the British public is largely undecided about the Libya war, undecided and unenthusiastic.

The first two polls were contradictory. A Comres poll showed greater opposition than support: 35 per cent in favour of the military action and 43 per cent against it. A YouGov poll showed 45 per cent…