PN Staff

On 1 July, substantial new restrictions on protest around Parliament came into force, the breaking of which becomes an arrestable offence from 1 August. Any person thinking of making a political public statement in the centre of political power in Lond

Many Peace News readers will have heard the news of the massacre of eight civilians, including three children, in the Colombian Peace Community of San Jose' de Apartad in February 2005 (see PN2460).

Assassinated with his family and five others was Luis Eduardo Guerra, a founder of the community and a speaker at the November 2002 Vigil to Close the School of the Americas (SOA).

SOA Watch has learned that the commander of the 17th Brigade of the Colombian…

As Peace News went to press, a High Court hearing into the injunctions demanded by Brighton arms manufacturers to restrict anti-war protests was still continuing. Richard Purssell reports... The injunction is being sought by EDO/MBM Technologies Ltd, subsidiary of the giant US arms manufacturer EDO Corp, under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997.
It seeks to create an exclusion zone, which would restrict all protest activities around the claimant's factory to two-and-a-half hours…

Well m'darlings, today's Easter love-your-enemy-bunny is Sir Jock Stirrup. I kid you not.

His formal title is Air Chief Marshal Sir Graham Eric Stirrup. But inexplicably he prefers to be known as Jock.

His CV is so acronym-heavy it makes you proud. He's been an “OC 2” a “PSO”, a “CO RAF”, an “AOC No1”, a “FIMgt”, a “FRAeS”, a “KCB” and an “AFC”. Know what they stand for? Suggestions on a postcard please.

So you see, he knows a thing or two about planes, and was director…

You've been in the peace movement a long time - what got you started?

In the 1950s I became a chaplain for Pax Christi - the first priest to take an interest apparently! I was rather bored for the first year, until I heard about conscientious objection in Spain and Portugal and became active in CO issues.

Later I got involved in CND - it never stopped! There's not just one issue - they all interconnect.

You are the current Chair of the Movement for the Abolition of…

On 8 March International Women's Day was marked around the world.

In London between 50 and 80 women gathered at the Edith Cavell statue opposite St Martin in the Fields. A silent vigil was paralleled with singing, drumming and readings.

Leaflets, flowers and rosemary were offered to women passing by - many of whom were visibly touched to receive gifts as they hurried home from work!

On 19 March tens of thousands of people are expected to take to the streets around the world to protest at the continuing military occupation of Iraq, and to call for coalition troops to be withdrawn.
National and local events are due to take place in Greece, Sweden, Iceland, Brazil, Australia, Senegal, Japan and South Africa. Here in Britain the largest event will be the march in central London, taking place under the banner “bring the troops home”, with similar demonstrations and…

On Saturday 5 February more than 250 peace activists and supporters crammed into Ramparts squatted social centre in east London to attend the party of the year ... the Peace News relaunch party!

The event was organised to celebrate the new-look PN and featured peace movement favourites Leon Rosselson, Raised Voices and Penny Rimbaud as well as poets Paradox and Will Holloway, acoustic act The Rub and bands Nayfumble and Walking Wounded - who really got the crowd rocking…

The European Constitution has a range of militarist provisions which could serve to strengthen the already powerful military forces within EU states, and the constitution includes a plan for a Europe-wide military force.

The militarisation of Europe is being widely opposed by grassroots activists throughout Europe. On Saturday 5 March 2005, a conference in Manchester will examine and oppose the growing militarism and nuclearism in Europe.

The conference, “A Europe for Peace”…

This multifunction CD from the Peace Pledge Union uses a browser based system for navigating through the material.

Contents are divided into nine sections, including: quotations; racialism; war and peace; civil disobedience; the movement & black power; violence & nonviolence.

The disc also includes sources and a comment on the famous “I have a dream” speech and lists books by and about King. It also offers speeches - in print and with some video and audio extracts -…

PN: So, tell us a little bit about this book... how it came about, why you decided to do it now

Rex: I wanted to leave a good record of what happened cos I felt that the existing record was spotty and not particularly correct historically... I just wanted to leave a better record.

Myself, I'm a journalist, throughout my career in Greenpeace in the 1970s, I was also a journalist. I'm still a journalist and - I approached the story as I would approach it as a journalist and as an…

The word at the UN is that there is a “commitment gap” - that is, the world's militarily most powerful countries want to see more military intervention around the world, but are reluctant to send their troops on missions run by the UN.

Each month the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operation (DPKO) publishes a list of how many troops, military observers and police each country supplies to UN operations (see following “tools” pages for latest details). Who heads the list of…

This interview was conducted by email during October 2003.

PN: How and why did this project start, who is involved and what do you hope to achieve?

NP: We began the project after two years work on Electronic Intifada website, which has proved to be an effective tool in communicating a humanitarian perspective on the conflict.

We knew that Voices in the Wilderness would have people on the ground, and this perspective was the most important part of the site…

The term “Peace Community” perhaps evokes an image of utopian pacifist experiments. In Colombia, however, the peace communities have been formed by displaced people and face continued pressure from every armed side. Renouncing the use of arms and collaboration with any armed force, they try to establish demilitarised spaces, neutral to the armed conflict.

Members of each peace community make five commitments:

In October, the Kansai Antiwar Joint Action Group, a Japanese peace movement network, passed a “Resolution Against Aggressive War on Iraq by the Bush Government of US and Against Participation in the War by the Koizumi Government of Japan” and took to the streets of Osaka to show their opposition to proposed military action against Iraq.

They are specifically opposing the deployment of Japanese naval fleets in the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea, which they believe would be used to…