Rai, Milan

The EDO Decommissioners (see PN 2506) spent the first week of their trial grilling the head of EDO/MBM, Paul Hills, on the firm’s supply of vital components to Israeli F-16 fighter jets (which Hills denied).

After nine days, on 16 June, Brighton peace activist Rosa Bellamy was cleared of conspiracy to participate in the property destruction inside the EDO/MBM arms factory in January 2009. The action took place as Israeli F-16s were bombing Gaza, killing hundreds of civilians.…

The US is doing its best, once again, to prevent a negotiated solution to the Iran crisis. On 17 May, Brazil and Turkey pulled off a major diplomatic coup by reaching agreement with Iran on swapping Iranian uranium fuel for more highly-enriched fuel for a medical reactor, designed to produce medical isotopes used in diagnosing cancers.

Iran accepted conditions it had previously rejected as humiliating (see PN 2522 for details). It agreed to deliver 1,200kg of low-enriched uranium to…

US president Barack Obama has rejected new concessions from Iran over its nuclear programme, instead demanding a tightening of economic and financial sanctions, leading to growing fears of confrontation. This is the fourth major peace initiative from Iran since 2003 – all have been rejected by the US.

A TRR-ific deal?

The latest breakthrough came in relation to Iran’s stock of low-enriched uranium (LEU), the product of its controversial uranium enrichment programme. Last…

The formation of the Conservative-Liberal Democratic coalition government as the result of the UK general election signals changes on several fronts, but no change on the war and peace agenda.

Afghanistan was barely mentioned by the major political parties during the election campaign because, despite overwhelming public opposition to current policies, the war is a consensus position. While Trident replacement was mentioned in the election campaign, it was as a financial and not…

On 8 April, while helping to launch the new US nuclear posture review (NPR), state department official Robert Einhorn laughed as he said: “there’ll be a lot of Iranian propaganda that this whole thing is about an implicit threat to Iran. It’s not about an implicit threat to Iran.” As radical journalist Claud Cockburn used to say, “Never believe anything until it’s been officially denied.”

At its core, the nuclear posture review announced on 6 April says two things. First: if you…

Two issues ago, in the run-up to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference taking place this month in New York, we ran an article called: “The very, very least we should demand of the NPT”.

That article raised the issue of “negative security assurances” (NSAs), guarantees that nuclear weapons will not be used on non-nuclear-weapon states: “It is an absolute scandal that this is not part of the NPT. It is an absolute scandal that the nuclear disarmament…

On 31 March, four Christian peace activists broke into a secret Australian military base in a protest against the war in Afghanistan. The four swam to Swan Island off the south coat of Australia at 5.30am, climbed the fence and spent several hours on the base shutting down the switchboard, a satellite and causing a lockdown on the base, effectively disrupting the Australian war effort in Afghanistan.

“Both Swan Island and the war on Afghanistan are out of sight, out of mind. It’…

Kate Hudson’s generous tribute and Pat Arrowsmith’s more critical remarks in this issue, capture different parts of Michael Foot’s legacy, a legacy which is entangled with the history of a broad section of the British peace movement.

On the question of war, Michael Foot distinguished himself in his middle years with his resolute opposition to “Suez” – the Anglo-French assault on Egypt in 1956. 26 years later, having become leader of the Labour party, Foot took a less…

John Rety, former editor of the anarchist newspaper Freedom and good friend of Peace News, has died at the age of 79.

John had several passions apart from politics, including chess (“the most Bohemian player we are ever likely to meet”, said the late Bob Wade, former British chess champion) and poetry (“He ran the only truly democratic poetry reading venue, where anyone was allowed to get up and read one poem before a guest reader,” said poet Jehane Markham).

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You may not believe this, but Peace News is now counting down to our 75th anniversary. Yes, Peace News began life on 6 June 1936! During 2011, our 75th year of existence, we will be springing a number of surprises.

Most of our “Remaking Peace News” projects are designed to get PN out to a wider readership, and to make PN more useful to a wider array of groups and movements. Some initiatives we will be keeping under wraps for now, some we can reveal. We will definitely be re-…

At the War Resisters’ International Triennial in Ahmedabad, I met a 100%, thorough-going Indian unilateralist. He’s spent his life critiquing the Indian nuclear power programme and, since India acquired the Bomb, arguing for unilateral nuclear disarmament.

He’s the kind of person who, in Britain, would be fervently supportive of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and trying to use it as leverage to force the major powers towards the abolition of nuclear weapons. When…

The Radical Routes network of housing and worker co-ops (and social centres) recently considered (and rejected) the idea of committing itself to 10:10, the anti-climate change project initiated by Franny Armstrong, director of The Age of Stupid, and sponsored by the Guardian.

10:10, which Peace News has signed up to, commits individuals and businesses in Britain to cutting their carbon emissions by 10% during 2010 (the real year, or the financial year – PN’s aim), something that…

The War Resisters International Triennial (now held every four years, in a cunning ploy to avoid police detection and repression) is being held here in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India, at Gujarat University or “Gujarat Vidyapith”. Coming from the recent ice, snow and slush of southern England, Ahmedabad is jarringly hot – but not too hot, dusty but not too dusty. The university, which was closed down three times by the British authorities during the national freedom struggle, was founded by Gandhi…

About 50 people braved the melting snows in mid-January to come to the first-ever Peace News Winter Gathering, at the Sumac Centre in Nottingham. The gathering was followed by street theatre focussed on Nottingham arms traders Heckler & Koch.

Gathering participants heard the legendary Keith McHenry, co-founder of Food Not Bombs; the equally legendary George Farebrother of NETLAP and World Court Project UK; as well as workshops on “Killer Drones” (by Chris Cole of FoR and Jim…

In 1969, Fred Hampton was a charismatic African-American community organiser leading the Black Panther Party in Chicago, and was on the verge of taking on a leadership role within the national Black Panther organisation. In Chicago, in just one year, Hampton had successfully organised a “free breakfast for children” programme and a free Panther health clinic. He had brokered peace between the largest gangs in the city, and moved some way towards converting them from criminality to radical…