Andrea D'Cruz
Defence Secretary Des Browne announced on 29 March that Britain should be willing to talk to the Taliban and consider negotiating with elements of the organisation.
However, as reported in the Telegraph, the US-UK strategy of relentlessly targeting experienced Taliban commanders – 200 were killed last year and 100 captured – has resulted in the disintegration of the Taliban old guard, leaving a political vacuum filled by young radicals.
This strategy has created a more radical…
Symon Hill of Campaign Against Arms Trade is buzzing with the excitement of a remarkable High Court victory. He forages through my hefty pile of BAE-judicial-review-related clippings–the story was strewn across the pages of all the national dailies–and upon finding the desired article takes great delight in quoting the Financial Times:
“What started as a David versus Goliath challenge, brought by a group of activists dismissed as ‘treehuggers’, yesterday culminated in a…
Gordon Brown has gone back on the promise he made on 8 October last year that troop numbers in Iraq would be cut to 2,500 this spring.
Troops have now been told that 4,000 must stay until the end of the year. 1,500 had been told they would be coming home this April but have now been informed that they will not be returning until the end of June, when they will be replaced.
The decision was allegedly based on ongoing rocket attacks on the base at Basra airport and on the…
Over the last few years, and especially in the past six months, something special's been happening, is happening. It's happening in zines, on blogs, and across the web; via conferences, demonstrations, and workshops; in squatted buildings, on store–fronted streets, and around the bronzed military men on their Trafalgar Square plinths.
It's a feminist resurgence, and a radical one at that. This is grassroots, DIY, self–organising, non–institutionalised women's activism, and it's deeply…
In the month of the 97 International Women's Day, PN celebrates another year of women around the world rising up and resisting all forms of oppression and injustice:
Palestinian women have been protesting the devastatingly debilitating Israeli siege on Gaza. On 25 February, in a peaceful action called by the Popular Committee Against the Siege, thousands of Gazan women and children joined hands to form a human chain, risking a violent response from the world's fourth strongest army…
East Midlands climate change activists who managed to shut down Ratcliffe-on-Soar power plant for several hours in early 2007 won two significant legal victories in a Nottingham court in January.
In a trial which began at the magistrate's court on 14 January, the 11 activists (some defending themselves) were allowed to put forward an unprecedented legal defence, and to call as a defence witness an earth systems scientist who said the defendants' taking action attempting to make large…
The "People's Navy" solidarity voyage to Diego Garcia (see last issue) has made further progress: the Cindik boat has reached Egypt, and the Musichana is moving on from Thailand. They are set to meet in the Maldives.
To the south, a Greenpeace boat chasing a Japanese whale-hunting fleet has refused to disclose the co-ordinates of the fleet to a Sea Shepherd vessel doing the same, claiming its tactics violate principles of nonviolence.
As widely reported, two Sea Shepherd…
On 12 January Plane Stupid activists staged an innovative “reclaim the ice” protest on the British Airways-sponsored rink at the Natural History Museum in London.
Around 30 protestors donned penguin outfits and wielded “BA Fly, penguins die” placards. After 20 minutes, the protestors were forcibly removed by BA security.
“Spokespenguin” Tamsin said: “We love ice too, but the ice in our own home is melting as a result of global warming.
“BA is a major lobbyist for the…
