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We’re bringing peace and justice activists from across Europe to help us mark the centenary – and to ‘Declare Peace’ on the 100th anniversary of the day that Britain declared war on Germany. We will also have workshops and discussions, practical skills sessions, delicious vegan food cooked by Veggies, films, fun and DIY entertainment, a bar, a campfire, and activities and facilities for children and families.

We are delighted to be welcoming well-known and well-loved peace activists…

PHOTO: ALEX GERRARD/PAX CHRISTI

Watched by Valerie Flessati (left) of the First World War Peace Forum, at the 15 May Conscientious Objectors (CO) Day ceremony in Tavistock Square in central London, Cindy Sharkey (right) remembers her CO grandfather who refused to fight in the First World War.

A socialist member of the Independent Labour Party, Eleazor ‘Dil’ Thomas refused to participate in what he saw as a capitalist war, waged to preserve the empire. As well as remembering women…

On 16 May, London CAAT carried out a banner drop inside the London Transport Museum to protest at their decision to take sponsorship money from Thales, the 11th-largest arms company in the world. Thales has used the museum’s rooms to meet with the government’s arms export-promoting body (the UK trade & investment defence & security organisation). Follow ‘London Campaign Against Arms Trade’ on Facebook or on Twitter (@londoncaat) to get involved. Next monthly demo at 2pm on 21 June.…

Ah. (Laughs.) I’ve not had very good experiences with meetings. Well, I mean, on the whole they are quite important and useful ways of spending time. But you do get meetings which drag on. People taking the opportunity to quote Marx endlessly or other things they’ve read. They’re just taking the chance to make speeches. It can be quite a frustrating experience. If they could just stop doing that, it would be fantastic!

Nant Llesg opencast coalmine protest.
PHOTO: WALESONLINE

Desperate to stop the plans for the opencast coalmine development at Nant Llesg, campaigners staged a spectacular mock funeral ‘the death of the valley’ at Caerphilly County Borough Council’s headquarters on 22 April. The council decision is still pending.  

For a lot of people I know, spring is about planting seeds, growing, nurturing, green stuff. It’s very hopeful, there are lots of metaphors there for making a better world, starting the revolution, taking control of your own food, give us bread but give us roses, etc etc.

For me, spring means spring cleaning – the spring cleaning I ought to do, but don’t. The tottering piles of things-not-done and things-not-tidied-away shine more brightly in the sunshine.

Spring means getting…

At the moment, PN staff are the only listed UK promoters of Campaign Nonviolence, the nonviolence study/action group initiative started by Pace e Bene in the US last year. Milan Rai, Emily Johns and Gabriel Carlyle are in a Campaign Nonviolence study/action group in Hastings (it’s called Burning Gold, after a line in a William Blake poem).

This March and April, Campaign Nonviolence has been running workshops across the US to ‘help build the campaign to mainstream active nonviolence…

A Sussex kite-flyer braving hailstorms. Photo: Gill Knight

For many of us, reading Peace News or attending Peace News events has sometimes had a significant impact in some way. We would be very grateful if you could send us your stories and views on what Peace News has done for you.

In 500 words or less, please tell us what Peace News means to you.

Has reading Peace News raised your awareness of new issues or changed your mind about something important? Has attending a PN event led to an important connection or initiative? Has the…

The Freedom Collective, publishers of Freedom, the anarchist periodical founded in 1886, decided at a meeting on 3 March 2014 to discontinue printing and concentrate on online publication.  After the second printed edition of 2014, the intention is to publish a special edition for the anarchist bookfair in October, and after that to print only occasional free sheets.

Peace News and Freedom have much in common. Donald Rooum, who has contributed cartoons to Peace News since 1962,…

Following recent attacks in Chiapas, a Week of National and International Solidarity “If they touch the Zapatistas, they touch all of us” has been called, to be held from 16th to 23rd February, 2014, to “denounce the counterinsurgency war” and emphasise that “the Zapatista communities are not alone.”

The new aggressions were made against the iconic Zapatista community of 10 de Abril, by government supporters from the group CIOAC democratic who live in a nearby community, and who have…

I think that the thing that jumps out from my memory of all of my activism was spending several hours on a sit-down blockade staring down the barrel of a water cannon. Potentially quite a disempowering situation, as the police have a lot of equipment which they are fairly free to use at their own discretion. When all you have is your strength of will, and your physical presence, to challenge that – you feel like the weaker party in that game.

But to come together…

The three people who have agreed to share their experiences in PN have all been heavily involved in the peace movement and are also recovering alcoholics (their drinking was out of control, but they’re now many years sober).

One of them is religious, two aren’t. One was drinking at her most intense period of activism; the other two were several years sober before they took part in high-risk activities. All three have been to prison for their…

Satta Hashem grew up in Buhrez, Diyala province, and left Iraq in 1978 aged 18, having been involved in opposition to Saddam Hussein’s regime. He trained in Algeria and the Soviet Union, later moving to Sweden and then the UK. He has kept a daily diary of drawings throughout the wars of 1990-1 and 2003-. A departure from his practice in painting, in which Hashem draws on scientific theories of light…

Due to a misunderstanding by the PN editors, the article by Marc Morgan published in last month’s PN was an early version, which left out important information. 

The fast in Paris, still organized by the Maison de Vigilance, will be held in conjunction with a fast in Burghfield held by Action AWE, and a fast at Büchel NATO base, in Germany, organized by the Atomfrei Jetzt campaign.

Fasters at the three sites will take part in symbolic actions, silent vigils and…