PN Staff

'The heroic actions of this small, but determined, group of women is told brilliantly in Andrea Needham’s fascinating account…. You can sense just how much human life matters to each and every one of these women. They spent six months in jail for acting upon their consciences – but were eventually, and rightly, found to be innocent. Anyone interested in social change, or campaigning for peace, should read this book and take inspiration from the brave actions of these amazing women.'…

Hastings anti-roads group Combe Haven Defenders (CHD) continues to campaign against a road planned for a ‘site of nature conservation interest’. During a pop-up camp (18–20 September) in threatened Hollington Valley, CHD re-planted trees on the planned route.

Local ‘development’ quango SeaChange cut down trees in the valley in preparation for the ‘Queensway Gateway’ road, but…

More than 6,000 people have signed a petition demanding that the Welsh government call in a planning application for a new opencast coal mine, Nant Llesg, in the Rhymney Valley. If the government called in the application they would take over the decision-making power from the local authority, Caerphilly council.

The petition followed an historic vote in the Welsh assembly on 22 April in favour of a moratorium on opencast…

In the first four years of the coalition government, there was a 16 percent cut in real terms in children’s services in Britain (in terms of spending per child), as local government spending has been squeezed by national government.

Over 150,000 older people have lost access to care at home since 2010 because of government ‘austerity’ measures, amounting to a 28 percent cut.…

On 12 September, a group of readers, writers, volunteers, staff, trustees and all-round good people will be coming together in central London (11am - 4pm) to think about how Peace News can be even more useful to grassroots movements for social change.

We’re looking for folk new to activism, and people who’ve been hard at it for some time; we’re looking for old-timers steeped in the history and culture of Peace News and for campaigners just getting to know us.…

PN needs volunteers for a variety of jobs, including ‘web categorising’, which is to do with labelling things on our website (full training given). There are other computery jobs like this which can be done remotely.

On 13 July, 12 climate change activists from anti-airport expansion direct action group, Plane Stupid, broke into Heathrow airport in west London at 3.30am. They locked-on to fencing on the north runway, disrupting flights for eight hours, leading to 22 flights being cancelled.

The protesters said that going ahead with the recent Airports Commission recommendation of a third Heathrow runway would make it impossible…

31 July – 1 August

WALLASEY CH45 5DX. EXHIB
Hiroshima/Nagasaki exhibition in Earlston Library, Earlston Rd.

3 – 31 August

LIVERPOOL L3 8EW. EXHIB
‘Hiroshima and Nagasaki 70 years on’. Exhibition in Central Liverpool Library, William Brown St. More info: www.mcnd.org.uk

Saturday 1 August

BROMLEY BR1 1HA. VIGIL
Hiroshima Day Vigil with…

In this world of Facebook activism and online petitions, we think that there is a vital place for face-to-face meetings, for conversations around campfires, for chatting while doing humdrum but essential chores together, for games and songs as well as analysis and facts. Face-to-face community, we believe, is an essential part of the glue that holds strong movements together.

That’s…

The ‘Fighter, not Killer’ app for Apple and Android smartphones, launched on 19 May, is the latest effort by Swiss group ‘Geneva Call’ to educate armed groups on the humanitarian laws of war.

Available in Arabic, English and French, the free downloadable quiz works through 28 scenarios to explain the legal principles that should guide armed action.

This follows Geneva Call’s use of online and broadcast video, and a booklet of cartoons, to spread the same key points to…

On 13 April, 34 protesters were arrested as they blockaded Faslane naval base near Glasgow, where Britain’s Trident nuclear submarines are kept. The Scrap Trident coalition’s ‘Bairns Not Bombs’ action (which kept the base closed from 7am until workers were sent home at 1.30pm) brought together 250 trade unionists, party activists, religious groups, environmental campaigners and community members, on the Global Day of Action on Military Spending. The blockade followed the 4,000-strong…

What keeps coming into my mind is ‘Red Ken, Red Ken’, but I’m not having him in here. He’s not allowed.

That chair is red. That top is red. Ketchup is red! There’s a lot of red things in the world.

I don’t know if I can talk about this for three minutes....

Okay, well, the obvious thing is, I guess: ‘Communism!’

For me, red is anger. Which can be destructive, but can also be a positive force, a driving force.

I guess what it’s making me think about is: the…

A reader in Germany has sent us news of PN appearing as an artefact in an art exhibition!

A display case in the 'Picasso and contemporary art' exhibition in the gigantic Deichtorhallen art centre in Hamburg, Germany, contains a recent edition of Peace News!

Corrymeela Community, in County Antrim in Northern Ireland, is celebrating 50 years of peacemaking this year with a summer festival called Aperture – a space through which light travels (Friday 31 July to Sunday 2 August). These are almost exactly the same dates as Peace News Summer Camp (Thursday 30 July to Monday 3 August)!

…

On 14 March, Britain’s military commander-in-chief David Cameron (ordering drone and air strikes in Syria and Iraq, and authorising arms exports to 18 countries about whom the foreign office has the ‘most serious wide-ranging human rights concerns’) unveiled a nine-foot bronze statue of pacifist icon Mohandas Gandhi. The glorification of the Indian ascetic in Parliament Square in London cost over £1m (the Martin Luther King Jr memorial in Washington DC, USA, cost over £80m). Cameron said of…