Blog posts

    15 Mar 2024

    Tim Street

    A report from a recent Student/Young Pugwash Conference

    ‘Artificial Intelligence (AI) presents enormous global opportunities: it has the potential to transform and enhance human wellbeing, peace and prosperity.’

    As highlighted in the Bletchley Declaration – the outcome of the AI Safety Summit, hosted by the UK government in November 2023 and held at…

    07 Mar 2024

    PN staff

    Just ahead of the second anniversary of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, a former head of the British armed forces called for a negotiated end to the war, trading ‘peace for land’. General David Julian Richards, lord Richards, said on 20 February: ‘War is the very last resort and we seem to too often treat it as the first resort and we’ve got to get back to diplomacy and seek some sort of resolution to it.’ Richards was echoing views expressed by a top US general back in November 2022.

    Ukraine should negotiate an end to its war with Russia, and be prepared to trade ‘peace for land’.

    That’s the view of one of Britain’s most senior retired military leaders, a former chief of the defence staff, general David Richards (lord Richards), expressed in a surprising interview with the BBC on 20 February. The full transcript of his interview is below. We should point out that we have not found any reporting of this interview, or of Richards’s call for negotiations, in any…

    22 Feb 2024

    PN staff

    A peace activist is not arrested despite police witnessing her spraypainting a pro-Gaza message on the outside of the city's naval base.

    In mid-February, longtime British peace activist Rosy Bremer spraypainted an anti-war message on the walls of Portsmouth naval base, which also houses an arm of the giant arms company BAE Systems.

    As you can see in the video shot by Linda Spence, Rosy spraypainted: '♥ Gaza ♥ Rafah ♥ peace'.

    Rosy told the Portsmouth News:

    'I'm a normal person and I believe we…

    29 Dec 2023

    PN staff

    "We cannot help being reminded of the Massacre of the Innocents"

    Two Christian protesters were arrested at Downing Street today [29 Dec '23] after pouring fake blood and putting bloody handprints on the gates. 

    Virginia Moffat (58) and Chris Cole (60) from Dorset said that the government had 'blood on its hands' after refusing to demand Israel end its bombing of Gaza, calling it 'a massacre of biblical proportions'.

    In a statement distributed at the protest the married couple said:

    "Britain's and Israel's justification for this…

    11 Dec 2023

    Radhya Almutawakel

    An interview carried out by CIVICUS and published on its website on 3 December 2023, with a leading Yemeni human rights campaigner, discussing the current situation in the Yemen War.

    What’s the current situation in Yemen, and what are the prospects of the conflict being resolved in the near future?

    First, it’s crucial to note that the conflict in Yemen goes beyond a mere civil war, as it spans three distinct dimensions: local, regional and international. It started in 2014 when the Ansar Allah (Houthi) armed group seized control of Sana’a, the capital, and escalated with the intervention of a Saudi-led coalition in 2015. The ongoing conflict has…

    02 Dec 2023

    Yorkshire CND

    An art exhibition and a music performance in York raised awareness about the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, adopted by the UN in 2017.

    On 26 November, CND and Extinction Rebellion (XR) activists gathered in York as part of a global day of action to call for an end to nuclear weapons and to bring attention to the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). The event took place at the start of the second Meeting of States Parties (MSPs), a gathering of countries who have ratified…

    08 Nov 2023

    Albert Beale

    A brief appreciation of long-time peace campaigner Bill Hetherington

    Many of you will have encountered Bill Hetherington during your peace movement campaigning; I'm sorry to have to tell you that he died on Sunday night (5 November '23), having been ill for some time.

    Those of you who've had a long involvement with British peace organisations will have known him for a long while - his activism goes back around 60 years.

    He was a direct actionist in Britain in the 1960s, and has been involved in pacifist activism ever since. Internationally, he…

    31 Oct 2023

    The Villages Group

    More reports from the West Bank by the Israeli-Palestinian peace group The Villages Group

    Erella, on behalf of The Villages Group writes:

    Greetings to our friends all,

    Yesterday (Monday, 30.10.23) afternoon, coming back home from another day in the South Hebron Hills, I could not find the strength to write. Now, morning, so much has happened since yesterday, so many things in the same places I had visited yesterday afternoon, that writing seems pale in comparison and cannot keep up. We need a kind…

    31 Oct 2023

    PN staff

    The UK public overwhelmingly supports an immediate ceasefire in Israel-Palestine.

    Indeed, in a 19 October 2023 YouGov poll 58% said that there should 'definitely' be an immediate ceasefire in Israel and Palestine, with a further 18% saying that there 'probably should' be such a ceasefire.

    Though the UK government continues to offer…

    30 Oct 2023

    The Villages Group

    More reports from the West Bank by the Israeli-Palestinian peace group The Villages Group

    Yair, on behalf of The Villages Group writes:

    We began our morning shopping at Hura (Israeli Bedouin town). The supermarket owner, a learned, nice man who already knows us, refused to let us pay for the food we bought for D and her family. We also bought diapers, a gas stove, and Sim cards and chargers for the three phones we received as a donation and passed on to friends whose devices were stolen or vandalized. …

    27 Oct 2023

    The Villages Group

    More reports from the West Bank by the Israeli-Palestinian peace group The Villages Group

    Erella, on behalf of the The Villages Group writes (27 Oct '23):

    Every day on our way to south Mt. Hebron, we call our friends there to find out what awaits us on the road. Whether there are soldiers and / or settlers at the junctions and / or in the villages we wish to visit. On weekends we pay even more attention. "The religious settlers are very careful not to do any work on the holy Sabbath, but I guess destroying…

    26 Oct 2023

    The Villages Group

    More reports from the West Bank by the Israeli-Palestinian peace group Villages Group

    Yair, on behalf of The Villages Group, writes:

    On Wednesday [25 Oct '23], D. recorded some WhatsApp messages for Erella. Soldiers came, entered the cave. Taftish - that's the magic word – a search.

    D. lives in a cave somewhat distant from the houses of Tuba village, just she and her widowed mother and another younger brother. This distance from the village makes it easy for settlers and soldiers to…

    26 Oct 2023

    Felicity Laurence, The Villages Group

    Reports from an Israeli-Palestinian peace group

    Felicity Laurence writes: The Villages Group is a small but totally dedicated Israeli-Palestinian peace group who have worked year in and year out to show friendship and support to people under occupation in Palestine. I visited many times, to sing and do music with children in the villages, including in the very places right now being destroyed. Things are desperate as never before. I am receiving their letters every day. Here are some…

    18 Oct 2023

    Gabriel Carlyle

    By taking to the streets in our hundreds of thousands, flooding MPs' inboxes with letters and emails and staging savvy nonviolent direct actions, we can set limits - or even terminate - British support for Israeli war crimes and apartheid

    With the UK government offering “unequivocal” support for Israel - and Labour's leadership not far behind it – nonviolent protest could play a critical role in protecting Gaza's civilians.

    By taking to the streets in our hundreds of thousands, flooding MPs' inboxes with letters and emails and staging savvy nonviolent direct actions, there's the possibility of setting limits on or even terminating British support for Israeli war crimes and apartheid.



    But many people are…

    12 Oct 2023

    PN

    Take action over poisoning of Israel-Palestine discourse

    On her Tuesday 10 October show Breakfast, Sky presenter Kay Burley repeatedly misrepresented comments by UK Palestinian Ambassador Husam Zomlot concerning recent atrocities in Israel-Palestine.

    Specifically, in interviews with three separate guests she asserted that Zomlot:

    • 'basically said the Iraelis had it coming' (interview with James Cleverly)
    • 'basically said, the last couple of days, that Israel had it coming' (interview with Pat McFadden)
    • '…