Blog posts

    24 Feb 2022

    Milan Rai

    The peace movement should oppose Putin's war and NATO expansion, argues Milan Rai
     

    Earlier this month, Yurii Sheliazhenko, executive secretary of the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement, told Democracy Now!: ‘Both great powers of the West and the East share equal responsibility to avoid escalation of war in Ukraine and beyond Ukraine.’

    This is more of what he said: ‘The escalation towards major war in Ukraine is unnecessary. Our government became part of it when we…

    24 Feb 2022

    Peace movement statements on Russia's invasion of Ukraine 

    Ukrainian Pacifist Movement (24 February)

    Ukrainian Pacifist Movement condemns all military actions on the sides of Russia and Ukraine in the context of current conflict. We call the leadership of both states and military forces to step back and sit at the negotiation table. Peace in Ukraine and around the world can be achieved only in a nonviolent way.

    War is a crime against humanity. Therefore, we are determined not to support any kind of war and to strive…

    22 Feb 2022

    PN staff

    Get to know PN people – and things they’re involved in! These Chats are all 6pm – 7pm on Zoom.

    Tuesday 1 March: Claire Poyner & Network for Peace
    Your chance to find out more about PN admin worker Claire Poyner and the UK-wide Network for Peace (which she co-ordinates), following on from our interview with Claire last issue. Claire will be interviewed by PN editor Milan Rai, and then there will be Q&A. 6pm – 7pm. On Zoom. Register here:

    15 Feb 2022

    Clem McCartney

    While NATO and Russia rattle sabres over Ukraine, the neutral Irish government and a group of local fishermen secured an important agreement to relocate a Russian naval exercise out of their fishing grounds. The message, says Clem McCartney, is that a conciliatory approach can and does work. 

    Many are probably giving much attention and concern to what is happening on the Russian/Ukrainian border and the megaphone posturing going on around it, so may not have noticed what has been happening out in the Atlantic on the southwest part of Ireland’s Exclusive Economic Zone.

    Russia announced that its navy would be carrying out live-firing exercises there and other ships and aeroplanes were advised to avoid the area. Under international maritime law, Russia can do this as it is…

    20 Oct 2021

    Rachael Mellor

    Rachael Mellor explores a key information hub for peace campaigners

    Over the years people have found incredible inspiration in the brave words, actions, and leadership of peace heroes - Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr and Mahatma Gandhi, to name a few. They display courage, moral strength and compassion to gain the right to freedom and safety, regardless of political or religious differences. 

    To achieve peace, we must compete against governmental institutions, law and order, high-level corruption, the global arms trade, injustices, human rights…

    12 Aug 2021

    Andrew Bolton

    Allen Lane, 2021; 256pp; £20

    Bob Matthews was an American bomb aimer in WWII. He hit the largest air raid shelter in Kassel, Germany and killed hundreds of civilians. He said, 'I was so distraught that I stayed drunk for nine days and was the sickest drunk in the air force.'   A member of my church, I met him 50 years later and we talked several times. In the end he wrote out his story for me. A humble, family man, he was still deeply struggling with the guilt and shame of what he had participated in. He suffered ‘moral…

    03 Jul 2021

    Tom Huggins-Teasdale

    Tom Huggins-Teasdale finds inspiration in a recent Glasgow demo

    Community is one of those words that carries different meanings to different people. It’s a word that people attribute their own values at times and as such the context it’s used in can be all important. For some, it means the people that live around them. For others, community means the people they choose to surround themselves with, in person or online. 

    While generally positive, it does have one downside. Like any grouping, it means that no matter how many people fit into a…

    03 Jul 2021

    Reece Evans

    A volunteer explains how a group of young people have constructed an oral history of 5 Caledonian Road in London – Peace House – which has been a hub for social activism since 1959.

    Just by Kings Cross in Central London, 5 Caledonian Road (also known as ‘Peace House’) was bought by Peace News in 1959 to be the home of the newspaper and its sister project, Housmans Bookshop. Since then, 5 Cally Road has housed many other groups and campaigns. It’s been a hub for social activism and a refuge for progressive ideas and people. A website and sound installation are going to be launched to tell the story of the building. The 5 Cally Road…

    17 Jun 2021

    Joanna Booth, Rupert Read, Ian Sinclair

    Ian Sinclair, Rupert Read and Joanna Booth explain how they ended up publishing the most comprehensive record of the UK government’s response to the pandemic to date

    After creating and then updating a timeline of the pandemic every week since April 2020, in April 2021 Ian Sinclair and Rupert Read, working with editor Joanna Booth, published a free eBook A Timeline Of The Plague Year: A Comprehensive Record of the Government’s Response to the Coronavirus Crisis

    The impetus for the timeline came from a sense Rupert had, in February-March 2020, of the then emerging coronavirus pandemic in the UK as being, in the …

    14 Mar 2021

    PN staff

    Five ways you can take action

    The need for a #PeoplesVaccine is the front page story in the latest issue of Peace News: …

    05 Mar 2021

    PN staff

    It’s being processed by an arms company... again!

    This year, the contract for processing census forms has been put in the hands of Leidos, one of the world’s biggest military companies.

    So far, there hasn’t been much debate about this. We’d like to change that. We invite you to take action through the census form itself, to suggest to your friends they do the same – and, crucially, (a) tell your local paper about what you’re doing and (b) tell us what you’re doing!

    In 2011, the contract for processing the census in the UK was…

    01 Mar 2021

    PN staff

    Collecting the stories of people involved in positive social change  

    Peace News has recently launched a new survey of UK activists and campaigners, with the aim of encouraging them to share their stories of success in winning concrete gains for people targeted by racism – and in making their  groups, events, spaces and projects more racially-inclusive.

    By encouraging UK campaigners to share their stories of constructive anti-racist action we aim to create a peer-to-peer handbook, based on people’s lived experiences that celebrates our…

    15 Feb 2021

    PN

    PN launches new survey of UK campaigners

    Press release, 15 February 2021

    “HAVE YOU GOT A STORY OF SUCCESSFUL ANTI-RACIST ACTION?” NEW SURVEY ASKS

    15 February: A new survey of UK activists has been launched today (Monday 15 February), with the aim of encouraging campaigners from across a broad range of social movements to share their stories of success in winning concrete gains for people targeted by racism – and in making their groups, events, spaces and projects more racially-inclusive.

    Long-…

    21 Jan 2021

    Kathy Kelly

    The Biden administration must act swiftly to prevent a Trump-administration 'death sentence' for thousands of Yemenis, argues Kathy Kelly

    In 1565, Pieter Bruegel the Elder created The Massacre of the Innocents, a provocative masterpiece of religious art. The painting reworks a biblical narrative about King Herod’s order to slaughter all newborn boys in Bethlehem for…

    07 Jan 2021

    Milan Rai

    The coup mob in Congress has led to an outpouring of propaganda about the US love for democracy. Actually, the US has regularly opposed democracy, overthrowing democratically elected leaders it doesn't like.

    'To those who wreaked havoc in our Capitol today: you did not win. Violence never wins. Freedom wins.' So said US vice-president Mike Pence. Incoming US president, Joe Biden, said: 'The scenes of chaos do not reflect the true America, do not…