The second round of French parliamentary elections on 7th July yielded a hung parliament with three main blocks, none of which could command an absolute majority. The largest of those blocks, with 183 deputies; was the Nouveau Front Populaire, a coalition of four left-wing political parties: LFI (France Unbowed), EELV (the Greens), the Socialist Party, and the Communist Party.
The centrist coalition Ensemble (seven parties of which the largest is Macron’s Renaissance party)…
The deadly wars in Ukraine and Gaza are giving us an insight into how battles may be fought in future. Both wars are acting as trial zones for new military technologies, particularly automated technologies driven by artificial intelligence (AI) to undertake intelligence analysis and targeting. In each case, AI has allowed soldiers to sift rapidly through huge volumes of data - with deadly results.
Artificial Intelligence (AI), automated decision making, and autonomous technologies…
James Lawson, who died in June aged 95, was described by Martin Luther King Jr. as ‘the greatest teacher of nonviolence in America.’
Best known for his activism during the US civil rights movement, Lawson travelled to the then segregated city of Nashville, Tennessee in the late 1950s, after King implored him to join the struggle.
Heavily influenced by Gandhi and working as a field secretary for the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), Lawson started running regular workshops on…
During a week of action focused on UN potential to end Israel’s genocidal attacks, I was part of a coalition that met with 12 different permanent missions to the United Nations. We urged that if countries that are parties to the Genocide Convention or the Geneva Conventions stop trading with Israel as international law demands (see the 19 July advisory opinion of the international court of justice), the genocide…
4 April: The international Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) will sail in mid April with multiple vessels, carrying 5,500 tons of humanitarian aid and hundreds of international human rights observers to challenge the ongoing illegal Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip.
This is an emergency mission as the situation in Gaza is dire, with famine setting in in northern Gaza, and catastrophic hunger present throughout the Gaza Strip as the result of a deliberate policy by the Israeli…
Sorry For The People Not The Wall
I am sorry for
The people
Not the wall;
The wall is solid
And brick
But people
Are soft
And bleed;
Bleed from BAE bombs
And Elbit
Drones.
They bleed
And they
Starve;
People get shot
When they
Queue
For food.
The wall
Stands silent;
Indifferent to
Suffering,
A defence we
Cannot breach,
Unlike the everyday,…
On 25 March, the UN security council finally adopted a ceasefire resolution – because the United States finally stood aside and did not use its veto.
Resolution 2728 called for a two-week ceasefire in Israel's war on Gaza, the release of hostages being held in Gaza and an 'expansion' in the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza – none of these items was made conditional on any other (see below for the full text of the resolution).
The resolution called for a ceasefire lasting 'for…
If elections were held today, Hamas would likely win the presidency and definitely be the biggest party in Palestine’s parliament, according to an independent poll carried out in early March in both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The poll was conducted by a respected independent think tank, the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research (PSR).
The PSR…
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…
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…
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…
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…
[Lying on the Red Sea coast in North East Africa,] Eritrea is a former Italian colony, and it was federated to Ethiopia after Italy lost the Second World War to allied forces. Haile Selassie [emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 – 1974] broke the agreement by forcing Eritrea to be annexed. Therefore, in 1961, the 30-year war for independence broke out, this became the longest conflict in Africa.
Eritrea and Eritreans were isolated during the war of independence and the outlook of Eritreans…
When Nicola Sturgeon resigned from her position as first minister (FM) of Scotland, many people from in Scotland – and from outside – were aware of her unwavering support for Scotland's commitment and action for nuclear disarmament, her rock-solid commitment to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (which is supported by an overwhelming majority of UN member states), her actions in sending messages to the TPNW negotiating conference in 2017, and exchanging very public letters…
Twenty years ago, in Baghdad, I shared quarters with Iraqis and internationals in a small hotel, the Al-Fanar, which had been home base for numerous Voices in the Wilderness delegations acting in open defiance of the economic sanctions against Iraq. US government officials charged us as criminals for delivering medicines to Iraqi hospitals. In response, we told them we understood the penalties they threatened us with (12 years in prison and a $1mn fine), but we couldn’t be governed by unjust…
