D'Cruz, Andrea

On the face of it the past month has been headline horror for immigrants and asylum seekers in Britain and all those standing in solidarity with them: the continuing ordeal of Belfast’s Romanian families, forced to seek police protection from racist attacks, two seats in the European Parliament for the BNP, and the anti-migrant economic scaremongering, which appears to be one of the few things thriving in the current recession.

Scratch below surface, though, and you’ll find an…

An unprecedented Iranian government proposal, which could offer a definitive solution to the diplomatic crisis over its nuclear program, is being resisted by Britain.

Iran remains committed to enriching uranium on its own soil (for its nuclear power programme), but indicated seriously for the first time on 13 May that an international consortium could control the enrichment and nuclear fuel manufacturing process.

The idea had previously been floated through back channels with…

May saw a devastating surge in US air strikes on Iraq, often in densely populated areas. In the two months from late March, the military fired more than 200 Hellfire missiles on Baghdad alone, while only six such missiles were fired in the previous three months. The US army is keeping six Apache helicopters in the air above Baghdad, around the clock.

Residents of Sadr City have described recent air attacks on the Shia ghetto as indiscriminate. One such attack damaged a hospital and…

On 16 June, 24-year-old Matthis Chiroux, who joined the US army at 18, having been targeted by military recruiters since he was 16, and who served in Afghanistan among other places before being placed in the reserves, is due to be deployed to Iraq but is refusing to go.

“I stand before you today with the strength and clarity and resolve to declare to the military, my government and the world that this soldier will not be deploying to Iraq. My decision is based on my desire to no…

On 21 May, Tony “Bomber” Blair narrowly escaped being killed by an Israeli missile – an irony-laden fate for such a staunch supporter of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

The former prime minister – who spearheaded the illegal invasion of Iraq, only to become a Middle East “peace envoy” (an irony we were unfortunately not denied) – was en route to Israel when two Israeli aircraft threatened to shoot down his jet.

The pilots were under the misapprehension that the aircraft was…

PN How has Fairtrade changed the producers themselves?

HL Guillermo Vargas Leiton, the representative of Coocafe, the coffee co-operative in Costa Rica, used to say: “When you purchase Fairtrade, you’re helping build democracy, because you are enabling farmers to get together at a local level, to discuss what’s happening to them, to understand where their products are going, and therefore actually to learn the skills of making judgements and decisions.”

So Fairtrade is bringing…

PN In the book you don’t embrace or push any single ideology. Why?

NK For this book, I did not want to be arguing for a particular ideology except democracy. This book is really about democracy, about how democracy has systematically been sabotaged through the harnessing of shocks and crises to bypass democracy.
So the extent to which I’m drumming away at any ideology, it really is deep democracy, participatory democracy.
The closest I ever came to focussing squarely on…

Undeterred by a car bomb that failed to detonate the night before, thousands filled New York’s Times Square on 2 May to protest against a far more destructive bomb.

The International Day of Action for a Nuclear-Free World saw a 15,000 protesters from around the world rally and then march to the UN headquarters, where the month-long NPT review conference was to be held.

There were over 2,000 marchers from Japan alone. Hundreds of organisations were represented,…

As death and destruction continue in Gaza under the ongoing Israeli siege of the Strip (see p6), the Free Gaza Movement (FGM) continues to plan siege-breaking journeys, despite splintering into two, as announced on 22 May. The FGM was established in 2006 to break the siege of Gaza by means of humanitarian and awareness-raising boat missions from Cyprus.

The following year, Greta Berlin and Mary Hughes, two of the FGM founders, were involved in the establishment of a Californian non…

In line with a lot of the mainstream media coverage on both sides of the Atlantic, the New York Times editorial on 30 December argued: “Hamas must bear responsibility for ending a six-month cease-fire this month with a barrage of rocket attacks into Israeli territory.”

However, this not only contradicted earlier reportage by Israeli newspapers (including Ha’aretz and Yediot Ahronot) and Amnesty International, but also that of the NYT itself: on 12 November, the paper reported that: “…

On 28 May king Gyanendra became the last king of Nepal, bringing an end to the 239-year-old-monarchy. He was peacefully deposed as Nepal became a federal republic, following the recent election of the Maoists to government.

The ex-king left the Narayanhiti palace on 11 June. The palace will now become a state museum. Before leaving, Gyandendra called his first ever press conference, where journalists “heckled him with the rudest words in the Nepali language”, the Telegraph reported…

President Bush wants the Iraqi government to seal a “status of forces”agreement cementing the US military presence in Iraq without seeking the approval of the Iraqi parliament, unsurprising given that a majority of members of the Iraqi parliament have written to the US congress rejecting a long-term security deal with Washington if it is not linked to a requirement that US forces leave.

Forced deportations of Iraqi asylum seekers are accelerating under Brown; 60…

Young Czech activists Jan Tamas and Jan Bednar, who started a hunger strike on 13 May in protest against a US-Czech agreement siting a “Star Wars” base in their country, suspended their action on 2 June after three weeks on strike and in deteriorating health.

They opened up the protest into a “chain hunger strike,” with people in the Czech Republic and around the world fasting for 24 hours at a time. An international day of solidarity was called on 22 June, for which the CND organised…

Following months of talks, Hamas and Israel finally agreed to an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire, which came into effect at dawn on 19 June.

Under the terms of the truce Hamas is to stop all attacks from Gaza, and Israel is to stop military strikes and gradually lift the debilitating blockade it has imposed on the impoverished territory. The ceasefire is supposed to hold for at least six months.

The agreement comes after a year that has seen the deaths of 400 Palestinians and…

Looking back to May ’68, we find Peace News campaigning against the erection of a statue of Mahatma Gandhi in London’s Tavistock Square.

Now, amongst a whole new set of controversies – including one involving the former footballer and face of Walker’s crisps, Gary Lineker – the local council has given permission for a statue of the Indian independence leader to be set up in Leicester, whose population is more than a quarter Indian in origin. The charity Samanvaya Parivar will provide…