Johns, Emily

Johns, Emily

Emily Johns

1 February 2009Feature

Gaza desperately needs aid, but more than that it needs Israel to lift the near-total closure of Gaza’s borders, according to aid experts. Palestinian estimates of the cost of the first fortnight of the Israeli assault range from $976m to $1.7bn.

Even before the latest attack, Gaza was reeling from the effects of the Israeli blockade. Unemployment was nearly 50%, almost all of Gaza’s 3,900 manufacturers had been forced to shut down, 80% of drinking water was substandard,…

1 February 2009News

After months of silence, during which it seemed the idea had died quietly (like the much-derided “British Day”), the British government announced on 21 January that Armed Forces Day will after all be taking place – 27 June.

It now falls to the British peace movement to respond appropriately.

The central event of the first Armed Forces Day is to take place in the historic dockyard in Chatham, Kent. The five unsuccessful bidders – Cardiff, Blackpool, Plymouth, Southend and…

16 December 2008Feature

Over two-thirds of the British public want all British troops withdrawn from Afghanistan within 12 months, according to a new BBC poll. Meanwhile, five million Afghans are facing a winter of starvation because of “donor fatigue”.

The BBC/ICM poll, published to coincide with a 13 November Radio 4 debate on withdrawal from Afghanistan, met with a resounding silence from the political establishment, and the barest of mentions within the mainstream media.

The Ministry of Defence…

3 December 2008Comment

Why should Peace News, a paper devoted to peacemaking, concern itself so much with economic issues? Over the period of our editorship we have come back to class politics again and again and again.

Dan Clawson’s wonderful essay “Fusing our power” back in May 2007, at the start of our editorship, showed how activists from the new social movements have begun to revitalise parts of the US trade union movement, turning them from narrowly-focused bureaucratic monoliths into whole-person…

1 December 2008Feature

One million Iraqis
The most-censored story of the year was the estimate by a reputable British polling agency that over 1,000,000 Iraqis had died violently as a result of the invasion and occupation.

The story started in September 2007, when the mainstream polling agency ORB (widely quoted six months earlier and six months later for their work on Iraqi attitudes to the occupation) published an estimate of the number of Iraqis who had died violently since the 2003 invasion.…

16 November 2008Feature

On 27 October, Britain’s nuclear bomb factory at Aldermaston was blockaded by hundreds of peace activists in the largest nonviolent direct action at the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) for a decade. Over 30 activists from Trident Ploughshares and CND were arrested by police.

Roads around Aldermaston began to be blocked before dawn as activists from Scotland, Switzerland, Norway and elsewhere converged on the site where Britain’s nuclear weapons are constructed and maintained.…

3 November 2008Comment

Sitting in front of a panel of MPs and lords for the second time this year, Peace News abandoned etiquette and spoke plainly. The problem with giving evidence about the law on protest we said, is that parliament, the judiciary and the police have failed to take the action they should have - against the illegal invasion of Iraq, or those causing devastating climate change, for example.

In such circumstances, it is difficult to be forced to discuss “the policing of protest”, when…

1 November 2008News

Two more US war resisters have been put on notice of deportation from Canada, where they have sought refuge.

On 8 October, US Iraq war resister Patrick Hart, his wife Jill and son Rian were told that they had to voluntarily leave Canada or be deported to the United States on 30 October.

The next day, Matt Lowell, of London, Ontario, was ordered to leave Canada by 28 October.

Patrick Hart is a former sergeant and a nine-year veteran of the US military. After serving…

3 October 2008Comment

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has sparked enormous enthusiasm throughout the world – and a fair amount back home in the United States – as a symbol of change. Many progressive-minded people are hoping that he will bring about genuine reform in domestic and foreign affairs.

Our opinion, to be blunt, is that Barack Obama is another Tony Blair.

It is difficult to remember at this point – steeped as we are in the blood and lies of the Iraq war – the excitement…

1 October 2008News

From Afghanistan to Palestine to Minnesota, video activism has been proving its value over the past few months.
It was video shot on a local doctor’s mobile phone that forced the Pentagon to drop its claim that only seven civilians died in Nawabad.
The footage, viewable on the web (see p2), shows dozens of bodies lying in the local mosque the morning after the massacre.

Point-blank
In July, in Palestine, video recorded by Salam Kanaan, 17, showed the world a…

3 September 2008Comment

Climate Camp has rightly been described as both “the world’s most organised protest” and “the most important protest of our time”. The severity of the climate crisis that is looming is not easy to imagine. If we do see a temperature rise of 4C above pre-industrial levels, up to half the world’s species could die out, and our descendants will face apocalyptic consequences.

The Camp is the confluence of several streams of organising going back decades. It demonstrates, among other…

16 July 2008Feature

The third and biggest British Camp for Climate Action fed, watered and educated perhaps 3,000 people from 3-11 August, sparked actions around the country, triggered 100 arrests and two prison sentences and culminated in a massive day of action against the proposed new coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth in Essex.

Climate Camp highlighted the importance of the Kingsnorth decision as a key indicator of whether or not Britain is serious about avoiding catastrophic climate change (see…

3 July 2008Comment

There were many acts of remembrance around the country when the hundredth British soldier was killed in Afghanistan, names of the dead were read out. The occasion highlighted the enormous importance of Iraq Body Count’s work in collecting the names of non combatants killed in Iraq since the 2003 invasion. There are in contrast so few names of Afghans killed, there is no one doing an Afghan body count. Uncounted Afghan’s have lost their lives, and without their names who knows if they ever…

1 June 2008Review

Flamingo West, 2008; 11 songs; £12

I heard David Ferrard sing in April at the launch of the Festival of Nonviolence and the hairs stood up on the back of my neck.

In the very simplest manner of music appreciation, hearing a voice that can touch, with great finesse and sweetness, one’s body is a strange wonder.

This collection has the current wars weaving their way through a series of love songs.

There is the subtle story of a Chechen refugee drawn to England by the music coming from his pocket radio, and…

1 June 2008Review

5 Caledonian Road, London N1 9DX.

Lucy Edkins’ paintings are naked, painful suffering images of our fellow men.

They are hanging high up on the walls of Housmans Bookshop – in traditional art jargon they have been “skied” by the primacy of books. But this very inaccessibility that me think of church paintings and then of mediaeval images of “The Passion”.

Lucy Edkins has created a series of paintings of Guantanamo, of men crouching and twisting from their torturers; flinching from the soldiers with their guns…