PN Staff

PN Staff

PN staff

1 February 2022News

Farewell to the Wales page

After 15 years, the Wales Page is suspending service!

Thank you so much, Lotte Reimer and Kelvin Mason for all your years of dedication. We are very, very grateful to you – and to all your loyal contributors.

Lotte has been pulling the Wales Page together every issue since 2012. Before that, she shared editing duties with Kelvin, starting in 2007.

Based in Aberystwyth (is it the real heart of Wales?), Lotte and Kelvin have helped to bring all sorts of activism to the…

1 February 2022News

Freed IB campaigner promises 'something new' in 2022

Six climate activists from Insulate Britain (IB) were freed from prison on 14 January after serving their sentences (with time off for good behaviour). The only remaining prisoner from that group was Ben Taylor (27), who had one more month to go.

Two IB prisoners had been released earlier, on New Year’s Eve: Louis McKechnie (21) and Ana Heytawin (58).

Louis McKechnie told the Big Issue after his release that the group will be employing different tactics this year: ‘I’m not sure…

1 February 2022News

Warning on climate, WMDs and misinformation

We’re still at 100 seconds to midnight – as close to ‘civilisation-ending apocalypse’ as we’ve ever been. That’s the view of the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists which, on 20 January, set its Doomsday Clock at 100 seconds to midnight for the third year running.

The board concluded that a positive change in US leadership was not enough ‘to reverse negative international security trends that had been long in developing and continued across the threat…

1 February 2022News

Nuclear weapons states say 'nuclear war can never be won' as they upgrade their arsenals 

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) has forced the great powers to hand over a present in time for its first birthday (it ‘entered into force’ on 22 January 2021).

The crappy birthday present was a joint statement of five declared nuclear-weapon states on 3 January.

Britain, China, France, Russia and the US used language first adopted by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and US president Ronald Reagan in November 1985: ‘We affirm that a nuclear war cannot be…

1 February 2022Feature

A revealing map of the world

Image File PEA012-13-FEB-MAR2022_ISSUE2658_SPREAD.pdf1.99 MB Click on the link above for a large PDF file version of the above map

1 December 2021Feature

Photo by Huw Powell

Drive2Survive activists marked the 10th anniversary of the eviction of Dale Farm in Essex by revisiting the wasteland left behind after the biggest eviction in British peacetime. In October 2011, around 200 bailiffs evicted 80 families from Dale Farm, Europe’s largest Traveller site, over three days. Caravans and buildings were removed or demolished. Drive2Survive is a coalition of Romany Gypsy, Irish Traveller, nomadic activists and community organisations opposed to the Police, Crime,…

1 December 2021News

PN surveys 13 days of action at the UN climate summit

This is a small sample of what happened in Glasgow during the COP26 climate talks! Almost all these events were organised by the COP26 Coalition, a UK-based climate justice coalition bringing together environment and development NGOs, trade unions, grassroots community campaigns, faith groups, youth groups, migrant and racial justice networks and more. Behind the scenes, the coalition also: ran a visa support service; mobilised people across Scotland to open their homes for a Homestay…

1 December 2021Feature

Unfreeze $9bn of Afghan reserves held abroad, says CODEPINK

The people of Afghanistan are facing ‘hell on earth’ in the next six months.

That’s what the executive director of the UN World Food Programme said in early November.

David Beasley told the BBC the situation in Afghanistan had become ‘as bad as you can possibly imagine’: ‘In fact, we’re now looking at the worst humanitarian crisis on Earth. Ninety-five percent of the people don’t have enough food, and now we’re looking at 23 million people marching toward starvation. Out of…

1 October 2021News

XR Scotland issues guidelines for Glasgow climate protests

XR Scotland is asking all XR rebels coming to COP26 from outside Scotland to live by a ‘Rebel Agreement’. Here are three of the five points:

1) ‘We will be led by, listen to, learn from, and consult with communities at the front lines of the climate and ecological crisis: those who bear the least responsibility and suffer the greatest consequences, including Indigenous peoples, vulnerable nations of the Global South, and young people everywhere.
  4) ‘We will consider the impact…

1 October 2021News

Paralympian jailed for airport action

On 24 September, Paralympic gold medallist James Brown, 56, was sentenced to 12 months in prison for an Extinction Rebellion (XR) action at London City Airport during XR’s October 2019 ‘Rebellion’.

This first custodial sentence for an XR action was imposed for the offence of causing ‘a public nuisance’.

Alanna Byrne, of Extinction Rebellion UK, said: ‘We are shocked and devastated by this news.’

Human rights activist Peter Tatchell tweeted: ‘It’s an excessively harsh…

1 October 2021News

What you need to know if you're heading to COP26

Most of us aren’t going to COP26, but for those who are thinking about it, here’s some information that may be useful.

Walking to Glasgow

A+E (an eco-art group based at St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral, Edinburgh) are organising a Pilgrimage for COP26, ‘a walk and a learning journey’, from Dunbar to Glasgow from 17 – 31 October. Participating organisations include: Deep Time Walk Project; Interfaith Edinburgh, Glasgow and Scotland; John Muir’s Birthplace; North Light Arts and…

1 October 2021News

PN surveys a variety of ways that you can take action in the run up to this November's Climate Summit

Whether or not you’re going to Glasgow, here are some actions you can take for climate justice this year.

You can join or set up a COP26 Coalition local hub (see p1) and take action on 6 November: cop26coalition.org There are #DefundClimateChaos protests on 29 October, mostly in London at the time of going to press: defundclimatechaos.uk You – and your group – can sign this petition asking COP26 to…

1 October 2021News

Fortnight of protests against fossil fuel investments

At the end of August, the climate action group Extinction Rebellion (XR) struck a new note, politically, when it began its latest two-week ‘rebellion’ in London. It put a much more achievable demand at the centre of its protests: the UK government must stop all new fossil fuel investment immediately.

The actions mostly focused on disrupting the heart of finance in the UK, the City of London, though there were also occupations of the Science Museum, Oxford Circus, and (in Woking) the…

1 October 2021News

Britain's coastal military nuclear infrastructure 'profoundly vulnerable to flooding'

Climate change could flood Faslane naval base, home to Britain’s Trident nuclear missile submarine force. That’s one conclusion of Climate Impact – UK Nuclear Military, a report released in September by the independent research institute, the Nuclear Consulting Group (NCG).

Climate Impact says that; ‘Present UK coastal military nuclear infrastructure is profoundly vulnerable to flooding from sea-level rise, storm intensity and storm surge – with inland nuclear…

1 October 2021Comment

During COP26, protest in Glasgow or where you live

The COP26 Coalition has called a Global Day of Action for Climate Justice for Saturday 6 November, halfway through the COP26 climate negotiations in Glasgow.

They are calling on people to either come to Glasgow for a national demonstration or to take action nearer to home.

There will be a People’s Summit for Climate Justice from 7 – 10 November.

The COP26 Coalition is a UK-based civil society coalition of groups and individuals mobilising around climate justice during…