Imagine setting out today, in 2024, to launch a petition, inviting all women over the age of 18 living in Wales to sign. Then, imagine succeeding in gathering 390,296 signatures. Then, imagine a war-less world and a world free from the trafficking of women and children, drugs and weapons.
All wonders difficult to imagine. But without the imagining, such ideals can never be realised. This is the kind of imagining that comes from hope – if we understand hope, not as sitting back,…
It is challenging and frustrating to read in this book about the efforts nations have put into making war more palatable.
For most people, the idea of a ‘humane’ war is a contradiction in terms, particularly now as we watch Putin’s aggressive war in Ukraine unfold. Samuel Moyn quotes the Prussian general and military theorist Carl von Clausewitz: ‘The fact that slaughter is a horrifying spectacle must make us take war more seriously.’
Clausewitz also warned that laws on the…
Paul Rogers gives an update on the Ukraine crisis, in the context of the legacy of the Cold War's proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; the impact of human activity on the global ecosystem; the growth of hypercapitalism and resulting poverty and insecurity; the competition for energy resources and strategic minerals; biological warfare programmes; and paramilitary actions against centres of power.
Paul calls for a radical re-thinking of western perceptions of security that…
The talk can be watched here.
This is an awful subject to try and talk about. What I’d like to try and do, is try and look back and see how we’ve got to here, why it has happened, what has happened and where we are two weeks into this war, and what might happen next and what might be the best sort of outcome we could look for.
I won’t go into any detail in any one area because there is an awful…
Paul Rogers gives an overview of the crisis and how we got here. Paul calls for a radical re-thinking of western perceptions of security that embraces a willingness to address the core issues of global insecurity.
Paul Rogers is emeritus professor of Peace Studies in the Department of Peace Studies and International Relations at Bradford University, northern England and an honorary fellow at the Joint Service Command and Staff College. His latest book is the fourth edition of 'Losing…
Currently writing for the Independent and the London Review of Books, Patrick Cockburn is one of the most experienced foreign correspondents working in the Middle East today.
His latest book is largely made up of short-form reportage based on writings and diary entries at the time of the events being covered, alongside some contextualising retrospective explanation.
Covering the first term of the Trump administration, which Cockburn argues has been populated…
RT Howard is a writer specialising in intelligence and ‘defence’. His latest book looks at ‘individuals who were responsible for starting, conducting or extending an unnecessary war or show of force.’
Echoing the broad tenets of ‘Just War’ theory, four examples of what constitutes an ‘unnecessary war’ are provided: the decision to pursue military force rather than diplomacy or negotiations; the use of excessive force; ‘war undertaken for no obvious reason’; and futile wars.
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Indians and Pakistanis used social media to try to prevent war at the end of February.
After a Pakistan-based Kashmiri insurgent group blew up an army convoy in Indian-occupied Kashmir on 14 February, Indian fighter jets crossed into Pakistani airspace on 27 February, prompting a retaliatory strike later the same day by Pakistani jets.
Two Indian planes were shot down and the situation was very tense.
US news agency CNN analysed the response to these events…
On 27 February, Bike for Peace launched its 2019 ride from Westminster Hall in the houses of parliament, London.
The tour will go onto France, India, China, Australia, New Zealand and the US. It will promote the need for a nuclear-weapons-free world, the value of cycling as a mode of transport, and the importance of the UN for nuclear disarmament.
A Norwegian group, Bike for Peace was established in 1978 by Tore Naerland, a 90 percent blind peace campaigner who rides on…
Imagine a network of schools across Wales actively embedding a peaceful ethos and applying peace-related learning activities to their everyday lives.
This is what the Wales Peace Schools Scheme is aiming to achieve. The project is a legacy of the Heritage Lottery-funded ‘Wales for Peace’ project which ran during the period of the centenary of the First World War.
The Peace Schools scheme has now been integrated into the global learning programme of the Welsh Centre for…
Noted historian Margaret MacMillan took war as her theme in five Reith Lectures she delivered for the BBC in mid-2018.
The overall title of the lecture series was ‘The Mark of Cain’, referring to the story in the Hebrew Bible of the first murderer. Cain, the oldest child of Adam and Eve, murdered his brother Abel, then denied his crime. According to scripture, God cursed Cain and put a mark on him – the Hebrew is not clear whether this was a physical mark on his body…
Noted historian Margaret MacMillan took war as her theme in five Reith Lectures she delivered for the BBC in mid-2018.
The overall title of the lecture series was ‘The Mark of Cain’, referring to the story in the Hebrew Bible of the first murderer. Cain, the oldest child of Adam and Eve, murdered his brother Abel, then denied his crime. According to scripture, God cursed Cain and put a mark on him – the Hebrew is not clear whether this was a physical mark on his body or some kind…
Noted historian Margaret MacMillan took war as her theme in five Reith Lectures she delivered for the BBC in mid-2018.
The overall title of the lecture series was ‘The Mark of Cain’, referring to the story in the Hebrew Bible of the first murderer. Cain, the oldest child of Adam and Eve, murdered his brother Abel, then denied his crime. According to scripture, God cursed Cain and put a mark on him – the Hebrew is not clear whether this was a physical mark on his body or…
Lino etching: Emily Johns
Displayed during Peace News’ The World is My Country exhibition in November at Hastings Arts Forum, St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex. It is one of the occasional pictures that I have made of my family history and how my personal stories intersect with the century of war. My grandmother…
Each year, around Remembrance Day, people all over the UK uphold the memory of those who have died in war. Some people wear red poppies to remember allied soldiers. Others wear white poppies to remember civilians and soldiers killed in war and to express their hope for a culture of peace.
This year, the St John Ambulance volunteer first aid group announced it would…
