Editorial

Having worked as Editorial Assistant at Peace News for a year now, I've witnessed the hard work and dedication that goes into every issue. I've also observed the quiet way in which one or two ideas for stories will transform into a whole paper full of news. With Ippy taking a well deserved break this month, I fretted over where I would find stories to fill the pages of PN. Like others, I had underestimated the peace movement. Every week, groups of concerned citizens are taking…

Terrorist atrocities are a daily occurrence around the world. Bizarrely, a cutting from the 6 July Times was lying on the floor of the meeting room at Caledonian Road; found on 7 July, the headline read “The 28,000 victims of terrorism” and was a report o

The Labour government may have received a good “telling off” at the polls last month but, even with their much-reduced parliamentary majority, they have wasted no time in setting out a controversial agenda for this term.

Through the Queen's Speech and the unseemly haste with which non-elected advisers - such as Andrew Adonis - were pushed through the back door into positions of influence, no-one can be in doubt about the authoritarian course this government has chosen.

The…

March was a good month for taking nonviolent action, all over Britain and beyond - as the positive and energising stories and images in this month's Peace News show.

This issue of PN only manages to squeeze in reports on a small proportion of these actions but, rest assured, there are many more taking place each and every week.

Politicians and commentators may publicly wring their hands in despair at “voter apathy”, but they fail to recognise (or are disturbed by) the…

This issue of Peace News has been produced against the backdrop of war on Iraq and, in particular, the attacks on Fallujah.

While the editorial team spent their evenings deciding on the right font for a heading, warplanes and mortars struck fear into the hearts of ordinary people thousands of miles away.

It's distressing to see the blatant hypocrisy, lies, inconsistencies and ironies surrounding this war and to realise that many of the public - and, it seems, much of…

It is hard to believe that, just ten years after the genocide in Rwanda, new reports of massacres against Tutsis by Hutus have started coming in.

As PN went to press more than 150 Tutsi refugees were reported to have been macheted and shot by a Hutu during a raid on a nearby Burundian military base.

As Peace News went to press the 2004 Olympics had just kicked off.

Like music, sport is often said to be a great bridger of divides. It can bring…

The latest series of revelations regarding the torture and inhuman and degrading treatment of Iraqi prisoners by Coalition forces make for yet more depressing and horrible news.

However, the dominant discussion - in the west at least - has centred on a misplaced ideal: that the “rules” of war are observed and that citizens should expect their government and militaries to “play nice” and that, accordingly, we should be outraged when they don't.

Not to detract from the terrible…

The fact that George W Bush's military record (or lack of) is of such concern to the US public (or certainly the US and international media), illustrates how militarised masculinity continues to be seen as a criterion on which the ability to lead a country is judged. Pitched up against a “real” veteran, even George W, leader of the “war on terror” has been found wanting.

The US peace movement needs our help.
More information and contacts at:…

Perhaps 2003 will be remembered as the year the world's nuclear states (and aspiring ones) began another chapter in the development of genocidal weapons of mass destruction. Hopefully not.

In early November, while commenting on Iran's cooperation with nuclear inspections, Mr El Baradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency warned that somewhere between 35 and 40 countries were believed to now have the ability to build nuclear weapons.

During the…

As Peace News went to press, US conscientious objector Stephen Funk was about to stand trial (scheduled for 4 September) in a military court for “desertion”.

In February 2003 his unit was called up to “serve” in the war on Iraq. Funk failed to report for “duty”, though for the next six weeks he kept in touch with his commanders while continuing the process of formally applying for CO status. A man with an activist history (WTO protests, supporting political prisoners etc…

War is not an inevitable fact of life - though it may seem so when we look at the entirety of human history - it is something that we create.

The long build-up to the war on Iraq, the disastrous mess the occupiers have created (and no doubt, eventually, will leave behind) may appear to be just another sorry chapter - a predictable consequence of the global power structures and aspirations of our, predominantly, militarist, capitalist, mode of operating.

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What are you? Some kind of apologist for Saddam? In our binary world it is not an unexpected question; apparently you are either “for” us or “against” us, things are always “right” or “wrong”. It is a way of thinking - indeed a lens through which to view the whole world - that has been vastly encouraged over the past 18 months, during the course of the “war on terror”. It is a very convenient way of approaching problems because it completely avoids dealing with any kind of context or…

On 26 September 2002, British freelance TV journalist Roddy Scott was killed after being shot in the head while filming in Ingueshetia. He was murdered while covering the ongoing war between Chechen separatist fighters and Russian state forces.

In a statement released by his family shortly after his untimely death they said: “Whether it was Kurds, Chechens, Afghans or Palestinians, he was committed to ensuring that issues were not sidelined and received the international attention…

Just in case anyone needed a reminder as to the motivation for any of us involved in taking action against militarism and all its symptoms, the British government published its own report into arms exports from Britain during 2001.

At once the Peace News office started getting odd emails from around the world containing some of the details in the report. The contents are of great concern to activists in many parts of the world. And so they should be, because the report -…

It seems the Tamil Tigers have begun to take small steps towards at least the possibility of a change, away from the violent tactics of their lengthy "liberation" struggle against the Sri Lankan government. Was it - as reported in some of the mainstream press the pressure being brought to bear by the "war on terror" that prompted them?

Unlikely perhaps, but not completely implausible, and that's certainly what the “war on terror's” promulgators…