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20 July 2021Feature

PN reviews the 56th Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition

A fire burns out of control in Maranhão state, northeastern Brazil, in this striking image from the 2020 Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition – one with a salutary message for all of us in this crucial year for the earth’s climate, writes Gabriel Carlyle.

The fire would have been started deliberately to clear a logged area of secondary forest for agriculture or cattle farming, leading Charlie Hamilton James – who has been covering deforestation in the Amazon for the past…

20 July 2021Feature

Five women involved in PN share their reactions to the murder of Sarah Everard

The disappearance of Sarah Everard from Clapham Common in South London on 3 March. The arrest of a Metropolitan police officer, Wayne Couzens, on suspicion of involvement on 9 March. The discovery of Sarah’s body in Kent the next day. These events led to a national upheaval over the issue of male violence against women. We asked women involved in PN to share their reactions.

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Claire Poyner

Sara Everard’s murder was indeed shocking. Not surprising,…

15 February 2021Blog

PN launches new survey of UK campaigners

Press release, 15 February 2021

“HAVE YOU GOT A STORY OF SUCCESSFUL ANTI-RACIST ACTION?” NEW SURVEY ASKS

15 February: A new survey of UK activists has been launched today (Monday 15 February), with the aim of encouraging campaigners from across a broad range of social movements to share their stories of success in winning concrete gains for people targeted by racism – and in making their groups, events, spaces and projects more racially-inclusive.

Long-time radical…

9 December 2020Feature

A powerful Democracy Now! interview on the risk of a coup in the US, the climate crisis and the nuclear arms race

We’re glad to be able to present the transcript of an interview of respected US social critic Noam Chomsky on the radical US TV/radio programme, Democracy Now! The interview was carried out on 23 July by hosts Amy Goodman and Nermeen Shaikh.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! democracynow.org The Quarantine Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

Barely 100 days before the presidential election in November, this week president Trump announced he is sending a surge…

8 December 2020Feature

PN and friends reflect on the UK's December 2019 general election

On 12 December, the Conservative party won a landslide victory in the general election in Britain, turning Boris Johnson’s minority government into one enjoying an 80-seat majority. It is widely believed that two of the biggest factors were the public’s desire to ‘Get Brexit done’ (the Conservative slogan) and its distrust of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn (after years of lies and smears directed at him).

The parties most in favour of nuclear disarmament did quite well.

The…

19 November 2020Feature

Pre-war art by Emily Johns

On 3 July 1988, Iran Air Flight 655, a commercial flight inside a commercial air corridor, was shot down by one of the US navy’s most technologically-advanced cruisers, the USS Vincennes. All 290 passengers and crew aboard were killed, including 66 children. Few of the bodies recovered were complete. The US government never admitted wrongdoing and never apologised for the destruction of Flight 655.

This image is from Drawing Paradise on the ‘Axis of Evil’ an exhibition by…

1 June 2019News

Assange faces 175 years in prison as Manning reimprisoned

Julian Assange, London, 2014. Photo: david G Silvers [CC BY-SA 2.0]

Julian Assange is facing 175 years in prison for his investigative journalism if he is extradited to the US and convicted of the 18 charges filed against him by the US government.

Meanwhile, US whistleblower Chelsea Manning was jailed on 16 May for refusing (for a second time) to give evidence against the WikiLeaks founder.

Assange is being charged under the US Espionage Act 1917, mainly for obtaining…

1 February 2019News

Arms trade protested in London and Brussels

Monique D’hooghe demonstrates in Brussels on 29 November. Photo: Vredesactie

On 23 January, there was a noisy ‘Stop arming Saudi’ protest outside an arms dealers’ dinner at the Grosvenor House hotel in central London.

There was a sit-down blockade of the hotel, as guests filed into the aerospace, defence & security group’s annual dinner. The guest of honour was former home secretary, Labour MP Alan Johnson.

Andrew Smith of Campaign Against Arms Trade said: ‘Many of…

1 February 2019News

Anti-nuke campaigners in court this April

Photo: Awel Irene.

Four Welsh Trident Ploughshares members who took part in a blockade of the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Burghfield appeared in court on 22 November (above). The three entrances to the Burghfield nuclear warhead factory were closed down at 6.30am on 24 October, preventing workers from entering. The four are part of a group of eight who will appear before Reading magistrates’ court on 23–24 April charged with ‘willfully obstructing the highway’.

1 February 2019News

New date for Germany's 'coal exit' good news for ancient forest but still 'disastrous' for climate

Barricade in Hambach Forest 23 September 2018 Photo: Leuni (CC BY-SA 4.0) from Wikimedia Commons

There is mixed news on one of Europe’s climate front lines, as activists have forced a German government commission to effectively rule out further coal-mining in the ancient Hambach forest near Cologne, while setting an inadequate (‘disastrous’) date for ending the use of coal in Germany.

Coal currently accounts for 40 percent of energy in Germany. In Britain, it’s around 10…

1 February 2019News

Doomsday clock still 'closest it has ever been to apocalypse'

The world remains as dangerous as it’s ever been. On 24 January, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Science and Security Board revealed that its famous Doomsday Clock remained set at two minutes to midnight, ‘the closest it has ever been to apocalypse’.

The clock setting was designed to highlight ‘an unacceptable reality that remains largely unrecognized by the public at large: The future of the world is now in extreme danger from multiple intersecting and potentially…

1 October 2018News

Voter registration drives happening in over 40 states in run up to November mid-terms

Following a massive wave of civil disobedience in May–June which led to 2,500 arrests (see PN 2620–2621), the new Poor People’s Campaign in the US has committed to a voter registration campaign in over 40 states.

Without endorsing particular candidates, the aim is to make poor people a significant force in the mid-term elections on 6 November. That’s when all members of the house of representatives, a third of senators, most governors and many local officials across the US will be…

1 October 2018News

Campaigners demand free language lessons for migrants

Welsh language campaigners called for free Welsh language lessons for migrants during this year’s Eisteddfod. While English lessons are funded by the UK Government for refugees and asylum-seekers in Wales, there is no provision for Welsh lessons.

Swansea University’s Dr Gwennan Higham commented that the Welsh government and the Home Office both downplay the importance of any language other than ‘superior’ English to the lives of immigrants in Wales.

Toni Schiavone from…

1 June 2018News in Brief

On 9 April, the People’s Weapons Inspectors visited a Roxel arms factory in Worcestershire that manufactures components for Brimstone missiles. An order for 1,000 Brimstones has been placed by the Saudi military, which uses them in Yemen.

Inspectors came from the Christian-Quaker direct action group ‘Put Down the Sword’ and from the London Catholic Worker. Some weapons inspectors blocked the main entrance for over five hours by ‘locking-on’ to each other with arm tubes. Others met…

1 June 2018Feature

Reflections from inside Camden County detention centre by three of the Kings Bay Ploughshares prisoners

Kings Bay Ploughshares activist Clare Grady at the admin building on 5 April, with blood and banner. Photo: Kings Bay Ploughshares


Elizabeth McAlister:

Absurd Convictions, Modest Hopes is the title of one of the more than 50 books by my late brother-in-law Daniel Berrigan (RIP and Presente!). It might be fair to say that we came to Kings Bay submarine base animated by the absurd conviction that we could make some impact on slowing, if not ending, the mad…