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Challenging military recruitment practices in the UK and contributing to a wider understanding of peaceful alternatives to conflict, Forces Watch is a new network set up to:

Two issues ago, in the run-up to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference taking place this month in New York, we ran an article called: “The very, very least we should demand of the NPT”.

That article raised the issue of “negative security assurances” (NSAs), guarantees that nuclear weapons will not be used on non-nuclear-weapon states: “It is an absolute scandal that this is not part of the NPT. It is an absolute scandal that the nuclear disarmament…

This column purports to be a review of PVT West’s poetry but it requires confession. Pat was a friend and poet/performer with whom I worked from time to time for over 30 years. Take this into account.

When Pat died I wrote of her here. Two years on, a new book of her poems has, to my chagrin, made me realise I hadn’t appreciated how significant she was – and is. I knew she felt under-valued and I realise that I under-valued her too.

In her beautiful poem, “Lament”,…

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Hello everyone! This article here is supposed to be about how Peace News is getting on as a member of the 10:10 initiative to cut carbon emissions by 10% in 2010. For us, that mainly means using less electricity, switching off appliances and so on.

Anyhow, this month we respond to a criticism we’ve received of the 10:10 organisation. We’ve had a letter criticising 10:10 for accepting the carbon-cutting pledge of MBDA Missile Systems.

MBDA produces more than 3,000…

On 10 March, Gene Stoltzfus died in Fort Frances, Ontario, Canada when his heart stopped while he was bicycling near his home on the first spring-like day of the year. He is survived by his wife Dorothy Friesen and many peacemakers who stand on the broad shoulders of his 70 years of creative action.

Gene was the founding director of Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), an international faith-based organisation that sends teams of four to eight peacemakers to partner with local…

Five years ago, I went to visit [the former Labour Party leader] Michael Foot, when I was writing a history of CND. He was kind, witty and utterly committed to nuclear disarmament. His vision for nuclear abolition, here and internationally, was far-sighted.

It cannot have been lost on him that many of his views, for which he had been so pilloried in the past, are now common currency at the highest levels and across the political spectrum.

We talked about his role in…

We had a reunion recently after 20 years.

What was interesting was on two levels: people reflecting on what brought them into the action, into activism, the spark that brought us together; and then, 20 years later, seeing the different arcs those sparks drew in different directions and dimensions.

We were all drawn together for a moment from different paths and we all worked together, were active together, and then people went off in very different directions.

There…

Founded in 1969, Survival is the only international organisation supporting tribal peoples worldwide. It works closely with local indigenous organisations, and focus on tribal peoples who have the most to lose.

As educators, Survival promotes respect for tribal peoples’ cultures. As advocates, they provide a platform for tribal representatives to talk directly to the companies that are invading their land. As campaigners, they were the first in this field to use mass letter-…

Kate Hudson’s generous tribute and Pat Arrowsmith’s more critical remarks in this issue, capture different parts of Michael Foot’s legacy, a legacy which is entangled with the history of a broad section of the British peace movement.

On the question of war, Michael Foot distinguished himself in his middle years with his resolute opposition to “Suez” – the Anglo-French assault on Egypt in 1956. 26 years later, having become leader of the Labour party, Foot took a less…

It may seem a strange preoccupation for a pacifist, but I am very concerned about the injustices suffered by members of the armed forces.

I sometimes despair about the ignorance of the civilian public, particularly the peace movement, about the situation faced by soldiers. Their contracts of employment resemble those of eighteenth-century apprentices.

On 5 March, there was a Stop the War Coalition “Free Joe Glenton” demonstration in Colchester. Some soldiers ran past…

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Howard Zinn, US historian and activist, died in January of a heart attack at the age of 87. Perhaps best known as the author who challenged the status quo with A People’s History of the United States, Zinn was at the forefront of the early civil rights movement and anti-war protests against the Vietnam War.

“He was fearless,” Noam Chomsky said. “He said the right things, said them eloquently, and inspired others to move forward in ways they wouldn’t have done, and…

I don’t think I would label any of the emotions I have in relation to activism as “hatred”. But there are things that come close.

When I think of Tony Blair, it makes my blood boil, and I feel sick, but is “hate’ the right word? Maybe “hate” is too bland a word to capture my emotions towards people like that! Ah. There are people I really, really hate!

Bono. And Bob Geldof.

I don’t feel disgust towards them, like I do towards Blair, I actually hate them! Because of their…

The greatest pleasure in writing for PN has always been that its editors let me write about whatever catches my fancy. And my fancy is to write about anything I fancy will interest PN readers.

However, my piece on cowardice and bravery is currently on PN’s website and exemplifies how the net has changed my notion of “PN readers”. I used to regard them as comrades-in-(harmless)-arms; now they could just be serendipitous surfers.

It’s too late to change my writing…

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John Rety, former editor of the anarchist newspaper Freedom and good friend of Peace News, has died at the age of 79.

John had several passions apart from politics, including chess (“the most Bohemian player we are ever likely to meet”, said the late Bob Wade, former British chess champion) and poetry (“He ran the only truly democratic poetry reading venue, where anyone was allowed to get up and read one poem before a guest reader,” said poet Jehane Markham).

…

Colin Ward was the leading anarchist thinker and writer of post-war Britain. His was an anarchism that was at once constructive, creative and immensely practical. It drew critical, but sympathetic attention from many outside the anarchist movement. It still holds many lessons for the left.

Born in 1924 in London, Colin gravitated to the anarchist movement while serving in the army during the Second World War. Towards the end of the war, the anarchist newspaper Freedom (or War…

You may not believe this, but Peace News is now counting down to our 75th anniversary. Yes, Peace News began life on 6 June 1936! During 2011, our 75th year of existence, we will be springing a number of surprises.

Most of our “Remaking Peace News” projects are designed to get PN out to a wider readership, and to make PN more useful to a wider array of groups and movements. Some initiatives we will be keeping under wraps for now, some we can reveal. We will definitely be re-…

A PN editor from 1976-1982, Chris Jones continued helping with PN as a volunteer until June 1983. Chris died suddenly in his sleep on 6 December of heart failure. He had felt ill the previous day playing in a marching band in Oswestry where he lived, and returned home early.

Howard Clark writes: Chris began helping Peace News just as I was leaving. He had come to pacifism by a strange route – having joined the RAF after school, and first became a vegetarian and only later a pacifist.…