The leaders of the G8 countries (the eight most industrialised, wealthy and powerful countries) will meet at Gleneagles in Scotland on 6-9 July for discussion of international issues and to strengthen their relationships and appear for photo-shoots. These annual summits have become a focus for protests and actions, as activists try to unmask their hypocrisy and reclaim the agenda.
A number of actions and demos are already being organised about issues such as climate change, human…
On 15 May -- International Conscientious Objectors' Day -- activists from more than 10 countries (Bosnia-Hercegovina, Britain, Bulgaria, Croatia, Germany, Greece, Israel,Macedonia, Spain, Serbia, Montenegro, USA) demonstrated in Thessaloniki against the treatment of conscientious objectors in Greece.
The demonstration started atthe monument of Grigoris Lambrakis -- a Greek anti-nuclear campaigner who was murdered by fascists linked tothe military at that precise location in 1963 (…
Ceremonies to mark International COs' Day on 15 May are becoming more widespread in Britain, having taken place in at least seven cities this year. The day was established by War Resisters' International in 1982, and has since been a focus of anti-militarist events worldwide each year.
In Edinburgh, a ceremony involving both Green and Scottish Socialist MSPs included reading a list of Scottish COs who had suffered for their principles in the last two World Wars.
In the…
As an antidote to election nausea I have turned again to Lewis Carrol's Alice. Since both Tweedles have now decided that “playing by the rules” is the thing, the obvious passage is from Alice's trial:
At this moment the King,who had been for some time busily writing in his note-book,called out “Silence!” and read out from his book, “Rule Forty-two. All persons more than a mile high to leave the court.”
Everybody looked at Alice.
”I'm not a mile high,” said Alice.…
The Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), is up for review at the UN in New York between 2 and 27 May 2005.
This Peace News NPT special section provides a basic introduction to what the NPT is and focuses on what some British groups and NGOs are doing around the forthcoming Review Conference.
We aim to show the diversity in ways in which different groups are working towards disarmament. Some focus entirely on the treaty, collecting names for petitions or finding means to…
In the 1990s something extraordinary happened. We saw a treaty to stop the emission of the gases which cause climate change. And we saw the signing of a treaty to stop nuclear testing.
Building an atomic bomb which can fit on a long distance missile cannot be done without testing. Like successful heart surgery the skills needed to do it can't be put down on paper. It can only be done through regular practice which develops the tacit skills needed. The U2 song isn't utopian.…
It is outrageous that the nuclear weapons club still tries to ensure security by threatening to incinerate and irradiate enormous millions. This does not match the way most of us try to live. Nuclear weapons violate our values. When we believe something is outrageous we want it to be unlawful as well.
The concept of the “public conscience” links law and values. Our sense of justice says that all human beings matter and they should not suffer or die fortuitously, just because they…
CND has been working hard at local and national level, in parliament, in the media, and working closely with other groups, to raise awareness of the NPT and the 13 steps to nuclear disarmament agreed in 2000. It has been a lively and busy time, with debates, meetings, speeches, interviews, petitions and postcard campaigns.
Highlighting the UK' s shocking nuclear hypocrisy has -- sadly -- been all too easy . Peter Hain promised in 2000 that “we are unequivocally committed to the…
At the last NPT Review Conference in 2000, against all expectations, the 188 signatories, including the five acknowledged nuclear weapon states (NWS) agreed “an unequivocal undertaking by the NWS to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals leading to nuclear disarmament” as one of the Thirteen Steps drawn up to implement the Treaty. As Brian Wicker of Pax Christi writes, “You have to be a very clever lawyer or politician not to recognise this as a promise.”
“Counter-…Most of the nations of the world have joined the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which has its seventh Review Conference in New York this month. India, Israel and Pakistan remain outside, and North Korea announced its withdrawal from the treaty in 2003. Yet the NPT is weak and getting weaker, and forecasts suggest that the conference will fail to find solutions to the most pressing challenges.
Up to the job?Though the NPT is usually represented as a…
In Greece today, militarism manifests itself most visibly in the tens of thousands of young men who every year are obliged to perform compulsory military service.
Unlike most other EU member states, Greece still practises conscription, with the authorities demanding that all Greek males between the ages of 19 and 45 join the armed forces.
Greek men have declared their objection to compulsory military service since long before the right to conscientious objection was…
New moral conundrums (conundra?) for peace campaigners arrive for The Mole's attention. After last month's worries about the ethical (or not) sourcing of the material for military uniforms comes a sneaky suggestion from the Countryside Alliance.
The pro-hunting lobby are apparently talking with some of their rich land-owning supporters about ways of taking revenge on the government for its ban on hunting. They reckon that they could bring military training to a halt in many parts of…
Three months ago thefour remaining Britons held at Guantanamo Bay were released after being held in confinement for over three years. Yet the family of a British man, Babar Ahmad,30, fear he will face the same treatment if he is deported to the USA under the Extradition Act 2003.
Mr Ahmad is accused of using the internet to raise funds for terrorist/resistance groups in Chechnya and Afghanistan. His family strenuously deny this. Further to that, they ask why he should be extradited…
“It's not racist to impose limits on immigration.” This catch-all election slogan from the Conservative party can, conveniently, be interpreted in several ways. As can Labour's rather ambiguous “our country's borders protected”. What are they talking about?
Apart from being grammatically challenged, both manage to say everything and nothing in one vague non-sentence. So ask the questions: why do we need to impose limits on immigration and who do our borders need protecting from…
The Blackaby Papers are a series of occasional papers on defence and disarmament issues in memory of Frank Blackaby, sometime president of Abolition2000UK. The sixth paper -- available now -- is entitled “The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty: Rebuilding Confidence” and was written by Ernie Regehr, Director and CoFounder of Project Ploughshares. It is available free from http://www.abolition2000uk. gn.apc.org or for #2.50 by calling…
As the UK delegation to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference pack their suitcases, their speeches on verification and a shiny new presentation about some decommissioning they did several years ago, will they also have room in their briefcases for the Aldermaston Site Development Strategy Plan (SDSP?
We suspect that the government's massive investment in a new building programme at the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) Aldermaston won't quite fit into the…
Well m'darlings, today's Easter love-your-enemy-bunny is Sir Jock Stirrup. I kid you not.
His formal title is Air Chief Marshal Sir Graham Eric Stirrup. But inexplicably he prefers to be known as Jock.
His CV is so acronym-heavy it makes you proud. He's been an “OC 2” a “PSO”, a “CO RAF”, an “AOC No1”, a “FIMgt”, a “FRAeS”, a “KCB” and an “AFC”. Know what they stand for? Suggestions on a postcard please.
So you see, he knows a thing or two about planes, and was director…
In yet another delicious footnote to “the greatest corporate PR disaster in history” - as even mainstream commentators described the McLibel trial - it turns out that the leaflet criticising McDonald's now has an even larger circulation.
The ruling of the European Court of Human Rights that the McLibel Two didn't have a fair trial, and had their rights to freedom of expression infringed, naturally had to include the text of the offending leaflet in its judgement, which has been…
The biggest bully I knew at school joined the police force. Even at age 16 I thought this entirely logical.
On the other hand, Roy, who was one of my circle of friends, joined the army as a boy entrant. I knew he was lonely and sensed he was unhappy. His mother died when he was eight and he was brought up after a fashion by a succession of “aunts” who lived with his (often absent) father. We were appalled, but the prospect of two years' National Service faced us all and his…
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…
