Comment

On the last evening of the World Social Forum, I was standing in the Azad Maidan, surveying the crowds and getting ready for the evening's concert. Two eager young men who suddenly came forward and began to introduce themselves interrupted that moment of reverie... “Good evening sir”, said the first, “I am Francisco DSa, from the Citizens Peace Committee of Rawalpindi”. After a few minutes of talking, he said, “Oh, we are hoping to meet with as many Indians as possible while we are here. We…

In October, George W Bush began a round of state visits to Asian and European countries. Peter Burt reports on the impact of the US president's visit to Thailand during the APEC talks.The problem is, the Thai government always obeys the US administration. They should realisethat a free trade agreement with the US would hurt Thai farmers. And Thailand might become a terrorist target if we support the US war on terrorism. Suriyasai Katasila, secretary general of Thailand's Campaign…

Not many people are aware that every year more than 60 young men are sentenced to six and a half months of imprisonment because of their refusal to take part in the system of compulsory military service in Finland. This makes Finland the only European Union country in which Amnesty International says there are prisoners of conscience.

There is still a very extensive conscription system in Finland.…

In July 2003, the European Convention presented a draft European Union Constitution, consisting of 260 pages, divided into four chapters, plus several appendices and additional agreements which will also have constitutional status. While this constitution puts all the different EU treaties (with the exception of Euratom) into one huge document, that's not all it is.

Even the European Commission had to admit that it “completely rewrites the originals”, as far as foreign actions and…

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…

Although not forseen by the political pundits of the time, the salt campaign launched by Mahatma Gandhi and the Congress Party in India became the key nonviolent direct action campaign to achieve freedom from British rule.

At the outset of the campaign, a New York Times correspondent asked Gandhi what he hoped to achieve by the campaign, and what would happen if he were arrested at the beginning of the campaign. Gandhi answered that it wasn't a matter of winning or losing that…

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…

When WRI planned a visit to the South Caucasus, to develop co-operation with local groups on antimilitarism and conscientious objection, it was clear that this wouldn't be an easy task. However, it proved even more difficult than expected.

I arrived in Tbilisi in Georgia on 26 July, on an Aeroflot flight from Moscow. Georgia, which suffered a civil war in the early 1990s, still has two unresolved conflicts - Abkhazia and South Ossetia. While there is no war at present, neither is…

A few days before the bombing started, my friends Zaid and Asmaa and I decided, when the time came, we would be running through the streets of Baghdad together, tearing down Saddam portraits and letting down the tyres of US tanks. The fatal flaw in an otherwise perfect plan was that tanks don't have tyres, but it reflected what many Baghdadis told me. They did want rid of Saddam, but they wanted to do it themselves, not have the US and Britain invade and rescue - and impose their chosen…

The recent impasse on re-establishing the institutions of local government in Northern Ireland raises many questions, among them the goodwill of both the republican and unionist communities.

The postponement of elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly, until at least the autumn, is a disappointment, particularly as the normally volatile summer period is nearly upon us. It is usual to seek to blame one side for such an impasse, and, while there can be some point in this at times, it…

Over the past three years, one of the most frequently asked questions in Zimbabwe (and often asked of me by my 79-year old mother) has been “why are they not taking to the streets and doing something about the situation?” My reply has generally been “who do you mean by they and why are you not on the streets yourself?” But then I am not either!

Many people explain away their inaction by claiming they are not part of the critical mass (in other…

This article is being written as another war comes to an end, the war in Iraq. It is clear by now that the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein vanished under the heavy bombing of the American and British forces. Many rejoiced at the day when a government that persecuted and discriminated against its own people disappeared. The big question is what comes next.

To us as women's rights activists, the big concern is what will happen to women in a post-war Iraq. And, as women's groups that…

The most dangerous form of violence in South Asia is arguably the threat of nuclear war between India and Pakistan. It colours the statements made by the leaders of both countries and strengthens the extreme right wing in both countries, which feeds off and thrives on the fanaticism of its counterparts next door.

The rhetoric of war, whether it is made by George Bush, Ariel Sharon, Atal Bihari Vajpayee or Pervez Musharraf, gives the cue to these elements to indulge in more violence,…

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.

…

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…

To assess something which you're intimately involved with is difficult. While I was out of the main Dublin-London axis for the War Resisters' International Triennial Conference, “Stories and strategies - nonviolent resistance and social change”', I was nevertheless centrally involved.

This meant that while aware of much of what was happening, beforehand I was not so much in the whirlwind and during it I was too busy to engage in some of the conference. But in any case a…

The woman passed by, then came back and took a leaflet. She read it, and as a result came on her first political demonstration, in London, on 28 September 2002, with 400,000 others protesting against war on Iraq. She also brought her husband and her five-year-old son. She'd never been politically active before, but within weeks she'd set up a local anti-war group in her town.

This story was told to me by an anti-war activist in Northampton, who concluded by saying, “I used to wonder…

One of the special guests at Eurosatory this year was Mr Kalashnikov. His world famous invention - the Kalashnikov sub-machine gun - is now used in most conflicts across the globe. These same conflicts are what companies such as the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS), GIAT Industries, British Aerospace Systems (BAeS), and so on, need in order to keep global defence expenditures on the increase - and thus their profits. This is probably why Mr Kalashnikov, a venerable 83-…

International and grassroots peace groups are continuing to urge strong action to defuse the escalating tension between Pakistan and India over Kashmir - mostly out of fear for an “accidental” launch of a nuclear weapon.

The Kashmir flashpoint is the most dangerous nuclear threat in the world today, according to the Movement in India for Nuclear Disarmament (MIND), a New Delhi-based peace group. This is because the temptation to use nuclear weapons is the greatest during war or near-…