News

The VCNV UK delegation was hosted in Kabul by the Afghan Peace Volunteers, who have fought for the UN to enforce a ceasefire in Afghanistan, bringing a peaceful end to the war. 

The dialogues that VCNV UK has been holding with the Afghan Peace Volunteers and other similar groups has created a new discourse surrounding the war in Afghanistan, with VCNV UK writing on their blog: ‘Afghans are sick and tired of war and of living with fear and insecurity.… We heard from everyone that…

‘The state is not a person, it is all of us,
And we all have to choose the way it goes.
Do we choose life?
Do we choose death?
Do we collude in murder?’
(From Trident: a British War Crime by Camilla Cancantata)

On 16 October, on the steps of the Senedd in Cardiff, people came and sang, other people came and spoke out, and a gaggle of Rebel Clowns and three great big red dragons staged the downfall of a nuclear…

As the UK doubles its fleet of armed Reaper drones in Afghanistan and starts shifting their control to British soil, new figures have underlined the lack of credibility of UK claims concerning civilian deaths at the hands of these remotely-piloted killing machines.

On 26 October, Number 13 Squadron was reformed at RAF Waddington, from where it will start piloting five new British Reapers in early December. Until now, British Reapers have been piloted by RAF personnel from Creech air…

Newport made history on Remembrance Day, when a white poppy wreath was laid alongside red poppy wreaths on the invitation of the local British Legion branch, after being approached by Wales Green Party leader, Pippa Bartolotti.

In Aberystwyth, the town council laid a white poppy wreath for the ninth year running, and the town of Narberth held a remembrance service for all victims of war, laying a white-and-red poppy wreath.

Please help an Afghan family survive this winter, by giving a donation to the Peace News Kabul Winter Appeal. Please make your donation before Friday 21 December to enable us to send your contribution directly to the camp, with nothing deducted for administration, at the beginning of January.

300 families live in the Chamne Babak refugee camp on a derelict site in District 2 of Kabul. They have no access to electricity or clean water. Most of them returned to Afghanistan in early…

The Israeli-initiated conflict over Gaza in mid-November, which left 105 Palestinian civilians and four Israeli civilians dead, began with the assassination of a hard-line Hamas military leader who was contemplating a long truce with Israel, according to a leading Israeli peace activist.

‘The assassination of Jaabari was a pre-emptive strike against the possibility of a long-term…

On 18 November, hundreds of Kurdish prisoners in Turkey ended a 68-day hunger strike at the request of Abdullah Ocalan, imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The hunger strike had spread from the prisoners to wider society, threatening a mass upheaval.

The fast began on 12 September as 670 Kurdish prisoners demanded changes in the law to allow education and court hearings in the Kurdish language, and for the start of peace talks between the PKK and the government,…

They don’t want us to know.

They want us to forget that the anti-war movement managed to shake the warmongers to their bones, and make them scramble to draw up new plans.

Spread the word about ‘Wobbly Tuesday’.

It’s 5am. In Parc y Llyn, post-apocalyptic ghost-town of Aberystwyth’s questionable retail expectations, a coach-load of demonstrators clutches banners and sandwich boxes. A motley crew of students and trade unionists right enough, but united in our determination to speak back to an unfeeling government.

It’s 20 October, and we’re heading for ‘A future that works’, the TUC March in London. It’s a 12-hour round-trip but we have to express our feelings of frustration in the face of the…

Zombie roads hungry for public money gather outside the office of Hastings MP Amber Rudd, 30 October. Photo: Milan Rai

On 30 October, campaigners against the Bexhill-Hastings Link Road (BHLR) staged a battle between ‘road busters’ and ‘zombie roads’ outside the office of Hastings MP Amber Rudd.

Combe Haven Defenders wanted to highlight her role – and that of the chancellor, George Osborne, to whom she is parliamentary private…

The British government is attempting to overturn a moratorium on the transfer of Afghans captured by British forces to the Afghan secret police (NDS), despite longstanding accusations by a Canadian diplomat that NDS director Asadullah Khalid ‘was known to personally torture people’ in a dungeon under his guest house in Kandahar.

In May, the UK was forced to halt all transfers…

On 19 November, following the Trident Ploughshares (TP) annual meeting in London, 15 TP members headed to the UK headquarters of arms manufacturer Lockheed Martin:  Cunard House, 15 Lower Regent St. Two people climbed up beside the doors, others leafleted and held banners across the entrance: ‘Lockheed Martin Maker of Weapons of Mass Murder’ and ‘Use Your Skills For Peace’.

Lockheed Martin has a £3.5bn contract from the British government to design and build a new generation of…

Last week I received an email from a friend in England who seemed amazed that independence issues like the forced removal of Trident and NATO membership were getting quite radical coverage in the Scottish media. Their surprise was framed in a way that suggested few people south of the border are fully aware of the scale of the Scottish independence debate and the potential it has to force nuclear disarmament on the UK.

There is no doubt that independence is a subversive demand that…

In late September, more than 300 children from 10 schools in and around Wrexham took part in locally-organised 'World Peace Days' focused on peace, conflict resolution and nonviolent resistance.

The three-day event (20-22 September) took place in a school on one day and then on the library green. Grassroots activists, musicians, poets, artists, cooks, holistic therapists, photographers and film-makers…

On 13 October, the eight-day 90-mile Drones Peace Walk reached RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire, to be met by campaigners from around the UK, all protesting against the opening of the first armed drone base on British soil.

The RAF's pilotless killer drones in Afghanistan are currently operated from a base in Nevada, USA – they will soon be operated from RAF Waddington.

The walk, which was…

On 10 October, the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) celebrated a victory in helping to break sponsorship links between arms manufacturer Finmeccanica and London's National Gallery. The news came just days after CAAT heard that it had won a Right Livelihood Award, known as the 'alternative Nobel Prize', given by a Stockholm-based foundation.

The National Gallery ended its long-standing…

Scotland's first minister Alex Salmond (of the Scottish Nationalist Party, SNP) has announced that if Scots vote for independence in the 2014 referendum, the nation's new constitution would explicitly outlaw nuclear weapons.

The proposal was announced on 7 October, a day after the pro-independence Scottish Green…

Two census resisters had their trials continued in early October, with Andy Manifold due to return to court on 19 October and Sarah Ledsom hoping to finish her trial on 23 November. Both are at Dale St magistrates' court in Liverpool.

400 people in Britain have been or are being prosecuted for failing to fill out the 2011 census. 

Among them are a number of peace activists who objected to the involvement in the census of military firms Lockheed Martin (processing the data for…

As US-led economic sanctions tighten around its economy, the Iranian government is once again indicating its willingness to negotiate a compromise over its nuclear programme.

On 12 October, foreign ministry spokesperson Ramin Mehmanparast said: 'Iran is ready to show flexibility to remove concerns within a legal framework' - he added: 'but such measures should be reciprocal'. 

…

While campaigning against drone strikes reached new heights this autumn, including the Imran Khan convoy in Pakistan, the last two months were dominated by two drone-related reports.

The British government has spent or committed £2bn towards developing and deploying pilotless military drones, and it plans to spend at least another £2bn on developing and deploying an armed drone called 'Scavenger',…