Over 350 people, most of them on their bikes, gathered outside the office of the Scottish government in Edinburgh on 11 January. They came to support Stop Climate Change’s campaign to increase funding for cycling and walking instead of expensive road-building programmes that will increase Scotland’s carbon footprint.
Scotland has shown global leadership by setting the most ambitious emissions reduction targets in the world, including a target to reduce Scotland’s emissions by 42% (…
On 2 January, Scottish members of a “Stop the JNF” delegation joined trade unionists and Stop the Wall campaigners to re-plant trees as part of a new project in a previously devastated area of Palestine.
The group, which included people from a nearby refugee camp, planted 111 trees, representing the number of years since the foundation of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) which plays a key role in Israel’s policy of displacing and dispossessing Palestinians.
Non-Jewish people are…
The Occupy LSX library outside St Paul's Cathedral, November 2011. PHOTO: Milan Rai
With bitterly cold winter weather affecting camps, the US Occupy movement is focusing on this year’s US presidential and legislative elections, set for November. The movement also organised a number of activities to mark the Martin Luther King Jr holiday in January. Occupy US is also planning a “Shut Down The Corporations Day” scheduled for 29 February.
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A number of activists refused to fill in the 2011 national census because of their objection to the involvement of military firm Lockheed Martin in processing the data.
Census resister Judith Sambrook, 47, pleaded not guilty at Wrexham magistrates court on 11 November; her case was adjourned to Mold magistrates court on 8 December.
On 8 December, Sarah Ledsom, 56, is due to appear at Liverpool magistrates court for failing to complete the 2011 census form.
Former Oxford…
US Special Forces in Afghanistan killed as many as 1,500 civilians in night raids by ground forces during nine months spanning 2010 and early 2011, according to an estimate produced by Gareth Porter, a US journalist for Inter Press Services (IPS).
Porter’s estimate is of especial interest as accurate information about civilians killed by NATO forces is hard to come by, not least because NATO rarely admits to killing any civilians, unless forced to do so by independent media coverage (…
On 15 November, Afghan president Hamid Karzai demanded that NATO stop carrying out night raids on Afghan homes as a condition for a long-term US military presence.
As the following list of headlines makes clear, Karzai is powerless to control the occupation.
“Karzai: Stop the Air Strikes”, CBS News, 28 October 2007
“Afghan official says US-led air raid kills 22 civilians”, Reuters, 4 July 2008
“Afghanistan demands end to Nato air strikes on villagers”, Guardian,…
The RAF reported recently that the 200th British drone strike had taken place in Afghanistan. In October, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ) reported that the 300th CIA drone strike in Pakistan had just taken place, while amidst the frenzy of reporting around the death of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi , the Pentagon revealed that the US had carried out 145 drones strikes in Libya.
But statistics do not tell the whole story. Occasionally we are given glimpses into the human…
On 4 November, the latest attempt to break the siege of Gaza ended when Israeli defence forces (IDF) boarded two ships in international waters, before taking them to the Israeli port of Ashdod.
The two ships, Saoirse (“freedom”) from Ireland and the Tahrir (“liberation”) from Canada, were carrying 27 passengers (including Irish MEP Paul Murphy and an Egyptian reporter) and $30,000 worth of medicine and supplies.
Dr Fintan Lane, aboard Saoirse, said: “The boats were corralled to…
The 30 November strikes by 24 unions in Britain (the biggest for several generations), the protests in Greece and Spain, the global wave of Occupy camps, and the student protests are all caused by the way that governments are reacting to the financial crisis of 2008.
Governments could have chosen to respond by tightening regulation on reckless financial institutions, by redistributing wealth and power and by protecting the poor and the vulnerable from the crisis. Instead, governments…
On 10 November, a Paris court gave four men working for EDF, the French nuclear energy company, fines and prison sentences for a surveillance operation in 2006 that included hacking into Greenpeace France’s computers. EDF itself was fined €1.5m, and ordered to pay €500,000 (£427,770) in damages to Greenpeace.
Pascal Durieux, EDF’s head of nuclear production security in 2006, was jailed for one year (three years with two suspended) and given a €10,000 fine. His deputy, Pierre-Paul…
Fem11, the national conference of UK Feminista held on 12 November at Friends House, London gathered over 1000 feminists.
Keynote speaker Sandy Toksvig bemoaned the lack of suitable role models in children’s literature – “If Rapunzel had hair long enough for a prince to climb up, couldn’t she have fashioned a rope out of her hair to escape?”
Also criticised: the way female role models were re-fashioned to make them more “respectable”. Did you know that Florence Nightingale was…
As PN went to press, Occupy London were welcoming representatives from Occupy camps from across the country to their new site, "The Bank of Ideas", an office building in the City of London owned by Swiss bankers UBS.
On 20 November, representatives came to The Bank of Ideas from Occupy camps in Edinburgh, Newcastle upon Tyne, Liverpool, Norwich, Cardiff, Bristol, Bath, Brighton, Plymouth and the Isle of Wight, as well as from Ireland.
As of 21 November, as far as we could tell…
Many of us find ourselves in situations where we feel we have nothing to offer, maybe because of personal circumstances; in one way or another weíre really stretched. And at the same time we see the suffering of humanity, see conflict and wars and destruction, and feel compelled to come forward. Yet we are naked and afraid.
We don't come full of promise, bursting with proclamations of what we will achieve. We come because we must. Because we have to respond, and we know we are being…
Hundreds of US citizens – including an 84-year-old pensioner, a pregnant woman, and a retired New York supreme court judge – have been threatened, beaten, pepper-sprayed or arrested, in a wave of government repression against the US Occupy movement.
On 25 October, over 100 were arrested during the clearing of the encampment in Frank Ogawa Park, Oakland – an operation that left Iraq war vet Scott Olson in a coma after he was struck on the head by a tear gas canister – though activists…
It is a common view in Scotland that the high road to the removal and dismantling of the UK Trident system is Scottish independence. Alex Salmond has recently given a “100%” guarantee that Trident will go once Scotland can make its own decisions.
There are concerns about this. Independence may not happen. SNP leaders are adamant that there is no question of a dirty deal where Scotland would be granted a form of independence in return for continuing to host the business end of Remnant…
Unsilenced, John Stewart and Dan Glass speak on aviation resistance to a US audience in San Jose University via Skype
A new US-wide activist network is to be set up to oppose the soaring growth of aviation in America.
This exciting development follows the Aviation Justice Express tour in which John Stewart and I were invited to share the great British people’s victory against Heathrow’s third runway with people in the USA. The invitation…
This year’s campaign is expected to raise the most money ever, more than £40m. The furore caused by Fifa’s objection to the England and Wales football teams wearing the emblem on their shirts during games, neither of which was against a former Axis power, set soccer fan Mr Cyboli thinking.
“We’ve seen what sponsorship has done for soccer, the money that has flowed into the game and the amazing talent it has bought – I mean brought. Well, this year we’ve seen designer red poppies…
Navy medic and conscientious objector Michael Lyons was released from Colchester military prison on 9 November. He had served a seven-month sentence for refusing to take part in rifle training in September 2010 because he disagreed with the war in Afghanistan, and was not prepared to shoot to kill. (PN 2537)
Supporters of Veterans for Peace, London Catholic Worker and Peace News raised over £1,000 to help Michael’s wife Lillian with the travel costs associated with visiting Michael in…
