The best thing was probably shovelling the coal out of the train onto the lines. It was both fun and satisfying. The coal wasn’t in the train any more and it definitely wasn’t going to be burned.
The worst thing about the whole experience – for me – was not being given our books in the police station. For others, it was their houses being raided, and lots of stuff taken, including flatmates’ possessions. (Only people living in Wales didn’t get raided.)
There were three groups…
Campaigners challenging restrictions on protest around Parliament, who deluged the Home Office with responses to its consultation on the issue, have been rewarded by a government announcement that the most controversial sections of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (SOCPA) will be scrapped. However, while the draft Constitutional Renewal Bill fully repeals sections 132-138 of SOCPA, justice secretary Jack Straw left the way open for restrictions to creep back in.
While…
The Iraqi government’s military assault on the southern Iraqi city of Basra at the end of March – which drew in both US and British forces, and sparked fighting in Baghdad and the south that claimed an estimated 600 lives – appears to have been as much an attempt to disrupt British plans for the area as a blow against the powerful Shia leader Moqtada al-Sadr.
Noting the key role envisioned for Iraqi lieutenant-general Mohan al-Furayji in British plans for Basra, the Independent…
19 May sees the opening of a long-delayed trial of nine anti-war protestors charged with criminal damage and affray at a Northern Ireland office of the arms manufacturers Raytheon.
It was on 9 August 2006, as the USA was rushing missiles to Israel to aid its assault on Lebanon, that nine members of the Derry Anti- War Coalition (DAWC) members occupied a Raytheon software development facility and “decommissioned” its computers. Ironically, the software facility had come to Derry/…
One dramatic development in relation to Iran has been the revelations that, according to the MoD’s own documents, the 15 British sailors and Marines captured by Iran last April were in waters that are not internationally agreed as Iraqi; the US and UK unilaterally drew a dividing line between Iraqi and Iranian waters – without informing Iran where it was; and that Iranian Revolutionary Guard vessels were crossing this invisible line three times a week.
All this contradicts defence…
Looking back to May ’68, we find Peace News campaigning against the erection of a statue of Mahatma Gandhi in London’s Tavistock Square.
Now, amongst a whole new set of controversies – including one involving the former footballer and face of Walker’s crisps, Gary Lineker – the local council has given permission for a statue of the Indian independence leader to be set up in Leicester, whose population is more than a quarter Indian in origin. The charity Samanvaya Parivar will provide…
Defence Secretary Des Browne announced on 29 March that Britain should be willing to talk to the Taliban and consider negotiating with elements of the organisation.
However, as reported in the Telegraph, the US-UK strategy of relentlessly targeting experienced Taliban commanders – 200 were killed last year and 100 captured – has resulted in the disintegration of the Taliban old guard, leaving a political vacuum filled by young radicals.
This strategy has created a more radical…
Our demonstration in November 07 was able to use the slogan: People and Parliament Against Trident.
We are operating in a new dimension. In the past we have had local authority support (and still do) but now we have the support of a legislature and can work cooperatively with it. Scotland's For Peace brings together peace movement organisations with the main churches, trade unions and other groups in Scotland. Substantial working coalitions have been built and this has strengthened…
Ffos-y-fran is the biggest open-cast mine in the UK. Situated on the outskirts of Merthyr Tydfil, it is just 36 metres from some homes and near a nursery school. Legislation requiring a buffer zone of at least 500 metres for such schemes is pending but not set to be made retrospective.
Dust, smoke and noise from Ffos-y-fra will exacerbate health problems in a town that already has the lowest life expectancy in Wales. Mining is set to continue, 7am to 11pm, for 17 years.
“…As part of the international day of World Against War demonstrations, Aberystwyth Peace and Justice Network invited Wales to continue to protest. Five years on, the occupation of Iraq remains an unmitigated catastrophe.
In Aberystwyth, Cor Gobaith sang stirringly and a number of AP&JN supporters engaged with the public. Plaid Cymru president Dafydd Iwan sent a strong message of party support for the campaigns: Troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan, Don't attack Iran, End the siege…
How wonderful to be part of this vibrant and vital International Women's Day march in London for something we all demand: the unconditional, non-negotiable end to violence against women.
As so well expressed by the speakers, such violence takes many forms: the direct violence of beatings, rape, mutilation; the fear of what may follow; governments denying equal status; withholding the right to an existence as an individual woman; war, poverty, trafficking, slavery, threats,…
British public support for the war on Afghanistan has risen over the past two years, as Afghan political leaders call for negotiations with the Taliban.
In an ICM/BBC poll of 1,002 adults taken on 12-13 March, 40% of Britons expressed support for military operations in Afghanistan. This figure was up 9% from 31% in a September 2006 poll. However, opposition still outnumbers support though it is down from 53% to 48%.
Interestingly, most of the increase in support came from the…
As Peace News went to press, the official death toll in Lhasa rose to 22 - generally assumed to be a massive under-estimate - and solidarity demonstrations were taking place around the world.
On 22 March, a Free Tibet Campaign march in London pressured China into allowing the Red Cross back into Tibet to treat people hurt in the violence. The day before, more than 30 protesters broke into the Chinese embassy in Delhi after foreign journalists were expelled from Tibet to…
On 8 March, Aldermaston Women's Peace Camp (AWPC) read in The Independent that we were packing up our camp for the last time; famous people were mourning our loss and messages of support were flooding in.
This followed the judgement on 6 March at the High Court in a judicial review, brought by AWPC, of the legality of three Military Lands Act Byelaws introduced (as part of a package with SOCPA) in 2007, one of which prohibited camping.
We had argued against this, on…
Gordon Brown has gone back on the promise he made on 8 October last year that troop numbers in Iraq would be cut to 2,500 this spring.
Troops have now been told that 4,000 must stay until the end of the year. 1,500 had been told they would be coming home this April but have now been informed that they will not be returning until the end of June, when they will be replaced.
The decision was allegedly based on ongoing rocket attacks on the base at Basra airport and on the…
Two days apart in late February, two groups protesting against plans to expand Heathrow took their protest aloft, first at Heathrow and then the House of Commons.
On 25 February, four Greenpeace protesters managed to get onto the airfield at Heathrow and climb on top of the 8.15pm British Airways flight from Manchester. There they unfurled a very large banner saying: "Climate Emergency – No Third Runway – Greenpeace".
A Greenpeace spokesperson said the protest had highlighted a "…
On 5 February, I was one of ten Members of the European Parliament who broke through the Israeli siege and travelled to Gaza to see the situation for ourselves.
The anger I feel following the visit could drive me to write several books. Here, I have focussed on what the occupation means for the children.
In the Al-Shifa Hospital I visited the ward where thirty premature babies lay in incubators. These tiny children are completely dependent on the electricity supply.
…On 12 February, Rob Hopkinsm the “co-parent of the Transition Town movement”, spoke in Machynlleth about peak oil and climate change.
Although climate change gets press attention, if not meaningful political action, it's peak oil that will hit us soonest.
The age of plentiful oil and cheap transport is drawing to a close. Implications for our communities are enormous, especially with respect to food supply dependent on road haulage.
Rob noted that (west) “Wales is a…
Following the success of last summer's Victor Jara festival in Machynlleth, El Sueno Existe (“the dream lives on”) staged a winter festival entitled “Nicaragua: New Time, New Hope”, inspired by the visit to Machynlleth of veteran activist and visionary Paul Baker Hernandez.
Paul is a former Trappist monk who has lived and worked in Nicaragua for a number of years and is active in local and international campaigns against war, exploitation and the plunder of Nicaragua's natural wealth…
On 7 February, the High Court upheld the right of a peace activist to summons a US airman alleged to have caused her actual bodily harm (and against two Ministry of Defence police officers who failed to intervene).
Lindis Percy of the Campaign for Accountability of American Bases (CAAB) entered Croughton USAF base on 19 February 2006 to carry out peace research into the military communications facility.
She reports that she was detained by US military personnel who handcuffed…
