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Friday 11 April, Israeli soldiers shot another peace activist with the International Solidarity Movement. Tom Hurndall, a 22-year-old British civilian was shot in the head by the Israeli military, while trying to move Palestinian children out of the line of Israeli fire. The International Solidarity Movement was protesting at the Israeli military tactic of shooting into Palestinian civilian neighbourhoods, by making their unarmed presence known to the Israeli military. Tom was wearing a…

While May Day might have been a relatively muted post-Iraq war affair in much of northern Europe and the US, across Latin America hundreds of thousands took to the streets to highlight and take action on a wide range of issues. Protests also took place in Korea, Sri Lanka, Ukraine, Japan, India and many other countries.

Traditional worker struggles - unemployment, pay, conditions and workplace control - featured strongly, along with the wider issues of global capitalism, poverty,…

The recent meeting of the Second Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) in Geneva was notable for an increasingly public conflict between the United States and Iran, which the Bush administration is accused of being determined to incite.

Displaying antagonism not seen at previous PrepComs, the US accused Iran of developing a nuclear weapons programme, and demanded that Iran declare its intentions openly.

In response…

In April the Croatian Multimedia Institute announced that they had reached a decision to end a contract through which they were granted US$100,000 by the US government for their work on the development of Croatian civil society.

In a public statement, the Institute made it clear that this decision was based on their belief that “the US government is disregarding international law, subverting international decision-making forums based on the international law, and disrespecting…

Over the past seven years, Voices in the Wilderness has been a nonviolent campaign to end the economic sanctions against the people of Iraq. Our focus has never been on political interests or the balance of power in international politics. Our concern has always been for the needs and interests of ordinary Iraqis, many of whom we have come to know.

From our presence in Iraq, we have seen no evidence that the lives of ordinary Iraqis are considered in US policy decisions. When…

On 22 April, between 600 and 700 anti-nuclear protesters converged on Faslane Naval Base - home to Britain's Trident nuclear submarine fleet -for the “Really Big Blockade”. A series of blockades kept the two (North and South) gates of the base closed for eight and five hours respectively.

Affinity groups came from all over Europe and beyond to participate in the day of action, highlighting western hypocrisy over the deployment of weapons of mass destruction. Many had prepared for…

  Arrested for peace!

Iraq war resistance (plus the usual suspects...)

Hundreds of people were jailed from overnight to six months, and…

The demonstrations of 15 February are a milestone for peace. Never before have so many people taken to the streets to protest against war. Hundreds of cities, across five continents, were swallowed up by a tidal wave of people opposing the bombing of Iraq. More than ten million marched for peace in 603 cities around the world.

In Rome, Madrid, London, and Barcelona the number of demonstrators reached the millions. With 2.5 million pouring into the streets of Rome, two million in…

 According to sources close to the manoeuvres, jets and warships launched more than 200,000 pounds of projectiles at Vieques between 13 January and 4 February. Residents of the island reported intense explosions and low overflights by jets. Residents claim that a number of projectiles missed their targets, landing in lagoons, beaches and in the ocean.

The navy recently promised to withdraw permanently from Vieques in May 2003. Their statement follows intense activism in Vieques, which…

“The US military have taken a right hammering this year.” So said one activist, commenting on the plethora of ploughshares type actions that have taken place so far during 2003.

At the end of January, Mary Kelly damaged a US military plane at Shannon airport, Ireland using a hatchet. It has been suggested that the value of the damage could be in the region of half a million euro. These planes were used to transport troops, weapons, ammunition and explosives to Kuwait and Qatar in…

On 15 January 2003, gunmen shot and beat Marcus Veron, a leader of the Guarani-Kaiowatribe in Brazil, after he attempted to reoccupy ancestral land. Veron, 70, was the third BrazilianIndian to be killed in two weeks.

In 2000, Veron toured Europe with tribal advocates' group Survival to publicise the history of his people, who have been forced off their land by ranchers. Now armed…

Hundreds of thousands of people have marched in peaceful demonstrations around the globe in the past few weeks, joining the growing protest against the US's impending war on Iraq.

More than 300,000 people took to the streets in the United States on 26 October in a day of national protest bolstered by simultaneous demonstrations in many other countries.

Thousands of people took part in 150 different protests in Britain on 31 October and an estimated 400,000 people from…

“In prison, when I am forced to salute state and army, I shall, in my mind and heart, be saluting all my brave friends ... all those who sacrifice so much more then I for peace, against the occupation.”

As we went to press another Castor shipment of nuclear waste began its journey from the Cap La Hague reprocessing plant to Wenland. And this time there are 12 containers rather than the usual six.

As we write, anti-nuclear groups are taking part in their first actions and blockades and are preparing actions for the following week.

Last year the state (with the support of the police, judiciary and regional government) limited the right of people to engage in peaceful…

In October, the Kansai Antiwar Joint Action Group, a Japanese peace movement network, passed a “Resolution Against Aggressive War on Iraq by the Bush Government of US and Against Participation in the War by the Koizumi Government of Japan” and took to the streets of Osaka to show their opposition to proposed military action against Iraq.

They are specifically opposing the deployment of Japanese naval fleets in the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea, which they believe would be used to…

As we went to press the European Social Forum (ESF), held in Florence, had just got under-way, with more than 30,000 people signing up to attend.

And as with Genoa last year, we were also receiving the usual reports of activists being turned away from the border and pulled off coaches by immigration officials. Several had received week-long bans preventing them for entering Italy for the duration of the…

In the spirit of satyagraha, three survivors of the 1984 Bhopal gas disaster began a hunger strike outside the Indian parliament on 28 June.

In July around 100 survivors took to the streets of New Delhi for a nonviolent sit-down. The “indefinite” hunger strike has been taken up by sympathisers in what, according to organisers, is becoming “a mass action, taken up in relay by people all over the world”.

These actions are being taken in protest at the possible…

A Pakistani tribal council ordered the gang rape of an 18-year-old woman to avenge their tribal “honour” after her young brother's alleged illicit affair with a higher caste woman.

The teenager was raped in a room by four men, one of them a council member, reportedly while a large crowd of villagers laughed and cheered outside, in the remote village of Meerwala in southern Punjab on 22 June 2002. The young woman was threatened that if she did not accept the council's verdict and…

In July, 36 activists were sentenced to terms of between 90 days and six months in prison for their symbolic trespassing at the US “school for assassins” the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Co-operation, (formerly the School of the Americas) in November 2001.

Some were also given fines on top, with one activist receiving a US$5,000 fine and a six-month prison sentence. Four of those sentenced elected to go to prison immediately, the rest were released on bail and will be…

In south-eastern Nigeria, hundreds of unarmed Ijaw women used boats to occupy four Chevron-Texaco pipeline stations.

Protests against oil companies operating in Nigeria have been taking place for a while. These recent and dramatic actions were taken in response to the grinding poverty in which local people live in this oil-rich region. Chevron-Texaco have operated in the region for more than 30 years, but the activists say there is little to show for all the wealth generated.…