Emily Johns
Back in June, a former US presidential advisor and Harvard University professor, Graham Allison, described the current confrontation with Iran as 'a Cuban missile crisis in slow motion': 'Events are moving, seemingly inexorably, toward a showdown in which the US president will be forced to choose between ordering a military attack and acquiescing to a nuclear-armed Iran'.
(In fact…
On 27 October 1962, a Russian naval officer named Vasili Arkhipov saved the world.
Twelve US navy ships (part of the US blockade of Cuba during the Cuban missile crisis) were dropping practice depth charges on B-59, a submerged Soviet submarine, trying to signal that the sub should surface. The captain of B-59, Valentin Grigorievitch Savitsky, panicked, believing that the Third World War had started. He gave orders to fire a nuclear torpedo, saying, according to one account: 'We're…
We’re guessing that PN readers divide roughly 50/50 on the Olympics. Half of us are blissfully ignorant of the whole thing. Half of us know varying amounts about what happened. (At a UK level, 90% of the population watched at least 15 minutes of coverage, according to the BBC.)
If you want to take the most positive, Colin Ward-ish perspective, you can cherish the fact that ‘the British nation’ has taken a black man (an immigrant from Somaliland) and a mixed-race woman to its heart, as…
Nuclear sub HMS Vanguard arrives back at
Faslane, Scotland. PHOTO: CPOA (PHOT) TAM MCDONALD
@UK MOD / CROWN COPYRIGHT
Britain may not be able to maintain its nuclear missile submarine capability because of shortages of navy and civilian personnel.
That was the stark message of the ministry of defence’s official risk register, obtained by the Nuclear Information Service (NIS) through the Freedom of Information Act. On 9 August, NIS placed on its website both the…
We’re still digesting the long interview we carried out with veteran US activist George Lakey earlier this year, the last part of which appears on p8. We’re bringing George to the UK for a two-week speaking tour (which culminates in a day-long whole-camp workshop at Peace News Summer Camp) and we’re very much looking forward to learning more about the multi-dimensional Movement for a New Society that he initiated, which, among other things, took a number of buildings into collective…
Gabriel writes: Gabriel Carlyle. PHOTO: Purshi
The renowned Japanese scholar DT Suzuki was once asked what it was like to attain the Buddhist state of satori, or enlightenment. ‘Well, it’s like ordinary, everyday experience,’ he is supposed to have replied, ‘except about two inches off the ground.’
After a week-long Buddhist-inflected workshop on burnout earlier this year, my feet were still planted firmly on the ground – and I certainly hadn’t reached enlightenment – but I did feel…
A rich record of creative intervening, interfering and interpreting the physical and psychic destruction of East London by the Olympic monster. The contributions to this book speak in a language verbal and visual that poignantly describes the true, felt experience of state-sport-sponsored obliteration of communities and personal worlds.
The book is also an important reminder of 1000 people evicted from homes and businesses in 2005 to make way for bigger business.
A powerful and…
On 23 June, Climate Siren activists hung banners on the gates of Buckingham palace. PHOTO: Peter Marshall
The human race may be pushing the Earth towards a rapid, catastrophic and irreversible ‘state shift’ leading to mass extinctions, according to a paper by 22 leading scientists published in the world’s top scientific journal, Nature, in the run-up to the failed Rio+20 environment conference. The Nature paper set out possible measures for avoiding or limiting the state shift, which may…
If you get off a train at East Croydon, you may well gaze around and wonder which of the towering office blocks is the infamous Lunar House that ‘processes’ foreigners and refugees; the building that decides who is welcome in this land and who is not. Look around and you will find, overshadowed by the rise of concrete, The Warehouse Theatre. ‘Oh look’, you’ll say, ‘a proper theatre’. It is intimate, adventurous, has no ‘corporate identity’. It is a place of art in the making.
Their…
The police march in London on 10 May was ‘supported’ by some radical protesters, holding sardonic signs: ‘Without us, democracy would triumph’, ‘Kettling: a transitional demand’, and ‘Not all cops are bastards’. People joked that the police might be less conservative than usual in their estimates of how many marched (in the event, Scotland Yard refused to give a figure).
The protest was against plans to cut police numbers by 16,000 over four years, as part of a 20% cut to the policing…
When we look around the world, when we look around this island that we live on, it’s clear there is an urgent need for a total transformation of society and the economy: a radical democratisation, a drastic carbon cut-back, justice for the oppressed, and thorough-going demilitarisation in every area. Peace News has been committed to ‘nonviolent revolution’ for 40 years. How are we going to make progress towards this goal?
What do we mean by ‘nonviolent revolution’ and is it feasible…
The diplomatic signs before Baghdad had been positive, as Iran indicated its willingness to give way on two major stumbling blocks: allowing inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to check a suspect base, and freezing the enrichment of uranium to 20%, widely regarded as dangerously close to weapons-grade (90%).
In Baghdad, Iran learned that in return for these major concessions, it was being offered very little. ‘Giving spare parts for civilian aircraft is…
Piano accompaniment by Michael Conliffe. Directed by Olusola Oyelele. Designed by Phil Newman. 4th-20th May 2012. Warehouse Theatre, Dingwall Road, Croydon CR0 2NF. £12/£11. Box office 020 8680 4060. Further performances: 26, 27 August, Greenbelt Festival, Cheltenham Racecourse.
If you get off a train at East Croydon, you may well gaze around and wonder which of the towering office…
On 18 April, US federal authorities seized a server in New York belonging to Riseup, a radical internet service provider.
Over 300 email accounts, between 50-80 email lists, and several websites were taken off the internet by the FBI action.
Between 12 and 24 May, trade unionists and climate activists from the One Million Climate Jobs Campaign will be touring the UK in a Climate Caravan inspired by the Trans African Climate Caravan of Hope of 2011.
This month’s British Climate Caravan is demanding massive government investment to create one million new ‘climate jobs’.
Climate jobs are not ‘green jobs’ in the national parks or in pollution control. Climate jobs actually cut emissions of greenhouse gases: insulating…
