Milan Rai
PN: What is your background in relation to Darfur?
ADW: I travelled extensively in Darfur when I first went as a PhD student in 1985. I wrote my first book on famine in Darfur. Subsequently I've spent almost all of the last 22 years working on the Horn of Africa.
PN: What are the origins of the Darfur crisis?
ADW: The underlying factors are the economic and political marginalisation of Darfur, including both Arabs and non-Arabs. Darfur…
I’m doing a talk about al-Qa’eda for Peace News Summer Camp which is in two weeks. (Really looking forward to seeing Tracy Curtis perform – I’ve heard Seize the Day and the Carbon…
A few years ago, we both took part in a “radical peace movement” gathering. Two of the main issues at the gathering were the thorny question of whether there was such a thing as a “peace movement”, and, alongside that, what it meant to be a “radical” peace activist.
It’s clear that there is a traditional strand of peace organisations and activities, which has persisted for decades. Quaker activities (the Religious Society of Friends began in the 1640s), the pacifist Peace Pledge Union…
As PN went to press, over three months into the NATO war on Libya, Libyan rebels said that they were expecting a new peace proposal from the regime, transmitted via a special committee of the African Union (AU), which met to discuss the conflict on 26 June.
The key issue is whether the rebels (and their British and French backers) will maintain their position that Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi (and his family) must not only leave power, but leave the country, before a ceasefire and…
When the idea of the Rebellious Media Conference first bubbled up a year ago, there were two things that we really wanted to achieve with the event. We wanted to inspire people with excellent examples of radical media – the extraordinary achievements of The NewStandard were a prime example (see articles on this page). We also wanted to get a much wider circle of people (activists, journalists and others) engaging seriously with the Chomsky-Herman Propaganda Model of the media. (There are…
The site of the PN75 party
Gail Chester (shiny jacket) comperes the Red & Green Choir
Dennis Gould, anarchist poet
These are some pictures from the party on Saturday 4 June.
First three: The Catholic Worker building on the Harringay Ladder in North London (in Haringey!) / Compere Gail Chester of Peace News Trustees with the…
Just before PN went to press, the United Nations and the African Union (AU) issued an urgent demand for an immediate ceasefire in the war in Libya, a demand that was being resisted by the NATO military alliance that is carrying out air strikes on behalf of the Libyan rebels.
While the AU was calling for an open-ended ceasefire to allow a negotiated solution to the conflict, the priority for the UN was a short-term, one- to three-day, humanitarian “pause”.
On 12 May, the head…
Claude Choules served in the British navy in the First World War, and then in the Australian navy in the Second World War.
Like Harry Patch, the last First World War veteran living in Britain, who died in 2009, Choules became a pacifist, refusing to celebrate Australia’s war memorial Anzac Day, or to join in commemoration marches.
Choules’s son Adrian told the Telegraph in 2010: “He used to say that while he was serving in the war he was trained to hate the enemy, but later he…
The killing of terrorist leader Osama bin Laden in Abottabad, Pakistan, on 1 May, brought an end to an extraordinary life, and a humiliating search by the US. It did not bring an end, however, to the all-pervasive western propaganda surrounding the al-Qa’eda phenomenon. There were immediate questions about the legality of the US attack on bin Laden’s compound on 1 May but there are also larger and more important questions.
Legality
Concern about the raid by US special…
I was in two minds as to how to write up the interview with Nicolas Kent. Our usual format in PN is to just to present the transcript of the interview, and that’s what we did in the end (for an unusually long three pages), but I was very tempted to write it up in a more traditional journalistic style. These notes are a small move to bringing a bit more of the flavour of the thing over.
When I called up to arrange the interview, Nicolas Kent was very gracious, but it was clear he was…
Two months on, the opinion polls show the British public is largely undecided about the Libya war, undecided and unenthusiastic.
The first two polls were contradictory. A Comres poll showed greater opposition than support: 35 per cent in favour of the military action and 43 per cent against it. A YouGov poll showed 45 per cent…
The deaths of Western war photographers Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros in Misrata in Libya on 20 April sparked considerable reflection in the British press. Many voices were raised saluting the courage – and recognising the social importance – of front-line photo-journalists, who take extraordinary risks in order to connect the global public with the reality of war.
Few have done more in this regard than Tim Hetherington, the videographer and co-director of Restrepo (2010) a worm’…
One of the most significant attempts to broker a peace deal to end the war in Libya failed in mid-April, undermined by western leaders who assured Libyan rebels of a military victory over Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.
The African Union (AU) sent a peace delegation to Libya’s capital Tripoli on 10 April. Led by South African president Jacob Zuma, the delegation met with Gaddafi, who, according to the AU, agreed on a roadmap for the resolution of the Libyan crisis.
The roadmap…
The event planned for October formerly known as “the Radical Media Conference” has been forced to change its name after being subjected to legal threats by an international PR and production company calling itself “Radical Media”. There will be a protest against this corporate bullying on 3 May.
On 5 April, as the conference organising group began pulling together suggestions for workshops, Peace News (which initiated the event) was surprised to receive an email from Joan Aceste,…
