Rai, Milan

You may or may not have noticed that since 10 June - for over five months - the people of Belgium have struggled on without a government.

Well, we say “struggled on”. The political deadlock in the country has been a factor in declining “consumer confidence” apparently (does this mean people are spending less on things they don't need, and borrowing less money that they can't pay back?), but otherwise the people of Belgium have managed to keep breathing, eating, feeding themselves…

Suspicion of the media is widespread, not only in Britain. But is it really true that the mass media put out “propaganda”? If so, exactly how is this achieved in an open society like Britain?

How can we end up with distorted reporting when there is no government censorship to keep reporters in line? How could there possibly be “brainwashing under freedom” as some have suggested? In this series of columns, we will be exploring questions like these, trying to shine some light on the…

International law does not ban uranium enrichment. In fact, countries which have signed the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) gain the `inalienable right' to develop nuclear power programmes for peaceful purposes.

The bargain made in 1968 was that non-nuclear weapon states would gain access to nuclear technology, so long as they did not use it to develop nuclear weapons (Article IV); and the nuclear weapon states would get rid of all their nuclear weapons (Article VI).…

At the end of August, the Respect Unity Coalition MP, George Galloway, circulated a document to the party leadership, which seems to have precipitated the disintegration of the organisation.

Galloway's paper, entitled It was the best of times, it was the worst of times brought to a head long-simmering tensions within the party.

The document sharply criticised the Respect national office (largely staffed by SWP members) for the party's failure to fulfil its potential “in…

Hopes for a peaceful resolution of the Iran crisis rest on the success of a “work plan” devised by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to resolve concerns about Iran's nuclear past.

Iran's new chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, closer to confrontational president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad than his predecessor Ari Larijani, stated on 26 October that Tehran's nuclear policy remained “totally unchanged”.

On 28 October, IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei…

After four years of mounting tension, Iran has finally agreed to answer by December all questions about its nuclear programme posed by the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The United States, however, seems to want to undermine the Iran-IAEA agreement reached on 21 August, arguing that it does not halt Iran's uranium enrichment capability immediately.

    According to IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei, the purpose of the new “work…

The Camp for Climate Action at Heathrow has been hailed, rightly, as one of the most important protests of our time.

Climate change is not simply one of the greatest threats facing future generations of humanity, it is one of the greatest threats facing the people of the Global South, whose homes and livelihoods are being destroyed today - as a consequence of the power and greed of Western corporations and states, and the apathy and irresponsibility of Western consumers.

…

I was born in Leigh Park, a council estate just outside Portsmouth, the second-largest housing estate in Europe. I lived there until I was 17. My father was a bus driver for 32 years, and my mum worked as a school dinner lady.

The lovely thing was, there were fields and trees and a big reservoir as part of the estate. At the infants school I went to, they had big oak trees. I was quite a day dreamer, and I'd always be mesmerised by all these trees.

Living in that environment…

On 14 August, Marcus Armstrong, a 46-year-old anti-war protester who entered the cockpit of a US Air Force plane at Prestwick Airport, Scotland, a year ago was imprisoned for 28 days for “entering a restricted zone” and “trespassing” in a military aircraft.

Marcus entered Prestwick with seven other Trident Ploughshares “weapons inspectors” to investigate claims that the airport was being used to refuel US aircraft supplying arms for the Israeli invasion of Lebanon…

On 23 August, many anarchists will mark the 80th anniversary of the execution by electric chair of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, two working class (male) Italian anarchist immigrants to the United States, whose fate seized the world's attention.

Peace News is marking the anniversary by addressing two of the issues raised by the Sacco and Vanetti case - the situation of immigrants in rich Western societies, and the question of violence in social change. Sacco…

The British legal system has begun finally to re-consider the conviction of the two Libyans jailed for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, which came down over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, causing the deaths of 270 civilians in all.

The suspicion at the time of the bombing was that the Lockerbie bombing might have been retaliation for the destruction of an Iranian civilian airliner, a year earlier, on 3 July 1987, by US sea-to-air missiles, causing the deaths of 290 civilians…

On 23 August, many anarchists will mark the 80th anniversary of the execution by electric chair of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, two working class (male) Italian anarchist immigrants to the United States, whose fate seized the world's attention.

Peace News is marking the anniversary by addressing two of the issues raised by the Sacco and Vanetti case - the situation of immigrants in rich Western societies, and the question of violence in social change. Sacco…

Once again, Britain is enduring terrorist attacks. Once again, the Prime Minister is denying obvious realities, flying in the face of a near-national consensus.

Now it is Gordon Brown claiming that the attacks in London and Glasgow happened “irrespective of Iraq, irrespective of Afghanistan”. Brown and his ministers are fully aware that this is not the judgement of Britain's counter-terrorism experts.

After the 7/7 London bombings, British police involved in…

On 26 June, riots broke out in Tehran after the government announced petrol rationing. Iran does not have the refineries to produce its own petrol, and is facing a major financial crisis as domestic energy demand starts to overtake growth in oil production. Meanwhile negotiations on Iran's nuclear programme drag on.

The greatest danger to the peo ples of the Middle East, including the people of Israel, comes from Israel's determination to retain control of the land it conquered 40 years ago, and its willingness to use nuclear weapons to maintain its dominance of these territories.

Israel is committed to a semi-open nuclear policy referred to as the “Samson option”, a threat to bring down the entire Middle East, and perhaps even the world, to maintain its controlling position, and to prop up…