PN Staff

12 & 13 February: Global Divestment Day
Fossil Free UK say: ‘After the Paris climate deal, getting the solutions we need means building on our momentum and bringing the pressure home. It means building our power, demanding just climate solutions and breaking our ties with the fossil industry once and for all. On 12-13th February people all around the country will be showing their love for the climate, and taking action in their communities to divest from fossil fuels – join…

While PN staff were in Paris for the climate protests, we were taught by Reclaim the Power how to make human blockades stronger. (The blockade was to protect the Red Lines action on D12.)


1. Everyone wears a backpack. TOP TIP: Reclaim the Power advised us to wear peaked caps so that we could duck our heads down to protect our eyes if the police walked along the line pepper-spraying our faces.

2. Everyone loosens their backpack straps.

3. The…

Press release
27 January 2016
Peace News [1]

WOMAN WHO DISARMED WARPLANE PUBLISHES MEMOIR
New book marks 20th anniversary of land-mark anti-arms trade action

7pm, 29 January 2016, Friends House, London: A woman who disarmed a warplane bound for genocide in South East Asia will be launching her newly published book about the action and subsequent trial at an event in Friends House, London this Friday, the 20th anniversary of the action itself [2].

…

Selected info & resources

Stop the War analysis and actions

Women in Black calls on the UK government to use diplomacy, discussion, economic sanctions and strategies, NOT BOMBS on Syria. Download the leaflet and send to the Prime Minister

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Five Christian climate protestors were arrested in Whitehall on 30 November for protesting against government hypocrisy on climate change, which they called a 'climate whitewash'. The five, from Christian Climate Action, were arrested for criminal damage after writing in whitewash and black paint on the wall of the DECC (department for energy and climate change). They said 'underneath…

It will cost £167bn to replace and maintain Britain’s nuclear arsenal, Conservative MP Crispin Blunt calculated in October, using official figures, just as the Conservative government was hinting that a vote on Trident replacement could come before Christmas.

In a written parliamentary response to Blunt, the minister of state for defence procurement, Philip Dunne, said on 23 October that the acquisition of four new nuclear missile submarines would cost £25bn.

The in-…

White and red poppy wreaths are laid together during Aberystwyth’s Remembrance Sunday ceremony, after 11 years of negotiations between the town council, the Royal British Legion, and Aberystwyth Peace & Justice Network. Photo: Alun Williams

Hinkley Point C protest, 10 October: Welsh, French, English, Chinese and Indian activists call the scheme outdated, uneconomical and unreliable. They demand renewed support for renewables and a stop to dependency on nuclear power.

Photo: Wendy Lewis

Statement by the eight women:

In the apology issued today by assistant commissioner Martin Hewitt, the Metropolitan Police finally conceded that 'officers, acting undercover whilst seeking to infiltrate protest groups, entered into long-term intimate sexual relationships with women which were abusive, deceitful, manipulative and wrong' and that 'these relationships were a violation of the women’s human rights, an abuse of police power and…

REMEMBER THE WOMEN’S LIBERATION MOVEMENT?

WERE YOU ACTIVE IN THE 1970s, 1960s, 1980s?

Join the 70s-sisters’ network, and start the Feminist Forum to express our vision in politics.

For the past five years the 70s-sisters have been meeting in small consciousness raising groups to address the issues that face us in our own lives, in our generation and at this moment in history.

Now we are also launching the Feminist Forum, a new political think-and-do-tank.

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On 7 October, Chris Coverdale of Rye, East Sussex, was imprisoned for 42 days by Hastings magistrate court, for refusing to pay over £1,800 in council tax to Rother district council.

According to the Hastings & St Leonards Observer, Chris said he believed it would be a criminal offence under the Terrorism Act 2000 to pay taxes for…

Hastings anti-roads group Combe Haven Defenders (CHD) continues to campaign against a road planned for a ‘site of nature conservation interest’. During a pop-up camp (18–20 September) in threatened Hollington Valley, CHD re-planted trees on the planned route.

Local ‘development’ quango SeaChange cut down trees in the valley in preparation for the ‘Queensway Gateway’ road, but…

Previously an investigative journalist in Africa, Almamy is now a human rights activist and a caseworker with HOPE Projects in Birmingham (he manages directly nine houses for destitute asylum-seekers and refugees). As PN spoke to him, Almamy was organising a demonstration in Birmingham calling for an amnesty for asylum seekers and migrants already in the UK.…

There is a lot to admire about Germany’s response to the refugee crisis. The warm welcome extended by thousands of ordinary Germans (overwhelmingly women, mostly university-educated, either young or older folk) has been inspiring. A poll at the beginning of September found 87 percent of Germans were ashamed of recent anti-refugee attacks.

The German government has also been very welcoming of refugees from the Syrian warzone.

At the same time, the government has…