PN Staff

The fracking revolution in the US has had a number of unintended consequences. As well as polluting groundwater and causing other environmental damage, the use of ‘hydraulic fracturing’ to exploit shale gas has lowered US gas prices massively. This has put huge pressure on the US coal industry, which has had to lower its prices in consequence, and also find new markets. These cheap US coal exports have damaged the European gas industry (which has closed or mothballed about 50,000MW of gas-…

A demonstration in Oxford in February by COIN (Climate Outreach and Information Network), who are fundraising to deliver community climate training sessions in the wake of the recent flooding in England and Wales. www.climateoutreach.org.uk PHOTO: COIN

There have been anti-arms trade legal victories connected to protests at the defence & security equipment international (DSEI) arms fair last September. On 4 February, five Christian protesters (Chloe Skinner, Christopher Wood, Daniel Woodhouse, James Clayton and Symon Hill) were acquitted of aggravated trespass. On 18 February, charges were dropped against six other activists. During Balcombe-related anti-fracking trials at Brighton magistrates’ court at the end of January, Aaron Bell was…

This year’s centenary of the start of the First World War is accompanied by a tidal wave of events and commemorations. But one key aspect of the war’s history is likely to receive little or no attention: the history and stories of the people and organisations that opposed the conflict.

Moreover, this history – of police raids and buried documents, feminist peace initiatives and clandestine printing presses, striking German munitions workers and communities of…

PN interviews a nine-year-old with a little experience of warfare-based games, after visiting the exhibition War Games at the Bethnal Green Museum of Childhood.

What did you like about the exhibition? It was interactive and you can say what you think of war games and it’s quite interesting to see games from the past, not just on a computer.

What do you…

On 9 January, a three-day trial in Brighton resulted in acquittals for 10 people arrested for blockading the drilling site near Balcombe on 26 July. This was the first of over 20 trials arising out of protests against energy giant Cuadrilla’s attempts to drill for oil and gas near the West Sussex village.

All 10 were acquitted of ‘obstruction of the highway’. Defence lawyers argued that as the B2036 London Road at Balcombe was closed to…

Defendant Linda LeTendre wrote afterwards of her shock: ‘I sat at the defense table with my mouth hanging open while the courtroom erupted in cheers and applause. I remember thinking, “I must look a fool with my chin hanging lower than my navel.” ’

“We will not be complicit with our government’s war crimes”

It was the first acquittal of anti-drones…

Howard worked for Peace News during the 1970s and 80s and remained a constant supporter, board member, and friend. In 2012, Peace News reprinted Howard's seminal text, Making Nonviolent Revolution.

He was also Coordinator for War Resisters International for many years and more lately WRI Chair, and committed to many other peace initiatives. Howard lived in Spain with his partner, Yolanda Juarros Barcenilla, and…

A US state has begun examining the conversion of military industry to socially-useful production. On 14 May, the Connecticut legislature created a ‘futures commission’ which will draw up a strategy for ‘the diversification or conversion of defense-related industries with an emphasis on encouraging environmentally-sustainable and civilian product manufacturing’.

This follows the success of a ballot in November, in New Haven, Connecticut, on the question: ‘Shall…

All gates into the base were blockaded for three hours on a Monday morning, from 7am to 10am. Those arrested ranged in age from 19 to 83 and came from across Scotland, Wales and England.

Students, pensioners, environmentalists and activists from a dozen campaign groups and political parties lay down in the entrance to the base and locked themselves together with metal and plastic tubes, chains and ‘thumb-cuffs’ (handcuffs for thumbs). They demanded the UK disarm the Trident weapons…

Day of action outside Houses of Parliament Photo: Edurne Aginaga

The campaigners dramatised the idea of wasting money on the military while making cuts to welfare in a ‘Play the Budget Right’ game show: a student needing tuition fees instead received military hardware; and an injured man received an aircraft carrier instead of medical treatment.

The protest was followed by a lively meeting inside parliament, where Green MP Caroline Lucas articulated the consensus that ‘the…

Instead of holding a ‘death party’ (there were many around the country, including one in Trafalgar Square initiated by Class War, and several in former coal-mining villages), Alex Higgins and Tasha Harrison focused attention on those who lost out during the Thatcher era and invited people to donate to important causes. These included: Stonewall (the lesbian, gay and bisexual charity), Shelter (the housing and homelessness charity), the Coal Industry Social Welfare Organisation and the Child…

On 10 April, eight activists from Oxford CND, Reading, Croughton and Hampshire closed Tadley gate at Aldermaston AWE (atomic weapons establishment) as part of a year-long action known as ActionAWE (‘Action Atomic Weapons Eradication to stop Trident replacement’).

The team, dressed in white suits held a 40-minute die-in in front of a large banner (in front of the gate) during the evening end of work shift.

There were no arrests. Police re-directed traffic…