PN Staff

PN Staff

PN staff

1 December 2011News

Refusers face trial for arms protests

A number of activists refused to fill in the 2011 national census because of their objection to the involvement of military firm Lockheed Martin in processing the data.

Census resister Judith Sambrook, 47, pleaded not guilty at Wrexham magistrates court on 11 November; her case was adjourned to Mold magistrates court on 8 December.

On 8 December, Sarah Ledsom, 56, is due to appear at Liverpool magistrates court for failing to complete the 2011 census form.
Former Oxford…

1 November 2011News

The September assassination of Burhanuddin Rabbani, chairman of Afghanistan’s High Peace Council – the body established to seek peace talks with the Taliban - by an alleged Taliban envoy appeared to derail any prospect of a negotiated end to the war.

The brother of famed anti-Taliban guerrilla leader Ahmed Shah Massoud – who was assassinated days before the 9/11 attacks – told the Guardian: “This absolutely shows that peace with the Taliban is dead ... It doesn’t work. It can’t work.”

Others were less hasty to rush to judgement. For example, former EU envoy to Afghanistan Michael Semple – a world-renowned expert on the Taliban – noted that the assassination was “directly contrary” to the moderate tone recently adopted by the…

1 November 2011News

News from Wales.

Peace parliamentarian
Jill Evans MEP has been typically busy in the European Parliament, campaigning for peace. On 27 September, the parliament voted on rules governing the export of dual-use items – goods and technology with both civilian and military uses.

Jill criticised the outcome: “The rules won’t provide necessary safeguards to prevent the misuse of exports with a potential military use.”

On 28 September, Jill called on the EU member states to support international…

1 November 2011News

Over 1,100 people crowded into London’s Institute for Education on 8 October for the start of the Rebellious Media Conference (RMC), organised by Peace News, Ceasefire, NUJ, Red Pepper, Undercurrents and visionOntv.

The final plenary of the Rebellious Media Conference at Friends House

Panel left to right: Taesun Kwon, Becky Hogge, Nadje al-Ali (turning to) Noam Chomsky and Michael Albert. The banner in the background refers to legal threats by international PR and production company “Radical Media” that forced a change in the conferenc

The RMC opened with a keynote speech by US media critic Noam Chomsky, who was introduced by his long-time friend and radical media pioneer Michael Albert, co-…

1 September 2011Feature

PN remembers Peggy Seeger's classic song "Carry Greenham Home" - and the action that inspired it.

Women for Life on Earth left Cardiff on 26 August 1981 to march to Berkshire to protest against the siting of Cruise missiles at Greenham Common. The marchers stayed and camped; hundreds of thousands of women came and went, lives were radicalised and liberated. Cruise missiles left 10 years later.

This song by Peggy Seeger, Carry Greenham Home, describes the day of Embrace the Base, an action that was organised in six weeks by chain letter.

Hand in hand, the line extends

13 August 2011Feature

The Prison Activist Resource Centre is an online prisoner support site. While predominantly US- oriented the site is available in English and Spanish, and does offer information about internationally- relevant resources.

These are divided into categories such as “prisoner support”, “activist groups” and “prison law” (US). One of the great things about this site is that it has a rather fantastic and massive bibliography, divided into sections such as “women”, “history”, “black activism”, “…

13 August 2011Feature

David Anderson, Sensible Justice: Alternatives to Prisons (New Press, 1998. ISBN 1565843894, 182pp). Sensible Justice explores creative solutions for the US prisons “problem”. It also makes an important contribution developing an effective national crime strategy. Mary Bosworth, Engendering resistance: Agency and Power in Women's power (Ashgate Publishing, 1999. ISBN 1840147393) . This book contributes a different perspective to women's studies, criminology and prison studies…

13 August 2011Feature

Continuing our recent focus on Colombia, Peace News met with Soraya Gutierrez Arguello, president of CAJAR (the Jose Alvear Restrepo Lawyers' Collective, based in Bogota) for a chat about the struggle of human rights defenders operating in one of the most violent countries in the world, and the pros and cons of using the legal framework to challenge the culture of impunity.

Soraya began her human rights work when she became a lawyer in 1986 -- a period which she describes as “a very hard time in Colombian history; it was a time when political assassinations and massacres of a great part of the people's social movement of Colombia were on the rise”.

The collective has been protected by Peace Brigades International (PBI) volunteers, as Soraya and her colleagues suffer threats and intimidation on a daily basis from Colombia's security and paramilitary…

13 August 2011Feature

In March, the government is set to hold a parliamentary vote on the replacement of Britain's Trident nuclear fleet. Peace News caught up with Kate Hudson, chair of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, for a chat about demonstrations, bedfellows, and responding to the challenges ahead.

Tell us a bit about your involvement with the antinuclear movement.

I first took part in anti-nuclear actions in the early 1980s. I went on the big anti-cruise demonstrations and went to Greenham a couple of times, for events like “Embrace the Base”. I didn't do anything much on the issue after that until the late 1990s, when I started to get alarmed about war and US foreign policy, particularly in relation to nuclear weapons. The two things that worried me were the expansion of NATO…

13 August 2011Feature

Zoughbi Zoughbi, the director of Wi'am, the Palestinian Conflict Resolution Centre in Bethlehem, is touring the UK this month. We talked to Zoughbi shortly before he left Palestine, first asking him to describe his activities in the previous 24 hours.

ZZZ: We try to walk the walk, whether we are challenging the Israeli occupation or resolving conflicts locally.

We're living in a pressure cooker. When you are confined to your home or your bantustan, when the economic situation is deteriorating, unemployment is skyrocketing, and trauma among children is increasing, abnormal conditions create abnormal relationships among people. They create displaced anger against each other.

Yesterday we were mediating conflicts between…

13 August 2011Feature

On 19 May, the public sector union Unison sponsored a day conference in London taking forward the campaign against Britain's Trident nuclear arsenal.
PN talked to Bruce Kent the next day, and this is what he told us: “It was a very positive meeting. It lasted from 10am to 5pm, and people really stayed.
“There were over 70 people at it, and they represented quite a wide spectrum of churches, trade unions, and peace activists.
“There was no feeling that the vote…

13 August 2011Feature

PN: OK, so tell us a bit about your background -- how and why you got into the military and about your personal journey.

AW: Well I joined the military right after I graduated from college, mainly because I wanted

13 August 2011Feature

In February Peace News caught up with Steve Staples Chair of the International Network on Disarmament and Globalisation and talked with him about the value of a network aimed at bridging movements.

How and when did the INDG come into being?

The International Network on Disarmament and Globalisation formed at the Hague Appeal for Peace conference in May 1999. It arose out of a panel discussion on the Militarisation of the Global Economy, which was standing-room only.

Following the forum, a small meeting was held to continue the discussion and better educate the peace movement about the effects of globalisation on our peace work. (My speech at that Hague…

13 August 2011Feature

Author and campaigner Mark Lynas has spent years travelling the world investigating climate change. With a new book out, in which he explains his discoveries and proposes ideas for action, PN caught up with Mark and asked him about the wide-ranging impact climate change is beginning to have on our planet and, in particular, in relation to the rising seas.

PN: Tell us a bit about yourself: your background and how you got interested in climate change issues?

 

ML: I've been fascinated by the natural world since I can remember - especially untouched places like mountains. I think the realisation of so much wild beauty being destroyed was my first impetus.

When I was at university I edited an environment page in the student newspaper, and I remember being furious about the M3 [motorway] cutting at Twyford Down at the time -…

13 August 2011Feature

"When they see us, they think Rage Against The Machine was for kids" - Aki Nawaz talks with PN about music, free speech, gender and Islam.

Over the summer there was a minor media storm as, in the run up to 7/7, journalists and politicians heard about Fun Da Mental's new album All is War. It's a provocative and challenging album (see review opposite) and the track that caught the media's attention is called Cookbook DIY. We caught up with main man Aki Nawaz and, at his request, tried to ask him some “hard” questions!

 

PN: The mainstream media have given you a seriously hard time over the album…