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…
A sign at the entrance to the Defense and Security Equipment International arms fair warns that visitors must wear business dress. The pinstriped suits, school ties and polished shoes shroud the event in sham respectability. However, the dress code does not extend to sales staff. Here, the main aim is to entice.
Women's clothing Guns and bumsThe world’s largest arms bazaar returned to east London’s ExCeL exhibition centre from 13-16 September. The euphemistically-titled “Defence and Security Equipment International” (DSEi) exhibition opened its doors to dictators and merchants of death from around the world in the ultimate corporate celebration of killing.
Official invitations were, as usual, extended to such democratic and human-rights respecting nations as Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab…
This is the first of a series of drawings from DSEi 2011.
As the world’s largest arms fair, DSEi is part of a wider shift in the commercialisation of war. Although arms companies have always profited from conflict, military production was previously linked to the perceived needs of the state.
In the 1990s this changed. Arms companies responded to the reduction of military budgets at the end of the Cold War by expanding beyond state boundaries, merging into multinationals and…
Over 1,200 arms companies will attend the world’s largest arms fair this September to hawk their deadly wares to 25,000 buyers from around the world. The Defence & Security Equipment International (DSEi) exhibition is taking place from 13-16 September at the ExCeL centre in east London.
DSEi is organised by Clarion Events (who also run family-friendly events such as the Baby Show) and by the government’s UK Trade and Investment Defence & Security Organisation (UKTI DSO).
…By the way, have you had much feedback from the census form campaign to make it difficult for Lockheed Martin [arms manufacturer and census processor]? We received a visit from a census “chaser-upper” who said our form hadn’t been received. We wondered if this was a genuine “lost in the post” or our form had been discarded due to prominent “No Trident” etc messages on all that lovely blank white space on the back of the envelope! We love you, PN, but hope you won’t have to be around for…
In a recent issue of Peace News I read about some protesters refusing to make out the census as it was run by Lockheed Martin, the same company that does the census in Canada. I am trying to resist this here and wonder what happened to the protesters in the UK. I very much appreciate your paper and have so much admiration for the continual actions of so many dedicated people. We need to do more of that sort of thing in Canada.
Military victory in the Iraq war has emboldened the Pentagon in their claims that space technology gives the US total advantage in time of war. According to Peter Teets, under secretary of the Air Force and director of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), American capability in space, “must remain ahead of our adversaries' capabilities, and our doctrine and capabilities must keep pace to meet that challenge”.
“I think the recent military conflict has shown us, without a doubt,…
The recent Israeli onslaught on Gaza and Lebanon has been conducted with the help of weaponry made in Brighton. In the last months, Israel has engaged in an illegal assault on the civilian population of Gaza, and has invaded Lebanon killing hundreds of Lebanese civilians. These are war crimes under international and English Law. Israel could not carry out these acts without the support of foreign corporations. We aim to “bring the war back to the factory floor”.
Smash EDO regularly…
The scenario is depressingly familiar, the outcome tragically the same. The feared Indonesian armed forces, TNI, are engaged in a massive military offensive in a territory strongly opposed to rule from Jakarta. Aceh, a province of 4 million people on the northern tip of the island of Sumatra, is being subjected to the TNI's largest operation since the invasion of East Timor in 1975.
There are many parallels with East Timor, not least the key support being provided by Britain.…
SIPRI - Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
This site contains online books along with lectures and conferences available (all in PDF format) and a lot of information to wade through. It is worth bearing in mind that this website is mainly aimed at academic research. There are however less monolithic texts on the website in the form of “what's new?” which provides news updates not generally found in the…
Plans for protest at DSEi this year are large-scale and thorough. Training and skills share provision for activists taking part in the protests is similarly ambitious, with a sizeable collective of NonViolent Direct Action (NVDA) trainers offering a programme of workshops both before and during the event.
This article explains who these trainers are, what we're planning to offer, and why we hope that we'll be making a useful contribution to efforts to Disarm DSEi.
Who are the…Street campaigning has become a visual event enabling people to get high media coverage with innovative ideas and actions.
The visual images too often are the police charging in full riot gear or protesters being carried away. Certainly the press in Europe runs these pictures time and time again. Seldom do we see the peaceful side of any protest, it just does not make good copy.
For this reason I suggest to you that the picture we need to generate must therefore be new and…
