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Russia after the election is a grim place. With electoral doubts safely swept under the carpet, Putin has been sworn into Office.

Greeted by Putin Youth Rallies in Moscow, and an explosion in Chechnya killing “Putin's man in the region”, Kadyrov, Head of Parliament Hussein Isaev and, at time of going to press, possibly Finance Minister Ely Isaev. No accidental irony this attack: on the Day of Victory. Putin's promise: the liquidation of the terrorists.

Speaking of which - one…

Colombia's president Alvaro Uribe Velez is, by his own admission, a man of the right. Unlike most recent Colombian Presidents, Uribe is from the land-owning class. He inherited huge swathes of cattle ranching land from his father Alberto Uribe Velez, himself subject to an extradition warrant to face charges of drug trafficking in the USA, until he was killed, allegedly by left-wing FARC guerrillas, in 1983. Uribe Jnr grew up with the children of Fabio Ochoa, three of whom were to become…

The fact that George W Bush's military record (or lack of) is of such concern to the US public (or certainly the US and international media), illustrates how militarised masculinity continues to be seen as a criterion on which the ability to lead a country is judged. Pitched up against a “real” veteran, even George W, leader of the “war on terror” has been found wanting.

The US peace movement needs our help.
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Well, not quite, but we would like to take the opportunity to say fond farewells and enthusiastic welcomes to volunteers and staff on the PN team and to flag up two opportunities for you to comment on Peace News in its current incarnation and on the kind of Peace News you would like to see in future.

Many thanks to everyone who made a donation to last year's Peace News Annual Appeal. In total, more than £1,000 was…

We receive important personal and social blessings from technology of all kinds, but for a quarter century we have been completely dominated by a seriously unexamined technology of which Sadie Plant (US author of Zeros and Ones, Digital Women and the New Technoculture) has written: “The impossibility of getting a grip, and grasping the changes under way is itself one of the most disturbing effects to emerge from the current mood of cultural change.”

This is compounded by
1)…

Angola is one of the countries in the world that has been most affected by war and violence over the past four decades. The country lies devastated, its infrastructure destroyed, its citizens brutalised by four centuries of slavery, colonialism, war, bloody political conflict and corruption. The long guerrila war (since 1961) against Portuguese colonialism under the Salazar dictatorship did not even stop with independence in 1975.

Divided among three rival movements, MPLA, UNITA and…

I live in a tiny, remote, impoverished, three-block-long town in the desert of north eastern New Mexico. Everyone in town - and the whole state - knows that I am against the occupation of Iraq, that I have called for the closing of [nuclear laboratories at] Los Alamos, and that, as a priest, I have been preaching, like the Pope, against the bombing of Baghdad.

One day in December, it was announced that the local National Guard unit for north-eastern New Mexico, based in the nearby…

On the last evening of the World Social Forum, I was standing in the Azad Maidan, surveying the crowds and getting ready for the evening's concert. Two eager young men who suddenly came forward and began to introduce themselves interrupted that moment of reverie... “Good evening sir”, said the first, “I am Francisco DSa, from the Citizens Peace Committee of Rawalpindi”. After a few minutes of talking, he said, “Oh, we are hoping to meet with as many Indians as possible while we are here. We…

Perhaps 2003 will be remembered as the year the world's nuclear states (and aspiring ones) began another chapter in the development of genocidal weapons of mass destruction. Hopefully not.

In early November, while commenting on Iran's cooperation with nuclear inspections, Mr El Baradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency warned that somewhere between 35 and 40 countries were believed to now have the ability to build nuclear weapons.

During the…

In July 2003, the European Convention presented a draft European Union Constitution, consisting of 260 pages, divided into four chapters, plus several appendices and additional agreements which will also have constitutional status. While this constitution puts all the different EU treaties (with the exception of Euratom) into one huge document, that's not all it is.

Even the European Commission had to admit that it “completely rewrites the originals”, as far as foreign actions and…

Not many people are aware that every year more than 60 young men are sentenced to six and a half months of imprisonment because of their refusal to take part in the system of compulsory military service in Finland. This makes Finland the only European Union country in which Amnesty International says there are prisoners of conscience.

There is still a very extensive conscription system in Finland.…

In October, George W Bush began a round of state visits to Asian and European countries. Peter Burt reports on the impact of the US president's visit to Thailand during the APEC talks.The problem is, the Thai government always obeys the US administration. They should realisethat a free trade agreement with the US would hurt Thai farmers. And Thailand might become a terrorist target if we support the US war on terrorism. Suriyasai Katasila, secretary general of Thailand's Campaign…

As Peace News went to press, US conscientious objector Stephen Funk was about to stand trial (scheduled for 4 September) in a military court for “desertion”.

In February 2003 his unit was called up to “serve” in the war on Iraq. Funk failed to report for “duty”, though for the next six weeks he kept in touch with his commanders while continuing the process of formally applying for CO status. A man with an activist history (WTO protests, supporting political prisoners etc…

When WRI planned a visit to the South Caucasus, to develop co-operation with local groups on antimilitarism and conscientious objection, it was clear that this wouldn't be an easy task. However, it proved even more difficult than expected.

I arrived in Tbilisi in Georgia on 26 July, on an Aeroflot flight from Moscow. Georgia, which suffered a civil war in the early 1990s, still has two unresolved conflicts - Abkhazia and South Ossetia. While there is no war at present, neither is…

A few days before the bombing started, my friends Zaid and Asmaa and I decided, when the time came, we would be running through the streets of Baghdad together, tearing down Saddam portraits and letting down the tyres of US tanks. The fatal flaw in an otherwise perfect plan was that tanks don't have tyres, but it reflected what many Baghdadis told me. They did want rid of Saddam, but they wanted to do it themselves, not have the US and Britain invade and rescue - and impose their chosen…

Although not forseen by the political pundits of the time, the salt campaign launched by Mahatma Gandhi and the Congress Party in India became the key nonviolent direct action campaign to achieve freedom from British rule.

At the outset of the campaign, a New York Times correspondent asked Gandhi what he hoped to achieve by the campaign, and what would happen if he were arrested at the beginning of the campaign. Gandhi answered that it wasn't a matter of winning or losing that…

War is not an inevitable fact of life - though it may seem so when we look at the entirety of human history - it is something that we create.

The long build-up to the war on Iraq, the disastrous mess the occupiers have created (and no doubt, eventually, will leave behind) may appear to be just another sorry chapter - a predictable consequence of the global power structures and aspirations of our, predominantly, militarist, capitalist, mode of operating.

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The most dangerous form of violence in South Asia is arguably the threat of nuclear war between India and Pakistan. It colours the statements made by the leaders of both countries and strengthens the extreme right wing in both countries, which feeds off and thrives on the fanaticism of its counterparts next door.

The rhetoric of war, whether it is made by George Bush, Ariel Sharon, Atal Bihari Vajpayee or Pervez Musharraf, gives the cue to these elements to indulge in more violence,…

This article is being written as another war comes to an end, the war in Iraq. It is clear by now that the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein vanished under the heavy bombing of the American and British forces. Many rejoiced at the day when a government that persecuted and discriminated against its own people disappeared. The big question is what comes next.

To us as women's rights activists, the big concern is what will happen to women in a post-war Iraq. And, as women's groups that…

Over the past three years, one of the most frequently asked questions in Zimbabwe (and often asked of me by my 79-year old mother) has been “why are they not taking to the streets and doing something about the situation?” My reply has generally been “who do you mean by they and why are you not on the streets yourself?” But then I am not either!

Many people explain away their inaction by claiming they are not part of the critical mass (in other…