Features

But there’s no time to celebrate, because the process of planning the replacement for Trident is already under way. If we want a nuclear-free future we have to act now. 

The two options under consideration are wholesale replacement of the Trident system of specialised nuclear-powered submarines and missiles; or a ‘tactical’ system of smaller missiles which can carry thermonuclear warheads but be launched from regular submarines. The costs for this option have not been spelled out…

‘I think we may be about to get steamrollered.’

Fellow activist Emily Johns and I had just returned from a packed public meeting in Crowhurst, the small village northwest of Hastings that would be severely affected by the planned Bexhill-Hastings Link Road (BHLR). In the final evaluation the participants had been near-unanimous in saying how energised they felt by the meeting. One man even said that he’d never felt more optimistic about our prospects for stopping the road.
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They will be meeting officials, civil society groups and ordinary folk in different parts of the country. On their return they will be publishing a pamphlet about Iran, incorporating Emily’s art work from this trip and from her 2007 delegation to Iran.

The trip will cost over £2,000 each – donations to help cover the costs of travel and accommodation are very welcome.

This is a Justice Not Vengeance delegation.

TALKS

To contact Emily and Mil to book a talk in your…

Part-trade show, part-international conference, part-jamboree, Co-operatives United was enormous. The biggest co-operative event in decades combined serious business and lots of fun in one huge melting pot. Young people rubbed shoulders with Russian business leaders, mime artists with Malaysian bankers, while co-operatives large and small talked and worked together.

This event was…

Co-ops are not inherently revolutionary – they meet the needs of their members, whatever those needs might be. For those of us who consider ourselves revolutionary, co-ops are a good a vehicle in this capitalist world for creating stability, creating income, meeting the needs of ourselves & our communities and walking the walk of non-hierarchy, non-exploitation, collective action, self-reliance, common ownership and mutual aid.

Radical Routes is a federation of co-ops which serve…

Peace News: Firstly, a question that relates to the tension between the US and Iran and the threat of war. How does the persistent threat of war against Iran impact on its behaviour in the international sphere? How should the US and other nations—namely, the allies of the US like the UK—conduct international affairs with Iran to reduce this animosity?

Shirin Ebadi: Do you mean with Israel?

PN: Well, namely by the US and other allies of the US.

SE: America has never…

Shredded Truth: CIA Documents — After the Iranian revolution, Iranian students seized the US embassy in Tehran in November 1979. Although US intelligence officials had shredded confidential documents as the building was being occupied, many of these memos

After a long phoney war, it seems likely that in the next 12 months there will be a serious confrontation between the US, the UK…

Daily reports of carnage in Syria make the early months of nonviolent popular uprising there seem like distant dreams of another land. Yet the broad-based Syrian movement began determined to follow a strategy of nonviolent resistance.

Haytham Manna is external spokesperson for the Syrian National Coordination Body for Democratic Change (NCC), itself a coalition of some 15 Syrian leftist political groups. In the second week of then-peaceful protests, back in March 2011, he launched ‘…

16 August: In the little red book, Advices and Queries, used by Quakers in Britain, no 27 urges us to ‘live adventurously’. Recently, for me, this has meant the possibility of travelling to Afghanistan.

Last year my friend Maya Evans went to Afghanistan with Voices for Creative Nonviolence US and on her return gave talks about her experiences.

I had always thought that my days of travel abroad were over, after time spent in the United States, Madagascar and Cameroon. Indeed, I…

 ‘A fascinating book – a moving and nostalgic piece of oral history. It is an honest, warts and all, account of that historic February 2003 demonstration against Tony Blair’s oncoming war, of the run up to the march and of the differing views about what it achieved.’ Bruce Kent, Vice President CND ‘A powerful and important memoir of an unforgettable moment in our country’s history. ’ Caroline Lucas, MP for Brighton Pavilion

Pre-order a copy by for £10 post-free – it will be delivered in…

I’ve protested against coal: helping to organise the Climate Camps at Kingsnorth and at Drax; debunking the hype about ‘clean coal’ for Corporate Watch; and taking part in a Coal Caravan visiting open cast sites across the North East. And, in a lot of ways, we have won on coal: Kingsnorth has been shelved, and existing coal power stations are coming to the end of their lifespans with new plans stuck at the starting blocks. But the answer hasn’t been the clean green future we’ve all been…

The suicide on 9 November of Amaya Egaña, a woman facing eviction in Barakaldo in the Spanish Basque country, has sparked public outrage about Spanish mortgage laws. Polls the next weekend recorded 95% demanding a change in Spain’s mortgage laws. (Most Spanish families — 83%— own their own homes.) On the following Monday, the association of banks declared a two-year moratorium on evictions ‘in extreme cases’, pre-empting what they feared might come out of urgent negotiations between the…

As an anarchist it wasn't easy for me to be among Jihadists, but for some reason, it wasn't the same treating them as a doctor.

From the first moment I entered the hospital where I was working I was clear that I would treat anyone who needed my help, be they civilians, or fighters from any group, religion or sect. I was determined that no one would be mistreated inside that hospital, even if they were from Assad's army.

It is true that not all the free army militants are…

21 October, Najaf: I had mixed emotions as I set out on this six-week trip. Excitement at the thought of seeing old friends; I have not been back to Iraq since late 2003. But also some apprehension as to what I will find after such a long time.

I am hopeful that I can meet with Iraqis whom I know from Syria but who have had to flee back to Iraq.

The twisted mass of electrical wires in the neighbourhood where I am staying evokes memories from post-invasion days in Baghdad, when…

The Conservative-led government is committing billions to military spending while forcing through massive cuts in jobs and services, and reducing support for badly-needed green technologies.

The government has already spent £2bn on developing and deploying pilotless drone aircraft over the past five years, using some of them to kill an unknown number of Afghan civilians…

Wobbly Tuesday is one of the great secrets of the Iraq war, kept secret not by state censorship and repression, but by media and academic self-censorship.

Nearly 10 years on, it is time for the British anti-war movement to finally shake off the lie that the astonishing anti-war mobilisation of early 2003 had no effect whatsoever on the British government.
It is time for the peace movement to celebrate how close it came to detaching Britain from the US-led invasion of Iraq in…

15M

Since 15 May 2011, Spain has witnessed the emergence of a massive protest movement demanding a democratic revolution. 

Organised through the internet and through social media, a series of protests has taken place occupying the main squares of every major city in Spain as well as those of many small towns, demanding a radical change in the Spanish political system. 

Between six-and-a-half and eight million Spaniards have taken part in what has been called 'the 15M…

For those who know the valley – and the smaller valleys that feed into it – you will already appreciate the peacefulness of the places, and a sense of remoteness that is utterly amazing considering that just over the hill is a population of 140,000 people.

You'll also know that the valley contains records of human habitation going back 4,000 years, with evidence of bronze age settlements, Roman pottery and Saxon trackways. The valley was certainly part of the theatre of…

At the end of September, a new local campaigning group calling itself 'Combe Haven Defenders' staged a weekend camp on the site of the proposed Bexhill-Hastings Link Road on England's South Coast. The temporary camp brought together 200 people with a shared concern for saving the valley and a willingness to explore the possibilities for action.

It also attracted a lot of media attention, including the Sunday…