The overwhelming majority of people in Britain support the idea of a one-off 20% wealth tax on the richest 10% of the population that could pay off the national debt. The coalition government claims that the only way to start dealing with £800bn of national debt is through cuts in government spending (£64bn over the next five years).
Hitting the poor
Conservative prime minister David Cameron claimed on 21 October that the tax and benefit changes were fair, being hardest on the…
We actually did it: No Borders Calais organised a successful week-long music festival (6-12 September 2010) in Calais, one of the shittest towns in Europe, in the teeth of the French police and the local authorities, with no publicity at all, a few hundred euros, and little of what you could call organisation. And some of us say it was just about the best party we’ve ever been to.
It’s safe now to let the cat out of the bag: anyhow there’s a crop of videos up on YouTube already, and…
The city of Bamiyan, with a population of roughly 60,000, has only one paved street, a wide, two-kilometer road without lanes that is a site of constant activity from 5am to curfew at 10pm, and is referred to as the “bazaar” because it is lined on both sides with shops.
In our short time here, we’ve been struck by how hard people, both in town and in the outlying villages, have to work to make a meagre living. Children clearly work hard, too, seeming to participate fully in the…
You can’t fault David Cameron for honesty. The prime minister was blunt in his statement launching the strategic defence and security review (SDSR) on 19 October (12 years after the last such review).
Cameron said: “this review is about how we project power and influence in a rapidly changing world.” He went on: “Britain has punched above its weight in the world. And we should have no less ambition for our country in the decades to come.”
Missing: the public
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Climate scientists have reached an international consensus that devastating runaway climate change is inevitable unless significant changes are made. How radical do these changes have to be? Is it possible to make these changes within the current framework of industrial capitalism? Below are edited highlights of responses from a variety of activists from radical movements – the full text of the interviews are available on the Peace News blog.
PN: In your view, can we halt runaway…
On 30 June and 2 July, the seven remaining defendants in the EDO Decommissioners’ case were found not guilty of conspiracy to cause criminal damage despite their admission that they had damaged £180,000 worth of property on 16 January 2009 in a plant producing weapons for Israel. On 30 June, a unanimous jury acquitted five of the activists, and on 2 July the judge cleared the remaining two defendants of wrongdoing. The court found that the activists broke in with “lawful excuse,” as the…
Thirty years ago this October, the first issue of the Newsletter of the National No-Nukes Prison Support Collective (later renamed the Nuclear Resister) reported on just one anti-nuclear civil disobedience action – that of the Plowshares Eight.
On 9 September 1980, eight US activists made their way into a General Electric factory in Pennsylvania, where they hammered and poured blood on nuclear missile nose-cones. This action inspired a global movement, and scores of similar acts…
Myth 1: We’re finally “turning the corner” (deputy prime minister Nick Clegg) and are starting to win the war in Afghanistan.
Clearly, principled opponents of the war oppose it on the grounds that it is immoral rather than unwinnable. Nonetheless, arguments about the war’s winnability continue to play a key role in public debate.
For example, in September’s parliamentary debate on the war (see p2), defence secretary Liam Fox claimed that: “Over the past few years the strategic…
“Give me the directions. There’s loads of people here”, the kilted figure said into his mobile phone, turning to us to make an announcement: “They’ve taken the site and need as many people there as quickly as possible. I’ll take you.” At 10pm it was still 14 hours before activists were scheduled to take the site for the 2010 Climate Camp, but after a gruelling 12-hour journey on the Megabus we had finally made it to Edinburgh’s Forest Café.
Unfortunately, our guide had overestimated…
More than 200 people met in eastern Tennessee, USA, over the 4 July Independence Day weekend to advance the role of nonviolent direct action and civil resistance in the anti-nuclear movement. The Resistance for a Nuclear-Free Future gathering celebrated the thirtieth anniversaries of the Nuclear Resister, a chronicle of anti-nuclear and anti-war civil disobedience and peace prisoner support; and Nukewatch, a group active in public education and resistance.
Plenaries and…
In this bumper summer issue of Peace News, we bring you good news from all around the world – from Australia where Ploughshares activists (pictured above) who pleaded guilty to breaking into a top secret spy base were nevertheless found not guilty by their judge, to Serbia, where charges were dismissed against six anarchists initially charged with international terrorism for protesting at the Greek embassy.
In Washington DC, in the US, there were acquittals for 24 human rights…
“Give me the directions. There’s loads of people here”, the kilted figure said into his mobile phone, turning to us to make an announcement: “They’ve taken the site and need as many people there as quickly as possible. I’ll take you.” At 10pm it was still 14 hours before activists were scheduled to take the site for the 2010 Climate Camp, but after a gruelling 12-hour journey on the Megabus we had finally made it to Edinburgh’s Forest Café.
Unfortunately, our guide had…
It is obvious that our physical skills decline with age, and although it is an unpopular idea, there is incontrovertible evidence that our intellects also begin to become less alert, flexible and reliable after the age of about twenty-five. Although there is no reason to suppose that our moral sensitivity should be exempt from this general decline, the notion that children might be morally superior to their elders arouses an indignation that is sometimes close to fury.
Memories…
During a much-bally-hooed two-day June visit to British troops in Afghanistan, new British prime minister David Cameron claimed that he could “sum up this mission in two words”: “It is about our national security back in the UK. Clearing al-Qa’eda out of Afghanistan, damaging them in Pakistan, making sure this country is safe and secure – it will make us safe and secure back home in the UK.”
A major mistake?
According to the Guardian, Cameron believes that one of the two “…
June 18, 2010
“The military is the muscle that protects the ruling elite from the wrath of the people,” says Pakistani political analyst Dr. Mubashir Hassan. “Right now, people are out on the street, blocking roads, attacking railway stations, etc. If you read the papers, it seems as though a general uprising has started all over Pakistan.”
Dr. Hassan says that sporadic outbursts of anger in Pakistan won’t coalesce into a people’s revolution anytime soon. The…
Let me describe the satisfying joyful way of life which is non-coercive parenting.
I grew up in the 50s and 60s. My parents were not typical of the time. I have no idea why not, it was just the way they were. My mother only recently in fact said to me, “We never thought of ‘bringing up’ we were just people living together and doing what we could”. They never smacked us, never made us eat or wear anything we didn’t like. I never went to the dentist until I chose to age 13. I…
I stand for life against death. I stand for peace against war! – Pablo Picasso
“Picasso Peace and Freedom” at the Tate Liverpool looks at Picasso’s work between 1944, when he joined the French Communist Party, and his death in 1973. It shows him as an artist who recorded the brutality of war and worked through his art, and in his life, for peace.
The exhibition, curated by Lynda Morris of Norwich University College of the Arts and Christoph Gruneberg, director of Tate Liverpool…
The urgent need for nuclear weapon states to end their decades-long addiction was a recurring demand from disarmament activists at the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference (NPT), held at the United Nations in New York during May.
On 12 May, Liam Fox, the new British defence secretary, showed just how much of a nuclear junkie the UK has become, when he stated in his first speech that: “We have got a very clear agreement that we will continue with the nuclear…
When Cengiz Songür set off to join the Freedom Flotilla, one of his six daughters put a letter into his jacket pocket, where it stayed unnoticed until he was on board the Mavi Marmara.
The letter started: “I have thousands of words to tell you, but they are now all stuck in my throat. I am scared, Dad. I get scared as I see the sadness in my sisters’ eyes and the worried look on my mum’s face. Dad, please do not get scared. Please, go there, Dad. Go there to put a smile on an…
US president Barack Obama has rejected new concessions from Iran over its nuclear programme, instead demanding a tightening of economic and financial sanctions, leading to growing fears of confrontation. This is the fourth major peace initiative from Iran since 2003 – all have been rejected by the US.
A TRR-ific deal?
The latest breakthrough came in relation to Iran’s stock of low-enriched uranium (LEU), the product of its controversial uranium enrichment programme. Last…
