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I couldn't quite believe it. Here I was at the army recruitment fair, having a discussion with one of the organisers about the punitive measures in the Armed Forces Bill currently going through parliament, measures which could mean conscientious objectors in the forces being sent to prison for life, and he was trying to sell it to me on the grounds that it's “better than the death penalty”.

What sort of an argument is that? It's like defending the maiming of children in Iraq on the…

If you live in this part of Essex, the “traveller burden”-- as it has been unceremoniously called- is a hot topic. With one of the highest densities of Irish and Gypsy Traveller sites in the country ,some local residents, the local council and MP, and the far right, appear keen to see these communities vanish from their collective radars.

Of course, it would be a crazy ,liberal, rose-tinted view to ignore the fact that, like with all communities, things are not perfect with the…

On Sunday 2 July , general elections were held in Mexico. The three main parties; the ruling PAN (Party of National Action), the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party) and the PRD (Party of the Democratic Revolution) are fighting a close battle, but this year they face a fourth opponent which seeks to shake the foundations of the whole political system. Originating “from below and to the left”, it calls itself La Otra Campana (The Other Campaign).

The Other Campaign was conceived by…

Recently I had the pleasure of seeing Syed Aamir Raza once again. Aamir used to work for Nestle, the world's largest food company and the target of an international boycott because of its aggressive marketing of baby milk.

Aamir had been a Medical Delegate for Nestle in Pakistan, responsible for a circuit of 200 doctors to whom he presented company products. He was good at his job, congratulated for hitting sales targets and earning his bonuses. Then one day while he was visiting…

Faslane 365 is a grass -roots campaign to mobilise public opinion and action to oppose Trident and prevent any commitment to further nuclear weapons.

The strategy is to influence the future decision by raising the political and financial costs of deploying the current Trident system. As we did with cruise missiles in the 1980s, Faslane 365 plans to combine persistent,nonviolent opposition at the site of deployment with creative actions, political pressure and wide networking.

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Just before 3am on Tuesday 23 May, around 50 police swooped on Brian Haw and his supporters in Parliament Square. Their instructions were to remove most of the anti-war display.

They brought a lorry and freight container, and unceremoniously dumped placards, cuttings, models, religious items and donated artworks, in a crammed heap into it.
    Two supporters climbed on top of the container and held up the police until they were overpowered…

On 8 May, Brian Haw's exemption from the ban on unauthorised protest under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 (SOCPA) came to an end.

The Home Office won an appeal against last year's High Court decision that the Act could not be applied retrospectively and Brian's protest has, in theory, been brought under police control.

Despite media headlines to the effect that this would be the end of Brian's epic stand against this government's foreign…

The Peace Community of San Jose' de Apartado' consists of around 1,200 people - men, women, youths and above all children. We demand respect from the armed actors in the region of Uraba.

In our founding declaration, made on 23 March 1997, we laid down various important internal rules for the Community, such as: that nobody should bear arms, that nobody should give information to any side of the conflict, and that nobody should supply food to any side of the conflict. This remains our…

Every Sunday afternoon, campaigners stage an open picnic on Parliament Square to plan ideas to subvert or test the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (section 132). SOCPA requires advance written police permission for demonstrations around parliament, thus criminalising spontaneous protest.

Dozens of people have been arrested since this law's inception last August (see PNs), but its operational enforcement appears related to the size of the demonstration and media…

Warfare has dramatically impacted forests throughout history. Between 2000 and 1200 BC, the ancient Assyrians burned woodlands as a military tactic, as did the Greek and Roman armies. Techniques changed little until the twentieth century, when more sophisticated and destructive technology was rapidly developed and deployed.

France pioneered the aerial bombardment of forests with incendiaries in the Rif Mountains of Morocco during the 1921-26 uprising, and napalm, supplied by the US,…

Norman Kember, the British pacifist released after being imprisoned in Iraq for almost four months, has returned home to face a predictable lack of understanding of his pacifist stance - just as his captors in Iraq themselves showed little sympathy towards his pacifism.

He had been one of four activists from the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) network who were abducted in Iraq on 26 November (see the cover story in December/January's PN), whilst there to support human rights for…

In 2006, the G8 will meet in Russia for the first time. While for the majority of apolitical Russians this is a totally uninteresting occurrence, the Russian government and all shades of opposition consider it to be a highly significant event. The Russian elite is eager to ensure it does not end up with egg on its face and that all these high-powered meetings run smoothly.

To that end the corrupt, but nonetheless powerful, apparatus of the Russian special forces has been called into…

“Before I went to Iraq I was concerned about the legality of the invasion and the occupation. But whilst I was there, what I saw - the conduct of the war - was wrong, a lot of things were going wrong ... and my views became clearer and stronger, until it reached a point where I couldn't separate them from my job and I could no longer serve in Iraq.” - Former SAS trooper Ben Griffin speaking in mid-March about his decision to leave the military for reasons of…

Campaigners against Brighton arms dealers EDO MBM gained two major court victories during February. Firstly in the magistrates' court - as a trial charging three activists with “illegal assembly” collapsed - and secondly in the High Court - as the injunction which created an exclusion zone outside the factory crumbled.

EDO MBM, who manufacture parts for the Paveway bomb system, the most-used guided munition in the air assault on Iraq, and unmanned combat air vehicles, much loved by…

Back in the summer of 2002, Britain's Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE - the place where British nuclear weapons are manufactured) published a document in which they outlined a raft of new facilities they intended to build over the coming years. Entitled the Site Development Strategy Plan, the contents of the document, combined with the recruitment of new scientists at the nuclear sites, provoked some antinuclear campaigners to consider whether a new generation of nuclear weapons was on the…

The government is currently reviewing its energy policy in relation to climate change. It seems that Tony Blair wants to build 10 new nuclear power stations around the UK. Apparently he thinks this is a solution to Britain's need to cut carbon emissions by 20% by 2020 and 60% by 2050.

In reality, even if we doubled nuclear power in the UK, it would only cut carbon emissions by about 8%. It would also double the amount of radioactive spent fuel in the UK (which we still have no safe…

As Peace News went to press, campaigners were making a last ditch attempt at halting the planning process for AWE Aldermaston's controversial Orion laser facility. Janet Kilburn reports...

At a meeting on 25 January, a small group of local councillors is expected to rubber stamp the plan - despite hundreds of objections and a growing call for a public inquiry. Campaigners, locals, parliamentarians - and even another nearby local authority - have been lobbying both…

The latest round of cases against people accused of defying London's “no-protest zone” began towards the end of January: eleven individuals were scheduled to appear in four separate trials. All had been charged originally under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (SOCPA) for being part of an “unauthorised demonstration”.

Under the new Act, anyone wishing to demonstrate within 1km of parliament must apply to the Metropolitan Police Commissioner at least six days in advance or,…

Since October 2003, the bank-watch organisation Netwerk Vlaanderen, and the peace organisations Vrede, Forum voor Vredesactue and For Mother Earth, have been running a campaign against Belgian bank groups' investments in weapons. Under pressure from the campaign “My Money. Clear Conscience” (see PN2458), four large bank groups have since scaled down their investments in weapon producers.

At a political level, Belgium is also the first country to forbid investment funds…

In December and January activists from environmental groups Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd battled with a Japanese whaling fleet in the ocean off the coast of Antarctica.

Each year Japan carries out its “scientific” whaling programme in the Antarctic and North Pacific. The 100-day hunt for Minke and endangered Fin whales is illegal and violates international conservation regulations.

The 2005/6 hunt began when six Japanese ships reached their destination off the coast of…