News

US drone attacks are increasing the risk of terrorism, the youngest-ever Nobel Peace Prize nominee told US president Barack Obama during a private meeting in the White House in Washington DC on 11 October.

Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan, 16, said in a statement released after the meeting that she had thanked the president for supporting education in Pakistan and Afghanistan: ‘I also expressed my concerns that drone attacks are fuelling terrorism. Innocent victims are killed in…

Over 100 people crowded London’s Cockpit Theatre on 13 October for a Peace News benefit celebrating the power of ordinary people to change the world. ‘Come out! We have you surrounded!’ featured the Songlines Choir, stand-up comedian Chris Coltrane, rebel poet Attila the Stockbroker, Hedgemustard (pictured above) and singer-songwriters @dogcatchicken and (final act) Tracey Curtis. Many thanks to indefatigable event organiser (and compère) Jon Lockwood. Roll on, next year!

Military technology company QinetiQ has signed a contract to use Llanbedr, near Harlech, Gwynedd, for testing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or ‘drones’. Llanbedr airfield estates claimed its 2,300m runway can handle larger drones than are tested at Aberporth in Ceredigion.

Welsh government economic minister Edwina Hart said that she sees it as an important step forward as ‘Llanbedr Airfield has the capacity to significantly increase Wales’ capability in the [unmanned aerial…

A £98,000 heritage lottery fund grant to the Peace Pledge Union (PPU) attracted some press attention in September. The grant will enable the PPU to carry out a two-year project to encourage communities and schools across Britain to research local conscientious objectors (COs) during the First World War. There was a debate in the Guardian, the Times, the Telegraph and even Le Monde (France) on using publicly-subscribed money in this way – rather than in…

Anti-war campaigners and academics have been quick to charge that a major study into congenital birth defects in Iraq, published on 11 September, has been manipulated to serve the interests of the US, which contaminated parts of Iraq with depleted uranium and other heavy metals. After contacting a number of those involved, PN has found no evidence of manipulation.

The summary report*, published on 11 September by the Iraqi…

Members of Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) were arrested and beaten by police for organising marches in Harare, on 19 September, and in Bulawayo on 20 September.

Demonstrators waved placards, sang songs, and presented Zimbabwe’s new government with a list of demands, according to SW Radio Africa. While onlookers applauded the women, police tried to disperse the crowds and injured many protesters with baton strikes.

The marches celebrated the International Day of Peace,…

14 September 2013 was a special day, marking 30 years of action by the legendary Côr Cochion Caerdydd, Cardiff Reds’ Choir. At a celebration in The Gate Arts Centre in Cardiff, singer song-writer, politician and activist Dafydd Iwan paid tribute to the choir’s long commitment to standing up for peace and justice: ‘If Côr Cochion are campaigning for a cause we all know it is worth campaigning for!’…

In September, PN interviewed Moscow-based journalists Marina Darmaros and Wissam Moukayed, makers of a short documentary film Transition, which exposes the extensive use of cluster bombs by the Syrian regime and the hopelessness of the people living in Azaz camp, in Aleppo.

PN: Why did you decide to make a documentary about Syria?

Marina Darmaros: I’ve been living in Russia for six years, and Wissam for more than seven. We decided to spend money from our own…

On 10 September, Stop The Arms Fair activists greeted arms dealers arriving at London city airport for the defence and security equipment international arms fair. DSEi was held from 10-13 September at the ExCeL centre in east London. Forced to stand outside the airport, campaigners were allowed to remain on the property as arms dealers left the airport in search of taxis. Several DSEi…

Balcombe, 22 September. Photo: Gabrielle Lewry

On 16 September, a high court judge adjourned an application by the West Sussex county council to remove anti-fracking protesters from Balcombe after describing it as ‘flawed’.

Justice Beverly Lang said there was a need to consider the protesters’ right to peaceful assembly.

Demonstrators have been camped along London Road…

When Melanie Phillips, doyenne of the right, posed the question ‘drones – what’s not to like?’ on BBC Radio 4’s ‘Moral Maze’ programme, I was incensed at the sheer crassness of her words. Statements by politicians and ministry of defence (MoD) spokespersons justifying the use of drones for military and surveillance purposes need to be countered at every opportunity.

Bankrupt civil servants, politicians and warmongers never mention the civilian deaths and injuries, nor the invasion…

On 2 September, 21 people were arrested as Action AWE and Trident Ploughshares held an international – Argentine, Belgian, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Japanese, Spanish and Scottish – blockade of AWE Burghfield in Berkshire. ‘Atomic Weapons Establishment’ Burghfield and AWE Aldermaston nearby are where Britain’s nuclear weapons are produced. Action AWE and Trident Ploughshares…

The Street Choirs Festival (19-21 July) saw some 36 choirs with 700 choristers from across the UK descend excitedly on Aberystwyth. Local choir Côr Gobaith had been planning the festival for the best part of a year, taking as its theme ‘peace’.

A Friday welcome concert with local and national talent included Chocolat, Sianed Jones, and Tracey Curtis.

Saturday saw a Peace Parade from the Arts Centre to the seafront, where all the choristers took part in a massed sing. In the…

It was reported on 6 August, that 60 people being held in the United States military’s Guantánamo Bay detention centre were continuing a hunger strike against their continued imprisonment without trial.

The hunger strike has lasted six months and at one point involved over 100 of the 160 detainees. Many hunger strikers have suffered force-feeding, a practice  widely condemned as torture.

The remaining British resident, Shaker Aamer, who has been detained for 11 years, is among…

On 11 August, for the first time in 16 years of protest, peace activists completely stopped traffic into and out of Germany’s largest joint US-German air force base – for 24 hours.

Over 750 people converged on Büchel to protest against the continued storage there of 20 US nuclear weapons, in violation of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

After a large ‘happening’ at the main gate, teams with overnight camping gear drove to the base’s eight gates.

Each blockade was…

Even as the war in Afghanistan re-escalates – with the UN reporting 14% more civilian deaths in the first half of 2013 compared with 2012 – the Taliban have been holding secret talks with Afghan government officials in an effort to restart the country’s stalled peace process.

This comes in the wake of the June opening of a Taliban political office in Doha – which was supposed to lead to direct talks between the US, the Taliban and the Afghan government, but instead collapsed for…

On 21 August, a military judge sentenced the 25-year-old US army private formerly known as Bradley Manning to 35 years in prison, with time served (almost three years) in pre-trial custody counted towards this.

The next day, Bradley Manning publicly asked to be referred to as Chelsea Manning from that point on, and asked people to use the feminine pronoun to refer to her (except in official post to the prison), saying: ‘I am a female’.

The judge in Manning’s trial counted…

In July, the management group decided to wind up Cynefin y Werin (CyW), the all-Wales network promoting international peace, social justice, human rights and equality. After a successful period initially, CyW’s level of activity has diminished substantially in recent years.

Up until Spring 2006, the network held regular dayschools for activists. In 2007, the network set its priority as ‘championing a vision for civil society in Wales, with a view to moving towards a Civic Forum for…

The artist Rachael House has a project where she encourages participants to draw ‘what a feminist looks like’ on paper plates. At the UK Feminista Summer School this August, there was a delightful variety of over 500 feminists for inspiration.

The conference was held on the Birmingham University campus, and that might have been why the participants were predominantly younger women, and why the tone of the event was gently academic, but older women, women of colour, working-class women…

From 6-9 August, a group of peace activists including Serge Levillier, a lively 79-year-old Frenchman, held a fast and vigil outside Burghfield atomic weapons establishment in Berkshire. This was in solidarity with fasts also happening in France and Germany.

We put up banners, sang together, and read from the accounts left by survivors of the terrible atomic bombings in Japan. We did shadow drawings on the tarmac outside the main gate to remember those at the heart of the explosion,…