Issue 29-04-2011
Featured story
What do we mean by equality?
In 1976 the general staff at the United Nations office in Geneva went on strike: these were the cleaners, the porters, the cafeteria workers, people who served the executives who worked in the Secretariat and the diplomats when they attended meetings. My father was a very senior member of the UN...
Top stories
Geoff Tansey - working for fair play in food
In 2009 more people went hungry than ever before – over one billion. At the same time, at least another 300 million were obese – with all the likely risks of heart disease, cancer, and diabetes.
United Nations Commission considers criminal justice reform
Friends have addressed the United Nations on issues of criminal justice reform. At the twentieth UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, held in Vienna earlier this month, Quaker representatives spoke to the assembled governments and professionals about the principles that should underlie the treatment of prisoners. Friends...
Poverty Truth Commission
Poverty will be overcome only if people at the ‘sharp end’ are at the centre of policy-making. That’s the view of the Poverty Truth Commission, who insist that ‘charity reports and government strategies’ will not work unless people who experience poverty first hand are at the heart of the...
Salisbury Quakers celebrate
Salisbury Quakers are celebrating the first anniversary of their new Meeting house in style. The building has just received a Salisbury Civic Society Conservation award in recognition of the excellence of the conversion and of the contribution the Meeting House is making to community life in the town.
Will and Kate invited to support Equal Love Campaign
The world’s most famous nearly-married couple received a thought-provoking and unusual gift on Monday, when supporters of same-sex marriage attempted to recruit them to their campaign.
All articles
Lessons from Fukushima
Recent columns in the Friend understandably focus on the challenges to our faith and practice posed by Libya and Palestine. Friends in Medact and other peace groups are equally concerned with events in Japan.
Trustees: creating time and space
‘A remarkably rich experience’ was how one trustee described her experience of trusteeship at the first national conference of Area Meeting (AM) trustees, held at Woodbrooke recently. Around seventy Friends from AMs throughout Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM), including members of Quaker Stewardship Committee, spent a thought-provoking time together covering trustee...
Desert wisdom
The desert has been the inspiration for many great spiritual teachings, notably Christian, Islamic and Jewish. Studying key texts from these teachings in their original language can deepen our experience of these faiths, and show us how much they share.
Gene Sharp: a quiet revolutionary
‘Nonviolent weapons are very important because… if [people] can’t see that they are very powerful, they will go back to violence and war every time.’ So commented the American academic Gene Sharp recently. Following the events in Egypt that swept Hosni Mubarak’s oppressive regime away and prompted...
All you need
Letters - 29 April 2011
Time to face reality It was brave of you to devote a whole page to Tom Jackson’s stern enjoinder ‘it is time to face reality’ (15 April). With a little more research on his part I’m sure Tom could have made his ‘reality’ a little more real. He might,...
Eye - 29 April 2011
A pretty protest Following a rendition of Steve Tilston’s Pretty Penny at a regular music session in Le Bon Croissant café in Crouch End, London, one afternoon, the musicians had not had their fill. They decided to take the truth-telling ditty to serenade the staff at the local Barclays...