Latest News
Friends nominate Hawa Abdi for the Nobel Peace Prize
The American Friends Service Committee has nominated the Somali physician Hawa Abdi for her provision of medical care and refuge to all – regardless of their clan, religious or political affiliation.
Fothergill remembered
An eighteenth-century Quaker physician has been remembered in a series of events at the school he founded. A celebration on 8 March marked three hundred years since the birth of John Fothergill, who founded Ackworth School near Pontefract in 1779. He died the following year.
Leaping for 25 years
LEAP Confronting Conflict has celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary. The charity works with young people and adults to manage conflict and prevent violence in young people’s lives, schools and community.
Women suffer from food speculation
Worldwide 555 million women go hungry – making up sixty per cent of the world’s hungry people. That’s the estimate of the World Development Movement (WDM), who published the statistics on International Women’s Day last week.
Reform Jews back same-sex marriage
Reform Jews have become the largest religious group in Britain to give their support to same-sex marriage – a role previously occupied by Quakers.
Quakers continue at St Pauls
Quakers will continue a weekly Meeting for Worship on the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral despite the eviction of the ‘Occupy’ camp. In an epistle produced on Sunday, they pledged to seek ‘new ways to speak truth to power’.
Pacifism in deed
Pacifist campaigners have criticised parts of the media for repeatedly misusing the word ‘pacifism’. Members of the Peace Pledge Union (PPU) say that commentators frequently equate pacifism with passivity, giving up or ‘doing nothing’.
International Women’s Day builds bridges of peace
As the world marked International Women’s Day this week, a charity called for a renewed focus on the experience of women in war.
Report challenges Trident renewal
The plan to spend more than £25m on a nuclear deterrent has been described as ‘nonsensical’ by an independent report. The paper, from the independent liberal think tank CentreForum, argues that the proposal to renew Trident should be scrapped because there is no foreseeable threat to Britain.
Concerns over legal aid reform
Quaker concerns over the impact that changes to legal aid will have on the poorest and most vulnerable in society have been echoed in the House of Lords.