Upcoming War Resisters' International events

15 May 2005: International Conscientious Objectors' Day

Focus: conscientious objection in Greece. WRI and the Greek Association of COs are organising an international seminar, nonviolence training, and action in Thessaloniki from 9-15 May 2005. Contact WRI for more information.

June 2005: Seminar "Peace in North-East Asia"

In cooperation with South Korean groups, War Resisters' International is organising an international seminar "Peace in North-East Asia" for the end of June/early July 2005. After the seminar, WRI will hold its annual Council meeting. Contact WRI or check on the internet at http://wri-irg.org/news/2005/council2005-en.htm for more details.

"Asking the right questions: Nonviolence Training and Gender" WRI/IFOR training in Thailand in October 2004

A new issue of WRI Women, the newsletter of the WRI Women's Working Group, devoted to the Asking the Right Questions: Nonviolence Training and Gender consultation, which took place October 3 to 8, 2004, in Chiang Mai, Thailand, has just been published, and is available on WRI's website.

The newsletter can only give a taste of the insights, enthusiasm, questions, energy, and tears that were shared during the consultation. A longer report of the consultation is available upon request from WRI or from the International Fellowship of Reconciliation's (IFOR) Women Peacemakers Program (WPP). The consultation was co-organized by WRI and IFOR's Women Peacemakers Program, with support from the International Women's Partnership for Peace and Justice, a Thai-based feminist nonviolence training centre.

Some 35 women participated in the consultation, from 22 countries. Casha Davis organized a skillful group of professional interpreters who provided interpretation into and from English, French and Spanish throughout the consultation.

You can read the newsletter online at http://wri-irg.org/pubs/ww-200501.htm

May 24 International Women's Day for Peace and Disarmament

began in Europe in the early 1980s, when hundreds of thousands of women organised against nuclear weapons and the arms race. Since the 1995 UN World Conference on Women in Beijing, the International Fellowship of Reconciliation and the International Peace Bureau have published an annual information pack to raise awareness of and increase support for women's peace initiatives.

The 2005 Action Pack looks at women's nonviolent work for peace in the Pacific area, UN SC Resolution 1325 and women combatants.

More information at http://www.ifor.org/WPP/whatyou.htm