Kelvin Mason
Along with, I’m sure, everyone in Wales and many people beyond our borders, I would like to pay tribute to the four miners who died in a flood at Gleision colliery near Pontardawe: Charles Breslin, Phillip Hill, Garry Jenkins and David Powell. My heart goes out to their families, friends and community.
Bethan Jenkins, Plaid Cymru AM for South Wales West, said: “The very real and cruel way in which the families were robbed of these men is something that I think it will take the local…
The Wales Peace Festival takes place in Bangor over the weekend of 18-19 October. An annual event, the Festival has become the main opportunity for people from all over Wales to take stock, exchange information, participate in lively debate, and look to the future.
Organised this year by Bangor and Ynys Môn Peace and Justice Group, the festival programme includes Dylan Morgan on the campaign to stop Wylfa B nuclear power station, and former Guantanamo detainee Moazzam Begg talking…
“Fossil Fools Day”, 1 April, began an international week of action against the fossil fuel industry, mobilising the Rising Tide network of people dedicated to building a movement against climate change.
In Wales, groups shut down Ffos-y-Frân, an open-cast coalmine in Merthyr Tydfil operated by the Miller Argent Consortium. Later in the week, the target was Aberthaw power station which burns coal from the mine.
These spectacular actions were the result of weeks of planning…
At the beginning of April protestors from Wales were out in force in Brussels. Supported by Plaid Cymru MEP Jill Evans and AM Bethan Jenkins, environmental groups petitioned the European Parliament against the National Grid’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) pipeline.
The European Commission has been looking into possible breaches of EU law relating to the pipeline, which stretches 150 miles from Milford Haven to Gloucestershire.
Meanwhile, residents opposed to the Hafod landfill…
The ‘Wales Peace Festival 08’ took place in Bangor over the weekend 18 – 19 October. Organised by Bangor and Ynys Môn Peace and Justice Group, the event produced inspiring proposals for an enhanced culture of peace. Speakers included former Guantanamo kidnap victim Moazzam Begg, MEP Jill Evans, Peace News editor Milan Rai, Greg Muttitt from the Hands off Iraqi Oil Campaign, and Dr Ambrose-Oji discussing the effects of climate change on Africa. Stephen Thomas of the Welsh Centre for…
On 8 September, the Fellowship of Reconciliation commemorated “the burning of the bombing school” with a protest against the proposed St Athan military training academy.
The burning of the bombing school took place at Penyberth near Pwllheli in 1936. Ignoring the objections of the people of Wales, the British government developed an RAF bombing school on a site of particular importance in Welsh literary culture.
When the bombing school was set on fire, Plaid Cymru members…
Merthyr Tydfil residents and climate change campaigners staged protests at the Cardiff Hilton during the AGM of the UK Coal Authority on 10 September. Campaigners scaled the luxury hotel and hung a banner reading “Coal = Climate Disaster” over the main entrance.
Inside, with no hint of irony, the Coal Authority prepared to present its “Environmental Awards”. Residents sorely afflicted by Ffos-y-Frân opencast coalmine interrupted proceedings to present developers Miller Argent with…
Rob Newman, in a set that was surely as politically and historically informed as comedy gets, said that, when our descendants look back, the Camp for Climate Action will be the single most important moment of 2007. George Monbiot believes “a new political movement has been born”, though he is surely aware that this movement has been alive and doing its best to kick for some time. Whatever else we think about the Camp for Climate Action, it was certainly a major “victory” for creative NVDA.…
KM: How do themes of peace, justice and environment come to be at the centre of your political life?
JE: I went to Aberystwyth University where I joined Plaid Cymru and became involved in anti-nuclear meetings and the movement against the dumping of waste in Wales.
I went back to the Rhonda in 1980 and we set up Rhonda CND. It was huge - we had more members than the Labour party! It was the same across the country; CND branches set up everywhere. I've been…
Within four days of a campaign launch, over a hundred people have signed up to withhold their television licence fee in protest over threats to the Welsh language channel S4C. Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (the Welsh Language Society) are campaigning for the UK government to guarantee independence and sufficient funding for the channel.
Amongst those who have said they won’t be paying the tax that funds the BBC are the singers Dafydd Iwan, Gai Toms and Bryn Fôn and the academic Dr…
An All-Wales Palestine Network has been set up following a meeting with Jill Evans, MEP. It is thought that an all-Wales group can provide more “clout” than local groups. The purpose of this Network is action. No meetings, no chat, no structure. Concerted action only. Contact Pippa Bartolotti pippa@pippa-bartolotti.co.uk
CND Cymru is working flat out on making the links between public spending cuts and the atrocity of a Trident replacement that is going ahead…
So far, this winter of discontent has seen some really positive actions in Aberystwyth. On 24 November last year, students from Aberystwyth University “took education into their own hands”, setting up a Free University in the town square. Joining with lecturers and people from schools and the wider community, the Free University action organised by Aber Students Against The Cuts (a Facebook group) opposed spending cuts in education, increases in tuition fees, and the restructuring of higher…
Next month the Camp for Climate Action meets to discuss how we organise. Actually, the agenda will be much broader than process. At issue is not just how we do things but what we do. CCA is, of course, not unique in asking this question. Ever since the farce of COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009 environmentalism – radical and reformist – has been virtually rudderless. Observing that ‘the process is dead’, George Monbiot asked the question directly: So, what do we do now? We do not…
On 28 September the Petitions Committee of the Welsh Assembly Government posted its official decision on the ambition for a Peace Institute (Academi Heddwch) in Wales. “The committee agreed to: undertake further work on a rapporteur/informal group basis to consider how a peace institute in Wales could be established; how they would be funded and the work which they could undertake.” On behalf of the project’s instigators, the civil society forum Cynefin Y Werin, Dr John Cox of CND Cymru is…
Regular readers of this page will know that the Cynefin Y Werin network is pursuing a major project to establish a Peace Institute (Academi Heddwch), working with academics and others in Wales. The Peace Institute is likely to be based on the model of the Flemish Peace Institute. Delegates from Cynefin Y Werin have visited Brussels and speakers from the institute undertook a speaking tour of Wales. The Wales project has the rhetorical support of the Welsh Assembly government but the…
