Nuclear weapons

Ruth and Jimmy kiss in their car on the Moors. A fighter jet roars ominously overhead. Potential violence erupts into the everyday. Some of the images in Threads - a mushroom cloud rising over Sheffield, a middle-aged woman urinating in fear - are etched forever into my mind’s eye. Watching the film again, the same cold fear washes through my guts at the thought that such destruction is still within the reach of several world leaders…

Every year an International fast is held between Hiroshima and Nagasaki days (6th-9th August) in Burghfield, Paris, and Büchel, the last Nato base in Germany at which nuclear weapons are stationed. PN has covered the fast in both Paris and Burghfield with several articles in the past (see PN September 2012, June 2013 and September 2013).…

Rolls-Royce directors were confronted with the harrowing testimony of a Hiroshima survivor, Setsuko Thurlow, at their AGM on 1 May. Although the quote was lengthy, the chair was too disorientated to interrupt, and the board responded with nervous laughter.

Rolls-Royce provides power systems for Britain's Trident nuclear-powered, nuclear-missile-carrying submarine system. In June 2012, Rolls-Royce was awarded a £1bn contract to produce new reactor cores for the submarine that is…

Contrary to popular report (even among some peace activists), Faslane Peace Camp is still here and still opposing weapons of mass destruction, war and militarism. Things have been a little quiet over the winter but now spring is here and we’re ready for action.

Early on 19 March, I was arrested on board HMS Ambush inside Faslane naval base (which houses Britain’s Trident nucler missile submarines) along with fellow peace camper Jamie Watson.

We’d set off a couple of hours…

Reading Police Station, 8 February.
Photo: Wendy Lewis

If Cameron thinks the campaign against nuclear weapons is over, he can think again. We set off in our minibus, full to bursting with singers eager to take part in the latest action against Trident: a mass crime reporting at Reading police station, near the sites at Burghfield and Aldermaston where nuclear warheads are developed and tested.

The sight of flooded fields and swollen…

On 18 February, US peace activists Greg Boertje-Obed and Michael Walli were each sentenced to five years and two months in prison, followed by three years’ ‘supervised release’. Sister Megan Rice, a nun and the oldest of the three at 84, was sentenced to two years and 11 months (plus three years’ probation) for her part in their action at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, the US’s primary storehouse for weapons-grade uranium.

During the July 2012 action ‘Transform Now Plowshares’ action, the…

At the heart of this collection of essays is a brilliant and wonderful idea: academics presenting the case against Trident whilst protesting outside Faslane naval base. These al fresco conferences took place in January and June 2007 as part of the year-long Faslane 365 blockade, and resulted in the base being closed down and numerous arrests. Both were clearly successful events, and the road outside Faslane gates must count as one of the most unusual conference venues ever…

Writing in the afterglow of a beautiful day of guerrilla nonviolence at Torness, I’m no longer daunted by the question with which I’ve been shadow-boxing these past few weeks: ‘exactly how do we intend to reverse the nuclear power programme?’

“The anti-nuclear movement already has its equivalents of the charka”

On that site, I saw for myself the achievement of the people who occupied Half Moon Cottage in creating a symbol for us to rally around, and also in…

On 10 and 13 January, Reading magistrates court dismissed charges of ‘obstruction of the highway’ against two groups of Trident Ploughshares (TP) activists because of procedural errors by the crown prosecution service (CPS).

On 10 January, Leonna O’Neill, Jamie Watson and Julia Mercer were on trial for their participation in the international Action AWE blockades outside the atomic weapons establishment (AWE) Burghfield on 2 September last year (see PN 2562). Julia Mercer had…

The Transform Now Plowshares support group is calling for letters to help lower prison sentences for Megan Rice (83), Michael Walli (64) and Greg Boertje-Obed (57).

The peace activists are facing 30-year sentences for breaking into a US nuclear bomb-making factory in Oak Ridge, California in July 2012, and ‘transforming’ it with blood, spraypaint and hammers.

The support group asks for letters touching on three points: 

Get rid of Trident - Eat it! Photo: Lotte Reimer

Early on 3 October, a small but committed contingent from Wales and Bristol, along with an intrepid lone Glaswegian, blockaded the ministry of defence (MoD) road to the Burghfield atomic weapons establishment (AWE).

A ‘Mad Trident Tea-Party’ was set up and attended by three large red dragons and numerous small ones. With members of Côr Cochion and Côr Gobaith present, the singing rarely stopped for the six hours of the blockade. We…

The recent leaks about the arrival date of American cruise missiles at Greenham Common were followed last week by a series of transport planes bringing related equipment – though not it seems, initially, the missiles themselves. But even before the first planes arrived, nuclear disarmers were stepping up their opposition.

October 29 saw 1,500 women taking direct action at Greenham Common, where parts of the perimeter fence were cut down. On Monday October 31, the day of the…

We are of the generation who came of age in the 1980s, terrified that the world might end at any moment through nuclear holocaust. In the decades since then, the people of the world have grown less frightened of a nuclear war.

The risk is still there, as the number of nuclear weapon states increases, and conflicts continue around nuclear tinderboxes, but the fear has declined.

Recent studies suggest that even a ‘small’ nuclear war between India and Pakistan, with each…

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…

In the months since the Torness demonstration in May and the London anti-Windscale demo some kind of anti-nuclear movement has appeared. Discussion of how nuclear power can be opposed is shifting from isolated actions to the development of campaigns. The Torness Alliance is an attempt (experimental and perhaps inevitably frustrating) at developing mutual co-ordination of the efforts of local autonomous groups.

That development will be very difficult without a growth and…