Early on 8 October, 30 people entered the proposed construction site for a new nuclear reactor at Hinkley in Somerset. Inside they scattered 577 seed balls to mark the days since the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan.
Three people attached themselves to the fence with bicycle locks. After some hours the occupiers were forcibly removed. Just six were charged, some with going equipped to commit criminal damage.
The actions were part of a weekend anti-nuclear camp. There was a…
On 6 September, anti-nuclear protesters from Faslane Peace Camp delivered an emotive message to the 'next generation' of nuclear weapons engineers at a nuclear weapons seminar in a hotel in Clydebank.
The 'Introduction to Nuclear Defence' seminar, held in Beardmore Hotel Clydebank, invited 'young delegates' for two days of seminars and presentations on military nuclear topics from 'leading industry figures'. The programme, only open to UK passport holders subject to stringent security…
Trident Ploughshares affinity group 'Rise Up Singing' organised two days of tuneful protest at (and a blockade of) the Faslane nuclear submarine base on 16-17 September.
There was a busy day of workshops, singing practice and banner-making on 15 September.
The next day, more than 50 people headed to Faslane to raise their voices in protest against the Trident submarines housed there.
Two visitors from Bhopal described their campaign for justice for the…
The 'China syndrome' is a 1970s term for a catastrophic reactor meltdown into the earth's crust – 'all the way to China'. As the new Chinese bid for the proposed Wylfa B nuclear power station is considered, the phrase may bring to mind another scenario – a catastrophic meltdown of democratic accountability, because democracy and transparency are the first casualties of the drive for 'new nuclear'.
The sudden departure of the previous operators, Horizon, from the troubled project…
On 3 September, a London magistrate refused to grant a compensation claim of £300 demanded by the ministry of defence (MoD) from Catholic peace activists Ray Towey, 68, Henrietta Cullinan, 50, and Katrina Alton, 44.
Earlier, the three had been joined by 25 supporters for a time of prayer outside Hammersmith magistrates’ court before a three-hour trial.
The three activists offered clear and moving accounts of their peace actions at the MoD during Holy Week when they…
Rats fed a popular strain of genetically-engineered corn for two years developed large tumours and died earlier than rats in a control group. This is the conclusion of a paper by a French university research group published in a peer-reviewed journal in mid-September.
The maize in question is genetically-modified (GM) to withstand spraying with Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller. The rats were divided into groups; one fed the GM corn; another fed with GM corn sprayed with Roundup; a…
On 11 September, leading Muslim anti-war activist Salma Yaqoob announced her resignation from the left-wing Respect party which she had helped to found, and of which she was the leader. Yaqoob made it clear that ‘necessary relations of trust and collaborative working’ had broken down over remarks made by Respect MP George Galloway in relation to the rape allegations against Wikileaks leader Julian Assange.
On 4 September, CND general secretary Kate Hudson had stood down as a…
On 28 August, protests marked the AGM of mining corporation Vedanta Resources, including in central London, where the AGM was held. Thousands took part in a parallel demonstration in Goa, India, (pictured) demanding an end to operations at Sesa Goa’s Amona pig iron plant. Dongria Kond tribals whose sacred mountain is threatened by Vedanta’s mining ambitions (see PN 2520, 2528) joined protests in Odisha, India. In Zambia, activists marked the AGM by publishing a report on the contamination of…
On 10 September, local fisherman Anthony John, 44, was shot dead by Indian police while taking part in a blockade protesting against the completion of a nuclear power plant in Kudankulam in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
Two 1GW reactors have been built on the site and were being loaded with uranium fuel as PN went to press: the authorities plan to build a further four 1GW reactors on the site.
The protests were organised by the People’s Movement Against Nuclear…
Since the beginning of September, Palestinians have regularly blocked roads in West Bank cities and held strikes, protesting at the high prices of basic necessities and the Palestinian authority’s neoliberal austerity policies, but also condemning the 1993 Oslo peace accords, particularly the ‘Paris protocol’ annex to the accords which preserves Israeli domination of the Palestinian economy.
Meanwhile, Palestinian Freedom Theatre co-founder Zakaria Zubeidi held a ‘death fast’ in…
On 13 September, a group calling itself the Diggers 2012 community won a partial victory in its struggle with the National Trust, which has been trying to evict the group from its ‘Runnymede Eco-Village’, set up in June on land near the Runnymede memorial in Surrey. The memorial commemorates the signing of the Magna Carta there in 1215, by king John.
Rather than regarding the Diggers camp as something of historical interest worth preserving, the National Trust had sought a possession…
The Drone Campaign Network has launched a ‘Lift the Veil’ petition, aiming to collect 20,000 signatures calling for an end to the secrecy surrounding the use of British drones in Afghanistan. UK forces are known to have carried out around 300 drone strikes in Afghanistan since 2008. Former director of public prosecutions Ken Macdonald says there is ‘pretty compelling…
Eighty people from all over France and from several European countries – Lithuania, Finland, Germany – and also several Americans, fasted in Paris from 6 August, anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, to 9 August, the date Nagasaki was bombed.
The Paris town hall, the local 2e arrondissement town hall, and the organising associations, the Maison de Vigilance, the Sortir du nucléaire network and the umbrella organisation Armes nucléaires STOP were present throughout the four…
PHOTO: Hannah Daisy
At the end of July, women restored missing hair to statues of women in central London to promote a month-long campaign of body-hair-growing. Armpits4August aims to combat ‘a physically-, socially-, and mentally-damaging image of what is “natural”’. The group said: ‘by growing our body hair we are working towards having pride in our body hair, not shame.’ The group also raised money for Verity, the charity for women with polycystic ovarian syndrome.
PHOTO: Jubilee Debt Campaign
Jubilee Debt Campaign mark a surprise decision by the UK privy council, on 18 July, ruling against vulture fund FG Hemisphere, which had tried to sue the Democratic Republic of Congo’s state mining company in a Jersey court for $100 million. (FG Hemisphere bought the debt for just $3 million.) Vuture funds profit by buying cheaply and then pursuing the debts of impoverished countries.
In the Senedd on 19 June, Wales’ first minister, Labour’s Carwyn Jones, said he would welcome Britain’s Trident nuclear missile submarines if an SNP government kicks the fleet out of an independent Scotland. Come to Pembroke, Carwyn said, Milford Haven awaits. Oh boy, if he did....
The peace movement in Wales reacted in outrage across its diverse and formidable range. Peace activist Mabon ap Gwynfor instigated an online petition urging the national assembly to oppose the idea of…
With the help of their Glasgow Kiss friends in arms, the ever-wonderful Faslane Peace Camp people and friends, the newly-expanded Lampeter gaggle of Byddin Boncars Clowniad, the Welsh Rebel Clown Army, closed Faslane nuclear submarine base for five hours on 7 July as part of the Faslane 30 campaign to blockade the base for 30 days to mark the 30-year anniversary of the Faslane Peace Camp.
The action followed hot on the heels of the previous day’s academic blockade, where academics…
On 14 July, 45 people invaded Scottish Coal’s Mainshill open-cast coal site near Douglas, South Lanarkshire, and shut it down for the day. Machines including a ‘prime mover’ were occupied and all work was stopped completely.
The occupation was part of an action camp held in Douglas Valley in the Southern Uplands from 12-18 July. Other actions included blockading the entrance of Broken Cross open-cast coal site and ‘open-casting’ the lawn belonging to Lord Home, who makes…
A diverse group of Scottish organisations and individuals has set up a coalition to resist the notion that an independent Scotland should become a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).
The Scottish National Party (SNP) has long held the position that it would insist on the removal of Trident if Scotland should achieve independence and that a future Scotland would not be a member of NATO. While the SNP says it will remain firm in opposing Trident, the SNP leadership…
TP die-in outside SNP HQ, Edinburgh, 9 August. PHOTO: Trident Ploughshares
Various stalls and ceremonies were held across Scotland over the first week-end in August to mark the anniversary of the Hiroshima bomb. On 9 August, Trident Ploughshares (TP) held a more pointed Nagasaki commemoration at the Scottish National Party’s HQ in Edinburgh.
TP wanted to challenge the SNP leadership’s ludicrous lack of consistency in declaring an absolute opposition to hosting nuclear weapons while…
