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…
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…
The Muriel Lesters affinity group visited the corporate headquarters of Lockheed Martin in Cunard House, 15 Lower Regent St, near Piccadilly Circus, London, on 6 June. Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest arms manufacturer, is one of three companies running the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston (on behalf of the British government), where they are designing and building a new generation of nuclear weapons. The Trident Ploughshares affinity group will be visiting again at…
Photo: Christian CND.
On 3 June, Christian CND and ICAN (the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons) celebrated the royal jubilee with ‘The Queen’s Peace Alternative Jubilee Party’ outside the nuclear bomb factory, AWE Aldermaston in Berkshire. There was a short service, followed by a secular event at 2pm, with a ‘best hat or crown’ competition, fence-decorating, children’s activities and a shared party tea.
Bath The camp is still ‘packed up’, but individuals continue to meet up under the name the Bath People’s Assembly.
Bournemouth The camp was evicted in March, but activists continue to hold events. There are unofficial reports of an anonymous camp in Cherry Town.
Bradford A new camp was set up, in May, on a site owned by Westfield, now renamed ‘Wastefield.’
Brighton There are regular general assemblies and protests, but no camp.
Birmingham The…
Nuclear disarmament. If not now, when?
Leonna O’Neill
Leonna O'Neill, Angus Chalmers and Julia Herzog reflect on being in the right place at the right time.
The Scottish Independence debate has created a situation in which Scotland, where most of us are categorically opposed to nuclear weapons, has the potential to refuse to continue to host the British nuclear weapons system. With a lack, south of the Border, of alternative venues anywhere near as strategically…
Some say the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army (CIRCA) is dead but, luckily, we don’t know it! Ever dutifool and never ones to shirk responsibility, we rose from our tombs to conduct another Big Shoe training camp for new recruits in Lampeter on the weekend of 16-17 June. What a feast of foolery, flashes of brilliance, fierce determination and fearless perseverance!
Lampeter hospitality and organising skills never fail and neither does their penchant (and stamina!) for having fun…
‘Not again, not ever!’
In Rhymni (Rhymney), the United Valleys Action Group are bracing themselves for another environmental campaign on behalf of local communities.
UVAG who, with the support of Friends of the Earth Cymru, have just defeated plans for a ‘monster incinerator’ in the area, expect the Miller Argent consortium to apply for planning permission for an open-cast coal mine at Nant Llesg on Merthyr Common.
Nant Llesg is very close to Miller Argent’s infamous Ffos-y-…
In May, 1,600 Palestinian prisoners ended their hunger strike against detention without trial and against abusive treatment, in return for major concessions by the Israeli prison service (see PN 2546).
It seems the prison service is not keeping to the agreement. More than 320 Palestinians remain in indefinite detention without trial; 10 prisoners have had their indefinite detention renewed; some prisoners continue to be held in solitary confinement for prolonged periods; prisoners…
John Catt, 87, plans to appeal against the decision of the high court to allow the police to keep his personal details on the police’s National Domestic Extremism Database, despite the fact that he has never been convicted of any crime.
Lord justice Gross and Mr justice Irwin handed down their judgement on 30 May, citing the anti-war protestor’s participation in Smash EDO protests in his home town, Brighton.
Lord Gross said: ‘Although many people at Smash EDO protests do not…
On 21 May, a US judge in Pennsylvania asked peace activist Norman Lowry, prosecuted for blockading a local recruiting office, to ‘forswear’ blockading military recruiting offices in future. Otherwise the court would be ‘obliged’ to impose the maximum sentence of seven years.
Lowry refused to give such an undertaking and was sentenced to one-to-seven years, the implication being that if he later agreed to give such an undertaking, he could be paroled after serving a year.
Lowry…
Police spy Bob Lambert fire-bombed the Harrow branch of Debenham’s in July 1987, Green MP Caroline Lucas told parliament on 13 June. The attack was perhaps ‘a move to bolster Lambert’s credibility’ within the Animal Liberation Front, which he had succeeded in infiltrating.
Lambert then helped convict two other members of the group, Geoff Sheppard and Andrew Clark, who carried out fire-bombings of Debenham stores in Luton and Romford at the same time as the Harrow attack. Sheppard and…
Roughly the same proportion of the British public ‘approves’ of US drone strikes as ‘disapproves’, according to a new poll by Pew Global Attitudes.
The international survey, polling 20 countries around the world, found that while 47% of the British public ‘disapprove of the [US] conducting missile strikes from pilotless aircraft called drones to target extremists in countries such as Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia’ (arguably a leading question), almost as many (44%) ‘approve’ of such…
On 23 June, Climate Siren activists hung banners on the gates of Buckingham palace. PHOTO: Peter Marshall
The human race may be pushing the Earth towards a rapid, catastrophic and irreversible ‘state shift’ leading to mass extinctions, according to a paper by 22 leading scientists published in the world’s top scientific journal, Nature, in the run-up to the failed Rio+20 environment conference. The Nature paper set out possible measures for avoiding or limiting the state shift, which may…
Two things are happening right now in relation to the question of whether an independent Scotland should be part of the nuclear-armed North Atlantic Treaty organisation (NATO).
It is obvious that within the Scottish National Party the defence spokesperson Angus Robertson is being allowed or encouraged by the leadership to promote a switch to a pro-NATO policy.
He has been publicly floating the idea for some weeks now and has not been slapped down by others in the leadership.…
In December 2011, South Lanarkshire council approved Scottish Coal’s proposal for a huge open-cast coal mine near the village of Glespin.
This was the nineteenth open-cast-related consent they had given, but they took this particular decision with no consultation whatsoever. Indeed the community were not even informed about it at the time.
Residents have an ongoing…
In May, I joined with 580 civil society delegates to take part in a ‘Mexican wave’ of briefings and side events at the preparatory committee for the Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference (NPT PrepCom) in Vienna.
On the eve of the wave, 150 of us met at the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) campaigners’ meeting to exchange our experiences and consider priorities.
The anti-nuclear physicians (IPPN) presented a new ‘nuclear famine’ report highlighting…
