PN

On 28 November, 22 Greenpeace activists broke into the French four-reactor nuclear power plant, Cruas-Meysse. Four scaled the walls of a building containing pools used to cool highly-radioactive spent fuel rods, and set off flares.

Greenpeace claimed that this incursion highlighted security shortcomings at the facility, proving that security around spent nuclear fuel pools is particularly lacking and that France’s 58 nuclear reactors are vulnerable to attack.

In October…

Nukewatch report that the first British nuclear warhead convoy of 2018 took a new route from the nuclear bomb factory in Burghfield in Berkshire, England, to the Coulport nuclear weapons store north of Glasgow, Scotland.

Four warhead carriers left Burghfield on 31 January. After a break at Glencorse Barracks, south of Edinburgh, the convoy departed from its usual route: ‘Unusually it then took the M8 west passing Livingston and Bathgate, and then through the centre of Glasgow…

For many years, PN has been keeping an eye on the Nepali peace process, which has progressed in fits and starts since the Nepali civil war came to an end in 2006.

In early February, Nepal held elections for its new upper chamber under its new federal constitution. The alliance between the Maoist Centre party and the United Marxist-Leninists (UML) swept the board, taking 40 of the 56 seats. In elections in November and December, the leftist alliance took 174 out of 275…

PN also keeps watch on the struggle for freedom in Western Sahara, illegally occupied by Morocco since 1975.

Solidarity campaigners has been targeting foreign companies involved in the illegal exploitation of Saharawi resources. In the last few months, several have pulled out.

The giant Swiss/British multinational Glencore finally left on 4 January (it had been exploring for oil). The Canadian firm Nutrien announced on 25 January that it would no longer buy…

On 6 November, peace group British Pugwash, the Polish Heritage Society UK and the Polish embassy unveiled a plaque for Joseph Rotblat on the corner of Bury Place and Great Russell Street in London. The Polish nuclear scientist won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995 for campaigning against nuclear weapons. Photo: Polish Heritage Society

Welsh language campaigners call on assembly member Alun Davies to bin his plans for the Welsh Language Bill, while blockading his office in Brynmawr on 26 October. The bill would abolish the Welsh language commissioner and weaken regulations that ensure organisations provide services in Welsh. Photo: Cymdeithas yr Iaith

Members of Veterans for Peace UK line up in Whitehall, London, on 12 November for a Remembrance Day ceremony at the Cenotaph. VfP UK lays a wreath of white poppies and remembers all those killed in war, including civilians and enemy soldiers. The banner at the front says: ‘Never Again’. Photo: Veterans for Peace UK

Diversity is Beautiful (right) is just one of the rich posters and prints to come out of the new Cato Press in Easton, Bristol. The community-run studio puts on courses for all in printmaking. It makes huge, collectively-cut prints and places itself firmly in the political printmaking tradition of José Guadalupe Posada and the Mexican Taller de Gráfica Popular (and also the…

‘Justice for the Elbit 5 — Stop Arming Israel’ demo at Aberporth test-flying site for UK-manufactured Israeli drones on 13 September. This action was in solidarity with five activists appearing before Cannock magistrates court, Staffordshire, charged under the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 for their part in shutting down the Elbit drones factory in Shenstone on 6–7 July. Charges were dropped against three defendants, while the trial of the remaining two…

We talked about class with Catholic peace activist Chris Cole during the DSEI week of action. He had been arrested a few days earlier (in his first lock-on) while blockading the set-up of the arms fair with other Christian peace activists. Chris has been involved in nonviolent direct action for almost 30 years. We met him at…

Some of the folk pleading not guilty on 21 September at Thames magistrates court. This was one of many days of plea hearings (18 September – 9 October) for the 100 activists arrested for disrupting the set-up for the DSEI arms fair in East London.

PHOTO: Sarah Lasenby

As we went to press, it wasn’t clear whether the regional government of Catalonia would succeed in holding its 1 October independence referendum – which has been declared illegal by Spain’s constitutional court.

The independentistas are engaged in mass non-co-operation with the Spanish state. Dock workers in Barcelona and Tarragona refused to provide services to boats carrying over 5,000 armed police ordered to disrupt the referendum.

Spanish prime minister…

On 8 August, French activist Rémi Filliau was arrested in Paris during a Clown Army action at the headquarters of En Marche (‘Forward!’), the political party of president Emmanuel Macron.

Rémi was one of 15 ‘clowns en marche arrière’ (‘backwards clowns’) who occupied the lobby of the building. The backwards 15 wanted to congratulate ‘the president of the clowns’ on his valiant opposition to the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

‘We came to thank him,…

At the end of August, 800 people were arrested as over 6,000 climate justice activists gathered in western Germany for the Rhineland Climate Camp, taking part in different protests against brown coal mining in the area. The arrests came during the Ende Gelände (‘Here and No Further’) weekend of mass civil disobedience involving 3,000 people. Affinity groups crossed fields (see above) to enter the Tagebau Garzweiler lignite coal mine or to block coal trains to the…

On 12 September, the TUC (Trades Union Congress) passed two ground-breaking motions, one on the conversion of military industry to socially-useful production, and the other on climate action. Both proposals stressed the need to involve workers in making change.

The conversion motion was passed by a majority after being proposed by the brand-new Artists’ Union England (established 2016) and opposed by the huge GMB union (over 600,000 members).

The motion recalled the ‘…