The end of the world is closer than it’s ever been, according to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. On 23 January, the Bulletin moved the hands of its Doomsday Clock 20 seconds forward.
The clock, which symbolises how close humanity is to destruction, is now only 100 seconds to midnight.
Rachel Bronson, president and CEO of the Bulletin, said: ‘We now face a true emergency – an absolutely unacceptable state of world affairs that has eliminated any margin for…
The current issue of Peace News doesn't have an events page because most events in the time period it covers (10 August to the end of October) are online.
So we've put the events listing online instead. Please do check before attending an in-person event as the changing COVID-19 restrictions mean in-person/face-to-face events change also.
This is a list of the kinds of events below:
1) Hiroshima & Nagasaki events (in-person/face-to-face)
2) Hiroshima &…
On 23 January, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the Doomsday Clock from two minutes to midnight to 100 seconds to midnight, which is the closest that it has been to midnight since the Clock was created in 1947 (midnight means the end of organised human life). The Bulletin consists of the world’s top physicists and its work is supported by experts on international peace and security such as former UN high commissioner for human rights Mary Robinson and former UN…
In August, demonstrators in town crier costumes walked around Whitehall in central London, shouting the good news about the UN's Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
The Trident Ploughshares activists also held an oration and die-in on the steps of the British Museum to protest at the holding of an MoD-sponsored exhibition to mark the 50th anniversary of the introduction of the UK’s nuclear-armed submarines.
When the group held the same demonstration in the museum’s…
The rate of ratifications of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) has slowed dramatically.
Signatures are nice, but 50 states need to actually ratify the treaty, which the UN adopted on 7 July 2017, for it to come into force. In democracies, ratification usually requires parliament to pass a law.
In the year to September 2018, 19 states ratified the TPNW, roughly three countries every two months.
Since then, only four countries have followed suit, not…
On 8-9 July, four Trident Ploughshares activists were acquitted and four were found guilty at High Wycombe magistrates' court. They were being prosecuted for an all-day blockade of the Burghfield nuclear bomb factory in Berkshire on 24 October last year. (PN 2624-2625)
Jan and Brian Jones, Jane Picksley and Marie Walsh were charged with highway obstruction for sitting in front of Pingewood Gate while locked to each other through arm tubes. District judge Sophie Toms acquitted them on…
Between 6–9 August, Trident Ploughshares is organising a series of anti-nuclear weapons actions in London. They will run in parallel with the international fast in commemoration of the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.
With tensions mounting between key nuclear weapon states, we are aiming to highlight the links in the nuclear chain today, as well as drawing attention to the enormous public and social cost of Britain’s Trident nuclear weapon system.
…
On 28 June, more than 40 people from the Stop Ramstein Campaign blockaded all three gates to USAF Büchel in western Germany, where the US air force stores an estimated 20 US nuclear bombs, defying a parliamentary ban. (USAF Ramstein, also in western Germany, is implicated in US drone warfare.)
The campaigners totally blocked the base for about two hours, preventing personnel from leaving.
Police carried the blockaders off the road and conducted ID checks before releasing them…
A Faslane peace camper was in prison as PN went to press, following a day of action at the Faslane nuclear submarine base in Scotland.
Faslane, 20 miles west of Glasgow, is the home of the UK's Trident nuclear missile submarine fleet.
On 7 July, a total of five peace activists were arrested after 'reclaiming' the base on the second anniversary of the UN adopting the Treaty on…
On 10 July, Nukewatch spotted a nuclear warhead convoy heading north on the A34 near Oxford. It was taking nuclear warheads from the Burghfield nuclear bomb factory up to the nuclear bomb store at Coulport in Scotland.
The main convoy was made up of four weapons carriers, each with an armoured personnel carrier escort, a fire engine and MoD police escort vehicles.
Following was a rear support convoy which included a decontamination coach.
The convoy was observed by…
Four B61 nuclear bombs on a bomb cart, USAF Barksdale, Louisiana, 1 December 1986. The B61 is a variable-yield free-fall bomb, whose explosive power can be dialled down as low as 0.3 kilotons. Photo: SSgt Phil Schmitten / US department of defense
On 11 June, the US military posted an unclassified document, updating doctrine on the use of nuclear weapons, on a public Pentagon website. The most quoted part of Nuclear Operations is this: ‘Using nuclear weapons could…
Climate strikers in Melbourne in March 2019. Takver from Australia [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)]
Why should campaigners of any kind in Britain care about the May elections in Australia? Well, because there’s an important lesson for all activists in the defeat of the Labour party there, which had an ambitious climate agenda, and which everyone expected to win. These results showed again the…
On 3 May, George Robertson, former Labour defence secretary and former secretary-general of NATO, was interviewed about Britain’s nuclear weapons on Radio 4’s Today programme (part of the time he was debating with CND’s Kate Hudson, who has an article on p9).
Robertson said: ‘They’re not there to be used. They’re there in the absolute last resort.’
Interviewer John Humphrys pointed out that ‘we’ve only got to use them once and – that’s it’.
Robertson…
On 9 May, Renfrewshire council passed a resolution urging the Strathclyde Pension Fund to stop investing in businesses involved in the construction and development of nuclear weapons.
The fund, managed by Glasgow city council, has £89m invested in 11 such companies, according to Don’t Bank on the Bomb Scotland. (See PN 2545, 2588–2589,…
Here are three notable peace movement street actions that took place recently.
On 18 May, the Gareloch Hortis Women’s Peace Group took to the streets of Newcastle to make the links between their anti-nuclear campaigning and other concerns held by members of the group.
Their colourful banners attracted curious passers-by who wanted to discuss climate justice, an end to austerity and poverty, and ATOS assessments and their effect on people with disabilities. The banners had…
