Wales

Elements of a campaign by Frack Free Wales came together in January when Ceredigion council voted to become the first ‘frack-free’ local authority in Wales.

Fracking is shorthand for ‘hydraulic fracturing’ for oil or gas, underground coal gasification, and coal-bed methane, all of which threaten Wales.

None of these fuels exist in Ceredigion, however. The council’s decision reflected its commitment to moving away from all fossil fuels, which drive climate change.…

On 24 January, as part of a UK-wide protest at the cost of Trident, CND Cymru and radical choir Côr Cochion were joined at the Royal Gwent Hospital by activists from across Wales. Patients and visitors joined in, and choir singing was accompanied by toots of support from passing motorists.

As part of a month of action against Trident in the lead up to the election, Côr Cochion were in action again at Burghfield in March.

The choir blockaded the South gate of the nuclear bomb…

Generally, prime ministers and presidents are the last to admit they got something wrong. The sound of Tony Blair saying sorry is the sound of silence. So credit to Naoto Kan, Japanese PM at the time of the (ongoing) Fukushima disaster.

Formerly pro-nuclear, Kan makes no bones about getting it wrong. He came to Wales to warn that Wylfa B, Horizon Nuclear’s proposed plant in Anglesey, would be a terrible mistake.

During the last few years members of anti-nuclear group PAWB (…

Eviction of Borras and Holt Community Protection Camp. Photo: Dave Ellison

In January 2014, Westminster prime minister David Cameron announced that his government was ‘going all out for fracking’. (Fracking is the high-pressure hydraulic fracturing of shale rock deep underground to extract natural gas or other fossil fuels.) As an inducement to local authorities, councils were allowed to keep 100% of business rates from shale gas sites.

Defying public opinion, the government also…

In December, the three women leaders of Plaid Cymru – the Party of Wales, the Scottish National Party and the Green Party of England and Wales (Leanne Wood, Nicola Sturgeon and Natalie Bennett) agreed to join forces to oppose billions being wasted on the replacement of Britain’s Trident nuclear weapon system, calling instead for investment in communities, creating jobs and rebuilding the economy.

In the event of a hung parliament in May, with these three parties together…

Kites not drones at Poppit Sands. Photo: Jill Gough

International Peace Day, 21 September, was celebrated by a ‘Drape the Drones’ event at Parc Aberporth. Protesters sealed off the roundabout and site entrance with colourful scarves – ably assisted by a friendly policeman who not only stopped the traffic but also ordered drivers to switch off their engines to ‘hear the singing’.

The action was a precursor to the first Global Action Day Against the Use of Drones for Surveillance and…

Aberystwyth Town councillor Jeff Smith lays the white poppy wreath for the second time. Photo: Kelvin Mason

As you read, imagine the contrast between the sea of red poppies gushing from the Tower of London and four fragile white poppy wreaths laid on a storm-lashed memorial in a small seaside town. On Remembrance Sunday, Aberystwyth town council, Aberystwyth Peace and Justice Network (AP&JN), Women in Black and Côr Gobaith laid white poppy wreaths at the war memorial in…

No to NATO march, Newport. Photo: Marian Delyth

On 2 September, the annual meeting of the international network ‘No to War – No to NATO’ called for the abolition of NATO. They rejected the planned opening of further NATO military bases and the deployment of soldiers from NATO member states to Eastern Europe, and stated that the ‘conflict in Ukraine has been substantially escalated by NATO’. The network went on: ‘Currently, NATO views Russia…

CND Cymru commemorated the 69th anniversary of Hiroshima’s tragedy, when the US dropped the first atomic bomb on the city in 1945, with a slow peace walk around the Eisteddfod Maes in Llanelli, accompanied by Côr Cochion’s songs of peace, and the unrolling of a portion of the 11-mile-long ‘Wool against Weapons’ knitting. The second bomb, dropped on 9 August 1945, devastated Nagasaki.

In memory of its victims, Côr Cochion sang the poetic ‘Lullaby of Oleander’ by a Japanese A-bomb…

Machynlleth Gaza vigil. Photo: Marian Delyth

The heart-breaking news from Gaza spurned solidarity actions across Wales: vigils, marches and fundraising. Phil Steele of Bangor & Ynys Môn Peace & Justice group said that the ‘group normally take a break in August but, as so often happens, events allowed little respite’. He reported: ‘August was dominated by the terrible news from Gaza. This coincided with the group showing the ‘Silent Lives’ exhibition of children’s photographs of life…

On Nagasaki Day, 9 August, many from across Wales joined with others from the UK, Europe and the rest of the world in stretching a colourful 11-mile-long knitted scarf between the Aldermaston and Burghfield nuclear bomb factories.

It was a beautiful, joyful culmination of months of extraordinary effort by so many people and, coinciding with the big demonstrations for Gaza in London and elsewhere, poignantly showed the need for general disarmament and spending of resources in…

Co-ordinated by Friends of the Earth Cymru, 5 July was a ‘Wales Against Fracking’ day of action.

Across Wales, groups mounted events to gather signatures on a petition to the Welsh government for a moratorium on extreme energy. Many communities in Wales are threatened by fracking, underground coal-gasification or coal-bed methane extraction.

Extreme energy keeps us hooked on the fossil fuels that drive climate change, risks contaminating water, and diverts investment…

On 5 July, a 120-metre-long pink scarf, knitted by opponents of nuclear weapons, was unfurled through the centre of Knighton (Tref-y-clawdd).

The unfurling procession was led by a town crier, joined by the Teme Valley Ceilidh Band, hand-bell ringers, the Pales Peace Choir and a huge Welsh red dragon.

Many local residents offered their support to the knitters. Knighton resident Karen Plant said: ‘This protest has been fun but it has a serious message, namely the…

A memorial to Welsh soldiers killed in Flanders will be unveiled there in August.

MEP Jill Evans has congratulated the ‘Welsh memorial in Flanders’ campaign for raising awareness of the tens of thousands of Welsh soldiers who were killed in action in Flanders, including the poet Hedd Wyn.

Jill Evans, who is working closely with the Flemish Peace Institute to establish a similar Institute in Wales, said: ‘As we reach the centenary of the start of World War One, it is…

The sun shone down on Cardiff city centre, the day made even more attractive and colourful by the trade union banners of the May Day march.

The main focus of the march was the unrelenting attacks by the Tory/Lib Dem government on the poor, disabled and pensioners.

Over 3,000 homes in South Wales, mainly one-parent families, have been caught up in the Bedroom Tax. Every benefit to the unemployed and disabled has been ruthlessly cut; and even though the financial crisis was…