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 22 June, anti-arms trade die-ins and other nonviolent actions at Le Bourget airport resulted in 50 arrests. The activists were held for about four hours, then released after their identities had been checked and recorded (as were those of other demonstrators taking part in the actions).
The Paris Air Show serves as a showcase for arms dealers from around the world.
French arms dealers exhibiting at the show are responsible for many Yemeni civilian deaths: Nexter (Leclerc…
Over the weekend of the 7–9 June, the streets of Aberystwyth reverberated with the sound of singing in at least three languages – Welsh, Norwegian and English – as Aberystwyth’s Côr Gobaith hosted Norwegian socialist choir SJOKK, Pales Peace Choir from Powys, and Cardiff’s renowned Côr Cochion. SJOKK (‘shock’) was founded in 1981 to ‘spread socialist and humanistic ideas and values through singing and music’.
The event was a result of a chance meeting at the 2018 Street Choirs…
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.
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Events were held in locations all around the world to mark International Conscientious Objectors’ Day on 15 May, including Edinburgh’s Princes Street, Leicester’s Peace Walk, Liverpool’s News from Nowhere bookshop, London’s Tavistock Square, Manchester’s Friends Meeting House, and Sheffield’s Peace Gardens.
In South Korea, hundreds of COs received messages of support, there was a cycle ride for peace in Seoul and, on Jeju Island, and Jeju Green Party and Jeju Queer Culture Festival…
Saudi arms ship Bahri Yanbu was deterred from loading weapons in France and Italy in May, after taking on six containers of Belgian arms in Antwerp on 3 May. (The ship also stopped in London’s Tilbury Docks on 7 May, but it is not known what was loaded.)
Yemen is the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, with 12 million people on the verge of starvation. Britain sold almost a fifth of Saudi Arabia’s weapons imports between 2013–2018, while France sold four percent of them,…
73 councils in Wales have now officially stated that they will not host an underground nuclear waste dump.
The Welsh consultation on a ‘geological disposal facility’ closed in April 2018. In their submission, CND Cymru argued that the Welsh government should follow the Scottish government and adopt an ‘on site, near ground level’ storage policy for nuclear waste.
The group cited the large number of councils which have rejected underground storage as indicative of the opposition…
It’s 10 years now since US president Barack Obama made his famous Prague speech, committing to a nuclear weapons-free world. I remember hearing his words broadcast, amid the tumultuous cheers of the crowd in Hradčany Square, as if it were yesterday…
On 15 May, Haringey First World War Peace Forum unveiled a hand-carved plaque to remember the North London borough’s 350 First World War conscientious objectors. The plaque was installed where outdoor anti-war meetings were held during the war, outside the Salisbury pub (back then, the Salisbury hotel) on Green Lanes. Actor Jim Broadbent, historian Cyril Pearce and local councillors Mark Blake and Emine Ibrahim joined 150 people for the ceremony. The plaque was funded by a…
Sadly, there will be no actual Peace News Summer Camp in 2019. (But there may be a Peace News Summer Camp ‘neighbourhood’ within the Reclaim the Power camp in South East England, 26–31 July.)
This year, the organising team did not feel that we had the capacity to attract enough participants and to secure the funding the camp needed – in addition to creating a programme exciting and original enough to do both of these things.
Also, a number of other broadly-…
The global climate school strike on 24 May was reportedly the biggest yet, even bigger than the 1.4m-strong actions on 15 March. (PN 2628–2629) Young people in 1,664 cities across 125 countries registered strike actions with the co-ordinating group set up by Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg.
The group…
Support for Imam Şiş, the Kurdish activist living in Newport, has grown as his hunger strike in solidarity with jailed Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan reaches the limits of human endurance.
Alongside 300 of his compatriots, Imam is on an indefinite hunger strike to protest the Turkish state’s treatment of Öcalan, who has been held mostly in solitary confinement by the Turkish government since 1999 and denied access to lawyers and family.
Imam began his hunger strike on 19…
Eight Trident Ploughshares campaigners were on trial at Reading magistrates court on 23 April for blocking access to Burghfield Atomic Weapons Establishment in Berkshire on 24 October 2018. Welsh activists Awel Irene (second from left), Jan Jones (second from right, front) and Brian Jones (second from right, back) labelled the prosecution ‘farcical’ after charges of ‘aggravated trespass’ were added to the original ‘obstruction of the public highway’ charges. This charged four of the…
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…
Extinction Rebellion has highlighted the existential threat to humanity posed by climate change in Wales and around the world, and young people have inspired everyone to raise their voices.
Local actions recently took place right across Wales, from schoolchildren striking in response to Swedish schoolgirl Greta Thunberg’s weekly strike, to colourful marches and demonstrations.
On 23 April, a mass cycle ride brought traffic to a standstill in Cardiff city centre (as it had on 9…
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…
Despite there being over 1,000 arrests during 11 days of Extinction Rebellion (XR) climate actions which shut down much of central London in April, only 74 people seem to have been charged. The police are now threatening all the arrested with prosecutions....
On 23 April, Elliott Cuciurean (20) became the first person to be convicted…
Julian Assange is facing 175 years in prison for his investigative journalism if he is extradited to the US and convicted of the 18 charges filed against him by the US government.
Meanwhile, US whistleblower Chelsea Manning was jailed on 16 May for refusing (for a second time) to give evidence against the WikiLeaks founder.
Assange is being charged under the US Espionage Act 1917, mainly for obtaining…
On 14 March, charity Medical Justice persuaded the high court to order a halt to ‘no warning’ deportations.
The home office has a policy of giving targets just three days’ notice that they will be deported – and that the removal could happen at any time after that. This denies people the chance to prepare evidence or appeals.
The Medical Justice victory followed courtroom success for the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI) on 1 March.
The high…
On 16 February, more than 300 activists (using 200 metres of black cloth) took over the British Museum in London in a performance protest against the sponsorship of an exhibition by BP, the oil and gas company. Protestors drew attention to BP’s role in the 2003 Iraq war and its contribution to climate change, holding a banner: ‘The British Museum – proudly sponsored by climate change.’
