News

In early December, members of Trident Ploughshares, Helensburgh CND and the Faslane Peace Camp braved freezing temperatures to hold a vigil at the gates of Faslane Naval Base in solidarity with the five members of the Disarm Now Plowshares group on trial in Tacoma, Washington, USA.

The five members of the Disarm Now group entered the US Navy’s Strategic Weapons Facility, Pacific (SWFPAC) on 2 November, 2009 in a symbolic act intended to bring light to the immoral and illegal…

In December a delegation to the Scottish Parliament met Bruce Crawford, minister for Parliamentary Business in the Scottish Government, to hand in an open letter to the first minister. This was a follow-up to the Scottish Government’s response to the report from parliament’s Working Group on Scotland Without Nuclear Weapons.

The letter was compiled by Edinburgh Peace & Justice Centre, Faslane Weekly Vigil, Greenpeace, Helensburgh CND, The Institute for Law and Peace,…

Over the past couple of months THWAC (The Happendon Wood Action Camp) has been a hive of activity, with direct action and community resistance taking place all over the Douglas Valley in South Lanarkshire and beyond.

In November the camp hosted its second gathering and on Monday 8 November, 11 activists entered Mainshill Opencast Coal Site, stopping work on site for an hour by jumping on dumper trucks and blocking the haulage road.

Two days later, an early morning…

So far, this winter of discontent has seen some really positive actions in Aberystwyth. On 24 November last year, students from Aberystwyth University “took education into their own hands”, setting up a Free University in the town square. Joining with lecturers and people from schools and the wider community, the Free University action organised by Aber Students Against The Cuts (a Facebook group) opposed spending cuts in education, increases in tuition fees, and the restructuring of higher…

Barack Obama should “sanction and support a direct dialogue with the Afghan Taliban leadership residing in Pakistan”, according to an open letter to the US President signed by over fifty experts on Afghanistan. Noting that “the situation on the ground is much worse than a year ago because the Taliban insurgency has made progress across the country”, the signatories – who include pro-invasion Telegraph reporter Ahmed Rashid, academics from both the National War College (US) and King’s College…

Two separate trials of 26 activists arrested for trying to shut down Ratcliffe on Sour, one of Britain’s most polluting power stations for a week have energised the climate justice movement. The activists were among 114 people arrested in a dawn raid on Easter Monday 2009 in a widely-criticised policing operation that saw officers smashing their way into a school in Nottingham.

In the first trial, at Nottingham Crown Court in late November, 20 people were tried for conspiracy to…

On Monday 24 January, 35 women and men blockaded the metropolitan police’s headquarters at New Scotland Yard, London in response to revelations of infiltration of activist movements by undercover police officers. The 8am demonstration was in support of women who have been exploited by undercover officers after it was revealed that some of these officers had had long-term sexual relationships with activists they were investigating.

Participants held placards with messages to those…

At four in the morning on New Year’s Day 2011, a group of young Afghan peace makers and their much older US colleagues huddled around a laptop computer in Kabul, to begin a 24-hour conversation with people from all over the world: “Dear Afghanistan”.

The effort consisted of an entire day of Skyped-in phone calls, emails, Facebook and Twitter posts, with the goals of providing an opportunity for world citizens to learn about Afghanistan first-hand from experts – people trying to…

In a surprising reversal of previous propaganda, top Israeli officials have downgraded the nuclear threat from Iran. This was almost certainly because of the impact on Iran of a dangerous computer virus believed to have been developed by Israel and the US.

Israeli deputy prime minister Moshe Yaalon, known as a hawk on security matters, said on 29 December that because Iran’s nuclear programme was suffering “a number of technological challenges and difficulties”, “we cannot talk…

Careful investigation by environmental activists has uncovered the identities of three long-term police infiltrators, one of whom advocated violence. Police constable (PC) Mark Kennedy, known in Nottingham activist circles as “Mark Stone” was publicly exposed on the Indymedia activists’ news website in late October, a fact recorded in PN 2528. (The first report in a British print publication.) Kennedy had been undercover in the environmentalist movement from 2004. In late 2009 he resigned…

On 19 January, Christian peace activist Chris Cole was sentenced to 30 days imprisonment by Westminster central magistrates court for non-payment of a fine following a protest at the DSEi arms fair in September 2009. Chris spraypainted “Build Peace Not War Machines” and “Stop this Bloody Business” across the entrance to the QEII conference centre in central London, where the high-level “UK defence conference” was being held.

Defending himself in court, Chris, coordinator of the…

On 15 November, 120 asylum seekers protested in Glasgow’s George Square after receiving letters stating that they are to be removed without consent to alternative accommodation. The letters state that they can be moved to any region in Scotland, a huge concern for families whose children are now established in Glasgow schools.

The forced removals are a consequence of the UK Border Agency cancelling a contract with Glasgow City Council after failure to agree over costs. The…

Scottish CND discussed the next stages in the campaign against Trident renewal at their AGM on 12 November.

SCND Chair Alan Mackinnon argued that taking Trident replacement along with the military spending on the war in Afghanistan the UK is spending £7bn per annum that could be diverted elsewhere at a time of deep cuts to social services, so there are real possibilities for lobbying disaffected Lib Dems and raising Trident replacement on the political agenda. Alan also described how…

On 6 November, a small but dedicated group of peace campaigners braved the rain in Glasgow’s Victoria Park for a rededication of the Peace Tree. This cherry tree was presented to Glasgow by Christian CND 21 years ago, to mark their 1989 annual conference.

Speakers Pauline McNeill MSP and Martin Bartos of the Green Party reaffirmed their own personal commitments to the anti-nuclear cause and reminded the gathering of their membership of the burgeoning worldwide movement for a…

Evidence that the death toll in Iraq may have been grossly underestimated and documents revealing that Israel approved, in principle, “a policy of deliberate reduction” for basic goods in the Gaza Strip, have both been rated “X” in recent mainstream media coverage.

In the wake of Wikileaks’ 22 October publication of nearly 400,000 secret US military logs, the mainstream media briefly returned to the issue of the post-invasion civilian death toll in Iraq. In particular, much…

Dale Farm, a former scrapyard between Wickford and Billericay in Essex, the largest Traveller site in the UK is under threat of eviction.

About one-third of the site is authorised. After redesignating the remainder as greenbelt, Basildon borough council has refused planning permission to the 90 families who own plots/yards there. The council has asked central government for up to £10m for an eviction which may take three weeks. Once the 28-day quit or be evicted notices are served,…

At 5am on 1 November, anti-nuclear campaigners began to nonviolently blockade the Devonport dockyard in Plymouth where Trident nuclear submarines are maintained and re-fitted. The blockade, called by the Plymouth-based Trident Ploughshares group “The Tamarians”, was not cleared until 9.45am.

By the end of the day, 14 people had been arrested at Camelshead gate. They had used a variety of methods to blockade, including attaching themselves to a car and joining themselves together…

Over 50,000 protesters mobilised to delay the twelfth annual transport of highly-radioactive material (123 tonnes in 11 carriages) from La Hague, France, to storage at Gorleben, Germany, in early November.

In France, five activists locked-on with arm tubes under the rails, stopping the train for 3½ hours. Police cut them free so carelessly that three required surgery. In southern Germany, a blockade by over 1,500 forced the train to change route. People dangling from bridges also…

We learned in November that Parliament Square peace protester Brian Haw was taken into hospital on 23 September with breathing difficulties. Tests showed a tumour.

At the time of going to press, Brian was still in hospital awaiting further tests. The Parliament Square vigil which Brian started on 2 June 2001, continues. Brian says he “will be back and able to cry out again for those denied a voice”.

Meanwhile, the leader of the commons, George Young, said on 14 October that a…

As PN goes to press, 20 climate activists are beginning the most significant trial for climate activism in the UK since the acquittal of the Kingsnorth Six in 2008. Their crime? Planning to shut down the UK’s third-largest source of emissions – E.ON’s Ratcliffe-on-Soar coal-fired station near Nottingham.

They were among 114 activists arrested in a night-time police raid on the eve of the action in April last year. (Another six, who hadn’t decided to participate at the time of arrest,…