Category: Nuclear

No Christmas Cheer as Arms Giant Lockheed Gets Locked Out

“We nev­er for­get who we’re mur­der­ing and spy­ing for”. Cor­ner­stone of the UK mil­i­tary-indus­tri­al com­plex / Orwellian state, US-based arms firm Lock­heed Mar­tin was tar­get­ed ear­ly on Thurs­day morn­ing (13th Decem­ber) at its cen­tral Lon­don HQ as activists from Tri­dent Ploughshares and Lon­don Catholic Work­er deliv­ered a sea­son­al mes­sage to the com­pa­ny, lock­ing work­ers out of the build­ing for 45 min­utes.

“We nev­er for­get who we’re mur­der­ing and spy­ing for”. Cor­ner­stone of the UK mil­i­tary-indus­tri­al com­plex / Orwellian state, US-based arms firm Lock­heed Mar­tin was tar­get­ed ear­ly on Thurs­day morn­ing (13th Decem­ber) at its cen­tral Lon­don HQ as activists from Tri­dent Ploughshares and Lon­don Catholic Work­er deliv­ered a sea­son­al mes­sage to the com­pa­ny, lock­ing work­ers out of the build­ing for 45 min­utes.

Lock­heed Mar­tin, whose cor­po­rate slo­gan is “We nev­er for­get who we’re work­ing for”, was paid a vis­it on Thurs­day morn­ing by a group of non-vio­lent activists from a Tri­dent Ploughshares affin­i­ty group called the Muriel Lesters, and Lon­don Catholic Work­er. The group chained shut and blocked off all the entrances to the build­ing for 45 min­utes, from around 8am. The anony­mous build­ing (Man­ning House, 22 Carlisle Place, Lon­don. SW1P 1JA), hid­den away in a side street near Vic­to­ria sta­tion, hous­es the UK cor­po­rate head­quar­ters of the arms giant, which makes Tri­dent nuclear weapons (war­heads and mis­siles) and pro­duces sur­veil­lance sys­tems used by intel­li­gence ser­vices to spy on the pub­lic and for com­mer­cial espi­onage. Sev­er­al ban­ners and plac­ards were on dis­play, includ­ing one that read “Lock­heed Mar­tin — Nuclear Crime Scene”, and work­ers and vis­i­tors to the build­ing were leaflet­ed, as well as passers by.

A crowd of work­ers and vis­i­tors try­ing to gain access to the build­ing had gath­ered on the pave­ment with­in a quar­ter of an hour. Sev­er­al accept­ed leaflets. Bel­gravia police were called to deal with the pro­test­ers. There was a delay as the police await­ed bolt-cut­ters and back-up, but the chains were even­tu­al­ly removed from the front door, after which the pro­test­ers block­ing the back entrances, includ­ing an elder­ly lady in a wheel­chair, decid­ed to unchain the doors and move round to the front. Police were admit­ted to the build­ing for dis­cus­sions, but no arrests were made (either of the peace cam­paign­ers or the arms deal­ers). The pro­test­ers were allowed to con­tin­ue demon­strat­ing and leaflet­ing peace­ful­ly out­side the build­ing, until final­ly leav­ing of their own accord at 9.30am.

Father Mar­tin Newell, a Catholic priest from east Lon­don, says: “I feel it is my duty as a Chris­t­ian to fol­low the prince of peace and oppose the hor­ror of nuclear weapons.”

Myra Gar­rett from east Lon­don says: “I felt I had to tar­get the com­pa­ny because of the new nuclear weapons facil­i­ties they are devel­op­ing right here in the UK, at Alder­mas­ton.”

Chris Gwyn­to­pher from east Lon­don says: “the build­ing had to be closed in the inter­ests of pub­lic secu­ri­ty and world peace. Unlike Lock­heed, I feel my pur­pose is to save life, not destroy it. I wish the work­ers would leave the build­ing for good and seek more humane employ­ment.”

Irene Willis from Essex says: “Christ­mas seems an appro­pri­ate time of year to reflect upon the hor­rif­ic effects the arms trade and nuclear weapons have in the world and to ask our­selves whether we real­ly need them.”

The group intends to pay the com­pa­ny anoth­er vis­it in the near future.

Notes:

1. Lock­heed Mar­tin, SERCO and — cur­rent­ly — British Nuclear Fuels Plc (BNFL) are equal share­hold­ers in AWE Man­age­ment Ltd, which the UK Min­istry of Defence has award­ed a mul­ti-bil­lion pound con­tract to man­age and oper­ate the Atom­ic Weapons Estab­lish­ment (AWE) sites at Alder­mas­ton and Burgh­field, both in Berk­shire, until at least 2025. This is where Britain’s nuclear weapons are devel­oped and main­tained, and where new facil­i­ties are being con­struct­ed to enable the pro­duc­tion of a new gen­er­a­tion of nuclear weapons.

http://www.awe.co.uk/main_site/about_awe/the_company/index.html
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/11/385666.html
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/11/385357.html
http://www.awe.co.uk/main_site/scientific_and_technical/publications/Strategy_Plans/index.html

2. Lock­heed Mar­tin pro­motes itself thus:

“Our vision: As an increas­ing num­ber of nations of all sizes around the world indi­cate the desire and capac­i­ty to devel­op nuclear, chem­i­cal and bio­log­i­cal weapons of mass destruc­tion, it is nec­es­sary to expand our field of vision.

“Our aim: To sus­tain capa­bil­i­ty to design a war­head to suc­ceed Tri­dent by facil­i­tat­ing pro­duc­tion of British nuclear war­heads.

“Our pri­or­i­ties: The key ele­ments of the sci­ence-based pro­gramme we are putting in place to main­tain the country’s nuclear stock­pile.

“Our future: We can now look for­ward to a long-term sta­ble future for AWE and for the UK nuclear weapons pro­gramme.”

Lock­heed Mar­tin is the world’s largest arms com­pa­ny. Besides nuclear weapons, it pro­duces a host of killing and spy­ing machines, devices and sys­tems, includ­ing ‘bunker buster’ bombs, clus­ter bombs and land­mines.

The com­pa­ny also pro­vides mil­i­tary inter­roga­tors for places like Guan­tanamo Bay and Iraq. It is also a lead­ing part­ner in the Ech­e­lon glob­al sur­veil­lance net­work. Its employ­ees work along­side the Amer­i­can NSA (Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Agency) at Men­with Hill spy sta­tion in York­shire.

See the fol­low­ing for details of the above: http://censusalert.org.uk/lockheed_martin.html

As well as being one of two lead bid­ders for the 2011 UK Cen­sus
http://censusalert.org.uk/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/09/census_boycott/ , Lock­heed Mar­tin also has civil­ian con­tracts in the UK with:

Met­ro­pol­i­tan Police Ser­vice
http://www.lockheedmartin.co.uk/products/metpolice.html

Trans­port for Lon­don
http://www.lockheedmartin.co.uk/products/lul.html

Net­work Rail
http://www.lockheedmartin.co.uk/products/networkrail.html

Rail­ways — Pos­i­tive Train Con­trol
http://www.lockheedmartin.co.uk/products/ptc.html

Roy­al Mail
http://www.lockheedmartin.co.uk/products/ai.html

More on the com­pa­ny here: http://www.schnews.org.uk/archive/news402.htm

The company’s cor­po­rate web­sites:
http://www.lockheedmartin.com
http://www.lockheedmartin.co.uk

3. Tri­dent Ploughshares is com­mit­ted to bring­ing about the dis­ar­ma­ment of British nuclear weapons through peace­ful non-vio­lent direct action. They call upon the British gov­ern­ment to stop deploy­ing its sub­ma­rine-launched Tri­dent nuclear weapons sys­tem with imme­di­ate effect, safe­ly decom­mis­sion every one of its war­heads as soon as prac­ti­ca­ble, reverse its deci­sion to renew / replace its (US-depen­dent) Tri­dent sys­tem, and insist that the UN adopt a glob­al Nuclear Weapons Con­ven­tion out­law­ing all nuclear weapons at the very ear­li­est oppor­tu­ni­ty.

See: http://www.tridentploughshares.org

Reports on recent Tri­dent Ploughshares actions against Lock­heed Mar­tin (Oct 2007):

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/10/384043.html
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/10/384284.html

Reports and pics from Tri­dent Ploughshares Lon­don ‘weapons inspec­tions’ ear­li­er this year (Feb 2007), which includ­ed Lock­heed Mar­tin:

http://www.tridentploughshares.org/article1485

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/02/363646.html

Reports from pre­vi­ous Tri­dent Ploughshares actions at Lock­heed Martin’s UK head­quar­ters:

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/09/351270.html

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/06/314195.html

http://www.tridentploughshares.org/article1248

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/oxford/2004/12/302877.html

Sizewell Nuclear Power Blockade

1.12.2007
At 6:50 am this morn­ing 8 sleepy pro­tes­tors arrived at the gates of Sizewell A and B in Suf­folk. What else would you do at this time in the morn­ing at a nuclear pow­er sta­tion, oth­er than lay on the road, lock your­selves togeth­er, unfurl your ban­ner read­ing ‘nuclear pow­er is not the answer to cli­mate chaos’ and wait 15 min­utes for the secu­ri­ty to notice you.

Sizewell 11.12.2007
At 6:50 am this morn­ing 8 sleepy pro­tes­tors arrived at the gates of Sizewell A and B in Suf­folk. What else would you do at this time in the morn­ing at a nuclear pow­er sta­tion, oth­er than lay on the road, lock your­selves togeth­er, unfurl your ban­ner read­ing ‘nuclear pow­er is not the answer to cli­mate chaos’ and wait 15 min­utes for the secu­ri­ty to notice you.

As the shift change began, we lay com­fort­ably on the wet and cold road, and only one work­er threat­ened to run us over.
The griffins arrived (civ­il nuclear police), Suf­folk police, and a cou­ple of gnomes (or maybe secu­ri­ty peo­ple). Appar­ent­ly, peo­ple want­ed to go to work, and so the police asked us to move. We declined.
After 2 and a half hours of shift change dis­rup­tion (job done!) we made a deal with the cop­pers that we could leave, with all of our equip­ment, not get arrest­ed, and be free to come and do it again anoth­er day. Bizarrely, the police agreed to this. Watch the video below of what hap­pened just after release – appar­ent­ly, they couldn’t arrest us under the human rights act – pro­por­tion­al­i­ty and all that, innit.

Videos:
The rea­sons: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9i7-Z3wdjAM
Inter­ac­tions with the police http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57OiMfCGC94
Leav­ing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnPMcvj7BBQ

Below is the press release we sent out.

This week it was announced that Sizewell is one of the four sites pro­posed for the new build of nuclear pow­er plants. Brown indi­cat­ed that large gov­ern­ment incen­tives for new nuclear sta­tions will be promised in the new year. These would include a plan­ning reform bill that will speed up the plan­ning process. The pro­test­ers say that this will take away the abil­i­ty to refuse per­mis­sion on a local lev­el and that many safe­ty fea­tures were intro­duced dur­ing the exten­sive plan­ning phase for Sizewell B.

One of the pro­test­ers, Peter Lux from Nor­wich said, “Gor­don Browns state­ment is com­plete­ly at odds with what we should be doing to com­bat cli­mate change. The pro­posed avi­a­tion pol­i­cy with the expan­sion of Heathrow will cause sev­er­al times more green­house gas emis­sions than could pos­si­bly be saved by replac­ing our exist­ing nuclear pow­er sta­tions even if nuclear pow­er was car­bon neu­tral which it is not.”

Anoth­er pro­test­er said: “It is so frus­trat­ing to think that we do not even have a democ­ra­cy when it comes to our ener­gy needs and use. That’s why we have to come and take direct action, how can we sit back and watch when we know this is the wrong route to be tak­ing?.” Said Mell Har­ri­son, one of the pro­test­ers and Cam­paigns Coor­di­na­tor for East­ern Region CND. She went on “The gov­ern­ment are going ahead with build­ing new nuclear pow­er sta­tions with­out prop­er pub­lic debate and con­sul­ta­tion. All you ever hear from the Gov­ern­ment is about our grow­ing ener­gy needs, but the real answer is ener­gy con­ser­va­tion and more sus­tain­able life styles. For exam­ple we hear about China’s ever grow­ing ener­gy needs, but it’s the West’s desire for more cheap goods from Chi­na that is one of the biggest rea­sons for their car­bon emis­sions.”
Sizewell B was the last nuclear reac­tor to be built in the UK and was com­plet­ed in 1995. It took 15 years to com­plete, cost over £3billion with about £800 mil­lion in cost over­runs, which result­ed main­ly from addi­tion­al safe­ty fea­tures.
The nuclear indus­try also suf­fered a set­back ear­li­er this month when it was announced that the Nuclear Decom­mis­sion­ing Author­i­ty was unable able to say what the costs of clean­ing up Britain’s nuclear pow­er sta­tions would reach, but last month it raised its esti­mate by more than 12 per cent to £72.7 bil­lion. This ris­ing cost will be met by the tax­pay­er rather than the nuclear indus­try.

plunk@hushmail.com
http://www.easterncnduk.org

A Dozen people arrested at AWE Aldermaston Blockade

12.11.2007
About 50 peo­ple went down to AWE Alder­mas­ton, Berk­shire, very ear­ly this morn­ing to block­ade the on-going con­struc­tion of the Ori­on laser, designed to help build the next gen­er­a­tion of UK nuclear war heads.

Aldermaston concrete lock-on 1
Aldermaston concrete lock-on 2
Aldermaston concrete lock-on 3
Aldermaston lock-on tube 3Aldermaston lock-on tube 1
Aldermaston lock-on tube 2

12.11.2007
About 50 peo­ple went down to AWE Alder­mas­ton, Berk­shire, very ear­ly this morn­ing to block­ade the on-going con­struc­tion of the Ori­on laser, designed to help build the next gen­er­a­tion of UK nuclear war heads.

The 50 activists were split in four dif­fer­ent block­ades at var­i­ous strate­gic points to attempt to stop all con­struc­tion traf­fic — includ­ing a block­ade of Burgfield, the near­by fac­to­ry where the war­heads are put togeth­er (and then shipped to Coulport/Faslane in Scot­land)

The block­aders used a vari­ety of large con­crete lock-ons, lock on tubes and super glue and while they stopped short of block­ing the base entire­ly, they man­aged to sev­er­ly dis­rupt the con­struc­tion traf­fic for 2 and half hours.
4 arrests at AWE Burgh­field, includ­ing a 77-year old man, after a 2‑hour lock-on from sun­rise, with choir and vio­lin accom­pa­ni­ment, on a chilly but beau­ti­ful Mon­day morn­ing,

13 arrests in total (9 at Alder­mas­ton, near the two main con­struc­tion gates — Tadley gate and Home Office gate) — every­one released in the after­noon, after 5–6 hours in cus­tody. Some cau­tioned, some charged with obstruc­tion of the high­way. About 70–80 peo­ple joined the protests in total, trav­el­ling from as far afield as York­shire, Wales, Ply­mouth, Southamp­ton, Essex, Lon­don, Cam­bridge, Sal­is­bury…

Spe­cial thanks to New­bury Friends for your con­tin­ued sup­port.

More detailed action report

14.11.2007 14:55
13 Arrests at Atom­ic Weapons Estab­lish­ment Block­ades

Around 70–80 anti-nuclear cam­paign­ers took part in the ‘Block the Builders’ direct action against the Atom­ic Weapons Estab­lish­ment (AWE) facil­i­ties at Alder­mas­ton and Burgh­field in Berk­shire dur­ing the morn­ing rush hour on Mon­day 12 Novem­ber. There were thir­teen arrests in total, with traf­fic around the base severe­ly dis­rupt­ed for around two and a half hours.

At Alder­mas­ton, pro­test­ers sought to dis­rupt the con­struc­tion of new mul­ti-bil­lion pound state-of-the-art facil­i­ties at the site, includ­ing the Ori­on laser. Cam­paign­ers say the new facil­i­ties will be used to devel­op new weapons of mass destruc­tion, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Unit­ed States. This, they say, breach­es the nuclear Non-Pro­lif­er­a­tion Treaty, to which both the UK and the US are sig­na­to­ries.

There were three sep­a­rate human block­ades at Alder­mas­ton, on the A340 close to Tadley Gate and Home Office Gate respec­tive­ly. They were designed to block the entry of con­struc­tion vehi­cles into the facil­i­ty. Con­crete-filled wheel­ie bins, lock-on tubes made from con­crete and oth­er mate­ri­als, and super­glue were used. 9 peo­ple were arrest­ed for obstruc­tion of the high­way and tak­en to New­bury Police Sta­tion, includ­ing some young peo­ple and mem­bers of the Alder­mas­ton Women’s Peace Camp.

At Burgh­field, on the out­skirts of Read­ing — where the exist­ing Tri­dent war­heads are assem­bled, before being sent by road con­voy back to the arma­ments depot at Coul­port on the west coast of Scot­land — four activists chained them­selves togeth­er using arm lock-on tubes to block off a pri­vate road, off the Burgh­field Road, which leads to the main entrance to the facil­i­ty. They had to wait near­ly 2 hours for the cut­ting team to arrive. The block­ade was accom­pa­nied by a four-per­son choir from Turn­ing the Tide singing protest songs, and a vio­lin­ist. All four block­aders were arrest­ed for obstruc­tion of the high­way and tak­en first to AWE Alder­mas­ton and even­tu­al­ly to New­bury Police Sta­tion. They includ­ed a 77-year-old man and mem­bers of Tri­dent Ploughshares.

All those arrest­ed were held in the cus­tody of Thames Val­ley Police for around six hours, before being either cau­tioned or charged with obstruc­tion of the high­way. They were then released, with sup­port­ers wait­ing for them at the police sta­tion.

Peo­ple had trav­elled from as far afield as York­shire, Wales, Devon, Wilt­shire, Southamp­ton, Essex, Kent, Northants, Cam­bridge and Lon­don to join the protests. Oth­er groups rep­re­sent­ed on the day includ­ed Men­with Hill Peace Camp, Sal­is­bury and Kent CND, the Green Par­ty and Read­ing Peace Group.

A spokesper­son from Block the Builders said, “We are liv­ing in dan­ger­ous times, large­ly due to the inter­ven­tion­ist for­eign poli­cies of the Unit­ed States and Britain. What we urgent­ly need is a UN Nuclear Weapons Con­ven­tion ban­ning all nuclear weapons. What busi­ness do we in the West have threat­en­ing mil­i­tary strikes on Iran for its ura­ni­um enrich­ment pro­gramme, whilst at the same spend­ing bil­lions of pounds upgrad­ing our nuclear weapons facil­i­ties right here in the UK? The hypocrisy is plain to see. Would we not be bet­ter off spend­ing the mon­ey on health­care, edu­ca­tion, tack­ling pover­ty and car­ing for the envi­ron­ment?”

Arti­cles relat­ing to Mon­day’s action:

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/11/385357.html?c=on
http://www.newburytoday.co.uk/News/Article.aspx?articleID=5608
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/berkshire/7090404.stm
http://greenreading.blogspot.com/2007/11/brave-aldermaston-protestors-survive.html

Oth­er links:

http://www.blockthebuilders.org.uk
http://www.cnduk.org/
http://www.aldermaston.net/
http://www.tridentploughshares.org/index.php3
http://www.faslane365.org/
http://www.banthebomb.org/blog/index.php
http://nuclearawarenessgroup.org.uk/
http://www.quaker.org.uk/Templates/Internal.asp?NodeID=89989

Nuclear Convoy Stopped

At approx­i­mate­ly 10.30 on the 12th of Novem­ber 3 activists from Faslane Peace Camp locked on across the Glen Fru­in Haul road, stop­ping a nuclear con­voy for half an hour whilst it was en route from RNAD Coul­port to AWE Burgh­field.

At approx­i­mate­ly 10.30 on the 12th of Novem­ber 3 activists from Faslane Peace Camp locked on across the Glen Fru­in Haul road, stop­ping a nuclear con­voy for half an hour whilst it was en route from RNAD Coul­port to AWE Burgh­field. The con­voy itself car­ries weapons of mass destruc­tion the equal of 24 Hiroshi­mas along pub­lic high­ways and through pop­u­la­tion cen­tres. The mon­i­tor­ing of these move­ments by activists have result­ed in this being the sec­ond con­sec­u­tive con­voy stop in as many months. For fur­ther infor­ma­tion about nuclear weapons con­voys see www.nukewatch.org.uk

Autumn EF! Action Update out — and advance notice of the Winter Moot, 22–24 February (gathering of eco-activists), Nottingham

The lat­est issue of the quar­ter­ly EF!AU was dished up at the Anar­chist Book­fair — burst­ing at the seams, it had to be turned into a bumper issue, with a round-up of the actions around the time of the Camp for Cli­mate Action, plus loads of action reports from around the world since then — from pieing oil exec­u­tives, blockad­ing garages & air­ports, polar bears lock­ing-on, sab­o­tage, pris­on­ers, occu­pied spaces, dig­ger-div­ing, GM crop-trash­ing, to cake and the cun­ning use of mung beans (oh, and of course, much much more).

The lat­est issue of the quar­ter­ly EF!AU was dished up at the Anar­chist Book­fair — burst­ing at the seams, it had to be turned into a bumper issue, with a round-up of the actions around the time of the Camp for Cli­mate Action, plus loads of action reports from around the world since then — from pieing oil exec­u­tives, blockad­ing garages & air­ports, polar bears lock­ing-on, sab­o­tage, pris­on­ers, occu­pied spaces, dig­ger-div­ing, GM crop-trash­ing, to cake and the cun­ning use of mung beans (oh, and of course, much much more).

Down­load it to print out and share here. Do get in touch with the edi­to­r­i­al col­lec­tive to let them know if you’re dish­ing it up round your way, or need paper copies, or want to give them one of the rar­er ingre­di­ents, dosh (to send it to pris­on­ers, protest camps and far beyond) — their con­tact details and more are here

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The EF! Win­ter Moot will hap­pen from 22nd — 24th Feb­ru­ary 2008, in Not­ting­ham — more details near­er the time, as this is just advance notice.

It’s a gath­er­ing for envi­ron­men­tal activists — in the past, it’s been a chance for peo­ple involved in all kinds of eco­log­i­cal direct action to get togeth­er for a week­end indoors to chat about where things are at in the UK, and so improve all aspects of how we work togeth­er, in order to take direct action in defence of the earth.

Con­tact 0845–0223 5254 for more info

Activist Film Festival is seeking submissions

Under­cur­rents is call­ing for sub­mis­sions of short videos and ani­ma­tions on the theme of the fes­ti­val: social jus­tice and envi­ron­men­tal action.

Beyond TV 8 flierUnder­cur­rents is call­ing for sub­mis­sions of short videos and ani­ma­tions on the theme of the fes­ti­val: social jus­tice and envi­ron­men­tal action.

Sub­ject: Polit­i­cal Activist videos want­ed
From: under­cur­rents

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS OF FILMS

FOR BEYONDTV FESTIVAL NOVEMBER 2007

What is BEYONDTV?
From Novem­ber 28 to Decem­ber 2, 2007, Rad­i­cal media char­i­ty, Under­cur­rents will host the 8th annu­al BEYONDTV fes­ti­val of polit­i­cal doc­u­men­taries, ani­ma­tions and music videos from inspir­ing media direc­tors.

Under­cur­rents is call­ing for sub­mis­sions of short videos and ani­ma­tions on the theme of the fes­ti­val: social jus­tice and envi­ron­men­tal action.

Impor­tant Note: We do not screen dra­mas using actors

BEYONDTV will be host­ed at the Dylan Thomas Cen­tre and Tal­iesin Cin­e­ma Swansea from Novem­ber 28 — Decem­ber 2, 2007

More details at http://www.beyondtvfestival.info
beyondtv@undercurrents.org

Under­cur­rents
Old Exchange
Pier st
Swansea
SA1 1RY
UK

Next AWE Aldermaston Blockade on Monday 12th November

Next AWE ALDERMASTON BLOCKADE: http://www.blockthebuilders.org.uk
on Mon 12th Nov. A major block­ade of the Alder­mas­ton nuclear weapons fac­to­ry.
Work on the Ori­on laser — a key facil­i­ty for the future of Britain’s WMD project —

Next AWE ALDERMASTON BLOCKADE: http://www.blockthebuilders.org.uk
on Mon 12th Nov. A major block­ade of the Alder­mas­ton nuclear weapons fac­to­ry.
Work on the Ori­on laser — a key facil­i­ty for the future of Britain’s WMD project -
is well under­way. The AWE (Atom­ic Weapons Estab­lish­ment) is report­ed to be
devel­op­ing a new nuclear war­head. The device, des­ig­nat­ed the High Sure­ty War­head
is under­stood to be under devel­op­ment in con­junc­tion with the US who want mod­ernised
‘fail­safe’ nuclear fire­pow­er for its sub­ma­rine-launched Tri­dent mis­siles. Overnight
accom­mo­da­tion avail­able Sun­day. This is a day of non-vio­lent direct action. Legal sup­port on the day. Info pack on web­site. Call 07807 522454.

*The Bath Bomb * Issue #3 October ‘07 * @nti-copyright: copy and distribute! *

“Soapy suds of truth in a bath­tub of b*llshit!””

Oh, Just More Shops…

Walk­ing past the rub­ble of the South­gate Cen­tre, could my ears be deceiv­ing me? I have now heard sev­er­al peo­ple remark­ing how nice the view looks with­out the build­ings. The lat­est one of these came when I was walk­ing behind three very fash­ion­able look­ing girls who looked like they were ‘born to shop’:

Bath Bomb small logo“Soapy suds of truth in a bath­tub of b*llshit!””

Oh, Just More Shops…

Walk­ing past the rub­ble of the South­gate Cen­tre, could my ears be deceiv­ing me? I have now heard sev­er­al peo­ple remark­ing how nice the view looks with­out the build­ings. The lat­est one of these came when I was walk­ing behind three very fash­ion­able look­ing girls who looked like they were ‘born to shop’:
“What are they putting there?”
“Oh, just more shops.”
Could it be that more peo­ple than we real­ize would like more from life? Could it be time for some­thing new? Could it be that con­sumer cul­ture is real­ly on the wane? Coz it’s gonna take more than a Deben­hams to impress me.
What would the peo­ple of Bath like to see in a new shop­ping centre’s place? What could hap­pen if we let our imag­i­na­tions run wild? Why not get in touch with your ideas?

Reduce Car­bon, Cut Cap­i­tal­ism!

Sun­day the 16th Sep­tem­ber saw the arrival of the ‘Cut the Car­bon’ march in Bath. The group, includ­ing a mem­ber of MST, a Brazil­lian peas­ants move­ment who take land back from the rich to cul­ti­vate and feed their fam­i­lies, has been march­ing all over the UK, start­ing in Dublin, and end­ing the fol­low­ing week in Lon­don, to pub­li­cise the effects of cli­mate change on the plan­et. The group was met in Abbey Court­yard by 50 sup­port­ers, includ­ing a con­tin­gent from Bath Activist Net­work, wav­ing red and black flags and a ban­ner read­ing ‘social change not cli­mate change!’.
Their mes­sage was sim­ple, we can all do our bit to help stop cli­mate change, but it is the rich and the big busi­ness­es, from oil com­pa­nies to coal min­ing cor­po­ra­tions to the road build­ing indus­try, that are real­ly rap­ing the plan­et. We reck­on that the solu­tions to cli­mate change, pover­ty, wage slav­ery and greed can all be solved when we get togeth­er and take the pow­er away from those caus­ing the prob­lems — politi­cians, the idle rich and the cor­po­ra­tions. Bath Bomb would like to wish the ‘Cut the Car­bon’ marchers well on the last leg of their jour­ney and good luck in spread­ing their impor­tant mes­sage.

Work Kills

A new cam­paign has start­ed in Bath to high­light the dan­gers of casu­al and tem­po­rary work. This cam­paign is aimed at stu­dents and young peo­ple, many of whom are killed and injured doing this type of work each year. The cam­paign is being run by the Trades Coun­cil, a grass-roots trades union group, and the Simon Jones cam­paign (an action group set up to demand jus­tice for a stu­dent killed at work due to the neglect of com­pa­ny man­age­ment)
The cam­paign will be talk­ing at schools and uni­ver­si­ties, offer­ing advice and help. In ear­ly 2008, there will be a pub­lic meet­ing and an exhi­bi­tion (keep an eye on the Bath Bomb for fur­ther details!)
This cam­paign is need­ed because the state jus­tice sys­tem and boss­es care more for con­trol and prof­its at work than safe­ty.

www.simonjones.org.uk

Events List­ing

Mon­day nights Bath Hunt Sabo­teur meet­ings back room of Bell, Wal­cot Street, 8pm
6th Oct Fight the Pipe ben­e­fit gig, 8pm, The Plough in Eas­t­on, Bris­tol, with Crow­zone, Drug Snif­fin’ Dogs and Burnt Pork­chops
13th Oct Bath FreeShop out­side Hol­land & Bar­retts, Stall Street, 12–3pm
14th Oct Per­ma­cul­ture Col­lec­tiec Cafe food, film & work­shop, Kebele Kul­ture Pro­jekt 14 Robert­son Road, Bris­tol, from 5.30pm
15th Oct Day of action against Roy­al Bank of Scot­land, details tbc
19th Oct ‘Left­ism’ Ben­e­fit club night in aid of B.A.N., down­stairs at The Crown, Bath­wick Street, 9pm-1am
19th Oct Anar­chist Black Cross ben­e­fit gig, 8pm, The Junc­tion, 51 Stokes croft, with Born Dead, Jesus Bruis­er, 7 Crowns and War/System
21st Oct ‘Bub­bling Under: Behind The Mask’ Porter Cel­lar Bar, George Street, 1–4pm
23rd Oct cheap house clear­ance, ben­e­fit­ing ani­mal shel­ter in Kent! Ring 07990 847700 for details
27th Oct Anar­chist Book­fair in Lon­don www.anarchistbookfair.org.uk
1st Nov Bath Activist Net­work meet­ing down­stairs Hob­gob­lin, St James Parade, 7.30–9pm
1st-11th Nov Bath Film Fes­ti­val www.bathfilmfestival.org
3rd Nov Bash The Rich, Not­ting Hill, Por­to­bel­lo road, Lon­don, 2pm www.bashtherich.org.uk [come along if you’re Class War or cop]
3rd Nov Gagged! ben­e­fit gig, Le Pub, Cax­ton Place, New­port, 9pm, with No Choice, Kilnaboy & Gun­rack?
7th Nov Bath Ani­mal Action meet­ing back room of the Bell, Wal­cot Street, 7.30–8.30pm
10th Nov SHAC demo Hunt­ing­don town cen­tre, nation­al day of action against ani­mal abuse in Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences, www.veggieromance.com/f/61290
13th Nov Green Light Lec­ture — ‘Peak Oil: how to face the chal­lenge of glob­al oil decline’ — BRLSI, Queen Square, 7.30pm
24th Nov Punk all-day­er gig, ben­fit­ting legal costs from the Nation­al Camp for Cli­mate Action, from 1pm at back­room [Wal­cot Palais!] of the Porter Butt on Lon­don Road — Tofu Love Frogs, Kilnaboy, Span­ner, Jesus Bruis­er, and more!

Fur Patrols

Here in the Bath Bomb office it’s start­ing to get a bit nip­py, now that win­ter’s on its way. But don’t wor­ry, this isn’t a call for heat­ing dona­tions — we’ve still got plen­ty of Chrons to feed the fire! What this does mean though, is that fur will soon start return­ing to our high streets, and we can’t have that. Around 40 mil­lion inno­cent ani­mals die every year to feed the fash­ion mar­ket, often spend­ing their entire lives in tiny cages, going mad with hunger and fear. ‘Pelt­ing’, or slaugh­ter, often takes the form of bru­tal hang­ings, elec­tro­cu­tion, car exhaust gassing — that is, if they’re not skinned alive.
For the last cou­ple of years, Bath Ani­mal Action and friends have been cam­paign­ing against fur out­lets in the city, with a string of suc­cess­es: Square signed the fur-free pledge last year, and John Antho­ny the year before. After weeks of reg­u­lar demos, it now remains to be seen as to whether Eleano­ra Brown at AH Moda will bring in rab­bit fur, again. Cry­ing wolf like any of today’s best actress­es, she col­lab­o­rat­ed with police last year to try and fit up a cou­ple of activists on false Pub­lic Order charges back in Jan­u­ary, both of whom were found not guilty.
BAA sleuths are now inves­ti­gat­ing the shop­ping cen­tres of the city to see if any stores are intent on prof­it­ing from this ani­mal abuse. Real fur is soft­er than syn­thet­ic fur, and if you do sus­pect any stores of sell­ing, please drop them a line: bathanimalaction@yahoo.co.uk.

http://www.caft.org.uk/

How Many MPs Does It Take To Veto Nuclear Pow­er…

We are hear­ing more and more that nuclear is the solu­tion to our pow­er needs, how plants are so much safer these days, blah blah blah. STOP. This is a dan­ger­ous thing to be con­sid­er­ing and will not even achieve what we need it to (nuclear pow­er, which only sup­plies elec­tric­i­ty, would only cut UK emis­sions by 4% by 2025–2030, by the government’s own fig­ures). Renew­able ener­gy will get for­got­ten about in the process, with hard­ly any fund­ing allo­cat­ed to research.
Nuclear pow­er is waste­ful, caus­es a lot of pol­lu­tion, is dan­ger­ous in many ways and isn’t even more reli­able see­ing as it still needs a fuel source which we must get from oth­er coun­tries. Renew­able ener­gy offers a sup­ply of clean fuel that is right on our doorsteps (such as wind, solar and geot­her­mal), it will achieve much more and soon­er. The government’s stub­born insis­tence on nuclear pow­er is anoth­er exam­ple of a quick fix that seems like it’s solv­ing a prob­lem when real­ly it’s only a tem­po­rary mea­sure that will come back to bite us in the ass in the future. Hard. We’ve got to stop cut­ting cor­ners and take the route that might take a bit more effort, may be a bit less famil­iar, but that is ulti­mate­ly the only way to begin to get us out of this mess we’ve got our­selves into.
Have your say here www.greenlightonbath.org/ with a ques­tion­naire or send out the mod­el let­ter to add your views to the Government’s review of the future of nuclear ener­gy. Also on this site, under the resources link is an inter­est­ing DVD you can view amongst oth­er things. The dead­line for this is the 10th Octo­ber, but if you miss that, as it’s short notice, there’s bound to be more oppor­tu­ni­ties to have your say. We must all shout loud and be deter­mined in our refusal of nuclear. The def­i­n­i­tion of stu­pid is doing the same thing (over and over) and expect­ing dif­fer­ent results. Also remem­ber two easy things you can do to reduce your ener­gy use — low ener­gy light bulbs (they cost more but last much longer) and turn off your stand­bys!

www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/index.php
http://nuclearpower2007.direct.gov.uk/reg/reg.asp

Direc­tor’s [Bolt] Cut

The sec­ond film in the ‘Bub­bling Under’ alter­na­tive cin­e­ma series screens on Sun­day the 21st of this month, down­stairs at Porter Cel­lar on George Street, at 1pm. Kei­th Mann, for­mer ani­mal lib­er­a­tionist jail­bird, intro­duces ‘Behind The Mask’, a doc­u­men­tary about peo­ple who risk their lib­er­ty to save ani­mals. He’ll also be dis­cussing his book ‘From Dusk Til Dawn’. Great veg­gie food also avail­able.

www.fromdusktildawn.org.uk

Who Are Bath Activist Net­work?

We are a local umbrel­la group cam­paign­ing on issues as diverse as devel­op­ment,
envi­ron­men­tal­ism, anti-war, ani­mal rights, work­ers’ rights and more. Help­ing to pro­duce
The Bath Bomb, we are open to any­one, and our mem­bers range from trade union­ists to
anar­chists, lib­er­als to greens, and peo­ple who just want to change Bath for the bet­ter.
For details on meet­ings, demos, or just to get in touch, ring us on 07949 611912, email
bathactivistnet@yahoo.co.uk, or see our web­site: www.myspace.com/bathactivistnetwork

Dirty Mon­ey

Not a week goes by now with­out anoth­er cli­mate change and severe weath­er hor­ror sto­ries hit­ting the press, caus­ing around annu­al 160,000 deaths world­wide. And we know some of the cul­prits, too: while com­pa­nies like Esso, Shell and Nation­al Grid plun­der the earth and endan­ger our lives, the finance to do this has to come from some­where. This is where the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land come in. The self-pro­claimed ‘Oil & Gas Bank’, whilst oth­er investors are jump­ing to fund renew­ables projects round the world, RBS is busy under­cut­ting com­peti­tors, and fund­ing the dead­liest and dirt­i­est projects around: liq­ue­fied nat­ur­al gas in Qatar, oil pipelines in Azerbaijan/Georgia, tar sand extrac­tion in Cana­da, North Sea Oil, and anoth­er drilling project off the coast of Rus­sia, the sum­mer feed­ing ground of the threat­ened west­ern grey whale. And then they fund air­port expan­sion, too!
In 2005, their var­i­ous fund­ed projects pro­duced near­ly 4 mil­lion tonnes of CO2 emis­sions, as well as dis­plac­ing indige­nous peo­ples and encour­ag­ing oil wars the world over.
Also, remem­ber Bath Cli­mate Camp? That was set up to oppose Land & Marine’s LNG pipeline in south Wales, also fund­ed by RBS, putting the lives of thou­sands in jeop­ardy from poten­tial gas explo­sions. Eco-cam­paign­ers are call­ing for a nation­al day of action against the bank [who also own NatWest, Direct Line and Churchill Insur­ance] on the 15th of this month, so keep a look out!

www.theoilandgasbank.com
www.risingtide.org.uk
www.networkforclimateaction.org.uk
www.carbonweb.org/documents/Oil_&_Gas_Bank.pd
To find your near­est RBS branch or office:www.rbs.co.uk/microsites/general/branch_locator/step1.asp

HOT OFF THE PRESS!:
Cad­bury’s prove yet again that they could­n’t give a Fudge about their staff, with the announced clo­sure of their suc­cess­ful fac­to­ry in Keyn­sham, Wink-ing out 500 jobs. And whilst it’s Time Out for the work­ers who have helped make the Mr Big execs rich, the relo­ca­tion to Poland will no doubt prove a tidy Boost to the confectioner’s prof­its; as well as stir­ring up Moro racism and anti-Pole resent­ment over here. Greedy bas­tards.

http://www.thisisbath.com/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=180730&command=displayContent&sourceNode=232315&home=yes&more_nodeId1=163047&contentPK=18568762

Well Fed Not An Ani­mal Dead!

Sat­ur­day morn­ing of the 22nd Sep­tem­ber saw Bath Ani­mal Action and sup­port­ers hold­ing a stall of veg­an food, gratis, prov­ing that there is such thing as a free lunch! Held as part of ‘Go Veg­gie Month’, it all went like hot cakes, and the pub­lic enjoyed it, too! Recipes were swapped and debates were had, and a real feel­ing of com­mu­ni­ty was [not Don!] fos­tered.

Fox Hunt­ing’s Fishy His­to­ry

Did you know that the expres­sion ‘red her­ring’ orig­i­nates from peas­antry in cen­turies past try­ing to sab­o­tage fox hunts? Pissed off with low pay, long hours and crap work­ing con­di­tions, it was a week­end pas­time for many of the 18th and 19th Cen­tu­ry rur­al poor to ruin their rich mas­ters’ hob­by. Amongst oth­er tac­tics, they did this by lay­ing her­rings and oth­er fish in the under­growth, dis­tract­ing the hounds from the scent of the fox, allow­ing it to escape. Our meth­ods may have changed since then, but hunt sabo­teurs are still out in the fields every week­end pro­tect­ing hunt­ed wildlife from the over-rich, under-IQ’d inbreds that con­sti­tute Britain’s rul­ing class. If you are inter­est­ed in pub­li­cis­ing Bath Hunt Sabo­teurs, help­ing us raise mon­ey, or bet­ter yet, com­ing out and help­ing us active­ly sab­o­tage local hunts, email bathactivistnet@yahoo.co.uk or give us a bell on 07854 062336

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_herring
http://hsa.enviroweb.org/hsa.shtml

GOT A STORY? WANT TO RECEIVE THE BATH BOMB BY EMAIL? HOPING TO SUE?
Con­tact us by e‑mailing bathbombpress@yahoo.co.uk. Large print e‑versions are avail­able
on request

And now, to the dis­claimer: As any­one is free to con­tribute to this newslet­ter, the opin­ions expressed in each arti­cle are not nec­es­sar­i­ly reflec­tive of each con­trib­u­tor. Nat­u­ral­ly, any right-wing or cor­po­rate bull­shit will be binned and spat on. Need­less to say, the opin­ions of the author of this dis­claimer does not nec­es­sar­i­ly rep­re­sent the views of any oth­er con­trib­u­tor…

http://www.myspace.com/bathbomb

hundreds descend on faslane for the big blockade

100 arrests so far as 600 actvists block entrances to faslane nuclear weapons base.

big Blockade 1Big Blockade 2100 arrests so far as 600 actvists block entrances to faslane nuclear weapons base.
600 Shut Down Faslane Nuclear Weapons Base to Mark Year of Protest
Alex Salmond sends pro­tes­tors mes­sage of sup­port
Octo­ber 1, 2007

600 pro­tes­tors from across the UK and Europe shut down road access to the Faslane nuclear weapons base on the Clyde this morn­ing.

At 7am pro­tes­tors non vio­lent­ly block­ad­ed the North­ern gate to the base with their bod­ies. Some have locked and super­glued them­selves togeth­er to make it more dif­fi­cult for them to be removed. At around 8.30am oth­er pro­tes­tors suc­cess­ful­ly block­ad­ed the South Gate. With both gates block­ad­ed there is now no road access to the weapons base, which is home to the UK ’s nuclear weapons-car­ry­ing Tri­dent sub­marines.

By 10.30 am Strath­clyde police had arrest­ed an esti­mat­ed 100 pro­test­ers, but as fast as they are removed more are tak­ing their place.

More pro­tes­tors are expect­ed and block­ades are planned to con­tin­ue through­out the day. Drum­mers, clowns and singers, includ­ing acclaimed folk singer Roy Bai­ley, are enter­tain­ing the pro­test­ers, cre­at­ing a car­ni­val spir­it to the protest.

Politi­cians from across the coun­try will join the demon­stra­tors lat­er this morn­ing, includ­ing six SNP MSP’s (Mem­bers of the Scot­tish Par­lia­ment), an MEP, two Green Par­ty MSPs and at least one Labour MSP (1).

Scot­land’s First Min­is­ter Alex Salmond has issued a state­ment back­ing to the event. He sent his “best wish­es” to the pro­tes­tors and said he “shares” Faslane 365’s “objec­tive of remov­ing nuclear weapons from Scotland’s soil” (2).

Oth­er mes­sages of sup­port have come in from cler­ics includ­ing the Head of the Scot­tish Catholic Church and Bish­op of Read­ing Stephen Cot­terell who said, ‘Our nation is demeaned and com­pro­mised by the pres­ence of these weapons of mass destruc­tion on our shores. The Church of Eng­land and most of the Chris­t­ian church­es in these islands stand unit­ed in call­ing upon our gov­ern­ment to re-think its reliance on nuclear weapons for our secu­ri­ty’. (3)

Today’s Big Block­ade cel­e­brates the last day of the Faslane 365 year of peace­ful blockad­ing. Since Faslane 365’s cam­paign start­ed on Octo­ber 1, 2006, thou­sands of peo­ple have block­ad­ed the base and more than 950 have been arrest­ed. High pro­file par­tic­i­pants have includ­ed for­mer UN Assis­tant Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al Prof. Sir Richard Jol­ly, Nobel Peace Lau­re­ate Mairead Maguire, Adri­an Mitchell, A.L.Kennedy, actor Roger Lloyd Pack and singer-song­writer Bil­ly Bragg.

Over the year of the block­ade the nuclear issue has been high on the polit­i­cal agen­da. In Feb­ru­ary 2007 the West­min­ster Par­lia­ment vot­ed for pro­duc­ing anoth­er nuclear weapons sys­tem to replace Tri­dent and tie the UK into hold­ing nuclear weapons for the next fifty years. The vote inspired the largest back­bench revolt since that over the deci­sion to invade Iraq. How­ev­er in a twist to the sto­ry in May 2007 the Scot­tish Nation­al Par­ty was elect­ed on a plat­form that includ­ed ‘kick­ing Tri­dent out of Scot­land ’. Lat­er this month the SNP are hold­ing a sum­mit with civ­il soci­ety groups to dis­cuss how to get rid of the UK ’s nuclear weapons. West­min­ster is vul­ner­a­ble to the strong Scot­tish oppo­si­tion to nuclear weapons (4) as Faslane is the only UK base suit­able for the mas­sive nuclear weapons car­ry­ing Tri­dent sub­marines.

NOTES:

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion on Faslane 365, the Tri­dent deploy­ments and the Big Block­ade, includ­ing back­ground and polit­i­cal con­text on the year long block­ade, see the full Press Brief­ing Pack on the web­site. www.faslane365.org/1oct/press

(1) Politi­cians attend­ing the Big Block­ade will include: Bill Kidd MSP (SNP), Gil Pater­son MSP (SNP), Bob Doris MSP (SNP), Bashir Ahmad MSP (SNP), Jamie Hep­burn MSP (SNP) and San­dra White MSP (SNP), Marlyn Glen MSP (Labour), Robin Harp­er MSP (Green) and Patrick Harvie (Green), as well as Jill Evans MEP (Plaid Cym­ru). For sup­port­ive quotes by these politi­cians vis­it the web­site www.faslane365.org/1oct/press

(2) Full Alex Salmond state­ment: Alex Salmond’s office sent a let­ter on behalf of the First Min­is­ter to the Faslane 365 orga­niz­ers con­vey­ing “his best wish­es for a suc­cess­ful event” and affirm­ing his full sup­port for “respon­si­ble and peace­ful protest against the replace­ment of Tri­dent”. The let­ter fur­ther stat­ed that Mr. Salmond “shares” Faslane 365’s “objec­tive of remov­ing nuclear weapons from Scotland’s soil” and affirmed that “He is com­mit­ted to doing what­ev­er he can to per­suade the UK gov­ern­ment to alter its posi­tion on nuclear weapons.”

(3) State­ments by church lead­ers:
Stephen Cot­trell, Bish­op of Read­ing (Angli­can): ‘I send greet­ings in the name of Jesus Christ, the friend of the poor and the lover of peace. On the night before he died he said these words to his friends: Peace I give you, my own peace I leave with you, not as the world gives peace do I give to you. These words con­tin­ue to chal­lenge the pow­ers and author­i­ties of the world where there is still such mis­placed con­fi­dence in a so called peace that can be secured by a so called deter­rence. But these expen­sive and dev­as­tat­ing­ly destruc­tive weapons can­not bring peace. They only encour­age oth­ers to depend on force. They add to the insta­bil­i­ty of the world. They leech finances away from so many oth­er things that could do so much good. Our nation is demeaned and com­pro­mised by the pres­ence of these weapons of mass destruc­tion on our shores. The Church of Eng­land and most of the Chris­t­ian church­es in these islands stand unit­ed in call­ing upon our gov­ern­ment to re-think its reliance on nuclear weapons for our secu­ri­ty. This is the peace the world gives and it is not work­ing. Let us turn instead to the peace of Christ who bids us turn our swords into ploughshares and our tri­dent sub­marines into hos­pi­tals and schools. And it is my plea­sure to send greet­ings and prayers to those of you who are gath­er­ing at Faslane today as you lament the mad­ness of the world and brave­ly bear wit­ness to the way of last­ing peace’.

Kei­th Patrick Car­di­nal O’Brien, Pres­i­dent, the Bish­ops Con­fer­ence of Scot­land (Catholic): ‘My dear friends gath­ered at Faslane, I wish to assure you that the posi­tion of the Roman Catholic Church with regard to weapons of mass destruc­tion is per­fect­ly clear and has been empha­sised by myself in recent years. The Roman Catholic Church is opposed to weapons of mass destruc­tion and has reg­u­lar­ly spo­ken out against the pos­si­bil­i­ty of the renew­al of the Tri­dent Nuclear Weapons sys­tem. I per­son­al­ly am hap­py to think that in the new polit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion in the new Scot­tish Par­lia­ment, where a major­i­ty is opposed to Tri­dent, fur­ther pos­i­tive steps may be tak­en in Scot­land to ensure that the Tri­dent Nuclear Weapons Sys­tem is not renewed. With my kind­est regards and union of prayer

(4) An opin­ion poll car­ried out by ICM for Scot­tish CND on 26–29 Jan­u­ary 2007 found that 73 % of those polled were opposed to the gov­ern­ment spend­ing £50 bil­lion on a replace­ment for Tri­dent. http://www.banthebomb.org/newbombs/poll.htm.

——————————————–

arrests mount at faslane…coulport also block­ad­ed

at 11.30 anoth­er 43 peo­ple were arrest­ed at the faslane base for non­vi­o­lent­ly blockad­ing the gates — brig­ing the total arrests to around 150. about 450 pro­tes­tors remain blockad­ing the base.

Pro­tes­tors have also suc­cess­ful­ly bloack­ad­ed the roads into The Roy­al Naval Arma­ment Depot (RNAD) at Coul­port, Loch Long — where Tri­dent nuclear mis­siles are stored

Join Big Blockade of Faslane Nuclear Base 1st October

Hun­dreds of peace activists will risk arrest on Octo­ber 1st when over a thou­sand peo­ple are expect­ed to join in a “Big Block­ade” of Faslane Naval Base. This will be the cul­mi­na­tion of the Faslane 365 year of actions against Tri­dent, Britain’s weapon of mass destruc­tion. Peo­ple and groups from all over Britain (and abroad) will use diverse non­vi­o­lent meth­ods to block the entrances to the nuclear base and dis­rupt the ongo­ing deploy­ment of Tri­dent.

Faslane 365 logoHun­dreds of peace activists will risk arrest on Octo­ber 1st when over a thou­sand peo­ple are expect­ed to join in a “Big Block­ade” of Faslane Naval Base. This will be the cul­mi­na­tion of the Faslane 365 year of actions against Tri­dent, Britain’s weapon of mass destruc­tion. Peo­ple and groups from all over Britain (and abroad) will use diverse non­vi­o­lent meth­ods to block the entrances to the nuclear base and dis­rupt the ongo­ing deploy­ment of Tri­dent.

As they have done over the past twelve months, the groups and indi­vid­u­als, who will include Mem­bers of the Scot­tish and Euro­pean Par­lia­ments and well-known singers and artists, will high­light the ille­gal­i­ty, inse­cu­ri­ty and waste of resources inher­ent in the deploy­ment and renew­al of Tri­dent. Through­out the day there will be colour­ful, cre­ative and dra­mat­ic actions at the gates, includ­ing many dif­fer­ent kinds of lock-ons and sit-downs.

“This Big Block­ade will be a car­ni­val of resis­tance to cel­e­brate Faslane 365’s achieve­ments in high­light­ing and dis­rupt­ing the ille­gal nuclear deploy­ments over the year,” said Dr Rebec­ca John­son from the Faslane 365 Steer­ing Group. “We will join togeth­er to mark the end of this year’s cam­paign­ing, and to make clear our deter­mi­na­tion to keep up pres­sure on the Scot­tish and UK gov­ern­ments to get rid of Tri­dent and to take the lead in mov­ing the world towards the total elim­i­na­tion of nuclear weapons, in accor­dance with the Nuclear Non-Pro­lif­er­a­tion Treaty and the wish­es of the major­i­ty.”

As diverse groups of activists block­ade the gates, folk leg­ends Leon Rossel­son and Seize the Day will be pro­vid­ing music, and the renowned Roy Bai­ley and David Fer­rard will per­form songs from a forth­com­ing album about the Iraq War. A twelve-mem­ber choir will sing the ora­to­rio Tri­dent — A British War Crime, by Camil­la Can­can­ta­ta, first per­formed at the Edin­burgh High Court in 2005. The Rev. Kathy Gal­loway, leader of the Iona Com­mu­ni­ty, will cel­e­brate a com­mu­nion ser­vice at 10am at the North Gate with Cler­gy Action and Chris­t­ian CND. Sev­er­al Mem­bers of the Scot­tish Par­lia­ment, includ­ing Marlyn Glen (Labour), Robin Harp­er (Green) and Patrick Harvie (Green), as well as Jill Evans MEP (Plaid Cym­ru) have con­firmed their par­tic­i­pa­tion and will be avail­able for inter­views.

Since Faslane 365 start­ed on Octo­ber 1, 2006, thou­sands have par­tic­i­pat­ed and more than 950 peo­ple have been arrest­ed. Par­tic­i­pants have includ­ed elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives from Scot­tish, UK and Euro­pean Par­lia­ments and local coun­cils, Friends of the Earth, Green­peace, Bud­dhists, Chris­tians, ‘Uni­ty!’ union of asy­lum seek­ers, artists, writ­ers, aca­d­e­mics, stu­dents from the UK, Europe and Japan, atom­ic bomb sur­vivors from Nagasa­ki, teach­ers, lawyers, health pro­fes­sion­als and pen­sion­ers. Spe­cif­ic groups have come from many regions of Scot­land, Eng­land and Wales and from eleven oth­er Euro­pean coun­tries, as well as Japan and the Unit­ed States. Promi­nent par­tic­i­pants includ­ed the Bish­op of Read­ing Stephen Cot­terell, for­mer UN Assis­tant Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al Prof Sir Richard Jol­ly, Nobel Peace Lau­re­ate Mairead Maguire, Adri­an Mitchell, A.L.Kennedy, actor Roger Lloyd Pack and singer-song­writer Bil­ly Bragg.

NVDA train­ings and acco­mo­da­tion will be Sun­day after­noon and evening in Glas­gow. Coach­es leave from Edin­burgh at 4:30 am and Glas­gow at 5:30am
Mon­day. For details and to book see www.faslane365.org/1Oct

For fur­ther back­ground infor­ma­tion on Tri­dent, a sum­ma­ry of the polit­i­cal con­text of the cam­paign, and a selec­tion of pho­tos from the year­long block­ade see the full Press Brief­ing Pack on the web­site. www.faslane365.org/1oct/press

Con­tacts: 0845 45 88 365 / 07733 360955 / 07768 312 676
info@www.faslane365.org
http://www.faslane365.org