Category: Nuclear

May Gathering in Plymouth to Prevent Wilful and Accidental Nuclear Holocaust

The Tamar­i­ans are invit­ing mem­bers of the pub­lic to a gath­er­ing in Ply­mouth from the 9th to the 12th of May 2014. The group is a local affin­i­ty group of Tri­dent Ploughshares, and is deter­mined to abol­ish Weapons of Mass Destruc­tion, start­ing with the one on their doorstep: the Tri­dent sub­ma­rine based system.Saturday is a day of work­shops: NVDA, facil­i­ta­tion and con­sen­sus, update on Devon­port subs, dance of nuclear fis­sion, sto­ries from vet­er­an peace activists, ban­ner mak­ing and insur­rec­tion­al art.

Food and shel­ter will be pro­vid­ed for the whole week­end.

Address: 74 Mut­ley Plain, Ply­mouth
Direc­tions: Mut­ley Plain, Ply­mouth
Near­est Pub­lic Trans­port: Ply­mouth train sta­tion; Bre­ton­side Bus sta­tion
Post­code: PL4 6LS
Time: 9:30
Price: Dona­tions are wel­come
Phone: 01822 832 815
Email: tp_tamarians@hotmail.co.uk
Web: www.tridentploughshares.org

BREAKING THE FRAME: A GATHERING ON THE POLITICS OF TECHNOLOGY

2nd — 5th May 2014

Unstone Grange, Der­byshire

YOU NEED TO BOOK ‑SEE BELOW

Organ­ised by Lud­dites 200, Cor­po­rate Watch, and Sci­en­tists for Glob­al Respon­si­bil­i­ty

Tech­nol­o­gy can bring some ben­e­fits for ordi­nary peo­ple, but its devel­op­ment is almost entire­ly con­mtrolled by cor­po­rate, mil­i­tary and tech­no­crat­ic elites, so it usu­al­ly serves their inter­ests and rein­forces their pow­er.

The pol­i­tics of food, ener­gy, work, gen­der, peace, eco­nom­ics, health, etc are all shaped by choic­es about tech­nol­o­gy made by those elites. The whole way our soci­ety devel­ops is mas­sive­ly influ­enced by tech­nol­o­gy, yet ordi­nary peo­ple nev­er have a prop­er say in it.  We’re always left react­ing to the tech­nocrats’ lat­est plan, whether it’s drones, inter­net sur­veil­lance, GM food, frack­ing, design­er babies or nuclear pow­er.

We think all these issues are linked. So it’s time for a more joined up and more proac­tive approach, one which address­es the root caus­es of prob­lems and is not lim­it­ed by the dog­ma that tech­nol­o­gy equals progress.

  • We want to cre­ate a new pol­i­tics of tech­nol­o­gy based on bring­ing togeth­er the insights of dif­fer­ent move­ments and learn­ing from each oth­er.
  • We want a human-scale tech­nol­o­gy that serves real human needs, not cor­po­rate bot­tom lines.
  • We want demo­c­ra­t­ic con­trol of tech­nol­o­gy.

An world fac­ing envi­ron­men­tal melt­down and mas­sive inequal­i­ty ‑both caused byb 200 years ofn indus­tri­al cap­i­tal­ism- needs bet­ter solu­tions than more dan­ger­ous tech­no-fix­es such as cli­mate engi­neer­ing.

Whether you’re a tech­nol­o­gy pol­i­tics cam­paign­er, trade union­ist, envi­ron­men­tal­ist. altech devel­op­er, artist or just plain con­cerned, BREAKING THE FRAME IS NOT TO BE MISSED.

YOU NEED TO BOOK

www.breakingtheframe.org.uk      

email: luddites200@yahoo.co.uk

(020) 7426 0005

Accom­mo­da­tion is either in the con­fer­ence cen­tre OR camp­ing (which is cheap­er).  The con­ces­sion­ary rate for camp­ing is £36, which includes all meals for 4 days (it’s a bank hol­i­day week­end).

BUT if £36 is more than you can man­age, we’re com­mit­ted to mak­ing sure nobody is left out for lack of mon­ey.  So get in touch now.  Rich peo­ple can make extra dona­tions, of course!

BREAKING THE FRAME

A GATHERING ON THE POLITICS OF TECHNOLOGY

2nd — 5th May 2014

Unstone Grange, Der­byshire

YOU NEED TO BOOK ‑SEE BELOW

Organ­ised by Lud­dites 200, Cor­po­rate Watch, and Sci­en­tists for Glob­al Respon­si­bil­i­ty

A GATHERING ON THE POLITICS OF TECHNOLOGY

2nd — 5th May 2014

Unstone Grange, Der­byshire

YOU NEED TO BOOK ‑SEE BELOW

Organ­ised by Lud­dites 200, Cor­po­rate Watch, and Sci­en­tists for Glob­al Respon­si­bil­i­ty

Tech­nol­o­gy can bring some ben­e­fits for ordi­nary peo­ple, but its devel­op­ment is almost entire­ly con­mtrolled by cor­po­rate, mil­i­tary and tech­no­crat­ic elites, so it usu­al­ly serves their inter­ests and rein­forces their pow­er.

The pol­i­tics of food, ener­gy, work, gen­der, peace, eco­nom­ics, health, etc are all shaped by choic­es about tech­nol­o­gy made by those elites. The whole way our soci­ety devel­ops is mas­sive­ly influ­enced by tech­nol­o­gy, yet ordi­nary peo­ple nev­er have a prop­er say in it.  We’re always left react­ing to the tech­nocrats’ lat­est plan, whether it’s drones, inter­net sur­veil­lance, GM food, frack­ing, design­er babies or nuclear pow­er.

We think all these issues are linked. So it’s time for a more joined up and more proac­tive approach, one which address­es the root caus­es of prob­lems and is not lim­it­ed by the dog­ma that tech­nol­o­gy equals progress.

  • We want to cre­ate a new pol­i­tics of tech­nol­o­gy based on bring­ing togeth­er the insights of dif­fer­ent move­ments and learn­ing from each oth­er.
  • We want a human-scale tech­nol­o­gy that serves real human needs, not cor­po­rate bot­tom lines.
  • We want demo­c­ra­t­ic con­trol of tech­nol­o­gy.

An world fac­ing envi­ron­men­tal melt­down and mas­sive inequal­i­ty ‑both caused byb 200 years ofn indus­tri­al cap­i­tal­ism- needs bet­ter solu­tions than more dan­ger­ous tech­no-fix­es such as cli­mate engi­neer­ing.

Whether you’re a tech­nol­o­gy pol­i­tics cam­paign­er, trade union­ist, envi­ron­men­tal­ist. altech devel­op­er, artist or just plain con­cerned, BREAKING THE FRAME IS NOT TO BE MISSED.

YOU NEED TO BOOK

www.breakingtheframe.org.uk      

email: luddites200@yahoo.co.uk

(020) 7426 0005

Accom­mo­da­tion is either in the con­fer­ence cen­tre OR camp­ing (which is cheap­er).  The con­ces­sion­ary rate for camp­ing is £36, which includes all meals for 4 days (it’s a bank hol­i­day week­end).

BUT if £36 is more than you can man­age, we’re com­mit­ted to mak­ing sure nobody is left out for lack of mon­ey.  So get in touch now.  Rich peo­ple can make extra dona­tions, of course!

Earth First! Direct Action Manual Is Ready for Print

Cover for Direct Action Manual

Cover for Direct Action Manual

Earth First! Direct Action Man­u­al. To sup­port this pub­li­ca­tion, pre­order your copy or donate today.

After sev­er­al years in devel­op­ment, the Earth First! Direct Action Man­u­al is ready to go to press. A group of front­line activists has assem­bled over 300 pages of dia­grams, descrip­tions of tech­niques and a com­pre­hen­sive overview of the role direct action plays in our cam­paigns in defense of the Earth.

We are now in a three-week fundrais­ing cam­paign to ensure that this crit­i­cal book gets out to peo­ple who can use it. You can pre­order your copy and get some extra thank you gifts for your ear­ly endorse­ment by donat­ing today. More impor­tant­ly, though, we have offered a chance for you to help us spread this knowl­edge. Every dona­tion over $50 gives you the chance to send a free copy of the man­u­al to a cam­paign of your choice. The more you give, the more man­u­als we can put in the mail.

The man­u­al will be print­ed in the com­ing month with long­time Earth First! part­ner, The Gloo Fac­to­ry. This com­mu­ni­ty-mind­ed, union print shop has sup­plied Earth First! and its affil­i­ates with stick­ers and mer­chan­dise for decades and remains com­mit­ted to using a high stan­dard for recy­cled and reclaimed mate­r­i­al, as well as sup­port­ive work­er con­di­tions.

The man­u­al was first print­ed near­ly two decades ago and has been out of print since its ini­tial dis­sem­i­na­tion. Though many of the con­sid­er­a­tions for civ­il dis­obe­di­ence and inter­ven­tion have remained tried and true, new ele­ments have altered the ways we put these tac­tics into action. The Earth First! Direct Action Man­u­al will con­tin­ue the role of safe and effec­tive actions in stop­ping the destruc­tion of the plan­et.

Sup­port this effort today!

Reclaim the Power gathering 8–9 February

After an incred­i­ble day of idea gen­er­a­tion and vision­ing at the last gath­er­ing, it’s time for con­crete pro­pos­als and deci­sions about our next steps.


Loca­tion: Oxford
Time: Sat­ur­day 8th Feb­ru­ary 11am ­­– Sun­day 9th 4pm
Address: TBC
Crash Space/Social: Pro­vid­ed. Fur­ther details TBC.
Meals: Pro­vid­ed, dona­tion cost TBC
Trav­el Pool: Avail­able. Please book trav­el tick­ets in advance so that this can sup­port the most peo­ple.
Notes from Man­ches­ter Vision­ing Day are here: http://bit.ly/1lQ0Yd3

In ear­ly Decem­ber a large num­ber of peo­ple came togeth­er to dis­cuss the rad­i­cal visions they had for the future – visions that Reclaim the Pow­er, as a net­work, could help bring about.

It was a very open day of dis­cus­sion with a clear struc­ture, but with no pre-planned agen­da. Every­thing we talked about was gen­er­at­ed by par­tic­i­pants, and a huge num­ber of dif­fer­ent ideas were placed on the table.

So what next? Well, the idea is that all of that dis­cus­sion feeds into a month of cre­ative pro­pos­al mak­ing before the next gath­er­ing. This will be a space for short and medi­um-term deci­sion mak­ing where we work out what we’re doing in the next few months – and how this fits in with long term visions.

Rough pro­pos­al area groups formed at the Decem­ber gath­er­ing, includ­ing:

1. How to chal­lenge cor­po­rate pow­er
2. Move­ment and diver­si­ty
3. Ener­gy and fos­sil fuels
4. Pos­i­tive solu­tions

If you would like to link up with these groups and input into pro­pos­als for next steps, just con­tact info@nodashforgas.org.uk and you will be put in touch with a group con­tact.

This said, all pro­pos­als are wel­come! If you’re work­ing on your own, out­side these groups, then great. The more ideas the bet­ter.

The pro­pos­al dead­line is the 31st Jan­u­ary 2014. Please try and fol­low this rough four point list when writ­ing them, as it is essen­tial that all the pro­pos­als be con­sid­ered on an equal foot­ing.

1. What is it?
2. How does it link to long-term strate­gic aims?
3. Time­line?
4. Resources need­ed? (inc, peo­ple, costs, skills)

Spe­cif­ic venue and agen­da details to fol­low soon. In the mean­while, please check http://bit.ly/1lQ0Yd3 to see the dis­cus­sions and out­comes of the last agen­da.

See you soon,

RTP Gath­er­ings Team

info@nodashforgas.org.uk

 

Earth First! Winter Moot 7–9 March 2014: programme up

A week­end gath­er­ing for peo­ple involved or want to know more about eco­log­i­cal direct action around the UK includ­ing fight­ing open­cast coal, frack­ing, GM, nuclear pow­er, new road build­ing and quar­ries with dis­cus­sions and cam­paign plan­ning — empha­sis on the tac­tics and strate­gies, com­mu­ni­ty sol­i­dar­i­ty and sus­tain­able activism.

A week­end gath­er­ing for peo­ple involved or want to know more about eco­log­i­cal direct action around the UK includ­ing fight­ing open­cast coal, frack­ing, GM, nuclear pow­er, new road build­ing and quar­ries with dis­cus­sions and cam­paign plan­ning — empha­sis on the tac­tics and strate­gies, com­mu­ni­ty sol­i­dar­i­ty and sus­tain­able activism.

Evening Fri­day 7th — after­noon Sun­day 9th March 2014, Not­ting­ham

Cost scale £20 to £30. This includes full veg­an meals and accom­mo­da­tion.

It will be an indoor floor sleep­ing space so bring a warm sleep­ing bag and mat. Train to Not­ting­ham then tram to Bea­cons­field street– walk to the end turn right on to Glad­stone St — 245 Glad­stone St, Not­ting­ham NG7 6HX — www.earthfirst.org.uk

Full map/travel details

For offers of help or ques­tions email themiddle@earthfirst.org.uk

 

Programme

Friday

16.30–17.30 Secu­ri­ty Work­shop
17.30–18.30 Film

18.30 Din­ner

20.00 Ben­e­fit Gig

Saturday

8.30–9.30 Break­fast
9.30–10.45 Intro go round of cam­paigns

10.45–11.00 Break

11.00–12.00 Future of Earth First Part 1
12.00–13.00 Secu­ri­ty Work­shop

13.00–14.00 Lunch

14.00–14.30 Lush/fundraising work­shop
14.30–18.15 Cam­paign Work­shops (tim­ings to be finalised to include Frack­ing, Nuclear, Roads and Coal)
18.15–18.30 Sum­mer Gath­er­ing han­dover

18.30 Din­ner
20.00 DJ??

Sunday

9.00–10.00 Break­fast fry up
10.00–10.30 Tidy up of venue
10.30–11.30 Feed­back go round
11.30–12.30 Future of Earth First Part 2
12.30–14.00 Sum­mer Gath­er­ing Plan­ning (and time of oth­er work­shops to run in par­al­lel)

14.00–15.00 Lunch
15.00 End

Chants of ‘No Nukes’ Echo in Streets of Tokyo’s Shibuya and Harajuku Districts

Screen Shot 2013-10-01 at 4.42.55 PMWith an eye to get­ting their mes­sage out to young peo­ple, demon­stra­tors call­ing for a depar­ture from nuclear pow­er on Sept.

Screen Shot 2013-10-01 at 4.42.55 PMWith an eye to get­ting their mes­sage out to young peo­ple, demon­stra­tors call­ing for a depar­ture from nuclear pow­er on Sept. 29 changed course from their usu­al venue and took to the streets in Tokyo’s trendy Shibuya and Hara­juku dis­tricts.

Pro­test­ers shout­ed slo­gans such as “We’ve got enough elec­tric pow­er” and “No nuke reac­tors on earth­quake-prone islands” as they marched past Marui City Shibuya and oth­er fash­ion­able com­mer­cial estab­lish­ments packed with trend-con­scious youths.

The “No Nukes Demo” was the brain­child of the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Coali­tion against Nukes, a civ­il advo­ca­cy group that orga­nizes week­ly anti-nuclear protest ral­lies out­side the prime minister’s office on Fri­day evenings in Tokyo’s Nagat­a­cho dis­trict. Orga­niz­ers said they thought that the nation’s youths are not even aware that all 50 exist­ing nuclear pow­er reac­tors in Japan are cur­rent­ly offline, for main­te­nance and safe­ty checks.

The march fol­lowed a ral­ly in Nagat­a­cho on Sept. 27 oppos­ing Tokyo Elec­tric Pow­er Co.’s appli­ca­tion to the Nuclear Reg­u­la­tion Author­i­ty for safe­ty screen­ing of two reac­tors at its Kashi­waza­ki-Kari­wa nuclear plant in Niiga­ta Pre­fec­ture, as a pre­lude to their pos­si­ble restart.

Action AWE Disarmament Camp & Blockade

25th August 2013

Direc­tions and details here.

Update — 2nd Sep­tem­ber — big block­ade

IMG_1294

25th August 2013

Direc­tions and details here.

Update — 2nd Sep­tem­ber — big block­ade

IMG_1294

More pho­tos and videos

Twen­ty-one pro­test­ers have been arrest­ed after blockad­ing a road lead­ing to a site which builds war­heads for nuclear sub­marines.

Anti-nuclear weapons pro­test­ers at Atom­ic Weapons Estab­lish­men­t’s (AWE) Burgh­field site oppose the renew­al or replace­ment of Tri­dent.

Burgh­field and AWE Alder­mas­ton pro­vide the war­heads for the sub­ma­rine-launched mis­sile sys­tem.

The activists were held on sus­pi­cion of obstruc­tion of a pub­lic high­way.

The UK’s exist­ing four bal­lis­tic mis­sile sub­marines are to be renewed from the late-2020s.

The gov­ern­men­t’s final deci­sion on whether to renew or replace the mis­sile sys­tem, the UK’s nuclear deter­rent, is due in 2016.

‘Pose a dan­ger’

Some of the pro­test­ers at AWE Burgh­field have come from Fin­land, Spain, Scot­land, Argenti­na and Japan to take part.

Police said there were about 20 tents as part of a camp near the West Berk­shire site.

Action AWE, which is co-ordi­nat­ing the protest with Tri­dent Ploughshares, said in a state­ment they were tak­ing part in “non-vio­lent direct action”.

They said nuclear weapons were “immoral, ille­gal under inter­na­tion­al law, dan­ger­ous to main­tain and pose a dan­ger to peace on Earth”.

Ch Insp Lind­sey Finch, deputy local polic­ing com­man­der for New­bury, said: “We will con­tin­ue to work with pro­test­ers to facil­i­tate peace­ful protest and ensure that any crim­i­nal activ­i­ty is dealt with pro­por­tion­ate­ly.”

A spokes­woman for the weapons site said: “AWE on-site secu­ri­ty, the Min­istry of Defence Police and Thames Val­ley Police are cur­rent­ly in atten­dance and will remain for the dura­tion of any protest action.”

Memorial at Greenham Common bulldozed

27.8.13

I have just heard via a local woman that the memo­r­i­al to the sis­ters who protest­ed out­side the Green­ham Com­mon Nuclear site from 1982 until the gov­ern­ment was forced to remove the nuclear cruise mis­siles locat­ed there has today been removed by the own­ers of the Green­ham Com­mon Enter­prise Cen­tre that owns the site. 

 

27.8.13

I have just heard via a local woman that the memo­r­i­al to the sis­ters who protest­ed out­side the Green­ham Com­mon Nuclear site from 1982 until the gov­ern­ment was forced to remove the nuclear cruise mis­siles locat­ed there has today been removed by the own­ers of the Green­ham Com­mon Enter­prise Cen­tre that owns the site. 

 

Bull­doz­ers arrived at around 8am and began to rip up all the flow­ers and stones includ­ing even the memo­r­i­al to Helen Thomas who was killed while protest­ing there.   The memo­r­i­al was a gar­den of sev­en stand­ing stones encir­cling the ‘Flame’ sculp­ture which rep­re­sent­ed a camp fire.  I have called the Green­ham Com­mon Trust who run the site and they said the memo­r­i­al had “been there long enough” and was “a prob­lem for local traf­fic”.  I under­stand the entire gar­den is now gone and the land is sim­ply earth with all traces removed.

 

Peo­ple may wish to con­tact the Green­ham Com­mon trust and let them know what they think of this dis­gust­ing action

 

 

Sabotage of Nuclear Train in France

A fishplate similar to the one reportedly removed by an anti-nuclear group to derail a train earlier in July.

A fish­plate sim­i­lar to the one report­ed­ly removed by an anti-nuclear group to derail a train ear­li­er in July.

23 July 2013 An unknown anti-nuclear group has tak­en cred­it for a July 12 act of sab­o­tage that derailed a train trans­port­ing nuclear waste in the French city of Limo­ges.  French police are cur­rent­ly con­duct­ing an inves­ti­ga­tion. 

Accord­ing to the region­al news­pa­per Le Pop­u­laire du Cen­tre, they received an email claim­ing respon­si­bil­i­ty. The paper also explained that a steel plate, known as a fish­plate, was unbolt­ed from the tracks, the track was lift­ed and the rail cross­ings were dis­lodged.

The derail­ment took place in the morn­ing on a stretch of track used exclu­sive­ly by nuclear giant Are­va to trans­port nuclear waste.

The Are­va train shot off the rails more than 200 ft. Nei­ther of the two rail-work­ers aboard were injured.