Category: Nuclear

Dawn blockade leaves nuclear workers locked out — Hinkley blockaded today

Via South West Against Nuclear

23/11/12

Dawn block­ade leaves nuclear work­ers locked out

Via South West Against Nuclear

23/11/12

Dawn block­ade leaves nuclear work­ers locked out

At 6am this morn­ing 10 pro­tes­tors block­ad­ed access to EDF ener­gy’s nuclear sites at Hink­ley Point, pre­vent­ing the morn­ing shift from start­ing work. 4 peo­ple in arm locks formed a bar­ri­er across the main access road at Wick Moor Drove in a bid to pre­vent fur­ther ground clear­ance work at the planned Hink­ley C site and to protest at EDF’s plan to extend the life of aging reac­tors at the Hink­ley B sta­tion.

 

Sit­ting beneath a ban­ner say­ing “Nuclear Pow­er — not worth the risk” Bris­tol tree-sur­geon Zoe Smith said, “We want the destruc­tion of land at the pro­posed Hink­ley C site to stop. EDF still don’t have plan­ning per­mis­sion for the new nuclear plant, the gov­ern­ments ener­gy pol­i­cy is in tat­ters. With Cen­tri­ca pulling out and the long await­ed Elec­tric­i­ty Reform Act delayed, there is not even enough invest­ment to fin­ish the project. If the tories fix the elec­tric­i­ty price for nuclear so that the project can go ahead it will leave a radioac­tive waste dump here for hun­dreds of years.” The ear­ly morn­ing block­ade caused long tail­backs for scores of work­ers con­tract­ed in to per­form main­te­nance work on the the exist­ing reac­tors at Hink­ley B, EDF have sig­nalled their inten­tion to re-licence the reac­tor again in 2016.

Bridg­wa­ter mum Nik­ki Clark from South West Against Nuclear said, “Not only do we not need new nuclear, we cer­tain­ly don’t need to extend the life of the exist­ing reac­tors even fur­ther. Just this year alone reac­tor no 4 in the B sta­tion has scrammed at least three times. EDF like to call these emer­gency shut­downs ‘unplanned out­ages’ but this delib­er­ate­ly con­ceals the fact that these age­ing reac­tors are now in a dan­ger­ous con­di­tion. In 2008 the reg­u­la­tors threat­ened British Ener­gy with clo­sure of the site. The reac­tors do not have any few­er cracks in the graphite core now than they did then. Do we have to have our own Fukushima­here in Som­er­set­be­fore we aban­don this insan­i­ty and embrace a renew­ables rev­o­lu­tion in the UK?”

Stop Hink­ley spokesper­son Theo Simon said, “We sup­port this protest. New nuclear is dead in the water. We need pub­lic invest­ment in a renew­ables rev­o­lu­tion which could cre­ate a mil­lion cli­mate jobs and cut ener­gy bills through a pro­gramme of home insu­la­tion and ener­gy-effi­cien­cy. With it’s mas­sive marine ener­gy resource, West Som­er­setis per­fect­ly placed to lead the way in renew­ables, but EDF’s plans would turn it into a tox­ic waste dump for our grand­chil­dren.”

Via South West Against Nuclear
Pro­tes­tors are block­ing the road out­side Hink­ley Point TODAY
Fri­day, 23 Novem­ber, 2012, 7:52

Pro­tes­tors are block­ing the road out­side Hink­ley Point TODAY stop­ping the work­ers enter­ing the site. Lis­ten to BBC Som­er­set report 7.40am. Pass on the word those who want to take a flask of cof­fee to them, great­ly received.

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/radio/bbc_radio_somerset_sound/listenlive

EF! Winter Moot 2013: 22–24th February, near Preston

A week­end get-togeth­er for peo­ple involved in eco­log­i­cal direct action, from fight­ing open­cast coal, frack­ing, GM, nuclear pow­er to road build­ing. There’ll be dis­cus­sions and cam­paign plan­ning – with the empha­sis on the tac­tics and strate­gies we use, com­mu­ni­ty sol­i­dar­i­ty and sus­tain­able activism.

A week­end get-togeth­er for peo­ple involved in eco­log­i­cal direct action, from fight­ing open­cast coal, frack­ing, GM, nuclear pow­er to road build­ing. There’ll be dis­cus­sions and cam­paign plan­ning – with the empha­sis on the tac­tics and strate­gies we use, com­mu­ni­ty sol­i­dar­i­ty and sus­tain­able activism. This year we’ll be in Lan­cashire…

 

Update: full trans­port details and pro­gramme at link below.

Read more

(India) Anti-Nuclear Fishermen

 

On 22nd Sep­tem­ber 3,000 fish­er­men and anti-nuclear activists aboard 500 boats attempt­ed to block­ade a port to pre­vent the unload­ing of nuclear fuel into the recent­ly con­struct­ed Kudanku­lam nuclear pow­er plant locat­ed on the Tamil Nadu coast in south­ern India.

 

On 22nd Sep­tem­ber 3,000 fish­er­men and anti-nuclear activists aboard 500 boats attempt­ed to block­ade a port to pre­vent the unload­ing of nuclear fuel into the recent­ly con­struct­ed Kudanku­lam nuclear pow­er plant locat­ed on the Tamil Nadu coast in south­ern India.

This mas­sive pow­er plant is a joint ven­ture between India and Rus­sia and hous­es two nuclear pres­sur­ized water reac­tors (PWR) reac­tors, with future plans to con­struct four addi­tion­al reac­tors at the site.

This has result­ed in a peri­od of sus­tained direct action by local res­i­dents, strong­ly opposed to the plan­t’s con­struc­tion. Over a mil­lion peo­ple live with­in 30 km of the pro­posed plant. Over the last year demon­stra­tors have endured severe repres­sion as over 10,000 police and para­mil­i­tary forces have been deployed in the area. Vil­lagers have been beat­en, hun­dreds have been arrest­ed and some activists face charges of sedi­tion and even of wag­ing war against the gov­ern­ment. In April the police cut off the water, food and pow­er-sup­ply to protest­ing vil­lagers and imposed a cur­few in the vil­lages at the heart of the resis­tance.

At this point the Peo­ples Move­ment Against Nuclear Ene­gy (PMANE) called off their protests hop­ing for some respite for the peo­ple. They filed a pub­lic inter­est lit­i­ga­tion against the gov­ern­ments civ­il nuclear pro­gram com­plain­ing that the plant itself was unsafe, that there has not been a pub­lic hear­ing and thus it is an author­i­tar­i­an project imposed upon the peo­ple. Unfor­tu­nate­ly their pleas were ignored and when the Indi­an gov­ern­ment announced that the load­ing of fuel into the plant would begin on or around 11th Sep­tem­ber the peo­ple imme­di­ate­ly sprung into action.

CHAIN REACTION

On 10th Sep­tem­ber thou­sands of anti-nuclear pro­test­ers marched towards the pow­er plant, many were injured by the police who lobbed tear-gas shells into the crowd, while at Man­ap­padu police fired into the crowd and a fish­er­man was shot and killed. On the 13th hun­dreds of pro­test­ers formed a human chain in the sea to protest at the load­ing of the fuel, stay­ing in for two hour inter­vals in shifts. They demand­ed the release of all arrestees, com­pen­sa­tion for those injured by the police and an end to the police repres­sion.

One major fact is that there are more than one mil­lion peo­ple liv­ing with­in a 30km radius of the plant, which in the event of a dis­as­ter would make the evac­u­a­tion of the pop­u­la­tion impos­si­ble. This far exceeds the rec­om­men­da­tions of the Atom­ic Ener­gy Reg­u­la­to­ry Board and so the plant should nev­er have been built there. Not that this will wor­ry the Russ­ian firm that sup­plied and built the reac­tor as the Indi­an gov­ern­ment agreed that they will have zero lia­bil­i­ty in the event of an acci­dent. (Sim­i­lar con­di­tions apply to pow­er com­pa­nies respon­si­ble for major civic emer­gen­cies in the UK)

Beyond their legit­i­mate safe­ty con­cerns, vil­lagers have oth­er rea­sons to be angry. The gov­ern­ment has invest­ed mil­lions on a new hos­pi­tal and oth­er facil­i­ties exclu­sive­ly for plant empoy­ees, mean­while the rest of the locals live in squalor lack­ing even basic facil­i­ties such as run­ning water.

The Indi­an gov­ern­ment has attempt­ed to dis­cred­it the move­ment com­plain­ing that for­eign organ­i­sa­tions are agi­tat­ing the local peo­ple and that this should not be allowed. Despite all of this fur­ther demon­stra­tions are planned for the com­ing weeks and they are not giv­ing up.

Anti-nuclear activists claims major victory in mass trespass

8 Octo­ber 2012

At least eight pro­test­ers have been arrest­ed dur­ing a mass tres­pass at the Hink­ley Point nuclear pow­er sta­tion in Som­er­set.

More than 50 peo­ple swooped on the perime­ter fence of the land ear­marked for two new EPR mega-reac­tors next to the exist­ing pow­er plant just after dawn.

8 Octo­ber 2012

At least eight pro­test­ers have been arrest­ed dur­ing a mass tres­pass at the Hink­ley Point nuclear pow­er sta­tion in Som­er­set.

More than 50 peo­ple swooped on the perime­ter fence of the land ear­marked for two new EPR mega-reac­tors next to the exist­ing pow­er plant just after dawn.

Dozens fanned out around the 5‑miles long fence while oth­ers held ban­ners and plac­ards out­side the main secu­ri­ty gate. A 14-foot ban­ner read­ing, “Nuclear dis­as­ter zone. Boy­cott EDF” was hung across the gate.

At 11am a total of 577 seed balls were thrown over the fence onto the con­struc­tion area in a sym­bol­ic attempt to repair the dam­age already caused to the land. The seed balls rep­re­sent the num­ber of days since the Fukushi­ma nuclear dis­as­ter in Japan.

Around 10 peo­ple are known to be still on the land owned by EDF Ener­gy. Many oth­ers are expect­ed to join them lat­er on today.

The mood has been relaxed and cel­e­bra­to­ry. “This is a major vic­to­ry for the anti-nuclear move­ment,” said Camil­la Berens, spokesper­son for the Stop New Nuclear Alliance. ‘Because the gov­ern­ment has refused to lis­ten to us and we have been forced to raise the game. We have suc­cess­ful­ly block­ad­ed the main entrance to Hink­ley Point on two occa­sion in the last year and now we have accom­plished a mass tres­pass. Our mes­sage today is that we will con­tin­ue to raise the game with peace­ful protest until our voice in heard.”

More info at Stop New Nuclear and Stop Hink­ley

Reclaim Hinkley — 8 October 2012 — MASS TRESPASS, MASS CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

No New Nuclear — Inter­na­tion­al call out

Join us in an act of mass civ­il dis­obe­di­ence as we tres­pass on the pro­posed site of Hink­ley C nuclear pow­er sta­tion in Som­er­set.

 

No New Nuclear — Inter­na­tion­al call out

Join us in an act of mass civ­il dis­obe­di­ence as we tres­pass on the pro­posed site of Hink­ley C nuclear pow­er sta­tion in Som­er­set.

 

EDF Ener­gy is already trash­ing frag­ile Som­er­set coun­try­side in prepa­ra­tion for the Hink­ley C nuclear pow­er sta­tion – even though it hasn’t got plan­ning per­mis­sion to start build­ing.

SOWING THE SEEDS OF DISSENT

This mass action is for any­one who feels able to pub­licly tres­pass — or bear wit­ness to the mass tres­pass by join­ing us around the perime­ter fence. We need peo­ple who are pre­pared to be arrest­ed.

We also need peo­ple to sup­port those who are tres­pass­ing by gath­er­ing around the perime­ter fence. We will be pro­vid­ing legal brief­in­gs and sup­port for any tres­passers who are arrest­ed.

Our aim is to make the tres­pass as safe and dig­ni­fied as pos­si­ble. All our activ­i­ties are bound by the prin­ci­ples of non-vio­lent direct action. We are hold­ing a camp imme­di­ate­ly before the tres­pass so that every­one involved has a voice in plan­ning the action itself.

On the day of the tres­pass, we will attempt to rein­tro­duce some of the bio­di­ver­si­ty that has been stripped through EDFs pre­ma­ture pre­lim­i­nary works.

Once inside we will scat­ter wild­flow­ers and oth­er species native to this site. By show­ing your sup­port for an end to nuclear pow­er, you are part a grow­ing move­ment that is expos­ing this cor­rupt gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy that puts prof­its before safe­ty.

EDF is Eager­ly Destroy­ing Fields even though it doesn’t yet have per­mis­sion to build the reac­tors — nor does it have approval for the reac­tor design, or even a final invest­ment deci­sion.

The new EPR reac­tor design will pro­duce radioac­tive waste that is so tox­ic that it will have to be stored on site for over 100 years. The dan­gers asso­ci­at­ed with flood­ing, ter­ror­ist attack and acci­den­tal leak­age are total­ly unac­cept­able.

NO MORE NUCLEAR BAILOUTS

The move­ment against the gov­ern­men­t’s so-called ‘nuclear renais­sance’ is winning….but we must keep up the pres­sure. Out of the eight new nuclear pow­er sta­tions sup­port­ed by the coali­tion gov­ern­ment when it came into pow­er, only two are still on the table: Hink­ley in Som­er­set and Sizewell in Suf­folk.

French-owned EDF Ener­gy — the own­er of Hink­ley and Sizewell — is pres­sur­ing the gov­ern­ment to increase the range of hid­den sub­si­dies on offer in a des­per­ate bid to attract inter­est from scep­ti­cal investors. THIS MUST NOT HAPPEN.

If EDF gets its way, it will be a dou­ble wham­my for us — and for future gen­er­a­tions. It will mean we pay twice: once as tax­pay­ers and once as con­sumers through our ener­gy bills.

We say put the £60bn ear­marked for ‘new nuclear’ into a clean­er, green­er, fair­er future. The way for­ward is through ener­gy reduc­tion and greater invest­ment into research and devel­op­ment to make renew­able ener­gy and ener­gy stor­age fit for the 21st cen­tu­ry.

We need to cre­ate a long term sus­tain­able ener­gy plan that is based on meet­ing peo­ple’s needs rather than mak­ing prof­its for investors. In May, ener­gy sec­re­tary Charles Hendry told min­is­ters at a select com­mit­tee hear­ing that the government’s ener­gy pol­i­cy would be robust enough with­out includ­ing nuclear in the mix. It’s time we moved ener­gy pol­i­cy for­wards rather than back­wards.

NUCLEAR IS NOT THE ANSWER

.…Cher­nobyl
The cri­sis is far from over: the sar­coph­a­gus cov­er­ing the doomed Russ­ian reac­tor is falling apart. Only this year, gov­ern­ments final­ly approved the fund­ing for a new one. The human pop­u­la­tion in the most heav­i­ly con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed ter­ri­to­ries is in decline. In Belarus 80% of chil­dren were born healthy before Cher­nobyl. Now, just 26 years lat­er, only 20% of chil­dren are born healthy.

.….Fukushi­ma
Thanks to peo­ple pow­er, all of Japan’s reac­tors have now been turned off. For the first time in over half a cen­tu­ry Japan is nuclear free. How­ev­er, the cri­sis at Fukushi­ma is far from over.

  • The Japan­ese peo­ple are foot­ing the bill. The com­pa­ny behind the pow­er sta­tion, Tep­co, has had to be re-nation­alised because of the spi­ralling cost of com­pen­sa­tion and the ongo­ing attempts to sta­bilise the reac­tors.
  • Many peo­ple are still liv­ing in heav­i­ly con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed areas that should have been evac­u­at­ed.
  • Food across Japan is heav­i­ly con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed and peo­ple are being encour­aged to sup­port the farm­ers of Fukushi­ma by eat­ing it.
  • The triple melt­down is still in full swing.
  • All of the fuel pools in reac­tors 1,2,3 & 4 are in bad con­di­tion.
  • The pool in reac­tor 4 is of par­tic­u­lar con­cern. Thou­sands of high­ly radioac­tive spent fuel rods are at risk of fur­ther explo­sions. If such an event occurs, high lev­els of radioac­tive con­t­a­m­i­na­tion could spread as far as Tokyo and wipe out Japan’s com­mer­cial infra­struc­ture.

WE WANT A FUTURE, NOT A DISASTER

More infor­ma­tion com­ing soon.

Sub­scribe to our newslet­ter and get reg­u­lar updates on the tres­pass plan and the lat­est devel­op­ments in the cam­paign against ‘new nuclear’. Please send any queries to: campaign@stopnewnuclear.org.uk or call our hot­line on: 07527–219476

(India) Police Kill Anti-Nuke Protester in India, Resistance Continues to Grow

A group of fish­er­folk stag­ing “jal satya­gra­ha” in the sea, against the Kudanku­lam nuclear pow­er project at Veer­a­pan­di­an­pat­ti­nam coast in Tuti­corin dis­trict on Fri­day. (Pho­to: N.Rajesh)

Despite the killing of an anti-nuclear pro­test­er by police on Mon­day, hun­dreds of pro­test­ers form­ing a human chain stood in sea waters today, for the sec­ond day in a row, demand­ing a halt to prepa­ra­tions for fuel load­ing into the reac­tor of Kudanku­lam Nuclear Pow­er Project (KKNPP) in Tuti­corin dis­trict.

The Hindu.com report­ed that women and men would stand in the sea waters for two hours in turns. Push­parayan, leader of the People’s Move­ment Against Nuclear Ener­gy (PMANE) has been spear­head­ing the year-long agi­ta­tion.

Indi­an police offi­cers detain a pro­tes­tor after they baton charged res­i­dents protest­ing against the Russ­ian built Kudamku­lam nuclear plant on the Bay of Ben­gal coast at Kudamku­lam, Tamil Nadu state, India, Mon­day, Sept. 10, 2012. (AP Pho­to)

The Coast Guard air­craft and ships main­tained sur­veil­lance at sea off near­by Idinthakarai as the vil­lagers stood in waist and neck deep water.

Tak­ing cue from a sim­i­lar protest demand­ing land as com­pen­sa­tion and reduc­tion of Omkaresh­war Dam recent­ly by vil­lagers of Khand­wa dis­trict in Mad­hya Pradesh, PMANE launched their jal satya­gra­ha (water civ­il dis­obe­di­ence) on Thurs­day, mark­ing a new turn in their agi­ta­tion, which was inten­si­fied after prepa­ra­tions for fuel load­ing into the plant was announced.

More than 4,000 police per­son­nel, bol­stered by the para­mil­i­tary Rapid Action Force, con­tin­ued to main­tain a strict vig­il, hav­ing almost sealed the entire Kudanku­lam town.

Mean­while, police have been seek­ing to arrest S.P. Udayaku­mar, the con­ven­er of PMANE, in attempt to quell the protests. They have already arrest­ed a close asso­ciate of Udayaku­mar in Chen­nai last week for try­ing to “insti­gate” the fish­er­men to join the stir against Nuclear Pow­er Project.

Mr. Udayaku­mar had alleged­ly announced that he would sur­ren­der on Tues­day night, but seems to have changed his mind.  Police said they would con­tin­ue their search.

Ear­li­er this week, state offi­cials say Indi­an police fired at pro­test­ers near this nuclear pow­er plant being con­struct­ed in south­ern India, killing one per­son.

The Tamil Nadu state gov­ern­ment says police fired Mon­day to dis­perse about 2,000 peo­ple who were demon­strat­ing against the load­ing of nuclear fuel in the Russ­ian-built reac­tor. It says the pro­test­ers threw stones and sticks at police near the Kudanku­lam Project, and five offi­cers were injured.

Con­struc­tion of the plant has been delayed by protests in the past year by res­i­dents and anti-nuclear groups con­cerned about safe­ty fol­low­ing the Fukushi­ma nuclear pow­er plant dis­as­ter in Japan last year.

The gov­ern­ment says the plant, about 700 kilo­me­ters (440 miles) south of Chen­nai, the state cap­i­tal, will meet safe­ty stan­dards.

The fol­low­ing video shows recent cov­er­age of the jal satya­gra­ha actions against hydro­elec­tric dams which have become an inspi­ra­tion to move­ments through­out the region:

 

Solidarity with Japanese anti-nuclear protests

Six­teen anti-nuclear pro­test­ers — half of them Japan­ese — gath­ered out­side the Japan­ese embassy in Pic­cadil­ly, Lon­don on Fri­day morn­ing (10 August), for the sec­ond week run­ning, in a demon­stra­tion organ­ised by Lon­don-based group Kick Nuclear.

Six­teen anti-nuclear pro­test­ers — half of them Japan­ese — gath­ered out­side the Japan­ese embassy in Pic­cadil­ly, Lon­don on Fri­day morn­ing (10 August), for the sec­ond week run­ning, in a demon­stra­tion organ­ised by Lon­don-based group Kick Nuclear. This was in sol­i­dar­i­ty with week­ly demon­stra­tions tak­ing place out­side the Prime Min­is­ter’s offices in Tokyo and else­where in Japan against the restart­ing of nuclear reac­tors as the Fukushi­ma cri­sis con­tin­ues. The week­ly num­bers tak­ing part in those protests have now swelled to well over 70,000.

 

All images are Copy­right © 2012 Kick Nuclear, but may be repro­duced free of charge for non-com­mer­cial use if cred­it­ed. For larg­er, high res­o­lu­tion ver­sions, please e‑mail. More pho­tos

See also:

film of anti-nuke protest at japan embassy — by Rik­ki

Upcom­ing actions and events:

- Fri­day 17 August, 9.30–11.30am — Anti-nuclear sol­i­dar­i­ty protest at Embassy of Japan, 101–104 Pic­cadil­ly, Lon­don W1:

- 23 August — 1 Sep­tem­ber — Bud­dhist-led peace walk towards a nuclear-free future, Alder­mas­ton Atom­ic Weapons Estab­lish­ment, Berk­shire to Hink­ley Point nuclear pow­er sta­tion, Som­er­set.

- Tues­day 28 August, 7.30–9.30pm — Kick Nuclear open night

- with guest speak­er from Indi­an anti-nuclear move­ment

Venue: Lon­don Action Resource Cen­tre (LARC) — (ground floor)
62 Fieldgate Street, (cor­ner of Par­fett Street), Whitechapel, Lon­don E1 1ES
Near­est Sta­tions:- Whitechapel / Aldgate East / Aldgate / Shad­well: Map

This event is open to new folks and old hands alike to come and dis­cuss the lat­est from the murky world of nuclear ener­gy and nuclear new build, share news about protests and actions that have been tak­ing place in the UK and else­where, and plot how we can put a few span­ners in the works.

Come and join us!

- Tues­day 25 Sep­tem­ber — Ben­e­fit gig: David Rovics — Songs of Social Sig­nif­i­cance, with sup­port from The Noo and Mr Creedy — pre­sent­ed by Kick Nuclear and friends

Doors 7pm
Tick­ets: £5 on the door

Venue: Lon­don Action Resource Cen­tre (LARC) — (ground floor)
62 Fieldgate Street, (cor­ner of Par­fett Street), Whitechapel, Lon­don E1 1ES
Near­est Sta­tions:- Whitechapel / Aldgate East / Aldgate / Shad­well
Map: http://tinyurl.com/czzkpdg

(Lis­ten to and down­load David Rovics songs for free at http://www.davidrovics.com )

- Stop New Nuclear camp and mass action against nuclear new build at Hink­ley Point, Som­er­set, 5–8 Octo­ber 2012.

http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk

Olkiluoto Blockade Sat 11 Aug and Nuclear Camp 6–13 Aug, 2012 in Finland!

From uranium mining to nuclear waste storage, nuclear power poses a health

risk to current and future generations alike. We refuse to be part of this

costly and dangerous experiment which mainly serves the interests of big

industry. We therefore demand a nuclear power phase-out.

On August 11, people are going to block the roads to Olkiluoto nuclear



From uranium mining to nuclear waste storage, nuclear power poses a health
risk to current and future generations alike. We refuse to be part of this
costly and dangerous experiment which mainly serves the interests of big
industry. We therefore demand a nuclear power phase-out.


On August 11, people are going to block the roads to Olkiluoto nuclear
power plant in Eurajoki. Previous years have seen people blocking the
roads using banners, drumming, performances and non-violent direct action.



You can join the demonstration in any way you like, with no obligation to
participate in civil disobedience. Make sure not to bring with you
anything that could be classed as a weapon. No alcohol or drugs in the
demonstration. Everyone is asked to refrain from any form of violence,
sexism, racism and provocations.



This year the action day is preceded by an international anti-nuclear
camp, held at a local farmhouse. The camp program includes practical and
informative workshops, such as the current situation of Japan's nuclear
disaster and introducing the movement against mining in Finland. The guest
speakers, documentaries and workshops during the week will illustrate the
international anti-nuclear movement and provide skills and tools for local
campaigning.



There will be a special program for children, and babysitting help
available. As well as yummy vegan food, sauna, crafting, live bands and
sharing struggles for a nuclear free future!



Welcome!



See full program here: http://olkiluotoblockade2012.wordpress.com/english/



Sign up for the camp at olbcamp (at) riseup.net
You will get driving instructions upon signing up.
Ask more from the info number: + 358 40 461 9154



Recommended prices:
Whole camp 7 days: 30-60 EUR
Includes three meals per day, program and basic accommodation in
tents/indoors



Alternatively
1 day: 5-8EUR
1 meal: 3-5EUR
Children under 10 years for free.



Shared rides:



We also recommend to take your own car/bike/minibus to the camp and
demonstration. If you need a ride or can offer one, notify us at:
olkiluotoblockade (at) riseup.net



From Tampere: a minibus leaves to the camp on Monday Aug 6 at 18.00 and on
Friday 10 Aug at 12:00. You can reserve seats at olkiluotoblockade (at)
riseup.net



From Helsinki: The Union of Conscientious Objectors organises a bus on
Friday Aug 10, starting at 11.30. from Rauhanasema, the Peace Station in
Pasila. Reserve seats at toimisto (at) akl-web.fi or by calling +358 (0)40
836 27 86.
More info on the bus from Helsinki:
http://akl-web.fi/tapahtumat/olkiluotoblockade2012



From Turku this same bus leaves on Aug 10 at 14.00 in front of the Railway
station.  Reserve seats from toimisto@akl-web.fi or call  +358 (0)40 836
27 86 More info: http://akl-web.fi/tapahtumat/olkiluotoblockade2012



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Reclaim Hinkley — 8–9 October 2012

When injus­tice becomes law, resis­tance becomes duty.”

MASS TRESPASS — MASS CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

No New Nuclear — Inter­na­tion­al call out

Join us in an act of mass civ­il dis­obe­di­ence as we tres­pass on the pro­posed site of Hink­ley C nuclear pow­er sta­tion in Som­er­set.

When injus­tice becomes law, resis­tance becomes duty.”

MASS TRESPASS — MASS CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

No New Nuclear — Inter­na­tion­al call out

Join us in an act of mass civ­il dis­obe­di­ence as we tres­pass on the pro­posed site of Hink­ley C nuclear pow­er sta­tion in Som­er­set.

EDF Ener­gy is already trash­ing frag­ile Som­er­set coun­try­side in prepa­ra­tion for the Hink­ley C nuclear pow­er sta­tion – even though it hasn’t got plan­ning per­mis­sion to start build­ing.

SOWING THE SEEDS OF DISSENT

This mass action is for any­one who feels able to pub­licly tres­pass — or bear wit­ness to the mass tres­pass by join­ing us around the perime­ter fence. We need peo­ple who are pre­pared to be arrest­ed. We also need peo­ple to sup­port those who are tres­pass­ing by gath­er­ing around the perime­ter fence. We will be pro­vid­ing legal brief­in­gs and sup­port for any tres­passers who are arrest­ed.

Our aim is to make the tres­pass as safe and dig­ni­fied as pos­si­ble. All our activ­i­ties are bound by the prin­ci­ples of non-vio­lent direct action. We are hold­ing a camp imme­di­ate­ly before the tres­pass so that every­one involved has a voice in plan­ning the action itself.

On the day of the tres­pass, we will attempt to rein­tro­duce some of the bio­di­ver­si­ty that has been stripped through EDFs pre­ma­ture pre­lim­i­nary works. Once inside we will scat­ter wild­flow­ers and oth­er species native to this site. By show­ing your sup­port for an end to nuclear pow­er, you are part a grow­ing move­ment that is expos­ing this cor­rupt gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy that puts prof­its before safe­ty.

EDF is Eager­ly Destroy­ing Fields even though it doesn’t yet have per­mis­sion to build the reac­tors — nor does it have approval for the reac­tor design, or even a final invest­ment deci­sion.

The new EPR reac­tor design will pro­duce radioac­tive waste that is so tox­ic that it will have to be stored on site for over 100 years. The dan­gers asso­ci­at­ed with flood­ing, ter­ror­ist attack and acci­den­tal leak­age are total­ly unac­cept­able.

NO MORE NUCLEAR BAILOUTS

The move­ment against the gov­ern­men­t’s so-called ‘nuclear renais­sance’ is winning….but we must keep up the pres­sure. Out of the eight new nuclear pow­er sta­tions sup­port­ed by the coali­tion gov­ern­ment when it came into pow­er, only two are still on the table: Hink­ley in Som­er­set and Sizewell in Suf­folk.

French-owned EDF Ener­gy — the own­er of Hink­ley and Sizewell — is pres­sur­ing the gov­ern­ment to increase the range of hid­den sub­si­dies on offer in a des­per­ate bid to attract inter­est from scep­ti­cal investors. THIS MUST NOT HAPPEN.

If EDF gets its way, it will be a dou­ble wham­my for us — and for future gen­er­a­tions. It will mean we pay twice: once as tax­pay­ers and once as con­sumers through our ener­gy bills.

We say put the £60bn ear­marked for ‘new nuclear’ into a clean­er, green­er, fair­er future. The way for­ward is through ener­gy reduc­tion and greater invest­ment into research and devel­op­ment to make renew­able ener­gy and ener­gy stor­age fit for the 21st cen­tu­ry.

We need to cre­ate a long term sus­tain­able ener­gy plan that is based on meet­ing peo­ple’s needs rather than mak­ing prof­its for investors. In May, ener­gy sec­re­tary Charles Hendry told min­is­ters at a select com­mit­tee hear­ing that the government’s ener­gy pol­i­cy would be robust enough with­out includ­ing nuclear in the mix. It’s time we moved ener­gy pol­i­cy for­wards rather than back­wards.

NUCLEAR IS NOT THE ANSWER

.…Cher­nobyl
The cri­sis is far from over: the sar­coph­a­gus cov­er­ing the doomed Russ­ian reac­tor is falling apart. Only this year, gov­ern­ments final­ly approved the fund­ing for a new one. The human pop­u­la­tion in the most heav­i­ly con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed ter­ri­to­ries is in decline. In Belarus 80% of chil­dren were born healthy before Cher­nobyl. Now, just 26 years lat­er, only 20% of chil­dren are born healthy.

.….Fukushi­ma
Thanks to peo­ple pow­er, all of Japan’s reac­tors have now been turned off. For the first time in over half a cen­tu­ry Japan is nuclear free. How­ev­er, the cri­sis at Fukushi­ma is far from over.

  • The Japan­ese peo­ple are foot­ing the bill. The com­pa­ny behind the pow­er sta­tion, Tep­co, has had to be re-nation­alised because of the spi­ralling cost of com­pen­sa­tion and the ongo­ing attempts to sta­bilise the reac­tors.
  • Many peo­ple are still liv­ing in heav­i­ly con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed areas that should have been evac­u­at­ed.
  • Food across Japan is heav­i­ly con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed and peo­ple are being encour­aged to sup­port the farm­ers of Fukushi­ma by eat­ing it.
  • The triple melt­down is still in full swing.
  • All of the fuel pools in reac­tors 1,2,3 & 4 are in bad con­di­tion.
  • The pool in reac­tor 4 is of par­tic­u­lar con­cern. Thou­sands of high­ly radioac­tive spent fuel rods are at risk of fur­ther explo­sions. If such an event occurs, high lev­els of radioac­tive con­t­a­m­i­na­tion could spread as far as Tokyo and wipe out Japan’s com­mer­cial infra­struc­ture.

WE WANT A FUTURE, NOT A DISASTER

More infor­ma­tion com­ing soon.

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Action round-up from Faslane anti-nuke action month

Four Olympic Gold Medal Winners arrested at Faslane Naval Base on Monday 11th June!

The  four women from Glas­gow and Edin­burgh are mem­bers of the Gare­loch Hor­tis peace group which was tak­ing part in thir­ty days of actions to mark thir­ty years of Faslane Peace Camp’s protest against Tri­dent nuclear weapons. The group staged the Peace Olympics with events as var­ied as syn­chro­nised swim­ming and putting the Hag­gis.

The medal­lists were arrest­ed dur­ing the Tug of Peace across the North Gate of the base.

The event drew atten­tion to the con­tin­ued pres­ence of the ille­gal and dead­ly weapons in Scot­land, and all eight oth­er nuclear nations. The win­ners’ podi­um high­light­ed that the only way to win the Race for Peace is to lay down the weapons of mass destruc­tion.

 

Activists blockade Faslane Naval Base

19.6.2012

Today at 7 o’ clock in the morn­ing activists of the Faslane Peace­camp block­ad­ed the Tri­dent Naval Base. Three peo­ple locked on in front of the South Gate. From the orig­i­nal five peo­ple at the North Gate two were arrest­ed imme­di­ate­ly while the rest were able to block­ade one lane of the road. The block­ade last­ed about 90 min­utes.


A spokesper­son said on behalf of the Peace Camp: ” We are hav­ing this block­ade today because we want to show our oppo­si­tion against nuclear weapons. We express our fear and our anger in a non­vi­o­lent way. We ask the British gov­ern­ment to lis­ten to the opin­ion of the major­i­ty of Scot­tish peo­ple and MSP’s. The Peo­ple do not want Tri­dent! They do not want this base with it’s nuclear weapons in Scot­land. Due to the fact that in the next few years Scot­tish inde­pen­dence may be achieved now is the time to put pres­sure upon the British gov­ern­ment. Instead of start­ing to put mon­ey into a Tri­dent replace­ment we want them to shut down the Faslane Naval Base and stop their nuclear weapons pro­gram.”

An inter­na­tion­al activist added: “This block­ade was a very inter­na­tion­al one. Peo­ple from all parts of Britain and activists from Spain and Swe­den were involved. I think that it is my right and my duty as a glob­al cit­i­zen to do non­vi­o­lent direct actions against nuclear weapons as long as our gov­ern­ments do not ful­fill their duty and stop fight­ing wars. Nuclear weapons are ille­gal by inter­na­tion­al human­i­tar­i­an law and I want all coun­tries to respect this and make a step to a more peace­ful world.”

This block­ade is part of the 30 days of action from the 9th June to the 9th July. To find out more about what has hap­pened and will hap­pen in the future vis­it our blog.

http://faslanepeacecamp.wordpress.com/

Faslane Peace Campers Trespass at Coulport Nuclear Weapons Depot

15/06/2012

Angus Chalmers and Leon­na O’Neill of Faslane Peace Camp entered RNAD Coul­port in the ear­ly hours of Wednes­day morn­ing.

They left the camp on foot at approx­i­mate­ly 10pm with the inten­tions of see­ing how close they could get to Coul­port under the cov­er of dark­ness. By the time they were approach­ing the out­er fence perime­ter the two still had­n’t been appre­hend­ed or detect­ed by secu­ri­ty or any of the night vision cctv cam­eras, and so decid­ed to con­tin­ue to see how far luck (or the inep­ti­tudes of the secu­ri­ty sys­tem on what should be the most heav­i­ly guard­ed naval depot in the UK) would get them.

They decid­ed to approach the Explo­sives Han­dling Jet­ty via the shore line and entered by wad­ing water and climb­ing a razor wire fence. At this point they decid­ed to walk vis­i­bly and announce them­selves to the first police they saw. To their sur­prise they were met with zero secu­ri­ty per­son­nel and were able to access a jet­ty a mat­ter of feet from the Explo­sives Han­dling Jet­ty where the Tri­dent nuclear war­heads are loaded to the Van­gau­rd sub­marines.

Angus climbed a fur­ther fence into the estab­lish­ment set­ting off the ban­dit alarm and alert­ing the MOD secu­ri­ty and cctv cam­era oper­a­tors. Both were soon appre­hend­ed by MOD police and arrest­ed and charged with miil­i­tary by-laws and the Seri­ous Organ­ised Crime and Police Act 2005 (SOCPA). Both were held in cus­tody until court on Thurs­day after­noon where the SOCPA charges were dropped and they plead­ed not guilty to the by-laws charges.

Leon­na and Angus said “This is evi­dence that the Couport Nuclear Weapons Depot is unsafe. The capac­i­ty for this tech­nol­o­gy to irreper­a­bly destroy life and the envi­ron­ment should be rea­son enough to ensure that it is safe guard­ed and pro­tect­ed in a way that does not allow for human error or com­pla­cen­cy. The rel­a­tive ease at which we were able to approach and enter Coul­port on foot and the close prox­i­matey we were able to get to the Explo­sives Han­dling Jet­ty is sur­pris­ing and dis­turb­ing”.

 

Faslane Peace Camp and Trident Ploughshares Trespass at Faslane Naval Base

2/07/2012

 
Sev­en activists from Faslane Peace Camp and Tri­dent Ploughshares entered Faslane naval base this morn­ing with four mem­bers of the group slip­ping past guards and reach­ing points up to 100 yards inside the base. A fur­ther two were arrest­ed in the attempt.

At 7am this morn­ing Faslane Peace Camp and Tri­dent Ploughshares activists attend­ed the North gate of the Faslane Naval Base to ser­e­nade the approach­ing morn­ing shift staff with peace and nuclear dis­ar­ma­ment songs. The act dou­bled as a ruse to enable fif­teen of the group to attempt enter­ing the base. One TP activist, Bri­an Larkin, suc­ceed­ed in gain­ing entry to the base whilst the rest were pre­vent­ed from doing so by Minit­sry of Defence and Strath­clyde police.

Bri­an was charged with breach of SOCPA, the Seri­ous Organ­ised Crime and Police Act, and mil­i­a­try by-laws and lat­er released on an under­tak­ing. Upon being released Larkin said “the seri­ous organ­ised crime hap­pens inside the base and not in these actions for peace and dis­ar­ma­ment. It is the ongo­ing deploy­ment of Tri­dent sub­marines – each car­ry­ing 48 war­heads, eight times more destruc­tive than the bomb dropped on Hiroshi­ma which killed 200,000 peo­ple – that con­sti­tutes seri­ous organ­ised crime and vio­lates every prin­ci­ple of human­i­ty in inter­na­tion­al law.”

In a show of the same relent­less per­sis­tence that has kept the Peace Camp and the anti-nuclear move­ment going over the years, the group lat­er returned to make a sec­ond attempt at breach­ing the North Gate. Two were arrest­ed dur­ing the attempt whilst six gained entry, four of which reach­ing up to 100 yards inside the base.

The ban­dit alarm was acti­vat­ed and the Naval Base was locked down, pre­vent­ing traf­fic from enter­ing the base and nor­mal oper­a­tions to con­tin­ue with­in the base for 45 min­utes. The action was part of the Peace Camp’s 30 Days of Action mark­ing 30 years of con­tin­u­ous resis­tance to nuclear weapons at Faslane. Thir­ty peo­ple have been arrest­ed in the cam­paign which began on 9 June. Nine peo­ple were arrest­ed today.

It is not yet clear what the oth­er eight will be charged with but a breach of SOCPA charge is like­ly in addi­tion to breach­ing mil­i­tary by-laws. Angus Chalmers of the Fasland Peace Camp said “This land has been fenced and des­ig­nat­ed as a SOCPA area in order to make pos­si­ble the seri­ous crime of deploy­ing Tri­dent.” Mar­garet Brem­n­er of the Tri­dent Ploughshares Gare­loch Hor­ti­cul­tur­al­ists affin­i­ty group added “We cross this line today to demon­strate that this land, this earth, does not belong to a state which is using it to threat­en the destruc­tion of the earth and all its peo­ples. We enter this gate in order to reclaim land for life not death.”

Each of those tres­pass­ing were car­ry­ing let­ters explain­ing the inter­na­tion­al ille­gal­i­ty of nuclear weapons to present to work­ers inside the base. In 1996, the Inter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice wrote the advi­so­ry opin­ion that not only would the use of nuclear weapons be ille­gal but the very threat of use through deploy­ment, main­te­nance and upgrade of nuclear weapons sys­tems is in con­tra­ven­tion to the Nuclear Non-Pro­lif­er­a­tion Treaty.

Under the terms of the NPT which entered into force over forty years ago, the UK gov­ern­ment is oblig­at­ed to bring nuclear dis­ar­ma­ment to com­ple­tion. Instead the UK gov­ern­ment has con­tin­ued to main­tain and is now upgrad­ing its nuclear weapons sys­tem. The recent news that the MoD has award­ed lucra­tive con­tracts to arms com­pa­nies for the ini­tial stages of a Tri­dent replace­ment pro­gramme fur­thers this ongo­ing mock­ery of our inter­na­tion­al legal oblig­a­tions.

As long as our gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to fail in it’s oblig­a­tion to make seri­ous moves toward com­plete nuclear dis­ar­ma­ment, mem­bers of Tri­dent Plougshares and Faslane Peace Camp are com­mit­ted to non-vio­lent direct action to dis­rupt the deploy­ment of these ille­gal and immoral weapons.

Fur­ther demon­stra­tions are planned for the remain­der of the thir­ty days of action which will fin­ish on July 9th. Amongst oth­er actions, there will be an aca­d­e­m­ic sem­i­nar block­ade on Fri­day and a Rebel Clown Army insur­gence on Sat­ur­day. For more infor­ma­tion on the 30Days Action Cam­paign con­tact the camp via  faslane30@gmail.com.

Faslane Peace Camp: 01436 820901 or 07511793227
Tri­dent Ploughshares: Bri­an Larkin 07768 312676

For More infor­ma­tion on
Tri­dent Ploughshares see: www.tridentploughshares.org.uk
Faslane Peace Camp and 30 Days of Action see: http://faslanepeacecamp.wordpress.com/