Category: Nuclear

Concerned Locals take to the Trees at Hinkley Point near Bridgwater, Somerset

Update 8th Feb: Overnight on Feb­ru­ary 6th, anti nuclear activists occu­pied trees on EDF’s pro­posed new nuclear site west of Hink­ley Point in Som­er­set.  This was in response to intial ground-clear­ance work being car­ried out by con­trac­tors the day before.

Although EDF have sub­se­quent­ly said that the work being done was only the clear­ing of dead elms, this is undoubt­ed­ly the first stage in prepar­ing for major clear­ance, since EDF have now been giv­en the go-ahead to begin reduc­ing this beau­ti­ful piece of Som­er­set coast­line to a lunar land­scape.  They  are being per­mit­ted to do this even though it will be 12 months before they will know if they have plan­ning per­mis­sion for the 2 new nuclear reac­tors and a radioac­tive waste dump.  They obvi­ous­ly think this is a done deal!

In response to media inter­est today, includ­ing BBC TV Points West, Som­er­set Sound and Radio 4, and the West­ern Dai­ly Press, EDF have also claimed that this stand of oak is not sched­uled to be felled as part of the so-called “Pre­lim­i­nary Works”.  How­ev­er, WSDC Plan­ning Offi­cer Andrew Good­child has con­firmed that this is untrue, and ALL veg­e­ta­tion with­in the site will have to be cleared in the next 4 to 6 weeks under the apt­ly named “Phase Zero”.   The nest­ing sea­son won’t be a big prob­lem though, as they have a spe­cial license from “Nat­ur­al Eng­land” to destroy the feath­ered song­sters homes.  It seems they have a spe­cial license for just about any­thing!

Mon­ey talks, but actions talk loud­er.  The gal­lant folk who took com­mand of the sit­u­a­tion have act­ed pre-emp­tive­ly and spon­ta­neous­ly and are cur­rent­ly few in num­ber.  They are in a net off the ground and “just about” warm enough.  They need ground sup­port – peo­ple to just vis­it them with treats, flasks, and warm words – which will also help defend them by keep­ing every­thing in the pub­lic eye.  A video cam­era would be extreme­ly help­ful, and maybe more phones.  RIGHT NOW THEY NEED A DELIVERY OF WARM SOCKS.

~~~~~~

7/2/12

Pro­tes­tors take to the trees at Hink­ley Point in a bid to save ancient oaks from being trashed by EDF before gov­ern­ment deci­sion on new nuclear is re-exam­ined.

Ear­ly this morn­ing, con­cerned locals occu­pied threat­ened, ancient trees at the pro­posed site for a new nuclear pow­er sta­tion at Hink­ley Point, near Bridg­wa­ter in Som­er­set.

Michael Hunt, one of the tree occu­piers said of their action :
“ We’re here to stop work on this crim­i­nal devel­op­ment and to pro­tect the ancient trees that are sur­round­ed by a spe­cial con­ser­va­tion area but mys­te­ri­ous­ly exclud­ed from it “

The protest was pre­cip­i­tat­ed by last week’s shock­ing rev­e­la­tion in a report by Unlock Democ­ra­cy and the Asso­ci­a­tion for Con­ser­va­tion of Ener­gy enti­tled “ A Cor­rup­tion of Gov­er­nance?”

The report reveals in detail how MPs and Par­lia­ment based their nation­al ener­gy pol­i­cy, specif­i­cal­ly their pol­i­cy to build new nuclear pow­er on fal­si­fied infor­ma­tion.

The report out­lines that, on the basis of the Government’s own evi­dence, we do not need new nuclear to ‘keep the lights on’ or reduce CO2 emis­sions. It goes on to show that, on the basis of the Government’s own evi­dence, it is not the best way to cut car­bon. In every­day terms, the build­ing of new nuclear pow­er sta­tions to pro­vide elec­tric­i­ty is like­ly to mean high­er fuel bills.

The report con­cludes that this cor­rup­tion of gov­er­nance can only be rec­ti­fied if Par­lia­ment re-opens this debate, and MPs vote on this issue hav­ing seen the cor­rect infor­ma­tion.

EDF’s plans to dis­rupt lives and liveli­hoods by dig­ging up the 400 acres land­scape and beau­ti­ful coast­line in the com­ing weeks has already begun with the trees, says local cam­paign­er Sarah Stone “We man­aged to get an emer­gency tree preser­va­tion order last year because the trees were threat­ened by this devel­op­ment, but WSDC refused to make it a full order after six months because they claimed they’d giv­en per­mis­sion to EDF to trash the site even though to date this deci­sions is still not pub­lished. This whole appli­ca­tion has been char­ac­terised by lies, deceit, and cor­po­rate bul­ly­ing it’s made a com­plete joke out of the British plan­ning sys­tem and if they won’t pro­tect the trees until there is a prop­er deci­sion about nuclear new build then we will”
*************************************ENDS**********************************************************
Notes to Edi­tor
1) Cor­rup­tion of Gov­er­nance report was pub­lished last week and pre­sent­ed to min­siters at Par­lia­ment. It can be found here www.ukace.org
2) The trees were sub­ject to an emer­gency tree preser­va­tion order last March which was dropped by WSDC in Octo­ber last year.
For inter­views con­tact Theo on 01749860767 or 07805666239

south west against nuclear
swanactive@gmail.com
www.southwestagainstnuclear.wordpress.com

Earth First! Winter Moot, what to expect

This years Earth First! Win­ter Moot takes place in South Lanark­shire, Scot­land. In a months time envi­ron­men­tal­ists from across the UK and beyond will con­verge to dis­cuss and debate. Below is an update from the organ­is­ing col­lec­tive who are work­ing on the pro­gram.

This years Earth First! Win­ter Moot takes place in South Lanark­shire, Scot­land. In a months time envi­ron­men­tal­ists from across the UK and beyond will con­verge to dis­cuss and debate. Below is an update from the organ­is­ing col­lec­tive who are work­ing on the pro­gram.

The Moot 2012 col­lec­tive has felt that at pre­vi­ous EF! Gath­er­ings groups have pri­mar­i­ly attend­ed to recruit for their respec­tive cam­paigns. Yet those who attend EF! Gath­er­ings are pre­dom­i­nant­ly already active, mak­ing them good places for net­work­ing, but not nec­es­sar­i­ly for out­right recruit­ment. We recog­nise the effort gath­er­ing organ­is­ers put into plan­ning agen­das but often the more dis­cur­sive aspects of the gath­er­ings focus on larg­er, abstract ques­tions and debates have often been framed by self-appoint­ed experts. We feel that these dis­cus­sions inef­fec­tive­ly attempt to find answers or reach con­sen­sus where this is inap­pro­pri­ate.

For exam­ple at the first EF! Gath­er­ing 20 years ago the ques­tion was asked: ‘What is EF!?’ 20 years lat­er in 2011 at the last Moot the same ques­tion was still being asked …

The answer is EF! is what we make it, and this year we are going to make it a space in which we can approach our cam­paigns both crit­i­cal­ly and ana­lyt­i­cal­ly by ask­ing more spe­cif­ic and prac­ti­cal ques­tions. Our activism should be con­stant­ly evolv­ing not stuck in a rut ask­ing the same ques­tions again and again.

The agen­da will be designed to ask ques­tions around four key issues: the tac­tics we use; the strate­gies that we employ in our cam­paigns; com­mu­ni­ty sol­i­dar­i­ty; and sus­tain­able activism. There will be no attempt to reach con­clu­sions or con­sen­sus espe­cial­ly about what EF! is. Instead we want to have dis­cus­sions that lead to new ideas that could evolve ongo­ing cam­paigns or give cre­ative inspi­ra­tion to ones that are just get­ting start­ed.

A free space will be pro­vid­ed in which cam­paigns will be able to hold meet­ings and have fur­ther dis­cus­sions if they wish, and there will also be some space giv­en for cam­paign updates with an empha­sis on hon­est analy­sis rather than pro­mo­tion.

For updates and more info check the web­site or email us.

EF!WM Crew
e-mail: efwintermoot@noflag.org.uk
Home­page: http://earthfirstgathering.org.uk

30 days of actions at Faslane

30 Days of Action at Faslane

30 Days of Action at Faslane

Faslane Peace Camp are announc­ing 30 days of non-vio­lent direct action against the Faslane Naval Base to mark the 30th birth­day of the Peace Camp. Over the last year, a small group of us have been endeav­our­ing to make Peace Camp a healthy and hap­py place to facil­i­tate direct action against Tri­dent. We are ready for action! The birth­day cel­e­bra­tions will com­mence on Sat­ur­day 9th of June 2012 and con­tin­ue until the 9th of July.

This week the First Min­is­ter of Scot­land Alex Salmond announced that an inde­pen­dent Scot­land would be a nuclear free Scot­land. Whilst these are wel­come words, the response is that the MOD are report­ed­ly look­ing into new venues south of the bor­der in the fear that Scot­land will win inde­pen­dence. We need to give a clear and unmit­i­gat­ed mes­sage that sim­ply mov­ing them is not enough. We are in a unique posi­tion to make this poten­tial removal from Scot­land mean an ipso fac­to end to nuclear weapons in the UK but our mes­sage needs to be full vol­ume!

We are invit­ing local, nation­al and inter­na­tion­al groups to take respon­si­bil­i­ty for a day of anti-nuclear activ­i­ties, this can be a march to the base,  a demo at the gates, a block­ade, a mass tres­pass, a die-in… get cre­ative! If you are a small group or an indi­vid­ual and want to team up with oth­ers, we can help chore­o­graph part­ner­ships. We can also facil­i­tate work­shops on direct action at Faslane so no activist expe­ri­ence is nec­es­sary. There will be lots to be done day to day and plen­ty of roles to ful­fil dur­ing the 30 Days cam­paign and the time lead­ing up to it so enthu­si­as­tic helpers (and dona­tions) will be wel­comed with open arms! Com­mu­nal meals will be pro­vid­ed and there will be plen­ty of sleep­ing and camp­ing spaces.

For more infor­ma­tion, legal stuff and for details of our safer spaces, res­i­den­cy and alco­hol agree­ments please con­tact Faslane30@riseup.net or write to us at: 30Days, Faslane Peace Camp, Shan­don, Helens­burgh, G84 8NN.

 

Stop New Nuclear newsletter no 10, 3 December 2011

Dear all,

Dear all,

this is our first newslet­ter since the Stop New Nuclear gath­er­ing in Bris­tol on 5/6 Novem­ber, where we decid­ed on our next major action. We are all excit­ed about our new plan, and with this newslet­ter we send you some infor­ma­tion about the planned action to sur­round Hink­ley Point on 10 March 2011, fol­lowed by a 24 hour block­ade until 11 March 2011. All this to mark one year since the begin­ning of the cat­a­stro­phe of Fukushi­ma, which is far from over.

No more Fukushimas

Fukushi­ma is the biggest indus­tri­al dis­as­ter in his­to­ry, and has brought Japan to its knees. The reac­tors that went into melt­down in March have now melt­ed through the foun­da­tions and 40 years of accu­mu­lat­ed nuclear waste is emit­ting vast amounts of radi­a­tion, con­t­a­m­i­nat­ing the land, sea and air. In des­per­a­tion, the Japan­ese gov­ern­ment is trans­port­ing and burn­ing radioac­tive rub­ble all over Japan and export­ing high­ly con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed food as “aid” to devel­op­ing coun­tries. Men, women and chil­dren are liv­ing in high­ly radioac­tive areas but they are not being evac­u­at­ed as they should be. This intense radi­a­tion expo­sure has very seri­ous health con­se­quences for these peo­ple.

How has Japan end­ed up in this dread­ful sit­u­a­tion? Their gov­ern­ment always said “It can’t hap­pen here.” Sound famil­iar? Pow­er­ful polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic inter­est groups are gag­ging the world’s media on this unfold­ing tragedy. Ordi­nary peo­ple the world over will pay the price.
Since the first civil­ian reac­tor start­ed gen­er­at­ing in 1954, there has been, on aver­age, a major acci­dent every 14–18 years: Wind­scale 1957, Three Mile Island1979, Cher­nobyl 1986, Fukushi­ma 2011.

Stop New Nuclear’s answer to the cri­sis of Fukushi­ma is clear: now new nuclear in Britain and any­where else! There­fore, our action on “Fukushi­ma day” will be to

Surround and blockade Hinkley Point, Somerset

Hink­ley Point is the first of eight pro­posed sites for nuclear new build to go ahead. We stopped them here before in 1987, and we can do it again in 2012. If they fail at Hink­ley, it is unlike­ly the “nuclear renais­sance” will have the momen­tum to con­tin­ue.
On the 10th ‑11th March 2012, one year since the Fukushi­ma nuclear dis­as­ter began, we will return to Hink­ley to form a human chain around the sta­tion to show our deter­mined oppo­si­tion to new nuclear.
In 2010, dozens of us block­ad­ed the gates at Hink­ley. In 2011 hun­dreds of us block­ad­ed the entrance again. In 2012, thou­sands of us will sur­round the pow­er sta­tion to say No to new nuclear! Not here, not any­where!
In Octo­ber 2011, peo­ple pledged to block­ade. This time, pledge to bring 5 friends and tell them to do the same. Thou­sands are need­ed to sur­round the sta­tion!
Pledge to sur­round Hink­ley Point, to bring five friends, or to block­ade Hink­ley Point

Help us mobilise

To ‘Sur­round Hink­ley’ is to demand to have a voice in deci­sions about our ener­gy future. Help to make this a fes­ti­val of cre­ative resis­tance with music, art, the­atre, ban­ners, and what­ev­er takes your fan­cy! To mark the end of the ‘Sur­round’, there will be a gath­er­ing at the main gate of Hink­ley for a ral­ly and music. You may want to return on the coach­es after the action or stay to block­ade the gates for 24 hours. With tents and tubes we will remain at the gates to show our sol­i­dar­i­ty with the peo­ple of Japan.

The time to act is now! Join your local anti nuclear cam­paign, form affin­i­ty groups. The Stop New Nuclear Alliance can help by giv­ing train­ing in non-vio­lent direct action, con­sen­sus deci­sion- mak­ing, spokes coun­cils and advice on trans­port etc….

In our hun­dreds, in our thou­sands we will come togeth­er to stop nuclear pow­er at Hink­ley Point and dis­man­tle the whole new nuclear agen­da! This is the chance to be part of sme­thing mas­sive. JOIN US!

Please help to spread the mes­sage by either down­load­ing the fli­er, or ask us to send you a pack. We wel­come some dona­tion to cov­er postage, but even if you can’t — we need to get the mes­sage out!

Get in touch with us if you want to organ­ise a minibus or put on a coach.

News from nuclear new build

Hinkley Point

There was some news at the end of Octo­ber that EDF is delay­ing its final invest­ment deci­sion about Hink­ley C (and its oth­er planned new nuclear pow­er sta­tions in the UK: Sizewell, Heysham, etc) until the end of 2012. How­ev­er, EDF still insists that it will sub­mit its appli­ca­tion to the Infra­struc­ture Plan­ning Com­mis­sion soon, and also declared that it wants to start prepar­ing the site for Hink­ley C from spring 2012 on. For us, this means two things:

  • The next year will be cru­cial to push EDF to aban­don its plans for Hink­ley C. We need to step our cam­paign­ing to show EDF that it is not a good idea to invest in Hink­ley C, and that they should invest in renew­able ener­gy instead.
  • EDF still wants to pre­pare the site, which means it wants to destroy the land from spring 2012 on, even though there is not even a final deci­sion whether they will real­ly go ahead with Hink­ley C. This shows that a legal chal­lenge to the pre­lim­i­nary works per­mis­sion is even more impor­tant. Stop Hink­ley is rais­ing funds for a legal chal­lenge to West Som­er­set Coun­cil’s deci­sion to grant EDF per­mis­sion to car­ry out prepara­to­ry work on the site, even though EDF is still far from a per­mis­sion to con­struct the pow­er sta­tion itself (and has­n’t even made a final deci­sion). Stop Hink­ley needs to raise about £15,000 for this legal chal­lenge, to please sup­port Stop Hink­ley. More infor­ma­tion at http://stophinkley.org/LegChallAppeal.htm.

Nev­er­the­less, EDF went ahead with its appli­ca­tion to the Infra­struc­ture Plan­ning Com­mis­sion (IPC). The IPC has accept­ed the appli­ca­tion, and from Fri­day, 2 Decem­ber, there are 28 days for every­one to reg­is­ter that they want to com­ment on the appli­ca­tion. This is only a first reg­is­tra­tion, and does not need to be accom­pa­nied by the detailed objec­tions, but with­out this reg­is­tra­tion, you will not be able to object lat­er.

The Infra­struc­ture Plan­ning Com­mis­sion is also organ­is­ing events local­ly near Hink­ley Point to explain the process, when to reg­is­ter and how to make a rep­re­sen­ta­tion to the IPC. They will be held between 10am – 9pm at the fol­low­ing loca­tions:
- Stogursey — Mon­day 5 Decem­ber, The Vic­to­ry Hall, Tow­er Hill, Stogursey, TA5 1PR
- Can­ning­ton — Thurs­day 8 Decem­ber, Can­ning­ton Vil­lage Hall, 2 Brook Street, Can­ning­ton, TA5 2HP
- Willi­ton — Fri­day 9 Decem­ber, West Som­er­set House, Kil­lick Way, Willi­ton, TA4 4QA
- North Pether­ton — Mon­day 12 Decem­ber, The Wal­nut Tree Hotel, North Pether­ton, TA6 6QA
- Comb­wich — Tues­day 13 Decem­ber, Otter­hamp­ton Vil­lage Hall, River­side, Comb­wich, TA5 2QZ
- Bridg­wa­ter — Wednes­day 14 Decem­ber, Town Hall, High Street, Bridg­wa­ter, TA6 3BL.
More infor­ma­tion on the plan­ning process is avail­able on the web­site of the IPC at http://infrastructure.independent.gov.uk/projects/south-west/hinkley-point-c-new-nuclear-power-station/.

Stop Hink­ley will be pre­sent­ing more than 12,000 peti­tions against Hink­ley Point C at Down­ing Street on Tues­day, 6 Decem­ber, at at 1.30pm and at the Depart­ment of Ener­gy and Cli­mate Change in Lon­don on 6th Decem­ber at 2.00 pm. Mem­bers of Stop Hink­ley will be accom­pa­nied by Wells MP Tes­sa Munt and Green Par­ty leader and MP Car­o­line Lucas. The Depart­ment of Ener­gy is at 3 White­hall Place, Lon­don SW1A 2AW. More infor­ma­tion in the Stop Hink­ley press release at http://stopnuclearpoweruk.net/content/stop-hinkley-campaign-presents-petition-government-against-edf%E2%80%99s-nuclear-plans.

Wylfa

Things are also hot­ting up at Wyl­fa, where Hori­zon, a joint ven­ture of Ger­man util­i­ty com­pa­nies RWE and E.on, is plan­ning to build two to three new nuclear reac­tors. Hori­zon con­tin­ue to bul­ly the Jones fam­i­ly of Caerde­gog and have applied for com­pul­so­ry pow­ers to ascer­tain the suit­abil­i­ty of their land for con­struc­tion. Hori­zon Nuclear Pow­er (HNP) recent­ly applied to Ofgem for Sec­tion D of their Elec­tric­i­ty Gen­er­a­tion Licence to be “switched on”. Imme­di­ate­ly upon approval, HNP applied to Ofgem for con­sent to exer­cise their new explorato­ry rights under the Elec­tric­i­ty Act 1989. This would allow a gen­er­a­tion licence hold­er to enter and sur­vey any land to estab­lish whether it would be suit­able for the con­struc­tion of an elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­a­tion sta­tion. It would also give them the pow­er to exe­cute their author­i­ty to make com­pul­so­ry land pur­chase. On Thurs­day after­noon 17th Novem­ber, Richard Jones and his fam­i­ly received a let­ter in Eng­lish only from Ofgem inform­ing them of the rights recent­ly grant­ed to HNP to gain access to their land at Caerde­gog. Ofgem have failed in their duty under the Welsh Lan­guage Act to pro­vide the Jones fam­i­ly with the doc­u­ments in their own lan­guage. Fur­ther­more it is con­sid­ered unrea­son­able for any objec­tions to be lodged with­in a time lim­it of five work­ing days espe­cial­ly in view of the legal con­tent of the cor­re­spon­dence (see the offi­cial con­sul­ta­tion at http://www.ofgem.gov.uk/Pages/MoreInformation.aspx?file=Consultation%20on%20Horizon%20Application%20for%20Consent%20to%20use%20Exploratory%20Rights.pdf&refer=Licensing/Work).
Hori­zon have con­tin­ued to say that they would only use com­pul­so­ry pow­ers as a last resort yet they exe­cut­ed their new­ly acquired author­i­ty with­in days of it being grant­ed.
On behalf of the fam­i­ly, Richard Jones said: “We as a fam­i­ly will resist Horizon’s bul­ly­ing tac­tics in the attempt­ed destruc­tion of our her­itage, our liveli­hood and our future.”
See the press release of Peo­ple Against Wyl­fa B at http://stopnuclearpoweruk.net/content/nuclear-monster-continues-torment-local-family.

Donate

The new action to sur­round Hink­ley, and the 24 hour block­ade, will need a lot of mon­ey to make them hap­pen. While we don’t start with noth­ing, we are nowhere near what we will need. We are present­ly work­ing on a bud­get, but one thing is clear: Please give gen­er­ous­ly. You can donate online at http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/donate, or you can send a cheque made payable to Stop New Nuclear to:
Stop New Nuclear
c/o 5 Cale­don­ian Road
Lon­don N1 9DX
Thank you!

Stop New Nuclear newslet­ter

 

anti-nuke Castor transport protests in France and Germany

27 Novem­ber 2011

Ger­man pro­test­ers block rail track

27 Novem­ber 2011

Ger­man pro­test­ers block rail track

HUNDREDS of riot cops with heli­copter sup­port have cleared the way for the Cas­tor nuclear waste train in Ger­many.

This video (& lots of links to oth­er footage) from graswurzel.tv (grass roots tv) shows how activists approached the rail­way line through woods, before evad­ing police to stage a mas­sive occu­pa­tion of the track num­ner­ing up to 5,000 peo­ple.

More than 1,000 peo­ple were arrest­ed for refus­ing to leave and police also clashed with two groups of pro­test­ers that hurled stones and fire­works, say cor­po­rate media.

There were clash­es in France last week (see below) when pro­test­ers man­aged to sab­o­tage the line and torch a police vehi­cle.

The ship­ment paused overnight south of Ham­burg and is expect­ed to reach its des­ti­na­tion with con­sid­er­able delay on Mon­day.

—

23 Novem­ber 2011

Pro­test­ers bat­tle French riot cops

ANTI-NUCLEAR pro­test­ers bat­tled with riot police in France in a bid to stop a train of nuclear waste head­ing for Ger­many.

The author­i­ties used tear gas and brute force, but the envi­ron­men­tal­ists man­aged to sab­o­tage part of the rail­way and torch a police vehi­cle.  

The French state is refus­ing to end its nuclear oper­a­tions, even after the Fukushi­ma dis­as­ter and the hor­rif­ic after-effects.

The ship­ment from the French nuclear giant Are­va’s repro­cess­ing plant at La Hague is the last planned to Ger­many.

Sim­i­lar protests are expect­ed along the whole route — the last con­voy in 2010 was blocked for three hours in Caen and one night in Ger­many.

Video

http://vastminority.blogspot.com

Earth First! Winter Moot 2012 — 24–26th February 2012. Updated: location & what to expect

A week­end of dis­cus­sion and net­work­ing for those tak­ing direct action against eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion. 

Please note date & loca­tion change (due to date clash & venue prob­lems):

24–26th Feb­ru­ary 2012, near Glas­gow

Near­est train sta­tion: Lanark.

A week­end of dis­cus­sion and net­work­ing for those tak­ing direct action against eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion. 

Please note date & loca­tion change (due to date clash & venue prob­lems):

24–26th Feb­ru­ary 2012, near Glas­gow

Near­est train sta­tion: Lanark.

See earthfirstgathering.org.uk for fur­ther infor­ma­tion about loca­tion,  pro­gramme and con­tact details

Update:

Where — this years Earth First Win­ter Moot will take place in Gle­spin Vil­lage Hall, South Lanark­shire. Gle­spin is a small vil­lage about 14 miles south of Lanark, and 35 miles south of Glas­gow. South Lanark­shire also has many beau­ti­ful areas with rivers, hills, forests and peat bogs.  Full direc­tions

What to expect — this years Earth First! Win­ter Moot takes place in South Lanark­shire, Scot­land. In a months time envi­ron­men­tal­ists from across the UK and beyond will con­verge to dis­cuss and debate. Below is an update from the organ­is­ing col­lec­tive who are work­ing on the pro­gram.

The Moot 2012 col­lec­tive has felt that at pre­vi­ous EF! Gath­er­ings groups have pri­mar­i­ly attend­ed to recruit for their respec­tive cam­paigns. Yet those who attend EF! Gath­er­ings are pre­dom­i­nant­ly already active, mak­ing them good places for net­work­ing, but not nec­es­sar­i­ly for out­right recruit­ment. We recog­nise the effort gath­er­ing organ­is­ers put into plan­ning agen­das but often the more dis­cur­sive aspects of the gath­er­ings focus on larg­er,  abstract ques­tions and debates have often been framed by self-appoint­ed experts. We feel that these dis­cus­sions inef­fec­tive­ly attempt to find answers or reach con­sen­sus where this is inap­pro­pri­ate.

For exam­ple at the first EF! Gath­er­ing 20 years ago the ques­tion was asked: ‘What is EF!?’ 20 years lat­er in 2011 at the last Moot the same ques­tion was still being asked …

The answer is EF! is what we make it, and this year we are going to make it a space in which we can approach our cam­paigns both crit­i­cal­ly and ana­lyt­i­cal­ly by ask­ing more spe­cif­ic and prac­ti­cal ques­tions. Our activism should be con­stant­ly evolv­ing not stuck in a rut ask­ing the same ques­tions again and again.

The agen­da will be designed to ask ques­tions around four key issues: the tac­tics we use; the strate­gies that we employ in our cam­paigns; com­mu­ni­ty sol­i­dar­i­ty; and sus­tain­able activism. There will be no attempt to reach con­clu­sions or con­sen­sus espe­cial­ly about what EF! is. Instead we want to have dis­cus­sions that lead to new ideas that could evolve ongo­ing cam­paigns or give cre­ative inspi­ra­tion to ones that are just get­ting start­ed.

A free space will be pro­vid­ed in which cam­paigns will be able to hold meet­ings and have fur­ther dis­cus­sions if they wish, and there will also be some space giv­en for cam­paign updates with an empha­sis on hon­est analy­sis rather than pro­mo­tion.

For updates and more info check the web­site or email us.

efwintermoot@noflag.org.uk

BHP Billiton — Dirty Energy protests

Cam­paign­ers from Lon­don Min­ing Net­work, Kick Nuclear, Colom­bia Sol­i­dar­i­ty Cam­paign, Lon­don Ris­ing Tide, Occu­py Lon­don and oth­er groups gath­ered out­side and inside Anglo-Aus­tralian min­ing giant BHP Bil­li­ton’s cen­tral Lon­don AGM to protest the com­pa­ny’s record of envi­ron­men­tal dam­age and forced dis­place­ment of indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties in Colom­bia, Aus­tralia, Indone­sian Bor­neo and else­where, due to its extrac­tion of dirty fuels, includ­ing coal and ura­ni­um.

Some of the group lat­er vis­it­ed the Aus­tralian High Com­mis­sion, demand­ing to speak to an offi­cial about BHP’s ura­ni­um min­ing activ­i­ties and explo­ration on abo­rig­i­nal lands in South and West­ern Aus­tralia. The ‘diplo­mat­ic pro­tec­tion’ police were called by the High Com­mis­sion. When the police arrived, the pro­test­ers were ordered to leave the build­ing.

See also the fol­low­ing reports on the AGM and demo here and here.

 

Aldermaston Women Invade Faslane Peace Camp

18/10/2011

18/10/2011
This week­end saw the delec­table women from Alder­mas­ton Women’s Peace Camp descend on Faslane. The theme of the inva­sion was ‘Domes­tic Extrem­ists ‘ at large and they did her Majesty’s Roy­al Navy a ser­vice by clos­ing off the North Gate for a few hours on Sat­ur­day and giv­ing the Min­istry of Defence a much need­ed les­son in domes­tic­i­ty! A few of us from Peace Camp joined our sis­ters and, armed with rub­ber gloves, head scarves and thought pro­vok­ing ban­ners, like good domes­ti­cat­ed women, we gave the gate a right scrub. Of course, we had to stop the influx of NATO army trucks by block­ing the road… that’s why the gate was so dirty in the first place! With the gate (and the MoD police car!) sparkling we decid­ed to cause a bit of mis­chief with some wool but this made the MoD police rather cross… Nev­er­the­less, the whole clean­ing oper­a­tion end­ed ami­ca­bly with no arrests and some of us went on to the South Gate to make our feel­ings on the ille­gal­i­ty and immoral­i­ty of the British Nuclear Weapons Pro­gramme known to the base traf­fic we’d suc­cess­ful­ly divert­ed.

Our vis­it to Coul­port ear­li­er that morn­ing also caused a bit of a kafuf­fle for the gate staff. On behalf of the nation foot­ing the bill for these abhor­rent bombs, we formed a team of Weapons Inspec­tors. We mere­ly want­ed to take a look at the war­heads that are engulf­ing so many of the nation’s tax­es at the expense of our NHS and com­mu­ni­ty projects, but were denied entry. We love our account­able, demo­c­ra­t­ic state.

Con­clu­sion: Those of us at Faslane Peace Camp great­ly appre­ci­at­ed the won­der­ful atmos­phere and engag­ing con­ver­sa­tion that came with our week­end inva­sion. Our for­mi­da­ble sis­ters of Alder­mas­ton Peace Camp are wel­come to come and make domes­tic extrem­ist mis­chief with us any time!

Autumn Action Day at Faslane Peace Camp 22nd October

With the win­ter com­ing Faslane Peace Camp is hav­ing a cre­ative day of work­shops and action against the Tri­dent mis­sile sys­tem based at Faslane.

With the win­ter com­ing Faslane Peace Camp is hav­ing a cre­ative day of work­shops and action against the Tri­dent mis­sile sys­tem based at Faslane.
Come to Faslane Peace Camp, in con­tin­u­ous occu­pa­tion for over 29 years now, for work­shops includ­ing direct action, land occu­pa­tion and out­door liv­ing, cam­paign skill­shar­ing includ­ing pales­tine, and many more. If you have a skill you’d like to share, want to share your expe­ri­ence with cam­paigns or just want more infor­ma­tion, please con­tact us!
So bring your instru­ments and friends along for din­ner and a cup­pa tea (this is an alco­hol free event)
There’ll be live music and veg­an food pro­vid­ed for dona­tion, and vis­i­tors are very wel­come to stay for longer.
There’s plen­ty of sleep­ing spaces avail­able in car­a­vans, although if pos­si­ble bring a tent as there is camp­ing spaces avail­able.
Dogs and chil­dren are wel­come to this event too!
Call us on 01436820901 for more infor­ma­tion.

direc­tions-
The camp is sit­u­at­ed 6 miles North of Helens­burgh. Helens­burgh can be reached from Glas­gow by train, for £5 return, trains leave every half hour from Glas­gow Queens Street (Low lev­el station).Or the 216 from Jamaica St — Helens­burgh.
or direct train from edin­burgh waver­ly to helens­burgh.
You can catch the 316 bus from Helens­burgh Cen­tral train sta­tion (for Coul­port or Gare­loc­head, stops out­side the camp) it only costs £1.75, and you can ask to be dropped off at the peace camp.

-F.P.C. is on the east verge of the A814 road, which leads to HMNB Clyde and beyond. The Camp is there­fore vis­i­ble to all traf­fic com­ing towards the base from the direc­tion of Helens­burgh.

We are about 30 miles west of Glas­gow, by the Gare­loch, a riv­er Clyde estu­ary sea loch. Faslane Naval Base is on the Gare­loch.

The Tri­dent nuclear weapons sys­tem for the UK is based at Faslane Naval Base just down the road from the peace camp. It costs the tax­pay­er over 2bn every year to main­tain 4 nuclear sub­marines with a total of 144 nuclear weapons, each over 10 times more pow­er­ful than the bombs dropped on hiroshi­ma and nagasa­ki. capa­ble of wip­ing out all of human­i­ty at any moment.
They’re pro­posed to be replaced soon so now is the time to take action and stop anoth­er 50 years of nuclear threat, envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion and waste of tax­pay­ers mon­ey on a weapons sys­tem which is capa­ble of destroy­ing human­i­ty at the touch of a but­ton. Faslane peace camp

Hinkley Point blockaders declare victory over EDF Energy

3/10/2011
For about nine hours, we block­ad­ed the nuclear pow­er sta­tion with up to 400 peo­ple. This was the biggest anti nuclear pow­er action in Britain for quite some years. It marked the begin­ning of a new anti nuclear pow­er move­ment in this coun­try, and you all made this pos­si­ble.

3/10/2011
For about nine hours, we block­ad­ed the nuclear pow­er sta­tion with up to 400 peo­ple. This was the biggest anti nuclear pow­er action in Britain for quite some years. It marked the begin­ning of a new anti nuclear pow­er move­ment in this coun­try, and you all made this pos­si­ble.
This time, the block­ade was tol­er­at­ed by EDF and the police. Only one per­son was arrest­ed when walk­ing on the pub­lic foot­path along the fence.
He was stopped and searched by police, and arrest­ed for pos­ses­sion of a craft knife. Luck­i­ly, he was lat­er released from Taunton police sta­tion with­out charge.

Those of you who came to the camp after the action are aware of a police inci­dent: a mobile CCTV vehi­cle of Avon & Som­er­set police drove onto the camp site, film­ing all the time. After a while it was pos­si­ble to per­suade them to leave the site.
Stop New Nuclear sees this as a provo­ca­tion, and we made it very clear that this inci­dent destroyed a lot of the trust between the police and the cam­paign that had been built in the run-up to the block­ade.
The police Sil­ver Com­mand has since sent an ‘apol­o­gy email’ that says they’ve delet­ed the mate­r­i­al.

The camp, demon­stra­tion, and block­ade of Hink­ley Point was not a one-off, nor was it the end — it should be the begin­ning of a pow­er­ful and cre­ative anti nuclear pow­er move­ment in Britain, that will stop the plans for eight new nuclear pow­er sta­tions in its tracks. To make this hap­pen, we need you!
We are there­fore organ­is­ing a Stop New Nuclear gath­er­ing in Bris­tol in Novem­ber (unfor­tu­nate­ly, we have not been able to set the date yet), to dis­cuss and plan the next cam­paigns and actions against nuclear new build in Britain. Please get involved — we need to grow as a move­ment, and this means we need more peo­ple organ­is­ing our actions. Please check back for updates and reg­is­ter for the Stop New Nuclear gath­er­ing at http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/gathering2011. More infor­ma­tion will be avail­able soon.

If you have any ideas for action, please share them in our ideas forum at http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/ideasforum.

News from Hink­ley Point
The Envi­ron­ment Agency has extend­ed the dead­line for objec­tions to EDF’s envi­ron­men­tal per­mit appli­ca­tion until 15 Decem­ber. This means we now have much more time to col­lect hun­dreds or even thou­sands of objec­tions. Please down­load the objec­tion sheet from http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/objections-discharges, print it, sign it, and send it of to: PSC, PO Box 4404, Sheffield, S9 4WF

Press release:

Anti-nuclear pro­test­ers have declared the mass block­ade at Hink­ley Point today as a vic­to­ry over EDF Ener­gy. The nine-hour block­ade in Som­er­set attract­ed sup­port­ers from all over the UK. Sev­er­al came from as far afield as Ire­land, Ger­many and Bel­gium.

Stop New Nuclear spokesper­son, Andreas Speck, said the block­ade has put the gov­ern­ment and EDF on the back foot. ‘Fol­low­ing the inter­est this block­ade has attract­ed, both region­al­ly and nation­al­ly, the gov­ern­ment and EDF can no longer claim that the we need nuclear ener­gy to keep the lights on.’

He con­tin­ued: ‘Ger­many has com­mit­ted to a nuclear-free future with­out buy­ing nuclear pow­er from France or build­ing new coal-fired pow­er sta­tions. The Ger­man gov­ern­ment is look­ing at a decen­tralised ener­gy mod­el with a mix of renew­ables and Com­bined Heat and Pow­er (CHP) to bridge the gap left by with­draw­al from nuclear. If Ger­many can do it, why can’t we?’

Ang­ie Zel­ter, who hit the head­lines in 1996 when she and oth­er activists attacked a Hawk jet des­tined to sup­press protests in East Tim­or (and was sub­se­quent­ly cleared of crim­i­nal dam­age by a jury), blast­ed EDF’s claims that Hink­ley Point is sus­tain­able.

She added: ‘Over its life­time, Hink­ley will con­sume more ener­gy than it pro­duces — if you take into account the ener­gy used to extract ura­ni­um and the pow­er need­ed to store radioac­tive waste for hun­dreds of years. It doesn’t add up.’

Zel­ter said the risk of flood­ing is an increas­ing wor­ry. ‘Locals are well aware of the con­stant dan­ger of flood­ing around Hink­ley,’ she con­tin­ued. ‘We have infor­ma­tion from work­ers there that sev­er­al years ago, flood­wa­ter breached the plant’s retain­ing walls.’

She added that this was a par­tic­u­lar con­cern now that EDF wants to build two new mega reac­tors at Hink­ley. ‘Radioac­tive waste from the pro­posed new ERP reac­tors will be so tox­ic that it will have to be stored on the site for over 100 years. With the growth in extreme weath­er con­di­tions there is no guar­an­tee that this waste can be stored safe­ly.’

And Zel­ter blast­ed the gov­ern­ment for claim­ing that nuclear is the only solu­tion to com­bat­ing cli­mate change. ‘If the gov­ern­ment can spend bil­lion renew­ing Tri­dent mis­siles and fight­ing Gaddafi in Libya, why can’t they find the mon­ey to build tru­ly sus­tain­able ener­gy sys­tems that would cre­ate a great many more jobs than the nuclear sec­tor can?’

The mass block­ade was described by Stop New Nuclear organ­is­er, Andreas Speck, as a, ‘cel­e­bra­tion of dis­sent’ with pro-nuclear sup­port­ers being enter­tained by a Welsh choir and pop­u­lar fes­ti­val band, Seize The Day.

A man arrest­ed on a foot­path close to the block­ade was lat­er released with­out charge.

—

Reports, pic­tures and video.
More pho­tos
Camp pho­tos
Bridg­wa­ter demon­stra­tion
Block­ade of Hink­ley Point
Some pho­tos and some more
CND uploaded pho­tos here
We are slow­ly upload­ing videos