PN Staff

Over 50 people wore nuclear waste barrel costumes to protest outside the Springfields nuclear fuel manufacturing plant near Preston, Lancashire, on 27 April.

There was also a live video conference with indigenous people in communities adversely impacted by uranium mining. Speakers included Nikki Clark (South West Against Nuclear), Rowland Dye (Trident Ploughshares), Kate Hudson (CND), and Ruth Owens (anti-fracking Nanas)

27 more countries need to ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) for it to come into force. 50 states need to not only sign the treaty, but ratify it (in democracies, this usually requires parliament to pass a law).

The first three countries to ratify the TPNW were Guyana, Thailand and the Vatican (all on 20 September 2017).

The other ratifiers are (in chronological order): Mexico, Cuba, Palestine, Venezuela, Palau, Austria, Vietnam, Costa Rica,…

British companies are involved in the illegal exploitation of phosphate from Western Sahara, a new report has revealed.

One of the resources that Morocco illegally exports from occupied Sahrawi territory is phosphate, the element used in artificial fertilisers. Western Sahara has been one of the world’s largest suppliers of high-quality phosphate rock.

Morocco invaded Western Sahara in 1975 and has illegally occupied the territory ever since. Western Sahara Resources Watch has…

Photo: ‘Gay and Lesbian Couples’, Robert Kalman, 2018 from Photography After Stonewall (Soho Photo Gallery, 2019). Kalman writes: ‘The narrative of LGBTQ civil rights, simply told, draws a straight line from the Stonewall Riots of 1969 to a person’s liberty to love whomever they wish today.... These are portraits of mixed-race, loving couples, rendered as…

On 15 May, Haringey First World War Peace Forum unveiled a hand-carved plaque to remember the North London borough’s 350 First World War conscientious objectors. The plaque was installed where outdoor anti-war meetings were held during the war, outside the Salisbury pub (back then, the Salisbury hotel) on Green Lanes. Actor Jim Broadbent, historian Cyril Pearce and local councillors Mark Blake and Emine Ibrahim joined 150 people for the ceremony. The plaque was funded by a…

On 9 May, Renfrewshire council passed a resolution urging the Strathclyde Pension Fund to stop investing in businesses involved in the construction and development of nuclear weapons.

The fund, managed by Glasgow city council, has £89m invested in 11 such companies, according to Don’t Bank on the Bomb Scotland. (See PN 2545, 2588–2589,…

The Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) is waiting to hear the results of a major appeal, on its legal case against British arms sales to Saudi Arabia for use in Yemen.

In mid-April, the court of appeal in London heard legal arguments from CAAT that an earlier judgement in the high court should be overturned. The government should be banned from allowing such sales, CAAT believes.

Since the bombing of Yemen began in March 2015, the UK government has licensed £4.7bn worth of arms…

On 29 March, two US Veterans for Peace were released from prison in Limerick, Ireland, after being arrested at a protest against the US military base at Shannon airport on 17 March. Shannon is used for refuelling US troop planes bound for the Middle East.

Tarak Kauff (82) and Ken Mayers (77) entered the airfield to investigate a plane on contract to the US military. They were charged with: causing a security breach; €2,500 worth of criminal damage to the fence; and trespassing on a…

Who’s offering training in nonviolent direct action right now?

Saudi arms ship Bahri Yanbu was deterred from loading weapons in France and Italy in May, after taking on six containers of Belgian arms in Antwerp on 3 May. (The ship also stopped in London’s Tilbury Docks on 7 May, but it is not known what was loaded.)

Yemen is the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, with 12 million people on the verge of starvation. Britain sold almost a fifth of Saudi Arabia’s weapons imports between 2013–2018, while France sold four percent of them,…

Eight Trident Ploughshares campaigners were on trial at Reading magistrates court on 23 April for blocking access to Burghfield Atomic Weapons Establishment in Berkshire on 24 October 2018. Welsh activists Awel Irene (second from left), Jan Jones (second from right, front) and Brian Jones (second from right, back) labelled the prosecution ‘farcical’ after charges of ‘aggravated trespass’ were added to the original ‘obstruction of the public highway’ charges. This charged four of the…

On 20 February, seven peace activists climbed over the fence of the US military base of Kleine Brogel in the north-east of Belgium. Four were activists from Belgium’s Agir Pour La Paix (Act for Peace). Three were Green MEPs (Michèle Rivasi from France, Molly Scott Cato from the UK, and Tilly Metz from Luxembourg).

The seven symbolically blocked the F-16 runway to demand the withdrawal of around 20 US…

The first trials for people arrested on Extinction Rebellion (XR) actions were discontinued at the beginning of March. Christian Climate Action members Ruth Jarman (55) and Margriet were due to appear at Hendon magistrates’ court on 1 and 4 March after having been arrested many times during XR protests in London last autumn. (PN 2624–2625)

XR has held dozens of events in the last two months, and spread internationally, claiming more than 200 XR chapters worldwide.
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Two major flashpoints on International Women’s Day (IWD) on 8 March came in Turkey and in Spain.

In contrast to previous years, the Turkish government announced beforehand that no IWD demonstration would be allowed on Istanbul’s central shopping street, Istiklal Avenue.

Thousands of women gathered in Taksim Square anyway and faced riot police firing tear gas and using dogs to break up the protest.

In Spain, the two largest unions, the CCOO and the UGT,…

Britain must hand the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean back to Mauritius – and that includes the largest island, Diego Garcia, where the US has built a massive military base. That is the non-binding advisory opinion of the world court, delivered on 25 February, as requested by the UN general assembly.

In the 1960s, Britain detached the Chagos archipelago from Mauritius and deported 2,000 Chagossians in order to hang onto the islands when Mauritius became independent in 1968, and…