Wales

1 August 2017News

Tony Young visits Wales' 'National Air Show'

On 1 July, I attended the so-called ‘Wales National Air Show’ in Swansea. It is marketed as a fun day out for all the family but, moving beyond the massive funfair, you find what the occasion is really about. Military hardware of every description, and information points that tell you about the delights of a career in the armed forces, with huge banners carrying the message ‘RAF: recruiting now’.

Teenagers and small children are invited aboard the tanks and troop carriers,…

1 August 2017News

Gathering considers Brexit impact on UK Celtic languages

The European Language Equality Network met in Valencia in June for #ELEN2017, a get-together of interested parties from minority languages acting together to create an united voice.

On the top of the agenda was the effect of Brexit on the Celtic languages of the UK, including Welsh, which has recently lost its national newspaper as Y Cymro has ceased publication due to market forces. David Wyn of Cynghrair Cymunedau Cymraeg (the Alliance of Welsh Communities) explained how hate…

1 June 2017News

Court's decision favours corporate power over public interest - campaigners

Climate activists block the rail head terminal road at Ffos-y-frân on 21 April. PHOTO: COAL ACTION NETWORK.

On 8 May, five Welsh activists learned the price of nonviolent action they had taken in April to save lives and mitigate environmental harms. Sentencing them to 18 months’ conditional discharge, magistrates in Merthyr Tydfil also ordered them to pay compensation of £10,000 to the Miller Argent mining company plus court costs of £525.

On 21 April, environmental activists had ‘…

1 April 2017News

Zionist exploitation of event condemned by local council

On 3 March, Llandudno town council condemned the ‘inappropriate Zionist exploitation of Conwy HMD 2017’ and voted to cancel the grant it had allotted to one Roy Thurley for organising the event.

Every 27 January, the date that the Russian army liberated the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in 1945, the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust asks people to ‘pause to remember the millions of people who have been murdered or whose lives have been changed beyond recognition during the Holocaust,…

1 April 2017News

UK nuclear power driven by military demands - SPRU

Peter Smith of Stop Hinkley. Photo: Alun Williams

On 11 March, a conference entitled ‘Green Nuclear-Free Wales’ drew more than 60 delegates to the National Library in Aberystwyth on the sixth anniversary of the ongoing Fukushima nuclear disaster (in March, a Japanese court ruled that state negligence contributed to the triple meltdown).

Speakers in Aberystwyth included the former chief electrical engineer for Hinkley Point, Peter Smith, who critiqued nuclear industry safety…

1 February 2017News

Welsh activists spend week in La Linière refugee camp

Image La Linière refugee camp near Dunkirk, France. Photo: Mid-Wales Refugee Action

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Lotte Reimer: In December, a group of volunteers from Mid-Wales Refugee Action went to work at La Linière refugee camp near Dunkirk, France. Mainly from Machynlleth and the surrounding area, they brought much needed supplies of sleeping bags, blankets and clothes donated by people across mid-Wales. For a week, they volunteered with Kesha Niya, a…

1 December 2016News

Welsh event explores Orwellian present

Johnny Gaunt (right) introduces Ken Booth (left) and John Rees (centre) at Aberystwyth Arts Centre on 22 October. PHOTO: Lotte Reimer

On 22 October, Aberystwyth Arts Centre hosted an event by Ceredigion Stop the War to explore the meaning of imperialism 15 years after the attack on the World Trade Centre. The title ‘War is Peace’ was picked from George Orwell’s novel 1984.

Over 50 participants heard professor Ken Booth, senior academic researcher and author on…

1 December 2016News

Landmark resolution could trigger new treaty

27 October was a truly historic day. We voted in the European parliament calling on all UN member states to support the UN general assembly resolution on nuclear security and non-proliferation. This landmark resolution, which would trigger a new treaty banning all nuclear weapons, was adopted with a large majority by the UN general assembly that same day.

International negotiations are set to start in March 2017 with a conference to discuss a ‘legally binding instrument to…

1 October 2016News

Alternative technology festival held in Wales

Janice de Haaff is proud of ‘my tiny house’. PHOTO: Lotte Reimer

On 10 September, the Centre for Alternative Technology near Machynlleth hosted the EF Schumacher-inspired ‘Small is Beautiful’ festival with an exciting mix of debates, workshops, arts and talks (spanning hydroelectricity, pee power, zero-carbon Britain, aquaponics, campaign-building, thatching, tiny homes, improvising…) with debates captured in visual minutes by Creative Connection.

Practical Action’s Paul Smith…

1 October 2016News

Community energy project bringing wind power to Wales

Awel Coop. Photo: Awel

‘We’ve put up with noise and dust from the pits – we’re used to it. We shouldn’t grumble about a few turbines singing in the wind’. These words were spoken in 2000 and, 16 years later, the community wind farm turbines in Mynydd y Gwrhyd, 20 miles north of Swansea, are due to be commissioned by December.

Community benefit society Awel (Welsh for ‘wind’) is funding the scheme through shares (raising £1.27 million to date) and Welsh government loans of £4.…

1 August 2016News

Welsh activists blockade bomb base

Combined choirs sing out against Trident, AWE Burghfield, 15 June 2016. Photo: kelvin mason

On 15 June, far-flung groups from Aberystwyth, Swansea, Knighton, Cardiff, Newport Gwent, Rhyl and Bangor joined others from all over Wales at the Atomic Weapons Establishment near Burghfield to protest against Trident and its replacement.

The Wales Day was part of a month of direct action organised by Trident Ploughshares, culminating in a ‘grand finale’ on 30 June with blockaders…

1 August 2016News

Vote spurs action against xenophobia

Celebrating Aberystwyth’s international community. Photo: kelvin mason

Many took spontaneous action against the wave of xenophobia released by the Brexit debate.

In Cardiff, large crowds of all colours gathered on 25 June to show solidarity with the migrant population. Aberystwyth held a ‘Hope Over Hate’ cultural event at the Arts Centre on 1 July, and the following day more than 300 celebrated Aberystwyth’s international community, ending with a human chain along the Prom.…

1 June 2016News

Kelvin Mason celebrates the Welsh campaigners at the coalface of anti-coal activism

Ever since 2007, I have been writing in Peace News about opencast coalmining in Wales, climate change and local injustice.

My particular target has always been the 11-million-tonne Ffos-y-Frân mine near Merthyr Tydfil. At a rough count, I have written and/or edited 12 articles about Ffos-y-Frân for Peace News over the last nine years. Over the same period of time, I have also campaigned and taken direct action against opencast coalmining in Wales.

Alerted to the travesty of…

1 June 2016Feature

Mobilising climate justice, lessons for social movements

End Coal Now! activists at Ffos-y-Frân in May 2016.Photo: reclaim the power

In early May, the Reclaim the Power (RtP) network organised ‘End Coal Now!’, a protest camp and occupation of the 11-million-tonne Ffos-y-Frân opencast coalmine near Merthyr Tydfil in south Wales. An early appraisal of this action could yield valuable lessons for social movements taking action this year and beyond.

End Coal Now! was followed by the occupation of a lignite coalmine in Welzow in Germany…

1 April 2016News

Knighton residents to initiate private prosecution of Defence minister over Trident

Photo: Trident Ploughshares

Around 30 people plus a red dragon, with musical accompaniment by Côr Cochion, Côr Gobaith and a trombone, demonstrated outside Merthyr Tydfil magistrates court on 3 February. What was it all about?

A group of Knighton residents are aiming to initiate a private prosecution against the UK secretary of state for defence for conspiring to commit a war crime. They are alleging that the deployment of Trident, the UK’s nuclear weapon system, is a crime.…