This year’s NATO summit will take place at the Celtic Manor Resort in Newport on 4th-5th September. Earlier this year, local campaigns met to start planning events to coincide with the summit, using the occasion as a platform to publicise alternatives to endless war and austerity through mass meetings and protest.
Events will be organised under the banner of No NATO Newport, the coalition initiated by activists from Cardiff Stop the War Coalition, CND Cymru, Newport People’s Assembly…
Reading Police Station, 8 February.
Photo: Wendy Lewis
If Cameron thinks the campaign against nuclear weapons is over, he can think again. We set off in our minibus, full to bursting with singers eager to take part in the latest action against Trident: a mass crime reporting at Reading police station, near the sites at Burghfield and Aldermaston where nuclear warheads are developed and tested.
The sight of flooded fields and swollen…
2013 Street Choirs festival: Sheffield’s Outaloud in Aberystwyth.
Photo: Val Regan
A radical initiative with great potential, the Campaign Choirs network, was formed during the July 2013 Street Choirs Festival in Aberystwyth. Participants agreed that ‘the political urgency of our times means we want to alert each other to events, demonstrations, etc, and share our songs more often and more widely’.
Since then, Campaign Choirs network’s shared actions have included local and…
Get rid of Trident - Eat it! Photo: Lotte Reimer
Early on 3 October, a small but committed contingent from Wales and Bristol, along with an intrepid lone Glaswegian, blockaded the ministry of defence (MoD) road to the Burghfield atomic weapons establishment (AWE).
A ‘Mad Trident Tea-Party’ was set up and attended by three large red dragons and numerous small ones. With members of Côr Cochion and Côr Gobaith present, the singing rarely stopped for the six hours of the blockade. We…
The consortium Miller Argent have submitted a planning application to Caerphilly council for the Nant Llesg open-cast coal mine. If Miller Argent obtain planning permission, Nant Llesg near Rhymney will mine up to nine million tonnes of coal and be responsible for approximately 20 million tonnes of CO2.
Local opposition the United Valleys Action Group (UVAG) say this will be a disaster in terms of climate change. UVAG also know the impact of the dust and noise from mining on…
Military technology company QinetiQ has signed a contract to use Llanbedr, near Harlech, Gwynedd, for testing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or ‘drones’. Llanbedr airfield estates claimed its 2,300m runway can handle larger drones than are tested at Aberporth in Ceredigion.
Welsh government economic minister Edwina Hart said that she sees it as an important step forward as ‘Llanbedr Airfield has the capacity to significantly increase Wales’ capability in the [unmanned aerial…
14 September 2013 was a special day, marking 30 years of action by the legendary Côr Cochion Caerdydd, Cardiff Reds’ Choir. At a celebration in The Gate Arts Centre in Cardiff, singer song-writer, politician and activist Dafydd Iwan paid tribute to the choir’s long commitment to standing up for peace and justice: ‘If Côr Cochion are campaigning for a cause we all know it is worth campaigning for!’…
When Melanie Phillips, doyenne of the right, posed the question ‘drones – what’s not to like?’ on BBC Radio 4’s ‘Moral Maze’ programme, I was incensed at the sheer crassness of her words. Statements by politicians and ministry of defence (MoD) spokespersons justifying the use of drones for military and surveillance purposes need to be countered at every opportunity.
Bankrupt civil servants, politicians and warmongers never mention the civilian deaths and injuries, nor the invasion…
In July, the management group decided to wind up Cynefin y Werin (CyW), the all-Wales network promoting international peace, social justice, human rights and equality. After a successful period initially, CyW’s level of activity has diminished substantially in recent years.
Up until Spring 2006, the network held regular dayschools for activists. In 2007, the network set its priority as ‘championing a vision for civil society in Wales, with a view to moving towards a Civic Forum for…
The Street Choirs Festival (19-21 July) saw some 36 choirs with 700 choristers from across the UK descend excitedly on Aberystwyth. Local choir Côr Gobaith had been planning the festival for the best part of a year, taking as its theme ‘peace’.
A Friday welcome concert with local and national talent included Chocolat, Sianed Jones, and Tracey Curtis.
Saturday saw a Peace Parade from the Arts Centre to the seafront, where all the choristers took part in a massed sing. In the…
In May 2010, Bradley Manning, an intelligence analyst in the US Army’s 10th Mountain Division, was arrested on suspicion of leaking nearly half a million government documents, including the infamous ‘Collateral Murder’ gunsight video and 260,000 State Department cables.
After nine months in solitary confinement, he awaits court-martial in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He is 24 and from Crescent, Oklahoma. Bradley Manning’s mother, Susan, is from Wales and Bradley attended secondary…
Buzzy bees at Aberporth drone testing site Photo: Lotte Reimer
Initiated by Anonymous activists, who pulled out at the last minute because they forgot to ask their mums if they could have a party, the protest went ahead with local people, singers, Rebel Clowns and other busy bees, who buzzed in solidarity with drones trying to clear their name.
Said one local drone: ‘It’s tough enough that there are so few of us these days, with pesticides and whatnot, but tarnishing our…
The ‘By the Waters’ performance in Chapter Gallery, Cardiff was conceived by Cardiff-based British-Iraqi artist Rabab Ghazoul to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the second Gulf War. Unsure how to mark the day, Ghazoul decided to create an event that would offer a contemplative space that addressed mourning and remembrance while allowing people to consider and experience in a different way.
Written specifically for the event, the text of Ghazoul’s six-part…
Wales in Scotland Photo: twitter user @ScrapTrident
At the Wales Peace Institute conference in Aberystwyth on 23 March, she said: ‘Wales has a close affinity with Flanders where so many young Welsh men were killed. The Flemish government has made the spreading of peace one of the most important aims of the 1914 remembrance project. The overwhelming majority considered it a government duty to inform people of the horrors and madness of the First World War,…
Street choirs Photo: Ieuan Ellis
The Institute
On 23 March in the Morlan Centre, Aberystwyth, there will be a conference of the ongoing campaign for setting up a Wales Peace Institute, ‘Academi Heddwch Cymru’. Speakers will include Jill Evans MEP, Dr Robin Gwyndaf (vice-president of the Fellowship of Reconciliation) and professor Jenny Pearce of the department of peace studies in Bradford University.
In October 2009, a…
