Hundreds rally in Taipei against restart of No. 3 nuclear power plant.
Taiwan is an earthquake- and typhoon-prone island, which makes it unsuitable for the development of nuclear energy.
on May 17, Taiwan officially became a “nuclear-free homeland,” a status that was accomplished after 40 years of hard work, Shih said, calling for that to be retained.
Since the plant was closed, Taiwan has not experienced a power shortage, he said.
08/16/2025 , By Wu Hsin-yun and James Lo),
https://focustaiwan.tw/society/202508160014
Taipei, Aug. 16 (CNA) About 300 people took to the streets of Taipei on Saturday to campaign against an upcoming referendum on the restart of the Maanshan Nuclear Power Plant in southern Taiwan.
Led by the Taiwan Environmental Protection Union (TEPU), the rally included members of the Taiwan Society North, World United Formosans for Independence, and political parties such as the Green Party Taiwan and New Power Party.
The approximately 300 participants walked from Taipei’s National Taiwan University to the Liberty Square, then to a Legislative Yuan building on Jinan Road, calling for the nuclear plant to remain closed.
The campaign was held ahead of the Aug. 23 referendum, which will ask voters to decide on the restart of the Maanshan Nuclear Power Plant that has been inoperative since May 17 when its No. 2 reactor unit was decommissioned after 40 years of service.
The advocates for and against the reopening of the plant, commonly known as Taiwan’s No. 3 nuclear plant, have been holding televised debates and various other activities to push their respective views.
At Saturday’s rally, TEPU founding chairman Shih Hsin-min (施信民) said that Taiwan is an earthquake- and typhoon-prone island, which makes it unsuitable for the development of nuclear energy.
With the retirement of the No. 3 nuclear plant on May 17, Taiwan officially became a “nuclear-free homeland,” a status that was accomplished after 40 years of hard work, Shih said, calling for that to be retained.
Since the plant was closed, Taiwan has not experienced a power shortage, he said.
The No. 3 nuclear power plant is an old facility, and restarting it would mean disregarding the future of Taiwan’s new generations, Shih said.
‘Disarm now’: Anti-nuke advocate’s message to world leaders at Pine Gap protest
Following the breakdown of a nuclear treaty, an antinuclear advocate wants world leaders to hear a message she’s made from the doors of a top secret Territory spy base.
12 Aug 25,https://www.ntnews.com.au/journalists/gera-kazakov
An antinuclear ambassador for a Nobel prize winning group has delivered a message to world leaders at the edge of a Red Centre spy base, days after Russia pulled out of an arms treaty following an American missile test in the Top End.
ICAN ambassador Karina Lester was one of a dozen demonstrators who gathered at the edge of the Pine Gap Joint Defence Facility restricted area on Sunday, where she told world leaders to “disarm now” when speaking with this masthead.
“Get rid of your weapons. Lets fund and focus on world peace, not arm up and test missiles,” she said.
Ms Lester’s visit to the border of the Pine Gap restricted zone on Hatt Rd comes a day after she gave a speech at the sixth Yami Lester memorial event in Alice Springs – an event named after her father.
Mr Lester, a Yankunytjatjara elder who died in 2017, was blinded by the British nuclear tests in northern South Australia in the 1950s.
He was blinded as a child, and spent his life advocating against nuclear weapons – a mantle his daughter has taken up with ICAN, who won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2017 for their antinuclear advocacy.
The group got to the edge of the Pine Gap restricted at about 4.30pm Sunday, where they were again met with a police blockade at where the restricted zone begins.
Two unmarked Toyota LandCruisers followed the convoy to their meeting place, and a police drone was also observed overhead.
The group heard from speakers who opposed the US-run base, with members of the crowd holding signs reading “Yankee go home” while others held Palestinian flags.
At the conclusion of the demonstration, the group gathered for a photo and chanted “land back, close Pine Gap” while various media outlets filmed and photographed them.
Federal NSW Greens senator David Shoebridge was also billed to be at the Pine Gap demonstration on Sunday, but pulled out due to covid, this masthead understands.
The Greens defence and foreign affairs spokesman said the political party has opposed the US-run base “for decades” but did not comment on why he was unable to come on Sunday when asked by this masthead.
No Nukes for Power, Posturing or Destruction
Karl Grossman, COUNTERPUNCH, August 8, 2025
(This is a presentation, titled “No Nukes for Power, Posturing or Destruction,” that I gave at the 2025 Hiroshima-Nagasaki Commemorative Event on Long Island this week organized by the South Country Peace Group and co-sponsored by other peace organizations and also religious institutions including the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Stony Brook; Bellport United Methodist Church; and Old South Haven Presbyterian Church. Peace groups included Pax Christi LI; LI Alliance for Peaceful Alternatives; North Country Peace Group; Veterans for Peace Long Island Chapter 138; and Peace Action New York State).
“We are in the hands of lunatics and at the crossroads of time,” Dr. Helen Caldicott said several years ago. A medical doctor, the author of books including Nuclear Madness published in 1978 and The New Nuclear Danger out three years ago, she declared: “It’s time we rise up and say ‘this is our world, we want to live.’”
It’s high time, very high time.
Indeed, we’re now on borrowed time.
This past Friday, President Trump stated: “Based on the highly provocative statements of the former president of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev…now…deputy chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, I have ordered two nuclear submarines to be positioned in the appropriate regions.”
Medvedev, upon Trump’s demand reducing a ceasefire deadline in Russia’s war on Ukraine, said Trump was playing an “ultimatum game” with Russia. “Each new ultimatum is a threat and a step towards war. “Not between Russia and Ukraine, but with his own country.”
Medvedev said Trump should “revisit his favorite movies about the living dead and recall just how dangerous the mythical ‘Dead Hand’ can be.”
Russia’s “Dead Hand” system, as has been reported in recent days, is an automatic nuclear retaliation mechanism going back to the Cold War designed to launch a counterstrike even if the Russian leadership is wiped out in a first strike.
Trump shot back: “Tell Medvedev, the failed former President of Russia, who thinks he’s still president, to watch his words. He’s entering very dangerous territory!”
Russian President Putin of course has repeatedly threatened the use of nuclear weapons by Russia since its invasion of Ukraine.
Meanwhile, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un earlier was present when, as the headline of the Associated Press dispatch reported, “North Korea launches new intercontinental ballistic missile designed to threaten the U.S.,” said North Korea “will never change its line of bolstering up its nuclear forces.”
Indeed, “We are in the hands of lunatics and at the crossroads of time.” By the skin of our teeth, the world, since the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 80 years ago, has avoided a global nuclear holocaust.
But as the heading of the announcement on January 28, 2025 of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, it’s Doomsday Clock is: “Closer than ever: It is now 89 seconds to midnight.” The Bulletin defines midnight on its Doomsday Clock as “nuclear annihilation.”
The announcement by the Bulletin, founded by Albert Einstein and former Manhattan Project scientists including J. Robert Oppenheimer immediately following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, began: “In 2024, humanity edged ever closer to catastrophe. Trends that have deeply concerned” the Bulletin have “continued, and despite unmistakable signs of danger, national leaders and their societies have failed to do what is needed to change course. Consequently, we now move the Doomsday Clock from 90 seconds to 89 seconds to midnight—the closest it has ever been to catastrophe” since being set up in 1947.
The Bulletin’s announcement continued: “Our fervent hope is that leaders will recognize the world’s existential predicament and take bold action….In setting the Clock one second closer to midnight, we send a stark signal: Because the world is already perilously close to the precipice, a move of even a single second should be taken as an indication of extreme danger and an unmistakable warning that every second of delay in reversing course increases the probability of global disaster.”
It went on: “In regard to nuclear risk, the war in Ukraine, now in its third year, looms over the world; the conflict could become nuclear at any moment because of a rash decision or through accident or miscalculation….The countries that possess nuclear weapons are increasing the size and role of their arsenals, investing hundreds of billions of dollars in weapons that can destroy civilization.”
“Blindly continuing on the current path is a form of madness,” it said. “The United States, China, and Russia have the collective power to destroy civilization. These three countries have the prime responsibility to pull the world back from the brink, and they can do so if their leaders seriously commence good-faith discussions about the global threats outlined here. Despite their profound disagreements, they should take that first step without delay. The world depends on immediate action.”
“After 80 years, nuclear threat remains grave,” was the headline of a piece this week by Ira Helfand of the International Steering Group of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.
Helfand began: “As we approach the 80th anniversary of the U.S. bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki…on Aug 6 and 9, respectively, the danger of nuclear war is great and growing….The world can no longer indulge in the denial which has marked our thinking since the end of the Cold War. Nuclear war is a real and present danger that we must acknowledge and confront.”
“A large-scale nuclear war between the United States and Russia, according to best available science, would kill hundreds of millions of people in the first afternoon, and lead to a global famine that kills some 6 billion people, three quarters of humanity, in the first two years,” it continued. “Even a more limited nuclear war, as might have taken place between India and Pakistan, could trigger a global famine that kills 2 billion people worldwide, including 130 million in the United States.”
I host a television program broadcast nationally and a while back interviewed Commander Robert Green formerly of the British Navy. He said: “I do feel that we’re in more dangerous times than in the Cold War at the moment and people don’t realize it.”
He was deeply involved in British readiness to use nuclear weapons……………………………
He said there has been a “systematic effort to play down the appalling side effects and ‘overkill’…with even the smallest modern nuclear weapons,” how they are “not weapons at all. They are utterly indiscriminate devices that combine the poisoning horrors of chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction, plus effects…of radioactivity, with almost unimaginable explosive violence.” Green is devoted to working for a “nuclear-free world.”
There is an illusion, a false notion that continues in many government quarters and among those with a vested interest in nuclear weapons—that nuclear war is feasible and winnable.
In my book, Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to Know About Nuclear Power, I quote from Legacy of Hiroshima, a book by Edward Teller, “father” of the hydrogen bomb.
Teller asserts that “we can survive a nuclear attack.” There is “no doubt” that millions of people would die, he concedes, but “most people” can be saved. ……………………………….
Nuclear power provides a direct link to nuclear weaponry. With more nations having the ability to construct nuclear weapons—and any country with a nuclear power facility has the materiel and trained personnel to make nuclear weapons—the likelihood of this luck running out is high. Any nuclear power facility can serve as a nuclear bomb factory……………………………………………………………………………………………………………… https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/08/08/no-nukes-for-power-posturing-or-destruction/
Anti-nuclear weapons demo takes place at Faslane base
HM Naval Base Clyde is home to the Royal Navy’s four Vanguard-class submarines – HMS Vanguard, Vengeance, Victorious and Vigilant – which each carry Trident 2 D5 nuclear missiles.
Gemma Ryder Reporter, 02 Aug 2025,
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/anti-nuclear-weapons-demo-takes-35664128
The “No To Nuclear Weapons” gathering was organised by Justice & Peace Scotland, and brought people of all faiths together for prayer, reflection, and a public stance against nuclear arms.
Those in attendance included Most Rev William Nolan, Catholic Archbishop of Glasgow and Bishop-President of Justice & Peace Scotland; Rt Rev Rosie Frew, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland; and Most Rev Mark Strange, Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church.
They were joined by members of the Quakers, the Iona Community, the United Reformed Church, and other religious groups amid growing global tensions.
The UK is preparing to upgrade and expand its nuclear weapons system and President Trump ordered two nuclear submarines to be deployed “in the appropriate regions” in response to comments by former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on social media.
Archbishop Nolan said: “The phrase ‘never again’ gained much currency 80 years ago.
“But the actions of nuclear powers, including our own, run contrary to that.
“As the late Pope Benedict articulated, the very concept of a nuclear deterrence has instead fuelled an arms race as those on opposing sides keep seeking to outdo the other.
“We have seen this in the replacement for Trident. Deterrence itself, therefore, has increased insecurity and does nothing to build up trust which is necessary to encourage disarmament and build up peace.”
HM Naval Base Clyde — located near Helensburgh on the Gare Loch — is home to the UK’s four Vanguard-class submarines, each armed with Trident 2 D5 nuclear missiles, capable of striking targets up to 4,000 miles away.
Rt Rev Frew said: “On the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it seems right to stand with other Christians saying ‘No’ to nuclear weapons and ‘Yes’ to peace.
“My hope and prayer is to live in a world without war or the threat of war, a world without the threat of the deployment of nuclear weapons.
“I know opinion is very divided on holding nuclear weapons but I don’t believe anyone would ever wish them to be deployed, both those who will gather outside and those who serve in HM Naval Base Clyde.
“The Church of Scotland stands in solidarity with all those who work at Faslane in the service of the United Kingdom, while praying for peace in a world where there is no threat of nuclear weapons ever being used.”
Justice & Peace Scotland said the use and threat of nuclear weapons is incompatible with Christian teaching, and called on political leaders to reject a future based on “fear and power-wielding”.
They added: “Nuclear weapons are fundamentally incompatible with this call as their existence threatens indiscriminate destruction and a future built on fear and power-wielding rather than on fraternity amongst nations.”
Reaction to Sizewell C deal: too expensive, too slow
by Green Party https://greenparty.org.uk/2025/07/22/reaction-to-sizewell-c-deal-too-expensive-too-slow/
Commenting on news that the Government has struck a deal with private investors to progress the Sizewell C nuclear power plant in Suffolk – a deal in which the government will have a 45% stake – co-leader of the Green Party and Waveney Valley MP, Adrian Ramsay, said:
“The tax-payer will pick up nearly half of the estimated £38bn bill for Sizewell C but see not a single watt of electricity from it for at least a decade. Bill-payers will also have to stump up the cash for this plant through an increase in their energy bills by around £12 a year.
“New nuclear is a vastly more expensive way to produce electricity than renewables, with electricity from Sizewell C estimated to cost around £170 per megawatt hour compared to offshore wind at around £89/MWh. Hinkley C has also shown how the costs of developing nuclear power plants mushroom and are beset by endless delays.
“The billions of our money being squandered on this nuclear gamble would be far better spent on insulating and retrofitting millions of homes, which would bringing down energy bills and keep people warm in winter and cool in summer. We should also be investing in genuinely green power such as fitting millions of solar panels to roofs, and in innovative technologies like tidal power. All this would create many more jobs than nuclear ever will and deliver clean electricity much more quickly.”
“They want to impose a whole nuclear world on us without asking our opinion”: activists fight against the Orano nuclear fuel pools project.
by Lucas Hobe, 07/20/2025 , https://france3-regions.franceinfo.fr/normandie/manche/on-veut-nous-imposer-tout-un-monde-nucleaire-sans-demander-notre-avis-des-militants-luttent-contre-le-projet-des-piscines-d-orano-3190563.html
Nearly a thousand people marched on Saturday, July 19, 2025, in Vauville (Manche) to protest against the Aval du Futur project at the Orano La Hague site, which plans to install three new nuclear fuel storage pools.
” FukushiManche, no thanks! “, ” Stop Downstream of the Future ” could be read this Saturday, July 19, 2025 on placards held during the march organized in Vauville (Manche) against the project for new nuclear pools .
Monitored by law enforcement, the 1,000 people present marched to the beach, expressing their anger at the “world’s largest industrial project,” namely the expansion of the Orano site at La Hague to store spent nuclear fuel.
” It’s a project that’s pretty crazy,” laments Gilles, an activist . “We’ve been told for 40 years that scientists will find solutions for waste. And in the end, we haven’t found any solutions. La Manche is a department that’s already heavily nuclearized, so we’re fed up with these malfunctioning power plants and these high-voltage lines that disfigure the landscape .”
“Nuclear power can cause disasters”
Participants in the Vauville demonstration, which was part of the Haro anti-nuclear festival, are concerned about the future of the English Channel coastline if new 6,500-ton swimming pools and nuclear power plants are built. They are also concerned about their safety and health, given the potential for problems at these types of high-risk sites.
We see with the Flamanville EPR that it took years to build, there are still problems, and it cost us a lot of money. Nuclear power can cause disasters. We saw it at Fukushima and Chernobyl. – Gregory , Anti-nuclear activist opposed to the Aval du Futur project on the Orano site
Activists believe that the issue of the new nuclear pools at La Hague ”
is part of a larger picture. They’re still trying to sell us nuclear power as the energy of the future. They want to impose a whole nuclear world on us without asking our opinion. It’s scary. It’s important to fight against it .”
” We’ve taken up this Norman legend of the little fairies of La Hague who defend themselves when someone offends their land. We’re out in force, determined to show our anger, ” concludes the co-organizer of the anti-nuclear Haro festival.
2027, the calendar date for new factories
Announced in October 2024, the “Downstream of the Future” program has been launched. However, the exact timeline remains to be determined. According to Orano, more clarity should become available within two years, in the summer of 2027.
” The current plants are designed to last until 2040 ,” says Nicolas Ferrand, a specialist in nuclear waste reprocessing
. “We’re seeing if we can extend them beyond that, until 2050, 2055, 2060. By the end of 2026, we’ll have their lifespan and based on that, we’ll be able to schedule the commissioning of the new plants .”
Remembering the radical anti-nuclear Greenham Women’s Peace Camp
Huck Mag 18th July 2025, https://www.huckmag.com/article/anti-nuclear-greenham-womens-peace-camp-life-fence-janine-wiedel
Life at the Fence — In the early ’80s, a women’s only camp at an RAF site in Berkshire was formed to protest the threat of nuclear arms. Janine Wiedel’s new photobook revisits its anti-establishment setup and people.
Coming of age in the shadow of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, Janine Wiedel remembers the “duck and cover drills” of her childhood years, where students hid under school desks, head in hands, practicing quiet surrender to nuclear Armageddon.
By the ’80s, Wiedel was living and working as a photographer, documenting working-class life in the UK. With Ronald Reagan in the White House, Cold War tensions reached a fevered pitch. Across the pond, Margaret Thatcher, Reagan’s “comrade-in-arms”, welcomed the NATO bequest of 96 US-manufactured, nuclear “cruise missiles”, which were to begin arriving at RAF Greenham Common in 1983.
As NATO and the USSR ran up their arsenals, a grassroots resistance movement sprouted in Greenham, in the English county of Berkshire, taking the shape of a “women’s only” peace camp in 1982. Despite evictions, fences, and spies organised to bring them down, the resistance stayed the course until the American forces packed up their weapons and went home following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Their struggle made headlines, with even the Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev paying homage to the ‘Greenham women and the peace movement of Europe’ at the signing of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. But those initial media reports, Wiedel remembers, were ultimately disparaging of the women, so she decided to visit the camp for herself in 1983.
“I was fascinated by the community that had evolved as a result of it being ‘all women’ – there were no leaders,” Wiedel says. “The women built homes out of wood they collected, and they lit and tended the fires. They attended and spoke at conferences. They represented themselves in court when they were arrested. Everyone had an equal voice. Confidence grew. The actions were spontaneous and flexible; the authorities and police never knew what they would do next.”
The lesson became clear: don’t stop until the job is done. Now, Wiedel revisits this historic chapter of protest history with Life at the Fence: Greenham Women’s Peace Camp 1983 – 84 (Image & Reality). Through transportive imagery and interviews conducted at the time, the book brings together Wiedel’s masterful reportage as she takes us through the camps, which were built along the nine-mile perimeter of the RAF base, while paratroopers perched in lookout towers, binoculars in hand. Against the backdrop of gnarly barbed wire, the women sorted themselves out among different camp sites, each named for a different colour of the rainbow. It was a world of striking contrasts.
Drawn to women who had given up everything to live in primitive, volatile conditions, Wiedel listened to the women, recording their testimonies, songs, and remembrances which she weaves alongside documentary, portraits, landscape, still life, and reportage of non-violent direct actions.
“At the time, as a ‘women only’ protest, it was subjected to every form of abuse and ridicule by the media,” says Wiedel. “Its presence at the base also became an embarrassment to the Thatcher government. The women, however, managed to remain at the base for 19 years. Everyone I spoke with said it had transformed their lives.”
Life at the Fence: Greenham Women’s Peace Camp 1983 – 84 by Janine Wiedel is published by Image & Reality.
Northern Ontario residents oppose plan to dump radioactive material near drinking water source.
By Angela Gemmill, July 15, 2025, https://www.ctvnews.ca/northern-ontario/article/northern-ont-residents-oppose-plan-to-dump-radioactive-material-near-drinking-water-source/
Residents in Nairn and Hyman and surrounding communities met Monday to discuss concerns about a plan by the province to transfer radioactive material into the area.
Concerns were first raised last summer after a local municipal councillor noticed newer back roads and inquired about the upgrades.
That’s when the township discovered that the Ministry of Transportation and the Ministry of Mines were planning to move 18,000 cubic metres of niobium radioactive materials from Nipissing First Nation to the tailings area at Agnew Lake.
Agnew Lake is 27 kilometres from the township’s drinking water.
“We felt we really hadn’t been consulted,” Nairn and Hyman Mayor Amy Mazey told the crowd.
“We were told the ‘naturally occurring radioactive material’ was just like gravel.”
Last September, the municipality asked the province for more specific information about the project, which was scheduled to begin this summer.
“This is not ‘NORM ‘–naturally occurring radioactive material,” Mazey said.
“It contains hazardous heavy metals — uranium, niobium, radium 226, cadmium, arsenic, selenium, silver and manganese.”
In April, both ministries provided the township with a massive report filled with technical and scientific details. So the township hired environmental consultants Hutchinson Environmental Sciences Ltd. to interpret the report — and determine what science was missing.
That information was presented to residents on Monday, who were then asked for feedback and suggestions on what to do next.
Mazey said there are eight studies missing from the report.
“The two most important are a cumulative risk assessment — what’s going to happen when you put uranium tailings on top and niobium tailings together,” she said.
What will happen? And also a drainage study — so where is the water going to go, how is it going to leech? All of those things that were outlined that should have been done already, we just haven’t seen them.”
Township CAO Belinda Ketchabaw said what it boils down to is that the province wants to put radioactive materials in a lake that’s already struggling.
“(Agnew Lake) site is already in crisis, and they want to bring in more radioactive material to ‘fix’ the site,” Ketchabaw said.
“It doesn’t really add up to me. When the science isn’t there, there’s no trust. We need to trust what is best for our community.”
Safe outcome
Ketchabaw said they’ve learned that some of the niobium material will be taken to a Clean Harbors facility near Sarnia, made for hazardous waste.
She said it raises the question that if the material is hazardous enough to be sent to this facility, shouldn’t it all be sent there?
“Let’s just bring it all there and have a safe outcome for everyone,” Ketchabaw said.
Furthering distrust, Mazey said the two ministries often give the community contradictory information.
“It just raises a lot of red flags,” she said.
“I hope that the Ontario government listens to the residents and takes us seriously that this isn’t an easy fix … Just because this is the most convenient solution for the province, it doesn’t mean that it’s the best solution.”
Margaret Lafromboise, who lives close to the Spanish River, said she’s concerned about having “an unsafe radioactive site increased in volume.”
“I think the most constructive and practical thing to do would be to see if the municipality could get financial help to hire a lawyer and initiate an injunction to stop the action immediately,” Lafromboise said.
“As a society, as a province, we are not taking good enough care of our environment, the water and I don’t believe our current government is willing to take the action that is required.”
Representatives from the provincial ministries were not invited to Monday’s town hall.
Greenham Common women urge new generation to ‘rise up’ against nuclear threat
Those who set up protest camp in 1980s hope its spirit can be revived to oppose UK’s plan to buy nuclear-carrying jets
Alexandra Topping, https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/jun/27/greenham-common-women-urge-new-generation-rise-up-nuclear-threat
In August 1981, 36 people, mainly women, walked from Wales to RAF Greenham Common in Berkshire to protest against the storing of US cruise missiles in the UK. They were alarmed about the imminent threat the weapons posed for themselves and for their children, they later said.
More than 40 years on, the prospect of American nuclear weapons stationed on British soil has returned with urgent focus. And for some of the women who were at the Greenham Common women’s peace camp, it is time for dissenting UK citizens to rise up again.
In the wake of the UK government’s announcement this week that it plans to significantly expand its nuclear arsenal by buying a squadron of American fighter jets capable of carrying US tactical warheads, key figures at Greenham hope a new generation of campaigners will take up the baton.
Ann Pettitt, now 78, devised the original idea for a march that led to the formation of the camp. At its height, more than 70,000 women were there and it became the biggest female-led protest since women’s suffrage. It was, as Pettitt says, “actually successful” in managing to hugely raise awareness of the presence of US nuclear warheads in the UK – the last of which left RAF Lakenheath in 2008. The camp went on after the Greenham Common missiles had gone in 1991 and the base was closed in 1992. The remaining campaigners left Greenham Common after exactly 19 years.
Pettitt said this week’s news had left her “disillusioned” but she was hopeful that a younger generation would protest. “It certainly calls for protest, because it’s so stupid,” she said. “Nuclear weapons are like the emperor’s new clothes, they can’t be used and if they are they backfire because of radiation spreads and they target civilians. We should simply not have them.”
The decision to buy 12 F-35A jets, which are capable of carrying conventional arms and also the US B61-12 gravity bomb, a variant of which has more than three times the explosive power of the Hiroshima bomb, has energised the anti-nuclear movement, said Sophie Bolt, the general secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
The group has organised a protest on Saturday at RAF Marham in Norfolk, and Bolt said Greenham women – many of whom are in their 70s – still form the “backbone” of the resistance.
“These are women who have got a huge history and totally understand how high the stakes are,” she said. “Their determination, creativity and strategic thinking is just really incredible. They are a massive inspiration and so enriching to the campaign.”
One of those women, Angie Zelter, 74, went on to found the civil disobedience campaign Snowball and the anti-nuclear weapons group Trident Ploughshares. In 2019, aged 68, she was found guilty of a minor public order offence for protesting with Extinction Rebellion. “We had a saying, ‘carry Greenham home’, and from the moment I was there that’s what I’ve done,” she said.
But Zelter said it was also time for a new generation of Greenham women. “I think we need a new women’s movement, but I think actually we need everybody to rise up, quite frankly. All we can do as elders is support younger activists and give advice, solidarity and support.”
There was no time for squabbles in despondency, she added. “I hope it is a moment of mass realisation when we come together now and say, look, enough is enough … It is a moment of hope that people will realise that they’ve got to come together and protest loud and clearly.”
Pettitt said those not ready to man the barricades could still join the struggle – by the simple act of writing a letter to MPs to protest about the “outrageous” decision to buy the jets without parliamentary debate. “The way to get it discussed in parliament is to write your MP a letter,” she said. “Parliament is still very archaic … the humble letter is part of that kind of archaic functioning that is surprisingly effective.”
Another original walker, Sue Lent, now 73 and a councillor on Cardiff council, said the general public had lost sight of the anti-nuclear movement, but she hoped that a silver lining from the news this week was that younger and older activists would start “joining the dots”.
“1981 is a long time ago,” she said. “But hopefully the spirit still lives on and can be revived.”
It’s good to talk: US-UK anti-nuclear alliance forged from film discussion
The NFLAs were delighted to partner with film makers and producers from
the United States in promoting the documentary film ‘SOS – The San
Onofre Syndrome: Nuclear Power’s Legacy’ and by participating in a
discussion last week of the issues raised. NFLA Secretary Richard Outram
joined US filmmakers James Heddle, Mary Beth Brangan and Morgan Peterson
for the discussion on Wednesday 11 June. UK participants were invited to
watch the documentary film before the event and then contribute their
questions and comments. Attendees included academics and activists from
several of the established campaigns opposed to nuclear power in the UK,
and their knowledge and experience helped make the discussion more
engaging.
NFLA 19th June 2025 https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/its-good-to-talk-us-uk-anti-nuclear-alliance-forged-from-film-discussion/
NFLAs welcome new group opposed to nuke waste dump in South Copeland
Hot on the heels of the victory in Lincolnshire, the UK/Ireland Nuclear
Free Local Authorities have welcomed the formation of a new ‘Anti GDF
Community Group’ in opposition to a Geological Disposal Facility (GDF) on
land near Millom and Haverigg in West Cumbria.
The GDF would be the final
repository for Britain’s inventory of legacy and future high-level
radioactive waste. Nuclear Waste Services has declared its interest in land
surrounding His Majesty’s Prison Haverigg and Bank Head Estate West of
Haverigg as the potential location for a future surface site for this
facility. This site is designated the Area of Focus in the South Copeland
GDF Search Area.
Following a meeting held by Whicham Parish Council on
Wednesday, at which a resolution was carried unanimously calling on NWS to
withdraw this area from consideration, a statement was issued by the new
group. There is also now a new private Facebook group for impacted
residents to join and a group logo.
The ‘Anti GDF Community Group’ will
aim to support and seek support from both Whicham and Millom Council in
their respective rejections of the area of focus and try to ensure that NWS
and Cumberland Council abide by the NWS statement “that express consent
must be given by those living alongside a GDF” Presently the group is
formed by a small committee and is seeking members to support the group
objective of removal from the process of the Kirksanton/Haverigg site. The
group will aim to support those who have and are being severely impacted
now and seek to demonstrate the flawed process and the contempt our
communities have been shown within that process.
NFLA 9th June 2025, https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/nflas-welcome-new-group-opposed-to-nuke-waste-dump-in-south-copeland/
Cumbrians receive postal call to back nuke dump democracy petition
NFLA 9th June 2025, https://www.change.org/p/massive-mine-shafts-and-nuclear-dump-for-cumbria-coast-tell-cumberland-council-vote-now
Residents of Millom, Seascale and Gosforth have just received a flyer from campaign group Radiation Free Lakeland calling on them to back a petition which asks Cumberland Councillors to host a debate followed by a vote about their engagement with the siting process for a Geological Disposal Facility in West Cumbria.
The GDF would be the eventual repository for Britain’s high-level radioactive waste which would be placed in tunnels beneath the seabed. A site in East Lincolnshire was also under consideration as a possible site. With the withdrawal of Lincolnshire County Council from the process last week, only sites in Mid and South Copeland in West Cumbria remain in contention and then only because Cumberland Council remains engaged in the process.
Bizarrely Cumberland Council only became involved in the process by default. The new authority on replacing Copeland District Council chose to accept unquestionably that Council’s decision to participate in the GDF process, even though the decision to participate had been taken by only four Copeland Councillors. There has never been any debate or vote amongst Cumberland Councillors about whether they should have accepted this obligation or still wish to continue with the process.
The petition calls on Cumberland Council to convene a belated special meeting of the Full Council where Councillors can debate and then vote on whether to continue to remain engaged or remain represented on the Mid and South Copeland GDF Community Partnerships. If Councillors say no, then the process would end, and NWS would withdraw. The NFLAs is happy to support Radiation Free Lakeland in urging all Cumbrians to sign it.
Here are links to the petition:
www.change.org/CumbriaNuclearDump https://www.change.org/p/massive-mine-shafts-and-nuclear-dump-for-cumbria-coast-tell-cumberland-council-vote-now
Today is World Ocean Day – Protect the Lake District Coast and Irish Sea from an Unprecedented Atomic Experiment
On By mariannewildart,
https://mariannewildart.wordpress.com/2025/06/08/today-is-world-ocean-day-protect-the-lake-district-coast-and-irish-sea-from-an-unprecedented-atomic-experiment/
This World Ocean Day Do Something Amazing and Sign and Share the Petition to Protect The Lake District Coast from a Giant Atomic Heat Sink. There are 1,753 signatures – lets make it tens of thousands! This plan is going forward on the say so of just four councillors in Cumberland (the West of Cumbria, UK). The Petition is calling for a FULL debate and FULL vote by the whole Cumberland Council on whether to continue in partnership with the developer Nuclear Waste Services to deliver a “geological disposal facility” aka an up to 50km square, wholly experimental, sub-sea nuclear dump for HOT nuclear wastes. Note the developer NWS is a Government owned limited liability company.
Group protest against Sizewell C ahead of Spending Review
Campaigners gathered to further protest against Sizewell C just days
before the conclusion of the Spending Review. Supporters of Stop Sizewell C
and Together Against Sizewell C (TASC) met for an ‘Outrage’ rally at
Sizewell Beach on Saturday, June 7. The weekend rally also paid tribute to
former TASC chair and campaigner Pete Wilkinson who died in January of this
year. His daughters Emily and Amy spoke at the protest and tied yellow
ribbons onto the fence. The protest came ahead of the conclusion of the
Spending Review on Wednesday, June 11 where it is believed the government
will set out its plans for future investment in Sizewell C.
East Anglian Daily Times 8th June 2025,
https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/25222586.group-protest-sizewell-c-ahead-spending-review/
Protesters raise environmental fears as wait continues for Sizewell C funding announcement
ITV 8 June 2025
Hundreds of people voiced their concerns over the multi-billion pound Sizewell C nuclear power station on the Suffolk coastline ahead of an expected announcement from the Government.
The rally on Sizewell Beach on Saturday, organised by Stop Sizewell C and Together Against Sizewell C, included speeches from campaigners against the major project including Greenpeace members, and musical performances.
The peaceful protest ended with the 300-strong crowd walking to the Sizewell complex and tying ribbons with messages, emphasising people’s concerns, to the gates.
Plans for Sizewell C were given the go ahead by the then Chancellor in November 2022 but the funding is yet to be approved by the Government, although an announcement on the project is expected in Labour’s Spending Review on Wednesday 11 June.
Construction has already started for the nuclear site and surrounding infrastructure on the Suffolk coast which will sit next to the Sizewell B plant, and has already been given £250m in local funding……………….
many people fear the environmental impact of Sizewell C and believe it will destroy the area.
Jenny Kirtley, from Together Against Sizewell C, said: “You’ve only got to look around the area and see the devastation that’s happened. I’ve been fighting this for 12 years. We knew it would be bad, but we didn’t know it would be so devastating. A whole area is changing before our very eyes and it’s heartbreaking.
“There are a huge mountains of earth everywhere and of course the wildlife is suffering. The deers don’t know where to go. They’re rambling around everywhere. The birds are leaving their nests.
“It’s all very well saying it’s going to create thousands of jobs but who’s going to work in the supermarkets, the care homes, the restaurants? This is a small area.
“We’ve got 6,000 people living around here so where are people going to live? We know rents are going sky-high so it’s going to get worse. It’s going to be a real problem.”
Alison Downes, from Stop Sizewell C, also believed the project would be a waste of tax-payers money and said there were better options to provide renewable energy.
She said: “We’ve always had people behind us in the local area. I think a lot of new people have woken up and seen the destruction that’s been caused by the project. They are now feeling the same sense of outrage that we do.
“Sizewell C is too slow, risky and expensive to be the solution to our climate emergency. This is the wrong type of reactor. It’s in the wrong place on an eroding coastline so we are here to express our outrage about Sizewell C.”
The outrage rally, which was the third of it’s kind, was also a tribute to Pete Wilkinson – a former chairman of campaign group, Together Against Sizewell C, who died in January 2025
His daughters Emily and Amy Wilkinson were at the event and spoke about their father.
Emily Wilkinson, 29, said: “Dad was such a fantastic human being. He was a passionate and courageous man who spent his entire life fighting whatever he saw is wrong. That’s what drove him in life. He saw the beauty in the planet and fought for it every single time.”…………………………………………………………….. https://www.itv.com/news/anglia/2025-06-07/protesters-take-to-suffolk-beach-against-sizewell-c-plans
1 This Month.
5 January -Webinar-What is Trump’s Golden Dome?
REGISTER AT Massachusetts Peace Action Education
New book – https://www.amazon.com/dp/1923372157?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Now until to February 10, 2026 Radioactive waste storage in France: the debate is finally open! How to participate?
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