Too small for the monstrosity’: Anti-nuclear campaigners to take Sizewell C opposition to public meeting
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Too small for the monstrosity’: Anti-nuclear campaigners to take Sizewell C opposition to public meeting https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/nuclear-free-local-authorities-meeting-colchester-essex-october-2019-1-6341230
Anti-nuclear campaigners are to voice their “real concern” over the planned building of new nuclear power stations – including at Sizewell C – during a public meeting. EDF Energy has said that building new nuclear reactors across the country, including in Suffolk, is crucial to meeting the country’s future ends – with Sizewell B station director Paul Morton recently saying: “The lights won’t stay on without it.” But that has caused controversy in Suffolk for years, with opponents questioning its environmental benefits while raising fears that building a massive new nuclear power station could have on the area of outstanding natural beauty at Sizewell. The Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLA) English Forum is now holding a public meeting at the Firstsite Gallery in Colchester on Saturday, October 26 in association with groups such as Together Against Sizewell C (TASC). NFLA steering committee chairman David Blackburn said it would allow “councillors and the concerned public to understand the real concerns in building new nuclear reactors”. Pete Wilkinson, of Together Against Sizewell C, called the planned Suffolk location “an eroding coastal site, bequeathing future generations an inequitable and intolerable radioactive waste legacy”. He also said it was “a site too small for the monstrosity it is required to contain, hemmed in by precious areas of outstanding natural beauty in a remote, inaccessible and tranquil area”. He added that Sizewell C would be “an unnecessary behemoth” that “electricity bill payers are being asked to subsidise”. EDF Energy was approached for comment. |
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Kings Bay Plowshares 7 face criminal charges and long jail senetences
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Taking Next Steps Toward Nuclear Abolition. https://truthout.org/articles/taking-next-steps-toward-nuclear-abolition/, BY Kathy Kelly, Voices for Creative Nonviolence, October 21, 2019 My friend Marianne Goldscheider, who is 87, suffered a broken hip in July, 2018 and then, in June 2019, it happened again. When she broke her hip the first time, she was running, with her son, on a football field. After the second break, when she fell in her kitchen, she was in so much pain that she recalls her only desire as she was placed on a stretcher: “I just wanted ‘the right pill.’” Marianne says her Catholic friends, who live nearby in the New York Catholic Worker community, persuaded her not to give up. They’ve long admired her tenacity, and over the years many have learned from her history as a survivor of the Nazi regime who was forced to flee Germany. Recalling her entry to the United States, Marianne jokes she may have been one of the only displaced persons who arrived in the United States carrying her skis. Yet she also carried deep anxieties, the “angst,” she says, of her generation. She still wonders about German people in the military and the aristocracy who knew where Hitler was headed and, yet, didn’t try to stop him. “When and how,” she wonders, “do human beings get beyond all reasoning?”
Marianne is deeply disturbed by the extraordinary danger of maintaining nuclear weapons arsenals and believes such weapons threaten planetary survival. She worries that, similar to the 1930s, citizens of countries possessing nuclear weapons sleepwalk toward utter disaster. On April 4, 2018, several of Marianne’s close friends from the New York Catholic Worker community became part of the Kings Bay Plowshares 7 by entering the U.S. Navy Nuclear Submarine base in King’s Bay, GA and performing a traditional Plowshares action. Guided by lines from Scripture urging people to “beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks,” they prayed, reflected and then symbolically disarmed the Trident nuclear submarine site. The Kings Bay is home port to six nuclear armed Trident ballistic missile submarines with the combined explosive power of over 1825 Hiroshima bombs. One of the banners they hung read “The Ultimate Logic of Trident is Omnicide.” Referring to this sign, Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971, said the banner “is exactly right.” In an October 18 endorsement, he called their actions “necessary to avert a much greater evil.” In late September, the Catholic Bishops of Canada, alarmed over the increasing danger nuclear weapons pose, urged the Government of Canada to sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, adopted at the UN in 2017. The Canadian bishops issued their statement on September 26, the United Nations International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. In it, they note the Vatican has already signed and ratified the Treaty. “The ashes of World War I and the centenary of its armistice,” wrote Pope Francis, “should teach us that future acts of aggression are not deterred by the law of fear, but rather by the power of calm reason that encourages dialogue and mutual understanding as a means of resolving differences.” The seven defendants, in everyday life, practice nonviolence while serving people who are often the least cared for in our society. Like Marianne, I have known each defendant for close to four decades. They have risked their lives, safety and health in numerous actions of civil disobedience. When imprisoned, they write and speak of the cruel abuse of human beings and the racist, primitive nature of the United States prison-industrial complex. They’ve also chosen to visit or live in war zones, providing witness on behalf of people trapped under bombardment. They live simply, share resources and strive to help build a better world. Nevertheless, beginning Monday, they will face serious criminal charges and potentially harsh sentences for their action at Kings Bay. Marianne anxiously awaits their trial. “Why,” she asks, “isn’t there more coverage?” One of the defendants, Rev. Steve Kelly, SJ, a Jesuit priest, referred to himself in a recent letter as “a tenuous voice in the wilderness.” He further explained that he is among the wilderness of the incarcerated, “two and a quarter million folks comprising the human warehouses in the empire.” Steve has been imprisoned in the Glynn County jail since April 4, 2018. His letter continues:
Late in the afternoon of October 18, Judge Woods issued her long-awaited orders regarding testimony allowed in court. She will not allow testimony about the illegality of nuclear weapons, the necessity of civil disobedience, or individual motivations and personal faith. Fortunately, the many dozens of people filling the Brunswick, GA courtroom on October 21 will help communicate the essential evidence that won’t be shared within the court. In alternative settings, such as over meals, during a Festival of Hope, and as part of a Citizens Tribunal, they’ll discuss and eventually share reasons that motivated our friends to perform the Kings Bay Plowshares 7 action. A recent op-ed in The New York Times suggests the Kings Bay Plowshares 7 message is entering public discourse. The defendants have clarified that the U.S. nuclear weapon arsenal robs resources desperately needed for food, shelter, health care and education. The New York Times notes if we could reach a total nuclear weapons ban, we could save roughly $43 billion each year on weapons, delivery systems and upgrades. “That’s roughly the same amount we’ve allocated in federal hurricane aid for Puerto Rico.” Marianne laments the way in which nuclear weapons are revered as a modern idol deserving of great sacrifice. She is rightfully wary of social and cultural developments that consider such reverence normal. She and I commiserate about recovering from hip fractures, (I’ve been on the mend for the past month), but we both know that Steve Kelly’s invitation deserves our greatest attention. Tiny postcards are the only means of correspondence allowed to or from the Glynn County jail. On one of these, Steve wrote a message to a large gathering in New York celebrating the Kings Bay Plowshares 7 action. “I am encouraged by your presence,” he wrote, “to ask that this small effort of ours not be the last word in nuclear abolition.” |
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Facing a nasty pro nuclear campaign, Ohio’s anti nuclear group hope for a federal court decision to delay nuclear bailout
Anti-nuclear bailout group fails to make deadline for referendum https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/politics/elections/2019/10/21/anti-nuclear-bailout-effort-miss-deadline-submit-signatures/4052255002/ Jessie Balmert, Cincinnati Enquirer Oct. 21, 2019 COLUMBUS – Opponents of Ohio’s $1 billion bailout of two nuclear plants say they didn’t gather enough signatures to block the law by the Monday deadline.
Their only hope: a federal court decision that could give them more time to collect signatures.
Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts spokesman Gene Pierce wouldn’t say how many signatures the group collected, but it wasn’t enough to put the issue before voters in November 2020.
Ballot groups often collect more than the required number in anticipation of some being tossed out because of duplicates, illegible signatures and other problems.
That means House Bill 6 will take effect at midnight. The law imposes a new fee of 85 cents per month for residential customers on Ohioans’ electric bills starting in 2021.
Those fees are expected to raise about $150 million a year for FirstEnergy Solutions’ plants – money the company says it needs to keep the doors open. Another $20 million from those fees will pay for solar energy companies.
The runup to Monday’s deadline has been one of the nastiest campaigns in recent Ohio history. The nuclear plants’ owner, FirstEnergy Solutions, and its allies deployed a variety of tactics to block the referendum from making the ballot ranging from anti-Chinese advertisements to petition signature blockers.
“Nuclear bailout supporters of House Bill 6 have stooped to unprecedented and deceitful depths to stop Ohioans from exercising their constitutional rights to put a bailout question on the ballot for voters to decide,” Pierce said in a news release.
Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts had to submit at least 265,774 valid signatures from at least 44 of Ohio’s 88 counties to put the bill to a vote next year. The group failed to submit those signatures by Monday’s deadline.
The group has asked a federal court judge for more time to collect signatures because initial steps in the process, such as collecting 1,000 valid signatures and having ballot language approved as accurate, ate into its 90-day window.
A hearing on that request is set for Tuesday afternoon. U.S. District Court Judge Edmund Sargus will make a decision after hearing arguments from both sides.
On Monday, Ohioans for Energy Security submitted signatures to Rep. Jamie Callender, R-Concord Township, calling for a ban on foreign control of the state’s energy grid. Callender said he hopes to put that issue before voters.
“That’s kind of scary that someone who didn’t like America, who didn’t like our way of life could cause a lot of damage and a lot of havoc by randomly shutting down a plant that they had controlling interest in,” Callender said. “It could bring the grid down.”
The operators of Ohio’s electric grid say they are “vigilant” about the grid’s security. The federal government can block projects if foreign investment poses a national security risk.
For example, President Trump has halted two foreign acquisitions, citing national security concerns, since 2017: Lattice Semiconductor Corporation by a Chinese investment firm and telecom company Qualcomm by Singapore-based Broadcom.
Columbus bureau chief Jackie Borchardt contributed reporting.
Determined opposition to nuclear expansion in India’s iconic tiger reserve
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Karnataka activists may approach court to oppose Kaiga nuclear plant expansion
Earlier, a Tata Memorial Trust report had said the nuclear plant, was responsible for increasing cancer cases in the region. The News Minute, Soumya Chatterjee, Saturday, October 19, 2019 Environmental activists are determined to oppose the expansion of the Kaiga Atomic Power Station in the buffer zone of the Kali Tiger Reserve in Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka. Currently, the plant has four units. The Nuclear Power Corporation Ltd. has proposed a fifth and a sixth unit, the proposal for which has cleared all environmental regulatory hurdles from both the state and union governments recently. Activists argue that expanding the Kaiga plant will result in the loss of 54 hectares of pristine forests in the fragile Western Ghats near the Kali Tiger Reserve. They also question the practicality of setting up more nuclear power plant units or replacing it with other safer and cheaper power generating options like solar and wind energy. Incidentally, the Karnataka High Court also recently ordered an interim stay on further felling of trees by the National Highway Authority of India for the expansion of NH4A (Belagavi-Goa), after it learnt that the authorities had violated the Forest Protection Act. Encouraged by this, activists opposing the new units in the Kaiga plant are planning to approach the court, if other means of protest do not work. A threat to eco-sensitive area “When the whole world is shifting away from nuclear power and looking for eco-friendly sources like solar and water, why do we want to create problems like Fukushima (Japan) with already four dams created in the upper course of the Kali river? Why do we want to destruct forests further when climate change is already impacting us?” asks Joseph Hoover, a former member of State Wildlife Board and founder of United Conservation Movement. “It is not necessary as the state is power surplus and will primarily help other states. There is also the issue of increased cancer cases in the area because of the plant,” he added. A Tata Memorial Centre report in 2010 had said there was a spurt in cases of cancer over the past two decades in Kaiga. Experts insist that this is because of radioactive pollution caused by the nuclear power plant. Advocate Prince Isaac, who represented the United Conservation Movement, which was one of the petitioners in the NH4A case, said, “This area is classified as eco-sensitive area-1, according to a specific order from November 2013 under Section 5 of the Environmental Protection Act by the Union Ministry of Forest, Environment and Climate Change. By the same order, no developmental work (construction involving space more than 20,000 sq metres) can take place in this zone.” Pointing out that the government is breaking its own law, he added, “Other than this, for projects in sensitive areas, there is a legal mandate to carry a biological impact assessment as there are rare species that are endemic to the area. That has not been undertaken here.”…… https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/karnataka-activists-may-approach-court-oppose-kaiga-nuclear-plant-expansion-110831 |
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Anti nuclear activism revival in Washington
Fear of a new nuclear arms race revives hotbed of anti-nuclear action, President Trump’s plans for escalation kick off a new chapter in Washington’s long history with nuclear proliferation and resistance. CrossCut, by Kevin Knodell. October 18, 2019, As worries of nuclear war resurface and new concerns about the health impacts of America’s atomic arsenal emerge, Washington state’s long-lived but largely dormant anti-nuclear movement is again raising its voice.
On Sept. 29, Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility held a town hall on Washington’s history with nuclear weapons that brought together anti-war, environmental and Indigenous rights activists. Activists marched on the Federal Building in Seattle the following day to protest Trump’s nuclear policies.
“We’re a little more alarmed than in the past, so we’re working hard to affect Congress and also working to build a movement of people,” said Dr. Joe Berkson with Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility. “The issue is the new nuclear arms race. There’s an expansion, the current administration wants to expand into new nuclear weapons and redo the whole nuclear weapons arsenal for a large amount of money, and we are opposed to that.”
On Sept. 29, Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility held a town hall on Washington’s history with nuclear weapons that brought together anti-war, environmental and Indigenous rights activists. Activists marched on the Federal Building in Seattle the following day to protest Trump’s nuclear policies.
“We’re a little more alarmed than in the past, so we’re working hard to affect Congress and also working to build a movement of people,” said Dr. Joe Berkson with Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility. “The issue is the new nuclear arms race. There’s an expansion, the current administration wants to expand into new nuclear weapons and redo the whole nuclear weapons arsenal for a large amount of money, and we are opposed to that.”
Berkson and others hope to draw on that history to broaden the conversation about nuclear weapons from the abstract fears of nuclear war to the tangible impacts the weapons have had on communities and on the environment. Activists hope to give new life to anti-nuclear activism in Washington.
“We’ve focused a lot of times on the environmental issues but now we’re really looking to hit home with the health issues,” said Twa-le Abrahamson of the Spokane Tribe.
Spokane and Yakama people have dealt with the radioactive contamination from Hanford that has poisoned their lands and, activists say, caused health problems for tribal members living on their reservations.
Abrahamson noted Trump administration has made deep cuts to cleanup efforts at Hanford and moved to roll back regulations on nuclear waste handling.
“We get some impacts on the daily. And our water has been contaminated forever, so forever we’ll have transportation of that waste,” she said. “Nobody talks about that. They want to act like that’s a history, but we have that going through our communities.”
For years, anti-nuclear activists have continuously protested against the U.S. Navy’s ballistic missile submarines stationed at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, which some nuclear weapons watchdogs believe houses 1,300 nuclear warheads. Berkson claimed the base, located near Hood Canal, is home to about one-third of America’s nuclear arsenal and is the third-largest cache of nuclear weapons in the world.
But the actual numbers — and locations — of America’s nuclear weapons are hard to nail down.
“It is U.S. government policy that we can neither confirm nor deny the presence or absence of nuclear weapons at any general or specific location” said Sheila Murray, a spokesperson for Navy Region Northwest, noting that for safety and security the information is tightly guarded.
Activists argue that those weapons and other large military facilities make Western Washington an attractive target for strikes by rival nuclear powers. As Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un traded insults, some Seattleites worried that the city would be in Kim’s crosshairs.
New fears of nuclear conflict have spurred a wave of activism among younger Americans. Jeanelle Sales, a University of Washington student with the campus chapter of Beyond the Bomb, became active after a nuclear false alarm in her home state of Hawaii. The thought that her friends and family could have been caught in the blast terrified her. “It was a major wake up call for me,” she said.
Among the activists’ concerns is the Trump administration’s keen interest in tactical or “low yield” nuclear warheads that are easier to deploy and which produce smaller explosions. The fear among activists is that these weapons could make a nuclear strike much more likely……https://crosscut.com/2019/10/fear-new-nuclear-arms-race-revives-hotbed-anti-nuclear-action
Continued strong public opposition to nuclear power in India
Now, an in-principle approval given by the Indian government to initiate exploratory mining for more uranium across the two southern provinces of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana has locals up in arms.
The location also includes a nature reserve not only rich in flora and fauna, but also with a large tiger population. The technical go-ahead was given a few months back for Uranium Corporation of India Limited (UCIL) to begin exploration for uranium, but an earlier protest led to a temporary pause in the process.
Andhra Pradesh is the largest producer of uranium in India. Tummalapalle village, located in the Kadapa district of Andhra Pradesh, is considered to have one of the largest uranium reserves in the world.
Next to the mine there is a processing plant that converts the uranium ore into sodium diuranate for use in nuclear power plants. Over the years, local farmers and environmentalists have alleged that it had led to the contamination of soil and groundwater, in addition to the destruction of water bodies.
A rethink by the government to go ahead with the fresh exploration has once again raised the hackles of environmentalists in India, who argue that whatever the procedure used to extract uranium, the wholesale mining for uranium would produce large amounts of radioactive waste that would pollute a major river nearby (as well as the surrounding areas).
They claim even if the waste is treated before disposal, uranium mining can still lead to the contamination of water and soil, eventually harming the flora and fauna of the region.
Officials of the Atomic Minerals Directorate tried to take samples after drilling a bore well for exploration and research, but were prevented by villagers, according to the News Minute.
The villagers have also been joined by opposition parties in the protests.
India’s nuclear plants are controlled by Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL), a state-owned corporation. India currently has seven nuclear power plants, but there are plans to add more.
But toward that goal, the government faces an uphill task………. https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Nuclear-Power/The-Biggest-Hurdle-In-Indias-Nuclear-Energy-Push.html
A-bomb survivor Toshiki Fujimori urges nuclear haves and have-nots to join hands on abolition
Fujimori, 75, assistant secretary-general at the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations (Nihon Hidankyo), urged both sides to join forces to bring about a peaceful world.
Fujimori was exposed to radiation from the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, while his mother was carrying him on her back to a hospital. After the bombing, six of his 12 family members died, Fujimori said.
Three days after, the second U.S. atomic bomb devastated Nagasaki.
NEW YORK – Hibakusha Toshiki Fujimori called for nuclear states and non-nuclear states to cooperate on abolishing atomic weapons as a meeting on the subject was held at U.N. headquarters in New York on Thursday.
Fujimori, 75, assistant secretary-general at the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations (Nihon Hidankyo), urged both sides to join forces to bring about a peaceful world.
Fujimori was exposed to radiation from the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, while his mother was carrying him on her back to a hospital. After the bombing, six of his 12 family members died, Fujimori said.
Three days after, the second U.S. atomic bomb devastated Nagasaki.
In Australia, millions unite in 40 organisations to say NO to nuclear power
Broad coalition representing millions of Australians opposes nuclear power, https://www.sbs.com.au/news/broad-coalition-representing-millions-of-australians-opposes-nuclear-power 17 Sept 19, Some 40 groups have drawn up a statement calling on the federal government to embrace renewable energy rather than going down the path of nuclear.
More than 40 groups representing millions of Australians have come together to issue a clear message to the federal government that the nation’s energy future is renewable, “not radioactive”.
However, the mining industry is calling for the ban on nuclear energy to be lifted.
The coalition of groups has submitted a shared statement in response to the federal parliamentary inquiry into the prospects for nuclear power in Australia.
“The groups maintain nuclear power has no role in Australia’s energy future and is a dangerous distraction from real progress on our pressing energy and climate challenges and opportunities facing Australia,” the Australian Conversation Foundation said.
“[We call] for the federal parliament to embrace renewable energy as the cleanest, quickest, cheapest and most credible way to power Australian homes and workplaces, and re-power regional communities and the national economy.”
The ACF is joined by a broad coalition of faith, union, environmental, aboriginal and public health groups.
These include the ACTU, state and territory trade unions and councils, the Public Health Association of Australia, Uniting and Catholic church organisations, the Smart Energy Council, the Aboriginal-led Australian Nuclear Free Alliance, climate action groups and Greenpeace Australia Pacific.
Their statement raises concerns over the long-life of nuclear waste, the volume of water needed to cool a nuclear reactor, the time needed to build a reactor, the high cost of a plant, security and safety.
However, in its own submission, the Minerals Council of Australia called on the legislated ban on nuclear to be lifted and uranium mining to be mainstreamed with other minerals.
Council chief executive Tania Constable said nuclear energy should be considered as part of the energy mix if Australia is to retain its strong industrial sector with high-paying long-term jobs.
It will also encourage investment and maintain system and price stability through a stable and reliable electricity market while significantly cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
“Australia has lost its comparative advantage in energy,” Ms Constable said in a statement. “Rising prices and falling reliability are forcing businesses to invest overseas instead of Australia.”
Opposition in Suffolk to Sizewell nuclear plan, which hugely threatens wildlife
ITV 15th Sept 2019, RSPB hosts new festival in response to EDF’s plans to build nuclear reactor
at the edges of a nature reserve. A thousand people attended a festival
today organised by the RSPB in response to EDF’s plans to build a nuclear
reactor in Suffolk. Sizewell C will be built on the boundary of the
Minsmere Nature Reserve which is home to more than five and a half thousand
species of wildlife.
The RSPB manages the site and opposes the energy
giants plans. They say building the reactor so close to the nature reserve
could threaten the thousands of different species of wildlife that call
Minsmere home. EDF say that the environmental impact of the new site would
be kept to a minimum, and argue that new jobs for local people will be
provided.
Among the visitors supporting the festival today (Sunday,
September 15) was television presenter, Bill Turnbull, who lives nearby. He
said: There’s no infrastructure or communications for it here. What is
here, is Minsmere – where the RSPB have been trying really hard to get all
these birds to come back. And we are going to risk it all just simply
because it’s a convenient place to build a power station.” The public
consultation into EDF’s proposal for Sizewell C will end on September 27.
Strong drumbeat of opposition to Yucca Mountain nuclear dump continues
Meet the religious peace activists – ready for 25 years in gaol!
Defying the Nuclear Sword, National policy, especially for the world’s dominant superpower, is based on the threat of unrelenting force. Common Dreams , by Robert C. Koehler 6 Sept 19,
These lost words — Isaiah 2:4 — are nearly 3,000 years old. Did they ever have political traction? To believe them today, and act on them, is to wind up facing 25 years in prison. This is how far we haven’t come over the course of what is called “civilization.”
Meet the Kings Bay Plowshares 7: Liz McAlister, Steve Kelly, Martha Hennessy, Patrick O’Neill, Clare Grady, Carmen Trotta and Mark Colville. These seven men and women, Catholic peace activists ranging in age from their mid-50s to late 70s, cut open the future, you might say, with a pair of bolt cutters a year and a half ago—actually they cut open a wire fence—and, oh my God, entered the Kings Bay Naval Base, in St. Mary’s, Ga., without permission.
The Kings Bay Naval base, Atlantic home port of the country’s Trident nuclear missile-carrying submarines, is the largest nuclear submarine base in the world.
The seven committed their act of symbolic disarmament on April 4, 2018, the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King. Here’s what they did, according to the Plowshares 7 website: “Carrying hammers and baby bottles of their own blood,” they went to three sites on the base—the administration building, a monument to the D5 Trident nuclear missile and the nuclear weapons storage bunkers—cordoned off the bunkers with crime scene tape, poured their blood on the ground and hung banners, one of which contained an MLK quote: “The ultimate logic of racism is genocide.” Another banner read: “The ultimate logic of Trident is omnicide.”
They also spray-painted some slogans (such as “May love disarm us all”), left behind a copy of Daniel Ellsberg’s book, The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner, and, oh yeah, issued an indictment of the U.S. military for violating the 1968 U.N. Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, signed by 190 countries (including the United States).
Article VI of the treaty reads: “Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”
Then they waited to be arrested.
The plowshares movement has been taking actions like this since 1980. The Kings Bay action was approximately the hundredth.
Three of the seven have been in prison ever since, and the other four, who were able to make bail, have had to wear ankle bracelets, limiting and monitoring their movement. In early August—indeed, between the anniversaries of the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—the seven testified at a U.S. District Court hearing in Brunswick, Ga. The charges were not dismissed and their trial date is set for Oct. 21. …… https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/09/05/defying-nuclear-sword
County Council rejects plans for transport of Hinkley Point A nuclear wastes through Somerset
Hinkley Point A nuclear waste transport plans refused, BBC, 5 September 2019 Plans to transport nuclear waste through Somerset and store it at Hinkley Point A, have been rejected by the county council.
Magnox, which manages the decommissioned site, applied for permission to bring waste from three UK power stations to the site by road.
But Somerset County Council voted unanimously to refuse the plans.
Magnox said it was disappointed the council had not agreed with the recommendation for approval.
Under current planning conditions, only waste generated on the Hinkley A site – which is currently under construction- can be stored there.
The company had applied to change the rules so it could transport and temporarily store waste from Oldbury in Gloucestershire, Dungeness A in Kent and Sizewell A in Suffolk.
It had wanted to make a total of 46 deliveries of “intermediate waste”, such as used nuclear fuel containers, by road through Bridgwater.
Despite being recommended for approval, the council’s regulation committee voted unanimously to oppose the application.
‘No benefit’
Councillor Simon Coles said approving the plans would send a message that more of the Hinkley A storage facility could become home to waste from other parts of the UK.
Brian Smedley, of Bridgwater Town Council, said the plans would have “no economic, social or environmental benefit” to the town……. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-somerset-49597817
Petition drive launched to reverse aid to Ohio’s nuclear plants
https://www.ohioansagainstnukebailouts.com/petition Ohioans Against Corporate BailoutsIf the state question gets approved, it would overturn House Bill 6, which provided subsidies to keep Ohio’s two nuclear power plants open.
The petition drive must collect 265,744 valid signatures by Oct. 21 to put the issue on next year’s ballot, the group said.
Attorney General Dave Yost cleared the way for the petition drive Thursday when he announced he has approved summary language for the proposed referendum.
Yost had rejected a previous summary as inaccurate but gave a thumb’s up after a revised summary was submitted.
“Without passing on the advisability of the approval or rejection of the measure … I hereby certify that the summary is a fair and truthful statement of the measure to be referred,” Yost said.
Yost’s office said the petitioners working for Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts must collect signatures from registered voters in each of 44 of Ohio’s 88 counties, equal to 3 percent of the total vote cast in the county for the governor’s race in the last election.
The signatures also must equal 6 percent of the total votes cast for governor.
Meanwhile, a group called Ohioans for Energy Security has launched a website and run TV ads claiming the new petition drive is a plot to put Ohio’s energy grid “in the hands of the Chinese government.”
The website warns Ohio voters not to sign the petition and “give your personal information to the Chinese government.”
To back its claims, Ohioans for Energy Security cites investments in Ohio clean energy projects by Chinese banks.
A spokesman for Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts, Gene Pierce, said the claims are ridiculous, calling them “a new low in Ohio politics.”
“These ads are designed to intimidate and threaten our petitioners who are exercising their Constitutionally-guaranteed right to place this ridiculous bailout on the ballot,” Pierce said. “This is the kind of garbage that will get someone hurt and we will hold all parties associated with their campaign responsible for any harm that comes to our circulators.”
Olympic Games designed to downplay the nuclear crisis in Fukushima
In reality, these Games are about forgetting the nuclear accident itself and with it “the victims of the nuclear accident”
Refugees are currently to be forced by financial pressure to return to areas that have been evacuated after the 2011 triple disaster, despite still significantly increased levels of radiation, as retired nuclear physicist Hiroaki Koide is pointing out. According to him, the fact that even children or pregnant women have to live with a twenty-fold increased limit for annual radiation exposure (from 1 millisievert per year before and up to 20 mSv after the incident), “is something that cannot be accepted at all”.
The Olympics are being organised “so that people in Japan forget the responsibility of the state for the nuclear accident,”
“What’s really dangerous, is that “the athletes will tell the world that Fukushima is safe”
‘Bad for Fukushima, bad for democracy’, Play the Game, By Andreas Singler, 7 Aug 19
July 24 – one year to go until the opening of the Summer Olympics in Tokyo – may have been a day of joyful anticipation for many who embrace the Olympic Movement. But not all people anticipate this event as cheerfully as the organisers in Japan, a large part of the media and the Government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe would appreciate. There was and still is much opposition against the hosting of the Olympic and Paralympic Games 2020 in Tokyo. Opponents call it both “bad for democracy” and “bad for Fukushima” – the area hit by a nuclear power plant disaster on 11 March 2011 and a devastating earthquake and tsunami.
For those critics, July 24 was a reason to take to the streets against Tokyo 2020. They had announced a rally for this memorable day followed by a demonstration in Shinjuku, one of the most crowded hubs in Tokyo. A leaflet even suggested that the Olympics could be “given back even a year before”. The protest in Tokyo was part of a so-far unique international gathering of ‘NOlympics’ activists from several countries. For eight days, opponents from Tokyo, Pyeongchang, Rio de Janeiro, Paris and Los Angeles discussed the dark sides of the Olympics with critical scholars and alternative media. A press conference was held at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan.
The motto ‘the Reconstruction Games’, that the organisers and the Government chose after the 2011 East Japan triple disaster, sounds like sheer mockery, opponents say. Organisers as well as the International Olympic Committee (IOC), including President Thomas Bach, often talk about reconstruction, but hardly ever mention the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster as one of the main reason for the need of such rebuilding. Continue reading
Catholic peace activists may face 25 years’prison, for breaking into a nuclear submarine base
These Catholics broke into a nuclear base. Now they’re asking a judge to drop the charges. Religion News Service, by Yonat Shimron, August 7, 2019 — Seven Catholic peace activists who broke into a nuclear submarine base in Kings Bay, Ga., last year stood before a federal judge Wednesday (Aug. 7) to argue that the charges against them should be dismissed.
The activists, known as the Kings Bay Plowshares 7, are charged with three felonies and a misdemeanor and face up to 25 years in prison each for trespassing on the U.S. Navy base that houses six Trident submarines carrying hundreds of nuclear weapons.
A crowd of about 100 people that included the actor Martin Sheen packed the three-hour hearing in Brunswick, Ga., as the seven and their lawyers made their case before U.S. District Judge Lisa Godbey Wood.
The defendants, mostly middle-aged or elderly, are residents of Catholic Worker houses, a collection of 200 independent houses across the country that feed and house the poor. As the hearing began, several were in the middle of a four-day liquid-only fast to mark the 74th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
The Kings Bay 7 are part of a 39-year-old anti-nuclear movement called Plowshares, inspired by the pacific prediction of the biblical prophet Isaiah that the nations of the world shall “beat their swords into plowshares.” Its activists have made a signature of breaking into nuclear weapons bases to hammer on buildings and military hardware and pour human blood on them. …….
The group individually and through its lawyers are using a novel defense: the Religion Freedom Restoration Act, a 1993 federal law that says the government may not burden the faith practices of a person with sincerely held religious beliefs……
Three of the defendants, the Rev. Steve Kelly, Elizabeth McAlister and Mark Colville, have been in jail since the break-in last year. They declined to accept the conditions of the bail — an ankle monitor and $50,000 bail — and have remained in the Glynn County Detention Center.
Ira Lupu, professor emeritus of law at the George Washington University Law School, said he had great respect and admiration for the Plowshares’ actions but suspected they would not win a dismissal of their charges……
The judge is expected to issue an opinion in a few weeks on whether the case should proceed to a trial. https://religionnews.com/2019/08/07/these-catholics-broke-into-a-nuclear-base-now-theyre-asking-a-judge-to-drop-the-charges/
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