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African countries – easy targets for the global nuclear merchants – warning to South Africa

The truth about nuclear power in SA https://www.iol.co.za/sunday-tribune/news/the-truth-about-nuclear-power-in-sa-11245644 17 SEPTEMBER 2017, NABEELAH SHAIKH, nabeelah.shaikh@inl.co.za, DURBAN: Two international anti-nuclear activists visited Durban on Saturday to educate the community on the harmful effects of nuclear energy. They highlighted why South Africans must continue to oppose its proliferation in our country.

Russian activist Vladimir Slivyak and American activist Chris Williams claim African countries are “easy targets” for nuclear reactor companies who have wanted to sell the idea of nuclear energy, as more Western countries oppose it.

Slivyak, a member of the Russian environmental organisation Ecodefense, has been an environmental and energy activist since 1989. Williams, a long time sustainable energy policy activist, is currently the Vermont USA organiser for the Citizens Awareness Network.

These activists have already been to Joburg and Port Elizabeth where they visited rural communities near a proposed nuclear site to educate them about what nuclear energy was and what it would mean for them if it were introduced.

In Durban yesterday, Slivyak and Williams spoke at an event at St Paul’s Church. Recently Earthlife Africa Johannesburg and the Southern African Faith Communities’ Environment Institute challenged the government’s nuclear deals with Russia, the US and South Korea.

In April, judgment was delivered in the Cape Town High Court and these deals were set aside and declared unlawful and unconstitutional. In a press briefing yesterday morning Slivyak and Williams emphasised the need for South Africa to distance itself from nuclear energy and said renewable energy was the way of the future.

“South Africa has enough sun as well as wind. There are other alternatives like solar and wind energy which is now becoming the way of the future. When these international nuclear companies try to sell you the idea of nuclear energy, they don’t tell you that in the long run, it’s actually going to cost you a whole lot more than you expect,” said Williams.

He said the financial markets internationally were also moving away from nuclear energy to renewable energy because it was cost effective and the safer alternative.

In Germany, they’ve already taken a decision to close 23 nuclear reactor plants in the next five to six years. They’ve made a commitment to source all their power through sustainable energy and other countries should follow in this path. We are here to spread the word in terms of what’s happening on the international front and countries can make informed decisions based on this,” said Slivyak.

Earthlife Africa Durban, who hosted the anti-nuclear activists, said it was concerned that the South African government still planned to pursue the nuclear deal.

“It is at the heart of the state capture and the cabinet reshuffle. If it goes ahead the R1 trillion deal will bankrupt the country. It is a risky and dangerous source of power as witnessed by the many nuclear disasters, most notably Fukushima in Japan”.

“Earthlife Africa Durban and the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance supports a renewable energy future and an end to coal and nuclear power stations. We call on the people of South Africa to oppose the government’s shady nuclear deals and to support a safe, clean and green future with renewable energy,” said Earthlife Durban spokeswoman, Alice Thompson.

 

September 18, 2017 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, South Africa | Leave a comment

Activist posts billboard warning about Seabrook nuclear plant

 By Bryan McGonigle 

Comley and his non-profit group We The People have put a massive electronic sign up along Route 1 in Salisbury warning President Donald Trump that the region has no clear evacuation plan in the event of a nuclear catastrophe at the plant.

“CAUTION PRESIDENT TRUMP; SEABROOK NUCLEAR ZONE NO EVACUATION POSSIBLE; INVESTIGATE THE NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION,” the sign reads.

It also includes a quote from Albert Einstein: “To the Village Square We Must Take the Facts Of Atomic Energy, From There Must Come America’s Voice.”…….Comley ran for president as a Republican in the New Hampshire primary in 2016, garnering just 31 votes statewide, and he says he’s running for president again in 2020. http://ipswich.wickedlocal.com/news/201

September 16, 2017 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, USA | Leave a comment

A-bomb survivors stage sit-in

 https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20170910_02/   People in the Japanese city of Nagasaki have staged a sit-in to voice their opposition to the use of nuclear weapons. This comes amid growing concerns over North Korea’s military provocations.

The protest was held on Saturday as North Korea marked the 69th anniversary of the country’s founding.

Nagasaki suffered an atomic bombing toward the end of World War Two. The attack occurred on August 9th, 1945. A group of survivors and others hold an event to remember the bombing on the 9th of every month at the city’s Nagasaki Peace Park.

About 80 people, including survivors of the atomic bombing and high school students, took part in Saturday’s protest.

Koichi Kawano, who heads a group of survivors, says he wants to urge the Japanese government to do more to discourage Pyongyang from conducting nuclear tests.

Another participant, Sachiho Mizoguchi, is one of the high school students who ask people to sign a petition calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons. She said she took part in the sit-in to protest against the North’s nuclear tests.

Eiji Okumura, a survivor of the atomic bombing, says North Korea conducted a nuclear test after the United Nations took a step toward the creation of a nuclear-free world by adopting a treaty that banned nuclear weapons. Okamura said he cannot tolerate the North’s latest nuclear test, and he wants to express his anger through the sit-in.

September 11, 2017 Posted by | Japan, opposition to nuclear | Leave a comment

Urgent need to revive the anti-nuclear protest movement

No more nukes? Why anti-nuclear protests need an urgent revival Before the end of the cold war, nuclear apocalypse was a frightening possibility that overshadowed everyone’s lives. With tensions rising between the US and North Korea, we can learn valuable lessons from CND and Greenham Common Guardian, by Zoe Williams , 7 Sept 17,  “…….. For those of us who reached majority with the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989, the coming of age is indivisible from the relief of an existential threat lifted, so that worrying about nuclear annihilation is filed as part of childhood, a monster in the wardrobe. It was real, until suddenly it wasn’t.

A lacuna followed, a gap that remains. Where once we had a thriving peace movement – a muscular response to nuclear weapons, articulated by ordinary people with agency and resilience – suddenly, for the most part, the arguments went quiet.

British anti-nuclear campaigns came in two waves, says David Fairhall, author of Common Ground: The Story of Greenham. The first big Aldermaston march took place at Easter 1958, demonstrators walking between London and the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston, in Berkshire. These were calls for disarmament, “against a background of nuclear confrontation,” says Fairhall, “that had frightened people into thinking there might be a nuclear war next week”. This was quintessential cold war stuff, against the background of the establishment view that Russian ambitions to take western Europe as they had the east were real, and the US had to be kept onside at all costs. “Aldermaston was effectively a bomb-making factory,” says Fairhall. “That’s what people came out in duffel coats to protest against. Then that died down a bit.”

The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, CND, was born in this era, and was at the root of the campaigns in the 80s; in that sense, this is all one peace movement. ….

The government’s own public-information initiative, chilling in the recollection, was called Protect and Survive and imparted asinine advice from the early 60s until the 80s – for instance, remove your door from its hinges and lean it against a table in order to create a makeshift bomb shelter. This eventually spawned a playful citizenly response: Protest and Survive. But if the descriptions of nuclear war sometimes seemed lurid in a slightly gleeful way, they underpinned a real and trenchant moral case; that weapons capable of the indiscriminate massacre of hundreds of thousands of people were wrong in and of themselves, regardless of who was holding them and what their intentions were. This is the change that really shocks Mary Kaldor, professor of global governance at the London School of Economics; that you are now “not allowed to be a politician unless you can say you would use a nuclear weapon. There’s even a problem with Jeremy Corbyn saying he would be extremely cautious about pressing the button. Somehow, you have to be part of the lie to be part of the establishment.”……..

The movement had distinct political impact, nationally and internationally. First, Fairhall says, the Greenham women “dragged discussion of nuclear weapons out of the dark world of SS20s and CTBTs [comprehensive nuclear-test-ban treaties], all those acronyms and technical details, and forced people to discuss them in plain language. And that meant they had to be discussed in the House of Commons. There was a very important secondary issue of who would control these weapons: up until then, the Americans had just been landing wherever they fancied and putting up bomb sites ready to use in retaliation to a Soviet attack. We had no control, and that was a scandal.”……..

A seismic cultural shift started only tangentially with CND; in 1980, Kaldor, Thompson and Ken Coates launched the call for European Nuclear Disarmament……..

What worries Fairhall today is that while we used to worry about the arms race, it is now not a race so much as a pub brawl between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un – “an idiot and a lunatic” threatening one another with “fire and fury”, a reckless bravado never seen during the cold war, or since. Fairhall uses those terms not as insults, but almost as a technical military analysis. “Nuclear capability is relatively stable, so long as it’s a game of deterrence and diplomacy. They used to be a military insurance policy, or a status symbol. They have never before been in the hands of anyone who would actually use them – even with John F Kennedy, that was never the threat. So it does feel that we have drifted across a barrier.”

Fairhall says this with an understatement not typical of the peace movement, but it does underline the message: we need a revival more than ever. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/06/no-more-nukes-anti-nuclear-protests-cnd-greenham-common

September 9, 2017 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, UK | Leave a comment

Remembering Tony deBrum

He saw a nuclear blast at 9, then spent his life opposing nuclear war and climate change, WP,   August 24 As a 9-year-old on an island between Hawaii and Australia, Tony deBrum witnessed the explosion of the largest bomb ever detonated by the United States. The “Castle Bravo” nuclear weapon was 1,000 times as powerful as the one dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.

From his perch 280 miles from ground zero, Mr. deBrum saw the flash of light — silent and brighter than the sun — and watched the sky turn red as blood. The terrifying thunder from the test explosion stayed with him the rest of his life, which he devoted to representing the people of the Republic of the Marshall Islands at home and abroad.

Mr. deBrum, who helped gain his nation’s independence from the United States — and then helped sue the U.S. for allegedly breaching an international treaty on nuclear nonproliferation — died Aug. 22 in Majuro, the capital city of his Pacific island nation. He was 72…… https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/he-saw-a-nuclear-blast-at-9-then-spent-his-life-opposing-nuclear-war-and-climate-change/2017/08/24/5b6d10e6-882e-11e7-a94f-3139abce39f5_story.html?utm_term=.18c641eccfdb

August 26, 2017 Posted by | OCEANIA, opposition to nuclear, PERSONAL STORIES | Leave a comment

Aggressive approach of French police to anti nuclear protestors

Anti-Bure website 18th Aug 2017, In Bure on the 15 August 2017, around 800 people set off on a demo (numbers
like this had never been seen before for a non-declared demo in Bure). The
prefecture deliberately chose a strategy of aggression and asphyxiation
that led to a number of injured people.

The police deployed were twice the number deployed for the demo of the 18 February 2017, 15 riot cop vans and
a water cannon were counted. The route of the demo headed towards Saudron
and not the “laboratory”, chosen to avoid the fortified red zone and
all the blue team.

The objective was to arrive in a big field between the
village of Saudron the “Espace Technologique” (an Andra Building) to
highlight a very important Neolithic site discovered by archaeologists and
ignored by Andra  http://en.vmc.camp/2017/08/18/bure-prefecture-chose-strategy-agression-led-number-injured-people-lets-keep-supporting-struggle/

August 23, 2017 Posted by | civil liberties, France, opposition to nuclear | Leave a comment

Massive protest : thousands against French Nuclear Project in Jaitapur

In Pictures: Jaitapur says a Resounding ‘Nako’ (No!) to French Nuclear Project, http://www.dianuke.org/pictures-jaitapur-says-resounding-nako-no-french-nuclear-project/ 20 Aug 17, Thousands of men, women, and children from the farming, agro-trading, and fishing communities of Jaitapur in India’s picturesque Ratnagiri District in Maharashtra, today courted arrest en-masse, after a march from Sakhri Nate to Madban village – the site of the upcoming Jaitapur Nuclear Power Park (slated to be the world’s largest such nuclear power facility) – in the presence of heavily-armed state police personnel.

Today’s massive and entirely peaceful protest against the setting up of the Nuclear Power Plant in this ecologically-rich but fragile zone, is of a piece with several such protests and jail-bharo campaigns which have been organized by these local communities in previous years.

Speaking to DiaNuke.org, Satyajit Chavan, young leader of the local community’s protest group Jan Hakka Seva Samiti said – “it is shocking that the police used drones, hovering over the entire route of the demonstration and over our protest meeting, for the first time in our thoroughly peaceful protest that has been ongoing for years now. It is clearly a way for the state to project its power and intimidate people’s struggles. It is unfortunate that the right of collective and democratic movement enshrined in our constitution is being undermined so brazenly.” Satyajit also emphatically added that the protest in Jaitapur has been organised spontaneously by local people, and is not funded or co-ordinated by any political party. “The banner of Jan Hakka Seva Samiti under which people assembled and registered their protest today is totally non-political. However, the media that had come to cover the protests interviewed only some leaders of political parties who just came their to show solidarity. In the past the media has used such occasions to portray the entire protest being anchored by Shiv Sena and other political groups, which is completely far from the reality”, Satyajit Chavan said. He is also a key leader of the National Alliance of Anti-Nuclear Movements(NAAM), a country-wide network of grassroots anti-nuke movements in India.

A solidarity letter sent by activists from France was read out at the protest in Jaitapur today, which highlighted the common struggle against nuclear lobbies dangerous profiteering:

“Far and close friends of the international anti-nuclear family !

You are not alone ! From various countries we watch carefully what is happening in Jaitapur, India.

Here from France we are impressed by your courageous actions that we totally support.
Here from France we spread the news on what you do (in French and in English for other international networks).

Here too, the central government is acting against the will of its own people and violating their basic right for a sane life at home.

Here too, there are many people wishing and working actively for the final death of the devil Areva.

Here too, this devil Areva is surviving until today only because the central government, without the agreement of the people, is giving to it non-stop billions of Euros coming directly from the tax-payers pockets.

Like yourself, as world citizens, we reclaim respect and justice for people and Nature as a first condition for a livable and even better world.

With full and renewable solidarity!”

More details about the protest and objections by the local community can be read here.

August 21, 2017 Posted by | India, opposition to nuclear | Leave a comment

Bold legal tactics in Japan, against the nuclear industry

BNEF 18th Aug 2017, In the basement of a three-story house in a leafy neighborhood in Tokyo,
about 40 lawyers crowded together, plotting against Japan’s massive
nuclear power industry. The host was 73-year-old Hiroyuki Kawai, one of
Japan’s most colorful litigators. The end game? To close all of the
country’s 42 reactors for good, a result that would be a major blow to
the future of atomic energy across the world.

For the staunch anti-nuclear activist, the risk of a meltdown outweighs the benefits of the relatively
clean source of power. Kawai is propelling the anti-nuclear movement
forward with a 22 trillion yen ($171 billion) shareholder lawsuit against
the company, among the largest in damages ever sought.

He wants to pressure the government and businesses to distance themselves from atomic power, and
while his court cases have yielded mixed results, his bold tactics are
garnering attention around the world.   https://about.bnef.com/blog/how-a-harley-riding-ex-ally-of-villains-is-leading-a-nuke-revolt/

August 21, 2017 Posted by | Japan, Legal, opposition to nuclear | Leave a comment

Protestors against nuclear dumping injured in police attack in northeast France

French Police Attack Protest Against Nuclear Waste Site http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/French-Police-Attack-Protest-Against-Nuclear-Waste-Site-20170816-0012.html 16 August 2017 Protest organizers said 36 people were injured, with six gravely hurt.

Police in northeast France used water cannons and fired tear gas and stun grenades Tuesday against demonstrators protesting plans to store nuclear waste at an underground site.

The issue has been raging for years as the waste is the dangerous long-term by-product of France’s extensive nuclear energy program.

Around 300 protesters took part in the demonstration in Bure, a commune in the Meuse department, against plans to store highly radioactive waste 500 meters underground.

Protest organizers said 36 people were injured, with six gravely hurt in the clashes, while the local prefecture said at least three demonstrators had been injured, according to calls to emergency services.

The protest was one in a series to try to block the waste site. France’s Environment Minister Nicolas Hulot has said he needs more information before he gave his position on the project.

Earlier this month, the Nuclear Safety Authority said it had “reservations” about the project, known as Cigeo, citing uncertainty about the potential danger from highly inflammable material in the case of rising temperatures.

In July, the National Agency for the Management of Radioactive Waste said construction of the storage site would start in 2022 at the earliest.

August 19, 2017 Posted by | civil liberties, incidents, opposition to nuclear | Leave a comment

Pledge for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

ICAN Parliamentary Pledge    http://www.icanw.org/projects/pledge/   Parliamentarians played a major role in realizing the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Now we are seeking their help to promote the signature and ratification of the treaty by all nations. The Parliamentary Pledge is a commitment by parliamentarians around the world to work for their government to join the treaty.

Download the Pledge →

Pledge for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
We, the undersigned parliamentarians,warmly welcome the adoption of the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons on 7 July 2017 as a significant step towards the realization of a nuclear-weapon-free world.

We share the deep concern expressed in the preamble about the catastrophic humanitarian consequences that would result from any use of nuclear weapons and we recognize the consequent need to eliminate these inhumane and abhorrent weapons.

As parliamentarians, we pledge to work for the signature and ratification of this landmark treaty by our respective countries, as we consider the abolition of nuclear weapons to be a global public good of the highest order and an essential step to promote the security and well-being of all peoples.

August 18, 2017 Posted by | ACTION, opposition to nuclear | Leave a comment

USA’s nuclear power industry is not sustainable, and critics have known this for a long time

What Is the Future of US Nuclear Power Industry?  VOA 15, Aug 17  As America’s nuclear power industry continues to suffer major economic difficulties, some are questioning whether it can – or should – survive.

The latest setback came July 31, when state power companies in South Carolina halted construction of two reactors. After spending about $9 billion, the companies decided that increasing costs and repeated building delays did not make the project worth finishing…..

Industry groups had hoped the South Carolina reactors would mark a new beginning for U.S. nuclear power and show the benefits of the latest technology….o…nly two new nuclear reactors are currently being built in the United States – both of them in Georgia. The reactors were the first large nuclear plants to be started in the United States in more than 30 years. And the future of those reactors is uncertain.

The project – currently about half-finished – has also suffered major cost overruns and delays. For now, the company’s parent, Japan-based Toshiba, has promised to provide at least $3.7 billion to finish the project……

opponents say they’ve been hearing the same arguments in support of nuclear power for decades.

Paul Gunter is a longtime anti-nuclear activist. He co-founded the Clamshell Alliancein 1976. The group was formed to oppose the Seabrook Station nuclear plant in New Hampshire. He and hundreds of other protesters were arrested during non-violent demonstrations against the project. Gunter says his main opposition was that the licensing approval process was corrupt.

“For example, you couldn’t raise the issue of, what are you going to do with all the nuclear waste from Seabrook? And that question was not allowed in the licensing proceeding.”

Seabrook Station was eventually completed at a cost of about $7 billion and began operations in 1990. The Clamshell Alliance helped shape America’s anti-nuclear movement for many years to come.

Another defining moment came after the Three Mile Island plant accident in Pennsylvania in 1979 – the worst nuclear disaster in U.S. history. A series of mechanical and human mistakes sent one of the reactors into a partial meltdown, sending large amounts of radiation into the surrounding area.

Gunter says even before that accident, there were clear signs the nuclear industry would not be economically sustainable. Today, he says neither state utility providers nor large energy companies are willing to put up money for risky nuclear projects.

“So the only way that you can revive nuclear power is going to be through socializing its financing through the rate payer and the taxpayer. But at this point, we’re seeing the rate payer become the irate payer – when you waste billions and billions of dollars and decades on a predictable outcome.”…

August 16, 2017 Posted by | history, opposition to nuclear, USA | Leave a comment

Argentinia’s Catholic Bishops announce opposition to construction of nuclear power station

Catholic Culture 11th Aug 2017, The bishops of Patagonia, the southernmost region of Argentina, have
announced their opposition to the construction of a Beijing-financed
nuclear power plant at an unannounced location in Rio Negro Province. A
nuclear power plant “produces dangerous refuse which remains radioactive
for a long period of time and implicates a very high cost,” the bishops
stated.   http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=32338

August 14, 2017 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, Religion and ethics, SOUTH AMERICA | Leave a comment

Canadian protest against plan for radioactive waste dump close to Ottawa River


Daily Observer 7th Aug 2017, On Sunday
 afternoon, a flotilla of more than 30 watercraft – from kayaks
to flat bottomed tour boats – carrying 150 people assembled offshore of
Chalk River Laboratories to deliver a message to Canadian Nuclear
Laboratories: a resounding no to the proposed near surface disposal
facility.
 The facility is meant to dispose of up to one million cubic
metres of low level radioactive material at a site located about a
kilometre from the Ottawa River.
The flotilla, organized by the Old Fort William Cottagers’ Association, started up the Ottawa River from Fort
William and collected local residents, operating their own watercraft,
along the route before stopping at the mid-point of the river, across from
the CNL operated site. Once assembled, the protesters, many carrying
homemade signs, listened to some words of encouragement from the flotilla’s
organizers and a special guest, the leader of Quebec’s Green Party.
http://www.thedailyobserver.ca/2017/08/07/protest-takes-to-the-river

August 9, 2017 Posted by | Canada, opposition to nuclear | Leave a comment

On Hiroshima Day, Greenpeace Japan strengthens its support for the UN nuclear weapons ban

“I want you to feel the presence of not only the future generations, who will benefit from your negotiations to ban nuclear weapons, but to feel a cloud of witnesses from Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”

“We have no doubt that this treaty can – and will – change the world.” – Setsuko Thurlow, a Hiroshima atomic bomb victim

The elimination of nuclear weapons has been the cause that Greenpeace campaigned so passionately and heavily for since 1971.

72 years after Hiroshima, where is Japan’s commitment to end nuclear weapons? http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/nuclear-reaction/72-years-hiroshima-nagasaki-anniversary/blog/59983/  by Yuko Yoneda – 4 August, 2017  

Even with the passing of the UN’s Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty, Japan still remains an outlier, betraying the hopes of atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

It started with just 12 of them. With a bold mission, this group of activists set sail to Amchitka island off Alaska to protest the detonation of an underground US nuclear test. It was September 1971, and though the mission was initially unsuccessful, it was the beginning of what became Greenpeace, and just one of the many issues – the elimination of nuclear weapons – that the environmental organisation would campaign endlessly against.

Fast forward to 2017, and what was once a hard-fought battle and one of Greenpeace’s legacy issues, has now become a successful defeat. On 7 July, the United Nations adopted the “Nuclear Weapons Treaty” with an overwhelming majority – an epoch-making agreement that prohibits not only the development, experiment, manufacture, possession, and use of nuclear weapons, but also the “threat to use”. Nuclear and chemical weapons, and anti-personnel landmines and cluster bombs were also banned. The Treaty will be open for signature by states on September 20th.

To our disappointment, however, Japan did not join the 122 countries, or two-thirds of the United Nations member countries, that stood up to stop nuclear weapons. The peculiar absence of Japan, whose preamble explicitly recognizes “unacceptable suffering of and harm caused to the victims of the use of nuclear weapons (Hibakusha) as well as those affected by the testing of nuclear weapons” begs explanation.  

The Government of Japan expressed a concern that the Treaty that was negotiated only among non-nuclear weapon states could create “a more decisive divide” between the states with and without nuclear weapons. From a standpoint of realpolitik of the Cold War era, Japan is under an American nuclear umbrella, and as such, would violate a Treaty prohibiting the “threat to use” if it were to be a signatory. Therefore Japan sides with the nuclear weapons states (the US, Russia, China, France, UK, India, Pakistan, Israel, North Korea) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries that rely on the US nuclear umbrella.

The adoption of this historic Treaty by an overwhelming majority of the UN membership, nonetheless, represents a hard-won victory for people such as the Hibakusha (Japanese word for the surviving victims of the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki), victims of American nuclear tests and their descendents, and grassroots activists who worked tirelessly against the European nuclear deployment and uranium mining in Australia. The Treaty is a long lasting legacy of their testimonies, protests and actions of the past decades, and keeps a hope alive for realization of the nuclear free world.

Setsuko Thurlow, a Hiroshima atomic bomb victim who now lives in Canada, told delegates of the Treaty negotiations:

“I want you to feel the presence of not only the future generations, who will benefit from your negotiations to ban nuclear weapons, but to feel a cloud of witnesses from Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”

“We have no doubt that this treaty can – and will – change the world.”

On the 72nd anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, we stand in solidarity with the survivors and those across the world who have campaigned against nuclear weaponry and call for Japan to join the Treaty. The elimination of nuclear weapons has been the cause that Greenpeace campaigned so passionately and heavily for since 1971. As the only country in the world hit by a nuclear attack, Japan’s commitment to the Treaty would not only be a long-fought win for the country’s tainted history, but also an important step towards a future world that is ultimately safe and nuclear free.

Yuko Yoneda is the Executive Director at Greenpeace Japan.

 

August 5, 2017 Posted by | Japan, opposition to nuclear | 2 Comments

Unexpected release from gaol of 2 UK peace campaigners

 Morning Star 27th July 2017, TWO peace campaigners were released from prison in Scotland yesterday after
an unexpected U-turn by prosecutors who dropped bail demands that they stay
away from protests at nuclear bases.

Angie Zelter, 66, and Brian Quail, 79, both members of the nuclear disarmament campaign group Trident
Ploughshares, were arrested on July 13 during a protest outside the Royal
Naval Armaments Depot at Coulport, where Trident nuclear warheads are
stored.

The pair returned to the justice of peace court — the Scottish
equivalent of a magistrates’ court — in Dumbarton yesterday for an
intermediate hearing on the charges they face. In a surprise move, the
procurator fiscal (public prosecutor) withdrew the demand for the
undertaking to stay away from the two bases and they were given bail.

The pair headed straight to Faslane nuclear submarine base north-west of
Glasgow for another protest after their release. Jane Tallents of Trident
Ploughshares said: “Their principled action was to refuse to say they
would not protest. “The procurator just dropped the insistence on the
condition. http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-d0bc-Anti-nuclear-campaigners-out-of-prison-after-bail-restrictions-lifted

July 28, 2017 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, UK | Leave a comment