CND will gather at Lakenheath airbase in Suffolk on Saturday, 20 May 2023 for a national demonstration against the return of US nuclear weapons to Britain. We will be joined by hundreds of supporters from across the country as well as national and international peace campaigners opposed to the deployment by the US, of new B61-12 guided nuclear bombs across Europe. These weapons can be targeted with GPS and satellite and used as attack weapons. At a time of heightened tensions between NATO and Russia over the war in Ukraine, CND condemns this dangerous development which is leading to a new nuclear arms race and ensures Britain’s place on the frontline of a nuclear war between the US and Russia.
Saturday, 20 May 2023
RAF / USAF Lakenheath Main Gate, Brandon Road, Lakenheath, Suffolk
The demonstration will have workshops, ‘artivism’, performances and speeches. Speakers confirmed include: Dutch peace campaigner Guido van Leemput; German peace campaigner Reiner Braun; CND Chair Tom Unterrainer; Stop the War Coalition convenor Lindsey German; Liberation’s Roger Mackenzie; playwright Michael Mears*; Norwich City Councillor Gary Champion; and Dr Peter Burt* of Drone Wars UK. Chaired by CND General Secretary Kate Hudson.
CND General Secretary Kate Hudson said:
“The siting of these upgraded guided nuclear bombs at Lakenheath is not just a matter of concern for the people of East Anglia, but for the entire country as it makes Britain a clear target in any nuclear confrontation between Russia and the US. The aircraft used to deliver these bombs, the F-35, is also a significant polluter to the local area with one tank of fuel emitting the equivalent of 28 metric tons of carbon dioxide. The F-35 programme has also been plagued with technical problems which remain unsolved and pose a serious accident risk. We’re calling on the British government to deny any US request to site B61-12s at Lakenheath and to engage in serious efforts to deescalate tensions between nuclear-armed states.”
The Anti-Volkel Campaign’s Guido van Leemput said:
“A new nuclear arms race is coming. Russia wants to station nuclear weapons in Belarus and the US is going to deploy its upgraded B61-12 guided nuclear bomb across Europe, at Volkel Air Base in the Netherlands and possibly at Lakenheath. It’s necessary to speak out loudly about the modernisation of nuclear weapons as part of a European-wide voice for peace. That’s why I’ll be at Lakenheath on 20 May.”
*Playwright Michael Meers will present a performance piece themed around the Doomsday Clock – which currently stands at 90 seconds to midnight and the closest it has ever been to a nuclear or climate disaster. Dr Peter Burt will facilitate a military plane spotting workshop.
In May, the heads of the G7 states will meet in Hiroshima for their annual summit. Given the location, all eyes will be on these seven leaders – who represent states that either have, host or rely on nuclear weapons- to see if they can commit to real action to eliminate the weapons that once flattened Hiroshima, or whether it will all be empty rhetoric. So in the coming month we’ll be ramping up the pressure on them to do the right thing!
The signs aren’t looking great so far. Earlier this week, the G7 foreign ministers met in Japan, and their statement neglected to acknowledge how their own nuclear weapons policies including foreign stationing, modernising their arsenals and the implicit threat to use these weapons in their nuclear doctrines undermine global security. They also failed to present any new or concrete ideas for moving towards the elimination of nuclear weapons.
In May, the G7 leaders will have to do better. Reports indicate the leaders have committed to meet with atomic bomb survivors, hibakusha, during their visit. The call of the hibakusha is loud and clear – we need to prohibit and eliminate nuclear weapons. The UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) is the clearest path to doing so.
That is why we’re spending this month making these leaders feel the pressure:
That is why we’re spending this month making these leaders feel the pressure:
• Last week, ICAN coordinated with hundreds of civil society organisations around the world to present a set of joint demands to the G7 from the official civil society engagement group, the C7.
• Next week, on 25-27 April, the G7 Hiroshima Youth Summit will bring together over 50 participants to meet with survivors, visit Hiroshima, connect with others in advance of the G7 summit and announce the recommendations they’ve developed together for G7 leaders.
Immediately afterwards, the G7 Parliamentarian Forum for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons – held in Tokyo and Hiroshima on April 28th to 30th – will bring together elected officials from all 7 states to discuss and recognise the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons, condemn threats to use them, and discuss ways to eliminate them altogether through the TPNW.
We hope these events will inspire and empower the participants to go back to their countries and demand action from their governments, so that the leaders feel the pressure even before they arrive. And in the coming weeks, we will keep you posted on ways you can get involved, particularly if you are also in a G7 state.
And of course, we will be sharing a lot of our activities on social media next week, so make sure you are following us (we’re on Twitter,Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok and LinkedIn) and tune in to the livestream from the Youth Summit’s public event on April 26th here.
Watch online OR attend at the Ottawa Quaker Meetinghouse, 91-A Fourth Ave. Ottawa
As the nuclear industry declines worldwide due to an aging inventory, high costs, and increased security risks, the industry is now pegging its hopes on “small modular nuclear reactors” (SMRs) to save the day.
Since they are lower carbon emitting than fossil fuels, the Canadian gov’t, as well as AB, SK, ON and NB provincial gov’ts, are all promising to spend billions on new nuclear to meet their climate commitments.
Why should Canadians be concerned about this new direction in energy policy? How do these new reactors compare with renewables on cost, reliability, danger, and security? Are there connections to nuclear weapons? Are there health concerns? And what are the impacts on First Nations?
Hear leading Canadian anti-nuclear voices:
– Dr. Gordon Edwards, Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility
– Dr. Dale Dewar, author of ‘From Hiroshima to Fukushima to You – a primer on radiation and health’
– Candyce Paul, English River First Nation
– Angela Bischoff, Ontario Clean Air Alliance
All welcome. Free. ** This will be a hybrid event – both online and in person at the Ottawa Quaker Meetinghouse, hosted by the Peace and Social Concerns Committee of Ottawa Quakers. When you register, you will be prompted to state whether you’ll join virtually or in person. https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/is-new-nuclear-a-smart-climate-solution-tickets-605041444247
Week One – Wednesday February 9th, 7 pm EST REGISTER
An overview and update on the Nuclear Waste Management Organization’s efforts to site a deep geological repository for all of Canada’s high level nuclear fuel waste.
In addition to hearing from grassroots groups in each of the regions under investigation, the webinar will provide an update on the NWMO program and activities, including their conceptual plans for transportation, nuclear fuel waste transfers, and the deep geological repository itself.
Speakers: Brennain Lloyd, Northwatch, NWMO’s programs and conceptual plans, Wendy O’Connor, We the Nuclear Free North, NWMO investigations in Northwestern Ontario, Bill Noll, Protect Our Waterways – No Nuclear Waste, NWMO investigations in Southwestern Ontario.
Join us for this eleventh annual webinar series about nuclear waste in Canada.
Each year, this series explores important topics about nuclear waste in Canada with a focus on the generation, transportation and proposed burial of highly radioactive nuclear fuel waste.
In an attempt to awaken fellow citizens, a group called Citizens for Universal Abolition of Nuclear Weapons is holding a march and rally on Sept. 24, meeting at Cal Anderson Park in Seattle at noon and marching to the Henry M. Jackson Federal Building (abolishnuclearweapons.org).
Our members of Congress as well as our president will not act to rid the world of these immoral weapons if we don’t make our voices loud and clear and demand such action.
Antiwar Groups Protest Defense Industry Profiteering in Ukraine, Tyler Walicek, Truthout, 3 May 22,
”……………………………………………….. In the meantime, large-scale real-world protests against the war have erupted on numerous fronts — both within Russia and Ukraine and across the globe. Progressive, pacifist and anti-imperialist groups in the U.S. are no exception, having mobilized their considerable institutional resources to voice their own opposition. Given the unlikelihood of influencing the actions of the Russian government, they’ve targeted the realm in which they are mostly likely to have an impact — namely, U.S. policy. Because of its deep entanglements in the war, the U.S. response could easily be a critical determining factor on the outcome: either negotiation, drawdown and eventual peace, or escalation and sustained bloodshed.
Though the U.S. antiwar movement has never reattained the scale of its Vietnam-era heyday, plenty of groups with antiwar missions are active in the modern day. Many date to the resistance against the U.S.’s imperial expeditions in Afghanistan and Iraq in the early 2000s — for example, CODEPINK, the sizeable progressive and feminist antiwar organization, was founded in 2002. The group has been one of the more visible in mounting a response to the Ukraine issue, voicing dissent with the provision of weapons and directing public attention to the geopolitical context of NATO’s aggressive posture in the preceding years.
Truthout reached CODEPINK cofounder and activist Medea Benjamin, a Green Party member and former California Senate candidate, to learn more about the group’s agitational efforts and how antiwar elements in the U.S. might conceivably affect policy. As Benjamin sees it, the effort begins with education and informing the public: counteracting a media apparatus that insistently seeks to justify opening the floodgates of advanced weaponry — sometimes very directly.
“[The idea that weapons and sanctions are necessary] is being pushed by people in the White House and most members of Congress. It’s certainly being pushed by the corporate media,” Benjamin said. (Take The New York Times, for instance, which conceded sanctions may be “harsh,” but deemed they were ultimately “appropriate.” We are left to wonder why the Times didn’t insist the U.S. be so “harshly” sanctioned in the wake of the invasion of Iraq.)
Benjamin underscored the structural incentives: “The weapons companies [are] concerned about the drawing down of U.S. wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq. [The state] sees this as an opportunity to really debilitate Russia.… The ability to bleed the Russian economy and to curtail its reach also means that the U.S. is strengthening its position globally.”
CODEPINK and its allies, galvanized by the war, have busied themselves in a flurry of activity. CODEPINK had in fact already rallied a number of times in protest of rising tensions, before the crisis’s late-February outbreak. Immediately after Russian troops made their first incursion into Ukraine, the organization, along with U.K.-based groups like the Stop the War Coalition, the No to NATO Network and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, held an emergency online panel and rally, bringing together figures like Jeremy Corbyn and historian and writer Vijay Prashad to denounce the war (Corbyn called it “abominable, appalling and unnecessary”), and to call for peace.
CODEPINK’s series of webinars drew thousands — including, as Benjamin described, “representatives from members of parliaments from many governments, including the British, Irish, German, French and Spanish, [and] well-known academics and activists.” In April, Benjamin also hosted another “Stop the War in Ukraine” online rally featuring Noam Chomsky, another appearance from Vijay Prashad, Greek leftist politician Yanis Varoufakis, New Left Review editor Tariq Ali, and other notable voices.
These online events occurred in tandem with real-world rallies — “days of action,” which, Benjamin said, brought together “about 125 different groups around the world.” CODEPINK has long worked beside organizations like the ANSWER Coalition (another large antiwar group in the United States, which has also hosted online conversations). Together with the Black Alliance for Peace, Peace Action, and others, the coalition put together a rally in Washington, D.C.’s Lafayette Square as tensions rose. Further CODEPINK protests took place across various U.S. locales, where volunteers demonstrated, put up flyers and gathered signatures on petitions.
As Benjamin framed it, the core message in conducting this public outreach amounted to posing the questions, “Do you want the war in Ukraine to end? Do you want to save the lives of Ukrainian people? Well, then let’s call for a ceasefire and for serious negotiations.” She feels that this approach is a convincing one: “Once we have a chance to talk to people about it, we do get them to our side.”
Benjamin and CODEPINK plan to sustain their current rates of activity. In June, the group is joining the Mass Poor People’s Assembly and Moral March on Washington, D.C. — an effort spearheaded by the Poor People’s Campaign to speak out against militarism and the bloated defense budget, among other systemic issues. Benjamin also highlighted future plans to send activists to protest an upcoming NATO strategic summit in Madrid, along with an international antiwar coalition of considerable size. Their hope is to apply pressure at a critical time: “With the upcoming election in November, I think that we can be part of talking about why this is happening, not allowing Biden to get away with blaming everything on Russia, but instead putting the blame on militarism and the inability to really seriously push for a negotiated solution,” Benjamin told Truthout.
Resolute Nonviolence
Joining CODEPINK at the Madrid NATO summit and elsewhere will be World Beyond War (WBW), a U.S.-based pacifist organization that maintains international chapters, including in Ukraine. David Swanson is WBW’s executive director. In a conversation with Truthout, he described the group’s assiduous organizing efforts. Like CODEPINK, WBW’s current strategy is to inform the public, presenting pacifist arguments for abolishing war, nuclear weaponry and arms dealing. WBW’s output has included innumerable articles, books, interviews, op-eds, videos, podcasts, and other media. In addition, said Swanson, “We’ve done tons of webinars, online and offline educational events. We have lots of speakers, we go and talk to classrooms, go and talk to peace groups that organize events and do tons of the same online.”
To augment the media push, WBW has also directed substantial real-world actions. “The past week, we’ve been doing protests all over the world,” said Swanson. The immediate future will see WBW participate in widespread protests on a global day of action, planned for May 7.“We’ve done these days before, usually in coalition with other groups, sometimes globally, sometimes nationally, trying to do days of events where we have at least small and sometimes large demonstrations or rallies or protests everywhere.”
WBW is also engaging in some more pointed confrontations. In one instance, a WBW advisory board member disrupted an event in Canada by confronting the deputy prime minister with an antiwar, anti-NATO diatribe. Another arm of WBW’s strategy, ongoing for years, is to protest at the physical offices of weapons manufacturers — major beneficiaries of wars that are incentivized to ensure they remain as drawn-out and destructive as possible. WBW will be demonstrating at the next annual meeting of aviation and defense corporation Northrop Grumman. Members aim to draw attention to the key role that the corporation and other arms manufacturers like Lockheed Martin play in “the war on Ukraine from which [they are] proudly profiting,” Swanson said. “There are Congress members proudly profiting from stock ownership in Lockheed Martin.”
Swanson sees the attention that the war on Ukraine has received as an opportunity to buttress opposition to militarism in general — and to flag certain contradictory narratives from U.S. empire and its mouthpieces. “After decades of demanding that war victims be treated with some sympathy and respect,” he said, “to have that finally happen in one place is an opportunity to say ‘Yes! Right on! What about all the other war victims?’ To have the U.S. government want war treated as a crime and prosecuted in a court — wonderful! Now how about all the other wars?”
That sort of hypocrisy around foreign policy is one of the state’s (and dominant media’s) most reliable features. Again, the tragedy of Ukraine has been especially amplified because it serves a convenient ideological function in contesting Russia’s geopolitical position. (And, as many have pointed, or blurted, out: Sympathy towards this conflict has also had particular purchase because Ukraine is considered a “civilized” European country with a large white population. A number of media figures have told on themselves on this front.)
Key to WBW’s ideology is an unswerving commitment to pacifism. As Swanson described it, “We are opposed to all war, all militarism, all war thinking, all support for military funding, always, without exception.… We think that’s actually the moral thing to do.” Nonviolence, for WBW, is non-negotiable — as evidenced by a recent article of his, which criticized the Poor People’s Campaign for an email that seemed to condone arming Ukraine. As Swanson continued: “To drag this on, to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian as we have their backs with the money rolling in — I don’t think this is a moral position. This is the point we struggle to educate people on: that the United States and Ukraine, as well as Russia, should be trying to end the war. It’s almost considered treasonous. The ‘proper’ position is to want to continue the war to weaken Russia.”
People Can Still Stop Wars
Countless organizers are just as aghast as Swanson at the grotesqueries of this war as well at its ideological utility for other powerful warmongering interests, their rank hypocrisy on display. Despite its distance from the conflict and a lack of leverage over Russia’s actions, the U.S. antiwar movement does, conceivably, have the potential to impact its own government. A U.S. pivot to pursuing a diplomatic resolution might help avoid a prolonged and grueling war of attrition. Yet if present conditions continue to accelerate — continued Russian aggression (as well as their significant battlefield setbacks) as the West increasingly arms Ukraine — the war may develop into the latter.
There are challenging moral questions to be weighed by the war’s opponents: questions of pacifism and self-defense, of how best to show solidarity with a beleaguered Ukraine, of how a war of aggression might be mitigated without worsening violence. Even understanding the conflict requires triangulating between the relentless propaganda of two powerful and deceptive nations. It would be easy for antiwar activists to give into the long odds and a sense of impotence or apathy, in a struggle that can seem quixotic. Yet the U.S. military and government, while an imposing edifice of power and profit, is not invulnerable, and mass protest and dissent have swayed the course of its history in the past. Despite their differences, antiwar organizers are collectively buoyed by a faith in what history has demonstrated: that people, when organized, can still stop wars. https://truthout.org/articles/antiwar-groups-protest-defense-industry-profiteering-in-ukraine/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=77e07376-4f26-4746-9b6e-12d42fb0f129
Danger of nuclear war is rising. International tensions are growing, and Congress plans to spend billions to “modernize” our nuclear arsenal, including paying for weapons that will increase the chance of nuclear war–so-called “usable nukes” and vulnerable land-based missiles.
A nuclear exchange, begun by war, accident or cyber attack, would be devastating. Even a “small” nuclear war, using 3% of world nuclear arsenals, would kill over a quarter of the world’s population as clouds of debris block sunlight from food crops. War between the United States and Russia could extinguish life on Earth.
We can reduce our danger. We can contact Members of Congress and also support “Back from the Brink,” a national grassroots campaign working toward abolition of nuclear weapons and basic changes in U.S. nuclear weapons policy, such as seeking an agreement among nuclear powers to eliminate their nuclear arsenals, taking our weapons off hair-trigger alert and canceling the plan to “modernize” our nuclear arsenal.
Over 50 municipalities, four states, dozens of faith groups and many other organizations have passed resolutions endorsing this campaign. Such resolutions helped the Nuclear Freeze Movement of the 1980s to succeed. We can build strength to turn the tide of nuclear danger.
New nuclear power plants will cause irreparable loss to biodiversity and harm and destroy wild places and the creatures who live there. Existing nuclear power plants, uranium mines and proposed and actual radioactive waste sites do similar damage. Wildlife protection helped defeat the proposed new nuclear power plant in Wales. Can the same tactic work to stop other new reactor projects and nuclear waste dumps that threaten similar damage? And are renewables any less harmful? We’ll be asking these questions and more at our webinar– New Nuclear: What’s At Stake For Wildlife?
Join us on Thursday, October 7, 7pm-8:30pm UK time, 2pm-3:30pm US Eastern time. Our guests include Craig Bennett, CEO of The Wildlife Trusts; Juliet Davenport, founder of Good Energy; Jonathon Porritt, former directorof Friends of the Earth UK, and Diana Quick, actor and Stop Sizewell activist.
The discussion will be moderated by Beyond Nuclear’s Linda Pentz Gunter followed by questions from the audience. The event is co-hosted by Beyond Nuclear, Greater Manchester & District CND, Nuclear Free Local Authorities and Chernobyl Children’s Project UK. Register at the link below.
Peace activists to gather outside Ramstein Air Base for weeklong protest starting July 4 BY MARCUS KLOECKNER• STARS AND STRIPES • JUNE 30, 2021 KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany — An annual peace protest outside Ramstein Air Base will start for about a week beginning Sunday, following last year’s cancellation due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The activists from the Stopp Air Base Ramstein Campaign will set up a “peace camp” near the base through July 11, the group said in a statement.
On July 10, about 150 people are expected to gather in Kaiserslautern at the main train station around 11 a.m., said Andreas Wildberger, a Landstuhl police spokesman. When the protest was last held in 2019, thousands were expected to participate, police said at the time.
The protest will move to a rally near the air base around 1 p.m., Wildberger said. Afterward, the demonstrators are planning to ride bicycles around the perimeter of the base………
Under their slogan “We are back again!” the group will protest what they say are illegal wars. They are demanding an end to what they say is the use of the air base to relay telemetry to drones that collect information on terrorist groups and attack designated targets. The attacks on suspected terrorists and militants are extrajudicial and have killed civilians, the group has said.//
Air Force officials have denied for years that any data is relayed through Ramstein for drone operations.
The 10th International Uranium Film Festival Rio de Janeiro remembers the still unsolved nuclear accident in Fukushima 10 years ago and the UN treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons, which has been in force since January of this year. Due to the ongoing Covid-19 restrictions It will be the festival’s first online edition with support by the Cinematheque(link is external) of Rio de Janeiro’s prestigious Modern Art Museum (MAM Rio)(link is external).
The festival has selected 34 documentaries and movies by 26 filmmakers from 15 countries. The films will be screened for free online from May 20 to 30 at the MAM Rio platform. Two live online events complete the program.
On May 20 (7 pm Rio time)(link is external) the festival opening features three atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima, who live in Brazil, and Akira Kawasaki, coordinator of the Peace Boat Foundation. And on May 24th (4 pm Rio time)(link is external) the festival’s live online guests will be former Brazilian Ambassador Sérgio de Queiroz Duarte who has dedicated his life as a diplomat to end the nuclear threat and Cristian Ricardo Wittmann, member of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).
The video greetings (link is external)for the opening of the online film festival come from Biologist and parliamentarian Klaus Mindrup(link is external), member of the German Bundestag of the Committee for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, and from Manfred Mohr(link is external), Professor of International Public Law, spokesman for the International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons (ICBUW), founding member of the International Association of Lawyers against Nuclear Weapons (IALANA) and ICAN-member.
The United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) will hold a two-day virtual conference on May 25-26, 2021 on “Nuclear Risk: Across Technologies and Domains.” The meeting is 14:00-16:20 Central European Summer Time each day (8:00-10:40 am EDT).
The second session on May 25 is a panel discussion on “Space and Nuclear Weapons Systems.” No time is specified but about halfway through is a logical estimate, so about 9:00 am EDT.
Participants are:
Raji Rajagopalan, Director, Centre for Security, Strategy & Technology (CSST), Observer Research Foundation (ORF), New Delhi (moderator)
Paul Meyer, Adjunct Professor of International Studies, Simon Fraser University and member Outer Space Institute
Victoria Samson, Washington Office Director, Secure World Foundation
FUKUSHIMA 2021, International Uranium Film Festival
March 11, 2021. Ten Years Fukushima Nuclear Disaster: Rio de Janeiro International Uranium Film Festival Free Online Screening and Debate.
The first International Uranium Film Festival event 2021 is scheduled for Thursday, March 11, to remember the ongoing Fukushima nuclear disaster. A free seven day online screening in cooperation with the Cinematheque of Rio de Janeiro’s Modern Art Museum (MAM Rio)(link is external). We will show two awarded documentary movies about the Fukushima nuclear accident: a poetic short film by photographer Alessandro Tesei and a feature documentary by science journalist Ranga Yogeshwar. The films can be watched online from March 11 to March 17.
After the screening the audience can chat with Fukushima expert, Professor Dr. Alphonse Kelecom from the Laboratory of Radiobiology and Radiometry of the Institute of Biology at Universidade Federal Fluminense, Rio de Janeiro. Since March 2011, Kelecom visited several times Fukushima. Of course non portuguese speakers are also invited. Prof. Alphonse Kelecom speaks Portuguese, English and French as well. Moderator is Márcia Gomes de Oliveira, director of the International Uranium Film Festival who visited Fukushima in 2015 by invitation of Peace Boat Foundation.
The National 16th Jan 2021, HELENSBURGH CND’s Beyond Nuclear conference was postponed twice last year due to the pandemic. But the event will now be taking place virtually on January 31, from 11am to 4.30pm. To be staged by virtual event group
Cameron, Beyond Nuclear is designed to answer the question: “Why would we in Scotland want or need to have nuclear power stations when we have almost
unlimited potential for clean, renewable energy production?” The
conference will be in two parts; the first an examination of the negatives
involved in nuclear power production, contrasting with the positives of
clean renewable energy in the second.
Celebrations in Aotearoa New Zealand to mark the entry into force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) will begin on Thursday 21 January with ICAN Aotearoa New Zealand’s Wellington and online event, and continue on Friday 22 January. Continue reading →
nuclear-news 