From British daily The Independent:
The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament has signalled its resurgence by agreeing a 50 per cent increase in its staffing levels and campaigning budget as it fights the Government’s plans to replace Trident and allow a new generation of nuclear power stations.CND and Britain in the 1960s: here.CND’s membership fell from a peak of 110,000 in 1983, when the Cold War made nuclear weapons a burning issue, to 32,000 last year.
But since Tony Blair’s announcement in May that nuclear power was “back on the agenda with a vengeance”, the organisation has had a 300 per cent rise in new members.
Robert Oppenheimer: http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2006/677/677p22.htm
Comment by Administrator — July 30, 2006 @ 11:30 am
International blockade of Belgian nuclear weapons base at Kleine Brogel
draws significant support
Photos available, free from copyright:
http://www.motherearth.org/photo.php?album=v/2006/bike/block
A colourful, international, blockade of Kleine Brogel nuclear weapon base
in Belgium has drawn significant political support from Belgian members of
parliament and prominent Belgian people, including Jean-Luc Dehaene,
former Belgian Prime Minister and Member of the European Parliament. The
blockade received the support of the local mayor and city council. The
blockade also included 40 young people from 15 European countries. The
blockade was organised to mark the 61st anniversary of the atomic bombing
of the Japanese city of Nagasaki on 9th August 1945.
The police, under the orders of the local mayor, refused to arrest the 100
people who were present. The blockade effectively closed the three main
gates of the base for 3 hours. No traffic passed in or out of the base
during this time. The blockade included people from Austria, Belgium,
Cyprus, England, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Netherlands,
Norway, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, and Wales.
Kleine Brogel airbase, in the east of Belgium, is home to 20 US nuclear
weapons. Each of these bombs has an explosive power equivalent to 10 times
the bomb which killed 74,000 people in Nagasaki on 9th August 1945. The
United States bases an estimated 480 nuclear weapons in 6 countries across
Europe: Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, the UK, and Turkey.
In 1996, the International Court of Justice (the world’s highest legal
body) issued a ruling that the use or threat of nuclear weapons would
generally be illegal under the rules of international law.
The blockade drew considerable support from Belgian mayors, many of whom
are members of the international “Mayors for Peace” network, which calls
for the global abolition of nuclear weapons by the year 2020. The Belgian
members of parliament supporting the blockade are calling on the Belgian
government to implement the resolutions passed last year in the Belgian
Senate and House of Representatives, which demanded the withdrawal of US
nuclear weapons from Belgium and Europe. The Belgian government has so far
refused to act on these resolutions.
David Heller, a participant in the blockade from England stated: “At a
time when the world’s attention is focussed on the war in the Middle East,
and the United States, France and Britain are all discussing modernising
their nuclear weapons, it is important that people from around the world
take a stand against nuclear weapons and against war. We have given a
clear signal that we will not allow preparations for war crimes to
continue in Belgium or anywhere else in the world.”
The common statement of the youth participants in the blockade can be
found at: http://www.motherearth.org/news/news.php?article=51
Comment by Administrator — August 9, 2006 @ 4:35 pm