Our meetings next month:
- Tuesday 3rd April: ECND regular organising meeting, 6pm, Peace and Justice Centre, 5 Upper Bow, Edinburgh.
- Saturday 13th April: monthly leafleting, 12.30 pm at the East End of Princes Street
- Thursday 26th April: 7.30pm – Quaker Meeting House, 7 Victoria Terrace, Edinburgh– Public Meeting with Tim Coles author of “Fire and Fury: How the US Isolates North Korea, Encircles China and Risks Nuclear War in Asia” Organised by EdinburghCND and Edinburgh Stop the War.
And in May: The Edinburgh CND supported May Day march and rally will take place on Saturday 5th May. Assemble (top of) Johnston Terrace 11.30 for 12 noon. March behind the Edinburgh CND banner and join us for the rally in the Pleasance Theatre from 12.30.
In June: Once again we’re having our ‘Plants For Peace’ stall at the Meadows Festival. Saturday and Sunday the 2nd and 3rd of June, sharing with Edinburgh Stop The War. This is our biggest event of the year, enjoyable, but tiring! raising our profile and earning the cash we need for our campaigning against nuclear weapons. We need your help, please get in touch edinburghcnd@yahoo.com if you can offer any help whatsoever (on the day or growing plants before hand)
STOP PRESS: 28th March: Anti-nuclear campaigners have condemned the announcement of an extra £600 million for the Dreadnought submarine programme, part of the government scheme to replace the Trident nuclear weapons system. The extra funding, which will be made by the Treasury to the Ministry of Defence, was announced in today’s Prime Minister’s Questions. Kate Hudson, CND general secretary, said: “Spending on Trident is out of control – another £600 million announced today. This means the Ministry of Defence is already overspending at this early stage of replacing Britain’s nuclear weapons system, which is why the contingency fund is now being eaten into.
Other events:
1. Scottish Christians Against Nuclear Arms (SCANA) Pentecost Peace Witness Vigil
Saturday 26th May 2018 12 noon – 1.0 p.m. Faslane Royal Naval Base, Gareloch.
2. Edinburgh World Justice Festival (supported by Edinburgh CND) Organising Meeting and AGM 7.30 Monday 28 March Augustine United Church, George IV Bridge, Edinburgh EH1 1EL
3. Sunday 1st April: As protesters poured along the streets of London, on Easter Monday, 1959, hot-foot from the Aldermaston nuclear bomb factory, they passed the church of then-priest Bruce Kent. Bruce was horrified – every one of the five weddings he was conducting that day was disrupted! But the marchers gave Bruce food for thought and led to his lifelong dedication to campaigning against nuclear weapons. Six decades on, the threat that nuclear weapons pose – to humanity, to the planet – is even greater. Bruce has changed the hearts and minds of many during that time, and he still campaigns today. But he can’t do it alone. Change requires mass action and mobilisation – people united to bring about the world they wish to see. The day before, campaigners had marched from London to the AWE factory in Berkshire – where Britain was making its first nuclear bombs. The world has changed immensely since then – we face numerous new threats that would not have been conceived of in 1958 – but AWE is still producing nuclear warheads. CND invites you all to join us at AWE Aldermaston this Easter Sunday to celebrate our history and look to the future. Through speeches, music, memories, fence decorating, let’s make it clear that Trident should be scrapped and we want a nuclear-free world. It’s also an opportunity to see the fantastic CND installation which is travelling the country. The event will conclude with an inter-faith vigil. Details Assemble 12 noon, Sunday, April 1st Main Gate, AWE Aldermaston, Berkshire, RG7 4PR
More information Help us promote the event Like and share our priority Facebook post. Click here for the link. Like and retweet our priority tweet. Click here for the linkClick attending on our Facebook event and share it with your group members and other contacts. Use the hashtag #CNDat60 on your own social media posts Distribute some leaflets in your area – we can post these to you free of charge. For more information or any questions please contact information@cnduk.org or phone 020 7700 2393.
| Bruce Kent, CND vice president, said:
“It took 40 years to get votes for women. The ending of slavery took almost 50 years, so the fact that things take a long time doesn’t deter us. CND will keep campaigning and demanding change until all nuclear weapons around the world have been abolished.” |
Why are we going to Aldermaston?
Easter Sunday marks the 60th anniversary of the first Aldermaston march – an event that mobilised thousands against the Bomb and shaped radical protest for generations. The Aldermaston factory continues to produce nuclear warheads today and its closure is fundamental to our campaigning goals. We will mark the anniversary with speeches, poems, music and memories, and we’ll look to the future too, as we continue our struggle to rid Britain – and the world – of nuclear weapons.
p.s. (3a) If you can’t make Aldermaston, you can join the Fly Kites not Drones event in the Meadows. Sun 1st April. 1pm – 4pm. Meadows Pavilion Café. Bring, Make & Fly Kites. Big Display kites on show. Inspired by the Afgan Peace Volunteers, this event happens all around the world at Nao Ruz, the Afghan New Year, when people in Afghanistan fly kites. Now the blue skies have become a source of fear. Solidarity with people living under millitary drones threat. Support for refugees. With Refugee Community Kitchen. Music & soup. Family friendly. Give what you feel. SHARE the Event on Facebook.
4 . Edinburgh CAAT had a busy month, including spending almost a full week in Scottish Parliament chatting to MSPs and their staff about converting arms to renewables, and ending Scottish public funds to the arms industry. More than 25 MSPs, including someone from every political party, came to speak with us. Lots of momentum, lots to follow up on. Next group meeting is Monday 26 March, 7 to 8.45pm at the Edinburgh Peace and Justice Centre. Newcomers always welcome, as are agenda suggestions. We’ll spend some time discussing next steps on arms to renewables.
>> Take a look at the draft agenda and send through any suggestions Still a few places left at the training!
There are still a couple of spots available at the non-violent direct action training we’re running on 7 April in Edinburgh. See previous post
4. On March 28, the United Nations will hold the preparatory meeting for the 2018 UN High-Level Conference on Nuclear Disarmament. New York, NY – March 28, 2018. At a media briefing for journalists at the United Nations in New York today, nuclear disarmament experts and campaigners highlighted the critical need for successful diplomacy on nuclear-weapons related conflicts, including in Northeast Asia, between the US/NATO and Russia, and at the upcoming UN High-Level Conference on Nuclear Disarmament. Abolition 2000 member organizations organized a press conference at the United Nations in New York today (29th) to highlight the critical need for successful diplomacy on nuclear-weapons related conflicts, promote the upcoming UN High-Level Conference on Nuclear Disarmament, and announce two related initiatives. These were an Open Letter to the Leaders of USA, South Korea and North Korea and Count the Nuclear Weapons Money, a civil society action to take place during the UN High Level Conference.
In the longer run:
Scotland is going to welcome the world to Faslane on Saturday September 22nd from 12 noon. Under the banner ‘Nae Nukes, Anywhere’ we plan to celebrate the UN Treaty banning nuclear weapons and, at the site where the UK’s Trident missiles are based, say loud and clear we want them scrapped – for good. You want to help? Here’s how!
- Be there! Join the First Minister (tbc), speakers from around the world, some top musicians, and ordinary people calling for sanity and humanity.
- Donate! Scottish CND will be making an appeal soon, but giving Edinburgh CND cash too means we can make transport free for unwaged.
- Help publicise this event – tell your friends, workmates, dentist etc, pass on this email, boost social media, leaflet any gatherings you go to, put up posters.
- Volunteer as a steward/first aider at the rally, lots of other tasks needing you too, let us know if you can help – thanks!
- Peace people are coming from all over the world – can you give them a room for a day or two?
- Placard and banner making workshops will take place in August and September. Suitable for any age or ability and great fun!
We look forward to hearing from you With thanks in advance from Edinburgh CND
Other news:
- 14th March: the Los Alamos Study Group filed a lawsuit against the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). On December 1 of last year, the Study Group filed a FOIA request for a redacted version of NNSA’s plutonium warhead core (“pit”) production analysis of alternatives (AoA), which was completed in November and briefed to congressional committees at the end of that month.
- The March Edition of Drones Campaign News is out: https://dronecampaignnetwork.wordpress.com/3
- Coventry peace poet and CND UK Peace Education Patron, Antony Owen has been shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry which is one of the UK’s most respected literary awards. His poetry collection The Nagasaki Elder (V.Press) was partly inspired by testimonies of atomic bomb survivors that Owen took on his extensive self-funded peace trip to Hiroshima, Japan, in 2015.
edinburgh cnd 