EVENTS:
5. Friday 19th July: Kate Brown will be speaking about her book on Chernobyl:
See 2 in NEWS and https://cnduk.org/events/talk-on-chernobyl-survival-and-the-future-edinburgh/
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1. Saturday 29th June: Don’t Attack Iran: 1330 at the East End of Princes Street
The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament is joining protests against war on Iran
Kate Hudson, CND general secretary, said: “Every day seems like a step closer to a US-led war on Iran. It’s clear now that US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal last year was in fact a step towards a declaration of war. Military intervention in Iran will inevitably have devastating humanitarian consequences and there are no just arguments for it. Why are our leaders incapable of learning the obvious lessons from Iraq and the other disastrous Middle East wars? A movement must quickly gather pace to say no war on Iran, back the Iran nuclear deal, and oppose any British involvement in this war. We must act now to prevent catastrophe and countless innocent deaths.”
Kate Hudson, CND general secretary, said: “Every day seems like a step closer to a US-led war on Iran. It’s clear now that US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal last year was in fact a step towards a declaration of war. Military intervention in Iran will inevitably have devastating humanitarian consequences and there are no just arguments for it. Why are our leaders incapable of learning the obvious lessons from Iraq and the other disastrous Middle East wars? A movement must quickly gather pace to say no war on Iran, back the Iran nuclear deal, and oppose any British involvement in this war. We must act now to prevent catastrophe and countless innocent deaths.”
1(a). Saturday 20th July there will be a stall with petitioning against war with Iran (East end of Princes Street 12 noon)
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2. Tuesday 2nd July: Regular monthly organising meeting 6pm at Peace and Justice Centre. NOTE new address: 25 Nicolson Square, Edinburgh EH8 9BX
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3. Saturday 6th July: Climate Festival on the Meadows. 12noon to 9pm The Meadows EH9 9EX. Edinburgh CND will have materials on the ScotE3 stall https://www.facebook.com/events/2261408987509612/
Jim Taggart’s funeral is also on 6th July, at 10:30am in Craigrownie Parish Church, Cove Burgh Hall, Shore Road, Cove, near Helensburgh G84 0LY.
The service will be followed by burial at the Barbour Cemetary and then refreshments at the Green Kettle, Garelochhead (see link in news item 3 below)
The service will be followed by burial at the Barbour Cemetary and then refreshments at the Green Kettle, Garelochhead (see link in news item 3 below)
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4. Saturday 13th July: 1230 Leafleting at the East End of Princes Street
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NEWS:
STOP PRESSES:
(A) This NFLA media release welcomes an Edinburgh City Council resolution supporting the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (and the ICAN Cities Appeal), and a Midlothian Council resolution calling for the Lothian Pension Fund to divest from shares in companies involved in developing nuclear weapons.
The media release is also on their website – http://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/nfla-welcomes-further-council-resolutions-supporting-treaty-prohibition-nuclear-weapons-and-divestment/ –
(B) The HBO/Sky TV series, Chernobyl, has been hailed as a masterpiece, reached millions of viewers and revealed many truths about the terrible devastation of a nuclear accident. But despite efforts by the nuclear lobby to claim the show is “fiction”, or a uniquely Soviet-driven outcome, we show how Chernobyl can still happen anywhere, and why. Similarly, the threat of nuclear war remains ever-present. Tilman Ruff helped found iCAN and still works for nuclear abolition, inspired by the Hibakusha eye-witnesses and their powerful testimony. https://beyondnuclearinternational.org
See also items 2 and 3 below
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1. From Edinburgh CAAT: Last week the Court of Appeal ruled that UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia for use in Yemen are unlawful! This verdict is fantastic news and represents a massive achievement for CAAT. The judges in the case concluded that key ministers – including Liam Fox and the remaining two candidates for the Tory leadership – had illegally approved arms exports to Saudi Arabia without an assessment of the risk to Yemeni civilians. The government has been ordered to stop issuing arms export licences and review all previous decisions on arms sales to Saudi Arabia since the start of the Yemen conflict, which the Guardian reports as having a value of at least £4.7 billion. You can read more on the decision on the CAAT website, CAAT blog, the BBCand the Guardian. Analyses of the decision were also published in the Guardian and the Independent.
However, the Court’s verdict will not be the end of the struggle: the Government is expected to appeal the decision, and will doubtless be looking for ways to minimise the impact on its relationship with Saudi Arabia. We would urge you to write to your MP in support of the verdict. Your support is essential for demonstrating that the Government is acting at odds to the public opinion. And don’t forget to keep up the pressure on your public servants in Holyrood to end their support for our local arms dealers. If you want to learn more about local and national arms trade issues, the next Edinburgh CAAT meeting is next week: Monday 1st July, 7pm to 8.45pm
Quaker Meeting House, 7 Victoria Terrace, Edinburgh, EH1 2JL
However, the Court’s verdict will not be the end of the struggle: the Government is expected to appeal the decision, and will doubtless be looking for ways to minimise the impact on its relationship with Saudi Arabia. We would urge you to write to your MP in support of the verdict. Your support is essential for demonstrating that the Government is acting at odds to the public opinion. And don’t forget to keep up the pressure on your public servants in Holyrood to end their support for our local arms dealers. If you want to learn more about local and national arms trade issues, the next Edinburgh CAAT meeting is next week: Monday 1st July, 7pm to 8.45pm
Quaker Meeting House, 7 Victoria Terrace, Edinburgh, EH1 2JL
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2. The CAAT meeting is after the EWJF meeting also on 1st July 5pm to 6.30pm in the Peace and Justice Centre. This years EWJF https://www.facebook.com/ewjf1 runs from 28th September to 19th October and our meeting is on Tuesday 1st October with Alex Lockwood author of the Chernobyl Privileges and Journalist Rob Edwards.
The issue of Nuclear Power is becoming more serious with EDF wanting to reopen Hunterston Power Station: Kate Brown will be speaking about her book on Chernobyl on Friday 19 July 2019 15:00 – 17:00. Room 1.20, Dugald Stewart Building, 3 Charles Street, Edinburgh, EH8 9AD Booking is Required. Chernobyl- Survival & the Future: Professor Kate Brown
Dr Ian Fairlie will also be at the meeting and will be able to update on development at Hunterston. EDF Energy is currently hoping to re-open Reactor 4 on 24th June and reactor 3 on 31st July. For more on EDF see 3 below
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3. From CND: (a)The UK will shortly have a new Prime Minister, but we’re stuck with the same old policy on Trident. The UK is committed to spending £205 billion – and counting – on nuclear weapons at a time when there’s no money for hospitals, schools or housing. This waste of money on Trident has to stop, and so we want to take this message to the heart of the establishment – to the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester. Throughout September, for the four weeks culminating in the conference, we plan to launch a fleet of buses on the city, emblazoned with a CND slogan. We want to make the case against Trident impossible to ignore. Can you help us flood the streets of Manchester with our anti-Trident message? (b) STOP PRESS (June Newsletter):It’s been a worrying start to the summer, with the US seemingly desperate to start a war on Iran, which Kate analyses on her blog, and a recent nuclear convoy exercise showing that Britain is unprepared for a nuclear accident. We’ve also been greatly saddened by the deaths of Walter Wolfgang and Jim Taggart. It all shows the importance of our continued campaigning, and we were pleased to see tens of thousands demonstrate against Donald Trump . We were also buoyed by the landmark judgement that UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia are unlawful. CND with other anti-nuclear groups will be hosting the No Nuclear Day on Wednesday September 4th, to highlight and protest against arms firms’ profiting from their involvement with immoral nuclear weapons. See http://www.cnd.uk for more including conference, Hiroshima and Nagasaki and Global Dangers Tour.
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4. Beyond Nuclear International https://beyondnuclearinternational.org (a) Women and children are far more sensitive to radiation exposure than men, their daughters especially so. Yet women continue to live, work, and raise children far too close to nuclear power plants, which release radiation on a daily basis, and in large batches when refueling. We are campaigning to let more women know of the dangers. And we present another article in our series on why nuclear power impedes progress in addressing the climate crisis, this time focused on French company, EDF, and its misleading “emissions-free” claims.
(b) We are grateful to our Greek colleagues for reminding us of the truly appalling and barbaric fate of Nikos Nikiforidis, who was executed by firing squad in 1951 for promoting the Stockholm Antinuclear Appeal.They tell his tragic story. And Heidi Hutner and Erica Cirino author the next in our series on why nuclear power only adds to the disaster of the climate crisis. (c) If you wish to make a donation towards the work of BNI visit the webpage.
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5. Move the Nuclear Weapons Money and the ICCPR: Over the next ten years the nuclear-weapon States plan to spend approximately $1 trillion on maintaining, upgrading, modernizing and deploying nuclear weapons. At the same time the international community is striving to find the money to implement the Sustainable Development Goals, and the United Nations is struggling to meet its operating costs which are less than 5% of the annual nuclear weapons budget.
PNND is cooperating with Move the Nuclear Weapons Money, a global campaign to cut nuclear weapons budgets and investments, and reallocate these to instead support peace, climate protection and sustainable development.
PNND is cooperating with Move the Nuclear Weapons Money, a global campaign to cut nuclear weapons budgets and investments, and reallocate these to instead support peace, climate protection and sustainable development.
And in October, the big event: Count the Nuclear Weapons Money
Basle Peace Office adds: On October 24, 2018, the UN Human Rights Committee adopted General Comment 36 on the Right to Life, affirming, amongst other things, that the threat or use of nuclear weapons ‘is incompatible with respect for the Right to Life and may amount to a crime under international law.’
General Comment 36 also held that States Parties to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) have an obligation to end the production of weapons of mass destruction, destroy existing stockpiles and provide adequate reparation to victims of their testing or use. In light of this historic development, the Abolition 2000 working group on Nuclear Weapons and International Law has posted a blog and published a flyer on Using UN Human Rights Committee General Comment 36 to support nuclear abolition actions and campaigns +++++++++(A)The Global Peace Index (GPI) 2019 rankings, released earlier this month, demonstrate that ‘Global peacefulness has improved for the first time in five years.’
But for most of the countries possessing nuclear weapons their level of peace remains far below the global average, and in some cases has declined even further.
The United Kingdom is ranked at number 45 on the Global Peace Index, France is ranked at number 60, China at 110, USA at 128, India at 141, Israel at 146, DPRK at 149, Pakistan at 153 and Russia at 154.
Produced by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), the GPI presents the most comprehensive data-driven analysis to date on peace dynamics, trends, and key factors in developing peaceful societies. The Index also makes correlations between levels of Positive Peace and economic indicators, demonstrating the economic value of peace. +++++++++(B) UNfold zero adds update introducing the Move the Nuclear Weapons Money global nuclear-weapons divestment campaign, highlight recent developments that support the divestment campaign including the UN Global Compact revised investment exclusion criteria and UN Human Rights Committee General Comment 36, and we note some recent divestment initiatives in US cities including in Charlottesville and New York. The nuclear weapons industry has incredible political power, and uses this to stimulate the nuclear arms race and expand the already colossal nuclear weapons budgets. In order to reverse this power, a global Move the Nuclear Weapons Money campaign is promoting and supporting nuclear weapons divestment. The campaign partner organisations are working in cooperation with similar campaigns on divestment from fossil fuels and conventional weapons industries. To date, four federal governments have adopted nuclear weapons divestment policies as a result of initiatives by parliamentarians and civil society – Norway in 2006, New Zealand in 2008, Switzerland in 2012 and Lichtenstein in 2016.
The campaign has also gathered momentum with nuclear weapons divestment policies adpted by a number of by states, cities, universities, religious institutions, banks, pension funds and private investors. +++++(C) Basle Peace Office: Basel Peace Office is a co-sponsor of Move the Nuclear Weapons Money which campaigns to cut nuclear weapons budgets and investments in nuclear weapons corporations, and redirect these budgets and investments to peace and sustainable development.
The campaign has been boosted by the UN Global Compact adding nuclear weapons to its list of excluded investments, and the UN Human Rights Committee adopting General Comment 36 in which it affirms that the threat or use of nuclear weapons violates the Right to Life. In addition, some activists are referring to the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons(‘Ban Treaty’) and the International Court of Justice 1996 nuclear weapons case to convince their cities, universities, governments, pension funds and banks to end their investments in nuclear weapons.
But for most of the countries possessing nuclear weapons their level of peace remains far below the global average, and in some cases has declined even further.
The United Kingdom is ranked at number 45 on the Global Peace Index, France is ranked at number 60, China at 110, USA at 128, India at 141, Israel at 146, DPRK at 149, Pakistan at 153 and Russia at 154.
Produced by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), the GPI presents the most comprehensive data-driven analysis to date on peace dynamics, trends, and key factors in developing peaceful societies. The Index also makes correlations between levels of Positive Peace and economic indicators, demonstrating the economic value of peace. +++++++++(B) UNfold zero adds update introducing the Move the Nuclear Weapons Money global nuclear-weapons divestment campaign, highlight recent developments that support the divestment campaign including the UN Global Compact revised investment exclusion criteria and UN Human Rights Committee General Comment 36, and we note some recent divestment initiatives in US cities including in Charlottesville and New York. The nuclear weapons industry has incredible political power, and uses this to stimulate the nuclear arms race and expand the already colossal nuclear weapons budgets. In order to reverse this power, a global Move the Nuclear Weapons Money campaign is promoting and supporting nuclear weapons divestment. The campaign partner organisations are working in cooperation with similar campaigns on divestment from fossil fuels and conventional weapons industries. To date, four federal governments have adopted nuclear weapons divestment policies as a result of initiatives by parliamentarians and civil society – Norway in 2006, New Zealand in 2008, Switzerland in 2012 and Lichtenstein in 2016.
The campaign has also gathered momentum with nuclear weapons divestment policies adpted by a number of by states, cities, universities, religious institutions, banks, pension funds and private investors. +++++(C) Basle Peace Office: Basel Peace Office is a co-sponsor of Move the Nuclear Weapons Money which campaigns to cut nuclear weapons budgets and investments in nuclear weapons corporations, and redirect these budgets and investments to peace and sustainable development.
The campaign has been boosted by the UN Global Compact adding nuclear weapons to its list of excluded investments, and the UN Human Rights Committee adopting General Comment 36 in which it affirms that the threat or use of nuclear weapons violates the Right to Life. In addition, some activists are referring to the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons(‘Ban Treaty’) and the International Court of Justice 1996 nuclear weapons case to convince their cities, universities, governments, pension funds and banks to end their investments in nuclear weapons.
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6. Peace and Justice centre: (a) Kites Not Armed Drones: Summer edition
Sunday 30 June. 1 – 4pm. Meadows Pavilion Cafe Our warm and sunny version of the earlier Kites Not Drones will feature kite-making and origami peace crane making, plus Refugee Community Kitchen will provide music, food, and merchandise sale. A lovely event for families and it looks like the weather is going to be good this time! Let us know you are coming and Share on facebook.
We are also looking for volunteers to help make kites and staff our stall. Could you help out for an hour or two? Email the office to express an interest.
(b) Workshop: The Ambiguity of Violence as Resistance Friday, 28 June 2019. 10:00am to 6:00pm. Godfrey Thomson Hall, Thomsons Land
Holyrood Road EH8 8AQ Edinburgh. For More info and to Register go to: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/workshop-the-ambiguity-of-violence-as-resistance-tickets-62254788749
(c) Annual Inter-Faith Occasion for World Peace Tuesday 2 July. 7:15 – 9pm.
St. Mark’s Unitarian Church, Edinburgh EH1 2DP ———————
We are also looking for volunteers to help make kites and staff our stall. Could you help out for an hour or two? Email the office to express an interest.
(b) Workshop: The Ambiguity of Violence as Resistance Friday, 28 June 2019. 10:00am to 6:00pm. Godfrey Thomson Hall, Thomsons Land
Holyrood Road EH8 8AQ Edinburgh. For More info and to Register go to: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/workshop-the-ambiguity-of-violence-as-resistance-tickets-62254788749
(c) Annual Inter-Faith Occasion for World Peace Tuesday 2 July. 7:15 – 9pm.
St. Mark’s Unitarian Church, Edinburgh EH1 2DP ———————
7. Scottish Peace Network Armed Forces Day protest
Saturday 29th June Scottish Peace Network presence at the Armed Forces Day parade in Stirling. Meet at the entrance to the King’s Park (a short walk from the train station) at 11:30
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8. Los Alamos Study Group http://www.lasg.org/ : Peace leader in Albuquerque, almost 96 years old, begins fast against US sanctions and sieges, calls for solidarity
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+++++9. Campbeltown AUOB rally: The Yeshub has a bus going, great scenery, great journey with yessers. Leaving the hub at 7-30, uplifts at Murrayfiels Hotel, A8 footbridge Ratho Station Premier Inn Livingston book edinburghyeshub.info under events
edinburgh cnd 