trident
Posted by jossc — 19 December 2008 at 4:32pm
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Trident - costs and 'independence' are both spinning out of control
The management of the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston, the 'bomb factory' which makes and maintains the UK's nuclear warheads, is now controlled by private US companies following the sale of the government's 33 per cent holding yesterday.
The news, a further nail in the coffin of the flimsy pretence that Britain has an independent nuclear deterent, only came to light in a three line press statement released by BNFL, the state-owned group which officially 'owned' the government's stake.
Posted by bex — 16 May 2008 at 11:49am
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A Greenpeace volunteer on the boom at Faslane nuclear submarine base in Scotland
I don’t know if your
remember our Trident
Tour last year - that five week frenzy of Faslane
blockading, crane
climbing, arrests,
solitary
confinement, losing a ship,
getting
it back again, bearing
witness, gigs, press
conferences, political
events and rallies.
Well, it’s been a long
time coming but, over a year after the event, I can give you the final results
of the legal wranglings that ensued.
Posted by bex — 2 April 2008 at 12:23pm
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Thousands joined hands to surround Aldermaston base on Easter Monday
On the Easter weekend of 1958 - a few weeks after the birth of CND - thousands of people braved the icy weather and marched from London to the nuclear weapons factory at Aldermaston in Berkshire to protest the building of nuclear bombs. The march marked the birth of the peace movement in Britain.
Sadly, 50 years on, the peace movement is needed as much as it ever was; last year, our government (which counts many former CND members among its numbers) voted to replace Trident, and to lock the world into at least another 50 years of nuclear bombs. Despite the rhetoric of Brown's recent national security strategy
(he wants "to free the world from
nuclear weapons", apparently), £5 billion is being poured into building new facilities at Aldermaston to design new nuclear bombs - most likely in contravention of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Last edited 19 March 2008 at 5:02pm
Reacting to Gordon Brown's
speech today launching the government's new national security strategy,
Greenpeace campaigner Louise Edge
said:
"It's obviously good news that Brown seems
to be adopting a joined up approach to the real security issues facing the
UK
public.
"But he simply can't square his commitment
to freeing the world from nuclear weapons with last year's decision to renew
Trident.
Last edited 1 January 1970 at 1:00am
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Posted by jossc — 4 January 2008 at 2:13pm
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Reported in Scotland's Sunday Herald just before Christmas (but not seen by me until a few days ago, hence the delay in passing it on) was a tale to gladden the hearts of peaceniks everywhere - namely that the latest upgrade to the US designed Trident D5 nuclear missiles may not actually fit into British submarines.
Clearly falling well within the parameters of the "you couldn't make it up" school of classic cock-ups, the Herald reported that tender documents for future underwater-launched nuclear missiles issued by the US Navy last November specify a missile diameter of up to 120 inches. The diameter of Trident's D5 missile tubes is 87
inches.
Last edited 1 January 1970 at 1:00am
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Last edited 6 August 2007 at 5:25pm
Nuclear weapons are weapons of mass destruction - they indiscriminately incinerate people and contaminate air, soil, and water across national boundaries and across generations. Greenpeace is opposed to the proposed upgrading of the UK's Trident nuclear missile system - it's an unnecessary cold-war white elephant at a time when we should be focusing all our energies combating climate change.
Last edited 22 March 2007 at 6:04pm
Greenpeace volunteers have scaled a crane next to Big Ben and hung a huge banner from it declaring 'TONY [heart] WMD'.
The protest comes as MPs prepare to vote tomorrow on whether to renew Britain's nuclear weapons system and commit Britain to nuclear arms for the next 50 years. The four volunteers aim to occupy the crane until the vote takes place. They hope to telephone as many MPs as possible urging them not to support new weapons of mass destruction.
One of the volunteers on the crane, Cat Dorey, said: "Trident is a cold war relic designed to destroy Russian cities. If MPs buckle under pressure from Tony Blair and vote to renew it, the repercussions will be felt around the world. We can't oppose proliferation of WMD if we're building them at home."
Posted by bex — 16 March 2007 at 12:27pm
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Part of the Trident: we don't buy it tour blog
Sunrise over The Sunrise
© Greenpeace/Sumner
Blimey. I’m not sure how time has slipped past so fast but, after a five week frenzy of Faslane blockading, crane climbing, arrests, solitary confinement, losing the ship, getting it back again, bearing witness, gigs, press conferences, political events, rallies and general sleep deprivation, the Trident: we don’t buy it tour has just come to an end.
The Arctic Sunrise set sail for Scandinavia a couple of hours ago, cheered on from the quayside by a smattering of exhausted Greenpeace folk and watched by the police boat that inevitably appears every time the ship moves.
