London CND

12:30 Speakers: Ron Bailey co-author of "A corruption of governance?" and Pete Wilkinson, Greenpeace
1pm: lunch (provided) music, tea & cakes
2pm: Speaker: Charles Barnett, Shutdown Sizewell; Chris Walton, head of Ringfield Hall Eco Centre, and others.
2.30pm: symbolic blockade and music

Coach leaves at 8.15am prompt from the Embankment (probably opposite side to the river to the left of the riverside entrance from Embankment tube) and will also pick up at 9am prompt from outside Redbridge tube station (Central line.). It will arrive outside the main gate of Sizewell Nuclear Power Station in Suffolk by the start of the planned demo there at noon. (PS there is a nice pub for food, drink and lavs opposite the gate! There will again also be a lav on the coach.)

Coach will leave 5pm prompt on Saturday from outside the main gate for return journey getting back to London by about 8pm.

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Order tickets. Please order tickets by April 16^th to be sure of a seat, though there may be seats to buy on the day on a first-come, first-served basis). When I get your form and cheque or postal order I will let you know you’re booked on the coach and hold your ticket(s) till I see you on the coach on Saturday. (If you want pay electronically let David know on phone-number or e-mail address below.)

Please send c tickets. (Return tickets are £20; or £10, or as much as you can afford, unwaged. Half-price tickets available for those who will want to say on at the Sizewell camp into Sunday.)

I enclose £c in payment (Send cheque or postal order made out to “LR CND” to David Polden, London Region CND, 162 Holloway Road, London N7 8DQ and we will send you your ticket or tickets.)

Name, address & e-mail (or tel no)………………………………………………………………………

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Please say whether you intend to join the coach at the Embankment (E) or Redbridge (R) …….

FUKUSHIMA ANNIVERSARY AT HINKLEY POINT

March 11^th was the first anniversary of the Fukushima disaster and to mark it the Stop Nuclear Power Network organised a demonstration at Hinkley Point in Somerset. Hinkley Point not only has an operating nuclear power station there but the building is planned there of the first of a new generation of UK nuclear power stations.

London Region CND organised a coach to the demo on Saturday 10^th, and all 50 seats were sold. We arrived at Hinkley Point as the mist was lifting and the sun came out. There were a lot of people – the organisers said over a thousand, the biggest anti-nuclear power demo since 1979. I’d taken the LR CND stall and spent the day serving customers eager for information, badges, stickers and banners. I took over £170 for LR CND.

So, apart from observing lots of colourfully-dressed people with inventive banners and many children, I depended on customers for details of the demo. Nobody seemed to be clear what was happening; they complained the PA system was inadequate and that there was no proper organisation. Perhaps the organisers had been overwhelmed by the numbers who’d arrived.

The grim reaper at Hinkley (Photo: Katharine Tatum

Kate Hudson, Green MP Caroline Lucas, environmentalist Jonathan Porritt, anti-nuclear campaigner Chris Busby spoke; Fukushima refugees, Akiko and Makoto Ishiyama described what it was like to live through the disaster.

Coming back, the coach was not full as some stayed behind for the overnight blockade of the Site, permission for the clearing of which has been given even before permission for building Hinkley C has been granted.

The coverage of the demo in the media, both locally and nationally, was very good, so the demo was effective in this way as it was for bringing anti-nuclear activists together.

Anti-nuclear demonstrations took place around the world to mark the anniversary: at Wylfa, Anglesey, Heysham , Lancashire on a mountain-top in Cumbria. Abroad, some 45,000 were reported to have taken part in Tokyo, a rally of 16,000 protested at Koriyama, 40 miles from Fukushima, 24,000 formed a 80-km chain at Braunschweig, Germany, 30,000 formed a 230-km chain one between Lyon and Avignon, 200 demonstrated in California and 100 in New York. Others took place in California, new York, Spain, Argentina, Australia, Lithuania & Switzerland. DP.