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CND in the News
CND in the News: 28 January-7 February 2006
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1 School students rally against war
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/article.php?article_id=8210
Around 50 school students met last Saturday in north London for the annual
School Students Against the War conference. A variety of old and new members
attended from across Britain. Delegates attended workshops and heard speakers
such as Tony Benn, Andrew Burgin from Stop the War and Sophie Bolt from
CND.
The workshops covered a whole range of issues from the freedom to protest
to the environment. We also elected our new national convenors during
the closing rally.
We were all able to meet new people, and discuss school students’
plans for the coming year. We held discussions, made new friends and overall
had a highly enjoyable day and after-party.
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2 Hostage still alive
Harrow Times, Thursday 2 February 2006
http://www.harrowtimes.co.uk/news/localnews/display.var.682701.0.hostage_still_alive.php
NEW footage of Norman Kember, the Pinner grandfather kidnapped in Iraq,
was broadcast on Arab television on Saturday, two months after his ordeal
began. Professor Kember, 74, of Cuckoo Hill Road, looked gaunt and dishevelled
but appeared unharmed on the 55-second film, screened on satellite station
al-Jazeera.
His captors, who call themselves The Swords of Righteousness Brigade,
said the new tape was made on January 21. In their first video since December
10, they repeated their demands for the release of all Iraqi prisoners
by the UK and US governments. But unlike before, the shadowy group did
not set a deadline.
The pensioner was snatched from a Baghdad street on November 26 after
flying to Iraq with the Christian Peacemakers Team. Two Canadians and
an American, seen alongside Professor Kember on the tape, were also abducted.
After threatening to kill the peace activists by December 7, the kidnappers
extended the deadline by three days.
Prominent and controversial Muslim figures, including former Guantanamo
Bay detainee Moazzam Begg and al-Qaeda terrorist Abu Qatada, pleaded with
the group to release the men. But they fell mysteriously silent and the
Foreign Office admitted fearing the worst.
Local reaction to the latest film was cautiously optimistic. Reverend
Bob Gardiner, Minister of Harrow Baptist Church in College Road, where
the professor and his wife Pat, 70, have worshipped for 40 years, said:
"We stand alongside Pat and her family, offering her whatever support
they can in this trying and difficult time." Phiroza Gan, chairman
of Harrow Interfaith Council and friend of Professor Kember, said: "We
are all hoping and praying. I will be going to the Civic Centre this week
to see if there anything we can do. "Where there is life there is
hope."
Council leader, Councillor Navin Shah, said: "It's extremely worrying
for his family and the people of Harrow, who are keeping a close eye on
what's happening. "I will talk to Reverend Gardiner and seek his
advice on what the council can do. "I would like to tell Norman's
family that he is far from forgotten. His well-being remains close to
our hearts."
The Mayor of Harrow, Councillor Paddy Lyne, said: "Norman and his
family remain in our thoughts and we continue to pray for his speedy release.
"We pray that his faith gives him the strength to cope with this
unimaginable ordeal."
Reverend Alan Betteridge, a friend of Professor Kember for 40 years, said:
"We are glad to have evidence he is still alive but are concerned
that the same demands are being made. He looks a lot thinner but that's
not surprising.
"I hope those in the Muslim community speak up for his release, as
they did before Christmas. This could have the biggest impact." Mr
Betteridge added that Mrs Kember was "coping very bravely and strongly".
Bruce Kent, a vice-president of Pax Christi UK and the Campaign
for Nuclear Disarmament, said: "Let's hope and pray that
the hostage takers will say,' enough's enough'. They've had enough appeals,
appeals from the whole Muslim world to let these people go."
Anas Al-Tikriti, of the Muslim Association of Britain, who flew to Iraq
on December 1 to plead for Professor Kember's release, said: "Now
it's been proved the captives are still in the same hands, our efforts
over the past two months have not gone to waste. "The fact they released
the tape after such a long silence suggests they are willing to communicate."
A Foreign Office spokesman said: "We are urgently assessing the video.
We continue to do all we can."
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3 Iranian-British academics condemn UN referral threat
2 February, IRNA
http://www.irna.ir/en/news/view/line-20/0602029113133903.htm
Iranian-British academics Thursday joined anti-war campaigners in condemning
plans led by the US and UK to report Iran's nuclear file to the UN Security
Council.
"This is a step towards an international crisis which can lead the
US to embark on another doomed military `solution'," the academics
from universities across the UK warned. "Let us not forget the misrepresentations
of intelligence on Iraq. Those who lied so patently and with no remorse
about Iraq are now similarly accusing Iran," they said in a letter
published in the Guardian newspaper.
The warning, which was also supported by former British Energy Secretary
Tony Benn and anti-war Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn, came as board members
of the IAEA begin an emergency session in Vienna to discuss a UK-drafted
resolution to report Iran's file.
The British-Iranian academics included Professor Haleh Ashar of York University,
Abbas Edalat of London's Imperial College, Ziba Mir-Hosseini of the London
Middle East Institute and Reza Sheikholeslami of Oxford University.
Other signatories included Gholam Khiabany of London Metropitan University
and Elahah Rostami-Povey of the School of Oriental and African Studies
as well as former UN humanitarian coordinator for Iraq Hans von Sponeck,
the CND peace group and Stop the War Coalition.
"The Bush administration has always warned that military intervention
is an option, and (Prime Minister) Tony Blair has not ruled it out,"
the joint letter said. "Israel also (the only nuclear country in
the region) threatens to take military action against Iran," it warned.
The academics warned that in light of the continuing political and humanitarian
crises in Iraq and Afghanistan, sanctions and military intervention against
Iran would be "disastrous for the people of Iran and of the Middle
East."
"All matters related to Iran's nuclear program must be solved by
peaceful means through negotiation," they said
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4 Labour conference heckler to bid for NEC role
Thursday 2 February, 2006
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/story/0,,1700507,00.html
Walter Wolfgang, the 81-year-old heckler ejected from last year's Labour
party conference, is set to make a return to the party's spring gathering
- in a bid to get on the national executive.
The octogenarian peace campaigner will appeal for support for his attempt
to join the party's ruling body at a fringe meeting on the Saturday of
the two-day conference in Blackpool. He will campaign on a platform of
pulling out of Iraq, rejecting Trident and restoring democracy to the
Labour party.
And, in an interview with Guardian Unlimited, Mr Wolfgang revealed that
a written apology from Jack Straw for his unceremonious bundling out of
the conference had, in fact, only arrived this week - four months after
the original event. Although Mr Straw apologised over the phone at the
time, and an invitation for dinner with the party chairman, Ian McCartney,
was offered, a formal letter of apology, dated January 30 2006, from Mr
Straw only arrived yesterday, Mr Wolfgang said.
Mr Wolfgang - a Jewish exile from Nazi Germany who joined the Labour party
in 1948 - will travel to Blackpool for the two-day conference to address
a "Grassroots Alliance" fringe, aiming at getting a slate of
leftwing candidates onto the NEC.
He already has the backing of his Richmond constituency, and the requisite
two other constituency party groups.
He told Guardian Unlimited: "I think the party is too much managed
from the top and that the membership must get its powers back. The NEC
must assert itself. Too many powers have been given away - but they can
be recovered!
"Secondly, people seem to think I can get votes for other Grassroots
Alliance rather than the conformists [candidates] from constituency parties.
"And thirdly, I was excluded and readmitted [at Brighton] and a lot
of people realised that as a consequence if I get on the NEC it will be
warning."
Mr Wolfgang was forcibly ejected from the conference centre - despite
his frailty - after shouting "nonsense" at Mr Straw during his
keynote speech. He said the Mr Straw's letter of January 30 apologised
for its lateness and merely repeated the government's justifications for
the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mr Woflgang, who is vice-president of CND, said he was
concerned at the current stand-off with Iran over its suspected nuclear
weapons programme. He said: "It would be absolute folly to attack
or allow Israel to bomb about it. A spread [of nuclear weapons] is undesirable
but unfortunately Iran is entitled to go for nuclear power and they might
want a primitive nuclear weapon - God knows why, as their delivery weapons
cannot compete with the USA and it puts them in more danger of a conventional
attack from their neighbours.
"It's crackers. They [Iran] think they will be a major power but
they won't." He also intends to use his position, if elected, to
campaign against commissioning a replacement for the Trident nuclear weapon
system.
He said: "They won't be independent and they will tie us even closer
to US foreign policy - and that makes our diplomacy less effective."
Nominations for the NEC close in March, with the results expected in June.
Successful candidates will serve from the Manchester conference of September
for two years.
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5 Protestors: Missile change is 'a waste'
St Albans Observer, 4th February 2006
http://www.stalbansobserver.co.uk/news/localnews/display.var.683355.0.protestors_missile_change_is_a_waste.php
CAMPAIGNERS opposed to the replacement of Britain's ageing Trident nuclear
weapons systems demonstrated outside Sopwell House, where MPs and top
civil servants were attending a conference.
Secretary of the St Albans branch of the Campaign for Nuclear
Disarmament Laurie Gibson said: "Our message to the Government
is don't renew Trident and spend the £25 billion saved on schools
and hospitals. "Trident serves no purpose, and according to our treaty
obligations should be negotiated away. "The present system is described
as independent, but in reality is dependent on the United States, as is
likely to be any replacement. "It is unclear against whom or what
it is targeted and in the post Cold War world, what purpose it serves."
The conference was organised by The Guardian newspaper to discuss the
future of public services. The campaigners gave the delegates letters,
arguing the best way to generate the cash to improve services would be
to cancel the replacement for Trident. Former Labour MP Kerry Pollard
declined to back up the Government's policy.
He said: "It seems a total waste of money in the current climate.
"They are weapons we can't use."
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6 British anti-nuke group raps IAEA move on Iran
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
http://www.iranmania.com/News/ArticleView/Default.asp?NewsCode=40319&NewsKind=Current%20Affairs
Britain's venerable Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND)
condemned a decision by the UN nuclear watchdog to report Iran to the
UN Security Council over its nuclear programme, according to AFP.
"Reporting Iran to the Security Council is a disappointing step backwards
in nuclear non-proliferation," Kate Hudson, chair of the 32,000-member
pressure group, said in a statement released in London. "Already
as a result we have seen Iran withdraw from voluntary confidence-building
measures, such as compliance with the additional protocol" to the
nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, she said. "This can only lead to
an escalation of tension, and there has already been a dangerous increase
on all sides of threatening statements and talk of military action."
Iran said Monday it had formally notified the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) of its decision to restart sensitive nuclear work at the
heart of global concerns that its hardline regime could acquire nuclear
weapons.
Hudson said peace in the Middle East will be achieved only when all nuclear-armed
nations, including Britain, begin to renounce their nuclear arsenals,
AFP noted.
"Britain's own likely nuclear proliferation, the Trident (sea-going
nuclear missile) replacement, sets a bad example to other states and will
not discourage nuclear proliferation," she said. "Additionally,
all states in the Middle East, including Israel and Iran, must give their
full support to UN resolutions requiring a nuclear weapons-free zone in
the Middle East."
The CND, originator of the circular "peace"
symbol, is one of Europe's oldest peace groups, having been founded in
the late 1950s at the height of the Cold War, AFP added
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