Action Briefing June 2004 - July 2004
	The Newsletter of Birmingham Friends of the Earth

Warehouse Focus: West Midlands CND

Action Briefing is running a series of features introducing some of the unique organisations and businesses with whom Birmingham Friends of the Earth are fortunate enough to share the Warehouse.

In the first of our features, we looked at a fairly new tenant, Cycle Chain. This time, we meet an old comrade, West Midlands Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (WM CND).

Commemorating Hiroshima
On Thursday, August 6th, West Midlands CND will be gathering in St.Philips Cathedral churchyard, 12.30pm, for reading and music commemorating the dawn of the nuclear age, when the first nuclear bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, in 1945. They aim not only to describe the horrors of the destruction of Hiroshima but also to raise awareness of the continuing threat of nuclear war and the likely development of new nuclear weapons by the UK.

Although in 1945 many people believed that the terrible attacks caused the Japanese to surrender, evidence has now emerged that they would have surrendered anyway. The bomb was not so much the final act of the Second World War as the opening shot of the Cold War, and a warning to Russia.

WM CND covers Birmingham, the Black Country and South Staffordshire, Coventry and Warwickshire, Herefordshire, Shropshire and Worcestershire. The CND office in the Warehouse contains a library of books, cassettes, videos and journals, free information materials, as well as badges and leaflets for sale. A monthly mailing goes out to supporters, and the campaigners welcome invitations to give talks in schools and to other organisations. They are always pleased to see visitors, but phone first to make sure someone is there, as all WM CND staff are volunteers.

As well as mobilising its members for protests and vigils, WM CND works hard lobbying elected representatives at local, national, European and international levels, and also coordinates the national CND letter-writing team. A particularly important local campaigning focus is the transportation of nuclear materials through the region. Plutonium from old nuclear warheads and spent nuclear fuel from power stations are moved, by road and rail respectively, through heavily populated areas, including Birmingham.

Nuclear News from New York
On Wednesday 23rd June , Carol Naughton, Vice-Chair of WM CND will be addressing a public meeting at Carrs Lane Church Centre, 7.30pm. Carol has recently been to New York and taken part in discussions about next year’s Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. She will also be talking about the UK's Weapons of Mass Destruction and how this country has reneged on the promises it made thirty years ago to work towards nuclear disarmament.

For more information, contact Jenny on 0121 643 4617, email wmcndall@gn.apc.org or visit www.wmcnd.org.uk.