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Protesters who took over a section of the 120-mile gas pipeline across south Wales have exposed potentially disastrous safety lapses. Tonight's Y Byd Ar Bedwar (the World on Four) programme on S4C had exclusive footage of campaigner Jim Dunckley revealing what they found while down the pipeline.

Welders have confirmed that marks on the exterior of the pipeline indicate pinholes that have been repaired - a concern given that the gas will be pumped through the pipe at 94 bar. This is higher than any other major pipeline in the UK.

Inside the pipes, welds were flaking and badly corroded with rust eating away at the inner casing.

On a normal engineering project this would not be such a concern, but the pipeline has the capacity to blow. Indeed one engineering expert Dr Richard Furness estimates that over 30 years one serious accident will occur.

The pipeline's owners, National Grid, have carried out an Environmental Impact Assessment that shows no danger to the public, even from blasting away at rock at Trebanos in the upper Swansea valley. Local people were horrified because the land is prone to subsidence due to previous mining - 10 houses in the village have been demolished due to subsidence. In addition, local people are unable to have gas pumped to their homes because the land is deemed unstable. But a 48-inch pipe could be placed in a 15-metre trench in the same area without risk apparently.

However, during the protest, the Department of Trade and Industry announced that it was suspending blasting and insisted that the trench was dug manually to avoid possible landslips - a minor victory but a symbolic one for the campaigners.

National Grid has a track record of poor safety - in 1999 it was fined £15m for a gas pipeline explosion in Scotland that killed four people. That was with 2-bar pressure.

A larger explosion in Russia killed 650 people when odourless LNG seeped out of a pipeline and was sparked by a passing train.

Do we have to wait for a disaster to occur before we say "enough", as with Aberfan? Or do we insist that the people's voice is heard and the pipeline is halted? This has not been approved by local councils, it has been pushed through by big business interests and the DTI. The protesters spoke for the people and highlighted the need to move away from finite fossil fuels towards renewables.

Today's Sunday Telegraph reveals that an astonishing 59% of English voters want Scotland to be independent - more than the 52% of Scots who favour the break-up of Britain.

The ICM opinion poll also found support for the establishment of an English parliament hitting an historic high of 68 per cent amongst English voters.

For Wales, the most significant stat is that almost half - 48 per cent - want complete independence for England, divorcing itself from Wales and Northern Ireland as well.

The solidly Unionist Telegraph is worried by these findings: "The poll comes only months before the 300th anniversary of the Act of Union between England and Scotland and will worry all three main political parties. None of them favours Scottish independence, but all have begun internal debates on the future of the constitution."

Both Assembly and Scottish Parliamentary elections are shaping up to be as much about the constitutional future of these islands as the bread and butter issues of health, education and crime. Anyone who wants greater powers for Scotland and Wales will see the three main parties plugging varying degrees of Unionism while the SSP, Scottish Greens and SNP openly advocate independence, albeit of a capitalist or socialist variety. In Wales, only Plaid Cymru is advocating independence as a long-term goal.

The Western Mail asked Rhodri Morgan about the electoral state of play. His answer was illuminating: "Unlike Scotland, where they seem to have a poll every week, we don't have polling data so we don't know what the people of Wales are thinking."

But local council results point to steady reverses with something of a pincer movement. Plaid is taking seats and gaining impressive votes in some unexpected places as well as its heartlands while the Tories are able to chip away at Labour in their strongholds.

So Martin Shipton's report that Rhodri Morgan is aiming for a minority administration with just 27 seats after next May's National Assembly election is, er, interesting.

Labour currently has 29 seats after losing Blaenau Gwent. Plaid has 12 seats, Tories 11, Lib Dems 6 with John Marek and Trish Law both sitting as independents.

Apparently, Labour is banking on losing just three seats - Cardiff North, Clwyd West and Aberconwy to the Tories or Plaid - while regaining Wrexham from Marek. Under this scenario, Labour could also lose either Preseli Pembrokeshire to the Tories or Llanelli to Plaid, while gaining a regional seat in Mid and West Wales.

The arithmetic of Assembly voting is incredibly complex because any losses at constituency level are often cancelled out by gains on the proportionally elected regional list.

So the following is necessarily a stab in the dark exercise... but my gut instinct is that Labour is not doing enough to win back Wrexham, despite Marek's relatively poor showing since 2003. Unlike the Blaenau Gwent by-elections, Labour is stretched at this election and can't throw resources at Wrexham as it would in the past.

Llanelli and Aberconwy look to be good bets for Plaid to retake in 2007 with two experienced candidates. The unpopular Karen Sinclair in Clwyd South also looks like a good target for Plaid, who got 25% of the vote there in 1999.

The Tories should win Clwyd West from the abject Alun Pugh and maybe the Vale of Glamorgan and even Delyn but this would only mean they lose regional list seats. To a certain extent the Tory ability to win more seats has peaked due to this. The same applies to the Liberal Democrats, who may be approached again by Labour to be junior coalition partners as in 1999. The yellow party's willingness to jump into bed with Labour (or whoever will have them) is unlikely to win them many additional votes next May.

The share-out of list seats could be very tight but I think Dafydd Wigley's hopes of returning via the North Wales regional list could be over-ambitious. He will, however, pick up a lot of that second vote on the strength of his personal popularity.

All the above would mean Labour reduced to 24. Even with the six Lib Dems that would mean an unstable coalition at best. Plaid are likely to gain at least two constituency seats and a couple on the list to take them to 16 with the Tories on 12. Expect the two independents to scrape in again.

The current PR system doesn't really favour small parties as it does in Scotland, where the SSP and Greens have had several MSPs elected on 6% of the vote. So no place for the Greens in Wales.

Eight days on and the pipeline protesters are still there - causing Transco many headaches.

They've been joined by another group of protesters down in Pembrokeshire and have done a lot to highlight the doubts many people have about the pipeline. Here's a video of the activists explaining their actions.

If you love the Simpsons and hate war, you'll like this

The massive protests against the closure or downgrading of local hospitals has caused panic among Labour's ranks.

The ruling party realises that to keep its fragile hold on power it must not be open to attacks about the NHS. Yet the reality shows that Labour is privatising chunks of the NHS while closing local hospitals without providing realistic alternatives.

In its panic, Labour has put plans to axe four Powys community hospitals on ice until after the May 2007 election.

The future of hospitals at Llanidloes, Builth Wells, Knighton and Talgarth was due to be discussed in January. But a leaked letter from Powys Local Health Board Chairman, Chris Mann, has revealed that the initial consultation period of three months could be extended to June or even July 2007. Mann is a former Labour parliamentary candidate.

In the letter, Ann Lloyd, the Chief Executive of the NHS in Wales, says that the Welsh Assembly Government would be reluctant to see public consultation exercises run in the lead up to the Assembly Elections and that as a consequence the LHB should plan to commence public consultation later in 2007.

Too right they're "reluctant" to see NHS cuts as a focal point of any election campaign. But this is just a crude delaying tactic - another Labour government elected in May would mean curtains for these and other local hospitals.

Three peace protesters have occupied the keep at Cardiff Castle in a demonstration over the 'occupation of land in Palestine'.

The three got into the keep after buying a ticket for a castle tour and used a bar to block the entrance.

D Murphy, Bob Cotterill and Keith Ross said they plan to stay for a while, possibly days, and have stressed they have no wish to damage the castle.

A negotiator from South Wales Police is at the scene.

The protesters said the action was to make the point about the occupation of land in Palestine which they claimed was being ignored by the public and the media.

Here's a short video on the occupation from Undercurrents.

You couldn't ignore Pontypridd firebrand Annie Powell, who sadly died of cancer on Monday. She was uncompromising in her politics but a delight to be with.

I first met her 25 years ago and, as so often, she held court in a pub. The fag ash was always on the verge of falling as she made a point or intervened with an "excuse me, love". Sometimes her wig was askew but she was always ready with a word of encouragement or a sharp quip.

She joined the Welsh Socialist Republican Movement after a bitter fallout with the SWP - "the Brits" as she called them. As true then as it is today.

Her involvement in the infamous Merthyr Rising riots of 1981 is legendary and both she and her husband Malcolm were arrested (and subsequently released without charge) in police sweeps on political activists in the early 80s.

She had been a nurse before an accident led to her early retirement. Her husband, Malcolm, was always at her side - it was a real partnership. He died earlier this year and in her final weeks Annie made it clear she wanted to join him.

But those who visited her said the same old twinkling eyes would greet them. Although frail and under sedation at times, she was able to reminisce about the hectic days of the WSRM and later Cymru Goch.
Twenty-five years later she was still true to the cause of a socialist republic.

The funeral is likely to be held in Pontypridd late next week.

Here's a company relocating its business to save money - cutting 120 jobs in Scotland. But there's a twist. Young's the seafood company is moving work to Thailand, where low wages mean that prawns caught in Scotland can be hand-peeled before making the 12,000-mile round trip back to Scotland to be turned into breaded scampi.

Currently the prawn shells are removed mechanically at Young's plant in Annan but the company said that shelling by hand produces a superior quality scampi and cannot be carried out in Scotland because of prohibitive wage costs.

The plan to ship more than 500 tonnes of the shellfish around the world will generate a weight of carbon dioxide which is almost half the weight of the seafood itself.

Duncan McLaren of Friends of the Earth Scotland said transporting the langoustines over such a distance would He added: "This for us sums up the madness of contemporary globalisation. It makes economic sense but makes absolutely no environmental sense."

It may make "economic sense" under free-market capitalism because it boosts profits but socialists and environmentalists must make common cause to show the harm such moves do to workers and the environment.

On Monday November 13th 2006 11 peace activists from South and Mid-Wales were arrested for blockading the Trident nuclear submarine base at Faslane in Scotland. Another eight from North Wales were arrested this
morning. Those arrested over the two days are of all ages and backgrounds, and include South Wales
Labour councillor and veteran peace campaigner Ray Davies.

About 100 campaigners from Wales are present this morning, a rainy day at Faslane enlivened by the presence of a large red dragon and protest songs performed by Dafydd Iwan. Plaid Cymru Euro MP and CND Cymru chair Jill Evans, was among those who visited the base yesterday to join the protests.

Many of the northern contingent are dressed as Merched Beca/ the Daughters of Rebecca, the C19th men and women who took direct action to protest against social injustice. Costs for Trident replacement have been estimated at £25 to £75 billion.

The protest is part of a year-long blockade at Faslane which began six weeks ago.