Author: earthfirst

Plane Stupid on the runway at Southend

3.11.11

16 pro­tes­tors, who occu­pied the run­way at Southend Air­port, have been arrest­ed by Essex Police.  It is believed they are being held at Southend Police Sta­tion. Cam­paign­ers from Plane Stu­pid and Cli­mate Rush entered the air­port short­ly after 9am this morn­ing.  The protest is against the planned expan­sion of Southend Air­port.

3.11.11

16 pro­tes­tors, who occu­pied the run­way at Southend Air­port, have been arrest­ed by Essex Police.  It is believed they are being held at Southend Police Sta­tion. Cam­paign­ers from Plane Stu­pid and Cli­mate Rush entered the air­port short­ly after 9am this morn­ing.  The protest is against the planned expan­sion of Southend Air­port.

Plane Stu­pid installed solar pan­els on the run­way.  Cam­paign­ers from Cli­mate Rush, dressed as pilots and cab­in crew, were on a near­by foot­path per­form­ing a dance rou­tine.

A spokes­woman for the pro­tes­tors said:

“Southend Coun­cil say the expan­sion will bring jobs.  But invest­ment in renew­able ener­gy would cre­ate many more jobs with­out dam­ag­ing the cli­mate.  What we need is solar pow­er not plane pow­er.  The big­ger run­way is bad for cli­mate change, bad for local res­i­dents under the flight path and is not need­ed to help the local econ­o­my.” 

Southend Air­port has been bought by Sto­barts, the logis­tics firm.  Easy­jet has announced that it plans to start oper­at­ing com­mer­cial flights from the air­port in spring 2012.

There has been a major local cam­paign.  It has focused on the impact the air­port would have on the thou­sands of peo­ple who will live under the flight paths.

Natural Gas Drilling Rig Stormed by Anti-Fracking Protesters

2.11.11

2.11.11

This morn­ing nine peo­ple, from the nation­al anti- frack­ing net­work from Frack Off, have halt­ed work at Cuadrilla Resources drilling site in Hes­keth Bank, Lan­cashire. They ran on to the Frack­ing site ear­ly this morn­ing and scaled the drilling rig using climb­ing equip­ment. They aim to sit on top of the drilling rig for as long as pos­si­ble to stop the drilling.

The action is aimed at high­light­ing the hypocrisy behind the ‘Shale Gas Envi­ron­men­tal Sum­mit’ start­ing today in Lon­don: a con­fer­ence spon­sored by a host of com­pa­nies involved in the oil and gas indus­try who are try­ing to spin the rapid expan­sion into the untapped fos­sil fuel as ‘green’ [1].

Cam­paign­ers are act­ing in sup­port of the ‘Frack Mob’ mass action hap­pen­ing out­side the sum­mit at 3pm lat­er today [2].

Both actions aim to counter the PR offen­sive of the shale gas indus­try and bring pub­lic atten­tion to the harm frack­ing has been linked to.

Hydraulic Frac­tur­ing, or ‘frack­ing’ is a con­tro­ver­sial method of nat­ur­al gas extrac­tion, in which a mix­ture of water, sand and chem­i­cals is inject­ed into the ground at high pres­sure, crack­ing shale rock and releas­ing the gas [3]. It has been the sub­ject of much con­tention due to numer­ous reports link­ing the method to water con­t­a­m­i­na­tion, health prob­lems and earth­quakes [4]. The indus­try is in its infan­cy in the UK, and there are plans for up to 800 wells in Lan­cashire alone [5].

Jen­ny Boykin, a spokesper­son for Frack Off, said “Frack­ing uses huge amounts of water mixed with tox­ic chem­i­cals, a large frac­tion of which are nev­er recov­ered. The frack­ing flu­id also leach­es chem­i­cals like arsenic out of the rocks when it is used mak­ing it even more tox­ic and so the flu­id that is recov­ered becomes a big dis­pos­al prob­lem. The con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of irri­ga­tion water means that everyone’s food sup­plies could poten­tial­ly be affect­ed. Frack­ing in the Unit­ed States has already result­ed in numer­ous spills of these flu­ids.”

Col­in East­man, one of the climbers, said, “Con­ven­tion­al fos­sil fuels have begun to run out and the sys­tem is mov­ing towards more extreme forms of ener­gy like frack­ing, tar sands, and deep water drilling. The move towards ‘extreme ener­gy’ is lit­er­al­ly scrap­ping the bot­tom of the bar­rel, suck­ing the last most dif­fi­cult to reach fos­sil fuels from the plan­et at a time when we should be rapid­ly reduc­ing our con­sump­tion alto­geth­er and look­ing for sus­tain­able alter­na­tives. In the UK frack­ing for shale gas is planned along­side, not instead of, extrac­tion of con­ven­tion­al fos­sil fuels like coal.”

Pic­tures are being uploaded here:  http://s.coop/7hwi

Look at the web­site for more info: www.frack-off.org
Fol­low us on twit­ter: @frack_off
Fol­low us on Face­book: www.facebook.com/frackoffuk
Or e‑mail:  media@frack-off.org
Phone: 07931195505

Notes:
[1] Envi­ron­men­tal sum­mit details:  http://www.smi-online.co.uk/events/overview.asp?is=0&ref=3742

[2] press release for the frack mob:  http://frack-off.org.uk/press-release-anti-fracking-protesters-plan-to-shut-down-an-industry-environmental-summit/

[3] short film explain­ing what frack­ing is:
 http://frack-off.org.uk/fracking-hell/watch-the-film/

[4]  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2050025/Earthquakes-Lancashire-coast-WERE-caused-drilling-gas-experts-warn-energy-operation-threatened-closure.html

[5]  http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/sep/21/gas-field-blackpool-dallas-sea

Defending the Xingu River basin from the Belo Monte Dam

Last week, on Octo­ber 27 in Altami­ra, Brazil, the Belo Monte Dam con­struc­tion site was occu­pied by 400 indige­nous peo­ple, fish­er­men and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers intend­ing to per­ma­nent­ly occu­py the site and call­ing allied orga­ni­za­tions and move­ments to join them.

Last week, on Octo­ber 27 in Altami­ra, Brazil, the Belo Monte Dam con­struc­tion site was occu­pied by 400 indige­nous peo­ple, fish­er­men and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers intend­ing to per­ma­nent­ly occu­py the site and call­ing allied orga­ni­za­tions and move­ments to join them. The occu­pa­tion was a col­lec­tive deci­sion made by 700 rep­re­sen­ta­tives from local com­mu­ni­ties who attend­ed a sem­i­nar against the Belo Monte Dam held the week before in Altami­ra.

Pro­test­ers noti­fied the Brazil­ian gov­ern­ment about the occu­pa­tion and par­tic­i­pat­ing groups released a state­ment say­ing: “In the face of the Brazil­ian government’s intran­si­gence to dia­logue and con­tin­u­ing dis­re­spect, we occu­pied the Belo Monte con­struc­tion site and blocked the Trans-Ama­zon high­way. We demand a defin­i­tive can­cel­la­tion of the Belo Monte Dam.”

Juma Xipa­ia, a local indige­nous leader, explained, “We only demand what our Con­sti­tu­tion already ensures us: our rights. Our ances­tors fought so we could be here now. Many doc­u­ments and meet­ings have already tran­spired and noth­ing has changed. The machin­ery con­tin­ues to arrive to destroy our region.”

After 15 hours, pro­test­ers were dis­bursed from the con­struc­tion site with the arrival of two jus­tice offi­cials and three lawyers from Norte Ener­gia (the dam-build­ing con­sor­tium), who car­ried an injunc­tion in favor of the con­sor­tium. Upon inform­ing the pro­test­ers about the judi­cial order, offi­cials threat­ened that “Shock Troops” were sur­round­ing the area, ready to act.

This was a sub­stan­tial change from the Mon­day pri­or, when a fed­er­al judge in Brazil stat­ed that the envi­ron­men­tal licens­ing of the con­tro­ver­sial Belo Monte Dam was ille­gal giv­en the lack of con­sul­ta­tions with affect­ed indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties.

The Inter-Amer­i­can Com­mis­sion on Human Rights (IACHR) of the Orga­ni­za­tion of Amer­i­can States (OAS) also request­ed expla­na­tion from the Brazil­ian Gov­ern­ment regard­ing the rights of indige­nous peo­ples affect­ed by the dam, in April. Accord­ing to the OAS, the Brazil­ian Gov­ern­ment is oblig­at­ed to con­sult indige­nous peo­ples who will be affect­ed by the dam, before con­struc­tion begins.

On Octo­ber 26, the day pri­or to the occu­pa­tion and block­ade, Brazil­ian gov­ern­ment offi­cials refused to attend a closed hear­ing con­vened by the IAHCR intend­ed to fos­ter dia­logue toward resolv­ing this con­flict.

A state­ment by groups par­tic­i­pat­ing in what they called “#Occu­py Belo Monte Dam” said this of the block­ade: “The unprece­dent­ed occu­pa­tion of the Belo Monte con­struc­tion site was a direct result of an autonomous and sov­er­eign deci­sion by indige­nous peo­ple and fish­er­men from the Xin­gu Riv­er basin and is con­sid­ered the land­mark of a new alliance in the strug­gle against the Belo Monte Dam. The mutu­al recog­ni­tion and part­ner­ships sealed this week among the seg­ments that will suf­fer the most with the destruc­tion of the Xin­gu Riv­er marks a new, stronger lev­el of the fight against Belo Monte. Such unprece­dent­ed part­ner­ship between indige­nous peo­ple and fish­er­men shows that the peo­ple from Xin­gu are unit­ed to defend the riv­er, nature and their tra­di­tion­al way of life.

Our resis­tance against this destruc­tive project called Belo Monte remains unshak­able. The occu­pa­tion has sent a clear mes­sage to Pres­i­dent Dil­ma Rousseff’s admin­is­tra­tion that the fight for the Xin­gu is more alive than ever. If the Brazil­ian gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to insist on vio­lat­ing our rights, oth­er resis­tance actions shall come.”

The state­ment was signed by the fol­low­ing groups:

-Coor­de­nação das Orga­ni­za­ções Indí­ge­nas da Amazô­nia Brasileira – COIAB
-Comis­são Pas­toral da Ter­ra – CPT
-Con­sel­ho Indi­genista Mis­sionário – CIMI
-Movi­men­to Xin­gu Vivo para Sem­pre – MXVPS

Hun­dreds of inter­na­tion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty action have also occurred around the world in recent months.

For more infor­ma­tion, check out:

Ryanair ejected by Manchester students

Octo­ber 29, 2011

Ryanair had to can­cel a mar­ket­ing event at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Man­ches­ter Stu­dents Union ear­li­er this week after stu­dents dis­man­tled their pro­mo­tion­al stall in protest against the com­pa­ny’s record on the envi­ron­ment and work­ers’ rights.

Octo­ber 29, 2011

Ryanair had to can­cel a mar­ket­ing event at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Man­ches­ter Stu­dents Union ear­li­er this week after stu­dents dis­man­tled their pro­mo­tion­al stall in protest against the com­pa­ny’s record on the envi­ron­ment and work­ers’ rights.

Ryanair had adver­tised to hold a stall from 12pm to 3pm last Thurs­day (29th Octo­ber 2011) . How­ev­er, at 12.30pm, a group of around nine stu­dents began dis­man­tling the com­pa­ny’s ban­ners and dis­play boards and pop­ping their pro­mo­tion­al bal­loons. The Ryanair sales team soon left the build­ing.

Stu­dents said the action was in anger at Ryanair’s dis­re­gard for the dan­gers of cli­mate change by aggres­sive­ly mar­ket­ing cheap flights. They said the action was also tak­en in sol­i­dar­i­ty with dis­grun­tled Ryan Air work­ers. Last August, Ryanair work­er John Foley staged a rooftop protest at Liv­er­pool John Lennon Air­port against the com­pa­ny’s anti-union activ­i­ties and poor record on work­ers rights.

Physics stu­dent Cather­ine Red­cliffe said, “Ryain Air’s relent­less pur­suit of prof­it over all oth­er con­cerns is tram­pling on work­ers rights and endan­ger­ing our future at the same time. The avi­a­tion indus­try takes more mon­ey out of North­west region than it puts in.”

Nonethe­less, Ryanair seemed adamant that the day had been a suc­cess claim­ing that their staff were “about to pack up and head home” when the stall was dis­rupt­ed at 12.30pm, even though they intend­ed to stay until 3pm.  Spokesper­son Stephen McNa­ma­ra said, “Ryanair thanks the Plane Stu­pid clowns for once again turn­ing a good pro­mo into a great pro­mo.”

Stu­dent Union democ­ra­cy

The stu­dents, who did not claim to be from any par­tic­u­lar group, were fur­ther angered at Stu­dent Union man­age­ment for rent­ing the space to Ryan Air in the first place. Pre­vi­ous­ly, stu­dents had vot­ed that their Union should cam­paign on cli­mate issues and not have busi­ness rela­tions with envi­ron­men­tal­ly-dam­ag­ing com­pa­nies.

Geog­ra­phy stu­dent Marc Hemp­ton, 20, said, “I want­ed to show how Ryanair’s pres­ence was a breach of our demo­c­ra­t­ic process. This is my Union and our col­lec­tive deci­sion had been side­lined by unelect­ed man­age­ment. We should­n’t allow envi­ron­men­tal­ly dam­ag­ing com­pa­nies in our Union where we have fought for pos­i­tive poli­cies on cli­mate change and against rela­tion­ships with uneth­i­cal com­pa­nies. I’m glad we sent them pack­ing for the day.”

On Wednes­day, activists had peti­tioned the Union man­age­ment with let­ters signed by stu­dents to can­cel the pro­mo­tion­al event. Man­age­ment refused, say­ing that Ryanair stall was bring­ing in extra cash.

Hemp­ton added, “In some ways, this is a micro­cosm of prob­lems regard­ing cli­mate change and work­ers rights. Where mak­ing a quick prof­it is pri­ori­tised at the expense of peo­ple and our envi­ron­ment, it makes it hard­er to address these issues and cre­ates big­ger costs fur­ther down the line.”

manchester@climatecamp.org.uk

 

Frack Mob at Industry Greenwash Conference

Action: Frack Mob
Tar­get: Indus­try green­wash­ing con­fer­ence
Date: Weds 2nd Novem­ber
Time: 3–6pm
Loca­tion: Copthorne Tara Hotel, Scars­dale Place, Kens­ing­ton, Lon­don

Action: Frack Mob
Tar­get: Indus­try green­wash­ing con­fer­ence
Date: Weds 2nd Novem­ber
Time: 3–6pm
Loca­tion: Copthorne Tara Hotel, Scars­dale Place, Kens­ing­ton, Lon­don

Be part of the UK’s first mass-action against frack­ing.

Do you care about where you live, your health and the plan­et?

Then Join us on the 2nd of Novem­ber for a mas­sive ‘frack mob’. This will be the UK’s first mass-action against frack­ing, and what bet­ter tar­get than an indus­try green­wash love-in?

Frack­ing is in it’s infan­cy in this coun­try, if we are going to kill this thing it has to be now.

This con­fer­ence is all about large com­pa­nies shaft­ing the plan­et in the name of prof­it. We still have time to cut through the bull­shit, scare the investors and tell the com­pa­nies to FRACK OFF!

Lets expose this Green­wash. Bring:

-Gas masks
-Fracked water ( http://www.flickr.com/photos/54095609@N00/sets/72157627591245355/with/6166727923/)
-Any­thing that makes a loud noise
-Green body/face paint
-Chalk/giant chalk ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npcInClZKUI)
-A desire to have FUN

Frack­ing com­pa­nies drill for gas by blast­ing water, sand and cor­ro­sive chem­i­cals deep into the ground to crack the bedrock. Frack­ing poi­sons tap­wa­ter, caus­es earth­quakes and releas­es more green­house gas­es than coal.

Invite your friends and get informed:
- Fol­low @Frack_off on twit­ter
- Go to www.frack-off.org

See you on the streets (near­est tube Kens­ing­ton High St).

info@frack-off.org

Shell Deliveries Halted by Road Protest

Tues­day 25th Octo­ber at 8am, peo­ple gath­ered for what has become the week­ly local protest at gate one of Shel­l’s refin­ery. After some tea and scones, peo­ple decid­ed to stop a Shell truck. For about 30 min­utes peo­ple stood in front of the truck with­out has­sle, let­ting traf­fic pass on the oth­er side of the road. Even­tu­al­ly the Gar­daí removed peo­ple, in some cas­es being quite rough. One per­son was pinned to the ground for 5–10 min­utes, immo­bilised. Oth­er peo­ple were thrown off the road into ditch­es. The Gar­daí did not hold back against one elder­ly pro­test­er who is almost 80, throw­ing him around with­out a sec­ond thought. After 10 or 15 min­utes of peo­ple get­ting pulled off the road by guards, the truck inch­ing for­ward as more peo­ple got in front of it and then once again get pulled off the road in a con­tin­u­ous rolling block­ade, one per­son got up on top of the truck. She said she would­n’t have done this except that she was sick of see­ing peo­ple get­ting thrown around on the road and she knew get­ting on top of the vehi­cle would defuse the sit­u­a­tion by halt­ing things until she either came down her­self or could be removed Gar­daí. After stay­ing up on top of the truck for about 30 min­utes, the pro­test­er climbed down and then was arrest­ed, brought to Bel­mul­let Gar­da sta­tion and released with­out charge lat­er that day. Shell are sched­uled to begin remov­ing peat from the Augh­oose tun­nelling com­pound at the end of Octo­ber or ear­ly Novem­ber, which will mean hun­dreds of truck move­ments a day. Come up any­time and sup­port the actions, or sim­ply to vis­it the area and see for your­self what is going on. The Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp is open to vis­i­tors and is locat­ed in a field in Augh­oose, between Bel­lan­aboy and Pul­lath­omas. This Hal­loween week­end the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp is host­ing a week­end of direct action train­ing work­shops. Also there will be a Day of Sol­i­dar­i­ty on the 11th of Novem­ber 2011, at the Augh­oose com­pound. It will mark 5 years since the baton charge on pro­tes­tors at Bel­lan­aboy. Please come and offer your sol­i­dar­i­ty to the com­mu­ni­ty who have been protest­ing against the Cor­rib Gas project. To con­tact the camp, ring 085 114 1170 or email rossportsolidaritycamp[at]gmail[dot]com

Video of day

BHP Billiton — Dirty Energy protests

Cam­paign­ers from Lon­don Min­ing Net­work, Kick Nuclear, Colom­bia Sol­i­dar­i­ty Cam­paign, Lon­don Ris­ing Tide, Occu­py Lon­don and oth­er groups gath­ered out­side and inside Anglo-Aus­tralian min­ing giant BHP Bil­li­ton’s cen­tral Lon­don AGM to protest the com­pa­ny’s record of envi­ron­men­tal dam­age and forced dis­place­ment of indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties in Colom­bia, Aus­tralia, Indone­sian Bor­neo and else­where, due to its extrac­tion of dirty fuels, includ­ing coal and ura­ni­um.

Some of the group lat­er vis­it­ed the Aus­tralian High Com­mis­sion, demand­ing to speak to an offi­cial about BHP’s ura­ni­um min­ing activ­i­ties and explo­ration on abo­rig­i­nal lands in South and West­ern Aus­tralia. The ‘diplo­mat­ic pro­tec­tion’ police were called by the High Com­mis­sion. When the police arrived, the pro­test­ers were ordered to leave the build­ing.

See also the fol­low­ing reports on the AGM and demo here and here.

 

More blockades at proposed gas hub in Walmadan, Western Australia

22.10.11

A PROTESTER has tied him­self to a com­mu­ni­ca­tions tow­er near a pro­posed gas hub site in the Kim­ber­ley in a bid to stop sur­vey work for the con­tro­ver­sial project.

22.10.11

A PROTESTER has tied him­self to a com­mu­ni­ca­tions tow­er near a pro­posed gas hub site in the Kim­ber­ley in a bid to stop sur­vey work for the con­tro­ver­sial project.

The pro­test­er scaled the 30-metre tow­er at around 4am today and is sus­pend­ed by a rope between the top of the tow­er and the ground near James Price Point [Wal­madan]. Anti-gas hub pro­test­er Joseph Roe has told AAP the rope cross­es an access road and any attempt to cut it to allow Wood­side Petro­le­um con­trac­tors in would endan­ger the pro­test­er.

Police are at the site about 60km north of Broome where pro­test­ers have gath­ered to sup­port the man up the tow­er. “If they cut the rope there will be a ter­ri­ble acci­dent. The police don’t know what to do,” said Mr Roe, a Jabirr Jabirr-Goolara­booloo man who has pur­sued exten­sive legal action against the project.

The pro­test­er up the tow­er, Scott Daines, has said he would stay there “for as long as it takes for Wood­side to leave”.

Wood­side con­trac­tors have been car­ry­ing out geot­ech­ni­cal sur­vey work around the site of the pro­posed $30 bil­lion liq­ue­fied nat­ur­al gas (LNG) precinct, with pro­test­ers keep­ing a con­stant vig­il on the access road.

Mr Roe said he want­ed answers from the Broome shire coun­cil about approvals for the tow­er to be changed from a weath­er obser­va­tion sta­tion to a com­mu­ni­ca­tions point for the Wood­side project.

He said the gas hub project was a land grab by WA Pre­mier Col­in Bar­nett who was “hell-bent on indus­tri­al­is­ing our tra­di­tion­al lands”.

The Kim­ber­ley Land Coun­cil, on behalf of tra­di­tion­al landown­ers, has signed off on the deal which would deliv­er $1.5 bil­lion in ben­e­fits to the region’s Abo­rig­i­nal com­mu­ni­ties.

But the pro­posed gas hub has divid­ed the Kim­ber­ley Abo­rig­i­nal com­mu­ni­ty and Broome res­i­dents. A final sign-off for the project by Wood­side and its joint ven­ture part­ners is expect­ed by the mid­dle of next year.

Call Out: OpposeThe EDL In Birmingham 29th Oct

The EDL are to hold a demo in Vic­to­ria square, Birm­ing­ham on 29th Octo­ber 12:00 — 18:00. Vic­to­ria Square is also the loca­tion of the Occu­py Birm­ing­ham protest camp which could become a tar­get for the EDL. This is a call out for peo­ple to come to Vic­to­ria Square on the 29th and defend the Occu­py Birm­ing­ham camp and defend the city from the EDL.

The EDL are to hold a demo in Vic­to­ria square, Birm­ing­ham on 29th Octo­ber 12:00 — 18:00. Vic­to­ria Square is also the loca­tion of the Occu­py Birm­ing­ham protest camp which could become a tar­get for the EDL. This is a call out for peo­ple to come to Vic­to­ria Square on the 29th and defend the Occu­py Birm­ing­ham camp and defend the city from the EDL.

The Islam­o­pho­bic & Racist Organ­i­sa­tion The Eng­lish Defence League Are Organ­is­ing An Anti-Islam Demon­stra­tion In Birm­ing­ham On Sat­ur­day 29th Octo­ber 2011, When The EDL Hold Their Demon­stra­tions In Cities & Towns Across The Coun­try It Ends Up In Mosques Being Van­dalised & Inno­cent Mus­lims Includ­ing Women & Chil­dren Being Phys­i­cal­ly & Ver­bal­ly Attacked, This Is Why Its Very Impor­tant For Every­one To Come & Pro­tect The City From The… Islam­o­phobes & Racists.

The EDL have been to Birm­ing­ham 3 times pre­vi­ous­ly & have failed mis­er­ably all 3 times by get­ting run out of the city, it has took the EDL over 2 years to muster up some con­fi­dence to come back to Birm­ing­ham, lets make sure it ends in fail­ure for the EDL again.

As the Occupations go Global, nine are ongoing in the UK

22nd Octo­ber 2011

 

On 15th Octo­ber 2011 the Occu­py Wall Street protests went glob­al with over 1,000 protests around the plan­et. In the UK a num­ber of towns and cities saw occu­py actions which are ongo­ing.

22nd Octo­ber 2011

 

On 15th Octo­ber 2011 the Occu­py Wall Street protests went glob­al with over 1,000 protests around the plan­et. In the UK a num­ber of towns and cities saw occu­py actions which are ongo­ing.

Birm­ing­ham pro­tes­tors met at Vic­to­ria Square, [ 1 | 2 ] and start­ed their on-going occu­pa­tion. A small protest took place in Sheffield and Cardiff. Sev­er­al thou­sand attend­ed a ral­ly in Lon­don, where despite a show of force by the Met, a Gen­er­al Assem­bly was held and tents pitched in front of St. Paul’s Cathe­dral. In Scot­land, tents were pitched in Glas­gow’s George Square and Edin­burgh’s St. Andrew’s Square. Ongo­ing occu­pa­tions also start­ed in, Nor­wich, Not­ting­ham, New­cas­tle and Bris­tol [ 1 | 2 ]. These occu­pa­tions joined Man­ches­ter which had already been in Occu­pa­tion since Octo­ber 3rd, when a camp was start­ed in Albert Square, which lat­er moved to the Peace Gar­dens after nego­ti­a­tions with the coun­cil and police. Future occu­pa­tions are being dis­cussed in many oth­er places.