Author: earthfirst

400 peasants, clowns, and reapers liberate Belgian GM potato field

The “bat­tle of the pota­to” field in Wet­terem, near Ghent, Bel­gium, was a resound­ing vic­to­ry for anti-GM activists on Sun­day (29 May) as mem­bers of a crowd of around 400 peo­ple broke through police lines and barbed wire fences to destroy an exper­i­men­tal Genet­i­cal­ly Mod­i­fied pota­to crop.

The “bat­tle of the pota­to” field in Wet­terem, near Ghent, Bel­gium, was a resound­ing vic­to­ry for anti-GM activists on Sun­day (29 May) as mem­bers of a crowd of around 400 peo­ple broke through police lines and barbed wire fences to destroy an exper­i­men­tal Genet­i­cal­ly Mod­i­fied pota­to crop.

Genet­ic mod­i­fi­ca­tion of food crops is cur­rent­ly banned in the French-speak­ing Wal­lo­nia region of Bel­gium, and in the Brus­sels area, but the region­al gov­ern­ment of Flan­ders had giv­en the go-ahead for this tri­al plant­i­ng. Peo­ple from across Bel­gium and fur­ther afield, includ­ing many “faucheurs volon­taires” (vol­un­teer reapers) from the estab­lished French anti-GM farm­ing move­ment, came togeth­er under the ban­ner of the “Field Lib­er­a­tion Move­ment” to put the exper­i­ment to an end.

The day start­ed with set­ting up of a farmer’s mar­ket and com­mu­nal kitchen in a sym­pa­thet­ic field across the motor­way from the tar­get site. There were brief­in­gs, dis­cus­sions, infos­talls, and some inter­ac­tion with mem­bers of a “Save Our Sci­ence” counter demo by GM sup­port­ers, who came to argue their case that only more agribusi­ness super­crops can save the hun­gry of the world from crises of pover­ty and mal­nu­tri­tion. At 2pm the crowd start­ed mov­ing, led by a big inter­na­tion­al sam­ba band, across the motor­way foot­bridge to the field of des­tiny on the oth­er side. The organ­is­ers had called for “non-vio­lence” and not to pro­voke the cops, and the crowd was colour­ful, noisy, with small chil­dren and grown-up clowns in abun­dance. Tru­ly Lud­dite in spir­it (in all pos­i­tive sense of that maligned term) it had the flavour of a peas­ants’ revolt con­fronting the high-tech forces of empire. Around 50 Flem­ish robo­cops wait­ed, batons in hand, sur­round­ing the field (only about the size of a bas­ket­ball court), which was also ringed by stur­dy fences topped with barbed wire, cam­eras and motion sen­sors.

As the sun broke through the clouds at 3pm a siren sound­ed and the action was under­way. About half the crowd hopped the first low fence into the inter­ven­ing mead­ow and ran towards the exper­i­men­tal enclo­sure. It was soon clear that the police were out­num­bered, with many gaps in their lines through which pro­test­ers swarmed. (A major local foot­ball match may cer­tain­ly have helped the pro­tes­tors here.) The fenc­ing was tough and attempts to pull it down with ropes proved unsuc­cess­ful. But it was­n’t high enough to keep out climbers who car­ried strips of car­pet to get over the barbed wire. Once inside the com­pound the secu­ri­ty mea­sures then worked to the reapers’ advan­tage as the cops could only clam­ber after them, too late to stop pota­toes fly­ing every­where. Organ­ic seed­ing pota­toes were hurled by oth­ers from out­side the fence to replace the mod­i­fied strain.

There were around 15 arrests, all those who had made it inside the com­pound were stuck and worthi­ly sac­ri­ficed them­selves to the law in the best paci­fistic tra­di­tion. The police then had to dig a tun­nel under the fence to get them out again, and they were imme­di­ate­ly released after giv­ing ID details. It is not clear yet what charges will be brought, but the con­sor­tium behind the field, which includes the uni­ver­si­ty of Ghent, threat­ens to sue for dam­ages. There were quite a few injuries includ­ing hos­pi­tal­i­sa­tions from barbed wire cuts and trun­cheon blows.

To quote from the Field Lib­er­a­tion Move­men­t’s press release: “To sum up, the day of action was very suc­cess­ful. This action points out three paths to fol­low: the “peas­ant mar­ket” offered a plat­form for farm­ers with a real alter­na­tive, the demon­stra­tion gave the pub­lic the occa­sion to show sol­i­dar­i­ty with this cam­paign, and the action of civ­il dis­obe­di­ence effec­tive­ly lib­er­at­ed a pub­lic space. The debate is now open. From today, biotech­nol­o­gy has to demon­strate that its research is in the ser­vice of an agri­cul­tur­al mod­el which is sus­tain­able, eco­log­i­cal, and just.”

http://fieldliberation.wordpress.com

Land is Ours autumn gathering 2011

The Land Is Ours
Autumn Gath­er­ing 2011

TLIO are host­ing a week­end gath­er­ing from Sat 8th to Sun 9th Octo­ber this year at Monk­ton Wyld Court, near Axmin­ster, Dorset. Come and enjoy a feast of inspi­ra­tional talks, open dis­cus­sions, work­shops and evening enter­tain­ment in the pleas­ant­ly eccen­tric set­ting of Monk­ton Wyld.

Talks and work­shops will include the fol­low­ing themes:

The Land Is Ours
Autumn Gath­er­ing 2011

TLIO are host­ing a week­end gath­er­ing from Sat 8th to Sun 9th Octo­ber this year at Monk­ton Wyld Court, near Axmin­ster, Dorset. Come and enjoy a feast of inspi­ra­tional talks, open dis­cus­sions, work­shops and evening enter­tain­ment in the pleas­ant­ly eccen­tric set­ting of Monk­ton Wyld.

Talks and work­shops will include the fol­low­ing themes:

• The need for land redis­tri­b­u­tion — post Peak-Oil

• Agri­cul­tur­al sub­si­dies — who for & for what?/Campaigning against Mega­farms.

• The Local­ism Bill and oth­er Plan­ning Reforms — Threats and Oppor­tu­ni­ties.

• Defend­ing pub­lic forests.

• Set­ting up land trusts, for hous­ing and land projects.

• Reclaim the Fields and Via Campesina.

• What future for direct action land cam­paigns?

Oth­er pro­pos­als for work­shops etc are wel­come.

Places are lim­it­ed so please book ear­ly. There is no fee for atten­dance, but lunch and sup­per are pro­vid­ed at £6 per meal, and bed and break­fast costs per night are £25 for a bed, £15 for a yoga mat in the main hall, or £10 camp­ing (there will be a lim­it­ed no of places half-price for the main hall and camp­ing), avail­able Fri­day, Sat­ur­day and Sun­day evening. Please book in advance, by con­tact­ing

info@tlio.org.uk or 01297 561359
http://www.tlio.org.uk/TLIO-autumngathering2011

Please Note: There may be a TLIO Sum­mer Gath­er­ing hap­pen­ing in the West Coun­try area this sum­mer as well. Keep check­ing the web­site for fur­ther announce­ments

Peru: 10,000 Aymaras Protesting against Transnational Mining Company

31st May 2011
For the past three weeks, more than 10,000 Indige­nous Peo­ple, most­ly Aymaras, have been protest­ing against the oncom­ing San­ta Ana sil­ver mine in south­east­ern Peru near the bor­der with Bolivia.

31st May 2011
For the past three weeks, more than 10,000 Indige­nous Peo­ple, most­ly Aymaras, have been protest­ing against the oncom­ing San­ta Ana sil­ver mine in south­east­ern Peru near the bor­der with Bolivia.

The Indige­nous peo­ple are con­cerned that pol­lu­tion from the new mine would threat­en their liveli­hoods and con­t­a­m­i­nate local rivers and lakes. For those rea­sons, the pro­test­ers want to see the Peru­vian gov­ern­ment revoke the min­ing license it grant­ed to the com­pa­ny behind the min­ing project, Canada’s Bear Creek Min­ing Cor­po­ra­tion. The pro­test­ers are also call­ing for a def­i­nite ban on all min­ing in the region.

The mas­sive protest, for which the Aymara and some Quechua have set up a sequence of block­ades along a 300km stretch of road on both sides of bor­der, was fac­ing a media black­out until this past week­end.

On May 27, a num­ber of gov­ern­ment build­ings in the Peru­vian bor­der town of Puno were loot­ed and set ablaze.

That seemed to give the media what they need­ed; how­ev­er, the orga­niz­ers of the protests are insist­ing that they aren’t respon­si­ble for the vio­lent lash out. Rather, they say, it was brought on by indi­vid­u­als who have infil­trat­ed the protests.

In hand with the lack of media cov­er­age, the police and mil­i­tary pres­ence through­out the protest has been almost non-exis­tent. On May 28, Reuters report­ed that Pres­i­dent Gar­cia has indeed autho­rized the mil­i­tary to “main­tain order”, but so far they haven’t tried do so.

That’s part­ly because of the sheer scale of the protest; but more­so because of the upcom­ing pres­i­den­tial elec­tion in Peru, which is set for June 5. Accord­ing to Reuters, Gar­cia has stat­ed that he won’t give the order to stop the protests until after the elec­tion con­cludes.

There was, how­ev­er, at least one vio­lent con­fronta­tion before the protest was in full swing. As not­ed on the WW4 Report,

At least one is report­ed dead in Peru’s south­ern region of Puno after the Nation­al Police fired on pro­test­ers April 26, the sec­ond day of a 48-hour civ­il strike or paro called by campesino groups to demand a halt to local min­ing and petro­le­um leas­es. The deceased, iden­ti­fied as María Choque Limache, 61, died after inhal­ing tear gas as police broke up a protest at the vil­lage of Yohoro­co, in Huacul­lani dis­trict of Chu­cuito province, accord­ing to Wal­ter Adu­viri Cal­isaya, pres­i­dent of the Puno Front for the Defense of Nat­ur­al Resources. Nation­al Police com­man­der Jaime Cordero Ayala denied this ver­sion of events, insist­ing she had not been at the protest and had died of nat­ur­al caus­es.

Most recent­ly, on May 29, the pro­test­ers reject­ed a deal to stand down in exchange for a 12-month mora­to­ri­um on min­ing. Nego­tia­tors for the pro­test­ers ini­tial­ly agreed with the offer, but the pro­test­ers them­selves said they won’t set­tle for any­thing less than a defin­i­tive ban on min­ing which must be rat­i­fied through a pres­i­den­tial decree.

Video 1and 2

Coal protesters show solidarity with the people of South Mongolia, and stand against China’s crackdown on freedom of expression

Today, 30th May 2011, a small group of anti-coal pro­test­ers ral­lied to a call out by South Mon­go­lian human rights activists for glob­al protest [1] and held a short vig­il out­side the Chi­nese Con­sulate in Edin­burgh.

Today, 30th May 2011, a small group of anti-coal pro­test­ers ral­lied to a call out by South Mon­go­lian human rights activists for glob­al protest [1] and held a short vig­il out­side the Chi­nese Con­sulate in Edin­burgh. This comes at the end of a month of protests in Mon­go­lia against the Chi­nese coal indus­tries destruc­tion of Mon­go­lian herders land in which two peo­ple have been killed. One was a Mon­go­lian herder and local anti-coal activist, Mer­gen, who was delib­er­ate­ly run over by by a coal truck while try­ing to stop it from tak­ing short cuts across herders land on the 10th of May. Accord­ing to the Guardian anoth­er pro­test­er was killed four days lat­er [2].

These protests have rat­tled the Chi­nese state, which has respond­ed with bru­tal crack-downs, and total cen­sor­ship. Cities in South Mon­go­lia are awash with para-mil­i­tary police and intense sur­veil­lance as areas are placed under Mar­tial Law [3]. Inter­net a phone com­mu­ni­ca­tion has been shut down. This is a con­tin­u­a­tion of the repres­sion of peo­ple who dare to stand up for the rights of Mon­go­lians. One case of par­tic­u­lar con­cern to the South Mon­go­lia Human Rights Infor­ma­tion Cen­tre is that of Mr Hada and his fam­i­ly [4].

The Inner Mon­go­lia Autonomous Region (IMAR) has been hit hard dur­ing what one human rights organ­i­sa­tion is call­ing the “coal rush.” Last year IMAR’s coal exports exceed­ed 700 mil­lion tons, with an esti­mat­ed 732.3 bil­lion tons of coal reserves still under the ground. This extrac­tion has come at the expense of the local pop­u­la­tion and envi­ron­ment. The Mon­go­lian peo­ple who have herd­ed live­stock on the land for gen­er­a­tions are now being thrown from their land and Chi­nese coal cor­po­ra­tions are mov­ing in to dig up the coal. Dur­ing the extrac­tion con­voys of coal trucks have been tak­ing short cuts through herders land, destroy­ing fences and live­stock. Bayagu­ut, a South­ern Mon­go­lian cyber dis­si­dent, said “this real­ly is a three-dimen­sion­al attack on us by the Chi­nese: they have destroyed our land, pol­lut­ed our air, and now dig­ging up what we have below ground. What we will be left with is a bar­ren land unin­hab­it­able to human beings.” [5]

The protest in Edin­burgh was held at mid­day and the group held plac­ards with slo­gans such as “End Chi­na’s Coal Rush” “Jus­tice For Mer­gen Killed By The Coal Indus­try” and “Stop The Killings In South­ern Mon­go­lia!” One also called for the release of polit­i­cal pris­on­ers in Mon­go­lia. The protest was organ­ised at short notice by peo­ple from Coal Action Scot­land, a group which takes direct action and works with com­mu­ni­ties fac­ing the coal indus­try in Scot­land.

Luke Dou­glas, who attend­ed the protest, said “It’s real­ly impor­tant to show sol­i­dar­i­ty with the peo­ple of South­ern Mon­go­lia, and to show the Chi­nese state that there are peo­ple out­side of Mon­go­lia and out­side of their con­trol who are watch­ing what’s going on. The bru­tal repres­sion of the herders and stu­dents protest­ing is despi­ca­ble. Peo­ple should not be impris­oned just for call­ing for human rights and cul­tur­al and polit­i­cal free­dom. I am inspired by the brav­ery by the peo­ple protest­ing in South­ern Mon­go­lia, and hope that today’s protest helps them in some way.”

Tam­my Price added “I’ve worked with com­mu­ni­ties in Scot­land who have been affect­ed by the Coal indus­try. The health and envi­ron­men­tal impacts of the open casts, plus the dis­rup­tion caused by the trans­port of the coal, are dev­as­tat­ing. It’s impor­tant to have a glob­al per­spec­tive on coal as an issue, as it is one that affects peo­ple all across the world. As well as peo­ple in Scot­land, we have pre­vi­ous­ly heard from those in Indone­sia [6], Colum­bia [7] and the US [8] fight­ing against the Coal indus­try. The coal indus­try glob­al­ly is respon­si­ble for envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion, human rights abus­es, cor­rup­tion and colo­nial­ism on a scale dif­fi­cult to fath­om until you start mak­ing these links between peo­ple affect­ed on a glob­al scale.”

Coal Action Scot­land

media@coalactionscotland.org.uk

1. http://www.smhric.org/news_384.htm

2. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/30/mongolia-protests-communist-party-crackdown

3. http://www.smhric.org/news_385.htm

4. http://www.smhric.org/Hada/Hada.htm

5 http://www.smhric.org/news_376.htm

6 http://coalactionscotland.org.uk/?p=2197

7 http://coalactionscotland.org.uk/?p=1433

8 http://coalactionscotland.org.uk/?p=2553

squatting stories wanted

Call­ing All Squat­ters!

Got any pos­i­tive, fun­ny or ran­dom sto­ries from your squat­ting expe­ri­ences?

We’re putting togeth­er an exhi­bi­tion and zine with pos­i­tive squat­ting sto­ries to con­tra­dict and show the oth­er side to squat­ting, to the one regur­gi­tat­ed again and again by the main­stream media.

Call­ing All Squat­ters!

Got any pos­i­tive, fun­ny or ran­dom sto­ries from your squat­ting expe­ri­ences?

We’re putting togeth­er an exhi­bi­tion and zine with pos­i­tive squat­ting sto­ries to con­tra­dict and show the oth­er side to squat­ting, to the one regur­gi­tat­ed again and again by the main­stream media.

Wher­ev­er you squat­ted, be it Brix­ton or Kur­dis­tan, or whether you squat now or you did in the 70s, any pos­i­tive sto­ries are wel­comed – the more var­ied in time & place the bet­ter. Some of the sto­ries we have so far include from after the sec­ond world war when fam­i­lies took refuge by squat­ting aban­doned army bar­racks, as so many homes had be bombed in the blitz, as well as some sto­ries of how new­ly arrived Asian fam­i­lies to Britain gave up the coun­cil hous­ing they had received to squat togeth­er in emp­ty estates to avoid the racial abuse they were suf­fer­ing.

Your sto­ries don’t have to be this extreme though, any­thing that is pos­i­tive, fun­ny or in some way a suc­cess of man­ag­ing to stick it up to the land­lords or a suc­cess­ful use of squat­ting for a protest or cam­paign, is very much wel­comed. The sto­ries don’t have to be your own expe­ri­ences but can be ones of friends, or ones you’ve heard, just so long as they are true.

Any good pic­tures you might have that can accom­pa­ny the sto­ries would be bril­liant too. Also, if you have pic­tures of trans­for­ma­tions you’ve made turn­ing a destroyed build­ing into a beau­ti­ful home, they would also be real­ly appre­ci­at­ed. Of course you can be com­plete­ly anony­mous from any­thing you con­tribute.

Email sto­ries & stuff to homemade@lorax.org.uk

Many thanks!

Inner Mongolians protest against Coal extraction

May 28, 2011

Chi­na: Inner Mon­go­lia: street protests against Chi­nese abus­es

Bei­jing – Protests are spread­ing in Inner Mon­go­lia, as demon­stra­tions spread fol­low­ing the death of two local herder lead­ers opposed to envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion due to coal min­ing.

Yes­ter­days, protests were held in two towns in Inner Mon­go­lia, the South­ern Mon­go­lian Human Rights Infor­ma­tion Cen­tre (SMHRIC) said.

May 28, 2011

Chi­na: Inner Mon­go­lia: street protests against Chi­nese abus­es

Bei­jing – Protests are spread­ing in Inner Mon­go­lia, as demon­stra­tions spread fol­low­ing the death of two local herder lead­ers opposed to envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion due to coal min­ing.

Yes­ter­days, protests were held in two towns in Inner Mon­go­lia, the South­ern Mon­go­lian Human Rights Infor­ma­tion Cen­tre (SMHRIC) said.

It has been dif­fi­cult for the for­eign press to reach the area, but pic­tures were sur­faced online show­ing hun­dreds of pro­test­ers march­ing through the coun­ty seats of Huveet Shar Ban­ner (coun­ty) and Left Ujum­chin Ban­ner.

The pro­test­ers car­ried ban­ners bear­ing Mon­go­lian slo­gans includ­ing ‘defend the rights of Mon­gols’ and ‘defend the home­land.’

Six more protests are planned in oth­er areas of Inner Mon­go­lia from Fri­day to 2 June, SMHRIC said. Using online social net­work­ing, Mon­go­lians were invit­ed to fur­ther gath­er­ings in Alshaan Left Ban­ner on Fri­day, Ordos City on Sat­ur­day, and Tongliao on Sun­day.

Protest first broke out on Mon­day in Xil­in­hot, the admin­is­tra­tive cen­tre of Xilin-Gol, when hun­dreds of eth­nic Mon­go­lians gath­ered in from of a gov­ern­ment build­ing after a Mon­go­lian herder leader was killed by a coal hauler dri­ven by eth­nic Han Chi­nese. Mer­gen, that is the herder leader’s name, was try­ing to stop coal-haul­ing lor­ries from tak­ing a short­cut across frag­ile graz­ing land

Pho­tos show­ing his body were post­ed online. They show his head, crushed under the wheels of a 100-tonne coal hauler dri­ven by two Han Chi­nese dri­vers on 10 May, and his body, dragged by the lor­ry for 150 metres.

On Tues­day, more than 2,000 peo­ple, most­ly stu­dents, took to the streets in protest, demand­ing Chi­nese author­i­ties respect the rights of Mon­go­lian herders to their land and lifestyle.

Indige­nous Mon­go­lians have com­plained for a while that Chi­na is only inter­est­ed in the region’s min­er­al resources, espe­cial­ly coal. For them, min­ing and indus­tri­al devel­op­ment is destroy­ing graz­ing land, under­min­ing the tra­di­tion­al herd­ing econ­o­my, already under stress from expand­ing deser­ti­fi­ca­tion and lack of rain.

Shen Wenyin, deputy chief of the Xilin­gol League gov­ern­ment, said on Tues­day night that the two Han Chi­nese dri­vers, Li Lin­dong and Lu Xiang­dong, had been arrest­ed by police. He did not com­ment the protest.

He did how­ev­er con­firm that res­i­dents in the Abag min­ing area tried to stop oper­a­tions at a near­by coal mine on 14 May because of noise, dust and water pol­lu­tion.

One of the pro­test­ers, Yan Wen­long, 22, was killed when Sun Shun­ing, a work­er, drove a fork­lift truck into Yan’s car. Sun was arrest­ed for inten­tion­al homi­cide. Offi­cial sources said that the mine stopped oper­a­tions.

The wave of protests is increas­ing­ly tak­ing on an eth­nic con­no­ta­tion as indige­nous Mon­go­lians resent dom­i­na­tion by eth­nic Han Chi­nese who have become the largest eth­nic group in Inner Mon­go­lia, fol­low­ing a delib­er­ate immi­gra­tion pol­i­cy pur­sued by Bei­jing that includes tax and finan­cial breaks as well as oth­er advan­tages.

Eth­nic Mon­go­lians now num­ber only 6 mil­lion out of 23 mil­lion peo­ple in the province, a minor­i­ty in their native land.

Experts note that the sit­u­a­tion remained calm until recent­ly. Things began to change when large-scale envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion began to threat­en the local herd­ing econ­o­my. Action by eth­nic Mon­go­lian groups based abroad has also played a role.

From Sig­nal­fire

http://signalfire.org/?p=10797

Anarchists Attack Surveillence Industry

May 27, 2011
Last night Inside Out Secu­ri­ty in New Bas­ford had it’s win­dows smashed.

May 27, 2011
Last night Inside Out Secu­ri­ty in New Bas­ford had it’s win­dows smashed.

We did this because they are respon­si­ble for mak­ing sur­veil­lance equip­ment that watch­es us every­where we go. They are specif­i­cal­ly respon­si­ble for a large num­ber of CCTV cam­eras in schools around Not­ting­ham. These cam­eras in schools fur­ther stig­ma­tise and ter­rorise the young, posi­tion­ing them as the dan­gers to each oth­er, train­ing them to become used to being watched, con­trol­ling their behav­iours and tak­ing away their free­dom. Instead of encour­ag­ing the young to love and live with wild pas­sion this soci­ety is caging them- forc­ing them into a lives not of their choos­ing.

We want to destroy these com­pa­nies that prof­it from the sick­ness of social sur­veil­lance on behalf of cap­i­tal­ism and the state.

We also did this in sol­i­dar­i­ty with those who resist the G8 and G20 con­fer­ences occur­ring in France this week. While the gov­ern­ment lead­ers from around the world dis­cuss ways to keep their pow­er, we will fight their sys­tems of oppres­sion that are all around us.

So their sur­veil­lance is there to pro­tect us? Fuck that. Their cam­eras exist to make us live in fear, to do as we are told, to make us feel alien­at­ed and scared of one anoth­er. The sur­veil­lance sys­tem is there to serve the inter­ests of the rich and pro­tect their prop­er­ty, pow­er and cap­i­tal.

We see some­thing that destroys our free­dom, our rela­tion­ships with each oth­er and we wish to get attack it with the means we have avail­able. So whilst this was a small act of defi­ance, quick­ly reme­died in part by their insur­ance, we car­ry out this act because of the very fact that we search for free­dom from all forms of social con­trol. Every time we see sim­i­lar acts of rebel­lion, from throw­ing rocks at cops to the burn­ing of a prison, a smile spreads across our face and recog­ni­tion that the attack against this soci­ety of dom­i­na­tion con­tin­ues. We will con­tin­ue our par­tic­i­pa­tion in this attack, because it is our pas­sion- set­tling for a life of mean­ing­less sub­or­di­na­tion is not an option for us, not when all around us are exam­ples of our friends, fam­i­lies and our­selves being con­tin­u­al­ly fucked over by ram­pant cap­i­tal­ism, and the col­lud­ing state.

We must look to each oth­er with love and sol­i­dar­i­ty.

We must destroy what keeps us apart with rage.

Against the prison soci­ety.

For total free­dom.

South Coast climate camp eviction threat

26.5.11
The St Annes protest site in Lewes (http://brightonclimateaction.org.uk/)
has been under threat of evic­tion since 4pm yes­ter­day!

Please come and sup­port the resis­tance by com­ing to vis­it some­time soon.
OR come and stay on the beau­ti­ful site — we des­per­ate­ly need peo­ple to occu­py. There are spare tents and bed­ding.

26.5.11
The St Annes protest site in Lewes (http://brightonclimateaction.org.uk/)
has been under threat of evic­tion since 4pm yes­ter­day!

Please come and sup­port the resis­tance by com­ing to vis­it some­time soon.
OR come and stay on the beau­ti­ful site — we des­per­ate­ly need peo­ple to occu­py. There are spare tents and bed­ding.

Lots of fun things going on, includ­ing tree house build­ing, seed plant­i­ng, music mak­ing and tea drink­ing.

the address — St. Anne’s School (dis­used)
Rot­ten Row
Lewes
East Sus­sex
BN7 1LJ

and here’s a video about the site –
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B14oEZFLcHQ&feature=player_embedded

The Camp at the End of the Runway, Manchester, 27–29 May

Fri­day 27 May, 5.30pm to Sun­day 29 May at 8.30pm
The Woods, Near Man­ches­ter Air­port

Man­ches­ter Air­port is plan­ning to press ahead with its expan­sion plans, demol­ish­ing local homes and green spaces, and dou­bling air freight capac­i­ty. Come and spend a week­end in the woods, get­ting to know the area and local res­i­dents, and learn­ing more about the cam­paign against expan­sion.

Fri­day 27 May, 5.30pm to Sun­day 29 May at 8.30pm
The Woods, Near Man­ches­ter Air­port

Man­ches­ter Air­port is plan­ning to press ahead with its expan­sion plans, demol­ish­ing local homes and green spaces, and dou­bling air freight capac­i­ty. Come and spend a week­end in the woods, get­ting to know the area and local res­i­dents, and learn­ing more about the cam­paign against expan­sion.

Meet 5.30pm at Pic­cadil­ly Sta­tion 27th May, or at 6pm out­side Man­ches­ter Cen­tral Library for Crit­i­cal Mass. We will go straight to the camp from Crit­i­cal Mass.

Plans for the week­end include: Walk and Cycle Car­a­van to look at sites of cam­paign­ing sig­nif­i­cance such as Arthur’s Wood, the World Freight Cen­tre, Hasty Lane, and the sites of the 2nd Run­way Protest Camp; Pix­ie Pic­nic; Aware­ness Rais­ing and much more besides.

Alter­nate meet time: 11am Heald Green Sta­tion Sat 28th May for the walk and cycle car­a­van.

Some hot (veg­an) food will be pro­vid­ed, but the week­end won’t be ful­ly catered. Bring enough food to be self-suf­fi­cient, and a lit­tle extra to share. Cater for your own dietary require­ments.

What else to bring:
Bike (walk­ers wel­come too, but cycling will be eas­i­er)
Dec­o­ra­tions for your bike
Camp­ing Kit
Food (see above)

See you there
manchesterairportontrial@gmail.com

http://www.facebook.com/?sk=events#!/event.php?eid=222153411131342

Common Ground For Climate Action, 4–5 June 2011

Com­mon Ground for Cli­mate Action (the meet­ing after CC Space for Change)

A meet­ing facil­i­tat­ed by the Rhi­zome Col­lec­tive

DATE: 10:30am 4th June – 5:30pm 5th June
VENUE: Grow Heathrow, Sip­son, West Lon­don

Who is this meet­ing for?

Peo­ple who:
— have pre­vi­ous­ly been involved in organ­is­ing CFCA or oth­er rad­i­cal grass­roots cli­mate action
AND

Com­mon Ground for Cli­mate Action (the meet­ing after CC Space for Change)

A meet­ing facil­i­tat­ed by the Rhi­zome Col­lec­tive

DATE: 10:30am 4th June – 5:30pm 5th June
VENUE: Grow Heathrow, Sip­son, West Lon­don

Who is this meet­ing for?

Peo­ple who:
— have pre­vi­ous­ly been involved in organ­is­ing CFCA or oth­er rad­i­cal grass­roots cli­mate action
AND
— have ener­gy to pos­i­tive­ly explore options and strate­gies for
co-ordi­nat­ing nation­al­ly into the future.

This meet­ing is NOT:
— A place to revis­it the deci­sion to pause nation­al cli­mate camp
activ­i­ties in 2011 (though we will talk about the var­i­ous reac­tions to that deci­sion)
— A place to talk about what to do with Cli­mate Camp resources (this will need to be lat­er on)

We will be:
— Learn­ing about and explor­ing our com­mon ground in three key areas:
* What is hap­pen­ing in the wider world?
* Where do we fit?
* What future impact could we have?
— Explor­ing ways to man­age dis­agree­ment, live with dif­fer­ence, and build trust

ARE YOU COMING?
If you’re inter­est­ed in com­ing please email
spaceforchange@climatecamp.org.uk (by 26 May if pos­si­ble for plan­ning).
Fol­low this link for lots more infor­ma­tion about the back­ground to the meet­ing, as well as venue details and the agen­da so far:
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/events/2011/06/04/common-ground-for-climate-action

KITCHEN CO-ORDINATORS NEEDED
We are in urgent need of kitchen co-ordi­na­tors, if you think you can do this then please con­tact spaceforchange@climatecamp.org.uk ASAP

SATURDAY NIGHT SOCIAL
If you would be inter­est­ed in organ­is­ing some live music or a social for this event, then please email spaceforchange@climatecamp.org.uk

WHO ELSE IS COMING?
Please for­ward this mes­sage to any­one you think would be inter­est­ed in com­ing