Author: earthfirst

Three Cellphone antennas destroyed

4 July 2010
Over the past three week three mobile phone anten­nas have been destroyed by fire in the Not­ting­ham area. In each instance the action was per­formed with fer­vour and car­ried out in anger at the cap­i­tal­ist cul­ture. A cul­ture which seeks to dom­i­nate its sur­round­ings in order to increase it’s pow­er over it’s inhab­i­tants.

4 July 2010
Over the past three week three mobile phone anten­nas have been destroyed by fire in the Not­ting­ham area. In each instance the action was per­formed with fer­vour and car­ried out in anger at the cap­i­tal­ist cul­ture. A cul­ture which seeks to dom­i­nate its sur­round­ings in order to increase it’s pow­er over it’s inhab­i­tants.

These actions were sim­ple and repeat­able. The tools were old rags, flam­ma­ble liq­uids and a lighter. They were car­ried out against a telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions indus­try which facil­i­tates cap­i­talisms ongo­ing destruc­tion of the plan­et and the man­ner in which it deforms the social rela­tion­ships we engage in.

We car­ry out this action, and actions like it in sol­i­dar­i­ty with all those who choose to fight against repres­sion, the state and cap­i­tal­ism when­ev­er and wher­ev­er the oppitu­ni­ty aris­es.

We ded­i­cate this action to all those who are impris­oned by civ­i­liza­tion, but con­tin­ue to strug­gle against its cage.

Beat the Boreholes! Stop Shell Hell in Mayo this Summer!

BEAT THE BOREHOLES!!
Stop Shell Hell in Mayo in 2010.
A con­tin­u­ous mass act of civ­il dis­obe­di­ence is planned against Shell this Sum­mer in Mayo, Ire­land.

rossport solidarity camp
BEAT THE BOREHOLES!!
Stop Shell Hell in Mayo in 2010.
A con­tin­u­ous mass act of civ­il dis­obe­di­ence is planned against Shell this Sum­mer in Mayo, Ire­land.
Shell plan to drill up to 80 bore­holes to sur­vey the Sruth Fha­da Chonn estu­ary for their pro­posed raw gas pipeline. We plan to stop them! Work will start in July & con­tin­ue till mid-Octo­ber. The idea is that groups or indi­vid­u­als pledge to stop a bore­hole at a some time this sum­mer. Actions could range from walk­ing out on the sands to board­ing drilling rigs. The aim is to get each of the 80 bore­holes assigned a Beat the Bore­hole group. Between local groups, nation­al Shell to Sea groups, oth­er sup­port­ive polit­i­cal groups, groups from abroad, stu­dent groups, surfers, kayak­ers we might just do it! The project is already a decade late and three times over bud­get; impres­sive for a small com­mu­ni­ty fight­ing one of the biggest multi­na­tion­als in the world!

Why Stop the bore­holes?
Shell plan to build a tun­nel at a cost of 100million euro under the estu­ary link­ing up the off­shore pipeline with the refin­ery. This new route avoids land at Ross­port where 5 local men were sent to jail for oppos­ing Shell 5 years ago. The new route is still close to sev­er­al hous­es & cross­es pro­tect­ed habi­tats includ­ing salt marsh, inter-tidal mud flats & blan­ket bog. The bore­holes are to pro­vide a sur­vey of the estu­ary to deter­mine the final plans for the tun­nel. Due to the tides, & sea­son­al nature of the job any dis­rup­tion to work will slow the process down & could pre­vent them get­ting an ade­quate sur­vey done this year. They have to stop in mid-Oct on the arrival of the Brent Geese. The estu­ary is a Spe­cial­ly Pro­tect­ed Area & part of the Broad­haven bay Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion; pro­tect­ed under EU leg­is­la­tion. The oper­a­tion will dam­age parts of the estu­ary & dis­turb the wildlife there, par­tic­u­lar­ly Atlantic salmon,otters & sev­er­al species of birds.

Infor­ma­tion about the drilling oper­a­tion
Each bore­hole will take 2.5 days & up to 4 a week could be made. They will be drilling from 7am-7pm every week day but not at week­ends. There will be move­ment of barges & per­son­nel out­side these hours. Two jack-up barges will be work­ing at once in the estu­ary.

Ideas for Action
We are ask­ing peo­ple to come to Mayo & pledge to Beat a Bore­hole! Here are some ideas for action:

* Walk out on the sands at low tide to the drilling rigs.
* Stop the machines dri­ving over the beach/mudflat areas
* Have a pic­nic & hold ban­ners on the beach.
* Row out to the rigs in cur­rachs & try & get in the way.
* Kayak in our inflat­a­bles out to the rigs & get in the way ( (train­ing ses­sion essen­tial, but as long as you can swim any­one can learn).
* Board the drilling rigs.
* Block the boats with nets.
* Dis­rupt the flow of personnel/equipment from Bal­ly­glass pier

The Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp is sit­u­at­ed on land right next to the estu­ary. Every­one is wel­come to stay here & we can pro­vide equipment/training if required. There is also a camp house & a local hos­tel near­by if camp­ing isn’t for you!
If you would like to pledge to Beat a Bore­hole please email/ring the camp +353(851141170)
rossportsolidaritycamp@gmail.com. For more infor­ma­tion about Shell in Mayo see www.rossportsolidaritycamp.org
www.shelltosea.com

Direct action against the High-Speed Railway in the Basque Country

Itsason­do — FROM MINES AGAINST HIGH-SPEED TRAIN
Today, July 1, we have locked our­selves up inside an under­ground mine with the aim of stop­ping the con­struc­tion of the HST and the destruc­tion this is causing/will/would cause, to denounce the social mod­el it rep­re­sents.

Basque anti-TAV barrel lock-onItsason­do — FROM MINES AGAINST HIGH-SPEED TRAIN
Today, July 1, we have locked our­selves up inside an under­ground mine with the aim of stop­ping the con­struc­tion of the HST and the destruc­tion this is causing/will/would cause, to denounce the social mod­el it rep­re­sents.

Four peo­ple locked them­selves up in under­ground mines Itsason­do, with no way out. But they are not alone, out­side many peo­ple athered to pro­tect them and to show them our sup­port.

Near here, at the Mari­aratz con­struc­tion site, there are dai­ly explo­sions — explo­sions which destroy Earth and every­thing on/in/within it. as a con­se­quence of the tun­nel dig­ging these mines can col­lapse, endan­ger­ing the lives of these four peo­ple. There­fore, we demand the imme­di­ate halt of the works.

We know the risk is high. We’ve got into the depths, to secure this land with our bod­ies. We are locked into the mines to defend our ideas and to denounce the lack of a sense of the pow­er­ful. Our bod­ies are our weapons, direct action our way. Once again we have gath­ered here in Goier­ri (one of the val­leys where the rail­way link­ing Bil­bo with Donos­tia (Saint Sebas­t­ian) would run through), because the sit­u­a­tion in the area is real­ly wor­ry­ing. They are cur­rent­ly work­ing on five points: Mari­aratz, Olaber­ria, San Martín, and Beroste­gi Itsason­do.

In Octo­ber last year we climb the trees to stop the work and warn peo­ple about the sit­u­a­tion and today we had to get under­ground. Trees and land, two key ele­ments and seri­ous­ly affect­ed by the HST works. They know and we know that many peo­ple are against the HST. More than 15,000 peo­ple in the man­i­fes­ta­tion of Hen­daye, clear­est results in pop­u­lar con­sul­ta­tions and oth­er events.

But pow­er is deaf to this mas­sive oppo­si­tion and the sit­u­a­tion is wors­en­ing. Civ­il dis­obe­di­ence and direct action are the only way we can stop this dis­as­ter, and as long as they keep so adamant to build the HST we will con­tin­ue to con­front them. Hor­i­zon­tal orga­ni­za­tion and self-orga­ni­za­tion, that’s the way. To trans­form this social mod­el we need to change the basis of it, pri­or­iz­ing prox­im­i­ty and small things, build­ing local net­works and pro­mot­ing peo­ples’ lifestyle and cul­ture.

There­fore, we invite you come along to Itsason­do, to par­tic­i­pate in the organ­ised activ­i­ties and protests and to spread infor­ma­tion and mobi­lize on behalf of these activists and against the HST in your vil­lages and cities.

- Every­day vig­il at 7 pm in Itsason­do.
— Demon­stra­tions in the towns — Sun­day 4th July, ral­ly at 5 pm from the Plaza de Ordizia

ONGOING INFORMATION POINT at Itsason­doś main square Con­tact: 695 715 510
makinengainetik.animaliak@gmail.com

http://www.avatartherevolution.com/en/1
http://www.sindominio.net/ahtez/?q=es (Span­ish)

(Brief update: the con­struc­tion com­pa­ny, the Basque Rail­way Ser­vice and the police have all refused to stop the explo­sions of the tun­nel exca­va­tions, there­by endan­ger­ing the lives of the four activists who are cur­rent­ly under­ground)

Brazilian Indians protest against dams

1st July 2010
Enawene Nawe Indi­ans in Brazil are demon­strat­ing against a series of hydro­elec­tric dams which are killing the fish they rely on.

Amazonian dam1st July 2010
Enawene Nawe Indi­ans in Brazil are demon­strat­ing against a series of hydro­elec­tric dams which are killing the fish they rely on.

Three hun­dred Indi­ans have gath­ered in the town of Sapezal in the Ama­zon state of Mato Grosso, armed with bows and arrows to protest against the dam project.

Sur­vival Inter­na­tion­al is call­ing for the Enawene Nawe’s rights to their land to be upheld.

Unlike most tribes in the Ama­zon, the Enawene Nawe do not eat meat, so fish are essen­tial to their diet.

A total of 77 small hydro­elec­tric dams are planned for the Juru­e­na Riv­er, upstream of the tribe’s land. Five are already under con­struc­tion.

The Enawene Nawe were not con­sult­ed about the project, and they say that since work start­ed the Juru­e­na and its trib­u­taries have become pol­lut­ed.

Dur­ing the protests the Enawene Nawe have met with the Brazil­ian author­i­ties to reit­er­ate their oppo­si­tion to the dams. They are also demand­ing a full, inde­pen­dent envi­ron­men­tal impact study.

Every year the Enawene Nawe per­form yãk­wa, an impor­tant rit­u­al in which they build intri­cate dams across the small­er rivers and trap fish in large bas­kets.

The fish are smoked and trans­port­ed back to the vil­lage, where some are offered to the yakair­i­ti spir­its of the under­world in elab­o­rate cer­e­monies.

This year and last year the Indi­ans caught almost no fish, a dis­as­ter for the tribe, who rely on fish as their main source of pro­tein.

In 2008 the Enawene Nawe occu­pied one of the dam con­struc­tion sites and destroyed much of the equip­ment on the site.

Lewes Road Community Garden V Tesco, Brighton

Gar­den­ers and res­i­dents on Brighton’s Lewes Road Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den face the bailiffs in the next few days. THE GARDEN IS OPEN despite sub-con­trac­tors Ter­rins lock­ing up the front gates today (June 30).
More bod­ies the bet­ter over next few days. Gar­dens By The Com­mu­ni­ty For The Com­mu­ni­ty — Fuck the Cor­po­rates…

Lewes Road V TescoGar­den­ers and res­i­dents on Brighton’s Lewes Road Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den face the bailiffs in the next few days. THE GARDEN IS OPEN despite sub-con­trac­tors Ter­rins lock­ing up the front gates today (June 30).
More bod­ies the bet­ter over next few days. Gar­dens By The Com­mu­ni­ty For The Com­mu­ni­ty — Fuck the Cor­po­rates…

On Mon­day (June 26) 200+ peo­ple protest­ed out­side the site after the gates were locked by the gar­den­ers to com­ply with a court pos­ses­sion order. This was done to keep a com­mu­ni­ty activist from cough­ing up £7,000 in costs.

A day lat­er the gar­den had been re-occu­pied and opened up. It is cur­rent­ly open hav­ing been cleaned up and watered. Main con­trac­tors Gilbert-Ash are expect­ed on Thurs­day July 1 with sub-con­trac­tors Ter­rins sched­uled to clear the site and put up hoard­ings on either Fri­day or Mon­day.

Mean­while a legal and plan­ning bat­tle con­tin­ues over lack of con­sul­ta­tion and flawed plan­ning process involv­ing Brighton Coun­cil, main devel­op­ers Alburn Minos Ltd and Tesco.

Since May 2009, when gueril­la gar­den­ers took over a derelict Esso garage, the Lewes Road Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den has pro­vid­ed a meet­ing space and green haven along the busy, traf­fic-clogged Lewes Road. It has been enjoyed by thou­sands of peo­ple, pro­vid­ing a venue for com­mu­ni­ty events and bring­ing togeth­er local res­i­dents many of whom don’t have gar­dens them­selves. There is a food waste com­post scheme, veg­etable grow­ing and Fairlight school-kids have their own ‘pot up a plant’ project.

Attack on GM field in Pully, Switzerland

Dur­ing the night of June 23–24, an exper­i­men­tal field of GM wheat was attacked with her­bi­cides with the aim of killing the plants and pre­vent­ing research into genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied organ­isms. This was despite 24 hour guard, a dou­ble fence, CCTV and plain clothes cops in the sur­round­ing streets.

Dur­ing the night of June 23–24, an exper­i­men­tal field of GM wheat was attacked with her­bi­cides with the aim of killing the plants and pre­vent­ing research into genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied organ­isms. This was despite 24 hour guard, a dou­ble fence, CCTV and plain clothes cops in the sur­round­ing streets. Unlike in 2008 and 2009 when the field was also decon­t­a­m­i­nat­ed, the research cen­tre this year did not issue a press release about the eco­tage.

The activists explained, “Oppo­si­tion to genet­ic engi­neer­ing is part of a wider oppo­si­tion to the total con­trol of soci­ety and life that is being cre­at­ed thanks to the devel­op­ment of nano and biotech­nol­o­gy.

For these rea­sons, we also want to express our sol­i­dar­i­ty through con­crete actions with those who oppose this techno­scientf­ic cap­i­tal­ist sys­tem, and in par­tic­u­lar with Mar­co Camenisch, Sil­via, Cos­ta and Bil­ly, rev­o­lu­tion­ary pris­on­ers who are now jailed in Switzer­land because they under­stood that words are not enough and that action is need­ed to cre­ate rad­i­cal change, even if this means risk­ing their own free­dom.

Com­mu­nique in full

Anti-GM cycle car­a­van and links to oth­er anti-genet­ics info

Tesco targeted in Beeston, Nottingham

30.6.2010
In the ear­ly hours of Tues­day morn­ing, the gates of a con­struc­tion site of Tesco super­mar­ket in the Beston area of Not­ting­ham were d‑locked shut and graf­fi­ti was sprayed on the boards sur­round­ing the site say­ing ‘TESCO — FUCK OFF’ and ‘EVERY LITTLE HURTS — FUCK OFF TESCO’

30.6.2010
In the ear­ly hours of Tues­day morn­ing, the gates of a con­struc­tion site of Tesco super­mar­ket in the Beston area of Not­ting­ham were d‑locked shut and graf­fi­ti was sprayed on the boards sur­round­ing the site say­ing ‘TESCO — FUCK OFF’ and ‘EVERY LITTLE HURTS — FUCK OFF TESCO’

The more we allow our food sup­ply to be con­trolled by cor­po­ra­tions, or to be admin­is­tered by the log­ics of cap­i­tal­ism, the more we sur­ren­der our auton­o­my.

Tesco is just one cog in a cap­i­tal­ist machine that is based on exploita­tion and oppres­sion, and is ruin­ing our ecol­o­gy and envi­ron­ment.

Sol­i­dar­i­ty with all those in active resis­tance against cor­po­rate pow­er.

Licence to Spill — Liberate Tate create an oil spill at the Tate — inside & out

On the evening of the 28th of June at approx 7:15pm, Lib­er­ate Tate In protest over BP’s spon­sor­ship of the arts per­formed a “Solemn” oil like spill at the Tate’s Sum­mer par­ty.

Liberate Tate 1Liberate Tate 2On the evening of the 28th of June at approx 7:15pm, Lib­er­ate Tate In protest over BP’s spon­sor­ship of the arts per­formed a “Solemn” oil like spill at the Tate’s Sum­mer par­ty.

Dressed in black and veiled the per­form­ers car­ry­ing black buck­ets with BP logos spewed molasses over the entrance way as onlook­ers watched in amaze­ment as the Port­land stone floor was con­sumed by the black oil like mess.

Feath­ers were scat­tered and filled the air and in the same man­ner of approach the artists grace­ful­ly paced their escape.

Licence to Spill

“Apart from cat­a­stroph­ic spills like the Deep­wa­ter Hori­zon, there are a whole host of adverse impacts that are asso­ci­at­ed with the pro­duc­tion of oil. On the local lev­el, it often involves extreme forms of pol­lu­tion for local com­mu­ni­ties, while region­al­ly oil is fre­quent­ly asso­ci­at­ed with greater mil­i­ta­riza­tion and conflict. Glob­al­ly, car­bon emis­sions, oil com­pa­nies, and our col­lec­tive depen­dence on the prod­uct they push, are tak­ing us ever clos­er to the edge of cli­mate cat­a­stro­phe. ”

To down­load Licence to Spill, a new release from Plat­form, vis­it http://www.carbonweb.org/showitem.asp?article=381&parent=39

Info : http://www.artnotoil.org.uk/

Watch the video of the action : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pz-_2KLt1W0

—–

Anoth­er report, includ­ing what hap­pened inside the ex-gar­den sum­mer par­ty:
Flowery-dressed oil spills
BP-smocked
Sip­ping Pimms and gob­bling canapés many of the guests expressed con­fu­sion at whether these strik­ing actions were ‘art’ or not. Despite inac­cu­rate report­ing in var­i­ous media out­lets, Lib­er­ate Tate would like to claim full respon­si­bil­i­ty for these acts of cre­ative dis­obe­di­ence as art – art that refus­es to pre­tend to do pol­i­tics but is pol­i­tics, art that makes trans­form­ing the world a beau­ti­ful adven­ture.

The Tate Sum­mer Par­ty had been planned to be in the muse­um gar­dens and involve speech­es from BP exec­u­tives. How­ev­er, due to the rumours of dis­rup­tion, Tate was forced to hold the entire event inside the muse­um and no speech­es were made.

As the evening sun baked down on the stone court­yard of Tate Britain and mem­bers of the cul­tur­al and cor­po­rate elite made their way into the par­ty, 13 fig­ures dressed in black, their faces veiled, appeared from around the cor­ner. In a mourn­ful pro­ces­sion the art-activists approached the entrance car­ry­ing large bar­rels brand­ed with the BP logo. Dozens of pho­tog­ra­phers and TV cam­eras swarmed and a moment of tense silence enveloped the area. Some­thing was going to hap­pen.

Then in a per­fect­ly chore­o­graphed moment, the front pha­lanx poured hun­dreds of litres of the black liq­uid all over the entrance, whilst oth­ers threw feath­ers into the air which gen­tly drift­ed down into the huge sticky black pools. The som­bre fig­ures walked calm­ly away, dis­ap­pear­ing into the city, as the secu­ri­ty redi­rect­ed the guests to anoth­er entrance as the cleanup oper­a­tion began.

Mean­while, despite the heavy secu­ri­ty at the door, two Lib­er­ate Tate art-activists man­aged to infil­trate the par­ty wear­ing large flo­ral bouf­fant dress­es under­neath which were con­cealed large sacks filled with the oily molasses. Call­ing them­selves Toni Hay­ward and Bob­bi Dud­ley, they began their per­for­mance in the crowd­ed cen­tral gallery. At first drips began to fall from their hand­bags. “Oh, I seem to have a leak” whis­pered one of them to the lined up wait­ers dressed in bril­liant white, who kind­ly pro­vid­ed nap­kins to stem the spill.

Soon the sacks under their dress­es burst releas­ing tens of litres of ‘oil’ across the shiny par­quet floor. As a crowd formed around them, the two donned BP brand­ed pon­chos and scram­bled on all fours try­ing to clean up the mess using their high heel shoes to pour the slick back into their hand­bags, but to no avail. “Com­pared to the size of the gallery this is a tiny spill, a drop in the ocean,” they apol­o­gised to the view­ers, “we’ll def­i­nite­ly have it cleaned up by, say, August”.

The polite crowd that had formed con­tin­ued to watch appre­cia­tive­ly for anoth­er 20 min­utes, amidst a sea of cam­era-phones. Many began debat­ing among them­selves whether this was art or not (“I think it is. I like it”), whether Tate had organ­ised it, and what their per­son­al aes­thet­ic reac­tions to it were (“If I had seen this out­side, I think I would have felt as I do see­ing it… inside”). More than one invit­ed artist open­ly described this to their fel­low drinkers as the most sophis­ti­cat­ed work in the room.

LIBERATE TATE

Lib­er­ate Tate, is a net­work ded­i­cat­ed to tak­ing cre­ative dis­obe­di­ence against the Tate until it drops its oil com­pa­ny fund­ing. The 28 June art activist per­for­mances fol­low on from last month’s dis­rup­tion of Tate Modern’s 10th Birth­day cel­e­bra­tions by hang­ing dead fish and birds from dozens of giant black heli­um bal­loons.

The net­work was found­ed dur­ing a work­shop in Jan­u­ary 2010 on art and activism, com­mis­sioned by Tate. When Tate cura­tors tried to cen­sor the work­shop from mak­ing inter­ven­tions against Tate spon­sors, the incensed par­tic­i­pants decid­ed to con­tin­ue their work togeth­er beyond the work­shop and set up Lib­er­ate Tate.

www.twitter.com/liberatetate

Images: www.immoklink.com/BP-Tate/index.html

www.youandifilms.com/2010/06/license-to-spill/

See also LIBERATE TATE COMMUNIQUE 1 http://bit.ly/9RFfxJ (MAY 2010)

Full Video Report http://www.youandifilms.com/2010/06/licence-to-spill-full-report/

Just Do It: Get Off Your Arse and Change the World

Doc­u­men­tary fol­low­ing the for­tunes of envi­ron­men­tal activists in 2009 launch­es inno­v­a­tive crowd-fund­ing appeal

***

An affinity group meeting during the Great Climate Swoop at Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station
Doc­u­men­tary fol­low­ing the for­tunes of envi­ron­men­tal activists in 2009 launch­es inno­v­a­tive crowd-fund­ing appeal

***

In ear­ly 2009, Emi­ly James began film­ing the clan­des­tine activ­i­ties of sev­er­al envi­ron­men­tal direct action groups across the UK. Allowed unprece­dent­ed access, Emi­ly doc­u­ment­ed a year of esca­lat­ing action that began in spring with the now infa­mous G20 demon­stra­tions in Lon­don. Always in the thick of it and with ever her trusty cam­era to hand she sad­dled up with The Cli­mate Rush “Bike Rush” as they brought West­min­ster to a stand­still, pitched up with The Cli­mate Camp as they occu­pied Black­heath, masked up with The Great Cli­mate Swoop as they stormed the fences at Rat­cliffe-on-Soar coal pow­er sta­tion, and then accom­pa­nied them all to win­try Copen­hagen as they took their protest to the streets out­side the UN COP 15 cli­mate talks. And those are just the head­lines!

‘Just Do It’ fol­lows the tri­umphs, trau­mas and clan­des­tine activ­i­ties of civ­il dis­obe­di­ent envi­ron­ment activists as they take on the com­bined forces of glob­al cap­i­tal­ism, run away cli­mate change and the pesky Met­ro­pol­i­tan Police. Hav­ing gath­ered over 250 hours of mate­r­i­al, she and her team are now embark­ing on the chal­leng­ing task of turn­ing this footage into a fea­ture length film, which will inspire peo­ple to take action on cli­mate change. Check out the trail­er here: http://just-do-it.org.uk/.

Set for release in 2011, the Just Do it mod­el can be thought of as the ulti­mate in inde­pen­dent film pro­duc­tion. Unlike a TV fund­ed doc­u­men­tary, our inno­v­a­tive crowd-fund­ing mod­el allows us to work com­plete­ly free from exter­nal inter­fer­ence, be it edi­to­r­i­al or styl­is­tic. This means that we can focus entire­ly on mak­ing a film that does jus­tice to the excit­ing footage we have cap­tured. Our pro­duc­tion mod­el gives us com­plete con­trol. This is bot­tom up film­mak­ing, not the usu­al top-down, and it is dri­ven by pas­sion and cre­ative vision, rather than by desire for rat­ings or com­mer­cial imper­a­tive.

“It’s pre­cise­ly the kind of film that wouldn’t get made with­in the exist­ing prof­it and rat­ings-dri­ven fund­ing struc­tures,” explains Just Do It direc­tor, Emi­ly James, “Crowd-fund­ing through dona­tion enables us, as cre­ative artists, to be sup­port­ed by our audi­ence in a more direct way, with­out the involve­ment of cul­tur­al gate­keep­ers. This is anoth­er nail in the cof­fin for tra­di­tion­al media.“

‘Just Do It’ aims to tell an impor­tant sto­ry fre­quent­ly obscured by the agen­da of the cor­po­rate media. If you too think this is a sto­ry which should be told, then please donate here: http://just-do-it.org.uk/fund-this-film — whether it’s a ten­ner or a grand, it will be grate­ful­ly received.

Shell due to start work next week & report from Rossport Solidarity Camp

June 25, 2010
Things are get­ting very busy here — after a peace­ful June Gath­er­ing the camp is once more set to become a focal point for resist­ing Shell pipeline work. Shell are due in the estu­ary any day now to drill 80 bore­holes — pipeline sur­vey work that should take all sum­mer. Yes­ter­day we shut down the Shell office in Bel­mul­let. Today Mau­ra Har­ring­ton was jailed for non pay­ment of fines. Niall and Pat are still in jail. Gen­er­al­ly it seems that lots of peo­ple are wis­ing up to the oil indus­try in the wake of the BP dis­as­ter in the Gulf of Mex­i­co.…

Strength in Community, RossportJune 25, 2010
Things are get­ting very busy here — after a peace­ful June Gath­er­ing the camp is once more set to become a focal point for resist­ing Shell pipeline work. Shell are due in the estu­ary any day now to drill 80 bore­holes — pipeline sur­vey work that should take all sum­mer. Yes­ter­day we shut down the Shell office in Bel­mul­let. Today Mau­ra Har­ring­ton was jailed for non pay­ment of fines. Niall and Pat are still in jail. Gen­er­al­ly it seems that lots of peo­ple are wis­ing up to the oil indus­try in the wake of the BP dis­as­ter in the Gulf of Mex­i­co.…

Stop Shell
Roof Occu­pa­tion Protest at Shel­l’s Bel­mul­let Offices
Cam­paign­ers hung a ban­ner read­ing “Ener­gy should­n’t cost the earth” from the roof of Shell offices in Bel­mul­let on Thurs­day morn­ing at 8am. This protest con­nect­ed the envi­ron­men­tal dis­as­ter suf­fered by the fish­ing com­mu­ni­ty & peo­ple of Louisiana with the threat faced by the fish­ing com­mu­ni­ty and peo­ple of Erris. In par­tic­u­lar the protest was in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Pat O’Don­nell who has been jailed for his coura­geous defense of the seas and his liveli­hood.
The protest blocked the entrance to the offices pre­vent­ing Shell work­ers from enter­ing that day!
Press Release and pho­tos here: http://www.indymedia.ie/article/97054

Fore­shore License Grant­ed — Bore­hole Drilling Immi­nent
Yes­ter­day Shell cir­cu­lat­ed a let­ter giv­ing notice that the bore­hole drilling would com­mence “in the com­ing days”.
Recent­ly Shell got the sign-off from “Green” Min­is­ter John Gorm­ley on plans to bore 80 bore-holes in Sruwad­da­con bay. Once again the com­mu­ni­ty and camp will be oppos­ing the Shell work both on land and at sea. Water-action train­ing is ongo­ing. It will be a sum­mer long job if they get start­ed, so sup­port up here would be great when­ev­er pos­si­ble. Now would be a good time to come.

There have already been con­trac­tors around doing ini­tial sur­veys for the con­tract to con­struct the 5km tun­nel under the estu­ary — one can­di­date com­pa­ny is called ICOP from Italy. Pres­sure on them would be no harm.

Here is their web­site: http://www.icop.it/tool/home.php
And address:
I.CO.P. S.p.A.
via Sil­vio Pel­li­co 2
33031 Basil­iano UD,
Italy

And con­tacts: info@icop.it, tunnelcom@icop.it, fondazioni@icop.it, amministrazione@icop.it, personale@icop.it, acquisti@icop.it, tecnici@icop.it

T. +39 0432–838611
F. +39 0432–838681

Please write to Pat & Niall — polit­i­cal pris­on­ers
As a lot of you are aware Pat O’Don­nell and Niall Har­nett are cur­rent­ly in Castlerea Prison for con­vic­tions aris­ing from protests against the Cor­rib Gas project. You can read more on Pat’s jail­ing here: http://www.shelltosea.com/content/shell-corrib-gas-who-…llies or more on Nial­l’s jail­ing here: http://www.indymedia.ie/article/96547

Please also ‘Like’ the ‘Sup­port Shell to Sea pris­on­ers of con­science’ page on Face­book (if you’re on it): http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Support-Shell-to-Sea-prisoners-of-conscience/112831115416555?ref=ts and Pat’s page at http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Pat-ODonnell/313999028104?ref=ts

Let­ters to Pat and Niall great­ly appre­ci­at­ed -
Pat O Don­nell / Niall Har­nett,
Castlerea Prison,
Har­ris­town,
Castlerea,
Co Roscom­mon,

Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp Wish­list
You might have some­thing lying around that you don’t want or need any­more.
At the moment we could use:

* Wheel­ie bins, plas­tic bar­rels, pal­lets (will prob­a­bly find local­ly)
* Work­ing Recharge­able Pow­er tools
* Boats and out­board motors of any size or make: Pow­er boats, sail boats, rigid sea kayaks would be espe­cial­ly use­ful as they can’t be punc­tured or sunk too eas­i­ly
* Band­saw
* PV pan­els, invert­ers, bat­ter­ies
* Trail­er that a Ford Tran­sit could tow. Some­thing like a horse trail­er and fair­ly weath­er proof would be ide­al to trans­port bikes.
http://www.shelltosea.com
ross­port­sol­i­dar­i­ty­camp at gmail dot com

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Annu­al Ross­port Gath­er­ing report

Sup­port­ers from around the world joined in the annu­al gath­er­ing over the past week­end at the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp at Broad­haven Bay, Coun­ty Mayo in sup­port of the Shell to Sea cam­paign. A large con­tin­gent of cyclists trav­elled from Britain via Merthyr Tyd­fil in Wales where anoth­er cam­paign is focussed to stop an ugly open-cast coal mine which is destroy­ing the envi­ron­ment, pol­lut­ing air and water and endan­ger­ing the com­mu­ni­ty.

The gath­er­ing at Ross­port has been held every year since before the jail­ing of the Ross­port 5 in 2005 — local res­i­dents who refused, for rea­sons of health, safe­ty and clean envi­ron­ment, to allow Shell / Sta­toil to lay an exper­i­men­tal high-pres­sure raw gas pipeline through their prop­er­ties. The Irish gov­ern­ment had, in an unprece­dent­ed move, pro­vid­ed the mul­ti-nation­als with com­pul­so­ry pur­chase orders. The five were giv­en indef­i­nite prison sen­tences but were released after 3 months fol­low­ing mas­sive pub­lic out­cry. A lat­er hear­ing vin­di­cat­ed them when the orig­i­nal pipeline route was reject­ed because of dan­ger­ous prox­im­i­ty to dwellings.

A new route is now being put for­ward, but is still con­sid­ered unac­cept­able by Shell to Sea who believe that the only safe way to bring the gas ashore is by refin­ing it at sea and bring­ing it in at low pres­sure. The dan­gers have been well high­light­ed by dis­as­ters world­wide includ­ing the Piper Alpha explo­sion, the pipeline explo­sion at Carls­bad, New Mex­i­co (August 2000 when a fam­i­ly of 12 liv­ing over 200 metres away were com­plete­ly wiped out), the out­ra­geous death and destruc­tion in Nige­ria and now the BP oil dis­as­ter.

The Merthyr to Mayo cycle ral­ly called at Castlerea prison to sup­port fish­er­man Pat O’Don­nell and fel­low Shell to Sea sup­port­er Niall Har­nett who are both now serv­ing jail terms for obstruct­ing police who had been brought in the ensure Shell employ­ees were not ham­pered in their work — the Irish gov­ern­ment takes care of big busi­ness with­out regard for the liveli­hoods of the local com­mu­ni­ty and the health of their envi­ron­ment !

The whole project was pushed ahead with­out con­sult­ing the local peo­ple — the refin­ery, 9 km inland (select­ed because it was state-owned forestry land) now approach­ing com­ple­tion and the sea­ward pipeline layed. But still no legal­ly per­mit­ted nor local­ly agreed inland route ! And not like­ly to be ! Local cam­paign­ers have had their lives total­ly dis­rupt­ed for more than 10 years now with this non­sense and are utter­ly com­mit­ted to the point of putting their lives on the line, lit­er­al­ly.