Author: earthfirst

Activists Occupy Cargill US HQ

May 5, 2010

Update: five activists locked them­selves to the stair­case of the Lake Office, block­ing the entrance to the company’s exec­u­tive offices for over two hours. All five activists were arrest­ed.

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Nation’s Largest Pri­vate Agribusi­ness Com­pa­ny Under Fire for Rain­for­est Destruc­tion

RAN Cargill occupationMay 5, 2010

Update: five activists locked them­selves to the stair­case of the Lake Office, block­ing the entrance to the company’s exec­u­tive offices for over two hours. All five activists were arrest­ed.

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Nation’s Largest Pri­vate Agribusi­ness Com­pa­ny Under Fire for Rain­for­est Destruc­tion

Wayza­ta, Minn. – Six activists with Rain­for­est Action Net­work (RAN) have tak­en over the exec­u­tive offices of the nation’s largest pri­vate agribusi­ness com­pa­ny. Play­ing a loud record­ing of chain­saws cut­ting down rain­forests and hold­ing signs read­ing “This is the sound of your sup­ply chain,” and “Mr. Page: Rain­for­est Destruc­tion Stops with You,” the activists have locked them­selves to the stair­case of the Lake Office, block­ing the entrance to the company’s exec­u­tive offices.

A dozen demon­stra­tors are con­duct­ing a sol­i­dar­i­ty vig­il at the front of Cargill’s Wayza­ta head­quar­ters, greet­ing employ­ees as they enter with a 12 ft paper mache orang­utan and a sign read­ing: “Rain­for­est Destruc­tion Starts with Cargill.”

The activists have request­ed a meet­ing with Gre­go­ry Page, Cargill’s CEO, and are refus­ing to leave until he agrees to stop destroy­ing rain­forests and to imple­ment a com­pre­hen­sive palm oil pol­i­cy cov­er­ing its entire sup­ply chain.

“Cargill has been lying to its cus­tomers and to our com­mu­ni­ty,” said Eric Nielsen, local activist par­tic­i­pat­ing in today’s protest. “We want CEO Greg Page to act now to stop Cargill’s destruc­tion of rain­forests before it’s too late.”

The protest comes in the wake of a damn­ing report direct­ly link­ing Cargill, the nation’s largest importer of palm oil, to rain­for­est destruc­tion in Bor­neo. The report, released yes­ter­day, doc­u­ments sys­tem­at­ic fail­ures by Cargill to com­ply with inter­na­tion­al palm oil stan­dards and respect Indone­sian law through­out its palm oil sup­ply chain. The report also doc­u­ments rain­for­est destruc­tion on two plan­ta­tions that Cargill owns, but has hid­den from the Indone­sian gov­ern­ment and its cus­tomers. Over 10,500 hectares of rain­for­est have been destroyed since 2005, caus­ing sig­nif­i­cant con­flict with tra­di­tion­al and Indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties.

“Cargill has destroyed an area of rain­for­est the size of Dis­ney World in Bor­neo, endan­ger­ing orang­utans, pol­lut­ing water­ways and tak­ing land and liveli­hoods from local com­mu­ni­ties,” said Leila Salazar-Lopez of Rain­for­est Action Net­work. “How unsus­tain­able can a com­pa­ny be?”

Palm oil is one of the most com­mon­ly found ingre­di­ents in thou­sands of con­sumer prod­ucts, from soap and lip­stick, to break­fast cere­al and soymilk. Its use is wide­spread and increas­ing around the world, but par­tic­u­lar­ly in the Unit­ed States, where its con­sump­tion has tripled in the last five years. As the nation’s largest importer of palm oil, Cargill sup­plies the com­mon­ly used ingre­di­ent to some of the nation’s largest food com­pa­nies, includ­ing Gen­er­al Mills, Nes­tle, Mars and Kraft, mak­ing it like­ly that almost all Amer­i­cans have bought Cargill’s palm oil some­time with­in the last week.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, palm oil has been tight­ly linked to the destruc­tion of some of the world’s remain­ing rain­forests. Expand­ing con­sump­tion has trig­gered expand­ed pro­duc­tion, replac­ing once lush rain­forests with palm oil plan­ta­tions and endan­ger­ing unique species includ­ing orang­utans and sun bears.

The full report on Cargill’s activ­i­ties, enti­tled Cargill’s Prob­lems with Palm Oil, A Burn­ing Threat to Bor­neo, can be down­loaded at: http: www.ran.org/cargillreport

BRISTOL ECO VILLAGE EVICTION — BAILIFFS ON SITE NOW

5th May 2010
This morn­ing Bailiffs moved onto the site at St Webergh’s Bris­tol.

5th May 2010
This morn­ing Bailiffs moved onto the site at St Webergh’s Bris­tol. Res­i­dents are resist­ing and at present there are still four peo­ple on site plus two Tri­pod sit­ters, one on the roof of the build­ing and one on the gate. In a dis­turb­ing move how­ev­er, bailiffs sre threat­en­ing to remove the tri­pod sit­ters and and peo­ple on the roof with­out climb­ing teams and spe­cial equi­ment, claim­ing that these are not nec­es­sary.

Loca­tion BS2 9SH: http://wtp2.appspot.com/wheresthepath.htm?lat=51.46909913993294&lon=-2.5699142096996144&gz=18&oz=10>=1

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Most­ly still a stand-off but some updates..

The own­er has now showed up appar­ent­ly to talk to res­i­dents about the site. Mean­while the vil­lagers remain up tripods over the main gate to the site and on the roof of an on-site build­ing. A cher­ry-pick­er has showed up but as I under­stand it the local res­i­dents have occu­pied the pick­er … awe­some!!

This is not over by a long shot. Please get down to the vil­lage as there is every­thing to be won today. Bailiffs are still dis­cussing the poten­tial of just tip­ping tripods with peo­ple up in them. Any video cam­eras that can be tak­en down there are VITAL to stop the bailiffs from going nuts.

Local res­i­dents have put their bod­ies on the line by join­ing with Vil­lagers to link arms and block­ade the gates to pre­vent access by machin­ery.

upcoming events at the Black Cat occupied community social centre

Lift­ed from the Black Cat cen­tre blog [blackcatcentre.blogspot.com]:

“The Black Cat occu­pied com­mu­ni­ty social cen­tre is cur­rent­ly homed at the
for­mer Porter Butt pub­lic house on Lon­don Road, Bath, oppo­site the E$$o
sta­tion and next door to Mor­risons. We still have a lot of work to do,
clean­ing and set­ting things up — vol­un­teers always appre­ci­at­ed to the lev­el

Lift­ed from the Black Cat cen­tre blog [blackcatcentre.blogspot.com]:

“The Black Cat occu­pied com­mu­ni­ty social cen­tre is cur­rent­ly homed at the
for­mer Porter Butt pub­lic house on Lon­don Road, Bath, oppo­site the E$$o
sta­tion and next door to Mor­risons. We still have a lot of work to do,
clean­ing and set­ting things up — vol­un­teers always appre­ci­at­ed to the lev­el
of mad, over­bear­ing pup­py enthu­si­as­tic ado­ra­tion, slob­ber and all (nap­kins
pro­vid­ed) — but already have a cou­ple of events lined up:

Tues­days, from 6.15–7.30pm, week­ly free yoga class­es are back on, so come
soak up the authen­tic wood floor­ing and chilled late spring sun­light,
spir­i­tu­al one-ness an’ all

Wednes­day 5th May will present ‘Nev­er Mind the Vote, Here’s the Folk’: an
evening of anti-folk, folk-rap & faux folk with ‘The Casu­al Ter­ror­ist’
(anar­cho anti-folk from New­cas­tle), ‘Clay­ton Bliz­zard’ (Briz­zle’s own chub­by
gui­tar-wield­ing, word­smith vir­tu­oso), and ‘Madame Hat­ter’ (the Black Cat’s
own miss-fit, deca­dence plumb­ing, answer to a very sil­ly ques­tion); run­ning
from 7.30pm-11pm, £3 sug­gest­ed dona­tion entry (though no one turned away for
lack of funds), there will also be cheap veg­an food, and a poten­tial free CD
of one sort or anoth­er for every punter

Sat­ur­day the 8th of May will fea­ture the sec­ond incar­na­tion of Madame
Hat­ter’s ‘Scabrous Cabaret’, at 21.03 hours, free entry, a wide open stage
night for what­ev­er per­for­mances peo­ple can bring, with DJish col­lab­o­ra­tion
from DJ Stoney Mon­ster and DJ Beav­is — dub/dancehall/Balkan beats: “Should
you be prud­ish pud­dings, freak frogs, veg­an vul­tures, break­fast brutes and
funky fruits, bang poets or junk poets or even plain poets, blue cab­bages
and pink trum­pets, mer­ry-go-round trav­ellers or mag­ic round­about surfers and
hul­la-hoop singers, stu­dious stu­dents and naughty rodents, squat­ter­pil­lars
or passers-by, fun­ny flap­ping flow­ers or bloom­ing but­ter­flies, par­ty peo­ple
or burst­ing bub­bles, the usu­al crows and so many more if you’re hun­gry for
the encore, you are all invit­ed to the new edi­tion of Madame Hat­ter’s
scabrous cabaret for a night of sweet delir­i­um open to all sorts of
per­form­ers, artists, poets, sto­ry-tellers… She’s slim and slimy and could eas­i­ly break into your pipery, Beware of Madame Hat­ter coz’ of deca­dence she’s the plumber…”

And fol­low­ing on from that friv­o­li­ty, but in no way less­ened by it, will be
the Bris­tol & Bath Ris­ing Tide meet­ing — a cam­paign­ing group mak­ing a name
for itself tak­ing direct action against the root caus­es of cli­mate
injus­tice, from 7pm — all wel­come

Events at this cur­rent loca­tion will prob­a­bly come to a close fol­low­ing this, as we are due in Bath Coun­ty Court defend­ing against Julian Richer’s pos­ses­sion claim on Fri­day the 7th May. C’est la vie

love, rage and kit­ty lit­ty”

Sabotage stopping Trump

April 29, 2010

New­ly-plant­ed mar­ram grass was ripped up, fences pulled down, diesel sup­plies pol­lut­ed and two JCB dig­gers destroyed, caus­ing an esti­mat­ed £50,000 of dam­age.

The dam­age was dis­cov­ered on Mon­day. More than 1,000sqm of mar­ram grass was ripped out of the ground at the 15th green, while 150 metres of fenc­ing bor­der­ing the hole was also torn down.

April 29, 2010

New­ly-plant­ed mar­ram grass was ripped up, fences pulled down, diesel sup­plies pol­lut­ed and two JCB dig­gers destroyed, caus­ing an esti­mat­ed £50,000 of dam­age.

The dam­age was dis­cov­ered on Mon­day. More than 1,000sqm of mar­ram grass was ripped out of the ground at the 15th green, while 150 metres of fenc­ing bor­der­ing the hole was also torn down.

Just 24 hours before, van­dals had tar­get­ed two heavy dig­gers at the site, cut­ting their wiring, remov­ing bat­ter­ies and pour­ing sand into the engines. About 3,000 litres of diesel were also destroyed when the fuel was mixed with what is thought to be sug­ar.

The mali­cious assault is the lat­est evi­dence that the devel­op­ment is becom­ing increas­ing­ly unpop­u­lar. A poll pub­lished this week sug­gest­ed Scots now oppose the scheme by two to one, despite claims it will boost tourism in the north-east and cre­ate thou­sands of new jobs.

Mr Trump, also known as ‘The Don­ald’, first announced his plans to build the “world’s great­est golf course” in March 2006, but his pro­pos­al took more than two years to gain approval after it was furi­ous­ly opposed by con­ser­va­tion­ists. Crit­ics argue that the resort, which will include two cham­pi­onship golf cours­es, 950 hol­i­day homes and 500 hous­es, will wreck rare sand dunes, which are des­ig­nat­ed as a Site of Spe­cial Sci­en­tif­ic Inter­est. There are also con­cerns that Mr Trump will use com­pul­so­ry pur­chase orders to force res­i­dents whose hous­es are in the way of his plans out of their homes.

The attack comes less than two weeks after a fire spread across six acres of grass and dunes at the site. The blaze was blamed on a dis­card­ed bar­be­cue. It is not known if the inci­dent was a delib­er­ate act.

CLIMATE PROTESTERS FACE LIFE SENTENCES AFTER COAL TRAIN BLOCKADE

On Mon­day 26th April, peo­ple involved in the Ris­ing Tide Net­work
lit­er­al­ly put their necks on the line by blockad­ing the rail­track which
car­ries coal from the con­tro­ver­sial open-cast mine at Ffos-y-Fran in
Merthyr Tyd­fil to Aberthaw Pow­er Sta­tion.

On Mon­day 26th April, peo­ple involved in the Ris­ing Tide Net­work
lit­er­al­ly put their necks on the line by blockad­ing the rail­track which
car­ries coal from the con­tro­ver­sial open-cast mine at Ffos-y-Fran in
Merthyr Tyd­fil to Aberthaw Pow­er Sta­tion. It took the com­bined efforts
of British Rail Police and South Wales Police over 8 hours to remove the
last of the pro­test­ers at 8.10pm on Mon­day evening.

18 Peo­ple from Bris­tol and Bath are due in court on 10th May, charged
under the Mali­cious Dam­ages Act of 1861, a law to pro­tect the inter­ests
of 19th Cen­tu­ry rail own­ers. If con­vict­ed they face any­thing up to a
life sen­tence in prison. The 18 Peo­ple, who are part of the Ris­ing Tide
(UK) Net­work were held for over 24 hours, and were only allowed to phone
out after 11.00 am yes­ter­day (Tues­day). The house of one of those
involved was raid­ed by 8 police offi­cers who spent 3 hours search­ing
their home.

Kim Green from Ris­ing Tide (UK) said:

“We are protest­ing the con­tin­ued extrac­tion and burn­ing of fos­sil fuels
in the face of a glob­al cli­mate emer­gency. The fail­ure of the Copen­hagen
cli­mate talks to deal with this huge prob­lem, and the obvi­ous pol­i­cy
inad­e­qua­cy the three main UK par­ties con­test­ing the gen­er­al elec­tion to
take the nec­es­sary action to tack­le the prob­lem has high­light­ed the need
for the peo­ple to take grass-roots direct action.”

Kim Green con­tin­ues:

“This action is also in sup­port of the local peo­ple of Merthyr Tyd­fil
whose cam­paign ‘Res­i­dents Against Ffos-y-Fran’ has been fight­ing the
mine for over six years. The mine caus­es noise pol­lu­tion for up to 16
hours a day, dust and dirt are car­ried into the town by the wind, and it
turns the rain black.”

The process by which Miller-Argent were able to get the go ahead to
exploit this resource at the social cost of both the local and glob­al
com­mu­ni­ty failed to take into con­sid­er­a­tion the social-envi­ron­men­tal
impact of such projects, high­light­ing the demo­c­ra­t­ic deficit in the
plan­ning process. The new­ly formed quan­go “The Plan­ning Com­mis­sion” will
only make these things worse, being able to ignore any con­sid­er­a­tion in
favour of prof­it.

Miller Argent have been quick to pres­sure their small work­force into
mobil­is­ing against local con­cerns — but their appar­ent con­cern for their
work­ers is betrayed by the fact that they are actu­al­ly look­ing to sell
the mine as there is only half the quan­ti­ty of high qual­i­ty coal as they
ini­tial­ly believed. They are in fact mak­ing a loss on the project.

On the poten­tial life sen­tence, a spokesper­son for the 18 said:

“We would not antic­i­pate fac­ing any such penal­ty as we took great care
to ensure the safe­ty of all tak­ing part and had made cer­tain that the
coal train would not leave the load­ing area before the line was blocked.”

“This was a care­ful­ly planned action: hence it’s suc­cess. How­ev­er, we
admit that it was a dras­tic course of action but even this bare­ly
match­es the cli­mate cri­sis we will face if much more rad­i­cal mea­sures
are not tak­en now.”

All 18 have been bailed to appear at Merthyr Tyd­fill Mag­is­trates Court
on 10th May at 10.00 am.

*** Aberthaw Pow­er Sta­tion is the biggest pol­luter in Wales. In 2006 it
released 7.4. mil­lion tonnes of Co2. It is Pro­ject­ed to run until 2025
with NO PLANS to fit car­bon cap­ture stor­age (CCS) tech­nol­o­gy. 40% of the
coal for the pow­er sta­tion is sup­plied by Ffos-Y-Fran. It was tar­get­ed
by Bris­tol & Cardiff Ris­ing Tide in 2008.

*** Miller Argent own and run Ffos-Y-Fran. Argent are in turn owned by
the BT Pen­sions Group. Both of these organ­i­sa­tions make much of their
eth­i­cal and sus­tain­able prac­tices. But in this case they seem to be
plac­ing prof­its over and above any ele­ment of social respon­si­bil­i­ty.

Plane Stupid targets Red Bullshit

Envi­ron­men­tal cam­paign group, Plane Stu­pid, has deposit­ed a large mound of manure out­side the south Lon­don HQ of soft drink giant Red Bull.

Red BullshitEnvi­ron­men­tal cam­paign group, Plane Stu­pid, has deposit­ed a large mound of manure out­side the south Lon­don HQ of soft drink giant Red Bull. Three activists, dressed as ‘aveng­ing air host­esses’ in wigs and mini-dress­es the same colour as the company’s logo, crowned the mound with plac­ards read­ing: ‘Red Bull-sh*t’, ‘Red Bull gives you (plane) wings’ and ‘No sec­ond run­way by stealth.’

The move was prompt­ed by the rev­e­la­tion that Red Bull has applied for plan­ning per­mis­sion to build an aero­drome oppo­site Lon­don City Air­port. The com­pa­ny claims that the new con­trol tow­er, run­way and heli­pads would sup­port its annu­al air race on the Riv­er Thames.

But there are grow­ing fears that the com­pa­ny is work­ing with Lon­don City Air­port and Newham Coun­cil to intro­duce a new heli­port and per­ma­nent run­way for pri­vate jets through the back door. ‘We believe Red Bull’s claim is bullsh*t and we’re telling them so,’ said spokes­woman Eliz­a­beth Baines.

‘Lon­don City Air­port is posi­tion­ing itself a major hub for City exec­u­tives,’ Eliz­a­beth con­tin­ued. ‘We sus­pect that Red Bull’s plan­ning appli­ca­tion is an under­hand way of help­ing the air­port to attract pri­vate jet and heli­copter users. That way, they won’t have to deal with fierce oppo­si­tion from peo­ple in East Lon­don who are sick and tired of the noise and pol­lu­tion from the air­port.’

Lon­don City Air­port has been feel­ing the heat recent­ly. Local cam­paign group Fight The Flights (FTF) has launched a High Court bid to stop the air­port from expand­ing its flights vol­ume by 50%. Six local coun­cils have pub­licly sup­port­ed FTF’s bid. The Greater Lon­don Assembly’s Envi­ron­ment Com­mit­tee is also hold­ing a probe into the effects of the expan­sion.

‘We insist that Newham coun­cil turns down this plan­ning appli­ca­tion. Red Bull may have high fly­ing ideas but this time we think their wings should be clipped,’ Elsie added. ‘

For more infor­ma­tion con­tact:
Leo Mur­ray: 07595 506673
Nan­cy Birch: 07506 006597

Massive “Climate Action Now” Banner unfurled

April 25, 2010

Mas­sive “Cli­mate Action Now” Ban­ner unfurled

DELTA, BC, CANADA — GatewaySucks.org and the Coun­cil of Cana­di­ans (Delta/Richmond chap­ter) unfurled a mas­sive ban­ner today that reads “CLIMATE ACTION NOW” on land slat­ed for free­way con­struc­tion.

Climate Action Now!

April 25, 2010

Mas­sive “Cli­mate Action Now” Ban­ner unfurled

DELTA, BC, CANADA — GatewaySucks.org and the Coun­cil of Cana­di­ans (Delta/Richmond chap­ter) unfurled a mas­sive ban­ner today that reads “CLIMATE ACTION NOW” on land slat­ed for free­way con­struc­tion.

His­toric homes are being demol­ished, and ancient indige­nous sites are under threat from the South Fras­er Perime­ter Road (SFPR) project here on the Fras­er Riv­er bank. The est. $2 bil­lion SFPR is part of the con­tro­ver­sial Gate­way pro­gram, which would great­ly increase green­house gas emis­sions in BC.

The action took place at Riv­er Road and Cen­tre Street in Delta. It coin­cides with the mul­ti-faith Pil­grim­age to Burns Bog, and is vis­i­ble from the pil­grim­age route across the Alex Fras­er Bridge. Pil­grims and activists aim to raise aware­ness about Burns Bog, a large, car­bon-seques­ter­ing peat bog also under threat from the SFPR free­way.

“Our neigh­bours are being forced out of their homes, and ecosys­tems are being bull­dozed,” says Delta res­i­dent Ernie Baatz. “Schools and pro­grams are being cut across the province to pay for this cli­mate chang­ing free­way. We have to stand up to this appalling waste.”

Baatz and fel­low activists also plant­ed trees at the site today, to high­light the area’s poten­tial as a river­front park, not a river­front free­way. Although prepara­to­ry work has begun on some sec­tions of the SFPR, no build con­tract is in place. A request for pro­pos­als was issued by the Min­istry of Trans­porta­tion in April 2009.

Today’s action is part of a week of events dubbed “Earth Action Week” by GatewaySucks.org and the Coun­cil of Cana­di­ans (Delta/Richmond chap­ter). For the full list of events see www.gatewaysucks.org/earth-action-week-april-1826

Pho­tographs are avail­able at www.gatewaysucks.org/picture-links

Fol­low www.twitter.com/gatewaysucks for updates

For more infor­ma­tion about the Pil­grim­age to Burns Bog see www.pilgrimage2burnsbog.org

» Big shout out to UK roads activists past and present. You inspire us!

Bristol and Bath Rising Tide Blockade Merthyr to Aberthaw Coal Train — update

Update:
18 peo­ple were arrest­ed and some held for over 24 hours at Ystrad Mynach police sta­tion before being charged a with:
An unlaw­ful act with intent to obstruct the rail­way under the Mali­cious Dam­ages Act of 1861.

Update:
18 peo­ple were arrest­ed and some held for over 24 hours at Ystrad Mynach police sta­tion before being charged a with:
An unlaw­ful act with intent to obstruct the rail­way under the Mali­cious Dam­ages Act of 1861.
This Vic­to­ri­an law designed to pro­tect the inter­ests of rail own­ers has a mxi­mum penal­ty of life. We would not antic­i­pate fac­ing any such penal­ty as we took great care to ensure the safe­ty of all tak­ing part and had made cer­tain that the coal train would not leave the load­ing area before the line was blocked.

The 18 were held inco­mu­ni­ca­do for a por­tion of the time they were in the cells and were only allowed to phone out after 11.00 am yes­ter­day. The house of one of those involved was raid­ed by 8 police offi­cers who spent 3 hours search­ing their home.

The last per­son was released at 7.30 pm last night. All had bail con­di­tions stip­u­lat­ing that they should not go on the rail­way with­out writ­ten per­mis­sion — but we were allowed to catch the train home!

The arrests were made by British Trans­port Police backed up by a large con­tin­gent of the South Wales police force. A heli­copter was also used in the oper­a­tion The cut­ting team removed the last block­ad­er at 8.10 pm. after the line had been closed for over 8 hours.

All 18 have been bailed to appear at Mythyr Tyd­fill Mag­is­trates Court on 10th May at 10.00 am.

.….

lat­est update is that absolute­ly every1 involved has been nicked up to about 17/18 peo­ple all told I reck­on, includ­ing dri­vers, legal observers, etc. Vehi­cles believed to have also been impound­ed. 🙁 A sec­ond wave lock-on with more heavy duty gear believed to have attached them­selves to track short­ly after 1st wave cleared; all arrest­ed lat­er that aft/eve.

The activists, part of the Bris­tol and Bath Ris­ing Tide direct action group, reached the rail track at mid­day today, and phoned the secu­ri­ty at the coal mine to warn them about the protest. Three of the activists then used chains and pad­locks to lock them­selves to the train tracks. Two of the activists went to a near­by van­tage point where they could warn any approach­ing trains The activists also stretched a large ban­ner across the line.

Police arrived at around 2pm, and warned the activists that they would be arrest­ed for tres­pass­ing and obstruct­ing the train line. They arrest­ed the activists not attached the train-line and began cut­ting through the pad­locks at around 4pm. The last activist was tak­en away from the scene at 5.15pm. But a sec­ond group arrived and locked on fur­ther along the line. Police are now deal­ing with them.

27 April 3pm update: The police have released a state­ment say­ing a total of 18 peo­ple — 11 men and sev­en women — were arrest­ed yes­ter­day. The train line reopened at 8.10pm last night.

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Bris­tol and Bath Ris­ing Tide Stop Coal Train – Hap­pen­ing Now !

Please Call 07835366330 for on-site inter­views and updates.
Alter­na­tive num­ber (off site): 07909172768

Kim Green from Ris­ing Tide (UK) said:

“We are protest­ing the con­tin­ued extrac­tion and burn­ing of fos­sil fuels in the face of a glob­al cli­mate emer­gency. The fail­ure of the Copen­hagen cli­mate talks to deal with this huge prob­lem, and the obvi­ous pol­i­cy inad­e­qua­cy the three main UK par­ties con­test­ing the gen­er­al elec­tion to take the nec­es­sary action to tack­le the prob­lem has high­light­ed the need for the peo­ple to take grass-roots direct action.”

Kim Green con­tin­ues:

“This action is also in sup­port of the local peo­ple of Merthyr Tyd­fil whose cam­paign ‘Res­i­dents Against Ffoss y Fran’ have been fight­ing the mine for over six years. The mine caus­es noise pol­lu­tion for up to 16 hours a day, dust and dirt are car­ried into the town by the wind, and it turns the rain black.”

The process by which Miller-Argent were able to get the go ahead to exploit this resource at the social cost of both the local and glob­al com­mu­ni­ty, high­light­ing the demo­c­ra­t­ic deficit in the plan­ning process, which takes in to con­sid­er­a­tion the social-envi­ron­men­tal impact of such projects. The new­ly formed quan­go “The Plan­ning Com­mis­sion” will only make these things worse, being able to ignore any con­sid­er­a­tion in favour of prof­it.

Miller Argent have been quick to pres­sure their small work­force into mobil­is­ing against local con­cerns — but their appar­ent con­cern for their work­ers is betrayed by the fact that they are actu­al­ly look­ing to sell the mine as the quan­ti­ty of high qual­i­ty coal is only about as half as good as they ini­tial­ly believed. They are in fact mak­ing a loss on the project.

Notes To Edi­tor:

1. Ris­ing Tide is an inter­na­tion­al net­work of groups tack­ling the Root Caus­es of Cli­mate Change and Cli­mate Injus­tice. http://www.risingtide.org.uk/

2.Aberthaw Pow­er Sta­tion is the biggest pol­luter in Wales. In 2006 it released 7.4. mil­lion tonnes of Co2. It is Pro­ject­ed to run until 2025 with NO PLANS to fit car­bon cap­ture stor­age (CCS) tech­nol­o­gy. 40% of the coal for the pow­er sta­tion is sup­plied by Ffos y Fran. It was tar­get­ed by Bris­tol & Cardiff Ris­ing Tide in 2008.

3.Miller Argent own and run Ffos Y fran. Argent are in turn owned by the BT Pen­sions Group. Both of these organ­i­sa­tions make much of their eth­i­cal and sus­tain­able prac­tices But in this case they seem to be plac­ing prof­its over and above any ele­ment of social respon­si­bil­i­ty.

Bris­tol and Bath Ris­ing Tide
info@risingtide.org.uk
http://www.risingtide.org.uk

heavies sent in to rampart at globe road — join us tomorrow at noon.

A bunch of heav­ies broke into the ram­part social cen­tre’s new loca­tion on 105 Globe Road tonight (fri­day, 23 April) at 10:30 pm. There were about 20 of us here watch­ing films. The goons left, but said they want­ed every­one out of build­ing by 2 pm tomor­row.

A bunch of heav­ies broke into the ram­part social cen­tre’s new loca­tion on 105 Globe Road tonight (fri­day, 23 April) at 10:30 pm. There were about 20 of us here watch­ing films. The goons left, but said they want­ed every­one out of build­ing by 2 pm tomor­row.

We invite every­one, and their cam­eras, to come down and join us to wel­come them. Come down at noon.

A bunch of heav­ies broke into the ram­part social cen­tre’s new loca­tion on 105 Globe Road tonight at 10:30 pm. There were about 20 of us here watch­ing films. The goons left, but said they want­ed every­one out of build­ing by 2 pm tomor­row.

We invite every­one, and their cam­eras, to come down and join us to wel­come them. Come down at noon.

rampart@mutualaid.org

PARTY AT THE PUMPS PART 2… THIS TIME IT’S SHELL!

MASS ACTION CALL OUT

When: Sat­ur­day, 15th May
Meet: 1PM at Oxford Cir­cus
Bring: a zone 1–2 tube pass, noise­mak­ers, your friends & fam­i­ly and your
danc­ing shoes
Oxford Cir­cus meet­ing point map: http://tinyurl.com/OCnw-SVmap

MASS ACTION CALL OUT

When: Sat­ur­day, 15th May
Meet: 1PM at Oxford Cir­cus
Bring: a zone 1–2 tube pass, noise­mak­ers, your friends & fam­i­ly and your
danc­ing shoes
Oxford Cir­cus meet­ing point map: http://tinyurl.com/OCnw-SVmap

Shut­ting down a petrol sta­tion for 5 hours on a sun­ny Sat­ur­day after­noon was so much fun we’re going to do it again. Shell’s Hell – in the tar sands and beyond — is next in the fir­ing line.

Par­ty 1 had Sam­ba, twin sound sys­tems, a live Ceilidh band, face-paint­ing, free cakes and 200 peo­ple. Par­ty 2 will be big­ger and bet­ter, with activists join­ing us from Brighton, Oxford and beyond.
See here for a video of Par­ty at the Pumps Part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=An6-tdxd12M

And for all you cyclists out there, there will be a spe­cial Par­ty at the Pumps Crit­i­cal Mass mak­ing its way to the par­ty. Meet 1PM at Mar­ble Arch (under the arch).

Get ready for sun­shine, music, and danc­ing on the fore­court!

Why tar­get Shell?

Par­ty at the Pumps Part 2 is tak­ing place just three days before Shell’s AGM, where the com­pa­ny will come under fire from share­hold­ers over its plans in the Cana­di­an tar sands; and a week before the Merthyr to Mayo sol­i­dar­i­ty bike ride, which will link two com­mu­ni­ties in Wales and Ire­land resist­ing fos­sil fuel extrac­tion.

Par­ty at the Pumps is in sol­i­dar­i­ty with com­mu­ni­ties around the world who are resist­ing Shell’s destruc­tion of lives and liveli­hoods, poi­son­ing of lands and waters, and fuelling of cli­mate chaos. In North­ern Cana­da, Shell’s tar sands projects are ignor­ing First Nations treaty rights, caus­ing rare forms of can­cer and killing wildlife (http://www.ienearth.org/tarsands.html). In Ross­port, Ire­land, a dan­ger­ous onshore pipeline and mas­sive refin­ery are trans­form­ing an area of out­stand­ing nat­ur­al beau­ty into an envi­ron­men­tal dis­as­ter zone with seri­ous pub­lic health and safe­ty impli­ca­tions (http://www.rossportsolidaritycamp.org). And in Nige­ria, where Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight Ogo­ni col­leagues were hung by the Niger­ian state for cam­paign­ing against Shell’s dev­as­ta­tion of the Niger Delta, resis­tance to Shell and Big Oil con­tin­ues (http://www.remembersarowiwa.com).

These strug­gles may be hap­pen­ing in dis­tant places, but they are dri­ven from Shell HQ. On May 15th, we bring the resis­tance to the heart of Lon­don.

This action is joint­ly called by Lon­don Ris­ing Tide/London Tar Sands Net­work and Cli­mate Camp Lon­don.
http://www.no-tar-sands.org
http://www.risingtide.org.uk
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/london