Author: earthfirst

Climate Activists ‘Do A Banksy’ On 27 Tesco Branches

27.04.2009
At 4am this morn­ing twen­ty-sev­en branch­es of TESCO across cen­tral Lon­don were attacked by teams of cli­mate activists. ‘The Cli­mate Suf­fra­jets’ used sten­cils and green spray paint to write on the shops’ entrance doors.

Every little hurts graffiti27.04.2009
At 4am this morn­ing twen­ty-sev­en branch­es of TESCO across cen­tral Lon­don were attacked by teams of cli­mate activists. ‘The Cli­mate Suf­fra­jets’ used sten­cils and green spray paint to write on the shops’ entrance doors.

The sten­cils were of two ener­gy-effi­cient light bulbs being smashed by planes with TESCO writ­ten above and EVERY LITTLE HURTS below. The design refers to a Tesco pro­mo­tion that gives free air miles to cus­tomers buy­ing ener­gy-effi­cient light bulbs. The pro­test­ers com­plain that offer­ing air miles as reward for buy­ing ener­gy effi­cient light bulbs is con­fus­ing the con­sumer about cli­mate change. A spokesman for the group said:

‘Ener­gy effi­cient light bulbs save tiny amounts of CO2 com­pared to how much one flight wastes. By offer­ing air miles as a reward for mak­ing small envi­ron­men­tal changes Tesco is con­fus­ing us about what we can real­ly do to reduce our cli­mate impact. It’s like hand­ing out a free pack of cig­a­rettes with every nico­tine patch! As long as they con­tin­ue with their cam­paign we’ll con­tin­ue with ours.’

Last week Tesco’s week­ly turnover was announced to be £1 bil­lion, as the com­pa­ny ben­e­fit­ed great­ly from the reces­sion. A spokesman from Tesco was unavail­able to com­ment on how much it will cost to wash the green sten­cils from their store­fronts.

Police Raid on Newly Opened Squat, Bristol. Occupants evicted within 40 minutes.

27.04.2009
Thank you to every­one who came down in sol­i­dar­i­ty. Big thanks to all.

27.04.2009
Thank you to every­one who came down in sol­i­dar­i­ty. Big thanks to all.

This is what occurred: Reliance secu­ri­ty com­pa­ny respond­ed to an alarm that went off inside the build­ing. The police were then called. The first cop­per on scene was pre­pared to depart say­ing that ‘they have squat­ters rights and it is a civ­il mat­ter’, and then Reliance called the police again and 3 riot vans and 5 police cars turned up.

Whilst some of the Reliance per­son­nel tried to take sitex met­al sheets off, in order to gain access, the police suit­ed up and arrived at the main door with bat­ter­ing ram in hand.

The occu­pants were giv­en the option of leav­ing now with no charge (‘leave now and you can walk’), or stay and get nicked. After a group meet­ing, the occu­pants decid­ed to remain. The police (with riot shields and shouts of ‘stand down, stand down’) then bashed down the door, detained the occu­pants and bailed them to the street, to return to Trin­i­ty police sta­tion in May, on sus­pi­cion of crim­i­nal dam­age.

They were allowed leave with cheers for each per­son res­onat­ing from the crowd.

There were a cou­ple of com­e­dy moments: name­ly a con­ver­sa­tion between Reliance secu­ri­ty and squat­ters:
Squat­ter: Can I tell you a joke?
Reliance: Go on then
Squat­ter: What do call a man with no shins?
Reliance: What?
Squat­ter: Tony!

—and an old clas­sic from the sar­gent in charge: ‘Can I speak to the organ­is­er, or your spokesper­son?’ Amaz­ing, they nev­er learn do they?!

— A bat­ter­ing ram police offi­cer was hilar­i­ous­ly referred to by their col­leagues as ‘Cap­tain Chaos’, which caused the occu­pants much con­stant mirth. ‘Whose Cap­tain Chaos then, when’s he com­ing!’

141 Ash­ley Road has been emp­ty for near­ly a year now since the pre­vi­ous occu­pants (who were squat­ters) were evict­ed and emp­ty for longer before that. It is on the cor­ner before the shops on Ash­ley Road and Grosvern­er Road, and the gar­den is reg­u­lar­ly used for drug deals. Locals com­plain about this, yet Places for Peo­ple have done noth­ing about this prop­er­ty for years.

87 Ash­ley Road whose roof was occu­pied for 3 weeks dur­ing evic­tion resis­tance, remains emp­ty to this day, (despite Places for Peo­ple’s assur­ances that it would be turned into afford­able hous­ing.)

The direc­tor of places for peo­ple receives a salary of £250,000 a year.

Squat­ters, self-hous­ing them­selves, are tak­ing mat­ters into their own hands, and the onus off social hous­ing cor­po­ra­tions to house them. The argu­ment that squat­ters delay social hous­ing is rub­bished by the fact that 87 and 141 Ash­ley Roiad have remained emp­ty for months and years after the evic­tion of squat­ters, and not turned into afford­able social hous­ing. It seems P4P are more con­cerned with sell­ing off social hous­ing stock on the pri­vate mar­ket as can be seen with the new flats up at the top of Ash­ley Road.

This is a com­pa­ny that claims to be work­ing to house peo­ple, yet it appears prof­it is the only moti­va­tion they have.

and anoth­er joke from the day:
One of the riot vans had a stick­er say­ing Oper­a­tion Relent­less which after inves­ti­ga­tion is a cam­paign of fear against ‘those who com­mit crime’: laugh­able.

Sizewell nuclear vigil report

26.4.09: Pro­test­ers gath­ered at a gen­er­at­ing sta­tion in Suf­folk to mark 20 years since the Cher­nobyl dis­as­ter have held a vig­il against nuclear pow­er.

The Cam­paign for Nuclear Dis­ar­ma­ment (CND), which organ­ised a “peace­ful” overnight protest at Sizewell said it want­ed to high­light the dan­gers.

Sizewell protest 126.4.09: Pro­test­ers gath­ered at a gen­er­at­ing sta­tion in Suf­folk to mark 20 years since the Cher­nobyl dis­as­ter have held a vig­il against nuclear pow­er.

The Cam­paign for Nuclear Dis­ar­ma­ment (CND), which organ­ised a “peace­ful” overnight protest at Sizewell said it want­ed to high­light the dan­gers.

The Gov­ern­ment said new nuclear pow­er sta­tions could be built at 11 sites in Eng­land includ­ing Sizewell.

The group has been joined by a num­ber of cler­gy­men who are lead­ing the vig­il.

A spokes­woman said the pro­test­ers were angry about plans for new reac­tors on the site.

In the ear­ly hours of April 26 1986, one of four nuclear reac­tors at a pow­er sta­tion at Cher­nobyl, Ukraine, explod­ed in the world’s worst nuclear acci­dent.

Orissa Tribes stage mass protest against British mining company Vedanta — 25 April 2009

Sev­er­al hun­dred tribes­peo­ple today staged a protest against FTSE-100 com­pa­ny Vedan­ta, as it bids mas­sive­ly to expand its con­tro­ver­sial alu­mini­um refin­ery in Lan­ji­garh, Oris­sa. The refin­ery occu­pies land belong­ing to the Majhi Kondh tribe, and lies at the foot of the Niyam­giri hills, home of the iso­lat­ed Don­gria Kondhs. Both tribes took part in the protests.

Sev­er­al hun­dred tribes­peo­ple today staged a protest against FTSE-100 com­pa­ny Vedan­ta, as it bids mas­sive­ly to expand its con­tro­ver­sial alu­mini­um refin­ery in Lan­ji­garh, Oris­sa. The refin­ery occu­pies land belong­ing to the Majhi Kondh tribe, and lies at the foot of the Niyam­giri hills, home of the iso­lat­ed Don­gria Kondhs. Both tribes took part in the protests.

Over a hun­dred fam­i­lies lost their homes to their refin­ery. Many more lost their farm land and with it their food-secu­ri­ty and self suf­fi­cien­cy.

Vedanta’s refin­ery expan­sion project is inte­gral­ly linked to its plan to mine the Don­gria Kondh’s moun­tain home. Vedanta’s mine is need­ed to pro­vide the refin­ery with a near­by, and cost effi­cient, source of baux­ite – the raw mate­r­i­al for alu­mini­um.

One Don­gria Kondh man said, ‘Min­ing only makes prof­it for the rich. We will become beg­gars if the com­pa­ny destroys our moun­tain and our for­est so that they can make mon­ey. We can­not give our moun­tain, it is our life. And oth­er tribes will also suf­fer, those who live on the rivers that come from our moun­tain.’

Today’s protest is just the lat­est in a string of demon­stra­tions against Vedanta’s activ­i­ties.

More info: www.survival-international.org/tribes/dongria

Whaling Ship Sunk Again by Agenda 21 in Norway & Marine Monkeywrenching Guide

On the evening of the 23rd of April, Agen­da 21 snuck onto a Nor­we­gian whal­ing ship mak­ing repairs, flood­ing the engine room and scut­tling the ship to delay the 2009 killing sea­son.

On the evening of the 23rd of April, Agen­da 21 snuck onto a Nor­we­gian whal­ing ship mak­ing repairs, flood­ing the engine room and scut­tling the ship to delay the 2009 killing sea­son.

anony­mous com­mu­nique:

“APRIL 24, 2009
HENNINGSVAER, NORWAY — WHALING SHIP SUNK

ON THE EVENING OF THE 23RD OF APRIL WE SNUCK ONTO A NORWEGIAN WHALING SHIP MAKING REPAIRS IN THE LOFOTEN ISLANDS IN
PREPARATION FOR THE 2009 WHALING SEASON. TO DELAY THE KILLING SEASON AND TO PROTEST THE CONTINUED ILLEGAL EXPORT OF WHALE MEAT TO JAPAN WE DISASSEMBLED A VALVE AND FLOODED THE ENGINE ROOM. UNFORTUNATELY LOCAL FIREFIGHTERS WERE ABLE TO RESPOND JUST MOMENTS BEFORE THE SHIP SETTLED ON THE BOTTOM BUT NOT BEFORE THE SHIP HAD ALREADY BEEN COMPLETELY FILLED WITH SEA WATER AND THE DAMAGE DONE. FOR BOTH FISHERIES INVESTORS IN TOKYO AND INSURANCE UNDERWRITERS IN OSLO INVESTING IN THE NORWEGIAN WHALING INDUSTRY CAN ONLY LEAD TO SUNKEN PROFITS. AS A DIRECT RESULT OF A GROWING INTERNATIONAL TRADE IN ENDANGERED SPECIES WE CAME TO HENNINGSVAER. WE SAW THE SKARBAKK.

WE SANK THE BASTARD. ‑AGENDA 21″

Source — http://www.directaction.info/news_apr25_09.htm

Pre­vi­ous action
Com­mu­nique — http://www.directaction.info/news_sep11_07.htm
Pic­tures — http://www.directaction.info/news_sep03_07.htm
Vic­to­ry — http://www.directaction.info/news_oct21_07.htm

More info — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agenda_21

—-

Check out the Marine Mon­key­wrench­ing Guide

Picnic protest over airport plan

25 April 2009
Six­ty cli­mate cam­paign­ers have held a pic­nic in the check-in hall at Leeds Brad­ford Air­port in a protest over its planned expan­sion.
The air­port wants to build a £28m two-storey exten­sion to the ter­mi­nal build­ing which would house an improved check-in area and depar­ture lounge.

Cam­paign­ers say the plan will cause an increase in green­house gas emis­sions.

25 April 2009
Six­ty cli­mate cam­paign­ers have held a pic­nic in the check-in hall at Leeds Brad­ford Air­port in a protest over its planned expan­sion.
The air­port wants to build a £28m two-storey exten­sion to the ter­mi­nal build­ing which would house an improved check-in area and depar­ture lounge.

Cam­paign­ers say the plan will cause an increase in green­house gas emis­sions.

The air­port has said it planned to “improve and refine” its method of mon­i­tor­ing air qual­i­ty.

Pro­test­ers ate cucum­ber sand­wich­es and gin­ger­bread aero­planes.

One of the cam­paign­ers, Leeds Uni­ver­si­ty stu­dent Guy Mitchell, said the pic­nic was a “very civ­il way to protest”.

‘Impor­tant asset’

He said it was a “great chance” for peo­ple with con­cerns about cli­mate change and air­port expan­sion to express them in “a fun, fam­i­ly-friend­ly way”.

“Avi­a­tion is the sin­gle fastest grow­ing source of green­house gas emis­sion in the UK,” he said.

“If Leeds Brad­ford Air­port expands it will destroy any chance of Leeds reduc­ing its impact on the cli­mate.”

The expan­sion is part of a wider £70m, five-year invest­ment pack­age for the air­port.

The air­port said it was noti­fied of envi­ron­men­tal con­cerns dur­ing a pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion on the plans.

It said: “The air­port intends to improve air qual­i­ty where pos­si­ble. We expect to improve and refine our method of mon­i­tor­ing air qual­i­ty in line with EU require­ments and indus­try stan­dards.

“Clear­ly there are con­cerns about the envi­ron­ment and the loca­tion of the air­port with­in the green belt.

“There are also a few respon­dents who con­sid­er the air­port should be either restrict­ed in its growth or not devel­op at all.

“How­ev­er, the vast major­i­ty of respon­dents con­sid­er that the air­port is an increas­ing­ly impor­tant asset for the city region and that the air­port should be devel­oped in line with the draft mas­ter­plan.”

Arrest @ CRITICAL MASS in Elephant and Castle in London — ACAB

25.04.2009
One per­son was arrest­ed after the mass today… the cops sur­round­ed us in ele­phant, start­ed being aggres­sive and arrest­ed one per­son…

We were just arriv­ing in ele­phant and cas­tle and the cop­pers sent at least 4 police cars to wel­come us at the ele­phant round­about.

25.04.2009
One per­son was arrest­ed after the mass today… the cops sur­round­ed us in ele­phant, start­ed being aggres­sive and arrest­ed one per­son…

We were just arriv­ing in ele­phant and cas­tle and the cop­pers sent at least 4 police cars to wel­come us at the ele­phant round­about.

After one round of the round­about we all stopped in the green area and we had a 1 min com­mem­o­ra­tion about one cyclist killed in the round­about.
soon after the police come and sur­round us … there are about 15/20 cops… one per­son prob­a­bly piss­ing on the grass has been told off by the police…

the per­son reply with bad words… he does not speak eng­lish well… being from nether­land…

end of the sto­ry police start get­ting vio­lent, oth­er peo­ple try to help… cop­pers take him away…

THERE WERE NO REASON TO COME AND HARASS PEOPLE DOWN AT THE END OF THE MASS WHEN WE WERE JUST HAVING GOOD TIME AND BEING PEACEFUL»> ONCE AGAINST THE POLICE MANAGED TO INSTIGATE VIOLENCE AND REPRESS PEOPLE FREEDOM TO CYCLE…

Cop­pers F.O.

a mass­er.…

Happy Valley update, New Zealand

SE dis­man­tle Hap­py Camp — so we’re relo­cat­ing to SE front lawn
The Hap­py Val­ley Occu­pa­tion camp has been dis­man­tled by Sol­id Ener­gy and heli­coptered out of the Val­ley. So we’re re-locat­ing — to Sol­id Ener­gy’s Front lawn!

Media Advi­so­ry
Save Hap­py Val­ley Coali­tion
7.00am Fri­day 24 April

Pro­test­ers sleep on coal com­pa­ny lawn

SE dis­man­tle Hap­py Camp — so we’re relo­cat­ing to SE front lawn
The Hap­py Val­ley Occu­pa­tion camp has been dis­man­tled by Sol­id Ener­gy and heli­coptered out of the Val­ley. So we’re re-locat­ing — to Sol­id Ener­gy’s Front lawn!

Media Advi­so­ry
Save Hap­py Val­ley Coali­tion
7.00am Fri­day 24 April

Pro­test­ers sleep on coal com­pa­ny lawn

Five Save Hap­py Val­ley Coali­tion mem­bers camped on the front lawn of state-owned coal min­er Sol­id Ener­gy’s Christchurch head­quar­ters last night. Around 30 pro­test­ers helped set up a pup tent on the lawn at 2.00pm yes­ter­day, as a response to the removal of a long-term occu­pa­tion camp on the site of a pro­posed West Coast coal mine.

“It cer­tain­ly was­n’t as peace­ful as a night in Hap­py Val­ley,” says Front Lawn Pro­test­er Anna-Clair Hunter. “We heard cars and trucks instead of weka and kiwi.”

Media are invit­ed to a com­mu­ni­ty break­fast at the Front Lawn site from 7.30–8.30am on Fri­day morn­ing.

The group has spent the past five years protest­ing the plans of the state-owned com­pa­ny to destroy a pris­tine area north of West­port, home to 13 endan­gered species includ­ing /roroa/, great spot­ted kiwi.

ENDS

—-

7.5.09
Sol­i­dar­i­ty for Hap­py Val­ley in Tau­ran­ga
Ban­ner Hung to High­light Cli­mate Crimes

Sol­id Ener­gy and Gen­e­sis con­tin­ue to prof­it from coal min­ing in New Zealand despite their “mil­lion dol­lar” green­wash mar­ket­ing cam­paigns.

Hap­py Val­ley is a pris­tene native wet­land near West­port, on the west coast of the South Island. Sol­id Ener­gy plan to extend their already mas­sive open-cast coal mine at Stock­ton into Hap­py Val­ley.

Two years ago a group of peo­ple con­cerned about cli­mate change and the native ecosys­tems set up an occu­pa­tion camp to pro­tect Hap­py Val­ley. On the 21st April this year the camp was forcibly removed by Sol­id Ener­gy.

Tau­ran­ga port is a key loca­tion for the traf­fick­ing of coal in and out of New Zealand by Sol­id Ener­gy and Gen­e­sis. This ban­ner was hung on a mega bill­board (bear­ing a poignant mes­sage!) along a major road and rail­way used for trans­port­ing coal, in order to high­light the con­tin­ued cli­mate crimes com­mit­ted by Sol­id Ener­gy and Gen­e­sis in this time of glob­al and eco­log­i­cal emer­gency.

http://www.savehappyvalley.org.nz

3 Lappersfort occupiers released, with deportation notices

Yes­ter­day (fri­day 24th april) the 3 Lap­pers­fort occu­piers arrest­ed on tues­day night were released (orig­i­nal arti­cle about arrest http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/22493). Upon sign­ing out of the Brugge prison they were all issued with depor­ta­tion notices, order­ing them to leave the “King­dom of Bel­gium” by mid­night on the 29.04.2009.

Yes­ter­day (fri­day 24th april) the 3 Lap­pers­fort occu­piers arrest­ed on tues­day night were released (orig­i­nal arti­cle about arrest http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/22493). Upon sign­ing out of the Brugge prison they were all issued with depor­ta­tion notices, order­ing them to leave the “King­dom of Bel­gium” by mid­night on the 29.04.2009. One of them signed the paper after being threat­ened with being sent back into the cell if refus­ing. The oth­er two refused to sign the paper and were still released, but as yet we’re not sure if the depor­ta­tion notice has any legal grounds or not. Obvi­ous­ly the pigs are using their socalled “posi­tion of author­i­ty” to intim­i­date the occu­piers and those sup­port­ing them, and this attempt­ed depor­ta­tion is sim­ply an extreme and over-the-top expres­sion of their desire to be rid of us before the issues of the lap­pers­fort, of “zonevreemde” forests and police repres­sion get too big for them to han­dle. The notice itself seems extrem­ly dodgy, it has only been signed by the prison direc­tor, refers from a law from 1980, and one is issued with­out the offi­cial name of the per­son to be deport­ed. But these days here in Brugge noth­ing is sur­pris­ing any­more, and the police may take this “chance” to raid the camp to find the “ille­gal” peo­ple there. The facist pig-pro­tec­tors of the “Bel­gian Reich” are again flex­ing their lit­tle mus­cles, and this one case is anoth­er exam­ple of the facism of “fortress Europe” and its pro­tec­tors, and the vio­lent repres­sion prac­tised against those who show any form of resis­tance. Resort­ing to such mea­sures only shows us that the police here feel threat­ened by our pres­ence in the for­est.
Mean­while the pigs still have the ID’s and belong­ings of many peo­ple, and we’re try­ing to find out whether the raid at a local friends house on wen­des­day after­noon was legal or not, and whether or not we have a legal case against the Brugge police. (For orig­i­nal arti­cle about raid http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/22512).
Fol­low­ing the release of the 3 we now know more about their arrest on tues­day. At least 6–10 pig­gies had been wait­ing in the bush­es, some dressed in cam­ou­flage and black, some in uni­form, some with bal­a­clavas and at least one dog. They came from behind the bush­es and trees from all direc­tions in a pathet­ic hol­ly­wood-style ambush, vio­lent­ly forc­ing 3 peo­ple to the ground, twist­ing their arms and using pres­sure-points. Fin­ger­prints and pho­tos were tak­en, and after the raid the pigs man­aged to pos­i­tive­ly iden­ti­fy one of the 3. The cop­pers here are using their tac­tics of kid­nap­ping, ambush, vio­lence and lies to crush our camp, our cam­paign, and to make oth­ers afraid of com­ing to vis­it, show sup­port or move in. Spring is hap­pen­ing, and we are try­ing to get ready for a busy sum­mer of cam­paign­ing and actions, despite con­stant police harass­ment. Just last night, while we cel­e­brat­ed the release of our friends, 3 peo­ple were forced to run from police after return­ing to the camp from col­lect­ing bread from a local bak­ery sup­port­ing the occu­piers. The pig­gies, obvi­ous­ly with noth­ing bet­ter to do, wait­ed long in to the night, keep­ing a close eye on the bag of bread dumped in the bush­es by the 3 forced to flee. Upon return­ing to get it lat­er, the sil­ly bug­gers were still wait­ing, but the peo­ple man­aged to get away. Our crim­i­nal bread is now back on site and being enjoyed by all.…
The camp, in this time of police sur­veil­lance and harass­ment and all the rest of it, require a few things which could be very helpful.…Lappersfort wish­list: peo­ple with legal knowl­edge and expe­ri­ence, espe­cial­ly immi­gra­tion law
com­put­er freak to help updat­ing and renew­ing old and neglect­ed web­site
most of all we need more peo­ple in the for­est, to come by and stay as long as they want, to move in and to take part in the camp itself (all peo­ple com­ing over should be aware how­ev­er of strong police pres­ence around the for­est)
please phone for anything.……(++32 741/65.85.44)

Rossport Solidarity Camp Summer Gathering May 29th-June 1st

The RSC June bank hol­i­day gath­er­ing is back! From the 29th may till the 1st June we will be hold­ing a gath­er­ing com­bin­ing info shar­ing, direct action train­ing, music and fun…

Last year resis­tance in Mayo was incred­i­ble; the Soli­taire pipe lay­ing ship was forced to leave Irish waters with no pipeline laid! This year resis­tance con­tin­ues, and the ship will be forced to leave once again. Come to the gath­er­ing to find out more about the cam­paign, share skills and make plans for anoth­er sum­mer of action.…

Glengad bannerThe RSC June bank hol­i­day gath­er­ing is back! From the 29th may till the 1st June we will be hold­ing a gath­er­ing com­bin­ing info shar­ing, direct action train­ing, music and fun…

Last year resis­tance in Mayo was incred­i­ble; the Soli­taire pipe lay­ing ship was forced to leave Irish waters with no pipeline laid! This year resis­tance con­tin­ues, and the ship will be forced to leave once again. Come to the gath­er­ing to find out more about the cam­paign, share skills and make plans for anoth­er sum­mer of action.…

Work­shops con­firmed include: his­to­ry of the cam­paign, tour of the local area, draw­ing links with the Saro Wiwa vs. Shell tri­al in New York, direct action train­ing for land and water based action, know­ing your legal rights, facil­i­ta­tion train­ing, health, safe­ty and envi­ron­men­tal impacts of the Cor­rib project, Cor­rib and cli­mate change: Shell to Sea or Shell to hell? and per­ma­cul­ture. If you are inter­est­ed in giv­ing a work­shop, want to play music, are inter­est­ed in run­ning a creche, want to help with the kitchen crew or think you can help in some oth­er way, please get in touch to dis­cuss your ideas.

The gath­er­ing will be a camp based on the coast in Glen­gad. You will need to bring camp­ing equip­ment for sleep­ing (althought there is the RSC house avail­able for any­one who is unable to camp). Meals will be pro­vid­ed.

For more infor­ma­tion con­tact the RSC on rossportsolidaritycamp@gmail.com or 0851141170.