earthfirst – Page 237

GroenFront! blocks E.ON Benelux HQ

June 3rd, GroenFront! occupied the Benelux headquarters of E.ON in Rotterdam. The office was closed shut down from 6 AM – 1 PM, when police specialists finally managed to remove some technologically advanced lock-ons. GroenFront! is demanding an immediate halt to the construction of an E.ON coal power plant on the Maasvlakte, part of the port of Rotterdam. The action is part of GroenFront!’s “shrink or drown” campaign, which aims at bringing down the size of the Dutch economy to more manageable proportions. Seven protestors were arrested for refusing police orders or refusing to show an ID. They were released around midnight.

The E.ON plant is said to be CO2 capture-ready, but in a leaked email conversation between E.ON managers at the British Dept. of Industry, it appears E.ON itself has no faith in this technology at all and is not expecting it to work. GroenFront! and clown army activists had earlier tried to put a literal ‘cork’ on an existing E.ON plant in Holland to illustrate this point.

July 19th a bicycle protest and picnic are being organised by locals from the area and GroenFront!-ers.

Another coal power plant is being planned only 1 km from E.ON’s construction site, by the Belgian company Electrabel, and there are also plans by NUON and RWE for new coal power plants that GroenFront! says it will oppose by direct action.

GroenFront! was started in 1996 as the Dutch and Belgian branch of EarthFirst.

More info: http://www.groenfront.nl

Video of the action

Cancellation of London Dongria Kondh tribe picket following targets disinvestment from Vendanta

The Survival demonstration outside Coutts Bank previously advertised on this website planned for the 10th June has been cancelled. In reaction to the planned picket Coutts has just informed Survival that they no longer hold shares in Vedanta, the British-based company whose planned bauxite mine will devastate the lands of India’s Dongria Kondh tribe.

Survival is continuing to lobby other Vedanta shareholders, as well as the company itself.

For more information, please go to http://www.survival-international.org/tribes/dongria

Report follows of picket last week.

Survival protest – ‘Finsbury profits from tribe’s destruction’
28 May 2008

Survival International this morning held a demonstration outside the London PR company FINSBURY, a subsidiary of global advertising company WPP. The protest highlighted Finsbury’s involvement with British mining giant Vedanta, which is set to destroy one of India’s most isolated tribes – the Dongria Kondh.

Carrying placards that said ‘Finsbury profits from tribe’s destruction’, demonstrators handed leaflets to Finsbury employees as they arrived for work, urging them to persuade Finsbury to resign their account with Vedanta.

Vedanta’s subsidiary, Sterlite, plans to mine aluminium ore from the Niyamgiri mountains in Orissa, India, where all of the 8,000 Dongria Kondh live.

The Dongria Kondh vehemently oppose the mine. Jitu Jakesika, a Dongria spokesperson, said, ‘We will become beggars if the company destroys our mountain and our forest so that they can make money. We will give our lives for our mountain.’

The Dongria Kondh have lived on the slopes of Niyamgiri since time immemorial, and are totally dependent on its forests. They view the mountain as sacred, grow crops on the slopes, and gather wild fruit in the dense forests.

Timeline – SmashEDO Carnival Against the Arms Trade

The SmashEDO Carnival Against the Arms Trade was held in Brighton on Wednesday 4th June. Over 500 people marched from The Level to the EDO/ITT factory in Moulescombe [Pics] Police plans to contain everyone in a pen outside a neighbouring unit were foiled, and protestors managed to get to the factory. The gates were opened to allow a police van into the EDO/ITT car park and protestors seized the opportunity to enter the car park and vent their rage against the arms company. A few arrests were reported [Press Release]

Timeline:

[15:50] Report of one violent arrest of person leaving. His head was covered in blood and he was complaining of a broken arm.

[15:45] Reports of 4 arrests – 2 outside factory and two of people leaving. An attempt to arrest a legal observer seems not to have worked. Report of 10 people kettled on the Lewes Road.

[15:35] Protestors are now moving in small groups back towards town. One police motorcycle outrider seen covered head to toe in gloss paint. A random arrest for no discernible reason seen under the bridge.

[15:20] Crowd is now moving away from main gate and down the hill. Police appear to be in disarray. Latest report is that gates were opened to allow a police van in, and crowd (possible 100 – 150) took the opportunity to force their way into the car park.

[15:03] Report that a protestor de-arrested himself and managed to escape through 2 police lines.

[14:59] Police are now using dogs to force crowd back.

[14:56] 10 windows smashed. Building graffitied with “smash capita” and “F*ck EDO”. Report that 2 protestors were pepper sprayed. Police used batons to force people out of car park.

Follow the links above for articles & more photos from the Indymedia newswire.

http://smashedo.org.uk/

Whaling protester scales embassy – court update

4 June 2008 update (main story below):
Conditional discharge of four months and ordered to pay £100 costs after being convicted of trespass.

Wyness told the court staff at the embassy had given him permission to protest outside the building.

4 June 2008 update (main story below):
Conditional discharge of four months and ordered to pay £100 costs after being convicted of trespass.

Wyness told the court staff at the embassy had given him permission to protest outside the building.

He said they had given him the invitation when he had tied himself to banisters inside the building on a previous occasion on 25 January.

The court was also shown footage which had been secretly filmed which showed a member of embassy staff suggesting it would be better to protest outside the building.

—

6 March 2008
A campaigner protesting against whaling by the Japanese has been arrested after chaining himself to the front of the country’s embassy in London.

Martin Wyness, 50, of Hereford, climbed the building at about 0730 GMT and lowered the Japanese flag to half-mast about 40ft (12m) from the ground.

He then unfurled a banner saying “Japan stop your illegal whaling” before chaining himself to the building.

Police said Mr Wyness came down from the building at 1047 GMT.

He was arrested on suspicion of criminal trespass.

His protest was believed to be timed to coincide with a meeting of the International Whaling Commission which began on Thursday.

The three-day summit, which is being held in Heathrow, will discuss the future of whaling in Japan, Norway and Iceland.

In January, Mr Wyness and his 14-year-old daughter Sophie were arrested after tying themselves to a staircase with cable ties inside the embassy, in Piccadilly.

The charges against them were later dropped.

Video of action

World Naked Bike Ride UK

A peaceful, imaginative and fun protest against oil dependency and car culture. A celebration of the bicycle and also a celebration of the power and individuality of the human body. A symbol of the vulnerability of the cyclist in traffic. The world’s biggest naked protest: 50+ cities and thousands of riders participate worldwide, including more than 1500 in the UK in 2007.

http://worldnakedbikeride.org/uk/

To check any details of rides below, see http://nakedwiki.org/wiki/UK

# Southampton: Fri 6 June, 6pm
# Brighton & Hove: Sat 7 June, 11am
# York: Sat 7 June, 4pm
# Sheffield: Sun 8 June, 2pm
# Manchester: Fri 13 June, 6pm
# Cardiff: Sat 14 June, (time is still being finalised)
# London: Sat 14 June, 3pm
# Edinburgh: 28 or 29 June – TBC

# There is discussion about possible rides in Cambridge, Belfast, Glasgow, Oxford, or even a Bristol to Bath ride.

3rd June Food & Climate Change Day of Action – more actions, in Nottingham, London x3, Bristol, Glasgow, Liverpool & Amsterdam

Actions co-inciding with the UN Conference on World Food Security and Climate Change got off to an early start, with Sunday seeing the first of an outbreak of vegan food give-aways, in Manchester, with a spot of guerrilla gardening; the rash spread on Monday with GM labs occupied. The Ready Steady Skip website tried to soothe, but on the day, the action contagion spread…

Passer-bys were enticed to our stall by the offers of free chips, vegan pasties and tomato plants. We handed out leaflets about climate change & food and had lots of chats with people about the world food crisis & our solutions of eating a local, organic & vegan diet. An amazing number of people already grew there own food & lots more were encouraged to give it a go. We had a really positive response from the public and people seemed genuinely interested in the information leaflets we handed out.

More photos.

The next free vegan food giveaway in Nottingham is going to be on the 4th July.

A handful of us then visited Fresh & Ecoworks community garden based at St Ann’s allotments. We had a tour of the amazing gardens & saw a brilliant example of local, organic food being produced in the city. See
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/nottinghamshire/2006/08/348168.html
and
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/nottinghamshire/2007/10/382929.html

We toddled off home in the rain, chilli plants in hand, inspired to grow our own.

—–

Food & Climate Change Action – London

For the Food & Climate Change day of action, Whitechapel Food Not Bombs and Brixton Reclaim Your Food teamed up to serve free vegan food in front of a Mac Donald’s in Camberwell.

The groups had a stall right in front of a Mac Donald in Camberwell for two hours, serving out freshly skipped, lovingly cooked free vegan food to passers by, and engaging people in conversation about the link between the food they eat and climate change. For good measure, the group was accompanied by a bicycle sound system, to liven up the atmosphere.

All in all, over a hundred servings were given out, countless more people saw the stall and were given leaflets highlighting some of the links between food and climate change on the following topics : waste ; veganism ; organic food ; locally produced food.

The menu included a spicy mash, a curry, a pumpkin soup, a salad, some guacamole, some stuffed aubergines, some veggies burgers, an apple cake, a fruit salad and more.

Unsurprisingly, the Mac Donald’s managers weren’t too happy about people giving out free food in front of their window shop – but the police seemed to decide otherwise. The groups were asked to remove a banner from the Mac Donald window shop, but were otherwise permitted to stay there as long as there wasn’t too much obstruction.

londonfnb@lists.riseup.net
http://www.londonfnb.org

—

25 protesters organised by Biofuelwatch and Food Not Fuel, London came together for a protest outside Newham town hall in East Ham on Saturday to raise public awareness of the planning application for the UK’s first biofuel-fired power plant to be built, in Beckton. Banners and placards quoted many statistics such as the number of people going hungry because of agrofuels and the number of people who could be fed with one tank of biofuel. Over 500 signatures objecting to the plant were collected…it appears that Beckton, one of the most polluted London boroughs, is prepared to fight back.

—

In London, vegan campaigners we took to the streets of Chancery Lane to
treat the city workers to some vegan food samples. The response was good,
with a range of interested people coming to taste the food. We gave away
hundreds of recipe booklets, and leaflets for this year’s London Vegan
Festival.

—–

Bristol Protest Over Tesco’s Biofuels Claim

Biofuels far from the panacea to petrol prices and climate change, have added to the global food price hike by taking land previously occupied by food crops. A study by the University of Minnesota found that growing biofuel on converted rainforests, peat lands, savannas or grasslands created up to 420 times more carbon dioxide than it saved.

Wheat Prices have doubled in the UK over the past year, and consumers and retailers have so far managed to absorb this. But elsewhere in the world, people are going without wheat (and other staples) and bakers are going out of business.

To illustrate this issue, a dozens bakers (rather than a bakers dozen!) will be following up Bristol Rising Tides demo in April of this year to illustrate the true cost of Agro-fuels. They will be at Tesco, Eastville between 4.30pm and 7pm

Ms Bread of Bristol Rising Tide said:

“The question is do we want do feed our cars or feed ourselves?”

Tesco has made false claims about the source of the fuel sold at its service stations, according to an investigation that found that the chain sold the most environmentally damaging types of biodiesel -Palm Oil – whilst claiming that it ‘s biofuel was sourced from relatively sustainable UK-planted rape seed oil.[2]

Mr A.Baker of Bristol Rising Tide said:

“Its now clear that we leave big business to deal with climate change, this is the kind of thing that will happen – a bloody disaster”

At this years Climate Camp (3rd – 10th August) there will be a national day of action against Agrofuels.

[1] Bristol Rising Tide is part of the International Rising Tide for Climate Justice network
www.risingtide.org.uk
[2] The Times,April 14, 2008 “Tesco green fuel ‘adds to climate change”

Leaflet

—–

Waiting for (social) Change!

4/06/2008
Today in the Charing Cross area of Glasgow a group of waiters invited passers-by to ‘Taste the waste’ and sample their free food. The menu was made up entirely out of skipped goods from supermarket bins and included such delights as: homemade vegan frequent flyer banana cake, skipped chip, rescued roast veg. and binned beans. This was part of the call to action on Food and Climate Change by the Network for Climate Action (http://networkforclimateaction.org.uk).

—–

Liverpool hosted a free vegan food fair at its social centre ‘Next to
Nowhere’. Around 50 people attended and loads of food and information was given out. The event allowed for a lot of informal discussion, with a social area created for this purpose. People were delighted to hear that they can come back for vegan food every Saturday afternoon 1-5pm.

—–

Pigs say: If you care about climate change, eat less meat, milk and eggs

On Tuesday June 3rd, a group of pigs made a small action for a more vegan Amsterdam. They handed out vegan snacks to encourage people not to buy that ham for dinner. It may look like the pigs acted out of self-interest, but today their message was that meat production is a major cause of climate change. While the UN is conferring in Rome on World Food Security and Climate change, the pigs put a focus on that average Europeans have a diet of disaster. Raising animals for food generates more greenhouse gases than all the cars and trucks in the world combined.

Quite some people in front of the Albert Heijn on Jodenbreestraat were happy to taste the organic, vegan falafel and chocolate cake and many said they are vegetarians already. People were surprised to hear that producing one kilo of cheese cause as much greenhouse gas emissions as driving a car for 60 km. A Brazilian woman had witnessed the expanding soy fields used for feeding animal industry.

“Consumers can make a huge improvement by avoiding animal products and imports, and by supporting local, organic farmers instead. But humans need to organise themselves fast against the dominant culture if they want to save themselves from climate chaos” the piggies stated after all the food had been handed out.

Tonight, Wednesday June 4 from 19 there will be a film night in Plantage Doklaan 12, with organic vegan food and ideas on how to combat climate change. (See programme on the website)

Website: http://www.howtocookaplanet.net

FIGHT SPECIESISM! #1 – Out Now!

The first issue features: occupations in Paris, Antispe vs. Novartis, news from the UK frontlines, the Sequani Six trial, SHAC watch and more.

Click here to read or here to print.

Fight Speciesism! is the new newsletter from Antispe Britain.

The first issue features: occupations in Paris, Antispe vs. Novartis, news from the UK frontlines, the Sequani Six trial, SHAC watch and more.

Click here to read or here to print.

Fight Speciesism! is the new newsletter from Antispe Britain.
Please distribute far and wide!

www.antispe.tk

Ready Steady Skip: Trailer and website launched!

Ready Steady Skip – the game show where needlessly wasted food is recovered from the bin and turned into delicious dishes before your very eyes!

And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for: http://www.readysteadyskip.org.uk/

Ready Steady Skip is a bit like “Scrapheap Challenge” meets “Ready Steady Cook” – skipping for food and whipping up some tasty dishes, with plenty of hilarity (and people diving into skips).

Every year over 17 million tons of food are put straight into landfill sites, yet over 4 million tons of this is perfectly edible and still well within it’s sell-by date. A whopping 5 million tons of food are wasted annually by consumers alone: that is, more than a quarter of all food we buy goes into the bin. It’s high time this insanity stopped!

Skipping (aka. “Freeganism” or “Dumpster Diving”) is all about reclaiming perfectly edible food “waste” from the jaws of an insane system founded on greed, and making good use of it.

We’ve launched the Ready Steady Skip trailer and website to coincide with the Days Of Climate Action food day (3rd June 2008), which is highlighting the fact that the food we eat contributes up to a third of the emissions that are poisoning the planet. When you consider the amount of food that is just thrown away, it brings home how needless this lunacy is. Nobody ever need go hungry – yet people still starve every day.

The programme was shot here in Nottingham at the beginning of March, and the full episode will be released online in July 2008. We’re also trying to organise a screening (and possibly even another contest) at the Climate Camp.

Keep an eye on our website for updates!

Previous Notts Indymedia piece: Ready, Steady, Skip!! – The Pictures 1

info@readysteadyskip.org.uk
http://www.readysteadyskip.org.uk/

Fight the Height in Walthamstow, London, Sunday 1 June

On the blue fence surrounding the still undeveloped Arcade site at the top of Walthamstow High Street, developers St Modwen proudly claim to be “The UK’s Leading Regeneration Specialist” but local residents in Walthamstow clearly have a different opinion, and have come together as ‘Fight the Height’ to oppose their plans. When demolition took place … Continue reading “Fight the Height in Walthamstow, London, Sunday 1 June”

When demolition took place in 1999, the council announced their intention to put the site to cultural use and benefit the community – a new leisure centre, library and arts centre together with social housing. Instead the proposals by St Modwen appear to be dominated by commercial interest and to have little regard for local needs.

The site is as the east end of Walthamstow’s famous street market, the longest in Europe (more like 1.2km than the mile usually claimed), which began in 1885 and attracts shoppers from across London and tourists from around the world as well as being a vital local resource. St Modwen’s plans include a large Primark supermarket, which would severely threaten the future of the market and many of the shops along the high street.

Another ingredient is an 18 storey tower block, quite out of scale with the surrounding area, with its terraces of two storey housing and small scale developments. But you can fall out of bed and into Walthamstow Central station, making the flats very marketable to workers in the City (4 trains an hour to Liverpool Street in 17 minutes) or the West End, thanks to the frequent Victoria Line service. Ten more tall blocks are also in council plans for the next station on the line, Blackhorse Road.

Close to the site on Hoe St is the former Walthamstow Granada, opened in 1930 as a “super-cinema” in high Art-Deco style. As well as films, it hosted live performances (by The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly and many more) and is now a Grade II listed building. Carefully converted into a three-screen venue in the 1970s, it became part of the Odeon chain and in 2000 was sold to EMD, finally closing in 2003. A campaign was set up to restore it as a cinema, but the proposed building of a Vue multiplex on the Arcade site would end any chance of this happening.

You can keep in touch with the campaign and find out more about St Modwen and the plans on the ‘Fight the Height’ and ‘Antiscrap’ web sites.

Fight the Height supporters were leafletting when I arrived on Sunday morning for the demonstration which began at noon, with characters representing the tower block, Vue cinema and Primark, along with various placards and banners, attracting considerable interest, although Sunday is the one day of the week that the market closes, so the High Street was fairly empty except for the Farmers Market.

Around 12.30 the crowd of about a hundred people walked from Town Square (a regenerated area that already seems to need some regeneration) across to the Arcade site and the fun began. Market traders had donated several boxes of very ripe tomatoes and kids and adults enjoyed the forceful gesture of throwing these at ‘Tower Block’, ‘Vue’ and ‘Primark’ to robustly demonstrate their opinion of the St Modwen proposals. It was a short but rather messy protest – and one that made the TV London news in the evening.

St Modwen are also the developers for the contested Queens Market scheme at Upton Park, which, if it goes ahead, will mean an end of the thriving and ethnically diverse market there, again by building a supermarket and a tower block. It looks very much like a “one-size fits up all” approach to profit rather than regeneration.

Fight the Height: http://www.fighttheheight.co.uk/
Granada/EMD Cinema campaign: http://www.mcguffin.info/
Antiscrap: http://www.antiscrap.co.uk/
Friends of Queens Market: http://www.friendsofqueensmarket.org.uk/

More pictures of the event on My London Diary: http://mylondondiary.co.uk/2008/06/june.htm#height

Free Food Event and Guerrilla Gardening to herald Food & Climate Change day of action

FREE VEGAN FOOD EVENT!
On Sunday 1st Manchester Animal Protection and Manchester Climate Action held a free vegan picnic in Piccadilly gardens..

We gave away lots of delicious food, and seedlings, including aubergine plants and peppers! Much of the food was donated, some of it was skipped. We hung banners and had placards…

FREE VEGAN FOOD EVENT!
On Sunday 1st Manchester Animal Protection and Manchester Climate Action held a free vegan picnic in Piccadilly gardens..

We gave away lots of delicious food, and seedlings, including aubergine plants and peppers! Much of the food was donated, some of it was skipped. We hung banners and had placards…

The overall response was really positive, despite the rain! Lots of people came and talked to us for a long time, and the council even sampled some of our tasty snacks!

We did some guerrilla gardening in Piccadilly gardens, an area which is increasingly less like a gardens every; planting everything from courgettes to rosebushes!

We also took our snacks into Burger King, Starbucks and Cafe Nero, offering customers free cake (and propaganda!)..

Similar events happened across the north in cities like Liverpool and Sheffield.

This event was organised as part of the day of action on food and climate change, which is happening tomorrow (3rd June)…actions and events are happening over the next few days…more to follow soon!

To get involved in events like this in the future, email this address..

If you took photos, please also email them in!

Hopefully it will be the start of more combined events with MAP/MCA!

manchester@climatecamp.org.uk
http://www.daysofclimateaction.org.uk/food.html