Lancaster ‘First’ Carnival Of Culture 2008

“The Car­ni­val of Cul­ture is a cel­e­bra­tion of all that’s good and dis­tinc­tive about Lan­cast­er and a protest against the cor­po­rate takeover of our city by Cen­tros Miller and oth­er devel­op­ers, against the wish­es of the com­mu­ni­ty.

Carnival of Culture“The Car­ni­val of Cul­ture is a cel­e­bra­tion of all that’s good and dis­tinc­tive about Lan­cast­er and a protest against the cor­po­rate takeover of our city by Cen­tros Miller and oth­er devel­op­ers, against the wish­es of the com­mu­ni­ty.
From Cen­tros Miller, the North­ern Link road and out-of-town super­mar­ket plans at Lawson’s bridge, Lan­cast­er is sub­ject to a bar­rage of pro­posed devel­op­ments designed to ben­e­fit large com­pa­nies, yet threat­en the fab­ric and live­li­ness of our com­mu­ni­ties. We are tired of the lack of any say for the res­i­dents of the city as to the direc­tion that the plan­ners are tak­ing us.

The Car­ni­val is about giv­ing Cen­tros, the Coun­cil and any oth­er devel­op­ers a taste of the strength of our com­mu­ni­ties and of our oppo­si­tion. It’s also about mak­ing links and cre­at­ing lots of excit­ing and fun events!”

Tak­en fron web­site.…

Sat­ur­day 1st of March saw Lan­cast­er’s Car­ni­val of Cul­ture come off with­out a hitch. Dur­ing the day, between 250–350 peo­ple joinedin a fan­tas­ti­cal­ly colour­ful, cre­ative and vibrant street pro­ces­sion that snaked around the town through the after­noon, stop­ping in spots that are due to be blight­ed by car-parks, big box retail shop­ping and so forth, as well as the town square with it’s Trump­ton-style Vic­to­ria stat­ue, the City hall and the plan­ners’ offices. We were treat­ed to per­for­mances by a com­mu­ni­ty steel band, Bata­la sam­ba (lead­ing the pro­ces­sion for much of the day), Sis­taSlap wom­en’s african drum­ming group, an impromp­tu klezmer group, a skate­board­ing 10-foot Punch pup­pet, an alien on stilts etc etc etc.

The pro­ces­sion also took up the City’s one-way sys­tem in between events, with a bike sound-sys­tem pro­vid­ing the bassy beats. Stew­ards for the car­ni­val on bikes blocked side streets and on foot, hand­ed lol­lipops to car dri­vers caught up in the block­age. The police, it has to be said, facil­i­tat­ed the whole thing in a low-key man­ner, except for the unnec­es­sary pres­ence of 3 under­cov­er cops and evi­dence gath­er­ing team. Why don’t they just use our web­site for pic­tures!? 😉

The protest/procession was organ­ised over sev­er­al months at open, pub­lic meet­ings run by con­sen­sus, and at ‘infra­struc­ture group’ meet­ings (also open), with tasks divid­ed into work­ing groups for e.g. music, per­for­mance, carnivalism…The event itself was pro­ced­ed by a street per­for­mance where cor­po­rate ‘grey men’ pulled the mag­got of con­sumerism through sat­ur­day shop­pers, suck­ing the souls from ‘unsus­pect­ing’ ‘ran­dom’ Lan­cas­tri­an shop­pers, who were offered emp­ty shiney bags and emerged with zom­bie-mask blank faces.

It is impos­si­ble to con­vey the ‘vibran­cy’ and ‘diver­si­ty’ (we want­ed to reclaim these cor­po­rate-pro­pa­gan­da words from the devel­op­ers) of the day, it’s best to vis­it the web­site at www.carnivalofculture.org.uk. We have sent a loud and colour­ful, well-organ­ised and diverse, unam­bigu­ous ‘NO’ to the cor­po­rate take-over of our city, and a mul­ti-faceted ‘YES’ to the alter­na­tives of non-com­mer­cial com­mu­ni­ty and cre­ativ­i­ty.

car­ni­val­of­cul­ture at google­mail dot com
http://www.carnivalofculture.org.uk

Fossil Fools Day — 1 Month to Go!

Whether you’ve been plot­ting for months or have just been inspired, there’s plen­ty of time left to plan your action. Read on for loads of resources and sup­port…

FFD frontWhether you’ve been plot­ting for months or have just been inspired, there’s plen­ty of time left to plan your action. Read on for loads of resources and sup­port…

With one month to go until April 1st, actions are being plot­ted up and down the coun­try and around the world, rang­ing from street the­atre and town cen­tre demon­stra­tions to high pro­file direct actions tar­get­ing indus­try oper­a­tions and head­quar­ters. Net­works from Earth First! to Peo­ple and Plan­et have got on board in help­ing to spread the word. Nation­al press have been in touch and are plan­ning to cov­er the day. Peo­ple are email­ing from around the coun­try ask­ing for more info on plan­ning their prank, and look­ing for local actions to get involved in.

We are in the mid­dle of an unstop­pable rise of cre­ative, rad­i­cal, nec­es­sary direct action against cli­mate change… be part of it, on Fos­sil Fools Day and beyond.

Whether you’ve been plot­ting for months or have just been inspired, there’s plen­ty of time left to plan your action. Read on for loads of resources and sup­port… and what­ev­er you do, make sure to call or email us on the day so we can add your action to our end-of-day round up, and show the world what grass­roots action against the fos­sil fuel indus­try can achieve.

Hap­py Fos­sil Fools Day every­one!

CONTACTS
www.risingtide.org.uk/fossilfoolsday
info@risingtide.org.uk
0796 191 7535

RESOURCES AND SUPPORT

Resources avail­able at www.risingtide.org.uk/fossilfoolsday (get in touch if you’d like any­thing mailed to you in hard copy):
‑actions book­let with 15 ideas for action against the fos­sil fuel indus­try, includ­ing plan­ning tips, tar­get loca­tions, exam­ples of suc­cess­ful actions and more
‑posters, leaflets and graph­ics to make your own mate­ri­als
‑com­ing soon: a gener­ic leaflet you can adapt to hand out on the day and a Q&A sheet for answer­ing media ques­tions

Want to find an action to get involved in?
If you’re look­ing to get involved where you live, get in touch and we may be able to link you up with some­thing in your local area… or give you advice on get­ting your own action off the ground… or put you in touch with a local group for future actions!

Pub­lic­i­ty
If you’re plan­ning a pub­licly announced action, let us know ASAP and we can help spread the word.

Media
We’ll be send­ing out a nation­al press release and may be able to direct jour­nal­ists to you on the day if you wish, so any info you can let us know in advance will be real­ly help­ful – and/or a phone num­ber to con­tact you on the day if that’s pos­si­ble. And call or email us as soon as your action’s hap­pened so we can include it in the end-of-day actions round-up, which we’ll be press releas­ing as well. Get in touch if you’d like help writ­ing and/or send­ing your own press release — there’s a great guide here:
http://www.networkforclimateaction.org.uk/toolkit/press_and_media/guides_for_using_the_mainstream_media/short_guide_to_the_media.pdf

And if your action’s all sort­ed and you just can’t get enough of FFD… Help spread the word!
• Send an email or let­ter to every­one who might be inter­est­ed, or who sup­ports your group, let­ting them know about Fos­sil Fools Day and where to find out more.
• Post a Fos­sil Fools Day link or event descrip­tion on your web­site, or to any oth­er lists, blogs or web­sites you can think of.
• Dis­trib­ute Fos­sil Fools Day leaflets and put up posters wher­ev­er you can — mailed to your local groups, in your com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre, office, pubs, book­shops, cafes, library, wher­ev­er you can think of. Just let us know how many you need and we’ll send them out to you!

And one last time… the call-out:

FOSSIL FOOLS DAY, April 1st 2008
Pull a prank that packs a punch.

Roll up, roll up! The cli­mate cir­cus is in town. Cli­mate change threat­ens our very sur­vival, but the fools at the head of the fos­sil fuel empire con­tin­ue to plun­der the earth, with gov­ern­ments the will­ing court jesters at their side.

They would have us believe that we can escape cli­mate change with tech­no-fix­es, mar­ket mech­a­nisms and off­set schemes – all tech­no­crat­ic acro­bat­ics that dis­tract us from the truth: the only real solu­tion to cli­mate change is to keep fos­sil fuels in the ground.

For over a cen­tu­ry the fos­sil fuel indus­try has been fool­ing with our lives. From extrac­tion to com­bus­tion they have poi­soned our air, pol­lut­ed our water and ruined our cli­mate. On April 1st, 2008, we’re going to turn the tables and show them who the real fools are.

Find a local fos­sil fool – the coal-min­ing clown, the off­set con­tor­tion­ist, the avi­a­tor trip­ping on the high wire, the super­mar­ket food mile freak show, the oily strong man, or any oth­er fool that deserves your atten­tion – and take direct action to end the fos­sil fuel empire.

On Fos­sil Fools Day, bring the spir­it of car­ni­val and mis­chief to the fight for cli­mate jus­tice.

PS. Don’t for­get, Fos­sil Fools Day kicks off a sea­son of action…
3 MONTHS, 3 DAYS OF ACTION
April 1st: Fos­sil Fuels
May 1st: False Cap­i­tal­ist Solu­tions
June 3rd: Food and Cli­mate Change
www.networkforclimateaction.org.uk
www.daysofclimateaction.org.uk

and…
August 4–11: Camp for Cli­mate Action 2008
www.climatecamp.org.uk

CLIMATE ACTION NEWS SHEET 77, MARCH 2008

CONTENTS:
———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY — INTERNATIONAL, 1.4.08
2) MAYDAY! MAYDAY! INVASION OF THE CLIMATE SNATCHERS – INT’L, 1.5.08

CONTENTS:
———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY — INTERNATIONAL, 1.4.08
2) MAYDAY! MAYDAY! INVASION OF THE CLIMATE SNATCHERS – INT’L, 1.5.08
3) CLIMATE ACTION WITH A BITE! — INTERNATIONAL, 3.6.08
4) “PEOPLE ARE STILL THE SAME” — BRECON, 8.3.08
5) PADDY’S DAY OF ACTION AGAINST SHELL — IRELAND AND BEYOND, 17.3.08
6) BIKES NOT BOMBS TOUR — LONDON TO ALDERMASTON, 22–24.3.08
7) TERMINAL 5 FLASHMOB — HEATHROW, 27.3.08
8) CLIMATE BILL PUBLIC MEETING — LONDON, 22.4.08
9) COIN WORKSHOPS — NATIONAL, MARCH-APRIL 2008
10) NATIONAL CLIMATE FORUM — LONDON, 14–15.6.08
11) EARTH ACTIVIST TRAINING — GLOUCESTERSHIRE, 12–26.7.08
12) ENVIRONMENT CAMPAIGNER AWARD – 2008
13) LILI COURSES IN APRIL — BUCKS/LONDON/SHEFFIELD

———————————————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
———————————————-
1) CLIMATE EMERGENCY AT HEATHROW, THEN WESTMINSTER — 25.2.08 / 27.2.08
2) RATCLIFFE ACTION VERDICT — NOTTINGHAM, 25.2.08
3) BP AMERICA, EXXON MOBIL AND CO. IN THE DOCK — ALASKA, 27.2.08
4) HANDS OFF IRAQI OIL! ACTIONS — UK AND NETHERLANDS, 23.2.08
5) EARTH FIRST! BLOCKADES POWER PLANT CONSTRUCTION — FLORIDA, 18.2.08
6) RTNA/EARTHFIRST! PIPELINE ACTION — PORTLAND, U.S. 23.1.08
7) SABOTAGE AT GLENSANDA — YORKSHIRE, FEBRUARY 2008
8) PLANKTOS DUMPING SCHEME DEFEATED BY ANTI-WHALERS — MADEIRA, 14.2.08
9) COMMUNITY HALTS SHELL — IRELAND, 12.2.08
10) CRITICAL MASS HERO CLEARED — BRISTOL, 7.2.08
11) KLIMAX SURGE ON! — SWEDEN, JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2008
12) TARA CAMPAIGN UPDATE — FEBRUARY 2008
13) 15 ACTIONS TO TOPPLE THE FOSSIL FUEL EMPIRE — FEBRUARY 2008
14) RISING TIDE POP-ED RESOURCE PACK — FEBRUARY 2008
15) “RISING TO THE CLIMATE CHALLENGE” BOOKLET — FEBRUARY 2008
16) “BURNING CAPITAL” — FEBRUARY 2008
17) SPIRIT OF FREEDOM — FEBRUARY 2008
18) CLIMATE CHANGE SOLUTIONS CENTRE — FEBRUARY UPDATE 2008
19) “THE AGE OF STUPID” — FEBRUARY 2008
20) AIRPORT WATCH BULLETIN — FEBRUARY 2008
21) CAUSE CLIMATE CHANGE — WEBSITE 2008

———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY — INTERNATIONAL, 1.4.08
Roll up, roll up…the cir­cus is com­ing to town, and it’s going to be big!
For over a cen­tu­ry the fos­sil fuel indus­try has been fool­ing with our lives. From extrac­tion to com­bus­tion they have poi­soned our air, pol­lut­ed
our water and ruined our cli­mate. On April 1st, we’re going to turn the
tables and show them who the real fools are. Ris­ing Tide’s call has been
backed by Net­work for Cli­mate Action, Glob­al Exchange and Rain­for­est
Action Net­work. There are actions planned across the coun­try and around
the world — let us know what you get up to! (Or tell us in advance if you
can and we’ll help spread the word, get media atten­tion, etc.) Con­tact
local groups or just do it your­self. Show the fos­sil fool clowns what you
think of their freak­show — It’s time to Pull a Prank that Packs a Punch!
Resources and ideas are avail­able from;
http://risingtide.org.uk/fossilfoolsday/resources
http://www.networkforclimateaction.org.uk/
Also see; http://www.fossilfoolsday.org/
and; http://risingtide.org.uk/node/241
Con­tact no: 07961 917 535

2) MAYDAY! MAYDAY! INVASION OF THE CLIMATE SNATCHERS — INTERNATIONAL, 1.5.08
From bio­fu­els to nuclear pow­er, car­bon-trad­ing to hydro­gen fuel cells,
dump­ing urine in the ocean to car­bon cap­ture — every­where cor­po­ra­tions are
seek­ing the elu­sive elixir which allows them to con­tin­ue with busi­ness as
usu­al. All these tech­nolo­gies are a dis­trac­tion from the real solu­tions -
a mas­sive reduc­tion in our con­sump­tion and far-reach­ing social change. On
May 1st, Inter­na­tion­al Work­ers Day, we will chal­lenge these false
solu­tions to cli­mate chaos.
http://networkforclimateaction.org.uk

3) CLIMATE ACTION WITH A BITE! — INTERNATIONAL, 3.6.08
Cli­mate action starts on your din­ner plate, in the super­mar­ket, at the
food pro­cess­ing and dis­tri­b­u­tion cen­tres, on the farm, in your allot­ment
or your back yard. The foods we eat are respon­si­ble for about a third of
our green­house emis­sions. It’s time for us to switch to plant-based,
organ­ic, sea­son­al and local­ly pro­duced food. Whether you’re into local
food, per­ma­cul­ture, ani­mal rights, allot­ments, human­i­tar­i­an issues, food
pol­i­tics or trans­port cam­paign­ing, make the links and take action to
high­light the role of the food indus­try in cli­mate chaos.
http://networkforclimateaction.org.uk

4) “PEOPLE ARE STILL THE SAME” — BRECON, 8.3.08
A one-day event show­cas­ing art­works cre­at­ed in response to inter­views,
dia­logues and doc­u­men­ta­tion of the con­struc­tion of the South Wales gas
pipeline.
From 3pm till dusk: Cur­rent State Dystopia — a video pro­jec­tion in the
tun­nel under­neath the A40 road and: Books — a sound and slide instal­la­tion
in Din­gle Wood. 6pm: Going Home — pro­jec­tion and music in Pen­pont Church.
RSVP morag@cooptel.net or tele­phone 01874 636269 www.penpont.com

5) PADDY’S DAY OF ACTION AGAINST SHELL — IRELAND AND BEYOND, 17.3.08
This year´s St Paddy´s day, 17th March, has been called as an
Inter­na­tion­al day of action against shell, in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the peo­ple
of Ross­port. Peo­ple from all over Ire­land are set to join forces and show
their unit­ed strength by going all the way to Lon­don to demon­strate on
Shell´s front door step.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20124
http://gluaiseacht.nologic.org/wordpress

6) BIKES NOT BOMBS TOUR — LONDON TO ALDERMASTON, 22–24.3.08
Bikes not bombs are plan­ning a bicy­col­o­gy bike tour from Lon­don to
Alder­mas­ton Atom­ic Weapons Estab­lish­ment to mark the 50th anniver­sary of
the Alder­mas­ton Peace March. The ride is expect­ed to take 3 days
(22nd-24th March). More than 5000 peo­ple are expect­ed to attend the
“Sur­round The Base” event at Alder­mas­ton on the 24th. If you are
inter­est­ed please email; info@bikesnotbombs.org.uk
Also see www.cnduk.org/aldermaston

7) TERMINAL 5 FLASHMOB — HEATHROW, 27.3.08
Be at T5 Inter­na­tion­al Arrivals at 11am to put on (or strip to reveal)
your bright­ly coloured “Stop Air­port Expan­sion” t‑shirt: a vis­i­ble
pres­ence of pub­lic oppo­si­tion to the mad­ness of air­port expan­sion. Wan­der
round for a bit, have a cof­fee, leave when you like. Wear­ing a t‑shirt is
not (yet) a crime!
Order your free T‑shirt today: stopairportexpansion@gmail.com or 0845 458
2564.
The Government/BAA see the open­ing day of Ter­mi­nal Five (the biggest
ter­mi­nal ever built in the UK, and the sub­ject of the longest Pub­lic
Inquiry in British his­to­ry) as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to put the case for fur­ther
air­port expan­sion. Join the flash mob to high­light the real prob­lems that
air­port expan­sion caus­es: cli­mate change, noise, air pol­lu­tion and
com­mu­ni­ty destruc­tion.
http://www.t5flashmob.com/

8) CLIMATE BILL PUBLIC MEETING — LONDON, 22.4.08
Friends Meet­ing House, Euston, Lon­don, 7.30pm. A chance to attend a pub­lic
meet­ing with Hilary Benn MP (Envi­ron­ment Sec­re­tary) and Peter Ainsworth
(Shad­ow Envi­ron­ment Sec­re­tary) and join the calls for a strong cli­mate
change law.
More info: howard.whitehead@foe.co.uk

9) COIN WORKSHOPS — NATIONAL, MARCH-APRIL 2008
(a) Cli­mate Change Con­densed will be hap­pen­ing in Chel­tenham on the 6th
March.
(b) Cli­mate Action Groups match­mak­er evening, Tue 11th March 4:30 -
7:30pm, The Envi­ron­ment Coun­cil, Lon­don. Any­one who has attend­ed any of
the COIN/TEC series of train­ings can attend this for free.
© Do you work for the NHS? COIN is offer­ing a tai­lored Cli­mate Change
Speak­er Train­ing in Lon­don on March 14th. See;
www.healthandsustainability.net
(d) Com­mu­ni­cat­ing Cli­mate Change, a one-day work­shop, in part­ner­ship with
Vale
Roy­al Bor­ough Coun­cil on Fri­day, April 11th.
Fur­ther train­ings com­ing soon in Birm­ing­ham, Man­ches­ter and Scot­land.
Would you like COIN to run train­ings in your local area? — give Mim a call
on 01865 727911 or email mim@coinet.org.uk
See the COIN web­site for details on all the above; www.coinet.org.uk

10) NATIONAL CLIMATE FORUM — LONDON, 14–15.6.08
This event offers a wide range of work­shops and sem­i­nars all deal­ing with
dif­fer­ent aspects of the cli­mate change cri­sis, prob­a­ble solu­tions and
future devel­op­ments in nation­al and inter­na­tion­al cli­mate poli­cies. Venue;
South Cam­den Com­mu­ni­ty School, Lon­don. Fol­low the link below to look at
the pro­gram and speak­ers from last year cli­mate con­fer­ence.
http://www.campaigncc.org/conference.shtml

11) EARTH ACTIVIST TRAINING — GLOUCESTERSHIRE, 12–26.7.08
A per­ma­cul­ture design course and more for activists! Learn the skills to
trans­form a piece of land, a com­mu­ni­ty, and our polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic
sys­tems.
COSTS: (Includ­ing tuition, two weeks accom­mo­da­tion and all meals) £150 -
£500 slid­ing scale accord­ing to income. If you are inter­est­ed in tak­ing
part in the course, down­load an appli­ca­tion form from:
http://www.earthactivisttraining.org/
Or write to: Earth Activist Train­ing, c/o 59 Chelsea Park, Bris­tol, BS5 6AH.

12) ENVIRONMENT CAMPAIGNER AWARD
The Envi­ron­ment Awards (organ­ised by the Sheila McK­ech­nie Foun­da­tion) are
an oppor­tu­ni­ty for grass­roots cam­paign­ers to receive a bespoke pro­gramme
of sup­port and skills devel­op­ment designed to help them take their
cam­paign to the next lev­el. See www.sheilamckechnie.org.uk for details of
how to apply.

13) LILI COURSES IN APRIL — BUCKS/LONDON/SHEFFIELD
Low-Impact Liv­ing Ini­tia­tive: (01296) 714184 www.lowimpact.org

———————————————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
———————————————-
1) CLIMATE EMERGENCY AT HEATHROW, AND THEN WESTMINSTER — 25.2.08 / 27.2.08
On the 27th, cam­paign­ers opposed to Heathrow expan­sion scaled the roof of
the Hous­es of Par­lia­ment and hung protest ban­ners from the build­ing. The
pro­test­ers also made paper aero­planes out of con­fi­den­tial White­hall
doc­u­ments and flew them into the MPs’ car park below! The doc­u­ments –
obtained under the Free­dom of Infor­ma­tion Act — prove that air­port
oper­a­tor BAA wrote parts of the con­sul­ta­tion doc­u­ment and that the
gov­ern­ment has already decid­ed to build a 3rd run­way and 6th ter­mi­nal at
the world’s biggest inter­na­tion­al air­port.
http://www.planestupid.com/?q=content/plane-stupid-scales-parliament
Two days ear­li­er Green­peace cam­paign­ers had climbed on to one of
Heathrow’s short-haul flights and cov­ered the tail­fin of the plane with a
huge protest ban­ner that read “CLIMATE EMERGENCY – NO 3rd RUNWAY”.
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/climate/climate-campaigners-bring-peaceful-protest-to-heathrow-20080225
Also on the 25th, the Heathrow end-of-con­sul­ta­tion ral­ly at West­min­ster
was a packed-out suc­cess, with thou­sands of res­i­dents, politi­cians and
envi­ron­men­tal cam­paign­ers pledg­ing to resist plans to extend Heathrow -
http://www.airportwatch.org.uk/
The dis­tri­b­u­tion of 50,000 leaflets and the actions of anar­chist art troop
Weird Load helped make the ral­ly such a suc­cess:
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20050

2) RATCLIFFE ACTION VERDICT — NOTTINGHAM, 25.2.08
Fol­low­ing their attempts to halt oper­a­tions and thus dimin­ish CO2
emis­sions at the Rat­cliffe-on-Soar pow­er sta­tion last April, 10 activists
were recent­ly back in court. Unfor­tu­nate­ly the defen­dants’ defence of
envi­ron­men­tal neces­si­ty was reject­ed and they were found guilty. The judge
had ear­li­er said that he wished to com­pli­ment all the defen­dants on the
pre­sen­ta­tion of their case.
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/02/392323.html

3) BP AMERICA, EXXON MOBIL AND CO. IN THE DOCK — ALASKA, 27.2.08
Mean­while, in Alas­ka, lawyers for the native coastal vil­lage of Kivali­na
have filed a suit argu­ing that 5 oil com­pa­nies, 14 elec­tric util­i­ties and
the coun­try’s largest coal com­pa­ny were respon­si­ble for the relo­ca­tion of
vil­lagers because of flood­ing caused by the chang­ing Arc­tic cli­mate.
“There has been a long cam­paign by pow­er, coal and oil com­pa­nies to
mis­lead the pub­lic about the sci­ence of glob­al warm­ing,” the suit says.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/27/us/27alaska.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=Flooded+Village+Files+Suit%2C+Citing+Corporate+Link+to+Climate+Change+&st=nyt&oref=slogin

4) HANDS OFF IRAQI OIL! ACTIONS — UK AND NETHERLANDS, 23.2.08
In sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Iraqi peo­ples’ strug­gle against the plun­der of
their oil reserves, there were actions in Birm­ing­ham, Lon­don, Liv­er­pool,
Wrex­ham, Coven­try and Ams­ter­dam.
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/02/392315.html

5) EARTH FIRST! BLOCKADES POWER PLANT CONSTRUCTION — FLORIDA, 18.2.08
Dozens of con­cerned com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers from Palm Beach Coun­ty and across
the States put their bod­ies on the line to halt con­struc­tion of a mas­sive
gas-fired pow­er plant. A dozen activists locked them­selves togeth­er
through met­al pipes as 200 sup­port­ers ral­lied around them. The block­ade
stopped work on the con­struc­tion site for six hours before a total of 27
peo­ple were arrest­ed.
http://www.risingtidenorthamerica.org/wordpress/2008/02/19/blockade-shuts-down-south-florida-power-plant-construction-27-arrested/
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20038

6) RTNA/EARTHFIRST! PIPELINE ACTION — PORTLAND, U.S. 23.1.08
The above block­ade fol­lowed anoth­er com­bined action where Cas­ca­dia Ris­ing
Tide joined forces with Stump­town Earth First! to hold an action and ral­ly
at the Port­land office of NW Nat­ur­al in protest at their involve­ment in
Liq­ue­fied Nat­ur­al Gas pipelines, which threat­en to clear-cut strips of
for­est through­out Ore­gon for new fos­sil fuel infra­struc­ture. Activists
piled trees around the office entrance and hung a large ban­ner which read
— “There’s noth­ing Green about Clear-cuts, No new pipelines”.
http://www.risingtidenorthamerica.org/wordpress/2008/01/23/cascadia-rt-organizes-anti-lng-action-at-nw-natural/

7) SABOTAGE AT GLENSANDA — YORKSHIRE, FEBRUARY 2008
An aggre­gates pro­cess­ing plant on the edge of the York­shire Dales Nation­al
Park has been sab­o­taged. 20% of the stone extract­ed will go to major road
net­work con­struc­tion across Europe. The plant in York­shire was entered and
vehi­cles, includ­ing all bull­doz­ers, had holes drilled in vital parts of
their engines and their tires. Both con­trol rooms were bro­ken into and all
com­put­ers and instru­ment pan­els were smashed. Keys to all build­ings and
machin­ery were removed from the site. The mes­sage “Stop Glen­san­da” was
left.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20043

8) PLANKTOS DUMPING SCHEME DEFEATED BY ANTI-WHALERS — MADEIRA, 14.2.08
Plank­tos, the Cal­i­for­nia com­pa­ny try­ing to turn a prof­it by fer­til­iz­ing
the ocean with iron dust, has pulled the plug on planned field tests. On
the com­pa­ny’s web-site, a sim­ple notice blamed the shut­down on a “high­ly
effec­tive dis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paign waged by anti-off­set cru­saders.” In
Novem­ber 2007, the anti-whal­ing ship Sea Shep­herd con­front­ed the Plank­tos
ves­sel and forced it to move onto Madeira. And there it stayed until its
recall last month.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19989

9) COMMUNITY HALTS SHELL — IRELAND, 12.2.08
The Erris com­mu­ni­ty con­tin­ues to pro­tect the land — sur­vey work was
stopped and trucks were blocked. Local peo­ple pre­vent­ed Shell from ille­gal
work for 4 hours until Gar­dai forced through work­ers, injur­ing pro­test­ers.
http://www.corribsos.com/index.php?id=1686
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19977

10) CRITICAL MASS HERO CLEARED — BRISTOL, 7.2.08
In May last year, some­one stood in the road and tried to stop a car that
had hit a Crit­i­cal Mass cyclist, from dri­ving away. For that he was
arrest­ed for obstruct­ing the high­way, thrown to the floor by his neck
whilst hand­cuffed, and then — sur­prise sur­prise — also arrest­ed for
assault­ing a police offi­cer.
After 9 months of ner­vous wait­ing, he was final­ly cleared of all charges,
as Bris­tol Mag­is­trates Court accept­ed a sub­mis­sion that the police
evi­dence was at best ‘severe­ly flawed’ and at worst, fab­ri­cat­ed, and the
tri­al was stopped.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19971

11) KLIMAX SURGE ON! — SWEDEN, JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2008
Groups of activists con­nect­ed to Kli­max, Sweden’s direct action move­ment
against the root caus­es of cli­mate change, struck repeat­ed­ly last month.
At Malmö Air­port, sev­en activists were appre­hend­ed when try­ing to break
into the run­way, some of them dressed as polar bears. Some 30 activists
put up a block­ade in the mid­dle of the high­way run­ning through Umeå, the
largest city in north­ern Swe­den.
A sim­i­lar num­ber staged a protest out­side the office of Swedish Meat, a
major meat cor­po­ra­tion, to high­light the severe effects the indus­try is
hav­ing on our cli­mate. Anoth­er 50 activists marched into the traf­fic on
one of the major streets in inner city Stock­holm, seiz­ing it for 15
min­utes. The action was direct­ed against a planned mega-high­way, to be
built in the west­ern parts of the cap­i­tal.
http://klimatet.org/2008/02/17/action-report/
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20019
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20035

12) TARA CAMPAIGN UPDATE — FEBRUARY 2008
Lock-ons and dig­ger-div­ing, plus protest camp con­tact.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19996
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20126

13) 15 ACTIONS TO TOPPLE THE FOSSIL FUEL EMPIRE — FEBRUARY 2008
Ris­ing Tide’s newest resource, on why and how to take direct action
against the fos­sil fuel indus­try… includ­ing plan­ning tips, tar­get
loca­tions, exam­ples of suc­cess­ful actions and more. Email us for a hard
copy or down­load it here:
http://risingtide.org.uk/resources/other

14) RISING TIDE POP-ED RESOURCE PACK — FEBRUARY 2008
A pop­u­lar edu­ca­tion resource packed with tools to help you run engag­ing,
inter­ac­tive work­shops on all aspects of cli­mate change for a wide range of
peo­ple. Down­load it here: http://risingtide.org.uk/resources/other

15) “RISING TO THE CLIMATE CHALLENGE” BOOKLET — FEBRUARY 2008
Cli­mate change myth-bust­ing book­let designed to help peo­ple cut through
the fog of con­fu­sion and mixed mes­sages about cli­mate change and to be a
use­ful resource for com­mu­ni­ty groups and indi­vid­u­als all over Scot­land.
Down­load from the web­site at www.sead.org.uk

16) “BURNING CAPITAL” — FEBRUARY 2008
This com­pelling series of short films explores the role of Britain’s
largest cor­po­ra­tion in the grow­ing cli­mate cri­sis. Burn­ing Cap­i­tal is a
video voy­age through the murky world of oil giant BP, who kind­ly deliv­ered
1.3 bil­lion tonnes of car­bon diox­ide to the atmos­phere last year.
Watch the films now at; http://www.platformlondon.org/burning

17) SPIRIT OF FREEDOM — FEBRUARY 2008
Earth Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers Sup­port Net­work newslet­ter. They’re in there
for us out here — Please write!
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19960

18) CLIMATE CHANGE SOLUTIONS CENTRE — FEBRUARY UPDATE 2008
A group of envi­ron­men­tal and com­mu­ni­ty-based organ­i­sa­tions in the South
West have made a bid to found an inde­pen­dent, inter-dis­ci­pli­nary ‘Cli­mate
Change Solu­tions Cen­tre’, on the site of an ex-agri­cul­tur­al col­lege
cur­rent­ly owned by Ply­mouth Uni­ver­si­ty. For more details, and infor­ma­tion
on how to sup­port the plans, please see; www.climatechangecentre.co.uk

19) “THE AGE OF STUPID” — FEBRUARY 2008
A cli­mate change doc­u­men­tary for the big screen from Fran­ny Arm­strong
(McLi­bel) and John Battsek (One Day In Sep­tem­ber). Mix­ing doc­u­men­tary
footage, dra­ma and cut­ting-edge ani­ma­tion, and star­ring Pete Postleth­waite
as an old man liv­ing in the dev­as­tat­ed world of 2055. As he watch­es
‘archive’ footage from 2007, he asks him­self: Why did­n’t we stop cli­mate
change when we had the chance? http://www.ageofstupid.net

20) AIRPORT WATCH BULLETIN — FEBRUARY 2008
For infor­ma­tion about the cam­paigns against sui­ci­dal expan­sion at
Heathrow, Bris­tol, Lon­don City, Lydd, Carlisle, Newquay and oth­er air­ports
see; www.airportwatch.org.uk

21) ‘CAUSES CLIMATE CHANGE’ WEBSITE
Sub­ver­tis­ing ideas and resources.
http://www.causesclimatechange.blogspot.com/

———-

Please send any­thing you’d like includ­ed in this news sheet to:
newssheet@risingtide.org.uk

To view pre­vi­ous edi­tions of the Ris­ing Tide News Sheet, vis­it the News
Sheet Archive at http://risingtide.org.uk/newssheet

This News Sheet was brought to you by Ris­ing Tide, a grass­roots net­work
of groups and indi­vid­u­als com­mit­ted to tak­ing action and build­ing a
move­ment against cli­mate change.

For more infor­ma­tion…
email: info@risingtide.org.uk
Phone: +44 (0)845 458 8923 / +44 (0)7708 794665
Address: 62 Fieldgate St, Lon­don, E1 1ES
Web site: http://risingtide.org.uk

PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO A FRIEND AND INVITE THEM TO JOIN THE LIST

To sub­scribe or unsub­scribe vis­it:
http://risingtide.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/rt-news

Mass Action: Refuse to Pay on trains to London, 20 April

A mass cli­mate action is tak­ing place on Sun­day 20th April in Lon­don. Peo­ple will board trains into cen­tral Lon­don, refus­ing to pay the high prices. There will be a con­ver­gence in the cen­tral Lon­don ter­mi­nals at around 1pm. The action aims to high­light how the cur­rent pub­lic trans­port prices are unaf­ford­able and must be rad­i­cal­ly low­ered if we are to get peo­ple out of their car­bon inten­sive cars.

A mass cli­mate action is tak­ing place on Sun­day 20th April in Lon­don. Peo­ple will board trains into cen­tral Lon­don, refus­ing to pay the high prices. There will be a con­ver­gence in the cen­tral Lon­don ter­mi­nals at around 1pm. The action aims to high­light how the cur­rent pub­lic trans­port prices are unaf­ford­able and must be rad­i­cal­ly low­ered if we are to get peo­ple out of their car­bon inten­sive cars.

All are invit­ed to take part in a mass action against soar­ing pub­lic trans­port prices on Sun­day 20th April. We encour­age peo­ple from all walks of life to board trains into the cen­tral Lon­don ter­mi­nals, refus­ing to pay the fare. Peo­ple will con­verge togeth­er at the ter­mi­nals at around 1pm. The action is high­light­ing the fact that pub­lic trans­port must become dras­ti­cal­ly cheap­er and afford­able if it is to become a viable alter­na­tive to the dom­i­nant car­bon heavy motor­ing. It will be a chance to col­lec­tive­ly rise up and declare that we are not going to accept how much it costs to trav­el by sus­tain­able means, and a warn­ing to both the gov­ern­ment and pri­vate train com­pa­nies that these actions will con­tin­ue until pub­lic trans­port prices are brought down mas­sive­ly.

The action is being organ­ised by The Stu­dent Cli­mate Project, because choos­ing whether or not to own a car is a deci­sion many stu­dents are faced with. Many will opt to own a car sim­ply because an afford­able and acces­si­ble alter­na­tive is not avail­able. This action gives stu­dents an empow­er­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty to con­tribute to chang­ing the fun­da­men­tals of our car­bon inten­sive infra­struc­ture and econ­o­my, rather than mere­ly feel­ing guilty about their own per­son­al emis­sions. But, of course, you don’t need to be a stu­dent to take part in the action!

Since 1980 motor­ing has increased by an alarm­ing 87%, and con­tin­ues to grow despite the ongo­ing threat of cli­mate change. This might have some­thing to do with the fact that, in this time peri­od, pub­lic trans­port costs for the user have risen by 40% in real terms, where­as motor­ing costs have decreased by 14%. [1]

If any­one is in any doubt about the emis­sion reduc­tions pub­lic trans­port can bring, then you need look no fur­ther than the Depart­ment for Transport’s own cal­cu­la­tions. In a par­lia­men­tary answer in July 2004, the Depart­ment stat­ed that tak­ing the train from Lon­don to Man­ches­ter would mean just 14% the car­bon emis­sions of tak­ing the car for the indi­vid­ual pas­sen­ger. [2]

Cli­mate Change needs to be tack­led today. We need 90% cuts in UK emis­sions before 2030 if we are to avoid going beyond tip­ping point where the cli­mate sys­tem will spi­ral out of our con­trol com­plete­ly. As well as rapid­ly doing away with car­bon inten­sive means of trans­port, we must also ensure the sus­tain­able alter­na­tives become avail­able for all.

There­fore, let’s come togeth­er on this action and bring about pos­i­tive change: putting pub­lic trans­port first!

More infor­ma­tion will fol­low very short­ly at www.studentclimateproject.org.uk and you can also email process@studentclimateproject.org.uk for info and resources for the action.

Ref­er­ences

[1] http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/statistics/datatablespublications/trends/current/section1rvc.pd
[2] http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmhansrd/vo040708/text/40708w05.htm

networking@studentclimateproject.org.uk
http://www.studentclimateproject.org.uk

squatting news — London, Leeds & Manchester — updated

Sec­ond court reprieve for RAMpart2
3.03.2008
The squat opened as a back­up venue to the ram­pART social cen­tre in east lon­don today enjoyed it’s sec­ond court­room reprieve. Twice now it has been served with an appli­ca­tion for a Inter­im Pos­ses­sion Order. The first time the claimants failed to turn up at the hear­ing and today they admit­ted that they had failed to cor­rect­ly serve notice on the defen­dants so it was thrown out of court. The own­ers will be apply for the third time and the papers are expect­ed to be served some­time Tues­day with a court date prob­a­bly some­time next week (although it could be ear­li­er if there is an avail­able time slot at the court).

Sec­ond court reprieve for RAMpart2
3.03.2008
The squat opened as a back­up venue to the ram­pART social cen­tre in east lon­don today enjoyed it’s sec­ond court­room reprieve. Twice now it has been served with an appli­ca­tion for a Inter­im Pos­ses­sion Order. The first time the claimants failed to turn up at the hear­ing and today they admit­ted that they had failed to cor­rect­ly serve notice on the defen­dants so it was thrown out of court. The own­ers will be apply for the third time and the papers are expect­ed to be served some­time Tues­day with a court date prob­a­bly some­time next week (although it could be ear­li­er if there is an avail­able time slot at the court).

Whether it will be ram­pART or RAMpart2 which gets evict­ed first remains a neck and neck race. A new build­ing is being sought. If you have sug­ges­tions please con­tact the col­lec­tive via ram­part at mutu­alaid dot org.

Check out the pho­to essay about lon­don’s secret social cen­tre…

http://indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/london/2008/02/392529.html

///////

ram­pART and RAMpart2 evic­tions
25.2.2008

All very gloomy news from the var­i­ous parts of the ram­pART. This morn­ing there was a hear­ing to decide whether there would be an appeal against the grant­i­ng of the pos­ses­sion order relat­ing to Ram­part Street. The judge decid­ed there would be no appeal.

The pos­ses­sion order orig­i­nal­ly grant­ed for the 3rd of Jan is now active and the own­ers may now get a war­rant to enforce the order and book the bailiffs for an evic­tion. This could be with­in two or three weeks although this is just a guess and we’ll know more in a day or two.

Mean­while, a new set of papers was served (kind of) on RAMpart2 and the hear­ing date is the 3rd of March (ie. next mon­day). The hear­ing is both for an IPO and ordi­nary pos­ses­sion order (which seems a lit­tle weird) and assum­ing they actu­al­ly both­er to turn up this time we seem to have no defense beyond a few tech­ni­cal­i­ties. If they get the IPO then we’d be evict­ed tues­day 4th March.

A new build­ing is urgent­ly required.

===============

Part of the inter­na­tion­al week­end of action in sup­port of squats and autonomous spaces around the world (see www.april2008.squat.net for more info).

A Cel­e­bra­tion of Free Spaces
Leeds City Cen­tre, Fri­day 11th — Sat­ur­day 12th April 2008

Across the world, com­mu­ni­ties are under threat as city “regen­er­a­tion schemes” favour a glam­orous , busi­ness-friend­ly envi­ron­ment over and above issues such as com­mu­ni­ty,. social hous­ing and diver­si­ty. Leeds is no excep­tion as PFIs and sim­i­lar pri­va­tised “regen­er­a­tion” pro­grammes threat­en com­mu­ni­ties across the city.

We want to show that com­mu­ni­ties through­out our city are not pre­pared to lie down and accept this!

For this week­end we are plan­ning a squat­ted space in Leeds City Cen­tre, fea­tur­ing:

- cafe
— focus on hous­ing / squat­ting / gen­tri­fi­ca­tion
— free shop
— fam­i­ly friend­ly space: day­time cafe will be alco­hol-free & drug-free space
— oppor­tu­ni­ty to link up with oth­er com­mu­ni­ties threat­ened by the above issues

…but most impor­tant­ly the space will be open for what­ev­er you want it to be: an oppor­tu­ni­ty for films, dis­plays, art, work­shops… to get involved give us an email on leedssquat@googlemail.com or call 07526 261061.

===============

Man­ches­ter Space Invaders Land­ing April

11th & 12th April have been named as ‘inter­na­tion­al days of action on autonomous
spaces’. There will be things hap­pen­ing in Europe includ­ing squat­ted
build­ings, par­ties, Reclaim the Streets, land occu­pa­tions and more!
We have start­ed an organ­is­ing group to kick start ideas for action in Man­ches­ter. From reclaim­ing the streets to gueril­la gardening..from a ceilidh to a
veg­an cafe…free par­ty to per­ma­cul­ture space…

MANCHESTER SPACE INVADERS LANDING SOON!

Decen­tralised days of action (April 11–12th) meet­ing
Thurs­day 21st Feb­ru­ary 7–9pm

15 peo­ple met from var­i­ous dif­fer­ent net­works to begin plan­ning for the autonomous
days of action in April..

What are the days of action?

11th & 12th April have been named as ‘inter­na­tion­al days of action on autonomous
spaces’. There will be things hap­pen­ing in Europe includ­ing squat­ted
build­ings, par­ties, Reclaim the Streets, land occu­pa­tions and more!

The squat­ting net­work met recent­ly in Leeds, and the next nation­al squat meet­ing
will be in Sep­tem­ber 2008, in Man­ches­ter and the focus will be on skill shar­ing, and
the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a mass squat­ting action.

Ideas for action for 11–12 April. We dis­cussed lots of options for the days of
action… From reclaim­ing the streets to gueril­la gardening..from a ceilidh to a
veg­an cafe… Con­sen­sus was that it would be good to com­bine doing a squat with a
pos­i­tive, inclu­sive, out­door event, reclaim­ing a pub­lic space in the city..

We dis­cussed the capac­i­ty need­ed to make these ideas happen..so if you have time,
equip­ment or skills please get involved! Peo­ple are up for mak­ing squat­ted social
spaces, there have been 2 pre­vi­ous TAA’s (Tem­po­rary Autonomous Art spaces) in
Man­ches­ter that have been in squat­ted build­ings. There have been TAAs all over the
coun­try.

To find out more about poten­tial areas we are look­ing at for the squat, street par­ty
and park, come to the next meet­ing.

A build­ing could be the nucle­us for what we do and some­where to base the week­end.
Every­one agreed that it’s vital to have time and space set aside for
work­shops, meet­ing space and events. It could cre­ate a col­lec­tive that
wants to keep a squat­ted social cen­tre going for a while. There are com­mu­ni­ty
cen­tres being shut down all over the city at the minute.

We need mon­ey and peo­ple with skills to share and squat­ting expe­ri­ence. Please get
in touch if this applies to you! you don;t have to come to lots of meet­ings, but it
would be great if you could join our team to help make these plans a real­i­ty!

We are devel­op­ing a resource for legal infor­ma­tion and to clar­i­fy what is involved
in squat­ting..

We call for net­works and autonomous groups across Man­ches­ter to get involved…
Basement/Critical Mass/Under the Pavement/Indymedia/Open Media Collective/
Man­ches­ter Ani­mal Protection/Temporary Autonomous Artists/Campaigns Collective/No
Borders/Manchester Cli­mate Action/Soundsystems/
LGBT Groups/Queer/Feminist/Permaculture/Food not Bombs/Musicians
and many more besides!

Next meet­ing: Thurs­day 6th March 7pm Meet­ing Rm 3 Uni­ver­si­ty of Man­ches­ter Stu­dents
Union, Oxford Rd.. please note this is an acces­si­ble venue.

Peo­ple will split into work­ing groups and start to
con­sid­er prac­ti­cal­i­ties.

To join the email list:
https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/manchesterspaceinvaders
then click on sub­scribe
email manchesterspaceinvaders@yahoo.co.uk

Sankofa Foundation in Crisis & ASBO social centre disintegration

Amidst the recent dis­in­te­gra­tion of the ASBO project the Sanko­fa Foun­da­tion has been suf­fer­ing and sur­viv­ing, but now the end may be in sight for our Burns Street office.

Sanko­fa ther­a­pist Miri­am Hol­lis recent­ly wrote this mes­sage ask­ing for help, which can also be read on the Sanko­fa blog — sankofafoundation.blogspot.com

Amidst the recent dis­in­te­gra­tion of the ASBO project the Sanko­fa Foun­da­tion has been suf­fer­ing and sur­viv­ing, but now the end may be in sight for our Burns Street office.

Sanko­fa ther­a­pist Miri­am Hol­lis recent­ly wrote this mes­sage ask­ing for help, which can also be read on the Sanko­fa blog — sankofafoundation.blogspot.com

The Sanko­fa Foun­da­tion and impact of van­dal­ism in the imme­di­ate short term to the sur­vival of the project

www.sankofafoundation.org.uk

The Sanko­fa Foun­da­tion is a psy­chother­a­peu­tic ser­vice for seek­ers of asy­lum and their fam­i­lies, refugees and those grant­ed human­i­tar­i­an pro­tec­tion. We are based in Not­ting­ham and take refer­rals from Not­ting­ham, Der­by, Leices­ter and South York­shire. In fact, if we have the capac­i­ty, we won’t turn any­one away. We are a not for prof­it ser­vice and we do not receive any state or char­i­ta­ble fund­ing. We offer appoint­ments to any­one who is suf­fer­ing from trau­ma aris­ing from expe­ri­ences of tor­ture, impris­on­ment, vio­lence, wit­ness­ing of vio­lence or sex­u­al assault in their coun­try of ori­gin. We also offer sup­port to peo­ple suf­fer­ing from trau­ma aris­ing from the process of asy­lum and des­ti­tu­tion. Our ser­vices are free at the point of deliv­ery and we rely on dona­tions from sup­port­ers of The Sanko­fa Foun­da­tion.

His­to­ry:

Sanko­fa arose out of anoth­er project which was accessed by young peo­ple seek­ing asy­lum and who were with­out their fam­i­lies ( Unac­com­pa­nied Minors). Due to unex­pect­ed fund­ing cuts to the pro­vi­sion of a ser­vice to these young peo­ple, the deci­sion was made to con­tin­ue to offer psy­chother­a­py to those young peo­ple who were in crit­i­cal need. With­out fund­ing or a base, social ser­vices in Not­ting­ham offered a room for meet­ing with their own refer­rals. The ser­vice con­tin­ued and was based in the offices of social ser­vices over three days a week for over a year. Efforts were made to move towards char­i­ta­ble sta­tus. How­ev­er, when Sanko­fa became aware that the Local Author­i­ty in Not­ting­ham were not com­ply­ing with the deci­sion in the Hilling­don case 2003, Sanko­fa need­ed to relo­cate in order to sup­port young peo­ple to access appro­pri­ate guid­ance and legal advice in pur­suit of their rights under the law. Pur­suit of char­i­ta­ble sta­tus was set aside in order to meet the needs of this very busy time.

Social activists had tak­en the occu­pan­cy of a dis­used local author­i­ty build­ing. Pre­vi­ous­ly, the build­ing, which had been three large Vic­to­ri­an three storey ter­races with shared court­yard, had been divid­ed into flats and occu­pied by ten­ants of the local author­i­ty. How­ev­er, the build­ings had been unused for over eight years, apart from casu­al use on a reg­u­lar basis by peo­ple with seri­ous drugs habits, and women sex work­ers. Local res­i­dents were upset by what was hap­pen­ing in their neigh­bour­hood and sup­port­ed the occu­pa­tion of the build­ings by social activists who repaired win­dows and floors, paint­ed and fur­nished and set up projects very quick­ly which ben­e­fit­ted the local area. With­in a short amount of time the build­ing, which had been dete­ri­o­rat­ing fast ( as doc­u­ment­ed by free­lance pho­to­graph­ic jour­nal­ist, Tash) was look­ing occu­pied, the gar­dens were tidied, and the unin­spir­ing back yard was green­ing up with bath tubs and con­tain­ers full of herbs and toma­toes, which nas­tur­tiums tum­bling out of them in full colour in the sum­mer. A Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre was estab­lished ( and entered in the Direc­to­ry of Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tres), and with­in the Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, a free shop was opened, invit­ing dona­tions of use­able goods and cloth­ing which were avail­able free to any­one who need­ed them. A Com­mu­ni­ty lend­ing Library was opened, an inter­net cafe, a bicy­cle main­te­nance work­shop, a com­mu­ni­ty arts room with reg­u­lar activ­i­ties for chil­dren, and a free Com­mu­ni­ty meal once a week for any­one who need­ed a hot meal ( veg­eta­bles donat­ed from local green­gro­cers).

Into this busy and engaged space, Sanko­fa was offered a base. Encour­aged to approach the Com­mu­ni­ty by Bill Wal­ton of NNRF Des­ti­tu­tion Group, our orig­i­nal room was in a dis­used ground floor flat, and shared with the Com­mu­ni­ty Print­works who had equip­ment in the kitchen. We had no glass in the win­dows and only one room was use­able due to prob­lems with floor­ing in an adja­cent room. A team worked long into the nights to glaze the win­dows, fix the floor­ing and dec­o­rate. With fur­ni­ture obtained through the freecy­cle net­work and a com­put­er donat­ed from friends in oth­er coun­selling ser­vices, with­in a week, Sanko­fas new ther­a­py room was host­ing a meet­ing which was to have an impact on the pro­vi­sion for unac­com­pa­nied asy­lum seek­ing chil­dren in Not­ting­ham. The Refugee Coun­cil (GB) Chil­drens Pan­el, the Co-Ordi­na­tor of the asy­lum Project at the Chil­drens Legal Cen­tre (Uni­ver­si­ty of Essex), Nation­al Youth Advo­ca­cy Ser­vice (NYAS) and 23 young peo­ple seek­ing asy­lum and in the care of the local author­i­ty ( with more pop­ping in and out through­out the day) met to dis­cuss the pro­vi­sion made for them in the area. As a result, The Refugee Coun­cil, the Chil­drens Legal Cen­tre, and a local Fam­i­ly Law Solic­i­tor took instruc­tions from many chil­dren to demand the right to cloth­ing allowances, bet­ter pro­vi­sion in accom­mo­da­tion, and the insti­ga­tion of care plans. The co-ordi­na­tor of the Chil­drens Legal Cen­tre (asy­lum project), now the Pol­i­cy Advi­sor to the Chil­drens ‘ Com­mis­sion­er on chil­dren seek­ing asy­lum, who was due to spend only one day in Not­ting­ham, worked late into the night and through­out the next day tak­ing state­ments from chil­dren. A year lat­er the Refugee Coun­cil Chil­drens’ Pan­el had set up a part­ner­ship arrange­ment with the Sanko­fa Foun­da­tion to pro­vide a month­ly surgery in Not­ting­ham for minors seek­ing asy­lum who had been unable to access care. Although appoint­ments were by arrange­ment the surg­eries were always over­sub­scribed. NYAS set up and gained fund­ing for a tem­po­rary (nine months) post for a work­er to write with young peo­ple, a sur­vival guide to Not­ting­ham. This guide was to assist young peo­ple gain access to sup­port in Not­ting­ham uip to the age of eigh­teen years, and for the imme­di­ate peri­od after this. The appointee under­took the NYAS train­ing for work­ing with young peo­ple and has been able to go on to offer a ser­vice at NNRF once a week for young peo­ple. The Local Author­i­ty has made changed to some of their pro­vi­sion and young peo­ple became eli­gi­ble for ongo­ing care. Although not all the prob­lems were solved by any means, young peo­ple seek­ing asy­lum in Not­ting­ham ben­e­fit­ted from being heard con­struc­tive­ly, and a mes­sage has gone out to young peo­ple in Not­ting­ham that they have rights and they can have their rights assert­ed by agen­cies in Not­ting­ham.

Sanko­fa con­tin­ued with the work of meet­ing indi­vid­u­als for ther­a­py. How­ev­er, as a mem­ber of both the Per­son Cen­tred Coun­sel­lors and Psy­chother­a­pists for Social Change, and Psy­chother­a­pists and Coun­sel­lors for Social Change, we acknowl­edge that ther­a­pists reg­u­lar­ly hear sto­ries from dis­ad­van­taged, alien­at­ed and dis­em­pow­ered peo­ple with­in the Com­mu­ni­ty. Sanko­fa Foun­da­tion is com­mit­ted to, and active in, ongo­ing debates with­in ther­a­py about the ground between con­fi­den­tial­i­ty and using our voice to denounce the inequal­i­ties with­in soci­ety that con­tribute to injus­tice and there­fore stress and men­tal health prob­lems. We take more and more refer­rals from GPs who are see­ing des­ti­tute seek­ers of asy­lum in their surg­eries, whose men­tal health prob­lems are exac­er­bat­ed by the lack of care avail­able to peo­ple in this sit­u­a­tion.

Sanko­fa became com­mit­ted to recy­cling bed­ding use­ful to seek­ers of asy­lum made des­ti­tute. Often bed­ding would be made avail­able to seek­ers of asy­lum who had arrived in the City at the week­end when oth­er offices were closed. Local stu­dents in the area annu­al­ly seemed to be in a hur­ry to bin all the house­hold goods accu­mu­lat­ed dur­ing their stud­ies in the City. Annu­al­ly the area around the Sanko­fa office became a rich source of items use­ful to our client group. We obtained a wash­ing machine which allowed des­ti­tute clients to wash their cloth­ing and take new­er cloth­ing from our store cup­boards. Bed­ding became avail­able in vast amounts, as did cook­ing equip­ment and sundry fur­ni­ture. We were able to sup­port peo­ple in makeshift accom­mo­da­tion who had no fur­ni­ture or bed­ding.

Many of our clients have been sup­port­ed to return to solic­i­tors with reports from Sanko­fa, enhanced by the hours of research that post grad­u­ate stu­dents have put into assist­ing peo­ple to find evi­dence in sup­port of their fresh appli­ca­tions for asy­lum. Sanko­fa has reached out to organ­i­sa­tion in Iraq and Ger­many for assis­tance in gath­er­ing pri­ma­ry evi­dence in sup­port of clients, with Ger­man NGOs using their con­tacts with­in coun­tries to make enquiries on our behalf. We don’t give legal advice but we do walk beside clients in their quest for sup­port in obtain­ing infor­ma­tion and evi­dence, help­ing them to learn the skills nec­es­sary, encour­ag­ing con­fi­dence and ulti­mate­ly doing the research on behalf of those too debil­i­tat­ed by the process of asy­lum to try. Of clients who have returned to their coun­try of ori­gin, whether vol­un­tar­i­ly or assist­ed(!) we have endeav­oured to stay in touch. We speak with clients returned to Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, Ethiopi­an. (We have con­cerns about the qual­i­ty of com­mit­ment from agen­cies sup­port­ing returns and are gath­er­ing evi­dence in sup­port of our con­cerns.)

A reg­u­lar week­ly film night was held for young peo­ple seek­ing asy­lum. Films were select­ed by the audi­ence from a range of films rep­re­sen­ta­tive of, or made in, or by film direc­tors from, the coun­tries of ori­gin of the audi­ence. In the after­noon of the show, a group of young peo­ple would go shop­ping for ingre­di­ents to cre­ate a meal which was shared with the rest of the audi­ence on arrival. As the film was shown, fruit and nuts were shared around the room. At the end of the show­ing young peo­ple would share their mem­o­ries and their feel­ings about their coun­try of ori­gin and the life that they have left behind, the peo­ple that they miss, and the heartache of their lives in their coun­try. These thoughts and feel­ings were sen­si­tive­ly lis­tened to and shared with audi­ence mem­bers from the host com­mu­ni­ty. With these film nights came new and deep­er under­stand­ings and bridges between peo­ple were built. One of the audi­ence on one occa­sion was the neice of a Kur­dish film direc­tor, Karzan Sher­abayani. (With­in a year we assist­ed Karzan to show his new doc­u­men­tary about Kirkuk at the Broad­way cin­e­ma, and to host an event at Robin­hood Chase with guests Shano dance Com­pa­ny — a Kur­dish dance com­pa­ny in the UK who had pre­vi­ous­ly per­formed at the Edin­burgh fes­ti­val).

It wasn’t long before the Com­mu­ni­ty Print works relo­cat­ed to the Sumac Cen­tre and Sanko­fa was ful­ly using the whole space of the orig­i­nal flat. On occa­sions when our clients were detained, groups of peo­ple would col­lect to run cam­paigns to pre­vent the removal of our clients and to help them to get legal advice. There have been many tense and heart warm­ing moments in the anti depor­ta­tion activ­i­ties ema­nat­ing from the office.

Cur­rent Cri­sis

After two years at the Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre we must leave. Many of the orig­i­nal social activists have moved on to oth­er projects and Sanko­fa has remained, active­ly respond­ing to the ther­a­peu­tic needs of the asy­lum seek­ing com­mu­ni­ty in Not­ting­ham.

It is with heavy hearts that we are now look­ing urgent­ly for a place to be. Sanko­fa has been the tar­get of harass­ment and vio­lent attacks for a year. With the first attack in the sum­mer of last year, , and this year on five sep­a­rate occa­sions with­in a month. The attacks are so vicious and with­out restraint that it is not pos­si­ble to attempt to repair. On each occa­sion doors have been forced and research papers and fold­ers strewn around, com­put­ers dam­aged and made unus­able. Refugees and sup­port­ers of Sanko­fa have worked into the night on each occa­sion to secure the premis­es for the next day to ensure that client work was not affect­ed. How­ev­er, the attacks have gained momen­tum and we have arrived to see the kitchen door so dam­aged that only the bor­der of the door remained. We have secured inner doors as well as exter­nal doors but final­ly this week, we have arrived to see the back door destroyed again as well as the inter­nal doors, and, more shock­ing­ly, the hot water tank ripped out and water gush­ing all through­out the office and fill­ing up the cel­lar with nowhere else for the water to go. All the win­dows have been smashed, and then smashed again. How­ev­er, the win­dows and doors on the old Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre (unused) and the art room (unused) have remained untouched.

There has been a grow­ing unease about some of the peo­ple who have come to occu­py the dis­used premis­es at the back. On each occa­sion the police have been called and they are increas­ing­ly shocked. Most recent­ly, this week, the police who attend­ed have expressed their own frus­tra­tion, acknowl­edg­ing the pos­i­tive con­tri­bu­tion of Sanko­fa to the area and to the needs of a client group who are increas­ing­ly find­ing it dif­fi­cult to have ther­a­peu­tic and health needs met else­where. More recent­ly we have observed a small group of men, reg­u­lars who fre­quent the back of the build­ing at night, kick­ing at the door, run­ning at the door, but the police have not been able to respond quick­ly enough to make arrests.

At Sanko­fa we have nev­er had large fund­ing. Our fund­ing base has been rel­a­tive­ly small because many donors respond more read­i­ly to the imme­di­ate mate­r­i­al needs of seek­ers of asy­lum, par­tic­u­lar­ly when they become des­ti­tute. We are such a shoe­string oper­a­tion that where there have been short­falls in our income and expen­di­ture (on ser­vice bills) we have paid the bills our­selves. Our ther­a­peu­tic skills are pro­vid­ed with­out fee or salary. Our psy­chother­a­peu­tic reports to Tri­bunal and Immi­gra­tion hear­ings are com­mend­ed for their objec­tiv­i­ty and thor­ough­ness. Our vision has always been big­ger than our bud­get and we have attempt­ed to deliv­er a holis­tic and respon­sive ser­vice regard­less of the lack of fund­ing.

Sanko­fa has been approached on many occa­sions to write – chap­ters on ther­a­py with young peo­ple seek­ing asy­lum, men­tal health care of asy­lum seek­ing women, and more recent­ly for the Jour­nal of Crit­i­cal Psy­chol­o­gy. There sim­ply isn’t the time, because we are run­ning a ser­vice across six days in the week, whilst earn­ing a liv­ing else­where for part of the day. We have been invit­ed to give opin­ion and to con­tribute to com­mit­tee meet­ings of the House of Com­mons, and the House of Lords.

At this moment in time we have nowhere to offer ses­sions next week. The Sanko­fa Office is dam­aged beyond repair. We have a wait­ing list and we are out of funds. Although con­ver­sa­tions are tak­ing place next week with a cou­ple of oth­er organ­i­sa­tions in the field for very tem­po­rary access to space, we urgent­ly need premis­es and funds to help us to con­tin­ue the work that we do. We have des­ti­tute clients who are strug­gling to keep going and the dev­as­ta­tion of the Sanko­fa space has been deeply upset­ting and dis­rup­tive to them. We are try­ing to con­tin­ue with house vis­its – but these nec­es­sar­i­ly take and mean that we see less peo­ple – and by meet­ing peo­ple at NNRF at the des­ti­tu­tion group. We have been in dis­cus­sion with mem­bers of Sudanese and Kur­dish organ­i­sa­tions for a long time about shared spaces and the future vision will be some­where that we can work togeth­er to cre­ate fam­i­ly spaces as well as ther­a­peu­tic spaces with­in a social action con­text.

This is an appeal for funds and/or urgent accom­mo­da­tion. Even tem­po­rary accom­mo­da­tion will help us to con­tin­ue in the short term. We also appeal for peo­ple with expe­ri­ence of fundrais­ing to help us to con­tin­ue the work that we do, and to help us to extend our ser­vice to those in need. If you would like to talk to us about any aspect of our work please con­tact us by email Miriam@sankofafoundation.org.uk or by mobile at 07866 733223 as our lan­line is not acces­si­ble ion the imme­di­ate short term.

Thank you ..

Kind­est regards,
Miri­am Hol­lis

www.sankofafoundation.org.uk /
sankofafoundation.blogspot.com

——-

ASBO, The Last Days — for full arti­cle & pho­tos, click on this title link

After many meet­ings and plan­ning, in August 2005, a num­ber of con­cerned indi­vid­u­als took direct action to squat a large house / block of flats. The place had been emp­ty for the pre­vi­ous sev­en years and was in a great state of dis-repair.

Because of some bad peo­ple that end­ed up tak­ing over, vio­lent­ly attack­ing peo­ple that tried to stand up to them, the whole project has col­lapsed. Peo­ple drift­ed away being intim­i­dat­ed and at some fear.

There was then an attempt to re-squat the squat, a valiant attempt. But this again was made unten­able by the vio­lent activ­i­ty of only a cou­ple of peo­ple that remained there. Peo­ple being phys­i­cal­ly attacked and intim­i­dat­ed. The asy­lum and refugee project that was also housed there was then sub­ject­ed to numer­ous break-ins and much dam­age done to the build­ing, so that they could­n’t remain.

How to Fitwatch

Fit­watch meet­ing — Sat­ur­day 8th March at the LSE (Con­naught House, Ald­wych) at 2pm. Room H103.

Fit­watch has proved to be a high­ly effec­tive tac­tic against sur­veil­lance by pub­lic order police.

Although real­ly, it is bet­ter described as a range of tac­tics. Some are as sim­ple as tak­ing a pic­ture, or mak­ing a note of police num­bers. Oth­er tac­tics are more con­fronta­tion­al and active­ly pre­vent the police accu­mu­lat­ing the data they use for their ‘pre­ven­ta­tive’ pub­lic order polic­ing. There is a tac­tic for every­one, and all of them are very effec­tive.

Fit­watch meet­ing — Sat­ur­day 8th March at the LSE (Con­naught House, Ald­wych) at 2pm. Room H103.

Fit­watch has proved to be a high­ly effec­tive tac­tic against sur­veil­lance by pub­lic order police.

Although real­ly, it is bet­ter described as a range of tac­tics. Some are as sim­ple as tak­ing a pic­ture, or mak­ing a note of police num­bers. Oth­er tac­tics are more con­fronta­tion­al and active­ly pre­vent the police accu­mu­lat­ing the data they use for their ‘pre­ven­ta­tive’ pub­lic order polic­ing. There is a tac­tic for every­one, and all of them are very effec­tive.

To get involved, you need only bring a cam­era, plac­ard or ban­ner to your next demo or meet­ing, and get fit­watch­ing. But you would also be very wel­come at the Fit­watch meet­ing on Sat­ur­day so that we can share expe­ri­ences, devel­op tac­tics and cre­ate an effec­tive response to FIT and pub­lic order polic­ing.

Just as an aside, it seems that even secu­ri­ty firms have tak­en notice. The fol­low­ing tes­ti­mo­ni­als are tak­en from a Group 4 Securi­cor brief­ing, and from the web­site of the secu­ri­ty out­fit Inker­man, who make it their busi­ness to pro­tect com­pa­nies from the atten­tion of trou­ble mak­ing pro­tes­tors. Accord­ing to Inker­man, we are ‘counter-sur­veil­lance’. Sounds posh innit?

8 March 08 – Lon­don – The anar­chist group, Fit­watch, is arrang­ing a series of meet­ings that begin in Lon­don to dis­cuss the nature of polic­ing at protests and demon­stra­tions. Fit­watch are an active group that pre­vents Police For­ward Intel­li­gence Teams (FIT) from gath­er­ing infor­ma­tion dur­ing protests and demon­stra­tions. Fit­watch insist FIT are an oppres­sive reflec­tion of the state’s atti­tude towards protest groups. Fit­watch aim to use the meet­ings to dis­cuss ongo­ing tac­tics and to attract sup­port. The first meet­ing is to take place at the LSE (Group 4 Securi­cor)

Anoth­er protest group against the use of cam­eras and sur­veil­lance of activists has been estab­lished and holds grow­ing weight with­in activist move­ments. FITWATCH is a counter-sur­veil­lance group, who take pho­tos and try to obtain the per­son­al details and iden­ti­fi­ca­tion num­bers of the offi­cers in FIT. Pho­tographs of the offi­cers con­cerned have been post­ed on activist web­sites.”
(Inker­man. See http://www.inkerman.com/static/files/1197479765-theinkermanmonitorecoterror.pdf for their report on ‘eco-ter­ror­ism’.)

defycops@yahoo.co.uk
http://www.fitwatch.blogspot.com

Cops use military seige tactics at TAA fundraiser, Brighton.

3.03.2008
A fundrais­er for the forth­com­ing Tem­po­rary Autonomous Art project in Brighton was clamped down on heav­i­ly on Sat­ur­day. Police used vio­lent tac­tics to attack the build­ing show­ing there true face yet again. more.….…

3.03.2008
A fundrais­er for the forth­com­ing Tem­po­rary Autonomous Art project in Brighton was clamped down on heav­i­ly on Sat­ur­day. Police used vio­lent tac­tics to attack the build­ing show­ing there true face yet again. more.….…

A fundrais­er for the forth­com­ing Tem­po­rary Autonomous Art project in Brighton was clamped down on heav­i­ly on Saturday.The gig fea­tured local bands and a sound sys­tem in an old super­mar­ket in the city cen­tre.

The police arrived quite ear­ly and pro­ceed­ed to sur­round the whole build­ing, refus­ing entry to any­one wish­ing to enter. This just exac­er­bat­ed a pub­lic order sit­u­a­tion on the street which would not have hap­pened if they had left us alone.

Things esca­lat­ed when, after clos­ing down the entrance we were using, we sim­ply opened anoth­er one to allow peo­ple to enter the build­ing which we were legal­ly occu­py­ing.

Police attacked with pep­per spray and dogs after sur­round­ing the whole build­ing with a cor­don of vehi­cles, tape, dog and spe­cial ops units. There were sev­er­al arrests and one per­son was bad­ly mauled by a police dog and had to go to hos­pi­tal.

The police then tried to storm the entrance but were held off by hand to hand fight­ing until we man­aged to get the door closed and keep them out.

The police then served a sec­tion 63 and pro­ceed­ed to impound liv­ing vehi­cles and equip­ment. Our legal team think the sec­tion 63 was served improp­er­ly mak­ing the impound­ings ille­gal, so we will be attempt­ing to pros­e­cute.

http://www.subterraneanartbrighton.org/

Camp for Climate Action to target Kingsnorth power station

3.03.2008
Today it was announced that E.ON’s Kingsnorth pow­er sta­tion in Kent will be the site of this summer’s Camp for Cli­mate Action, run­ning from 4 th to 11th of August 2008.

Com­ing on the back of last week’s actions against the pro­posed third run­way at Heathrow, with activists occu­py­ing the tail­fin of a jet and the roof of the hous­es of par­lia­ment, cli­mate activists promise that 2008 will be “the year of direct action on cli­mate change”.

3.03.2008
Today it was announced that E.ON’s Kingsnorth pow­er sta­tion in Kent will be the site of this summer’s Camp for Cli­mate Action, run­ning from 4 th to 11th of August 2008.

Com­ing on the back of last week’s actions against the pro­posed third run­way at Heathrow, with activists occu­py­ing the tail­fin of a jet and the roof of the hous­es of par­lia­ment, cli­mate activists promise that 2008 will be “the year of direct action on cli­mate change”.

The protest will begin with a one-day event at Heathrow, the site of the pre­vi­ous year’s camp, before march­ing across Lon­don to Kingsnorth. This is one of eight cli­mate camps tar­get­ing coal across the world this sum­mer.

Cli­mate change activists will con­verge on Kingsnorth pow­er sta­tion where own­ers E.ON plan to build the UK’s first coal fired pow­er sta­tion in 30 years. Sat­ur­day 9th August has been named a ‘day of mass protest and direct action’ against Kingsnorth to high­light its impact on cli­mate change.

Mov­ing from Heathrow to Kingsnorth high­lights gov­ern­ment and cor­po­rate col­lu­sion to expand the fos­sil fuel econ­o­my when the sci­en­tif­ic con­sen­sus demands the oppo­site. The camp will bring togeth­er thou­sands of activists for sev­er­al days of work­shops and direct action. The camp will also chal­lenge busi­ness­es set to prof­it from false solu­tions to cli­mate change such as agro­fu­els. A day of action tar­get­ing the agro­fu­el indus­try will be an inte­gral part of the week long camp.

Natasha Edle­man said: “Build­ing a new coal-fired pow­er sta­tion in the mid­dle of a cli­mate cri­sis is mad­ness. The sci­ence shows that we only have a few years to avert cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate change. If we let this hap­pen then there are sev­en more pow­er sta­tions com­ing. This must be stopped.”

Char­lie Owens said: “Bio­fu­els have been pro­posed as a solu­tion to cli­mate change. But new stud­ies con­firm that they are just as dan­ger­ous as fos­sil fuels. And they cre­ate the illu­sion we can car­ry on as usu­al. In the end we can only stop cli­mate change if we chal­lenge the growth econ­o­my and start putting peo­ple and plan­et first.”

For more infor­ma­tion see:

http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/
http://www.StopKingsnorth.org/

* Like Heathrow, Kingsnorth is await­ing the approval of the gov­ern­ment. The deci­sion on whether to hold a pub­lic inquiry into the pow­er sta­tion will be tak­en by John Hut­ton, at BERR, in the next six weeks. As with Heathrow, there are accu­sa­tions of col­lu­sion between EON and the gov­ern­ment. For more infor­ma­tion see: www.greenpeace.org.uk

* Kingsnorth will pro­duce twice as many cli­mate-harm­ing emis­sions as a third run­way at Heathrow. Accord­ing to the World Devel­op­ment Move­ment, flights from a third run­way at Heathrow will pro­duce as much green­house gas as the whole of Kenya.

* If Kingsnorth is built it is like­ly to open the way to new build coal. Up to sev­en oth­er sim­i­lar projects are planned. Growth in coal-pow­er will under­mine invest­ment in renew­able ener­gy.

* Last year’s camp was on land which is intend­ed for the build­ing of a third run­way at Heathrow. The eight-day camp brought togeth­er 2000 peo­ple on land next to the vil­lage of Sip­son and shut down BAA’s head­quar­ters for 24 hours. The camp also organ­ised up to 20 small­er actions on oth­er avi­a­tion and cli­mate change relat­ed tar­gets. There were 70 arrests over the week.

* E.ON has tried to green­wash their plans to build a new plant at Kingsnorth by claim­ing that it might one day be upgrad­ed to use car­bon cap­ture tech­nol­o­gy. Even by the most opti­mistic stan­dards, such tech­nol­o­gy will not be ready until 2020.

* In the weeks before last year’s camp, BAA applied for an injunc­tion to stop the camp tak­ing place. The injunc­tion cov­ered two mil­lion mem­bers of envi­ron­men­tal groups from the RSPB to Green­peace. The injunc­tion was suc­cess­ful­ly defeat­ed in the courts.

* In addi­tion to the camp, days of action on cli­mate change are planned for the 1st April (Fos­sil Fools Day), 1st May (May­day), 3rd June (high­light­ing issues to do with food and cli­mate change)

* “Agro­fu­els” are liq­uid fuels pro­duced from agri­cul­tur­al crops. These are also referred to as “Bio­fu­els”.

ELF Burn Down Luxury Homes

3.03.2008
Ear­ly this morn­ing, at around 4am, three mul­ti­mil­lion-dol­lar mod­el homes in a Seat­tle sub­urb were burnt down with mes­sages left by the ELF, “Built Green? Nope black!”, mock­ing the claims that the homes were envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly.

3.03.2008
Ear­ly this morn­ing, at around 4am, three mul­ti­mil­lion-dol­lar mod­el homes in a Seat­tle sub­urb were burnt down with mes­sages left by the ELF, “Built Green? Nope black!”, mock­ing the claims that the homes were envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly.

The build­ings, orig­i­nal­ly esti­mat­ed at $2 mil­lion, then re-cal­cu­lat­ed to be worth $7 mil­lion dol­lars, and were com­plete­ly destroyed in the fires.

Oth­er mes­sages were spray­paint­ed on homes “Stop Urban Sprawl”; “If you build it we will burn it”; and “Burn the rich.”

A ban­ner was also left say­ing: “Built green? Nope black! McMan­sions in RCD’s r not green. ELF”

RCD=rural clus­ter devel­op­ments

»

ELF: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Liberation_Front

Video: http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/03/03/seattle.fire/#cnnSTCVideo

Sources: http://news.google.co.uk/news?hl=en&tab=wn&ie=UTF‑8&ncl=1138828157Seattle houses ELF 2