Author: earthfirst

Bio-fuel protest North West — a Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

Around 20 activists, some dressed as wolves in sheep’s cloth­ing, vis­it­ed the D1 Oil refin­ery in Brom­bor­ough on the Wirral, on 2nd Feb­ru­ary 2008.

Bromborough biofuels protest 1Bromborough biofuels 2Around 20 activists, some dressed as wolves in sheep’s cloth­ing, vis­it­ed the D1 Oil refin­ery in Brom­bor­ough on the Wirral, on 2nd Feb­ru­ary 2008. They were there to high­light the dan­ger­ous con­se­quences of large-scale bio-fuel pro­duc­tion for the cli­mate and for peo­ple world­wide.

Video Video Footage — video/mp4 2.5M

The demon­stra­tors from Man­ches­ter and Liv­er­pool, inspired by the Camp for Cli­mate Action, erect­ed a 16 metre ban­ner read­ing, “Bio­fu­els cause Cli­mate Chaos” and anoth­er small­er ban­ner read­ing “Bio­fu­els + Big Busi­ness = Dis­as­ter”. The demon­stra­tion came at the end of a week of action called by Bio­fu­el­watch.

On arrival activists were told by secu­ri­ty that the plant was emp­ty and not oper­at­ing, how­ev­er when sev­er­al activists entered the site, at least twen­ty work­ers dressed in boil­er suits came out to meet them. Although the gates were shut cam­paign­ers remained for approx­i­mate­ly one hour to talk with staff and local res­i­dents. Police attend­ed but no arrests were made.

D1 Oils plc. have used palm, soya and rape­seed oil to make bio-diesel. Now they have joined forces with cor­po­rate giant BP, aim­ing to acquire and plant one mil­lion hectares of land with sup­posed ‘won­der crop’ Jat­ropha, with­in four years. For infor­ma­tion on the real impact of this crop and oth­er agro-fuels check out www.biofuelwatch.org.uk

Umea blockade

9 Feb­ru­ary. Some 30 activists put up a block­ade in the mid­dle of the high­way run­ning through Umeå, the largest city in north­ern Swe­den.

Umea blockade9 Feb­ru­ary. Some 30 activists put up a block­ade in the mid­dle of the high­way run­ning through Umeå, the largest city in north­ern Swe­den. Recent stud­ies have found the high­est con­cen­tra­tions of car­bon diox­ide ever record­ed in Umeå, due to increas­ing traf­fic, while Sweden’s car park remains the most fuel-guz­zling in the EU. Kli­max-Umeå demands a rapid expan­sion of pub­lic trans­porta­tion in the city and an end to sub­si­diz­ing new roads. The block­ade last­ed for half an hour, wreak­ing con­sid­er­able chaos in the inner city traf­fic

Critical Mass ‘Have a Go Hero’ cleared of all charges in Bristol (& London Critical Mass January ride report/video)

7.02.2008
In May of last year, some­one stood in the road and tried to stop a car, who had hit a Crit­i­cal Mass cyclist off their bike, 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.

Bicycle Triumph7.02.2008
In May of last year, some­one stood in the road and tried to stop a car, who had hit a Crit­i­cal Mass cyclist off their bike, 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.

Today, 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.

A man that became involved after the event was also charged with assault and is await­ing to see if his charge will also be quashed as he can also argue that he was pre­vent­ing a police ‘mis­car­riage of jus­tice’.

The tri­al took a day and a half to realise what was evi­dent all along — that the defen­dant was only guilty of try­ing to do the police’s job when they bla­tant­ly weren’t inter­est­ed in doing it, for bla­tant­ly polit­i­cal rea­sons. Unbe­liev­ably, the police admit­ted to get­ting togeth­er to watch the cctv (pre­sum­ably over a nice cup of bovril) BEFORE writ­ing their state­ments, of fail­ing to fol­low PACE pro­ce­dures in the arrests, and of try­ing to pass off a wrestling move (clear­ly shown on the CCTV footage) as a form of ‘rea­son­able force’ in an arrest!

But the most unbe­liev­able part of the whole sor­ry mess is the police’s delib­er­ate allow­ing of the hit-and-run dri­ver to escape, and then nev­er fol­low­ing up the inci­dent, despite the fact leav­ing the scene of an acci­dent is a more seri­ous crime than those the defen­dants were charged with, and despite hav­ing a full descrip­tion of the car, dri­ver AND THE REGISTRATION PLATE. Makes you won­der who the ‘mys­tery dri­ver’ was does­n’t it .……

The next steps for the defen­dant is, first, cel­e­brate his nar­row escape from a polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed con­vic­tion, and then sue the police for the shock­ing way in which he was han­dled dur­ing the ‘prac­tice dum­my ses­sion’ that passed for his arrest. The local chief con­sta­ble observed the tri­al, so we assume that his full apol­o­gy and com­pen­sa­tion won’t take too long to sort.

Crit­i­cal Mass’s con­tin­ue in Bris­tol on the last Fri­day of every month, meet­ing at 5.30pm out­side the Hip­po­drome.

———–

A sub­dued start to a good ride, held up by a mas­sive traf­fic jam in the Strand, but it livened up lat­er with a bike high in Pic­cadil­ly Cir­cus and taunts to impa­tient car horns. Joy­ful chants of ‘More bikes less cars’ and ‘Whose streets? Our streets’.

Video: http://www.archive.org/details/cml25‑1–08

Sev­er­al sound sys­tems this time, some were threat­ened with SOCPA pros­e­cu­tion if they dared to play in the vicin­i­ty of Par­lia­ment. Cycle police were back after their Christmas/New Year break, about 28 in all — they usu­al­ly don’t turn up at all to the Decem­ber ride. They barked orders and blocked the ride at some inter­sec­tions but did a good job of cork­ing and even told off a few dri­vers. Lat­er they shut down a sound sys­tem in White­hall.

Just before Oxford Cir­cus, a wannabe sabo­teur threw a glass bot­tle into the road which shat­tered into lots of punc­tur­ing shards, some­thing to watch out for in future.

More:
http://criticalmasslondon.org.uk/
http://criticalmasslondon.org.uk/socpasounds.html

CLIMATE ACTION NEWS SHEET 76, FEBRUARY 2008

CONTENTS:
———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY — (INTER)NATIONAL, 1.4.08
2) FOSSIL FOOL FILMS AT HOUSMAN’S BOOKSHOP — LONDON, 29.3.08

CONTENTS:
———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY — (INTER)NATIONAL, 1.4.08
2) FOSSIL FOOL FILMS AT HOUSMAN’S BOOKSHOP — LONDON, 29.3.08
3) CLIMATE OF CHANGE 2 EXHIBITION — LONDON, STARTS 1.2.08
4) NIGHT TALKS AT THE SYNERGY PROJECT — LONDON, 8.2.08
5) COIN EVENTS — LONDON, FEB-MARCH ’08
6) CAMPAIGN AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE TRADE UNION CONFERENCE — LONDON, 9.2.08
7) COLOMBIAN ACCOMPANIMENT TRAINING — BRISTOL, 16–17.2.08
8) ‘THE CARBON CONNECTION’ UK PREMIERE — LONDON, 21.2.08
9) SAVING ICELAND GATHERING — NOTTINGHAM, 22.2.08
10) EARTH FIRST! WINTER MOOT — NOTTINGHAM, 22–24.2.08
11) CAMPAIGN AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE NATIONAL MEETING — MANCHESTER, 23.2.08
12) TELL SHELL AND BP: HANDS OFF IRAQI OIL! — NATIONAL, 23.2.08
13) MASS RALLY AGAINST HEATHROW EXPANSION — LONDON, 25.2.08
14) BRINGING THE PIPELINE BACK TO SHELL — LONDON, 15–17.3.08
15) WEEK OF ACTION ON THE CLIMATE BILL — NATIONAL, 30.3.08–5.4.08
16) APRIL BIOFOOLS DAY — NATIONAL, 15.4.08
17) NATUREWISE COURSES — LONDON AREA, 2008
18) ECO-COMMUNITY EDUCATION WORKSHOPS — SUFFOLK, FEBRUARY-APRIL ’08
19) CAT COURSES — WALES, MARCH-SEPTEMBER ’08
20) CLIMATETALK CARD GAME — FREE UNTIL THE END OF FEBRUARY ’08
21) E‑PETITIONS AGAINST AIRPORT EXPANSION — HEATHROW AND NEWQUAY, ONGOING ’08

———————————————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
———————————————-
1) TOP WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBITION DITCHES SHELL — 26.1.08
2) NEW WAVE OF CLIMATE ACTION — NATIONWIDE, JANUARY ’08
3) ACTIVISTS BLOCKADE PRIVATE JETS — EDINBURGH, 21.01.08
4) PENGUINS RECLAIM ICE (SH)RINK — LONDON, 12.01.08
5) GREENWASH GUERILLAS HIT SHELL HQ — 4.1.08
6) LONDON RISING TIDE DIE-IN AT THE TATE — 4.1.08
7) GREENERGY BIOFUELS PROTESTS — LONDON AND EDINBURGH, 30.1.08 AND 31.1.08
8) TESCO GREENWASH PROTEST — MANCHESTER, 23.1.08
9) CLIMATE CAMP SET UP OUTSIDE COURT — NOTTINGHAM, 14.1.08
10) CLIMAX BLOCK DONG POWERPLANT! — COPENHAGEN, 29.1.08
11) INDIGENOUS ACTION AGAINST MINING — PHILIPPINES, 17.1.08
12) OGONI DAY REMEMBERED AS SHELL FAILS TO HALT GAS FLARES — 4.1.08
13) CLIMATE CAMP SUPERGLUE TRIAL — LONDON, JANUARY ’08
14) BONN SQUARE TREE OCCUPATION — OXFORD, JANUARY ’08
15) ACTION AGAINST MOTORWAY THROUGH TARA — IRELAND, JANUARY ’08
16) CRITICAL MASS REPORT — LONDON, JANUARY ’08
17) FOREST PROTEST ACTIONS AND ARREST — TASMANIA — 8.1.08
18) SHELL TO SEA UPDATES — IRELAND, JANUARY ’08
19) ROAD BLOCK E‑BULLETIN — JANUARY ’08
20) PERMACULTURE ASSOCIATION E‑BULLETIN — JANUARY ’08
21) SAVE SWALLOW’S WOOD CAMPAIGN UPDATE — JANUARY ’08
22) EARTH FIRST! ACTION UPDATE — SPRING ’08

———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY — NATIONAL, 1.4.08
Roll up! Roll up! The Count­down to Fos­sil Fools Day Begins…
With less than two months to go, activists are busy plot­ting and plan­ning, intent on bring­ing the spir­it of car­ni­val and mis­chief to the fight for cli­mate jus­tice. The day of action is being sup­port­ed by the Cli­mate Camp move­ment, Glob­al Exchange and Rain­for­est Action Net­work among oth­ers. Numer­ous actions are expect­ed world­wide, with pos­si­ble tar­gets includ­ing the oily strong­man and gas guz­zling gowk, the dirty coal mer­chant and bio­fu­el clown, the off­set jug­gler and avi­a­tion freak­show. It’s time to turn the tables on the fos­sil fools and to pull a prank that real­ly packs a punch.
http://www.fossilfoolsday.org/
http://www.globalexchange.org/
http://www.ran.org/
The net­work for cli­mate action is plan­ning 3 Days Of Action Over 3 Months, start­ing with Fos­sil Fools.
April 1st: Fos­sil Fuels / May 1st: False Cap­i­tal­ist Solu­tions / June: Food and Cli­mate Change. This third day of action will coin­cide with the UN con­fer­ence on food secu­ri­ty and cli­mate change on 3–5 June.
www.networkforclimateaction.org.uk

2) FOSSIL FOOL FILMS AT HOUSMAN’S BOOKSHOP — LONDON, 29.3.08
Housman’s Book­shop at Kings Cross will be screen­ing two short doc­u­men­taries in the run up to FFD ( ‘Those Who Dance’ and ‘The Car­bon Con­nec­tion’) high­light­ing the strug­gle of com­mu­ni­ties at the front­line of the fos­sil fuel empire. Starts at 5pm. http://www.housmans.com/

3) CLIMATE OF CHANGE 2 EXHIBITION — LONDON, STARTS 1.2.08
6–9pm at the old Mer­cedes Garage,341 Finch­ley Rd. Cam­den, Lon­don NW3 6ET.
Then on the fol­low­ing Tues and Thurs 6–9pm. This is an open sub­mis­sion exhi­bi­tion.
http://www.circlecommunity.org/

4) NIGHT TALKS AT THE SYNERGY PROJECT — LONDON, 8.2.08
Cli­mate Abuse — get­ting over the addic­tion! by Jonathan Essex 02:00–02:40
Bio­fu­els — worse than fos­sil fuel? By Jim Roland, eco-cam­paign­er 02:40–03:30
As part of the Syn­er­gy event at the SeOne club, West­on Street, Lon­don Bridge.
http://www.thesynergyproject.org/content/view/13/38/

5) COIN EVENTS — LONDON, FEBRUARY-MARCH ’08
Win the cli­mate change argu­ment in a 15 minute tea break, 7.2.08 / Car­bon Cafe, 12.2.08 / Cli­mate Change Con­densed, 28.2.08 / Cli­mate Action Groups, 11.3.08
See www.coinet.org.uk for full details of all our train­ings!

6) CAMPAIGN AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE TRADE UNION CONFERENCE — LONDON, 9.2.08
Uni­ver­si­ty of Lon­don Union, Malet Street, 10 am — 5 pm. Del­e­gate fee £10.
Open­ing ple­nary speak­ers include Michael Meach­er MP, Car­o­line Lucas MEP, Mark Ser­wot­ka (Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary, PCS), Matt Wrack (Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary, FBU).
http://www.campaigncc.org/CCAC%20Trade%20Union%20Conference.pdf

7) COLOMBIAN ACCOMPANIMENT TRAINING — BRISTOL, 16–17.2.08
Espa­cio Bris­tol-Colom­bia are organ­is­ing a two day train­ing for peo­ple inter­est­ed in going to Colom­bia to do sol­i­dar­i­ty ‘accom­pa­ni­ment’ there; that is to both pro­vide an inter­na­tion­al pres­ence to deter the army or para­mil­i­taries from killing social activists and to work with Colom­bian organ­i­sa­tions build­ing sol­i­dar­i­ty links. There is the oppor­tu­ni­ty to get involved with work on bio­fu­els, BP, coal min­ing as well as strug­gles around food sov­er­eign­ty and indige­nous rights. The train­ing will take place at Kebele Com­mu­ni­ty Coop , 14 Robert­son Road, Eas­t­on, Bris­tol from 11am – 5pm on Sat­ur­day and then 10pm – 4pm on Sun­day.
If you are inter­est­ed in attend­ing this train­ing email;
espacio@redcolombia.org.
http://www.redcolombia.org/

8) ‘THE CARBON CONNECTION’ UK PREMIERE — LONDON, 21.2.08
6.30 pm at Water­loo Action Cen­tre, 16 Baylis Road, Lon­don SE1 7AA. This bril­liant doc­u­men­tary expos­es gov­ern­ment claims that buy­ing and sell­ing car­bon cred­its can reduce glob­al warm­ing. Plus dis­cus­sion on sus­tain­able alter­na­tives to trad­ing in pol­lu­tion. Intro­duced by Kevin Smith, Car­bon Trade Watch and Pen­ny Cole, author of ‘Run­ning a Tem­per­a­ture – action plan for the eco-cri­sis’. Refresh­ments. Details: info@aworldtowin.net 07871 745258
http://www.carbontradewatch.org/

9) SAVING ICELAND GATHERING — NOTTINGHAM, 22.2.08
One day gath­er­ing on oppo­si­tion to wilder­ness trash­ing dams in Ice­land; these are part of the USA’s car­bon trad­ing scam and evi­dence shows that dams are not free from releas­ing green­house gas­es either. For more info. phone; 01508 531636
http://www.savingiceland.org/

10) EARTH FIRST! WINTER MOOT — NOTTINGHAM, 22–24.2.08
2 days of dis­cus­sion on rad­i­cal direct action on cli­mate change, GM food, nuclear pow­er and much more. For more info. phone; 01508 531636
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19843

11) CAMPAIGN AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE NATIONAL MEETING — MANCHESTER, 23.2.08
An oppor­tu­ni­ty for you to get involved in decid­ing what the Cam­paign Against Cli­mate Change should be doing in the com­ing year, and to hear about plans already made! 11.45 am to 5.00 pm, in the Peter­loo Room — The Mechan­ics Cen­tre, 103 Princess Road, Man­ches­ter.
http://www.campaigncc.org/

12) TELL SHELL AND BP: HANDS OFF IRAQI OIL! — NATIONAL, 23.2.08
Lon­don action (as part of Nation­al Day of Action) meet 12.30pm, Bond Street tube Hold a protest at your local Shell and BP garages (see web­site for resources), and con­tact handsoffiraqioil@gmail.com so they can help pub­li­cise it.
www.HandsOffIraqiOil.org

13) MASS RALLY AGAINST HEATHROW EXPANSION — LONDON, 25.2.08
‘We want to fill Cen­tral Hall, West­min­ster to get our mes­sage across to the Gov­ern­ment.’ Speak­ers, music, sol­i­dar­i­ty, con­vivi­al­i­ty, inspi­ra­tion for action…7pm on the 25th.
http://www.stopheathrowexpansion.com/

14) BRINGING THE PIPELINE BACK TO SHELL — LONDON, 15–17.3.08
Glu­aiseacht are mobil­is­ing peo­ple from all over Ire­land to trav­el to Shell Head­quar­ters in Lon­don on St Patrick­’s Day to protest the give-away and mis­man­age­ment of our nation­al resources. We will be car­ry­ing a 200ft pipeline to Shel­l’s front door. For more info email; gluaiseacht@gmail.com
http://gluaiseacht.nologic.org/wordpress/

15) WEEK OF ACTION ON THE CLIMATE BILL — NATIONAL, 30.3.08–5.4.08
A whole host of NGOs, under the ban­ner of Stop Cli­mate Chaos, will be tak­ing action for a stronger Cli­mate Bill from March 30th to April 5th. In par­tic­u­lar, they are encour­ag­ing every­one who cares about the Bill to lob­by their MPs (not just in the week of action, but start­ing imme­di­ate­ly) — and have pro­duced a com­pre­hen­sive pack of resources about how to do so. This is avail­able for down­load at;
http://icount.org.uk/get_involved/296.asp
On Sat­ur­day April 5th, Friends of the Earth have called for a Day of Action on the Cli­mate Bill.
http://www.foe.co.uk/index.html

16) APRIL BIOFOOLS DAY — NATIONAL, 15.4.08
On the 15th April the UK bio­fu­el leg­is­la­tion known as the RTFO (Renew­able Trans­port Fuel Oblig­a­tion) will come into force. This com­mits the UK to a 2.5% mix of bio­fu­els in both diesel and petrol ris­ing to 5% in two years (2010). This increased demand will exac­er­bate the seri­ous prob­lems of trop­i­cal defor­esta­tion, bio­di­ver­si­ty loss, land grabs and food price increas­es forc­ing yet more peo­ple into life-threat­en­ing food pover­ty. A num­ber of NGOs will be protest­ing on this day and they are hop­ing for sol­i­dar­i­ty actions.
www.networkforclimateaction.org.uk

17) NATUREWISE COURSES — LONDON AREA, 2008
Intro­duc­to­ry week­ends: Hornsey Rise Gar­dens / Kingston upon Thames / Spit­tle­fields City Farm.
Per­ma­cul­ture for fam­i­lies res­i­den­tial week­end: Epping.
Full design course (res­i­den­tial): Ching­ford / North Lon­don.
Wood­land Week­ends: Sus­sex.
Fees: Nego­tiable and flex­i­ble, depend­ing on income.
http://www.naturewise.org.uk/page.cfm

18) ECO-COMMUNITY EDUCATION WORKSHOPS — SUFFOLK, FEBRUARY-APRIL ’08
Feb­ru­ary 12th, Non-hier­ar­chi­cal Deci­sion Mak­ing and effec­tive meet­ings.
Feb­ru­ary 13–14th, Solar pho­to-volta­ic pan­els and 12 volt electrics.
April 3rd-4th, Intro­duc­tion to per­ma­cul­ture.
April 14th-16th, Build­ing a Grey water sys­tem.
Book­ing is essen­tial — Con­tact Mell on 07760161755 / 08453370282
email; susteducation@hush.ai
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/cambridge/2008/01/388741.html

19) CAT COURSES — WALES, MARCH-SEPTEMBER ’08
The Cen­tre for Alter­na­tive Tech­nol­o­gy (CAT) has announced a new pro­gramme of one-day cours­es for 2008:
8 March; Land Art: As Nature Inspires / 15 March; Moss­es and Lichens of the Old Quar­ry / 29 March; Hur­dle Mak­ing / 29 March; Wil­low Weav­ing / 26 April; For­est ecosys­tems: Dead wood, leaf lit­ter and nutri­ent cycling / 10 May; Birds of the Old Quar­ry / 24 May; Wood­land Paint­ing / 31 May; Char­coal Draw­ing / 31 May; Organ­ic Veg­eta­bles of the Old Quar­ry / 3 June; Upland Ecol­o­gy and Land­scape Man­age­ment: the Future / 14 June; Prac­ti­cal­i­ties of Using Rain­wa­ter / 21 June; Plants of the Old Quar­ry / 19 July; Mam­mals of the Old Quar­ry / 30 August; Char­coal Mak­ing: Prac­ti­cal and The­o­ret­i­cal / 27 Sep­tem­ber; Trees of the Old Quar­ry. Con­tact the Cours­es Depart­ment on 01654 705981.
http://www2.cat.org.uk/shortcourses/

20) CLIMATETALK CARD GAME — FREE UNTIL THE END OF FEBRUARY ’08
This is a con­ver­sa­tion game that helps groups of about 6 peo­ple talk about cli­mate change and what they might do about it. Every­thing they need, includ­ing the infor­ma­tion and process for this con­ver­sa­tion are pro­vid­ed in a smart lit­tle pack. Copies of the kit are cur­rent­ly avail­able for free for small organ­i­sa­tions that com­mit to send­ing their results. It is also freely down­load­able from www.climatespace.org

21) E‑PETITIONS AGAINST AIRPORT EXPANSION — HEATHROW AND NEWQUAY, ONGOING ’08
Two min­utes? — two peti­tions.
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/stopheathrowexpansion/
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/stopnqyexpansion/

———————————————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
———————————————-
1) TOP WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBITION DITCHES SHELL — 26.1.08
Shell’s two year tenure as spon­sor of the Nat­ur­al His­to­ry Muse­um’s Wildlife Pho­tog­ra­ph­er of the Year exhi­bi­tion has come to an end. A deter­mined, cre­ative two year nation­al cam­paign, coor­di­nat­ed in part by Ris­ing Tide and its Art Not Oil cam­paign, helped force the Nation­al His­to­ry Muse­um and the BBC to ditch their unlike­ly spon­sor. Lon­don Ris­ing Tide’s Chris Hyde said: “This vic­to­ry has shown what cli­mat­i­cal­ly con­scious grass­roots art can achieve…we will be keep­ing up the pres­sure with our Art Not Oil cam­paign.”
And please send your art in to the 2008 Art Not Oil online gallery…
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/259,
www.shelloiledwildlife.org.uk,http://www.artnotoil.org.uk/

2) NEW WAVE OF CLIMATE ACTION — NATIONWIDE, JANUARY ’08
Here’s some rea­sons to be cheer­ful in the dark win­ter months… far from hid­ing away from the cold (or hid­ing heads in the sand for that mat­ter), hotbeds of cli­mate action are spring­ing up around the coun­try. On the Ris­ing Tide front, six new groups have formed in the last six months, with more peo­ple join­ing in all the time.
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/253

3) ACTIVISTS BLOCKADE PRIVATE JETS — EDINBURGH, 21.01.08
Over twen­ty envi­ron­men­tal pro­test­ers breached secu­ri­ty at Edin­burgh Air­port and block­ad­ed the entrance to the pri­vate jet com­pa­ny, Greer Avi­a­tion. The activists, from direct action group Plane Stu­pid Scot­land, pledged that today’s actions come as part of a nation­wide cam­paign to reverse the cur­rent plans for a tripling of air trav­el in Scot­land which they say flies in the face of the gov­ern­men­t’s own cli­mate tar­gets.
http://www.planestupid.com/?q=content/plane-stupid-scotland-activists-blockade-Edinburgh-airport-private-jets

4) PENGUINS RECLAIM THE ICE (SH)RINK — LONDON, 12.01.2008
Around 30 pen­guins today “reclaimed the ice” at the Nat­ur­al His­to­ry Muse­um’s ice (sh)rink in protest at British Air­ways spon­sor­ship of the muse­um’s annu­al win­ter fes­tiv­i­ties. The pro­test­ers, from the cli­mate action group Plane Stu­pid, dressed as pen­guins to high­light the irony of an air­line cre­at­ing an ice rink in cen­tral Lon­don.
http://www.planestupid.com/?q=content/march-penguins-climate-activists-protest-british-airways-ice-rink

5) GREENWASH GUERILLAS HIT SHELL HQ — 4.1.08
A small band of Ris­ing Tide green­wash gueril­las entered the lob­by of the Lon­don Shell HQ to high­light the mas­sive amount of tox­ic green­wash ema­nat­ing from the build­ing. Once eject­ed they con­tin­ued their work out­side, warn­ing the pub­lic of the dan­gers of green­wash.
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/250

6) LONDON RISING TIDE DIE-IN AT THE TATE — 4.1.08
Activists from Lon­don Ris­ing Tide staged a ‘die-in’ in the BP spon­sored Tate Britain. Bob Jones from LRT said “we’re here to demand that the Tate cut it’s ties with BP, an art gallery is no place for an envi­ron­men­tal haz­ard such as an oil com­pa­ny. BP are here to Green­wash their image and dis­tract from the eco­log­i­cal dev­as­ta­tion they’re caus­ing around the world”. The pro­test­ers hand­ed out lots of leaflets and urged patrons to demand the end of oil com­pa­nies’ spon­sor­ship of art gal­leries.
http://www.londonrisingtide.org.uk/node/409

7) GREENERGY BIOFUELS PROTESTS — LONDON AND EDINBURGH, 30.1.08 AND 31.1.08
In Lon­don, a colour­ful ban­ner protest was held out­side the office of Green­er­gy Inter­na­tion­al, the UK’s largest bio­fu­el sup­pli­er. This was part of a Nation­al Week of Action on Agro­fu­els in which dif­fer­ent groups and organ­i­sa­tions across the UK are organ­is­ing protests against the defor­esta­tion, high food prices, human rights abus­es and faster glob­al warm­ing caused by bio­fu­els from large-scale mono­cul­tures. There was a sec­ond protest at Edin­burgh’s Green­er­gy office.
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/02/390483.html
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/02/390551.html

8) TESCO GREENWASH PROTEST — MANCHESTER, 23.1.08
See; http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19911

9) CLIMATE CAMP SET UP OUTSIDE COURT — NOTTINGHAM, 14.1.08
While the tri­al of the eleven cli­mate change activists who shut down Rat­cliffe-on-Soar pow­er sta­tion on April 10th 2007 began at Not­ting­ham Mag­is­trates Court,
Over 30 peo­ple set up a cli­mate camp out­side the court. This is the first time that the defence of neces­si­ty in rela­tion to cli­mate change has been used in a court of law. The defen­dants will call an expert wit­ness; a cli­mate sci­en­tist, and Roy­al Soci­ety Research Fel­low, to prove to the court the scale and immi­nence of the threat that cli­mate change pos­es. The judge­ment is expect­ed on 25th Feb­ru­ary.
http://www.eastsideclimateaction.org.uk
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/01/389386.html
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19860

10) CLIMAX BLOCK DONG POWERPLANT! — COPENHAGEN, 29.1.08
50 activists from the Dan­ish group Cli­maX blocked the main entrance to a pow­er­plant in Copen­hagen owned by the DONG Ener­gy cor­po­ra­tion. The pow­er com­pa­ny plans to start build­ing a coal-fired pow­er­plant in north­ern Ger­many.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19933

11) INDIGENOUS ACTION AGAINST MINING — PHILIPPINES, 17.1.08
Trib­al vil­lagers block­ad­ed an Aus­tralian min­ing com­pa­ny and forced the firm to leave the vil­lage.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19875

12) OGONI DAY REMEMBERED AS SHELL FAILS TO HALT GAS FLARES — 4.1.08
At just before 8.30 this morn­ing, as staff were arriv­ing for work at Roy­al Dutch Shel­l’s Irish head­quar­ters in Dublin, they were treat­ed to a taste of what life is like for those who have to live and work near Shell instal­la­tions in oth­er parts of the world.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19799

13) CLIMATE CAMP SUPERGLUE TRIAL — LONDON, JANUARY ’08
The pros­e­cu­tion col­laps­es. See;
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19819

14) BONN SQUARE TREE OCCUPATION — OXFORD, JANUARY ’08
For updates see;
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19837
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19818
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19827

15) ACTION AGAINST MOTORWAY THROUGH TARA — IRELAND, JANUARY ’08
For action updates see;
http://www.tarapixie.net
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19929
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19905
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19902

16) CRITICAL MASS REPORT — LONDON, JANUARY ’08
See; http://criticalmasslondon.org.uk/
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19920

17) FOREST PROTEST ACTIONS AND ARREST — TASMANIA — 8.1.08
For reports see;
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19937
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19877
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19878

18) SHELL TO SEA UPDATES — IRELAND, JANUARY ’08
See; http://www.corribsos.com/
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19926

19) ROAD BLOCK E‑BULLETIN — JANUARY ’08
To get these month­ly updates on cam­paigns against road build­ing schemes (and for some quick online actions ) sign up here;
http://www.bettertransport.org.uk/user/subscribe/2

20) PERMACULTURE ASSOCIATION E‑BULLETIN — JANUARY ’08
For the lat­est ebul­letin from the Per­ma­cul­ture Asso­ci­a­tion (Britain) see;
http://permaculture.org.uk/ebulletin.php

21) SAVE SWALLOW’S WOOD CAMPAIGN UPDATE — JANUARY ’08
See; http://www.saveswallowswood.org.uk/index.shtml

22) EARTH FIRST! ACTION UPDATE — SPRING ’08
See; http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19938

———-

Com­piled and sent out by Ris­ing Tide UK: info at risingtide.org.uk
To receive this News Sheet month­ly, email news-sub­scribe at risingtide.org.uk with the sub­ject line ‘sub­scribe’ (with­out the quotes).

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

ENDS

Atomic Weapons Establishment Aldermaston demo — 24th March & byelaw challenge

12 noon East­er Mon­day — 24th March
Atom­ic Weapons Estab­lish­ment Alder­mas­ton

We invite you to par­tic­i­pate in a live­ly demon­stra­tion against the devel­op­ment of nuclear weapons at Alder­mas­ton and to cel­e­brate 50 years of anti-nuclear protest in Britain.

12 noon East­er Mon­day — 24th March
Atom­ic Weapons Estab­lish­ment Alder­mas­ton

We invite you to par­tic­i­pate in a live­ly demon­stra­tion against the devel­op­ment of nuclear weapons at Alder­mas­ton and to cel­e­brate 50 years of anti-nuclear protest in Britain.

This East­er marks the 50th anniver­sary of the first march to the Atom­ic Weapons Estab­lish­ment Alder­mas­ton — the heart of Britain’s nuclear weapons pro­gramme. We need you — and your friends, col­leagues, com­mu­ni­ties, and net­works — to sur­round the base and cre­ate a colour­ful, effec­tive, and mas­sive demon­stra­tion.

With par­lia­ment vot­ing in March 2007 for a new fleet of nuclear armed sub­marines, and with the con­struc­tion of facil­i­ties for a new gen­er­a­tion of nuclear war­heads already under­way at Alder­mas­ton, it’s time to send a clear mes­sage to the gov­ern­ment that 50 years is enough!

While cel­e­brat­ing five decades of sus­tained cam­paign­ing against nuclear weapons, the empha­sis will be on embrac­ing the future, push­ing for dis­ar­ma­ment and work­ing togeth­er to build a broad move­ment that grows from strength to strength.

The event will be live­ly, with each gate at the site being linked to a dif­fer­ent era — with appro­pri­ate dec­o­ra­tion and enter­tain­ment — and is being organ­ised by CND nation­al and region­al groups and peo­ple from the wider anti-nuclear, peace and anti-war move­ments. If you would like to get involved in organ­is­ing for this event in your area, please get in touch.

Groups can come dressed as they want, could be in theme with the gates, or as weapons inspec­tors, or cam­paign­ers from the future, or as nuclear bombs, or flow­ers!

The pos­si­bil­i­ties are end­less! The event will be organ­ised using the ’ Block’ struc­ture so that your group comes ready to take up as much space around the site as pos­si­ble. We have a web­site for your ‘Block’ to add their details and how much space they can take up along the fence line.

For Exam­ple, East­ern Block, dress­ing as nuclear cow­boys can take up 200 meters of fence line using 2 ban­ners 100 peo­ple and a radioac­tive horse prop!

That’s just an exam­ple.

We need to start mobil­is­ing now and get our coach­es booked and the seats full! It will take 5,000 peo­ple to sur­round Alder­mas­ton AWE. The devel­op­ments at Alder­mas­ton are well on their way, we need to move our cam­paign­ing to the next stage, build an even stronger move­ment and stop the devel­op­ment of new nuclear weapons. THE BOMB STOPS HERE!

http://www.cnduk.org/aldermaston/

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

Aldermaston Women's Peace Campers at courtAlder­mas­ton byelaws — judi­cial review update

On 1 Feb­ru­ary 2008 Alder­mas­ton Wom­en’s Peace Camp(aign) took their Judi­cial Review of the Alder­mas­ton Byelaws 2007 to the High Court in Lon­don. Lord Jus­tice Mau­rice Kay and Mr Jus­tice Walk­er decid­ed to hear the case against the Sec­re­tary of State for Defence in full.

The case — a judi­cial review of the Min­istry of Defence’s (MoD) deci­sion to intro­duce byelaws which deny the women’s peace camp their right to free­dom of assem­bly — was brought by Pub­lic Inter­est Lawyers on behalf of a mem­ber of the Alder­mas­ton Women’s Peace Camp (AWPC).

At the High Court, argu­ments from the claimant and defen­dant were com­plet­ed by the end of the day and the Jus­tices are expect­ed to give their writ­ten judg­ment with­in the next fort­night.

After the hear­ing a spokes­woman from AWPC said “We feel that the byelaws are vague, that they under­mine the spe­cif­ic rights of assem­bly and asso­ci­a­tion and that, in imple­men­ta­tion, they will be applied in a dis­crim­i­na­to­ry man­ner against camp women by the Min­istry of Defence Police”.

To date ten women have been arrest­ed under the Alder­mas­ton Byelaws 2007. All cas­es have been dropped after pre-tri­al review stage.

In relat­ed news, the camp announced today that it will be host­ing one of the gates for the Alder­mas­ton march 50th anniver­sary events this East­er. Called by CND, the 24 March event will be a “live­ly demon­stra­tion against the devel­op­ment of nuclear weapons at Alder­mas­ton and a cel­e­bra­tion of 50 years of anti-nuclear protest in Britain.”

On East­er Mon­day AWPC will take up res­i­dence at their his­toric home — Fal­con­gate — and invite all women to join them. See link below for details. Gen­er­al details of the East­er event at http://www.cnduk.org/aldermaston/

—
For back­ground on the judi­cial review, see: http://www.aldermaston.net/news/212 and http://www.aldermaston.net/news/183

info@aldermaston.net
http://aldermaston.net/falcongate08.php

3 climate days of action: 1st April (Fossil Fools), 1st May (false solutions) & 3rd June (food)

For Fos­sil Fools Day on 1st April, see pre­vi­ous post
____________________________________________

1 MAY

May­day May­day: Inva­sion of the Cli­mate Snatch­ers.…

Network for Climate Action logoFor Fos­sil Fools Day on 1st April, see pre­vi­ous post
____________________________________________

1 MAY

May­day May­day: Inva­sion of the Cli­mate Snatch­ers.…

As cli­mate change ris­es up the polit­i­cal agen­da, the same cor­po­ra­tions that are large­ly respon­si­ble for the prob­lem are attempt­ing to dom­i­nate the main­stream debate about the solu­tions, in the hope to main­tain the eco­nom­ic sta­tus quo.

A huge num­ber of tech­no-fix­es are form­ing a new eco­nom­ic sec­tor: from bio­fu­els to nuclear pow­er, car­bon-trad­ing to hydro­gen fuel cells, dump­ing urine in the ocean to car­bon cap­ture and stor­age. Every­where cor­po­ra­tions are seek­ing the elu­sive elixir which allows to con­tin­ue busi­ness as usu­al.

All of these tech­nolo­gies are a dis­trac­tion from the real solu­tion to the prob­lems we face: a mas­sive reduc­tion in our con­sump­tion and the end to eco­nom­ic growth.

What’s wrong with these tech­nolo­gies?

* A lot of these tech­nolo­gies won’t be ready in time to save the cli­mate
* Many actu­al­ly increase car­bon emis­sions
* Some rely on a dif­fer­ent non-renew­able resource
* Many have mas­sive envi­ron­men­tal impacts
* None of them can pro­vide us with the amount of ener­gy we cur­rent­ly use
* Many will per­pet­u­ate prob­lems of social injus­tice

On May 1st, inter­na­tion­al work­ers day, lets chal­lenge these false solu­tions to cli­mate chaos and show the real solu­tion: far-reach­ing social change, and reduc­tion in con­sump­tion.

____________________________________________
3 JUNE

Day of Action on Food and Cli­mate Change

The Cli­mate Action day that bites.…

The kind of food we eat con­tributes up to a third of our green­house emis­sions. It’s about time for us to switch to plant based, organ­ic, sea­son­al and local­ly pro­duced food.

Cli­mate action starts on your din­ner plate, in the super­mar­ket, on your allot­ment and in your back yard, in the food pro­cess­ing and dis­tri­b­u­tion cen­tres, down on the farm, in your high street, at the air­port and in the lor­ry park.

Take action on 3rd June and help high­light the role of food and the food indus­try in cli­mate chaos.

Get involved — whether you’re into local food, per­ma­cul­ture, ani­mal rights, allot­ment­ing, human­i­tar­i­an issues, food pol­i­tics, trans­port cam­paign­ing. Join the dots on cli­mate change.

____________________________________________

Please dis­trib­ute this info wide­ly, stick it in your diaries and get
plan­ning. More info includ­ing a web­site to fol­low soon! In the mean­time
you can con­tact us at manchester@climatecamp.org.uk

For lots of resources and on tak­ing cli­mate action and con­tact details for
your near­est cli­mate action group see
http://www.networkforclimateaction.org.uk

Meat on climate action in Sweden

5 Feb­ru­ary.

Meat climate Sweden action 1Meat climate Sweden action 25 Feb­ru­ary. Some 30 activists from Kli­max-Stock­holm and Green Youth 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. The activists were dressed as the boss­es of Swedish Meat, while fry­ing plan­et earth in a fire exhumed by a cow. Car traf­fic was block­ad­ed for a while, before the activists enjoyed a veg­e­tar­i­an pick-nick in front of the office.

Faslane Peace Camp punks picnik and mischief: 2–4th May

mini beltane fes­ti­val- and mis­chief ..

Punx Piknik at Faslane Peace Camp 2nd-4th May.
Inner Terrestrials,afterbirth,acid tounge,murderburgers,wasted nation,billy liar,rimshot,fuckin-A-team,screaming blue mur­der, and loads more, also folk and dub acts. Cir­cus acts and mad­ness.… more info to come.…

Faslane punk picnic flyermini beltane fes­ti­val- and mis­chief ..

Punx Piknik at Faslane Peace Camp 2nd-4th May.
Inner Terrestrials,afterbirth,acid tounge,murderburgers,wasted nation,billy liar,rimshot,fuckin-A-team,screaming blue mur­der, and loads more, also folk and dub acts. Cir­cus acts and mad­ness.… more info to come.…

faslaniapeacecamp@yahoo.co.uk
http://myspace.com/faslanepeacecamp

Hitting Total in the Pocket

Over the last 2 months, activists tired of the lies and cor­po­rate white­wash have tak­en direct action to hit Total where it hurts them most — in the pock­et.

All 4 garages in the bris­tol area have been tar­get­ted. Hor­field, Con­gres­bury, Lawrence West­on, Yate. North, South, East, West. Win­dows were smashed, equip­ment dis­abled, and pro­pa­gan­da sprayed or post­ed so cus­tomers knew why the dam­age was done.

Over the last 2 months, activists tired of the lies and cor­po­rate white­wash have tak­en direct action to hit Total where it hurts them most — in the pock­et.

All 4 garages in the bris­tol area have been tar­get­ted. Hor­field, Con­gres­bury, Lawrence West­on, Yate. North, South, East, West. Win­dows were smashed, equip­ment dis­abled, and pro­pa­gan­da sprayed or post­ed so cus­tomers knew why the dam­age was done.

This was not done as a pub­lic­i­ty stunt, the only rea­son we are telling of our actions is so oth­ers are inspired. The aim was to cost Total mon­ey, and to show them (and oth­ers) that near or far, open or closed, noth­ing is Total­ly out of our reach.

Any­one who cares to look can find why we tar­get­ted Total, friend of the mur­der­ers and human rights abusers, ene­my of those try­ing to heal the world. We ded­i­cate these actions to those monks in the East and punks in the West — to all those who’ve had their heads split open by the cops or the mil­i­tary for try­ing to speak out.

To all those who think they can do what they want because no one cares any more — we say to you “be afraid. We have the abil­i­ty, the means and the desire to make you pay, one way or anoth­er.” To all those who rely on march­es, vot­ing, and oth­er ways of being dis­em­pow­ered and ignored we say to you “be inspired. Noth­ing is hope­less, every­thing is pos­si­ble.”

Support the Eco-Prisoners — Imbolc 2008 — they’re in there for us out here, please write

Spir­it of Free­dom
(Feb­ru­ary 2008)
Pro­duced by
EARTH LIBERATION PRISONERS SUPPORT NETWORK

Earth Liberation Prisoners logoSpir­it of Free­dom
(Feb­ru­ary 2008)
Pro­duced by
EARTH LIBERATION PRISONERS SUPPORT NETWORK

“The whole expe­ri­ence has been tough, but all the kind and strength­en­ing words and wise thoughts from strangers made it much eas­i­er!”
(For­mer Swedish Ani­mal Rights Pris­on­er)

Wel­come to the Feb­ru­ary 2008 edi­tion of Spir­it of Free­dom. As we enter Feb­ru­ary so we await three major events. First off, Jeff ‘Free’ Luers is due to be re-sen­tenced. We hope its good news. Sec­ond­ly, Eric McDavid is also due to be sen­tenced. As soon as Eric has been sen­tenced we urge every­one to send him let­ters of sup­port. And third­ly, the police infor­mant Jacob Fer­gu­son is also due to be sen­tenced. His cow­ard­ly deals and treach­ery means he won’t be sent to prison. But we await with inter­est to see what sen­tence this piece of scum does receive. If any­one hears, please do let ELP know. But whilst we await those three sen­tenc­ings, please don’t for­get all the oth­er eco-pris­on­ers. Remem­ber, no mat­ter where you are in the world, sup­port the eco-pris­on­ers and no com­pro­mise in defence of Moth­er Earth!

ECO-DEFENCE PRISONERS

Tre Arrow, CS# 05850722, Van­cou­ver Island Region­al Cor­rec­tion Cen­ter, 4216 Wilkin­son Rd., Vic­to­ria, BC, V8Z 5B2, Cana­da. On remand accused of involve­ment with an arson on log­ging trucks and an arson on vehi­cles owned by a sand & grav­el com­pa­ny. Both arsons occurred in the USA. Tre is fight­ing his extra­di­tion to the USA.

Grant Barnes #137563, San Car­los Cor­rec­tion­al Facil­i­ty, PO Box 3, Pueblo, CO 81002, USA. Serv­ing 12 years for set­ting fire to a num­ber of SUV vehi­cles. On one of the vehi­cles the let­ters ELF was spray-paint­ed.

Nathan Block, #36359–086, FCI Lom­poc, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, 3600 Guard Road, Lom­poc, CA 93436, USA. Serv­ing 7 years & 8 months for an ELF arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against an SUV deal­er­ship. Also admit­ted his role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy.

Mar­co Camenisch, Post­fach 3143, CH-8105 Regens­dorf, Switzer­land. Serv­ing 18 years. 1) Ten years for using explo­sives to destroy elec­tric­i­ty pylons lead­ing from nuclear pow­er sta­tions. 2) Eight years for the mur­der of a Swiss Board­er Guard whilst on the run. In ’02 Mar­co com­plet­ed a 12-year sen­tence in Italy for destroy­ing elec­tric­i­ty pylons in Italy.

Rod Coro­n­a­do — See details in Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers List.

Ibai Eder­ra, Car­cel de Pam­plona, C/San Roque. Apdo. 250, 31080 — Iruñez — Pam­plona, Navar­ra (España), Spain. Serv­ing just under 5 years for sab­o­tag­ing machin­ery at the con­tro­ver­sial Itoiz dam con­struc­tion site.

Jef­frey Luers, #1306729, Lane Coun­ty Adult Cor­rec­tions, 101 West 5th Ave, Eugene, OR 97401–2695, USA. Await­ing resen­tenc­ing. Orig­i­nal­ly sen­tenced to 22 years & 8 months for arson on a SUV deal­er­ship & the attempt­ed arson of an oil truck.

Eric McDavid X‑2972521 4E 231A, Sacra­men­to Coun­ty Main Jail, 651 “I” Street, Sacra­men­to, CA 95814, USA. Await­ing sen­tenc­ing hav­ing been found guilty of plan­ning to destroy the prop­er­ty of the U.S. Forestry Ser­vice, mobile phone masts and pow­er plants.

Daniel McGowan #63794–053, Unit I, FCI Sand­stone, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, PO Box 1000, Sand­stone, MN 55072, USA. Serv­ing 7 years for an ELF arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against an old growth log­ging cor­po­ra­tion. Also admit­ted his role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy.

Christo­pher McIn­tosh #30512–013, FCI Fair­ton, PO Box 420, Fair­ton, NJ 08320, USA. Serv­ing 8 years for set­ting fire to a McDon­ald’s restau­rant.

Jonathan Paul — See details in Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers List.

Costan­ti­no Ragusa, Casa Cir­con­dar­i­ale, Via Prati Nuovi 7, 27058 Voghera (PV), Italy. Il Sil­vestre activist serv­ing 2½ years. 1) 18-months for bur­gling and fire­bomb­ing a multi­na­tion­al com­pa­ny. 2) 12-months for organ­is­ing an anti-GM protest. Costani­no is also await­ing tri­al accused of using explo­sives to dam­age an elec­tric­i­ty pylon in protest at nuclear ener­gy.

Julio Vil­lanue­va, C.P. Pri­sion De Pam­plona, 31080, Iruna (Navar­ra), Spain.
Serv­ing just under 5 years for sab­o­tag­ing machin­ery at the con­tro­ver­sial Itoiz dam con­struc­tion site.

Joy­an­na Zach­er, #36360–086, FCI Dublin, 5700 8th St.- Camp Parks- Unit F, Dublin, CA 94568, USA. Serv­ing 7 years & 8 months for an ELF arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against an SUV deal­er­ship. Also admit­ted her role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy.

ANIMAL LIBERATION PRISONERS

Jon Able­white TB4885, HMP Lowd­ham Grange, Lowd­ham, Not­ting­ham, NG14 7DA, Eng­land. Serv­ing 12 years for attempt­ing to black­mail a farmer who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion.

Gregg Avery TA7450, HMP Win­ches­ter, Rom­sey Road, Win­ches­ter, SO22 5DF, Eng­land. On remand accused of con­spir­a­cy to black­mail, in rela­tion to his involve­ment with the SHAC cam­paign.

Natasha Avery NR8987, HMP Bronze­field, Woodthor­pe Road, Ash­ford, Mid­dx. TW15 3JZ, Eng­land. Jailed for breach­ing her parole con­di­tions imposed on her for telling a fox hunt­ing mur­der­ing scum what she thought of them. Also await­ing tri­al accused of con­spir­a­cy to black­mail, in rela­tion to her involve­ment with the SHAC cam­paign.

Nathan Block — See details in Eco Defence Pris­on­ers List.

Mel Broughton TN9138, HMP Wood­hill, Tat­ten­hoe Street, Mil­ton Keynes, Bucks MK4 4DA, Eng­land. On remand accused of involve­ment with an arson and black­mail cam­paign against an Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty vivi­sec­tion estab­lish­ment.

Jacob Con­roy #93501–011, FCI Vic­torville Medi­um I Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, P.O. Box 5300, Ade­lan­to, CA 92301, USA. Serv­ing 48 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign.

Rod Coro­n­a­do, Voice of the Earth, PO Box 732, Tuc­son, AZ 85702, USA. Due to be sen­tenced to one-year impris­on­ment after Rod informed peo­ple how to make an incen­di­ary device dur­ing a speech at an ani­mal rights gath­er­ing.

Don­ald Cur­rie A3660AA, HMP Parkhurst, New­port, Isle of Wight, PO30 5NX, Eng­land. Serv­ing an Inde­ter­mi­nate Sen­tence, of not less than six actu­al years, for car­ry­ing out arsons against tar­gets asso­ci­at­ed the vivi­sec­tion indus­try includ­ing HLS.

Lau­ren Gaz­zo­la #93497–011, FCI Dan­bury, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, Route #37Danbury, CT 06811, USA. Serv­ing 54 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign.

Sarah Gis­borne, LT5393, HMP Down­view, Sut­ton Lane, Sut­ton, Sur­rey, SM2 5PD, Eng­land. Serv­ing 5½ years for con­spir­a­cy to cause crim­i­nal dam­age fol­low­ing the dam­ag­ing of 8 vehi­cles owned by peo­ple linked to Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ence.

Joshua Harp­er #29429–086, FCI Sheri­dan Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, P.O. Box 5000, Sheri­dan, OR 97378 USA. Serv­ing 36 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign.

Kevin Kjon­aas #93502–011, FCI Sand­stone, PO Box 1000, Sand­stone, MN 55072 USA. Serv­ing 72 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign.

Daniel McGowan — See details in Eco Defence Pris­on­ers List.

Heather Nichol­son VM4859, HMP Bronze­field, Woodthor­pe Road, Ash­ford, Mid­dx. TW15 3JZ, Eng­land. On remand accused of con­spir­a­cy to black­mail, in rela­tion to her involve­ment with the SHAC cam­paign.

Jonathan Paul, #07167–085, FCI Phoenix, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, 37910 N 45th Ave., Phoenix, AZ 85086, USA. Sen­tenced to 51 months for an ALF arson on a horse meat plant. Also admit­ted his role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy.

John Smith TB4887, HMP Lowd­ham Grange, Lowd­ham, Not­ting­ham, NG14 7DA, Eng­land. Serv­ing 12 years for attempt­ing to black­mail a farmer who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion.

Andrew Stepan­ian #26399–050, FCI But­ner Medi­um II Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, PO Box 1500, But­ner, NC 27509 USA. Serv­ing 36 months for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign.

Ker­ry Whit­burn TB4886, HMP Lowd­ham Grange, Lowd­ham, Not­ting­ham, NG14 7DA, Eng­land. Serv­ing 12 years for attempt­ing to black­mail a farmer who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion.

Joy­an­na Zach­er — See details in Eco Defence Pris­on­ers List.

PLOUGHSHARES PRISONERS

Helen Wood­son, 03231–045, FMC Car­swell — Admin. Max. Unit, POB 27137, Ft. Worth, TX 76127, USA. Serv­ing 8 years 10 months for actions that focused on the inter­re­la­tion­ship of war & the destruc­tion of the nat­ur­al world. The actions includ­ed pour­ing red paint over the secu­ri­ty desk of a fed­er­al court and mak­ing threat­en­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tions. Pre­vi­ous­ly Helen had served 20½ years for: 1) Using a ham­mer to dis­arm a nuclear mis­sile silo. 2) Burn­ing $25,000 on the floor of a bank whilst denounc­ing war, envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion & eco­nom­ic injus­tice. 3) Mail­ing warn­ing let­ters with bul­lets attached to Gov­ern­ment & cor­po­rate offi­cials.

THE LECCE FIVE
The Lec­ce Five have been charged with “sub­ver­sive asso­ci­a­tion” accused of dam­ag­ing Esso petrol pumps to oppose the War on Iraq; sab­o­tag­ing the cash machines of a bank which funds an immi­gra­tion cen­tre; and tar­get­ing the multi­na­tion­al com­pa­ny Benet­ton in sup­port of Mapuche land rights activists in Chile. All of the defen­dants are cur­rent­ly either under house arrest or released on bail.

ANTIFA PRISONERS

Lasan­dra Bur­well W063658, Ohio Refor­ma­to­ry for Women, 1479 Collins Ave. Marysville, OH 43040, USA. Serv­ing 5 years for tak­ing part in an anti-fas­cist demon­stra­tion that turned into a riot.

Vah­tang Devitlidze, ul. Libbedo­va 42, UO 68/2, otryad 14, briga­da 142, g. Hagyshen­sk, Krasnodarskiy Kray, 352680 Rus­sia. Serv­ing 2½ years for stab­bing a neo-nazi in the leg whilst defend­ing him­self from attack.

Augustin Kraus, Vazeb­ni veznice, PP‑1, Lit­o­merice, 41 201, Czech Repub­lic.
Serv­ing 14 months for his par­tic­i­pa­tion in attacks against local neo-nazis. His charge was “bod­i­ly harm”. He speaks Czech, Slo­vak and Pol­ish. You can also write him short post­cards in Eng­lish.

Gub­s­ki Max­im, VK‑2 — 21, Batowa str. 4, Bobruisk, 213800 Belarus. Serv­ing 3 years for fight­ing with neo-nazis.

Vladislav Vladimirovich Plyashke­vich, IK-10 otryad 4, Novopoltsk‑5 Viteb­skaya oblast, 211440 Belarus. Serv­ing 3 years for fight­ing with neo-nazis.

Chris­t­ian Süm­mer­mann, BNR: 727/07/7, JVA Tegel, Sei­del­str. 39, 13507 Berlin, Ger­many. Serv­ing 40 months for breach­ing the peace whilst serv­ing a sus­pend­ed sen­tence issued for anti-fas­cist activ­i­ties.

Tomasz Wiloszews­ki, Zak­lad Karny, Orze­chowa 5, 98–200 Sier­adz, Poland.
Serv­ing 15 years for acci­den­tal­ly killing a neo-nazi whilst defend­ing him­self.

OTHER PRISONERS

Oscar San­ta Maria Caro, CERESO, Miahu­at­lan de Por­firio Diaz, Oax­a­ca en Hall B, Cell 5., Mex­i­co. On remand. The exact charges against Oscar are unknown but Oscar is a mem­ber of RATA, a known ani­mal rights group.

Sacra­men­to Delfi­no Cano Her­nan­dez, CERESO, Miahu­at­lan de Por­firio Diaz, Oax­a­ca en Hall B, Cell 5., Mex­i­co. On remand. Co-defen­dant of Oscar San­ta Maria Caro.

Olga Alek­san­drov­na Nevskaya, UU163/5, 7 Otryad, pos. Dzerzhin­skiy, Mozhaysk 140090 Moskovskaya oblast, Rus­sia. Eco-activist serv­ing 6 years for arson, crim­i­nal dam­age and caus­ing explo­sions in protest at the war in Chech­nya. Due for release in 2009.

Fran Thomp­son, #1090915 HU 1C, WERDCC, PO Box 300, Van­dalia, MO 63382, USA.
Serv­ing Life for killing, in self-defence, a stalk­er who had bro­ken into her home. Before her impris­on­ment Fran was an eco, ani­mal & anti-nuke cam­paign­er.

MOVE
MOVE is an eco-rev­o­lu­tion­ary group who car­ried out protests in defence of all life. There are cur­rent­ly eight MOVE activists in prison each serv­ing 100 years after been framed for the mur­der of a cop in 1979. 9th defen­dant, Mer­le Africa, died in prison in 1998.

Deb­bie Simms Africa (006307), Janet Hol­loway Africa (006308) and Janine Philips Africa (006309) all at: SCI Cam­bridge Springs, 451 Fuller­ton Ave, Cam­bridge Springs, PA 16403–1238, USA.

Michael Davis Africa (AM4973) and Charles Simms Africa (AM4975) both at SCI Grater­ford, PO Box 244, Grater­ford, PA 19426–0244, USA.

Edward Good­man Africa (AM4974), SCI Mahanoy, 301 Morea Rd, Frackville, PA 17932, USA.

William Philips Africa (AM4984) and Del­bert Orr Africa (AM4985) both at SCI Dal­las Draw­er K, Dal­las, PA 18612, USA.

Mumia Abu Jamal, (AM8335), SCI Greene, 175 Progress Dri­ve, Way­nes­burg PA 15370, USA. In 1981 Mumia, for­mer Black Pan­ther and vocal sup­port­er of MOVE, was framed for the mur­der of a cop. He was orig­i­nal­ly sen­tenced to death but is cur­rent­ly await­ing re-sen­tenc­ing fol­low­ing a court hear­ing in 2001.

STATEMENT ON VIOLENCE
Some peo­ple list­ed in this newslet­ter have car­ried out vio­lent actions. ‘Spir­it of Free­dom’ does not con­done vio­lence. But we are also against cen­sor­ship & believe peo­ple can decide for them­selves who they wish to sup­port.

ABOUT E.L.P. SUPPORT NETWORK
ELP is an inter­na­tion­al eco-pris­on­er sup­port net­work found­ed, in Britain, in 1993 to sup­port jailed eco-activists. We sup­port the pris­on­ers by pro­duc­ing var­i­ous reg­u­lar pris­on­er lists:

Spir­it of Free­dom is ELP’s inter­na­tion­al month­ly pris­on­er list­ing which is cir­cu­lat­ed by e‑mail.

Urgent ELP! Bul­letin is an e‑mail ser­vice that dis­trib­utes the names of any new eco-pris­on­er as soon as ELP gets their details. For more info e‑mail ELP4321@hotmail.com

On-Line Newslet­ters — ELP has a num­ber of web­sites that pro­vide news, pris­on­er lists and addi­tion­al info about ELP & the pris­on­ers.

Eng­lish lan­guage ELP Web­site
www.spiritoffreedom.org.uk

North Amer­i­can ELP Web­site
www.ecoprisoners.org

Turk­ish lan­guage ELP Web­site
www.geocities.com/yesilanarsi/elp.htm

ELP Extra is an e‑mail group that cir­cu­lates the details of polit­i­cal pris­on­ers, ELP learns about, who do not fall with­in the remit for sup­port by ELP. To sub­scribe to the list e‑mail ELP4321@Hotmail.com

Bel­gium ELP.SN is our Bel­gium con­tact. For more info e‑mail elp_bel@hotmail.com

Ger­man ELP.SN is a pris­on­er led ini­tia­tive run by eco-pris­on­er Mar­co Camenisch. For more info con­tact Mar­co Camenisch, Post­fach 3143, CH-8105 Regens­dorf, Switzer­land.

North Amer­i­can ELP is our North Amer­i­can con­tact. For more infor­ma­tion e‑mail naelpsn@mutualaid.org

Turkey ELP.SN is our Turk­ish con­tact. For more info e‑mail yesilanarsi@yahoo.com