Direct action around Greece reports (1/2008) — banks, police cameras, luxury cars get it; rats saved

Attack against a bank, 14 tak­en into cus­tody (Athens, 30/1/2008)

Accord­ing to a report at: http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=821100

Bank windows smashedAttack against a bank, 14 tak­en into cus­tody (Athens, 30/1/2008)

Accord­ing to a report at: http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=821100

There was an attack with sledge ham­mers, stones and paints against the Eth­ni­ki Bank in Gizi dis­trict (were a com­pan­ion was arrest­ed after an armed expro­pri­a­tion). After they left, police spread into the area and took into cus­tody around 14 per­sons from the area.

Police cam­era destroyed, one per­son tak­en into cus­tody (Thes­sa­loni­ki, 29/1/2008)

From reports at athens.indymedia.org

Around 11:30 the pow­er sup­ply of a police cam­era was sab­o­taged in pub­lic. Riot-police­men and motor­bike cops attacked the peo­ple on their way back, and man­aged to take into cus­tody one per­son. Lat­er on two more per­sons were also tak­en to the police head­quar­ters, but set free after a few hours.


Series of incen­di­ary attacks (Athens-Thes­sa­loni­ki, 21/1/2008)

Report in eng­lish: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/01/21/europe/EU-GEN-Greece-Arson-Spree.php

Accord­ing to a report in “Eleft­herotip­ia” (Greek only): http://www.enet.gr/online/online_text/c=112,id=25251808

From 12:51 to 01:18 the fol­low­ing tar­gets were attacked:

Athens:

12:51: Porsche deal­er­ship, Halandri‑4 cars dam­aged.
01:00: Eurobank open24 sub­sidiary, Ega­leo
01:05: Lux­u­rius car expo­si­tion “Car Col­lec­tion”, Nea Erithrea-16 cars and one motor­cy­cle dam­aged
01:08: Eurobank sub­sidiary, Dafni
01:08: Piraeus bank sub­sidiary, Dafni
01:09: City­bank sub­sidiary, cen­tral Athens
01:15: Eurobank sub­sidiary, Nea Filadelfia
01:17: PV MOTORS deal­er­ship, Argiroupoli
01:18: PPC crane vehi­cle, Keramikos

Anoth­er incen­di­ary device was found untouched in the entrance of an “Eth­ni­ki” bank, in Peri­s­teri, and was car­ried to the foren­sic office of the police.

Thes­sa­loni­ki:

Two arson attacks occured with­in five min­utes. A ppc car was dam­aged, as well as an ATM of Mil­len­ni­um bank in Analip­si.

Com­mu­nique sent to directactiongr@yahoo.gr:

“Last night’s series of incen­di­ary attacks against lux­u­ri­ous car deal­er­ships in Halan­dri, Kifis­sia and Argiroupoli, bank sub­sidiaries in Nea filadelfia, Dafni, Ega­leo, Ano Patisia, Dafni and in Thes­sa­loni­ki at 117, Mar­tiou Street, and against PPC (the state-run pow­er com­pa­ny) cars out­side its offices in both Athens and Thes­sa­loni­ki, is under­tak­en by the Con­spir­a­cy of Cells of Fire Thes­sa­loni­ki-Athens.

We select­ed to strike the bank sub­sidiares because the con­sti­tute the sym­bols-tools of explo­ration and of the eco­nom­ic empire. In par­al­lel, the banks are the mod­ern day cor­po­ra­tions that accred­it with loa­nee dreams the con­sumers, so that they would beglam­our vol­un­tar­i­ly their mis­ery and their eco­nom­ic state of cap­tiv­i­ty.

We attacked the PPC cor­po­ra­tion as a response to the dozens assas­si­na­tions of work­ers that died in its work­place-pris­ons because of the lack of secu­ri­ty mea­sures, as well as for the dead­ly effects (such as can­cer) that appear at the zones around its pow­er plants.

We set on fire the deal­er­ships of lux­u­ri­ous cars that form pres­ti­gious sym­bols of author­i­ty inside the com­mod­i­ty fetishist fren­zy that has tak­en over the metrop­o­lis. We do not respect the law-abid­ing cit­i­zens’ wet dreams for a fast car in expense of the slow sui­cide offeed by the mod­ern life style.

The rev­o­lu­tion­ary char­ac­ter of an eco­nom­ic-cap­i­tal­ist tar­gets arson is n’t found only in its phys­i­cal destruc­tionm but also in the ille­gal­i­ty of the action itself. In the deci­sion to attack.

In this com­bat­ant sit­u­a­tion, there are also loss­es. Accord­ing­ly, we ded­i­cate last night’s attacks in Thes­sa­loni­ki and Athens to the empris­oned anar­chist V. Botzatzis who is accused for 3 arson attacks against 3 tar­gets, as weel as to the 3 fugi­tive com­rades accused under the same case, and that chose the way of a proud escape, than to give their­selves in.

We don’t for­get any empris­oned com­rade. We will be back soon…

Con­spir­a­cy of Cells of Fire Thes­sa­loni­ki-Athens”


Bank fire­bombed and respon­si­bil­i­ty claim (Athens, 19/1/2008)

Accord­ing to reports (in greek) at athens.indymedia.org unknown per­sons attacked with molo­tov cock­tails a sub­sidiary of eurobank in Petralona dis­trict (Athens). Accord­ing to ANA-MPA news agency, the arson caused sev­er dam­ages to the bank. A group claimed respon­si­bil­i­ty by an anony­moys e‑mail to directactiongr@yahoo.gr stat­ing:

The “Cells of Incen­di­ary Sol­i­dar­i­ty” (Pirines Empris­tikis Alli­leg­gyis) claim respon­si­bil­i­ty for the arson at Eurobank on Tri­on Ier­arhon Street in Petralona, on Sat­ur­day Jan­u­ary 19, in sol­i­dar­i­ty to the empris­oned anar­chist Vagge­lis Botzatzis, accused with 3 arson attacks against gov­ern­men­tal-eco­nom­ic tar­gets and to the three com­pan­ions that are fugi­tive under the same case.

The insti­tu­tions of state-run enter­pris­es, car agen­cies and banks, have been and will be today’s tar­gets, tar­gets that every rev­o­lu­tion­ary choos­es to attack. These attack are born from a total per­cep­tion and a route of actions against the cap­i­tal­ist-eco­nom­ic dom­i­na­tion. These words here do not mean to recog­nise their-selves in a “typ­i­cal claim of respon­si­bil­i­ty” because their mean­ing is found in the trans­mis­sion of the rev­o­lu­tion­ary flame. WE ARE ON WAR. The per­se­cu­tions can­not stop the incen­di­ary actions and the rebel­lious con­sciences. Hon­our to those that in their lives, they set their own time and place, their “how” and “why”…

The ash­es of the burnt banks for the fugi­tive com­pan­ions and the empris­oned anar­chist Vagge­lis Botzatzis.

Cells of Incen­di­ary Sol­i­dar­i­ty

Note: Vagge­lis Botzatzis is an anar­chist from Thes­sa­loni­ki, in a pre-tri­al empris­on­ment in Komo­ti­ni pris­ons, accused for arsons in a french brand car yard, a mil­le­ni­um bank sub­sidiary and Pub­lic Pow­er Com­pa­ny vehi­cles. He is per­se­cut­ed based on a secu­ri­ty guard’s accu­sa­tions. Apart from him, anoth­er three anar­chists are fugi­tive for the same case.

Attacks on three banks (Athens, 17/1/2008)

http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=815410
http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=815788

2 year after the arrest of Gian­nis Dim­i­trakis after a bank rob­bery, on 12 o’clock, were realised three simul­ta­ne­ous attacks on three banks and an ATM in cen­tral Athens.

Piraeus Bank on 12, George Street, Atti­ki Bank on 23 Omirou Street and Eth­ni­ki bank on 30 Omirou Street, had their glass­es bro­ken and oth­er dam­ages. An ATM was also dam­aged.

There were leaflets thrown around the banks stat­ing:
2 years lat­er…
WE DON’T FORGET, WE DON’T FORGIVE
sol­i­dar­i­ty to G. Dim­i­trakis, who is empris­oned for the bank robery at Eth­ni­ki Bank on Solonos Street at 16.01.2006
Sol­i­dar­i­ty to the 3 fugi­tive com­rades

as well as “FIRE TO THE BANKS”

Lab-rats lib­er­at­ed from tech­ni­cal insti­tute (Thes­sa­loni­ki, 16/1/2007)

A report on this action can be found at athens.indymedia.org where there are also more pho­tos and a short video, as well as a text in greek, trans­lat­ed here:

“On Jan­u­ary 15th, in the Thes­sa­loni­ki TEI (tech­ni­cal insti­tute) was pro­grammed a prac­ti­cal exper­i­ment on ani­mals alive in front of the stu­dents. This hideous action would be realised if some peo­ple from Thes­sa­loni­ki was n’t mobi­lized. Around twen­ty per­sons vis­it­ed the TEI and took not only one, as it was to expect­ed, but four ani­mals (lab rats). Lat­er on the four lab rats were set free in the nature were they should be from the very begin­ing.

We know that these spe­cif­ic ani­mals will not sur­vive for a long time in the nature, since they were born in a lab. Though, we believe it is bet­ter for them to die in the nature than in a lab or a cage.”

Car deal­er­ship fire-bombed (Athens, 17/1/2008)

Source (greek only): http://www.ethnos.gr/article.asp?catid=11424&subid=2&tag=8334&pubid=336523#

Two self-made explo­sive devis­es were placed under­neath two cars in a Suzu­ki deal­er­ship in Peri­s­teri, Athens. One of them explod­ed at 3:45 in the night caus­ing minor dam­ages, while the oth­er one was found untouched by the police.


Bank arson and anony­mous communique(Athens, 1/1/2008)

Source (greek only): http://news.pathfinder.gr/greece/news/449097.html

“The first fact report­ed to the police for 2008 was an arson attack 20 min­utes after mid­night at the sub­sidiary of Geni­ki Bank at 75 Kipselis street in Athens. Uniden­ti­fied per­sons plant­ed an incen­di­ary device break­ing the glass entrance door.”

Anony­mous group claimed respon­si­bil­i­ty via e‑mail to directactiongr@yahoo.gr):

“The attack at Geni­ki Bank on 1/1/2008 was in sol­i­dar­i­ty to empris­oned fight­ers.

The same time that in the city cen­tre “cel­e­bra­tions” are organ­ised to wel­come the new year we, by strik­ing, mean to prove that the flame of nega­tion won’t cease to burn nor even this new year, against any repres­sive plan.

Free­dom to Chr. Kon­tore­vithakis and M. Tsoura­pas.”

Shell to Sea protest at Bellanaboy and Belmullet

Feb­ru­ary 2 2008
To coin­cide with Shell announc­ing their annu­al prof­its (of around €18 bil­lion), yes­ter­day morn­ing around 80 peo­ple gath­ered at Bel­lan­aboy to show their con­tin­ued oppo­si­tion to Shel­l’s plans for Mayo. Fac­ing a bit­ing wind and show­ers of hail and snow, the pro­tes­tors high­light­ed the fact that even with all this prof­it, Shell still haven’t clean up their act. As if the ele­ments weren’t bad enough, the pro­tes­tors also had to con­tend with being out­num­bered by about 2 to 1 by the hero­ic guardians of the State. This local day of protest against Shell was met with a exces­sive Gar­da pres­ence of at least a 150 to act as pri­vate secu­ri­ty for Shell. Of course the whole Cor­rib project fails to ben­e­fit the peo­ple of Ire­land and all Shel­l’s con­struc­tion costs are writ­ten off against tax.

Belmullet Shell to SeaFeb­ru­ary 2 2008
To coin­cide with Shell announc­ing their annu­al prof­its (of around €18 bil­lion), yes­ter­day morn­ing around 80 peo­ple gath­ered at Bel­lan­aboy to show their con­tin­ued oppo­si­tion to Shel­l’s plans for Mayo. Fac­ing a bit­ing wind and show­ers of hail and snow, the pro­tes­tors high­light­ed the fact that even with all this prof­it, Shell still haven’t clean up their act. As if the ele­ments weren’t bad enough, the pro­tes­tors also had to con­tend with being out­num­bered by about 2 to 1 by the hero­ic guardians of the State. This local day of protest against Shell was met with a exces­sive Gar­da pres­ence of at least a 150 to act as pri­vate secu­ri­ty for Shell. Of course the whole Cor­rib project fails to ben­e­fit the peo­ple of Ire­land and all Shel­l’s con­struc­tion costs are writ­ten off against tax.

At around 9.30am a sec­tion of the pro­tes­tors went in to Bel­mul­let to con­tin­ue their protest and to hand out leaflets regard­ing Shel­l’s dead­ly record. Around 30 peo­ple stood around the main round­about and received a very pos­i­tive response. They wait­ed until all their leaflets were hand­ed out, before retir­ing for some well earned warm tea & cof­fee around 12.30pm. At first, the Gar­dai con­tin­ued to use overkill tac­tics but soon realised they can’t get away with this in the full view of Bel­mul­let. Despite the bit­ter weath­er, there was lots of sup­port and it felt a good suc­cess.

One dis­taste­ful aspect to the day was the fact that, for the first time, mem­bers of the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp were pre­vent­ed from mak­ing their way to Bel­lan­aboy gates. On 3 sep­a­rate routes the camp van was blocked from mak­ing their way to the pick­et. Ini­tial­ly the gar­daí sought to open up the back of the camp van with­out quot­ing a nec­es­sary sec­tion of law. Under the Road Traf­fic Act, the guards don’t have author­i­ty to search a vehi­cle even though this has­n’t stopped them doing it on many occa­sions around the Bel­lan­aboy area. At the ini­tial road block, the guard also opened both the dri­vers and a side door before he was told that this behav­iour was not allowed. When ques­tionned, the gar­daí kept on quot­ing the Road Traf­fic Act and gave the dri­ver of the van the choice of either turn­ing around or allow­ing the gar­daí to search the vehi­cle. The dri­ver refused both these options and stayed where he was for a con­sid­er­able time on each occa­sion. As a mat­ter of prin­ci­ple, the dri­ver refused to allow a vehi­cle search unless they quot­ed a suf­fi­cient law. On numer­ous occa­sions the gar­daí direct­ed the dri­ver to leave. How­ev­er it shows the shaky ground that the gar­daí knew they were on as they nev­er cau­tioned the dri­ver that he would be arrest­ed.
Over­all the 6 camp mem­bers in the van tried for over 2 hours (from around 7–9am) to try to get to the gates dur­ing which time many cars were sim­ply waved through with­out being searched. They were stopped on 5 dif­fer­ent occa­sions and on each occa­sion any­thing from 3 to 6 gar­da vans and squads were around the van. At the Bel­lan­aboy bridge car park, pas­sen­gers in the van ques­tioned both one of the gar­daí who stopped them and an Inspec­tor in charge. At one stage the gar­da stat­ed the “Offences against the State” gave them author­i­ty to search the vehi­cle, while the Inspec­tor stat­ed that ‘Com­mon Law’ gave them the author­i­ty. The dri­ver con­firmed that the only law quot­ed at him was the Road Traf­fic Act which the Inspec­tor basi­cal­ly admit­ted did­n’t give them the author­i­ty to search.

The gar­daí often claim that they are there to uphold the right to peace­ful­ly protest but this event clear­ly showed a com­plete mis­use of pow­er. How­ev­er this failed to dis­tract pro­tes­tors from high­light­ing Shel­l’s €18bn prof­it at the expense of com­mu­ni­ty’s world­wide. Over­all it was a very pos­i­tive day and a nice start to the spring.

Relat­ed Link: http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/business_money/north+sea+safety+concerns/1460452
————

Leaflet text:

Shell prof­its rise — Ire­land gets 0%

Shell has announced record prof­its of €18 bil­lion for the year, that’s €49.3 mil­lion per day! Shell has stat­ed that it is too expen­sive to refine at sea. How­ev­er, Shell’s prof­its clear­ly show this is untrue and unbe­liev­ably, the Irish law was changed so that all their build­ing costs can be writ­ten off against tax!

Increased cost to refine at sea = €360 mil­lion
That’s about one week of Shell’s prof­its!

It is clear that these vast prof­its come at the expense of the coun­tries, com­mu­ni­ties and envi­ron­ments that Shell oper­ate. Look at the dis­as­ters of Rus­sia and Nigeria…will you allow Shell to do this here?

In Texas, where Shell oper­ates a large oil refin­ery, med­ical sur­veys have found that 70% of the town’s inhab­i­tants have asso­ci­at­ed med­ical com­plaints.

Shell always put prof­its first
Shell in fact has the worse work­force death record of all the major oil com­pa­nies.

Com­pa­ny 2003 Deaths 2004 Deaths 2005 Deaths 2006 Deaths
Exxon Mobil 23 6 8 10
Shell 45 37 36 37
BP 20 11 27 7
Work­force deaths for the 3 biggest oil & gas com­pa­nies

If Shell care so lit­tle for the lives of their own work­ers, do you trust them to pri­ori­tise the safe­ty of our com­mu­ni­ty?

So far in Erris we know that every sin­gle water mon­i­tor­ing report car­ried out by Mayo Coun­ty Coun­cil is above the lim­its for alu­mini­um since Shell removed peat from Bel­lan­aboy. The water from the Bel­lan­aboy refin­ery site goes direct­ly into Car­row­more Lake. Shell acknowl­edged respon­si­bil­i­ty for this prob­lem and installed the Axon­ics water treat­ment plant. How­ev­er, it was unable to cope with the demand dur­ing Shell’s peat haulage and so the alu­mini­um lev­els have increased and the prob­lem has wors­ened.

The Scot­tish EPA (who has licensed numer­ous refiner­ies in Scot­land) has stat­ed that a refin­ery which falls with­in the catch­ment area of a drink­ing water sup­ply would not get per­mis­sion to oper­ate in Scot­land.

Con­sent can­not be bought
Shell has recent­ly announced their new wish “to be a good neigh­bour”. Send­ing 5 men to jail for try­ing to pro­tect their com­mu­ni­ty was not a great start! And things haven’t improved since then. Shell have not tak­en on board our con­cerns and con­tin­ue to ignore the peo­ple who are threat­ened with this exper­i­men­tal project on their doorstep. Shell is still intent on forc­ing through a raw gas pipeline through unsta­ble land in close prox­im­i­ty of hous­es and a school.

“No oth­er coun­try in the world has giv­en the oil company’s such favourable terms” Mike Cun­ning­ham, for­mer Sta­toil direc­tor

We deserve a bet­ter deal: Don’t take Shell’s crumbs!
Giv­en the obscene­ly gen­er­ous terms at which Shell got the Cor­rib Gas, it’s no sur­prise that Shell are hap­py to give out a few col­lege schol­ar­ships and grants here and there. Instead our nat­ur­al resources should be going to ben­e­fit our edu­ca­tion and health sys­tems and coun­try as a whole.
In the ear­ly 70’s, Nor­way chose to use their nat­ur­al resources to ben­e­fit their peo­ple and today the coun­try ranks as hav­ing the best qual­i­ty of life in the world.
Because all of Shell’s con­struc­tion costs can be writ­ten off against tax, the mon­ey Shell are try­ing to offer to our com­mu­ni­ty belongs to us in the first place! The per­cent­age giv­en back is noth­ing com­pared to the €50 bil­lion worth of Irish gas they own!

For more infor­ma­tion or to request a copy of the Chan­nel 4 ‘Polic­ing the pol­lu­tion’ film, please con­tact 0851141170.

Newts delay A47 — M1 is left for us to stop

Newts halt work on vil­lage bypass
Work on a long-await­ed bypass in Leices­ter­shire has been held up because a pro­tect­ed species of newt has been found in the con­struc­tion area.

Newts halt work on vil­lage bypass
Work on a long-await­ed bypass in Leices­ter­shire has been held up because a pro­tect­ed species of newt has been found in the con­struc­tion area.

Work start­ed in Sep­tem­ber on the Earl Shilton bypass — planned for more than 20 years — and is set to cost £15m.

But a colony of great crest­ed newts has been found and their pro­tect­ed sta­tus means it is ille­gal to dis­turb them.

When tem­per­a­tures rise, the newts will come out of hiber­na­tion and move to a pond, allow­ing work to con­tin­ue.

‘Hor­ror sto­ries’

The coun­ty coun­cil’s direc­tor of high­ways, Matthew Lugg, said he was hope­ful the lost time could be made up.

Mr Lugg said: “It is very dif­fi­cult to detect these species and no mat­ter how much you do to detect these crea­tures, it’s not nec­es­sar­i­ly going to be com­pre­hen­sive.

“We are hope­ful though that we can make up the time and get back on track. There have been some real hor­ror sto­ries in oth­er parts of the coun­try and our sit­u­a­tion could have been much worse.”

The bypass is due to open late in 2008.

The route is about 5km (three miles) long and fol­lows the cor­ri­dor that links the A47 perime­ter road from a new round­about at Carrs Hill to the A47 Leices­ter Road.

»»»»»>
A small part of the M1 has already been widened, but the bat­tle remains to be fought — 115 miles of it and we can still stop it!

http://www.nowideningm1.org.uk/

Spring into action (though storms may be at the door) — the latest issue of the EF! Action Update has burst forth

Read all about occu­pa­tions & lock-ons of big indus­tri­al places around the world, cor­po­rate & gov­ern­ment block­ades, squat­ting, air­port inva­sions, sub­ver­tis­ing, cli­mate crim­i­nals locked & glued shut, trees climbed and chopped down, GM maize fields trashed, hunger strikes, bur­row­ing under fences, jump­ing on w

Rabbit under fenceRead all about occu­pa­tions & lock-ons of big indus­tri­al places around the world, cor­po­rate & gov­ern­ment block­ades, squat­ting, air­port inva­sions, sub­ver­tis­ing, cli­mate crim­i­nals locked & glued shut, trees climbed and chopped down, GM maize fields trashed, hunger strikes, bur­row­ing under fences, jump­ing on whal­ing boats, Buy­ing Noth­ing, Reclaim­ing the Streets and the unstop­pable singing of Christ­mas songs, not to men­tion skat­ing pen­guins. Even some upcom­ing dates to get stuck in or to meet oth­er direct action cra­zies. We could­n’t make it up even if we tried.

Anoth­er bumper issue, with a spe­cial insert on Agro­fu­els includ­ing a list of refiner­ies ‘in the pipeline’ or already on the ground, plus a legal update about the recent changes to your access to solic­i­tors in police sta­tions.

The lat­est issue of the Earth First! Action Update burst forth at the lat­est nation­al meet­ing of the Camp for Cli­mate Action (see climatecamp.org.uk for how the camp idea is auda­cious­ly mor­ph­ing this year).

Down­load it to print out and share here. Do get in touch with the edi­to­r­i­al col­lec­tive to let them know if you’re dish­ing it up round your way, or need paper copies, or want to give them one of the rar­er ingre­di­ents, dosh (to send it to pris­on­ers, protest camps and far beyond) — their con­tact details and more are here.

Lakenheath 8 finally go to Trial for Socpa 128

On 26th 27th and 28th of March 2008 the Lak­en­heath 8 final­ly go to tri­al for a soc­pa 128 and crim­i­nal dam­age charge. The L8 took action in Octo­ber 2006 at USAF Lak­en­heath in Suf­folk against the use of clus­ter bombs and con­ven­tion­al weapons in Iraq and Afghanistan. The 8 activists, Pete, Les­ley, Mell, Les­ley, Richie, Mar­garet, Irene and Emma entered the nuclear base and locked them­selves to the muni­tions area gates to stop the load­ing of weapons onto the F15 e planes. The new at the time ‘soc­pa’ laws cov­ered the base and the 8 new that they max­i­mum sen­tence was a year in prison and a £5,000 fine. Since that action Mell, Emma,Irene and 3 oth­ers took anoth­er action to blo­cakade Lak­en­heath in Octo­ber 2007 and the court has decid­ed to put them on tri­al for obstruc­tion at the same time as the Lak­en­heath 8. The tri­al will be held at Bury st Edmunds court in Suf­folk and the defen­dants would like as much sup­port as pos­si­ble.

On 26th 27th and 28th of March 2008 the Lak­en­heath 8 final­ly go to tri­al for a soc­pa 128 and crim­i­nal dam­age charge. The L8 took action in Octo­ber 2006 at USAF Lak­en­heath in Suf­folk against the use of clus­ter bombs and con­ven­tion­al weapons in Iraq and Afghanistan. The 8 activists, Pete, Les­ley, Mell, Les­ley, Richie, Mar­garet, Irene and Emma entered the nuclear base and locked them­selves to the muni­tions area gates to stop the load­ing of weapons onto the F15 e planes. The new at the time ‘soc­pa’ laws cov­ered the base and the 8 new that they max­i­mum sen­tence was a year in prison and a £5,000 fine. Since that action Mell, Emma,Irene and 3 oth­ers took anoth­er action to blo­cakade Lak­en­heath in Octo­ber 2007 and the court has decid­ed to put them on tri­al for obstruc­tion at the same time as the Lak­en­heath 8. The tri­al will be held at Bury st Edmunds court in Suf­folk and the defen­dants would like as much sup­port as pos­si­ble.
‘soc­pa effects us all, our right to protest is being tak­en from us and we must stand up against these ridicu­lous laws’.
Bring your ban­ners! a tour of the US nuclear base, inside or out is also being offered! ( Are you watch­ing spe­cial intel­li­gence?? you had bet­ter have many police on secu­ri­ty for at least a month!)
Accom­mo­da­tion is avail­able for sup­port­ers and food will be pro­vid­ed by BSE Quak­ers.

Climate Activists block Copenhagen powerplant

29.01.2008
Approx­i­mate­ly 50 activists from the Dan­ish group Cli­maX blocked the main entrance to a pow­er­plant in Copen­hagen owned by the DONG Ener­gy cor­po­ra­tion.

Dong blockade 1
Dong blockade 229.01.2008
Approx­i­mate­ly 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 coal­fired pow­er­plant in north­ern Ger­many. This pow­er­plant when com­plet­ed will dou­ble the CO2 emis­sions of the state. The build­ing of the pow­er­plant have been heav­i­ly critizised by the local com­mu­ni­ty and cli­mate organ­i­sa­tions. The Dan­ish state owns the major­i­ty of the stocks in DONG Ener­gy.

“When the lead­ers of DONG and the Dan­ish state fails to respect the cli­mate, we react. Den­mark will nev­er be a lead­ing coun­try in coun­ter­ing cli­mate changes when they own com­pa­nies who make pow­er on the worst CO2-pol­lut­ing way pos­si­ble” says Daniel Rask from Cli­maX.

The action was colour­ful and cre­ative. Along with noise and col­ors the activists brought a large wood­en wind­mill with them, which they locked them­selves onto.

The action end­ed peace­ful­ly when the block­ade was lift­ed after about two hours.

Cli­max will con­tin­ue the actions up until the big cli­mate sum­mit in Den­mark in 2009. Cli­maX can be reached on the email adress klimax(circle‑A)forum.dk .

Coulsdon residents’ barricade halts phone mast

27.1.08
Con­struc­tion of a phone mast in Couls­don has been halt­ed after more than 100 angry pro­test­ers bar­ri­cad­ed the site.

Coulsdon phone mast protest 1
Coulsdon phone mast protest 227.1.08
Con­struc­tion of a phone mast in Couls­don has been halt­ed after more than 100 angry pro­test­ers bar­ri­cad­ed the site.

Res­i­dents and par­ents blocked two trucks and two cranes from access­ing the pro­posed mast site on Sandown Road this morn­ing in a bid to stop the trans­mit­ter being fixed to a build­ing oppo­site Chip­stead Val­ley Pri­ma­ry School.

The pro­test­ers, under the ban­ner of the Radio Action group, said there were already 15 mobile masts in less than one square mile of the school.

A Radio Action spokesman said the 10 work­men remained in Sandown Road for more than two hours before turn­ing back after dis­cus­sions with res­i­dents.

He said the group was con­cerned about the health effects of mobile mast trans­mis­sions, par­tic­u­lar­ly on chil­dren.

It is believed phone com­pa­ny T Mobile want to fix the mast to the first floor of the build­ing in Sandown Road.

Stockholm blockade against motorway

26 Jan­u­ary. Some 50 activists from Kli­max marched into the traf­fic on one of the major streets in inner city Stock­holm, seiz­ing it for 15 min­utes.

Stockholm blockade vs motorway26 Jan­u­ary. Some 50 activists from Kli­max 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.

Western UK sabotage for the animals

COUNTRYSIDE ALLAINCE SIGNS DESTROYED AND HUNT CARS SCRATCHED.
24 Jan­u­ary 2008
Coun­try­side allaince signs were smashed and the side of a lan­drover was scratched, anoth­er hunt car had both sides and bon­net scraped hope the respray did­nt cost too much!

COUNTRYSIDE ALLAINCE SIGNS DESTROYED AND HUNT CARS SCRATCHED.
24 Jan­u­ary 2008
Coun­try­side allaince signs were smashed and the side of a lan­drover was scratched, anoth­er hunt car had both sides and bon­net scraped hope the respray did­nt cost too much!
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MCDONALDS GETS THE ALF TREATMENT.
23 Jan­u­ary 2008
“MEAT IS MURDER” was spray paint­ed on the front and back win­dows of a McDon­alds in the west, just to make sure they had trou­ble open­ing on time the next day all of the locks were glued.
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HUNT SCUM CAR RECIEVES PASSING VISIT FROM THE ALF
22 Jan­u­ary 2008
Pass­ing mem­bers of the ALF decid­ed to make the pro hunt stick­ers on one car in the west impos­si­ble to see when the car had all its win­dows where cov­ered com­plete­ly in spray paint­ed (have fun try­ing to dri­ve it to the garage!).

Mes­sages such as “ALF” and “HUNT SCUM” were left on the side so all the oth­er hunters in the area new why it had been done.

If you sup­port the hunt you are scum, but we do appre­ci­ate it when you dis­play stick­ers let­ting us know this fact, this way we can make sure you get what is com­ing to you!

For the ani­mals!

Your friend­ly local ALFers!

Read more at http://www.animalliberation.co.uk/

Teenager arrested after tying herself to Japananese Embassy

25.1.2008
A British teenag­er has been arrest­ed after tying her­self to a stair­case at the Japan­ese Embassy in Lon­don in a protest over whal­ing, she said. Sophie said last night: “I hon­est­ly think that me hav­ing a crim­i­nal record is not a big price to pay when what the whales are going through is so much worse.”

25.1.2008
A British teenag­er has been arrest­ed after tying her­self to a stair­case at the Japan­ese Embassy in Lon­don in a protest over whal­ing, she said. Sophie said last night: “I hon­est­ly think that me hav­ing a crim­i­nal record is not a big price to pay when what the whales are going through is so much worse.”

A British teenag­er has been arrest­ed after tying her­self to a stair­case at the Japan­ese Embassy in Lon­don in a protest over whal­ing, she said.

Sophie Wyness, 14, and her father Mar­tin attached them­selves to a stone stair­case inside the embassy lob­by with cable ties overnight, say­ing it was wrong to “bru­tal­ly mur­der” whales.

Sophie said last night: “I hon­est­ly think that me hav­ing a crim­i­nal record is not a big price to pay when what the whales are going through is so much worse.”

It is not the first time the 14-year-old, who has also cam­paigned against Aus­trali­a’s nuclear pol­i­cy, has been removed from a protest but it is the first time she has been arrest­ed.

She said: “I have just been released. We have been charged with crim­i­nal tres­pass and it will go before the Attor­ney Gen­er­al, not the CPS, because of the polit­i­cal impli­ca­tions.”

The teenag­er was inspired to take action after watch­ing a film about the Green­peace ves­sel Esper­an­za — which is cur­rent­ly dis­rupt­ing the activ­i­ties of the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet in the South­ern Ocean.

One video clip last­ing 30 sec­onds, which showed a whale being blown up, had “hit me hard”, she explained ear­li­er.

The video pushed her to stage the hour-long protest because she felt it was wrong to wrong to “bru­tal­ly mur­der” whales.

“It’s a very impor­tant sub­ject at the moment. They’re such amaz­ing crea­tures and they deserve rights and love and a bit of respect,” she said.

“I have total respect for the Japan­ese peo­ple but not what they’re doing out there with the whales.”

She said tak­ing direct action was the only way to get atten­tion on the issue.

“Hope­ful­ly it’ll get put out there and show we’re not going to sit back and let them get away with it.”

Mr Wyness said he was only involved in the protest in order to sup­port his daugh­ter and spoke of his pride that she had been so res­olute in stand­ing up for her con­vic­tions.

He said: “I was real­ly only there as back up. This was Sophie’s day.”

He added: “I am extreme­ly proud of Sophie. She is an amaz­ing, amaz­ing young woman full or courage and deter­mi­na­tion and her con­vic­tions are very strong. This doc­u­men­tary gen­uine­ly moved her to the point where she want­ed to do some­thing about it.

Quotes tak­en from thelondonpaper.com