Author: earthfirst

Privatisation planning barbed wire destroyed (Athens, 11/11/2007)

After an open assem­bly of the dis­trict res­i­dents, with an atten­dance of more than 300 per­sons, that focused on the mat­ters of the pri­vati­sa­tion of the Filopap­pou hills, the tress­pass­ing, the fences and the com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion of the area (check out the sources for more infor­ma­tion), it was decid­ed that the fences and wires should be brought down by the res­i­dents their­selves, as it was realised despite the police pres­ence.

Filopappou demoFilopappou fence downedFilopappou gate pushed downAfter an open assem­bly of the dis­trict res­i­dents, with an atten­dance of more than 300 per­sons, that focused on the mat­ters of the pri­vati­sa­tion of the Filopap­pou hills, the tress­pass­ing, the fences and the com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion of the area (check out the sources for more infor­ma­tion), it was decid­ed that the fences and wires should be brought down by the res­i­dents their­selves, as it was realised despite the police pres­ence.

Sources (Greek only) — pho­tos: http://militant-entertainment.blogspot.com
http://filopappou.wordpress.com
http://www.indy.gr/newswire/oi-katoikoi-kslosan-perifraksi-stoy-filopappoy

Nuclear Convoy Stopped

At approx­i­mate­ly 10.30 on the 12th of Novem­ber 3 activists from Faslane Peace Camp locked on across the Glen Fru­in Haul road, stop­ping a nuclear con­voy for half an hour whilst it was en route from RNAD Coul­port to AWE Burgh­field.

At approx­i­mate­ly 10.30 on the 12th of Novem­ber 3 activists from Faslane Peace Camp locked on across the Glen Fru­in Haul road, stop­ping a nuclear con­voy for half an hour whilst it was en route from RNAD Coul­port to AWE Burgh­field. The con­voy itself car­ries weapons of mass destruc­tion the equal of 24 Hiroshi­mas along pub­lic high­ways and through pop­u­la­tion cen­tres. The mon­i­tor­ing of these move­ments by activists have result­ed in this being the sec­ond con­sec­u­tive con­voy stop in as many months. For fur­ther infor­ma­tion about nuclear weapons con­voys see www.nukewatch.org.uk

Climate Action News Sheet, 73 November 2007

CONTENTS:
———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) WILD LIE EXHIBITION PURSUES SHELL TO ABERYSTWYTH — 10–17.11.07

CONTENTS:
———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) WILD LIE EXHIBITION PURSUES SHELL TO ABERYSTWYTH — 10–17.11.07
2) FREE FILM SCREENING OF ‘THE WARNING’ — LONDON, 12.11.07
3) TOTTERDOWN ART TRAIL — BRISTOL, 16–18.11.07
4) OXFORDSHIRE ECO-HOUSE OPEN DAYS — 24–25.11.07
5) BANNER PROTEST AT BIOFUELS CONFERENCE — LONDON, 27.11.07
6) CRITICAL MASS DATES AND UPDATES – OCT/NOV 2007
7) CLIMATE CHANGE BIKE RIDE / NATIONAL MARCH — LONDON, 8.12.07
8) BEYONDTV FESTIVAL — SWANSEA, 28.11.07–2.12.07
9) CLIMATE CAMP EXHIBITION ON TOUR — WINTER 2007
10) LOW-IMPACT LIVING INITIATIVE COURSES — WINTER 2007
11) PLYMOUTH ENVIRONMENT CENTRE ART EXHIBITION – NOV/DEC 2007
12) EARTHFIRST MOOT / NEW ACTION UPDATE — WINTER 2007
13) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY — 1.4.08
———————————————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
———————————————-
1) SONGS OF FREEDOM AT OPENING OF SHELL’S WILD LIE EXHIBITION — 27.10.07
2) NATIONAL DAY OF LOCAL ACTION VS. ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND — 15.10.07
3) PEOPLE’S BLOCKADE OF WORLD’S BIGGEST COAL PORT — AUSTRALIA, 3.11.07
4) GREENWASH GUERILLAS DISRUPT “CARBON TRAITORS” IN NEW YORK — 30.10.07
5) BP EXECUTIVE PIED AT EUROPE’S LARGEST BIOFUELS EVENT — 17.10.07
6) CAMP HOPE, GLOUCESTER — 20–21.10.07
7) PLANE STUPID AT MANCHESTER AIRPORT — 8.10.2007
8) GREENPEACE PROTESTORS SHUT DOWN POWER PLANT — 8.10.07
9) TOTAL BLOCKADES — OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2007
10) NUFFGLOBAL FILMS — NOVEMBER 2007
11) ESCALATING DEFLATION CAMPAIGN AGAINST 4X4S IN SWEDEN – OCT ‘07
12) DIRECT ACTION NEWS FROM GREECE — 7–15.10.07
13) BATH BOMB, ISSUE 4 — NOVEMBER 2007

———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) WILD LIE EXHIBITION PURSUES SHELL TO ABERYSTWYTH — 10–17.11.07
Imme­di­ate­ly after host­ing the 2006 Shell Wildlife Pho­tog­ra­ph­er exhi­bi­tion (organ­ised by the Nat­ur­al His­to­ry Muse­um and BBC Wildlife mag­a­zine) Aberys­t­wyth Arts Cen­tre is show­ing our counter-exhi­bi­tion; ‘Shel­l’s Wild Lie’. http://www.aberystwythartscentre.co.uk/whatson/exhibitions/
‘Shel­l’s Wild Lie’, has been put togeth­er as part of Lon­don Ris­ing Tide’s ‘Art Not Oil’ cam­paign, and fea­tures pho­tographs and illus­tra­tions that we con­sid­er give a truer snap­shot of the dis­as­trous effects that Shell and the whole fos­sil fuel indus­try have on our plan­et:
http://www.artnotoil.org.uk/gallery/v/Shell/
Book it your­self, and tell the Muse­um and BBC Wildlife what you think:
m.dixon@nhm.ac.uk, cc’ing to feedback@nhm.ac.uk,
wildlifeletters@bbcmagazinesbristol.com & info@artnotoil.org.uk

2) FREE FILM SCREENING, THE WARNING — LONDON, 12.11.07
The first UK screen­ing of the award-win­ning film “The Warn­ing” will be on 12th Novem­ber, 8pm at Pass­ing Clouds Works in Dal­ston, east Lon­don. This doc­u­men­tary charts the strug­gle of Siber­ian com­mu­ni­ties to pro­tect their sacred lands from preda­to­ry oil com­pa­nies. Pass­ing Clouds is behind ‘Uncle Sam’s’, which is on 438 Kings­land Road. Get there from Shored­itch /Old Street on the 242, 243, 67 or 149 bus­es.

3) TOTTERDOWN ART TRAIL — BRISTOL, 16–18.11.07
Includ­ing art, films and exhi­bi­tions con­nect­ed with cli­mate change and peak oil. www.frontroom.org.uk

4) OXFORDSHIRE ECO-HOUSE OPEN DAYS — 24–25.11.07
Are you plan­ning to ren­o­vate your house in the most envi­ron­men­tal way pos­si­ble? Do you want to slash ener­gy bills and make your house warmer and health­i­er? Are you sell­ing your house and want to improve its poor ener­gy rat­ing? Do you want to pre­pare for life in the cli­mate change cen­tu­ry? 18 eco-hous­es in Oxford­shire are open­ing their doors to the pub­lic to share the tech­niques, prod­ucts and pos­si­bil­i­ties of eco-ren­o­va­tion. This is a superb oppor­tu­ni­ty to see a wide range of approach­es and talk to the house own­ers direct­ly about their expe­ri­ences.
www.ecovation.org.uk
www.coinet.org.uk

5) BANNER PROTEST AT BIOFUELS CONFERENCE — LONDON, 27.11.07
This will take place out­side the Bio­fu­el Finance and Invest­ment World Con­fer­ence at Roy­al Gar­den Hotel, Kens­ing­ton High Street (near High Street Kens­ing­ton tube sta­tion) on Tues­day, 27th Novem­ber, 12 noon to 2pm.
Bio­fu­el invest­ment means more glob­al warm­ing, more defor­esta­tion, more peo­ple going hun­gry because of high­er food prices and food short­ages, and more human rights abus­es and refugees as agribusi­ness­es take con­trol over ever larg­er areas of land.
www.biofuelwatch.org.uk

6) CRITICAL MASS DATES AND UPDATES — OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2007
Sheffield; last Fri­day of the month, 5:30pm at the Uni­ver­si­ty Con­course.
Lon­don; last Fri­day of the month, 6:00pm under Water­loo Bridge by the NFT, South Bank. Next ride Novem­ber 23rd 2007.
http://criticalmasslondon.org.uk/main.html
For reports on the Octo­ber rides see;
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/6274

7) CLIMATE CHANGE BIKE RIDE / NATIONAL MARCH — LONDON, 8.12.07
Sat­ur­day 8 Decem­ber, Cyclists assem­ble 10am Lin­col­n’s Inn Fields. Cycling to Par­lia­ment Square to link up with main march to US Embassy, (timed to coin­cide with the UN cli­mate talks in Bali). Marchers assem­ble 12 noon Mill­bank for main march. [West­min­ster Tube]
2.30 pm Ral­ly at US embassy. Speak­ers include Chris Huhne MP, Michael Meach­er MP, Car­o­line Lucas MEP, Zac Gold­smith, George Mon­biot. The Nation­al Demo in Lon­don will be one of many glob­al cli­mate demon­stra­tions tak­ing place on the 8th.
http://www.campaigncc.org

8) BEYONDTV FESTIVAL — SWANSEA, 28.11.07–2.12.07
Under­cur­rents will host the 8th annu­al BEYONDTV fes­ti­val of polit­i­cal doc­u­men­taries, ani­ma­tions and music videos from inspir­ing media direc­tors. All films will have a theme of social or envi­ron­men­tal activism. Host­ed in the very heart of Swansea, BeyondTV promis­es to be an enter­tain­ing week with all pro­ceeds going to to sup­port the char­i­ty work of under­cur­rents.
http://beyondtvfestival.clearerchannel.org/whatisbtv

9) CLIMATE CAMP EXHIBITION ON TOUR — WINTER 2007
The Cli­mate Camp exhi­bi­tion doc­u­ments in sound, words, instal­la­tions and images the life, work­shops and direct action of those ten busy days in August. It exam­ines the issues and think­ing of peo­ple who seek to stop the world sleep­walk­ing into a dis­as­ter that is man­i­fest­ly pre­ventable, but huge­ly prof­itable for a pow­er­ful few. This exhi­bi­tion will be tour­ing UK cities threat­ened by region­al air­port expan­sion.
Work­shops, talks and film screen­ings will appear at http://www.minimouse.me.uk/show as they are con­firmed.
Pho­tographs from the show are a selec­tion from those to be seen at
http://www.minimouse.me.uk/photographers.html

10) LOW-IMPACT LIVING INITIATIVE COURSES — WINTER 2007
LILI will be run­ning 10 cours­es at a new venue called Unstone Grange (nr. Sheffield) and 28 one day cours­es at Hack­ney City Farm in Lon­don. For the full range of cours­es for 2007–2008, see;
http://www.lowimpact.org/courses.htm

11) PLYMOUTH ENVIRONMENT CENTRE ART EXHIBITION – NOV-DEC 2007
Ply­mouth Envi­ron­ment Cen­tre is hold­ing a fund-rais­ing art exhi­bi­tion and auc­tion at the B‑bar in the Bar­bi­can The­atre, Ply­mouth.
Exhi­bi­tion — Fri­day 23rd Novem­ber to Thurs­day 13th Decem­ber 2007
Auc­tion — Thurs­day 13th Decem­ber 2007 start­ing at 7pm
http://plymouthenvironmentcentre.org.uk/art_auction.php

12) EARTHFIRST MOOT / NEW ACTION UPDATE — WINTER 2007
To down­load the EF! Action Update and for advance notice of the Win­ter Moot (Feb­ru­ary gath­er­ing of eco-activists) see;
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/6347

13) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY — 1.4.08
The site is now run­ning and will be fill­ing up with images, ideas, graph­ics, posters, links…
Check for updates on what promis­es to be a mem­o­rable day of action.
http://www.fossilfoolsday.org

———————————————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
———————————————-
1) SONGS OF FREEDOM AT OPENING OF SHELL’S WILD LIE EXHIBITION — 27.10.07
15 or so folk from all over Car­bon Town gath­ered today to sing a new hymn of hope to an oil-free future in the co-opt­ed cathe­dral that is the Unnat­ur­al His­to­ry Muse­um, where the heart­break­ing­ly beau­ti­ful Shell Wildlife Pho­tog­ra­ph­er of the Year exhi­bi­tion has just opened. Grad­u­al­ly the singers were removed, gath­er­ing again on the pave­ment out­side with
images from the Shel­l’s Wild Lie exhi­bi­tion and more songs. Spir­its were high, and respons­es from the pub­lic love­ly and heart-warm­ing. No police were present. It still looks as if the cam­paign to get Shell kicked out as spon­sor might bear fruit — we’ll find out very soon if its 2 year con­tract will be renewed. Let’s keep the pres­sure up!
For a full report and what you can do to help, see;
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/231
http://www.artnotoil.org.uk//content/view/39/1/
For a short film of the action, see;
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/10/384607.html

2) NATIONAL DAY OF LOCAL ACTION VS. ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND — 15.10.07
From Edin­burgh to Corn­wall, block­ades to invis­i­ble the­atre, polar bears to trea­cle tarts; RBS felt the sting today. All in all there were 32 actions across the coun­try includ­ing firsts for sev­er­al groups. Every­one is delight­ed with the phe­nom­e­nal response to the day of action…except RBS of course! The actions high­light­ed their role as one of the world’s
largest fun­ders of cli­mate-wreck­ing oil and gas extrac­tion. For full reports on the var­i­ous fan­tas­tic protests see;
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/230
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/10/383812.html
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/5176

3) THE PEOPLE’S BLOCKADE OF THE WORLD’S BIGGEST COAL PORT — AUSTRALIA,
3.11.07
Ris­ing Tide Aus­tralia esti­mate that about 400 peo­ple came to Horse­shoe Beach, New­cas­tle and that about 250 entered the ship­ping chan­nel to block­ade the world’s biggest coal port with canoes, kayaks and inner tubes. This was a fan­tas­tic show of com­mu­ni­ty deter­mi­na­tion to take action against Aus­trali­a’s biggest con­tri­bu­tion to cli­mate change, despite
resis­tance from gov­ern­ment and indus­try. As well as being a pow­er­ful and sym­bol­ic action, the protest suc­ceed­ed in dis­rupt­ing coal exports from New­cas­tle Har­bour.
http://www.risingtide.org.au/peoplesblockadereport

4) GREENWASH GUERILLAS DISRUPT “CARBON TRAITORS” IN NEW YORK — 30.10.07
Ris­ing Tide North America’s Green­wash Guer­ril­las paid a sur­prise Hal­loween vis­it to the Car­bon Mar­ket Insights con­fer­ence in New York City. Pos­ing as del­e­gates, two pro­test­ers took the stage at the exclu­sive event and pre­sent­ed the 700 atten­dees with a “Deed to the Atmos­phere” denounc­ing Car­bon Trad­ing as a sham approach to the fos­sil fuels cri­sis. The action was the first in the US to tar­get the grow­ing Car­bon Trad­ing indus­try.
http://risingtidenorthamerica.org/wordpress/category/front-page/

5) BP EXECUTIVE PIED AT EUROPE’S LARGEST BIOFUELS EVENT — 17.10.07
A stunned audi­ence gasped as a cream-pie was launched at BP Bio­fu­els’ Europe & Africa Direc­tor Oliv­er Mace, while activists swarmed the stage and hand­ed out leaflets to atten­dees. One of the pro­test­ers D‑locked him­self to the podi­um, telling del­e­gates “we need to reduce our con­sump­tion now – tech­no­log­i­cal fix­es are not the answer.” Pan­ic alarms
were then set off around the room and the con­fer­ence was halt­ed.
There was also a demo out­side the event and a lock on block­ade at a D1 refin­ery. D1 are one of the biggest traders in bio­fu­el spe­cif­ic crops.
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/10/384123.html
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/5205
http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/expoprotests.php

6) CAMP HOPE, GLOUCESTER — 20–21.10.07
Camp Hope took place in a field oppo­site the entrance to Glouces­ter­shire Air­port on the week­end of 20/21 Octo­ber 2007. Activists set up the camp in protest at the pro­posed expan­sion and increased avi­a­tion at Staver­ton in Glouces­ter. Work­shops and dis­cus­sions includ­ed those giv­en by; Bicy­col­o­gy, Plane Stu­pid, Seeds For Change, Stop Bris­tol Air­port Expan­sion and Bio­fu­el­watch.
http://www.myspace.com/campofhope

7) PLANE STUPID AT MANCHESTER AIRPORT — 8.10.2007
Activists from Man­ches­ter Cli­mate Action and Man­ches­ter Plane Stu­pid block­ad­ed the secu­ri­ty check-in of ter­mi­nal 3 of Man­ches­ter Air­port. Pas­sen­gers were denied access to the depar­ture lounge by sev­en activists locked togeth­er using arm-tube devices. Leaflets and train timeta­bles were hand­ed out. Two ban­ners were unfurled read­ing, Man­ches­ter City Council…supporting cli­mate chaos and Domes­tic flights cost the Earth. The action was inspired by the Camp for Cli­mate Action.
http://www.planestupid.com/?q=content/climate-change-activists-blockade-domestic-flights

8) GREENPEACE PROTESTORS SHUT DOWN POWER PLANT — 8.10.07
Green­peace cam­paign­ers staged a dawn raid at a pow­er plant which could be the site of Britain’s first new coal-fired sta­tion for 20 years. More than 50 activists said they want­ed Prime Min­is­ter Gor­don Brown to reject the pro­pos­al for the Kingsnorth site, on the Hoo Penin­su­la, in Kent. After enter­ing the site, one team locked on to con­vey­or belts while anoth­er team climbed to the top of the chim­ney.
http://greenpeace.org.uk/tags/kingsnorth

9) TOTAL BLOCKADES — OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2007
A wave of demon­stra­tions against the oil giant Total and its role in sup­port­ing the bru­tal regime in Bur­ma have tak­en place in Lon­don, Brad­ford, Cardiff and Oxford. While not strict­ly cli­mate-based, these protests keep the spot­light on crim­i­nals like Total. Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma’s pro-democ­ra­cy leader, said that “Total has become the main sup­port­er of the Burmese mil­i­tary regime.” She told the French week­ly Le Nou­v­el Obser­va­teur that “Total knew what it was doing when it invest­ed mas­sive­ly in Bur­ma while oth­ers with­drew from the mar­ket for eth­i­cal rea­sons”.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/5122 & 5137, 5204, 5207 & 6346

10) NUFFGLOBAL FILMS — NOVEMBER 2007
NUF­F­glob­al film fes­ti­val sup­port­ed a project to pro­duce 25 short films on dif­fer­ent aspects of cli­mate change made by young film-mak­ers from around the world. For more info and to watch the clips online see;
http://nuffglobal.net/

11) ESCALATING DEFLATION CAMPAIGN AGAINST 4X4S IN SWEDEN – OCT ‘07
One thou­sand 4x4s have now been dis­armed by The Indi­ans of the Con­crete Jun­gle! The cam­paign is spread­ing like wild­fire, prompt­ing nation­al debate and furi­ous aggres­sion among SUV-own­ers.
http://asfaltsdjungelnsindianer.wordpress.com/

12) DIRECT ACTION NEWS FROM GREECE — 7–15 OCTOBER 2007
http://directactiongr.blogspot.com

13) BATH BOMB, ISSUE 4 — NOVEMBER 2007
For the 4th edi­tion of Bath’s pre­miere rad­i­cal tabloid see; http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/11/385124.html

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).

Shell Targeted across Edinburgh

11 Nov 2007
In sol­i­dar­i­ty with the peo­ple of Ross­port and Nige­ria, the Shell petrol sta­tion on Dal­ry Road was block­ad­ed for 2 hours on Sat­ur­day by 20 peo­ple includ­ing mem­bers of the Clown Army. The Comis­ton Shell Petrol Sta­tion was sub­ject­ed to a night­time redec­o­ra­tion.

Shell Edinburgh blockade11 Nov 2007
In sol­i­dar­i­ty with the peo­ple of Ross­port and Nige­ria, the Shell petrol sta­tion on Dal­ry Road was block­ad­ed for 2 hours on Sat­ur­day by 20 peo­ple includ­ing mem­bers of the Clown Army. The Comis­ton Shell Petrol Sta­tion was sub­ject­ed to a night­time redec­o­ra­tion.
‘From Ogani­land to Ross­port’ was the mes­sage of anti-Shell pro­test­ers blockad­ing Shell
Petrol Sta­tion in Dal­ry Road, Edin­burgh, this morn­ing (Sat­ur­day 10 Novem­ber).

The group of around twen­ty pro­test­ers shut off the petrol sta­tion by block­ing entrances and hoist­ing signs. The pro­test­ers aimed to edu­cate and enter­tain those pre­vent­ed
from access­ing the sta­tion, bring­ing with them an array of musi­cal instru­ments and games
as well as infor­ma­tion about Shell.

An activist explained. ‘This action is not only a protest against Shel­l’s atro­cious envi­ron­men­tal record in the Niger Delta and Ross­port, Coun­ty Mayo, but also a ges­ture of sol­i­dar­i­ty with those who have already suf­fered so much at the hands of Shell. Today marks the twelfth anniver­sary of the death of Ken Saro-Wiwa who was exe­cut­ed by the
Niger­ian gov­ern­ment for his attempts to pro­tect the lands of his peo­ple, the Ogani com­mu­ni­ty. In addi­tion this time last year the Irish Gar­da police baton charged a peace­ful block­ade of the Shell refin­ery in Ross­port, injur­ing unarmed mem­bers of the Ross­port com­mu­ni­ty who were peace­ful­ly try­ing to pro­tect their homes from com­mer­cial exploita­tion. We stand in sup­port of these brave peo­ple and aim to draw atten­tion to the world­wide issue of Shel­l’s vio­la­tion of both human rights and the health of our plan­et in
pur­suit of prof­it’

Also attend­ing the block­ade was a gag­gle of clowns from the Clan­des­tine Insur­gent Rebel Clown Army, who brought a sense of com­ic fes­tiv­i­ty to the oth­er­wise somber anniver­sary.

Sergeant Toast explained: ‘We clowns rep­re­sent the sane in an insane world, where the prof­it of multi­na­tion­al com­pa­nies comes before the rights and lives of com­mu­ni­ties. Even the likes of Shell and their actions in the world can­not quell our sense of the joy­ous­ness and beau­ty of life and our deter­mi­na­tion to replace these com­mer­cial val­ues
with out own-those of play­ful­ness, free­dom and love. Join the Clan­des­tine Insur­gent Rebel
Clown Army and help us pro­tect our world and free­doms!’

The Ross­port com­mu­ni­ty of Coun­ty Mayo, Ire­land, have since 2000 waged an ongo­ing resis­tance to the attempts of Shell to turn their coast-land into the site of a tox­ic refin­ery with a high pres­sure gas pipeline which will cut through the com­mu­ni­ty, in same cas­es run­ning just 70metres from peo­ples homes. The ‘Ross­port 5’-farmers who refused to
obey a com­pul­so­ry pur­chase order to seize their land-were impris­oned in 2005, and their
efforts are sup­port­ed by the whole com­mu­ni­ty, wor­thy of nation wide and inter­na­tion­al
sup­port for the strug­gle they are brave­ly main­tain­ing. (www.struggle.ws/rsc, www.shelltosea.com)

Nige­ria-On Novem­ber 10th 1995 Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight Ogo­ni col­leagues were exe­cut­ed by the Niger­ian state for cam­paign­ing against the dev­as­ta­tion of the Niger Delta by oil com­pa­nies, espe­cial­ly Shell and Chevron. (www.remembersarowiwa.com)

In an unre­lat­ed inci­dent the Shell petrol sta­tion at Comis­ton was tar­get­ed in a night time attack. Mes­sages were spray paint­ed, locks were glued and the petrol pump dials ren­dered unread­able. (see http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/edinburgh.cfm?id=1802622007)

Road builders raided, Digger diving done at Tara, Ireland

Novem­ber 9th

Dig­gers Ahoy!

Road builders offices raid­ed by cul­tur­al con­ser­va­tion­ists.

TARA CAMPAIGN LATEST!

THE TARA cul­tur­al con­ser­va­tion­ists halt­ed work on a con­tro­ver­sial sec­tion of the pro­posed new M3 on Thurs­day.

Novem­ber 9th

Dig­gers Ahoy!

Road builders offices raid­ed by cul­tur­al con­ser­va­tion­ists.

TARA CAMPAIGN LATEST!

THE TARA cul­tur­al con­ser­va­tion­ists halt­ed work on a con­tro­ver­sial sec­tion of the pro­posed new M3 on Thurs­day.
Twen­ty-one cam­paign­ers stormed the admin­is­tra­tive com­plex (Dunshaughlin)of the site con­trac­tors (SIAC, Fer­rovial and Eurolink.)near Tara Hill, occu­py­ing offices and film­ing sur­prised staff.

Then they went to a near­by con­struc­tion site and climbed on to bull­doz­ers, stop­ping road­mak­ing for an hour-and-a-half.

It was a sig­nif­i­cant esca­la­tion of the long protest, timed to coin­cide the old Celtic New Year’s Day.

One of the rea­sons for the action was the EU’s recent court rul­ing on con­trac­tors to stop, in view of the con­tin­u­ing dam­age to Ire­land’s World Her­itage Site.

A spokesman for the con­ser­va­tion­ists said: “This direct action has been tak­en by con­cerned cit­i­zens of the EU because the Irish gov­ern­ment is ignor­ing Euro­pean law.”
“Con­tin­ued attempts have been made to per­suade the gov­ern­ment to stop the work on this sec­tion of the M3 while a deci­sion is reached by the Euro­pean com­mis­sion.
“It was a very suc­cess­ful action and many mes­sages of con­cern were con­veyed to the senior man­age­ment at the admin­is­tra­tive site.
Con­nor McDer­mot, tech­ni­cal man­ag­er, when asked why the graves of our ances­tors had been des­e­crat­ed gave us no com­ment.
“Infor­ma­tion was gath­ered on ille­gal road build­ing activ­i­ties.
“It has come to light that fur­ther destruc­tion of this his­toric val­ley will be caused by 129 kilo­me­tres of slip roads as well as 79 km of motor­way and the fur­ther devel­op­ment that will inevitably hap­pen if this destruc­tion is allowed.

Cam­paign­ers call on all Irish net­works to acti­vate and sup­port the Save Tara Val­ley campaign,help urgent­ly need­ed.

More reports on front­line action soon.
Video link soon Tech sup­port need­ed.

http://www.tarapixie.net

Ogoni 9 Day — Rossport Endures to Prevail; Today Smelt Like Victory (photos)

Novem­ber 9th 2007
Not in our name !

Mayo Ogoni solidarity 1

Mayo Ogoni solidarity 3Novem­ber 9th 2007
Not in our name !

Today, to com­mem­o­rate Shel­l’s judi­cial mur­der of the Ogo­ni 9 and a look back in anger at the Gar­da baton-fest a year ago, some 400 activists jour­neyed from all reach­es of Ire­land to voice our out­rage out­side and inside Shel­l’s Bel­lan­aboy site, I was with the sec­tion of pro­tes­tors that first manned the front line at Bel­lan­aboy bridge at 6AM at the request of S2S when it was right­ly sur­mised that Shell and the Guards would attempt to steal a march by bring­ing the work­ers in ear­ly — for a while, before Gar­da weight of num­bers pre­vailed, we were effec­tive in blockad­ing and pre­vent­ing them from earn­ing their 30 pieces of Mam­mon sil­ver inside.

After being pre­vent­ed from join­ing the main group by a two deep line of Guards, we suc­cess­ful­ly scaled the gates of the refin­ery to be greet­ed inside with wan­ton vio­lence and rough han­dling by Shel­l’s thugs dressed in secu­ri­ty uni­forms.

What stim­u­lat­ed the title was an encounter with a Ger­man from Riegen and a cou­ple from the UK Mid­lands who had spent the pre­vi­ous 48 hours trav­el­ling over­land from main­land Europe and Eng­land just to attend today’s protest, what com­mit­ment?, even so, the peo­ple of Erris match it and, fur­ther afield, activists, who with a gran­ite sense of con­science turn up again and again in Bel­lan­aboy to bear wit­ness against a rogue cor­po­ra­tion and their shoe shine boys in gov­ern­ment who pave and grease their way?

Updates received via Text Mes­sage from Pro­tes­tors

6.47: Gate 2 blocked since 6am

7.10: Sit­u­a­tion tense for a group from Cork hemmed in near Gate 2 (gate near­est the bridge). On the road but the guards have half of it.

7.35: The refin­ery site has been occu­pied. One group of 30 peo­ple have entered and are now occu­py­ing the site com­pound. Mean­while on the road between the bridge and Gate 2, a group of 90 pro­test­ers pre­vent­ed a truck from from enter­ing the site for about 20 min­utes. The truck drove over one per­son­’s foot and an ambu­lance is on its way. One of the block­aders was arrest­ed around the same time.

8:08: The same truck that drove over the pro­test­er’s foot is still being block­ad­ed from enter­ing the quar­ry (around 40 min­utes at this stage).

8:35: There are cur­rent­ly two dif­fer­ent groups on the build­ing site and anoth­er two groups of block­aders at Gate 1 and Gate 2.

The pro­test­er whose foot was dri­ven over has been tak­en to hos­pi­tal. Guards were report­ed as being very rough while remov­ing peo­ple from the road at Gate 2 — stand­ing on peo­ple’s arms and chests and pulling them off the road by their necks. Local, John Mon­aghan had his cam­era pulled off him and thrown into the ditch by gar­dai.

8:57: The truck has since got past the block­ade of Gate 2 (leav­ing it blocked for just over an hour). 30/40 local peo­ple were active­ly involved in the block­ade. Guards report­ed as vio­lent­ly drag­ging peo­ple away — punch­ing peo­ple in back and stom­ach. Many guards report­ed as not wear­ing their iden­ti­fi­ca­tion num­bers.

The block­aders have now joined the group at the main gate to the site and there is a line of gar­dai (now includ­ing the pub­lic order unit) between them and the com­pound gate. Two oth­er arrests have been con­firmed aside from the pro­test­er blockad­ing Gate 2. Fur­ther details on these two arrests to be con­firmed.

9:05: One group of about 20 pro­test­ers on the site attempt­ed to get past the inner gate (with spikes on top) to the site but suf­fered minor injuries (cut hands) as well as ripped and torn cloth­ing as the site secu­ri­ty pre­vent­ed them from get­ting across by push­ing them back against the spikes at the top of the gate. Two of the peo­ple who suc­ceed­ed in get­ting to the inner site were eject­ed from the site by site secu­ri­ty need­ed first aid but are now on their way up to join the group on the road by the main gate.

10:26: Six peo­ple have been escort­ed out of the com­pound after breach­ing it via a back entrance. The group man­aged to breach the inner perime­ter and stop work tem­porar­i­ly. There were minor scuf­fles but secu­ri­ty were ‘gen­er­al­ly nice’.

14:56: 16 peo­ple are cur­rent­ly on site. There are secu­ri­ty present but no gar­dai as of yet. The group is a mix of locals and sup­port­ers.

15:01: “Secu­ri­ty guards assault­ing pro­test­ers, grab­bing cam­eras, work con­tin­u­ing”

Shell Gas Offices plagued in Derbyshire

9.11.2007
Sup­port­ers of the Inter­na­tion­al strug­gle against shell have demon­strat­ed out­side the Shell Gas offices in Duck­man­ton, Nr Chester­field this morn­ing with ban­ners, noise and images of the com­mu­ni­ty strug­gle in Ire­land. They leaflet­ed the work­ers at the offices and demand­ed an end to the ongo­ing vio­lence, intim­i­da­tion and bribery that the Shell project has begun on the local peo­ple of Mayo, NW Ire­land.

9.11.2007
Sup­port­ers of the Inter­na­tion­al strug­gle against shell have demon­strat­ed out­side the Shell Gas offices in Duck­man­ton, Nr Chester­field this morn­ing with ban­ners, noise and images of the com­mu­ni­ty strug­gle in Ire­land. They leaflet­ed the work­ers at the offices and demand­ed an end to the ongo­ing vio­lence, intim­i­da­tion and bribery that the Shell project has begun on the local peo­ple of Mayo, NW Ire­land.

Today’s demon­stra­tion was in sol­i­dar­i­ty of an inter­na­tion­al day of action all over the world with the Irish and Ogo­ni com­mu­ni­ties Novem­ber the 10th is the first anniver­sary of the gar­dai (police) baton charge against the peo­ple in Erris. It is also the 12th anniver­sary of the exe­cu­tion of Ken Saro-Wiwa and 8 oth­er Ogo­ni peo­ple who were lead­ers in the move­ment against Shell in Nige­ria. As in Nige­ria in the ear­ly nineties, state vio­lence is being used on the local peo­ple of Mayo to pro­tect cor­po­rate prof­its.

Work­ers at the Duck­man­ton office seemed some­what sur­prised this morn­ing with the demon­stra­tion and they didn’t get much sup­port from their neigh­bours either who also stat­ed “they hate them”

The refin­ery is to be built in a Spe­cial Area of con­ser­va­tion under EU reg­u­la­tions. Shell’s own study found that the bay is a breed­ing and rear­ing area for whales and dol­phins record­ing over 220 sight­ings of sev­en whale and dol­phin species, two seal species, bask­ing sharks and sea tur­tle. Tox­ic waste is to be pumped into Broad­haven Bay from the refin­ery, includ­ing lead, nick­el, mag­ne­sium, phos­pho­rous, chromi­um, arsenic, mer­cury and radioac­tive gas radon.

Shell are respon­si­ble for the site relat­ed health prob­lems, spills, tox­ic releas­es and mur­der of local peo­ples around their plants in Nige­ria, South Africa, Texas, Louisiana, The Philip­pines, Cura­cao, Brazil

Act Now! Help local peo­ple stop Shell’s Hell

More infor­ma­tion
http://www.indymedia.ie http://www.corribsos.com
http://www.corporatewatch.org http:// www.shellfacts.com
images www.radical-images.co.uk

City Indians spread to Copenhagen: 4x4 drivers be warned

7th Novem­ber 2007

For sev­er­al months “City Indi­ans” have been active­ly resist­ing the spread of gas gus­sling jeeps in Swedish cities. Now they have moved to Copen­hagen.

Sev­er­al groups of mil­i­tant envi­ron­men­tal activists known as “City Indi­ans” have been active­ly resist­ing the wide spread use of so-called “city jeeps” in Swedish cities.

7th Novem­ber 2007

For sev­er­al months “City Indi­ans” have been active­ly resist­ing the spread of gas gus­sling jeeps in Swedish cities. Now they have moved to Copen­hagen.

Sev­er­al groups of mil­i­tant envi­ron­men­tal activists known as “City Indi­ans” have been active­ly resist­ing the wide spread use of so-called “city jeeps” in Swedish cities.

Their tac­tics are sim­ply to have groups of activists roam­ing the streets, let­ting the air out of the tires on the big, gas-gus­sling jeeps. Wher­ev­er they go they leave a note for the car own­ers, explain­ing the impact the cars and their exhausts are hav­ing on the envi­ron­ment and encour­ag­ing them to use pub­lic trans­porta­tion in stead.

The actions have result­ed in car own­ers organ­is­ing in vig­i­lante groups threat­en­ing to kill the activists caught.

Now this phe­nom­e­na has crossed to Den­mark, where a new group of Indi­ans have been on the prowl. The notes left behind are word­ed exact­ly like those in Swe­den and so far the tac­tics have been very sim­i­lar.

Climate Action in Dover

4.11.2007
In the ear­ly hours of sun­day morn­ing, cli­mate activists made a bold state­ment about glob­al warm­ing by drop­ping a ban­ner from a four-storey buld­ing.

Dover climate action 1Dover climate action 24.11.2007
In the ear­ly hours of sun­day morn­ing, cli­mate activists made a bold state­ment about glob­al warm­ing by drop­ping a ban­ner from a four-storey buld­ing.

“THE EARTH IS TOO HOT” was clear­ly vis­i­ble from the main through­way from the M20 to the busiest port in Britain.

Short­ly after­wards two road warn­ing signs were put up on the first round­about on the approach to Dover inform­ing dri­vers that there is “CLIMATE CHAOS AHEAD”.

Activist killed on GM action in Brazil — call to action for 8th November

Call for day of action on 8th Novem­ber in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Brazil­ian GM activists after shoot­ings on anti-GM land squat in Brazil

On Octo­ber 21 at 1:30 p.m., gun­men attacked a Via Campesina encamp­ment locat­ed at Syngenta’s 127-hectare farm used for field tri­als of genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied crops in San­ta Tereza do Oeste, in Paraná, Brazil. Dur­ing the attack, Valmir Mota de Oliveira, 42 years old (known as “Keno,”) activist and leader of the of the Movi­men­to Sem Ter­ra (the Brazil­ian Land­less Rur­al Work­ers Move­ment), was killed at point-blank range by two shots to the chest. Two oth­er MST lead­ers, Cel­so Bar­bosa and Célia Apare­ci­da Lourenço, were pur­sued by the gun­men but man­aged to escape. Work­ers Gen­til Couto Viera, Jonas Gomes de Queiroz, Domin­gos Bar­retos, Izabel Nasci­men­to de Souza, and Hud­son Cardin were seri­ous­ly injured.

Call for day of action on 8th Novem­ber in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Brazil­ian GM activists after shoot­ings on anti-GM land squat in Brazil

On Octo­ber 21 at 1:30 p.m., gun­men attacked a Via Campesina encamp­ment locat­ed at Syngenta’s 127-hectare farm used for field tri­als of genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied crops in San­ta Tereza do Oeste, in Paraná, Brazil. Dur­ing the attack, Valmir Mota de Oliveira, 42 years old (known as “Keno,”) activist and leader of the of the Movi­men­to Sem Ter­ra (the Brazil­ian Land­less Rur­al Work­ers Move­ment), was killed at point-blank range by two shots to the chest. Two oth­er MST lead­ers, Cel­so Bar­bosa and Célia Apare­ci­da Lourenço, were pur­sued by the gun­men but man­aged to escape. Work­ers Gen­til Couto Viera, Jonas Gomes de Queiroz, Domin­gos Bar­retos, Izabel Nasci­men­to de Souza, and Hud­son Cardin were seri­ous­ly injured.

To any­one who has been part of the fight against GM crops and cor­po­rate con­trol of our lives in the UK, from stick­ing “GM” labels on a pack­et of bean feast to sneak­ing through the fields at the dead of night to destroy the crops and sab­o­tage the test-sites: Keno and his com­pan­ions are us. It is an acci­dent of class pol­i­tics and geog­ra­phy we are not (yet) receiv­ing death threats.

Via Campesina had pre­vi­ous­ly occu­pied the site in Brazil because of Syn­gen­ta’s ille­gal devel­op­ment of genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied (GM) seeds. Syn­gen­ta is the world’s largest pro­duc­er of agro­chem­i­cals and the third largest com­mer­cial seed pro­duc­er. They pulled out of the GM in the UK after their last attempt at a field tri­al was destroyed.

At dawn on Octo­ber 21st, about 150 mem­bers of Via Campesina reoc­cu­pied Syn­gen­ta’s site, where they encoun­tered four armed secu­ri­ty guards, who were dis­armed and left the site. At about 1 in the after­noon, Via Campesina reports, “a bus stopped in front of the entry gate and about forty armed gun­men got out, fir­ing machine guns at the peo­ple that they saw in the encamp­ment. They broke down the gate, then shot [Mota].

Mota, Lourenço and Bar­bosa had been receiv­ing death threats and intim­i­da­tion since the begin­ning of the year. They still con­tin­ued to take action.

We need to act in sol­i­dar­i­ty, because this is the panora­ma, and it is only going to get worse. Sick though it is, respons­es from ‘con­cerned cit­i­zens’ in coun­tries like ours can help pro­tect activists like Keno and have an impact on com­pa­nies like Syn­gen­ta.

La Via Campesina are call­ing on all orga­ni­za­tions and move­ments to orga­nize protest actions at Syn­gen­ta offices on the 8th Novem­ber in the coun­tries where they are based, and to hand deliv­er let­ters to the Brazil­ian and Swiss embassies, with the fol­low­ing demands:

1. The pun­ish­ment of the mate­r­i­al per­pe­tra­tors and intel­lec­tu­al authors of this crime.
2. Expro­pri­a­tion of Syn­gen­ta lands, to be used for the pro­duc­tion of native seeds, and that these lands be admin­is­tered by rur­al peas­ants and farm work­ers.
3. The expul­sion of Syn­gen­ta from Brazil.
4. That the Brazil­ian gov­ern­ment head­ed by Pres­i­dent Luis Igna­cio Lula da Sil­va adopt mea­sures to ensure the phys­i­cal integri­ty of the rur­al farm work­ers who are threat­ened by the armed men con­tract­ed by Syn­gen­ta.
5. That all organ­i­sa­tions back up the ini­tia­tives of Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al in their call to repu­di­ate and con­demn the actions of Syn­gen­ta.
6. That all organ­i­sa­tions of Via Campesina in all coun­tries orga­nize days of action and protest in the Swiss and Brazil­ian Embassies, as well as at the offices of Syn­gen­ta this Thurs­day 8th Novem­ber and on the 10th of Decem­ber con­demn­ing this crim­i­nal act.
7. To send let­ters of protest to the fol­low­ing address­es:

Gov­er­nador do Esta­do do Paraná
Exmo Gov­er­nador do Esta­do do Paraná
Sr. Rober­to Requião de Mel­lo e Sil­va
Palá­cio Iguaçu
Praça Nos­sa Sen­ho­ra de Salete, s/nº, 3º andar
Cen­tro Cívi­co 80.530–909
Curitiba/PR — Brasil
Fax: + 55 41 3350 2935
Saudação: Vos­sa Excelência/ Your Excel­len­cy

Min­istro da Justiça
Exmo Min­istro da Justiça
Sr. Tar­so Gen­ro
Esplana­da dos Min­istérios, Blo­co “T”
70712–902 — Brasília/DF — Brasil
Fax: + 55 61 3322–6817
Saudação: Vos­sa Excelência/ Your Excel­len­cy

Cópias para:
Sec­re­taria Espe­cial de Dire­itos Humanos
Exmo. Secretário Espe­cial
Sr. Paulo de Tar­so Van­nuchi
Esplana­da dos Min­istérios — Blo­co “T” — 4º andar
70.064–900 — Brasília/DF — Brasil
Fax: + 55 61 3226 7980
Saudação: Vos­sa Excelência/ Your Excel­len­cy

Copia al MST Brasil y Via Campesina : mst­pr [NOSPAM] mst.org.br
via­cam­pesina [NOSPAM] viacampesina.org
Send us a short report and pho­tos of the actions orga­nized to:
via­cam­pesina [NOSPAM} viacampesina.org

SAMPLE LETTER –
Dear Sir:
I, [YOUR NAME / NAME OF ORGANIZATION] am writ­ing to express my grave con­cern with regard to the Octo­ber 21 mur­der of Valmir Mota de Oliveira, also known as Keno, of the Move­ment of Land­less Work­ers (MST) and Via Campesina, in the Brazil­ian state of Paraná, who was shot twice and killed by armed gun­men on an exper­i­men­tal GMO farm of Syn­gen­ta Seeds in San­ta Tereza do Oeste Paraná, Brazil. Keno’s death is a tremen­dous loss for his fam­i­ly, for those strug­gling for social jus­tice and human rights in Brazil, and for the inter­na­tion­al net­work of friends and allies who con­tin­ue to be shocked by the bru­tal­i­ty of agribusi­ness expan­sion in Brazil.
It has been doc­u­ment­ed that at 1:30 p.m. of the day of the attack, a bus stopped in front of the entrance gate to the farm and an armed mili­tia of approx­i­mate­ly 40 heav­i­ly armed gun­men got out, fir­ing at the peo­ple in the encamp­ment. They broke down the gate, pur­sued and killed activist Keno with two shots to the chest, attempt­ed to kill two oth­er lead­ers, shot five oth­er land­less work­ers, and severe­ly beat Isabel do Nasci­men­to de Souza, who remains in seri­ous con­di­tion at the hos­pi­tal.
In addi­tion, it has been not­ed that Syn­gen­ta was using the ser­vices of an armed mili­tia which was act­ing through a front com­pa­ny, NF Secu­ri­ty, in con­junc­tion with the Rur­al Soci­ety of the West­ern Region (SRO) and the Move­ment of Rur­al Pro­duc­ers (MPR), which are tied to agribusi­ness.
While an inquiry has been opened in order to inves­ti­gate these denun­ci­a­tions against your com­pa­ny and NF Secu­ri­ty, we insist that you imme­di­ate­ly sus­pend all con­tract­ing of pri­vate mili­tias in Brazil to avoid any fur­ther vio­la­tions of human rights.
Please see to it that the indi­vid­u­als involved in this attack, who are inti­mate­ly linked to and paid by your com­pa­ny, are brought to jus­tice. Also, please ensure that your com­pa­ny avoids fur­ther alter­ca­tions with Brazil’s human rights and social jus­tice move­ments, and that the right of Brazil’s peo­ple to peace­ful­ly orga­nize be respect­ed by your Brazil-based employ­ees and func­tionar­ies.
Respect­ful­ly,
[YOUR NAME / NAME OF ORGANIZATION]
[LOCATION]