Author: earthfirst

French GM maize decontamination action

Mon­san­to files suit against French GMO activists

Oct 19 (Reuters) — The French unit of U.S. Biotech giant Mon­san­to has filed a law­suit fol­low­ing the lat­est destruc­tion of some of its test fields for genet­i­cal­ly-mod­i­fied maize. In a state­ment issued on Fri­day, Mon­san­to said that uniden­ti­fied activists had ran­sacked three test fields in Val­divi­enne in cen­tral France after dark on Thurs­day.

Mon­san­to files suit against French GMO activists

Oct 19 (Reuters) — The French unit of U.S. Biotech giant Mon­san­to has filed a law­suit fol­low­ing the lat­est destruc­tion of some of its test fields for genet­i­cal­ly-mod­i­fied maize. In a state­ment issued on Fri­day, Mon­san­to said that uniden­ti­fied activists had ran­sacked three test fields in Val­divi­enne in cen­tral France after dark on Thurs­day.

‘This sense­less new act of vio­lence penalis­es French research into biotech crops yet again and has no sci­en­tif­ic basis,’ Mon­san­to said.

It used a pro­ce­dure in French law allow­ing legal action to be brought against unknown defen­dants.

Activists have ruined oth­er Mon­san­to GMO test fields this year, prompt­ing a series of offi­cial com­plaints which the com­pa­ny has said typ­i­cal­ly leads to court action.

Indus­try groups have denounced such attacks as dis­as­trous for the coun­try’s agri­cul­tur­al research work.

Some farm­ers sup­port­ive of GMO crops have called on the gov­ern­ment dur­ing gov­ern­ment-led meet­ings on the envi­ron­ment to pass a GMO law as soon as pos­si­ble, in part to stress the ille­gal nature of such activ­i­ties.

Heat­ed debate has sur­round­ed the use of GMO prod­ucts across Europe and in France, where many con­sumers and green groups doubt the safe­ty of GMO prod­ucts and fear that they will reduce bio­di­ver­si­ty.

REUTERS, Octo­ber 19 2007
http://www.reuters.com/article/companyNewsAndPR/idUSL1944836620071019

“Common Ground” Community Garden Finally Evicted

Report on Thurs­day 18th Octo­bers evic­tion of Com­mon Ground Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den.

It seems it was “fourth time lucky” for Read­ing Bor­ough Coun­cil bailiffs today, when they final­ly realised that it’s not a good idea to inform anar­cho-com­mies (and oth­er assort­ed rev­o­lu­tion­ary repro­bates) 2 weeks in advance if you want to evict them from coun­cil land. Arriv­ing unan­nounced at 9.00am this morn­ing, they began by evict­ing our squat­ting neigh­bours, giv­ing us enough time to form an impromp­tu resis­tance of 3 peo­ple.

Report on Thurs­day 18th Octo­bers evic­tion of Com­mon Ground Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den.

It seems it was “fourth time lucky” for Read­ing Bor­ough Coun­cil bailiffs today, when they final­ly realised that it’s not a good idea to inform anar­cho-com­mies (and oth­er assort­ed rev­o­lu­tion­ary repro­bates) 2 weeks in advance if you want to evict them from coun­cil land. Arriv­ing unan­nounced at 9.00am this morn­ing, they began by evict­ing our squat­ting neigh­bours, giv­ing us enough time to form an impromp­tu resis­tance of 3 peo­ple.

This reporter arrived at 10.00am, to find approx­i­mate­ly 8 police, 4 bailiffs, 4 coun­cil rep­re­sen­ta­tives and a bunch of burly builders board­ing up build­ings. Coun­cil bailiffs had kicked a large hole in our gar­den fence, which they left unguard­ed. After a short con­sul­ta­tion we decid­ed to climb through it, sit in our gar­den and peace­ful­ly resist. This reporter is ashamed to say that his resis­tance last­ed a mat­ter of min­utes, before he was con­vinced to leave the gar­den rather than face the pos­si­bil­i­ty of arrest. The resilience of his com­rades was some­what more respectable.

Leav­ing the gar­den, he dis­cov­ered that the 8 police had left just as the fun seemed to be start­ing, beg­ging the ques­tion “why had they come in the first place?”

Bailiffs and coun­cil employ­ees attempt­ed to use diplo­ma­cy (a facet for which they are not well known) to con­vince the remain­ing two gar­den­ers to leave. Both refused, and there ensued a minor kafuf­fle. A charm­ing gen­tle­man, sport­ing a fash­ion­able red coat (pic­tured) blocked our pho­tog­ra­ph­er from tak­ing any pic­tures of this. At one point, he even attempt­ed to steal the cam­era prompt­ing the ques­tion “What the fuck are you doing?”. He imme­di­ate­ly desist­ed in his klep­to­ma­ni­ac-like actions, but refused to stand aside and allow fur­ther pic­tures to be tak­en of this inci­dent.

By this time, there was but one com­rade remain­ing in the gar­den. Coun­cil employ­ees and bailiffs, unsure what to do about this final poten­tial men­ace, decid­ed to call for back-up. After a wait of 15 min­utes, a riot van arrived con­tain­ing 2 of Thames Val­leys finest, aka da Five‑0, da Fuzz, da Filth, da Feds aka PC 5479 A Hunt, PC 5292.

The offi­cers of the law entered the gar­den and a new arrival from our group fol­lowed them. He was asked to leave, with the promise of some con­ver­sa­tion, which he did not get. Once again we were down to one soli­tary indi­vid­ual, peace­ful­ly refus­ing to leave. The offi­cers of the law asked him to move on; he refused. This called for extreme solu­tions: one police man got on the phone and asked his boss what he should do. The answer was clear­ly “do noth­ing”, for that is what they did….

It seemed that no police or bailiffs actu­al­ly want­ed to arrest our “last man stand­ing”. Per­haps they realised the poten­tial dan­ger that they would be putting them­selves in (for he is a 3rd dan black belt in origa­mi…), but more like­ly there was nobody that was pre­pared to be “the one that arrest­ed a gar­den­er”. In any case, it even­tu­al­ly fell to a gen­tle­man from the coun­cil to forcibly pick him up and remove him from the gar­den. This sig­nalled the end of our resis­tance, and we called it a day.

At the time of going to press, sev­er­al ideas are being float­ed about to keep up the momen­tum and build upon the com­mu­ni­ty spir­it that Com­mon Ground has cre­at­ed so far. Need­less to say, this is not the last that Read­ing Bor­ough Coun­cil will hear from us, and it may not be the last time we set foot in our gar­den

————————————-

Com­mon Ground Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den — on squat­ted land in Sil­ver Street, Kates­grove — was evict­ed Fri­day morn­ing. This is the third evic­tion attempt, the pre­vi­ous two, which the coun­cil announced in advance, were met with strong local resis­tance.

At about 9am on 18th Octo­ber 2007 coun­cil offi­cials, bail­liffs, police and PCSO’s arrived, and coun­cil offi­cials broke down the door to num­ber 6 Sil­ver Street (ex-Wom­ens Infor­ma­tion Cen­tre). Police and offi­cials entered the prop­er­ty and evict­ed the two peo­ple liv­ing there. They also broke a hole in the gar­den fence.

Around this time a cou­ple of local res­i­dents, who have worked and relaxed in the com­mu­ni­ty gar­den over the past 10 months, arrived on the scene, ask­ing ques­tions and attempt­ing to take pho­tographs of the event. After the evic­tion teams plans to “board-up” the gar­den were over­heard, two more local peo­ple who have worked in Com­mon Ground arrived.

Three peo­ple entered the gar­den and sat at a table, before coun­cil offi­cials entered and told them to leave. An argu­ment fol­lowed as the res­i­dents demand­ed that the com­mu­ni­ty should be asked what it want­ed to hap­pen to the site, rather than a devel­op­ment being imposed with­out con­sul­ta­tion, while coun­cil offi­cials sim­ply replied “its pri­vate prop­er­ty” — as if this is more impor­tant than social and envi­ron­men­tal con­cerns or local democ­ra­cy. When told “This isn’t right and you know it!”, offi­cials replied “You may have a moral argu­ment, but by the law this is right”. Sure­ly there is some­thing wrong with law when it con­flicts with what is moral­ly right or with local democ­ra­cy?

One coun­cil offi­cial began to get aggres­sive and pulled one per­son­’s seat from under­neath them, throw­ing it across the gar­den. He then start­ed shov­ing the res­i­dent and squar­ing up to him, while the res­i­dent stood his ground and asked the offi­cial his name. Even­tu­al­ly, two res­i­dents had to leave the gar­den for per­son­al rea­sons, while one remained. Offi­cials asked him to leave again, before ask­ing the police, who had left, to return.

The Police once again asked the res­i­dent to leave, to avoid “embar­rass­ment”, only to be told “I’m not embar­rassed to defend this gar­den”. Even­tu­al­ly, fol­low­ing dis­cus­sions between the coun­cil and the police, a reluc­tant coun­cil offi­cial was told to use rea­son­able force to evict the per­son. The pro­test­er was phys­i­cal­ly lift­ed and dragged out of the gar­den, before builders fit­ted boards over the gar­den gate and over the hole in the fence.

This is def­i­nite­ly not the end, and Com­mon Ground Col­lec­tive will dis­cuss var­i­ous options over the week­end.

The Coun­cil have stat­ed in press releas­es and in the recent full coun­cil meet­ing that offers of alter­na­tive land had been reject­ed ‘out of hand’ by the gar­den­ers. This is a mis­lead­ing state­ment. Com­mon Ground gave care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion to the offers and, as a group, agreed to con­tin­ue defend the gar­den where it is, and push for a local demo­c­ra­t­ic process where the com­mu­ni­ty would decide what hap­pens to the site long term.

How­ev­er, indi­vid­u­als involved in Com­mon Ground have begun engag­ing in dis­cus­sion with local coun­cil­lors and the Kates­grove Res­i­dents Asso­ci­a­tion to dis­cuss the via­bil­i­ty of cre­at­ing oth­er com­mu­ni­ty gar­dens on the land offered by the coun­cil. It should be point­ed out how­ev­er, that both alter­na­tives are not with­out imme­di­ate prob­lems as one is very small and slopes down to the riv­er mak­ing it poten­tial­ly dan­ger­ous, and the oth­er is not whol­ly owned by the coun­cil. The iden­ti­ty of the part own­er in the lat­ter case is seem­ing­ly unknown. But all options will be con­sid­ered and pur­sued as far as they can go.

Thanks for all sup­port we have recieved over the last year, we’ll be back!

katesgrovegarden(AT)yahoo.co.uk
http://www.myspace.com/common_ground_garden

24-hour Total petrol station shuts due to protest

18.10.2007
Dur­ing the Thurs­day evening rush hour, the 24-hour Total petrol sta­tion on Maryle­bone Road in Lon­don shut down due to the pres­ence of pro­tes­tors call­ing for Total to pull out of Bur­ma.

London 24 hour Total demo18.10.2007
Dur­ing the Thurs­day evening rush hour, the 24-hour Total petrol sta­tion on Maryle­bone Road in Lon­don shut down due to the pres­ence of pro­tes­tors call­ing for Total to pull out of Bur­ma.

Fif­teen pro­tes­tors began their peace­ful protest at 5.00pm with ban­ners and leaflets inform­ing motorists and pedes­tri­ans of Total’s links with the Burmese dic­ta­tor­ship. Sev­er­al cam­paign­ers talked to motorists who drove in to buy petrol. Many motorists were sup­port­ive and vowed not to buy Total again.

How­ev­er Total com­plained to the police (after about an hour and a half) and the cam­paign­ers were asked to leave the fore­court. Short­ly after­wards the sta­tion was shut down com­plete­ly. Employ­ees moved cones and bins to block vehic­u­lar access to the sta­tion and the lights were switched off, includ­ing the 24-hour sign!

The petrol sta­tion remained closed until the protest fin­ished.

http://www.totaloutofburma.blogspot.com/

BP Executive pied as Europe’s largest BioFuels Event disrupted, Blockade of D1 Oils & demo outside exhibition

17th Octo­ber, 2007

BP speaker pied at Biofuel conference
BP biofuel conference stage invasionBiofuel lock-on17th Octo­ber, 2007
The exhi­bi­tion, fea­tur­ing over a hun­dred trade stands, ran along­side a con­fer­ence which opened on Wednes­day with a key note speech from BP Bio­fu­els’ Europe & Africa Direc­tor Oliv­er Mace, but was quick­ly thrown into chaos when a num­ber of peo­ple dressed in suits marched onto the stage to tar­get BP’s ‘dan­ger­ous and dis­hon­est’ green­wash and protest at the cat­a­stroph­ic effects of replac­ing cli­mate-sta­bil­is­ing ecosys­tems with arable crops for bio­fu­el feed­stocks.

A stunned audi­ence gasped as a cream-pie was launched at 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.

Lat­er a press con­fer­ence was held at which East­side Cli­mate Action gave a state­ment say­ing: “Bio­fu­els are not part of the solu­tion, they are part of the prob­lem. We need lifestyle and eco­nom­ic change, a reduc­tion in con­sump­tion and local pro­duc­tion of all our own needs.”

BP, the main spon­sor of the Bio­fu­els con­fer­ence, did not rep­re­sent them­selves at the press con­fer­ence through fears that atten­tion would be focussed on the protest. Oliv­er Mace was said to be ‘shak­en’ by the morning’s events.

Richard Price, con­fer­ence organ­is­er and Bio­fu­els Media direc­tor, said that one of the aims of the event was to have some debate which sur­rounds issues such as food ver­sus fuel. He also offered a plat­form for those want­i­ng to raise objec­tions and con­cerns with the bio­fu­els indus­try.

Price point­ed to future bio­fu­el tech­nolo­gies, known as sec­ond gen­er­a­tion bio­fu­els, which use plant mat­ter such as Jat­ropha and algae, and do not nor­mal­ly enter the food chain. Price and oth­ers are claim­ing that these may offer advan­tages such as high­er oil yields and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of using oth­er­wise unvi­able land.

Price admit­ted “we should be using less fuel, being more eco­nom­i­cal, as well as explor­ing bio­fu­els. Next year we’ll see what the issues are, but clear­ly we need a much wider base.” Asked if the con­fer­ence would accept spon­sor­ship from BP in the future, Bio­fu­els Media have so far declined to com­ment.

Lat­er on there were fur­ther protests as cam­paign­ers gath­ered at the main gates to the Newark show­ground, where the con­fer­ence was held. Activists from pres­sure group Bio­fu­el­watch were in atten­dance to explain their con­cerns, and those attend­ing the con­fer­ence were engaged in dis­cus­sions and hand­ed leaflets explain­ing that defor­esta­tion ‑such as to make way for oil palms for fuel in Asia- is a major cause of cli­mate change, account­ing for up to 30 per­cent of glob­al green­house gas emis­sions.

Bio­fu­el­watch cam­paign­er Deep­ak Rughani referred to a recent study by sci­en­tist Paul Crutzen, which found that Bio­fu­els pro­duced from arable crops are direct­ly respon­si­ble for green­house gas emis­sions of up to 70% more than the equiv­a­lent of fos­sil-fuel. Rughani added, “when you add in ele­ments of defor­esta­tion or land-use change, you are look­ing at mas­sive fur­ther emis­sions due to the release of car­bon stored in trees, plants and with­in the soil.”

Bio­fu­el­watch cam­paigns against the use of bio-ener­gy from unsus­tain­able sources, name­ly bio­fu­els that are linked to accel­er­at­ed cli­mate change, defor­esta­tion, bio-diver­si­ty loss­es, water and soil degra­da­tion, and the dis­place­ment and impov­er­ish­ment of local pop­u­la­tions and loss of food sov­er­eign­ty and secu­ri­ty. Aside from tech­no­log­i­cal solu­tions, Bio­fu­el­watch and oth­er envi­ron­men­tal groups believe cuts in green­house gas emis­sions must be based on over­all demand reduc­tion. This means reduc­ing ener­gy use and trans­port as opposed to replac­ing one type of fuel with anoth­er.

Bio­fu­els Con­fer­ence — Audio clip (intro & pie) — mp3 1.7M

———————————–

Press release —

Date: 17th Octo­ber, 2007
Embar­go: Imme­di­ate Release
CONTACT: 07880 937 511
Newark Show­ground, Newark, Not­ting­hamshire

This morn­ing a group of 15 cli­mate change activists from protest group Food Not Fuel entered the Bio­Fu­el Expo & Con­fer­ence tak­ing place at the Newark Show­ground and took over the keynote speech. Oliv­er Mace, CEO of BP Fuels, the lead spon­sors of the event received a cream pie in the face. Anoth­er cam­paign­er was D‑locked to the podi­um and var­i­ous alarms were placed around the place. The hall was emp­tied and talks were can­celled. There were no arrests.

They were protest­ing against planned expan­sion of bio­fu­els cit­ing its con­tri­bu­tion to defor­esta­tion and the fact that it will con­tin­ue to con­tribute to cli­mate change. The activists com­plained that bio­fu­els on a large scale is green­wash and com­pa­nies such as BP are ignor­ing its neg­a­tive impacts on the envi­ron­ment.

Pro­test­er Michelle Lynch said, “What they are pro­mot­ing is a replace­ment to fos­sil fuels, but the real­i­ty is that they are lit­tle bet­ter. Large scale plan­ta­tions are not the solu­tion; reduc­ing our con­sump­tion is the only real­is­tic way for­ward.”

Anoth­er pro­test­er, Thomas Brad­shaw point­ed out, “Bio­fu­els will be tak­ing food from the mouths of the hun­gary when there are already 800 mil­lion peo­ple suf­fer­ing from mal­nu­tri­tion. These cor­po­ra­tions are effec­tive­ly encour­ag­ing the ero­sion of valu­able arable farm­land and rain­forests vital for com­bat­ing cli­mate change.”

-end-

Notes for edi­tors:

1. The pro­tes­tors can be con­tact­ed at 07880 937 511. Their cri­tique argues that rad­i­cal social change is need­ed to deal with the impact of peak oil and cli­mate change, and that seek­ing solu­tions such as car­bon trad­ing and bio­fu­els are not the answer, as the real prob­lem is unsus­tain­able eco­nom­ic growth.

2. The Bio­Fu­els Expo & Con­fer­ence (www.biodiesel-expo.co.uk) is the largest of its kind in Europe, and brings togeth­er big indus­try play­ers such as BP Fuels, Deloitte & Touche and many chem­i­cal, agri­cul­tur­al and man­u­fac­tur­ing com­pa­nies.

3. A com­pre­hen­sive cri­tique of bio­fu­els can be found at Bio­Fu­els Watch (www.biofuelwatch.org.uk) who are a dis­tinct group from Food Not Fuels, but are host­ing their own demon­stra­tion against the Con­fer­ence.

4. Text of leaflet dis­trib­ute to atten­dees.


Bio­fu­els & Fos­sil Fuels: Bio­fu­els that are not pro­duced by recy­cling waste oil are the direct prod­uct of large scale mono­cul­ture. Cur­rent­ly the amount of fos­sil fuels required to pro­duce bio­fu­els is greater than the amount of fuel you get out: you have to make the fer­til­iz­er, run the agri­cul­tur­al machin­ery, trans­port the feed­stocks and fuels, and refine the plant mat­ter into fuel.

Bio­fu­els & Food: The land that is used to farm bio­fu­els has to come from some­where. If it is agri­cul­tur­al land used for food then there will be less food. Maize, Mex­i­co’s sta­ple crop, have increased mas­sive­ly due to Amer­i­can demand for bioethanol. Adding to the num­ber of peo­ple liv­ing below the pover­ty line.

Bio­fu­els & Land use: If not agri­cul­tur­al land, then bio­fu­els will be grown on vir­gin rain­for­est or wet­land. 1/3 of all green­house gas emis­sions come from the destruc­tion of liv­ing car­bon sinks. The Ama­zon rain­for­est is the largest dri­ver of the cli­mate on the plan­et and expand­ing bioethanol plan­ta­tions will push it to extinc­tion. Wet­lands, eg peat, con­tain more car­bon that the whole atmos­phere and cov­er just 1% of the worlds sur­face. The largest peat bogs in the world, in Indone­sia, are cur­rent­ly being drained for palm oil plan­ta­tions. If green­house gas emis­sions con­tin­ue as they cur­rent­ly are we will go beyond the cli­mate tip­ping point caus­ing mass extinc­tion of life on earth.

Bio­fu­els & Local Con­trol: The dri­ving force beyond the expan­sion in bio­fu­els are big cor­po­ra­tions such as BP & Mon­san­to, and gov­ern­ment — the very peo­ple who have got us into this mess. They are using bio­fu­els as a way to con­tin­ue their posi­tion of pow­er into the post peak oil world. To stand a chance of sur­vival the con­trol of land must be by local peo­ple for local peo­ple.

The Solu­tion: We will need to reduce our con­sump­tion to lev­els that we can meet our­selves. This WILL mean a reduc­tion in lux­u­ries, like the lux­u­ry to trav­el. Some bio­fu­els will be used, but at a frac­tion of our cur­rent oil use. We need to end the search for tech­no­log­i­cal solu­tions to eco­nom­ic prob­lems. We need to localise our econ­o­my, pro­duce our own food, make our own tools and use less.

We need an end to eco­nom­ic growth.

foodnotfuel1@yahoo.co.uk

——————————————
D1 Oils blockade banner
D1 Oils blockade
Block­ade of D1 Oils — anti-agro­fu­el demo

Pro­tes­tors from No Agro­fu­els UK block­ad­ed DI oils refin­ery and offices this morn­ing to raise aware­ness of the detri­men­tal impact of agro­fu­els. The protest was timed to coin­cide with the nation­al Bio­fu­els Con­fer­ence in Newark.

18 Pro­tes­tors chained the 3 gates to the refin­ery shut and 2 pro­tes­tors were D‑locked to the main gates. No vehi­cles were able to enter or leave the site and all work appeared to have been stopped.

Sev­er­al ban­ners were tied over the gates includ­ing “No Agro­fu­els, Land 4 Peo­ple, Food, Bio­di­ver­si­ty” and “Cli­mate Change Prof­i­teers”

Agro­fu­els (fuels pro­duced from pur­pose­ly and inten­sive­ly grown crops) are not the green solu­tion. They result in defor­esta­tion of trop­i­cal rain­forests and burn­ing of peat­lands which increase car­bon in the atmos­phere. Stud­ies have shown that when you include ener­gy used to grow and pro­duce the fuels includ­ing chem­i­cal pro­duc­tion and trans­porta­tion they use more ener­gy then oil based fuels.

Agro­fu­els also cause food inse­cu­ri­ty by reduc­ing land avail­bale to grow food and increas­ing food prices. They result in land dis­pos­ses­sion as peo­ple in Africa, Asia and South Amer­i­ca are forced off their land to enable crops to be grown for the fuel of Europe and the USA. In Colom­bia there have been human rights abus­es to gain con­trol of the land.

D1 is one of the biggest traders world­wide of palm oil and oil seed rape. They have inter­ests in India, Indone­sia, Chi­na, South Africa, Zam­bia, Swazi­land, El Sal­vador and are soon plan­ning to get into Brazil and sev­er­al otehr African coun­tries. They are direct­ly respon­si­ble for land dis­pos­ses­sion, food inse­cu­ri­ty and increas­ing pover­ty, they are not the pro­vid­ing the solu­tion to our cli­mate cri­sis, the only solu­tion to cli­mate change is a reduc­tion in ener­gy rather then exploit­ing the bio­di­ver­si­ty, peo­ple and land of the Glob­al South.

For more info see: www.biofuelwatch.org.uk

——————————————
Biofuel banner 2
Biofuel banner 1
Ban­ner Protest out­side Biodiesel Expo in Newark

About 40 pro­test­ers held a ban­ner protest out­side the Biodiesel Expo in Newark, Europe’s largest bio­fu­el con­fer­ence this year. Par­tic­i­pants of the con­fer­ence include BP, Vir­gin and D1 Oils, a bio­fu­el com­pa­ny head­ed by for­mer Shell CEO Lord Oxburgh which is acquir­ing rights over large areas of land in India and south­ern Africa. Pro­test­ers high­light­ed the dev­as­tat­ing impact which the indus­try is hav­ing on glob­al warm­ing, rain­forests, local com­mu­ni­ties in the glob­al South and food secu­ri­ty.

——

PRESS RELEASE

Newark : 40 Pro­tes­tors call for food for peo­ple, not cars

Over 40 envi­ron­men­tal­ists protest­ed out­side the ‘Biodiesel Expo’ today, Wednes­day 17th Octo­ber, at Newark Show­ground. The protest was to raise aware­ness of the dam­age that mas­sive and rapid bio­fu­els devel­op­ment is hav­ing on the cli­mate, peo­ple, food secu­ri­ty and forests.

The protest comes just the day after World Food Day Octo­ber 16th when the UN Food and Agro­cul­ture orga­ni­za­tion (FAO) high­light­ed the impacts of bio­fu­els of food secu­ri­ty around the world.

The Unit­ed Nations Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on the Right to Food, Jean Ziegler, is so con­cerned that he has warned that rapid bio­fu­el devel­op­ment is a total dis­as­ter for those who are starv­ing. He will call for an inter­na­tion­al five-year ban on pro­duc­ing bio­fu­els to com­bat soar­ing food prices in the UN Gen­er­al Assem­bly on Octo­ber 25th. (see below).

Deep­ak Rughani from bio­fu­el­watch says “The UN FAO is very con­cerned about bio­fu­els. They have said that they ‘are grave­ly con­cerned that bio­fu­els will bring hunger in their wake’. A bat­tle is being cre­at­ed between food and fuel that will leave the poor and hun­gry in devel­op­ing coun­tries at the mer­cy of rapid­ly ris­ing prices for food, land and water. The EU and the UK urgent­ly need a mora­to­ri­um of bio­fu­els to make sure that we don’t push mil­lions into star­va­tion. We have protest­ed today to sup­port the call in the UN and demand the UK gov­ern­ment stops the mad rush to bio­fu­els”.

bio­fu­el­watch, who are cam­paign­ing for EU mora­to­ri­um on large-scale bio­fu­el pro­duc­tion and imports into the EU, say that from April 2008 UK con­sumers will have no choice about hav­ing to buy bio­fu­els at the pump. The bio­fu­els avail­able will be blend­ed from many dif­fer­ence sources across the globe depend­ing on com­mod­i­ty mar­ket prices.

From April, con­sumers will not be able to avoid buy­ing bio­fu­el that may be accel­er­at­ing destruc­tion of trop­i­cal forests, increas­ing their car­bon emis­sions, caus­ing human rights abus­es, and tak­ing land from vital food pro­duc­tion.

Infor­ma­tion:

The Unit­ed Nations Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on the Right to Food is to demand an inter­na­tion­al five-year ban on pro­duc­ing bio­fu­els to com­bat soar­ing food prices at the Unit­ed Nations Gen­er­al Assem­bly on 25th Octo­ber. http://tinyurl.com/2ltgwd
The entire text of a report to the UN Gen­er­al Assem­bly from Unit­ed Nations Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on the Right to Food, Jean Zei­gler, high­light­ing the risks to mil­lions from bio­fu­els is attached to this Press release.

Links to World Food Day press from around the world
Jamaica — Food prices set to rise – Tufton:

http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20071016/business/business1.html

Bio­fu­els high­light­ed in Colom­bia :

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/biofuelwatch/message/1157

New Zealand: Food Prices Dri­ven by Bio­fu­els

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/biofuelwatch/message/1149

World­wide Women’s Ener­gy issue :: Feed Peo­ple, Not Cars

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/biofuelwatch/message/1146

Bio­fu­els and world hunger

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/biofuelwatch/message/1145

Con­tacts:

Andrew Boswell, Bio­fu­el­watch , UK : T: +44–1603-613798 M: +44–7787127881 (at the protest)

E: andrew.boswell[at]yahoo.co.uk

Deep­ak Rughani, Bio­fu­el­watch , UK : +44–7931–636337 (at the protest)

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

Burma activists ‘lock on’ to Total

16.10.2007
Three direct activists have today shut down a busy Total fill­ing sta­tion in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the peo­ple of Bur­ma’s non­vi­o­lent strug­gle for democ­ra­cy.

London Total 116.10.2007
Three direct activists have today shut down a busy Total fill­ing sta­tion in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the peo­ple of Bur­ma’s non­vi­o­lent strug­gle for democ­ra­cy.

Under a ban­ner say­ing “May all beings be hap­py – Free Bur­ma ” the activists have locked them­selves togeth­er and begun to med­i­tate, lock­ing togeth­er the hoses, turn­ing off the pow­er and block­ing the entrance to the premis­es in Lon­don’s Maryle­bone Road.

The group have tar­get­ed Total to high­light the com­pa­ny’s role in prop­ping up one of the world’s most bru­tal dic­ta­tor­ships. The Burmese mil­i­tary rulers rou­tine­ly tor­ture pris­on­ers, use rape as a weapon of war, and have forcibly dis­placed almost one mil­lion peo­ple from their land – includ­ing to make way for a 63 kilo­me­tre gas pipeline built by Total.

Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma’s pro-democ­ra­cy leader, has 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”. She added, “the com­pa­ny must accept the con­se­quences. The coun­try will not always be gov­erned by dic­ta­tors.”

Matthew Her­bert, one of the activists, said: “All the peo­ples of Bur­ma will be free. There is no force as pow­er­ful as the non­vi­o­lent resis­tance of a unit­ed peo­ple, espe­cial­ly when the cause is as just and urgent as this. As Aung San Suu Kyi says, Total will be held account­able. Today’s action plays just one small part in that reck­on­ing.”

A fel­low activist, added: “The author­i­ty to rule comes from the peo­ple them­selves, the peo­ple of Bur­ma have had enough, they are with­draw­ing their con­sent to be con­trolled. This action is in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the peo­ple of Bur­ma strug­gle for free­dom and a mes­sage to Total to with­draw from Bur­ma now.”

For more infor­ma­tion con­tact 07796 430141

Activist Film Festival is seeking submissions

Under­cur­rents is call­ing for sub­mis­sions of short videos and ani­ma­tions on the theme of the fes­ti­val: social jus­tice and envi­ron­men­tal action.

Beyond TV 8 flierUnder­cur­rents is call­ing for sub­mis­sions of short videos and ani­ma­tions on the theme of the fes­ti­val: social jus­tice and envi­ron­men­tal action.

Sub­ject: Polit­i­cal Activist videos want­ed
From: under­cur­rents

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS OF FILMS

FOR BEYONDTV FESTIVAL NOVEMBER 2007

What is BEYONDTV?
From Novem­ber 28 to Decem­ber 2, 2007, Rad­i­cal media char­i­ty, Under­cur­rents will host the 8th annu­al BEYONDTV fes­ti­val of polit­i­cal doc­u­men­taries, ani­ma­tions and music videos from inspir­ing media direc­tors.

Under­cur­rents is call­ing for sub­mis­sions of short videos and ani­ma­tions on the theme of the fes­ti­val: social jus­tice and envi­ron­men­tal action.

Impor­tant Note: We do not screen dra­mas using actors

BEYONDTV will be host­ed at the Dylan Thomas Cen­tre and Tal­iesin Cin­e­ma Swansea from Novem­ber 28 — Decem­ber 2, 2007

More details at http://www.beyondtvfestival.info
beyondtv@undercurrents.org

Under­cur­rents
Old Exchange
Pier st
Swansea
SA1 1RY
UK

Brighton police make early morning raid against squat.

16.10.2007
At 4am Brighton police demand­ed squat­ters leave a new squat on Franklin road. Despite resis­tance by 5am the squat­ters had been evict­ed by the police, who were act­ing unlaw­ful­ly with­out a court order.

All Coppers are Bastards16.10.2007
At 4am Brighton police demand­ed squat­ters leave a new squat on Franklin road. Despite resis­tance by 5am the squat­ters had been evict­ed by the police, who were act­ing unlaw­ful­ly with­out a court order.

The police refused to acknowl­edge the ‘Sec­tion 6’ notice and said they were igno­rant of the law, even though the group of squat­ters had been pre­vi­ous­ly evict­ed by the some of the same police recent­ly.

There was a dog unit, 4 squad cars, drugs unit, and 2 undercover/civil cars (whose reg­is­tra­tion plates were not­ed), as well as a senior offi­cer who was over­heard say­ing that he would per­son­al­ly not tol­er­ate squat­ting in Brighton. Not real­ly a sur­prise there.

3 cop­pers kicked the door in, whilst 8 squat­ters resist­ed their efforts. Whilst this was hap­pen­ing the pigs laughed and joked about going hol­i­day out­side.

When the squat­ters were hauled out of the build­ing they were threat­ened with arrest for not pay­ing elec­tric­i­ty or water bills. When the cops saw that there was 8 peo­ple, they could­n’t be both­ered with the paper work and just took peo­ples names instead.

The squat­ters argued with the cops for half an hour until they were threat­ened with deten­tion, as the squat­ters left the area with the few pos­ses­sions they could man­age to take from the dis­used build­ing which had been emp­ty for the last 3 years, they were fol­lowed and har­rassed by under­cov­er police for about an hour.

It comes as no sur­prise that the police don’t fol­low the law, they are an armed gang pro­tect­ing what they think is nor­mal soci­ety, but it is clear that if they think kick­ing young home­less peo­ple out into the rain at 4am is nor­mal, they got a lot to learn.

Right now we are not going to give up squat­ting, because we have no choice, but organ­is­ing our­selves against the pigs, land­lords and politi­cians is the best adven­ture going right now — and we sure as hell ain’t going to work for a liv­ing!

We won’t stop squat­ting until the pigs fly off a cliff !

Squat­ters Asso­ci­a­tion of Brighton

Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) Day of Action — protests throughout England, Scotland & Wales — from cake to locked-on polar bears

Protests in Bris­tol, Lon­don, Manc, Nor­wich, Cam­bridge, Sheffield, Oxford, Edin­burgh, Truro, Birm­ing­ham, Glas­gow, Aberys­t­wyth, Cardiff, Bath, Brad­ford, St Andrews, Ply­mouth, Read­ing, Leam­ing­ton Spa, Leices­ter & Altrin­cham (‘read more’ for details, pho­tos, audio & video clips)

Protests in Bris­tol, Lon­don, Manc, Nor­wich, Cam­bridge, Sheffield, Oxford, Edin­burgh, Truro, Birm­ing­ham, Glas­gow, Aberys­t­wyth, Cardiff, Bath, Brad­ford, St Andrews, Ply­mouth, Read­ing, Leam­ing­ton Spa, Leices­ter & Altrin­cham (‘read more’ for details, pho­tos, audio & video clips)



Bristol RBS 3
Bristol RBS 4
Bristol RBS 5
A group of ‘cli­mate refugees’ blocked the vehi­cle entrance to the Roy­al Bank of Scotland’s Cor­po­rate Offices at Tem­ple Quay to shine the spot­light on cli­mate crim­i­nals RBS, the self-pro­claimed ‘Oil and Gas’ Bank. Four peo­ple from Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide for Cli­mate Action dressed as home­less polar bears have locked them­selves togeth­er and pre­vent­ed all vehi­cles enter­ing the RBS branch for six and a half hours.

Today’s block­ade last­ed six and a half hours with the last ‘cli­mate refugee’ being final­ly chis­eled out at 2.30pm. Four peo­ple are cur­rent­ly being held at Trin­i­ty police sta­tion.
The police used a dubi­ous method of deal­ing with it — they lift­ed peo­ple and suit­cas­es on to trol­leys and then wheeled them away. This caused severe dis­com­fort and pan­ic for the peo­ple on the ground and at least one of them has bruis­ing as a result.
RBS lost many hours today due to rock­ing up late cos of park­ing issues and the many employ­ees that spent the day star­ing out of the win­dows watch­ing the dra­ma unfold­ing and tak­ing pho­tos on their phones (check out you tube for clips!).

———-

PRESS RELEASE: ‘Cli­mate refugees’ locked up at the Oil Bank of Scot­land, Bris­tol

A group of ‘cli­mate refugees’ are block­ing the vehi­cle entrance to the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land’s Cor­po­rate Offices at Tem­ple Quay to shine the spot­light on cli­mate crim­i­nals RBS, the self-pro­claimed ‘Oil and Gas’ Bank.

Six peo­ple from Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide for Cli­mate Action dressed as home­less polar bears have locked them­selves togeth­er and are cur­rent­ly pre­vent­ing all vehi­cles enter­ing the RBS branch. This is part of a Nation­al Day of Local Action against the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land called by those huge­ly con­cerned with the dev­as­ta­tion to the cli­mate, plan­et and people.[1]

RBS-NatWest pub­licly pro­motes itself as “The Oil & Gas Bank”. They pro­vide the finan­cial fuel that is accel­er­at­ing cli­mate change. With­out these loans to oil and gas cor­po­ra­tions the projects would not hap­pen. [2]It is esti­mate that *in 2006, the bank pro­vid­ed over $10 bil­lion to fos­sil fuels – more than five times that pro­vid­ed to renew­able energy.[3]*

RBS pro­vide oil cor­po­ra­tions with loans to build new mas­sive­ly eco­log­i­cal­ly detri­men­tal drilling rigs, pipelines and oil tankers. [4] And as RBS’s prof­its rise so does the car­bon in the atmos­phere.

Glob­al cli­mate change already forces more peo­ple from their homes each year than war. And as the effects wors­en, one in sev­en peo­ple on Earth today could be forced to leave their homes over the next 50 years. [5]

A polar bear said, “I am here to let RBS know that their fun­nelling of cash into fos­sil fuel projects is mak­ing myself and mil­lions of oth­er ani­mals, includ­ing humans home­less.”

Anoth­er polar bear said “If car­bon diox­ide mol­e­cules had cor­po­rate tags of respon­si­bil­i­ty, the atmos­phere would be full of RBS logos min­gling with those of BP, Exxon and Shell!”

Con­tact:

Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide 07951789187
———
Notes for Edi­tors

[1] The day of action was called by the UK Ris­ing Tide Net­work at this years Camp for Cli­mate Action which took place next to Heathrow Air­port. www.risingtide.org.uk

[2] In 2005 emis­sions from RBS financed oil and gas projects was about a quar­ter of the amount pro­duced by all UK homes.

[3] tak­en from: *The Oil and Gas Bank; RBS and the financ­ing of cli­mate change * http://peopleandplanet.org/dl/ddd/rbs_report.pdf

[4] RBS is help­ing force open the car­bon fron­tier, financ­ing con­tro­ver­sial projects in Nige­ria, the Cau­ca­sus and Wales. Its involve­ment in Angolan and Niger­ian oil fields encour­ages cor­rup­tion and con­flict, while gas projects from the Ara­bi­an Gulf to the Gulf of Mex­i­co threat­en envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion.

[5] Fig­ures from “Human Tide: The Real Migra­tion Cri­sis,” by Chris­t­ian Aid. The report calls for “urgent action by the world com­mu­ni­ty” if the worst effects of this cri­sis are to be avert­ed.

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


one arrest at Roy­al Bank of Scot­land ban­ner drop this morn­ing in Lon­don

around a dozen activists from ‘ris­ing tide’ high­light­ed roy­al bank of scot­land’s shod­dy record of invest­ment in cli­mate change. one clam­bered on the glass canopy of their city hq to unfurl a ban­ner while oth­ers hand­ed out more than 900 leaflets

short­ly before 9am this morn­ing police sealed off the pave­ment under the glass canopy in front of 280 bish­ops­gate, the lon­don hq of the roy­al bank of scot­land. an activist had clam­bered up with a ban­ner pro­claim­ing ‘the oil bank of scot­land’, while a dozen oth­ers leaflet­ted passers-by and bank work­ers out­side the front doors.

the activists also had var­i­ous ban­ners, and one was fetch­ing­ly dressed as a polar bear.

the action last­ed about an hour and a half, while police pho­tog­ra­ph­er steve dis­combe used up the bat­tery of his long lens cam­era tak­ing shots of every­one involved. luck­i­ly, police back-up arrived with anoth­er bat­tery just as the ban­ner man came down.

police tried to seize the ban­ner from activists “as evi­dence” and after a short but com­ic game of ‘pig­gy in the mid­dle’, they suc­ceed­ed. in past cas­es around par­lia­ment square, it has been shown in court that if police have clear pho­tos of the ban­ner, under PACE they have no fur­ther right to seize the actu­al ban­ner, so in effect they stole it this morn­ing (as they often do!).

the ban­ner man was arrest­ed for ‘caus­ing a pub­lic nui­sance’ and it is believed he was tak­en to beth­nal green police sta­tion.

activists were high­light­ing the fact that RBS-NatWest have in the last five years fund­ed 655 mil­lion tonnes of emis­sions) which is more than the UK’s entire annu­al emis­sions. the bank has launched ‘avi­a­tion cap­i­tal’ to help put more planes in the sky, and it has pumped over $10billion into the oil and gas indus­try, fund­ing rigs, tankers and pipelines.

there is a fur­ther protest planned out­side the bank at 5pm today

20071015_RBS_WMV — video/x‑ms-wmv 15M

20071015_RBS_QT — video/quicktime 13M
————-

Lon­don pranks: ‘This Com­pa­ny is Out of Order’ signs left on 15 RBS and Natwest cash machines in cen­tral Lon­don. Pranksters do invis­i­ble the­atre in branch­es, try­ing to open accounts, hav­ing argu­ments about RBS’ uneth­i­cal poli­cies in the queues, and leav­ing piles of anti-RBS leaflets amongst their cor­po­rate pro­pa­gan­da. They then go under­ground for some ‘Tube Edu­ca­tion’, leaflet­ing and talk­ing to Tube pas­sen­gers.

————-

Nation­al cli­mate protests against Roy­al Bank of Scot­land, ‘The Oil and Gas Bank’

15 Octo­ber 2007
For imme­di­ate release, for pho­tographs con­tact Mike J Wells 07799152888

POLAR BEAR PINS BLAME ON RBS DOOR

Cli­mate Change direct action group Lon­don Ris­ing Tide and friends, this morn­ing occu­pied the head­quar­ters of the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land to expose their role in Cli­mate Chaos. This was one of many actions hap­pen­ing across the UK today as part of a UK Ris­ing Tide call out for a Nation­al day of action against RBS.

Activists dropped a ban­ner read­ing “RBS prof­its, cli­mate cops it” from the bal­cony, while oth­ers held plac­ards on the street in front of the build­ing on Bish­ops­gate.

A polar bear, cur­rent­ly sleep­ing rough since the artic ice became his­to­ry, also attend­ed to ask “why are RBS still invest­ing in fos­sil fuel projects like ‘gas pipelines’ in Wales and ‘Tar sands strip min­ing’ in what was Cana­di­an Arbo­re­al For­est?”

The Bear said “Banks like RBS are the hid­den dri­vers of cli­mate change by offer­ing loans to fos­sil fuel projects that oth­er­wise the World Bank would not sup­port”.

RBS calls itself the ‘Oil and Gas Bank’, and is the pri­ma­ry UK fun­der of fos­sil fuel extrac­tion. RBS pro­vides oil com­pa­nies with the cap­i­tal to build and oper­ate drilling rigs, pipelines and oil tankers in some of the most sen­si­tive and unsta­ble places in the world. Through Avi­a­tion Cap­i­tal, RBS financ­ing allows air­lines to expand their fleets and put more planes into the skies.

The thir­ty oil and gas finance deals RBS signed between 2001 and 2006 will cre­ate 655 mil­lion tonnes of car­bon emis­sions over the next 15 years, which is more than the UK’s entire annu­al emis­sions. (2)

‘Banks like RBS who prof­it hand­some­ly from cli­mate-destroy­ing projects have stood in the shad­ows for too long, but they are as guilty as the oil com­pa­nies. If car­bon diox­ide mol­e­cules had cor­po­rate tags of respon­si­bil­i­ty, the atmos­phere would be full of RBS logos min­gling with those of BP, Exxon and Shell’, said Mar­tin Red­fern, from Lon­don.

For inter­views from the protest call 075 1311 9047

For more details vis­it
. www.risingtide.org.uk
. http://www.carbonweb.org/showitem.asp?article=268&parent=267
(www.platform.org.uk)
. www.londonrisingtide.org.uk
=========================

ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND.…THE ‘OIL AND GAS BANK’

Man­ches­ter Cli­mate Action tar­get­ed the RBS head­quar­ters on Deans­gate, Man­ches­ter, as part of a nation­al day of action called by the Ris­ing Tide net­work.

Local groups which formed to mobilise for this year’s Camp for Cli­mate Action, have this morn­ing tak­en action against RBS, a major backer of the avi­a­tion indus­try and the world’s self-described ‘Oil and Gas Bank’.

Ban­ners were dis­played read­ing: ‘Cli­mate Change: RBS Makes It Hap­pen’ and ‘No Pipeline! Green Ener­gy Not Gas’. Pro­test­ers were greet­ed by 3 Tac­ti­cal Aid Unit Vans and secu­ri­ty guards, but despite police attempts to stop noise under the pub­lic order act, the sam­ba band played and fly­ers were giv­en out to work­ers, cus­tomers and passers by.

RBS employs some 5,000 staff in the Greater Man­ches­ter area and is the 2nd largest pri­vate employ­er in the area.

RBS pro­vides oil com­pa­nies with the cash to build and oper­ate drilling rigs, pipelines and oil tankers. RBS also prof­its through the avi­a­tion indus­try. From the Niger Delta to the Arc­tic, RBS loans play a key role in
forc­ing open the new car­bon fron­tier, which con­tributes to envi­ron­men­tal destruction,disruption of indige­nous peo­ples and increased con­flict across the plan­et.

RBS is the sec­ond-largest bank in Europe and has glob­al assets of over $1120 bil­lion, includ­ing UK brands NatWest, Direct Line and Churchill Insur­ance. Despite cre­at­ing a heav­i­ly green washed pub­lic image through
spon­sor­ship of sports and the arts, RBS activ­i­ties have major destruc­tive impacts on the envi­ron­ment and soci­ety. The thir­ty oil and gas finance deals RBS signed between 2001 and 2006 locked us all into 655 mil­lion
tonnes of emis­sions over the next 15 years, more than the UK’s entire annu­al emis­sions.

Man­ches­ter Cli­mate Action meet reg­u­lar­ly, for more infor­ma­tion email:
manchester@climatecamp.org.uk. Next meet­ing is Tues­day 16th, 6pm, Eighth Day café, Oxford Rd (near Man­ches­ter Met­ro­pol­i­tan Uni­ver­si­ty, oppo­site All Saints Park.)

radio report of rbs protest — mp3 2.2M
=========================

Triple wham­my for RBS in Nor­wich

Last night, the doors of the RBS-Natwest Group Tech­nol­o­gy office on Exchange Street and the main RBS branch on Queen Street were locked shut. When staff showed up for work this morn­ing at the Queen Street branch they found them­selves locked out, and gath­ered oppo­site the branch to see what would hap­pen. Soon after, 6 activists from Nor­wich Ris­ing Tide turned up with leaflets and ban­ners read­ing ‘RBS: Financ­ing Cli­mate Change’ and ‘Closed for a Total Re-think’. The d‑lock proved to be a good one, and the bank was delayed from open­ing for busi­ness for over an hour. Ris­ing Tiders hand­ed out leaflets and chat­ted to the wait­ing staff and cus­tomers, with the usu­al mixed response. Passers-by were gen­er­al­ly sup­port­ive, and the police showed up only at the very end, once the bank had re-opened and we were run­ning low on leaflets. After our 500-strong leaflet stash had been exhaust­ed, we decid­ed to call it a morn­ing.

norwich@risingtide.org.uk
http://www.risingtide.org.uk

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

Cam­bridge RBS action

At lunchtime on Mon­day 15 Octo­ber, around ten activists assem­bled out­side the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land branch on Trin­i­ty Street, Cam­bridge, as part of the nation­al day of action against the UK’s main bankroller of car­bon emit­ters. The pro­test­ers put up plac­ards next to the ATM, hand­ed out leaflets, and engaged passers-by and cus­tomers in dis­cus­sion.

Four police offi­cers were also in atten­dance, one tak­ing pic­tures of all the leaflet­ters. A num­ber of peo­ple who hap­pened to be pass­ing by want­ed to know the rea­son for this. Among these were an Amer­i­can woman who got quite strop­py with the offi­cers, and a young guy who want­ed to have pic­ture tak­en with one of the pro­test­ers (the police duti­ful­ly oblig­ed). Although the police came across all friend­ly, they did play their usu­al intim­i­da­tion tac­tics of drop­ping details of pro­test­ers into the con­ver­sa­tion that they could only have lift­ed from FIT files. On the flip­side, they asked for the plac­ards to be moved away from the ATM, as “cus­tomers might feel intim­i­dat­ed.”

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

Roy­al Bank of Scot­land Tar­get­ed for Invest­ing in Cli­mate Change

A group of activists leaflet­ted the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land in Broomhill, Sheffield as part of a Nation­al Day of Action. Over 20 actions have tak­en place all around the coun­try includ­ing banks being locked up in Nor­wich and polar bears blockad­ing in Bris­tol. This is all part of a cam­paign against the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land which invests heav­i­ly in oil and gas, which is accel­er­at­ing cli­mate change.

=========================
Oxford RBS
Quick Update on Today’s Oxford RBS Actions

Oxford cli­mate activists tar­get­ed a branch­es of both the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land and NatWest as part of the today’s Nation­al Day of Action. With ban­ners and oil-spat­tered T‑Shirts declar­ing “RBS Group — Fund­ing Cli­mate Change”, “Dirty Bankers — Shaft­ing The Plan­et”, and “The Oil Bank Of Scot­land”, they caused a stir in Oxford’s busiest shop­ping precinct and dis­trib­uted hun­dreds of leaflets to inter­est­ed cus­tomers and passers-by.

Activists also entered both branch­es with a large oil pipeline, explain­ing to cus­tomers and staff that they were deliv­er­ing it to the branch, but could­n’t leave until they’d spo­ken to Head Office to con­firm that it had arrived safe­ly. They stayed in each branch cheer­ful­ly (and loud­ly) rem­i­nisc­ing with staff and cus­tomers about all the oth­er pipelines and fos­sil fuel projects the bank was fund­ing, and how much cli­mate change they were caus­ing, until removed by the police. In the NatWest branch, they also man­aged to get a call put through to Head Office and asked them why RBS were fund­ing so many cli­mate-trash­ing projects (they did­n’t get any decent answers though).

No-one was arrest­ed, although one pro­test­er had to give their name and address under Sec­tion 50 of the Police Reform Act for “anti-social behav­iour” (they were appar­ent­ly caus­ing “alarm and dis­tress” by stand­ing in a bank, talk­ing about cli­mate change and hold­ing a card­board oil pipe).

Oxford Cli­mate Action meet on Mon­days at the Oxford Action Resource Cen­tre (OARC — www.theoarc.org.uk). To get involved, con­tact oxford@climatecamp.org.uk — new mem­bers always wel­come!

Link to video of Action

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

Stu­dents from Edin­burgh Uni­ver­si­ty protest­ed out­side RBS’s Cen­tral Branch in Edin­burgh as part of Ris­ing Tide’s nation­al day of action against RBS’s fund­ing of oil and gas extrac­tion.

Stu­dents from Edin­burgh Uni­ver­si­ty Peo­ple & Plan­et group stepped up their cam­paign against the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land (RBS) this morn­ing. Along­side oth­er Peo­ple & Plan­et groups in Scot­land, and cam­paign­ers from Ris­ing Tide, they took part in a nation­al ‘day of action’ tar­get­ing the Edin­burgh-based bank.

The protests aim to high­light RBS’s role as one of the world’s largest fun­ders of cli­mate-wreck­ing oil and gas extrac­tion. Emis­sions result­ing from RBS-sup­port­ed projects around the globe are greater than those of the whole of Scot­land.

Cam­paign­ers gave out infor­ma­tion to cus­tomers, held ban­ners, and waved oil cov­ered hands out­side RBS’s cen­tral branch in St. Andrew’s Square.

Peo­ple & Plan­et recent­ly worked with cli­mate change experts PLATFORM to write a report into RBS (2). The report draws atten­tion to the bank’s cru­cial role in sup­port­ing the glob­al oil and gas extrac­tion indus­try, where it pub­licly mar­kets itself as ‘the oil and gas bank’.

Sarah Hol­l­i­day, a mem­ber of Edin­burgh Peo­ple & Plan­et said:

“RBS call them­selves ‘the oil and gas bank’. They pro­vide huge amounts of advice and fund­ing for new oil extrac­tion. Their fos­sil fuels projects world­wide will lock us in to emis­sions for decades to come – mak­ing a low car­bon econ­o­my impos­si­ble. They are the UK’s main finan­cial dri­vers of cli­mate change.”

The cam­paign is a part of the Peo­ple & Plan­et nation­al cam­paign, “Ditch Dirty Devel­op­ment”, which is also call­ing on the Depart­ment for Inter­na­tion­al Devel­op­ment to stop using aid mon­ey to fund fos­sil fuel projects (3).

More pho­tos can be found here.

1) Peo­ple & Plan­et is the UK’s largest stu­dent cam­paign­ing net­work. It cam­paigns on world pover­ty, human rights and the envi­ron­ment: www.peopleandplanet.org http://pandp.eusa.ed.ac.uk

2) The report, enti­tled ‘The Oil and Gas Bank’, can be found here

3)“Ditch Dirty Devel­op­ment” cam­paign web­site
“Oil Bank of Scot­land” cam­paign web­site

————-

Also in Edin­burgh: The locks of the main entrances to at least six Edin­burgh RBS branch­es were glued shut last night, and all of them had to have the locks replaced today.

————-

2 branch­es in edin­burgh were giv­en ‘pol­lu­tion awards’ — along with var­i­ous oth­er posters about RBS pol­i­cy. unfor­tu­natly the police drove by while one branch was just being fin­ished off, and took the still wet posters off. 🙁 — next time…

=========================
Truro RBS
Truro demo at RBS branch: Twelve activists from across Corn­wall gath­ered at the RBS branch in Truro for a two-hour demo with a friend­ly atmos­phere and good response from passers-by. They hand­ed out leaflets and slices of cake from a clock-shaped ‘11th hour’ cake, and made new con­nec­tions that built the foun­da­tions of a cli­mate action group for Corn­wall.

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

Birm­ing­ham Uni flood cam­pus NatWest: Over thir­ty stu­dents from Birm­ing­ham Peo­ple and Plan­et descend­ed upon the Natwest branch on cam­pus. Some were dressed in boil­er suits and car­ried oil pipelines. Oth­ers, dressed as bankers and imper­son­at­ing mem­bers of the RBS Oil and Gas Team gave a high­ly sar­cas­tic pre­sen­ta­tion extolling the virtues of RBS’ oil and gas invest­ments. Oil pipes and boil­er suits. Dressed as bankers. Went in and gave mock pre­sen­ta­tion, imper­son­at­ed oil and gas team. Extolled virtues of RBS. 20 min­utes. Did pre­sen­ta­tion again a few more times on cam­pus. 30 peo­ple. Couldn’t all fit in. Birm­ing­ham Peo­ple and Plan­et.

=========================
Glas­gow Trea­cle Tart Cabaret: After a half hour dis­cus­sion with the cen­tral Glas­gow RBS branch man­ag­er in which they expressed their anger about RBS’ invest­ment in oil and gas, two intre­pid activists left the branch, only to make a quick cos­tume change and return as the hosts of the Trea­cle Tart Cabaret. They sang, danced, waved ban­ners and plac­ards, got up on the cashiers’ desks and strut­ted their stuff, and even per­formed an Oil Rap. At this point the bank decid­ed to lock its doors, lock­ing the Tarts in and cus­tomers out, and effec­tive­ly shut­ting the bank down for an hour. Inside the atmos­phere was pos­i­tive, with the locked-in staff and cus­tomers get­ting into the swing of things. One of the Tarts capped off the per­for­mance by cut­ting up her RBS deb­it card as a mag­ic trick.

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



Around a dozen cli­mate change refugees queued out­side Nat West Bank in Aberys­t­wyth today, Mon­day 15th Octo­ber, to beg a ‘bank offi­cial’ for a home loan because cli­mate change was destroy­ing their cur­rent home. The refugees ranged from an Aussie through a Green­lan­der to an Artic Cod. As the refugees were inter­viewed, vol­un­teers hand­ed out fliers on Roy­al Bank of Scot­land , Nat West and their invest­ment in projects linked to cli­mate change. Mean­while, RBS and Nat West ATMs all mys­te­ri­ous­ly dis­played signs read­ing ‘OUT OF ORDER’ in large let­ters. On close inspec­tion with a mag­ni­fy­ing glass, the very small print read ‘RBS and Nat West invest­ment pol­i­cy’. The pos­si­ble effects of cli­mate change on a num­ber of coun­tries were mapped on the pave­ment with chalk – dis­turb­ing before and after snap­shots. As the refugees were all turned down for home loans, they car­ried a protest ban­ner into the bank. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, being weak­ened by loos­ing their homes, the refugees dropped the ban­ner and, being weight­ed down with heli­um bal­loons, it drift­ed up and dis­played itself from the ceil­ing for a good half an hour before staff man­aged to get it down.

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

The main cardiff branch RBS on st Mary’s Street was closed 3 hours after 20 activists entered the build­ing caus­ing dis­trup­tion. Hun­dreds of leaflets were hand­ed out and ban­ners dis­played out­side. The process was repeat­ed at Natwest after­wards.

Lots of Police were in atten­dance includ­ing intel­li­gence gath­er­ers. Pho­tos to fol­low.

cardiffanarchists@riseup.net
http://southwalesanarchists.org

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

Don’t Bank On Oil In Bath

As part of today’s nation­al day of action against the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land, 7 activists from Bath Activist Net­work pick­et­ed the RBS branch on Qui­et Street in Bath, for two hours over lunch time. Ban­ner on dis­play, cus­tomers and passers-by were leaflet­ed with mock-up imi­ta­tion RBS lit­er­a­ture and invi­ta­tions to ‘Open an oil rig today!’, inform­ing the pub­lic about the Terms and Con­se­quences of bank­ing with RBS, their dodgy invest­ment record in fos­sil fuel extrac­tion and avi­a­tion indus­tries, and the 160,000 esti­mat­ed glob­al deaths a year due to the effects of cli­mate change. Whilst staff and police com­plained about the seem­ing­ly out-of-order ATM out­side their door, we lis­tened to sto­ries of cus­tomers’ poor treat­ment by their bank, and also helped at least the one stu­dent find more eth­i­cal options for his new account. Also bemus­ing were the mem­bers of pub­lic who mis­took the busi­ness-suit­ed activists for bank employ­ees, and chat­ted about the ser­vice.

bathactivistnet@yahoo.co.uk
http://myspace.com/bathactivistnetwork

To read PLAT­FOR­M’s report on Roy­al bank of Scot­land, go here: http://peopleandplanet.org/dl/ddd/rbs_report.pdf
=========================

Brad­ford stu­dents leaflet cam­pus Natwest

Stu­dents from the uni­ver­si­ty of Brad­ford Peo­ple & Plan­et group leaflet­ed at the Natwest branch on cam­pus. That’s all the details I know, hope­ful­ly more details to fol­low.

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

St Andrews Uni P&P also did some protest per­for­mance art — ‘attempt­ing’ to open accounts in the town, etc.

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

Ply­mouth — after a pro­ces­sion along North Hill Street, a group of peo­ple held a four-hour demo at the RBS branch near Drake Cir­cus, com­plete with music and drum­ming. A good response from passers-by, with lots of cus­tomers ask­ing direct­ly for leaflets.

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

Read­ing Ris­ing Tide held a demo at the Read­ing RBS branch.

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

A group of 5 held a demo in Leam­ing­ton.

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

Cash-points were stick­ered with anti-RBS stick­ers in Leices­ter.

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

Leaflets were stuck on lamp-posts in Altrin­cham.

Last week’s direct action news from Greece

direct action report 7–15 Octo­ber
DIRECT ACTION NEWS FROM GREECE — http://directactiongr.blogspot.com

This blog is an attemp to cov­er, pub­li­cise and trans­late all known direct action news (most­ly con­cern­ing Greece but also near coun­tries as well), apart from the mass media medi­a­tion, pro­vid­ing an open data­base on sab­o­tage-van­dal­ism-riot­ing and oth­er fine pop­u­lar arts that blos­som through­out the ruins of our post-indus­tri­al soci­ety. It came as a per­son­al response to a wider need for all direct action to have its own prop­er spaces, in order to speak for itself, spaces avail­able to any­one that cares. So, i am will­ing to pub­lish all com­mu­niques and com­ments con­cern­ing the actions found here. There will not be pub­lished here actions claimed by any for­mal organ­i­sa­tions or par­ties. These gen­tle­men can ‑at least- afford their own image-mak­ing. You are wel­come to send your own reports to directactiongr@yahoo.gr

direct action report 7–15 Octo­ber
DIRECT ACTION NEWS FROM GREECE — http://directactiongr.blogspot.com

This blog is an attemp to cov­er, pub­li­cise and trans­late all known direct action news (most­ly con­cern­ing Greece but also near coun­tries as well), apart from the mass media medi­a­tion, pro­vid­ing an open data­base on sab­o­tage-van­dal­ism-riot­ing and oth­er fine pop­u­lar arts that blos­som through­out the ruins of our post-indus­tri­al soci­ety. It came as a per­son­al response to a wider need for all direct action to have its own prop­er spaces, in order to speak for itself, spaces avail­able to any­one that cares. So, i am will­ing to pub­lish all com­mu­niques and com­ments con­cern­ing the actions found here. There will not be pub­lished here actions claimed by any for­mal organ­i­sa­tions or par­ties. These gen­tle­men can ‑at least- afford their own image-mak­ing. You are wel­come to send your own reports to directactiongr@yahoo.gr

http://directactiongr.blogspot.com/search/label/english

LAST WEEK’S NEWS…

15 sur­veil­lance cam­eras destroyed, Poly­tech­ni­cal School (Athens, 15/10/2007)
Source & leaflet text (greek only): athens.indymedia.org

Today at 3 o’clock peo­ple from the self-man­aged infos­hop of the poly­tech­ni­cal school and oth­er com­pan­ions, broke down 15 sur­veil­lance cam­eras around the school’s library and destroyed the mon­i­tors and the whole con­trol room.

A leaflet explain­ing the rea­sons of this action cir­cu­lat­ed last days as well as dur­ing the action, slo­gans against sur­veil­lance and social con­trol were spray-paint­ed and two ban­ners were hanged on the library area.

***

Arson at Eth­ni­ki Bank and rul­ing par­ty’s offices (Thes­sa­loni­ki, 15/10/2007)
Source (greek only): http://www.kathimerini.gr/4dcgi/_w_articles_kathremote_1_15/10/2007_207901

A dou­ble arson attack was realised around 3:10 in the morn­ing, when a sub­sidiary of Eth­ni­ki Bank on Leon­tos Sofou Str. in the city cen­ter and the local offices of Nea Dimokra­tia (the greek rul­ing par­ty) were made tar­gets of gas-can­is­ter bomb­ings.

***

Deputy edu­ca­tion min­is­ter’s office attacked (Athens, 14/10/2007)
Source: http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_politics_100021_15/10/2007_88953

Uniden­ti­fied per­sons left a incen­di­ary device with gas can­is­ters that explod­ed in front of mr. Lyk­ourent­zos office, on the sec­ond floor of an apparte­ments block at Solonos Str. in cen­tral Athens.

Anoth­er res­i­dent of the block found the device and called the police, but in his effort to extin­guish the fire that burnst out, he got some minor burns him­self.

***

Munic­i­pal Police offices attacked (Athens 12/10/2007)
Source (greek only): http://news.antenna.gr/articleDetail/0,3091,167424,00.html

Some 15 per­sons wear­ing hoods attacked the offices of the munic­i­pal police in Paleo Faliro, Athens, late Sat­ur­day night. They threw stones and caused minor dam­ages to the offices entrance.

Note: Two anar­chists are being detained for an alleged arson against a munic­i­pal police car in Faliro, Chris­sos­to­mos Kon­tore­vithakis and Mar­ios Tsoura­pas, (for more infor­ma­tion: http://www.geocities.com/anarcores/faliro3)

***

Two banks burnt up (Athens, 12/10/2007)
Source (greek only): http://news.pathfinder.gr/greece/news/434581.html — http://www.ethnos.gr/article.asp?catid=5592&subid=2&pubid=48619

A lit­tle before 22:00 around 20 per­sons wear­ing hoods attacked two banks (one “Eth­ni­ki” and one “Agroti­ki” bank) in Ilisia area in Athens. They broke the glass win­dows and threw molo­tov cock­tails inside the banks. They all man­aged to escape police forces and run to the Zografou uni­ver­si­ty area.

Lat­er on, the police arrest­ed eight per­sons but left them free because they found no evi­dence, except from one of them that car­ried a wood­en glob and will be pros­e­cut­ed.

***

OTE telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions office fire­bombed (Athens, 10/10/2007)
Source (greek only): http://www.naftemporiki.gr/news/static/07/10/10/1423317.htm

A few min­utes before 6:00 a group of about ten unknown per­sons attacked the offices of OTE telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions com­pa­ny in Exarcheia, Athens.

***

Sports Muse­um under attack (Thes­sa­loni­ki, 07/10/2007)
Source (greek only): http://www.kathimerini.gr/4dcgi/_w_articles_kathremote_0_07/10/2007_206771

Accord­ing to the news­pa­per’s report, a small group of uniden­ti­fied per­sons, a few min­utes before 3:00, hurled molo­tov cock­tails at the entrance of the Sports Muse­um, locat­ed near the Aris­to­tle Uni­ver­si­ty. The fire caused minor dam­ages and was extin­guished by the muse­um’s guards. The group left the area when the police arrived.

***

Demon­stra­tors mess up “anti“terrorist con­ven­tion (Volos, 07/10/2007)
Source (greek only): Athens Indy­media

After a sol­i­dar­i­ty to the immi­grants march, demon­stra­tors invad­ed a con­ven­tion held at the Thes­salia Uni­ver­si­ty, dur­ing the crim­i­nol­o­gist Mairy Bossi’s speach.

Mairy Bossi has been the sci­en­tif­ic con­sul­tant of the min­istry of pub­lic order, she was as well will­ing to lead a “study of the social char­ac­ter­is­tics” of the 529 arrestees of the tech­ni­cal school’s occu­pa­tion in Athens, 1995, and she has also been a wit­ness of accu­sa­tion at the so-called ELA (peo­ple’s rev­o­lu­tion­ary strug­gle) jury, etc.
Her speach was inter­rupt­ed and she was forced to leave the room, when peo­ple threw cof­fees and snacks from the buf­fet at her.

The night before there was also an attack against the immi­grants con­cen­tra­tion cen­tre in Volos.

http://directactiongr.blogspot.com/search/label/english

Samhain bagpipe gathering at Tara, plus action days 31st October ‑5th November

Samhain Bag­pipe Gath­er­ing
Feis-Teamhrach (The Great Feast of Tara)

Come cel­e­brate the Celtic New Year at Tara

Samhain
Samhain Bag­pipe Gath­er­ing
Feis-Teamhrach (The Great Feast of Tara)

Come cel­e­brate the Celtic New Year at Tara
Hill of Tara, near Navan, co Meath, Ire­land.

Relight­ing the Ancient Bea­con fires & Samhain Shindig

Bring your feast­ing food that you want to eat and share

Wed Oct 31st Light­ing Taras 7 Bea­cons And Feast
Thurs 1st/Fri 2nd Nov DAYS OF ACTION
Sat Nov 3rd Fire, Music and Ban­quet
Mon 5th (and every Mon) direct action Route walk.

Vig­il camp 00353 861 758557 Action camp 00353 861 537146

Call­ing all musi­cians, bards, per­form­ers & poets
Bring your flutes, whis­tles, drums and voic­es to the Halls of Tara. Big call out to all
BAGPIPE play­ers to gath­er on the Wed and Sat.
Call­ing all Peo­ple to join in the Defense of TARA
Act now to pre­serve this world her­itage site!

Fliers/posters to down­load at www.tarapixie.net

For direc­tions to Tara check the web­sites below
www.savetara.com www.tarawatch.org
www.tarapixie.net

SAVE IRELAND’S TARA VALLEY!