Author: earthfirst

Norewegian Whaler Scuttled

Sea Shep­herd News
2/9/2007

Sunken Whaler Was a Cru­el Killer

It is not a sur­prise that an unknown per­son (or per­sons) tar­get­ed the Willassen Senior — the out­law Nor­we­gian whal­ing ves­sel that was scut­tled on the evening of August 30, 2007.

Scuttled Norwegian whalerSea Shep­herd News
2/9/2007

Sunken Whaler Was a Cru­el Killer

It is not a sur­prise that an unknown per­son (or per­sons) tar­get­ed the Willassen Senior — the out­law Nor­we­gian whal­ing ves­sel that was scut­tled on the evening of August 30, 2007.

Under­cov­er video of a Nor­we­gian whale hunt, tak­en in May 2005, was released today by the World Soci­ety for the Pro­tec­tion of Ani­mals (WSPA) and the Envi­ron­men­tal Inves­ti­ga­tion Agency (EIA). This footage is believed to be the first of its kind cap­tured by a non-gov­ern­men­tal orga­ni­za­tion (NGO) in over a decade. Though Nor­way claims to be the best in the busi­ness when it comes to accu­ra­cy and rel­a­tive humane­ness of com­mer­cial whale kills, the footage tells a dif­fer­ent sto­ry.

In this video, the Willassen Senior was doc­u­ment­ed pur­su­ing a Piked (minke) whale in chop­py con­di­tions. The whale was har­pooned and sub­se­quent­ly rid­dled with bul­lets from a high-pow­ered rifle. It spent 15 min­utes div­ing, resur­fac­ing, and rolling about on the sur­face in extreme agony before it final­ly suc­cumbed to the attack and died.

Click here to view the footage tak­en by WSPA and EIA in May 2005.

The Willassen Senior is the fifth Nor­we­gian whal­ing ves­sel to come under attack for ille­gal whal­ing activ­i­ties since 1992. The com­plete list to date includes:

The Nybrae­na — scut­tled dock­side in Decem­ber 1992 (Reine, Lofoten Islands).
The Senet — Scut­tled dock­side in Jan­u­ary 1994 (Fredricks­berg, Nor­way).
The Elin-Toril — Severe­ly dam­aged in 1997.
The Morild — Sunk in 1998.
The Williassen Senior — Sunk in August 2007 (Svolvaer, Lofoten Islands).

Watch video of the sunken vess­sel

More info @ : www.seashepherd.org

GM quarantine in Romania

5 Sep­tem­ber 2007

How’s this for a cre­ative and excit­ing exam­ple of direct action — it’s a block­ade but with a dif­fer­ence.

GM decontamination in Romania5 Sep­tem­ber 2007

How’s this for a cre­ative and excit­ing exam­ple of direct action — it’s a block­ade but with a dif­fer­ence.

Ear­li­er this morn­ing in Roma­nia, Green­peace vol­un­teers quar­an­tined a whole island where GM soya crops are being grown, which is ille­gal under EU law. Vehi­cles leav­ing Braila island were hosed down by peo­ple wear­ing white bio­haz­ard suits to pre­vent genet­ic con­t­a­m­i­na­tion spread­ing to the main­land. Even a don­key and cart were washed and made GM-free!

As well as soya, maize and sun­flow­ers are also grown there and the har­vest has just begun, so the cam­paign­ers in Roma­nia want­ed to stop any GM crops leav­ing the island and end­ing up in the food chain. Dri­vers were appar­ent­ly warned that they could­n’t leave the island with­out pass­ing through the ‘decon­t­a­m­i­na­tion sta­tion’ so there have been no reports of any soya-laden trucks try­ing to leave.

GM crops have popped up in Roma­nia before and since the coun­try joined the EU ear­li­er this year, they’re now ille­gal. There’s also a flour­ish­ing black mar­ket in GM seeds and the wide­spread pres­ence of GM food in Roman­ian mar­kets. But now these ille­gal crops have been exposed in such an eye-catch­ing man­ner, envi­ron­men­tal stan­dards offi­cers on the scene have told the media that they will take care of the sit­u­a­tion.

GM-spot­ters have been at work in France, paint­ing a field of GM maize bright red to mark its posi­tion. This crop — with the snazzy name MON810 — is also ille­gal as nei­ther the farmer nor the French gov­ern­ment have noti­fied the rel­e­vant author­i­ties that it has been plant­ed.

And apart from both being GM and ille­gal, what links these two agri­cul­tur­al inci­dents? Why, it’s our old friend, Mon­san­to, devel­op­er of the vari­eties of soya and maize in ques­tion. Fun­ny that.
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/gm/gm-quarantine-in-romania-20070905

Be Proud to Make a Difference: Subvert an Army Ad & DSEi Day of Action, 11 September 2007, tank & critical mass

Army recruit­ment ads on phonebox­es in Oxford get the treat­ment they right­ly deserve!

Shut down the arms fair:Manzil Way phonebox (Class War stick­er already there!)

Pix­ies strike again in Oxford, this time to shut down a cer­tain arms fair, and also to pro­mote a cer­tain polit­i­cal ide­ol­o­gy…

http://dsei.org

army phonebox subvert 1army phonebox subvert 2Army recruit­ment ads on phonebox­es in Oxford get the treat­ment they right­ly deserve!

Shut down the arms fair:Manzil Way phonebox (Class War stick­er already there!)

Pix­ies strike again in Oxford, this time to shut down a cer­tain arms fair, and also to pro­mote a cer­tain polit­i­cal ide­ol­o­gy…

http://dsei.org

1pm Cus­tom House.

Come by bus. Come by DLR. Come by bike. Come by foot. Come by tank.

Get to Cus­tom House.

Invade ExCeL.

Shut down the arms fair.

Bring your friends.

4.30pm Can­ning Town bus sta­tion.

The del­e­gates will be at your dis­pos­al.

Please use your imag­i­na­tion and a diver­si­ty of tac­tics.

Have fun…

See www.dsei.org for more infor­ma­tion and direc­tions.

DISARM DSEi
disarm@dsei.org

———————–
Infor­ma­tion from today’s Space Hijack­ers press con­fer­ence

The Space Hijack­ers Arms Deal­ing at DSEi Arms Fair

Press Release

Every two years DSEi (Defence Sys­tems & Equip­ment Inter­na­tion­al), the worlds largest Arms fair, hap­pens at the ExCeL cen­tre in east Lon­don. Sell­ing every­thing from up close tor­ture weapons to long dis­tance civil­ian maim­ing bombs, the fair offers a wide range of choice to the 20,000 del­e­gates trav­el­ing to the fair from an assort­ment of cor­rupt regimes and often from coun­tries at war with each oth­er!

Pre­vi­ous­ly the Space Hijack­ers have attempt­ed to dis­rupt the fair, dis­guis­ing them­selves as arms deal­ers, board­ing trains to the fair with the deal­ers and then attempt­ing to sell them pros­thet­ic limbs (arms!) and lat­er sex toys (we fig­ured they were a bit too obsessed with phal­lic objects and were per­haps com­pen­sat­ing for a lack of weapons capa­bil­i­ties else­where).

On all pre­vi­ous occa­sions we have been escort­ed out of the area by the £4million worth of police who are called in to pro­tect the del­i­cate souls sell­ing the weapons in the fair. This year we have decid­ed to learn from the arms deal­ers them­selves and take a leaf out of their book.

After sev­er­al months of fundrais­ing and receiv­ing invest­ment from Artists Anony­mous, The Space Hijack­ers are now proud own­ers of a Sara­cen Mk1 tank, which we intend to dri­ve to the arms fair, right into the mix of pro­test­ers and police. As the pro­test­ers line up against the heav­i­ly armed police, we intend to roll up and auc­tion our tank to the high­est bid­der. If this so hap­pens to be an angry teenag­er in a bal­a­cla­va, then so be it. We don’t see how destruc­tion caused with our tank can pos­si­bly be our respon­si­bil­i­ty.

Sev­er­al peo­ple have got in touch with us claim­ing that this kind of behav­ior is slight­ly reck­less “what if some­one dri­ves over a police car in your tank?” Our response is sim­ple: we are sim­ply look­ing to make a prof­it, it’s just busi­ness trans­ac­tion. As with the arms deal­ers and their weapons, once the goods are out of our hands, how can we be held account­able for how they are used?

So ladies and gen­tle­men, roll up to the arms fair this Sep­tem­ber 11th and join in the bid­ding. We will have a pro­mo­tions team on hand to make the event mem­o­rable, danc­ing girls and boys, music and of course a 10 tonne armored vehi­cle ready to be dri­ven away!

For more infor­ma­tion please vis­it:

http://www.spacehijackers.org
http://www.dsei.org

———————–
Bikes not Bombs logoAs part of a week of action against the DSEi arms fair there will be a ‘Bikes not Bombs’ crit­i­cal mass’ bike ride meet­ing up at Bank tube sta­tion at 10:30am on Tues­day, and rid­ing to the arms fair. Bikes and any oth­er human-pow­ered vehi­cle wel­come — no tanks!

There will also be a ride on Thurs­day evening for the arms deal­ers’ din­ner, leav­ing from by the NFT under Water­loo Bridge at 6:30pm.

http://dsei.org/

Western Animal Rights Network launched! + Animal Rights Copwatch

WARN (West­ern Ani­mal Rights Net­work) is a coali­tion for ani­mal lib­er­a­tionists that was orig­i­nal­ly launched in 2005 but ceased to be after activists moved away from the West. We hope to be a sup­port base for activists and be a gate­way into the ani­mal rights move­ment for peo­ple look­ing to get involved in ani­mal lib­er­a­tion in the West of the UK.

WARN (West­ern Ani­mal Rights Net­work) is a coali­tion for ani­mal lib­er­a­tionists that was orig­i­nal­ly launched in 2005 but ceased to be after activists moved away from the West. We hope to be a sup­port base for activists and be a gate­way into the ani­mal rights move­ment for peo­ple look­ing to get involved in ani­mal lib­er­a­tion in the West of the UK.

WARN has re-launched with a new web­site with demo reports, direct action, events, veg­an and AR info, cam­paign mate­ri­als, cloth­ing and kit for those of us activists who like to out after the sun has gone down.

We will be pro­duc­ing a “Schnews” style dou­ble sided A4 newslet­ter every month and a year­ly mag­a­zine with all the years actions and loads of info includ­ed.

WARN will be active in the fol­low­ing areas and we encour­age groups to please help us out with con­tent includ­ing demo / action reports (via PGP) not to men­tion any oth­er con­tent, events or action alerts you want on the site.

* South West Eng­land
o Bris­tol
o North Som­er­set
o Glouces­ter­shire
o Wilt­shire
* West Mid­lands
o Worces­ter­shire
o Here­ford­shire
o Shrop­shire
o War­ick­shire
o Stafford­shire
o Birm­ing­ham
o Coven­try
o Dud­ley
o Sandwell
o Soli­hull
o Wal­sall
o Wolver­hamp­ton
* Wales
o Mon­mouthshire
o Car­marthen­shire
o Glan­mor­gan
o Bre­con­shire
o Pem­brokeshire

With the cre­ation of NETCU and (over)use of SOCPA and oth­er leg­is­la­tion which is mak­ing law­ful protest near impos­si­ble these days we have tak­en it upon our­selves in con­junc­tion with NETCU WATCH (www.vivisection.info/netcu_watch) to start a blog and post details of ille­gal police activ­i­ties and the pho­tos and names / num­bers of police offi­cers involved with the crack­down on legal protest. We hope to build an infor­ma­tion base which will be avail­able to use as a defence in court.

Check out http://arcopwatch.wordpress.com

And sub­mit your cop pics with any rel­e­vant infor­ma­tion to copwatch@animalliberation.co.uk

Thanks for the sup­port!

info @ animalliberation.co.uk
http://www.animalliberation.co.uk

Free Julio! No more dams!

Julio Vil­lanue­va, mem­ber of the group Solidari@s con Itoiz, was arrest­ed on August 17th in Iruñea-Pam­plona. He was arrest­ed by the local police ant impris­oned next morn­ing.

Julio Vil­lanue­va, mem­ber of the group Solidari@s con Itoiz, was arrest­ed on August 17th in Iruñea-Pam­plona. He was arrest­ed by the local police ant impris­oned next morn­ing.

Vil­lanue­va is one of the eight activists that in April 1996 stopped the con­struc­tion works of Itoiz dam by cut­ting the cables on the con­crete trans­porter. The eight sol­i­dar­ios were sen­tenced to 4 years and 10 months in prison for the sab­o­tage. Two of them have already served the jail sen­tences passed on them. So Vil­lanue­va is the third mem­ber of Solidar@s con Itoiz imrisoned for the direct action against Itoiz reser­voir. He’s been unti­il now in clan­des­tin­i­ty like the rest of the remain­ing six, some­thing which we can con­sid­er a huge pun­ish­ment too.

Sup­port actions

On August 18th about one hun­dred peo­ple gath­ered out­side the prison of Pam­plona-Iruñea to protest against the inpris­on­ment of Julio Vil­lanue­va. Two days lat­er anoth­er gath­er­ing of sup­port for Julio took place in front of the jail. Solidari@s con Itoiz urges cit­i­zens to join anoth­er protest to demand free­dom for Julio next Mon­day, August 27th, at 7 pm in the same place.

You can also sup­port Julio by send­ing him mes­sages:

Julio Vil­lanue­va

Prisión de Pam­plona-Iruñea

Calle San Roque s/n

Apdo. 250

31071 PAMPLONA-IRUÑEA

More earth­quakes caused by Itoiz reser­voir water stor­age

Earth­quakes caused by the Itoiz reser­voir water stor­age have not ceased in last months. In fact, they have increased in num­ber ( 1.200 earth­quakes since sum­mer 2004, when they start­ed fill­ing up the reser­voir) and in the same way they are increas­ing the dan­ger of an inmi­nent cat­a­stro­phe at Itoiz. As the earth­quake map shows, more and more seis­mic events are hav­ing epi­cen­tre in the very same Itoiz reser­voir, which increas­es seri­ous­ly the risk of land­slides into the reser­voir, endan­ger­ing thou­sands of people´s lives. More details avail­able at: www.itoizstop.org

Read and spread this mes­sage!

FREDOM FOR JULIO!!! STOP THE DAMS!!!

Solidari@s con Itoiz

Sindominio.net/sositoz

sositoiz@sindominio.net

Scotland’s first SOCRAP charges — 6 arrested inside Faslane high security area

Faslane Naval Base, Scot­land, Sep­tem­ber 4, 2007, 06.30 a.m.
Police say 3 women have been arrest­ed inside the high secu­ri­ty fences at the Tri­dent nuclear sub­ma­rine base after enter­ing the base to get fur­ther infor­ma­tion on the weapons of mass destruc­tion deployed by the UK gov­ern­ment in con­tra­ven­tion of Scot­tish and Inter­na­tion­al Law. Accord­ing to the police, the women, who were act­ing to uphold the law, are being charged under the Seri­ous Organ­ised Crime and Police Act, which is increas­ing­ly being used to pre­vent peace­ful protests at sen­si­tive sites, includ­ing Britain’s nuclear bases.

Faslane 365 logoFaslane Naval Base, Scot­land, Sep­tem­ber 4, 2007, 06.30 a.m.
Police say 3 women have been arrest­ed inside the high secu­ri­ty fences at the Tri­dent nuclear sub­ma­rine base after enter­ing the base to get fur­ther infor­ma­tion on the weapons of mass destruc­tion deployed by the UK gov­ern­ment in con­tra­ven­tion of Scot­tish and Inter­na­tion­al Law. Accord­ing to the police, the women, who were act­ing to uphold the law, are being charged under the Seri­ous Organ­ised Crime and Police Act, which is increas­ing­ly being used to pre­vent peace­ful protests at sen­si­tive sites, includ­ing Britain’s nuclear bases.

Lavinia Cross­ley, Tan­sy New­man Turn­er and Emma Bate­man, all part of a group call­ing them­selves the ‘Faslane 365 Seri­ous Organ­ised Crime Inves­ti­ga­tion and Pre­ven­tion Team’, went into the base to find evi­dence on the rules of engage­ment, poli­cies and pro­ce­dures for the deploy­ment, tar­get­ing and use of nuclear weapons and to dis­cov­er what infor­ma­tion is pro­vid­ed to per­son­nel about the legal, safe­ty and secu­ri­ty impli­ca­tions of their work on Tri­dent. Their action kicks off the last month of the Faslane 365 year-long block­ade, in which almost 1000 peo­ple from all over the world have been arrest­ed.

In car­ry­ing the non­vi­o­lent resis­tance to the ille­gal deploy­ment and renew­al of Tri­dent into the sub­ma­rine base itself, the women took this action because they con­sid­er that the deploy­ment of Tri­dent con­sti­tutes prepa­ra­tion for a war crime. This vio­la­tion of Scot­tish and inter­na­tion­al law is com­pound­ed by the UK Government’s poli­cies of deploy­ment, con­sti­tut­ing an ever-present threat to use Tri­dent. The women’s action was against both the cur­rent deploy­ment and the government’s stat­ed inten­tion to replace the cur­rent Tri­dent-car­ry­ing Van­guard-class sub­marines with new bal­lis­tic mis­sile sub­marines, in breach of the Nuclear Non-Pro­lif­er­a­tion Treaty (NPT), of which Britain is a Par­ty.

“Nuclear weapons are immoral and ille­gal,” said Lavinia Cross­ley (22) from Brad­ford. “I feel I have to act because if I do not, who will? The Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to cov­er up the ille­gal­i­ty of these weapons and instead pre­tend that we are the crim­i­nals.”

Emma Bate­man (40), from Leices­ter, said, “It is ridicu­lous to threat­en Iran with sanc­tions for pos­si­bly want­i­ng nuclear weapons when we have actu­al WMD here and ready to be used.”

Tan­sy New­man Turn­er (21), also from Leices­ter, said, “Nuclear weapons are not much use against ter­ror­ism and this leg­is­la­tion is an admis­sion that Faslane is a tar­get for ter­ror­ists, thus putting us in more dan­ger. Nuclear weapons pose a threat and dan­ger to us, not a pro­tec­tion or deter­rent.”

The “Faslane 365 Block­ade” start­ed on Octo­ber 1, 2006. Thou­sands have par­tic­i­pat­ed and more than 930 peo­ple have been arrest­ed. On Octo­ber 1st there will be a cel­e­bra­to­ry “Big Block­ade’ involv­ing all the blockad­ing groups that have par­tic­i­pat­ed through­out the year.

See www.faslane365.org for pho­tographs and fur­ther infor­ma­tion.

»»»»»»»»»»»»»>

At 11.00a.m. today, 3 more peace pro­test­ers breached secu­ri­ty at the North gate of the Faslane nuclear sub­ma­rine base, enter­ing on bicy­cles. This sec­ond team from the ‘Faslane 365 Seri­ous Organ­ised Crime Inves­ti­ga­tion and Pre­ven­tion Team’ fol­lows the ear­li­er arrest of 3 women inside the base. It is under­stood that they are being charged under the Seri­ous Organ­ised Crime and Police Act (SOCPA). The total num­ber of Scot­tish SOCRAP arrests is now 6.

Like the 3 ear­li­er Faslane 365 activists, arrest­ed at around 4.30 a.m. this morn­ing after climb­ing the high secu­ri­ty fences, Janet Fen­ton, Ang­ie Zel­ter and Wolf Konows­ki entered the Faslane base to find evi­dence on the rules of engage­ment, poli­cies and pro­ce­dures for the deploy­ment, tar­get­ing and use of nuclear weapons and to dis­cov­er what infor­ma­tion is pro­vid­ed to per­son­nel about the legal, safe­ty and secu­ri­ty impli­ca­tions of their work on Tri­dent.

Janet Fen­ton (60) from Edin­burgh said, “The Seri­ous Organ­ised Crime and Police Act does not have back­ing in Scot­land. It is there to stop peo­ple expos­ing the real law-break­ing of the UK Gov­ern­ment. The deploy­ment of Tri­dent is ille­gal accord­ing to the World Court.”

Ang­ie Zel­ter (56) from Nor­folk said, “The law must not be used to pro­tect ille­gal­i­ties. SOCAP is polit­i­cal leg­is­la­tion that makes it a crim­i­nal offence for pro­test­ers to go into Faslane when it is our legal, civ­il and moral duty to uphold the law by expos­ing and pre­vent­ing prepa­ra­tions for mass mur­der.”

Wolf Konows­ki (43) from Ger­many, added, “For evil to tri­umph it is only nec­es­sary for good peo­ple to do noth­ing.”

Note for edi­tors:
The “Faslane 365 Block­ade” start­ed on Octo­ber 1, 2006. Thou­sands have par­tic­i­pat­ed and more than 930 peo­ple have been arrest­ed. On Octo­ber 1st there will be a cel­e­bra­to­ry “Big Block­ade’ involv­ing all the blockad­ing groups that have par­tic­i­pat­ed through­out the year.

The Seri­ous Organ­ised Crime and Police Act (SOCAP) became law in 2005, and amend­ed by the Ter­ror­ism Act 2006. Under the rubric of defend­ing against ter­ror­ism, SOCAP makes it a crim­i­nal offence to “tres­pass” on cer­tain areas of land, includ­ing mil­i­tary facil­i­ties, such as the Tri­dent nuclear weapons base at Faslane

The Unit­ed King­dom cur­rent­ly deploys up to 200 nuclear war­heads on US Tri­dent mis­siles, car­ried on nuclear sub­marines based at the Faslane Naval Base in Scot­land. The major­i­ty of war­heads are 100 kilo­tonnes, which is more than 8 times big­ger than the bombs used on Hiroshi­ma and Nagasa­ki in 1945. The UK is fac­ing a high­ly con­tro­ver­sial deci­sion on whether to get the next gen­er­a­tion of Tri­dent nuclear weapons or move towards gen­uine nuclear dis­ar­ma­ment, as required under the 1970 Nuclear Non-Pro­lif­er­a­tion Treaty and sub­se­quent inter­na­tion­al agree­ments, as spec­i­fied by the Inter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice in 1996. Recent opin­ion polls show that 80 per­cent of peo­ple liv­ing in Scot­land (and 55 per­cent in the UK as a whole) are opposed to nuclear weapons and want Tri­dent to be can­celled. On June 14, the Scot­tish Par­lia­ment vot­ed against Tri­dent by 71 votes to 16 (with 39 absten­tions).

See www.faslane365.org for pho­tographs and fur­ther infor­ma­tion.

CONTACT Rebec­ca John­son: 077333 60955
www.faslane365.org

2 coal actions in Australia

Aus­tralia: Coal Pow­er Sta­tion shut down in APEC cli­mate protest
3.09.2007

Activists have shut down pow­er gen­er­a­tion at the Loy Yang pow­er sta­tion in Gipp­s­land’s Latrobe Val­ley in Vic­to­ria on Mon­day morn­ing for five hours, as a protest against inac­tion on cli­mate change by the Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment of John Howard, and poli­cies that main­tain the coal pow­er indus­try and its con­tri­bu­tion to cli­mate change at the expense of devel­op­ing renew­able ener­gy pro­duc­tion. The action was under­tak­en to send a mes­sage to APEC lead­ers to take real action on Cli­mate Change and the Kyoto pro­to­col.


Aus­tralia: Coal Pow­er Sta­tion shut down in APEC cli­mate protest
3.09.2007

Activists have shut down pow­er gen­er­a­tion at the Loy Yang pow­er sta­tion in Gipp­s­land’s Latrobe Val­ley in Vic­to­ria on Mon­day morn­ing for five hours, as a protest against inac­tion on cli­mate change by the Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment of John Howard, and poli­cies that main­tain the coal pow­er indus­try and its con­tri­bu­tion to cli­mate change at the expense of devel­op­ing renew­able ener­gy pro­duc­tion. The action was under­tak­en to send a mes­sage to APEC lead­ers to take real action on Cli­mate Change and the Kyoto pro­to­col.

At least four activists from Real Action on Cli­mate Change entered the pow­er sta­tion at 5am and locked them­selves on to a coal con­vey­or and an over­bur­den con­vey­or belt, forc­ing the shut­down of the 600 megawatt gen­er­a­tor, halv­ing pro­duc­tion from Vic­to­ri­a’s biggest coal fired pow­er sta­tion that sup­plies 30% of the states pow­er, the dirt­i­est pow­er sup­ply in the devel­oped world.

Anoth­er pow­er unit at Loy Yang is out for main­te­nance and today’s forced shut­down has dropped pow­er out­put to half. The elec­tric­i­ty price in Vic­to­ria has risen to $63 because of the action and is expect­ed to cost the oper­a­tors thou­sands of dol­lars in lost pro­duc­tion.

Spokeper­son Michaela Stubbs said the action was intend­ed to send a mes­sage to APEC lead­ers meet­ing in Syd­ney this week.

“We’re already see­ing the effects of cli­mate change and it’s our gen­er­a­tion and future gen­er­a­tions that are going to be deal­ing with the long term con­se­quences of cli­mate change,” she said in an ABC news report. “We need to see real action now, through the Kyoto process.”

The Group say they are mak­ing a stand for all Aus­tralians to pro­tect our com­mu­ni­ty against the dan­gers of cli­mate change. The group says the APEC meet­ing is being used to fur­ther the lies and deci­et being spread by Prime Min­is­ter Howard in regards to the Cli­mate Change issue and his con­tin­u­ing efforts to under­mine the Kyoto Pro­to­col. A group spokesper­son said that Cli­mate Change ends with leav­ing coal in the ground.

“We need real action on cli­mate change to stop our reliance on pol­lut­ing forms of ener­gy such as coal and move towards a renew­able ener­gy future.” said spokesper­son Michaela Stubbs. “Real action on cli­mate change is about peo­ple pow­er not coal pow­er” said Michaela Stubbs.

Police Search and Res­cue squad were forced to cut the activists free from the con­vey­or belts, and they have been tak­en to Trar­al­gon police sta­tion in the La Trobe Val­ley.

Sources:

* Beyond Zero Emis­sions Media Release Sept 3, 207 — Pro­test­ers block coal sup­ply to Loy Yang Pow­er sta­tion
* Scoop Sept 3, 2007 — Real Action: Peo­ple Pow­er, Not Coal Pow­er
* ABC online, Sept 3, 2007 — Cli­mate protest shuts down pow­er sta­tion
* ABC online, Sept 3, 2007 — Michaela Stubbs on ABC Radio 774 (MP3)
* Blog, Sept 3, 2007 — Real Action on Cli­mate Change for account of action and pho­tos
* Cli­mate IMC, 3 Sept 2007 This is real action on cli­mate change

Repost of orig­i­nal sto­ry from Syd­ney Indy­media:
http://sydney.indymedia.org.au/story/apec-climate-change-protest-shuts-down-victorian-coal-power-station

Video: www.engagemedia.org/Members/raocc/videos/loyyang.ogg/view

APEC videos/vodcast: engagemedia.org/apec
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Aus­tralia: Green­peace activists stage APEC coal protest
2.09.2007

Twelve Green­peace activists have been arrest­ed at the world’s biggest coal port at New­cas­tle, 160km north of Syd­ney, after paint­ing the mes­sage “Aus­tralia Push­ing Export Coal” on the side of a coal ship, The Endeav­our, and unfurl­ing a large ban­ner in Chi­nese call­ing on Chi­na to be cau­tious of John Howard and George Bush’s attempts to sab­o­tage Kyoto. The protest comes at the start of the 2007 APEC (Asia Pacif­ic Eco­nom­ic Coop­er­a­tion) forum meet­ing being host­ed by Aus­tralian Prime Min­is­ter John Howard in Syd­ney 2–9 Sep­tem­ber 2007, and being attend­ed by USA Pres­i­dent George Bush, Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin, Chi­nese Pres­i­dent Hu Jin­tao and oth­er Pacif­ic rim lead­ers.

The protest was enact­ed at dawn on Sun­day Sep­tem­ber 2 to high­light the Aus­tralian Gov­ern­men­t’s real APEC agen­da: to pro­tect Aus­trali­a’s coal export indus­try by under­min­ing the Kyoto Pro­to­col. The mes­sage was paint­ed in two metre high let­ters to high­light to the world that Aus­trali­a’s addic­tion to coal is behind its spoil­er role in inter­na­tion­al nego­ti­a­tions on cli­mate change. Accord­ing to Green­peace, the mes­sage expos­es the Howard Government’s real APEC agen­da: to pro­tect Australia’s coal export indus­try by under­min­ing the Kyoto Pro­to­col.

“Australia’s cli­mate pol­i­cy is to ‘Push Export Coal’ and to hell with the con­se­quences for the plan­et,” said Ben Pear­son, Green­peace ener­gy cam­paign­er.

“Real action on cli­mate change means mov­ing away from coal and shift­ing to clean, renew­able ener­gy – and we don’t have the lux­u­ry of time for expen­sive talk­fests that have no con­crete out­comes. Like any deal­er pro­tect­ing its patch, Australia’s gov­ern­ment under John Howard is bla­tant­ly ignor­ing glob­al efforts to extend and strength­en Kyoto, the only inter­na­tion­al­ly bind­ing agree­ment to deal with cli­mate change – and push­ing instead a hope­less­ly vague dis­trac­tion through APEC.”

More than four mil­lion tonnes of coal will be export­ed from New­cas­tle dur­ing APEC, result­ing in over 11 mil­lion tonnes of CO2 emis­sions – equiv­a­lent to the annu­al emis­sions from 800,000 aver­age Aus­tralian house­holds, accord­ing to Green­peace. Fac­tor­ing in the costs of cli­mate change impacts, as detailed in the Stern Review, Australia’s coal exports will result in more than $1.2 bil­lion of dam­age dur­ing the APEC week alone, and $64 bil­lion annu­al­ly, Green­peace cal­cu­lat­ed.

New­cas­tle, already the world’s largest coal port, is set for a major expan­sion to dou­ble its capac­i­ty for export­ing coal.

“At a time when we need to see deep reduc­tions in green­house gas­es, Aus­tralia is not only refus­ing to act, but is also increas­ing the green­house pol­lu­tion it exports to the rest of the world. Australia’s cli­mate pol­i­cy is to pro­tect coal exports at the expense of the cli­mate rather than make the switch to renew­able ener­gy and improved ener­gy effi­cien­cy mea­sures we know we need to make.” explained Ben Pear­son, Green­peace Aus­tralia ener­gy cam­paign­er.

Under a new police pow­ers Act pro­test­ers arrest­ed durng the sum­mit week will have a pre­sump­tion against bail. Police from Syd­ney trav­elled to New­cas­tle to dis­cuss charges against the Green­peace activists, but no action was tak­en under the APEC Meet­ing (Police Pow­ers) Act 2007. Eleven activists were charged with mali­cious dam­age and a twelfth with dan­ger­ous nav­i­ga­tion: all were released on bail lat­er in the day.

The APEC Meet­ing (Police Pow­ers) Act 2007 came into force on August 30 and remain valid to Sep­tem­ber 12, 2007. It includes a list of peo­ple the police can exclude from the city cen­tre, plus expand­ed pow­ers of stop, search and deten­tion, and con­fis­ca­tion of items from peo­ple. APEC sig­nals the rise of mil­i­tary urban­ism in Aus­tralia.

NSW Police Min­is­ter David Camp­bell has said that anti­war demon­stra­tors and any­one else con­sid­ered “sus­pi­cious” will be arrest­ed and detained with­out bail for the dura­tion of the Sep­tem­ber 6–9 sum­mit. Peo­ple on the ‘exclud­ed list’ will be denied access to restrict­ed zones, with­out any recourse or avenue of appeal. The Dai­ly Tele­graph has already pub­lished a list of 29 peo­ple with their pho­tos alleged­ly on this list. The mea­sures in this Act amount to a new form of deten­tion with­out tri­al, and con­sti­tute a direct attack on free­dom of polit­i­cal expres­sion and move­ment, aimed at out­law­ing dis­sent and sti­fling oppo­si­tion to the APEC meet­ing.

Much of the north­ern CBD of Syd­ney will be con­tained by a nine foot high con­crete and wire secu­ri­ty fence, dubbed unof­fi­cial­ly the Great Wall of APEC.

The coal ship, The Endeav­our, sailed out of New­cas­tle at 11.30am Sun­day local time, with the paint­ed mes­sage already removed.

Sources:

* Green­peace Aus­tralia Media Release Sept 2, 2007 — Howard’s real APEC agen­da spelled out in coal protest
* Dai­ly Tele­graph Sept 2, 2007 — APEC arrests begin with Green­peace protest
* Syd­ney Morn­ing Her­ald August 30, 2007 — Police get spe­cial APEC pow­ers
* WSWS.org May 21, 2007 — Aus­tralia: Police-state mea­sures for APEC sum­mit in Syd­ney

Orig­i­nal sto­ry at Syd­ney Indy­media:
http://sydney.indymedia.org.au/story/newcastle%3A-greenpeace-activists-arrested-apec-coal-protest

Grand Opening Week At Liverpool’s Next To Nowhere — 15th-23rd

We open with a week of events from 15th Sep­tem­ber to 23rd Sep­tem­ber (fly­er), and from then on will be avail­able to book for meet­ings and events. If you have a meet­ing or event that you would like to put on why not book the cen­tre?

Next to Nowhere social centre openingNext to Nowhere social centre logoWe open with a week of events from 15th Sep­tem­ber to 23rd Sep­tem­ber (fly­er), and from then on will be avail­able to book for meet­ings and events. If you have a meet­ing or event that you would like to put on why not book the cen­tre?

Gener­ic media Gen­er­al Fly­er — application/pdf 1.3M

Cal­en­dar of Com­ing Events and Meet­ings (click head­er to return to home­page)

Past Events
Grand Open­ing Week

(fly­er)

Sat­ur­day 15th Sep­tem­ber — 7pm till late
Open­ing night gig and par­ty
Come cel­e­brate in grand style with a night of live music and great DJs. Dona­tion on the door with all pro­ceeds going to the run­ning costs of the cen­tre.

Sun­day 16th Sep­tem­ber — 7pm — 10pm
Oax­a­ca Info Night
Mex­i­can speak­er from Indy­media Oax­a­ca. Update on the upris­ing, police repres­sion & protests in Oax­a­ca, Mex­i­co. (fly­er)

Tues­day 18th Sep­tem­ber — 7.30pm — 10pm
Con­spir­a­cy Evening
From 9–11 and JFK to the Masons and the New World Order — why are there so many con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries and what should we do with them?

Wednes­day 19th Sep­tem­ber — 7.30pm — 9pm
Indy­media Info Night
The Liv­er­pool Indy­media team present films and dis­cus­sion intro­duc­ing Indy­media and let­ting you know how to get the best out of the site.

Thurs­day 20th Sep­tem­ber — 7.30pm — 10pm
Intro­duc­tion to Anar­chism
Mersey­side Anar­chist Group presents speak­ers and dis­cus­sion on the pol­i­tics and his­to­ry of anar­chism. With speak­ers from the Anar­chist Fed­er­a­tion. (fly­er)

Fri­day 21st Sep­tem­ber — 7.30pm — 10pm
The Boy Who Dropped an Egg on the World — A Play
Jack­’s Hard Rub the­atre com­pa­ny present writer/director Julian Bond’s pow­er­ful anti-war pro­duc­tion.

Sat­ur­day 22nd Sep­tem­ber — 7.30pm till late
School Stu­dents Against War — Ben­e­fit Night
Live music and DJs, good com­pa­ny and danc­ing to ben­e­fit School Stu­dents Against War.

Sun­day 23rd Sep­tem­ber — 7pm — 11pm
Free Screen — Film Night
The first of our reg­u­lar film nights. Show­ing Osama — an Afghan film about life under the Tal­iban and Walk­out — a dra­ma based on anti racist school strug­gles in 60s LA.

Next To Nowhere
http://www.liverpoolsocialcentre.org/

Yorkshire Forward taught something about flooding by local people

3rd Sep­tem­ber — York­shire For­ward, the Region­al Devel­op­ment Agency which has become famous for starv­ing grass-roots com­mu­ni­ty intia­tives of funds whilst giv­ing mil­lions to big busi­ness, held an out­ra­geous “Flood Sum­mit” at Finnin­ley air­port today. Local peo­ple vis­it­ed with pop-up tents and ban­ners, includ­ing one which read “fly­ing costs the earth”. The inten­tion was to leaflet the con­fer­ence’s par­tic­i­pants and hold alter­na­tive work­shops high­light­ing the link between avi­a­tion growth and wors­en­ing cli­mate change.

Yorkshire Forward climate protest3rd Sep­tem­ber — York­shire For­ward, the Region­al Devel­op­ment Agency which has become famous for starv­ing grass-roots com­mu­ni­ty intia­tives of funds whilst giv­ing mil­lions to big busi­ness, held an out­ra­geous “Flood Sum­mit” at Finnin­ley air­port today. Local peo­ple vis­it­ed with pop-up tents and ban­ners, includ­ing one which read “fly­ing costs the earth”. The inten­tion was to leaflet the con­fer­ence’s par­tic­i­pants and hold alter­na­tive work­shops high­light­ing the link between avi­a­tion growth and wors­en­ing cli­mate change.

The con­fer­ence was intend­ed as a bla­tant pat on the back for York­shire For­ward’s response to the recent floods. The choice of venue, Finning­ley “Robin Hood” air­port near Don­cast­er, show just how out of touch with real­i­ty these half-wits are. Finning­ley is already a major con­trib­u­tor to cli­mate change, and also the recip­i­ent of over £5 mil­lion of York­shire For­ward mon­ey for a new “Air Acad­e­my”. Their sup­port for this crim­i­nal organ­i­sa­tion is like­ly to get much big­ger — they want to put around £20 mil­lion into a new access road!

The stat­ed aim of the sum­mit was billed as a chance “for York­shire For­ward to learn lessons from the floods” and it was attend­ed by promi­nent cli­mate crim­i­nals includ­ing John Hut­ton, Sec­re­tary of State for Busi­ness and Steven Timms, Min­is­ter for Com­pet­i­tive­ness. The campers mes­sage was clear; these blink­ered morons are bad­ly miss­ing the point — con­cen­trat­ing sole­ly on emer­gency respons­es, rather than on the pol­i­cy changes need­ed to pre­vent cli­mate change, is already hav­ing dev­as­tat­ing effects on York­shire!

The lessons from the York­shire flood­ing are clear – emis­sions from avi­a­tion must be includ­ed in the cli­mate bill and tax breaks and pub­lic sub­si­dies giv­en to the crim­i­nal air­port indus­try must cease.

The police, as usu­al, showed that they are enthu­si­as­tic sup­port­ers of cli­mate crime, and there were three arrests — two for leaflet­ing and one for break­ing bail con­di­tions that only apply to Heathrow! Maybe to a con­sta­ble, all air­ports look the same?

legal update — The two peo­ple arrest­ed for leaflet­ing have yet to be charged, but have been released on bail. The police’s deci­sion to arrest peo­ple for aggra­vat­ed tres­pass when their only “crime” was qui­et­ly leaflet­ing the par­tic­i­pants of a meet­ing is clear evi­dence that they are hap­py to act as the polit­i­cal enforcers for the rich and pow­er­ful as they fly us all to obliv­ion in the name of prof­it. The per­son arrest­ed for breach­ing bail con­di­tions was released with­out charge when a plod with a brain was final­ly found and the actu­al con­di­tions looked at rather than guessed at.

Despite loss of lib­er­ty, the action was well worth it, tak­ing up much of the pub­lic­i­ty for the event with the truth about cli­mate change, rather than the planned estab­lish­ment lies.

As the final act of polit­i­cal repres­sion, the par­tic­i­pants were told, on cam­era, by a police inspec­tor, that if they ever crossed a par­tic­u­lar round­about again they would be arrest­ed for aggra­vat­ed tres­pass!

The police state is here.

2007: indigenous resistance to Shell in BC, Anti-Canada Day, & ‘In Support of Sabotage’

Methane dis­pute reignites in B.C.
August 22, 2007

British Columbia shell blockadeMethane dis­pute reignites in B.C.
August 22, 2007

A group of pro­test­ers, includ­ing mem­bers of the Tahltan and Iskut Indi­an bands, blocked a road in north­west­ern British Colum­bia yes­ter­day, pre­vent­ing Roy­al Dutch Shell PLC crews from head­ing into a con­test­ed region to do road repair work and reignit­ing a debate over coal bed methane explo­ration in the area.
…
Oppo­nents says coal bed methane projects could pol­lute sur­face and ground water, threat­en fish and wildlife habi­tat, and dis­rupt a remote wilder­ness land­scape. Coal bed methane is nat­ur­al gas found in coal seams. B.C. cur­rent­ly does not have any coal bed methane pro­duc­tion, but the province has voiced sup­port for coal bed gas devel­op­ment.
…
In 2005, 13 peo­ple were arrest­ed at a block­ade at the same site that tar­get­ed For­tune Min­er­als Ltd., an Ontario-based com­pa­ny that has a coal project in the region.

—-

Natives Resist bannerAnti-Cana­da Day in Van­cou­ver
INDIGENOUS DAY OF ACTION AND RESISTANCE

On July 1st 2007, over 200 Indige­nous women, chil­dren, Elders and men (and non-native sup­port­ers) took the streets and the train tracks on a march and block­ade to mark their resis­tance to Cana­da as an oppres­sive force against their peo­ple. The march began at Grand­view Park and pro­ceed­ed down Com­mer­cial Dri­ve to Ven­ables Street where the CN rail lines were occu­pied and blocked for over an hour.

—-

Guelph, Ontario: In sup­port of sab­o­tage, not the AFN

[Con­tributed anony­mous­ly to news.infoshop.org]

June 29th: Today a rail block­ade was set up in Guelph Ontario, but it failed. This was due to a num­ber of com­pli­ca­tions, either way no trains were stopped.

Nev­er­the­less, this is the kind of dis­rup­tion that we strive to cre­ate every day, regard­less of whether it has been called for by sell­out col­lab­o­ra­tors, indi­vid­u­als or sim­ply for our own joy.

We want to make it clear that we do not sup­port the AFN; the ends that they seek through bar­gain­ing with the gov­ern­ment, that is respon­si­ble for the sys­tem­at­ic oppres­sion and exploita­tion of Native peo­ple, our land base, and pret­ty much every liv­ing thing exist­ing on the remain­der of this plan­et.

It is impor­tant to act at every oppor­tu­ni­ty we get to build momen­tum and com­mu­ni­ty, in order to chal­lenge the pow­ers of the State and Cap­i­tal­ism that are inces­sant­ly assault­ing our lives.

We do not act on sim­plis­tic calls to action (for action’s sake), but use these chances to coor­di­nate our efforts and add to the momen­tum we are build­ing with oth­ers, act­ing togeth­er on our desires to rede­fine the con­di­tions under which we live. We do this for our­selves and our allies, not for the dis­em­pow­er­ing polit­i­cal aims of the AFN.

It inspires us to see com­mu­ni­ties and indi­vid­u­als com­ming togeth­er, employ­ing direct action tac­tics in a coor­di­nat­ed day of dis­rup­tion, and acknowl­edge that inac­tion is to aban­don our allies in today’s actions. Unlike the AFN, we sup­port all acts of sab­o­tage that were cre­at­ed today and con­tin­ue to inspire us in our own bat­tles.
To the bar­ri­cades and into the night friends!