Author: earthfirst

Ramona Africa — ON A MOVE tour of UK

Ramona Africa is tour­ing the UK speak­ing about the incred­i­ble sto­ry of MOVE. MOVE are a large­ly black eco-rev­o­lu­tion­ary group based in Philadel­phia. They have cam­paigned on envi­ron­men­tal, ani­mal rights and anti-police repres­sion issues for thir­ty years. They have nev­er backed down in the face of overt racist police repres­sion.

More info: www.onamove2007.org.uk

Ramona Africa is tour­ing the UK speak­ing about the incred­i­ble sto­ry of MOVE. MOVE are a large­ly black eco-rev­o­lu­tion­ary group based in Philadel­phia. They have cam­paigned on envi­ron­men­tal, ani­mal rights and anti-police repres­sion issues for thir­ty years. They have nev­er backed down in the face of overt racist police repres­sion.

More info: www.onamove2007.org.uk


In 1978 nine mem­bers of MOVE were impris­oned for a bla­tant­ly framed mur­der, they are still impris­oned with their first chance of parole in August 2008. In 1985 the city of Philadel­phia sort the ‘final solu­tion’ for the MOVE ‘prob­lem’ by attack­ing their home with 10,000 rounds of ammu­ni­tion, tear gas, water can­nons and final­ly a bomb that burnt 60 homes to the ground. 6 MOVE adults and 5 chil­dren were burned to death. Ramona man­aged to escape with one of the chil­dren.
She was sen­tenced to sev­en years for ‘riot’.

MumiaMumia Abu-Jamal is a MOVE sup­port­er who also has also expe­ri­enced the injus­tice of the sys­tem whilst spend­ing over 26 years on death row for a crime he did not com­mit.

Come and hear about all these events and see the MOVE doc­u­men­tary nar­rat­ed by Howard Zinn.

.
.

June:
Thu 21ST @ 1in12 Brad­ford
Fri 22nd @ The Work­shop Cafe Bar Nor­wich 7pm
Sun 24th @ The Com­mon Place Leeds 6pm
Mon 25th @ The West Indi­an Club Leeds 6.30pm
Wed 27th @ The Cow­ley Club Brighton 7pm
Thu 28th @ The Ram­part Cen­tre Lon­don 7pm
Fri 29th @ Bath Place Leam­ing­ton Spa
Sat 30th @ The Drum Birm­ing­ham 7pm
July:
Sun 1st @ The Star and Shad­ow Cin­e­ma New­cas­tle 7.30pm
Mon 2nd @ The Cube Cin­e­ma Bris­tol 8pm
(Kebele are also turn­ing their reg­u­lar Sun­day Veg­an cafe into a
ben­e­fit for MOVE on Sun­day 1st July)

West London residents halt traffic outside DfT Headquarters

20.06.2007
West Lon­don res­i­dents protest­ing about plans to expand Heathrow dra­mat­i­cal­ly stopped traf­fic this morn­ing out­side the Depart­ment for Trans­port (DfT) offices in Cen­tral Lon­don before attempt­ing an inva­sion of the build­ing.

Heathrow DfT protest 1
Heathrow DfT protest 2Heathrow DfT protest 3Heathrow DfT protest 4Heathrow DfT protest 520.06.2007
West Lon­don res­i­dents protest­ing about plans to expand Heathrow dra­mat­i­cal­ly stopped traf­fic this morn­ing out­side the Depart­ment for Trans­port (DfT) offices in Cen­tral Lon­don before attempt­ing an inva­sion of the build­ing.

The pro­tes­tors car­ried a bed along Mar­sham Street from the flat of BAA Chief Exec­u­tive Stephen Nel­son (1) to the Depart­ment for Trans­port. In the bed were two fig­ures sym­bol­is­ing the close rela­tion­ship between BAA and the DfT under the slo­gan “DfT in bed with BAA”.

As they crossed Mar­sham Street a dozen res­i­dents halt­ed the traf­fic when they paint­ed a run­way on the road. The res­i­dents, assist­ed by the direct action net­work Plane Stu­pid, then left the bed out­side the DfT offices.

The action fol­lows the rev­e­la­tion last week that the Depart­ment for Trans­port had secret­ly passed key infor­ma­tion sup­port­ing expan­sion of Heathrow to BAA six months before it is due to be pub­lished (2).

Ear­li­er in the year, on March 5th, West Lon­don res­i­dents invad­ed Chatham House and dis­rupt­ed a speech by Trans­port Sec­re­tary Dou­glas Alexan­der.

Long-time West Lon­don res­i­dent Dr John Hunt and mem­ber of the Green Par­ty said, “This action is to expose the unhealth­ily close rela­tion­ship there is between BAA Fer­rovial and the Depart­ment for Trans­port. While BAA and the Depart­ment plot and plan the expan­sion of Heathrow, res­i­dents and local author­i­ties are left in the dark”.

Mag­gie Thor­burn, a long-time West Lon­don res­i­dent, said, “Although I live under the flight path and am affect­ed by the noise of the planes, I took part in today’s action not just because of the increased noise lev­els I would expe­ri­ence if expan­sion went ahead, but also because I firm­ly believe that any fur­ther expan­sion at Heathrow should be ruled out on cli­mate change grounds.”

ENDS

Notes for Edi­tors:

(1). BAA owns a flat for its Chief Exec­u­tive (Flat 905, St Johns, Mar­sham St) about 60 yards from the Depart­ment for Trans­port head­quar­ters at 76 Mar­sham St.

(2). Ear­li­er this month (6th June) the Times www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article1890224.ece revealed that “The Depart­ment for Trans­port has secret­ly passed key infor­ma­tion sup­port­ing the expan­sion to the Span­ish-owned com­pa­ny six months before it is due to be pub­lished in a con­sul­ta­tion doc­u­ment. The depart­ment has also allowed senior BAA offi­cials to influ­ence a series of tests designed to show whether the third run­way would breach lim­its on air pol­lu­tion and noise. The Times has learnt that BAA has a team of 34 peo­ple work­ing with civ­il ser­vants, influ­enc­ing the tests so that they find in favour of build­ing the new run­way. The depart­ment has giv­en BAA a full copy of the pre­lim­i­nary results but is refus­ing to allow any oppo­nents of the expan­sion to see them. Mike Forster, BAA’s head of strat­e­gy for Heathrow, admit­ted at a recent con­fer­ence that he had seen the results and that they were “encour­ag­ing”.” The full report is not expect­ed to be made pub­licly avail­able until just before a con­sul­ta­tion into plans to expand Heathrow, expect­ed in the autumn.

Common Ground Community Garden — EVICTION UPDATE — Resistance successful so far.

Com­mon Ground Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den, is a self-man­aged squat­ted com­mu­ni­ty project in the heart of Read­ing. The land and sur­round­ing build­ings are coun­cil owned, and they have tried to obstruct this ini­tia­tive every step of the way — and thanks to the spir­it of the squat­ters and our neigh­bours, they have failed every step of the way.

Com­mon Ground Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den, is a self-man­aged squat­ted com­mu­ni­ty project in the heart of Read­ing. The land and sur­round­ing build­ings are coun­cil owned, and they have tried to obstruct this ini­tia­tive every step of the way — and thanks to the spir­it of the squat­ters and our neigh­bours, they have failed every step of the way.

Today, 20th June, is sup­posed to be evic­tion day. The day when the coun­cil takes back con­trol of our land, and is able to flog it off to the high­est bid­der, for devel­op­ment of yet more unnaford­able prison block flats. How­ev­er, so far, its not going accord­ing to their plan…

Bail­lifs showed up ear­ly this morn­ing, about 9am. How­ev­er, activists were all­ready busy bar­ri­cad­ing the build­ing that has been our home for the last 9 months and our beau­ti­full squat­ted gar­den. Reporters and tele­vi­sion cam­eras showed up, tak­ing inter­views from us and our neigh­bours (so if you are in the South­east or Thames Val­ley, check local news ser­vices out!). A mix­ture of activists and local neigh­bours are hold­ing a pick­et out the front of the build­ing, and oth­ers are sit­ting in the gar­den enjoy­ing the sun­shine! At this point bal­liffs have left, and we have won for now. But we are sure they will be back fair­ly soon with back­up, so any help is appre­ci­at­ed.

So long as the bail­lifs keep their dis­tance, the rest of the day will be enjoyed in the gar­den with a pic­nic and acoustic punk rock show lat­er.

EXISTANCE IS RESISTANCE!

P.S. Our sol­i­dar­i­ty greet­ings to Bre­con evic­tion resisters! FIGHT THE PIPE!

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

01:07
Hi,

Just to give a last quick update, the bail­lifs stayed well away all day, and the rest of the day has been fan­tas­tic!

Quite a lot of local res­i­dents have been through dur­ing the day, telling us how much they love the gar­den, use it all the time etc etc.

Some res­i­dents have even showed a fair amount of inter­est in anti-cap­i­tal­ist/a­n­ar­chist pol­i­tics, includ­ing ex-Labour mem­bers who agreed all polit­i­cal par­ties are the same now and ‘this’ (i.e. direct-action, DIY etc like the gar­den) IS the alter­na­tive now, and a local cou­ple hav­ing trou­ble at work who are now inter­est­ed in join­ing IWW!

A cou­ple of local peo­ple were among those who stayed in the gar­den past evic­tion time, being pre­pared to face arrest to defend the gar­den.

This evening the day has been fin­ished off with a pub­lic BBQ and absolute­ly fan­tas­tic acoustic punk-rock show. Again, sev­er­al neigh­bours stuck around all night hav­ing a drink and enjoy­ing the music, and the tunes were amaz­ing. Big thanks to the artists who trav­elled down to play tonight for free!

Obvi­ous­ly, this project is most like­ly not going to last much longer (although you nev­er know and we’ll keep fight­ing!), but all our neigh­bours are say­ing they want the squat­ters to stay and do sim­i­lar things, and who are we to refuse!? 🙂

Spir­its are high,
LA LUCHA SIGUE!

Greenpeace gives away free train tickets at airports across the UK

19 June 2007.

UPDATE (9.25am): The booths have now all been moved by secu­ri­ty.

Over the past hour or so, impromp­tu tick­et exchange booths have been appear­ing in air­ports across the UK.

Climate ticket exchange @ airport19 June 2007.

UPDATE (9.25am): The booths have now all been moved by secu­ri­ty.

Over the past hour or so, impromp­tu tick­et exchange booths have been appear­ing in air­ports across the UK.

Green­peace vol­un­teers (fetch­ing­ly dressed as stew­ards and stew­ardess­es — pics here) have been offer­ing BA pas­sen­gers check­ing into domes­tic flights cli­mate-friend­ly train tick­ets.

It’s not just because we’re gen­er­ous souls — it’s also because fly­ing caus­es 10 times more dam­age to the cli­mate than tak­ing the train. And it’s respon­si­ble for 13 per cent of the UK’s impact on the cli­mate (that’s the gov­ern­men­t’s own fig­ures).

It’s also the fastest grow­ing source of emis­sions in the UK; between 1990 and 2050, emis­sions from avi­a­tion could quadru­ple, which sci­en­tists say could wipe out all oth­er emis­sions sav­ings we make in every oth­er sec­tor.

The main cause of this mas­sive growth in the UK is the pro­lif­er­a­tion of short haul flights — often unnec­es­sary domes­tic ones like the 30 or so a day between Lon­don and Man­ches­ter.

British Air­ways (despite its claims to be green) is one of the worst offend­ers, open­ing new and unnec­es­sary domes­tic routes, fierce­ly oppos­ing any mea­sures that will curb growth in emis­sions, keep­ing a tight hold over gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy and lob­by­ing hard for air­port expan­sion.

You can find out more about avi­a­tion and cli­mate change here.

And you can email BA’s Chief Exec­u­tive, Willie Walsh, ask­ing him to ground unnec­es­sary domes­tic UK flights on routes that are already well served by trains, and to end BA’s lob­by­ing for more run­ways and big­ger air­ports.

Brecon anti-pipeline camp eviction has begun (& updates Tues/Wed, press releases…)

19th June 2007
Bre­con tree camp evic­tion has begun. Sup­port need­ed!

Brecon pipeline camp eviction19th June 2007
Bre­con tree camp evic­tion has begun. Sup­port need­ed!

The evic­tion will most like­ly last a few hours, if you can make it, it would be a great help!

Site phone: 07733190958

===============
IF U CAN GET THERE TAKE A CAMERA, THE EVICTION TEAM IS GOOD OLD NET FROM SWANSEA

===============
update

11:40am

A40 has been closed.

There has been at least one arrest.

================
PRESS RELEASE

THIS MORNING THE EVICTION OF THE BRECON CLIMATE CHANGE CAMP AT PEN PONT BRECON IS GOING ON. THE ROAD HAS BEEN CLOSED BETWEEN SENNY BRIDGE AND BRECON FOR THE EVICTION TO TAKE PLACE. PEOPLE ARE ENTRENCHED IN THE CAMP. TREE HOUSES WILL HAVE TO BE EVICTED BY SPECIALIST CLIMBERS AND TUNNELS BY CAVE SPECIALIST

WE URGE ANYONE WHO CAN TO GET TO BRECON TO PROTECT THE PECEFUL PROTESTORS WHO ARE REFUSING TO MOVE VOLUNTARILY DUE TO THE MASSIVE ENVIRONMENTAL DESTRUCTION THE 48″ PIPELINE FROM MILFORD HAVEN TO TIRLEY IN GLOUCESTERSHIRE IS CAUSING.

THE RIVERS IN BRECON ARE RUNNING AS RED AS BLOOD DUE TO THE SILTING UP OF THE RIVERS WITH THE RED BRECON SOIL. SEE FOR YOURSELVES THE MASSIVE ENVIRONMENTAL CATASTROIPHE THESE PEOPLE ARE TRYING TO STOP.

NO FOSSIL FUELS..

TELEPHONE

01639 632286

07790 727 250

================
No Embar­go
**
*Pipeline pro­test­ers refuse to climb down as evic­tion starts*

Pro­tes­tors have refused to climb down from trees on the route of the
con­tro­ver­sial high pres­sure methane gas
(LNG) pipeline in Wales after being giv­en a 10 minute warn­ing by bailiffs to
leave the site or face being arrest­ed.

Pro­tes­tors have locked them­selves togeth­er high up in the trees using
bicy­cle D locks while oth­ers have gone down into the tun­nels they dug with
food to last for sev­er­al days in order to delay Nation­al Grids mul­ti­mil­lion
pound destruc­tive and dan­ger­ous project.

One pro­tes­tor has today said “We are will­ing to risk arrest as the
con­se­quences of this pipeline will be far more dev­as­tat­ing than spend­ing a
night in a police cell. Nation­al Grid, as a pri­vate com­pa­ny, are putting
share­hold­er prof­it before peo­ples safte­ty, both local­ly and more
glob­al­ly. We are putting our­selves in the way to say this is com­plete­ly
unac­cept­able.”

Anoth­er pro­tes­tor, from Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide said “The Gov­ern­ment, Nation­al
Grid Plc and oth­er Cor­po­ra­tions are con­tin­u­ing to build and prof­it from
fos­sil fuel infra­struc­ture despite the clear fact that to pre­vent
cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate chaos, car­bon emis­sions must be cut by 90% by 2030. So
it is up to peo­ple to take respon­si­bil­i­ty and take
action and that is why I am here doing what I can to stop this being built.”

The road from Bre­con to Sen­ny­bridge, which runs past the camp, has been
closed by the police.

Con­tact:
Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide: 07917 383517

*Notes to Edi­tor*

Ris­ing Tide is a cli­mate action net­work ded­i­cat­ed to chal­leng­ing the root
caus­es of cli­mate change — the fos­sil fuel growth based econ­o­my. Ris­ing Tide
argues that cli­mate chaos is an issue of social injus­tice and that the
poor­est will suf­fer most.

This pipeline, 4ft in diam­e­ter, will run at 94bar pres­sure – that is
96kg/cm2. Nation­al Grid have no expe­ri­ence of run­ning pipelines at such high
pres­sure and it is unprece­dent­ed in Europe and the US.

In 1999, a fam­i­ly of four were killed in Scot­land when a high pres­sure gas
pipe explod­ed by their home. Mas­sive cor­ro­sion in the pipeline, and a
fail­ure on the part of Nation­al Grid/Transco (NG/T) to keep ade­quate records
on what kind of pipes were being used, led to the explo­sion. Cor­ro­sion has
already been seen on the welds in the South Wales pipeline.

Since pri­vati­sa­tion, NG/T have shed thou­sands of engi­neer­ing jobs and cut
main­te­nance work. In 2000 it was revealed that Transco had under­spent its
agreed pipeline main­te­nance and replace­ment pro­gramme
by £358m over the pre­vi­ous two years. This same cor­po­ra­tion, account­able to
only its share­hold­ers and board, is now sup­pos­ed­ly respon­si­ble for the
safe­ty of thou­sands of peo­ple along the route of
this pipe.

300 Con­struc­tion work­ers at the Drag­on LNMG ter­mi­nal were recent­ly on strike
over safe­ty con­cerns on site. One work­ers was hos­pi­talised and work­ers were
demand­ing safer work­ing con­di­tions.

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

bre­con evic­tion update! 14:14

The Evic­tion con­tin­ues with two arrests on the ground and peo­ple locked on in the tree tops, there are also peo­ple under­ground with sub­stan­tial sup­plies! please sup­port these peo­ple by donat­ing towards fines etc on the “fight the pipe” web­site.

if any­one can make it they need the sup­port!

peace love and fuck the pipe, nation­al grid, nation­al evic­tion team and any­one else involved XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

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

Evic­tion update…
16:49

There has now been at least 5 arrests, we have no idea who has been arrest­ed yet as they are being kept on site at the moment. There are still peo­ple locked-on in trees.

The A40 has now been re-opened but is down to one lane.

RESPECT & LOVE to all those who will be arrest­ed over this.

FUCK YOUR PIPE NATIONAL GRID, FUCK THE GOVERNMENT FOR LETTING THIS STUPID PROJECT HAPPEN, FUCK THE POLICE & EVICTION TEAM.

We stand proud and strong know­ing we are defend­ing our beau­ti­ful earth that oth­ers want to destroy in the name of mon­ey.

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

Lat­est news from the evic­tion.…
22:36

There have so far been 6 arrests made. One per­son has had no fur­ther action tak­en against him, two peo­ple have been cau­tioned, two peo­ple have to appear in court tomor­row in Llan­drindod at 9.30am to face a charge of obstruct­ing a bailiff in his line of duty, one per­son is still at the police sta­tion.

Three peo­ple are still left at the tree camp. The bailiffs have gone home for the night and will resume evic­tion in the morn­ing. Two of the remain­ing pro­test­ers are in a tree-house and one is just sat in a tree with an umbrel­la. There is police and secu­ri­ty guard­ing the site.

All the pro­test­ers belong­ings have been tak­en off site and they have a month to claim what is theirs.

PLEASE GET TO COURT IN LLANDRINDOD TOMORROW FOR 9.30am TO SHOW SUPPORT!!

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

WEDNESDAY UPDATE DIRECT FROM TREE HOUSE AT BRECON

20.06.2007 12:19
JUST SPOKEN TO THE LAST TWO PEOPLE IN TREE HOUSE!

THERE ARE STILL TWO PEOPLE IN A TREE HOUSE IN BRECON THEY HAVE ASKED ME TO PASS ON THE FOLLOWING: THEY HAVE HAD NO FOOD OR WATER FOR THE LAST 24HRS AND NO KIND OF LIASON OFFICER HAS BEEN PRESENT, THE TUNNEL WAS TAKEN FIRST THING THIS MORNING AND ONE FEMALE WAS REMOVED FROM THE TREES. ALL THE TREE HOUSES HAVE BEEN DISMANTLED AND THE TWO REMAINING DONT THINK THEY HAVE LONG TO GO! (FAIR PLAY)

I TRAVELLED TO THE SITE LAST NIGHT AND I COULD NOT EVEN GET WITHIN 400 YRDS OF THE SITE, THE POLICE WERE BASTARDS AND THREATENED TO ARREST ME SEVERAL TIMES FOR BEING IN THE AREA, THE AMOUNT OF SECURITY WAS OVERWELLMING THERE WERE AROUND 150 ANGRY POLICE, 200 SECURITY GUARDS AND BAILLIFFS ALL OVER THE PLACE ALL NIGHT! (I HAVENT SEEN SUCH SECURITY MEASURES SINCE NEWBURY)

THE REASON PEOPLE CAN NOT FIND MUCH ON THE NET IS BECAUSE YOU CANT GET NEAR THE PLACE, PLEASE CUT AND PASTE THIS EVERYWHERE AS INFO ON THE EVICTION IS HARD TO FIND.

PEACE LOVE AND ROTTEN CABBAGE TO THOSE INVOLVED IN THE EVICTION!

EXXON PROPOSES BURNING HUMANITY FOR FUEL IF CLIMATE CALAMITY HITS — Yes Men hit

June 14, 2007 — FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

EXXON PROPOSES BURNING HUMANITY FOR FUEL IF CLIMATE CALAMITY HITS
Con­fer­ence orga­niz­er fails to have Yes Men arrest­ed

Vivoleum tributeJune 14, 2007 — FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

EXXON PROPOSES BURNING HUMANITY FOR FUEL IF CLIMATE CALAMITY HITS
Con­fer­ence orga­niz­er fails to have Yes Men arrest­ed

Text of speech, pho­tos, video: http://www.vivoleum.com/event/
GO-EXPO state­ment: http://newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/June2007/14/c5086.html
Press con­fer­ence before this event, Fri­day, Cal­gary: http://arusha.org/event/7214
Con­tact: mailto:fuel@theyesmen.org
More links at end of release.

Imposters pos­ing as Exxon­Mo­bil and Nation­al Petro­le­um Coun­cil (NPC) rep­re­sen­ta­tives deliv­ered an out­ra­geous keynote speech to 300 oil­men at GO-EXPO, Canada’s largest oil con­fer­ence, held at Stam­pede Park in Cal­gary, Alber­ta, today.

The speech was billed before­hand by the GO-EXPO orga­niz­ers as the major high­light of this year’s con­fer­ence, which had 20,000 atten­dees. In it, the “NPC rep” was expect­ed to deliv­er the long-await­ed con­clu­sions of a study com­mis­sioned by US Ener­gy Sec­re­tary Samuel Bod­man. The NPC is head­ed by for­mer Exxon­Mo­bil CEO Lee Ray­mond, who is also the chair of the study. (See link at end.)

In the actu­al speech, the “NPC rep” announced that cur­rent U.S. and Cana­di­an ener­gy poli­cies (notably the mas­sive, car­bon-inten­sive exploita­tion of Alber­ta’s oil sands, and the devel­op­ment of liq­uid coal) are increas­ing the chances of huge glob­al calami­ties. But he reas­sured the audi­ence that in the worst case sce­nario, the oil indus­try could “keep fuel flow­ing” by trans­form­ing the bil­lions of peo­ple who die into oil.

“We need some­thing like whales, but infi­nite­ly more abun­dant,” said “NPC rep” “Shep­ard Wolff” (actu­al­ly Andy Bichlbaum of the Yes Men), before describ­ing the tech­nol­o­gy used to ren­der human flesh into a new Exxon oil prod­uct called Viv­oleum. 3‑D ani­ma­tions of the process brought it to life.

“Viv­oleum works in per­fect syn­er­gy with the con­tin­ued expan­sion of fos­sil fuel pro­duc­tion,” not­ed “Exxon rep” “Flo­ri­an Osen­berg” (Yes Man Mike Bonan­no). “With more fos­sil fuels comes a greater chance of dis­as­ter, but that means more feed­stock for Viv­oleum. Fuel will con­tin­ue to flow for those of us left.”

The oil­men lis­tened to the lec­ture with atten­tion, and then lit “com­mem­o­ra­tive can­dles” sup­pos­ed­ly made of Viv­oleum obtained from the flesh of an “Exxon jan­i­tor” who died as a result of clean­ing up a tox­ic spill. The audi­ence only react­ed when the jan­i­tor, in a video trib­ute, announced that he wished to be trans­formed into can­dles after his death, and all became crys­tal-clear.

At that point, Simon Mel­lor, Com­mer­cial & Busi­ness Devel­op­ment Direc­tor for the com­pa­ny putting on the event, strode up and phys­i­cal­ly forced the Yes Men from the stage. As Mel­lor escort­ed Bonan­no out the door, a dozen jour­nal­ists sur­round­ed Bichlbaum, who, still in char­ac­ter as “Shep­ard Wolff,” explained to them the ratio­nale for Viv­oleum.

“We’ve got to get ready. After all, fos­sil fuel devel­op­ment like that of my com­pa­ny is increas­ing the chances of cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate change, which could lead to mas­sive calami­ties, caus­ing migra­tion and con­flicts that would like­ly dis­able the pipelines and oil wells. With­out oil we could no longer pro­duce or trans­port food, and most of human­i­ty would starve. That would be a tragedy, but at least all those bod­ies could be turned into fuel for the rest of us.”

“We’re not talk­ing about killing any­one,” added the “NPC rep.” “We’re talk­ing about using them after nature has done the hard work. After all, 150,000 peo­ple already die from cli­mate-change relat­ed effects every year. That’s only going to go up — maybe way, way up. Will it all go to waste? That would be cru­el.”

Secu­ri­ty guards then dragged Bichlbaum away from the reporters, and he and Bonan­no were detained until Cal­gary Police Ser­vice offi­cers could arrive. The police­men, deter­min­ing that no major infrac­tions had been com­mit­ted, per­mit­ted the Yes Men to leave.

Canada’s oil sands, along with “liq­uid coal,” are key­stones of Bush’s Ener­gy Secu­ri­ty plan. Min­ing the oil sands is one of the dirt­i­est forms of oil pro­duc­tion and has turned Cana­da into one of the world’s worst car­bon emit­ters. The pro­duc­tion of “liq­uid coal” has twice the car­bon foot­print as that of ordi­nary gaso­line. Such tech­nolo­gies increase the like­li­hood of mas­sive cli­mate cat­a­stro­phes that will con­demn to death untold mil­lions of peo­ple, main­ly poor.

“If our idea of ener­gy secu­ri­ty is to increase the chances of cli­mate calami­ty, we have a very fun­ny sense of what secu­ri­ty real­ly is,” Bonan­no said. “While Exxon­Mo­bil con­tin­ues to post record prof­its, they use their mon­ey to per­suade gov­ern­ments to do noth­ing about cli­mate change. This is a crime against human­i­ty.”

“Putting the for­mer Exxon CEO in charge of the NPC, and solic­it­ing his advice on our ener­gy future, is like putting the wolf in charge of the flock,” said “Shep­ard Wolff” (Bichlbaum). “Exxon has done more dam­age to the envi­ron­ment and to our chances of sur­vival than any oth­er com­pa­ny on earth. Why should we let them deter­mine our future?”

About the NPC and Exxon­Mo­bil: About the NPC and Exon Mobil
About the Alber­ta oil sands: About Alber­ta oil sands
About liq­uid coal: Sier­ra club on liq­uid coal

Undead support campaign against Spanish oil multinational

Last Thurs­day 14th June in Asturias, North­ern Spain I was present at an action where a Zom­bie Col­lec­tive came back from the dead to sup­port La Cam­pana Asturi­ana e Con­tra el Expo­lio de las Petrol­eras and oth­er Span­ish sol­i­dar­i­ty organ­i­sa­tions by stag­ing a series of die-ins in a garage fore­court and else­where around the city of Gijon.

Last Thurs­day 14th June in Asturias, North­ern Spain I was present at an action where a Zom­bie Col­lec­tive came back from the dead to sup­port La Cam­pana Asturi­ana e Con­tra el Expo­lio de las Petrol­eras and oth­er Span­ish sol­i­dar­i­ty organ­i­sa­tions by stag­ing a series of die-ins in a garage fore­court and else­where around the city of Gijon.

The action was to draw atten­tion to the actions of Span­ish based oil mul­ti-nation­al Rep­sol who are respon­si­ble for pop­u­la­tion dis­place­ment, mil­i­ta­riza­tion, vio­lence and mur­der in sev­er­al South Amer­i­can coun­tries, most notably Colom­bia, where they oper­ate clan­des­tine­ly.
Pub­lic­i­ty at the action told of El Tri­bunal Per­ma­nente de los Pueb­los (Per­ma­nent Tri­bune of the Peo­ple) that is described as an inter­na­tion­al organ­i­sa­tion, look­ing for truth, jus­tice and repa­ra­tion for the vic­tims of oil com­pa­nies Rep­sol, British Petro­le­um and Occi­den­tal Petro­le­um in Colom­bia. It oper­ates out­side offi­cial judi­cial struc­tures of any coun­try and rep­re­sents the eth­i­cal con­science of the peo­ple and human­i­ty. The TPP is hold­ing a judge­ment on these com­pa­nies in Bogo­ta in August this year. There is also a pre­lim­i­nary meet­ing to this in Madrid in June.

One of the Zom­bies said:
“ We are here in sol­i­dar­i­ty with all those who have died as a result of Repsol’s actions in Colom­bia. We are also here because we wish to make you, the Liv­ing aware of how so many of the organ­i­sa­tions, insti­tu­tions and sys­tems that you cling to are in fact corpses them­selves. From the Oth­er Side we have a clear­er pic­ture than you and we see that though you trick your­selves into believ­ing oth­er­wise, your courts, your gov­ern­ments, your busi­ness­es in so many cas­es serve only Death. You cling to them because you are afraid to let go and allow new sys­tems that can tru­ly serve you and Life to grow. Always some­thing has to die for the new to be born. Many of you hold a new world in your hearts but it can­not be born while you hold on to the rot­ting corpse of the old. Let it go, grieve it if you must but its time is past and it serves you no longer.”

I asked for clar­i­fi­ca­tion but the undead com­pan­era declined to elab­o­rate. Per­haps she was refer­ring to social move­ments where peo­ple seem to be mov­ing away from try­ing to change the behav­iour of gov­ern­ments to learn­ing how to gov­ern them­selves and build the world they want.…?

Relat­ed Link: http://www.repsolmata.ourproject.org

Common Ground Garden — EVICTION RESISTANCE! Wed 20th June, 9.30am, Reading.

// Com­mon Ground Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den Evic­tion Resis­tance!

// FUCK THE EVICTION, SAVE THE GARDEN!

// WEDNESDAY 20TH JUNE

// Com­mon Ground Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den Evic­tion Resis­tance!

// FUCK THE EVICTION, SAVE THE GARDEN!

// WEDNESDAY 20TH JUNE

// Meet at 9.30am, in Com­mon Ground Gar­den, through the alley­way next to the Wom­ens Infor­ma­tion Cen­tre, at the bot­tom of Sil­ver Street, Read­ing.

They left the land to rot, cov­ered in trash and nee­dles. They hope the build­ings will fall down, so they can jus­ti­fy flog­ging to the high­est bid­der. They hope to see more unnaford­able prison-block apart­ments. Read­ing Bor­ough Coun­cil call it devel­op­ment, regen­er­a­tion. We call it gen­tri­fi­ca­tion, exclu­sion. Just prof­it and pow­er.

The land is ours. We occu­pied it, we cleared it, we worked it and we made it bloom. We recy­cled and re-used, and on our squat­ted land we cre­at­ed sanc­tu­ary from the ram­pant cap­i­tal­ism of Read­ing. Our friends, fam­i­ly and neigh­bours chipped in, and through direct-action and self-organ­i­sa­tion, we cre­at­ed a com­mu­ni­ty gar­den in our neigh­bour­hood, Kates­grove. The land is ours? Well, not exact­ly. The land is nobody’s, because it is every­body’s. And so we called it Com­mon Ground.

On 19th May, we opened the gar­den to the pub­lic. We invit­ed our friends, fam­i­lies and neigh­bours. Embarassed and scared, the Coun­cil tried to stop us. Their court gave them an injunc­tion against us, mak­ing it ille­gal to open the gar­den. So, we informed our com­mu­ni­ty and re-invit­ed em. Fuck the injunc­tion! 200 peo­ple came and enjoyed the gar­den that day, laugh­ing at the Coun­cil and meet­ing oth­ers peo­ple who think the same things they do. Even the media told the truth about us.

Then the Coun­cil got their injunc­tion extend­ed. They told us it was ille­gal to open our gar­den at all and they want ‘their’ land back. They dont under­stand, it has nev­er been theirs, they were just look­ing after it for us. And since they don’t do a very good job, we’ve found a bet­ter use for it. For our­selves, our neigh­bours and local work­ers, for young and old, the gar­den is open every­day. So, now they say they will take it back by force, and demol­ish our gar­den and give it to the rich. Their courts have giv­en them the law, and their thugs will evict us on Wednes­day morn­ing — if they can…

For us, exis­tance is resis­tance — and Com­mon Ground Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den exists. Our self-organ­i­sa­tion and direct-action exists. On Wednes­day and for­ev­er, our resis­tance exists. Demon­strate, bar­ri­cade, block­ade, occu­py — we will resist in dif­fer­ent ways, because ‘we’ is made of dif­fer­ent peo­ple, and now hope­ful­ly will include one more — you.

In Love n Rage,
Some gar­den­ers.

katesgrovegarden(AT)yahoo.co.uk

Climate activists glued to doors at airport

16.06.2007

Cli­mate cam­paign­ers this after­noon glued them­selves to the doors of the short-haul East Mid­lands air­port to draw atten­tion to the envi­ron­men­tal impacts of fly­ing as part of a Euro­pean day of action on short-haul flights called by pres­sure group Air­port Watch.

East Midlands Airport glue action 116.06.2007

Cli­mate cam­paign­ers this after­noon glued them­selves to the doors of the short-haul East Mid­lands air­port to draw atten­tion to the envi­ron­men­tal impacts of fly­ing as part of a Euro­pean day of action on short-haul flights called by pres­sure group Air­port Watch.

Two men from cli­mate action group, Plane Stu­pid, have caused dis­rup­tion by super­glu­ing them­selves to the pas­sen­ger entrances to the air­port. Sup­port­ers are there hand­ing out leaflets to air­port cus­tomers encour­ag­ing them not to fly next time, and a ban­ner car­ried by heli­um-filled bal­loons was also been released in the depar­ture lounge bear­ing the slo­gan ‘Let’s fry’.

Last week anoth­er activist from Plane Stu­pid, Pen­ny East­wood, a moth­er of two from York­shire, glued her­self both to the doors of Lastminute.com HQ in Lon­don in protest at the ever grow­ing green­house gas emis­sions from avi­a­tion.

Today’s day of action was called to illus­trate that short-haul flights are unnec­es­sary and unsus­tain­able and that short haul jour­neys can eas­i­ly be tak­en by train or bus which are both over ten times less pol­lut­ing. Demon­stra­tions and protests have been hap­pen­ing through­out the day at air­ports across the UK and Europe, includ­ing Heathrow, Gatwick, Bris­tol, Southamp­ton, Edin­burgh, Aberdeen, Paris, Brus­sels, Ams­ter­dam and oth­ers.

Avi­a­tion is the fastest-grow­ing source of green­house-gas emis­sions world­wide. In the UK, emis­sions from avi­a­tion more than dou­bled in ten years. In May the gov­ern­ment quot­ed the fig­ure of 13% as aviation’s con­tri­bu­tion to UK cli­mate impacts. If you include flights to and from the UK by UK cit­i­zens (the gov­ern­ment excludes the for­mer), the sec­tor now con­tributes about 18.5% of the cli­mate-chang­ing emis­sions for which this coun­try is respon­si­ble.

Not­ting­ham pro­tes­tor, Alex Har­vey, said, “Binge-fly­ing is chok­ing the plan­et. Air­port expan­sion would lock us into increased green­house gas emis­sions and undo all our oth­er efforts to reduce emis­sions. It’s just not an option. Yet that’s exact­ly what is planned for air­ports like East Mid­lands which only serve des­ti­na­tions eas­i­ly reach­able by more sus­tain­able pub­lic trans­port alter­na­tives.’

Last year twen­ty-five activists from Plane Stu­pid block­ad­ed a taxi-run­way at the same air­port.

- ENDS -

nottingham@planestupid.com
http://www.planestupid.com
East Midlands Airport glue leaflet 1
East Midlands Airport glue leaflet 2
For more pho­tos of passers­by, reac­tions etc, see https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/06/373813.html and https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/06/373834.html

GM Victory! Hull down! One more pota’t’go! — Sunday July 1st

Fol­low­ing exten­sive local and nation­al resis­tance, BASF (the com­pa­ny tri­al­ing the GM pota­toes), announced last month that they would not be con­duct­ing a GM pota­to tri­al in York­shire this year!

Last month the gov­ern­ment approved the BASF appli­ca­tion for a GM tri­al in Hedon, East York­shire. Fol­low­ing the ruber stamp­ing by DEFRA, the com­pa­ny announced that it would not pro­ceed with the tri­al this year, but said they may do so in the future.

This means the BASF/NIAB site in Cam­bridge (plant­ed around the begin­ning of May) is now the only loca­tion in Britain where GM crops are con­t­a­m­i­nat­ing the coun­try­side…

One down, one to go — let’s keep Britain GM free!

It’s not too late to stop GM spuds. Join us for a walk to see the tri­al site and a protest pic­nic.

Spud u hateFol­low­ing exten­sive local and nation­al resis­tance, BASF (the com­pa­ny tri­al­ing the GM pota­toes), announced last month that they would not be con­duct­ing a GM pota­to tri­al in York­shire this year!

Last month the gov­ern­ment approved the BASF appli­ca­tion for a GM tri­al in Hedon, East York­shire. Fol­low­ing the ruber stamp­ing by DEFRA, the com­pa­ny announced that it would not pro­ceed with the tri­al this year, but said they may do so in the future.

This means the BASF/NIAB site in Cam­bridge (plant­ed around the begin­ning of May) is now the only loca­tion in Britain where GM crops are con­t­a­m­i­nat­ing the coun­try­side…

One down, one to go — let’s keep Britain GM free!

It’s not too late to stop GM spuds. Join us for a walk to see the tri­al site and a protest pic­nic.

Bring cos­tumes, fam­i­lies, footwear and cloth­ing for a coun­try stroll and your favourite pota­to-based dish. Start­ing from Gir­ton Parish Church, Gir­ton, Cam­bridgeshire.

12 Noon, Sun­day July 1st

See www.mutatoes.org for direc­tions, help with trans­port and more detailed infor­ma­tion on the cam­paign.

Back­ground

BASF announced on the 14th May that they would not go ahead with the Hedon tri­al this year. When the tri­als were orig­i­nal­ly announced in March 2007, bee­keep­ers expressed con­cerns to the bor­age farm­ers about the pos­si­ble con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of bor­age hon­ey with GM pollen and point­ed to their indus­try’s guid­ance that required hives to be a min­i­mum of 6 miles from the near­est GM site.

It was report­ed that the own­er of the pro­posed GM site near Hull want­ed the bor­age farm­ers con­cerns had to be dealt with before he final­ly agreed to the tri­al going ahead. BAS­F’s u‑turn on going ahead with the tri­al in 2007 sug­gests that attempts to reas­sure bor­age farm­ers con­cerns were unsuc­cess­ful. How­ev­er, the statu­to­ry approval grant­ed to BASF is valid until 2011.

The case has wider impli­ca­tions for GM crops. Last year Defra’s con­sul­ta­tion on the coex­is­tence of GM, con­ven­tion­al and organ­ic crops did not include bee­keep­ers in the list of peo­ple who would be statu­to­ri­ly required to be informed by a farmer intend­ing to com­mer­cial­ly grow a GM crop.

Pete Riley of GM Freeze said: “The can­cel­la­tion of the Hedon GM pota­to site is warm­ly wel­comed — we could nev­er see the point of allow­ing this com­mer­cial devel­op­ment tri­al to go ahead when we already have a grow­ing num­ber of blight resis­tant pota­to vari­eties pro­duced by con­ven­tion­al plant breed­ing. Con­sumers don’t want GM pota­toes and the pota­to proces­sors have said they will not use them. We hope this is the end of GM tri­alling in Hedon and the rest of the UK.……The impact of the tri­als on hon­ey and bee­keep­ers has been cen­tral to the can­cel­la­tion. If any GM crops are ever approved for com­mer­cial grow­ing in the UK this type of prob­lem could become com­mon place. Defra have repeat­ed­ly tried to ignore the impact of GM crops on bee­keep­ers and the poten­tial eco­nom­ic impacts but at Hedon they have been stung. The eco­nom­ic and agri­cul­tur­al impor­tance of hon­ey bees can no longer by side­lined by Defra’s GM poli­cies. Min­is­ters need to learn the les­son of the deba­cle over the Hedon site and pro­tect beep­ers from GM con­t­a­m­i­na­tion in the future”.
http://www.mutatoes.org