Author: earthfirst

New Year London Stunt Action by Saving Iceland

On new years day 2007 a group of activists climbed ST PAULS cathe­dral and the Tate Mod­ern simul­tan­ious­ly to hang ban­ners, as well as on the mil­le­ni­um bridge to kick start a year of decent against heavy indus­try in Ice­land and Trinidad.

On new years day 2007 a group of activists climbed ST PAULS cathe­dral and the Tate Mod­ern simul­tan­ious­ly to hang ban­ners, as well as on the mil­le­ni­um bridge to kick start a year of decent against heavy indus­try in Ice­land and Trinidad.
Heavy Industry banner hang

PRESS RELEASE
1 Jan­u­ary 2007

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTESTORS ARE TO HOST A STUNT ACTION IN LONDON

On new years day, cam­paign­ers from the group SavingIceland.org climbed St.Pauls Cathe­dral and the Tate Mod­ern as part of the SavingIceland.org cam­paign, a group ded­i­cat­ing to chal­leng­ing the destruc­tion of Europe’s last remain­ing great wilder­ness­es, in Ice­land. This is to be a protest against the destruc­tion of rur­al com­mu­ni­ties in Trinidad and the Ice­landic wilder­ness­es, the last of their kind in Europe, both at the hands of the alu­mini­um indus­try.

The Ice­landic gov­ern­ment is sac­ri­fic­ing its glacial rivers and geot­her­mal resources in order to pow­er alu­mini­um smelt­ing facil­i­ties. It is to destroy some of Iceland’s great­est nat­ur­al trea­sures and pol­lute its waters. This will cause con­sid­er­able dam­age to its tourism and fish­ing indus­tries. The Trinida­di­an gov­ern­ment is sell­ing its vast reserves of nat­ur­al gas to cre­ate an off-shore alu­mini­um smelter that many fear will under­mine the liveli­hoods of entire com­mu­ni­ties who are depen­dant upon fish­ing.

Tomorrow’s action is part of an ongo­ing inter­na­tion­al cam­paign in sup­port of local resis­tance against heavy indus­try in both Ice­land and Trinidad.

SavingIceland.org has been involved in the organ­i­sa­tion of two protest camps held in Ice­land and numer­ous sol­i­dar­i­ty actions staged across the globe. It is cur­rent­ly coor­di­nat­ing its third protest camp on the island, com­menc­ing on 6th July 2007.

More infor­ma­tion:
http://www.savingiceland.org

critical mass 29 december Mcr — a story from the ride

crit­i­cal mass fri 29 decem­ber

We met at the usu­al time and place of 6pm at cen­tral library in Man­ches­ter city cen­tre. There were about ten of us, num­bers being a bit low beca­sue many peo­ple had gone to oth­er towns and cities for christ­mas and new year, but mak­ing up the num­bers we had peo­ple from Aberdeen, York and Swansea!

crit­i­cal mass fri 29 decem­ber

We met at the usu­al time and place of 6pm at cen­tral library in Man­ches­ter city cen­tre. There were about ten of us, num­bers being a bit low beca­sue many peo­ple had gone to oth­er towns and cities for christ­mas and new year, but mak­ing up the num­bers we had peo­ple from Aberdeen, York and Swansea!

We rode around the roads for an hour and a half with the bicy­cle
soundsys­tem play­ing a mix­ture of Slay­er and Country/ folk. Some peo­ple cheered us and some dri­vers tried to kill us by dan­ger­ous­ly over­tak­ing us and dri­ving on the wrong side of the road near­ly into on-com­ing cars.

One woman said that we were being mean to her chil­dren beca­sue we were slow­ing her down and so I explained that we were cel­e­brat­ing bikes over car cul­ture because amongst oth­er things (and in addi­tion to oth­er groups of soci­ety) cars give chil­dren asth­ma and run them over and so maybe she’d like to recon­sid­er and sup­port us, but she lat­er over­took us slow­ing down an ambu­lance that we were mak­ing space for to get through, she did­nt get very far, about 200 yards to the next lights! She would have been quick­er on a bike (of course!) Oh well. but that was real­ly the only ran­dom­ly vague­ly neg­a­tive inci­dent most peo­ple seemed pleased to see us or inqui­sis­tive about why we were rid­ing.

It was a fun ride and nice that some new peo­ple came on it. Hope­ful­ly
we’ll see them again. After the ride some of us went for a beer in the bar. nice.

We were going to have a ben­e­fit night on the jan­u­ary mass but as its
pangea (a big stu­dent night) where lots of peo­ple seem to be going and lots of our friends bands seem to be play­ing at we thought that feb­ru­ary mass would be bet­ter (its also my birth­day!). But at the next one some­one will hope­ful­ly come down and film and inter­view some peo­ple on the mass for a film about cycling in Man­ches­ter I’m try­ing to make. On that note can any­one that knows film stuff that might be up for help­ing get in touch.

thought you might like to see this too post­ed by some­one in the GMCC
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/postbag/template/2006/12/28.html?1

critical mass 29 dec 06

“Calm the Climate – No More Roads!” say protesters ‘nailed’ to asphalt in Aotearoa/New Zealand

28/12/06: The open­ing of the Welling­ton Inner City “Bypass” was delayed, as it was block­ad­ed by pro­test­ers this morn­ing in an action against new roads.

Road nailing action 1Road nailing action 228/12/06: The open­ing of the Welling­ton Inner City “Bypass” was delayed, as it was block­ad­ed by pro­test­ers this morn­ing in an action against new roads. Two peo­ple were nailed to the asphalt just before 7am at the cor­ner of Tarana­ki and Arthur Streets. One per­son was arrest­ed (15 cops showed up!) and was charged with obstruct­ing a pub­lic way.

The long-await­ed open­ing of the Welling­ton Inner City “Bypass” is/was delayed this morn­ing, as it is/was block­ad­ed by pro­test­ers who claim that new roads exac­er­bate cli­mate change.
“The gov­ern­ment could save bil­lions of dol­lars, and slow cli­mate change, by mak­ing a pro-active deci­sion to stop build­ing new roads,” said Charles Sylvester, a pro­test­er.

“It’s often said — for exam­ple in the Stern Report – that the poten­tial costs of cli­mate change mas­sive­ly out­weigh the costs of reduc­ing our emis­sions. But to stop build­ing new roads would not even have a cost. In fact it would save bil­lions — and help to sta­bilise our emis­sions. Every time we build a new road car-dri­ving becomes eas­i­er, mak­ing peo­ple less like­ly to use the low-or non- pol­lut­ing modes of trans­port such as walk­ing, cycling, trains and bus­es. Peo­ple also have to trav­el fur­ther due to small but cumu­la­tive increas­es in urban sprawl,” said Doris Brown, anoth­er pro­test­er.

“Our population’s col­lec­tive total dis­tance-trav­elled, and the per­cent­age of peo­ple using each mode (bike, bus, etc), have a much greater influ­ence on emis­sions than any “effi­cien­cy improve­ments” such as bio­fu­els, hybrid vehi­cles and the reduc­tion of idling time in traf­fic jams,” said Charles Sylvester.

“Bil­lions of dol­lars may seem to be well-spent on new roads when cost-ben­e­fit analy­sis counts dol­lars but does not ade­quate­ly recog­nise envi­ron­men­tal and social val­ues. Extend­ing road­ing sys­tems how­ev­er pro­motes car use with mon­ey that could be used to improve pub­lic trans­port and pro­vide fur­ther facil­i­ties such as cycle­ways to encour­age walk­ing and cycling,” said Doris Brown.

“The com­mu­ni­ty here have strug­gled for over forty years to stop this so-called “by-pass” and we achieved a lot in terms of res­cued build­ings and a small­er road. The strug­gle is not over though. While polit­i­cal par­ties and greedy cor­po­ra­tions squab­ble over who looks the green­est our glob­al cli­mate chaos wors­ens. Peo­ple will not sit back and take it. The storms have come but seeds are sprout­ing. Expect to see more protest action!” said Charles Sylvester.

Melt­ing ice­caps, endan­gered Polar Bears and seri­ous drought in Aus­tralia are “canaries in the mine” sig­nal­ing a glob­al cli­mate change cri­sis that threat­ens the via­bil­i­ty of weath­er and ocean sys­tems on which life and civil­i­sa­tion depend.

“The GHG [green­house gas] prob­lem is extreme­ly dan­ger­ous to our civ­i­liza­tion because we are pre­dis­posed to ignore it”, said Prof. Peter Bar­rett FRSNZ (Direc­tor, Antarc­tic Research Cen­tre, Vic­to­ria Uni­ver­si­ty of Welling­ton) in an arti­cle orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished in the “Evening Post”, 10 May 2002 (www.gsnz.org.nz/gs_archive/gsprpb.htm). “If the shrink­ing trend [of the Arc­tic ice cap] con­tin­ues at its present rate of 8 per cent a year, there could be no ice at all at the pole as ear­ly as the sum­mer of 2060” report­ed the Domin­ion Post, 20 Sept, 2005, B1 sum­maris­ing results of a study con­duct­ed by US Nation­al Snow and Ice Data Cen­tre and NASA researchers. “For­mer U.S. vice-pres­i­dent Al Gore…visit[ed] Auck­land [in Novem­ber this year] to tell key busi­ness lead­ers and politi­cians in a closed meet­ing that they must act now to avert cli­mate change cat­a­stro­phe” (Sun­day Star Times Oct 29, 2006, A1).

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion see
www.sierraclub.org/sprawl/transportation/seven.asp
(sev­en arti­cles in pro­fes­sion­al jour­nals, show­ing that new roads induce new traf­fic)
www.vtpi.org (tran­port pol­i­cy analy­sis); www.livingstreets.org.nz (pro­mot­ing walk­ing)
www.option3.org.nz (peo­ple-friend­ly trans­port plan­ning)
www.techmedia.co.nz/t2K/ (light rail etc); www.climatechange.govt.nz . (sta­tis­tics)
www.hm-treasury.gov.uk (Stern Review)

Some red paint was dis­cov­ered on the ‘bypass’ under Ghuznee Street by a pho­tog­ra­ph­er.

Links: Heart­beat | Cli­mate IMC | Cli­mac­tion | Option3 | Earth First! | Earth Lib­er­a­tion Front | Save Hap­py Val­ley

——–
Some notes on nail tac­tics:

Actu­al­ly the nails were not very good, and only held the pro­test­ers down if they were VERY still. We used approx. 1.5 inch gal­vanised nails which were very hard to nail into the ash­phalt, at least for a non-chip­py, and they kept bend­ing. If I had to do it again I would use 6 inch non gal­vanised nails and a decent ham­mer. I could­n’t see the need for gal­vanis­ing. The nails were not going to rust off in the half hour or so the pro­test­ers were allowed to stay on the road.

I am not sure if police car­ry a claw ham­mer or jem­my, but if not, then then some decent nail­ing might have delayed the traf­fic until they could get one from the cop shop.
—
We tried the nails on anoth­er bit of asphalt that was new­er and the nails went in real­ly eas­i­ly. The asphalt on arthur street was a bit old­er and com­pact­ed. Live and learn.
I think the gal­vanised nails were just ones they found and not specif­i­cal­ly cho­sen for that rea­son.
And yeah it was more a pho­to stunt in order to get our voic­es heard… and it worked ;o)
Yay.

——–

video

PLANE STUPID Newsletter #6

PLANE STUPID Newslet­ter #6

“This is a deeply trau­ma­tized com­mu­ni­ty which has been lied to for years and years

Plane Stupid logo 2PLANE STUPID Newslet­ter #6

“This is a deeply trau­ma­tized com­mu­ni­ty which has been lied to for years and years
by the avi­a­tion indus­try and one polit­i­cal par­ty after anoth­er. There is a litany of
bro­ken promis­es. I won­der just how you might feel if you had endured all this for
years! I am so angry I am almost incan­des­cent with rage at the immoral­i­ty of it
all.” — A res­i­dent of Har­mondsworth, near Heathrow

~ VICTORY FOR STOP STANSTED CAMPAIGN! ~

After a sus­tained and long run­ning cam­paign by the com­mu­ni­ty near Stanst­ed, the
Uttles­ford Dis­trict Coun­cil have blocked the pro­posed plans for expan­sion of the
exist­ing run­way. BAA how­ev­er is refus­ing to accept the demo­c­ra­t­ic rul­ing and is
tak­ing it to a pub­lic enquiry. A cam­paign fund has been launched to fight the
enquiry. www.stopstanstedexpansion.com

~ OCCUPATION AGAINST BRISTOL EXPANSION ~

On the 4th Decem­ber, activists from South West Cli­mate Action occu­pied North
Som­er­set Envi­ron­ment and Plan­ning Offices to protest against plans for expan­sion of
Bris­tol air­port. Pho­tos and report at www.indymedia.org.uk

~EASYJET SHUT IN DAY OF ACTION AGAINST SHORT HAUL FLIGHTS! ~

On Novem­ber 6th, activists from around the coun­try came togeth­er to take
action against short haul flights. Plane Stu­pid activists shut down the Lon­don HQ of
Easy­Group, the own­ers of low-cost car­ri­er Easy­jet, and Lon­don Ris­ing Tide vis­it­ed
the Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty, pre­sent­ing them with a giant cheque for their £9.2
bil­lion annu­al sub­sidy.

In Cam­bridge, Man­ches­ter, Read­ing and Lon­don, there were protests out­side
trav­el agents, while Leeds Brad­ford air­port was plas­tered with anti-avi­a­tion
stick­ers. Robin Hood air­port received a vis­it from Robin and his Mer­ry Men,
dou­bly-angry because the air­port has been oppos­ing local wind farm appli­ca­tions.
Activists in Man­ches­ter dropped a ban­ner, and in Southend a trav­el agents was shut
when a pro­tes­tor locked her­self to the front door.

30 trav­el agents across the UK had their front doors chained shut
by activists who left signs on the win­dows read­ing, “Closed for a total
rethink. See www.planestupid.com”

A mem­ber of staff at Flight Cen­tre said, “Plane Stu­pid are caus­ing may­hem here
today, every­one is get­ting all aer­at­ed and vexed.” We’ll give them “aer­at­ed and
vexed!” What about the 182 mil­lion peo­ple to die in Africa this cen­tu­ry alone
because of cli­mate change, or the res­i­dents of ‘hacked off’ Har­mondsworth?

The day of action came as new research from HACAN Clearskies shows that 100,000
flights from Heathrow each year are to short haul des­ti­na­tions that are eas­i­ly
reach­able by the more sus­tain­able train alter­na­tive.

Reports and pho­tos at www.indymedia.org.uk

~ COURT REJECTS ASBOS FOR NEMA 25 ~

Lough­bor­ough Mag­is­trates Court reject­ed calls from the Crown Pros­e­cu­tion Ser­vice to
slap ASBOs on the 24 Plane Stu­pid activists who they described as “high­ly orga­nized
extrem­ists” that were arrest­ed in con­nec­tion with the shut down of Not­ting­ham East
Mid­lands short haul air­port in Sep­tem­ber.

In an appar­ent move aimed to avoid hav­ing the case heard by a jury, the charge of
pub­lic nui­sance was dropped, as was the charge relat­ing to an alleged breach of the
avi­a­tion and secu­ri­ty act.

Cam­paign­er for Plane Stu­pid, Ellen Rick­ford, said, “The same day that we learn the
gov­ern­ment is push­ing ahead with its air­port expan­sion pro­pos­als, they try to use
ASBOs to stamp out peace­ful protest. Well, it seems their plans were as doomed as
the avi­a­tion indus­try.”

17 activists got one year con­di­tion­al dis­charges (the min­i­mum sen­tence avail­able)
and each was charged £70 in costs. The 5 charged with crim­i­nal dam­age in addi­tion to
aggra­vat­ed tres­pass were giv­en vary­ing lev­els of com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice. One per­son was
referred to Crown Court due to unre­solved legal issues and anoth­er had his case
adjourned until Jan­u­ary 31st. One oth­er activist was unable to attend court due to
ill­ness.

Help us pay our fines! Donate via: www.planestupid.com

~ TOP 100 GREEN CAMPAIGNERS OF ALL TIME ~

Vet­er­an green cam­paign­er and staunch sup­port­er of Plane Stu­pid, John Stew­art, has
been named by the Envi­ron­ment Agency as the 82nd most influ­en­tial green activist of
all time! Just one posi­tion behind Mahat­ma Gand­hi, Plane Stu­pid is mighty glad he’s
on our side and proud that he’s often been our spokesman!

~ MARKETING GURU PREDICTS END OF SHORT HAUL AIR TRAVEL ~

In a cov­er-sto­ry fea­ture of Mar­ket­ing Week­ly Mag­a­zine, trig­gered by our nation­al day
of action, a PR guru is quot­ed as say­ing that he thinks short haul bud­get air trav­el
will go the same way that coal did in the 80s because, “they are unnec­es­sary,
out­dat­ed and there­fore fac­ing decline.” Too right!

~ AVIATION INDUSTRY PUBLISH “TEN REASONS TO KEEP FLYING” ~

Respond­ing to Plane Stu­pid­’s “10 rea­sons to ground the Plane” — the avi­a­tion
indus­try’s PR peo­ple at www.cheapflights.co.uk have come up with, “10 rea­sons to
keep fly­ing!” This comes after the Stern report sin­gled out avi­a­tion as one of the
most sig­nif­i­cant caus­es of cli­mate change.

~ ‘ETHICAL MAN’ JOINS PLANE STUPID ON LONDON CLIMATE MARCH ~

Around fifty Plane Stu­pid-ers marched togeth­er with Air­port­Watch cam­paign­ers and
Stanst­ed res­i­dents on the Cam­paign against Cli­mate Change (CaCC) march to Trafal­gar
Square on Novem­ber 4th. There was an 8ft long wood­en plane on storks, big ban­ners
and tons of peti­tion­ing. March­ing with Plane Stu­pid was News­night’s ‘eth­i­cal man’
and Seize the Day’s Theo and Shan­non. Pho­tos avail­able soon on the web­site…

In the mean­time, see www.indymedia.org.uk

~ POLITICS ROUND-UP ~

Gor­don Brown snubbed sci­en­tists and cam­paign­ers calls for tough new green tax­es and
instead opt­ed in his pre-bud­get report for the pathet­ic polit­i­cal ges­ture of
increas­ing air pas­sen­ger duty by £5. This news came less than a week after a report
from BA boss, Rod Edding­ton, who was hired by Gor­don Brown and paid by us the
tax­pay­er, to (shock) sug­gest air­port expan­sion was a good thing. So we now know that
indus­try boss­es sup­port their own plans. Fan­cy that!

~ DO YOU WANT US TO SPEAK IN YOUR AREA? ~

Plane Stu­pid speak­ers have appeared at the Lib Dem Region­al Con­fer­ence along with
Shad­ow Envi­ron­ment Min­is­ter, Chris Huhne; at the LSE along­side Stop Cli­mate Chaos
direc­tor, Ashok Sin­ha; at stu­dent union venues includ­ing in Lon­don and Sus­sex; and
at local Green­peace and FoE meet­ings across the UK. If you want us to come and talk
in your area, get in touch. info@planestupid.com

————————————————————-EVENTS
———————————-

CAMP FOR CLIMATE ACTION MEETINGS

Fol­low­ing the suc­cess­ful cli­mate camp at Drax, plans are afoot for the next camp
which will be at a dif­fer­ent location.get involved with putting plans into action.

www.climatecamp.org.uk

PLANE STUPID BENEFIT GIG/FILM SHOWING

On Fri­day 26th Jan­u­ary, Brix­ton Jamm presents The Alabama3. Tick­ets avail­able soon
via www.planestupid.com

——————————————————— RESOURCES
——————————

~ PLANE STUPID: A year in review ~

On Novem­ber 29th, Plane Stu­pid had its first anniver­sary. For a reflec­tion on the
incred­i­ble momen­tum we’ve built up over the last year, with video footage and pho­tos
for down­load, see www.planestupid.com

~ PLANE STUPID Blog ~

Plane Stu­pid has estab­lished a blog at www.myspace.com/planestupid. Its first blog
entry includes, “The arm­chair envi­ron­men­tal­ist’s guide to off­sets… or ‘How to save
the world for 38p!’)”

~ LEGAL RESOURCE FOR ACTIVISTS~

Expe­ri­enced cam­paign­ers are offer­ing free advice and train­ing to grass­roots groups
includ­ing legal skills and more. www.seedsforchange.org.uk

~ THE SHEILA McK­ECH­NIE AWARDS ~

The Sheila McK­ech­nie Awards pro­vide cam­paign devel­op­ment pack­ages to grass­roots
cam­paign­ers. Up for grabs is a ‘Trans­port Award’.anyone want­i­ng to apply should see:
www.sheilamckechnie.org.uk

Critical mass this Friday 29th Dec, Manchester

The next crit­i­cal mass bike ride in Man­ches­ter is Fri­day 29th Decem­ber
We sus­pect lots of san­ta’s will be on bicy­cles!

The next crit­i­cal mass bike ride in Man­ches­ter is Fri­day 29th Decem­ber
We sus­pect lots of san­ta’s will be on bicy­cles!
Xmas Manchester Critical Mass flier
Crit­i­cal Mass: last fri­day of the month 6pm at cen­tral library
After this one the next dates are:
jan 26 (’07), feb 23, mar 30, apr 27, may 25

We cycle round the city to cel­e­brate the bicy­cle:

It’s for any­one that rides a bike;
Its a cel­e­bra­tion of get­ting round the city with­out pol­lut­ing it;
Its about every jour­ney being an adven­ture instead of just sit­ting on a bor­ing bus or in a stress­ful car;
Its about cyclists rid­ing togeth­er to demand more respect from oth­er road users;
Its a way to meet oth­er cyclis­tas;

also at that time on fri­day hun­dreds of cities around the world do the same thing…all get togeth­er for crit­i­cal mass. its beau­ti­ful to know that as you ride with your mates through your own city that all around the world thou­sands of peo­ple are doing the same thing.

The next man­ches­ter crit­i­cal mass cycling club bicy­cle ride will be on Sun­day Jan­u­ary 28th (the sun­day after Jan CM)
There will be two parts to the ride. If you want a real long ride then meet­ing in Man­ches­ter to ride out to the peaks. If you want less of a long ride then catch a train with your bike to the peaks and we’ll all meet for a nice ride and lunch. Details will be post­ed here very short­ly.

Every­one wel­come!

mcrcriticalmass@yahoo.co.uk
http://velorution.x21.org.uk

coal-fired plants

URGENT Sup­port is request­ed from Dine Elders and Youth!

Sithe Glob­al & DPA are propos­ing to build the Desert Rock pow­er plant, a 1,500 MW Coal Fired plant in the Four Cor­ners area on the Nava­jo Reser­va­tion. This is an area already pol­lut­ed by 2 oth­er major coal pow­er plants. Local Nava­jo res­i­dence and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers oppose this project for many harm­ful rea­sons!! This Desert Rock pow­er plant is still in the envi­ron­men­tal review process and has NOT yet been per­mit­ted.

URGENT Sup­port is request­ed from Dine Elders and Youth!

Sithe Glob­al & DPA are propos­ing to build the Desert Rock pow­er plant, a 1,500 MW Coal Fired plant in the Four Cor­ners area on the Nava­jo Reser­va­tion. This is an area already pol­lut­ed by 2 oth­er major coal pow­er plants. Local Nava­jo res­i­dence and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers oppose this project for many harm­ful rea­sons!! This Desert Rock pow­er plant is still in the envi­ron­men­tal review process and has NOT yet been per­mit­ted.

How­ev­er, Desert Rock com­pa­ny trucks have began mov­ing onto the back­yard of Alice Gilmore, an elder­ly nava­jo woman, and her fam­i­ly on wednes­day to begin drilling efforts. Desert Rock offi­cials and police have not shown any doc­u­ments or per­mits to the local res­i­dents stat­ing their pur­pose or per­mis­sion to be there. Dine sup­port­ers and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers have joined Alice and her fam­i­ly to block­ade the road. They are elder­ly women and youth, and they have been camped out on the road over night since Tues­day! Desert Rock trucks have repeat­ed­ly rushed them and have almost run-over peo­ple a num­ber of times as they attempt to get by. Desert Rock pow­er com­pa­ny is vio­lat­ing the lease rights of the local Nava­jo res­i­dences and is harass­ing elder­ly Nava­jo women and youth! This is an urgent time and sup­port is need­ed!!!

Please read on to find out how you can help! and Please pass this onto oth­ers! (press release and addi­tion­al arti­cle)

Lucy A. Willie, right, stands at the pro­posed Desert Rock Pow­er Plant site out­side of Burn­ham on Wednes­day where she and
sev­er­al friends and fam­i­ly stayed overnight to stop a con­trac­tor for Desert Rock Ener­gy Com­pa­ny from doing pre­lim­i­nary work.

What they need:
— More Peo­ple Sup­port
— Fire wood
— $$
— Atten­tion!

how You can Help!

- More Peo­ple! More peo­ple are need­ed to sit in sup­port! All are wel­come!
direc­tions to the area are below:
The site is between Gallup, NM and Shiprock, NM (north­east­ern, NM). Take the road between Gallup and Shiprock, the 491. at the Mus­tang Ser­vice Sta­tion (one of the only ser­vice sta­tions between the two), turn East on road #5 towards Burn­ham Chap­ter. From Burn­ham Chap­ter turn North onto grav­el road #5082. About 10–12 miles up the road turn West until you see the encamp­ment. There will be mark­ers (bal­loons) out on the roads. (if you begin to see a dragline, you’ve gone too far)

— Fire wood! it is cold out­side and many of the resisters are elder­ly women. if you can get fire­wood to the site it is very very much need­ed! the direc­tions to the site are above.

- $ Mon­ey! Resisters are in need of mon­ey for gas and food, and also for bail mon­ey if nec­es­sary. Please send dona­tions to local res­i­dent and sup­port­er:
Elouise Brown
1015 Glade Lane 34
Farm­ing­ton, NM 87401
Elouise can also be reached at: thebrownmachine@hotmail.com

- ATTENTION! the more media and observers are present the least like­ly Desert Rock is like­ly to run peo­ple over or harass them. con­tact the media, tell them what is going on. Con­tact Nava­jo Author­i­ties, tell them you are extreme­ly con­cerned. Be a legal observ­er. Spread this Alert!

Media Con­tact: Lori Good­man, cell #: (970) 759‑1908, e‑mail address: kiyaani@frontier.net

Con­tact the Fol­low­ing Author­i­ties! Tell them you have heard about Desert Rock­’s harass­ment of Nava­jo elders and youth. Tell them you are extreme­ly con­cerned! If enough peo­ple con­tact these offices they will know that the world is watch­ing.

Shiprock Police Depart­ment
phone: (505) 368‑1350
fax: (505) 368‑1293

Nava­jo Nation Pres­i­dent Joe Shirley’s Office
P.O. Box 9000 Win­dow Rock, Ari­zona, 86515
phone #: (928) 871- 6352

also: George Hard­een, Nava­jo Nation Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Direc­tor Office of the Pres­i­dent
Office #: 928–871-7000
Cell #: 928–380-7688
e‑mail: georgehardeen@opvp.org

Bureau of Indi­an Affairs (Gallup Office) they are con­duct­ing the Envi­ron­men­tal Impact State­ment.
Har­ri­lene Yazzi, NEPA Coor­di­na­tor Bureau of Indi­an Affairs, Nava­jo Region­al Office
P.0. Box 1060 Gallup, New Mex­i­co 87305
Phone: 505–863-8314
Fax: 505–863-8324

Be a Legal Observ­er — get to the site and help record/witness what is hap­pen­ing

Send this Action Alert Far and Wide!

Thank you for your sup­port!!!

Enei Begaye
Exec­u­tive Direc­tor
Black Mesa Water Coali­tion
408 E. Route 66, Suite #1
Flagstaff, AZ 86001
Office #: (928) 213‑9760

Jihan Gearon, Native Ener­gy Cam­paign
Indige­nous Envi­ron­men­tal Net­work
(877) 436‑2121

PRESS RELEASE
Wednes­day, Decem­ber 13, 2006

Con­tacts:
Sarah Jane White, Doo­dá Desert Rock Com­mit­tee (505) 860‑6166
Dailan J. Long , Diné CARE, Doo­dá Desert Rock Com­mit­tee (505) 801‑0713
Elouise Brown, Doo­dá Desert Rock Com­mit­tee (505) 974‑6159
Lori Good­man, Diné CARE (970) 759‑1908

BURNHAM, SANOSTEE & NENANEZAH RESIDENTS BLOCKADE DESERT ROCK PROJECT

Burn­ham, NM –Burn­ham, Sanos­tee & Nenanezah Elders and cit­i­zens are brav­ing the cold to pro­tect the land from the encroach­ing Diné Pow­er Author­i­ty (DPA) and Sithe Glob­al LLC at the pro­posed Desert Rock site. Nava­jo res­i­dents con­front­ed the Diné Pow­er Authority/Sithe Glob­al on Tues­day after­noon after learn­ing of water drilling that had been occur­ring with­out the knowl­edge and noti­fi­ca­tion of local res­i­dents.

“I have said ‘No’ over and over again and you keep com­ing over!â€? Nenanezah elder Alice Gilmore exclaimed to Sithe/DPA employ­ees at the con­fronta­tion. For Gilmore, the issue is despi­ca­ble and uncalled for since she gave no con­sent to allow DPA/Sithe into her graz­ing area. Mem­bers of the Doo­dá Desert Rock com­mit­tee gath­ered to sup­port her oppo­si­tion and asked Sithe/DPA to dis­close Drilling per­mits that allowed drilling activ­i­ty to occur, to no avail. The res­i­dents refused to leave after the Nava­jo Nation Police attempt­ed to give access to DPA/Sithe Glob­al, claim­ing that per­mits for the Desert Rock project are not for pub­lic dis­clo­sure. The Burn­ham res­i­dents bar­ri­cad­ed the roads to dis­al­low traf­fic into the Desert Rock site and have remained in place since the Tues­day inci­dent occurred.

Mem­bers of Diné CARE/Doodá Desert Rock Com­mit­tee met this morn­ing at the Shiprock Cour­t­house to get answers about drilling per­mits yet the Lieu­tenant Dempsey denied access to Gilmore and oth­er con­cerned res­i­dents to view the per­mits. Res­i­dents are ask­ing for: 1.) A copy of the cat­e­gor­i­cal exclu­sion that is allow­ing the drilling activ­i­ties to com­mence. 2.) Copies of the Clean Water Act Sec­tions 401, 402 and 404, that would prove com­pli­ance with reg­u­la­to­ry require­ments have been met. There are major dis­tur­bance tak­ing place and accord­ing to the Clean Air Act, these per­mits are a pre-req­ui­site for drilling activ­i­ty.

The pro­posed area is home to extend­ed fam­i­lies, but arbi­trar­i­ly drawn polit­i­cal bound­aries by the Nava­jo Nation and com­pa­ny rep­re­sen­ta­tives have the fam­i­lies sep­a­rat­ed into the three chap­ters: Burn­ham, Sanos­tee, and Nenah­nezad. The bound­ary defin­ing Burn­ham and Nenah­nezad has been moved south for ben­e­fit of DPA/Sithe as recent­ly as two years ago.

“The local res­i­dents are not pro­test­ers but are resisters. Who would be hap­py if a well is being dug in their back­yard espe­cial­ly when it is done in secre­cy? So, how can those res­i­dents be con­sid­ered pro­test­ers when they are sim­ply stand­ing up for their rights to have clean air, water, and environment.â€? Stat­ed, Elouise Brown of Sanos­tee.

Burn­ham, Sanos­tee and Nenanezah res­i­dents are not wait­ing for rem­e­dy; many have set up camp at the pro­posed site and are refus­ing to move until they get the need­ed doc­u­ments. “We’re fed up with them,â€? states Sarah J. White, Pres­i­dent of the Doo­dá Desert Rock Com­mit­tee, “the grand­mas and the grand­pas are being walked over by these mon­sters and they’re being denied infor­ma­tion. We’re stand­ing our ground now.â€? This inci­dent fol­lows accu­sa­tions made against Sithe/DPA about envi­ron­men­tal injus­tices, EPA’s pro­posed issuance of pre­ven­tion of sig­nif­i­cant dete­ri­o­ra­tion (PSD) per­mit Air Qual­i­ty Per­mit for Desert Rock Ener­gy Facil­i­ty and the cre­ation of Nava­jo Nation Ener­gy Poli­cies with­out pub­lic input.
###

Lori Good­man
Dine’ CARE
10 A Town Plaza, PMB 138
Duran­go, CO 81301
PH: (970) 259‑0199
FAX: (970) 259‑2300
Cell: (970) 759‑1908
kiyaani@frontier.net
dinecare.org

Nava­jo tra­di­tion­al elders block­ade pow­er plant site

By Bren­da Nor­rell
U.N. OBSERVER & Inter­na­tion­al Report

BURNHAM, NEW MEXICO, USA – Elder­ly Nava­jo women and their chil­dren formed a block­ade, built a fire and camped at the site of a pro­posed pow­er plant on trib­al land in north­west New Mex­i­co. The block­ade of
tra­di­tion­al Nava­jos halt­ed site work in a region that is already tox­ic with air and water pol­lu­tion from pow­er plants, oil and gas wells and scat­tered radioac­tive tail­ings from the Cold War.

Fac­ing the threat of arrest by trib­al police at the block­ade, Nava­jo elder­ly, includ­ing one med­i­cine man, said they are will­ing to go to jail to pro­tect their land and way of life.

Most of the elder­ly are already ill from liv­ing in an area where pow­er plants have released 100 tons of coal com­bus­tion waste that is blow­ing in the wind. One of the Nava­jo elder­ly resisters is in a wheel­chair and
anoth­er has severe asth­ma.

For the sec­ond night on Wednes­day night, Dec. 13, Nava­jo resisters camped in the cold at the site.
“I have said ‘No’ over and over again and you keep com­ing over!â€? said Nenanezah elder Alice Gilmore, who holds the graz­ing per­mit for the area of the pro­posed Desert Rock Pow­er Plant. The Nava­jo Nation and
Sithe Glob­al LLC plan to build the pow­er plant, which would be the third pow­er plant in the Farmington/Bloomfield area.

Con­fronting Sithe and Nava­jo DPA employ­ees, Gilmore was adamant that she has not giv­en per­mis­sion for the pow­er plant on her land. Nava­jo elders from Burn­ham, Sanos­tee and Nenanezah chap­ter, all tak­ing a bold
action to fight the trib­al gov­ern­ment and cor­po­rate aggres­sion, joined Gilmore at the block­ade.
“We’re fed up with them,â€? said Sarah J. White, pres­i­dent of the Doo­dá Desert Rock Com­mit­tee. “The grand­mas and the grand­pas are being walked over by these mon­sters and they’re being denied infor­ma­tion. We’re stand­ing our ground now.â€?

White said Nava­jos at the bar­ri­cade need every­thing in the way of food, fire­wood and sup­plies. “We need every­thing from A to Z,â€? White said.

The block­ade was formed just 10 days after Nava­jo Nation elect­ed lead­ers gath­ered with rep­re­sen­ta­tives from 14 coun­tries and for­mu­lat­ed a glob­al ban on ura­ni­um min­ing on Native lands. The pow­er plant
block­ade also comes as Nava­jo Nation lead­ers are fight­ing in the fed­er­al Ninth Cir­cuit Court of Appeals to pro­tect San Fran­cis­co Peaks near Flagstaff, Ariz., from the des­e­cra­tion of snow­mak­ing from recy­cled
waste­water for tourism. The moun­tain is sacred to 13 area Indi­an tribes.

How­ev­er, both Nava­jo Pres­i­dent Joe Shirley, Jr., and the Nava­jo Nation Coun­cil sup­port the con­struc­tion of the Desert Rock Pow­er Plant and accom­pa­ny­ing coalmine, which Nava­jos say would add more pol­lu­tion to
the air, land and water, already sat­u­rat­ed with dis­ease-caus­ing tox­ins.

The Nava­jo Nation trib­al gov­ern­ment has attempt­ed to cen­sor the voic­es of Nava­jos speak­ing out against the Desert Rock pow­er plant in New Mex­i­co and the use of aquifer water for coal min­ing by Peabody Coal on
the west­ern side of the Nava­jo Nation in Ari­zona.

The pro­posed site of the new Desert Rock pow­er plant is in the Four Cor­ners Region, tar­get­ed since the 1970s as a nation­al sac­ri­fice area for ener­gy pro­duc­tion.

It is also the sacred region of Dine­tah, the place of ori­gin of Nava­jos. How­ev­er, the air is so pol­lut­ed in the region of Dine­tah near Bloom­field that per­sons with asth­ma and res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­eases find it dif­fi­cult to breathe.

Fur­ther, Nava­jos say while they strug­gle with res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­eases, can­cer and the death of their loved ones in this region, many Nava­jos must also haul water and live with­out elec­tric­i­ty, since the pow­er plants on Nava­jo land pri­mar­i­ly pro­vide elec­tric­i­ty for non-Indi­ans.

The Nava­jo block­ade comes as O’odham in Sono­ra, Mex­i­co, chal­lenge a secret plan by the gov­ern­ment of Mex­i­co, with the knowl­edge of the US EPA, to cre­ate a haz­ardous waste dump near the sacred site of Quito­vac where O’odham hold cer­e­monies. The Nava­jo block­ade coin­cides with an action by Pima on Gila Riv­er trib­al land in Ari­zona to halt expan­sion of a haz­ardous dump­site.

At the same time, Yaqui in Sono­ra, Mex­i­co, gath­ered to pro­hib­it the use of banned pes­ti­cides in agri­cul­tur­al fields, now result­ing in can­cer and deaths.

At the pro­posed new Desert Rock pow­er plant site in New Mex­i­co, Nava­jo res­i­dents con­front­ed the Diné Pow­er Authority/Sithe Glob­al on Dec. 12, after dis­cov­er­ing that water drilling was car­ried out with­out the
knowl­edge and noti­fi­ca­tion of local Nava­jo res­i­dents.

Mem­bers of the Doo­dá Desert Rock com­mit­tee gath­ered to sup­port Gilmore’s oppo­si­tion and asked Sithe/DPA to dis­close drilling per­mits that allowed drilling activ­i­ty to occur. How­ev­er, no per­mits were pro­vid­ed.

The res­i­dents refused to leave after the Nava­jo Nation Police attempt­ed to give access to DPA/Sithe Glob­al, claim­ing that per­mits for the Desert Rock project are not for pub­lic dis­clo­sure. The Burn­ham res­i­dents bar­ri­cad­ed the roads to dis­al­low traf­fic into the Desert Rock site and Nava­jos remained at the block­ade.
Mem­bers of Diné CARE/Doodá Desert Rock Com­mit­tee met Dec. 13, at the Shiprock trib­al cour­t­house to get answers about drilling per­mits.

Nava­jo res­i­dents said a trib­al police lieu­tenant denied Gilmore and oth­er res­i­dents access to view the per­mits.

Nava­jo res­i­dents are ask­ing for a copy of the cat­e­gor­i­cal exclu­sion, which would allow the drilling activ­i­ties to com­mence, and copies of the Clean Water Act Sec­tions 401, 402 and 404, that would prove com­pli­ance with reg­u­la­to­ry require­ments have been met.

“There are major dis­tur­bance tak­ing place and accord­ing to the Clean Air Act, these per­mits are a pre-req­ui­site for drilling activity,â€? Nava­jo res­i­dents said in a pub­lic state­ment.

Fur­ther, Nava­jos say trib­al bound­ary lines were redrawn to accom­mo­date the pow­er plant cor­po­ra­tion.

The pro­posed area is home to extend­ed fam­i­lies, but arbi­trar­i­ly drawn polit­i­cal bound­aries by the Nava­jo Nation and com­pa­ny rep­re­sen­ta­tives have the fam­i­lies sep­a­rat­ed into the three chap­ters: Burn­ham, Sanos­tee, and Nenah­nezad.

Nava­jo res­i­dents said the bound­ary defin­ing Burn­ham and Nenah­nezad was moved to the south for the ben­e­fit of DPA/Sithe with­in the past two years.

Elouise Brown of Sanos­tee said, “The local res­i­dents are not pro­test­ers but are resisters. Who would be hap­py if a well is being dug in their back­yard espe­cial­ly when it is done in secre­cy? So, how can those res­i­dents be con­sid­ered pro­test­ers when they are sim­ply stand­ing up for their rights to have clean air, water, and environment.â€?

Burn­ham, Sanos­tee and Nenanezah res­i­dents are not wait­ing for rem­e­dy; many have set up camp at the pro­posed site and are refus­ing to move until they get the need­ed doc­u­ments.

Nava­jos said this inci­dent fol­lows accu­sa­tions made against Sithe/DPA about envi­ron­men­tal injus­tices, EPA’s pro­posed issuance of pre­ven­tion of sig­nif­i­cant dete­ri­o­ra­tion (PSD) per­mit Air Qual­i­ty Per­mit for Desert
Rock Ener­gy Facil­i­ty and the cre­ation of Nava­jo Nation Ener­gy Poli­cies with­out pub­lic input.

Day of Action Against 4x4s in Bristol

Oth­er activist groups in Bris­tol want to take part in a city wide day of action against 4x4s. Please join us.

1) Launch Date/1st action: We will launch as a cam­paign on 28th and 29th of Jan­u­ary. The Sun­day (28th) is for peo­ple who work dur­ing the week and the Mon­day (29th) gives us the oppor­tu­ni­ty to do an action at a ‘School Run’ (maybe at one of the pri­vate schools in Bris­tol?). The theme of the actions will be: OIL ADDICTS (and the side effects of this addic­tion) and OIL ZOMBIES. This should give peo­ple lots of scope for cre­ativ­i­ty and fun in mak­ing 4x4s uncool and get­ting the 4x4 dri­vers to think about their (very unwise) vehi­cle choice. Are 4x4 dri­vers in fact zom­bies who are: a) killing pedes­tri­ans and cyclists 2) block­ing the streets of Bris­tol 3) addict­ed to oil, with the dead­ly side effects of Glob­al Warm­ing and the crazy ‘Oil War’ in Iraq? You get the idea, dress up as a Zom­bie for the day as this will give the media lots of great pics and freak out the 4x4 dri­vers! If you don’t want to dress up, that’s no prob­lem.

Oth­er activist groups in Bris­tol want to take part in a city wide day of action against 4x4s. Please join us.

1) Launch Date/1st action: We will launch as a cam­paign on 28th and 29th of Jan­u­ary. The Sun­day (28th) is for peo­ple who work dur­ing the week and the Mon­day (29th) gives us the oppor­tu­ni­ty to do an action at a ‘School Run’ (maybe at one of the pri­vate schools in Bris­tol?). The theme of the actions will be: OIL ADDICTS (and the side effects of this addic­tion) and OIL ZOMBIES. This should give peo­ple lots of scope for cre­ativ­i­ty and fun in mak­ing 4x4s uncool and get­ting the 4x4 dri­vers to think about their (very unwise) vehi­cle choice. Are 4x4 dri­vers in fact zom­bies who are: a) killing pedes­tri­ans and cyclists 2) block­ing the streets of Bris­tol 3) addict­ed to oil, with the dead­ly side effects of Glob­al Warm­ing and the crazy ‘Oil War’ in Iraq? You get the idea, dress up as a Zom­bie for the day as this will give the media lots of great pics and freak out the 4x4 dri­vers! If you don’t want to dress up, that’s no prob­lem.

Oth­er groups (such as the Bris­tol Cycling Cam­paign) have expressed an inter­est in tak­ing part in a joint ‘Day of Action’, when they can also protest against 4x4s in Bris­tol in their own way. So how about declar­ing the 28th of Jan­u­ary a ‘Day of Action Against 4x4s in Bris­tol’? If any oth­er groups want to talk to us about what they would like to do on that day, that’s great but if you just want to do your own thing, then that is OK with us too.

2) We will hold a plan­ning meet­ing on the 7th of Jan­u­ary to co-ordi­nate the day of action on the 28th. Venue TBA. Please email in if you would like to attend so we have an idea of num­bers. bristol4x4alliance at yahoo.co.uk

3) Lots of media inter­est. Below are two arti­cles pub­lished in the Bris­tol Evening Post on the 20th of Decem­ber. The hos­til­i­ty of the 4x4 dri­vers in their com­ments is quite fun­ny. The log­ic of their ‘argument’ is that David Rose is a ‘mature stu­den­t’ and that is some kind of crim­i­nal offence! The Day of Action on the 28th should gen­er­ate allot in media cov­er­age – print/radio/tv etc.

4) We sup­port the ‘Transport Man­i­festo for Bris­tol’.

Hope you all have a great Christ­mas break and we look for­ward to see­ing you in Jan­u­ary.

Kind Regards

David Rose 07817 447 406
Har­ri­et Williams
bristol4x4alliance at yahoo.co.uk

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Bris­tol Evening Post — 20th Decem­ber 2006

Post­ed on: www.thisisbristol.co.uk

GUERRILLA WARFARE DECLARED ON 4X4 DRIVERS

BY TOM HODSON
thodson@bepp.co.uk

20 Decem­ber 2006

Dri­vers of 4x4s in Bris­tol face hav­ing buck­ets of mud thrown over their cars as part of a cam­paign to force gas-guz­zlers off the city’s streets. Envi­ron­men­tal activist David Rose, of Clifton, and his friend Har­ri­et Williams decid­ed to form a new group after see­ing the pop­u­lar­i­ty of the four-wheel-dri­ve cars increase in the city. They are start­ing a direct action cam­paign of throw­ing buck­ets of mud over parked 4x4s and putting fake park­ing tick­ets under their wind­screen wipers. The 42-year-old mature stu­dent at Bris­tol Uni­ver­si­ty said: “We are linked with the Alliance Against Urban 4x4s in Lon­don, and they are sup­port­ing us, after they were suc­cess­ful in cam­paign­ing to get a pro­posed £25 dai­ly con­ges­tion charge there. “Our plan is to make 4x4 dri­vers look stu­pid by giv­ing their cars mud wash­es or plac­ing the fake tick­ets on them.

“It is non-vio­lent, direct action with­in the law. “These vehi­cles nev­er seem to be used for what they were intend­ed. “If you live in the coun­try you obvi­ous­ly may need one for off-road dri­ving, but not in Bristol.â€? Mr. Rose said the group’s aim was to make dri­ving a 4x4 social­ly unac­cept­able and to get Bris­tol City Coun­cil to levy a con­ges­tion charge on them in the cen­tre of Bris­tol. Their main argu­ments are that the vehi­cles are envi­ron­men­tal­ly unfriend­ly and pose a risk to oth­er road users and pedes­tri­ans. Mr. Rose said motorists and cyclists also found them dif­fi­cult to see around. He said: “There are just so many things wrong with them, we’ve got vol­un­teers com­ing for­ward to join the group for all kinds of rea­sons. “Some are just con­cerned with road safe­ty, because roads in the city are nar­row and they pose a dan­ger. They emit high­er amounts of car­bon than nor­mal cars as well “We are not anti-car, we are just anti-4x4.â€? Sports cars were also part of the cam­paign, he said, but were not as impor­tant as 4x4s. Mr. Rose said the vehi­cles rep­re­sent­ed a major part of the cul­ture of con­spic­u­ous con­sump­tion. He said: “Part of the thing with them is show­ing off, I don’t know why. “There seems to be more and more of them in Bris­tol, and I think peo­ple are angry about it, and a lot want to do some­thing about it.â€? The fake park­ing tick­ets fea­tured safe­ty and emis­sions data and the state­ment “Poor Vehi­cle Choiceâ€?, said Mr Rose, who is hop­ing to devel­op ones spe­cif­ic to Bris­tol. The group was also look­ing for vol­un­teers to join its steer­ing com­mit­tee, he said. In Sep­tem­ber 2005, cyclists in Bris­tol launched a poster cam­paign tar­get­ing four-wheel-dri­ve cars. Mem­bers of the Bris­tol Cycling Cam­paign sent out 900, A3-size posters to mem­bers and sup­port­ers bear­ing the words “No 4x4sâ€? with a road sign type of image “banningâ€? them. Bob Bull, of the South West branch of the Asso­ci­a­tion of British Dri­vers, said: “We are total­ly against the cam­paign. “Our view is that these peo­ple, once they have fin­ished with 4x4s, will move on to some­thing else like sports cars. “They won’t be sat­is­fied until there are no cars on the roads, it is ridicu­lous.
“Yes, cer­tain 4x4s are exces­sive, if they are used in an inap­pro­pri­ate way. “But where is the cut-off point? I dri­ve an Audi car with four-wheel- dri­ve, my broth­er-in-law has a Nis­san 4x4 which is diesel and more eco­nom­i­cal than most saloons. “It’s like the whole cam­paign against the expan­sion of the air­port, I think peo­ple just want to have some­thing to moan about.â€? Wayne Bak­er, a spokesman for Avon and Som­er­set Police, said throw­ing mud wash­es over cars could be con­sid­ered as crim­i­nal dam­age. He said: “It would be regard­ed as an act of crim­i­nal dam­age, depend­ing on the cir­cum­stances. “It could also be regard­ed as a pub­lic nui­sance offence as well.â€?

UK social centres gathering, 27th January Bradford

Sat­ur­day 27th Jan­u­ary @ The 1in12 Club, Brad­ford
A day of work­shops, dis­cus­sions & ideas

To be fol­lowed by an evening of enter­tain­ment from the May­hem Cabaret fea­tur­ing…

The Sex Patels Punk meets Bol­ly­wood

Sat­ur­day 27th Jan­u­ary @ The 1in12 Club, Brad­ford
A day of work­shops, dis­cus­sions & ideas

To be fol­lowed by an evening of enter­tain­ment from the May­hem Cabaret fea­tur­ing…

The Sex Patels Punk meets Bol­ly­wood
Span­ner Anar­cho ska punk from Bris­tol
BeyONdTV Keep­ing Under­ground Media Ugly

Plus ben­e­fit Cock­tail bar, cheap entry & more enter­tain­ment through­out

All Wel­come, more details to fol­low. Con­tact the club on 01274 734160
or socialcentrenetwork@lists.riseup.net

Faslane action

19.12.2006
Wednes­day morn­ing, 7:30am. A dark road some­where North of Glas­gow. Scot­tish cold and rain beat­ing in my face. I’m chained via a bike lock to Irene, vet­er­an of the Faslane strug­gle. One arm dis­ap­pears into a tube, at the oth­er end of which is my mate Steve. There are sev­en of us, five women and two men, stand­ing in a line stretched across the road.

19.12.2006
Wednes­day morn­ing, 7:30am. A dark road some­where North of Glas­gow. Scot­tish cold and rain beat­ing in my face. I’m chained via a bike lock to Irene, vet­er­an of the Faslane strug­gle. One arm dis­ap­pears into a tube, at the oth­er end of which is my mate Steve. There are sev­en of us, five women and two men, stand­ing in a line stretched across the road.

Head­lights approach through the dark­ness; our high-vis­i­bil­i­ty min­ders rush for­ward arms wav­ing: “Slow down, SLOW DOWN, This is a block­ade don’t you know!” There are flash­ing blue lights approach­ing now from fur­ther down the road; one of us makes the call “HO!” and we sink to the ground, laid flat out on the tar­mac.

The next forty min­utes are spent blink­ing beat­ing rain out of our eyes, gri­mac­ing at police cam­eras and ques­tions, being fed choco­late by our min­ders and even­tu­al­ly, sad­ly, being cut apart by a very effi­cient Scot­tish police force. We’re tak­en away to a mobile pro­cess­ing unit for the usu­al rig­ma­role. As we’re dri­ven away we can see the traf­fic queues back­ing up in three direc­tions; the Tri­dent nuclear sub­ma­rine base is the work­place for 7000 loy­al sub­jects of Her Majesty.… and a fair pro­por­tion of them are now late for work.

It’s the least we can do.… They’ll be late for work plen­ty more times in the next twelve months — the Faslane 365 block­ade is intent on dis­rupt­ing activ­i­ty at the nuclear base through­out that time and GOOD LUCK to them! The weapons that are based at Faslane are some of the most awful ever devised by human­i­ty and if used would ush­er in obliv­ion for mil­lions, and mis­ery for mil­lions more.

Our next 24 hours are spent in police lock-ups in Dum­b­ar­ton and Clyde­bank. We are yet to hear if the “procu­ra­tor fis­cal” is intent on press­ing charges but with 408 arrests so far and only 4 pros­e­cu­tions it seems unlike­ly. But either way there are big­ger issues at stake than the odd breach of the peace. As our polit­i­cal mas­ters con­tem­plate the renew­al of Tri­dent — against the wish­es of the major­i­ty of the British peo­ple — it is incum­bent upon the ordi­nary cit­i­zen to express our oppo­si­tion in every way pos­si­ble.

Apart from being gross­ly immoral the renew­al of Tri­dent would under­mine all inter­na­tion­al attempts at nuclear non-pro­lif­er­a­tion, as well as being a finan­cial dis­as­ter for Britain. It would sig­nal 24 bil­lion pounds NOT being spent on hos­pi­tals, schools, the envi­ron­ment, etc etc. What insan­i­ty makes us spend all this mon­ey so that we have the option of killing beau­ti­ful human beings? In the face of such a prospect a few hours in a police cell seems a minor incon­ve­nience.

The Faslane 365 web­site (Please, Join the block­ade!):
http://www.faslane365.org/

So you think that, were Tri­dent built, there’s no chance it would ever be used? Maybe you should read some his­to­ry:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/198173.stm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov

Green­peace’s view:
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/MultimediaFiles/Live/FullReport/7611.pdf

My thoughts while in the cell:
http://nickleberry-huxtable.blogspot.com/2006/12/uncomfortable-truth.html

Violent protests in Copenhagen — “Ungdomshuset-The Youth House Stays”

Sun­day Decem­ber 17
More than 300 demon­stra­tors were arrest­ed in the Dan­ish cap­i­tal on Sat­ur­day after vio­lent clash­es between police and youths who were protest­ing against the planned clo­sure of a youth cen­tre in the city.

Sun­day Decem­ber 17
More than 300 demon­stra­tors were arrest­ed in the Dan­ish cap­i­tal on Sat­ur­day after vio­lent clash­es between police and youths who were protest­ing against the planned clo­sure of a youth cen­tre in the city.
“Ung­domshuset-The Youth House Stays”


1 — Pro­tes­tors throw stones at police vans in a Copen­hagen street Decem­ber 16, 2006. Riots broke out when hun­dreds of young peo­ple start­ed an unan­nounced demon­stra­tion to avoid evic­tion from Ung­domshuset (youth house). The use of the build­ing was grant­ed to young peo­ple for cul­tur­al pur­pos­es some twen­ty years ago by the City Coun­cil, but now the build­ing has been sold to a Chris­t­ian orga­ni­za­tion.

2 — Pro­tes­tors occu­py the Ung­domshuset (youth house) as a ban­ner hangs from it in Copen­hagen Decem­ber 16, 2006. Riots broke out when hun­dreds of young peo­ple start­ed an unan­nounced demon­stra­tion to avoid evic­tion from Ung­domshuset. The use of the build­ing was grant­ed to young peo­ple for cul­tur­al pur­pos­es some twen­ty years ago by the City Coun­cil, but now the build­ing has been sold to a Chris­t­ian orga­ni­za­tion. A police spokesman said some 300 peo­ple had been arrest­ed. The ban­ner reads ‘Some things are worth fight­ing for — the Youth House nev­er sur­ren­ders (the address is 69 Jagve­jen)’
Ungdomshuset 3
3 — A group of youths wear­ing masks and hel­mets demon­strate in a Copen­hagen street Decem­ber 16, 2006. Riots broke out when hun­dreds of young peo­ple start­ed an unan­nounced demon­stra­tion to avoid evic­tion from Ung­domshuset (youth house). The use of the build­ing was grant­ed to young peo­ple for cul­tur­al pur­pos­es some twen­ty years ago by the City Coun­cil, but now the build­ing has been sold to a Chris­t­ian orga­ni­za­tion. The ban­ner reads ‘The Youth House Stays’.

video

http://search.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/search/results.pl?q=Copenhagen&edition=i&go.x=27&go.y=9

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Videos!

Video clips from yesto­day can be found on the fol­low­ing links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IClRITwCjsc — Dan­ish TV2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmWP5PPxKFk — Swedish SVT
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ljdt6d5Tnk — Clip 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MjcuyU9uHA — Clip 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epiiE2iRnIU — Clip 3
http://politiken.dk/poltv/?ExtID=1237