Author: earthfirst

Dalki­eth Coun­try Park — only sev­en miles from Edin­burgh city cen­tre — is threat­ened by a road. Three tree protest camps have been set up in the park and evic­tion notices have been served by the Scot­tish Exec­u­tive and local coun­cil. Peo­ple are URGENTLY need­ed to stay at the site. See Indy­media Scot­land for up-dates, more info’ and pic­tures — http://scotland.indymedia.org/

On Mon­day 21st Novem­ber a num­ber of trees were felled to make way for the Scot­tish Exec­u­tive’s A68 Dalkei­th Bypass. The trees that were cut down have been iden­ti­fied as poten­tial bat roost and include ancient oaks over 200 years old.

The trees appear not to have been cut in accor­dance with Scot­tish Nat­ur­al Her­itage and the Exec­u­tive’s own guide­lines. SNH have been reluc­tant to tell their pay­mas­ters to fol­low the law. We believe that due to low tem­per­a­tures the bats have already start­ed hiber­nat­ing.

In response to the destruc­tion and SNH’s inac­tion, trees under imme­di­ate threat have been occu­pied. The occu­pa­tion is part of a wide rang­ing cam­paign involv­ing dif­fer­ent groups and indi­vid­ual from Dalkei­th and around the world.

A com­mu­ni­ty road­show has vis­it­ed local areas to pro­mote a mod­el of devel­op­ment which val­ues sus­tain­abil­i­ty, pub­lic trans­port and com­mu­ni­ty involve­ment. The road­show exposed the Scot­tish Exec­u­tive’s Mid­loth­i­an Coun­cil’s fail­ure to enhance pub­lic trans­port or reduce depen­dence on the pri­vate car, pre­fer­ring to cre­ate dor­mi­to­ry com­mu­ni­ties and a new road. This type of devel­op­ment, in the absence of the promised mul­ti-modal approach will cer­tain­ly lead to more traf­fic in Dalkei­th on the A68 and on the city bypass, mak­ing it impos­si­ble to achieve air qual­i­ty improve­ments and co2 emis­sion tar­gets.

Occu­pa­tions have occurred at three points on the road where habi­tats are under threat. All three sites have been served with evic­tion notices.

Evic­tion is immi­nent as is the loss of our nat­ur­al habi­tat. Defences are being erect­ed to resist evic­tion while the few remain­ing legal options are being inves­ti­gat­ed. We urgent­ly need sup­port in many dif­fer­ent forms. Come stand in the way of the bull­doz­ers, get up a tree and help defend it, sup­port us in the legal cam­paign, donate us mon­ey, choco­late, blan­kets, rope, tar­pau­lins, hot food, tinned food for evic­tion, nuts, love, mobile phones and cred­it, vis­its, tools, vehi­cle use, climb­ing equip­ment, water and your ener­gy.

The trees need YOU! Come to the woods.

BACKGROUND INFO AND CONTACTS

Dalkei­th Coun­try Park is a his­toric 850 acre park that serves as a valu­able wildlife habi­tat and is vis­it­ed by 50,000 peo­ple annu­al­ly. The pro­posed bypass would cut the wildlife habi­tat in two, and while the 1999 Strate­gic Road Review not­ed it would offer jour­ney sav­ings, it also not­ed the bypass would cause “gen­er­al­ly neg­a­tive rat­ings in the oth­er envi­ron­men­tal fac­tors, includ­ing glob­al air qual­i­ty, water, ecol­o­gy, visu­al impacts, her­itage, and land­scape char­ac­ter.”

Although con­struc­tion is not sup­posed to begin offi­cial­ly until the sum­mer of 2006, because of the ear­ly spring nest­ing sea­son of birds and bats, tree-felling is to begin imme­di­ate­ly. In response to this emer­gency, anti-roads pro­test­ers have set-up a tree-sit and walk­ways in the pines that are in the path of the exten­sion.

Pro­test­ers will remain in the trees until the bypass is defeat­ed.

CONTACT

Dalkei­th Protest Site Phone: 077839043697

For more infor­ma­tion on the cam­paign to Save Dalkei­th Coun­try Park, vis­it the web­site of the legal cam­paign:www.save-dalkeith-park.org.uk/

EVICTION ALERT

It is cru­cial that when the police arrive to evict the tree-sit (like­ly ear­ly in the morn­ing) that peo­ple be there to pro­vide sup­port, wit­ness any pos­si­ble bru­tal­i­ty by the police, and take note of any pos­si­ble neglect of envi­ron­men­tal reg­u­la­tions by tree-cut­ters. Since the evic­tion can hap­pen any­time, it would be use­ful if you could e‑mail your phone num­ber and/or e‑mail address to:

dalkeithtreesit@cyber-rights.net

In the case of an evic­tion, we will call you, e‑mail you, and SMS(text) you the word Evic­tion. Then you should e‑mail and call all your friends to come on down to Dalkei­th! A bus will be avail­able to leave with­in an hour to leave for Dalkei­th Park from out­side the Auto­mous Cen­tre and out­side the For­est Cafe. This bus will then go straight to the Dalkei­th Park tree-sit, and will pro­vide a lift back into town. If you are media please write ‘MEDIA’ in the sub­ject of your reply e‑mail.

The Autonomous Cen­tre of Edin­burgh is at 17 West Mont­gomery Place, junc­tion with Brunswick Road, near the huge Post Office, off Lei­th Walk.

The For­est Cafe is at 3 Bris­to Place, near Bris­to Square and the Stu­dent Union of Edin­burgh Uni­ver­si­ty.

To con­tact the pro­test­ers direct­ly, call
07783904369

DIRECTIONS to the Protest Site

The site is in a stand of pines on the north side of the Riv­er Esk after the two branch­es have joined and near the cut for the over­head elec­tric lines.

Enter Dalkei­th Coun­try Park at the north end- entrance off of the A6094 at Smeaton Lodge (between Dalkei­th and White­craig). Go past Home Farm towards the Riv­er Esk, after cross­ing the bridge the protest site can be accessed by the first farm track on the left (note the site is not acces­si­ble for vehi­cles).

Alter­na­tive­ly, enter Dalkei­th Coun­try Park from the main entrance off of the High Street in Dalkei­th. Stay on the road lead­ing to the right past the adven­ture play­ground, shop and cafe­te­ria; after pass­ing the graz­ing fields and the pow­er line cut the road will split. Take the left fork towards the Riv­er Esk. After cross­ing the bridge, the protest site can be accessed by the first farm track on the left.

From Edin­burgh, Loth­i­an Bus­es 3 and 3a go to Dalkei­th.

Dalki­eth Coun­try Park pro­tes­tors

There is now an evic­tion notice hot­line that will noti­fy you if there is an evic­tion if you get in touch, and bus­es ready to go to Dalkei­th as soon as the evic­tion hap­pens!

The evic­tion notice still stands, but pro­test­ers are still deter­mined to brave the cold to save the trees of Dalkei­th Park from being cut. It is cru­cial that when the police arrive to evict the tree-sit (like­ly ear­ly in the morn­ing) that peo­ple be there to pro­vide sup­port, wit­ness any pos­si­ble bru­tal­i­ty by the police, and take note of any pos­si­ble neglect of envi­ron­men­tal reg­u­la­tions by tree-cut­ters. Since the evic­tion can hap­pen any­time, it would be use­ful if you could e‑mail your phone num­ber and/or e‑mail address to: dalkeithtreesit@cyber-rights.net

In the case of an evic­tion, we will call you, e‑mail you, and SMS(text) you the word Evic­tion. Then you should e‑mail and call all your friends to come on down to Dalkei­th! A bus will be avail­able to leave with­in an hour to leave for Dalkei­th Park from out­side the Auto­mous Cen­tre and out­side the For­est Cafe. This bus will then go straight to the Dalkei­th Park tree-sit, and will pro­vide a lift back into town. If you are media please write ‘MEDIA’ in the sub­ject of your reply e‑mail.

Recent­ly the camp has been mon­i­tored with a heli­cop­tor, so the evic­tion is com­ing. More than any­thing, peo­ple are need­ed to stay in Dalkei­th Park full-time. While it cold, there is free warm food, and with a warm sleep­ing bag and win­ter gear you’ll be fine.

The Autonomous Cen­tre of Edin­burgh is at 17 West Mont­gomery Place, near the huge Post Office off Lei­th St.

The For­est Cafe is at 3 Bris­to Place, near Bris­to Square and the Stu­dent Union of Edin­burgh Uni­ver­si­ty.

To con­tact the pro­test­ers direct­ly, call
07783904369
This includes get­ting lost on the way to Dalkei­th if you try to make it your­self out there and also for media inter­views. Some­times pro­test­ers are in the trees and can’t answer the phone, be patient.

Updates avail­able dai­ly on the Web: http://scotland.indymedia.org

Urgent: Indian Government threatens to raise the dam

Call for Inter­na­tion­al Sol­i­dar­i­ty Actions: 27th Nov. 05
Dam­age so far: Over 25,000 trib­al peo­ple dis­placed, 10,000 peo­ple still wait­ing for reset­tle­ment, over 9,000 hectares of for­est already destroyed.

Ral­ly for the Val­ley : 20 years of resis­tance to the Nar­ma­da dam

Please do every­thing you can to stop the dam being raised even high­er:

Protest at Indi­an Embassies-actions planned across the world

Write to the Indi­an Gov­ern­ment demand­ing that before any­more work pro­ceeds, the project must com­ply with the Namar­da Award (1979) and the Supreme Court rul­ings (00,05) con­duct an imme­di­ate review of the ben­e­fits and effi­cien­cy of the dam and for the huge back­log of 10, 000 peo­ple to receive ade­quate reset­tle­ment. Stop the dam!

Show the cam­paign film in your com­mu­ni­ty-this is a vital stage for the cam­paign and more sup­port is need­ed.

Address­es of near­est embassy, mod­el let­ters and copies of the film all avail­able from www.narmada.org

Apolo­gies for short notice!
Inter­na­tion­als Wel­come to Join Us in India! Ral­ly for the Val­ley 23rd — 27th Novem­ber 2005 Please con­tact us for trav­el info. asp.

Huge thanks for all the sup­port and actions over the last 20 years!
Please do all you can to protest against the Indi­an Gov­ern­men­t’s threat.

In sol­i­dar­i­ty,
Nar­ma­da Bachao Andolan
Save Nar­ma­da Move­ment

New issue of Wild­fire — Euro­pean Anti-Civil­i­sa­tion Bul­letin Wild­fire is a euro­pean green anar­chist bul­letin about revolt against destroy­ing the wild, insur­rec­tion against cap­i­tal­ism, the state and indus­tri­al soci­ety. Against the hor­rors of civilised soci­ety. Wild­fire is not here to tell you how to live. It is not there to tell you how to do any­thing. It is a quar­ter­ly bul­letin report­ing on resis­tance to civil­i­sa­tion, to report fight­ing back against the destruc­tion of the nat­ur­al world, by indig­i­nous peo­ple fight­ing the poi­son­ing of their ecoys­tems and ‘civilised’ activists fight­ing for wild­ness. Every issue is done by dif­fer­ent indi­vid­u­als around Europe.

Issue nr. 2 has just been released. Print, copy and dis­trib­ute!

http://www.direkte-aktie.net/wildfire

TREES BEING FELLED IN DALKEITH NOW — Peo­ple need­ed now, and peo­ple and food and tat need­ed over the next few days, espe­cial­ly climbers and mid­night site builders
Tree felling start­ed yes­ter­day. Already about 12 big old oak and birch trees have been chain­sawed down. The pix­ies and the lit­tle folk appeared about 5am today. By the time the chain­saw wage slaves turned up for work this morn­ing there were walk­ways, ban­ners, and lots of hip­pies in the trees, So the chain­saw wage slaves are enjoy­ing a paid day of hang­ing around wait­ing for bail­ifs.

There are peo­ple in trees in lang­side, along salters road, and in a small but beau­ti­ful site that had already been set up at cas­tle steads next to the riv­er esk. PEOPLE NEEDED NOW, and peo­ple and food and tat need­ed over the next few days, espe­cial­ly climbers and mid­night site builders.

The plan­ning per­mis­sion for this road dates from way back in 1992. Since then, the Scot­tish Exec­u­tive has rec­om­mend­ed that a mul­ti­modal trasport sudy is done for this entire trans­port cor­ri­dor before any road build­ing goes ahead.The coun­cil’s pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion about the road is still sneak­ing qui­et­ly around the area, and the oppor­tu­ni­ty to respond is open until 9th Decem­ber, but that has­n’t stopped the sense­less destruc­tion of the area.

A guy in a suit, claim­img to be a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Exec­u­tive, but refus­ing to give his name, angri­ly told every­one that they were tress­pass­ing and would get into trou­ble. the hip­pies respond­ed with mon­key nois­es, and the uniden­ti­fied suit stum­bled off with his top lip quiv­er­ing.

Come and bring us choco­late, come and join the fun!
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This after­noon, the 48-hour notice from the Sher­iffs Court was deliv­ered to the protest site at Dalkei­th Coun­try Park.

Ear­li­er this morn­ing, tree felling was start­ed. Five trees were lost includ­ing a beau­ti­ful old oak before pro­test­ers suc­cess­ful­ly blocked any fur­ther cut­ting and halt­ed work.

In response, the liai­son offi­cer deliv­ered the 48-hour notice stat­ing all occu­piers need­ed to leave dur­ing that peri­od or face pros­e­cu­tion.

More Peo­ple are urgent­ly need­ed to pro­tect this wood­land!

Back­ground

On Mon­day 31st Octo­ber, pro­test­ers set-up a tree-sit to stop the destruc­tion that will be caused by the Dalkei­th North­ern Bypass of the cur­rent A68. The tree-sit is in Dalkei­th Coun­try Park, a his­toric 850 acre park that serves as a valu­able wildlife habi­tat and is vis­it­ed by 50,000 peo­ple annu­al­ly. The pro­posed bypass would cut the wildlife habi­tat in two, and while the 1999 Strate­gic Road Review not­ed it would offer jour­ney sav­ings, it also not­ed the bypass would cause “gen­er­al­ly neg­a­tive rat­ings in the oth­er envi­ron­men­tal fac­tors, includ­ing glob­al air qual­i­ty, water, ecol­o­gy, visu­al impacts, her­itage, and land­scape char­ac­ter.” Although con­struc­tion is not sup­posed to begin offi­cial­ly until the sum­mer of 2006, because of the ear­ly spring nest­ing sea­son of birds and bats, tree-felling is to begin imme­di­ate­ly. In response to this emer­gency, anti-roads pro­test­ers have set-up a tree-sit and walk­ways in the pines that are in the path of the exten­sion. Pro­test­ers will also be present at Mid­loth­i­an Coun­cil’s upcom­ing pub­lic review to help present the case against the bypass­es through Dalkei­th Park and through Bil­ston Glen.

Pro­test­ers will remain in the trees until the bypass is defeat­ed.

Con­tact

Dalkei­th Protest Site Phone: 077839043697

For more infor­ma­tion on the cam­paign to Save Dalkei­th Coun­try Park, vis­it the

web­site of the legal cam­paign: www.save-dalkeith-park.org.uk/

There is a peti­tion on the Scot­tish Exec­u­tive’s site run­ning until the end of Novem­ber: epetitions.scottish.parliament.uk/list_petitions.asp

Or you can email Mid­loth­i­an Coun­cil direct­ly at: local.planreview (at) midlothian.gov.uk or phone at Tel: 0131 270 7500

Direc­tions to the Protest Site

The site is in a stand of pines on the north side of the Riv­er Esk after the two branch­es have joined and near the cut for the over­head elec­tric lines.

Enter Dalkei­th Coun­try Park at the north end- entrance off of the A6094 at Smeaton Lodge (between Dalkei­th and White­craig). Go past Home Farm towards the Riv­er Esk, after cross­ing the bridge the protest site can be accessed by the first farm track on the left (note the site is not acces­si­ble for vehi­cles).

Alter­na­tive­ly, enter Dalkei­th Coun­try Park from the main entrance off of the High Street in Dalkei­th. Stay on the road lead­ing to the right past the adven­ture play­ground, shop and cafe­te­ria; after pass­ing the graz­ing fields and the pow­er line cut the road will split. Take the left fork towards the Riv­er Esk. After cross­ing the bridge, the protest site can be accessed by the first farm track on the left.

From Edin­burgh, Loth­i­an Bus­es 3 and 3a go to Dalkei­th.

*please help spread this message and get in touch if you can assist in translating it to any other languages*
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Hey! y’all out there in the EF! net­work:
[for those already inhab­it­ing a low-land, near-equa­to­r­i­al biore­gion, please don’t mind the short PR rant below]

Is win­ter in your biore­gion a time of rest; a lull of activ­i­ty in accep­tance of nature’s cycles? Maybe Feb­ru­ary is the peak of a long and frigid sea­son that has you curi­ous about what your bare-skin looks like or what it was like to have full sen­sa­tion in your fin­gers and toes.

Down here in the swamps and beach­es of the trop­ic­s/­sub-trop­ics of south Flori­da things are a lit­tle dif­fer­ent: The ocean is per­fect swim­ming tem­per­a­ture; the com­mu­ni­ty gar­dens are in their full glo­ry; with the mos­qui­toes at bay, it’s per­fect weath­er for hikes through the pine flat­woods, cypress swamps and dwin­dling scrub lands; what’s left of local cit­rus trees offer a fresh-squeezed dai­ly immune-sys­tem boost; and our sea­son of kick­ing ass against devel­op­ers and ven­ture cap­i­tal­ists who are try­ing to turn this amaz­ing biore­gion into a sprawl­ing con­crete play­ground for the glob­al elite is just about to reach cli­max.

We’re invit­ing you out of hiber­na­tion and back out onto the front­lines! It’s that time of the year again, when the EF! net­work gath­ers up to hash out cru­cial move­ment deci­sions & direc­tion, par­ty their brains into mush and then invig­o­rate the host­ing biore­gion with some badass action(s). So, start mak­ing your trav­el plans & affin­i­ty group schemes, it’s time for anoth­er.

————————————————————————
Earth First! Orga­niz­ers’ Conference/Winter Ren­dezvous
Feb. 15th — 20th 2006 Palm Beach Coun­ty, South Flori­da
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Loca­tion- The swamps of the Ever­glades’ north­west­ern bor­der, along the Hun­gry­land Slough. The OC meet­ings will be the 15th ‑17th held at the Ever­glades Youth Camp inside the J.W. Cor­bett Wildlife Man­age­ment Area, which has full facil­i­ties (includ­ing cab­in options, a swim­ming hole and, uh alli­ga­tors). Fri­day night will be the annu­al ‘Night To Howl!’ gath­er­ing of the War­rior Poets Soci­ety, so bring poems, songs and sto­ries to share. The week­end will con­tin­ue on a prim­i­tive camp­site as the win­ter ren­dezvous and fies­ta. Bring your work­shops, music, and hik­ing gear and plan on stick­ing around, poten­tial­ly, for a fol­low­ing week of actions.

OC Con­tent- The usu­al sub­ject mat­ter will be on the table: reports from the Jour­nal; eval­u­at­ing strat­e­gy, tools & tac­tics; exam­in­ing our visions & aspi­ra­tions; where we’ve been, where we’re going; state repres­sion review; anti-oppres­sion check-in; and biore­gion­al round-ups. We also hope to offer some extra atten­tion this year to the ques­tion of sol­i­dar­i­ty beyond bor­ders (nation­al and cul­tur­al), and per­haps strate­gize a bit on an inter­na­tion­al lev­el. We will also be seek­ing trans­la­tion assis­tence for this effort.

Inter­na­tion­al Invite- South Flori­da is an acces­si­ble loca­tion for inter­na­tion­al trav­el, and is a social hotspot of cur­rent glob­al com­merce and pol­i­tics. For sev­er­al years, the glob­al­iza­tion move­ment has influ­enced (and been influ­enced by) EF! But rarely has it been pos­si­ble to dia­logue with eco-rad­i­cals in oth­er parts of the world, espe­cial­ly the major­i­ty world move­ments who have been inspir­ing direct action efforts with­in the U.S. empire. For these rea­sons, the invi­ta­tion is being put out to help bring folks from oth­er coun­tries’ rad­i­cal envi­ron­men­tal move­ments and indige­nous strug­gles here for the OC and Win­ter Ren­dezvous (this means visa assis­tance and some extra fundrais­ing, so if you can be of any help in those areas, please con­tact us ASAP!)

Local Cam­paign- In the wake of a mon­u­men­tal court vic­to­ry against the Army Corps of Engi­neers, the bat­tle against Scripps Flori­da Biotech Research Park is heat­ing up to be one of the largest, broad­est and most suc­cess­ful cam­paigns in this region’s eco-activist his­to­ry. Mas­sive land scan­dals, cor­po­rate biotech night­mare, bio-haz­ardous waste issues, bio-prospect­ing in the major­i­ty world, bru­tal ani­mal research… and an active con­struc­tion site (still in oper­a­tion as of this email, despite ille­gal per­mit­ting and more pend­ing law­suits) all with­in a mile of our love­ly camp in the swamp.

The Details- We are request­ing a $25–50 dona­tion to cov­er costs of gath­er­ing, and poten­tial extra trav­el com­pen­sa­tion (for folks from our inter­na­tion­al tribe). If you’re biore­gion knows it will need assis­tance, please get in touch ASAP. Also, we want to encour­age peo­ple to bust out that old stack of jour­nals and review the past years’ OC write-ups before com­ing down. If you don’t have access to some EF!er’s archives in your area, get in touch and we’ll send the last copies of the past sev­er­al years of post-OC arti­cles so all are a bit clos­er to the same page. Bring basic camp­ing gear, includ­ing your own kitchen uten­sils. Please noti­fy the plan­ning com­mit­tee if you will be need­ing child­care or have any oth­er spe­cial needs.

EF!OC 2006 comite: p.o. box 961, lake worth, fl 33460 (561) 547‑6686

p.s. it’s still ear­ly. this info is sub­ject to change.

SUBSCRIBE TO EARTH FIRST!,
THE RADICAL ENVIRONMENTAL JOURNAL

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Earth First! Jour­nal, POB 3023, Tuc­son, AZ 85702, USA
(520) 620‑6900; tortuga@earthfirstjournal.org
www.earthfirstjournal.org
Sub­scrip­tions are $25/year (in the US), $22 for low income subs
US $40 for 1st class or to Cana­da and Mex­i­co
US $40 for inter­na­tion­al sur­face mail, $50 inter­na­tion­al air mail

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Here is a list of the dates and venues for the Ross­port sol­i­dar­i­ty speak­ing tour

Manchester:

Thurs­day Novem­ber 3rd 7.30pm the Base­ment, 24 Lever
Street, host­ed by the Anar­chist Fed­er­a­tion.

Lancaster:

Fri­day Novem­ber 4th to Sun­day Novem­ber 6th par­tic­i­pants in Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp will be deliv­er­ing a paper to the con­fer­ence ‘Mak­ing Glob­al Civ­il Soci­ety: Grass­roots Prac­tise and Aca­d­e­m­ic The­o­ry of Glob­al­i­sa­tion from Below’ which is hap­pen­ing at Lan­cast­er Uni­ver­si­ty.

London:

Tues­day Novem­ber 8th 7.30 pm Auton­o­my Club, Free­dom Book­shop, Angel Alley, 84b Whitechapel High street, Lon­don E1 (near­est tube Aldgate East), host­ed by the Anar­chist Fed­er­a­tion.

Oxford:

Novem­ber 9th 7:30pm, Oxford Action Resource Cen­tre.

Nottingham:

Novem­ber 10th 7pm, Inter­na­tion­al Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, 61b Mans­field Rd.

London:

Sat­ur­day 12th Novem­ber, 7pm to 3am, Ram­pArts social cen­ter (www.ramparts.co.nr) There will also be ben­e­fit gig for the cam­paign with food & drink + music.

Newcastle:

Mon­day 14th Novem­ber, 7.30pm, Tyne­side Irish Cen­tre, host­ed by Why Don’t You?

London:

Thurs­day Nov 17th 7.30pm, Lon­don Action Resource Cen­tre (www.londonarc.org) host­ed by Lon­don Ris­ing Tide.

Sol­i­dar­i­ty South Pacif­ic was set up in 2002 to pro­vide sup­port to trib­al, eco­log­i­cal and oth­er rad­i­cal strug­gles in the South Pacif­ic. Our 3rd newlset­ter was pub­lished in Octo­ber 05 and includes news of gueril­la strug­gle, anti-log­ging activ­i­ties, pris­on­er sup­port work, eco-rev­o­lu­tion and a min­ing exec­u­tive eat­en by a croc­o­dile!

For your free copy send an S.A.E to: Re-pressed, 145–149 Cardi­gan road, Leeds, LS6 1LJ, Eng­land.
It will soon also be avail­able in PDF for­mat on our web­page — www.eco-action.org/ssp

We are always pleased to hear from any­one who can help with dis­tri­b­u­tion by tak­ing some for stalls, info-shops and the like, or can review it in zines or news­pa­pers. We are also inter­est­ed in feed­back and con­struc­tive crit­i­cism of the newslet­ter and the activ­i­ties it cov­ers. Con­tact leedsssp@riseup.net

At any one time SSP will be involved in sup­port­ing pris­on­ers and rais­ing mon­ey for our var­i­ous direct aid funds. From time to time we also put out calls for sol­i­dar­i­ty actions. Please check out our web­site and sub­scribe to our (very low traf­fic) email list to be kept up to date with these activ­i­ties.

In novem­ber 1995, niger­ian writer and activist, ken saro-wiwa, and 8 of his col­leagues were exe­cut­ed by the mil­i­tary regime for cam­paign­ing against the dev­as­ta­tion of the niger delta by oil mul­ti-nation­al shell. yes­ter­day, demon­stra­tors dropped nine noos­es infront of the shell uk head­quar­ters on the south bank to high­light the anniver­sary and high­light the cur­rent strug­gle on the north west of ire­land, where shell is set to trans­form a remote con­ser­va­tion area into an envi­ron­men­tal dis­as­ter zone with pub­lic health and safe­ty impli­ca­tions.

short­ly after mid­day, climbers scaled the lamp­posts out­side the shell hq build­ings on the south bank, and dropped the nine noos­es from a line between the posts. oth­er pro­tes­tors arrived with huge ban­ners, a mega­phone and leaflets, along with a tiny but noisy sam­ba band.

the action soon attract­ed the local secu­ri­ty teams, a cou­ple of over­whelmed com­mu­ni­ty sup­port offi­cers, and then var­i­ous police. police used the new ‘seri­ous organ­ised crime act’ leg­is­la­tion which pro­hibits “unau­tho­rised demon­stra­tions’ with­in an exclu­sion zone around par­lia­ment. at first they claimed that the pro­tes­tors could not demon­strate any­where near to the shell build­ing, but after being shown a map of the exclu­sion zone, con­ced­ed that the action could con­tin­ue on york road at the front of the build­ing.

they hand­ed out many leaflets and edu­cat­ed passers-by of the real un-‘greenwashed’ real­i­ty of shell. one of the par­tic­i­pants was ter­ry clancey who is vis­it­ing from the irish ross­port sol­i­dar­i­ty group. he will be speak­ing at an event at ram­part on sat­ur­day.

after a pause for some late lunch, it was off to the nation­al gallery, where shell is cur­rent­ly spon­sor­ing a rubens exhi­bi­tion. vis­i­tors are charged £7.50 — £9 for entrance, but shell offer free tick­ets to their spe­cial guests, and have held at least two ban­quets in the build­ing, sur­round­ed by the clas­sic art of rubens. as busi­ness men are treat­ed to this sump­tu­ous pri­vate exhi­bi­tion, you can begin to see why shell are so keen to spon­sor this kind of thing — it fits in neat­ly with their green­wash slo­gan of ‘prof­it AND prin­ci­ples’.

for fur­ther info:
on shell gen­er­al­ly www.shellfacts.comwww.corporatewatch.org
on the strug­gle in ire­land www.shelltosea.com
on shell art spon­sor­ship www.artnotoil.org.uk
on protest restric­tions www.freedomtoprotest.org.uk

to con­tact the uk sol­i­dar­i­ty cam­paignstops_hell@yahoo.com

video of the lon­don anti-shell actions on 9th novem­ber
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/media/2005/11/327725.mov

Some folks got togeth­er today in Aberdeen to stand with the Ogo­ni peo­ple in remem­ber­ing Ken Saro-Wiwa and his eight Ogo­ni col­leagues who were exe­cut­ed by the Niger­ian state for cam­paign­ing against the dev­as­ta­tion of the Niger Delta by oil com­pa­nies, espe­cial­ly $hell and Chevron. $hell was in court today, Aberdeen Sher­iff Court in per­haps the most impor­tant fatal acci­dent inquiry for the indus­try since the Piper Alpha dis­as­ter. They have admit­ted that their fail­ures led to the deaths of two work­ers on one of its plat­forms.

First peo­ple stood out­side the court

From there out to the $hell offices in tul­los where a qui­et vig­il with lanterns and poet­ry was held .
Office work­ers leav­ing were offered a leaflet and most friend­ly accept­ed

Last­ly on to the $hell offices on Ander­son dri­ve­where a long ban­ner was placed in time for some rush hour traf­fic, draw­ing the link between the Ogo­ni peo­ple and the Irish peo­ple

Futher Infor­ma­tion,
court­case: news.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=2175272005
Ken Saro-Wiwa :
www.november10th.com/
Irish farm­ers:
www.corribsos.com/