Category: Animal Rights/Liberation

Anti-whaling hostages — update & solidarity demo reports: Berlin, London, Barcelona, New York, Washington DC

17/1/2008
Sea Shep­herd Shuts Down Antarc­tic Whale Hunt
The Japan­ese hunt for endan­gered whales in the South­ern Oceans Whale Sanc­tu­ary has been shut down.

Yushin Maru 2 whaler17/1/2008
Sea Shep­herd Shuts Down Antarc­tic Whale Hunt
The Japan­ese hunt for endan­gered whales in the South­ern Oceans Whale Sanc­tu­ary has been shut down.

“All whal­ing activ­i­ties have come to a halt,” said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son from onboard the Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Society’s ship Steve Irwin. No whales have been killed since Jan­u­ary 11th. The Japan­ese whal­ing fleet has been denied a sol­id week of whal­ing activ­i­ty. Our task now is to make that two weeks and then three weeks.”

As long as the Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety and Green­peace keep the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet on the run, there will be no whal­ing activ­i­ty.

“I wish that Green­peace would be more coop­er­a­tive,” said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son. “How­ev­er we will con­tin­ue to feed them the coor­di­nates for the rest of the fleet as they tail the fac­to­ry ship Nis­shin Maru. If we can­not work with Green­peace direct­ly we will work with them indi­rect­ly. The strength of any move­ment is in diver­si­ty.”

Jan­u­ary 17th found the Sea Shep­herd ship Steve Irwin chas­ing the whal­ing sup­ply ves­sel Ori­en­tal Blue­bird and three oth­er whal­ing ships east­ward along the line of Lat­i­tude of Six­ty Degrees South near the Eighty Six Degree East line of lon­gi­tude. This is approx­i­mate­ly 2000 miles from Fre­man­tle, Aus­tralia.

The Japan­ese whalers con­tin­ue to hold Aus­tralian cit­i­zen Ben­jamin Potts 28 and Giles Lane 35 of Great Britain. The Japan­ese gov­ern­ment has ordered their release but the whalers are defy­ing that order and refus­ing to release their hostages until Sea Shep­herd agrees to their demands. One of the demands is for Sea Shep­herd to dis­con­tin­ue oppos­ing whal­ing activ­i­ties. Cap­tain Wat­son respond­ed by refus­ing to acknowl­edge their demands and demand­ing instead that the hostages be released with­out con­di­tions.

The Sea Shep­herd ship Steve Irwin will con­tin­ue to pur­sue ille­gal Japan­ese whal­ing activ­i­ties for as long as pos­si­ble.

——

Aus­tralia to inter­cede in Safe Return of Sea Shep­herd activists

After two days being held hostage on the Yushin Maru No 2, two Sea Shep­herd anti-whal­ing activists may be returned with­in the next day to the Sea Shep­herd ship Steve Irwin by the autho­ri­sa­tion of the Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment to use the Cus­toms and Fish­eries patrol ves­sel Ocean­ic Viking as an inter­me­di­ary.

Aus­tralian For­eign Affairs Min­is­ter Stephen Smith said “What is required now to trans­fer those two men is the agree­ment of the Japan­ese Gov­ern­ment, which we have, the agree­ment of the Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment, which we have,” Mr Smith said. “We now need the full and com­plete coop­er­a­tion of the two ves­sels, the two cap­tains and the two men con­cerned.”

Sea Shep­herd were refus­ing to meet the con­di­tions stip­u­lat­ed by the Cap­tain of the Yashin Maru No 2 to stop inter­fer­ing with the whal­ing fleet oper­a­tions for the trans­fer of the two crew mem­bers, with Cap­tain Paul Wat­son say­ing on the ABC 7.30 report “I don’t acqui­esce to ter­ror­ist demands and that’s what that is. Hold­ing hostages and mak­ing demands is a ter­ror­ist tac­tic.”

Asked to jus­ti­fy two mem­bers of his crew board­ing anoth­er ves­sel with­out autho­ri­sa­tion, which the Japan­ese have accused as an act or ter­ror­ism or pira­cy, Paul Wat­son replied “You can run around the ocean jump­ing on poacher’s ves­sels. They’re tar­get­ing endan­gered species and whale sanc­tu­ar­ies, in vio­la­tion of a glob­al mora­to­ri­um. The Unit­ed Nations’ world char­ter of nature on sec­tion of imple­men­ta­tion under Sec­tion 21 E allows for non-gov­ern­ment organ­i­sa­tions to uphold inter­na­tion­al con­ser­va­tion law. So, we are autho­rised to do that. These are poach­ers, I’m try­ing to get that through to peo­ple. They are poach­ers.”

Sec­tion 21 E of the World Char­ter for Nature, passed by the Unit­ed Nations Gen­er­al Assem­bly in 1982, states that “States and, to the extent they are able, oth­er pub­lic author­i­ties, inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions, indi­vid­u­als, groups and cor­po­ra­tions shall .…(e) safe­guard and con­serve nature in areas beyond nation­al juris­dic­tion.”

Sec­tion 24 of the char­ter says that “Each per­son has a duty to act in accor­dance with the pro­vi­sions of the present Char­ter; act­ing indi­vid­u­al­ly, in asso­ci­a­tion with oth­ers or through par­tic­i­pa­tion in the polit­i­cal process, each per­son shall strive to ensure that the objec­tives and require­ments of the present Char­ter are met.”

Accord­ing to the Aus­tralian For­eign min­is­ter, Stephen Smith on the ABC 7.30 Report, “the only con­di­tions that will be imposed here are con­di­tions that will be imposed by the Aus­tralian author­i­ties and the ‘Ocean­ic Viking’, and those con­di­tions will go to the safe­ty and secu­ri­ty of this oper­a­tion.

It was report­ed by AAP that the trans­fer may take place in the next 24 hours. Accord­ing to Kim McCoy, the exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety, on board the Steve Irwin “We have just spo­ken very recent­ly with an agent on board the Ocean­ic Viking cus­toms ves­sel,” she said. “We have received offi­cial con­tact from them stat­ing that they’re just wait­ing for the Japan­ese to con­firm that they’re will­ing to accept those terms.”

“My under­stand­ing is that the Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment is not going to impose any con­di­tions on us to stop harass­ing the whal­ing, because the whal­ing is ille­gal. The only con­di­tion that the Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment wants to impose is the safe trans­fer, and of course we’re going to have to facil­i­tate a safe trans­fer, we don’t want to jeop­ar­dise any­one’s safe­ty dur­ing the trans­fer of Giles and Pottsy (Ben­jamin Potts) to our ship.

“Beyond that they’ve told us that there will be no addi­tion­al con­di­tions. In oth­er words, we are going to con­tin­ue inter­ven­ing against the ille­gal whal­ing activ­i­ty of the Japan­ese.” she said.

Cap­tain Paul Wat­son told Ali Moore from the ABC 7.30 Report “We’re not protest­ing their whal­ing oper­a­tions, we’re not protest­ing them. What we are doing is inter­fer­ing with ille­gal activ­i­ties. This is an inter­ven­tion­ist oper­a­tion not a protest organ­i­sa­tion.”

Sources:

* ABC 7.30 Report — Jan 17, 2008 — Govt con­sid­ers send­ing ‘Ocean­ic Viking’ to the res­cue
* ABC 7.30 Report — Jan 17, 2008 — Sea Shep­herd cap­tain reports from the high seas
* ABC News — Jan 17, 2008 — Sea Shep­herd will only accept ‘uncon­di­tion­al’ Govt help
* news.com.au, Jan 17, 2008 — Anti-whalers con­tact­ed over detainees
* Unit­ed Nations Gen­er­al Assem­by 1982 World Char­ter for Nature

Repost from report on Syd­ney Indy­media, that con­tains all source links.
http://sydney.indymedia.org.au/story/australia-intercedes-safe-return-sea-shepherd-activists

——
Sea Shep­herd Sol­i­dar­i­ty Protest at Japan­ese Embassy, Berlin

16.1.2008
Peo­ple went to put pres­sure on offi­cials at the Japan­ese Embassy at Hiroshi­mas­trasse in Berlin today. They hung ban­ners on the fences of the Embassy demand­ing the imme­di­ate and uncon­di­tion­al release of the two Sea Shep­herd crew mem­bers tak­en hostage on 15 Jan­u­ary by the Japan­ese
Whal­ing Fleet.

For updates, see www.seashepherd.org

——

Sea Shepherd Hostage London Solidarity Demo
Sea Shep­herd Hostage Lon­don Sol­i­dar­i­ty Demo
16/1/08

Fifty pick­et the Japan­ese embassy in Lon­don in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Sea Shep­herd hostages (see pre­vi­ous posts). The embassy staff were not hap­py. Ban­ners read ‘Free the Hostages’, ‘Stop the the Whale Slaugh­ter’ and ‘Defend the Wild’. The pick­et got a lot of media cov­er­age with mul­ti­ple TV crews includ­ing one from Japan.

Updates post­ed here and at www.seashepherd.org

——

Sea Shep­herd demo, Barcelona
17.1.2008
Demon­stra­tors today held a protest out­side the Japan­ese Con­sul in Barcelona, also deliv­er­ing a let­ter to the Gen­er­al Con­sul demand­ing the imme­di­ate release of two Sea Shep­herd crew mem­bers cur­rent­ly held hostage by Japan­ese whalers.

A group of Sea Shep­herd sup­port­ers demon­strat­ed out­side the Japan­ese Con­sulate in Barcelona today, to call for the imme­di­ate release of Giles Lane and Ben­jamin Potts, cur­rent­ly held hostage aboard a Japan­ese whal­ing ship.

Inside, two peo­ple deliv­ered a let­ter to the Con­sul con­demn­ing the hostage tak­ing and demand­ing Japan­ese inter­ven­tion. Out­side, 150 leaflets were hand­ed out to work­ers and passers­by.

The Mossos turned up but every­thing was qui­et. Sol­i­dar­i­ty to Sea Shep­herd!

—–

NYC Protest for Sea Shep­herd Hostages

17.01.2008
Activists braved the cold of New York City today to protest yes­ter­day’s kid­nap­ping of Giles Lane and Ben­jamin Potts by an ille­gal Japan­ese whal­ing ship. They were released ear­li­er today to the Ocean Viking (Aus­trali­a’s ship).

VIDEOS
Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xk1AKVRbR8I
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb7IM9VNY48

Activists braved the cold of New York City today to protest yes­ter­day’s kid­nap­ping of Giles Lane and Ben­jamin Potts by an ille­gal Japan­ese whal­ing ship.

The duo are cur­rent­ly being held hostage on the ship, and demon­stra­tions and protests at Japan­ese embassies and con­sulates across the globe are being held in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Sea Shep­herd crew.

Japan, we demand you stop the bloody slaugh­ter of inno­cent whales and dol­phins and return the kid­napped activists IMMEDIATELY with­out harm!

http://www.war-online.org

—–

17/01/08

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iO2I38jBo‑E

Activists from NYC band­ed togeth­er with activists from Wash­ing­ton D.C. to protest the kid­nap­ping and hostage tak­ing of Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety mem­bers Giles Lane (UK) and Ben­jamin Potts (Aus­tralia).

Ani­mal lovers and envi­ron­men­tal­ists gath­ered out­side the Japan­ese embassy and demand­ed the release of Potts and Lane, who are regard­ed as heroes, and also demand­ed an end to the slaugh­ter of beau­ti­ful whales and dol­phins that go to feed Japan­ese bel­lies.

At the end of yes­ter­day’s protest activists received the call: The Sea Shep­herd heroes had just been released.

Japanese whalers take Sea Shepherds hostage (incl. Brit) — demo, L’don, 16 January; email addresses; release demands; videos

15.01.2008 — [lat­est update at bot­tom]
In what has been an unpre­dictably dra­mat­ic day for the cam­paign against whal­ing in Antarc­ti­ca, the crew of a Japan­ese har­poon gun­boat have seized Aus­tralian and British crew mebers of the Sea Shep­herd ves­sel, Steve Irwin.

Sea Shepherd Hostages15.01.2008 — [lat­est update at bot­tom]
In what has been an unpre­dictably dra­mat­ic day for the cam­paign against whal­ing in Antarc­ti­ca, the crew of a Japan­ese har­poon gun­boat have seized Aus­tralian and British crew mebers of the Sea Shep­herd ves­sel, Steve Irwin.

Astound­ing! Last year around this time, things were real­ly get­ting dra­mat­ic in the Sea Shep­herd pur­suit of the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet across Antarc­ti­ca. Crew miss­ing at sea, ship­board fires, the risk of a pris­tine envi­ron­ment being chem­i­cal­ly dec­i­mat­ed, and even one human death as an accom­pa­ni­ment to the slaugh­ter of hun­dreds of mam­moth sen­tient beings.

Not to be out­done, the 2007/08 sea­son of resis­tance has just kicked into over­drive. Today, the Aus­tralian Fed­er­al Court called Japan­ese whal­ing — in Aus­tralian waters, at least — what it is: ille­gal. The Hon­ourable Jus­tice All­sop issued an injunc­tion order­ing that all Japan­ese whal­ing with­in Aus­tralian Antarc­tic waters (which Japan and most oth­er coun­tries don’t rec­og­nize) stop imme­di­ate­ly. So, tech­ni­cal­ly, since about 3pm Aus­tralian East Coast time every sin­gle crew mem­ber of the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet has been eli­gi­ble for arrest should they enter Aus­tralian ter­ri­to­ries.

But the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet, as always, need­ed to up the ante. In the last 50 min­utes it has been report­ed that the crew of the har­poon gun­boat Yashin Maru II have tak­en two Sea Shep­herd activists — Aus­tralian Ben­jamin Potts and a Briton, Giles Lane — hostage, and tied them to the radar mast of their ship. Ear­li­er today the Sea Shep­herd ves­sel Steve Irwin broke off its pur­suit of the whale-pro­cess­ing fac­to­ry ves­sel, also known as the Cetacean Death Star, the Nis­shin Maru. With Green­peace’s Esper­an­za still pur­su­ing the fac­to­ry ship away from the rest of the whal­ing fleet, the Shep­herds turned about to dis­rupt the activ­i­ties of the rest of the scat­tered fleet.

Obvi­ous­ly, they found them alright. Shep­herd Cap­tain Paul Wat­son reports that the two men, who have now been effec­tive­ly kid­napped on the high seas — iron­i­cal­ly, a gen­uine act of pira­cy by the Japan­ese whalers — had board­ed the ship to deliv­er a let­ter to the cap­tain pro­claim­ing their whal­ing activ­i­ty ille­gal and demand­ing an imme­di­ate ces­sa­tion of whale-hunt­ing, as per the order made today by the Fed­er­al Court.

Seems that Aus­tralian con­cerns about cre­at­ing a diplo­mat­ic inci­dent with Japan pale in com­par­i­son to what the whal­ing fleet are clear­ly eager to cre­ate.

Stay tuned.

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

The Japan­ese har­poon ves­sel Yushin Maru No. 2 has tak­en two Sea Shep­herd vol­un­teer crew mem­bers hostage. Ben­jamin Potts 28, an Aus­tralian cit­i­zen and Giles Lane, 35, a cit­i­zen of Great Britain are being held hostage onboard the whal­ing ves­sel. Both men were assault­ed and then tied to the rail­ings of the whaler. They were then moved and tied to the radar mast by the whalers.

Japan­ese Whal­ing Fleet On the Run With Two Sea Shep­herd Hostages

The Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety’s ship Steve Irwin is in full pur­suit of five ves­sels of the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet includ­ing the Japan­ese sup­ply ves­sel Ori­en­tal Blue­bird.

Both men board­ed the Yushin Maru to deliv­er a mes­sage to the Japan­ese cap­tain that the whalers were in vio­la­tion of inter­na­tion­al con­ser­va­tion law by tar­get­ing endan­gered species in an estab­lished whale sanc­tu­ary in vio­la­tion of a glob­al mora­to­ri­um on com­mer­cial whal­ing. They also noti­fied the cap­tain that Aus­tralia had just passed a court rul­ing bar­ring Japan­ese whalers from the Aus­tralian Antarc­tic Eco­nom­ic Exclu­sion Zone.

All of this activ­i­ty has tak­en place in the area of 60 Degrees South and 78 Degrees East. All activ­i­ty has been doc­u­ment­ed from the Sea Shep­herd heli­copter and the fast mov­ing Delta ves­sel. The Steve Irwin has dis­patched a small fast Delta boat and a heli­copter to attempt to per­suade the Yushin Maru No. 2 to stop and release the hostages.

Cap­tain Paul Wat­son has noti­fied the Aus­tralian Fed­er­al Police that he would like to see kid­nap­ping charges brought against the Japan­ese whalers. The Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment and the British Embassy have been informed that their cit­i­zens are being held hostage on an ille­gal­ly oper­at­ed Japan­ese whal­ing ship in Inter­na­tion­al waters.

The Japan­ese fac­to­ry ship Nis­shin Maru has fled over 700 miles to the North­west and is head­ing towards South Africa accom­pa­nied by the Green­peace ship Esper­an­za. The entire whal­ing fleet is on the run and out­side of the whal­ing area with the Sea Shep­herd ship Steve Irwin in hot pur­suit of five ves­sels of the Japan­ese fleet.

No whales have been slaugh­tered for the last four days and it does not look as if the whal­ing oper­a­tions are going to begin again for anoth­er week at least, and not at all if the ves­sels are pre­vent­ed from regroup­ing. The Sea Shep­herd ship Steve Irwin has a good sup­ply of fuel and can remain in the area for some time and will con­tin­ue to police the ille­gal whal­ing oper­a­tions by the Japan­ese fleet.

Sea Shep­herd cap­tain Paul Wat­son will turn over author­i­ty to the Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment to enforce the court rul­ing against ille­gal whal­ing in the Aus­tralian Antarc­tic Eco­nom­ic Exclu­sion Zone upon request from the Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment and an agree­ment that Aus­tralia will enforce the court’s rul­ing to bar all Japan­ese whal­ing activ­i­ties in the Aus­tralian Antarc­tic Ter­ri­to­ry.

The let­ter tak­en aboard:

To: The Cap­tain of any Japan­ese ship involved with poach­ing oper­a­tions in The Aus­tralian Antarc­tic Ter­ri­to­r­i­al Eco­nom­ic Exclu­sion Zone.

Sir,

My name is Giles David Lane

I am a British cit­i­zen and an unpaid vol­un­teer on the Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety ves­sel Steve Irwin

I have come onboard your ship because you have refused to acknowl­edge com­mu­ni­ca­tion from our ship per­tain­ing to your ille­gal activ­i­ties in the waters of the Aus­tralian Antarc­tic Ter­ri­to­r­i­al Eco­nom­ic Exclu­sion Zone.

I am not board­ing your ship with the intent to com­mit a crime, to rob you or to inflict injury upon your crew and your­self or dam­age to your ship. My rea­son for board­ing is to deliv­er the mes­sage that you are in vio­la­tion of inter­na­tion­al con­ser­va­tion law and in vio­la­tion of the laws of Aus­tralia. It is my intent to deliv­er this mes­sage and then to request that you allow me to dis­em­bark from your ves­sel with­out harm or seizure.

I am empow­ered to act to uphold these laws in accor­dance with the Unit­ed Nations World Char­ter for Nature and the laws of Aus­tralia.

I am board­ing you with the request that you please refrain from any fur­ther crim­i­nal activ­i­ty in these waters and cease and desist with the con­tin­ued killing of endan­gered whales in this des­ig­nat­ed Whale Sanc­tu­ary in vio­la­tion of the IWC glob­al mora­to­ri­um on com­mer­cial whal­ing and that you cease and desist in con­tin­ued vio­la­tions of Aus­tralian law by killing whales with­in the ter­ri­to­r­i­al waters of Aus­tralia with­out per­mit or per­mis­sion from the gov­ern­ment of Aus­tralia.

I am board­ing you on the orders of Cap­tain Paul Wat­son who requests that you treat me with respect and in accor­dance with the Gene­va Con­ven­tion.

http://www.seashepherd.org/

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

Pick­et at 2.15pm 16/1/08 at Japan­ese Embassy, Lon­don. Near­est Tubes Green Park & Hyde Park Cor­ner.

The address is:101–104 Pic­cadil­ly, Lon­don, W1J 7JT
============

It would be great if every­one could take a moment to email the Japan­ese embassy and For­eign office and ask them to do what­ev­er they can to effect Giles’ release. Japan­ese Embassy: info@jpembassy.org.uk

For­eign and Com­mon­wealth Office: It would be good to copy them in to what­ev­er you send to the Embassy. I had some trou­ble get­ting hold of an email address, but you could try the fol­low­ing one — msu.publicin@fco.gov.uk; Meg Munn is the Min­is­ter “respon­si­ble” for Asia and the Pacific.meg.munn@fco.gov.uk or munnm@parliament.uk
020 7008 1500

Sug­ges­tion of what to write: Dear Japan­ese Ambassador,I am writ­ing to you to protest in the strongest pos­si­ble terms the tak­ing of two hostages on board a Japan­ese Whal­ing Ship this morning.Press reports (see links below) have sug­gest­ed that the two men, (one of whom is a UK Nation­al by the name of Giles Lane), who peace­ful­ly board­ed the Yushin Maru No. 2 to deliv­er a let­ter, were assault­ed and then tied up. Pho­tographs from their own ves­sel, the Sea Shep­herd, show the two men being tied up out­side. The inci­dent hap­pened sev­er­al hours ago and I am great­ly con­cerned for their safety.I demand that you inter­vene at once to ensure that these men are released, pro­tect­ed from the ele­ments, and returned safe­ly to their ves­sel as soon as pos­si­ble. I also hope that your gov­ern­ment will ensure that the cap­tain and crew of the Yushin Maru No. 2 be pros­e­cut­ed for their actions.Yours sin­cere­ly, etc

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

16/1/2008

Japan­ese Whalers Make Demands for Return of Hostages

The Insti­tute of Cetacean Research, the front group for the ille­gal Japan­ese whal­ing oper­a­tions are mak­ing demands for the release of the two Sea Shep­herd crew being held hostage onboard the Japan­ese whal­ing ves­sel Yushin Maru No. 2.

The whalers said they will return the hostages in return for Sea Shep­herd agree­ing to no longer inter­fere with their whal­ing oper­a­tions.

“The Insti­tute of Cetacean Research is act­ing like a ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion,” said Steve Irwin’s 1st Offi­cer Peter Brown. “Here they are tak­ing hostages and mak­ing demands. Our pol­i­cy is that we don’t respond to ter­ror­ist demands.”

The Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety has heard reports from the media that Japan has agreed to release the hostages but the Steve Irwin has not heard any­thing offi­cial from either the Aus­tralian or Japan­ese gov­ern­ments.

“The activ­i­ties of the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet are ille­gal under inter­na­tion­al con­ser­va­tion law. The Japan­ese are poach­ers and should be treat­ed in the same man­ner as ele­phant or tiger poach­ers,” said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son.

The Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety will not nego­ti­ate with poach­ers and demands that the Japan­ese whalers release Ben­jamin Potts and Giles Lane as soon as pos­si­ble.

The loca­tion of the Yushin Maru No. 2 with the hostages onboard is not known present­ly. The ves­sel is no longer in sight or with­in radar range of the Steve Irwin.

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

BBC video of ship being board­ed

Col­lec­tion of dif­fer­ent videos

129 rabbits liberated from lab breeder

It has been report­ed that on the 6th Jan­u­ary 2008, 129 rab­bits were lib­er­at­ed from a lab breed­er in Lin­colnshire. This breed­er sup­ply HLS, as well as sev­er­al UK uni­ver­si­ties. The pho­to’s show the cramped, unclean con­di­tions of this hell hole — would we expect any­thing else?

Lincolnshire rabbits liberated 1Lincolnshire rabbits liberated 2It has been report­ed that on the 6th Jan­u­ary 2008, 129 rab­bits were lib­er­at­ed from a lab breed­er in Lin­colnshire. This breed­er sup­ply HLS, as well as sev­er­al UK uni­ver­si­ties. The pho­to’s show the cramped, unclean con­di­tions of this hell hole — would we expect any­thing else?

Click here to watch the video (.wmv for­mat):
http://www.shac.net/images/generic/2008_images/january/rabbitlib/rabbits.wmv

Click here to down­load hi-res images of the res­cue:
http://www.shac.net/images/generic/2008_images/january/rabbitlib/rabbitlib.zip

SMASH HLS

CLIMATE ACTION NEWS SHEET 75, JANUARY 2008

CONTENTS:

———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY — NATIONAL, 1.4.08
2) LONDON RISING TIDE BENEFIT — LONDON, 11.1.08

CONTENTS:

———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY — NATIONAL, 1.4.08
2) LONDON RISING TIDE BENEFIT — LONDON, 11.1.08
3) NEWQUAY AIRPORT EXPANSION, PUBLIC DEBATE — CORNWALL, 12.1.08
4) RADICAL ACTION VS. CLIMATE CHAOS, NATIONAL MEET — NOTTINGHAM, 12.1.08
5) CLIMATE CAMP NATIONAL GATHERING — LEEDS, 26–27.1.08
6) BIOFUELWATCH WEEK OF ACTION — NATIONAL, 26.1.08 — 1.2.08
7) MANCHESTER CLIMATE FORUM — 1.3.08
8) DAY OF ACTION VS. GLOBAL AGRIBUSINESS — INTERNATIONAL, 26.1.08
9) LOW-IMPACT SMALLHOLDING — BUCKS, 11–13.1.08
———————————————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
———————————————-
1) NEWQUAY AIRPORT ROOFTOP OCCUPATION — 15.12.07
2) SANTAS AGAINST EXCESSIVE CONSUMPTION — NORWICH & LONDON, 15.12.07
3) BRISTOL RISING TIDE TAKES ACTION VS. SHELL GREENWASH — DECEMBER 2007
4) SHELL TO SEA SCALE GOVERNMENT OFFICE — IRELAND, 19.12.07
5) NATIONAL CLIMATE CHANGE MARCH AND ACTIONS — 8.12.07
6) DUTCH COAL ACTION — 8.12.07
7) FLIGHT CENTRES SHUT FOR BUSINESS — MANCHESTER, 7.12.07
8) CHEADLE-HIGH-STREET AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE — DECEMBER 2007
9) SUBVERTISEMENTS IN LONDON AND MANCHESTER — DECEMBER 2007
10) WOMEN’S BLOCKADE OF DEPARTMENT FOR TRANSPORT — 7.12.07
11) THE TIDE IS RISING! — 7.12.07
12) CLIMATE ACTIVISTS STOP WORK AT COAL MINE — SOUTH WALES, 5.12.07
13) INTERNATIONAL RT HOAX TARGETS BIG CARBON — 3.12.07
14) HOMELESS POLAR BEARS IN COURT — BRISTOL, 14.11.07
15) KEEP OIL UNDERGROUND — DECEMBER 2007
16) SIZEWELL NUCLEAR CLIMATE ACTION — 1.12.07
17) MANIAC MOTORIST MARS MASS — GLASGOW, NOVEMBER 2007
18) VIVA’S ‘HOT!’ CAMPAIGN — DECEMBER 2007
19) WHAT BETTER TIME? — DECEMBER 2007
20) BATH BOMB, ISSUE 5 — DECEMBER 2007
21) PACIFIC CURRENTS — DECEMBER 2007
22) A HOUSE OF CARDS — DECEMBER 2007
23) SOUTH WEST AIR ACTION — DECEMBER 2007
24) RISING TIDE LEAMINGTON SPA — DECEMBER 2007
25) RISING TIDE ON YOU TUBE

———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY — NATIONAL, 1.4.08
Just three months to go — are you out prac­tis­ing your rou­tines? rehears­ing your songs? build­ing your props yet? I should get out more over Christ­mas…
How­ev­er, it will soon be time to hatch your mis­chie­vous scheme, so get your friends round and start plot­ting!
http://www.fossilfoolsday.org/

2) LONDON RISING TIDE BENEFIT — LONDON, 11.1.08
In sup­port of Lon­don Ris­ing Tide, AMP is organ­is­ing a night of live music at The Oth­ers, Manor Road, Stoke New­ing­ton. Entrance £5.
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=38074566

3) NEWQUAY AIRPORT EXPANSION, PUBLIC DEBATE — CORNWALL, 12.1.08
Organ­ised by Ris­ing Tide with speak­ers from Groundswell and Plane Stu­pid.
7pm St. Maw­gan Com­mu­ni­ty Hall, Nr. Newquay, Corn­wall. For more info. email; kernow@risingtide.org.uk

4) RADICAL ACTION VS. CLIMATE CHAOS, NATIONAL MEET — NOTTINGHAM, 12.1.08
11am — 6pm at The Sumac Cen­tre, 245 Glad­stone Street, For­est Fields, Not­ting­ham.
This meet­ing came out of the last Cli­mate Camp gath­er­ing in Novem­ber. It is focussed on grow­ing our move­ment — how can we encour­age more groups to form and more actions/campaigns to hap­pen? What things do we want to do to help build a vibrant net­work of region­al action groups doing actions local­ly and nation­al­ly?
For instruc­tion on how to get there: http://www.veggies.org.uk/sumac/map.html
Also, 11 peo­ple are going to tri­al in Not­ting­ham on Mon­day 14th for ‘shut­ting down’ the local coal pow­er sta­tion, If any­one wants to stay to sup­port them that would be great!

5) CLIMATE CAMP NATIONAL GATHERING — LEEDS, 26–27.1.08
The Cli­mate Camp on its own did­n’t stop cli­mate change — but it’s part of a grow­ing social move­ment that can! Come and take the next steps for­ward at the upcom­ing UK-wide meet­ing on Jan 26–27 in Leeds. Every­one is wel­come, whether you came to the camp, or were sim­ply inspired by it.
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/nextmeeting.php

6) BIOFUELWATCH WEEK OF ACTION — NATIONAL, 26.1.08 — 1.2.08
Bio­fu­el­watch are call­ing for a nation­al week of local action on agro­fu­els between 26th Jan­u­ary and 1st Feb­ru­ary 2008. We will short­ly update our web­site to pro­vide more back­ground infor­ma­tion about the UK agro­fu­el indus­try and poli­cies, as well as a draft leaflet and oth­er resources. If you would like to get involved or find out more, please email us at info[at]biofuelwatch.org.uk.
http://biofuelwatch.org.uk/

7) MANCHESTER CLIMATE FORUM — 1.3.08
Man­ches­ter Cli­mate Forum “Cli­mate Change: it’s time to pre­pare”
9.15am at the Methodist Hall, Old­ham St, Cen­tral Man­ches­ter
http://www.manchesterclimateforum.org.uk/index.html

8) DAY OF ACTION VS. GLOBAL AGRIBUSINESS — INTERNATIONAL, 26.1.08
On Jan­u­ary 26 self-orga­nized groups from all around the world will take cre­ative action in their com­mu­ni­ty. This will man­i­fest in many ways, from non­vi­o­lent direct action, civ­il dis­obe­di­ence, street the­atre, con­ver­gences, teach-ins and oth­er activ­i­ties and events. Grass­roots move­ments around the world are mak­ing their voic­es heard and say­ing “Anoth­er World is Pos­si­ble”. In coor­di­na­tion with the World Social Forum.
http://www.risingtidenorthamerica.org/wordpress/category/front-page/

9) LOW-IMPACT SMALLHOLDING — BUCKS, 11–13.1.08
Next course by the Low-Impact Liv­ing Ini­tia­tive;
http://www.lowimpact.org/courseoutlinelowimpactsmallholding.htm

———————————————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
———————————————-
1) NEWQUAY AIRPORT ROOFTOP OCCUPATION — 15.12.07
For the recent­ly formed Ker­now and Ply­mouth Ris­ing Tide groups, this action marked an esca­la­tion in their fight against cli­mate change and for envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice. How­ev­er the planned rooftop protest at Newquay air­port was giv­en an unlike­ly boost when builders at the air­port left a lad­der propped up!
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/248
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cornwall/7146159.stm

2) SANTAS AGAINST EXCESSIVE CONSUMPTION — NORWICH AND LONDON, 15.12.07
Sub­ver­sive Singing San­tas Spread Sea­son­al San­i­ty in Lon­don and Nor­wich On one of the busiest shop­ping days of the year. Ris­ing Tide activists in both Lon­don and Nor­wich dressed up as San­tas Against Exces­sive Con­sump­tion and hit the high streets to sing a dif­fer­ent tune to the usu­al buy, buy,
buy mad­ness of the hol­i­day sea­son.
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/247

3) BRISTOL RISING TIDE TAKES ACTION VS. SHELL GREENWASH — DECEMBER 2007
A series of actions is being tak­en against the organ­is­ers of the Wildlife Pho­tog­ra­ph­er of the Year Award and Bris­tol Muse­um, in protest at the spon­sor­ship of the event by Shell. A grumpy polar bear vis­it­ed the offices of BBC Wildlife mag­a­zine, then activists dis­rupt­ed Bris­tol Muse­um’s posh recep­tion to kick off the exhi­bi­tion with a Yes Men-style inter­ven­tion. And on the open­ing morn­ing, dozens of humans, polar bears, a snow leop­ard and a tiger gath­ered (com­plete with the Shell’s Wild Lie counter-exhi­bi­tion) in front of the muse­um. They hand­ed out leaflets and cre­at­ed quite a spec­ta­cle. Protests are expect­ed to con­tin­ue through Jan. 13th.
http://risingtide.org.uk/bristol

4) SHELL TO SEA SCALE GOVERNMENT OFFICE — IRELAND, 19.12.07
A spe­cial prayer and car­ol ser­vice was held on 16th Decem­ber at Bel­lan­aboy, Coun­ty Mayo, mark­ing the end of anoth­er year of com­mu­ni­ty strug­gle against Shel­l’s pro­posed raw gas pipeline and inland refin­ery.
On the 19th, a small group of Shell to Sea activists scaled the heights of the Depart­ment of Nat­ur­al Resources to place a ban­ner read­ing PROTECT IRISH NATURAL RESOURCES on the bal­cony out­side Eamon Ryan’s office.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17942
http://www.corribsos.com/

5) NATIONAL CLIMATE CHANGE MARCH AND ACTIONS — 8.12.07
Over 10,000 cli­mate cam­paign­ers took to the streets to take part in march­es in Lon­don and Glas­gow over the week­end, despite pour­ing rain. Pro­test­ers braved the weath­er in one the biggest demon­stra­tions call­ing for cli­mate jus­tice the UK has ever seen.
http://www.campaigncc.org/
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/12/387497.html
Envi­ron­men­tal activists from direct action group Plane Stu­pid shut down trav­el agents and air­line offices along the route of the Cli­mate March in Lon­don.
http://www.planestupid.com/
Mean­while, in Man­ches­ter air­line bill­boards adver­tis­ing cheap flights to Euro­pean cities were sub­vert­ed.

6) DUTCH COAL ACTION — 8.12.07
A col­lec­tive of twen­ty Dutch Earth­First! activists blocked the coal con­vey­or- belt to a plant owned by the Ger­man ener­gy giant E.on on the Maasvlak­te near Rot­ter­dam.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17893

7) FLIGHT CENTRES SHUT FOR BUSINESS — MANCHESTER, 7.12.07
All Flight Cen­tre branch­es in Man­ches­ter city cen­tre were super-glued shut in time for Sat­ur­day trad­ing and to coin­cide with the cli­mate march in Lon­don. They were past­ed with notices say­ing: “Closed — we want your kids to have a plan­et” The UK’s only Hum­mer deal­er­ship, Bauer Mil­lett, was also D‑locked shut.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17887

8) CHEADLE-HIGH-STREET AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE — DECEMBER 2007
Activists from Chea­dle-High-Street Against Cli­mate Change held a “A plan­et is not just for Xmas” cam­paign for a sus­tain­able Xmas.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17917

9) SUBVERTISEMENTS IN LONDON AND MANCHESTER — DECEMBER 2007
Two adverts pro­mot­ing DVD’s by Top Gear’s Jere­my Clark­son now have large stick­ers stuck on declar­ing “This caus­es cli­mate change”. Also, Fly­Be appears to have spot­ted the errors of their ways and can­celled their short-haul sum­mer routes. Bra­vo Fly­Be!
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17937

10) WOMEN’S BLOCKADE OF DEPARTMENT FOR TRANSPORT — 7.12.07
Women cli­mate activists block­ad­ed the Depart­ment for Trans­port pre­vent­ing staff from get­ting to work and car­ry­ing out their poli­cies which are cat­a­pult­ing us towards dan­ger­ous run-away cli­mate change. This action comes in response to the Trans­port Sec­re­tary Ruth Kel­ly con­firm­ing the gov­ern­men­t’s inten­tions to build a third run­way and a sixth ter­mi­nal at Heathrow and coin­cides with the open­ing of their first “con­sul­ta­tion”.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17883

11) THE TIDE IS RISING! — 7.12.07
A ban­ner with this warning/statement was dropped to wel­come all those enter­ing the city of Man­ches­ter on the Princess park­way.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17886

12) CLIMATE ACTIVISTS STOP WORK AT COAL MINE — SOUTH WALES, 5.12.07
More than thir­ty cli­mate activists, includ­ing mem­bers of the Ris­ing Tide net­work, joined with local res­i­dents from Merthyr Tyd­fil in stop­ping exca­va­tion work for a full day on Britain’s biggest ever open-cast coal mine at Ffos-y-fran in South Wales. Activists evad­ed police and secu­ri­ty before tak­ing over the 1,000 acre site on a hill­top near Cardiff. Dressed as clowns and polar bears, they chained them­selves to bull­doz­ers and oth­er heavy machin­ery to pre­vent work on the mine.
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/242

13) INTERNATIONAL RT HOAX TARGETS BIG CARBON — 3.12.07
Cli­mate activists with the inter­na­tion­al Ris­ing Tide net­work embar­rassed the U.S. Cli­mate Action Part­ner­ship (USCAP), a lob­by group com­posed of 33 promi­nent busi­ness­es and orga­ni­za­tions, by dis­trib­ut­ing a spoof press release declar­ing that the consortium’s mem­bers had com­mit­ted to a 90
per­cent reduc­tion in their green­house gas emis­sions by 2050. In addi­tion, the spoof release called for an imme­di­ate mora­to­ri­um on the con­struc­tion of all new coal-fired pow­er plants.
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/240
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2007/dec/03/oil.bp

14) HOMELESS POLAR BEARS IN COURT — BRISTOL, 14.11.07
Four home­less polar bears appeared before Bris­tol Mag­is­trates Court on 14th Novem­ber. They were arrest­ed after blockad­ing the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land cor­po­rate offices on Avon St. dur­ing the Ris­ing Tide nation­al day of action. After plead­ing guilty to charges of “wil­ful­ly obstruct­ing the pub­lic high­way with a non motor vehi­cle” (i.e. a suit case) they were giv­en a con­di­tion­al dis­charge and went on to pick­et the RBS branch on Bald­win Street!
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/243

15) KEEP OIL UNDERGROUND — DECEMBER 2007
The only way to fight cli­mate change. A new report by Oil­Watch.
http://www.oilwatch.org/doc/documentos/Keep_oil_underground.pdf
http://www.oilwatch.org/

16) SIZEWELL NUCLEAR CLIMATE ACTION — 1.12.07
What else would you do at this time in the morn­ing at a nuclear pow­er sta­tion, oth­er than lay on the road, lock your­selves togeth­er, unfurl your ban­ner read­ing “nuclear pow­er is not the answer to cli­mate chaos” and wait 15 min­utes for the secu­ri­ty to notice you.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17868

17) MANIAC MOTORIST MARS MASS — GLASGOW, NOVEMBER 2007
Unbur­dened with fes­tive spir­it, a mid­dle-aged woman leant out of her car and pulled a cyclist off his bike.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17889

18) VIVA’S ‘HOT!’ CAMPAIGN — DECEMBER 2007
“Livestock’s con­tri­bu­tion to envi­ron­men­tal prob­lems is on a mas­sive scale. The impact is so sig­nif­i­cant that it needs to be addressed with urgency.” Unit­ed Nations Food and Agri­cul­ture Organ­i­sa­tion 2006
find out more at
http://www.viva.org.uk/campaigns/hot/index.php

19) WHAT BETTER TIME? — DECEMBER 2007
A free news sheet from the Scot­tish Cli­mate Activist Net­work.
http://whatbettertime.livejournal.com/

20) BATH BOMB, ISSUE 5 — DECEMBER 2007
Christ­mas edi­tion of the month­ly Bathon­ian rab­bler­ousi­ness.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17905

21) PACIFIC CURRENTS — DECEMBER 2007
For updates on the work of Pacif­ic Envi­ron­ment, a non-prof­it organ­i­sa­tion that pro­tects the Pacif­ic Rim’s wild places and wildlife, see;
http://www.pacificenvironment.org/article.php?id=2658

22) A HOUSE OF CARDS — DECEMBER 2007
From fan­ta­sy finance to glob­al crash.
Your guide to under­stand­ing the cri­sis that is sweep­ing through the glob­al finan­cial sys­tem and what it means for ordi­nary peo­ple.
Endorsed by Kevin Smith of Car­bon Trade Watch and film­mak­er Ken Loach.
http://www.aworldtowin.net/about/HouseOfCards.html

23) SOUTH WEST AIR ACTION — DECEMBER 2007
A new web­site.
http://www.swairaction.org.uk/

24) RISING TIDE LEAMINGTON SPA is born — DECEMBER 2007
The group had its first meet­ing on 3rd Jan­u­ary and is now swing­ing into action. If you live in the area and want to find out more or get involved con­tact becqke@riseup.net

25) RISING TIDE ON YOU TUBE
Ris­ing Tide action footage has been spring­ing up all over youtube — check out http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=RisingTideNetwork for some RT films, some of the lat­est actions and links to oth­er’s videos of RT actions.

———-

Please send any­thing you’d like includ­ed in this news sheet to:
newssheet@risingtide.org.uk

To view pre­vi­ous edi­tions of the Ris­ing Tide News Sheet, vis­it the News Sheet Archive at http://risingtide.org.uk/newssheet

This News Sheet was brought to you by Ris­ing Tide, a grass­roots net­work of groups and indi­vid­u­als com­mit­ted to tak­ing action and build­ing a move­ment against cli­mate change.

For more infor­ma­tion…
email: info@risingtide.org.uk
Phone: +44 (0)845 458 8923 / +44 (0)7708 794665
Address: 62 Fieldgate St, Lon­don, E1 1ES
Web site: http://risingtide.org.uk

PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO A FRIEND AND INVITE THEM TO JOIN THE LIST

To sub­scribe or unsub­scribe vis­it:
http://risingtide.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/rt-news

END

Surrey Union Foxhunt — Caught Bloody Red Handed

Not 30 miles from the politi­cians in West­min­ster; the Sur­rey Union hunt chased a ter­ri­fied fox along the A29 and around Ock­ley vil­lage green before rip­ping it apart on the crick­et pitch. This was the real­i­ty in Eng­land on Sat­ur­day Jan­u­ary 5th 2008 (3 years after hunt­ing was banned)

Surrey Union hunt sabbedNot 30 miles from the politi­cians in West­min­ster; the Sur­rey Union hunt chased a ter­ri­fied fox along the A29 and around Ock­ley vil­lage green before rip­ping it apart on the crick­et pitch. This was the real­i­ty in Eng­land on Sat­ur­day Jan­u­ary 5th 2008 (3 years after hunt­ing was banned)

What does it say about the law when the most piss-poor hunt in the coun­try can hunt with impuni­ty under the noses of the police and man­age to kill a fox in full view of hor­ri­fied vil­lagers and motorists. Using the same hounds, con­tin­u­ing to hunt where they know they’ll find fox­es, chas­ing them or putting them to ground, con­tin­u­ing to dig with ter­ri­ers, they then expect you to believe this was an acci­dent.

Any­one with any sense knows what is going on; it just needs you to do some­thing about it. It’s not trendy or easy, but you can make a real dif­fer­ence — Join us and stop the killing NOW! http://hsa.enviroweb.org/features/joinleaf.html

HSA News Release 14th Jan­u­ary 2008

Remem­ber that hunt­ing ban?

The Sur­rey Union fox­hunt man­aged to kill yet again in pub­lic last Sat­ur­day 5th Jan­u­ary. For the sec­ond year run­ning they allowed their hounds to pur­sue and kill a fox in open view.

Last year it was after tres­pass­ing on a golf course at Newdi­gate.. This time it was in Ock­ley, Sur­rey. The hounds chased a fox into the mid­dle of the vil­lage and caught and dis­em­bow­elled it in the cen­tre of the crick­et pitch. The police even­tu­al­ly turned up after a 999 call and took a state­ment from a bystander who wit­nessed the hor­rif­ic scenes as the ani­mal was ripped apart by a full pack of hounds.

This hap­pens almost every day the length and breadth of the coun­try, but usu­al­ly safe­ly away from pub­lic scruti­ny.

Hunt Sabo­teurs have to wit­ness such scenes week in and week out, near­ly three years after the Hunt­ing Act came into force. Not sur­pris­ing­ly, fox­hunts in Eng­land feel they are above the law. The Sur­rey police present in three vehi­cles on Sat­ur­day were miles away from the hounds when the fox was killed. The hunt packed up straight away, leav­ing the car­cass in the vil­lage.

Based on the pre­vi­ous treat­ment of numer­ous sub­mis­sions of video evi­dence, the police inves­ti­ga­tion will lack the grav­i­tas and scruti­ny it deserves.

Lee Moon, spokesman for the Hunt Sabo­teurs Asso­ci­a­tion said: “Fox­es are hunt­ed and killed as if the ban nev­er came into effect. By lay­ing a trail through fox habi­tat, or hav­ing an owl in a box, the hunts can kill with impuni­ty.

We have tried to let the law work, but with the police not inter­est­ed, and a pal­try num­ber of cas­es brought to court, it has to be the time for a return to direct inter­ven­tion; to no longer put up with the cosy rela­tion­ship the hunts seem to have with the local con­stab­u­lar­ies; to make sure the wildlife of this coun­try is safe from the bar­barous prac­tices of the past.

Ani­mals are pro­tect­ed from hunts by law, but if the law won’t help them then hunt sabs will have to.”

All press enquiries 07779 580 544

http://hsa.enviroweb.org/hsa.shtml

York & Ainsty South Hunt Sabbed — Hunt Slash Tires Following Sab Success

26.12.2007
SABOTEURS FROM THE YORK HUNT SABS GROUP TODAY MONITORED THE YORK AND AINSTY SOUTH HUNT, SAVING LIVES AND CONFRONTING THEIR ILLEGAL ACTIONS

York & Ainsty South Hunt26.12.2007
SABOTEURS FROM THE YORK HUNT SABS GROUP TODAY MONITORED THE YORK AND AINSTY SOUTH HUNT, SAVING LIVES AND CONFRONTING THEIR ILLEGAL ACTIONS

York & Ain­sty South Hunt today met in Eas­ing­wold Mar­ket Square for their annu­al PR stunt and Box­ing Day Hunt. The Mas­ter put on a show whilst doing a speech, try­ing to act wel­com­ing to the “antis” and rant­ed how they should be tol­er­at­ed as the hunt always wel­comes oppos­ing views. Whilst he was busy talk­ing to the sup­port­ers, hunt sabs fed the hounds dog bis­cuits to make them more respon­sive to mon­i­tors in the field and laid a non-harm­ful cit­ronel­la scent which stops them smelling fox­es. The two police offi­cers present had already told peo­ple they would­n’t be fol­low­ing the Y&AS to enforce the ban.

As they set off, to a slow start, the mas­ter became very intol­er­ant and raised his whip to hit a sab as more cit­ronel­la was laid in front of the hounds — fun­ny how their atti­tude changes when there’s no pub­lic round.

About an hour in, the hunt begun flush­ing cov­ers with a full pack of hounds — some­thing which is ille­gal under the hunt­ing bill — and there was no drag any­where in the area, nor seen through­out the day. As hounds went into cry, sabs were on the oth­er­side of the cov­er ready to get between the fox and hunt pack when they broke cov­er and went into chase. Fol­low­ing this, sabs made howls (a noise made by fol­low­ers if a fox is seen) to dis­tract the hunt mas­ter who was unaware of the sabs on the oth­er­side. He then began ral­ly­ing the hounds towards the direc­tion of the noise and encour­ag­ing them, only to be caught on video cam­era by the mon­i­tors when he, and the full pack of hounds, broke cov­er. Fox bur­rows in the woods were filled in — some­thing done the morn­ing of the hunt so no chased ani­mals can get down the holes — this makes them eas­i­er to find, chase and kill as they have nowhere to hide. After this, the mas­ter (who coin­ci­den­tal­ly claimed to be legal­ly hunt­ing in his ear­li­er speech!) was asked about the ban and points of law were put to him as he was being filmed; his reply — a mid­dle fin­ger and mut­ter­ing of “Fuck Off”. This was then changed to point­ing and say­ing he’ll speak lat­er when he realised he was being filmed.

They then moved onto anoth­er, big­ger cov­er and did the same but chased a fox. Due to sabs’ inter­ven­tion and lay­ing of cit­ronel­la, two chased roe deer and fox­es escaped from the hounds. Due to the cov­er­ing of the scent by mon­i­tors, the pack was con­fused and the hunt moved on to try and avoid being filmed break­ing the law. The land own­er then came to escort sabs out of the cov­er and was con­front­ed about his allowance of an ille­gal activ­i­ty occur­ring on his land; unable to answer he began rant­i­ng on about tres­pass and tried grab­bing the video cam­eras.

Lat­er on as the Y&AS head­ed back towards Eas­ing­wold to pack up, hunt sup­port­ers slashed two tires on the land rover used by sabs — obvi­ous­ly in envy of their days lack of suc­cess and sabs dis­rupt­ing their ille­gal hunt.

THE YORK AND AINSTY SOUTH, LIKE MANY OTHER HUNTS, ARE CLAIMING IN THE PRESS THEY CONTINUE TO HUNT WITHIN THE LAW. THIS IS NOW EXPOSED AS A LIE. WE WILL CONTINUE TO MONITOR HUNTS WITHIN THE AREA AND INTERVENE, SAVE LIES AND ENFORCE THE LAW.

YORK HUNT SABS

http://www.huntsabs.org.uk

Sustainable Xmas — Cheadle leafletting, free space & bike protest

Cheadle­High­Street Against Cli­mate Change say ‘A plan­et is not just for Xmas’

Activists from Cheadle­High­Street Against Cli­mate Change have com­menced their cam­paign for a sus­tain­able Xmas. Nation­al research has indi­cat­ed that peo­ple through hol­i­day eat­ing, trav­el, Christ­mas lights, and gift giv­ing pro­duce on aver­age 650 kg of CO2 emis­sions per indi­vid­ual. This is 5.5% of the year­ly car­bon foot­print of the UK.

Cheadle­High­Street Against Cli­mate Change say ‘A plan­et is not just for Xmas’

Activists from Cheadle­High­Street Against Cli­mate Change have com­menced their cam­paign for a sus­tain­able Xmas. Nation­al research has indi­cat­ed that peo­ple through hol­i­day eat­ing, trav­el, Christ­mas lights, and gift giv­ing pro­duce on aver­age 650 kg of CO2 emis­sions per indi­vid­ual. This is 5.5% of the year­ly car­bon foot­print of the UK.

The aver­age per­son dur­ing the Hol­i­days pro­duces 26 kg of CO2 from Christ­mas food, 96 kg of CO2 from Christ­mas Car trav­el, 218 kg of CO2 from extrav­a­gant light­ing dis­plays, 310 kg of CO2 on Christ­mas Shop­ping.

CACC mem­bers recieved a good response from shop­pers of all nation­al­i­ties with their leaflets ’ A plan­et is not just for Xmas’. Shop­pers were urged to buy local­ly grown conifers in pots rather than import­ed Scan­dana­vian trees and to use solar pow­ered lights . An exchange has been set up for recy­cled presents and those want­i­ng an alter­na­tive to farm pro­duced cru­el­ty have been offered soya tex­tured pro­tein in exchange for the Xmas turkey.

A ‘Xmas free space ’ will be opened for those suf­fer­ing stress at Xmas and those who wor­ship oth­er reli­gions or who are aethe­ists and pagans.There will also be a Box­ing Day bike protest against traf­fic con­ges­tion

Strike, demonstrations, clashes (Athens-Thessaloniki-Larissa) — luxury cars, cash machines, CCTV & McD all trashed or burned

12/12/2007
All reports come from athens.indymedia.org Anoth­er report in greek can be found at www.anarchy.gr.

CCTV camera bagged12/12/2007
All reports come from athens.indymedia.org Anoth­er report in greek can be found at www.anarchy.gr.

One-day long gen­er­al strike was called by fed­er­a­tions, labor unions and syn­di­cates that belong to the GSEE (gen­er­al syn­di­cal­ist union), PAME (tied to the Com­mu­nist Par­ty) but also inde­pen­dent syn­di­cates and oth­er groups, against gov­ern­ment plans to over­haul the pen­sion sys­tem (rais­ing retire­ment ages, cut­ting ben­e­fits etc).

Athens: The police repeat­ed­ly attacked with tear gas and flash light and sting ball grenades in order to tear apart the anarchist/antiautoritarian blocs (more than 1.500 per­sons) from the oth­er demon­stra­tors (more than 150.000) while the demon­stra­tors fought back with stones and sticks. A lux­u­rius car had its win­dows bro­ken and was set on fire, togeth­er with a bank’s ATM and a police sur­veil­lance cam­era. Near Great Britain hotel, the cops attacked again the demon­stra­tion but were held back by the peo­ple. In Omonoia Square, the cops attacked once again the demo and cut back the anarchist/antiatoritarian blocs. In Panepis­timiou street, some demon­stra­tors attacked the cops and set free 2 per­sons that were hand­cuffed by the cops, in a pre­vi­ous police attack. Then, there was a con­stant tear gas attack and police strik­ing the demo in order to sep­a­rate the anarchist/antiatoritarian blocs from the rest of the demon­stra­tors, though they nev­er man­age to do so, thanks to the strong self-defence of the anarchists/antiautoritarians and the sup­port of the rest of the demon­stra­tors that did n’t run away, regard­less the amounts of tear gas and police attacks. In the same time, employ­ees of “Olympic Air­ways” some of them protest­ing with greek flags against the bunk­rupt­sy of this state-spon­sored com­pa­ny, were offer­ing flow­ers to the police­men ouside the par­lia­ment house… Dur­ing the demon­stra­tions, bank ATMs and sur­veil­lance cam­eras were destroyed, and 2 line­men of the Pub­lic Pow­er Cor­po­ra­tion got arrest­ed a few hours after the demon­stra­tions, for cov­er­ing up police sur­veil­lance cam­eras with bags. In total, there were dozens of arrests, and 4 of them are pros­e­cut­ed under mis­de­meanours (dis­rup­tion of pub­lic order, dam­ag­ing pub­lic prop­er­ty).

Thes­sa­loni­ki: Demon­stra­tors broke down the McDon­alds at Lagka­da street and bank win­dows, and burnt up pow­er sup­ply box­es of police sur­veil­lance cam­eras. In total, more than 30.000 peo­ple par­tic­i­pat­ed in the demon­stra­tions.

Laris­sa: Paint bombs and eggs were thrown at banks and par­ty offices.

March­es and open gath­er­ing were organ­ised in most cities and towns of the coun­try.

Bath Bomb issue 5 now! & Bristle statement

Just your Christ­mas edi­tion of the month­ly Bathon­ian rab­ble rousi­ness, from deep with­in gen­tri­fy cen­tral

@nti-copyright: copy and dis­trib­ute!
Nev­er mind the Chron­i­cle… here’s the ever-fes­tive
The Bath Bomb

Just your Christ­mas edi­tion of the month­ly Bathon­ian rab­ble rousi­ness, from deep with­in gen­tri­fy cen­tral

@nti-copyright: copy and dis­trib­ute!
Nev­er mind the Chron­i­cle… here’s the ever-fes­tive
The Bath Bomb
Issue #5
free/donation
Dec ‘07

Bath Activists — 2 BNP – 0

Nazi Nick Grif­fin must’ve been hav­ing flash­backs on the 26th Novem­ber as yet anoth­er BNP meet­ing got shaft­ed by anti-fas­cists. This time the venue was Oxford Union, an upper class debat­ing soci­ety who booked Grif­fin and holo­caust deny­ing bas­tard David Irv­ing to speak to try and raise falling tick­et sales. Bath Activist Net­work sent 9 activists to the 1,000 strong demo. After get­ting bored of speech­es and plac­ards, we put our­selves to good use blockad­ing a side entrance to the meet­ing, our pres­ence being enough to deter the cops from let­ting the doors open. All oth­er entrances were block­ad­ed and BNP sup­port­ers were turfed out of a pub they were hid­ing in! The demo most­ly stayed peace­ful, save a brief instance dur­ing which the cops tried to stop activists get­ting into the build­ing. The cops – as they often do – failed, and the build­ing was breached many times through­out the night. The meet­ing was delayed by near­ly two hours, and the meet­ing end­ed up last­ing just 8 min­utes, with Grif­fin and Irv­ing being held in sep­a­rate loca­tions for their own safe­ty!

Annoy­ing though the BNP were, they were near­ly topped by the spoilt tweed-wear­ing lit­tle Har­ry and Wills wannabe daddy’s boys that con­sti­tute the major­i­ty of stu­dents at Oxford. Judg­ing by the way they were whing­ing and cry­ing in favour of the BNP, you could almost get the impres­sion that they were fas­cists them­selves. The rich sup­port­ing the nazis? Hmm­mm. Added to this, they didn’t even try to con­ceal their supe­ri­or­i­ty com­plex­es derived from the over-priced crash course in sodomy and brandy quaf­fling that counts for an edu­ca­tion at Oxford.

The same hap­pened to Nazi Nick in Oxford as in Bath when the greasy hunch-backed lit­tle bas­tard came here, with a well-placed protest shut­ting his meet­ing down. The night was a huge suc­cess – block­ades, nazis get­ting pelt­ed with eggs, occu­pa­tions, out­wit­ting dozy cops – chaos! When will you get the mes­sage, Nick? Soci­ety hates you and your nazi views! Lis­ten­ing to sick bas­tards like Grif­fin is a good reminder that regard­less of colour or nation­al­i­ty, the only sig­nif­i­cant divide in soci­ety is rich and poor, the many and the few. As one chant went on the night, ‘They say race war — we say CLASS WAR!’

Bris­tle Mag: R.I.P.

We here at the Bath Bomb would like to tip our hats in fond farewell to our lit­er­ary fore­fa­thers at Bris­tle mag­a­zine. For many years, this rag pro­vid­ed Bris­tol and the south west With inspir­ing rad­i­cal news and rants. It was a great read, and well worth the odd £1.20 of dole!

http://www.bristle.org.uk

Kebab Shop Car­nage

Sta­tion Kebab Shop in Brad­ford-on-Avon has been forced to close after a vicious race attack left staff mem­bers with bro­ken bones. The attack comes short­ly after anti-racists were brand­ed fas­cists for shut­ting down a BNP meet­ing in Oxford. This attack is evi­dence enough to demon­strate what hap­pens when we let these bas­tards spread their poi­son. They whine about free­dom of speech, but they only use it to spread fear, vio­lence and hatred because of the colour of people’s skin – they’re racist thugs who need a fuckin hard boot to the face. The only debate worth hav­ing with a fas­cist is one where they end up inhal­ing their own teeth.

In a state­ment received by Bath Bomb today, local Antifa group have promised ret­ri­bu­tion against fas­cists oper­at­ing local­ly, and frankly, good luck to them! As Adolph Hitler once said ‘The only way the rise of the Ger­man Nazi par­ty could have been pre­vent­ed was if its ene­mies had have recog­nised it for what it was and smashed it in its infan­cy with the utmost force’. The only true words he ever said, and as true to the BNP and NF today as it was to him back in the 1930s’.

http://www.thisisbath.com/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=180730&command=displayContent&sourceNode=232315&home=yes&more_nodeId1=163047&contentPK=19121961

Hunt­ing As Usu­al, Sab­bing As Usu­al

It was a sun­ny autumn day when a group of us went for a trip to the coun­try. We ren­dezvoused with a group of peace­ful veg­gie com­man­does and went about our task. We were there to mon­i­tor and stop a group of sadis­tic inbreds who prance about on hors­es to sat­is­fy their blood­lust and infe­ri­or­i­ty com­plex­es (I am of course talk­ing about fox hunters, of the Ted­worth Hunt). Despite the ban, they are still hunt­ing, this was fur­ther clar­i­fied on a pre­vi­ous week when a group of sabs stopped a dig out (which involves the hunt send­ing a ter­ri­er down a fox hole to fight the trapped ani­mal, before yank­ing it out). They put on the pre­tences of drag hunt­ing (fol­low­ing a fake scent) but this is nor­mal­ly only for show or insur­ance should they “acci­den­tal­ly” kill any­thing.

On arriv­ing at the hunt there were the usu­al assort­ment of big-eared boys and oth­er odd­i­ties of the human species. We did our best to fol­low the hunt; jump­ing fences, blow­ing horns and chas­ing them around the coun­try­side. At one point after los­ing the hunt and then re-find­ing them again, some­thing must have flipped in the psy­chot­ic mind of the hunts­man and his fol­low­ers and they tried to ride us down (No sabs were seri­ous­ly injured). Short­ly after this inci­dent, their day thor­ough­ly ruined by the sabs, the hunt packed up ear­ly. We then went round a mate’s house for veg­an cake and tea. If you feel like get­ting involved give us a call on 07854 062336.

http://hsa.enviroweb.org/hsa.shtml

Events

every Mon­day Bath Hunt Sabo­teurs meet­ing — back room of the Bell, 8pm
every Wednes­day Lon­don Road Food Co-op; 4pm—7pm, River­side Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, Lon­don Road
8th Dec Bath FreeShop — Stall Street 12–3pm
10th-24th Dec Anti-fur fort­night http://www.caft.org.uk
15th Dec Day of action against foie gras; con­tact bathanimalaction@yahoo.co.uk
16th Dec ‘Bub­bling Under’ — Porter Cel­lar Bar, 1–4pm; show­ing The Yes Men
21stDec ‘Left­ism’ at the Crown on Bath­wick Street — 9–1am; funds towards RAINBOW
2nd Jan Bath Ani­mal Action meet­ing — back room of the Bell, 7.30–8.30pm
3rd Jan Bath Activist Net­work meet­ing — down­stairs Hob­gob­lin, 7.30–9pm
7th Jan Pub­lic meet­ing against Tesco’s; St Mary’s Church, Bath­wick Hill; con­tact bathactivistnet@yahoo.co.uk for mnore details

Reclaim The High Street

Mem­bers of Bath Activist Net­work descend­ed on town last Sat­ur­day for the mam­moth day of demo­ing that was ‘Reclaim the Plan­et’. Mov­ing away from the orig­i­nal ‘eco’ theme, activists adopt­ed a more gen­er­ous­ly anti-cap­i­tal­ist approach to ques­tion the con­sumer night­mare that is Xmas shop­ping. Now, we’re not anti Xmas, but we did want to high­light why this time of year sees the sweat­shop, ani­mal abuse and cli­mate change indus­tries prof­its soar, in this, the sea­son of good will. We start­ed off help­ing out Bath Stop the War Coali­tion on their anti-war vig­il which has been tak­ing place every Sat­ur­day, between 11.30 and 12.30 out­side the Abbey for the past sev­er­al years. An unjust war for oil, so we can keep dri­ving our 4x4s, import­ing our apples and buy­ing our plas­tic crap.
From there, we moved on to Bistro No.5, an iso­lat­ed bas­tion of ani­mal abuse that con­tin­ues to sell the bloat­ed liv­er of force-fed geese, oth­er­wise known as foie gras. Hav­ing already promised to take this sick ‘del­i­ca­cy’ off the menu, but put it back on, they weren’t best pleased to see us again. The man­ager­ess called the cops, who threat­ened some arrests, exchanged some stern words, then left after the day’s first police-pro­test­er round of ban­ter. This left a very unhap­py man­ager­ess and dur­ing a short and sharp phone call, the own­er promised to take it back off the menu!

We then moved on to Dis­ney, who use their ‘cute and cud­dly’ image to hide the fact that they employ third world chil­dren in sweat­shops to pro­duce their toys for slave labour wages. A ban­ner was unfurled, leaflets dis­trib­uted, and many cus­tomers left to shop in a more cru­el­ty-free envi­ron­ment. The demo was effec­tive and well received – we even received a vis­it from our flu­o­ro-jack­et­ed friends from the Bath Con­stab­u­lary, who were hap­py to let us con­tin­ue our peace­ful protest, and moved off after a anoth­er spot of jovial ban­ter!

From there we moved to the ever unpop­u­lar McDon­alds, who were pleased as ever to see us. More ban­ners, free cake and hun­dreds of leaflets were deployed as dozens of poten­tial cus­tomers pledged to boy­cott the place on the grounds of their dis­re­gard for ani­mal wel­fare, employ­ee rights, the envi­ron­ment and the seri­ous health impli­ca­tions of eat­ing there! All in all a long but suc­cess­ful day despite the ter­ri­ble weath­er. A fol­low-up event is being planned for next sum­mer, and loads is gonna be going on in-between, so keep yer eyes peeled!

http://www.mcspotlight.org/
http://www.nosweat.org.uk/node/183
http://www.banfoiegras.org.uk/
http://www.stopwar.org.uk/

Pup­py Punch­ers Pay The Price

On Sat­ur­day the 10th Novem­ber, activists descend­ed on Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences in Cam­bridgeshire, furi­ous at the company’s con­tin­ued ani­mal abuse. A research con­trac­tor for the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal indus­try, HLS kill 500 ani­mals dai­ly in the name of prof­it, with­out ever pro­duc­ing a sin­gle paper. But not just the cute and fluffy ani­mals suf­fer: 10,000 humans die every year in the UK alone as a result of dodgy drug side effects. But then what can you expect, when the gov­ern­ment refus­es to exam­ine whether ani­mal test­ing works or not? TGN 1412 hor­ri­bly injured 6 vol­un­teers in March of last year; like Vioxx, Con­ter­gan, and Thalido­mide did before, to name a few. But the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals have lob­bied hard for their priv­i­leges, and who cares about lives when there’s a quick buck to be made? Far eas­i­er to just lock up any­one who com­plains and call them ‘ter­ror­ists’ – just like the three SHAC activists in prison right now.

From 1 till 2, cam­paign­ers marched through Hunt­ing­don cen­tre, leaflet­ing and chant­i­ng, before mov­ing on to the labs itself. And what a place – ringed by razor­wire, fences and grim-look­ing cops, HLS is noth­ing short of a mod­ern day Auschwitz. For two hours we vent­ed our rage, with mega­phone, voice and siren, and heard how these bank­rupt mon­sters have been bailed out again and again by tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey, and also of the caught-on-cam­era HLS work­ers, laugh­ing as they hit cap­tive bea­gles in the face.

Recent­ly, anoth­er share­hold­er, Axa, pulled out; but when will sci­ence final­ly learn to move to non-ani­mal test­ing, so then we can all just get on with our lives, rather than wav­ing plac­ards, or bed-bound in cash-strapped hos­pi­tals?

http://www.shac.net/HLS/exposed.html

Who Are Bath Activist Net­work?

We are a local umbrel­la group cam­paign­ing on issues as diverse as devel­op­ment, envi­ron­men­tal­ism, anti-war, ani­mal rights, work­ers’ rights and more. Help­ing to pro­duce The Bath Bomb, we are open to any­one, and our mem­bers range from trade union­ists to anar­chists, lib­er­als to greens, and peo­ple who just want to change Bath for the bet­ter. For details on meet­ings, demos, or just to get in touch, ring us on 07949 611912, email bathactivistnet@yahoo.co.uk, or see our web­site: www.myspace.com/bathactivistnetwork

The Wheels Of Green Bull Go Round And Round

Ever strain­ing to prove its green cre­den­tials, B&NES have recent­ly invest­ed in a pilot scheme of school­bus­es being run on rape­seed oil/biodiesel , as a mea­sure to cut CO2 emis­sions– with one at Three Ways in Bath and anoth­er at Nor­ton Hill, in Mid­somer Nor­ton. While my tree­hug­ger side wel­comes this, my inner cyn­ic gets scep­ti­cal: nitrous oxide emis­sion from fer­tilis­ers are around 3oo times worse than fos­sil fuel emis­sions, so, unless organ­ic, bio­fu­els are no friend to the plan­et. Sec­ond­ly, there is bare­ly enough farm­land around for food crops nev­er mind fuel, which will jump food prices, when the world’s already got more than enough star­va­tion prob­lems. In the South, bio­fu­el plan­ta­tions will also ruin indige­nous cul­ture by forc­ing peo­ple from their land into the cities, and will also eat into nature reserves. Small scale pro­duc­tion and recy­cling cook­ing oils may not be a bad thing, but means lit­tle prof­it for the agro­fu­els indus­try: yet again, the smell of ‘green­wash’ is in the air, and it’s start­ing to stink.

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

Suits, Gold Lamé And Video­tapes

Car­ry­ing on from last month’s ‘Fourth World War’, the Porter Cellar’s keep­ing it up with anoth­er ‘Bub­bling Under’ screen­ing: Sun­day 16th Decem­ber, from 1pm till 4pm, free entry, show­ing ‘The Yes Men’. A dark­ly com­i­cal doc­u­men­tary, it fol­lows the sto­ry of how two anti-cor­po­rate activists who set them­selves up as bogus big busi­ness reps, mak­ing ever-more ridicu­lous pre­sen­ta­tions at swanky indus­try con­fer­ences. Fol­low­ing com­mer­cial log­ic to its nasty extreme, they hoped to shake the audi­ence from their stu­por by straight-faced­ly offer­ing up busi­ness plans so bru­tal and down­right dis­gust­ing, that even the most greedy and self-serv­ing of fat cats would be incensed. But, whether propos­ing elec­tro-shock­ing sweat­shop work­ers into line with inflat­ed gold­en dil­dos, or recy­cled human fae­ces into a new range of burg­ers, the only reac­tion they ever get is enthu­si­as­tic applause… Prov­ing that once again, fact is stranger than fic­tion! Must be seen to be believed.

http://www.moles.co.uk/porter/view_porter_listing.ihtml?per=future
http://www.theyesmen.org/

GOT A STORY? WANT TO RECEIVE THE BATH BOMB BY EMAIL? HOPING TO SUE?
Con­tact us by e‑mailing bathbombpress@yahoo.co.uk Large print e‑versions are avail­able on request.

And now, to the dis­claimer: As any­one is free to con­tribute to this newslet­ter, the opin­ions expressed in each arti­cle are not nec­es­sar­i­ly reflec­tive of each con­trib­u­tor. Nat­u­ral­ly, any right-wing or cor­po­rate bull­shit will be binned and spat on. Need­less to say, the opin­ions of
the author of this dis­claimer does not nec­es­sar­i­ly rep­re­sent the views of any oth­er con­trib­u­tor…

http://www.myspace.com/bathbomb

»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»
bris­tle mag­a­zine (Bris­tol) — state­ment from the col­lec­tive

Whilst the com­rades at Bath Bomb are jump­ing the gun a bit by declar­ing ‘Bris­tle R.I.P’, the bris­tle Col­lec­tive, pub­lish­ers of bris­tle mag­a­zine, would like to advise activists, read­ers and Indy­media users of the fol­low­ing:

A state­ment from the bris­tle Col­lec­tive

Before the Bris­to­lian news-sheet came and went, before Bris­tol Indy­media was con­ceived, before the inter­net was a dai­ly (hourly) part of your lives, and before any­body & nobody had their per­son­al blog, there was bris­tle mag­a­zine.

What start­ed as a cut’n’paste A4 pho­to­copied & fold­ed freesheet (see image), in times of hope and high activ­i­ty when the Tories were beat­en and we were reclaim­ing those streets, devel­oped into a 2 or more colour mag­a­zine of between 24 and 40 pages. From a copied run of 50 to a pro­fes­sion­al print-run and sales of 1200, although nor­mal­ly half that, bris­tle evolved through the years. But its aim always remained the same: to give a space and a voice in Bris­tol & the south west to those shut out from the cor­po­rate media-main­stream of ads and bull­shit. To be a pub­li­ca­tion writ­ten by activists that would try to reach out beyond the activist scenes to com­bat the mis­in­for­ma­tion of gov­ern­ments and cap­i­tal.

Some 10 years and 24 issues (plus a book, var­i­ous free-sheets, t‑shirts, stick­ers etc) lat­er that task remains as valid and vital as ever, in fact more so! But for now bris­tle mag­a­zine is dor­mant. The con­tin­ued depar­ture over the last 2 years of long-term col­lec­tive mem­bers, and con­trib­u­tors, has not been coun­tered by suf­fi­cient new peo­ple. We have had some inter­est­ed new peo­ple, but their involve­ment, and usu­al­ly their stay in Bris­tol, has not been per­ma­nent.

Sad­ly there­fore, the remain­ing few col­lec­tive mem­bers, who are all deeply involved in oth­er projects too, have decid­ed to take a long term break and sus­pend pub­li­ca­tion of the mag­a­zine. We would like to thank all those who have con­tributed in any way to the mag­a­zine over the years, and send our love and sol­i­dar­i­ty to all those con­tin­u­ing to strug­gle for a free and bet­ter world. We look for­wards to see­ing you behind the bar­ri­cade of your choos­ing, be it wield­ing a pen, a spray can, or some­thing a lit­tle heav­ier.

For now we are look­ing into oth­er pos­si­ble ini­tia­tives involv­ing print media and the machin­ery need­ed. We would be inter­est­ed to hear from any­body con­sid­er­ing pub­lish­ing alter­na­tive print media. Indeed if you have the time, ener­gy, skills (research, writ­ing, dtp, dis­tro, art & car­toons, edit­ing etc) and longish-term com­mit­ment we could be per­suad­ed to relaunch bris­tle! Whilst we have closed the old bris­tle web­site & email, we can still be con­tact­ed c/o 14 Robert­son Rd, Bris­tol BS5 6JY, or email bristle@riseup.net

Salud!

Golf course in Sydney dug in with warning

24.11.2007
The anony­mous vis­i­tors were clear about why they caused the dam­age they did. “Warn­ing!: you bas­tards kill one bird and we will destroy all your greens at our leisure. We will be watch­ing and wait­ing” read a note on a piece of card­board that was stuffed into one of the holes.

24.11.2007
The anony­mous vis­i­tors were clear about why they caused the dam­age they did. “Warn­ing!: you bas­tards kill one bird and we will destroy all your greens at our leisure. We will be watch­ing and wait­ing” read a note on a piece of card­board that was stuffed into one of the holes.

Syd­ney, Aus­tralia — Van­dals vis­it­ed the War­ringah Golf Club over the week­end and dur­ing the night wrecked exten­sive dam­age on four putting greens and dug holes in three oth­ers. The anony­mous vis­i­tors were clear about why they caused the dam­age they did. “Warn­ing!: you bas­tards kill one bird and we will destroy all your greens at our leisure. We will be watch­ing and wait­ing” read a note on a piece of card­board that was stuffed into one of the holes.

Ani­mal rights advo­cates and neigh­bours have been in an uproar since the club hired a marks­man to shoot native wood ducks who land on the course. The ducks are con­sid­ered by the golfers to be a nui­sance because the make small holes in the turf as they for­age for food. The club and some employ­ees have been inun­dat­ed with phone calls and emails since the shoot­er was hired.