Category: Climate Chaos

Rossport Update on 11th September 2008 & solidarity action in Brighton & upcoming action in London

An update on the sit­u­a­tion as of this morn­ing in occu­pied Erris

After a tru­ly momen­tous day in Erris yesterday,things are much calmer this morn­ing.
The Soli­taire has been con­firmed to be sta­tionery in Killy­begs Co Done­gal.

An update on the sit­u­a­tion as of this morn­ing in occu­pied Erris

SolitaireAfter a tru­ly momen­tous day in Erris yesterday,things are much calmer this morn­ing.
The Soli­taire has been con­firmed to be sta­tionery in Killy­begs Co Done­gal.

Police pres­ence in the area is still very heavy this morn­ing although the gen­er­al atmos­phere (aside from at the com­pound gates) is slight­ly less tense. Mau­ra Har­ring­ton con­tin­ues her coura­geous hunger strike at the com­pound gates with round the clock sol­i­dar­i­ty from both locals and the camp.
Shell to Sea hunger striker

It is still not clear how exact­ly the Soli­taire sus­tained the dam­age to its “stinger”
The stinger is DEFINITELY slight­ly dam­aged in one sec­tion how­ev­er this reporter can con­firm that it was not so dam­aged on Tues­day night when it arrived in Broad­haven Bay and that con­di­tions all through­out Tues­day night were absolute­ly calm both at land and on sea (remem­ber­ing that the Soli­taire can oper­ate in extreme­ly heavy seas unhin­dered due to its size).

The cause of the dam­age is a heav­i­ly spec­u­lat­ed upon mat­ter and I will not add to oth­er than the fact that AllSeas Ltd may be con­trac­tu­al­ly relieved from its oblig­a­tions under a damge clause in the con­tract.

More from yes­ter­day

Lock-on protest

The 5 peo­ple who locked on in atro­cious con­di­tions for 6 and a half hours from 5.30am to mid­day and blocked the road were all released with­out charge from Bel­mul­let Gar­da Sta­tion. 4 were held for 6 and a half hours and 1 was released after 4 hours. They report that they were treat­ed well in Gar­da cus­tody and that their needs were attend­ed to cor­rect­ly.

Up to 15 peo­ple were in atten­dance in sol­i­dar­i­ty at one point or anoth­er dur­ing the day, Shell to Sea lock-on 1Shell to Sea lock-on 2Gar­dai refused to allow any to stay inside the walls of the (pub­lic) station,including a solic­i­tor who is part of the protests. The lock-on par­tic­i­pants are all in good form today and proud of their actions and a good day for the cam­paign.

Pat O’Don­nell and son
Pat O’Don­nell and son as has been pre­vi­ous­ly report­ed were again arrest­ed yes­ter­day morn­ing to pre­vent them exer­cis­ing their legal enti­tle­ment to fish the waters of Broad­haven Bay. The pair were again arrest­ed under the “blank cheque” that is Sec­tion 8 of the Pub­lic Order Act 1994.

This was the sec­ond time the pair were arrest­ed in 24 hours and released with­out charge,a spu­ri­ous use and fla­grant abuse of the law A pos­si­ble route to stem this behav­iour would be to seek an injunc­tion in the High Court to pre­vent the Gar­dai from using the law in this way,this how­ev­er is a very rare achieve­ment and is unlike­ly to be heard.

Mau­ra Har­ring­ton’s hunger­strike
Mau­ra con­tin­ued coura­geous­ly with her refusal to eat until the Soli­taire leaves Irish ter­ri­to­r­i­al waters. She has been giv­ing inter­views to media at inter­vals and has been chat­ting with sup­port­ers when the police are at a safe dis­tance. Gar­dai were,at 4am on Wednes­day morn­ing ‚revving their engines extreme­ly loud­ly right in front of Mau­ra’s car in order to dis­turb her sleep as much as pos­si­ble. Sup­port­ers have main­tained a con­stant pres­ence since the begin­ning of the action at 5pm Tues­day.
The hunger strike con­tin­ues

SOLITAIRE
We do not know whether or not the Soli­taire will return. We remain on high alert.

All sol­i­dar­i­ty in what­ev­er form and wher­ev­er is need­ed and appre­ci­at­ed.

—

10th Sep­tem­ber:

Five Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty campers have locked on to a bridge about 100m from the gates of the Shell com­pound in Glen­gad. The campers have been locked on since 4:30am — 5am. Gar­daí have refused to call the fire brigade, but have put a makeshift wee tent over the pro­tes­tors, and have cut a drain in the side of the road to allow lodg­ing rain on the road to drain off.

Two fish­ing boat skip­pers (plus crews) have been arrest­ed after Gar­daí board­ed the ves­sels as they approached the Soli­taire at anchor in Broad­haven Bay. Local on-the-scene reports say that Pat ‘the Chief’ O’Don­nell and his son Jonathan are among those arrest­ed. Gar­daí are alleg­ing pub­lic order offences (I expect to hear they’ll all be released with­out charges soon). Gar­daí are pre­vent­ing access now to the com­pound gates, where Mau­ra Har­ring­ton remains in her car and on hunger strike. Gar­daí are using the lock-on action as a pre­text for stop­ping pub­lic move­ment along that stretch of road.There is only one pro­tes­tor keep­ing watch on Mau­ra with a cam­era, but sup­port­ers can get close to both of them through the fields near­by. Inter­net con­nec­tion has returned to the Camp office, since about an hour before this post­ing.

Wel­come to Ire­land 2008 — Shel­l’s lit­tle police state!

Get up to Mayo now and con­front their vio­lent thiev­ing plans!

Pat O’Don­nell and his son Jonathan were AGAIN arrest­ed this morn­ing as they were attempt­ing to to exer­cise their legal right to be a sea.

The lock-on con­tin­ues to block the road from the Bel­mul­let side and the police have set up a road-block form the oth­er side of the com­pund (Pol­lath­omais side)

The 2–3 mile area in between is a pen where the police are pre­vent­ing peo­ple from walk­ing (although peo­ple are access­ing the road,and Maura,through the fields.

The Police are attempt­ing to begin the cut­ting of the pipes that are being used in the lock-on,this could take quite some time as they are extreme­ly thick.

The lock-on par­tic­i­pants are lying in pud­dles of water at this stage as the rain con­tin­ues to lash down in Erris.

A con­stant vig­il was kept at Mauras side all ngith with at least 5 peo­ple there at all times to ensure the cops did­nt try any­thing.

The Soli­taire is sta­tionery at its anchor loca­tion and there is no activ­i­ty on the com­pound at Glen­gad.

It must be under­lined that the arrests of Pat O’Don­nell and his com­rades are TOTALLY spu­ri­ous ‚a bull­shit appli­ca­tion of Sec­tion 8 of the Pub­lic Order Act 1994 to keep the Chief and his fish­er­men col­leagues off the waters.

An injunc­tion is being sought to pre­vent fur­ther spu­ri­ous arrests.

——-

Brighton solidarity action with Shell to SeaTwo activists are cur­rent­ly occu­py­ing the roof of the Shell petrol garage on Pre­ston Road, Brighton in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the com­mu­ni­ties resist­ing the Cor­rib gas pipeline devel­op­ment in Ross­port, Ire­land. This action is in response to an urgent call out made by the Ross­port sol­i­dar­i­ty camp due to the pres­ence of the pipe lay­ing ves­sel, the Soli­taire, in Broad­haven bay and the immi­nent com­mence­ment of the build­ing of the pipeline.

The ship that is to build the pipeline is booked for the next two weeks. If Shell is able to fol­low its timetable to bring the pipeline into land, this will cre­ate mas­sive prob­lems for any resis­tance to the project in the future. Shell will be cre­at­ing ‘facts on the ground’ which will essen­tial­ly make it eas­i­er to push through a deci­sion on the land route, which local res­i­dents and cam­paign­ers have been fight­ing against. If work is pre­vent­ed at this time, it is unlike­ly that the ship will be able to return for at least two years as it has already been booked up.

Since 2005 there has been mas­sive resis­tance, includ­ing a strong cam­paign of civ­il dis­obe­di­ence, from the local com­mu­ni­ty, around Ire­land and beyond.

Update — 4:30pm

The two pro­test­ers came down some­time after 3–30 and were imme­di­ate­ly arrest­ed fol­low­ing an accu­sa­tion by the man­ag­er (a real­ly nasty piece of work) of crim­i­nal dam­age to the roof. Quite how she knew this with­out look­ing can be for the courts to decide (can’t wait). They are now in Holling­bury Cus­tody suite.

—–

Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Action
12 noon Mon­day 15th Sep
Allseas UK offices,7 Albe­mar­le St, West­min­ster Lon­don WIS 4HQ

Allseas owns the Soli­taire which tried to lay the gas pipe in Broad­haven Bay, Mayo last Tues­day. It has been dam­aged and may return to Hol­land. A local Woman is on hunger strike until it leaves Irish waters and we in the UK have been asked to demon­strate at the Allseas offices in sup­port of Mau­ra. The offices pre­vi­ous­ly adver­tised on this web­site can­not be con­firmed as the Allseas offices so we are going to their reg­is­tered address in West­min­ster. Please show sol­i­dar­i­ty to the peo­ple of Erris if you can.

MAOIST REBELS ATTACK PHILIPPINE BIOFUEL PLANTATION

Sep­tem­ber 11 2008 -
Maoist-led guer­ril­las raid­ed a state-owned plan­ta­tion used for bio­fu­el pro­duc­tion in the cen­tral Philip­pines, the first attack on an alter­na­tive ener­gy invest­ment, an army offi­cial said on Thurs­day.

Sep­tem­ber 11 2008 -
Maoist-led guer­ril­las raid­ed a state-owned plan­ta­tion used for bio­fu­el pro­duc­tion in the cen­tral Philip­pines, the first attack on an alter­na­tive ener­gy invest­ment, an army offi­cial said on Thurs­day.

The rebels left leaflets denounc­ing the oper­a­tions of a facil­i­ty pro­duc­ing bio­fu­els from cas­sa­va and jat­ropha, a drought-resis­tant plant, which com­petes for crops with food pro­duc­tion in the main­ly agri­cul­tur­al South­east Asian nation.

Com­mu­nist New Peo­ple’s Army (NPA) rebels stormed a jat­ropha plan­ta­tion on Negros island on Tues­day, burn­ing equip­ment and stop­ping work­ers from haul­ing lum­ber, Colonel Cesar Yano, a brigade com­man­der on Negros, told reporters.

“The work­ers were not harmed,” Yano said.

The rebels oppose the use of food for ener­gy pur­pos­es, tar­get­ing the 2‑billion peso ($42 mil­lion) ethanol project because it would plant jat­ropha trees instead of sug­ar­cane and rice, the tra­di­tion­al sta­ple, Yano said.

Jat­ropha is con­sid­ered to be one of the most promis­ing sources of bio­fu­els.

The 10-hectare jat­ropha plan­ta­tion in Tam­lang val­ley also sits on what was a rebel strong­hold before troops drove the NPA guer­ril­las deep­er into the moun­tains.

The bio­fu­el plan­ta­tion is a joint ven­ture between the gov­ern­ment and Tam­lang Val­ley Agri Devel­op­ment Corp, a com­pa­ny formed by a local alco­hol firm and a polit­i­cal clan relat­ed to the finance sec­re­tary.

The gov­ern­ment has a 35 per­cent stake in the plan­ta­tion. There was no imme­di­ate reac­tion from the own­ers.

The Philip­pines has been pro­mot­ing the cul­ti­va­tion of crops suit­ed for bio­fu­els to lessen its depen­dence on cost­ly import­ed crude oil.

The coun­try imports near­ly all of its crude oil needs.

The rebels have stepped up attacks on Negros after an army bat­tal­ion was removed from the island a month ago and was sent to rein­force troops fight­ing Mus­lim rebels on the south­ern island of Min­danao, offi­cials said.

Mani­la has been bat­tling Maoist-led guer­ril­las active most­ly in the main island of Luzon and in the cen­tral Philip­pines for near­ly 40 years in a con­flict that has killed more than 40,000 peo­ple and stunt­ed invest­ment in the resource-rich coun­try.

The rebels tar­get mines, plan­ta­tions, log­ging and tele­phone com­pa­nies to scare for­eign investors and raise funds.

Coal Protest Hits the Cardiff Hilton

Merthyr Tyd­fil res­i­dents and cli­mate change cam­paign­ers staged dis­rup­tive protests at the Cardiff Hilton today dur­ing the AGM of the UK Coal Author­i­ty.

10th Sep­tem­ber 2008 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – NO EMBARGO

Phone: 07775 654 500
Email con­tact: media@thecoalhole.org

Cardiff Hilton coal protestMerthyr Tyd­fil res­i­dents and cli­mate change cam­paign­ers staged dis­rup­tive protests at the Cardiff Hilton today dur­ing the AGM of the UK Coal Author­i­ty.

10th Sep­tem­ber 2008 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – NO EMBARGO

Phone: 07775 654 500
Email con­tact: media@thecoalhole.org

Coal Protest Hits the Cardiff Hilton

Merthyr Tyd­fil res­i­dents and cli­mate change cam­paign­ers staged dis­rup­tive protests at the Cardiff Hilton today dur­ing the AGM of the UK Coal Author­i­ty.

Three cam­paign­ers scaled the main entrance of the lux­u­ry hotel and hung a ban­ner read­ing “Coal: Leave it in the Ground”, while oth­ers inside the con­fer­ence chal­lenged coal indus­try del­e­gates on their industry’s record of envi­ron­men­tal dam­age.
Dur­ing the indus­try body’s “envi­ron­men­tal awards” pre­sen­ta­tion, local res­i­dents affect­ed by the Ffos-y-Fran open­cast min­ing scheme inter­rupt­ed pro­ceed­ings to present devel­op­ers Miller Argent with their own award — the “Com­mu­ni­ty Award for Glob­al Cli­mate Crimes”.

“I want­ed to make clear to James Poyn­er of Miller Argent the mis­ery he is bring­ing to our com­mu­ni­ty,” said Merthyr Tyd­fil res­i­dent Alyson Austin. “The Ffos-y-Fran mine is a two hun­dred metre deep hole, only thir­ty-five metres from our hous­es, and the coal they are dig­ging out is caus­ing dan­ger­ous cli­mate change. We are dis­gust­ed that local democ­ra­cy has been ignored, and Miller Argent has not been chal­lenged by the Welsh Assem­bly, despite their promis­es to us to take envi­ron­men­tal issues seri­ous­ly.”

The UK Coal Author­i­ty is a gov­ern­ment-fund­ed body tasked with pro­mot­ing and sup­port­ing the UK coal indus­try. Their AGM fea­tures ses­sions on expand­ing open­cast min­ing, length­en­ing the lifes­pan of aging pow­er sta­tions, and a range of oth­er con­tro­ver­sial activ­i­ties car­ried out by the indus­try, which has faced wide­spread oppo­si­tion over the past year to its plans for a new gen­er­a­tion of coal-fired pow­er sta­tions, and ongo­ing expan­sion of open­cast min­ing across the coun­try.

“Tax­pay­er-fund­ed bod­ies like the Government’s Coal Author­i­ty should not be allowed to col­lude with big com­pa­nies to cause dis­as­ter for local com­mu­ni­ties across the coun­try, and dis­as­ter for the plan­et,” said Swansea res­i­dent and envi­ron­men­tal cam­paign­er James Bryant, speak­ing out­side the Hilton. “At a time when cli­mate change and ris­ing fos­sil fuel prices are top of the polit­i­cal agen­da, it seems amaz­ing that the coal indus­try can still have cosy meet­ings about how great busi­ness is with no men­tion of the big­ger pic­ture.”

INTERVIEWS: Inter­views are avail­able with the pro­test­ers, in both Welsh and Eng­lish

PHOTOS: Pro­fes­sion­al, high-res­o­lu­tion images and high-qual­i­ty video are avail­able of the protest

Under­cur­rents filmed the direct action..watch our report here

‘Leave it in the ground’ national meeting on 11 and 12 October in Manchester

Announce­ment – ‘Leave it in the ground’ nation­al meet­ing

Cli­mate change is the biggest threat fac­ing us, and burn­ing coal is the biggest his­tor­i­cal cause of cli­mate change. Every day more coal is burned, yet indus­try and gov­ern­ment seem intent on burn­ing even more.

Announce­ment – ‘Leave it in the ground’ nation­al meet­ing

Cli­mate change is the biggest threat fac­ing us, and burn­ing coal is the biggest his­tor­i­cal cause of cli­mate change. Every day more coal is burned, yet indus­try and gov­ern­ment seem intent on burn­ing even more.

‘Leave it in the ground’ is the slo­gan of a new net­work for groups tak­ing action oppos­ing new coal devel­op­ments in the UK, includ­ing the 30+ planned open­cast sites and sev­en new coal-fired pow­er sta­tions. Added to those already oper­at­ing, and the coal import and trans­port facil­i­ties, these projects rep­re­sent a mas­sive threat to our abil­i­ty to cut green­house gas emis­sions to safe lev­els, and would be a dis­as­ter for the cli­mate as well as for local areas.

The first ‘Leave it in the ground’ meet­ing will be held at the Yard The­atre, 41 Old Bir­ley
Street, Hulme, Man­ches­ter M15 5RF, on 11 and 12 Octo­ber.

The net­work plans to be a way for groups to share skills and expe­ri­ence in dif­fer­ent areas and to encour­age col­lab­o­ra­tion on com­mon goals. It is a loose net­work of equals, and is not affil­i­at­ed to any polit­i­cal par­ty or NGO.

The pro­posed agen­da for this meet­ing includes:

Sat­ur­day 11th

§ Intro­duc­tion to the UK coal indus­try
§ Updates on oppo­si­tion to coal devel­op­ments in the UK, includ­ing the cam­paigns against the Ffos-y-Fran (near Merthyr Tyd­fil) and Lodge House (Der­byshire) open­cast sites, the 2008 Cli­mate Camp and the pro­posed Kingsnorth coal-fired pow­er sta­tion block­ade.
§ Dis­cussing cli­mate change solu­tions, includ­ing the impor­tance of a social­ly just tran­si­tion to a low-car­bon econ­o­my.
§ Think­ing about how our net­work will func­tion, its deci­sion-mak­ing struc­ture, name and com­mu­ni­ca­tions
§ Plan­ning ini­tial events and strat­e­gy for the net­work
§ Region­al net­work­ing between groups

Sun­day 12th

§ Media train­ing
§ Intro­duc­tion to direct action plan­ning
§ Fur­ther dis­cus­sions on cli­mate change, cli­mate jus­tice and inter­na­tion­al net­work­ing

If you can only make one day of the meet­ing, please try to come on Sat­ur­day. We will aim to start at 10:00 and to fin­ish by 18:00 to allow for trav­el. The meet­ing will free, lunch and evening meal on Sat­ur­day and lunch on Sun­day will be avail­able for dona­tions.

If you would like to attend, please reg­is­ter by email­ing info@leaveitintheground.org.uk, with ‘meet­ing’ in the sub­ject line, stat­ing how many of your group wish to attend, any spe­cial dietary or access require­ments and whether you want accom­mo­da­tion for Sat­ur­day night. Free accom­mo­da­tion will prob­a­bly be ‘crash­pad’ only, but we can pro­vide details of near­by hotels etc.

For those trav­el­ling from far off, we will oper­ate a ‘pool fare’ sys­tem to even out the costs of trav­el. The venue is about ten min­utes walk from Man­ches­ter Oxford Road sta­tion, and is served by num­ber 54 and 86 bus­es, with many oth­ers serv­ing the near­by Stret­ford road. More details on the GMPTE web­site.

The Solitaire arrives in Broadhaven Bay

9.9.2008
The world’s largest pipe-lay­ing ves­sel, The Soli­taire, arrived off the coast of Mayo, Ire­land, this evening. The Soli­taire is installing the off­shore sec­tion of the Cor­rib Gas pipeline for Shell. The ship is sup­port­ed by a num­ber of Shell sup­port craft, the Irish Police Water Unit and part of the Irish Navy.Stiff oppo­si­tion is expect­ed, with a local school teacher already on hunger strike. Hun­dreds of police offi­cers are in the area, and the main road to the beach has been closed.

Solitaire9.9.2008
The world’s largest pipe-lay­ing ves­sel, The Soli­taire, arrived off the coast of Mayo, Ire­land, this evening. The Soli­taire is installing the off­shore sec­tion of the Cor­rib Gas pipeline for Shell. The ship is sup­port­ed by a num­ber of Shell sup­port craft, the Irish Police Water Unit and part of the Irish Navy.Stiff oppo­si­tion is expect­ed, with a local school teacher already on hunger strike. Hun­dreds of police offi­cers are in the area, and the main road to the beach has been closed.

Local peo­ple have been alarmed to see so many police offi­cers, and sin­is­ter fig­ures in green rain­jack­ets, who may be police (although the Irish Police, the Gar­da Siochá­na, usu­al­ly wear blue) or could be Shell secu­ri­ty or even mem­bers of the Irish Army.

Inter­net access in the area near the Shell com­pound has been cut off, and the main road to the beach has been blocked.

Oppo­si­tion to the pipe lay­ing oper­a­tion con­sists of a num­ber off envi­ron­men­tal and polit­i­cal activists based in the Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp, local fish­er­men who are wor­ried about con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of the waters they depend on, and many local peo­ple who are con­cerned that the off­shore sec­tion of the Shell scheme is being put in place while no plan­ning per­mis­sion exists for the onshore sec­tion.

A local school prin­ci­pal has vowed to refuse food until the ship leaves the area. She has parked her car in front of the Shell com­pound. A fish­er­man from near­by Por­turlin who refused to move his crab gear from the path of the Soli­taire has been arrest­ed.

In 2005 a num­ber of local peo­ple were jailed for 94 days for oppos­ing the Shell project as it was then con­fig­ured.

Since then, the project has been dogged by con­tro­ver­sy, with many arrests, court cas­es, injuries, com­plaints to the Gar­da Com­plaints Board and Ombuds­man, and polit­i­cal activ­i­ty both in and out­side the Dáil.

In recent weeks there have been 29 sep­a­rate arrests in thee area around Glen­gad beach, where the pipe is due to make land­fall.

Shell spokes­peo­ple have claimed that the project has not been affect­ed by the protests. They say that recent delays to the project have been caused by severe weath­er.

Some news­pa­pers have claimed that the project, which is being car­ried out by a con­sor­tium of com­pa­nies includ­ing Sta­toil from Nor­way and Marathon Oil from Texas in the Unit­ed States, will ben­e­fit the coun­try, even though all of the nat­ur­al gas will belong to the Cor­rib part­ners and no roy­al­ty will be charged. There is no con­trac­tu­al oblig­a­tion for Shell, the scheme’s major share­hold­er and oper­a­tor, to sell any of the gas to Bord Gáis Éire­ann, and so the resource will be sold to the high­est bid­der.

The will be no finan­cial ben­e­fit to Irish con­sumers from the Cor­rib gas field.

Envi­ron­men­tal­ists have warned that the onshore sec­tion of the scheme, which includes a huge refin­ery being con­struct­ed nine kilo­me­ters inland at Bel­lan­aboy, will be expand­ed and used to process gas from oth­er fields off the west coast in the the future. They also say that Shell will use the prece­dent of an onshore refin­ery to strong arm their way into installing sim­i­lar schemes in oth­er places around the world.

The Irish gov­ern­ment, includ­ing Green Par­ty Min­is­ters of the Envi­ron­ment and Nat­ur­al Resources, has backed Shel­l’s scheme. Last month the Gar­da released fig­ures show­ing that 11 mil­lion euro had been spent polic­ing the project since 2006, more than half the amount the force spent on fight­ing organ­ised crime.

Activists on the ground in Mayo have asked for assis­tance. Those not in a posi­tion to trav­el to Mayo can hold sol­i­dar­i­ty protests (this arti­cle could be used as the basis for leaflets) at the Irish embassy or Shell petrol sta­tions. Green Par­ty politi­cians in Britain may have some influ­ence over their coun­ter­parts in the Irish Green Par­ty.

Shell can only hold onto the rent­ed Soli­taire for a lim­it­ed peri­od of time and all efforts to hin­der its progress will seri­ous­ly dam­age Shel­l’s plans. ANY dis­rup­tion pro­vides us with a real oppor­tu­ni­ty to delay the project sig­nif­i­cant­ly.

The chop­py waters of Broad­haven Bay will hope­ful­ly aid us in our actions but we need you too!

Come to Erris!

Con­tact: email rossportsolidaritycamp@gmail.com & phone 0851141170
Train + fer­ry from £21 from most cities www.stenaline.co.uk/ferry/rail-and-sail/

Or take action at home

http://www.allseas.com/uk
Allseas UK Lim­it­ed
Address: Knyvett House The Cause­way
City: Staines, Mid­dle­sex
Post­code: TW18 3BA
Tele­phone: +44 1784 898038
Fax: +44 1784 898030
(own­ers of the Soli­taire)

Irish Embassy and Shell HQ Lon­don
Shell garages across the coun­try.

For more info see indymedia.ie/mayo

Rossport latest & solidarity actions (Berlin, London

Shell to Sea activists board the Soli­taire
8.09.2008
This after­noon three Shell to Sea activists, one car­ry­ing the Tri­colour, board­ed the Soli­taire to hand deliv­er a let­ter of protest to the Cap­tain of the ship fol­low­ing his fail­ure to respond to pre­vi­ous com­mu­ni­ca­tion .

Shell to Sea activists board the Soli­taire
8.09.2008
This after­noon three Shell to Sea activists, one car­ry­ing the Tri­colour, board­ed the Soli­taire to hand deliv­er a let­ter of protest to the Cap­tain of the ship fol­low­ing his fail­ure to respond to pre­vi­ous com­mu­ni­ca­tion .

The three men were part of a crew of five Shell to Sea activists in four ves­sels (James Con­nol­ly, Jim Larkin, Bob­by Sands and Geron­i­mo), who pad­dled out to the Soli­taire in Done­gal Bay this morn­ing.

Rep­re­sent­ing the views of many from the com­mu­ni­ties affect­ed by the Cor­rib gas project, the let­ter asks the Cap­tain of the Soli­taire to recon­sid­er his, and the ship’s, par­tic­i­pa­tion in the devel­op­ment.

The Cap­tain was also invit­ed to Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty camp for din­ner to give him the oppor­tu­ni­ty to meet with the local com­mu­ni­ty affect­ed by the Cor­rib gas project and to hear their con­cerns.

Today’s board­ing is just one of many recent marine based actions car­ried out by Shell to Sea . Cam­paign­ers have vowed to pre­vent the Soli­taire from car­ry­ing out pipeline work in Broad­haven Bay.

Pro­tes­tor John O Con­nell at Killy­begs stat­ed, “Resis­tance to the Cor­rib gas project will con­tin­ue. New marine activists are join­ing us every day and if nec­es­sary we will block­ade both Killy­begs Har­bor and Broad­haven Bay to stop ves­sels involved in the work. There is no con­sent for Shell’s project and it will not be com­plet­ed.”

—-

On Sun­day 7th Sep­tem­ber, the doors of the Irish Embassy in Berlin were glued shut and graf­fi­ti was left say­ing “Shell Out of Ross­port” and “No Pipeline”. This action was tak­en in sol­i­dar­i­ty with those fight­ing the lay­ing of the pipeline in Ross­port and those fight­ing the destruc­tion of life by gov­ern­ments and cor­po­ra­tions every­where.

—-

Rythms of Resis­tance are going to play out­side the Irish embassy at 3.30 this
Wednes­day (10th) in sup­port of our friends in Mayo. If you can come along to 17 Grosvenor Place,
Lon­don, SW1X 7HR, it would be great.

Eight arrested as Shell begin winching operation in Rossport

Late Thurs­day evening, Shell To Sea flotil­la attempt­ed to block the winch boat which has just arrived at Glen­gad. 11 small craft were launched from the Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp. They strong­ly resist­ed the Gar­daí and Navy boats who attempt­ed to ram the Shell To Sea dinghies and knock the occu­pants into the sea.

Shell winch boatLate Thurs­day evening, Shell To Sea flotil­la attempt­ed to block the winch boat which has just arrived at Glen­gad. 11 small craft were launched from the Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp. They strong­ly resist­ed the Gar­daí and Navy boats who attempt­ed to ram the Shell To Sea dinghies and knock the occu­pants into the sea. The resis­tance last­ed for 2 hours and was cheered on by a huge local crowd who had gath­ered in sup­port along the cliffs and beach.

Yes­ter­day evening at Glen­gad, eight Shell to Sea pro­tes­tors were arrest­ed for oppos­ing the lat­est work being car­ried out by Shell. At approx­i­mate­ly 7pm a barge began work pulling a winch­ing cable into the land­fall area at Glen­gad. This is one of the most cru­cial stages in the off­shore pipeline that can be dis­rupt­ed.

Three squadrons of Shell to Sea ves­sels took to the water to stop the work. They were opposed by fif­teen Shell, Navy and Gar­daí boats. Despite this the winch­ing work was delayed for one and a half hours while Gar­daí and Navy per­son­nel worked with Shell secu­ri­ty in arrest­ing sev­en peo­ple from the water. Sub­se­quent­ly an eighth Shell to Sea pro­tes­tor was arrest­ed out­side the gates of the com­pound under the Pub­lic Order Act. All have been released with­out charge.

Dur­ing this action all of the S2S Fleet were rammed by Gar­da or Shell boats, with the excep­tion of the S2S safe­ty boat which was threat­ened with ram­ming by the Gar­daí boats before she with­drew. All of Shel­l’s ‘safe­ty’ boats had Gar­da per­son­nel on board and the Gar­dai, Navy and Shell worked togth­er through­out.

One of those arrest­ed Mary Camp­bell stat­ed “Despite being opposed by 9 Gar­da and Navy boats, we were still able to stop work for one and a half hours. Our com­mu­ni­ty is tak­ing on the might of both Shell and the State but the bat­tle is far from over. We will con­tin­ue to resist this project. There is no con­sent.”

The Shell to Sea ves­sels seized by the Gar­daí and Navy dur­ing the protest were The Niamh Cinn Óir, The Maedbh, The Michael Davitt, The Luke Kel­ly, The Ron­nie Drew, The Robin Hood and The Hypa­tia.

At present, the winch­ing oper­a­tion is only part com­plet­ed. It can’t be pre­dict­ed exact­ly when they will attempt to com­plete the work due to stormy weath­er con­di­tions. Gales are fore­cast for the next few days. How­ev­er, the work WILL hap­pen as soon as the weath­er is fine. There is still time to get to Mayo! Check out www.coribsos.com for more info and www.rossportsolidaritycamp.110mb.com/ for trav­el and acco­mo­da­tion info

Irish Navy flees from Shell to Sea inflatable boats

3.09.2008
Shell to Sea pro­test­ers in inflat­able Kayaks braved strong winds and rough seas whilst approach­ing the Irish Navy Gun­boat sta­tioned off the coast, to estab­lish com­mu­ni­ca­tion with it’s Cap­tain.

Approaching navy boat3.09.2008
Shell to Sea pro­test­ers in inflat­able Kayaks braved strong winds and rough seas whilst approach­ing the Irish Navy Gun­boat sta­tioned off the coast, to estab­lish com­mu­ni­ca­tion with it’s Cap­tain.

Today at 1.30pm, eight Shell to Sea pro­test­ers in sev­en inflat­able kayaks braved force 5–6 norther­ly winds and 6 foot waves, to attempt com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the Irish Gun Ship, the Le Orla.

Con­cerned by the arrival of a sec­ond Navy ves­sel into Broad­haven Bay, the Shell to Sea crew of the Gran­u­aile (part of the Emer­ald Squadron), attempt­ed to speak to the Cap­tain of the Le Orla.

Fol­low­ing the Cap­tain’s fail­ure to respond to Shell to Sea’s last attempt to estab­lish con­tact on Sat­ur­day, today’s mes­sage was relayed in both Irish and Eng­lish to ensure it would be under­stood. The Cap­tain was asked to declare the Navy’s inten­tions in the bay and why a sec­ond ship had been deployed.

No response was received, instead, the ship fired up its engines, weighed anchor and fled the area.

Maebh Hall, one of the crew in the Emer­ald Squadron, said ” I could­n’t believe it. We approached this huge mil­i­tary ship in a few inflat­able boats, and they ran scared. Its crazy here, there’s now two navy ships act­ing for Shell in our bay. Will they with­draw the army from Chad and bring them in next?”

ENDS

http://www.corribsos.com/

Direct Action Camp in the squatted forest near Frankfurt/Germany

The for­est of kel­ster­bach near the air­port of frankfurt/main is occu­pied now since three month. Fra­port (the cor­po­ra­tion run­ning frank­furt air­port) is plan­ning to build a new run­way on this place, cut­ting down every tree on 300ha of land.

Kelsterbach tripodsThe for­est of kel­ster­bach near the air­port of frankfurt/main is occu­pied now since three month. Fra­port (the cor­po­ra­tion run­ning frank­furt air­port) is plan­ning to build a new run­way on this place, cut­ting down every tree on 300ha of land. In total some­thing about 100.000 trees would have to fall for the prof­it of an enor­mous inter­na­tion­al act­ing cor­po­ra­tion. For the peo­ple of this region it will mean twice the flight move­ments per year, at least to a lev­el of one move­ment every 45 sec.

In the first week of sep­tem­ber there will be an action camp on the site of occu­pa­tion, from where we´re going to start count­less direct activ­i­ties in the forests, the streets and the ter­mi­nals.

Pro­gramme
the camp will be an DIY camp, we will pro­vide a kitchen, food and all what is nec­es­sary to cook, but we are not enough peo­ple to cook alone, so we will do this alto­geth­er. The action camp starts mon­day 1.9.08 an will end on sun­day 7.9.08.

Mon­day: 10:00–12:00 Prepa­ra­tion of for­est excur­sions
13:00–17:00 For­est excur­sions
17:00 Info meet­ing
20:30 three months of for­est occu­pa­tion, dis­cus­sion
Doc­u­men­ta­tions of the resis­tance against
Start­bahn 18 West in the 1980´s

Tues­day 10:00–12:00 action train­ing:
dif­fer­ent tech­niques and strate­gies
per­for­mance dur­ing actions
13:00–14:00 dai­ly prepa­ra­tions for actions
13:30–14:00 ev. coor­di­na­tion meet­ings
14:00–16:00 walk­a­bout in the camp
dis­cus­sion: luxus for every­body
stan­dards of live in a suit­able world
16:00–18:00 direct action plan­ing
dif­fer­ent block­ade tech­niques +
cre­ative activism
19:00–20:30 Cas­tor 2006 (Cine Rebelde)
mobi­liza­tion for Cas­tor 2008
20:30 nasty tricks of police and jus­tice

Wednes­day
10:00–12:00 hut build­ing
cli­mate pro­tec­tion and veg­an­ism
walk­a­bout in the for­est
paint bombs and cre­ative beau­ti­fi­ca­tion
13:00–14:00 dai­ly prepa­ra­tions for actions
13:30–14:00 ev. coor­di­na­tion meet­ings
14:00–16:00 direct action train­ing
lock-on´s, tri-pods, radiobal­let, …
16:00–18:00 open street map
19:00–20:30 Kli­macamp 2006 (Cine Rebelde)
20:30 con­cert (?)

Thurs­day 10:00–12:00 inten­si­fi­ca­tion of our action prepa­ra­tions
13:00–14:00 dai­ly prepa­ra­tions for actions
13:30–14:00 ev. coor­di­na­tion meet­ings
14:00–16:00 cli­mate pro­tec­tion from below
16:00–18:00 poems
mas­sage
19:00–20:30 anti-gmo field occu­pa­tions
Docu, film, dis­cus­sion
20:30 The fourth world war (big noise)

Fri­day action day meet you at the air­port
20:30 Poet­ry slam (?)
open stage
cin­e­ma

Sat­ur­day 10:00–12:00 local and inter­na­tion­al net­work­ing
ev. found­ing of a rising.tide net­work ger­many
13:00–16:00 drum ses­sion against fra­port
and train­ing at the lake
16:00–18:00 antifas­cists for­est excur­sions
19:00–20:30 Film about Julia But­ter­fly Hill
20:30 con­cert

Sun­day 10:00–12:00 Kli­macamp 2009
info about the prepa­ra­tions
found­ing of a Rhein-Main Group
13:00–15:00 Freiräume
15:00 mil­i­tant resis­tance against big play­ers
with exam­ples from Start­bahn West and Anti AKW
excur­sion to Start­bahn West
19:00–20:30 eval­u­a­tion
20:30 Par­ty

There is a for­est full of room for your work­shops, films, music and for you!

What to bring: Sleep­ing stuff
Tents
climb­ing equip­ment
and all you can´t miss in a for­est

How to find us:

by train
from frank­furt or mainz with the S‑Bahn to kel­ster­bach
out of the rail­way sta­tion you go left fol­low­ing the rüs­selsheimer straße about 2km with the rail­way on your left
at a cross­ing out of the city you go again left and pass under the rail­way, ignore the road on your right and take the next park­ing place on the right, fol­low the signs

by car
Autoroute 3 Kel­ster­bach
Kel­ster­bach Stadt­mitte
pass through town direc­tion Raun­heim
first cross­ing after you´ve left the town you go left and take the first park­ing on your rigtht
fol­low the signs

waldbesetzung@riseup.net
http://www.waldbesetzung.blogsport.de

Today’s news from Glengad, Erris, Co. Mayo

August 31, 2008
A lunchtime Gar­da vis­it to Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp & evening block­ade of Shell com­pound

Shell to Sea camp incursionAugust 31, 2008
A lunchtime Gar­da vis­it to Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp & evening block­ade of Shell com­pound

Today’s main news events from the epi­cen­tre of resis­tance against Shell — a vis­it about lunchtime from the Gar­da brass (plus lack­eys inc. rov­ing video oper­a­tor), lat­er a prac­tice run for the Shell to Sea flotil­la, fol­lowed by a block­ade of Shel­l’s Glen­gad com­pound in the evening.

Today at about 1pm a del­e­ga­tion of Gar­dai called to the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp, osten­si­bly about inform­ing campers of sec­tion 8.1 of the Pub­lic Order Act. While annoyed by their pres­ence on the camp, the Gar­dai were pre­vent­ed from snoop­ing around the mar­quees, though the use of a video cam­era by Gda. Burke (old foe) to fol­low young chil­dren around roused right­eous ire in their par­ents. Once they deliv­ered their utter­ly point­less mes­sage they were escort­ed off the site to the road and their wait­ing squad car and van.

In the late after­noon, S2S Flotil­la exer­cis­es were held off the Glen­gad com­pound and the marine protest/action squadron used the fine weath­er today to sharp­en their nau­ti­cal skills. Exer­cis­es last­ed an hour, fol­lowed by a quick show­er and off to the next S2S activ­i­ty.
Shell picket
At 6:45 pm local res­i­dents and Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Campers mount­ed a block­ade of the gates of the Shell Glen­gad com­pound. This caught the Gar­dai off bal­ance, and they deployed only in sparse num­bers, very slow­ly, and remained firm­ly ensconced in their vehi­cles. After an hour of blockad­ing, locals and campers returned to the Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp for tonight’s par­ty on the fore­shore (a cel­e­bra­tion of our mutu­al capac­i­ty for resis­tance to the cor­po­rate jug­ger­naut and a bit of R&R too!).

Still no sign of the Soli­taire. The clock is well-burnt now — she remains in Killy­begs har­bour but she’s still a loom­ing threat that must be met.

The need for peo­ple to come here and help in the strug­gle to save Erris and stop the Great Gas Rob­bery remains urgent. Come to Glen­gad if you can!

http://www.corribsos.com