Category: Climate Chaos

Wrap up of West Coast Convergence for Climate Action & actions

Between August 8th-14th, 400+ peo­ple gath­ered for the West Coast Con­ver­gence for Cli­mate Action. Par­tic­i­pants took part in near­ly 100 work­shops, as well as lots of games and per­for­mances.

US LNG bannerPacific Corp blockadeBetween August 8th-14th, 400+ peo­ple gath­ered for the West Coast Con­ver­gence for Cli­mate Action. Par­tic­i­pants took part in near­ly 100 work­shops, as well as lots of games and per­for­mances.

The event took place in Skamokawa, Wash­ing­ton in close prox­im­i­ty to a pro­posed liq­ue­fied nat­ur­al gas (LNG) import ter­mi­nal at Brad­wood, Ore­gon. The Colum­bia Riv­er divides Ore­gon and Wash­ing­ton, and par­tic­i­pants in the Con­ver­gence learned about attempts to sus­tain the local econ­o­my of the Low­er Colum­bia Riv­er while resist­ing mas­sive fos­sil fuel devel­op­ments in the area.

On Mon­day, August 13th, Con­ver­gence par­tic­i­pants were joined by dozens of local activists oppos­ing the Brad­wood LNG ter­mi­nal. The group gath­ered on the Wash­ing­ton shore of the Colum­bia Riv­er, where hun­dreds of peo­ple live in close prox­im­i­ty to the Brad­wood LNG pro­pos­al. Using fish­ing boats, sail­boats, kayaks, and an umi­ak, par­tic­i­pants in the action crossed the Colum­bia Riv­er and occu­pied the beach at Brad­wood where North­ern­Star Nat­ur­al Gas intends to con­struct a large LNG ter­mi­nal.

On Tues­day, August 14th activists locked down in front of the Paci­fi­Corp (aka Pacif­ic Pow­er) build­ing in Port­land, Ore­gon to demand that the com­pa­ny shut down the four dams it oper­ates on the Kla­math riv­er and stop devel­op­ing coal fire pow­er plants. The pro­test­ers were joined by a ral­ly of sev­er­al dozen sup­port­ers, many of whom wore haz­mat suits paint­ed with fake blood to draw atten­tion to the poi­so­nous con­di­tions on the Kla­math Riv­er.

No one was arrest­ed at either action; it was gen­er­al­ly con­clud­ed that the com­pa­nies tar­get­ed want­ed to avoid draw­ing the addi­tion­al media atten­tion that arrests would bring.

Monday’s action also fea­tured a ban­ner hang hung on a cliff adja­cent to the Brad­wood site, show­ing a tar­get sym­bol and the words “Anoth­er LNG Dis­as­ter — What’s Your Num­ber?” The “num­ber” refers to recent­ly released clasi­fied pic­tures obtained anony­mous­ly show­ing that North­ern­Star, devel­op­er of the LNG ter­mi­nal, has num­bered every struc­ture with­in two miles. Local LNG oppo­nents first exposed this dis­turb­ing map­ping project dur­ing Clat­sop Coun­ty land use hear­ings, with one res­i­dent ask­ing, “If we’re not going to be impact­ed at all, then why is there a num­ber on my roof in this pic­ture?”

The glob­al impacts of the LNG indus­try were also a focus of the Cli­mate Con­ver­gence, where par­tic­i­pants learned that LNG is up to 40 per­cent more car­bon inten­sive than nat­ur­al gas due to its long sup­ply chain (LNG must be extract­ed as nat­ur­al gas, liq­ue­fied, shipped huge dis­tances, and ulti­mate­ly re-gasi­fied). Recent stud­ies show that LNG is com­pa­ra­ble to gasi­fied coal (aka “Clean Coal,” a true oxy­moron — see post about SE Con­ver­gence!) in its car­bon impacts. Fur­ther­more, local LNG oppo­nents shared what they had learned about the glob­al LNG indus­try, hav­ing com­mu­ni­cat­ed with oppo­nents of LNG pro­duc­ing facil­i­ties in Indone­sia and Rus­sia. In these places, the severe eco­nom­ic, envi­ron­men­tal and human rights impacts of LNG devel­op­ment are mul­ti­plied many times over in com­par­i­son to the expe­ri­ence of rur­al Ore­gon and Wash­ing­ton.

Beyond cli­mate change issues, the West Coast Con­ver­gence used the car­bon trail of var­i­ous ener­gy sources to put the envi­ron­men­tal, human rights, and labor prac­tices of the fos­sil fuel indus­try on dis­play. Speak­ers addressed a huge vari­ety of issues per­tain­ing to coal, nat­ur­al gas, and hydropow­er issues while oth­ers used the event to demon­strate skills and sus­tain­abil­i­ty prac­tices that can pre­clude the need for destruc­tive fos­sil fuels and hydropow­er.

The Con­ver­gence was met with strong local sup­port — near­ly 100 peo­ple from the sur­round­ing rur­al coun­ties in Ore­gon and Wash­ing­ton par­tic­i­pat­ed — and impor­tant exchanges between those fight­ing fos­sil fuel devel­op­ment on local, region­al and glob­al scales. Par­tic­i­pants came from as far south as South­ern Cal­i­for­nia and as far north as Alber­ta and Van­cou­ver Island.

Southeast Convergence for Climate Action shuts down Bank of America

August 13, 2007

***5 arrest­ed protest­ing Bank of America’s invest­ments in coal and cli­mate change***

As a cul­mi­na­tion of the South­east Con­ver­gence for Cli­mate Action, activists took a bold direct action against Bank of Amer­i­ca over con­cerns regard­ing their invest­ment through­out the coal cycle and their pro­mo­tion of cli­mate injus­tice. Although there was much spec­u­la­tion regard­ing a protest action at the Progress Ener­gy Sky­land coal-fired pow­er plant, pro­tes­tors sur­prised the down­town office of Bank of Amer­i­ca.

Bank of America climate placard
Bank of America cops
Climate Justice Now banner
August 13, 2007

***5 arrest­ed protest­ing Bank of America’s invest­ments in coal and cli­mate change***

As a cul­mi­na­tion of the South­east Con­ver­gence for Cli­mate Action, activists took a bold direct action against Bank of Amer­i­ca over con­cerns regard­ing their invest­ment through­out the coal cycle and their pro­mo­tion of cli­mate injus­tice. Although there was much spec­u­la­tion regard­ing a protest action at the Progress Ener­gy Sky­land coal-fired pow­er plant, pro­tes­tors sur­prised the down­town office of Bank of Amer­i­ca.

Two activists locked down inside the main lob­by and oth­er activists block­ad­ed the entrance to the down­town branch of Bank of Amer­i­ca. The protest includ­ed a large, live­ly group of con­cerned cit­i­zens dressed as canaries and polar bears. Activists car­ried signs and ban­ners that read: “Bank of Amer­i­ca Stop Fund­ing Cli­mate Change,” “Bank of Amer­i­ca Stop Moun­tain­top Removal,” “No Coal, No Nukes, No Kid­ding” “Bank of Amer­i­ca Cli­mate Crim­i­nal.”

Bank of Amer­i­ca has lent hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars to com­pa­nies that run and are plan­ning to build new pow­er plants, such as Flori­da Pow­er and Light. Between 2005 and 2007, Bank of Amer­i­ca facil­i­tat­ed near­ly $1 bil­lion in loans to Massey Ener­gy and Arch Coal, two of the largest com­pa­nies respon­si­ble for the destruc­tive prac­tice of moun­tain­top removal coal min­ing. This form of min­ing lit­er­al­ly blasts the tops off of moun­tains to get at thin seems of coal that lay beneath. Moun­tain­top removal coal min­ing has per­ma­nent­ly destroyed over 500 square miles of moun­tains and buried over 1,200 miles of streams in West Vir­ginia alone.

As of 2005, Progress Energy’s Sky­land was the fifth largest pur­chas­er of Massey Energy’s coal. Progress Energy’s Sky­land plant is a pur­chas­er and burn­er of moun­tain­top removal coal as well as the largest point source of pol­lu­tion in Bun­combe Coun­ty.

Locked down

The South­east Con­ver­gence for Cli­mate Action aimed to pro­mote a just, rapid, nuclear-free tran­si­tion away from fos­sil fuels; to pro­mote envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice by sup­port­ing com­mu­ni­ties that are fight­ing dirty ener­gy devel­op­ments in their back­yards; and to encour­age direct actions as a means for chal­leng­ing cor­po­rate pow­er and empow­er­ing move­ments to stop cli­mate change.

“I attend­ed the con­ver­gence to build my skills for orga­niz­ing and tak­ing action on cli­mate change,” said Joey Lit­tle­ton, a con­ver­gence par­tic­i­pant. “This is a great place to network–there are activists from all over the south­east region with a wide breadth of expe­ri­ence on envi­ron­ment and social jus­tice issues. I enjoyed the strat­e­gy ses­sions; I came here to get involved with the move­ment to stop cli­mate change.”

The South­east Con­ver­gence for Cli­mate Action is hap­pen­ing simul­ta­ne­ous­ly with a Cli­mate Con­ver­gence on the west coast focused on fight­ing liq­ue­fied nat­ur­al gas ter­mi­nals, and in con­junc­tion with the UK Camp for Cli­mate Action tak­ing place at London’s Heathrow air­port.

“Glob­al­ly and local­ly, change will come from com­mu­ni­ties, not from benign politi­cians and cor­po­ra­tions who hope to prof­it off the cli­mate cri­sis with feel-good ‘solu­tions’ that do noth­ing to chal­lenge a fun­da­men­tal­ly unjust and unsus­tain­able sys­tem,” said Mary Olson, direc­tor of the South­east office of Nuclear Infor­ma­tion and Resource Ser­vice and co-orga­niz­er of the con­ver­gence.

Today a mas­sive police oper­a­tion was deployed in Bun­combe, Hen­der­son, and Tran­syl­va­nia Coun­ties to pre­vent activists from protest­ing a dirty pow­er plant respon­si­ble for cli­mate change. Dozens of uni­formed and under­cov­er cops sur­round­ed the site of the South­east Con­ver­gence for Cli­mate Action as a police heli­copter hov­ered over the site.

In addi­tion, dozens more police were deployed at Progress Energy’s Sky­land coal pow­er plant to pre­vent legit­i­mate protest against dirty ener­gy and cli­mate change. “This shows which side of the cli­mate debate the gov­ern­ment is on. They have spent tens of thou­sands of dol­lars to pro­tect the coal indus­try today. Clear­ly if the gov­ern­ment want­ed to address cli­mate change, they would be send­ing the police in to arrest the heads of Progress Ener­gy for per­pet­u­at­ing the great­est threat human­i­ty has ever faced — cli­mate change,” an anony­mous polar bear said.###

CORRECTION

We would like to clar­i­fy state­ments that were made about the Asheville Police Depart­ment (APD) using taz­ers against par­tic­i­pants in the action against cli­mate change and moun­tain­top removal at Bank of Amer­i­ca yes­ter­day.

The Cli­mate Con­ver­gence sent out a press release say­ing that peo­ple locked down inside the bank were sub­ject to elec­tro­cu­tion shocks from taz­ers, based on the accounts of wit­ness­es inside the bank. Now that the pro­tes­tors are out of jail, we have learned that this was an inac­cu­rate con­clu­sion based on rea­son­able sus­pi­cion. One pro­test­er was heard scream­ing while pinned down by large group of offi­cers and sub­ject­ed to excru­ci­at­ing pain com­pli­ance holds right after the police were heard yelling back and forth to each ask­ing “Who has a taz­er? Get a taz­er!” Many of the offi­cers on the scene were equipped with elec­tro­cu­tion devis­es, along with rub­ber bul­lets, chem­i­cal weapons, dogs, and train­ing in tor­ture tech­niques. In addi­tion, a cer­ti­fied Emer­gency Med­ical Tech­ni­cian (EMT) who attempt­ed to check on the safe­ty of the pro­test­ers after hear­ing shouts from offi­cers about taz­ers was not allowed to do so.

The APD has a his­to­ry of using taz­ers, wide­ly rec­og­nized as a form of tor­ture and the cause of sev­er­al deaths around the coun­try, on non­vi­o­lent pro­test­ers. In light of increased use of para­mil­i­tary tac­tics by local police forces in civil­ian sit­u­a­tions, such con­clu­sions are to be expect­ed. We report­ed infor­ma­tion we thought to be accu­rate at the time; in light of new infor­ma­tion, we apol­o­gize for any inac­cu­ra­cies we report­ed.

In Defense of a Liv­ing Plan­et,

###
Addi­tion­al­ly, the South­east Con­ver­gence for Cli­mate Action made the fol­low­ing state­ment:

List of Demands

Rec­og­niz­ing that cli­mate change is already here, we hold cor­po­ra­tions and gov­ern­ments account­able for the effects on com­mu­ni­ties, peo­ple and the liv­ing earth. There­fore, we demand:

1. That Bank of Amer­i­ca com­plete­ly divest from the coal indus­try and oth­er dirty, cli­mate-chang­ing ener­gy com­pa­nies.
2. A 90% reduc­tion of green­house gas emis­sions by 2050.
3. An imme­di­ate halt to any plans for new nuclear and coal pow­er plants and a com­plete redi­rec­tion of research and devel­op­ment mon­ey toward con­ser­va­tion, effi­cien­cy and clean, renew­able ener­gy projects.
4. An imme­di­ate end to moun­tain­top removal coal min­ing and oth­er forms of strip min­ing.
5. A just, rapid tran­si­tion away from fos­sil fuels and nuclear pow­er by 2020.
6. A shift to com­mu­ni­ty con­trolled, small-scale sys­tems of ener­gy pro­duc­tion, trans­porta­tion, and food pro­duc­tion and dis­tri­b­u­tion.
7. An end to the pri­va­ti­za­tion of the atmos­phere through mar­ket-based mech­a­nisms such as car­bon trad­ing.
8. Cli­mate Jus­tice Now!

From: The South­east Con­ver­gence for Cli­mate Action — http://www.climateconvergence.org/southeast/

Spirit of Freedom (August 2007) — Produced by EARTH LIBERATION PRISONERS SUPPORT NETWORK

“The whole expe­ri­ence has been tough, but all the kind and strength­en­ing words and wise thoughts from strangers made it much eas­i­er!” (For­mer Swedish Ani­mal Rights Pris­on­er)

“The whole expe­ri­ence has been tough, but all the kind and strength­en­ing words and wise thoughts from strangers made it much eas­i­er!” (For­mer Swedish Ani­mal Rights Pris­on­er)

Wel­come to the August 2007 edi­tion of Spir­it of Free­dom. Reg­u­lar read­ers of Spir­it of Free­dom will notice that this issue of the newslet­ter is slight­ly dif­fer­ent to pre­vi­ous issues. As long-term ELP sup­port­ers will be aware, back in 2000, after the arrests & remand­ings of a group of Irish anti-road pro­test­ers ELP launched its e‑mail “Urgent ELP!” ser­vice. Over the years this ser­vice has proven very pop­u­lar with most of our sup­port­ers now receiv­ing their news via e‑mail with very few peo­ple receiv­ing the newslet­ter in its paper ver­sion. With that in mind, ELP has decid­ed to end its paper ver­sion of its newslet­ter. And because most of the “Court Reports & Legal Updates” news con­tained in Spir­it of Free­dom has already been cir­cu­lat­ed via e‑mail we are drop­ping this from our newslet­ter and from now on “Spir­it of Free­dom” will sole­ly be a pris­on­er list­ing pub­li­ca­tion. How­ev­er, to remind every­one of all the pris­on­ers we do sup­port we will be cir­cu­lat­ing the “Spir­it of Free­dom” pris­on­er list­ing on a month­ly basis, to give every­one a reg­u­lar reminder of all the pris­on­ers we sup­port. Whilst look­ing through the list, if you notice an error, please con­tact ELP and we will cor­rect it imme­di­ate­ly. In the mean­time, remem­ber, no mat­ter where you are in the world, sup­port the eco-pris­on­ers and no com­pro­mise in defence of Moth­er Earth!

ECO-DEFENCE PRISONERS

Fadal­la Idris Ala­jaimy (address unknown). Sudan anti-dam pro­test­er on remand accused of Wag­ing War against the State for protest­ing against the con­struc­tion of a dam.

Mohamed Ahmed Ala­jaimy (address unknown). Sudan anti-dam pro­test­er on remand accused of Wag­ing War against the State for protest­ing against the con­struc­tion of a dam.

Tre Arrow, CS# 05850722, Van­cou­ver Island Region­al Cor­rec­tion Cen­ter, 4216 Wilkin­son Rd., Vic­to­ria, BC, V8Z 5B2, Cana­da. On remand accused of involve­ment with an arson on log­ging trucks and an arson on vehi­cles owned by a sand & grav­el com­pa­ny. Both arsons occurred in the USA. Tre is fight­ing his extra­di­tion to the USA.

Grant Barnes #1533241 22, Den­ver Coun­ty Jail, PO Box 1108, Den­ver, CO 80201, USA. Serv­ing 12 years for set­ting fire to a num­ber of SUV vehi­cles. On one of the vehi­cles the let­ters ELF was spray-paint­ed.

Nathan Block, #36359–086, FCI Lom­poc, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, 3600 Guard Road, Lom­poc, CA 93436, USA. Serv­ing 7 years & 8 months for an ELF arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against an SUV deal­er­ship. Also admit­ted his role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy.

Mar­co Camenisch, Post­fach 3143, CH-8105 Regens­dorf, Switzer­land. Serv­ing 18 years. 1) Ten years for using explo­sives to destroy elec­tric­i­ty pylons lead­ing from nuclear pow­er sta­tions. 2) Eight years for the mur­der of a Swiss Board­er Guard whilst on the run. In ‘02 Mar­co com­plet­ed a 12-year sen­tence in Italy for destroy­ing elec­tric­i­ty pylons in Italy.

Ibai Eder­ra, Car­cel de Pam­plona, C/San Roque. Apdo. 250, 31080 — Iruñez –Pam­plona, Navar­ra (España), Spain. Serv­ing just under 5 years for sab­o­tag­ing machin­ery at the con­tro­ver­sial Itoiz dam con­struc­tion site.

Bet­ty Kraw­czyk, Alou­ette Cor­rec­tion­al Cen­tre for Women, P.O. Box 1000, Maple Ridge, BC, V2X 3K4, Cana­da. Serv­ing 10-months for protest­ing against the devel­op­ment of the Win­ter Olympics site on tra­di­tion­al Squamish ter­ri­to­ry

Jef­frey Luers, #13797671, OSP, 2605 State St. Salem, OR 97310, USA. Serv­ing 22 years & 8 months for arson on a SUV deal­er­ship & the attempt­ed arson of an oil truck.

Ali Mohamed Alhas­sen Mas­sad (address unknown). Sudan anti-dam pro­test­er on remand accused of Wag­ing War against the State for protest­ing against the con­struc­tion of a dam.

Eric McDavid X‑2972521 4E 231A, Sacra­men­to Coun­ty Main Jail, 651 “I” Street, Sacra­men­to, CA 95814, USA. On Remand accused of plan­ning to destroy the prop­er­ty of the U.S. Forestry Ser­vice, mobile phone masts and pow­er plants.

Daniel McGowan, #63794–053, MDC Brook­lyn Met­ro­pol­i­tan Deten­tion Cen­ter, PO Box 329002, Brook­lyn, NY 11232, USA. Serv­ing 7 years for an ELF arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against a lum­ber com­pa­ny. Also admit­ted his role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy.

Jonathan Paul – See details in Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers List.

Costan­ti­no Ragusa, Casa Cir­con­dar­i­ale, Via Prati Nuovi 7, 27058 Voghera (PV), Italy. Il Sil­vestre activist serv­ing 2½ years. 1) 18-months for bur­gling and fire­bomb­ing a multi­na­tion­al com­pa­ny. 2) 12-months for organ­is­ing an anti-GM protest. Costani­no is also await­ing tri­al accused of using explo­sives to dam­age an elec­tric­i­ty pylon in protest at nuclear ener­gy.

Joy­an­na Zach­er, #0707300576, San Bernardi­no CDC, 630 E. Rial­to Ave., San Bernardi­no, CA 92415, USA. Serv­ing 7 years & 8 months for an ELF arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against an SUV deal­er­ship. Also admit­ted her role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy.

ANIMAL LIBERATION PRISONERS

Jon Able­white TB4885, HMP Lowd­ham Grange, Lowd­ham, Not­ting­ham, NG14 7DA, Eng­land. Serv­ing 12 years for attempt­ing to black­mail a farmer who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion.

Gregg Avery TA7450, HMP Win­ches­ter, Rom­sey Road, Win­ches­ter SO22 5DF, Eng­land. On remand accused of con­spir­a­cy to black­mail, in rela­tion to his involve­ment with the SHAC cam­paign.

Natasha Avery NR8987, HMP Bronze­field, Woodthor­pe Road, Ash­ford, Mid­dx. TW15 3JZ, Eng­land. Jailed for breach­ing her parole con­di­tions imposed on her for telling a fox hunt­ing mur­der­ing scum what she thought of them. Also await­ing tri­al accused of con­spir­a­cy to black­mail, in rela­tion to her involve­ment with the SHAC cam­paign.

Nathan Block – See details in Eco Defence Pris­on­ers List.

Jacob Con­roy #93501–011, FCI Vic­torville Medi­um I Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, P.O. Box 5300, Ade­lan­to, CA 92301, USA. Serv­ing 48 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign.

Don­ald Cur­rie TN4593, HMP White­moor, Longhill Road, March, Cambs, PE15 OPR, Eng­land. Serv­ing an Inde­ter­mi­nate Sen­tence, of not less than six actu­al years, for car­ry­ing out arsons against tar­gets asso­ci­at­ed the vivi­sec­tion indus­try includ­ing HLS.

Dar­ius Fullmer #26397–050, FCI Fort Dix Satel­lite Camp, P.O. Box 1000, Fort Dix, NJ 08640 USA. Serv­ing 12 months for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign.

Lau­ren Gaz­zo­la #93497–011, FCI Dan­bury, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, Route #37Danbury, CT 06811, USA. Serv­ing 54 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign.

Sarah Gis­borne, LT5393, HMP Cookham Wood, Rochester, Kent, ME1 3LU, Eng­land. Serv­ing 5½ years for con­spir­a­cy to cause crim­i­nal dam­age fol­low­ing the dam­ag­ing of 8 vehi­cles owned by peo­ple linked to Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ence.

Joshua Harp­er #29429–086, FCI Sheri­dan Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, P.O. Box 5000, Sheri­dan, OR 97378 USA. Serv­ing 36 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign.

Joseph Har­ris TN5728, HMP Bulling­don, Patrick Haugh Road, Arn­cott, Nr. Bices­ter, Oxon, OX25 1WD, Eng­land. Serv­ing 2 years for dam­ag­ing the prop­er­ty of peo­ple asso­ci­at­ed with Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences.

Kevin Kjon­aas #93502–011, FCI Sand­stone, PO Box 1000, Sand­stone, MN 55072 USA. Serv­ing 72 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign.

Josephine Mayo PR6508, HMP Drake Hall, Eccle­shall, Staffs, ST21 6LQ, Eng­land. Serv­ing 4 years for attempt­ing to black­mail a farmer who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion.

Daniel McGowan – See details in Eco Defence Pris­on­ers List.

Heather Nichol­son VM4859, HMP Bronze­field, Woodthor­pe Road, Ash­ford, Mid­dx. TW15 3JZ, Eng­land. On remand accused of con­spir­a­cy to black­mail, in rela­tion to her involve­ment with the SHAC cam­paign.

Jonathan Paul, c/o Friends of Jonathan Paul, PMB 267, 2305 Ash­land St., Ste. C, Ash­land, OR 97520, USA. Sen­tenced to 51 months for an ALF arson on a horse meat plant. Also admit­ted his role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy.

John Smith TB4887, HMP Lowd­ham Grange, Lowd­ham, Not­ting­ham, NG14 7DA, Eng­land. Serv­ing 12 years for attempt­ing to black­mail a farmer who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion.

Andrew Stepan­ian #26399–050, FCI But­ner Medi­um II Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, PO Box 1500, But­ner, NC 27509 USA. Serv­ing 36 months for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign.

Mark Tay­lor TT6636, HMP YOI Onley, Rug­by, Wark­wick­shire, CV23 8AP, Eng­land. Serv­ing four years for organ­is­ing loud demon­stra­tions out­side the offices of com­pa­nies with links to HLS.

Suzanne Tay­lor, TM7154, HMP Fos­ton Hall, Fos­ton, Der­by, Der­byshire, DE65 5DN, Eng­land. Serv­ing two and a half years for help­ing organ­ise loud demon­stra­tions out­side the offices of com­pa­nies with links to HLS.

Ker­ry Whit­burn TB4886, HMP Lowd­ham Grange, Lowd­ham, Not­ting­ham, NG14 7DA, Eng­land. Serv­ing 12 years for attempt­ing to black­mail a farmer who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion.

Joy­an­na Zach­er – See details in Eco Defence Pris­on­ers List.

PLOUGHSHARES PRISONERS

Helen Wood­son, 03231–045, FMC Car­swell — Admin. Max. Unit, POB 27137, Ft. Worth, TX 76127, USA. Serv­ing 8 years 10 months for actions that focused on the inter­re­la­tion­ship of war & the destruc­tion of the nat­ur­al world. The actions includ­ed pour­ing red paint over the secu­ri­ty desk of a fed­er­al court and mak­ing threat­en­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tions. Pre­vi­ous­ly Helen had served 20½ years for: 1) Using a ham­mer to dis­arm a nuclear mis­sile silo. 2) Burn­ing $25,000 on the floor of a bank whilst denounc­ing war, envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion & eco­nom­ic injus­tice. 3) Mail­ing warn­ing let­ters with bul­lets attached to Gov­ern­ment & cor­po­rate offi­cials.

OTHER ANTI-WAR PRISONERS

Bren­dan Walsh 12473–052, FCI/FSL Elk­ton, PO Box 10, Lis­bon, OH 44432 USA. Serv­ing 5 years for an arson on an army recruit­ment office in protest at the War on Iraq.

THE LECCE FIVE
The Lec­ce Five have been charged with “sub­ver­sive asso­ci­a­tion” accused of dam­ag­ing Esso petrol pumps to oppose the War on Iraq; sab­o­tag­ing the cash machines of a bank which funds an immi­gra­tion cen­tre; and tar­get­ing the multi­na­tion­al com­pa­ny Benet­ton in sup­port of Mapuche land rights activists in Chile. All of the defen­dants are cur­rent­ly either under house arrest or released on bail.

ANTIFA PRISONERS

Lasan­dra Bur­well W063658, Ohio Refor­ma­to­ry for Women, 1479 Collins Ave. Marysville, OH 43040, USA. Serv­ing 5 years for tak­ing part in an anti-fas­cist demon­stra­tion which turned into a riot.

Vah­tang Devitlidze, ul. Libbedo­va 42, UO 68/2, otryad 14, briga­da 142, g. Hagyshen­sk, Krasnodarskiy Kray, 352680 Rus­sia. Serv­ing 2½ years for stab­bing a neo-nazi in the leg whilst defend­ing him­self from attack.

Augustin Kraus, Vazeb­ni veznice, PP‑1, Lit­o­merice, 41 201, Czech Repub­lic. Serv­ing 14 months for his par­tic­i­pa­tion in attacks against local neo-nazis. His charge was “bod­i­ly harm”. He speaks Czech, Slo­vak and Pol­ish. You can also write him short post­cards in Eng­lish.

Chris­t­ian Süm­mer­mann, BNR: 727/07/7, JVA Tegel, Sei­del­str. 39, 13507 Berlin, Ger­many. Serv­ing 40 months for breach­ing the peace whilst serv­ing a sus­pend­ed sen­tence issued for anti-fas­cist activ­i­ties.

Tomasz Wiloszews­ki, Zak­lad Karny, Orze­chowa 5, 98–200 Sier­adz, Poland. Serv­ing 15 years for acci­den­tal­ly killing a neo-nazi whilst defend­ing him­self.

OTHER PRISONERS

Oscar San­ta Maria Caro, CERESO, Miahu­at­lan de Por­firio Diaz, Oax­a­ca en Hall B, Cell 5., Mex­i­co. On remand. The exact charges against Oscar are unknown but Oscar is a mem­ber of RATA, a known ani­mal rights group.

Sacra­men­to Delfi­no Cano Her­nan­dez, CERESO, Miahu­at­lan de Por­firio Diaz, Oax­a­ca en Hall B, Cell 5., Mex­i­co. On remand. Co-defen­dant of Oscar San­ta Maria Caro.

Olga Alek­san­drov­na Nevskaya, UU163/5, 7 Otryad, pos. Dzerzhin­skiy, Mozhaysk 140090 Moskovskaya oblast, Rus­sia. Eco-activist serv­ing 6 years for arson, crim­i­nal dam­age and caus­ing explo­sions in protest at the war in Chech­nya.
Due for release in 2009.

Fran Thomp­son, #1090915 HU 1C, WERDCC, PO Box 300, Van­dalia, MO 63382, USA. Serv­ing Life for killing, in self-defence, a stalk­er who had bro­ken into her home. Before her impris­on­ment Fran was an eco, ani­mal & anti-nuke cam­paign­er.

MOVE
MOVE is an eco-rev­o­lu­tion­ary group who car­ried out protests in defence of all life. There are cur­rent­ly eight MOVE activists in prison each serv­ing 100 years after been framed for the mur­der of a cop in 1979. 9th defen­dant, Mer­le Africa, died in prison in 1998.

Deb­bie Simms Africa (006307), Janet Hol­loway Africa (006308) and Janine Philips Africa (006309) all at: SCI Cam­bridge Springs, 451 Fuller­ton Ave, Cam­bridge Springs, PA 16403–1238, USA.

Michael Davis Africa (AM4973) and Charles Simms Africa (AM4975) both at SCI Grate­ford, PO Box 244, Grate­ford, PA 19426–0244, USA.

Edward Good­man Africa (AM4974), 301 Morea Rd, Frackville, PA 17932, USA. William Philips Africa (AM4984) and Del­bert Orr Africa (AM4985) both at SCI Dal­las Draw­er K, Dal­las, PA 18612, USA.

Mumia Abu Jamal, (AM8335), SCI Greene, 175 Progress Dri­ve, Way­nes­burg PA 15370, USA. In 1981 Mumia, for­mer Black Pan­ther and vocal sup­port­er of MOVE, was framed for the mur­der of a cop. He was orig­i­nal­ly sen­tenced to death but is cur­rent­ly await­ing re-sen­tenc­ing fol­low­ing a court hear­ing in 2001.

STATEMENT ON VIOLENCE
Some peo­ple list­ed in this newslet­ter have car­ried out vio­lent actions. ‘Spir­it of Free­dom’ does not con­done vio­lence. But we are also against cen­sor­ship & believe peo­ple can decide for them­selves who they wish to sup­port.

ABOUT E.L.P. SUPPORT NETWORK
ELP is an inter­na­tion­al eco-pris­on­er sup­port net­work found­ed, in Britain, in 1993 to sup­port jailed eco-activists. We sup­port the pris­on­ers by pro­duc­ing var­i­ous reg­u­lar pris­on­er lists:

Spir­it of Free­dom is ELP’s inter­na­tion­al month­ly pris­on­er list­ing which is cir­cu­lat­ed by e‑mail.

Urgent ELP! Bul­letin is an e‑mail ser­vice that dis­trib­utes the names of any new eco-pris­on­er as soon as ELP gets their details. For more info e‑mail ELP4321@hotmail.com

On-Line Newslet­ters – ELP has a num­ber of web­sites that pro­vide news, pris­on­er lists and addi­tion­al info about ELP & the pris­on­ers.

Eng­lish lan­guage ELP Web­site
www.spiritoffreedom.org.uk

North Amer­i­can ELP Web­site
www.ecoprisoners.org

Turk­ish lan­guage ELP Web­site
www.geocities.com/yesilanarsi/elp.htm

ELP Extra is an e‑mail group that cir­cu­lates the details of polit­i­cal pris­on­ers, ELP learns about, who do not fall with­in the remit for sup­port by ELP. To sub­scribe to the list e‑mail ELP4321@Hotmail.com

Bel­gium ELP.SN is our Bel­gium con­tact. For more info e‑mail elp_bel@hotmail.com

Ger­man ELP.SN is a pris­on­er led ini­tia­tive run by eco-pris­on­er Mar­co Camenisch. For more info con­tact Mar­co Camenisch, Post­fach 3143, CH-8105 Regens­dorf, Switzer­land.

North Amer­i­can ELP is our North Amer­i­can con­tact. For more infor­ma­tion e‑mail naelpsn@mutualaid.org

Turkey ELP.SN is our Turk­ish con­tact. For more info e‑mail yesilanarsi@yahoo.com

North Amer­i­can ELP Pris­on­er Fund. The North Amer­i­can ELP group has set up a fund where peo­ple can pay mon­ey, for North Amer­i­can Eco-Defence and Ani­mal Rights pris­on­ers, which will then be dis­trib­uted to the North Amer­i­can pris­on­ers. For infor­ma­tion about the Fund and how to make a dona­tion please con­tact naelpsn@mutualaid.org

DEDICATION
This Edi­tion of Spir­it of Free­dom is ded­i­cat­ed to Bill ‘Aval­on’ Rodgers, the Amer­i­can ‘Ore­gon Defen­dant’ who end­ed his own life in Decem­ber 2005 whilst on Remand.

Climate Camp Land Occupied & directions

11.08.2007

Cli­mate Camp activists met at a half dozen loca­tions around Lon­don this after­noon, mov­ing dur­ing the evening in vans to var­i­ous sites near Heathrow.

Just after eleven the groups con­verged on a large field oppo­site the air­port. With­in minute tripods were erect­ed and occu­pied with a large ban­ner read­ing “Cli­mate Camp, No Air­port Expan­sion” slung between the two.

climate camp 07 set-up marqueeclimate camp 07 set-up FITclimate camp 07 set-up marqueeclimate camp 07 busy setting-upclimate camp 07 set-up right by terminal11.08.2007

Cli­mate Camp activists met at a half dozen loca­tions around Lon­don this after­noon, mov­ing dur­ing the evening in vans to var­i­ous sites near Heathrow.

Just after eleven the groups con­verged on a large field oppo­site the air­port. With­in minute tripods were erect­ed and occu­pied with a large ban­ner read­ing “Cli­mate Camp, No Air­port Expan­sion” slung between the two.

By 11.30 a hun­dred or so peo­ple were on the Sip­son Lane site
( http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=sipson&ie=UTF‑8&oe=UTF‑8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox‑a&um=1&sa=N&tab=wl) , half way between Sip­son and Har­ling­ton vil­lages. Vans were being quick­ly unloaded, tape was mark­ing out the bar­rios and tents were being erect­ed. Despite the pitch dark­ness kitchens were being organ­ised and a vil­lage began to take place.

Mid­night saw the arrival of the first police — does over­time kick in at a high­er rate after the witch­ing hour? Five vans lined up out­side the west gate, a cou­ple more out­side the east gate and sev­er­al saloons denot­ing the pres­ence of senior offi­cers.

A pha­lanx of cops poured on to the site and demand­ed to speak to the lead­ers. A quick call out for peo­ple to the main gate seemed to over­whelm them and they beat a hasty retreat back to the vans, a fair­ly low grade FIT team video­ing and stum­bling over the brack­en as it went.

The mood on the site is one of great ela­tion. After months of plan­ning and antic­i­pa­tion the day has final­ly arrived and the site is tak­en.

==========

The Cli­mate Camp site has been suc­cess­ful­ly tak­en!

We now need lots of peo­ple to come down and get every­thing set up.

We are on Sip­son Lane, between the vil­lages of Sip­son and Har­ling­ton, North of Heathrow.

By pub­lic trans­port:

Train from Padding­ton to ‘Hayes and Har­ling­ton’ sta­tion.

From there bus 90, 140 or H98 head­ing South. Get off at the cor­ner of Har­ling­ton High Street and walk West along Sip­son Lane about 600 metres.

OR

About a 2 mile walk — south into Har­ling­ton vil­lage then as above.

OR

Go one sta­tion fur­ther on to West Dray­ton and take the 222 bus to the West­ern (Sip­son) end of Sip­son Lane.

Loca­tion Map

Staines is quite far away — if you want to make your own way to the site don’t go to Staines!

But what we do know is that if is that if you get your­self to Staines rail­way sta­tion in West Lon­don by 10am on Tues­day 14th August, you will be greet­ed by our friend­ly wel­come team and prompt­ly trans­port­ed via a mag­i­cal mys­tery tour, to the camp! Staines rail­way sta­tion is very small so the Wel­come Desk and pick­up bus­es will be run­ning from Spelthorne Leisure Cen­tre, 5 min­utes walk from the station.(There will also be lifts to the camp lat­er in the day and through­out the week).

If you get lost try­ing to find the sta­tion or any oth­er enquiries then call 0207 3779088 . There will be some­one man­ning the phone at the Lon­don Action Resource Cen­tre 10am to 6pm from 2nd August who will be able to help you.
There will prob­a­bly be police­man film­ing you at the sta­tion and else­where. Do not be intim­i­dat­ed

===

The police are very pissed off that they did­n’t find the site for around 2 hours despite being very near­by. They’re demand­ing to search every­thing enter­ing the site and even copy­ing every piece of avail­able infor­ma­tion from mobile phones, such as ser­i­al num­bers and phone num­bers stored in the address book. No news on the arrestee oth­er than that its a ‘known activist’ who the police decid­ed would make a nice token ges­ture of force. Any­one want­i­ng to get down to work on the site is very much wel­come to get down and get work­ing.

Remem­ber your legal rights & the fun I Spy card (links above & from main arti­cle

2nd Arrest

Some­one has been nicked for walk­ing on the road. Legal observers were present. Search­es becom­ing a lit­tle less thor­ough, though even the back route into the site is being heav­i­ly policed.

next Manchester critical mass 31st august

next crit­i­cal mass is on fri­day 31st august (thats the week­end AFTER bank hol­i­day) meet as usu­al at 6pm out­side cen­tral library.

The ride will fin­ish at the con­tact the­atre where the all new, all female, all bike lov­ing, bicy­cle dance troupe THE SPOKES will per­form their new rou­tine for the first time in pub­lic EVER!!!

next crit­i­cal mass is on fri­day 31st august (thats the week­end AFTER bank hol­i­day) meet as usu­al at 6pm out­side cen­tral library.

The ride will fin­ish at the con­tact the­atre where the all new, all female, all bike lov­ing, bicy­cle dance troupe THE SPOKES will per­form their new rou­tine for the first time in pub­lic EVER!!!
http://www.myspace.com/thespokesmcr

To get in the Get Bent spir­it wear any­thing sil­ver or pink or fan­cy dress or get in the spokes’ colours green and black…dress your bike too…lets get cre­ative!

then those who want to can come into the Con­tact The­atre for the Get Bent Film Fes­ti­val for more info on Get Bent see http://get-bent-manchester.com

put it in your diaries NOW!!! woooooo!

mcrcriticalmass@yahoo.co.uk
http://www.ibikemcr.org.uk

Sleazyjet and Fryinair Take on BIA

Cli­mate Camp Ped­al Express to Leave Bris­tol Sat. 10am foun­tains

We’re on our way to Heathrow cli­mate camp cycling 130 miles from Bris­tol to Lon­don. Today- the 10th of August we held a tremen­dous­ly suc­cess­ful demon­stra­tion out­side BIA. As you can see, Sleazy­jet and Fryin’air gave BIA offi­cials a run for their mon­ey, with over 12 inter­views by local media through­out the day. Many peo­ple hoot­ed their sup­port includ­ing a DHL fuel tanker dri­ver. A BIA air­port bus dri­ver even stopped his bus in the mid­dle of the round­about and gave us a bag of fruit. Then the hot air bal­loons of Bris­tol were ris­ing as we rode back into town, excit­ed about our Sat­ur­day send off from the foun­tains in the cen­rtre of Bris­tol. HEAThrow here we come!

Wings 1Wings 2Cli­mate Camp Ped­al Express to Leave Bris­tol Sat. 10am foun­tains

We’re on our way to Heathrow cli­mate camp cycling 130 miles from Bris­tol to Lon­don. Today- the 10th of August we held a tremen­dous­ly suc­cess­ful demon­stra­tion out­side BIA. As you can see, Sleazy­jet and Fryin’air gave BIA offi­cials a run for their mon­ey, with over 12 inter­views by local media through­out the day. Many peo­ple hoot­ed their sup­port includ­ing a DHL fuel tanker dri­ver. A BIA air­port bus dri­ver even stopped his bus in the mid­dle of the round­about and gave us a bag of fruit. Then the hot air bal­loons of Bris­tol were ris­ing as we rode back into town, excit­ed about our Sat­ur­day send off from the foun­tains in the cen­rtre of Bris­tol. HEAThrow here we come!

Call for direct action at Heathrow — website launched

Call for direct action at the Cli­mate Camp

Activists cam­paign­ing against the impact of avi­a­tion on cli­mate change have today released a web­site giv­ing the low-down on Heathrow air­port and the indus­tries which encour­age its envi­ron­men­tal­ly-dam­ag­ing busi­ness. They are call­ing on peo­ple to take non-vio­lent direct action around the Camp for Cli­mate Action, tak­ing place near Heathrow in August. The web­site, http://www.reclaimtheskies.com includes details of air­lines, sup­pli­ers and car­go com­pa­nies based around Heathrow.

Call for direct action at the Cli­mate Camp

Activists cam­paign­ing against the impact of avi­a­tion on cli­mate change have today released a web­site giv­ing the low-down on Heathrow air­port and the indus­tries which encour­age its envi­ron­men­tal­ly-dam­ag­ing busi­ness. They are call­ing on peo­ple to take non-vio­lent direct action around the Camp for Cli­mate Action, tak­ing place near Heathrow in August. The web­site, http://www.reclaimtheskies.com includes details of air­lines, sup­pli­ers and car­go com­pa­nies based around Heathrow.

Cam­paign­er Joan­na Maguire stat­ed, “Look at the crazy sum­mer weath­er we are hav­ing. The effects of high-lev­el atmos­pher­ic emis­sions both on our cli­mate and on the ozone lay­er are a seri­ous issue and we need to take action now. The avi­a­tion indus­try must take on board that it is con­tribut­ing to cli­mate chaos and change is need­ed now. More and more busi­ness­es are offer­ing ridicu­lous cheap flights for hol­i­days and unnec­es­sary next day deliv­er­ies around the world.”

Anoth­er activist, David Bed­din­ton, added, “Heathrow does not exist in iso­la­tion. All these com­pa­nies are prof­it­ing from cheap fuel and active­ly encour­age the growth of flights. This has to stop and we are call­ing on peo­ple to take non-vio­lent direct action to pro­tect our futures. It needs to be ham­mered home that their busi­ness may be law­ful, but glob­al­ly they are con­tribut­ing to ter­ri­ble crimes against human­i­ty. We want peo­ple to take direct action to make these com­pa­nies aware that they are con­tribut­ing to famine, flood­ing and des­ti­tu­tion around the world.”

The web­site has been pro­duced inde­pen­dent­ly of the Camp for Cli­mate Action, though it is with­in its pol­i­cy of call­ing on direct action to be tak­en against the root caus­es of cli­mate change. Their pur­pose is to inform peo­ple how the indus­try around the Heathrow works — the air­port is sim­ply the focus point of a big­ger prob­lem.

Cam­paign­ers doubt that the gov­ern­ment or cor­po­ra­tions are capa­ble of mak­ing the nec­es­sary soci­etal change to min­imise the dam­age cli­mate chaos is going to inflict on the earth and its inhab­i­tants.

Vis­it www.reclaimtheskies.com and start get­ting ready for action!

New Earth First Action Update OUT NOW!

The print­ed EF! Action Update is back again! After a bit of a lull a new edi­to­r­i­al col­lec­tive is in place and ready to roll. We have just pro­duced a sum­mer edi­tion in time for the Camp for Cli­mate Action, where you can pick up print­ed copies.

EF! AU logo 1The print­ed EF! Action Update is back again! After a bit of a lull a new edi­to­r­i­al col­lec­tive is in place and ready to roll. We have just pro­duced a sum­mer edi­tion in time for the Camp for Cli­mate Action, where you can pick up print­ed copies.

The Action Update is pro­duced quar­ter­ly to aid the shar­ing of news, infor­ma­tion and ideas amongst those inter­est­ed in tak­ing action. The next newslet­ter will be out in Novem­ber. If you’ve got news to share about your groups, cam­paigns and actions post them straight onto this web­site and we’ll make sure they’re includ­ed in the next edi­tion.

You can also down­load and print out the PDF of the Action Update by click­ing here.

launch of radical newsheet — the Bath Bomb

Today, sev­en activists from Bath Activist Net­work set up shop in the mid­dle of Bath to raise aware­ness and encour­age peo­ple to attend the upcom­ing. Cli­mate Camp

Bath Bomb logoToday, sev­en activists from Bath Activist Net­work set up shop in the mid­dle of Bath to raise aware­ness and encour­age peo­ple to attend the upcom­ing. Cli­mate Camp

Through­out the day we gave out hun­dreds of leaflets, stick­ers, newslet­ters and free cake. We unfurled a ban­ner and chalked art­work on the pave­ment (a com­mu­ni­ty sup­port offi­cer threat­ened to get some prop­er cops to arrest an activist for crim­i­nal dam­age, but we rang the coun­cil, who told us we were wel­come to chalk over as much pave­ment as we liked, leav­ing a slight­ly red faced cop!). We received loads of sup­port, loads of peo­ple were voic­ing dis­gust at the injunc­tion, and plea­sure that it was crap as far as injunc­tions go. Every­body knew about cli­mate camp and our argu­ments, and it seems to be a major talk­ing point at the mo. All in all a good and pro­duc­tive day — look­ing for­ward to the camp!

We also took the oppor­tu­ni­ty to start dis­trib­ut­ing our new month­ly newslet­ter ‘Bath Bomb’, giv­ing a rad­i­cal per­spec­tive on all the news and coun­cil sleaze in Bath! To get a copy e‑mailed every month, e‑mail bathbombpress@yahoo.co.uk

See y’all in the fields!

bathactivistnet@yahoo.co.uk
http://www.myspace.com/bathactivistnetwork

***************************************************************
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The Bath Bomb is here!

The first edi­tion of what should turn out to be our month­ly alter­na­tive news sheet, right now as plain text — a work in progress!:

*The Bath Bomb * Issue 1 July/August ’07 * @nti-copyright: copy and dis­trib­ute! *

“All the news the Chron did­n’t choose!”

(For fur­ther info on any of our sto­ries, see www.myspace.com/bathbomb)

Bath — 1, BNP — 0

As many read­ers will be aware, Nick Grif­fin, the leader of the Nazi BNP was due to speak at Bath Uni recent­ly. He was invit­ed by BNP youth leader Dan­ny Lake, a Bath Uni stu­dent.

Fac­ing mas­sive oppo­si­tion to the speech, the Uni banned Grif­fin from talk­ing. How­ev­er, local Antifa (anti fas­cist action) mem­bers got word that Grif­fin was being snuck into town to give a talk to a hard­core of BNP mem­bers at a secret loca­tion. Thanks to a well placed mole, Antifa found the loca­tion, and informed the man­ag­er, who was more than hap­py to can­cel the event (Lake had booked under the fake char­i­ty name ‘British Her­itage’!).

With only 2 hours’ notice, 20 activists were scour­ing the streets, look­ing for Nazi Nick and his bone­head mates. Upon get­ting word that the ‘fash’ were mov­ing toward Rev­o­lu­tion bar, the venue was occu­pied by anti-fas­cists with the full sup­port of the staff (one of whom was heard to say ‘do what it takes, just keep those bas­tards out!’). They then moved off to the Lit­ten Tree. Antifa went in after them and after a short ‘debate’, ‘per­suad­ed’ them to leave the pub. At this point, the old bill turned up and pre­vent­ed activists from chas­ing the flee­ing fas­cists. Luck­i­ly, well-placed spot­ters were able to fol­low.

They were found in Vicky Park, where, out num­bered 3 to 1 by anti-fas­cists, they had a five minute pic­nic before piss­ing off home. An inspec­tion of their cars revealed that none were from Bath, and had been shipped in from far and wide to give the impres­sion of hav­ing sup­port­ers.

The BNP are a nazi organ­i­sa­tion, led by a holo­caust deny­ing Hitler wor­ship­per with a track record of racial vio­lence. Bath organ­is­er Dan­ny Lake has been arrest­ed twice for harass­ing fam­i­lies attend­ing mul­ti­cul­tur­al events, and has a best mate in prison for bomb­ing a mosque. They’ve been shown once, and we can show them again — fas­cists are not wel­come in Bath!

Dis­eased Liv­er, Any­one?

Although hushed up in the Chron, in recent months, ani­mal rights groups in Bris­tol and Bath have been get­ting busy. ‘Paté de foie gras,’ a French import for the idle rich, is a cru­el culi­nary treat – ducks and geese spend life­times trapped in cages, dai­ly force-fed corn through painful tubes rammed down their throats, stom­achs expand­ing to burst­ing point, before their liv­ers are served on a plate. The tor­tured birds are often rid­dled with infec­tion, and eat­ing foie gras is linked to dis­eases like CJD and Alzheimer’s. Its man­u­fac­ture is also banned in the UK.

Two demos per­suad­ed Bistro No. 5 to drop it from their menu, so the cam­paign moved on to Le Petit Cochon, in Mar­garet Build­ings – and what fun they had! The high­ly excitable staff had no prob­lems with kick­ing off, scuf­fles inside and out, bro­ken glass and upend­ed tables being the order of the day. As thedin­ers gaw­ped on, head chefand own­er Christophe charged out, push­ing and shov­ing any­one with­in reach, shout­ing “I love ducks! I f**k ducks!” After the bes­tial­i­ty con­fes­sions died down, this larg­er-than-life char­ac­ter plant­ed a kiss on one pro­test­er, and then with­drew. Two weeks lat­er, seem­ing­ly calmed down, he claimed to have dropped foie gras. Or had he, the lying cad? Our rov­ing reporter went under­cov­er to dis­cov­er the truth, and eas­i­ly exposed the not-so-cun­ning ruse: the
restau­ran­t’s still sell­ing the putrid stuff, so watch this space for fur­ther break­ing news…

Every Lit­tle (Trick in the Book) Helps

After try­ing to worm their way into Bath for years, Tesco’s final­ly seem to be get­ting their way. With rejec­tion after rejec­tion at Lon­don Road and Odd Down, yet again they were turned down at the for­mer car show­room site John Tallis, at Bath­wick Hill. But, nev­er known for play­ing fair, what with all the farms and oth­er small-scale sup­pli­ers they’ve ripped off and destroyed over the years – pay­ing sup­pli­ers 4% less than any oth­er super­mar­ket – they went cry­ing off to a gov­ern­ment plan­ning inspec­tor, who over­turned the coun­cil’s deci­sion.

So, now we’ll be stuck with yet anoth­er Tesco’s Express. Whilst com­pa­ny spokes­peo­ple lie through their teeth, claim­ing that their stores give “oth­er local busi­ness­es a boost”, the truth is that with their con­stant price goug­ing, local shops like Bath­wick Stores, Tuck Time and oth­er estab­lished small stores are like­ly to soon go under. Indeed, rough­ly 50 inde­pen­dent shops are squeezed out of the UK every year by big super­mar­kets like these. So, soon, local roads will be clogged with deliv­ery trucks, road safe­ty will hit blood-stained rock bot­tom with inad­e­quate road-cross­ings, and more local jobs will be cut, because super­mar­kets employ two thirds less staff than small­er stores. So here’s to big­ger dole queues!

Well, whilst doing our best to sup­port local shops, when the new Tesco’s arrive, let’s make sure we give them all a big wel­come: plant­i­ng con­crete-crack­ing Japan­ese knotweed should be just the thing!

Events List­ing

Mon­day nights Bath Hunt Sabo­teur meet­ings 8pm back room of Bell
11th Aug Bath Free Shop @ Stall Street 12–3pm
14th—21st Aug Nation­al Camp for Cli­mate Action nr Heathrow
5th Sept Bath Ani­mal Action meet­ing back room of Bell 7.30–8.30pm
6th Sept Bath Activist Net­work meet­ing down­stairs Hob­gob­lin 7.30–9pm
11th-14th Sept Dis­arm DSEI @ The Excel Cen­tre in Lon­don
19th-24th Sept No Bor­der Camp nr Gatwick
21st Sept Left­ism ben­e­fit club night for Bris­tle mag­a­zine @ The Crown 9–2am

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

Get out Yer Life­jack­ets for the West­ern River­side Yup­pie Flood!

Yup, the coun­cil have done it again and sold off the west­ern river­side area to be turned into lux­u­ry flats.

There is major cause for con­cern on all fronts. A flood plain will be destroyed, mak­ing localised flood­ing immi­nent, bad­ger, owl and king­fish­er habi­tats will be destroyed, many Bath res­i­dents will have their views ruined by huge apart­ment build­ings, and we’ll have to deal with an influx of more yup­pies.

There are also plans to demol­ish the his­toric Bath Press to make way for a super­mar­ket to cater for the new res­i­dents. The 200 work­ers of the press, many of whom had put in 30-plus years were told to get out with next to no warn­ing to make way for the new devel­op­ment.

Crest Nichol­son, the devel­op­ment com­pa­ny (who make a cushy side­line evict­ing fam­i­lies from house­boats to build pricey water­side flats for…. you guessed it — yup­pies!) have kind­ly offered to make 20% of the hous­ing ‘affordable’…cheers! That means that Batho­ni­ans from the sur­round­ing area aren’t ever going to see inside these flats! Instead of putting effort into pro­vid­ing bet­ter facil­i­ties and con­di­tions for ordi­nary peo­ple, the coun­cil are ignor­ing our needs and cater­ing for the rich to make a quick buck.

As numer­ous oth­er ‘tourist’ cities across the world have shown us, flood­ing our com­mu­ni­ties with rich com­muters will have dis­as­trous effects – push­ing house prices up, suck­ing resources from the com­mu­ni­ty while putting noth­ing back and build­ing cof­fee bar after f**king cof­fee bar!

There are a mil­lion good argu­ments against this devel­op­ment, but the same old good rea­son for the coun­cil­lors – prof­it. Actions against the devel­op­ment are due to start soon, we’ll keep you post­ed!

Flights of Fan­cy?

Whilst cli­mate change is seem­ing­ly on every­one’s lips, for the British air­line indus­try, it’s (big) busi­ness as usu­al. Despite hot air from Num­ber 10 about ‘car­bon emis­sions reduc­tion tar­gets’, air pas­sen­ger num­bers are planned to dou­ble over the next 20 years; nev­er mind the fact that planes pol­lute 10 times worse than trains. This week, the British Air­port Author­i­ty is des­per­ate­ly push­ing through a new law to crim­i­nal­ize up to 5,000,000 mem­bers of green groups round the coun­try. The planned injunc­tion, lucra­tive work for silk-tongued lawyers, will not only ban pro­test­ers from areas inside and around Heathrow, but also from the Pic­cadil­ly line, M4 and M25.

But who are these heinous eco-ter­ror­ists that BAA is so afraid of? Earth First!? Al Qae­da? Erm, no. It’s groups like Friends of the Earth, the RSPB, The Cam­paign for the Pro­tec­tion of Rur­al Eng­land and No Third Run­way Acton Group, based in the vil­lages of Har­mondsworth and Sip­son: mem­bers include the Queen, Prince Charles and hun­dreds of BA staff, so they’re pre­sum­ably banned, too.

All this palaver is an attempt to nip this mon­th’s nation­al Camp for Cli­mate Action in the bud – a week of edu­ca­tion, work­shops and activism, set to pitch up near Heathrow. The event is expect­ed to attract huge num­bers of rent-a-cops: just like the OTT polic­ing we saw back here in April, for the Bath Cli­mate Camp. And if this ridicu­lous ban does go through, it will be yet fur­ther proof that the courts are sim­ply hired flunkies at the cor­po­ra­tions’ beck and call. These peo­ple are ful­ly pre­pared to bull­doze over an entire vil­lage for a new run­way, putting sil­ly pipedreams like ‘eco­nom­ic growth’ before peo­ple’s lives.

How­ev­er, it’s not all doom and gloom: oth­er planned air­port expan­sions up and down the coun­try are now being beat­en back: Man­ches­ter, Coven­try, Luton, and Birm­ing­ham schemes were all reject­ed, and maybe soon Bris­tol Air­port will join ’em!

Join the Dots – from Local Dis­pute to Nation­al Dis­as­ter?

Lost his­to­ry, increased pol­lu­tion, unin­hab­it­able homes, not being con­sult­ed on local issues?

At the moment we may feel like a divid­ed pop­u­lace at the mer­cy of gov­ern­ment, coun­cil and cor­po­ra­tions. But if we link small local dis­putes over devel­op­ment across the coun­try, cre­at­ing net­works to oppose them, we will begin to see the change we crave.

Take Bath, for exam­ple – West­ern River­side Devel­op­ment, Tesco’s at Bath­wick Hill, the recent demo­li­tion of Churchill House despite mass protest… And fur­ther from home at Heathrow, where peo­ple are fight­ing against the third run­way, pro­tect­ing the beau­ti­ful old vil­lages they stand to lose. As a mem­ber of NOTRAG (a local group oppos­ing the run­way) says: “if it hap­pens to us, who’s next?”

“Democ­ra­cy only works if vot­ers are active and informed” All it takes for us to be more in con­trol, is for us to pull togeth­er local­ly and nation­al­ly, learn­ing from each oth­ers’ actions and to fit cam­paigns into our ordi­nary lives, next to the wash­ing up or get­ting the din­ner, to remind the gov­ern­ment that we are all part of that gov­ern­ment too. These lit­tle bits will reap huge ben­e­fits – for you, your neigh­bours, your chil­dren and even the world!

Some things you could do: attend local meet­ings, or, if you’re part of a group, link up with oth­er groups over a com­mon goal, get involved in protests, cre­ate your own. If you oppose the new Tesco’s, what would you like in its place? Make that hap­pen instead. And if the Tesco’s does get built, don’t shop there! Think neigh­bour­hood watch on a grander scale – being aware of what’s going on in your area, sup­port­ing those around you and try­ing not to leave any­one out, is enough. Share the work so it does­n’t over­whelm and keep morale up by shar­ing the deci­sion not to take ‘no’ for an answer.

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

Critical Mass — Glossop — Fri 14th Sept 2007

We’re stag­ing a Crit­i­cal Mass bike ride on 14th Sep­tem­ber 2007, to cel­e­brate Car Free Day and to demon­strate that bikes and peo­ple should be catered for on our roads, not just cars and traf­fic.

We’ll be set­ting off from Glos­sop rain sta­tion at 5.30pm and will be rid­ing out to Swal­low’s Wood near Tin­twistle where we’ll stop at a local pub. The wood is threat­ened by a new bypass they are plan­ning to build between Mot­tram and Tin­twistle.

Critical Mass graphic 10We’re stag­ing a Crit­i­cal Mass bike ride on 14th Sep­tem­ber 2007, to cel­e­brate Car Free Day and to demon­strate that bikes and peo­ple should be catered for on our roads, not just cars and traf­fic.

We’ll be set­ting off from Glos­sop rain sta­tion at 5.30pm and will be rid­ing out to Swal­low’s Wood near Tin­twistle where we’ll stop at a local pub. The wood is threat­ened by a new bypass they are plan­ning to build between Mot­tram and Tin­twistle.

The route is fair­ly flat and about 4 miles in total. It’s suit­able for rid­ers of all types. Please bring a bike and wear high vis cloth­ing.

Our aim is not to stop traf­fic but to make the pres­ence of bikes on the roads more vis­i­ble so please be aware of oth­er traf­fic and road users.

roadalertglossop@gmail.com
http://www.myspace.com/roadalert