Outdoor Skillshare//18–21 June, Scotland

**Please for­ward on to your net­works, if you would like some posters/flyers to dis­play, please get in touch**

///Outdoor Skillshare/// 18–21 June

An excit­ing week­end of work­shops and skill­shar­ing in rur­al Scot­land.

Come and learn:
climb­ing and rope access, build­ing tree hous­es, tun­nelling, cook­ing for the mass­es, knot-tying, fire-light­ing, wild foods and more!

**Please for­ward on to your net­works, if you would like some posters/flyers to dis­play, please get in touch**

///Outdoor Skillshare/// 18–21 June

An excit­ing week­end of work­shops and skill­shar­ing in rur­al Scot­land.

Come and learn:
climb­ing and rope access, build­ing tree hous­es, tun­nelling, cook­ing for the mass­es, knot-tying, fire-light­ing, wild foods and more!

At Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp we occu­pied land fac­ing destruc­tion. We lived out­side, grew as a com­mu­ni­ty and took con­tin­u­ous tar­get­ed action.
We want to focus on the skills need­ed to occu­py and defend land with a week­end long event bring­ing peo­ple togeth­er to learn and share the skills for liv­ing out­doors as a com­mu­ni­ty, build­ing defences, resist­ing evic­tions and think­ing about strate­gies for action.

These are trans­fer­able skills that can be tak­en away and used in a wide range of cam­paigns and actions.

This skill­share will be a safe, inclu­sive and par­tic­i­pa­to­ry envi­ron­ment for learn­ing new prac­ti­cal skills and is open to peo­ple of all abil­i­ties and expe­ri­ences. If you have any queries or spe­cial require­ments, please let us know — we will do our best to accom­mo­date every­one’s needs.

We will be ask­ing for dona­tions toward food and oth­er costs from those that can afford it.

If you want to find out more, or if you have skills you want to share then please con­tact us at: outdoorskillshare@riseup.net

//Workshop Timetable//

Fri­day
8:00–10:00 Break­fast
11:00 Work­shop Facil­i­ta­tor Drop-in (2 hours, 11–13:00)
12:00 Con­fi­dence Build­ing and Mutu­al Sup­port (1 hour, 12–13:00)
13:00- 14:00 Lunch
14:00 Deal­ing with Prob­lem Behav­iour and Encour­ag­ing Par­tic­i­pa­tion (1
hour, 14–15:00)
16:00–16:30 Tea Break
16:30 Trip to Main­shill (2 hours, 16:30–18:30)
18:30- 19:00 Wel­come Ses­sion
19:00 Din­ner
20:00 Pub Quiz
22:00 Music. Jam. Fire.
00:00 Bed­time

Sat­ur­day
8:00–10:00 Break­fast
9:30–10:00 Wel­come Ses­sion
10:00 Cook­ing for the Mass­es (3 hours, 10–13:00)
Fire Build­ing and Light­ing (1 hour, 10–11:00)
Tree climb­ing, gen­er­al rope access skills (2 hours, 10–12:00)
Tripods (2 hours, 10- 12:00)
12:00Tool Use and Care (1 hour, 12–13:00)
13:00–14:00 Lunch
14:00 Facil­i­ta­tion for Con­sen­sus (2 hours,14–16:00)
Over­com­ing Oppres­sion (2 hours, 14–16:00)
Tun­nelling (2 hours, 14–16:00)
Veg­an Bak­ing (2 hours, 14–16:00)
16:00 Tea Break
16:30 Legal Observ­ing (1.5 hours, 16:30–18:00)
Self Defence (1.5 hours, 16:30–18:00)
Site Electrics (1.5 hours, 16:30–18:00)
Tac­tics and Strat­e­gy for Defence (1 hour, 16:30–17:30)
18:00 Knots (1 hour, 18–19:00)
Pro­tect­ing Your Habi­tat inc. toi­lets (1 hour, 18–19:00)
Radios (1 hour, 18–19:00)
19:00–20:00 Din­ner
20:00 Films Talks, Craft Ses­sion
22:00 Open Mic
00:00 Bed­time

Sun­day
8:00–10:00 Break­fast
9:30–10:00 Site Meet-up
10:00 First Aid (3 hours, 10–13:00)
Herb and Plant Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion (1 hour, 10–11:00)
Map read­ing and Nav­i­ga­tion for begin­ners (2 hours, 10–12:00)
Tree­house Build­ing (2 hours, 10–12:00)
13:00–14:00 Lunch
14:00 Blockad­ing for Begin­ners (2 hours, 14–16:00)
Fences – get­ting through, over etc. (2 hours, 14–16:00)
Tree climb­ing- advanced, Arbour­ing etc. (2 hours, 14–16:00)
15:00 Comms (1 hour, 15–16:00)
16:00 Tea Break
16:30 Drag­on Dynam­ics Empow­er­ment Skill­share (2 hours 16:30–18:30) Field
Plumb­ing (1.5 hours, 16:30–18:00)
Rec­ces (2 hours 16:30–18:30)
Tree climbing,general rope access skills (2 hours 16:30–18:30)
19:00–20:00 Din­ner
20:00 Music — Per­for­mances
00:00 DJ
03:00 Bed­time

Kids’ Work­shops

Sat­ur­day
10:00 Tree Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion (2 hours, 10–12:00)
14:00 Tree Climb­ing for Kids (aged 10+) (2 hours, 14–16:00)

Sun­day
14:00 Con­sen­sus for Kids (2 hours, 14–16:00)
16:30 Clang, Bang, ShakeyShake, Crash! Mak­ing Instru­ments Out of Trash!
(2 hours, 16:30–18:30)

Lots more info at http://outdoorskillshare.noflag.org.uk

Fossil Fools Day 2010

Cli­mate change is no laugh­ing mat­ter – but that doesn’t mean we can’t con­front the Fos­sil Fuel Empire with sub­ver­sive humour.

WHAT: Direct actions, prac­ti­cal jokes and throw­ing a span­ner in the works to stop the fos­sil fools.
WHERE: Your street, town or city.
WHEN: April 1st, 2010.

FFD graphic - bigCli­mate change is no laugh­ing mat­ter – but that doesn’t mean we can’t con­front the Fos­sil Fuel Empire with sub­ver­sive humour.

WHAT: Direct actions, prac­ti­cal jokes and throw­ing a span­ner in the works to stop the fos­sil fools.
WHERE: Your street, town or city.
WHEN: April 1st, 2010.

Last Decem­ber in Copen­hagen, the politi­cians sold us out to the fos­sil fools, cor­po­rate lob­by­ists and big banks. Now we’re left with “green cap­i­tal­ism,” a deeply unjust car­bon mar­ket and con­tin­ued assaults on our com­mu­ni­ties and ecosys­tems. If we’re going to stop cli­mate chaos, the only real solu­tion is to keep fos­sil fuels in the ground.

The stakes couldn’t be high­er: desta­bil­i­sa­tion of the glob­al cli­mate, local com­mu­ni­ties destroyed by dirty ener­gy extrac­tion and com­bus­tion, dev­as­tat­ing freak storms, droughts, floods, the list goes on …

This April 1st, join Ris­ing Tide in some cre­ative direct action … use the sim­ply sub­ver­sive to the down­right dis­rup­tive: office occu­pa­tions, ban­ner drops, clown­ish parades, road block­ades, spoof web­sites, sub­ver­tis­ing, street the­atre, leaflets, lock-ons or laugh-ins. What­ev­er works for you and your group.

Join us this Fos­sil Fools Day and hatch some hare­brained schemes that will strike a blow to cli­mate crim­i­nals every­where!

WANT MORE? Fos­sil Fools Day also marks the launch of the BP Tar Sands Fort­night of Shame: a two-week cam­paign cul­mi­nat­ing in actions sur­round­ing BP’s AGM on April 15th. The goal? To stop BP from going into the Cana­di­an Tar Sands – the biggest, dirt­i­est fos­sil fuel project on earth. Find out more: Tar Sands in Focus.. And a word to BP: be afraid… be very afraid.

NEED A HAND? If you would like ideas for actions, graph­ics for leaflets or web­sites, advice on deal­ing with the press, etc., send us an email and we’ll do our best to help out: info@risingtide.org.uk

For more infor­ma­tion see: Fos­sil Fools Day.

In the words of that mas­ter of pranks: “That’s All Folks”.

Faslane noise demo & Free Cafe (every first Saturday each month)

Every first Sat­ur­day of the month we’ll be hold­ing a noise demo at the base.

With work­shops, after­noon kids space, dis­cus­sion groups and free cafe at the camp.

For those want­i­ng to stay longer there will be a film-screen­ing and action meet­ing on Sun­day.

Any­one is wel­come to come along and get involved!
Call us for infor­ma­tion on this or oth­er upcom­ing events

Every first Sat­ur­day of the month we’ll be hold­ing a noise demo at the base.

With work­shops, after­noon kids space, dis­cus­sion groups and free cafe at the camp.

For those want­i­ng to stay longer there will be a film-screen­ing and action meet­ing on Sun­day.

Any­one is wel­come to come along and get involved!
Call us for infor­ma­tion on this or oth­er upcom­ing events
Would be good to see old friends, and is also a great way to see camp if you’ve nev­er been before.

Direc­tions -

The camp is sit­u­at­ed 6 miles North of Helens­burgh. Helens­burgh can be reached from Glas­gow by train, for £5 return, trains leave every half hour from Glas­gow Queens Street (Low lev­el station).Or the 216 from Jamaica St — Helens­burgh.
You can catch the 316 bus from Helens­burgh Cen­tral train sta­tion (for Coul­port or Gare­loc­head, stops out­side the camp) it only costs £1:50, and you can ask to be dropped off at the peace camp.

-F.P.C. is on the east verge of the A814 road, which leads to HMNB Clyde and beyond. The Camp is there­fore vis­i­ble to all traf­fic com­ing towards the base from the direc­tion of Helens­burgh.

We are about 30 miles west of Glas­gow, by the Gare­loch, a riv­er Clyde estu­ary sea loch. Faslane Naval Base is on the Gare­loch.
CAMP PHONE 01436820901

Faslane peace camp
faslaniapeacecamp@yahoo.co.uk

Local Democracy Dumped! — Sizewell nuclear plant blockaded again

22.02.2010
As gov­ern­ment ends flawed con­sul­ta­tion on nuclear pow­er, anti-nuclear pow­er activists step up resis­tance and block­ade Sizewell nuclear pow­er sta­tion in Suf­folk, Eng­land.

Sizewell democracy!22.02.2010
As gov­ern­ment ends flawed con­sul­ta­tion on nuclear pow­er, anti-nuclear pow­er activists step up resis­tance and block­ade Sizewell nuclear pow­er sta­tion in Suf­folk, Eng­land.

Since 6.40am this morn­ing, anti-nuclear pow­er activists from the ‘Peo­ple Pow­er not Nuclear Pow­er Coali­tion’ [1] have been blockad­ing Sizewell pow­er sta­tion in protest against the flawed gov­ern­ment con­sul­ta­tion on nuclear new build, which ends today, and the dump­ing of local democ­ra­cy.

Sizewell is one of ten sites nom­i­nat­ed for nuclear new build; and, togeth­er with Hink­ley in Som­er­set, one of the two most like­ly sites for one of the first new nuclear reac­tors to be built by EDF Ener­gy.

In prepa­ra­tion for new nuclear reac­tors, the gov­ern­ment intro­duced the 2008 Plan­ning Act [2] to lim­it the local plan­ning pro­ce­dure to rel­a­tive­ly unim­por­tant mat­ters, and cen­tralise sit­ing and nuclear design deci­sion on the nation­al lev­el. Today, the seri­ous­ly flawed con­sul­ta­tions end on the Nation­al Pol­i­cy State­ments for ener­gy, includ­ing nuclear pow­er, [3] designed to give the go ahead for ten new nuclear pow­er sta­tions in the UK.

“In order to build new nuclear pow­er sta­tions, gov­ern­ment dumped local democ­ra­cy”, Mell Har­ri­son, 38 from Gelde­ston and a cam­paigns work­er for the Cam­paign for Nuclear Dis­ar­ma­ment (CND) said.

“We are blockad­ing Sizewell today, to show that the gov­ern­ment will not achieve its aim to fast track nuclear pow­er. If local democ­ra­cy is dumped, then non­vi­o­lent direct action will be our answer. Any new build will be met with resis­tance, and this block­ade today is just the begin­ning.”

She con­tin­ued:

“The gov­ern­ment and the nuclear indus­try present nuclear pow­er as low car­bon ener­gy and a neces­si­ty to com­bat cli­mate change; but nuclear pow­er is dan­ger­ous, expen­sive and does not deliv­er any sig­nif­i­cant reduc­tions in car­bon emis­sions. It locks us into a cen­tralised ener­gy sys­tem, and is part of the prob­lem of cli­mate change, not part of the solu­tion.”

“Chip­per”, 44, a male activist from Stop Hink­ley added:

“The gov­ern­ment and the nuclear indus­try approach the prob­lem of nuclear waste with wish­ful think­ing, as the con­clu­sion of the Nation­al Pol­i­cy State­ment for Nuclear Pow­er Gen­er­a­tion shows.” [4]

Andreas Speck, 45, from Lon­don, orig­i­nal­ly from Ger­many, added:

“Just to wish away the prob­lem of nuclear waste is high­ly irre­spon­si­ble. Spent nuclear fuel is high­ly tox­ic and remains radioac­tive for tens of thou­sands of years. Here at Sizewell, a new dry stor­age facil­i­ty is planned, to store spent fuel rods for more than 100 years in casks. How­ev­er, how long these last is unknown, and prob­lems with sim­i­lar casks at Gor­leben in Ger­many after only a few years show that this is no solu­tion. There is no final safe stor­age [for high lev­el radioac­tive waste] in exis­tence any­where in the world. The respon­si­ble thing to do is to shut down all nuclear pow­er sta­tions imme­di­ate­ly and stop pro­duc­ing yet more nuclear waste.” [5]

Notes:

[1] The Peo­ple Pow­er not Nuclear Pow­er Coali­tion is a non-hier­ar­chi­cal cam­paign­ing coali­tion of groups and indi­vid­u­als to pro­mote and encour­age vis­i­ble and effec­tive action against nuclear pow­er in the UK and world­wide, to leave a nuclear-free, safe and healthy envi­ron­ment for future gen­er­a­tions. More infor­ma­tion at: http://stopnuclearpower.blogspot.com

[2] The Plan­ning Act 2008 intro­duced a new stream-lined sys­tem for deci­sions on appli­ca­tions to build nation­al­ly sig­nif­i­cant infra­struc­ture projects (NSIPs) in Eng­land and Wales. The new sys­tem for nation­al­ly sig­nif­i­cant infra­struc­ture cov­ers appli­ca­tions for major ener­gy gen­er­a­tion, rail­ways, ports, major roads, air­ports and water and waste infra­struc­ture. Nation­al pol­i­cy will be set out by Min­is­ters in a series of Nation­al Pol­i­cy State­ments (NPSs), there­by dump­ing local democ­ra­cy. Fore more infor­ma­tion, see Friends of the Earth:

Plan­ning Act removes demo­c­ra­t­ic deci­sion mak­ing, http://www.foe.co.uk/campaigns/fair_future/news/planningbill_law_17248.html

[3] For more infor­ma­tion, see Friends of the Earth press release from 22 Jan­u­ary 2010: Legal warn­ing to Gov­ern­ment over ener­gy pol­i­cy state­ments, http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/press_releases/nps_22012010.html

[4] See para­graph 3.8.20, page 25 of the Draft Nation­al Pol­i­cy State­ment for Nuclear Pow­er Gen­er­a­tion (EN‑6), Novem­ber 2009, https://www.energynpsconsultation.decc.gov.uk/nuclear/nps/

‘Hav­ing con­sid­ered this issue, the Gov­ern­ment is sat­is­fied that effec­tive arrange­ments will exist to man­age and dis­pose of the waste that will be pro­duced from new nuclear pow­er sta­tions. As a result the IPC (Infra­struc­ture Plan­ning Com­mis­sion) need not con­sid­er this ques­tion.’

[5] The exist­ing stor­age facil­i­ty for spent fuel at Sizewell will be full in 2015. In addi­tion, a dry stor­age facil­i­ty is to be built to cre­ate new stor­age capac­i­ty. In there, spent fuel rods will be stored in stor­age casks in a sim­ple 110m stor­age hall with nat­ur­al air cool­ing. Sim­i­lar stor­age casks in Ger­many showed prob­lems with the mon­i­tor­ing of pres­sure after only a few years (see http://www.contratom.de/news/newsanzeige.php?newsid=19588 — in Ger­man)

Activists tak­ing part in this morn­ing’s action include:

- Mell Har­ri­son. 38 from Gelde­ston. Mell works for CND and is a mem­ber of Shut Down Sizewell and the Sizewell Block­aders. She was recent­ly acquit­ted for aggra­vat­ed tress­pass at Sizewell A and B for a block­ade that took place in 2008.

- Andreas Speck, 45, from Lon­don. Andreas works for War Resisters’ Inter­na­tion­al. He was involved in the anti-nuclear pow­er move­ment in Ger­many from the 1980s, until his move to Lon­don.

- “Chip­per”, 44, from Wilt­shire. He is a mem­ber of Stop Hink­ley and CND.

- “Zig­gy”, 39, an artist and his­to­ri­an from Ipswich, Suf­folk. He is a mem­ber of CND and Shut Down Sizewell.

- Helen Swanston, 35, a milliner from Cromer. Helen is a mem­ber of Tri­dent Ploughshares.

- Jus­tus, 23, a stu­dent from Lon­don. He is involved in the Camp for Cli­mate Action.

- Irene Willis, 65, from Wales. Irene is a Sizewell Block­ad­er and a mem­ber of Tri­dent Ploughshares.

- Nicky, 39, an envi­ron­ment edu­ca­tion work­er from Bun­gay. She was also recent­ly acquit­ted fol­low­ing the Sizewell Block­aders’ action at Sizewell in 2008.

Nuclear Peo­ple Pow­er
vd2012-npp [at] yahoo.co.uk
http://stopnuclearpower.blogspot.com

Updates:

10:44
One of the block­aders, Chip­per, was get­ting the chills after lying in the rain for sev­er­al hours and decid­ed to self release. He was imme­di­ate­ly arrest­ed with­out warn­ing on sus­pi­cion of aggra­vat­ed tres­pass and tak­en to Low­est­oft police sta­tion. The remain­ing block­aders are still in posi­tion as of 10.40am. At least one TV crew is on the scene.

Main­stream cov­er­age: http://bit.ly/d9ALSd

12:10pm

Anoth­er man arrest­ed on sus­pi­cion of aggra­vat­ed tres­pass. Two more block­aders still being cut out of lock-ons by police.

Fol­low on Twit­ter: http://twitter.com/NukePeoplePower

1:20pm

The two remain­ing block­aders (a female in her six­ties and a male in his twen­ties) are still being drilled out of a con­crete block lock-on. The police cut­ting team say it will take them at least anoth­er hour.

The pair have now been in the road for near­ly sev­en hours, in wet, cold con­di­tions.

Twit­ter updates: http://twitter.com/NukePeoplePower

2:40pm

Last block­ad­er just drilled out and arrest­ed after 8 hours in the cold and wet. Four peo­ple arrest­ed in total.

Lat­est update, plus more pics

Approx. 9.30pm on Mon­day evening: The four arrestees are released after being inter­viewed and held in police cus­tody for up to 11 hours. They have been bailed to return to Low­est­oft police sta­tion on 30th March, at 2pm.

More pho­tos from yes­ter­day’s block­ade: http://tinyurl.com/Sizewell22Feb10

Hundreds blockade nuclear bomb factory

15th Feb 2010

Aldermaston construction gate blockadeAldermaston wheelchair blockadeAldermaston Nurses not Nukes15th Feb 2010
Update: Approx­i­mate­ly 800 pro­test­ers block­ad­ed the base, with a large police and FIT/EG sur­veil­lance pres­ence. 26 arrests were report­ed, main­ly for obstruc­tion of a pub­lic high­way. The block­ade caused a huge back­log of traf­fic, many of which were work­ers try­ing to get to work at AWE, and fail­ing due to blocked gates. Main­stream media cov­er­age.

Cam­paign­ers call for dis­ar­ma­ment of Tri­dent and abo­li­tion of nuclear weapons

An esti­mat­ed eight hun­dred cam­paign­ers from Eng­land, North­ern Ire­land, Scot­land, Wales and a num­ber of oth­er coun­tries have joined a block­ade of every gate of the Atom­ic Weapons Estab­lish­ment (AWE) at Alder­mas­ton, Berk­shire, Eng­land. [1] The block­ade start­ed at 7am.

Indi­vid­u­als present at the block­ade, which is aimed at halt­ing con­struc­tion of mul­ti-bil­lion pound facil­i­ties for research and devel­op­ment of a new gen­er­a­tion of nuclear war­heads, [2] include Nobel Peace Prize lau­re­ates Jody Williams, from Ver­mont, USA and Máiread Cor­ri­g­an-Maguire, from Belfast, North­ern Ire­land (both Jody and Máiread were locked on using tubes). [3] Also present are the Catholic bish­op of Brent­wood, Thomas McMa­hon; the Angli­can bish­ops Stephen Cot­trell (Read­ing), Mike Hill (Bris­tol) and Peter Price (Bath and Wells); Jill Evans MEP, Vice Pres­i­dent of Plaid Cym­ru and chair of CND Cym­ru (Wales); and Kate Hud­son, chair of CND.

All gates have been block­ad­ed, with a large num­ber of peo­ple locked-on using tubes. In par­tic­u­lar, sev­er­al women are locked-on at the main gate exit, one of whom is in a wheel chair. Police are cur­rent­ly cut­ting peo­ple out of their lock-ons. Five arrests have been made to this point, with more expect­ed over the course of the day.

Bri­an Larkin, a Tri­dent Ploughshares (TP) activist who trav­elled from Helens­burgh, Scot­land, said: “This is the biggest block­ade of Alder­mas­ton in years and comes at a time when even major polit­i­cal par­ties are ques­tion­ing the log­ic of spend­ing up to £97 bil­lion [4] on use­less weapons. It demon­strates the depth and breadth of deter­mined civ­il soci­ety oppo­si­tion to Tri­dent and its planned replace­ment. [5] Although the gov­ern­ment now seems to have delayed the next phase of Tri­dent replace­ment until after the gen­er­al elec­tion, the ongo­ing con­struc­tion of facil­i­ties at the AWE for the design, devel­op­ment and man­u­fac­ture of new nuclear war­heads is ille­gal and immoral and will only lead to fur­ther pro­lif­er­a­tion of nuclear weapons.”

Ang­ie Zel­ter, co-founder of TP, who trav­elled from Knighton, Wales, added: “In May, world gov­ern­ments will meet to review the nuclear Non-Pro­lif­er­a­tion Treaty (NPT); [6] but this pro­gram of mod­erni­sa­tion of UK nuclear weapons vio­lates the treaty and could lead to a dis­as­trous fail­ure of the Review Con­fer­ence. Over forty years ago, when it signed up to the treaty, the UK made a deal to nego­ti­ate mul­ti­lat­er­al nuclear dis­ar­ma­ment in exchange for states with­out nuclear weapons agree­ing not to obtain them.[7] Not only have we failed to keep that promise but now we are prepar­ing to build a new gen­er­a­tion of nuclear weapons. If the gov­ern­ment wants to halt the pro­lif­er­a­tion of nuclear weapons it should get rid of its own nuclear weapons first. We are call­ing on the UK to abide by its agree­ment to achieve nuclear dis­ar­ma­ment — that means tak­ing Tri­dent off patrol, halt­ing all work and prepa­ra­tions for any new gen­er­a­tion of nuclear weapons and using the AWE only for dis­ar­ma­ment and ver­i­fi­ca­tion.”

Sarah Lasen­by, a TP activist who trav­elled from Oxford, added: “The time has come for the UK to dis­arm its nuclear weapons. Instead of build­ing a new gen­er­a­tion, the gov­ern­ment should go to the upcom­ing NPT Review Con­fer­ence in New York and com­mit to nego­ti­a­tions for a Nuclear Weapons Con­ven­tion to abol­ish nuclear weapons world­wide.” [8]

Each of the gates to the nuclear weapons site is themed: Scot­land, Wales, Eng­land, inter­na­tion­als [9], cyclists and envi­ron­men­tal­ists, faith groups, women and stu­dents. Choirs, med­ical pro­fes­sion­als, aca­d­e­mics and politi­cians are also present.

Media con­tacts: Daniel Vies­nik 07506 234 091; Bri­an Larkin 07768 312 676; Ang­ie Zel­ter 07835 354 652

Images from the block­ade: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cnduk

Updates:
http://twitter.com/TridentPlough
http://blockawe.blogspot.com

ENDS

Notes to edi­tors:

1. The Alder­mas­ton Big Block­ade was ini­ti­at­ed by Tri­dent Ploughshares and sup­port­ed by the Cam­paign for Nuclear Dis­ar­ma­ment (CND), the Alder­mas­ton Women’s Peace Camp(aign) (AWPC) and var­i­ous oth­er groups.

Tri­dent Ploughshares is a cam­paign to dis­arm the UK Tri­dent nuclear weapon sys­tem in a non­vi­o­lent, open, peace­ful and ful­ly account­able man­ner.
Web­site: http://www.tridentploughshares.org

CND web­site: http://www.cnduk.org
AWPC web­site: http://www.aldermaston.net

Block­ades of AWE Alder­mas­ton took place most recent­ly in Octo­ber 2008 and June 2009.

2. The Min­istry of Defence’s plan­ning appli­ca­tion for a new enriched ura­ni­um han­dling and stor­age facil­i­ty at AWE Alder­mas­ton, Project Pega­sus, was approved by West Berk­shire coun­cil on Wednes­day 10 Feb­ru­ary 2010, despite receiv­ing over 1400 let­ters of objec­tion. http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/berkshire/hi/people_and_places/newsid_8509000/8509099.stm

Cam­paign­ers say the new facil­i­ty will be used to build a new gen­er­a­tion of nuclear war­heads, which they say breach­es the UK’s legal oblig­a­tions under the Nuclear Non-Pro­lif­er­a­tion Treaty [see note 7].

For infor­ma­tion on all facil­i­ties under devel­op­ment or planned at the AWE, see: http://www.aldermaston.net/awe

3. Jody Williams won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 joint­ly with the cam­paign she worked for, the Inter­na­tion­al Cam­paign to Ban Land­mines..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jody_Williams

Máiread Cor­ri­g­an-Maguire was award­ed the prize in 1976 joint­ly with Bet­ty Williams for their work to end vio­lence in North­ern Ire­land.
http://en.wikipedia..org/wiki/Mairead_Corrigan

4. See report from Green­peace, In the Fir­ing Line (Sep­tem­ber 2009): http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/media/reports/firing-line-hidden-costs-supercarrier-project-and-replacing-trident

5. In an ICM poll for the Guardian pub­lished on 13 July 2009, 54% of respon­dents indi­cat­ed that they want­ed to see Britain aban­don its nuclear weapons and not replace its Tri­dent sys­tem. http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jul/13/icm-poll-nuclear-weapons

6. The next five-year­ly Review Con­fer­ence of the NPT is due to take place 3–28 May 2010 in New York. For back­ground infor­ma­tion on the NPT and the Review Con­fer­ence, see: http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org

7. Arti­cle VI of the NPT, rat­i­fied by both the UK and the US, stip­u­lates: “Each of the Par­ties to the Treaty under­takes to pur­sue nego­ti­a­tions in good faith on effec­tive mea­sures relat­ing to ces­sa­tion of the nuclear arms race at an ear­ly date and to nuclear dis­ar­ma­ment, and on a treaty on gen­er­al and com­plete dis­ar­ma­ment under strict and effec­tive inter­na­tion­al con­trol.”
http://www.un.org/en/conf/npt/2005/npttreaty.html

8. For fur­ther infor­ma­tion on the inter­na­tion­al cam­paign for the NPT Review Con­fer­ence to com­mit to nego­ti­a­tions toward a Nuclear Weapons Con­ven­tion, see: http://www.icanw.org

9. In addi­tion to the hun­dreds of UK peo­ple who have par­tic­i­pat­ed in the block­ade, there are peo­ple from Bel­gium, Swe­den, Fin­land, and Switzer­land in atten­dance at Alder­mas­ton.

media@tridentploughshares.org
http://blockawe.blogspot.com/

The new EF! Action Update — bursting onto the seams…

In the Spring edi­tion of the EF! Action Update, see how King Coal is being con­front­ed — chim­neys climbed, con­vey­ors locked-on to, mines invad­ed, machin­ery occu­pied, eco­tage, and more.

EF! AU logo 1In the Spring edi­tion of the EF! Action Update, see how King Coal is being con­front­ed — chim­neys climbed, con­vey­ors locked-on to, mines invad­ed, machin­ery occu­pied, eco­tage, and more.

Mar­vel at the Main­shill strat­e­gy of con­tin­u­ous action, look with awe at the range of tac­tics they used in the many months before eviction…and then think about what you can do, with who, where and when.

“If not you, who? If not now, when?”

The Main­shill fea­ture includes an action time­line, local com­mu­ni­ty links and ideas for the future.

The Nuclear New Build CON­sul­ta­tion is over on 22nd Feb­ru­ary — read about what hap­pens next, who’s involved, and an anti-nuclear camp in April.

“in the end we just need rebel­lion. Every­where.” — what was your response to the Copen­hagen cli­mate chaos, whether you went or stayed at home?

Be inspired by an inter­view with “D Lock,our mys­tery dig­ger div­ing activist” — get out there, bicy­cle lock in hand. In Jan­u­ary, one per­son so-armed brought a whole coal ter­mi­nal to a halt for many hours.

And from across the seas, read about our broth­ers and sis­ters strug­gling against high-speed train destruc­tion in Italy, high-volt­age pow­er lines in Cat­alo­nia, and whale hunt­ing on the High Seas.

And if you don’t get high on all that, try not to be inspired by con­fer­ences block­ad­ed, dams delayed, earth-trash­ing machin­ery sab­o­taged, trees hugged, archi­tects impost­ed, genet­ics roofed, bio­mess bio­massed and much more.

“We are going to inher­it the earth . There is not the slight­est doubt about that. We Are not afraid of ruins. We car­ry a new world, here in our hearts. That world is grow­ing this minute.” — Dur­ru­ti

To down­load the lat­est EF!AU for print­ing, go to http://www.earthfirst.org.uk/efau/actionupdate_feb10print.pdf

To read the lat­est EF!AU online, go to http://www.earthfirst.org.uk/efau/actionupdate_feb10.pdf

2 anti-nuke protests against new build plans

Anti-nuclear activists dis­rupt Par­lia­men­tary Select Com­mit­tee
27.1.2010

Nukes not the answerAnti-nuclear activists dis­rupt Par­lia­men­tary Select Com­mit­tee
27.1.2010

This morn­ing in West­min­ster, dur­ing the Depart­ment of Ener­gy and Cli­mate Change Par­lia­men­tary Select Com­mit­tee on the pro­posed nuclear and oth­er ener­gy Nation­al Pol­i­cy State­ments, two anti-nuclear activists stood and unfurled a ban­ner in the cen­tre of the com­mit­tee room read­ing “Local Democ­ra­cy Dumped.” The ban­ner also fea­tured radi­a­tion sym­bols and drums of radioac­tive waste. A third activist hand­ed out brief­in­gs on why they believe nuclear pow­er is unac­cept­able and an inap­pro­pri­ate tech­nol­o­gy for tack­ing cli­mate change. The three activists were tak­en away and detained inside the House of Com­mons, along with a forth man who was tak­ing pho­tographs. The four were held for over two hours for alleged breach­es of the House reg­u­la­tions, before being released and banned from the Par­lia­men­tary estate for the rest of the day.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of ener­gy giants EDF, E.ON and RWE npow­er and of the Asso­ci­a­tion of Elec­tric­i­ty Pro­duc­ers were giv­ing evi­dence before the com­mit­tee of MPs. The pro­test­ers were high­light­ing the lack of local democ­ra­cy asso­ci­at­ed with the new fast-track plan­ning process, which will be used to silence dis­sent­ing local voic­es on major infra­struc­ture projects such as new nuclear pow­er sta­tions and nuclear waste dumps.

Yes­ter­day the four protest­ed with oth­ers out­side the Nuclear New Build Con­fer­ence at Char­ing Cross Hotel (see below)

Nuclear Peo­ple Pow­er / No New Nuclear
http://stopnuclearpower.blogspot.com

Lon­don Con­fer­ence Protest Expos­es Nuclear Green­wash
26.1.2010

A group of nine anti-nuclear cam­paign­ers staged a two-hour protest out­side the Nuclear New Build Con­fer­ence in cen­tral Lon­don this morn­ing in protest at indus­try attempts to paint nuclear pow­er as a “green” tech­nol­o­gy and win pub­lic sup­port for new nuclear reac­tors.

Stand­ing out­side the Guo­man Hotel adja­cent to Char­ing Cross rail­way sta­tion in the morn­ing rush hour dressed in white over­alls and masks, the pro­test­ers dis­played a large ban­ner read­ing “Nuclear Pow­er is Not the Answer to Cli­mate Chaos”, hand­ed out leaflets and detailed brief­in­gs explain­ing why they believe nuclear pow­er to be a false solu­tion to cli­mate change and detail­ing oth­er prob­lems with this form of ener­gy. Dur­ing the demon­stra­tion, the con­fer­ence’s keynote speak­er, for­mer ener­gy min­is­ter Mal­colm Wicks MP, exchanged views on nuclear pow­er and ener­gy pol­i­cy with one of the cam­paign­ers.

The Depart­ment of Ener­gy and Cli­mate Change is cur­rent­ly under­tak­ing a pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion on its draft nuclear Nation­al Pol­i­cy State­ment (NPS). Once this is approved, deci­sions on new nuclear reac­tors will be left to an unelect­ed quan­go called the Infra­struc­ture Plan­ning Com­mis­sion, with no fur­ther oppor­tu­ni­ty for local objec­tions to be heard.
The Gov­ern­ment is keen to push through a new gen­er­a­tion of cost­ly and high­ly con­tro­ver­sial nuclear reac­tors, despite wide­spread oppo­si­tion and the lack of any long-term solu­tion for over 50 years’ worth of high lev­el radioac­tive waste from exist­ing reac­tors. Cam­paign­ers are con­cerned that the high cost of build­ing new reac­tors would divert essen­tial invest­ment from renew­able and decen­tralised ener­gy and ener­gy effi­cien­cy mea­sures. They say that new reac­tors take too long to build and would not in any case make a sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion towards meet­ing the UK’s car­bon emis­sion reduc­tion tar­gets. They also remain con­cerned about the health effects of radioac­tive emis­sions, such as the can­cer and leukaemia clus­ters found near nuclear pow­er sta­tions, as indi­cat­ed by the 2007 Ger­man-gov­ern­ment spon­sored KiKK study, and the risk of a ter­ror­ist attack or cat­a­stroph­ic Cher­nobyl-type reac­tor melt­down. A for­mer direc­tor of the Fors­mark nuclear plant in Swe­den said of an inci­dent at the site in 2006: “It was pure luck that there was not a melt­down.”

Daniel Vies­nik, 35, a Lon­don-based activist, said “The nuclear industry’s long his­to­ry of secre­cy, cov­er-ups and shod­dy and dan­ger­ous prac­tices stretch­es back over fifty years. It wants us to believe that a leop­ard can change its spots, but the only thing that real­ly seems to change is the indus­try’s PR tac­tics.”

Ian Mills, 44, a long-term anti-nuclear activist from Chip­pen­ham, Wilt­shire said, “Nuclear pow­er is a dirty, dan­ger­ous and expen­sive dis­trac­tion from the major invest­ment need­ed for a rad­i­cal tran­si­tion to a safe and sus­tain­able low-car­bon future and green indus­try, based on more mod­est con­sump­tion, ener­gy effi­cien­cy and con­ser­va­tion, and renew­able and decen­tralised ener­gy.”

Mell Har­ri­son, 38, East­ern Region CND’s cam­paigns offi­cer, who lives near Sizewell nuclear pow­er sta­tion in Suf­folk, said: “It is frus­trat­ing that we are not includ­ed in the talks hap­pen­ing at the con­fer­ence, espe­cial­ly as the ener­gy needs of the UK con­cerns us all. A seat at the con­fer­ence costs over £1300 and the future costs if new nuclear goes ahead are far greater. Sure­ly now it is time for the nuclear indus­try to be open and account­able? But yet again as we have seen time and time again, all the ‘real’ talk goes on behind closed doors.’ Mell added ’ This protest is just the start- we need real solu­tions to cli­mate change — not nuclear green wash.’

Con­tact: vd2012-npp [at] yahoo.co.uk or mell­c­n­deast [at] cnduk.org
Tel: 07760 161 755 or 07506 234 091
http://stopnuclearpower.blogspot.com
Twit­ter: http://twitter.com/nukepeoplepower

Rapid Technology Transfer Group to take over the Earth Centre

A cam­paign has been run­ning to reclaim the earth cen­tre in don­cast­er as a com­mu­ni­ty skill share cen­tre. It has come to light that the local coun­cil and a con­glo­morate of many multi­na­tion­als has been plan­ning a take over. They deal in chem­i­cals, con­struc­tion, nuclear, engi­neer­ing, audio­vi­su­al, 3D tech, aero­space, defense and a whole lot more.

A cam­paign has been run­ning to reclaim the earth cen­tre in don­cast­er as a com­mu­ni­ty skill share cen­tre. It has come to light that the local coun­cil and a con­glo­morate of many multi­na­tion­als has been plan­ning a take over. They deal in chem­i­cals, con­struc­tion, nuclear, engi­neer­ing, audio­vi­su­al, 3D tech, aero­space, defense and a whole lot more.

They planned an open day to our knowl­edge this has not been pub­li­cised and very few peo­ple in the com­mu­ni­ty are aware so in order that the com­mu­ni­ty not be exclud­ed again! We feel it impor­tant to share this infor­ma­tion and urge you to attend:

Earthw rks
Devel­op­ment Plan­ning 2010
First Quar­ter – Open Days — Tues­day, Feb­ru­ary 9th and Wednes­day, March 31st
This is an open invi­ta­tion to all organ­i­sa­tions and indi­vid­u­als will­ing to con­tribute exper­tise to restore the site of the for­mer Earth Cen­tre as a nation­al resource for research­ing, under­stand­ing and prac­tis­ing sus­tain­abil­i­ty.

Please e‑mail mike@therttg.org to reg­is­ter and receive full details. Out­door wear is rec­om­mend­ed. Pho­tog­ra­phy for per­son­al use is per­mit­ted in all areas.

for more details of this sit­u­a­tion please see http://welovetheearthcentre.blogspot.com

Support the Eco-Prisoners (December 2009)‏

Spir­it of Free­dom (Decem­ber 2009)
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)

Earth Liberation Prisoners logoSpir­it of Free­dom (Decem­ber 2009)
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)

Wel­come to the Decem­ber 2009 edi­tion of Spir­it of Free­dom. A few months ago ELP report­ed the arrest of the Amer­i­can, Justin Solondz in Chi­na. As peo­ple will be aware Justin is want­ed for ques­tion­ing in con­nec­tion to an FBI inves­ti­ga­tion into the ELF that led to the Ore­gon and Wash­ing­ton Tri­als.

When ELP first heard of the arrest we wrong­ly believed, like many oth­ers, that Justin would be extra­dit­ed to Amer­i­ca where he would be remand­ed to stand tri­al for his alleged ELF activ­i­ty. How­ev­er, a cou­ple of days ago ELP learnt that rather than extra­dit­ing him, the Chi­nese decid­ed to put Justin on tri­al accused of drugs relat­ed activ­i­ty. Justin was duly found Guilty and sen­tenced to three years impris­on­ment fol­lowed by depor­ta­tion. This is of course very bad news for Justin and if any­one has any con­tact details for Justin (or knows what prison he is held in, in Chi­na, please con­tact ELP as soon as pos­si­ble).

Besides Justin’s impris­on­ment, sad­ly over the past few weeks ELP has learnt about the impris­on­ments of a num­ber of peo­ple across Europe and North Amer­i­ca accused of a vari­ety of activ­i­ty, this includes the impris­on­ment of for­mer Ital­ian ALF pris­on­er Ser­gio Ste­fani who has been accused of steal­ing a car and charged with “sub­ver­sive con­spir­a­cy” and placed in a jail specif­i­cal­ly designed for polit­i­cal activists! ELP encour­ages every­one to write urgent let­ter of sup­port to all of the new pris­on­ers on our list and remind them we are behind them. But also please don’t for­get our exist­ing pris­on­ers. All of the pris­on­ers list­ed below wel­come let­ters of sup­port.
So please, regard­less of what lan­guages you speak and regard­less of where you live in the world, your let­ters of sup­port real­ly do make the world of dif­fer­ence to the pris­on­ers. So please sup­port the eco-pris­on­ers and no com­pro­mise in defence of Moth­er Earth!

If any­one notices any of ELP’s pris­on­er details is out of date or we do not list a pris­on­er who we should list, please let ELP know as soon as pos­si­ble.
ELP is run by a small group of vol­un­teers and although we try to ensure our lists are accu­rate, we admit we do make mis­takes. So help us help keep the lists accu­rate by let­ting us know of any changes we need to make.

ECO-DEFENCE PRISONERS

Grant Barnes #137563, San Car­los Cor­rec­tion­al Facil­i­ty, PO Box 3, Pueblo, CO 81002, USA. Serv­ing 12 years for set­ting fire to a num­ber of SUV vehi­cles. The let­ters ELF were spray paint­ed onto all of the vehi­cles. (Grant is a veg­an).

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. (Diet unknown).

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. (Mar­co is a meat eater who encour­ages organ­ic liv­ing).

Niall Har­nett, Castlerea Prison, Har­ris­town, Castlerea, Co. Roscom­mon, Repub­lic of Ire­land. Sev­er­ing 4 months for non-pay­ment of a fine. The fine was issued fol­low­ing Mau­ra’s involve­ment in an anti-Shell petrol com­pa­ny protest. (Diet unknown).

Mau­ra Har­ringon, Dochas Cen­tre, Moun­tjoy Gaol, North Cir­cu­lar Road, Dublin 7, Repub­lic of Ire­land. Sev­er­ing 8 months for non-pay­ment of a fine. The fine was issued fol­low­ing Mau­ra’s involve­ment in an anti-Shell petrol com­pa­ny protest. (Diet unknown).

Leonar­do Lan­di, Carcere San­re­mo, Via Armea, 144, 18038 San­re­mo (IM), Italy. Il Sil­vestre activist await­ing tri­al accused of rob­bery. (Leonar­do is a veg­e­tar­i­an).

Jef­frey Luers, # 13797671, CRCI, 9111 NE Sun­der­land Ave, Port­land, OR 97211–1708, USA. Serv­ing 10 years for arson on a SUV deal­er­ship & the attempt­ed arson of an oil truck. The orig­i­nal sen­tence was 22 years & 8 months, but was reduced on appeal. (Diet unknown).

Marie Jeanette Mason, #04672–061, FCI Wase­ca, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, PO Box 1731, Wase­ca, MN 56093, USA. Serv­ing 21 years and 10 months for her involve­ment in an ELF arson against a Uni­ver­si­ty build­ing car­ry­ing out Genet­i­cal­ly Mod­i­fied crop tests. Marie also plead­ed guilty to con­spir­ing to car­ry out ELF actions and admit­ted involve­ment in 12 oth­er ELF actions. (Marie is a veg­an).

Eric McDavid, 16209–097, FCI Vic­torville, Medi­um II, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, PO Box 5300, Ade­lan­to, CA 92301, USA. Serv­ing 19 years & 7 months for plan­ning to destroy the prop­er­ty of the U.S. Forestry Ser­vice, mobile phone masts and pow­er plants. At the point of his arrest no crim­i­nal
dam­age has actu­al­ly occurred. (Eric is a veg­an).

Daniel McGowan, 63794–053, USP Mar­i­on, US Pen­i­ten­tiary, PO Box 1000, Mar­i­on, IL 62959, USA. Serv­ing 7 years for an ELF arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against an old growth log­ging cor­po­ra­tion. Also admit­ted his role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy. (Daniel is a veg­e­tar­i­an).

Steve Mur­phy #39013177 (for his most cur­rent prison address check out the web­site http://supportsteve.org/ ). On remand accused of attempt­ed arson and crim­i­nal dam­age at a town house con­struc­tion site in 2006. The FBI claim the action was done under the ban­ner of the ELF. (Steve is a veg­an).

Jonathan Paul — See details in Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers List.

Justin Solondz (Address Unknown — Chi­na). Amer­i­can Green Scare defen­dant accused of direct action activ­i­ty in Amer­i­ca. Serv­ing 3 years in Chi­na for drugs relat­ed offences then due to be deport­ed back to Amer­i­ca. His exact prison loca­tion is cur­rent­ly unknown. (Diet unknown).

Jonatan Strand­berg, Box 248, 59323, Väster­vik, Swe­den. Serv­ing 15 months impris­on­ment after admit­ting dam­ag­ing a com­mu­ni­ca­tion tow­er used by the Depart­ment of Defence, cut­ting the cables on a crane used in cre­at­ing urban sprawl, and dam­ag­ing a vehi­cle used in the log­ging indus­try. Jonatan is a dia­bet­ic and fol­lows a paleo diet, demand­ing local­ly sourced food).

Michael Sykes 696693, Richard A. Hand­lon Cor­rec­tion­al Facil­i­ty, 1728 Blue­wa­ter High­way, Ionia, MI 48846, USA. Serv­ing four to ten years for anti-sprawl arsons, crim­i­nal dam­age to a util­i­ty pole, spray-paint­ing polit­i­cal graf­fi­ti and burn­ing the Amer­i­can flag. (Diet unknown)

Bri­ana Waters 36432–086, FCI Dan­bury, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, Route 37, Dan­bury, CT 06811, USA. Serv­ing six years for involve­ment in an ELF arson on a Uni­ver­si­ty. (Diet unknown).

Joy­an­na Zach­er, #36360–086, FCI Dublin, 5700 8th St.- Camp Parks- Unit F, Dublin, CA 94568, 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. (Diet unknown).

ANIMAL LIBERATION PRISONERS
(All Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers fol­low a min­i­mum veg­e­tar­i­an diet and most are veg­an).

Anony­mous Female Pris­on­er One (E‑mail mes­sages of sup­port to
holland@die-tierbefreier.de ) Ger­man woman held on Remand accused of raid­ing a mink farm in Hol­land. (She is a veg­an).

Anony­mous Female Pris­on­er Two (E‑mail mes­sages of sup­port to
dbf-sg@riseup.net ) Dutch woman held on Remand accused of raid­ing a mink farm in Hol­land. (She is a veg­an).

Jon­ny Able­white TB4885, H.M. Prison, Hewell Lane, Red­ditch, Worcs B97 6QS, Eng­land. Serv­ing 12 years for attempt­ing to black­mail a farmer who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion. (Jon is a veg­an).

Dan Amos VN7818, HMP Guys Marsh, Shaftes­bury, Dorset, SP7 0AH, Eng­land. Serv­ing 4 years for con­spir­a­cy to black­mail Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences. (Dan is a veg­an)

Gregg Avery TA7450, HMP Cold­in­g­ley, Shaftes­bury Road, Bis­ley, Wok­ing, Sur­rey GU24 9EX, Eng­land. Serv­ing 9 years for con­spir­a­cy to black­mail Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences. (Gregg is a veg­an).

Natasha Avery NR8987, HMP Send, Rip­ley Road, Wok­ing, Sur­rey, GU23 7LJ, Eng­land. Serv­ing 9 years for con­spir­a­cy to black­mail Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences. (Nat is a veg­an).

Mel Broughton A3892AE, HMP Fran­k­land, Bras­side, Durham, Coun­ty Durham DH1 5YD, Eng­land. Serv­ing 10 years for “con­spir­a­cy to com­mit arson” against Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty vivi­sec­tion depart­ment. (Mel is a veg­an).

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. (Lau­ren is a veg­an).

Alex Hall, Inmate #2009–06304, Davis Coun­ty Jail, 800 West State St., Farm­ing­ton, UT 84025, USA. On Remand accused of raid­ing a mink farm. Also accused of breach­ing bail con­di­tions whilst on bail. (William is a veg­an).

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

Robert Lewis (address unknown — Eng­land). Serv­ing 18 months for send­ing threat­en­ing let­ters to a com­pa­ny linked to drugs test­ing. (Diet Unknown).

Daniel McGowan — See details in Eco Defence Pris­on­ers List.

Robert Grif­fiths (address unknown — Eng­land). Serv­ing 18 months for send­ing threat­en­ing let­ters to a com­pa­ny linked to drugs test­ing. (Diet unknown).

Gavin Medd-Hall WV9475, HMP Cold­in­g­ley, Shaftes­bury Road, Bis­ley, Wok­ing, Sur­rey GU24 9EX, Eng­land. Serv­ing 8 years for con­spir­a­cy to black­mail Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences. (Gavin is a veg­an).

Heather Nichol­son VM5859, HMP Fos­ton Hall, Fos­ton, Der­by, Der­byshire, DE65 5DN, Eng­land. Serv­ing 11 years for con­spir­a­cy to black­mail Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences. (Heather is a veg­an).

Kevin Olliff, #1300931, TTCF 161 D‑Pod, 450 Bauchet St., Los Ange­les, CA 90012, USA. On remand accused of stalk­ing. Exact details of the indict­ment have not yet been revealed but the charges appear to relate to a per­son employed by an edu­ca­tion­al facil­i­ty so may be linked to vivi­sec­tion. (Kevin is a veg­an).

Jonathan Paul, #07167–085, FCI Phoenix, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, 37910 N 45th Ave., Phoenix, AZ 85086, USA. Sen­tenced to 51 months for an ALF arson on a horse meat plant. Also admit­ted his role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy. (Jonathan is a veg­an).

Ster­gio Ste­fani — See Oth­er Polit­i­cal Pris­on­er List.

William James Viehl, Inmate #2009–05735, Davis Coun­ty Jail, 800 West State St., Farm­ing­ton, UT 84025, USA. Await­ing sen­tenc­ing hav­ing plead­ed guilty to raid­ing a mink farm. He is due to be sen­tenced in Decem­ber. (William is a veg­an).

Nicole Vosper VM9385, HMP Bronze­field, Wood­hthor­pe Road, Ash­ford, Mid­dx, TW15 3JZ, Eng­land. On remand accused of black­mail­ing Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences. (Nicole is a veg­an).

Dan Wad­ham, A5705AA, HMP Camp Hill, New­port, Isle of Wight, PO30 5PB, Eng­land. Serv­ing 5 years for con­spir­a­cy to black­mail Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences. (Dan is a veg­an).

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. (Ker­ry is a veg­an).

Sarah White­head, VM7684, HMP Bronze­field, Woodthor­pe Road, Ash­ford, Mid­dx, TW15 3JZ, Eng­land. Serv­ing two years for: 1) res­cu­ing a pup­py from hor­rif­ic con­di­tions. 2) res­cu­ing over 100 ani­mals from a pet breed­er who was lat­er pros­e­cut­ed for ani­mal abuse. Also await­ing tri­al for SHAC activ­i­ty. (Sarah is a veg­an)

GRAND JURY RESISTERS
The fol­low­ing peo­ple have been jailed for refus­ing to tes­ti­fy before Grand Juries in Amer­i­ca which are inves­ti­gat­ing ALF & ELF activ­i­ty.

Car­olyn Feld­man, Wash­ing­ton Coun­ty Jail., 2185 Lex­ing­ton Blvd. PO Box 6, Wash­ing­ton, IA 52353, USA. (Diet unknown).

Mus­ca­tine Coun­ty Jail Inmate, c/o “Scott DeMuth”, 400 Wal­nut Street, Mus­ca­tine, Iowa 52761, USA. Scott has also recent­ly been indict­ed for con­spir­a­cy under the Ani­mal Enter­prise Ter­ror­ism Act. (Scott is a meat eater who advo­cates bow hunt­ing).

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. (Diet unknown).

OTHER ANTI-WAR PRISONERS

Eli­ja Smith VP 7551 HMP Lewes, 1 Brighton Rd, Lewes, Sus­sex, BN7 1EA, Eng­land. On remand accused of dis­arm­ing a weapons fac­to­ry, which, amongst oth­er things, makes Hell­fire Mis­siles. The action was in protest at Israel mil­i­tary action against Gaza. (Diet unknown).

THE LECCE DEFENDANTS
The Lec­ce Defen­dants 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

Alek­sey Bychin, FBU OIK‑2 IK‑7 otryad No. 7, ul. Kar­nal­li­to­vaya d. 98, g. Solikam­sk Permskiy Kray, 618545 Rus­sia. Serv­ing 5 years for defend­ing him­self against neo-nazis. (Diet unknown).

Andrei Mergen­ov, FGU IZ 64/1 OKB 2 komn. 73, Up. Kutyako­va 107, 410601 Sara­tov, Rus­sia. Serv­ing 3 years for fight­ing with neo-nazis. (Diet unknown)

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

OTHER PRISONERS

Pavel Deli­don, ul. Timiryazeva‑1, FGU IK‑7, 309990 Val­uy­ki Rus­sia. Anarchist/Animal Rights activist jailed for attempt­ing to obtain wages owed to him, but which had not been paid to him by his employ­er. IMPORTANT: Pavel can only receive let­ters writ­ten in Russ­ian. He is pun­ished by the prison if he receives a let­ter not writ­ten in Russ­ian so please, only send let­ters writ­ten in Russ­ian. (Diet unknown).

Richard Sills (Address Unknown, USA). Serv­ing 15 months for bomb hoax­ing a Uni­ver­si­ty say­ing they would be tar­get­ed by the ALF if they did­n’t stop their ani­mal exper­i­ments. (Diet unknown).

Alessan­dro Set­tepani, Carcere San Michele, Via Casale, 50/A, 15122 San Michele (AL), Italy. Co-defen­dant of Ser­gio Ste­fani. Arrest­ed for steal­ing a car and then remand­ed for “Sub­ver­sive Con­spir­a­cy” and remand­ed into a prison for polit­i­cal activists. (Alessan­dro is a veg­an).

Ser­gio Maria Ste­fani, Carcere San Michele, Via Casale, 50/A, 15122 San Michele (AL), Italy. For­mer ALF pris­on­er arrest­ed for steal­ing a car and then remand­ed for “Sub­ver­sive Con­spir­a­cy” and remand­ed into a prison for polit­i­cal activists. (Ser­gio is a veg­an).

Fran Thomp­son, #1090915, CCC, 3151 Lit­ton Dri­ve, Chill­i­cuthe, MO 64601, 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. (Fran is a veg­an).

MOVE
MOVE is an eco-rev­o­lu­tion­ary group who car­ried out protests in defence of all life. All move pris­on­ers describe them­selves as veg­e­tar­i­ans. 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 Grater­ford, PO Box 244, Grater­ford, PA 19426–0244, USA.

Edward Good­man Africa (AM4974), SCI Mahanoy, 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 includ­ing assault and mur­der. ‘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

Greek lan­guage ELP Web­site
http://greekelp.blogspot.com

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

Aus­tralian ELP.SN is our Aus­tralian con­tact. For more info 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.

Greek ELP.SN is our Greek con­tact. For more info e‑mail greekelp@yahoo.gr

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 Somerset power lines protesters in ‘Save our Valley’ demonstration

Plac­ard-wav­ing pro­test­ers chant­i­ng ‘Save our Val­ley’ held a demon­stra­tion out­side a pub­lic exhi­bi­tion detail­ing plans to put tow­er­ing pylons through the North Som­er­set coun­try­side.

Plac­ard-wav­ing pro­test­ers chant­i­ng ‘Save our Val­ley’ held a demon­stra­tion out­side a pub­lic exhi­bi­tion detail­ing plans to put tow­er­ing pylons through the North Som­er­set coun­try­side.

More than 40 peo­ple wav­ing signs read­ing ‘Save our Val­ley – Say NO to pylons’ and ‘Save our Coun­try­side’ staged the protest out­side the exhi­bi­tion being run by Nation­al Grid at the Scotch Horn Leisure Cen­tre in Nailsea.

Nation­al Grid wants to cre­ate a new over­head 400,000-volt pow­er line from Bridg­wa­ter to Avon­mouth to bring elec­tric­i­ty from the pro­posed nuclear pow­er sta­tion at Hink­ley Point on to its trans­mis­sion net­work.

The pow­er giant is look­ing at a series of options for the new line, along two route cor­ri­dors – one of which would cut through the coun­try­side from Wrax­all to Back­well and east Nailsea.

The line would come over Wrax­all Hill and past the school and church and then down along­side The Elms before cross­ing Back­well Com­mon, going along the rail­way line and Back­well Lake towards Young­wood Lane.

The oth­er option is to use cor­ri­dor one which runs along the west­ern fringes of Nailsea, close to local homes.

If the scheme gets the green light, the pylons would also increase in size from 25 metres high to 45 metres – near­ly 160ft.

Fiona Erleigh, who lives in west Nailsea, said Nation­al Grid was try­ing to divide the town. She said: “Nation­al Grid pick two routes either side of Nailsea for these pylons as an under­hand ploy to split the town.

“We have joined forces and are work­ing togeth­er to make sure this scheme does not go ahead.”

The Save Our Val­ley cam­paign has now attract­ed more than 2,000 mem­bers and a web­site has been set up – www.save-our-valley.co.uk – as well as a Face­book page.