Category: Action Reports

Nigeria rebels declare ‘oil war’

15/09/2008
Nige­ri­a’s main mil­i­tant group in the Niger Delta has declared an “oil war” against forgeign-owned oil com­pa­nies work­ing in the region.

15/09/2008
Nige­ri­a’s main mil­i­tant group in the Niger Delta has declared an “oil war” against forgeign-owned oil com­pa­nies work­ing in the region.

The Move­ment for the Eman­ci­pa­tion of the Niger Delta (Mend) said on Sun­day it had launched “hur­ri­cane Bar­barossa” and destroyed flow sta­tions and oil pipelines, killing 22 Niger­ian sol­diers.

Mend said it was launch­ing the “war” after gov­ern­ment troops attacked one of its posi­tions a day ear­li­er with aer­i­al and marine forces.

Chevron con­firmed one of its oil plat­forms was attacked by rebels on Sun­day.

“There was an attack on a plat­form already shut down due to pipeline prob­lems,” an offi­cial said.

“There were heavy casu­al­ties on the part of the mil­i­tants,” Lieu­tenant-Colonel Sagir Musa, a mil­i­tary spokesman for the task force in Rivers state, said.

“We are hope­ful they will give up the fight very soon.”

‘Hur­ri­cane of retal­i­a­tion’

He said no oil facil­i­ties were affect­ed by two days of heavy fight­ing.

Vio­lence in the Niger Delta, the cen­tre of the Opec mem­ber’s oil sec­tor, has halt­ed a fifth of the coun­try’s oil pro­duc­tion since 2006.

The Niger Delta accounts for most of Nige­ri­a’s oil out­put of two mil­lion bar­rels per day, mak­ing it the world’s eighth biggest oil exporter.

Dr Muhammed Ali Zainy, a senior ana­lyst for the cen­tre for Glob­al Ener­gy stud­ies, told Al Jazeera: “Recent­ly Opec reduced pro­duc­tion by about 520,000 bar­rels per day but this did not stop the slid­ing price of oil.

“This means that the demand for oil is fal­ter­ing and that the world econ­o­my is weak, there­fore any dent in Niger­ian oil pro­duc­tion would not have a big impact on the mar­ket,” he said.

Mend mem­bers warned oil firms in the Niger Delta on Sat­ur­day to with­draw their work­ers in the next 24 hours or face a “hur­ri­cane” of retal­i­a­tion fol­low­ing a major gun bat­tle with secu­ri­ty forces ear­li­er in the day.

Mend said secu­ri­ty forces used heli­copters, jet fight­ers and more than 20 gun­boats in Sat­ur­day’s fight­ing.

A secu­ri­ty source said sol­diers from the army, navy and air force were involved in the clash­es.

Inse­cu­ri­ty in the region has cut the West African coun­try’s out­put by around a fifth since ear­ly 2006, when Mend began blow­ing up oil pipelines and kid­nap­ping for­eign work­ers, help­ing push up world oil prices.

Roy­al Dutch Shell, Exxon­Mo­bil, Total, Eni, and Chevron, are among the numer­ous oil com­pa­nies oper­at­ing in the Niger Delta.

Leave it in the Ground – Scotland organising meeting

Stop new coal devel­op­ments in Scot­land! Leave it in the Ground

Tues­day 23rd Sep­tem­ber, 7–9pm, Autonomous Cen­tre of Edin­burgh (17 West Mont­gomery Place)

Leave it in the Ground banner logoStop new coal devel­op­ments in Scot­land! Leave it in the Ground

Tues­day 23rd Sep­tem­ber, 7–9pm, Autonomous Cen­tre of Edin­burgh (17 West Mont­gomery Place)

Cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate change is the biggest threat fac­ing us. Burn­ing coal is the biggest his­tor­i­cal cause of cli­mate change. Yet every day more coal is burned, and the coal indus­try and the gov­ern­ment seem intent on burn­ing even more.

33 new open­cast coal mines and six coal fired pow­er sta­tions are at the plan­ning stage in the UK alone. In Scot­land, the out­look is bleak – many of these new coal mine projects are planned for the cen­tral belt, and two pow­er sta­tions are to be rebuilt.

Rum­blings of an effort to resist these new projects have begun. Leave it in the Ground is a net­work sup­port­ing and devel­op­ing groups across the UK as part of the cam­paign to stop new coal, and is grow­ing in strength. As a net­work, Leave it in the Ground is run by and for the groups that make it up, exist­ing as a way to estab­lish com­mon ground, facil­i­tate net­work­ing and share infor­ma­tion and skills.

This meet­ing aims to get every­one inter­est­ed in stop­ping new coal devel­op­ments in Scot­land togeth­er, and talk about what we want to do about them, under the ban­ner of ‘Leave it in the ground / No New Coal’. And there’s an awful lot to do — from research to com­mu­ni­ty engage­ment and organ­is­ing to tak­ing direct action — its real­ly impor­tant that we get on the case now!

In addi­tion, there is a Leave it in the Ground nation­al net­work­ing meet­ing in Man­ches­ter on the 11th and 12th Octo­ber. We thought it would be good to have a meet­ing in Scot­land before this in the hope that peo­ple would be up for going to Man­ches­ter with feed­back and get Scot­land more involved in the net­work. Please come along!

Peaceful Protesters Lock their Bodies to Dominion Power Plant

15 Sep­tem­ber 2008
Pro­test­ers From Across the Coun­try Join Wise Coun­ty VA Res­i­dents to Oppose Pow­er Plant’s Impact on Envi­ron­ment and Health, and to Demand a Clean Ener­gy Future

Dominion Wise County lock-on 1Dominion Wise County lock-on 215 Sep­tem­ber 2008
Pro­test­ers From Across the Coun­try Join Wise Coun­ty VA Res­i­dents to Oppose Pow­er Plant’s Impact on Envi­ron­ment and Health, and to Demand a Clean Ener­gy Future

At 6:00am this morn­ing around 50 peace­ful pro­test­ers entered the con­struc­tion site of Domin­ion Vir­gini­a’s Wise Coun­ty coal-fired pow­er plant. Almost twen­ty pro­test­ers locked their bod­ies to eight large steel drums, two of which have oper­a­tional solar pan­els affixed to the top that illu­mi­nat­ed a ban­ner read­ing “renew­able jobs to renew Appalachia.” In addi­tion to those locked to the con­struc­tion site, over 25 pro­test­ers from across the coun­try con­vened in front of the plant singing and hold­ing a 10’x30’ ban­ner, which said “we demand a clean ener­gy future.”

In this event—the first protest at Domin­ion’s $1.8 bil­lion new coal-fired pow­er plant—local Wise Coun­ty res­i­dents have joined hands with those fight­ing moun­tain­top removal coal and cli­mate change from Ten­nessee to Cal­i­for­nia. Those young and old, from cities and from rur­al com­mu­ni­ties have come togeth­er because the con­struc­tion of this 585-megawatt pow­er plant not only pos­es a mas­sive risk to the health of Appalachi­ans, but it also stands in stark oppo­si­tion to the nation­al move to a clean ener­gy econ­o­my.

“Coal is in our blood but we’re real­iz­ing it’s also in our lungs and in our drink­ing water,” said Han­nah Mor­gan, Wise Coun­ty landown­er and one of those locked to the con­struc­tion site. “We are here because now is the time to take greater action as indi­vid­u­als, a com­mu­ni­ty, and a coun­try to cre­ate a sus­tain­able future and stop the destruc­tion of our home­place.”

“I’m here from Coal Riv­er, WV to sup­port my fel­low Appalachi­ans in our shared strug­gle to end coal indus­try abus­es,” said Bo Webb, res­i­dent of Coal Riv­er, WV and mem­ber of Coal Riv­er Moun­tain Watch. “We are not going to con­tin­ue to stand idly by and watch our chil­dren be robbed of their right to clean air and clean water. This is no longer an Appalachi­an prob­lem, it’s an Amer­i­can prob­lem.”

With very few jobs going to local res­i­dents for con­struc­tion or long-term plant oper­a­tion and with­out any means to cap­ture its car­bon diox­ide pol­lu­tion, the Domin­ion plant rep­re­sents a remark­ably bad deal for Vir­ginia. “With all the bil­lions of dol­lars that have rolled out of Appalachia in the last 5 years, it should look like Dubai but instead it looks like Guatemala,” said Jane Bran­ham, Wise Coun­ty res­i­dent and nurse. “My dad was a coal min­er. As he says, ‘it’s not the same as it used to be—there’s no prof­it in coal for the peo­ple here any­more there’s only dev­as­ta­tion.’ ”

This event comes on the heels of Domin­ion’s ground­break­ing cer­e­mo­ny for the plant on August 14 and con­tin­ues almost two years of oppo­si­tion to the project. Near­ly 45,000 Vir­gini­ans have signed a peti­tion against the con­struc­tion of the plant, three law­suits were recent­ly filed chal­leng­ing the state’s approval of the plant as its per­mits fail to ade­quate­ly con­trol emis­sions of haz­ardous tox­ins, such as mer­cury, which can cause severe neu­ro­log­i­cal deficits in devel­op­ing fetus­es and young chil­dren.

“Embrac­ing clean ener­gy is not a sac­ri­fice, it is an oppor­tu­ni­ty,” said Rebec­ca Tar­bot­ton of Rain­for­est Action Net­work, a Cal­i­for­nia group that is pres­sur­ing Bank of Amer­i­ca and Citi, lead­ing financiers of Domin­ion, to stop fund­ing coal plants and to start invest­ing in clean ener­gy. “This Domin­ion protest is part of a rapid­ly grow­ing move­ment of peo­ple across the coun­try who are will­ing to put their bod­ies on the line to ensure a clean ener­gy future.”

Oppo­nents to the plant believe Vir­ginia should be lead­ing the coun­try in renew­able ener­gy; Vir­gini­a’s skilled labor force could be at the fore­front of the bur­geon­ing green jobs move­ment. Leav­ing Appalachi­a’s moun­tains intact could sup­port a 2,000 megawatt wind farm, almost four times the amount of ener­gy gen­er­at­ed by this plant.

The plant, if con­struct­ed, will process large­ly moun­tain top removal coal, cre­at­ing an even big­ger incen­tive for the destruc­tive prac­tice that dec­i­mates his­toric moun­tains and con­t­a­m­i­nates drink­ing water. Wise Coun­ty has already had 25% of its his­toric moun­tain ranges destroyed for­ev­er to moun­tain­top removal min­ing.

/For more infor­ma­tion or for pho­tos and b‑roll, please con­tact Nell Green­berg, 276–337-3198./

http://www.wiseupdominion.org
http://www.blueridgeef.com

11th October day of action against surveillance — Freedom not Fear + ANPR news for car drivers

Call to mass action Sat­ur­day 11th Octo­ber against the sur­veil­lance state in sol­i­dar­i­ty with activists around the world http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/content/view/242/144/

Freedom not Fear banner logoCall to mass action Sat­ur­day 11th Octo­ber against the sur­veil­lance state in sol­i­dar­i­ty with activists around the world http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/content/view/242/144/

A broad move­ment of cam­paign­ers and orga­ni­za­tions is call­ing on every­body to join action against exces­sive sur­veil­lance by gov­ern­ments and busi­ness­es. On 11 Octo­ber 2008, con­cerned peo­ple in many coun­tries will take to the streets, the mot­to being “Free­dom not fear 2008”. Peace­ful and cre­ative action, from protest march­es to par­ties, will take place in many cap­i­tal cities.

—————

Sur­veil­lance mania is spread­ing. Gov­ern­ments and busi­ness­es reg­is­ter, mon­i­tor and con­trol our behav­iour ever more thor­ough­ly. No mat­ter what we do, who we phone and talk to, where we go, whom we are friends with, what our inter­ests are, which groups we par­tic­i­pate in — “big broth­er” gov­ern­ment and “lit­tle broth­ers” in busi­ness know it more and more thor­ough­ly. The result­ing lack of pri­va­cy and con­fi­den­tial­i­ty is putting at risk the free­dom of con­fes­sion, the free­dom of speech as well as the work of doc­tors, helplines, lawyers and jour­nal­ists.

The man­i­fold agen­da of secu­ri­ty sec­tor reform encom­pass­es the con­ver­gence of police, intel­li­gence agen­cies and the mil­i­tary, threat­en­ing to melt down the divi­sion and bal­ance of pow­ers. Using meth­ods of mass sur­veil­lance, the bor­der­less coop­er­a­tion of the mil­i­tary, intel­li­gence ser­vices and police author­i­ties is lead­ing towards the con­struc­tion of “Fortress­es” in Europe and on oth­er con­ti­nents, direct­ed against refugees and dif­fer­ent-look­ing peo­ple but also affect­ing, for exam­ple, polit­i­cal activists, the poor and under-priv­iledged, and sports fans.

Peo­ple who con­stant­ly feel watched and under sur­veil­lance can­not freely and coura­geous­ly stand up for their rights and for a just soci­ety. Mass sur­veil­lance is there­by threat­en­ing the fab­ric of a demo­c­ra­t­ic and open soci­ety. Mass sur­veil­lance is also endan­ger­ing the work and com­mit­ment of civ­il soci­ety orga­ni­za­tions.

Sur­veil­lance, dis­trust and fear are grad­u­al­ly trans­form­ing our soci­ety into one of uncrit­i­cal con­sumers who have “noth­ing to hide” and — in a vain attempt to achieve total secu­ri­ty — are pre­pared to give up their free­doms. We do not want to live in such a soci­ety!

We believe the respect for our pri­va­cy to be an impor­tant part of our human dig­ni­ty. A free and open soci­ety can­not exist with­out uncon­di­tion­al­ly pri­vate spaces and com­mu­ni­ca­tions.

The increas­ing elec­tron­ic reg­is­tra­tion and sur­veil­lance of the entire pop­u­la­tion does not make us any safer from crime, costs mil­lions of Euros and puts the pri­va­cy of inno­cent cit­i­zens at risk. Under the reign of fear and blind action­ism, tar­get­ed and sus­tained secu­ri­ty mea­sures fall by the way­side, as well as tack­ling peo­ples’ actu­al dai­ly prob­lems such as unem­ploy­ment and pover­ty.

In order to protest against secu­ri­ty mania and exces­sive sur­veil­lance we will take to the streets in cap­i­tal cities in many coun­tries on 11 Octo­ber 2008. We call on every­body to join our peace­ful protest. Politi­cians are to see that we are will­ing to take to the streets for the pro­tec­tion of our lib­er­ties!

There are plans for a demo with music and noise at New Scot­land Yard. Are oth­ers else­where up for doing demos else­where in the UK at oth­er police sta­tions?

Wiki for info and dis­cus­sion re Lon­don / UK actions
at http://wiki.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/Freedom_Not_Fear_2008/London
and http://wiki.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/Diskussion:Freedom_Not_Fear_2008/London

It would be good to have a con­ver­sa­tion about this as we need to get some­thing good start­ed. Octo­ber 11th Vid-Fly­er http://www.ecln.org

———–

Vehi­cle spy-cam data to be held for five years

Author­i­ties will store details of car jour­neys sur­veilled by the new nation­al Auto­mat­ic Num­ber Plate Recog­ni­tion (ANPR) sys­tem for five years, the Home Office has revealed.

Senior police offi­cer had said the data on mil­lions of vehi­cles would only be kept for two years, the Guardian reports. The Infor­ma­tion Com­mis­sion­er’s Office (ICO) is exam­in­ing a com­plaint by Pri­va­cy Inter­na­tion­al over the extend­ed reten­tion peri­od. The pri­va­cy advo­ca­cy group described it as “unnec­es­sary and dis­pro­por­tion­ate”.

The ICO said: “Pro­longed reten­tion would need to be clear­ly jus­ti­fied based on con­tin­u­ing val­ue not on the mere chance it may come in use­ful.”

The ANPR sys­tem, head­quar­tered in Hen­don, north Lon­don, will be ful­ly oper­a­tional in the new year. Half of Eng­lish and Welsh police are already sup­ply­ing it with data from their upgrad­ed CCTV net­works.

Forces are being encour­aged to “ful­ly and strate­gi­cal­ly exploit” its poten­tial for track­ing sus­pects and vehi­cles by the Asso­ci­a­tion of Chief Police Offi­cers. It’s envis­aged that ANPR will be used as part of “main­stream polic­ing”, rang­ing from clamp­ing down on unin­sured dri­vers to counter-ter­ror oper­a­tions.

Cam­paign­ers have called for the gov­ern­ment to more clear­ly define which oth­er agen­cies will be allowed to inter­ro­gate the data­base and for what rea­sons.

Son of Shell to Sea hunger striker assaulted and arrested at Glengad beach

13.09.2008
Today at mid­day around 50 local and nation­al Shell to Sea cam­paign­ers attempt­ed to reclaim Glen­gad beach, Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion, from Shell. Despite Shel­l’s com­mit­ment to allow pub­lic access to the beach, for the past two months the beach has been closed to the pub­lic while prepara­to­ry pipeline work is ongo­ing.

Glengad fence13.09.2008
Today at mid­day around 50 local and nation­al Shell to Sea cam­paign­ers attempt­ed to reclaim Glen­gad beach, Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion, from Shell. Despite Shel­l’s com­mit­ment to allow pub­lic access to the beach, for the past two months the beach has been closed to the pub­lic while prepara­to­ry pipeline work is ongo­ing.

When cam­paign­ers attempt­ed to exer­cise their right to pub­lic access to the beach they were met by Gar­da vio­lence. Four peo­ple were arrest­ed, includ­ing hunger strik­er Mau­ra Har­ringot­n’s son. Ms. Har­ring­ton’s son was treat­ed par­tic­u­lar­ly bru­tal­ly by the Gar­dai. Four Gar­dai knelt on his back, pushed his face into the sand for sev­er­al min­utes and twist­ed his arms behind his back.

One wit­ness to the arrests stat­ed, “There were over 50 peo­ple par­tic­i­pat­ing in the demon­stra­tion and out of all these the Gar­dai clear­ly sin­gled out Mau­ra Har­ring­ton’s son. They called him by name and then assault­ed him. It was no co inci­dence that it was Mau­ra’s son that was so vio­lent­ly arrest­ed.”

All who were arrest­ed are cur­rent­ly being held in Bel­mul­let Gar­da sta­tion.

At the time of writ­ing Mau­ra Har­ring­ton, Shell to Sea, is into her fifth day of a hunger strike which she began on Tue 9th August at approx­i­mate­ly 6pm when Shel­l’s pipe-lay­ing ship the Soli­taire arrived in Broad­haven Bay, Erris, Co Mayo.

Mau­ra is clear that her hunger strike will end in one of two ways.

1) Writ­ten con­fir­ma­tion that the Soli­taire has left Irish ter­ri­to­r­i­al waters.
2) Her death.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More from yes­ter­day

Lock-on protest

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—

10th Sep­tem­ber:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

An injunc­tion is being sought to pre­vent fur­ther spu­ri­ous arrests.

——-

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

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

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

Update — 4:30pm

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

—–

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

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

MAOIST REBELS ATTACK PHILIPPINE BIOFUEL PLANTATION

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

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

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

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

“The work­ers were not harmed,” Yano said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The coun­try imports near­ly all of its crude oil needs.

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

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

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

Aldermaston Big Blockade October 27 & Oct. 4th: “No Missile Defence at Menwith Hill & Derby Trident 22nd September

Help dis­rupt ille­gal work on WMD at Britain’s nuclear bomb fac­to­ry

Help dis­rupt ille­gal work on WMD at Britain’s nuclear bomb fac­to­ry

In 2006/7, Faslane 365 saw well over 1000 arrests dur­ing a year-long block­ade of the Tri­dent sub­ma­rine base in Scot­land . Last East­er, AWE Alder­mas­ton saw its biggest demon­stra­tion in two decades as 5000 peo­ple sur­round­ed the base to mark the 50th anniver­sary of the first Alder­mas­ton march. Tri­dent Ploughshares now invite you to a major block­ade of the Berk­shire nuke fac­to­ry, where bil­lions of pounds are cur­rent­ly being spent devel­op­ing new war­head facil­i­ties that will scup­per nuclear dis­ar­ma­ment for anoth­er 50 years. Help us uphold inter­na­tion­al law by blockad­ing this fac­to­ry of death in what promis­es to be a colour­ful cel­e­bra­tion of life and peo­ple pow­er. There is a role for every­one. This event is sup­port­ed by CND.

For fur­ther details, see:
http://blockawe.blogspot.com
and
http://www.tridentploughshares.org

Tri­dent Ploughshares is a cam­paign to dis­arm the UK Tri­dent nuclear weapons sys­tem in a non-vio­lent, open, peace­ful and ful­ly account­able man­ner.

“Non-vio­lence is stronger than any weapon. If human­i­ty does not end the atom bomb I do not think the human species can last.” — Gand­hi, speak­ing on the day of his assas­si­na­tion

–

There will be a week­end work­shop of Tri­dent Ploughshares non­vi­o­lence train­ing, focussing on prepa­ra­tion for the Octo­ber 27 Alder­mas­ton Big Block­ade at Waltham­stow Friend’s Meet­ing House, 1a Jew­el Road, off Hoe Street, Waltham­stow, Lon­don E17 4QU on Sat­ur­day and Sun­day 20th and 21st Sep­tem­ber.

The full week­end is pri­mar­i­ly for peo­ple think­ing of becom­ing mem­bers of Tri­dent Ploughshares and mak­ing an ongo­ing com­mit­ment. Peo­ple just wish­ing to pre­pare for the block­ade are wel­come to attend for the full week­end, but may also choose to attend on the SATURDAY ONLY.
There is no charge for the work­shop, but par­tic­i­pants are asked to con­tribute towards expens­es if they are able to.

Con­tact Ali­son to reg­is­ter and for more details:
E‑mail: alison.crane [at] ntlworld.com
Tel: 01785 611 768 or 0845 4588 362 or 07886 972 319

——-

Show your strength of feel­ing against Amer­i­can Mis­sile Defense by com­ing to Men­with Hill near Har­ro­gate. This US sys­tem, which Brown qui­et­ly said yes to in 2007, is mak­ing huge waves in East­ern Europe: Poland has agreed to mis­siles and the Czech Repub­lic, despite a major­i­ty of its peo­ple against, has agreed to the US radar com­po­nent for MD. Rus­sia is already com­par­ing these plans to the Cuban Mis­sile Cri­sis…

CAAB holds an annu­al July 4th protest: Inde­pen­dence FROM Amer­i­ca, and an autumn protest: Keep Space for Peace week. We also have week­ly protests on Tues­day nights and have clocked up hun­dreds of arrests over the years!

START = This time we start in Ket­tlesing Lay­by HG3 2LP (oppo­site the Black Bull on the A59). TIME = 12 noon til 5‑ish.

*** SO WHOSE COMING TO THIS IMPORTANT DEMONSTRATION ? (APART FROM LOTS OF PEOPLE !!!)

Musi­cians = * Lion Sound * Local group * Karl Dal­las * Ylem www.myspace.com/ylemfolk * Mon­key Wrenchers * Peace Artistes www.peaceartistes.org.uk

Speak­ers = Col­in Challen (Labour MP Mor­ley and Roth­well)

Rebec­ca John­son (Acronym Insti­tute for Dis­ar­ma­ment Diplo­ma­cy)

Food = Lunch O’Lils

.……and much more

Have fun! Bring your friends!

http://www.caab.org.uk/

———

tri­dent nuclear protest rolls royce raynesway der­by 10.am 22/9/08

hope you’ll join us bring musi­cal instru­ments or cir­cus acts wel­come a611 der­by ring road nuclear plant demo

month­ly anti nuclear .demo 10.am mon­day 22/9/18 hope you’ll all come rolls royce make parts for tri­dent nuclear weapons 4 mass destruc­tion used in wars this is ille­gal ..any per­son wish­ing to come to this worth­while cause are more than wel­come .we need musi­cians cir­cus acts .anti nuclear ban­ners, rolls royce keep ura­ni­um tita­ni­un and many more sub­stances con­nect­ed with the man­u­fac­ture of weapons off mass destruc­tion .we believe also the swans on the riv­er at rear are car­ry­ing radio active traces from cool­ing process from reac­tors i live a mile away .my fish­ponds loose oxy­gen through acid rain either from celanese chem­i­cal plant or rolls royce .the area sur­round­ing these to plants have the high­est leukemia deaths in the uk .why ..its not uncom­mon for me to find wildlife dying in this ares why i myself feed all wildlife .i boast the most birds in my gar­den in area .then next minute they die ..defra claim it is legal for these indus­tries to poi­son ani­mals / to stop them get­ting in to what they pro­duce .celanese make cig­a­rette tips .which help kill man any way .so why kill wildlife ..when the things they go in destroy life any­way .mon­ey mon­ey mon­ey and wealth .any per­son trav­el­ling .can get off the train at spon­don sta­tion .1 mile away and get picked up /or even der­by sta­tion . i’ve a 7 seater .or if trav­el­ling by car .park in my pri­vate lane out of police view ill run you down post­code de21 7bs .email tigger1946@fsmail.net .or 07727226032

Coal Protest Hits the Cardiff Hilton

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

10th Sep­tem­ber 2008 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – NO EMBARGO

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

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

10th Sep­tem­ber 2008 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – NO EMBARGO

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

Coal Protest Hits the Cardiff Hilton

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Under­cur­rents filmed the direct action..watch our report here

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

Announce­ment – ‘Leave it in the ground’ nation­al meet­ing

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

Announce­ment – ‘Leave it in the ground’ nation­al meet­ing

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

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

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

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

The pro­posed agen­da for this meet­ing includes:

Sat­ur­day 11th

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

Sun­day 12th

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

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

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

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