Category: Action Reports

open cast plans for the north of england — meet in Newcastle to make plans, and for the Camp for Climate Action

The 2008 camp for cli­mate action is to be held near to the pro­posed site for a new coal fired pow­er sta­tion. E‑on the com­pa­ny that wants to build the pow­er sta­tion has stat­ed that it will use a sys­tem called Car­bon Cap­ture and stor­age. C.C.S is still in an ear­ly devel­op­ment stage and has not been used on such a large scale.

The 2008 camp for cli­mate action is to be held near to the pro­posed site for a new coal fired pow­er sta­tion. E‑on the com­pa­ny that wants to build the pow­er sta­tion has stat­ed that it will use a sys­tem called Car­bon Cap­ture and stor­age. C.C.S is still in an ear­ly devel­op­ment stage and has not been used on such a large scale. The pow­er sta­tion will have to begin life with­out any c.c.s mean­ing mega-tons of unfil­tered Co2 emis­sions’ head­ing into our atmos­phere .

The cli­mate camp(www.climatecamp.org.uk) at Kingsnorth in the Med­way val­ley will high­light and take direct action against the black hole in the gov­ern­ments cli­mate change pol­i­cy. COAL.

Pow­er sta­tions like Egg­brough, Drax and Kingsnorth pro­duce huge amounts of filthy emis­sions, drax alone pro­duces approx 21 mil­lions tones of Co2 per year.
All this coal has to come from some­where and it would ‘seam’ the mon­ey men have set their greedy eyes on the north of Eng­land again.
U:k coal and the banks group have sev­er­al plan­ning appli­ca­tion to sur­face mine/open cast across the North East.
*Bradley Co. Durham- 550 000 tonnes
*Park wall north Co. Durham- 1 275 000 tonnes
*pot­land burn Northum­ber­land- 2 000 000 tonnes
*Shot­ton Northum­ber­land- 3 000 000 tonnes
*An exten­sion to the exsist­ing site at wid­dring­ton

In addi­tion to these appli­ca­tions there is already one of the largest open cast sites in the U:K at Sto­b­swood near Mor­peth. Sur­face min­ing sites are also oper­at­ing in Wid­dring­ton, Blag­don estate in Northum­ber­land. Stead­burns and stoney heap near to Con­sett Co. Durham.

In the case of shotton/cramlington plan­ning appli­ca­tion, Shot­ton is in an open­cast con­straint area which means that there is a pre­sump­tion against Sur­face min­ing. Northum­ber­land coun­ty coun­cil up held the con­straint and re-ject­ed the appli­ca­tion. How­ev­er the com­mu­ni­ties and local gov­ern­ment sec­re­tary Hazel Blears M.P Stepped in and over­ruled the coun­ty coun­cil allow­ing the open­cast oper­a­tion to go ahead much to dis­may of the local com­mu­ni­ty
(www.journallive.co.uk/north-east-news/todays-news/2008/02/08/ministers-quizzed-on-opencast-policy-61634–20450633/ )
The pot­land burn site is also in a con­straint area yet U:K coal has still lodged an appli­ca­tion prob­a­bly because they feel the polit­i­cal cli­mate is in their favor.

As if the eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion, indus­tri­al injuries/deaths and dis­rup­tion to the com­mu­ni­ty that open­cast min­ing leaves behind Npow­er have stat­ed that they have an immi­nent plan­ning appli­ca­tion to build a new coal fired pow­er sta­tion in Blyth on the site of the exist­ing pow­er sta­tion. Con­struc­tion is due to begin 2014 on the same time­line as Kingsnorth.
Whilst the focus is on the cli­mate camp and Kingsnorth, the North of Eng­land and our resources are cen­tral to the U:K gov­ern­ment and their cap­i­tal­ist boss­es plans for a new gen­er­a­tion of dirty pow­er sta­tions .
This new gen­er­a­tion of coal fired pow­er sta­tions and the unac­cept­able min­ing prac­tices that accom­pa­ny them must be stopped.
One of the key fea­tures of the cli­mate camp is direct action.
The Banks group have offices in West Corn­forth near Fer­ry­hill, U:K coal head offices are in Don­cast­er’ leave it in the ground’ have began reg­u­lar noise demos out­side the next is 14th July. All the open­cast sites are eas­i­ly acces­si­ble.

Peo­ple are meet­ing to dis­cuss and plan for the upcom­ing cli­mate camp at the star and shad­ow cin­e­ma, New­cas­tle upon tyne. Next meet­ing is Thurs­day July 3rd at 6pm why not come along and join the move against cli­mate change.

Links and info:

www.climatecamp.org.uk
www.earthfirst.org.uk/leaveitintheground
www.greenpeace.com
www.thecoalhole.org
www.indymedia.org.uk
www.pontvalley.net
www.banksdevlopments.com
www.ukcoal.com

A visit to the Opencast Squat

21.06.2008
I decid­ed to take a trip to Ship­ley today to see how the new res­i­dents of Prospect farm were set­tling in.

Bodge House with roof-tripodBodge fencing21.06.2008
I decid­ed to take a trip to Ship­ley today to see how the new res­i­dents of Prospect farm were set­tling in.

Just to recap the sto­ry so far. In the ear­ly hours of last Wednes­day morn­ing a group of car­ing indi­vid­u­als took pos­ses­sion of a build­ing on the site of UK Coals planned new open cast site in Der­byshire. There aim is to protest/prevent the coun­try­side and wider envi­ron­ment being dev­as­tat­ed by the extrac­tion and burn­ing of the dirt­i­est fos­sil fuel.

As if we need­ed any remind­ing of the cli­mate chaos coal burn­ing con­tributes to, when I arrived on Sat­ur­day (21st June!) it was wet and driz­zly and the fore­cast was for storms.

But the rain had not damp­ened the spir­its of the crew now liv­ing at Prospect Farm (now re-chris­tened Bodge farm). While they were still busy with all those jobs that need doing when you move into a new home they had already achieved a great deal and the place was very home­ly. A well-stocked kitchen was set up and a wel­com­ing open fire means there is always a ket­tle on the go.

To the sounds of acoustic gui­tar from one of the tree-hous­es I watched a cou­ple of peo­ple fix­ing fenc­ing and looked up to admire the sus­pend­ed car­go net­ting between the trees.

There have been oth­er vis­i­tors com­ing to show their sup­port includ­ing three gen­er­a­tions of the fam­i­ly who used to live in the house before UK Coal kicked them out.

I was delayed on leav­ing as a large van full of pro­vi­sions had just arrived and need­ed unload­ing. This had been spon­ta­neous­ly arranged and paid for by locals and includ­ed just about every­thing you could think of from tinned beans to cot­ton buds, fresh veg to bot­tled water.

Please get along there and sup­port them, it’s a love­ly loca­tion and the squat/camp has a great feel.

But get along there because at some point we have just got to draw a line. For all our futures and for gen­er­a­tions to come, leave it in the ground.

http://www.leaveitintheground.org.uk

Solidarity actions for imprisoned liberationists

Italy, Mex­i­co, Spain & UK
Sol­i­dar­i­ty actions for; Pao­la Gori, Jeff Luers & Sean Kirt­ley

Com­mu­niques report­ed to Bite Back Mag­a­zine: 15th — 19th June:

Italy, Mex­i­co, Spain & UK
Sol­i­dar­i­ty actions for; Pao­la Gori, Jeff Luers & Sean Kirt­ley

Com­mu­niques report­ed to Bite Back Mag­a­zine: 15th — 19th June:

anony­mous reports:

30th May — h 21.00 — Moun­tains of Emil­ia Region, Italy.
We set on fire a hunt­ing tow­er placed in a wood pop­u­lat­ed by boars.
We have destroyed it with two liters of gaso­line ignit­ed by a retar­dant primer.
— A.L.F. -

Night of 5th June — Emil­ia Region, Italy.
A small chick­en farm was vis­it­ed again (see the com­mu­nique of last month).
We have lib­er­at­ed one cock (the only male present) and slashed the tires of the car of the farmer.
— A.L.F. -

These actions are ded­i­cat­ed to Pao­la. She is a veg­an, ani­mal rights activist, pris­on­er in ‘Le Sug­here’ Ital­ian jail.
Please write* and sup­port her.
Also, please sup­port the vic­tims of state repres­sion in Italy and Aus­tria.
Free­dom for all!
Lib­er­ta ‘per tut­ti!”

received anony­mous­ly (trans­la­tion):

“On the night of June 14 (Inter­na­tion­al day in sup­port of the earth lib­er­a­tion war­rior Jef­frey Luers and all rad­i­cal envi­ron­men­tal pris­on­ers), the Earth Lib­er­a­tion Front and Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Front got togeth­er and went to the doors of one of the many com­pa­nies guilty in the dom­i­na­tion, destruc­tion and exter­mi­na­tion of the earth and its liv­ing beings.

Var­i­ous slo­gans were paint­ed such as ‘No More Vivi­sec­tion,’ ‘ALF,’ ‘No HLS,’ ‘Sup­port Jef­frey,’ ‘Mur­der­ers’ and oth­ers which attacked the com­pa­ny Unilever which shares prop­er­ty with DHL (an HLS sup­port­er). Now as one passed through these mod­ern-day exter­mi­na­tion camps, one can read the slo­gans of the FLA and FLT on most of its walls.

Com­pañero Jef­frey we know about your sit­u­a­tion and it gives us great plea­sure to know that soon you’ll be out here on the front line fight­ing again like you’ve done before. We hope that those bars and life in prison leave you with even more strength to con­tin­ue.

To all those rad­i­cal envi­ron­men­tal­ist pris­on­ers, an embrace from Mex­i­co.

For Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion!
For Earth Lib­er­a­tion!
For Human Lib­er­a­tion!
Direct Action!

FLA & FLT”

excerpt from anony­mous report:

“In sup­port of Jef­frey Luers and the strug­gle for ani­mal lib­er­a­tion
Dur­ing the ear­ly hours of June 14, the locks of every fur shop in the Bil­bao city cen­ter were glued, in sup­port of this pris­on­er and many oth­ers, and in gen­er­al of the strug­gle for ani­mal lib­er­a­tion.”

report­ed anony­mous­ly:

“Activists in the North West decid­ed to ‘pimp’ a hunt scums ride.

The car was easy to find as it had both the pro-hunt ‘Felix Says’ stick­er and a BASC (Shoot­ing) stick­er in the rear win­dow. The BASC stick­er sealed the car’s fate, the Judge in the Sean Kirt­ley case was into shoot­ing and a mem­ber of BASC. The car had paint strip­per applied, spray paint over the win­dows, wind­screen wipers wrecked and one wing mir­ror smashed. Looked real­ly pret­ty once we’d fin­si­hed.

If the own­er wants com­pen­sa­tion then they should write to Judge Ross and NETCU. It’s the crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion of legal protest that has caused this.

ALF”

ARRESTED & CHARGED McLibel Protester!

On the 21st June 08, as part of the anniver­sary of the now famous 1997 McLi­bel court case in which two cam­paign­ers were sued by the McDon­alds Cor­po­ra­tion for dis­trib­ut­ing a leaflet crit­i­cal of the com­pa­ny, camp

Cambridge McDonaldsEarth hamburgurizedOn the 21st June 08, as part of the anniver­sary of the now famous 1997 McLi­bel court case in which two cam­paign­ers were sued by the McDon­alds Cor­po­ra­tion for dis­trib­ut­ing a leaflet crit­i­cal of the com­pa­ny, cam­paign­ers entered the McDon­alds in Rose Cres­cent, Cam­bridge.

After being removed from the restau­rant by police a cam­paign­er was approached and his details request­ed. He gave his name and address but was told if he did not give his date of birth he would be arrest­ed under Sec­tion 5 of the Pub­lic Order Act. He refused, as he believes that a per­son is only required to give their name and address for the pur­pose of a sum­mons and no addi­tion­al details. He was sub­se­quent­ly arrest­ed under Sec­tion 5 of the Pub­lic Order Act. The arrest got pub­lic atten­tion with peo­ple mak­ing use of their cam­eras and com­ing up to take leaflets.

He has been charged and bailed to attend Cam­bridge Mag­is­trates – Narey – Court 613 – Mag­is­trates Court at 43 Haux­ton Road, Cam­bridge on the 3rd July at 9.30 a.m. – ANY SUPPORT APPRECIATED.

The pro­test­ers hoped to high­light the issues that orig­i­nal­ly com­prised the leaflet that led to the court case rang­ing from ani­mal farm­ing to envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion. Accord­ing to a cam­paign­er, “McDon­alds hasn’t real­ly changed. Whether it be the envi­ron­men­tal impact of ani­mal agri­cul­ture or the fact they con­tin­ue to mar­ket junk food to chil­dren in the mid­dle of an obe­si­ty prob­lem, McDon­alds still makes a lot of peo­ple very Mcan­gry.”

Many of the orig­i­nal leaflet’s crit­i­cisms of McDon­alds were vin­di­cat­ed in court. Accord­ing to the rul­ing of the High Court, Mcdon­alds had ‘exploit­ed chil­dren’, was ‘cul­pa­bly respon­si­ble for ani­mal cru­el­ty’ and used mar­ket­ing that had ‘pre­tend­ed to a pos­i­tive nutri­tion­al ben­e­fit which their food did not match’.

The cam­paign­ers are call­ing on the peo­ple of Cam­bridge to boy­cott the restau­rant chain. We can all make a state­ment about our val­ues by the way we spend our cash. We call on every­one to say no to this busi­ness in our city.

- You can learn more about the McLi­bel case at http://www.mcspotlight.org/

- An addi­tion­al video of the protest was tak­en by an inde­pen­dent cam­era man see http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/06/401610.html (thanks!)

- Protester’s video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ld3I4zVxc2A

COURT DATE:

Cam­bridge Mag­is­trates – Narey – Court 613 – Mag­is­trates Court at 43 Haux­ton Road, Cam­bridge on the 3rd July at 9.30 a.m.

arrest charges dropped — round-up: Fossil Fools Day & M1 Conspiracy

As with the major­i­ty of protest arrests (if you do a NO COMMENT inter­view), though there’s been a load of peo­ple arrest­ed recent­ly, they’ve released with­out charge, on bail to return to a police sta­tion.

This gives the CPS time to decide what to do, but also hin­ders protest because the police can dic­tate puna­tive bail restric­tions.

—-
M1 Con­spir­a­cy Case Thrown Out

1st May 2008

As with the major­i­ty of protest arrests (if you do a NO COMMENT inter­view), though there’s been a load of peo­ple arrest­ed recent­ly, they’ve released with­out charge, on bail to return to a police sta­tion.

This gives the CPS time to decide what to do, but also hin­ders protest because the police can dic­tate puna­tive bail restric­tions.

—-
M1 Con­spir­a­cy Case Thrown Out

1st May 2008
Sev­en cli­mate camp activists against the widen­ing of the M1(1*) had the case against them dis­missed from Sheffield Crown Court yes­ter­day. Charged with con­spir­a­cy to cause a pub­lic nui­sance Judge Robin­son said that: “there was not a jot of evi­dence” for a jury to infer an endan­ger­ment of any mem­ber of the pub­lic.

Sev­en cli­mate camp activists against the widen­ing of the M1(1*) had the case against them dis­missed from Sheffield Crown Court today. Charged with con­spir­a­cy to cause a pub­lic nui­sance Judge Robin­son said that: “there was not a jot of evi­dence” for a jury to infer an endan­ger­ment of any mem­ber of the pub­lic.

Arrest­ed over a year ago the pro­test­ers had their hous­es raid­ed with prop­er­ty such as com­put­ers and phones tak­en and held for the dura­tion of the inves­ti­ga­tion.

This rul­ing in the midst of a crack down (2*) on green protest sets a prece­dent for polic­ing of envi­ron­men­tal demon­stra­tions. The Judge resound­ing­ly reject­ed the pros­e­cu­tion’s argu­ment that the hang­ing of ban­ners over the motor­way would con­sti­tute a pub­lic nui­sance. He went on to say: “that all of the avail­able mate­r­i­al (pre­sent­ed to
the court) is con­sis­tent only with peace­ful protest.”

Cam­paign spokesper­son Dr Julie White, a GP from Sheffield, said: “this is vic­to­ry for the right to protest in the face of gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy of expand­ing roads, run­ways and coal-fired pow­er sta­tions in a time of cli­mate cri­sis.”

The activists say that the expe­ri­ence has not deterred them from tak­ing action against the root caus­es of cli­mate change and will be attend­ing the Camp for Cli­mate Action(3*) at Kingsnorth coal-fired pow­er sta­tion in Kent this August.

Con­tact Julie White on 0779851073.

NOTES FOR EDITORS
1*) The Depart­ment of Trans­port have decid­ed against widen­ing the M1 any fur­ther: http://www.nowideningm1.org.uk/

2*) this month the Sun­day Her­ald report­ed that pro­tes­tors in Scot­land had been harassed by police after peace­ful demon­stra­tions: http://www.sundayherald.com/news/heraldnews/display.var.2210574.0.protesters_police_treated_us_like_terrorists.php

3*)The Camp for Cli­mate Action went to Heathrow last sum­mer over the build­ing of a third run­way this year it will pitch up at Kingsnorth over the poten­tial build­ing of the UK’s first new coal-fired pow­er sta­tion for 30 years:
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/

—-

Bac­ton gas ter­mi­nal 19

On 1st April, EF!ers block­ad­ed the gas ter­mi­nal at Bac­ton to cel­e­brate Fos­sil Fools Day. The police tried to arrest every­one, and got 19 peo­ple. For a full report, see http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20420

Due to return to a rur­al Nor­folk police sta­tion, peo­ple were keen to phone up the police sta­tion to find out what was hap­pen­ing. The police had not tak­en any deci­sion, and a few days before decid­ed to drop charges against all but 3 peo­ple locked-on who got off with cau­tions.

—-

Police drop charges against Wun­der­man pro­tes­tors

The three activists arrest­ed fol­low­ing the inva­sion of Wunderman’s offices have had all charges against them dropped.

The envi­ron­men­tal­ists, from direct action group Lon­don Ris­ing Tide, had been charged with “bur­glary of pens, paper and phone calls”.

They were held after stag­ing a four-hour sit-in over two of par­ent agency Y&R’s key clients – Land Rover and BAE Sys­tems.

The action was part of a world­wide cam­paign against cli­mate change, dubbed Fos­sil Fools Day. In the UK, the group also staged demon­stra­tions out­side Porsche deal­er­ships, the head office of E‑on, and a coal mine in Wales.

The three activists man­aged to get into the Y&R build­ing –Greater Lon­don House on Hamp­stead Road, NW1 – by pos­ing as exec­u­tives from a new­ly-pri­va­tised wing of the MoD called Har­rion­Pro­jects, a spoof com­pa­ny whose cen­tre­piece is the Har­rion, a civil­ian ver­sion of the Har­ri­er Jump-Jet.

Once inside, they bar­ri­cad­ed them­selves into the con­fer­ence room, oppo­site Wun­der­man EMEA chief exec­u­tive Mar­cus Starke’s office.

Blockade of Faslane — One year since Scotland said NO

19/06/2008
Today a group of 5 Tri­dent Ploughshares activists block­ad­ed the main gate of Faslane nuclear sub­ma­rine base for one and a half hours. The road­way was closed from 6.40am until 7.45am, and unable to ful­ly reopen until 8.15am. Traf­fic was turned away and had to find an alter­na­tive entrance.

19/06/2008
Today a group of 5 Tri­dent Ploughshares activists block­ad­ed the main gate of Faslane nuclear sub­ma­rine base for one and a half hours. The road­way was closed from 6.40am until 7.45am, and unable to ful­ly reopen until 8.15am. Traf­fic was turned away and had to find an alter­na­tive entrance.

One of the activists, Janet Fen­ton, said “We chose today because it is one year since the Scot­tish gov­ern­ment vot­ed NOT to sup­port Gor­don Brown’s plan to foist ille­gal, immoral and unaf­ford­able nuclear weapons on Scot­land for anoth­er 50 years. Along with the major­i­ty of peo­ple in Scot­land, we don’t want them here or any­where else.”

The five were cau­tioned by MDP police at 7am as they lay across the road­way to the North gate, locked-on using tubes and clips. A spe­cial­ist cut­ting team had to be called out to remove the activists indi­vid­u­al­ly who had their arms in tubes of steel, plas­tic and con­crete. They were arrest­ed for Breach of the Peace and tak­en for pro­cess­ing inside the base.

See video footage at http://youtube.com/watch?v=tGAHAUHMwjo

The pro­test­ers said that they were at the North Gate peace­ful­ly act­ing to block the entrance to the nuclear sub­ma­rine base to play their part as cit­i­zens of the world in stop­ping the deploy­ment of nuclear weapons:

* to remind the UK Gov­ern­ment of their oblig­a­tions;
* to sup­port the politi­cians and oth­ers who are will­ing to work to get rid of nuclear weapons;
* and to make it clear that mat­ters of con­science are the respon­si­bil­i­ty of all con­cerned peo­ple, and can nev­er be reserved.

Anoth­er activist said, “By using our hands and our bod­ies in this way, with­out caus­ing harm to oth­ers, we hope that we can make it easy to see how it is the sim­ple actions of ordi­nary peo­ple that are need­ed to rid the world of weapons of mass destruc­tion.”

Nigerian attacks closes oilfields

19 June 2008
Oil com­pa­ny Roy­al Dutch Shell says it has tem­porar­i­ly stopped pro­duc­tion at its main off­shore oil­field in Nige­ria, fol­low­ing a mil­i­tant attack.

Nigerian pipeline burns after attack19 June 2008
Oil com­pa­ny Roy­al Dutch Shell says it has tem­porar­i­ly stopped pro­duc­tion at its main off­shore oil­field in Nige­ria, fol­low­ing a mil­i­tant attack.

The raid took place overnight on the Bon­ga oil plat­form about 120km (75 miles) off the coast of the Niger Delta, the com­pa­ny said.

It is the first attack on the oil­field, which nor­mal­ly pro­duces about 200,000 bar­rels a day.

Attacks on the inshore Niger Delta have helped dri­ve up world oil prices.

Nige­ri­a’s valu­able off­shore oil­fields had always been con­sid­ered dif­fi­cult for most mil­i­tants to tar­get, the BBC’s Alex Last reports from Lagos.

But ear­ly on Thurs­day gun­men in boats reached the Bon­ga instal­la­tion, Shel­l’s flag­ship project, for the first time.

A Niger­ian navy spokesman con­firmed reports that mil­i­tants had kid­napped a US oil work­er from a sep­a­rate ves­sel on their way back from the raid.

The Move­ment for the Eman­ci­pa­tion of the Niger Delta (Mend) claimed it car­ried out the attack in an email sent to jour­nal­ists, and named the Amer­i­can as Cap­tain Jack Stone.

They said he would be released “in the com­ing hours”.

Sophis­ti­cat­ed

The gun­men failed to get inside the plat­form, but attacked a key ves­sel used for pro­duc­tion stor­age and offload­ing, a Shell spokesman said.

Sev­er­al peo­ple were report­ed to have been injured.

Mend says it is cam­paign­ing for a greater share of the region’s oil wealth to be kept by local peo­ple, but the gov­ern­ment says they are crim­i­nals moti­vat­ed by the ran­soms they receive from oil com­pa­nies.

The shut­down has cut a tenth of Nige­ri­a’s total out­put in one go.

This comes on top of a reduc­tion of at least 20% in recent years fol­low­ing inland attacks.

Our cor­re­spon­dent says Bon­ga was new, expen­sive and work­ing well despite the dif­fi­cul­ties and repeat­ed attacks affect­ing the com­pa­ny’s inshore oper­a­tions in the Delta.

The mil­i­tants in the Delta are get­ting more sophis­ti­cat­ed and bet­ter equipped and armed, he says.

Now they have proven that in terms of dis­tance at least, all of Nige­ri­a’s facil­i­ties are with­in their reach.

Amnesties promised

Next month, a peace sum­mit organ­ised by the gov­ern­ment on the Niger Delta unrest is due to begin in the cap­i­tal, Abu­ja.

The gov­ern­ment has promised amnesties to any mil­i­tants who take part.

Mend has refused to attend unless Hen­ry Okah, one of their lead­ers cur­rent­ly on tri­al for trea­son and gun-run­ning, is also grant­ed amnesty.

But the gov­ern­ment has refused.

“We want every­one to be there to air their griev­ances,” vice-pres­i­den­tial aide Akilu Ind­abawa told the BBC’s Hausa Ser­vice.

“But in Hen­ry Okah’s case the issue is in front of a court and the gov­ern­ment can’t inter­vene because it respects the rule of law.”

Oth­er reports to bal­ance this -
Niger­ian mil­i­tants demand gov­ern­ment accept medi­a­tion by ex-US pres­i­dent Carter
Move­ment for the Eman­ci­pa­tion of the Niger Delta Declares War
Niger­ian mil­i­tants: We killed drunk­en sol­diers

—–

21st June 2008
Nige­ria oil pipeline ‘attacked’

US oil giant Chevron has halt­ed onshore oil pro­duc­tion at its Escravos oil­field after an attack on a pipeline.

The loss could equate to about 120,000 bar­rels per day, about 6.6% of Nige­ri­a’s total dai­ly crude pro­duc­tion.

The Niger­ian mil­i­tary said mil­i­tants blew up the Niger Delta pipeline, but the region’s main armed group blamed angry youths for the attack.

Ear­li­er this week, Nige­ri­a’s pres­i­dent ordered tighter secu­ri­ty in the Delta after an attack at a Shell facil­i­ty.

Accord­ing to the BBC’s Alex Last, in Lagos, sources in the west­ern Niger Delta believe the lat­est attack is the work of ille­gal oil “bunker­ers” — involved in the lucra­tive trade in stolen oil.

Sig­nif­i­cant loss

The ear­li­er attack on Shel­l’s float­ing oil plat­form at Bon­ga, which cut a tenth of Niger­ian oil pro­duc­tion in one go, was car­ried out by mil­i­tant group the Move­ment for the Eman­ci­pa­tion of the Niger Delta (Mend).

News agen­cies quot­ed Mend as say­ing that it was not respon­si­ble for the Escravos inci­dent, which occurred on Thurs­day night.

Mend said it had been con­tact­ed by angry youths who report­ed hav­ing blown up the pipeline, the Asso­ci­at­ed Press said.

The Escravos inci­dent high­lights the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty of the oil infra­struc­ture in Nige­ria, our cor­re­spon­dent says.

With the gov­ern­ment plan­ning to hold a big sum­mit of Niger Delta lead­ers and more mon­ey expect­ed to flow to the Niger Delta, per­haps the armed groups there feel it is a good time to show how rel­e­vant they are to any chance of peace, our cor­re­spon­dent adds.

While the loss to Niger­ian crude out­put is sig­nif­i­cant, it is a small frac­tion of the dai­ly glob­al oil out­put, of about 85 mil­lion bar­rels per day.

News of the Escravos attack comes ahead of a meet­ing in Jed­dah, Sau­di Ara­bia, of major ener­gy pro­duc­ers and users — where the ris­ing price of oil will be the key top­ic for dis­cus­sion.

On Fri­day the Niger­ian gov­ern­ment announced how it would spend a $10bn (£5bn) wind­fall from the ris­ing oil price.

It will spend just over $5bn fix­ing the coun­try’s pow­er sup­ply and the rest will be shared among the 36 state gov­ern­ments.

FIGHT SPECIESISM! #2 — Out Now

The sec­ond issue has expand­ed from 6 to 10 pages because of the quan­ti­ty of news and analy­sis that has been pub­lished since the first edi­tion.

FIGHT SPECIESISM! #2 The sec­ond issue has expand­ed from 6 to 10 pages because of the quan­ti­ty of news and analy­sis that has been pub­lished since the first edi­tion.

Click HERE to read or HERE to print.

ISSUE 2, July 2008
Arti­cles:

- Sol­i­dar­i­ty actions for Sean Kirt­ley
— ALF tar­get NFU — “no bad­ger cull”
— Fur Indus­try — Oslo under attack
— Falling tow­ers — 43 in 92 days, Swe­den
— Judge Ross & NETCU — cru­ci­fy civ­il lib­er­ties
— NETCU and SOCPA — a nasty dic­ta­tor­ship?
— Earth news — Leave it in the ground & burn­ing man­sions*
— Anar­chy in Brighton — Smash EDO Car­ni­val*

Please dis­trib­ute far and wide!

NOTES

Fight Speciesism! is the newslet­ter from Anti­spe Britain. Issues are pub­lished spo­rad­i­cal­ly, depen­dent on when there is enough to news to fill the pages.

**Due to pop­u­lar demand, FS! now fea­tures a small por­tion of Earth news and a col­umn for the lat­est anar­chist action.

We would also like to apol­o­gise for not includ­ing the recent repres­sion in Aus­tria against anti-fur activists. It was decid­ed that because the issue is devel­op­ing swift­ly, the news print­ed would unfor­tu­nate­ly be out of date when pub­lished.

How­ev­er, please see the Indy­media UK fea­ture that has been cre­at­ed to keep you up to date with the lat­est.

Climate change protestors occupy Derbyshire open cast coal site — contact, map, wish list, access & court papers

18th June 2008 – For imme­di­ate release
Leave it in the Ground 07852 460871

Today cli­mate cam­paign­ers from ‘Leave it in the Ground’ have occu­pied the UK Coal’s Lodge House site in Der­byshire by bar­ri­cad­ing them­selves in a dis­used farm build­ing and tak­en to the trees on the site of the open cast mine.

Bodge House squatBodge House roof banner18th June 2008 – For imme­di­ate release
Leave it in the Ground 07852 460871

Today cli­mate cam­paign­ers from ‘Leave it in the Ground’ have occu­pied the UK Coal’s Lodge House site in Der­byshire by bar­ri­cad­ing them­selves in a dis­used farm build­ing and tak­en to the trees on the site of the open cast mine.

Under the cov­er of dark­ness activists have secured them­selves in the Prospect Farm build­ing on the site which is about to be dev­as­tat­ed by huge machines. Food and sup­plies have also been tak­en in for a long term occu­pa­tion and bar­ri­cades’ have been set up pre­vent­ing police form bring­ing in spe­cial­ist equip­ment down Bell Lane, Smal­l­ey Der­byshire into the heart of the site. Sim­i­lar­ly, peo­ple are locked on by their necks behind the doors pre­vent­ing force being used to gain entry. The pro­test­ers are claim­ing squatter’s rights.

At Lodge House today, Andy Green said “We are here because the sin­gle great­est threat to the cli­mate comes from burn­ing coal. Coal fired gen­er­a­tion is his­tor­i­cal­ly respon­si­ble for most of the CO2 in the air today – about half of all car­bon diox­ide emis­sions glob­al­ly. Coal form open cast mines is dirt­i­er than that from deep mines, so it is even worse!”

Lodge house is owned by UK Coal, Britain’s largest coal com­pa­ny who plan to extract one mil­lion tonnes of coal from the 122 hec­tor site. Pro­tes­tors claim this will dev­as­tate the area. Local coun­cils, res­i­dents and local envi­ron­men­tal groups have all object­ed to the plans, how­ev­er, the Envi­ron­ment Sec­re­tary Hilary Benn grant­ed plan­ning per­mis­sion in 2007 and work is set to com­mence immi­nent­ly.

New open cast mines are being active­ly sup­port­ed by the gov­ern­ment and the num­ber of open­cast mines going into the plan­ning process and being approved is on the increase.

The Leave it in the Ground, is part of the Net­work for Cli­mate Action (2) and its allies, has seen over a dozen actions take place around the UK includ­ing the occu­pa­tion of a coal train head­ing for Drax pow­er sta­tion. Protests have focused on the com­pa­nies respon­si­ble for run­away car­bon diox­ide emis­sions, as well as those pro­mot­ing false solu­tions to cli­mate change.

“We are tak­ing action to pre­vent the coal indus­try bent on eco­nom­ic growth from destroy­ing our future,” said Julie Lee from Leave it in the Ground. “If Gor­don Brown gives the go ahead to a new gen­er­a­tion of coal fired pow­er sta­tions begin­ning with Kingsnorth in Kent, it will under­mine – per­haps fatal­ly — Britain’s chances of meet­ing its cli­mate change tar­gets. If Britain is to cut its emis­sions by 80% by 2050, the eight planned new coal pow­er-fired plants alone will wipe out half of our car­bon bud­get.”

A fur­ther demon­stra­tion is planned for 14th July at UK Coal’s Head quar­ters in Don­cast­er.

For inter­views and more infor­ma­tion about today’s action at Lodge House con­tact:
Andy PHONE NUMBER 07852 460871
EMAIL derby@earthfirst.org.uk

** Updates will be avail­able through­out the day at
http://leaveitintheground.wordpress.com or from 07852 460871 **

Notes to edi­tors.

1. UK coal’s head­quar­ters is sit­u­at­ed at Har­worth Park, Blyth Road, Har­worth, Don­cast­er DN11 8DB.

2. To com­bat open-cast min­ing, a new action group “Leave it in the Ground” has formed, sup­port­ed by Earth First! As well as oth­er envi­ron­men­tal groups.

3. UK coal has sub­mit­ted plan­ning appli­ca­tions for 5 new sites:
(Site and Poten­tial Ton­nage)
Pot­land Burn, Northum­ber­land 2,000,000 tonnes
Park Wall North, Co. Durham 1,275,000 tonnes
Bradley, Co. Durham 550,000 tonnes
Hunt­ing­ton Lane, Shrop­shire 900,000 tonnes
Blair House, Fife 700,000 tonnes

It is pro­posed that the 122 hectare site will pro­duce one mil­lion tonnes of coal over five years, after which the land will be ‘returned back to its nat­ur­al state’. How­ev­er, UK Coal will not be able to replace ancient edges and mature trees, and their licence enables the com­pa­ny to expand beyond the 122 hectares with­out need­ing fur­ther per­mis­sion

Coal is the dirt­i­est form of pow­er gen­er­a­tion known to man. Top NASA James Hansen recent­ly remarked: “The only prac­ti­cal way to pre­vent CO2 lev­els from going far into the dan­ger­ous range, with dis­as­trous effects for human­i­ty and oth­er inhab­i­tants of the plan­et, is to phase out use of coal except at pow­er plants where the CO2 is cap­tured and sequestered.”

—-

The house and site has been dubbed Bodge House.

We need more peo­ple on site to make addi­tion­al prepa­ra­tions and secure oth­er areas to stop open cast­ing and build long term home.

Sup­plies are also need­ed

Site phone 07503 335870

Most of all we need peo­ple to come down and stay on the site. It is a beau­ti­ful area, with much wildlife, and easy access to pub­lic trans­port. Come down and vis­it!

See here for direc­tions & map — take pub­lic trans­port to Ship­ley Coun­try Park or oth­er near­by place, then make for Prospect Farm, marked on the map.

—-

Wish list:

Water: Please bring lots when you come as there is cur­rent­ly no run­ning water on site.

scaf­fold, tar­pau­lin, planks, large nails, polyprop espe­cial­ly 8mm, 10mm and 12mm (but any rope is good)

sand and cement

Climb­ing tat — ropes, har­ness’ cara­bi­nas, belay plates, d‑locks, pad­locks and chains, car­go net­ting,

Blan­kets, car­pets, quilts, sleep­ing bags, ham­mocks,

bow­saws, burn­ers, plas­tic sheets, shov­els and oth­er tools, torch­es, hur­ri­cane lamps and head torch­es.

Axes, bat­ter­ies (car and torch), bolt crop­pers, buck­ets, can­dles, fish­ing line, flex­i­flue and cut­ting gear,

food (tinned is good, dried food par­tic­u­lar­ly things like fruit and nuts is fan­tas­tic, fresh fruit and veg is real­ly appre­ci­at­ed) cook­ing pans and cut­lery, mugs and plates first aid, gen­er­a­tors, paraf­fin, refuse sacks, rope, string, tents, ther­mos flasks, tin stor­age (ammo) box­es, water butts.

Nylon crane net­ting, pul­leys, loud­hail­ers, para­chutes, ruck­sacks, steel cable,

Clothes, Boots, warm clothes and socks, water­proof cloth­ing, wellies.

Musi­cians, climbers, mechan­ics, car­pen­ters, heal­ers, bak­ers, solic­i­tors, spon­sors, poets, friend­ly shop keep­ers, trad­er exchange, nature-lovers and every­one else too!

Trans­port

Bicy­cles and tools.

—-

access to site

19th June
The chap at the Lodge on Bell Lane is not let­ting peo­ple past and claim­ing he owns the road (he is an angry farmer with dog).

Alter­na­tive access is from ship­ley — when com­ing from heanor, turn right off A6007 (Ilke­ston rd) as you leave ship­ley (into ‘the field’), turn right onto tar­mac road after the stein­er school (one left) and go up this road. Bear left past bridge and lake on right and turn right through gate just before big house. You are now on Bell lane and site is the house next to road works after bridge.

if you go take lots of water

—-

Papers served and anoth­er protest

The farm house on the prospec­tive open cast coal site that was squat­ted this week has receieved its papers.

It will be tak­en to court on 30th June at 10 am at Der­by Com­bined Court Cen­tre, Morledge, Der­by, DE1 2XE by Har­worth Estates Agri­cul­tur­al Land Ltd (part of the UK Coal Con­glom­er­ate).

The peo­ple on site are putting a call out for peo­ple to come and stay on the site and help out. If you have ever fan­cied your hand at pro­tect­ing beau­ti­ful land against the cap­i­tal­ist machine, nows your chance!

There will be a protest/show of sup­port is planed for the 30th June at Der­by com­bined courts, The Morledge, Der­by.

Come and show your sup­port with a fun lit­tle protest at 9am.

Residents clash with riot police against dump construction (Corfu, 16/6/2008)

Mas­sive clash­es erupt­ed out­side the ‑under con­struc­tion- ille­gal garbage dis­pos­al cen­ter at Lefkim­mi, a vil­lage in south­ern Cor­fu, once the con­struc­tion com­pa­ny (DOMOKAT) is now tres­pass­ing land they haven’t

Corfu dump kids protestCorfu dump protestMas­sive clash­es erupt­ed out­side the ‑under con­struc­tion- ille­gal garbage dis­pos­al cen­ter at Lefkim­mi, a vil­lage in south­ern Cor­fu, once the con­struc­tion com­pa­ny (DOMOKAT) is now tres­pass­ing land they haven’t yet expro­pri­at­ed and paid. Some hun­dreds of local res­i­dents gath­ered in order to reclaim the area from the police forces and block the works. The cops attacked them using exces­sive tear gas and rub­ber bul­lets, they even sent the police chief injured to the hos­pi­tal, once he was­n’t in his uni­form and was­n’t recog­nised! Anoth­er three cops were injured dur­ing the clash­es. Three arrestees were tor­tured by the police­men and face charges.

The res­i­dents mobi­liza­tion came from a pop­u­lar assem­bly, one day before, that took place in Lefkim­mi’s high-school yard, also sug­gest­ing the fol­low­ing actions:
A whole island-wide demon­stra­tion on June 27 togeth­er with trade unions, envi­ron­men­tal asso­ci­a­tions and oth­ers, lead by the strug­gle co-ordi­na­tion com­mit­tee.
A demon­stra­tion in Cor­fu city blockad­ing the air­port sym­bol­i­cal­ly for two busy hours.
A sit-in at the entrance of the ring road to Mis­so­rachia and the pro­mo­tion of the issue of a total man­age­ment of sol­id wastes through­out the pre­fec­ture.

Pre­vi­ous actions of Lefkim­mi res­i­dents in strug­gle: http://directactiongr.blogspot.com/2008/05/residents-clash-with-riot-policemen.html

More info in greek and some pho­tos-videos at:
http://xyta-lefkimis.blogspot.com/
http://enakcorfu.blogspot.com/
http://athens.indymedia.org

—-

from a mes­sage post­ed on myspace.com

Last Sat­ur­day, 14/6/2008, the res­i­dents of the south Cor­fu town of Lefki­mi have resumed their mobil­i­sa­tion against the build­ing of an open garbage-dump (XYTA) meant to acco­mo­date refuse from the tourist-rich north of the island. After lengthy direct-demo­c­ra­t­ic dis­cus­sions, the town’s “Peo­ple’s Coun­cil” has decid­ed to refuse the medi­a­tion of polit­i­cal par­ties and demand the imme­di­ate depar­ture of the riot police forces (MAT) sta­tioned in their area since the last street bat­tles (29/5) which led to the death of a 42 year old moth­er, an event that has trig­gered sol­i­dar­i­ty protest march­es across the coun­try. “No dia­logue can even start while our town is under occu­pa­tion”, claimed the res­i­dents iden­ti­fy­ing the riot police with the nazi forces of the 40s.

The sit­u­a­tion esca­lat­ed once again, when on Mon­day the 16th of July, faced with the gov­ern­men­t’s refusal of their terms, the res­i­dents of Lefki­mi errect­ed once again bar­ri­cades in an effort to inhib­it con­struc­tion of the new refuse unit. The renewed mobil­i­sa­tion of the res­i­dents was met with ruth­less repres­sion dur­ing which the riot-police used tear gas and, for the first time in recent greek his­to­ry, plas­tic bul­lets. Four res­i­dents and 3 police­men have been wound­ed dur­ing the clash­es, with the sit­u­a­tion remain­ing tense and rein­force­ments sent by the main­land.