Action Reports – Page 228

Demo against E.ON, 16th July, London

Join the Greenwash Guerrillas to show that E.ON’S greenwash won’t wash!
Wednesday, 16th July, 8.15 AM, London

With two weeks to go before the Camp for Climate Action at Kingsnorth, E.ON are sponsoring a climate summit designed to help industry leaders ‘keep stakeholders engaged’. Just like their plans for ‘clean coal’ at Kingsnorth, this is greenwash of the highest toxicity: a laughable-if-it-weren’t-so-tragic attempt to distract us from the fact that E.ON are planning to build the first coal-fired power station in the UK for over thirty years. And that, in a time of unprecedented climate crisis, is an unacceptable insanity.

This hot-air-fest cannot pass without a visit from… the Greenwash Guerrillas!

Don a white painter’s suit and come on down to the Business Design Centre in Islington to join a crack team of greenwash detectors. We will be cordoning off the area and warning summit delegates about the high levels of toxic greenwash leaking from the building. (We suspect its source to be E.ON Managing Director Bob Taylor, who’s got a top spot on the panel.) To get a sense of what the demo will be like, check out the Greenwash Guerrillas in action here: www.risingtide.org.uk/node/250

This should be a fun, subversive demo, with the Camp for Climate Action, Rising Tide, People and Planet, Earth First! and WDM all helping to spread the word. Join us and help show E.ON that our actions won’t be confined to Kingsnorth this August. Climate Campers will go wherever we need to and do whatever it takes to shut down Kingsnorth – permanently.

Where: Business Design Centre, 52 Upper St, London N1 0QH

When: Wednesday, 16th July, meet 8.15AM in front of the Business Design Centre

Bring if you can: a white painter’s/boiler suit and any home-made greenwash detecting devices you can think up (eg. part of an old hoover, a remote control, a hair dryer painted green – get creative!) If you can’t bring these things, not to worry, extras will be on hand.

More info: info@climatecamp.org.uk / 07961 917 535
(Get in touch if you’re coming from out of town and need accommodation the night before)

Help spread the word – flyers (4 fit per piece of A4 – great on green paper) and poster available at

>>GGs Leaflet – Front
>>GGs Leaflet – Back
>>GGs Poster

www.climatecamp.org.uk
www.greenwashguerrillas.org.uk
www.risingtide.org.uk
www.stopkingsnorth.org.uk
www.peopleandplanet.org.uk
www.earthfirst.org.uk

Yorkshire GM trial sabotaged

The Tadcaster GM potato trial has been decontaminated, according to the Sunday Mirror!

The Tadcaster GM potato trial has been decontaminated, according to the Sunday Mirror! According to the article, they were completely destroyed, and the Environment Minister isn’t happy. Mr Woolas said: “The people behind this should have the guts to go public and join the debate about GM foods. Their arrogance appalls me.” The attack on June 5 leaves Britain with just one remaining field of GM crops, government sources said last night. The news has not appeared anywhere else.

The Long Good Friday – coal train protest eventually evicted – final update

5am, Saturday 14th June 2008
Police confirmed all protesters had been removed from the train, and arrests went “into double figures”.

Twenty-nine climate campaigners halted a train taking fuel to Drax power station in North Yorkshire on Friday.

Those arrested face possible charges of conspiracy to obstruct trains, obstructing trains and railway trespass, police said.

The train remains where it stopped, close to the village of Carlton, near Goole, ahead of an inspection.

Up to 100 police officers, some in riot gear, boarded the wagons of the train in the operation to remove the activists.

Supt Terry Nicholson of British Transport Police said: “It’s been a lengthy operation but our priority has been the safety of the public and our officers.

“We have been dealing with the protesters in a safe and professional manner and we have been arresting people for obstructing the railway.”

One of the party of demonstrators said they had chained themselves to the train and would need to be cut free if police wanted to remove them.

Speaking from the train, one of the protesters, called Natalie, said: “The police have moved into the hoppers. They’ve started taking stuff. There must be about 10 of them on the train but loads more around it.”

Some of the protesters could be seen moving on to the top of the steel arch of the bridge over the River Aire where the train is parked, a few miles from the village of Carlton.

The train was stopped in Rawcliffe, on the border of North and East Yorkshire, apparently by a protester waving a red flag.

The environmental campaigners used an iron girder bridge and climbing equipment to scale the 12ft high truck.

“This was a complex operation as many of those arrested had to be cut free having attached themselves to rail vehicles and the overbridge,” the BTP statement added.

The protesters had hoped to stay on the train for several days and had with them food and water as well as a portable lavatory.

See original story at http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20894

Video of start of eviction attempt

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Update:
At 12pm on Friday evening the last three coal train blockaders where evicted from the bridge above the blockaded train. The occupation had lasted 16 hours and occupiers had shovelled around 30 tons of coal onto the tracks. 20 people where cut out of arm tube lockons and 9 were taken of the bridge, 29 were arrested and charged with conspircy to commit Unlawful and malicious obstruction of trains. Everyone was out of the police cells and accounted for by 10pm Saturday evening. Everyone is bailed to return… you guessed it on the 31st of July and 4th 5th and 6th of August. The fires at Drax are still burning but the movement to stop coal is growing fast.

field trial with genetically modified wheat destroyed (zurich, switzerland)

the local press reports as following:
early friday morning (june 13, 2008) around 35 persons entered the research area (“Forschungsanstalt Agroscope Reckenholz-Tänikon ART in Zürich Affoltern”) close to zurich and destroyed nearly the whole field trial with genetically modified wheat by scything and trampling the plants.

the research is initiated by Agroscope, university of zurich and ETH (polytech. university).
the present security agents were threatened and couldn’t stop the action.
the police arrested 5 persons after the action in the surrounding area, but it might be difficult to prove they’ve been involved.

http://tagi.ch/dyn/news/zuerich/888308.html
http://www.nzz.ch/nachrichten/zuerich/zerstoerungsaktion_in_gentech-versuchsfeld_1.759006.html

in 2003 a similar, but smaller field trial was done by ETH in another village. during weeks greenpeace tried to prevent other activists destroying the field so they could do an own spectacular action later on: greenpeace dumped dung on the field, but was stopped by the agents present.

Protesters end blockade of Brazil mining railroad

Jun 13, 2008
SAO PAULO – Hundreds of Brazilian protesters ended a blockade of a railway line that transports iron ore for mining company Vale, the company said late on Thursday.

It was the latest in a series of protests this week, some of them violent, by landless peasant groups targeting large companies and multinationals in Brazil.

Jun 13, 2008
SAO PAULO – Hundreds of Brazilian protesters ended a blockade of a railway line that transports iron ore for mining company Vale, the company said late on Thursday.

It was the latest in a series of protests this week, some of them violent, by landless peasant groups targeting large companies and multinationals in Brazil.

Protesters left peacefully after the Minas Gerais state’s justice department ordered them to leave the tracks earlier on Thursday or risk being removed by police or fined 30,000 reais ($18,000) for every day they remained, Vale said in a note.

“It started around 6 a.m. this morning,” a Vale spokeswoman said, adding more than 30 trains were delayed in the 10 hours that protesters had stopped traffic on the railway.

Trains on the line each carry around 14,000 tonnes of ore from the company’s network of mines in the state to ports but Vale could not immediately confirm how many were transporting the commodity. It said around 70 trains a day carry iron ore and other cargo down the line.

One passenger train was stopped by the protest as well as trains carrying goods for other firms, Vale said.

The Via Campesina peasant movement said about 1,500 people were occupying the railway to pressure Vale to negotiate with 500 families who will be dislodged by the construction of a hydro-electric dam in which the company is involved.

Protesters occupied properties of industrial conglomerate Votorantim and a supermarket belonging to the Wal-Mart group on Wednesday.

The peasant groups are demonstrating against the advance of one-crop farms they say harm the environment and small farmers. They are also protesting high food prices, the growing use of biofuels and the influence of multinational companies in Brazil.

Via Campesina said in a statement it was holding another protest in front of Goias state’s electricity company over price increases.

ALF target farming union offices over badger cull

The Animal Liberation Front (ALF) have sabotaged farming union offices in protest against the Welsh assembly’s decision to cull badgers, who are accused of spreading bovine TB, despite dairy cattle raised on intensive farms being the culprits.

The Carmarthen offices of both National Farmers Union (NFU) Cymru and the Farmers Union of Wales (FUW) were daubed with slogans including “no cull”, “cull farmers not badgers” and “ALF”.

The locks at the FUW’s office in the town were also glued shut, with slogans also painted on four other NFU Cymru buildings, including those at Haverfordwest and Swansea.

Source: http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/06/401046.html

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Stop the Cull!: Viva! National Rally for the Badgers
Cardiff, Saturday, June 28 2008
1pm outside the Welsh Assembly Building (Debating Rooms)

Info + poster: https://indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/06/400088.html

More info: http://viva.org.uk/badgers

Redecorated: McDonalds for Sean Kirtley & SUVs for Jeff Luers

“McDonalds in South Yorkshire had their toilets redecorated with ‘Free Sean Kirtley’ posters and ‘McDonalds=McMurder’ (Sheffield & Barnsley restaurants)

Till all are free..

PS: Some SUVs at a garage on Ecclesall Rd, Sheffield, needed their paintwork redoing after a little redecoration in red…free Jeff Luers!”

“McDonalds in South Yorkshire had their toilets redecorated with ‘Free Sean Kirtley’ posters and ‘McDonalds=McMurder’ (Sheffield & Barnsley restaurants)

Till all are free..

PS: Some SUVs at a garage on Ecclesall Rd, Sheffield, needed their paintwork redoing after a little redecoration in red…free Jeff Luers!”

Sean Kirtley: http://supportsean.wordpress.com
Jeff Luers: http://freefreenow.org

Source: http://directaction.info

Double supermarket expropriation (Athens, 13/6/2008)

“Today at 13:30 goods of basic necessity were expropriated from 2 supermarkets (Veropoulos and DIA) and handed out in the open market of M. Voda. Following is the communique distributed at Veropoulos.

Thousands of supermarkets so full of goods, why don’t we just pillage them for our old age! -N. Asimos

Finally! the supermarket and corporation sharks frozen the prices of their products! Some of them were even more generous reducing their prices, in order to raise the “purchasing power” of the consumers. In simpler words: to gain more! As we can tell that no one takes into account this bullshit about a so-called price reduction, we put into action again our own “pack of measures” against costliness, expropriationg foods and basic stuff from large supermarkets.

PS. As far as it concers our covered faces, we say that: keeping in mind that society is yet unready and uneasy to listen closely and support these facts, so we think it’s necessary to adopt the basic measures for our own security, against the systems of security and repression mechanisms, in order to continue live and act freely. THE ONLY MEASURE AGAINST COSTLINESS IS THE EXPROPRIATION. MASSIVE INVASION IN THE SUPERMARKETS TO TAKE BACK ALL THAT BELONG TO US.

Angry anarchists against costliness”

From: http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=880457

Vandalism at subway station (Athens, 13/6/2008)

From reports at http://athens.indymedia.org it seems that a group attacked Victoria’s subway station, breaking down cameras and ticket checking machines, throwing leaflets and spray painting slogans against surveillance and control and in solidarity to the detained M. Tsourapas-Chr.Kontorevithakis. A nearby bank on Patission avenue was also attacked.

Protest halts Drax coal train as summer of discontent against coal continues…

Media – Interviews are available with protestors: call 07944 367755 Photos from the protest at http://www.flickr.com/photos/sitefeed/ Protestors have halted a coal train carrying fuel for Drax power station in Yorkshire, the single biggest source of CO2 in the UK. The protest comes six weeks before the 2008 Camp for Climate Action at Kingsnorth power station … Continue reading “Protest halts Drax coal train as summer of discontent against coal continues…”

Media – Interviews are available with protestors: call 07944 367755
Photos from the protest at http://www.flickr.com/photos/sitefeed/

Protestors have halted a coal train carrying fuel for Drax power station in Yorkshire, the single biggest source of CO2 in the UK. The protest comes six weeks before the 2008 Camp for Climate Action at Kingsnorth power station – which will also highlight how using coal to supply energy will be a disaster for the planet.

Dressed in white overalls and canary outfits, they used safety signals to stop the train on a bridge overlooking the power station, before climbing on board and dumping coal off onto the tracks.

The train has been stopped on a branch line used exclusively for delivering coal to Drax. Protestors have used a network of climbing ropes to suspend themselves under the bridge from the train – meaning any movement while the protest continues is impossible.

Video 1
Video 2
Video 3

Updates at http://thecoalhole.org/

To find out what happened next, go to http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20903