Category: Action Reports

Happy Birthday Camp Titnore! & Brecon pipeline camp news

27.05.2007
CAMP Tit­nore in Wor­thing, West Sus­sex, has this week­end been cel­e­brat­ing its first anniver­sary.
And as well as cel­e­brat­ing the achieve­ment of the last year, it is look­ing ahead by call­ing for more peo­ple to join the occu­pa­tion and for sol­i­dar­i­ty action against the busi­ness­es threat­en­ing to destroy the coun­try­side loca­tion.

27.05.2007
CAMP Tit­nore in Wor­thing, West Sus­sex, has this week­end been cel­e­brat­ing its first anniver­sary.
And as well as cel­e­brat­ing the achieve­ment of the last year, it is look­ing ahead by call­ing for more peo­ple to join the occu­pa­tion and for sol­i­dar­i­ty action against the busi­ness­es threat­en­ing to destroy the coun­try­side loca­tion.

It was at dawn on May 28 2006 that a deter­mined group of envi­ron­men­tal­ists moved onto ancient wood­land off Tit­nore Lane in Dur­ring­ton, near Wor­thing, in protest at plans for an 875-home estate, mas­sive Tesco super­store and new access roads.
After many years of local cam­paign­ing had failed to per­suade Wor­thing Bor­ough Coun­cil to oppose the devel­op­ment, they said direct action was now the only way they could con­tin­ue the fight.
They didn’t real­ly think the camp had any chance of last­ing more than a few days, or weeks at the most. And when the landown­ers won pos­ses­sion in the High Court in Lon­don in August, every­one was braced for an evic­tion, but for­tu­nate­ly it didn’t hap­pen.
The landown­ers, and poten­tial devel­op­ers, then thought they would play a wait­ing game and imag­ined that the pro­test­ers would all melt away, or freeze away, dur­ing the win­ter, but they didn’t.
The fact that the camp is still up and run­ning is tes­ta­ment to the bat­tling, nev­er-say-die atti­tude of all those involved. But now there is a need for more peo­ple to lend a hand and get involved, to ensure that the camp is still there, resist­ing this devel­op­ment, in anoth­er year’s time.
* Peo­ple are need­ed to go and stay at the camp, even just for a week­end.
* Peo­ple are need­ed to spread the mes­sage, raise funds and form sup­port groups.
* The call has gone out for non-vio­lent direct action against firms involved in the scheme, such as Tesco, Heron Group, Bryant Homes/Taylor Woodrow and Per­sim­mon Homes.
More infor­ma­tion can be found online at www.protectourwoodland.co.uk, www.southcoast.indymedia.org.uk and www.eco-action.org/porkbolter. Con­tact the camp on 07913 534083. For tips on DIY cam­paign­ing go to www.schnews.org.uk/diyguide

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Nation­al Grid start the evic­tion process at Bre­con.

26.05.2007
Nation­al Grid paid a vis­it to the protest camp yes­ter­day after­noon with a notice to leave the site.

Nation­al Grid have giv­en the Bre­con protest camp a landown­ers notice to leave the site imme­di­ate­ly. They now need to take the camp to court to be able to serve them with a prop­er evic­tion notice which will then allow the camp to be removed by the police evic­tion teams.

More peo­ple are need­ed at the camp to get it ready for when the time comes as this is now the begin­ning of the last big push to the evic­tion.

Being on site for even a few hours is help­ful, every­thing needs doing from cooking/washing up to build­ing projects. Even if you can’t make it to the site there is still a huge amount to be done, email us if you need more info.

fightthepipe@hotmail.co.uk
http://www.fightthepipe.co.uk

Spies exposed in local activist groups in New Zealand

27 May 2007

27 May 2007
The Christchurch Save Hap­py Val­ley (SHV) group, the Welling­ton Ani­mal Rights Net­work (WARN) and Peace Action Welling­ton (PAW) have exposed cor­po­rate spies oper­at­ing with­in their groups. In Christchurch, Ryan [pho­to] had been involved in the group for 7 months, while in Welling­ton Soma­li [pho­to] had been spy­ing for around 2 years.

The pair were employed by Thomp­son & Clark Pri­vate Inves­ti­ga­tions Lim­it­ed, an Auck­land firm that spe­cialis­es in “covert phys­i­cal and elec­tron­ic sur­veil­lance” and “polit­i­cal activism”. In Ryan’s case, the mon­ey came from Sol­id Ener­gy, while in Soma­l­i’s, it was like­ly to be the NZ Biotech Indus­try for WARN and the NZ Defence Indus­try Asso­ci­a­tion for PAW.

Frances Moun­tier, spokesper­son for SHV Christchurch, said “It is shock­ing that a state owned enter­prise would use such insid­i­ous and under­hand tac­tics to under­mine the pub­lic debate on cli­mate change”.

“Thomp­son & Clark are a leech-like com­pa­ny, feed­ing off polit­i­cal groups while mak­ing sure not to kill their main source of income” stat­ed WARN spokesper­son Mark Eden. “Com­pa­nies that abuse ani­mals like to keep their prac­tices their dirty lit­tle secret, and it seems they will sink to any low to keep it that way.”

Peace Action Welling­ton has expressed sol­i­dar­i­ty with the oth­er groups. “This cor­po­rate infil­tra­tion and spy­ing com­bined with the spy­ing and vio­lence of the police is part and par­cel of speak­ing out in this so called “demo­c­ra­t­ic” State. We wish to extend our sol­i­dar­i­ty towards those oth­er groups infil­trat­ed seek­ing to do the same”.

The Save Hap­py Val­ley Coali­tion has pre­vi­ous­ly exposed Thomp­son & Clark on two occas­sions — in Feb­ru­ary 2006, peo­ple at the Hap­py Val­ley occu­pa­tion came accross two T&C spies on a ridge­line over­look­ing the camp­site, while in Sep­tem­ber 2006 a cam­era with a pow­er­ful zoom lens was dis­cov­ered at the start of the track into the Val­ley.

Media Releas­es: Peace Action Welling­ton | Save Hap­py Val­ley Coali­tion | Welling­ton Ani­mal Rights Net­work | Alliance

Oth­er Media: Sun­day Star Times

Common Ground Squatted Community Garden — The Path So Far…

25.05.2007

Last Sat­ur­day, anti-cap­i­tal­ists in Read­ing opened the squat­ted Com­mon Ground Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den to the pub­lic for the first time, and are receiv­ing sup­port from all cor­ners of the com­mu­ni­ty.

25.05.2007

Last Sat­ur­day, anti-cap­i­tal­ists in Read­ing opened the squat­ted Com­mon Ground Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den to the pub­lic for the first time, and are receiv­ing sup­port from all cor­ners of the com­mu­ni­ty.

Six months ago, a few anar­chists squat­ted a for­mer Wom­ens Infor­ma­tion Cen­tre in the Kates­grove area of Read­ing. Hav­ing had their fund­ing cut by Read­ing Bor­ough Coun­cil the Wom­ens Cen­tre team moved out and this build­ing joined its run-down & derelict neigh­bours — all owned by the Coun­cil. Liv­ing and work­ing in the area, we quick­ly dis­cov­ered the total lack of any green space or com­mu­ni­ty space. Look­ing over our wall at the derelict gar­dens next door, with the sto­ries of New Yorks com­mu­ni­ty gar­dens and Zap­atista land occu­pa­tions in mind, we knew just what to do.

For the next three months we worked ridicu­lous­ly hard on our occu­pied land, clear­ing rub­bish, nee­dles and weeds, land­scap­ing our new gar­den, obtain­ing mate­ri­als, paint­ing, plant­i­ng and con­struct­ing deck­ing, bench­es and a chil­drens play area. Much of the gar­den was cre­at­ed using stuff oth­ers were throw­ing away and dona­tions from fam­i­ly, friends and neigh­bours. Unnavoid­able costs (£150 rough­ly) were fund­ed out of week­ly subs (the price of a pint!). And all this through inter­nal con­flicts about deci­sion mak­ing and account­abil­i­ty along the way.

After hang­ing a ban­ner, putting up posters and dis­trib­ut­ing about 600 fly­ers door-to-door adver­tis­ing our open­ing day two days lat­er, the Coun­cil took out an injunc­tion “pre­vent­ing the open­ing day from tak­ing place”. Yeah right! We imme­di­ate­ly dis­trib­uted anoth­er 500 let­ters telling our neigh­bours about this and mak­ing it clear we would go ahead regard­less.

Ear­ly Sat­ur­day morn­ing, pix­ies removed the front fence, open­ing the gar­den up ful­ly. About mid­day, two Pol­ish secu­ri­ty guards turned up to serve the Coun­cil’s injunc­tion. After five min­utes of being ignored they did the sen­si­ble thing and went and sat in their car. Got to be said, they were great and just stayed out of the way all day, so thanks to them! Through the day, many neigh­bours came through the gar­den, break­ing the law to show their sup­port and look­ing amazed at the dif­fer­ence to the area. Rumours are, we even had one local cop show her sup­port on our peti­tion! Over­all we had about 200 peo­ple through the gar­den at var­i­ous times, the same num­ber of sig­na­tures on a peti­tion (sup­port­ing the gar­den and demand­ing com­mu­ni­ty con­trol over the land).

The cel­e­bra­tion in the evening was great! About 100 peo­ple enjoyed a great BBQ and plen­ty of alco­hol late into the evening. The great­est thing was the diver­si­ty; activists and punks along­side neigh­bours aged 8 to 80! And the tunes were fan­tas­tic, again rang­ing from grey-haired coun­try and blue­grass, to grav­el voiced acoustic punkrock. Singing along with my mid­dle-aged neigh­bours to acoustic punks PJ Shep­pard and Gaby’s “Instead of war lets have a beer!” was class, and the blues ver­sion of Mar­ley’s redemp­tion song was­nt bad either!

After the hun­gover tidy up, the gar­den has been vis­it­ed by many more neigh­bours over the last few days, all equal­ly sup­port­ive. The local press have ran great arti­cles about the gar­den, and a few locals have writ­ten let­ters in our favour to the media and the coun­cil. We’ve even been on tel­ly now, as ITN Thames-Val­ley ran a bril­liant piece on their evening news, fea­tur­ing the coun­cil sound­ing a bit sil­ly and our neigh­bours sound­ing great!

One inter­est­ing thing is how wide­ly held is the view that the coun­cil’s mod­el of devel­op­ment — unaf­ford­able flats, roads and shop­ping cen­tres i.e. cap­i­tal­ist devel­op­ment, gen­tri­fi­ca­tion and spec­u­la­tion — is not what local peo­ple want or need. Even some of the peo­ple liv­ing in the posh flats over the road agree with us! A pos­si­bil­i­ty being moot­ed now, is to hold a neigh­bour­hood con­sul­ta­tion and assem­bly to decide the future of the land and build­ings, fight­ing for what­ev­er is agreed. The begin­ings of links with oth­er local strug­gles — such as mobile-home own­ers and allot­ment hold­ers fight­ing a new road, or mar­ket stall hold­ers resist­ing being forced out of the mar­ket by devel­op­ment — are already being seen.

Despite the extend­ed injunc­tion grant­ed today — mak­ing open­ing the site ille­gal — the gar­den will now be kept open every­day, for local res­i­dents and work­ers to enjoy. We also intend to fight evic­tion by any means, through the courts and with direct-action. It seems obvi­ous to us and our neigh­bours that the coun­cil had their chance with this land and did­nt give a damn for five years — now it belongs to nobody, because it belongs to every­body! It is tru­ly ‘Com­mon Ground’.

katesgrovegarden(AT)yahoo.co.uk

World Naked Bike Ride comes to Southampton! Other UK locations — York, Manchester, London, Brighton

In the fourth year of this imag­i­na­tive and spec­tac­u­lar envi­ron­men­tal protest, The World Naked Bike Ride is to see its first event in Southamp­ton on Fri­day 8 June.

World Naked Bikeride 'stop raping the planet'In the fourth year of this imag­i­na­tive and spec­tac­u­lar envi­ron­men­tal protest, The World Naked Bike Ride is to see its first event in Southamp­ton on Fri­day 8 June.

On the week­end of 8–10 June 2007, in over 40 cities world­wide, peo­ple will be rid­ing bikes naked to cel­e­brate cycling and the human body. In the UK, the World Naked Bike Ride (WNBR, www.worldnakedbikeride.org) is bar­ing all in Lon­don and Brighton on Sat­ur­day 9 June; and Southamp­ton, Man­ches­ter and York the day before, on Fri­day 8 June. The ride demon­strates the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty of cyclists on the road and is a protest against oil depen­den­cy. Cyclists and skaters are encour­aged to “be there, as bare as you dare”.

Prob­a­bly the biggest world­wide naked protest in his­to­ry, WNBR dif­fers from oth­er mass cycle events because of its aston­ish­ing naked ele­ment. Accord­ing to the organ­is­ers, most bystanders expe­ri­ence a com­bined feel­ing of “amuse­ment, shock and dis­be­lief”.

Southampton’s ride will take place on Fri­day evening, to allow par­tic­i­pants to also ride in Brighton and Lon­don on the fol­low­ing day should they wish.

The WNBR dress code is “as bare as you dare” — par­tic­i­pants are encour­aged to wear “as lit­tle as they feel con­fi­dent with”. Join­ing the ful­ly nude con­tin­gent, some rid­ers in Lon­don and Brighton last year wore shorts, bras, swimwear, body paint, wigs, sun­glass­es etc. Most wear footwear and bring bags to car­ry clothes. Body paint­ing and adorn­ment, cus­tomised bikes and oth­er cre­ative expres­sion are all strong­ly encour­aged.

WNBR cel­e­brates the indi­vid­u­al­i­ty of peo­ple’s bod­ies. Rid­ers of all ages, sizes, builds and appear­ances are there­fore wel­come to par­tic­i­pate with dig­ni­ty and respect. “Most rid­ers find the expe­ri­ence exhil­a­rat­ing, lib­er­at­ing, empow­er­ing. I’ve yet to find any­one who didn’t enjoy it” says Southamp­ton res­i­dent Nat Rav­elle, who has par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Lon­don and Brighton rides in pre­vi­ous years. “At the same time, it makes a great state­ment about the most vital issue of our times: curb­ing our exces­sive use of oil to ensure the future of the plan­et.”

WNBR Southamp­ton will take place on the evening of Fri­day 8 June. Rid­ers will meet at 6pm on Southamp­ton Com­mon – off High­field Road, oppo­site the junc­tion with Omder­man Road. The route will pro­ceed along Portswood Road and onwards through the city cen­tre, and return­ing up the mag­nif­i­cent Avenue to the start loca­tion.

More details of the Southamp­ton ride can be found at http://www.worldnakedbikeride.org/uk/southampton

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion, con­tact Rob, southampton@bikenaked.org

Man arrested in protest over Rotherwas road, Herefordshire

24 May 2007 — a man has been arrest­ed after chain­ing him­self to a dig­ger in protest at the build­ing of a £12.5m road.

Rotherwas lock-on protest24 May 2007 — a man has been arrest­ed after chain­ing him­self to a dig­ger in protest at the build­ing of a £12.5m road.

Mar­tin Wyness was held for aggra­vat­ed tres­pass over his demon­stra­tion at Rother­was Access Road in Here­ford­shire.

He was joined by around 20 pro­tes­tors opposed to project which will link the A49 road from Here­ford to Ross-on-Wye, to an indus­tri­al estate at Rother­was.

Here­ford­shire Coun­cil is build­ing it despite being refused fund­ing by the gov­ern­ment on three occa­sions.

Offi­cials said they believed the scheme was not good val­ue for mon­ey.

Fund­ing is being pro­vid­ed by a com­bi­na­tion of mon­ey from Advan­tage West Mid­lands and hous­ing devel­op­ers.

A coun­cil spokesman said it was need­ed to attract more busi­ness­es to the area, but pro­tes­tors say it is an excuse to build new homes around the near­by vil­lages of Bulling­hope, Low­er Bulling­ham and Dine­dor.

A pub­lic inquiry was held in 2006 which looked at the coun­cil acquir­ing the land need­ed for the road, and con­struc­tion work start­ed last month.

Back­ground info & oth­er cam­paign news at http://www.rotherwasribbon.com/

Protesters against Bulldozers at Tara (Ireland) — update — more people needed

Since Sun­day, May 20, pro­test­ers are block­ing the use of heavy con­struc­tion machin­ery at ancient archae­o­log­i­cal sites in the Tara-Skryne val­ley in Co. Meath, Ire­land. Con­struc­tion work­ers are try­ing to begin work on the M3 four-lane motor­way, although no pub­lic deci­sion has yet been giv­en by the Min­is­ter for Her­itage Dick Roche to com­mence work. Reports state that the peace­ful pro­test­ers who sat down in front of the machin­ery, were in some cas­es bad­ly man­han­dled by the con­struc­tion work­ers. If the pro­test­ers do not suc­ceed in pre­vent­ing the con­struc­tion work from begin­ning, the archae­o­log­i­cal sites will be quick­ly destroyed and the destruc­tion pre­sent­ed to the pub­lic as a fait accom­pli.

Since Sun­day, May 20, pro­test­ers are block­ing the use of heavy con­struc­tion machin­ery at ancient archae­o­log­i­cal sites in the Tara-Skryne val­ley in Co. Meath, Ire­land. Con­struc­tion work­ers are try­ing to begin work on the M3 four-lane motor­way, although no pub­lic deci­sion has yet been giv­en by the Min­is­ter for Her­itage Dick Roche to com­mence work. Reports state that the peace­ful pro­test­ers who sat down in front of the machin­ery, were in some cas­es bad­ly man­han­dled by the con­struc­tion work­ers. If the pro­test­ers do not suc­ceed in pre­vent­ing the con­struc­tion work from begin­ning, the archae­o­log­i­cal sites will be quick­ly destroyed and the destruc­tion pre­sent­ed to the pub­lic as a fait accom­pli.

The pro­test­ers at the moment are small in num­ber and are made up of the Vig­il Keep­ers, who have been keep­ing watch on Tara for some time, local peo­ple, and gen­er­al mem­bers of the pub­lic.

To put it blunt­ly, if the pro­test­ers do not receive enough on site sup­port, the con­struc­tion com­pa­ny will be able to move the heavy machin­ery in, and in no time at all, Tara, ancient as it is, will be lost!
The pro­test­ers are call­ing for sup­port.

Dr. Muire­ann Ni Bhrol­chain of the Save Tara Cam­paign in Ire­land wrote -
“It is quite amaz­ing how one per­son, two peo­ple at a gate can stop them. This is the pow­er of one, two, three … but we need you all now. If you care about Tara — now is the time to act.”

Pro­tect Tara Cam­paign
protect-tara@gmx.net
http://www.protect-tara.org

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Col­lier­stown under attack 23rd May

The machin­ery was per­suad­ed away today, a young pro­test­er nego­ti­at­ed a deal with the boss — go back to Gar­ret­stown and we will not stop you there thus keep­ing them out of the Val­ley.
But the grave­yard at Col­lier­stown is in immi­nent dan­ger and the two gates on the road, one at Col­lier­stown and the oth­er going to Baron­stown need to be blocked com­plete­ly tomor­row.
They are deter­mined to push through there. The Span­ish engi­neers were defend­ing their actions tonight — they said the NRA told them to work on this par­tic­u­lar sec­tion of the road.
Col­lier­stown — com­ing from Dublin is after Dun­shaugh­lin, Dri­ve on about 4 miles to Ross Cross — the next cross road. Take the right at the cross road and the site is not far down that stretch of road. You also pass the Tara post office on the way.
The grave slabs are thrown about the place — bro­ken.
There are bones lit­tered on the ground.

Please any­one who can get up there asap. Very few up there at present.
Now — for Tara.
Ring 086- 17585557

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Mon­i­tors with video equip­ment are urgen­ty need­ed at M3 protest sites. Today (Thurs­day) there are reports of futher vio­lence against peace­ful pro­test­ers. Any­one who can get to the protests please do.

Loca­tion of pro­test­ers: Approx 5 miles past Dun­shaugh­lan, turn right at first cross­roads (Tara Post office on cor­ner). Straight on and take first right. Down nar­row, windy road and site entrance vis­able.

Dai­ly protests are ongo­ing and a Nation­al Day of Action has been announced for Fri­day 1st June. Bus­es will be depart­ing from Dublin, Cork and Gal­way. Full details to fol­low.
Relat­ed Link: http://savetara.com

Climate Camp To Target Heathrow (& new videos: Another End of the World is Possible)

Last sum­mer, over 600 peo­ple con­verged out­side Drax coal-fired pow­er sta­tion for 10 days of sus­tain­able liv­ing and col­lec­tive edu­ca­tion, cul­mi­nat­ing in a day of mass action against Drax. This year, the Camp for Cli­mate Action will pitch its tents near Heathrow air­port.

climate camp '07 sand posterLast sum­mer, over 600 peo­ple con­verged out­side Drax coal-fired pow­er sta­tion for 10 days of sus­tain­able liv­ing and col­lec­tive edu­ca­tion, cul­mi­nat­ing in a day of mass action against Drax. This year, the Camp for Cli­mate Action will pitch its tents near Heathrow air­port.

There will be a day of mass direct action aim­ing to dis­rupt the activ­i­ties of the air­port and the avi­a­tion indus­try, but in the inter­ests of pub­lic safe­ty there will be no attempt to block­ade run­ways.

Although the loca­tion is dif­fer­ent, the phi­los­o­phy of the camp remains the same: to be a place for the bur­geon­ing net­work of peo­ple tak­ing rad­i­cal action on cli­mate change around the coun­try to come togeth­er for a week of low-impact liv­ing, edu­ca­tion, debate, net­work­ing, strate­gis­ing, cel­e­bra­tion, and direct action. The camp will fea­ture over 100 work­shops cov­er­ing top­ics such as cli­mate change impacts, car­bon off­set­ting, bio­fu­els, peak oil, per­ma­cul­ture, prac­ti­cal renew­ables, cam­paign strat­e­gy, skills for direct action, and much more. Run with­out lead­ers by every­one who comes along, it will be a work­ing eco­log­i­cal vil­lage using renew­able ener­gy, com­post­ing waste and sourc­ing food local­ly.

Avi­a­tion is the fastest grow­ing source of green­house gas emis­sions in the UK, and all our efforts to tack­le cli­mate change in oth­er sec­tors are undone by the mas­sive growth in air trav­el. Hold­ing the camp at Heathrow aims to high­light the luna­cy of the gov­ern­men­t’s air­port expan­sion plans, tar­get indus­try giants prof­i­teer­ing from the cli­mate cri­sis, and raise aware­ness of the need to fly less. The camp will also sup­port local res­i­dents in their long-term strug­gle against the build­ing of a third run­way and the destruc­tion of their com­mu­ni­ties.

It all comes down to us, now. We are the last gen­er­a­tion that can do any­thing about cli­mate change. In 20 or 30 years time, should we not change our ways, we’ll be com­mit­ted to emis­sions increas­es that will see forests burn, soils decay, oceans rise, and mil­lions of peo­ple die. If we don’t get this issue right, so much else is lost too.

We still have time, but not for long. Make it count.

Camp for Cli­mate Action, 14th — 21st August 2007.
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk


To cel­e­brate the announce­ment of the loca­tion for this sum­mer’s CAMP
FOR CLIMATE ACTION — Heathrow Air­port, we present:

ANOTHER END OF THE WORLD IS POSSIBLE
7 Video por­traits of rad­i­cal cli­mate activists

“Apoc­a­lypse is always eas­i­er to imag­ine than the strange and cir­cuitous routes to what actu­al­ly comes next.”
Rebec­ca Sol­nit, Hope in the Dark: The Untold His­to­ry of Peo­ple Pow­er, Can­non­gate 2005.

Anoth­er End of the World is Pos­si­ble is a series of cap­ti­vat­ing video por­traits of peo­ple tak­ing rad­i­cal action against the root caus­es of cli­mate change. Rang­ing from an activist who occu­pied an airport’s
taxi way, to a teacher work­ing with kids on a deprived hous­ing estate, the por­traits demon­strate the won­der­ful diver­si­ty of those who will be tak­ing part in this years Camp for Cli­mate Action in the UK : 14th –21st August. see the all at www.climatecamp.org.uk

The 7 — 5 minute long por­traits are also post­ed on numer­ous video plat­forms includ­ing youtube,archive.org, dai­ly motion,v‑social — Quick­time copies can be down­loaded from http://www.guidedurenard.org/bm/library/7 . If you want a dvd copy con­tact john@labofii.net

Inter­vie­wees are: Cather­ine — Cli­mate Camp; Dun­can Law — Tran­si­tion Town Brix­ton; Pauline — Rite2No; John Stew­art- Air­port Watch, Julie — Grow­ing Com­mu­ni­ties; Leo — Plane Stu­pid; Kevin Smith — Car­bon Trade
Watch.

Basement Clean Up — update

We now have access to the Bas­ment Social Cen­tre and the clean up is begin­ning. There is a lot of work to do. It’s pret­ty damp and mucky in places, but not as bad as we feared.

There is still no elec­tric­i­ty but this is being worked on.

We now have access to the Bas­ment Social Cen­tre and the clean up is begin­ning. There is a lot of work to do. It’s pret­ty damp and mucky in places, but not as bad as we feared.

There is still no elec­tric­i­ty but this is being worked on.

A group of vol­un­teers went down Mon­day night to make an ini­tial assess­ment of the dam­age. It is not fan­tas­tic but can be sort­ed out with a lot of elbow grease and love!

The first 3 (of many) work­days are as fol­lows:

Sat­ur­day 27th May — 10am onwards

Sun­day 28th May — 10am onwards

Mon­day 29th May 10am onwards

Tat list to fol­low on Fri­day

BASEMENT MOBILE NO: 07925 771 017 — please text rather than ring unless important/no access to mobile

mustsocial@yahoo.com
http://thebasement.clearerchannel.org/new/

South Gate Block at Faslane

Peace lov­ing folk from the north-east­/new­cas­tle vist­ed Faslane Navel base on the clyde on mon­day, Faslane is home to the Tri­dent nuclear weapons system.The block­aders beleive that tri­dent is a gross pol­lu­tant on our plan­et and our human­i­ty, as well as cost­ing a big heap of cash which prof­its big arms mak­ers( B.a.e. rolls royce etc…)

Peace lov­ing folk from the north-east­/new­cas­tle vist­ed Faslane Navel base on the clyde on mon­day, Faslane is home to the Tri­dent nuclear weapons system.The block­aders beleive that tri­dent is a gross pol­lu­tant on our plan­et and our human­i­ty, as well as cost­ing a big heap of cash which prof­its big arms mak­ers( B.a.e. rolls royce etc…)
The group laid in the access road to the south gate late in the after­noon on mon­day, this was to cause as much dis­rup­tion to the base but not the local population(its exam time for the kidz in scot­land! so avoid b4 9am blocks)
Due to the suc­cess of Faslane365(www.faslane365.org) the police have been very quick to react and it is get­ting dif­fi­cult to lock-on, two of the group opt­ed to super­glue their hands togeth­er in advance to ensure dis­rup­tion.
The group encour­ages oth­er indi­vud­u­als and groups to stop the crim­i­nal activ­i­ty at faslane,coulport and alder­mas­ton.

If not you…then who???

Destruction of Tara Temporarily Halted by Protest

Con­struc­tion was held up on Fri 18th on the con­tro­ver­sial M3 in the Tara Val­ley by a peace­ful demon­stra­tion. A small group of con­cerned active cit­i­zens con­gre­gat­ed at Rath Lugh at 5:30am. Rath Lugh is one of the sev­en out­er defence forts of Tara which is only approx­i­mate­ly 150m from the new­ly dis­cov­ered Nation­al Mon­u­ment at Lis­mullen. When work­ers arrived at 6:10am, they were unable to get their vehi­cles on site and gath­ered on the N3. The work­ers seemed unaware that the carpark they were using is the new­ly closed arche­o­log­i­cal site at Roestown.

Tara protest 2Con­struc­tion was held up on Fri 18th on the con­tro­ver­sial M3 in the Tara Val­ley by a peace­ful demon­stra­tion. A small group of con­cerned active cit­i­zens con­gre­gat­ed at Rath Lugh at 5:30am. Rath Lugh is one of the sev­en out­er defence forts of Tara which is only approx­i­mate­ly 150m from the new­ly dis­cov­ered Nation­al Mon­u­ment at Lis­mullen. When work­ers arrived at 6:10am, they were unable to get their vehi­cles on site and gath­ered on the N3. The work­ers seemed unaware that the carpark they were using is the new­ly closed arche­o­log­i­cal site at Roestown.

Accord­ing to the maps, the pro­posed route of the mon­strous motor­way was sup­posed to avoid the beau­ti­ful iron-age Hill Fort and Coillte For­est. How­ev­er, since this sec­tion of the route was fenced off in Decem­ber, the removal of ancient trees on the side of the rath has cre­at­ed a cliff face of the hill. The NRA plan on rais­ing the lev­el of the motor­way to the top of the rise. This would result in it no longer being vis­i­ble from the hill of Tara and iso­lat­ing it from the Tara com­plex. Rath Lugh is a list­ed Nation­al Mon­u­ment, but was con­ve­nient­ly not marked on the last Ord­nance Sur­vey map.

The demon­stra­tors stood at two gates, one at Roestown on the East of the N3 and the oth­er at Treret at the entrance to the Berril­stown archae­o­log­i­cal com­plex. When work­ers arrived at 6:10am, they were unable to get their vehi­cles on site and gath­ered on the N3. The Assis­tant Project Man­ag­er for the M3 made him­self known to the peace­ful demon­stra­tors. He seemed shocked as most peo­ple are to learn of the extent of the unre­solved archae­ol­o­gy still sit­ting in the path of the 6‑lane motor­way. The work­ers seemed unaware that the carpark they were using is the new­ly closed arche­o­log­i­cal site at Roestown.

This was a mag­nif­i­cent sub­ter­ranean­com­plex with cir­cu­lar stone cham­bers joined by archi­tec­tural­ly per­fect tun­nels from the 6th Cen­tu­ry AD. Quartz cap­stones from this site were found in a ditch two weeks ago by a local per­son. This is an exam­ple of the prac­tice of NRA archae­ol­o­gy.

Con­struc­tion can­not be allowed to con­tin­ue in the val­ley until a full inde­pen­dent archae­o­log­i­cal assess­ment of the route through the val­ley is under­tak­en. NRA archae­ol­o­gists have proven them­selves inad­e­quate in their pro­fes­sions through allow­ing them­selves be pres­sured into pre­ma­ture con­clu­sion of their stud­ies. The pace at which they closed up the sites in April was ridicu­lous and the amount of archae­ol­o­gy still vis­i­ble in the ground is insult­ing and unac­cept­able. This is dis­ap­point­ing yet not sur­pris­ing con­sid­er­ing the NRA have no hard ethics pol­i­cy. The con­trac­tor who has com­menced con­struc­tion in the val­ley is How­ley Con­struc­tion. Their con­tract is worth 650 mil­lion euro. Can a price be put on the his­to­ry and knowl­edge that is being denied and lost with­in this 6–9km stretch of the motor­way alone.

When guards were called to the scene they informed the work­ers that as it was a peace­ful demon­stra­tion they had a right to protest. After sev­er­al hours of these envi­ron­men­tal and cul­tur­al activists hold­ing the space the con­struc­tion work­ers ripped down a fence adja­cent to the entrance but were unable to gain vehic­u­lar access. There was also a piti­ful dis­play of pigeon-chest­ed­ness by a lone work­er in a mini-dig­ger dig­ging ran­dom holes. After the demon­stra­tors moved to allow a local farmer access to cross the route to his cat­tle the posse of idle con­struc­tion work­ers realised that the didle-idle demon­stra­tors were not restrict­ing them from walk­ing on site. At 11:00am approx­i­mate­ly they start­ed a few heavy machin­ery on site but appeared to have run out of diesel after a cou­ple of hours. The space was held at the two gates by the deter­mined joy­ful group ’til mid-day today, over 30 hours lat­er. No destruc­tion or con­struc­tion was done in the val­ley today.

Large cement pipes which were unable to be unloaded at Roestown were then dropped on the archae­o­log­i­cal site at Col­lier­stown. As the con­struc­tion work­ers are using the access points for the archae­o­log­i­cal sites, these are the first areas to be demol­ished. This strate­gic destruc­tion of the sites gives urgency to the need for con­struc­tion to be halt­ed imme­di­ate­ly in the val­ley while their des­tiny is being decid­ed. The cement pipes at Col­lier­stown are only feet away from the piles of dis­card­ed grave­stones at the edge of the site. All fenc­ing and site signs have been removed apart from a lone archae­o­log­i­cal sign in Pol­ish strewn in the stream that pass­es through the dis­man­tled grave­yard. Bones and teeth are still vis­i­ble in the top­soil.

This mon­u­men­tal dis­as­ter must be avert­ed. The ter­ri­fy­ing mag­ni­tude of the sit­u­a­tion where the destruc­tion and denial of our nation­al land­marks of iden­ti­ty for the per­son­al eco­nom­ic gain of a few already very rich peo­ple is beyond com­pre­hen­sion.

Two local farm­ers stopped at the demon­stra­tion yes­ter­day. One said that, since he received his let­ter of CPO in the post from Meath Coun­ty Coun­cil four years ago, he has nev­er signed his name to any con­tract or piece of paper. Last Mon­day, machin­ery moved onto his land. The oth­er farmer explained how 15 acres of his land has now been iso­lat­ed from his farm on the oth­er side of the route and no access point has been pro­vid­ed.

The fact that it is gov­ern­men­tal manip­u­la­tion of com­mu­ni­ty needs, vague and watery plan­ning process­es, the poten­tial fal­si­fi­ca­tion of Envi­ron­men­tal Impact State­ments and the dnial of the integri­ty of count­less nation­al and world lead­ing inde­pen­dent archae­ol­o­gists and his­to­ri­ans is beyond pathet­ic. The fact that the motor­way won’t even solve the traf­fic con­ges­tion and could only get the com­muters to the tail­back going into Dublin 10 min­utes quick­er and that it is all being built by the Pub­lic Pri­vate Part­ner­ship and would have two tolls of €2.80+ on it is beyond a joke.

Who the féck do they think they are?
http://www.savetara.com/Roestown/

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A small num­ber of envi­ron­men­tal activists are hold­ing con­struc­tion work­ers at bay on the pro­posed M3.
They need help as quick­ly and as soon as pos­si­ble.
On the Navan side of Dun­shaugh­lin take a left turn, they are main­ly sit­u­at­ed on the Dunshaughlin/Dunsany road.
Ring the activist phone: 0861758557 for spe­cif­ic direc­tions.
Work must be stopped until the elec­tion is over at least — and then there may be a chance for Tara.

5pm Mon­day May 21st — activists being fenced in:
News just com­ing in that at least one group of activists block­ing an entrance have
had a fence built around them this after­noon.
More details as they arrive.

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Gate­keep­ers still hold­ing

At 6pm today there were 4 gates occu­pied.

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PRESS RELEASE — TARA — Work Halt­ed along Con­tro­ver­sial Stretch of Motor­way

Today in the Tara Skryne Val­ley a num­ber of envi­ron­men­tal activists pre­vent­ed machin­ery from exit­ing con­struc­tion depots along a con­tro­ver­sial stretch of the pro­posed M3 motor­way. The pro­test­ers main­tain that no work should be ongo­ing along the route until direc­tions are issued by Min­is­ter Roche regard­ing the new nation­al mon­u­ment at Lis­mullen. Two weeks ago a mas­sive henge, 80mts in diam­e­ter, was dis­cov­ered along the route through the Val­ley. Indi­ca­tions are that the henge was a cer­e­mo­ni­al site con­nect­ed to the Hill of Tara. No work took place along the con­test­ed stretch before lunchtime today.

The pro­test­ers, mem­bers of the ‘Tara Sol­i­dar­i­ty Vig­il’ along with a num­ber of locals block­ad­ed gates along the exist­ing N3 pre­vent­ing heavy machin­ery from enter­ing the site. Accord­ing to Don­agh Maguire, one of the pro­test­ers ‘A nation­al mon­u­ment has been dis­cov­ered along this stretch of the road and all con­struc­tion should be halt­ed pend­ing the Minister’s direc­tions. We will not allow this mon­u­ment to be destroyed in the same way that a num­ber of oth­er impor­tant sites have been destroyed over the last few months. While the coun­try is obsessed with the elec­tion the NRA are attempt­ing to qui­et­ly bull­doze through the Val­ley. We will not allow this to hap­pen.’

The Cam­paign to Save Tara, an umbrel­la orga­ni­za­tion rep­re­sent­ing the major­i­ty of groups opposed to the M3 said it under­stood and sup­port­ed the actions of the pro­test­ers. Michael Can­ney of the cam­paign said ‘We ful­ly under­stand and sup­port the actions of the pro­test­ers today, many sites have already been destroyed and it is very impor­tant that the pub­lic are made aware that we could be sleep­walk­ing into a cat­a­stro­phe for the coun­ty and the coun­try if the NRA are not close­ly mon­i­tored.’

ENDS

Don­agh Maguire 0861758557 (in the Tara/Skryne Val­ley)

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TARA SOS — Pro­tes­tors being assault­ed by M3 motor­way work­ers. Ambu­lance called.
Tue May 22, 2007

Please come to Roestown as quick­ly as pos­si­ble.
Pro­test­ers at Tara being man­han­dled by the work­ers, includ­ing the
assis­tant project man­ag­er of SIAC. An ambu­lance has been called for one
of the young women who has been injured by the work­ers. The Gar­dai are
stand­ing by and have allowed the work­ers to take the law into their own
hands.
A young pro­test­er said:“The work­ers have ille­gal­ly ploughed through 2
hedges to make a new entrance, they have assault­ed the pro­test­ers,
because of the non reac­tion of the gar­dai and a young female pro­test­er
has been thrown and dragged around the place and now needs med­ical
atten­tion”.
Why are try­ing to begin work in the Val­ley before the elec­tion? Why not
at Clonee? What is the rush with work in the Val­ley?

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Wed:
It is dif­fi­cult to know how to describe what hap­pened today. We have hun­dreds of pho­tos and also video footage. To give a resume -
activists manned gates around the Roestown com­pound indi­vid­u­al­ly. They slept there last night. They were joined by mem­ber of the pub­lic dur­ing the day.
Some points need to be empha­sised:
one young man was bad­ly assault­ed in front of gar­daí as the SIAC man­ag­er urged on the How­ley work­ers (the con­trac­tors on this sec­tion) to get him out of the way.
anoth­er young woman was thrown out of the way and hurt in the head etc.
anoth­er young man was thrown aside by the How­ley work­ers
These by and large are ordi­nary work­ing men — try­ing to earn a liv­ing. They have been told that they will be fired if they join a union. They did not get this job or take it on the under­stand­ing that they would have to behave as bul­ly boys for the NRA.
Pro­test­ers were bul­lied, injured, pushed, intim­i­dat­ed, dis­missed by the pow­ers that be. The guards stood back as they were assault­ed.
But when they realised that ordi­nary mem­bers of the pub­lic and uni­ver­si­ty lec­tur­ers were present the atti­tude changed — so there is a great need for “ordi­nary peo­ple” to be present at this protest.
The elec­tion hap­pens on Thurs­day — they want to destroy the Val­ley before there is a pos­si­ble change of Gov­ern­ment. The small­er par­ties have promised to move the road or to review the route or the whole motor­way project. They are deter­mined to bull­doze the Val­ley before then. We have to stop them. Now is the time to act for Tara.
The con­trac­tors are deter­mined to attack the Val­ley — that means Col­lier­stown, Baron­stown, Lis­mullin -
The activists need your help.
It is quite amaz­ing how one per­son, two peo­ple at a gate can stop them.
This is the pow­er of one, two, three … but we need you all now. If you care about Tara — now is the time to act.
Watch­ing three peo­ple being threat­ened by a revers­ing lowlow­der into a small space, revers­ing into them was the most fright­en­ing expe­ri­ence of my life.
We need the aca­d­e­mics there — the work­ers, the chiefs, the guards act dif­fer­ent­ly when they are there.
Pho­tos to fol­low tomor­row …
Please pass this mes­sage on. This is the place where all is hap­pen­ing. You have seen the aeri­als … you know what they want to destroy … stop them now!
Roestown/ Collierstown/ Baronstown/ Lismullin/ .….….….….….…..

for infor­ma­tion ring:
086 1758557
087–9249510
087 3171572