Category: Squatting / Free Spaces / Protest Sites

Squatters Illegally Evicted From Abandoned Pub in Cheltenham

On July 17th at 14.00 squat­ters were ille­gal­ly evict­ed from the Duke of York Inn, 315–317 Lon­don Road, Chel­tenham, GL52 6YY.

The squat­ters had gained entry on the 15th July through an open win­dow after being informed by local res­i­dents that the pub was acces­si­ble with­out caus­ing any dam­age.

On July 17th at 14.00 squat­ters were ille­gal­ly evict­ed from the Duke of York Inn, 315–317 Lon­don Road, Chel­tenham, GL52 6YY.

The squat­ters had gained entry on the 15th July through an open win­dow after being informed by local res­i­dents that the pub was acces­si­ble with­out caus­ing any dam­age.

They spent the next two days secur­ing the squat, clean­ing filth from the pub area, repair­ing fix­tures, fur­ni­ture and fit­tings and repair­ing dam­age caused by van­dals includ­ing clean­ing graf­fi­ti from the walls. The inten­tion of the squat­ters was to turn the pub into a com­mu­ni­ty arts cen­tre, pro­vid­ing space for local peo­ple to meet, con­verse and express them­selves freely.

How­ev­er, after assumed­ly being informed by the police that the pub was being occu­pied, local prop­er­ty devel­op­er James Dea­con decid­ed to send some of his work­ers in, armed with sledge­ham­mers and a chain­saw. They began to forcibly gain access to the prop­er­ty using the afore­men­tioned tools. Due to the noise the squat­ters became aware of what was hap­pen­ing and tried to vacate the prop­er­ty. Their escape was ham­pered by the work­ers then using the tools to threat­en the squat­ters, includ­ing a 19 year old girl who was backed into a cor­ner with the run­ning chain­saw, despite assur­ances that they were leav­ing.

After the squat­ters left the prop­er­ty they were then fol­lowed around the local area by Mr Deacon’s work­ers in vans, forc­ing them to beg for sanc­tu­ary in the homes of local res­i­dents, even­tu­al­ly escap­ing in the car of a local “good Samar­i­tan” who was chased by the work­ers in vans for four miles before final­ly los­ing their pur­suers.

Mr Dea­con wants to con­vert the prop­er­ty into three hous­es and sev­en new flats, adding to con­ges­tion and over­crowd­ing in the area, a project which has raised many objec­tion s from local res­i­dents. To reg­is­ter your objec­tions you can email Chel­tenham Bor­ough coun­cil at builtenvironment@cheltenham.gov.uk .

Anti-Wembley Academy occupation comes to an end

18.07.2008
The Tent City Occu­pa­tion of Wem­b­ley Sports Ground was evict­ed this morn­ing at 7.30am (report to fol­low). Hank Roberts — Brent Sec­re­tary of the NUT and ATL — had to be removed from the roof of the Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre on the site, where he had d‑locked him­self to a flag­pole. Spe­cial­ist baliffs had to use an angle-grinder to seper­ate him from the pole. Sup­port­ers gath­ered in front of the gate to the carpark; as he was removed from the site, he was bestowed with rap­tur­ous applause for his brave stand.

18.07.2008
The Tent City Occu­pa­tion of Wem­b­ley Sports Ground was evict­ed this morn­ing at 7.30am (report to fol­low). Hank Roberts — Brent Sec­re­tary of the NUT and ATL — had to be removed from the roof of the Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre on the site, where he had d‑locked him­self to a flag­pole. Spe­cial­ist baliffs had to use an angle-grinder to seper­ate him from the pole. Sup­port­ers gath­ered in front of the gate to the carpark; as he was removed from the site, he was bestowed with rap­tur­ous applause for his brave stand.

Cam­paign­ers (& Hank him­self) were sur­prised to observe that he was not arrest­ed for breach of the injunc­tion — served on Tues­day. Hank Roberts still has to pay an otstand­ing fee of £3,500 to Willes­den Coun­ty Court.

The fight to stop the Acad­e­my get­ting plan­ning per­mis­sion con­tin­ues, even though plans to build the ‘pre-acad­e­my’ for an ini­tial 200 pri­ma­ry-school pupils in por­to­cab­ins on the site will now pro­ceed. The fight to guar­an­tee local afford­able access for the local kids to the recre­ation ground and foot­ball pitch­es con­tin­ues along­side this aim to stop the acad­e­my being built, whether the lat­ter goal will be acheived or not.

Oth­er info:

Gallery
http://www.tentcityoccupation.co.uk/gallery.html

ITV Lon­don Tonight Report:
http://www.itvlocal.com/london/news/?player=LON_News_15&void=204972

Save Our Schools 22-minute film avail­able on Reel News issue 13
Stop them Pri­vatis­ing Our Schools avail­able on Reel News issue 12
Wem­b­ley Occu­pa­tion avail­able on Reel News issue 10
http://www.reelnews.co.uk/

Some pre­vi­ous posts for fur­ther infor­ma­tion:

200 School Pupils In Huts On A Con­struc­tion Site:
http://jasonnparkinson.blogspot.com/2008/06/200-school-pupils-in-huts-on.html

Melting Point: the new frontline in eco-activism

The Ecol­o­gist Film Unit (EFU), a col­lab­o­ra­tion between the eth­i­cal inves­ti­ga­tions agency Ecos­torm and the Ecol­o­gist mag­a­zine, has recent­ly pro­duced a short film called ‘Melt­ing Point: the new front­line in eco-activism’.

CO2The Ecol­o­gist Film Unit (EFU), a col­lab­o­ra­tion between the eth­i­cal inves­ti­ga­tions agency Ecos­torm and the Ecol­o­gist mag­a­zine, has recent­ly pro­duced a short film called ‘Melt­ing Point: the new front­line in eco-activism’. Ahead of next mon­th’s ‘Cli­mate Camp’ at Kingsnorth pow­er sta­tion, Kent, the film expos­es gov­ern­ment tac­tics in reac­tion to envi­ro­men­tal protests.

Espi­onage, news manip­u­la­tion, legal threats and even vio­lence have become the knee-jerk response of Gov­ern­ment and big busi­ness to the increas­ing and vocal con­cerns of envi­ron­men­tal activists in the UK. This exclu­sive and pow­er­ful film expos­es the extra­or­di­nary tac­tics being used to reframe con­cerned cit­i­zens engag­ing in their right to protest, as dan­ger­ous ter­ror­ists.

The film can be viewed on var­i­ous web­sites includ­ing Green TV (www.green.tv) or the Ecol­o­gist web­site (www.theecologist.org/etv/).

The youtube URL is http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=I08J2BCPBDY.

Alter­na­tive­ly the video can be down­loaded at www.ecologistfilmunit.com.

Watch it, show it at events, spread the mes­sage!

con­tact: anna@eco-storm.com

Anti City Academy protest camp defies eviction order

16.07.2008
Today Teach­ers and their sup­port­ers were cel­e­brat­ing as the dead­line to leave their protest camp expired with­out the threat­ened evic­tion. Offi­cers of the coun­cil were present but announced that they would only ‘report back’ the sit­u­a­tion. Bailiffs were seen cas­ing the area ear­li­er before the dead­line.

Academy squat banner16.07.2008
Today Teach­ers and their sup­port­ers were cel­e­brat­ing as the dead­line to leave their protest camp expired with­out the threat­ened evic­tion. Offi­cers of the coun­cil were present but announced that they would only ‘report back’ the sit­u­a­tion. Bailiffs were seen cas­ing the area ear­li­er before the dead­line.

Part of the protest is on the roof so it could well take Brent coun­cil a while to organ­ise the evic­tion. Today a unex­pect­ed­ly high num­ber of sup­port­ers and local res­i­dents came out to block the removal of the protest camp. Mem­bers of the local RMT and TSSA branch­es, who were hav­ing their month­ly meet­ings near­by, also turned out to reg­is­ter their dis­gust at gov­ern­ment plans to pri­va­tise local edu­ca­tion.

Swomp4 direct environmental action in Amsterdam

Swomp4 direct action in the Rusten­burg­er­straat in Ams­ter­dam squats piece of land and starts urban regen­er­a­tion per­ma­cul­ture project.

Swomp4 direct action in the Rusten­burg­er­straat in Ams­ter­dam squats piece of land and starts urban regen­er­a­tion per­ma­cul­ture project.

On Fri­day July 11 a group of squat­ters occu­pied this piece of land in the Rusten­burg­er­straat in de Pijp in Ams­ter­dam. Tech­ni­cal­ly they are wild campers, as the law in Hol­land only allows you to squat a build­ing that has been emp­ty for one year. With­in three days they already had run­ning water and had start­ed to plant veg­eta­bles and devel­op an urban per­ma­cul­ture project. This is direct action at its very best. The land was going to waste in the heart of the city, and these guys are try­ing their utmost to turn the sandy waste­land into a green oasis. This com­ing Sat­ur­day they are plan­ning a per­ma­cul­ture work­shop. Yes­ter­day it was inspir­ing talk­ing to them and lis­ten­ing to their plans. Their heart is in the right place and they care about how we use land in cities, the hous­ing sit­u­a­tion in a city that is becom­ing gen­tri­fied, and the envi­ron­men­tal issues of the day. Instead of hav­ing meet­ings and mak­ing plans, these guys took direct action to do some­thing pos­i­tive and show the local com­mu­ni­ty what is pos­si­ble in the field of urban regen­er­a­tion. So far most of the neigh­bors have react­ed in a pos­i­tive way. The campers are in a gold­fish bowl, and I admire their courage and deter­mi­na­tion. Some of them are old friends that I have known from protest actions in the past. These are peo­ple who stand by you when the going gets tough. So I wish them all the luck in the world and I’ll be back to take more pic­tures and get more news in the days ahead. Swomp4 is a cool action, for nature, the com­mu­ni­ty, and the future.

Australian Climate Change protestors block trains and ports

14th July 2008

Australian climate camp action14th July 2008
In the last few days Aus­tralia’ Cli­mate Camp was estab­lished at New­cas­tle, Aus­tralia. Yes­ter­day, peo­ple from the camp chained them­selves to a coal train, block­ing access to Car­ring­ton coal ter­mi­nal for most of the day and cost­ing the com­pa­ny an esti­mat­ed 1.2 mil­lion US dol­lars. Today, more cli­mate camp activists are block­ing work at the world’s largest coal port at Koor­a­gang.

Aus­tralian coal train and world’s largest coal port peace­ful­ly block­ad­ed.

As the G8 lead­ers fail to achieve any mean­ing­ful agree­ment on tack­ling cli­mate change, thou­sands of activists from Britain to Aus­tralia are spear­head­ing a rad­i­cal approach to the issue. Inspired by pre­vi­ous Camps for Cli­mate Action at Drax and Heathrow, six “Cli­mate Camps” are tak­ing place across the world through­out July and August in what is dubbed “the Con­ver­gence for Cli­mate Action” [1].

In the last few days the first camp was estab­lished at New­cas­tle, Aus­tralia. Yes­ter­day, peo­ple from the camp chained them­selves to a coal train, block­ing access to Car­ring­ton coal ter­mi­nal for most of the day and cost­ing the com­pa­ny an esti­mat­ed 1.2 mil­lion US dol­lars [2]. Today, more cli­mate camp activists are block­ing work at the world’s
largest coal port at Koor­a­gang [3].

The events in Aus­tralia will be fol­lowed by camps in Ger­many, the UK [4] and three across North Amer­i­ca into late August. Each camp has the same mes­sages of edu­ca­tion on cli­mate change and direct action against some of the major pol­luters and oth­er cli­mate crim­i­nals. Coal is a strong theme, fea­tur­ing as the prin­ci­ple tar­get in a num­ber of coun­tries.

“We are run­ning out of time,” said Liz­beth Hal­lo­ran from Aus­tralia, where hun­dreds of peo­ple have already gath­ered. “The G8 are mak­ing piti­ful nois­es and insult­ing our intel­li­gence with their so-called tar­gets. With world lead­ers so clear­ly the pup­pets of the cor­po­rate prof­it motive, it is ordi­nary peo­ple who have to put the brakes on cli­mate change when nobody else will.”

The camps share the same four key objec­tives: show sus­tain­able alter­na­tives in action, share skills and knowl­edge, build a grass­roots move­ment against the root caus­es of cli­mate change, and take direct action, which is seen as a pro­por­tion­ate and nec­es­sary response to the scale of the prob­lem. There is also a recog­ni­tion that there needs to be a ‘just tran­si­tion’ [5] to bring about an envi­ron­men­tal­ly and social­ly respon­si­ble soci­ety.

“Two years ago we start­ed off as six hun­dred peo­ple in a field in York­shire, but it sparked some­thing mas­sive world­wide,” stat­ed Con­nor O’Brien, a spokesper­son from the UK’s Camp for Cli­mate Action. “Now we know what­ev­er we achieve in our local strug­gles this sum­mer, they are ampli­fied by the achieve­ments of the five oth­er cli­mate camps around the world, the many more planned for next sum­mer, and the year-round world­wide social move­ment that is both resist­ing run­away cli­mate change caused by the pur­suit of eco­nom­ic growth at all costs, and build­ing path­ways to a sus­tain­able future.”

The camps bring togeth­er diverse ele­ments of the anti-glob­al­i­sa­tion, social jus­tice and envi­ron­men­tal move­ments, unit­ed by the recog­ni­tion that gov­ern­ments and cor­po­ra­tions are part of the prob­lem and there­fore can­not be part of the solu­tion. As well as tak­ing direct action against some of the root caus­es, they seek to pro­mote sus­tain­able solu­tions to the chal­lenge of cli­mate change.

-End-

Con­tact: UK Camp for Cli­mate Action media team on 0793 209 6677 or 07772 861 099; email: press@climatecamp.org.uk. Our web­site is at http://www.climatecamp.org.uk

Notes for edi­tors

1. The glob­al Camps for Cli­mate Action are:

New­cas­tle, Aus­tralia, 10th ‑15th July ( http://www.climatecamp.org.au), tar­get­ing coal export­ing from Aus­tralia Ham­burg, Ger­many, 15th-26th August ( http://www.klimacamp.org)
Unit­ed States ( http://www.climateconvergence.org)
— West Coast Con­ver­gence, 28th July-August 4th, Eugene, Ore­gon, resist­ing Liqui­fied Nat­ur­al Gas devel­op­ment
— North East Coast Con­flu­ence, 30th July-3rd August, High Falls, New York.
— South West Con­ver­gence, 5th- 11th August, Louisa Coun­ty, Vir­ginia, tar­get­ing coal and ura­ni­um min­ing.
2. See http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gpSZdMNkmFJv-LPVY0Q2LB4_mslg
3. See http://www.climatecamp.org.au/2008/jul/13/nine-climate-camp-activists-stop-work-kooragang-co
4. The UK Camp for Cli­mate Action will be tak­ing place near Kingsnorth Pow­er Sta­tion, Hoo, Kent, from 3rd — 11th August. Ener­gy giant E.ON are push­ing to build the first coal-fired pow­er sta­tion in the UK for 30 years at Kingsnorth.
5. “Just Tran­si­tion” is the prin­ci­ple that changes to employ­ment or activ­i­ties made for the sake of envi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty should be fair and not cost work­ers or ommu­ni­ties their health, wealth or assets; and that those affect­ed by these changes should take a lead­ing role in cre­at­ing new poli­cies and solu­tions.

pho­tos here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/28555566@N06/

Their web­site is here:
http://www.climatecamp.org.au/

West Coast Climate Convergence; Canning and trainings and glitter, oh my!

August 12th, 2008

West Coast climate lock-onAugust 12th, 2008
From July 28 — Aug. 4th over 400 peo­ple gath­ered on a pes­ti­cide-free farm in Coburg, Ore­gon to learn, share, orga­nize and net­work. Work­shops and keynotes cov­ered issues from the I‑5 bridge expan­sion (Colum­bia Riv­er Cross­ing) to grow­ing veg­ta­bles year-around. The week high­light­ed fos­sil fuel devel­op­ment projects through­out the West, and then cre­at­ed a space for peo­ple to learn the skills need­ed to fight them.

The phrase direct action has been invoked in many ways for many move­ments. Often, in the cli­mate move­ment it is used to describe non-vio­lent civ­il dis­obe­di­ence that direct­ly con­front and seek to phys­i­cal­ly halt fos­sil fuel devel­op­ment projects, such as lock-downs to equip­ment and road block­ades. At this year’s West Coast Con­ver­gence for Cli­mate Action, we spoke of direct action as not only tak­ing action against dirty fos­sil fuel projects, but also tak­ing action for com­mu­ni­ty solu­tions and sus­tain­abil­i­ty!

The week led up to a day of civ­il dis­obe­di­ence on Mon­day, which con­sist­ed of two major acts of dis­rup­tion, street the­ater and ral­lies. It was awe­some to learn about the details of pro­posed dirty ener­gy projects, then hear the per­son­al sto­ries from impact­ed com­mu­ni­ties fight­ing them, and then final­ly orga­nize and take action in the efforts to stop them.

The first action tar­get­ed the I‑5 expan­sion due to pro­posed increase indi­vid­ual car and truck traf­fic, which would increase neg­a­tive health issue in sur­round­ing areas, increase green­house gas emis­sions, and dri­ve depen­den­cy on oil. Maya, who learned her climb­ing skills at the con­ver­gence, climbed across a promi­nent Port­land bridge drop­ping a ban­ner that read, “6 more lanes = more sick peo­ple, no I‑5 expan­sion”. Below her, con­ver­gence atten­dees per­formed the­ater involv­ing huge card­board bum­mers, as well as hero­ic bicy­clists.

The ral­ly then moved along the water­front to the head­quar­ters of North­west Nat­ur­al Gas Co., a com­pa­ny who would own and oper­ate new pipelines pro­posed through Ore­gon asso­ci­at­ed with Liq­ue­fied Nat­ur­al Gas (LNG). In front of the build­ing three young women locked them­selves to each oth­er, block­ing the entrance to the build­ing while lead­ing chants. The group sang, “Palo­mar is No Solu­tion, LNG is New Pol­lu­tion” as well as, “You can’t Fool us, We’ve been Watch­ing: No More Green­wash­ing”.

The Con­ver­gence was co-spon­sored by Ris­ing Tide North Amer­i­ca, Glob­al Exchange and Rain­for­est Action Net­work, as well as local groups includ­ing: Ener­gy Options, Friends of Liv­ing Ore­gon Waters, Colum­bia Riv­er Clean Ener­gy Coali­tion and Cas­ca­dia Earth First!

Over­all it pumped me up, gave me some new ideas, and fueled me to work hard­er and have more fun in our fight for a bet­ter future!

Here are a few trin­kets about the week:

-One of the most pop­u­lar work­shops was led by a com­mu­ni­ty mem­ber direct­ly impact­ed by Liq­ue­fied Nat­ur­al Gas (LNG) devel­op­ment in Wash­ing­ton. Not only did she come to speak about LNG, but she led a work­shop about can­ning, dry­ing and freez­ing fruits and veg­eta­bles in prepa­ra­tion for decreas­ing food avail­abil­i­ty due to fuel prices and cli­mate change.

-The NW Nat­ur­al action was orga­nized as a women’s action. We chose to do this for a few rea­sons, includ­ing because we were find­ing that the “sexy” roles were often being tak­en by young men in the group, while women were doing a lot of sup­port and behind the scenes orga­niz­ing. As we orga­nized we came up with ways to make the action super fun, includ­ing by cov­er­ing our­selves and our lock-box­es with glit­ter and heart-shaped stick­ers. One of our banner’s read, “Pipeline thru my heart” with a map of Ore­gon with a drawn pipeline through it. This actions was awe­some, inspir­ing and fun!

-All of our keynote speak­ers were amaz­ing! Includ­ing: Louise Benal­ly with Black Mesa Water Coali­tion, Jane Williams with Cal­i­for­nia Com­mu­ni­ties Against Tox­ins and John Sundquist with River’s Turn Farm.

Here are some videos, and more cov­er­age (includ­ing a hilar­i­ous right-wing blog inter­pre­ta­tion) to learn more:

youtube video of Post Con­ver­gence ACTIONS:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4cR-8sJHQU

Ore­gon­ian Video of No I‑5 Expan­sion ban­ner hang:
http://blog.oregonlive.com/breakingnews/2008/08/protesters_climb_onto_morrison.html

Gen­er­al Cov­er­age of Cli­mate Con­ver­gence:
http://www.kval.com/news/26195294.html
http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/dt.cms.support.viewStory.cls?cid=125947&sid=4&fid=1
h

Wembley Anti-Academy Tent City Facing Eviction: Party And Resist!!!

On Tues­day 15 July 2008 Brent Coun­cil rep­re­sen­ta­tives will attend Willes­den Coun­ty Court at 10.30am to seek a court order for the imme­di­ate evic­tion of the Wem­b­ley Sports Ground Tent City Occu­pa­tion.

On Tues­day 15 July 2008 Brent Coun­cil rep­re­sen­ta­tives will attend Willes­den Coun­ty Court at 10.30am to seek a court order for the imme­di­ate evic­tion of the Wem­b­ley Sports Ground Tent City Occu­pa­tion. Par­ty Fri­day night. Meet the locals and get involved.

The Wem­b­ley Tent City Occu­pa­tion opposed to the Wem­b­ley Park Acad­e­my school and all UK school pri­vati­sa­tion asks for sup­port­ers, protest Willes­den Coun­ty Court, join the cam­paign, squat the sports ground now and get ready for direct action.

Help make this the biggest pub­lic oppo­si­tion to the Blair lega­cy that sold off UK schools to pri­vate investors who have no inter­est in edu­cat­ing chil­dren, oth­er than how much prof­it it is going to make them, prof­it from your hard-earned tax­pay­er’s mon­ey.

Expe­ri­enced NVDA peo­ple are need­ed. Join the protest, or just vis­it. Your knowl­edge would be great­ly appre­ci­at­ed. your bod­ies will be more appre­ci­at­ed.

It’s time to resist!

Protest the Willes­den Coun­ty Court, Acton Lane, Willes­den, on Tues­day 15 July, 10.30am.

Meet those involved this Fri­day, 11 July, from 3.30pm till late at the “Back on site or pre-evic­tion par­ty? — you decide!”

Wem­b­ley Tent City Occu­pa­tion, Bridge Road, Wem­b­ley.

Near­est Tube: Wem­b­ley Park (Met­ro­pol­i­tan Line)
Turn left out the sta­tion, walk up the hill to main junc­tion on Bridge Road, turn left, walk 100 metres, turn left into the gate way to Wem­b­ley Park Sports Ground and you’re there.

Bus­es: 83 from Gold­ers Green Stn, 302 from Ken­sal Rise Stn, 297 from Willes­den Bus Garage

Tent City Occu­pa­tion (see here for con­tact details)

http://www.tentcityoccupation.co.uk/

Pre­vi­ous cov­er­age

Anti-Acad­e­my Teach­ers Take To The Trees
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/5074

Wem­b­ley Sum­mer Camp Open: Squat The Land, Smash School Pri­vati­sa­tion
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20984

Wem­b­ley Teach­ers Say No To Pri­va­tised School­ing
http://jasonnparkinson.blogspot.com/2008/06/wembley-teachers-say-no-to-privatised.html

200 School Pupils In Huts On A Con­struc­tion Site
http://jasonnparkinson.blogspot.com/2008/06/200-school-pupils-in-huts-on.html

The Boil on Bus­son’s Butt
http://jasonnparkinson.blogspot.com/2008/07/boil-on-bussons-butt.html

Save Our Schools 22-minute film avail­able on Reel News issue 13
http://www.reelnews.co.uk/

Tent City Occu­pa­tion
http://www.tentcityoccupation.co.uk/

Aldermaston Nuke Frocks and shots: on cocktail parties and builder blocking

Yet anoth­er fan­tas­tic oppor­tu­ni­ty to mix busi­ness with plea­sure! Alder­mas­ton Wom­en’s peace camp(aign) host anoth­er fab­u­lous wom­en’s cock­tail par­ty at the peace camp on Sat­ur­day 12 July, while Block the Builders meet in near­by Read­ing the fol­low­ing after­noon to plot the down­fall of the nuclear-indus­tri­al com­plex 😉

Aldermaston camp cocktail flierYet anoth­er fan­tas­tic oppor­tu­ni­ty to mix busi­ness with plea­sure! Alder­mas­ton Wom­en’s peace camp(aign) host anoth­er fab­u­lous wom­en’s cock­tail par­ty at the peace camp on Sat­ur­day 12 July, while Block the Builders meet in near­by Read­ing the fol­low­ing after­noon to plot the down­fall of the nuclear-indus­tri­al com­plex 😉

Since 2002, the Atom­ic Weapons Estab­lish­ment Alder­mas­ton has been the recip­i­ent of a sub­stan­tial invest­ment pro­gramme to upgrade and devel­op new nuclear weapons facil­i­ties. The project is on the same scale as Heathrow’s Ter­mi­nal Five. Alder­mas­ton is where Britain research­es, designs and man­u­fac­tures it’s nuclear weapons. Lat­est news and back­ground info on devel­op­ments at the site can be found at http://www.aldermaston.net/news.

In March 2007 a par­lia­men­tary vote paved the way for a new fleet of nuclear-armed sub­marines to replace the exist­ing four Tri­dent subs, with deci­sions and announce­ments on new war­heads and mis­siles expect­ed to be made over the com­ing years (…in pub­lic … though who would buy £15bn sub­marines with­out already hav­ing com­mit­ted to arm­ing it?)

Between 2006 and 2007 new leg­is­la­tion was intro­duced aimed at lim­it­ing the right to and scope of protest at Britain’s nuclear weapons facil­i­ties (SOCPA and mil­i­tary lands byelaws).
Despite this, in March 2008 an esti­mat­ed 5,000 peo­ple came to Alder­mas­ton to make their voic­es heard in oppo­si­tion to the exten­sion of Britian’s nuclear weapons pro­gramme, and the wom­en’s peace camp con­tin­ues its 23-year tra­di­tion as a vis­i­ble pres­ence at the wire.

The camp is invit­ing women to come to Alder­mas­ton on Sat­ur­day 12 July to join a cel­e­bra­tion of the right to protest (frocks and shots option­al but encour­aged) and of wom­en’s strength in the strug­gle against patri­ar­chal mil­i­tary mad­ness. Music, snacks, veg­an cake (pos­si­bly…), ice and a twist.

Non­vi­o­lent direct action net­work Block the Builders are meet­ing the fol­low­ing day in Read­ing to dis­cuss the ongo­ing builder-block­ing efforts at Alder­mas­ton, aimed at slow­ing and cost­ing the con­struc­tion of new weapons-relat­ed facil­i­ties. See http://www.blockthebuilders.org.uk for details.

Come and meet us, dis­cuss the issues and have a fab­u­lous time!

info@aldermaston.net
http://www.aldermaston.net

Camp for Climate Action: Great Rebel Raft Regatta update & newspaper launched

THE GREAT REBEL RAFT REGATTA UPDATE

RaftsTHE GREAT REBEL RAFT REGATTA UPDATE

Fol­low­ing a pro­fes­sion­al recon­nais­sance and Health and Safe­ty test trip by boat last Wednes­day, rebel rafters and expe­ri­enced sailors gave the thumbs up for the water borne dis­obe­di­ence on the Mass Day of Action, August 9th. Launch­ing with the tides and if the weath­er is not blow­ing a gale, the action was deemed total­ly do able and has the poten­tial to be a spec­tac­u­lar suc­cess. The key will be in the num­ber of rafts, the more rafts ( or any­thing that floats !) there are the more impos­si­ble it will be for the forces of dark­ness to stop the arma­da reach­ing it’s tar­get. So start pack­ing pad­dles, canoes,inflatables, rafts, dinghies, amphibi­ous vehi­cles etc.. with your tent. Try to encour­age any yacht or boat peo­ple, pirates or sailors you know to join in. All rebel rafters will be requit­ed to attend a water safe­ty work­shop that will be run dai­ly for the three
days lead­ing up to the day of action, and will have to wear life jack­ets ( if you don’t have your own, these will be pro­vid­ed by the camp). A write up is avail­able on the GRRR web­site.

Mean­while many groups across the coun­try are get­ting excit­ed by the GRRR bug and plan­ning to build rafts and get teams togeth­er. If your group has any news, pic­tures of rafts or ideas to share, then send it to the con­stant­ly updat­ed news feed on www.thegrrr.net . For any fur­ther enquiries email: pirates@thegrrr.net

CLIMATE CAMP NEWSPAPER HITS THE STREETS AND FESTIVALS

Last week 30,000 news­pa­pers, beau­ti­ful­ly designed in black and bright cyan and not look­ing any­thing like a bor­ing polit­i­cal paper, came off the print­ing press and began their jour­ney around the coun­try.

Pub­lished to inspire peo­ple to come to the camp it is filled with full pages images of last years events, por­traits of hot cli­mate campers, a stun­ning map of this years camp and texts that describe the pol­i­tics of rad­i­cal cli­mate activism. If you would like copies to hand out in the street, fes­ti­vals, drop off in cafe’s etc. con­tact distribution@climatecamp.org.uk with your address and how many you want, they will be sent out asap or ring Isa 07984158 108 to find out where you can pick some up. The pdf’s is now online here: http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/node/23