Category: Technologies of Control

GAGGED! #19 • Sep­tem­ber 2007 • http;//www.gaggedanarchist.tk • FREE
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Grass­roots Resis­tance to Cap­i­tal­ism & Gov­ern­ment
Pro­duced by South Wales Anar­chists • http;//www.southwalesanarchists.org

Camp Com­bats Cor­po­rate Cli­mate Crimes
This year’s Camp for Cli­mate Action was held on squat­ted land at Heathrow, the world’s busiest air­port & a big­ger source of CO2 emis­sions than most coun­tries. The squat­ted land along with the near­by vil­lage of Sip­son are planned to be turned into Heathrow’s 3rd run­way, destroy­ing over 700 homes. Despite press squeal­ing from BAA that the camp would tar­get hard-work­ing fam­i­lies going on their sum­mer hol­i­days, a report in 2003 showed that 96% of Heathrow’s pas­sen­gers were from socio-eco­nom­ic cat­e­gories A, B & C1. At Stanst­ed, where low cost car­ri­ers account for near­ly all the flights, the aver­age annu­al house­hold income of pas­sen­gers exceeds £51,000. The most recent fig­ures show that 4.5% of the pop­u­la­tion take 44% of all flights. The core of the prob­lem isn’t work­ing class fam­i­lies fly­ing to Greece every cou­ple of years, it’s the rich jet­ting off to Paris or Man­ches­ter (the two most pop­u­lar des­ti­na­tion from Heathrow) five times a week.
Around 1000 peo­ple arrived at the camp to get involved in a week of self-organ­i­sa­tion & direct action. With­in a cou­ple of days an emp­ty field was turned into an autonomous com­mu­ni­ty pow­ered by the wind & sun. Over 1,800 police were mobilised to mon­i­tor the protests includ­ing the FIT polit­i­cal police (who have a patho­log­i­cal hatred of pro­test­ers) all of whom did their best to bul­ly & intim­i­date every­one as much as pos­si­ble. Expe­ri­enced activists & local res­i­dents com­bined to strug­gle against con­tin­u­al police harass­ment, while at the same time the camp soon became the cen­tre of a media fren­zy. This result­ed in huge press cov­er­age world­wide, although much of it was non­sense — there was even talk of anar­chists ‘infil­trat­ing’ the site when we’d set it up!
The focus of the direct actions was the cor­po­ra­tions pro­mot­ing air trav­el. Although we all need to make changes to avoid eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion the major prob­lem is cap­i­tal­ism & the cor­po­ra­tions that prof­it from avi­a­tion & who are push­ing for its expan­sion despite the dead­ly threat of cli­mate chaos. The actions were numer­ous & effec­tive, with tar­gets includ­ing the offices of Leeds Air­port, car­bon off­set­ting com­pa­nies, pri­vate char­ter com­pa­ny XL (con­tract­ed to the Home Office to deport reject­ed asy­lum seek­ers, — cli­mate change refuges now out­num­ber peo­ple dis­placed by con­flict), as well as Carmel Agrex­co’s Heathrow ware­house (where pro­duce is air freight­ed in from ter­ri­to­ries occu­pied by Israel). Block­ades were held at BP head­quar­ters, BA world car­go depot, World Freight Cen­tre at Heathrow, nuclear pow­er sta­tions, Farn­bor­ough & Big­gin Hill pri­vate air­ports, while oth­ers chained shut the doors of 6 trav­el agen­cies in Lon­don. The tar­get of the mass action was BAA head­quar­ters, as they’re the ones in charge of Britain’s fastest grow­ing con­trib­u­tor to cli­mate chaos: Heathrow Air­port. About 300 peo­ple went on foot cross-coun­try, while anoth­er group of about 100 peo­ple made it to BAA by road & shut it down for 24 hours.
The cli­mate camp was a glimpse of the ideas we cre­ate & actions we can take when we get togeth­er & work col­lec­tive­ly. It is just a tiny part of what we need to be doing to tack­le cli­mate chaos with peo­ple leav­ing inspired & hope­ful for the future. The camp last­ed a week but the caus­es of cli­mate change are hap­pen­ing every day, as is the resis­tance. Check out http://www.climateimc.org & http://www.earthfirst.org.uk

The Great Recy­cling Swin­dle!
Recy­cling indus­try insid­ers have told us that Cardiff res­i­dents’ waste, which is picked up all in one bag with­out being sep­a­rat­ed, ends up far too mixed & con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed to be recy­cled effec­tive­ly. The sit­u­a­tion is the same in most UK towns. Much of it is sold on to waste deal­ers who export it halfway across the world to Indone­sia, India & Chi­na, burn­ing tonnes of car­bon diox­ide to dump rub­bish on poor­er peo­ple in the glob­al South.
Our waste should be recy­cled sep­a­rate­ly by oper­a­tions in the UK, but because it is col­lect­ed mixed togeth­er in one bag, paper mills, plas­tics, & glass han­dlers find it impos­si­ble to work with. Many UK paper mills have had to close down because coun­cils are too short-sight­ed to imple­ment prop­er recy­cling schemes to pro­vide them with clean mate­ri­als.
One insid­er told us: “Cardiff Coun­cil will claim that it sends its paper to the paper mill at Ayels­ford in Kent to be recy­cled. But none of the kerb­side recy­cling from Cardiff gets there. By the time it’s been picked up & tak­en to the cen­tral depot it’s been con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed by bro­ken glass & oth­er mate­ri­als, & it’s most­ly unus­able. I know this because I’ve been speak­ing to peo­ple at the paper mills. I don’t know exact­ly where it gets sent, but it stands to rea­son that if the UK recy­clers are refus­ing it, it’ll be sold by mid­dle-men to the big deal­ers in the Far East.”
Anoth­er indus­try expert, who also prefers to remain anony­mous, told us that lots of our waste ends up in the glob­al South where it is picked over by poor labour­ers in dan­ger­ous & unsan­i­tary con­di­tions. “There are con­tain­ers full of mixed mate­ri­als ille­gal­ly export­ed to devel­op­ing coun­tries where health & safe­ty is not a con­sid­er­a­tion & where chil­dren sift through what we would call land­fill sites. I’ve heard rumours that Cardiff’s so-called recy­cled waste gets sent to Indone­sia, but only a few peo­ple know for sure. They don’t want to broad­cast it”.
Cardiff Coun­cil only recent­ly opened the expen­sive recy­cling ‘sort­ing’ facil­i­ty at Lam­by Way. One source told us, “Lam­by Way is a com­plete dis­as­ter. All it pro­duces is low-grade con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed waste that’s next to use­less. That place was a total waste of mon­ey”.
Anoth­er told us that big & cost­ly sep­a­rat­ing plants like Lam­by Way wouldn’t be nec­es­sary if the pub­lic were asked to do the job in the home, or if col­lec­tors sep­a­rat­ed on col­lec­tion. “Get­ting indi­vid­u­als sep­a­rat­ing waste in the home is not dif­fi­cult – it’s com­mon prac­tice in oth­er Euro­pean coun­tries like Ger­many, & it’s also done in New­port!”
One big dif­fer­ence in the New­port recy­cling method, apart from sep­a­rat­ing waste at source, not export­ing it & actu­al­ly recy­cling it, is it isn’t run by the coun­cil, it’s run by a com­mu­ni­ty group! Check out: http://www.realrecycling.org.uk & http://www.wastesavers.co.uk

Cardiff incin­er­a­tor
Politi­cians have a approved plans to build a mas­sive incin­er­a­tor in Cardiff Bay in the site of the for­mer Nip­pon Elec­tri­cal Glass fac­to­ry. The com­pa­nies who plan to build this mon­ster claim it will not only dis­pose of our rub­bish, but that the heat it pro­duces will be used to gen­er­ate elec­tric­i­ty.
At first glance this may seem like a green & sus­tain­able solu­tion to the prob­lem of what to do with waste. It is noth­ing of the sort.
Incin­er­a­tors burn paper & plas­tics that could be recy­cled & re-used. Far from being an envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly way of deal­ing with our moun­tains of rub­bish, sim­ply burn­ing them ends up per­pet­u­at­ing our use of plas­tics, which are made from oil, a fos­sil fuel that’s gonna run out in the very near future.
Instead of build­ing facil­i­ties like this, we need to start build­ing prop­er local recy­cling facil­i­ties, while going about chang­ing the way we con­sume non-renew­able mate­ri­als like plas­tic. Rather than hop­ing our waste prob­lems will go away in a puff of smoke we need to seri­ous­ly start to reduce, re-use, & recy­cle!

Gas Pipeline Sab­o­taged
Pro­test­ers have sab­o­taged the con­tro­ver­sial liq­ue­fied nat­ur­al gas (LNG) pipeline, caus­ing sig­nif­i­cant dam­age both to the pipe itself & works vehi­cles. Mean­while, Nation­al Grid is con­sid­er­ing build­ing a 2nd eco­log­i­cal­ly dam­ag­ing gas pipeline across Wales.
The Bre­con Bea­cons gas pipeline works were sab­o­taged dur­ing the night to coin­cide with the Camp for Cli­mate Action. A small team bypassed secu­ri­ty & ren­dered immo­bile a total of 11 machines includ­ing tip­per trucks & exca­va­tors. Major engine & hydraulic com­po­nents were destroyed & the pipeline itself was holed in sev­er­al places.
The first pipeline, which will trans­port LNG from Mil­ford Haven to Glouces­ter­shire has already cut a huge swathe through the Welsh coun­try­side. When acti­vat­ed it will trans­port dan­ger­ous high­ly pres­surised gas through towns & vil­lages, often run­ning just metres from schools, homes & pub­lic build­ings. Direct action by cli­mate change pro­test­ers has already sig­nif­i­cant­ly delayed progress on the first pipe, & Nation­al Grid has spent thou­sands evict­ing sev­er­al camps along the way. Due to a com­bi­na­tion of deter­mined protests & harsh ter­rain the first pipe is bad­ly behind sched­ule. The com­pa­ny will be fined if they don’t com­plete on time, so they’re spend­ing more & more cash to catch up. Pro­test­ers have vowed to resist a 2nd pipeline as strong­ly as the 1st.

GOw­er res­i­dents Oppose Dredg­ing
Dredg­ing is already hav­ing cat­a­stroph­ic effects on South Wales’ beach­es. Now com­pa­nies are look­ing to dou­ble the amount of sand they can take from the sea off the coast.
The com­pa­nies — Han­son, Unit­ed Marine Dredg­ing & CEMEX UK — have a licence to remove up to 900,000 tonnes every year until 2010 from Nash Bank, off Porth­cawl, where there has already been sig­nif­i­cant beach ero­sion. They are now seek­ing per­mis­sion from the Welsh Assem­bly to dredge up to 1.8m tonnes a year from a new loca­tion south of Car­marthen Bay & west of Gow­er. If this car­ries on the coast will lose its beach­es alto­geth­er, & an already frag­ile ecosys­tem will be destroyed.
Last week Min­is­ter for Envi­ron­ment, ‘Sus­tain­abil­i­ty’(!) & Hous­ing Jane David­son gave the go-ahead for ‘Llanel­li Sand Dredg­ing Ltd’ to con­duct more dredg­ing off Gow­er despite a 30,000 sig­na­ture peti­tion of oppo­si­tion to it. Check out: http://www.gower-sos.com

Watch­ing the detec­tives
FIT are police ‘for­ward intel­li­gence’ teams that film & harass pro­test­ers. It has become nor­mal to see these spe­cial­ist police teams at all sorts of polit­i­cal meet­ings & events. The fact that it is now a nor­mal occur­rence does not make it right.
The first FITWATCH action was when FIT were attempt­ing to film peo­ple attend­ing a meet­ing about the DSEi arms fair. Hav­ing asked the police to stop pho­tograph­ing peo­ple who did not wish to be pho­tographed two activists used pieces of card­board to obstruct the view of the cam­era, stop­ping the police from tak­ing footage. The police used phys­i­cal force to keep the activists away from the cam­era, & then arrest­ed both of them for obstruct­ing a police offi­cer in the course of his duty. They will be on tri­al at High­bury Cor­ner Mag­is­trates Court on the 9th Octo­ber 2007. All sup­port­ers wel­come!
This tri­al will be the first test of whether FIT have a legal right to intim­i­date, harass, pho­to­graph & col­lect data on peo­ple attend­ing polit­i­cal meet­ings.
“It is not accept­able for the police to be com­pil­ing data on peo­ple attend­ing a polit­i­cal meet­ing,” said Val Swain, one of the defen­dants. “We are not sup­posed to be liv­ing in a total­i­tar­i­an soci­ety where police can hold data on peo­ple just because of their polit­i­cal views. The police behave in a very intim­i­dat­ing man­ner, forc­ing peo­ple to ‘run the gaunt­let’ of cam­era flash­guns & police scruti­ny sim­ply to attend a meet­ing. I believe that in act­ing the way that they do, the police are act­ing unlaw­ful­ly & this tri­al will attempt to hold them to account.” Check out: http://www.fitwatch.blogspot.com

Stop the st athan mur­der acad­e­my
On 23rd August, anti-mil­i­tarists includ­ing South Wales Anar­chists vis­it­ed RAF St Athan, to oppose its planned expan­sion into an inter­na­tion­al train­ing com­plex. The devel­op­ment, cost­ing £14 bil­lion, will be pri­vate­ly oper­at­ed for the ben­e­fit of the entire British armed forces & allies. The ‘St Athan Defence Acad­e­my’ head­ed by the Metrix Con­sor­tium, & run in part­ner­ship with City & Guilds, Laing O’Rourke, Raytheon, & Open Uni­ver­si­ty will be oper­a­tional by 2013.
The Welsh Assem­bly has forced this deal through with no pub­lic dis­cus­sion, focussing on the sup­posed ‘eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits’, includ­ing new jobs for local peo­ple. Despite fig­ures of 5000 being tot­ed the vast major­i­ty will be re-locat­ed spe­cial­ist per­son­nel, there are only a few hun­dred low paid ser­vice jobs for local peo­ple (see Gagged #16).

Prison isn’t work­ing so why build more?
As part of the Home Office’s plans for 10,000 new prison places in the next 2 years, pri­vate­ly run Parc Prison in Brid­gend is to raise its num­ber of inmates by more than a third to over 1,500, & a new jail in North Wales is pro­posed. The Pro­ba­tion Ser­vice is con­cerned by the costs of expan­sion & sug­gest­ed there should be a debate about prison pop­u­la­tion.
No debate is need­ed. Pris­ons are a fail­ure. Over­crowd­ing is huge, more than half of all pris­on­ers have men­tal health prob­lems, while sui­cide & self-harm are rife. The num­ber of inno­cent pris­on­ers in the UK — vic­tims of mis­car­riages of jus­tice — is high­ly dis­put­ed but some claim it is as high as 3,000 ( http://www.portia.org). Despite the rhetoric, prison does not reha­bil­i­tate as it’s not designed to: re-offend­ing rates are 70% for some cat­e­gories. Inmates are forced to work for peanuts for pri­vate com­pa­nies who make huge prof­its out of prison slav­ery ( http://www.againstprisonslavery.org). The fact is pris­ons do noth­ing to address the num­ber 1 cause of crime: mas­sive inequal­i­ty between the rich & the poor.

Dis­arm the D.S.E.i. arms Fair
The world’s biggest arms fair opens for busi­ness on 11th Sep­tem­ber. Defence Sys­tems Exhi­bi­tion Inter­na­tion­al comes to Lon­don dock­lands every 2 years, along with war­ships, fight­er planes, cor­rupt arms deal­ers & mil­i­tary dic­ta­tors. For these busi­ness­es world con­flict is suc­cess­ful cap­i­tal­ism. They are respon­si­ble for the fight­er jets & bombers that have ter­rorised Bagh­dad, South Lebanon & Pales­tine. All for prof­it.
A day of action is planned on the 11th Sep­tem­ber. Fur­ther actions will take place lat­er in the week when the arms traders cel­e­brate their deals with din­ner at a posh hotel. For those com­ing from out of town accom­mo­da­tion will be avail­able at a con­ver­gence space, the loca­tion of which will be announced a week in advance. Check out http://www.dsei.org

Welsh Repub­li­can Army threat­en Char­lie
A para­mil­i­tary group call­ing itself the Welsh Repub­li­can Army con­tact­ed a news­pa­per with threats to tar­get Prince Charles if he doesn’t quit his estate near Llan­dovery & give up the title ‘Prince of Wales’.
“If he [Charles] con­tin­ues to live here & con­tin­ues to hold the title Prince of Wales, he con­tin­ues to be a legit­i­mate tar­get for Repub­li­can action. The WRA’s pri­ma­ry objec­tive is to estab­lish a Welsh social­ist repub­lic & free Cym­ru from its shack­les. We will con­tin­ue to oppose the British state’s dom­i­na­tion & rule of our coun­try”.
We under­stand their feel­ings about Char­lie, but as good as get­ting rid of roy­al­ty & the British state would be, Welsh politi­cians ain’t any bet­ter. We need a more fun­da­men­tal change than mov­ing par­lia­ment to Cardiff. The idea that inde­pen­dence would be a step clos­er to a more just, lib­er­tar­i­an soci­ety doesn’t add up. Mind you their slo­gan “We shall see the last Eng­lish Prince stran­gled with the entrails of the last cap­i­tal­ist” is a crack­er!

End depor­ta­tions & shut deten­tion pris­ons
On 28th August mem­bers of the Con­golese Com­mu­ni­ty of Wales & sup­port­ers from No Bor­ders demon­strat­ed out­side the Home Office against the depor­ta­tion of Con­golese asy­lum seek­ers. Despite For­eign Office advice to British nation­als “not to trav­el at all” to east­ern & north-east­ern DRC & against “all but essen­tial trav­el” to the rest of the coun­try as it is deemed “too unsta­ble,” the Home Office con­tin­ues to deport Con­golese asy­lum seek­ers, includ­ing chil­dren born here.
From Sep­tem­ber 19th – 24th there will be a No Bor­der camp near Gatwick, next to the planned site of a new deten­tion prison. The camp will be an oppor­tu­ni­ty to stop the build­ing of the deten­tion cen­tre & to share ideas on how to fight against migra­tion con­trols. There is trans­port organ­ised from Cardiff to the camp. Get in touch with No Bor­ders Wales to book a space. Check out: http://www.noborders.org.uk

2 more pol­lut­ing pow­er sta­tions?
Fos­sil fuel push­ers at Npow­er have signed a deal to build a mas­sive gas pow­er sta­tion in Pem­brokeshire, & ser­i­al pol­luters Sev­ern Pow­er have just had the go-ahead to build a sec­ond gas pow­er sta­tion in New­port.
Both sta­tions will be eco­log­i­cal­ly dam­ag­ing & will waste hun­dreds of mil­lions of pounds — mon­ey that could be spent on small-scale sus­tain­able elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­a­tion using tidal, wind, & solar pow­er. The move has been wel­comed by car­bon dinosaurs at Pem­brokeshire & New­port coun­cils, who say the sta­tions will pro­vide much-need­ed jobs. How­ev­er, most of the jobs cre­at­ed will be filled by high­ly trained work­ers from out­side our local com­mu­ni­ties, leav­ing only short-term con­struc­tion jobs & low-skill low-wage posi­tions for local peo­ple.
Both com­pa­nies try to sell the use of gas as a clean alter­na­tive to coal & nuclear pow­er, but in fact gas is just anoth­er fos­sil fuel adding to run­away cli­mate change.

Pick­et Lines
At the begin­ning of August Lloyds TSB, the UK’s 5th largest bank, report­ed half-year prof­its of £2bn, up 15% on last year. Despite these prof­its, work­ers for Lloyds TSB in Cardiff will be amongst 550 made redun­dant across the UK as a result of the clo­sure of more than 30 Chel­tenham & Glouces­ter branch­es (which Lloyds bought in 1995) & mov­ing IT jobs to coun­tries where they can pay even low­er wages.
• • • • •
The dis­abled employ­ment ser­vice ‘Rem­ploy’ is clos­ing down it’s fac­to­ries, in Aber­dare, Aber­tillery, Brid­gend, Bry­nam­man, Tre­for­est, Wrex­ham & Ystradg­yn­lais mak­ing 465 peo­ple unem­ployed. Demon­stra­tions have already hap­pened in Wrex­ham & there will be more at the Swansea Shared Ser­vice Cen­tre on 11 Sep­tem­ber, Brid­gend, Tre­for­est, Aber­dare & Port Tal­bot on 12 Sep­tem­ber & Bry­nam­man, Ystradg­yn­lais & Aber­tillery on 13 Sep­tem­ber.
• • • • •
Dur­ing the Camp for Cli­mate Action, work­ers at Car­go com­pa­ny Nip­pon Express, Heathrow held a 48-hour strike against a new work regime, which would, amongst oth­er things, see them work­ing 25% longer hours for no extra pay & mean a £1265 pay cut for many of them. Many cli­mate campers showed sol­i­dar­i­ty with them by vis­it­ing the pick­et line dur­ing this peri­od & like­wise some of the work­ers vis­it­ed the camp. It’s not hard to see the link between these two strug­gles – cap­i­tal­ism & its insa­tiable dri­ve for prof­it which is put above the needs of peo­ple & plan­et. It’s only by work­ing to destroy cap­i­tal­ism that we will be able to end work­er exploita­tion & cli­mate chaos, & build a free world in har­mo­ny with our envi­ron­ment.
• • • • •
Prison offi­cers in Wales & Eng­land staged a sur­prise strike over pay on 29th August, breach­ing the 1994 ban on strike action. Prison offi­cers are clear­ly very con­fi­dent. It is unthink­able that the gov­ern­ment would cut back on prison offi­cers while prison num­bers grow. It’s def­i­nite­ly a growth indus­try, which gives them indus­tri­al lever­age that just wouldn’t be avail­able in oth­er sec­tors. They received sup­port from the Police Fed­er­a­tion with threats that the police could con­sid­er fol­low­ing suit. More mon­ey for screws & cops? For­give us if we are less than enthu­si­as­tic!! We sug­gest that they all think about mak­ing dras­tic career changes. Or jump off the near­est tall build­ing.…
• • • • •
Fol­low­ing Coun­cil work­ers rejec­tion of a pay offer ear­li­er this year, the employ­ers made an improved offer, break­ing Gor­don Brown’s 2% pub­lic sec­tor pay lim­it; 2.475% & a new min­i­mum rate of £6 per hour. On 4th Sep­tem­ber UNISON’s Nation­al Exec­u­tive decid­ed to reject this offer & is pro­ceed­ing to bal­lot for indus­tri­al action. As we go to press the GMB are con­sult­ing all mem­bers by post to decide if they will be bal­lot­ing for strike action.

COPWATCH

Yet more sex­u­al abuse in cus­tody
A North Wales police detec­tive has been sus­pend­ed amid alle­ga­tions of sex­u­al assault & mis­con­duct in pub­lic office. He has not yet been arrest­ed or charged. It is thought the alle­ga­tions may have been made by a female who had been in cus­tody.

They do like to be beside the sea­side!
Gwent cops are being inves­ti­gat­ed for tak­ing trips to the beach when they should have been on duty. Only com­ing a crop­per when they got a flat tyre in Eng­land & had to call for assis­tance! It’s claimed cops com­pet­ed to see who could get fur­thest away from their Black­wood patrol area. Up to four offi­cers alleged­ly took trips to places like Bar­ry Island & Porth­cawl.

Speed­ing cops caught out
It has been revealed that 20 South Wales police offi­cers have been caught speed­ing on traf­fic cam­eras. Only 4 of them were pros­e­cut­ed, with 3 cas­es still ongo­ing. In anoth­er case a Mid-Wales detec­tive, Ash­ley Brice, got away with a fine & a 12-month ban after being found guilty of dan­ger­ous dri­ving that caused the death of anoth­er dri­ver in 2005.

Yet anoth­er death in cus­tody
Recalled to prison after breach­ing parole, David King, 41, was dis­cov­ered hang­ing in his cell by staff at Swansea jail on August 11th & pro­nounced dead.
It was the 57th sui­cide in jails in Wales & Eng­land so far this year, com­pared with 41 at the same point last year. Almost one third of sui­cides occur with­in the first week of jail. Many hap­pen while peo­ple are on remand, not even con­vict­ed of a crime.

Met­ro­pol­i­tan FIT police on hol­i­day
FIT Offi­cer LX365 — Ian Skivens was in atten­dance at a small demo out­side the St. Athan RAF base on Thurs­day 23rd August with a pho­tog­ra­ph­er from Stafford­shire police. When asked what he was doing such a long way from home, Ian said he was there to “check out how oth­er UK forces deal with protests, noth­ing more sin­is­ter than that”. The Met already con­sid­er them­selves head of a nation­al police force.

Stun guns for welsh cops
Gwent & North Wales Police are now to be armed with 50,000-volt taser weapons. Until now Tasers have only been issued to police firearms units. Over 220 peo­ple have died after being shot with Tasers in the US since 2001.

Fine for being run over
A police car swerved off the road in Bed­dau, & ran over Daniel Horne’s foot.
“The police car came on to the pave­ment, hit my right leg & I fell over – with my foot being crushed under the front wheel.”
Instead of an apol­o­gy he got an £80 fine – stat­ing: “You ran into the near­side front wing of a marked police vehi­cle caus­ing a dent.” He’s unable to work & plans to sue.

Diary Dates
Sep­tem­ber
11 — Dis­arm Dsei — actions against Defence Sys­tems & Equip­ment Inter­na­tion­al (DSEi), the arms fair. ExCel Cen­tre, Lon­don. http://www.dsei.org
13 — Cym­ru-imc-Wales ben­e­fit gig — Cos­mo, Imran & Lou Noble & the Red Sil­hou­ettes. Min­sky’s, Charles Street, Cardiff, 8–11.30pm. £2
19–24 — No Bor­ders Camp, near Gatwick. http://www.noborders.org.uk
22 — All Wales Peace Fes­ti­val Caernar­fon. http://www.cymdeithasycymod.org.uk/gwylheddwch
Octo­ber
1 — South Wales Anar­chist Forum — month­ly meet­ing of all of the south Wales groups. 8pm. Glam­or­gan staff club, west­gate street, Cardiff.
6 — Stop St. Athan Defence Train­ing Acad­e­my, Tem­ple of Peace, Cardiff, 2pm- meet­ing of the coali­tion cam­paign­ing against the devel­op­ment of new mil­i­tary train­ing acad­e­my in South Wales.
27 — Anar­chist Book­fair — Queen Mary & West­field Col­lege, Mile End Road, Lon­don, E1. 10am-7pm http://www.anarchistbookfair.org.uk
Novem­ber
3 — Gagged! ben­e­fit gig — No Choice, KilnAboy, & Gun­rack? Le Pub, Cax­ton Place, New­port. £3

Got any news or an event you want us to cov­er? send details to news@gaggedanarchist.tk

An audio ver­sion of Gagged! is avail­able, check out http://www.gaggedanarchist.tk, where you can also sub­scribe online. 5,000 copies of each issue are dis­trib­uted — can you help? If you are inter­est­ed in get­ting involved, please get in touch info@gaggedanarchist.tk

Peo­ples Autonomous Des­ti­na­tion
a phys­i­cal space in Cardiff for groups & indi­vid­u­als who can­not or will not work with­in the con­straints of gov­ern­men­tal or cor­po­rate con­trol. Food co-op every wednes­day from 5pm. meet­ings every wednes­day from 7pm. Veg­an-fry-up every sun­day from 12noon. & lots more, call by & see notice board 118 Clifton Street, Cardiff CF24 1LW • http://www.thepad.org.

Cardiff Ris­ing Tide
is a grass­roots group com­mit­ted to tak­ing action & build­ing a move­ment against cli­mate change.
cardiff@risingtide.org.uk http://www.risingtide.org.uk

No Bor­ders Wales
organ­is­es on migra­tion issues & acts to break down bound­aries that divide us. Meet at the PAD thurs­days 7pm.
noborderswales@riseup.net http://www.noborderswales.wordpress.com

Cardiff Read­ing Anti-Cap­i­tal­ism
is a study/reading group explor­ing rev­o­lu­tion­ary vision & strat­e­gy. Meet 7pm every oth­er tues­day of the month at PAD. http://www.myspace.com/cardiffanticapitalism

South Wales Anar­chists
A net­work of col­lec­tives who are against all forms of exploita­tion & big­otry. We are con­cerned with tak­ing direct action against cap­i­tal­ism & gov­ern­ment. We spread infor­ma­tion & build resis­tance to cre­ate a world based on jus­tice & free­dom. We organ­ise autonomous­ly with­out author­i­ty or hier­ar­chy, so that every­body involved can have an equal say. http://www.southwalesanarchists.org
Cardiff Anar­chist Net­work (CAN) Meet­ings on Mon­days 8pm, at the PAD. Con­tact cardiffanarchists@riseup.net or http://www.myspace.com/cardiffanarchists.
Gwent Anar­chists Meet­ings on every oth­er Mon­day 8.30pm at the Murenger, High Street, New­port. Con­tact gwentanarchists@yahoo.co.uk or http://www.myspace.com/gwentanarchists
Pem­brokeshire Anar­chists Con­tact pembrokeshireanarchists@riseup.net or http://www.myspace.com/pembrokeshireanarchists.
Rhond­da Cyon Taf Anar­chists Con­tact rctanarchists@riseup.net.

For inter­na­tion­al news like the sort you find in Gagged! check out: http://www.schnews.org.uk http://www.indymedia.org.uk http;//www.libcom.org http://www.anarkismo.net http://www.infoshop.org

South Wales Anar­chists
info@gaggedanarchist.tk
http://www.gaggedanarchist.tk

===================================================================

*The Bath Bomb * Issue #2 Sep­tem­ber ‘07 * @nti-copyright: copy and dis­trib­ute! *

“All the news the Chron didn’t choose!”

(For fur­ther info on any of our sto­ries, see www.myspace.com/bathbomb)

Shock­ing Behav­iour from Bath’s Author­i­ties

Bath has just been giv­en the hon­our of host­ing the dress rehearsal of the cops’ lat­est tor­ture tech­niques. Start­ing in Sep­tem­ber, Bath cops will be tooled up with taz­er guns capa­ble of deliv­er­ing a 50,000 volt shock as part of a one-year tri­al. If the tri­al is deemed a suc­cess (if enough of us get zapped!), the weapons look set to be thrown out to any cop nation­wide who wants one.

This move spells dis­as­ter for us, as the Met­ro­pol­i­tan police, the most armed force in the coun­try, have already shown remark­able skill in mur­der­ing and wound­ing inno­cent bystanders (see Jean Charles De Menezes – a Brazil­ian elec­tri­cian mur­dered on the Lon­don under­ground for look­ing “a lit­tle bit brown”). Even with­out these new weapons, in 2006, cops man­aged to kill 63 peo­ple in cus­tody, not count­ing sui­cides – a sta­tis­tic which looks set to rise this year. Will extra weapon­ry stop crime and ter­ror­ism? Have any of the wave of repres­sive mea­sures intro­duced by the gov­ern­ment in recent years stopped crime and ter­ror­ism? It is the oppres­sive, unfair way the sys­tem works that cre­ates crime, and the aver­age cop­per is just as much a vic­tim of
the sys­tem as any­one else, but we can’t cure this vio­lent soci­ety with more vio­lence. In this journalist’s opin­ion, the cops at the top need to start putting more time and effort into stop­ping mug­gers and rapists and less into com­pen­sat­ing for their col­lec­tive ‘small man’ com­plex with big toys! There will be upcom­ing protests against this wor­ry­ing devel­op­ment – check out the events cal­en­dar on http://www.myspace.com/bathactivistnetwork for more info. In the mean­time – let’s make sure it’s the cops who get a nasty shock, not us!

FCK KFC

There is an area of South­gate that the bull­doz­ers have sad­ly not yet claimed. KFC have been the cen­tre of con­tro­ver­sy in recent years because their chick­ens are sourced from fac­to­ry-farms. Fac­to­ry farmed chick­ens are kept in extreme­ly cramped con­di­tions which can cause them to suf­fer from bro­ken bones. They suf­fer from brit­tle bones because the fat­test birds are often cho­sen for breed­ing to max­imise meat pro­duc­tion. When ani­mals are crowd­ed and irri­tat­ed they are like­ly to be aggres­sive, and due to lack of exer­cise hens have been known to injure each oth­er. PETA and oth­er ani­mal rights organ­i­sa­tions claim that the rec­om­men­da­tions of the so-called KFC ‘Ani­mal Wel­fare Advi­so­ry Coun­cil’ have been ignored and that, because of this, five mem­bers of the coun­cil have resigned. Adele Dou­glass, a for­mer mem­ber of the coun­cil, claims that KFC “nev­er had any meet­ings. They nev­er asked any advice, and then they tout­ed to the press that they had this ani­mal-wel­fare advi­so­ry com­mit­tee. I felt like I was being used.” KFC also alleged­ly buy chick­ens that have been fed on soya from the Ama­zon. After a suc­cess­ful cam­paign by Green­peace many food chains have promised not to use soya grown ille­gal­ly in the rain­for­est, yet Green­peace say that KFC have com­plete­ly refused to dis­cuss their role in Ama­zon destruc­tion.

If you reck­on their out­dat­ed prac­tices should kick the buck­et, join the boy­cott out­side the Bath restau­rant on Sat­ur­day the 8th Sep­tem­ber at 12.30 – bring ban­ners, plac­ards and friends!

Pro­pa­gan­dist Spiel of the Month:

“Like a can­cer (Tesco’s) are, they creep up all slow, and then you can’t get rid of ‘em@

Car­ry on Camp­ing

And now some break­ing news from our Heathrow cor­re­spon­dent: “On the 14th August, I went deep under­cov­er to infil­trate the Camp for Cli­mate Action, just north of Heathrow. Smug­gling myself in inside a wheel­ie bin, I wait­ed till I got towed to camp, dis­guised as an under­cov­er reporter dis­guised as a pro­test­er. How­ev­er, when I got there, I found no eco-ter­ror­ist mas­ter­mind cell. Nei­ther were there any sus­pi­cious pack­ages. All I could spy was a tent vil­lage hous­ing around 1,000 campers demon­strat­ing low-impact liv­ing, pow­ered by wind, solar and ped­al pow­er. Meals were com­mu­nal affairs, local­ly-pro­duced and organ­ic. Meet­ings too were com­mu­nal, run with­out lead­ers, as well as debates and work­shops – cov­er­ing every­thing from law, to agri­cul­ture, to for­ag­ing, to electrics. Jobs on the camp were dished out vol­un­tar­i­ly, whether clean­ing out the com­post loos, child mind­ing, or meet­ing and greet­ing new­com­ers. Local vil­lagers (more than 1,100 near­by homes being under threat from Heathrow) eager­ly joined in. Despite over-zeal­ous polic­ing, the protests went off to great effect – shut­ting down exec­u­tive flights, freight depots, and even BAA’s HQ, with a 24 hour slum­ber par­ty! Car­bon trad­ing com­pa­nies were also tar­get­ed, accused of ped­dling dubi­ous sci­ence. All in all, this sec­ond annu­al cli­mate camp proved an inspir­ing event for many, and next year should be even bet­ter. But, unfor­tu­nate­ly for the gut­ter press, there wasn’t a bomb-wield­ing extrem­ist in sight.”

Events List­ing

Mon­day nights Bath Hunt Sabo­teur meet­ings 8pm back room of Bell
8th Sept Bath FreeShop Stall Street 12–3pm
8th Sept Anti KFC demo 12.30–3pm Hen­ry Street
11th-14th Sept Dis­arm DSEI @ The ExCeL Cen­tre in Lon­don. www.dsei.org
15th Sept ‘There is such things a free lunch!’ stall Stall Street, 11.00–1.00pm
16th Sept Chris­tain Aid’s ‘Cut the Car­bon’ march Abbey Court­yard 4.30pm.
19th-24th Sept No Bor­der Camp in Gatwick. www.noborders.org.uk/
21st Sept Left­ism ben­e­fit club night for Bris­tle mag­a­zine down­stairs at The Crown on Bath­wick Street
23rd Sept ‘Bub­bling Under’ 12.30–3pm Porter Cel­lar on George Street
26th Sept ‘Nuclear, Unclear?’ debate BRLSI Queen Square 7pm
3rd Oct Bath Ani­mal Action meet­ing 7.30pm back room of Bell
4th oct Bath activist Net­work meet­ing 7.30pm back room of Bell

Killers in our Com­mu­ni­ties!

On a recent trawl through the murky world of the arms trade (inspired by the upcom­ing DSEI arms fair tak­ing place in Lon­don on the 11th of Sep­tem­ber), the Bath Bomb uncov­ered an uncom­fort­able truth — Bath is home to at least two arms com­pa­nies. We have BMT on Low­er Bris­tol Road, who are in the charm­ing busi­ness of sell­ing war­ships and nuclear-capac­i­ty sub­marines to any mani­ac with enough cash, and Horstman Defence Sys­tems on Locks­brook Road, who make trig­ger mechs and the wheely bits for tanks and oth­er armoured vehi­cles. In this cli­mate of inter­na­tion­al con­flict, attack­ing the arms trade has nev­er been more time­ly. While the rich make a killing from the arms trade, and we sim­ply get killed, it seems to us at the Bath Bomb that the thing that divides us isn’t race or nation­al­i­ty, but class. The rich prof­it from wars – from the arms com­pa­ny who sells weapons, to the gov­ern­ment that plun­ders the los­ing coun­try to the com­pa­nies that move in after­wards to pick the bones, while aver­age peo­ple the world over get slaugh­tered and exploit­ed by the whole process from fac­to­ry floor to bat­tle­field. Both of our local com­pa­nies will be dis­play­ing at DSEI, sell­ing to cor­rupt gov­ern­ments
such as Zim­bab­we, Indone­sia, Israel and the US. To find out more about the fair, check out www.dsei.org, but in the mean­time, let’s pull out our red paint and pad­locks and get busy with our own local death deal­ers! (Bath Bomb in no way advo­cates the pad­lock­ing shut and cov­er­ing in slo­gans of any arms com­pa­nies… hon­est, offi­cer!)

Who Are Bath Activist Net­work?

We are a local umbrel­la group cam­paign­ing on issues as diverse as devel­op­ment, envi­ron­men­tal­ism, anti-war, ani­mal rights, work­ers’ rights and more. Help­ing to pro­duce The Bath Bomb, we are open to any­one, and our mem­bers range from trade union­ists to anar­chists, lib­er­als to greens, and peo­ple who just want to change Bath for the bet­ter.
For details on meet­ings, demos, or just to get in touch, ring us on 07949 611912, email bathactivistnet@yahoo.co.uk, or see our web­site: www.myspace.com/bathactivistnetwork

The Only Good Bor­der is a Text Bor­der

Back in mid-August, the Cin­na­mon restau­rant in Keyn­sham was raid­ed by BIA [Bor­der and Immi­gra­tion Agency] heav­ies, who arrest­ed four mem­bers of staff. These so-called ‘ille­gal work­ers’ are from Bangladesh, a coun­try where polit­i­cal mur­der is rife, and floods are an ever-increas­ing haz­ard. Whilst the restau­rant is cur­rent­ly strug­gling to find staff bi-lin­gual in Eng­lish and Ben­gali, BIA job­sworths claim the men lacked the cor­rect papers. But who cares about sil­ly lit­tle things like papers? Whilst the dig­ni­ty and wealth of Bangladesh is drained by West­ern com­pa­nies in the Export Pro­cess­ing Zones, some peo­ple are forced to move on just to sur­vive. No one in their right mind would aban­don their home and her­itage light­ly, risk­ing their lives in bor­der cross­ings, just to set­tle for Britain. Whilst asy­lum appli­ca­tions are being processed, refugees are for­bid­den to work, expect­ed to make do on £36.54 a week. Their only option is to try and find work in low-pay­ing, often degrad­ing jobs, whilst avoid­ing dis­cov­ery, racist vio­lence and depor­ta­tion.

Are you bored of immi­gra­tion con­trol and nan­ny state fas­cism? If so, why not come along to the UK’s first ever ‘No Bor­der Camp’ near Gatwick! From the 19th to the 24th of Sep­tem­ber, peo­ple will gath­er to fight the build­ing of a new deten­tion cen­tre, as well as oth­er kinds of state con­trol, such as ID cards and con­stant sur­veil­lance. At this camp, no one is ille­gal, and all forms of divi­sion will be chal­lenged: racism, sex­ism and homo­pho­bia. In a world with­out bor­ders, nobody will ask for papers any­more.

Foie Gras Cam­paign Update

Fol­low­ing on from last month’s issue, the Cavendish Restau­rant have now also dropped foie gras. Out­lets in the city have since appar­ent­ly gath­ered to meet and dis­cuss in pri­vate their response to the cam­paign. That’s three restau­rants now – fol­low this link for fur­ther info:
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=211421146&blogID=296816530

The Bath Bomb ‘Gold­en Show­ers’ Appeal

On the night of July the 11th, KKK-wannabes barged in to the Mosque on Pier­re­pont Street and drunk­en­ly pished over worshipper’s clothes and shoes. Please could any info as to their iden­ti­ty be sent in to your friend­ly neigh­bour­hood vig­i­lante hot­line, at bathbombpress@yahoo.co.uk. Bath Antifa would ever so love to see the two proud British bull­dogs poo them­selves. And if you are one of the guys in the pic­ture, Mr Pee Pee “I can’t hold my pint” Pis­sy­pants, then isn’t it about time Mum­my and Dad­dy had you pot­ty-trained?

for images, see: http://www.avonandsomerset.police.uk/LocalPages/NewsDetails.aspx?nsid=9853&t=1&lid=3

FILMS THAT TELL THE TRUTH

A new sea­son of activist films is open­ing in Bath. The ‘Bub­bling Under’ lunchtime screen­ings will show films made by rad­i­cal action groups and alter­na­tive news net­works.
Show­ing at the Porter Cel­lar bar, the first ses­sion will be Sun­day the 23rd of Sep­tem­ber, at 12.30: ‘V for Video Activist’ – SchNEWS DVD Col­lec­tion for 2006. The event is free entry, and all are wel­come!

GOT A STORY? WANT TO RECEIVE THE BATH BOMB BY EMAIL? HOPING TO SUE?
Con­tact us by e‑mailing bathbombpress@yahoo.co.uk. Large print e‑versions are avail­able on request

===================================================================

The 11th issue of West Wales’ very own alter­na­tive mag­a­zine is out now, avail­able from all the usu­al out­lets and, thanks to the fact that we have final­ly got with the pro­gramme and entered the 21st cen­tu­ry, also avail­able online at http://cambriansnooze.org.uk/

===================================================================

Cli­mate Action News sheet 71, Sep­tem­ber 2007

Com­piled and sent out by Ris­ing Tide UK: info at risingtide.org.uk
To receive this News Sheet month­ly, email news-sub­scribe at risingtide.org.uk with the sub­ject line ‘sub­scribe’ (with­out the quotes).

CONTENTS:
———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) NATIONWIDE DAY OF ACTION AGAINST ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND — 15.10.07
2) CRITICAL MASS UPDATES — nation­wide.
3) ART ACTION EXHIBITION AT PORTSMOUTH CATHEDRAL — 8–23.9.07
4) ROAD BLOCK NATIONAL CONFERENCE — 27.10.07, Birm­ing­ham.
5) PLANNING FOR HARD TIMES — 26–28.10.07, Ohio, USA.
6) I‑COUNT COMMUNITIES PROJECT — AUGUST ‘07, UK.
7) NATIONAL CLIMATE MARCH/GLOBAL DAY OF ACTION — 8.12.07; PLANNING MEETING, 6.10.07, Oxford
———————————————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
———————————————-
1) CLIMATE CAMP — 11–21.8.07, Heathrow & nation­wide.
2) PIXIES IN THE PIPELINE — dur­ing the week of cli­mate action.
3) ACTION IN THE LEAD UP TO THE CAMP – JULY/AUGUST ‘07
4) BAA CLIMATE CAMP INJUNCTION UPDATE — 1.8.07
5) CONVERGENCE FOR CLIMATE ACTION, USA — 8–14.8.07
6) THE TOOLKIT FOR CLIMATE ACTION — AUGUST ‘07
7) LAUNCH OF RADICAL NEWS-SHEET, ‘THE BATH BOMB’ — JULY/AUGUST ‘07
8) GAGGED! 18 — SOUTH WALES ANARCHIST NEWSLETTER — AUGUST ‘07
9) AMAZON PIPELINE PLANS SHELVED — 3.8.07
10) EVICTION THREAT AT ROSSPORT, Co MAYO — 31.7.07
11) SAVING ICELAND CAMP CLOSES BUT ACTIONS CONTINUE — 27.7.07
12) ELF ACTION IN SOLIDARITY WITH SAVING ICELAND — 30.7.07
13) CORPORATE SPONSORSHIPS COMPROMISE THEATRE — 31.7.07
14) ARRESTS AT TARA — 18.7.07
15) ROADBUILDING IN THE NEWS — JULY/AUGUST 07
16) BP PLEDGE TO AVOID INCREASED POLLUTION INTO LAKE MICHIGAN! — 23.8.07
17) STOCKHOLM 4x4 STRIKES — 6.8.07
18) SWEDISH CLIMATE ACTION ROUND-UP — APRIL/JUNE 07
19) SHELL OIL PLANS HALTED — 21.7.07, ALASKA
20) MORI POLL HIGHLIGHTS DENIAL — 25.7.07
21) SPIRIT OF FREEDOM NEWSLETTER — AUGUST 2007
22) NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION AGAINST BANK OF AMERICA — 31.8.07

———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) NATIONWIDE DAY OF ACTION AGAINST ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND — 15.10.07
The Ris­ing Tide UK net­work has called a Day of Action against RBS and is invit­ing Cli­mate Campers and oth­ers to organ­ise local actions. Call­ing itself the “oil & gas bank”, RBS is financ­ing con­tro­ver­sial projects in Nige­ria, the Cau­ca­sus and Wales. RBS is a major fun­der of the LNG Gas Pipeline (see Recent Hap­pen­ings). The bank’s involve­ment in Angolan and Niger­ian oil fields encour­ages cor­rup­tion and con­flict, while gas projects from the Ara­bi­an Gulf to the Gulf of Mex­i­co threat­en envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion. RBS is also a big play­er in the avi­a­tion indus­try. http://risingtide.org.uk/node/221
Find out more about the LNG pipeline — www.fightthepipe.co.uk
Plan an effec­tive action — www.networkforclimateaction.org.uk
Oil Bank of Scot­land web­page: http://www.platformlondon.org/carbonweb/showitem.asp?article=258&parent=39

2) CRITICAL MASS UPDATES — nation­wide.
There are cur­rent­ly Crit­i­cal Mass bike rides in many major cities through­out the land. Check: http://www.urban75.com/Action/critical.html
for more details, or start anoth­er one your­self!
See also: http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/3283 for reports of police has­sle at Lon­don Crit­i­cal Mass.

Glos­sop Crit­i­cal Mass — 14.9.07
This event has been organ­ised by the new­ly formed “Road Alert Glos­sop”. The plan is for Glos­sop’s first ever Crit­i­cal Mass bike ride from Glos­sop to Tin­twistle (and back). This will take place on Fri­day 14th Sep­tem­ber,
meet­ing at 5.30pm. See their web­site on MySpace for details: http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=200655900&blogID=286207685

Birm­ing­ham Crit­i­cal Mass – Held on the first Fri­day of the month, this has appar­ent­ly been build­ing steadi­ly with a good atmos­phere and no has­sle.
Meet at St Phillip’s Cathe­dral, 5.30pm.

3) ART ACTION EXHIBITION AT PORTSMOUTH CATHEDRAL — 8–23.9.07
Art Action — Turn­ing the Tide on Cli­mate Change Open­ing Fair with stalls, music and activ­i­ties — Sat 8 Sept.
www.radicalartgroup.org.uk

4) ROAD BLOCK NATIONAL CONFERENCE — 27.10.07 Birm­ing­ham.
Trans­port 2000’s Road Block con­fer­ence — Sat­ur­day 27 Octo­ber 2007, 11am-5pm, Cen­tral Birm­ing­ham, with spe­cial guest speak­er George Mon­biot.
Ear­ly reg­is­tra­tion is strong­ly rec­om­mend­ed. The reg­is­tra­tion fee of £20 waged (£10 low/unwaged) con­tributes towards the costs of the event.
To reg­is­ter, email roadsconference@transport2000.org.uk. You can book places online from Tues­day 21 August on Trans­port 2000’s web­site.

5) PLANNING FOR HARD TIMES — 26–28.10.07 Ohio, USA.
Fourth Annu­al Con­fer­ence, Yel­low Springs, Ohio.
“The world’s largest gath­er­ing of Peak Oil activists!” Three days of pre­sen­ta­tions, work­shop ses­sions, and net­work­ing with experts in Peak Oil and lifestyle solu­tions. Learn tac­tics for Peak Oil edu­ca­tion and com­mu­ni­ty organ­is­ing, strate­gies for reduc­ing your per­son­al ener­gy use, and par­tic­i­pate in vision­ing a
viable post-peak future. Heathrow was a lot near­er!
http://www.communitysolution.org/conference.html

6) I‑COUNT COMMUNITIES PROJECT — AUGUST ’07, UK.
The Cli­mate Out­reach Infor­ma­tion net­work is work­ing with Stop Cli­mate Chaos on a new project called ICount Com­mu­ni­ties, which aims to link togeth­er local groups work­ing in cli­mate change. Groups will be put
on to a map with con­tact details and a brief descrip­tion of what they do. There will also be a free mes­sage board ser­vice, both for indi­vid­ual groups and areas. Groups may adver­tise their activ­i­ties; gen­er­ate new ideas by see­ing what oth­er groups are doing; increase their num­bers of con­tacts, since they will be able to con­tact oth­er groups on the map and increase their chances of get­ting more mem­bers, due to greater pub­lic­i­ty.
Details from katie@coinet.org.uk or matt@coinet.org.uk or 01865 727911.
www.icount.org.uk

7) NATIONAL CLIMATE MARCH/GLOBAL DAY OF ACTION — 8.12.07
Action on Cli­mate Change — The Time is Now. Before it’s Too Late.
Assem­ble Mill­bank, Lon­don, 12 noon. 2.30 pm Ral­ly at US embassy. Speak­ers include George Mon­biot, Car­o­line Lucas MEP.
http://www.campaigncc.org/

PLANNING MEETING FOR UK MARCH — 6.10.07, Oxford.
Nation­al Plan­ning Meet­ing for the Lon­don & inter­na­tion­al demo – 6.10.07, St Mary’s Church, High Street, Oxford, 1–6 pm. Speak­ers: Mark Lynas, George Mar­shall.
http://www.campaigncc.org/

———————————————
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
———————————————-
1) CLIMATE CAMP — 11–21.8.07 Heathrow and nation­wide.
The focus of the Camp was on direct action and there was a glut of actions that soon spread nation­wide. How­ev­er, the anar­chic eco-vil­lage exper­i­ment was also a huge suc­cess, and the infor­ma­tion exchange was incred­i­ble. New solu­tions were being pro­posed to tack­le cli­mate chaos and there was qui­et opti­mism, wild cel­e­bra­to­ry resis­tance and of course a fair smat­ter­ing of grim resolve. Ris­ing Tide groups were very well rep­re­sent­ed at the Camp.
> From direct action to com­mu­ni­ca­tion, from soul singing to giv­ing work­shops, from the media to the toi­lets — we were there! We also had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to talk about the RT UK net­work and encour­age oth­ers to dip
their toes… The actions them­selves tar­get­ed the cor­po­ra­tions who prof­it from cli­mate chaos.
Here is a brief resume:
13.8.07 — A group of activists set up a cli­mate camp on the wing of an Air­bus A380 on its way to be assem­bled in France.
16.8.07 — Farn­bor­ough and Big­gin Hill air­ports, both exclu­sive­ly used by pri­vate exec­u­tive jets, were block­ad­ed by two teams of cli­mate activists.
17.8.07 — The doors of six Lon­don trav­el agen­cies were chained shut and plas­tered with signs say­ing ‘Closed, gone to the Cli­mate Camp.’ Ten peo­ple occu­pied the office of pri­vate char­ter com­pa­ny XL. Activists super-glued
them­selves to the front doors of the Depart­ment for Trans­port’s Lon­don head­quar­ters. A tourist joined the protest and chained him­self to the doors!
18.8.07 — Chil­dren and their par­ents block­ade the World Freight Cen­tre at Heathrow. 60 peo­ple occu­pied Carmel Agrex­co’s Heathrow ware­house.
19.8.07 — A noisy and joy­ous kid’s and local peo­ples’ march head­ed to Har­mondsworth vil­lage via the threat­ened vil­lage of Sip­son.. Else­where, pro­test­ers broke free of mount­ed police wear­ing copies of the Tyn­dall
Report on their hands and car­ried a ban­ner read­ing, ‘We are armed…only with peer-reviewed sci­ence’. Late on Sun­day evening, BA World Car­go depot was block­ad­ed for about four and a half hours by eight pro­tes­tors locked
to eachother. The day also saw the start of a BAA nation­al HQ block­ade, Cardiff ban­ner sol­i­dar­i­ty, Nor­wich Air­port sol­i­dar­i­ty demo, and a clown vis­it to Heathrow.
20.8.07 — Car­bon off­set com­pa­nies tar­get­ed by pro­test­ers dressed as red her­rings. Fif­teen occu­pied the offices of Cli­mate Care in Oxford. Ten leaflet­ed the offices of the Car­bon Neu­tral Com­pa­ny in Lon­don. Five
pro­test­ers locked-on out­side Sizewell A and B nuclear pow­er sta­tions, say­ing ‘Nuclear pow­er is not the answer to cli­mate chaos.’ Twelve pro­test­ers super-glued them­selves to the entrance at BP head­quar­ters. Eigh­teen pro­test­ers occu­pied the office of the own­ers of Leeds air­port, Bridge­point Cap­i­tal, on War­wick Street in Lon­don. Mean­while, the mass siege of BAA nation­al head­quar­ters forced its clo­sure for the day. Also today; New­cas­tle sol­i­dar­i­ty demo, Tyne­side Esso ban­ner drop, a Trafal­gar Square foun­tain action, clowns mark out run­way in Clive Soley (boss of ‘Future Heathrow’)’s gar­den…
21.8.07 — Cli­mate camp activists tar­get­ed Stanst­ed Air­port in an increas­ing wave of activ­i­ty. Leaflets were hand­ed out and a slo­gan attached to a wall on a main entrance/exit.
Dur­ing the week there were over 71 arrests. The Camp made a big splash in the media across the globe; search­ing for “cli­mate camp heathrow” in either google or you tube will yield a whole host of arti­cles. Here
are a few worth­while links:
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/08/379135.htm
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/

New­ly-formed Ris­ing Tide Hast­ings had a men­tion in Hast­ings Observ­er too!
http://www.hastingsobserver.co.uk/newshastings/Camp-for-Climate-action.3134885.jp

2) PIXIES IN THE PIPELINE — Dur­ing The Week of Cli­mate Action.
The Bre­con Bea­cons gas pipeline works were sab­o­taged dur­ing a night action as part of the week of action against cli­mate change and in defence of the earth. A small team bypassed the poor secu­ri­ty and immo­bilised a total of 11 machines includ­ing tip­per trucks and exca­va­tors! The pipe itself was holed in sev­er­al places. The pipeline is destroy­ing nat­ur­al habi­tats in order to sup­ply a fuel that we can­not burn if the life on this plan­et is to sur­vive.

3) ACTION IN THE LEAD UP TO THE CAMP — JULY/AUGUST ‘07
28.7.07 — Oxford Cli­mate Campers took over Car­fax Tow­er and dropped a ban­ner satiris­ing the Oxford City Coun­cil logo and pro­mot­ing the Camp for Cli­mate Action.
3.8.07 — A 16 metre-long ban­ner was dropped from the Edin­burgh Crags to pro­mote Cli­mate Camp. The ban­ner read ‘This plan­et has no emer­gency exits’, and then gave the web­site for the cli­mate camp
10.8.07 — A spoof demo at Bris­tol Inter­na­tion­al Air­port attract­ed lots of media atten­tion as Sleazy-jet and Fry-in-air dropped by (before cycling to Heathrow).
Oxford — www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/oxford/2007/07/377181.html
Edin­burgh — http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/4358
Bris­tol — http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/4991

4) BAA CLIMATE CAMP INJUNCTION UPDATE — 1.8.07
Mrs. Jus­tice Swift struck out most of BAA’s appli­ca­tion, point­ing out that much of its evi­dence was based on news reports and web sites, and rul­ing that, as there is a “diver­gence of inter­est” with­in the groups named,
[with the excep­tion of Plane Stu­pid], they should not be tar­get­ed. http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/4354

5) CONVERGENCE FOR CLIMATE ACTION, USA. — 8–14.8.07
Just pri­or to the Heathrow camp, Ris­ing Tide North Amer­i­ca host­ed two Cli­mate Con­ver­gences in The States. Over 400 peo­ple gath­ered for the West Coast Con­ver­gence for Cli­mate Action in Wash­ing­ton. Par­tic­i­pants took part
in near­ly 100 work­shops and two days of direct action includ­ing a lock down in front of the Paci­fi­Corp build­ing in Port­land, to demand that the com­pa­ny shut down the four dams it oper­ates on the Kla­math riv­er and
stop devel­op­ing coal fire pow­er plants. Mean­while, at the South­east Con­ver­gence for Cli­mate Action in Asheville, activists took direct action against Bank of Amer­i­ca regard­ing their many invest­ments in cli­mate injus­tice. They locked-on and block­ad­ed the entrance suc­cess­ful­ly. Four activists were lat­er arrest­ed.
http://risingtidenorthamerica.org/wordpress/category/front-page/

6) THE TOOLKIT FOR CLIMATE ACTION — AUGUST 07
‘With this toolk­it we hope to inspire you to take action — at home, at school, at work, in your com­mu­ni­ty. The toolk­it has been put togeth­er by the Net­work for Cli­mate Action, which has grown out of and is asso­ci­at­ed
with the Cli­mate Camp.’ This is an aston­ish­ing resource and essen­tial read­ing.
http://www.networkforclimateaction.org.uk/

7) LAUNCH OF RADICAL NEWS-SHEET, ‘THE BATH BOMB’ — JULY/AUGUST 07
To get a copy e‑mailed every month, e‑mail bathbombpress@yahoo.co.uk

8) GAGGED! 18 — SOUTH WALES ANARCHIST NEWSLETTER — AUGUST 07
http://lists.riseup.net/www/d_read/gagged/gagged18.pdf

9) AMAZON PIPELINE PLANS SHELVED — 3.8.07
It is report­ed that plans to build a mas­sive South Amer­i­can gas pipeline through the Ama­zon rain­for­est, from the Caribbean to Brazil have “cooled off”. 75,765 protest emails have been sent in near­ly a year, along with
local protests on envi­ron­men­tal and eco­nom­ic grounds.
http://www.rainforestportal.org/

10) EVICTION THREAT AT ROSSPORT, Co MAYO — 31.7.07
After over eigh­teen months of pro­vid­ing a base for activists sup­port­ing the local Shell to Sea cam­paign, the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp was recent­ly served notice to quit by Mayo Coun­ty Coun­cil. It seems no coin­ci­dence
that the coun­cil’s moves to evict the camp come at a time when Shell has been exten­sive­ly sur­vey­ing the estu­ary that runs along­side the camp in prepa­ra­tion for pipeline devel­op­ment.
http://www.corribsos.com/index.php?id=1496

Mean­while, in Nor­folk a small group of local cam­paign­ers vis­it­ed Shel­l’s pro­cess­ing plant at Bac­ton (3.08.07) to demon­strate sol­i­dar­i­ty with com­mu­ni­ties strug­gling against Shell in Co. Mayo, Eire.

11) SAVING ICELAND CAMP CLOSES BUT ACTIONS CONTINUE — 27.7.07
After a busy sum­mer of actions includ­ing the block­ade of a smelter and pow­er sta­tion, the Sav­ing Ice­land protest camp has been wound up. How­ev­er they are not through with this sum­mers actions, so if you are
plan­ning to join them fight against heavy indus­try in Ice­land you can con­tact them at savingiceland@riseup.net
http://www.savingiceland.org/node/891

12) ELF ACTION IN SOLIDARITY WITH SAVING ICELAND — 30.7.07
Sabo­teurs struck at Smur­fit Kap­pa, a plas­tics fac­to­ry owned by Rio Tin­to-Alcan in Chelms­ford, Essex. The gates were locked shut, office doors and load­ing bays were sab­o­taged with glue and a mes­sage left paint­ed on the wall. Vehi­cles belong­ing to Rio Tin­to were also sab­o­taged. Rio Tin­to, which has recent­ly acquired the busi­ness have appalling envi­ron­men­tal and human rights records. Its recent acqui­si­tion of Alcan makes it par­ty to the great­est eco­log­i­cal crime cur­rent­ly being com­mit­ted in Europe. It is look­ing to turn Ice­land’s wilder­ness­es into a series of mono­lith­ic pow­er sta­tions to pow­er alu­mini­um smelters; one of the most pol­lut­ing and ener­gy
inten­sive indus­tries in the world.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/3341

13) CORPORATE SPONSORSHIPS COMPROMISE THEATRE — 31.7.07
A piece in Guardian Unlim­it­ed ques­tion­ing Shel­l’s spon­sor­ship of The Nation­al The­atre’s pro­duc­tion “Much Ado About Noth­ing”, men­tions Lon­don Ris­ing Tide’s block­ade of the Nation­al Por­trait Gallery.
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/theatre/2007/07/do_corporate_sponsorships_comp.html

…AND MUSEUM
Along wor­ry­ing­ly sim­i­lar lines; BP has recent­ly com­mit­ted itself to an unprece­dent­ed five-year deal with the British Muse­um, under which it will finance a series of large-scale exhi­bi­tions, start­ing with one on the
Emper­or Hadri­an, next June.
www.artnotoil.org.uk

14) ARRESTS AT TARA — 18.7.07
Four Hill of Tara pro­test­ers have been jailed for a week after they refused to com­ply with bail con­di­tions requir­ing them to stay away from the site of the M3 motor­way. The four were among a group of sev­en who
were charged with pub­lic order offences fol­low­ing clash­es with secu­ri­ty and con­struc­tion work­ers. A num­ber of the pro­test­ers were injured when secu­ri­ty con­trac­tors dragged them away from machin­ery. The Gar­dai at the
sites did noth­ing to pro­tect the peace­ful pro­test­ers from being assault­ed. Tara sup­port is crit­i­cal­ly need­ed. The EU told Ire­land to stop build­ing in June and is tak­ing the Irish govt. to court on Aug 29th. “It it is only £15 on coach to Dublin. 7 euro bus to Tara. Even a few days and a few peo­ple will make all the dif­fer­ence.”
Vig­il Camp 00353(0) 861758557 or Rath Lugh Action camp 00353( 0)867372983
www.tarapixie.net
www.savetara.com
www.circlecommunity.org

15) ROADBUILDING IN THE NEWS — JULY/AUGUST ‘07
Road build­ing has been in the news a lot recent­ly. The Guardian wrote about the mas­sive cost of the pro­posed M6 widen­ing which at £2.9 bil­lion works out to be £1,000 per inch! This was picked up by The Mir­ror and
The Mail. Then the M1 came under the spot­light when The Guardian revealed that the Gov­ern­ment was plan­ning to add not two but four new lanes to the M1 – cre­at­ing a 10-lane super­high­way. Next came the New States­man cov­er sto­ry. This arti­cle exposed the flaws in the DfT’s deci­sion-mak­ing struc­tures that result in road schemes always being seen to make eco­nom­ic sense. This is one of the strongest attacks on the DfT’s appraisal sys­tem ever writ­ten and is essen­tial read­ing for roads cam­paign­ers.
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/transport/Story/0„2138044,00.html)
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/aug/08/
transportintheuk.motoring)
(http://www.newstatesman.com/200708090012)
Check out www.roadblock.org.uk for cam­paign updates from across the coun­try.

16) BP PLEDGES TO AVOID INCREASED POLLUTION INTO LAKE MICHIGAN — 23.8.07
Cit­ing “ongo­ing region­al oppo­si­tion”, BP Amer­i­ca Chair­man and Pres­i­dent Bob Mal­one has announced that the com­pa­ny will avoid any increased pol­lu­tion into Lake Michi­gan from its oil refin­ery in Whit­ing, Indi­ana.
Good old BP, eh? How­ev­er, BP still holds its per­mit to increase pol­lu­tion and we need to make sure that today’s promise is set in stone. BP should apply for a new dis­charge per­mit that does­n’t allow for any increase in ammo­nia or tox­ic sus­pend­ed solids.
http://www.environmentillinois.org/action/protect-lake-michigan/bp-email?id4=ES

17) STOCKHOLM 4x4 STRIKES — 6.8.07
A new­ly formed activist group, call­ing itself The Indi­ans of the Con­crete Jun­gle, has struck repeat­ed­ly against 4x4’s in the cen­tre of Stock­holm over the last weeks. Some 110 have been tem­porar­i­ly dis­armed. The
activists unscrew the cap of the valve, insert a grain of grav­el or stone in it, and screw it back on leav­ing a let­ter to the own­er on the wind­screen where­in the action is explained. Three Indi­ans have been nabbed by the police and face var­i­ous crim­i­nal charges. If you can read Swedish check out The Indi­ans of the Con­crete Jun­gle: http://asfaltsdjungelnsindianer.wordpress.com/in-english/
Also worth a look is www.stopurban4x4s.org.uk. They have fur­ther sug­ges­tions for tak­ing cre­ative action against these dan­ger­ous gas-guz­zlers.

18) SWEDISH CLIMATE ACTION ROUND-UP — APRIL/JUNE 07
14 April: Cli­max is formed as a net­work of cli­mate activists, after a group of ten seizes the run­way at Brom­ma Air­port in Stock­holm for 30 min­utes. Tri­als are pend­ing.
11 May: The entrance to a trav­el agency in the city of Stock­holm was blocked, when activists from Cli­max unloaded sand in front of it, reveal­ing to the cus­tomers what Botswana will become in a few decades.
26 May: The most heav­i­ly traf­ficked high­way bridge in Sweden’s fourth city, was blocked for 30 min­utes dur­ing rush hour.
1 June: Out­side the entrance to Sweden’s major dai­ly news­pa­per, a group of activists from Cli­max unloaded coal and swept it under a rug, dressed as the edi­tors of the paper. The paper pro­motes car­bon off­set­ting as a
solu­tion.
8 June: A street at a cen­tral square in Stock­holm, was blocked for one hour by activists from Cli­max, pre­vent­ing cars from com­ing through. Cook­ies were hand­ed out to sub­way pas­sen­gers and bike rid­ers in the
vicin­i­ty.
www.klimatet.org (in Swedish)

19) SHELL OIL PLANS HALTED — 21.7.07, ALASKA
Shell Off­shore Inc. plans to drill sev­er­al explorato­ry oil wells in the Beau­fort Sea were halt­ed by the US Court of Appeals. The pro­posed wells were sit­ed in the mid­dle of the bow­head whale migra­tion cor­ri­dor.
http://www.pacificenvironment.org/article.php?id=2514

20) MORI POLL HIGHLIGHTS DENIAL — 25.7.07
Recent MORI poll data reveals that that most peo­ple still believe that cli­mate change is unde­cid­ed, in the future, some­where else and some­one else’s prob­lem. Ipsos-MORI’s new report Tip­ping Point or Turn­ing Point- a report on social atti­tudes to cli­mate change makes dis­turb­ing read­ing.
www.climatedenial.org.
Exeter Uni­ver­si­ty came up with anoth­er report claim­ing that Britons are addict­ed to cheap flights -
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6970730.stm

21) SPIRIT OF FREEDOM NEWSLETTER — AUGUST 2007
Pro­duced by the Earth Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers Sup­port Net­work.
http://www.spiritoffreedom.org.uk/
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/4820

22) NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION AGAINST BANK OF AMERICA — 31.8.07
Moun­tain Jus­tice Sum­mer has called a day of action against Bank of Amer­i­ca to demand they stop fund­ing the coal indus­try which is destroy­ing the Appalachi­an moun­tains through moun­tain­top removal min­ing as well as
per­pet­u­at­ing cli­mate chaos. Actions have been planned in 19 cities across the US. Reports should be com­ing back soon…
www.mountainjusticesummer.org

———-

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This News Sheet was brought to you by Ris­ing Tide, a grass­roots net­work of groups and indi­vid­u­als com­mit­ted to tak­ing action and build­ing a move­ment against cli­mate change.

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