Category: Wilderness Defence

Wilder­ness defence

Autumn EF! Action Update out — and advance notice of the Winter Moot, 22–24 February (gathering of eco-activists), Nottingham

The lat­est issue of the quar­ter­ly EF!AU was dished up at the Anar­chist Book­fair — burst­ing at the seams, it had to be turned into a bumper issue, with a round-up of the actions around the time of the Camp for Cli­mate Action, plus loads of action reports from around the world since then — from pieing oil exec­u­tives, blockad­ing garages & air­ports, polar bears lock­ing-on, sab­o­tage, pris­on­ers, occu­pied spaces, dig­ger-div­ing, GM crop-trash­ing, to cake and the cun­ning use of mung beans (oh, and of course, much much more).

The lat­est issue of the quar­ter­ly EF!AU was dished up at the Anar­chist Book­fair — burst­ing at the seams, it had to be turned into a bumper issue, with a round-up of the actions around the time of the Camp for Cli­mate Action, plus loads of action reports from around the world since then — from pieing oil exec­u­tives, blockad­ing garages & air­ports, polar bears lock­ing-on, sab­o­tage, pris­on­ers, occu­pied spaces, dig­ger-div­ing, GM crop-trash­ing, to cake and the cun­ning use of mung beans (oh, and of course, much much more).

Down­load it to print out and share here. Do get in touch with the edi­to­r­i­al col­lec­tive to let them know if you’re dish­ing it up round your way, or need paper copies, or want to give them one of the rar­er ingre­di­ents, dosh (to send it to pris­on­ers, protest camps and far beyond) — their con­tact details and more are here

########################

The EF! Win­ter Moot will hap­pen from 22nd — 24th Feb­ru­ary 2008, in Not­ting­ham — more details near­er the time, as this is just advance notice.

It’s a gath­er­ing for envi­ron­men­tal activists — in the past, it’s been a chance for peo­ple involved in all kinds of eco­log­i­cal direct action to get togeth­er for a week­end indoors to chat about where things are at in the UK, and so improve all aspects of how we work togeth­er, in order to take direct action in defence of the earth.

Con­tact 0845–0223 5254 for more info

New Ring Fort discovered at hill of Tara-activist arrested, plus reminder of Samhain action & celebration weekend

Octo­ber 19, 2007

URGENT

Call­ing out for sup­port NOW and for the rest of the day at main gate Sol­diers Hill N3.

2 Pro­tes­tors are locked on to a tri­pod and are not mov­ing until an inde­pen­dent archae­o­log­i­cal sur­vey is car­ried out on the new­ly revealed site.

Octo­ber 19, 2007

URGENT

Call­ing out for sup­port NOW and for the rest of the day at main gate Sol­diers Hill N3.

2 Pro­tes­tors are locked on to a tri­pod and are not mov­ing until an inde­pen­dent archae­o­log­i­cal sur­vey is car­ried out on the new­ly revealed site.

Please bring ban­ners, leaflets, warm and water­proof cloth­ing, phone cred­it, cam­eras, video equip­ment, food and water.

SPREAD THE WORD, CONTACT ALL MEDIA.

Thank you

»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»

Reminder: Tara the Great Feast and Samhain cel­e­bra­tion Oct31/Nov3rd

Samhain Cel­e­bra­tion and big Actions come and rev­el and resist,calling out to all up for it pos­see.

Call­ing ALL PEOPLE to the defence of the Tara Val­ley, Ire­land.
Halt the destruc­tion of this ancient sacred site by the pro­posed M3 Motor­way. We need you NOW! Dig­gers are destroy­ing this World Her­itage site NOW.

We invite you to come to the Hill of Tara and cel­e­brate Samhain, Wed. Oct31st-Sat. Nov.3rd, the ancient Celtic New Year.
As well as havin it actions on Thurs Nov1st and Fri 2nd.
Also a reg­u­lar mon­day route walk and action,digger div­ing and free adren­a­lin rush.

Expe­ri­enced activists urgent­ly needed,tree house builders,tunnelers,techies,networkers,media spinners,and mid­night pix­ie com­man­dos.

Dust off your climb­ing har­ness and come,all help and sup­port appre­ci­at­ed.
If u cant make it to Tara,network where u are,organise a benefit,film showing,network fly­ers email the EU com­mis­sion­er Stavros Dimos info on web­sites below.

Also to come and sup­port ongo­ing actions through­out the com­ing year.
The tide is turn­ing the resis­tance grows these road build­ing cul­ture destroy­ing cra­zies aint seen noth­ing yet.The peo­ple are awakening,hear the call of the Ances­tors

Please down­load fly­er and posters,from www.tarapixie.net. or view info on www.circlecommunity.org ( Lift­shares are avail­able from London,Bristol,Brighton,Wales check web­site above)
Email to all con­tacts on your net­work.
Print copies and dis­trib­ute, par­tic­u­lar­ly in pub­lic places com­mu­ni­ty cen­tres and libraries.
Net­work it to the maximum.Thanks from Tara Sup­port.

For more infor­ma­tion

www.tarapixie.net www.tarawatch.org
www.circlecommunity.org www.savetara.com
www.indymedia.ie www.indymedia.org.uk

Posters and fly­ers down­load­able from www.tarapixie.net

tarasupport@googlemail.com

Norwegian Whaling Vessel’s Career is Finished

Sea Shep­herd News Releas­es 10/16/2007

Nor­we­gian Whal­ing Ves­sel’s Career is Fin­ished

The Willassen Senior, the Nor­we­gian whal­ing ves­sel that was scut­tled on August 30, 2007 in the north­ern city of Svolvaer in the Lofoten Islands, will not be killing any more whales—ever again. The dam­age sus­tained by the ves­sel that was delib­er­ate­ly sunk by whale defend­ers exceed­ed $22 mil­lion kro­ner (over US $2 mil­lion). Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety was pleased to learn that the Willassen Senior was not insured. The own­ers of the ves­sel have decid­ed to scrap the ship, because they can­not afford to pay to repair the exten­sive dam­age caused to the elec­tri­cal and mechan­i­cal sys­tems by salt water. A group called Agen­da 21 has tak­en cred­it for scut­tling the whal­ing ship.

Sea Shep­herd News Releas­es 10/16/2007

Nor­we­gian Whal­ing Ves­sel’s Career is Fin­ished

The Willassen Senior, the Nor­we­gian whal­ing ves­sel that was scut­tled on August 30, 2007 in the north­ern city of Svolvaer in the Lofoten Islands, will not be killing any more whales—ever again. The dam­age sus­tained by the ves­sel that was delib­er­ate­ly sunk by whale defend­ers exceed­ed $22 mil­lion kro­ner (over US $2 mil­lion). Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety was pleased to learn that the Willassen Senior was not insured. The own­ers of the ves­sel have decid­ed to scrap the ship, because they can­not afford to pay to repair the exten­sive dam­age caused to the elec­tri­cal and mechan­i­cal sys­tems by salt water. A group called Agen­da 21 has tak­en cred­it for scut­tling the whal­ing ship.

“One less whal­ing ship on the water trans­lates into few­er whales being killed by these crim­i­nal whalers,” said Sea Shep­herd Founder and Pres­i­dent Cap­tain Paul Wat­son. “The Agen­da 21 team did an excel­lent job: no injuries, no evi­dence, no mis­takes, and no more whal­ing. These are results that we can appre­ci­ate and admire.”

Imme­di­ate­ly after the whaler was scut­tled, the own­ers of oth­er whal­ing ves­sels in Nor­way placed their ships under 24-hour guard. This trans­lates into increased secu­ri­ty costs for whal­ing ships, which cuts into whal­ing prof­its. “The whalers should be afraid of being scut­tled,” said Cap­tain Wat­son. “A ves­sel that is being oper­at­ed in clear defi­ance of inter­na­tion­al con­ser­va­tion law and is involved with the ille­gal slaugh­ter of these intel­li­gent and gen­tle crea­tures has only one place—on the bot­tom of the sea!”

Nor­we­gian police have been unsuc­cess­ful in iden­ti­fy­ing the Agen­da 21 team mem­bers. All they have done so far is to seize a hard dri­ve from an inter­net cafe in Svolvaer, based on a report that one of the sab­o­tage team mem­bers may have been using a com­put­er there. Police have con­firmed that the Willassen Senior was delib­er­ate­ly sunk by a sabo­teur (or sabo­teurs) unknown. The ship was sunk when a pipe used to pro­vide salt water cool­ing to the engine was removed. It took four hours for the ship to sink, allow­ing the whale defend­ers plen­ty of time to leave the area.

“This was not a crime,” said Cap­tain Wat­son. “The Willassen Senior was a ship engaged in crim­i­nal activ­i­ty specif­i­cal­ly vio­lat­ing the Inter­na­tion­al Whal­ing Com­mis­sion’s glob­al mora­to­ri­um on com­mer­cial whal­ing activ­i­ties. Sink­ing this whaler was an act of law enforce­ment, and we applaud this suc­cess­ful retire­ment of an ille­gal killing machine.”

www.seashepherd.org

Activist Film Festival is seeking submissions

Under­cur­rents is call­ing for sub­mis­sions of short videos and ani­ma­tions on the theme of the fes­ti­val: social jus­tice and envi­ron­men­tal action.

Beyond TV 8 flierUnder­cur­rents is call­ing for sub­mis­sions of short videos and ani­ma­tions on the theme of the fes­ti­val: social jus­tice and envi­ron­men­tal action.

Sub­ject: Polit­i­cal Activist videos want­ed
From: under­cur­rents

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS OF FILMS

FOR BEYONDTV FESTIVAL NOVEMBER 2007

What is BEYONDTV?
From Novem­ber 28 to Decem­ber 2, 2007, Rad­i­cal media char­i­ty, Under­cur­rents will host the 8th annu­al BEYONDTV fes­ti­val of polit­i­cal doc­u­men­taries, ani­ma­tions and music videos from inspir­ing media direc­tors.

Under­cur­rents is call­ing for sub­mis­sions of short videos and ani­ma­tions on the theme of the fes­ti­val: social jus­tice and envi­ron­men­tal action.

Impor­tant Note: We do not screen dra­mas using actors

BEYONDTV will be host­ed at the Dylan Thomas Cen­tre and Tal­iesin Cin­e­ma Swansea from Novem­ber 28 — Decem­ber 2, 2007

More details at http://www.beyondtvfestival.info
beyondtv@undercurrents.org

Under­cur­rents
Old Exchange
Pier st
Swansea
SA1 1RY
UK

Samhain bagpipe gathering at Tara, plus action days 31st October ‑5th November

Samhain Bag­pipe Gath­er­ing
Feis-Teamhrach (The Great Feast of Tara)

Come cel­e­brate the Celtic New Year at Tara

Samhain
Samhain Bag­pipe Gath­er­ing
Feis-Teamhrach (The Great Feast of Tara)

Come cel­e­brate the Celtic New Year at Tara
Hill of Tara, near Navan, co Meath, Ire­land.

Relight­ing the Ancient Bea­con fires & Samhain Shindig

Bring your feast­ing food that you want to eat and share

Wed Oct 31st Light­ing Taras 7 Bea­cons And Feast
Thurs 1st/Fri 2nd Nov DAYS OF ACTION
Sat Nov 3rd Fire, Music and Ban­quet
Mon 5th (and every Mon) direct action Route walk.

Vig­il camp 00353 861 758557 Action camp 00353 861 537146

Call­ing all musi­cians, bards, per­form­ers & poets
Bring your flutes, whis­tles, drums and voic­es to the Halls of Tara. Big call out to all
BAGPIPE play­ers to gath­er on the Wed and Sat.
Call­ing all Peo­ple to join in the Defense of TARA
Act now to pre­serve this world her­itage site!

Fliers/posters to down­load at www.tarapixie.net

For direc­tions to Tara check the web­sites below
www.savetara.com www.tarawatch.org
www.tarapixie.net

SAVE IRELAND’S TARA VALLEY!

CLIMATE ACTION NEWS SHEET 72, OCTOBER 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) NATIONAL DAY OF LOCAL ACTION VS. ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND — 15.10.07
2) SAVE SWALLOWS WOOD — OCTOBER 2007 UPDATE
3) NATIONAL CLIMATE CAMP ACTION PLANNING MEETING — 3–4.11.07 OXFORD
4) CLIMATE CAMPS — 2008 GERMANY AND WORLDWIDE!
5) TARA UPDATE — 22.9.07 IRELAND
6) CRITICAL MASS UPDATES — NATIONWIDE
7) PLYMOUTH ENVIRONMENT CENTRE FILM NIGHTS — AUTUMN 2007
8) TEMPORARY AUTONOMOUS ART — OCT ’07, EDINBURGH & MANCHESTER
9) WRITE IN DEFENCE OF ISOLATED PERUVIAN TRIBES — 17.9.07
10) STUDENT CLIMATE PROJECT LAUNCH GATHERING – OXFORD, 30.11–2.12.07

———————————————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
———————————————-
1) ROSSPORT SOLIDARITY DEMOS — 14.9.07 LEEDS, LONDON, BRISTOL, READING,
MADRID & IRELAND
2) DIRECT ACTION IN BRISTOL — AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2007
3) WHY CARBON TRADING ISN’T WORKING — ARTICLES 2006/7
4) GAGGED! SOUTH WALES ANARCHIST NEWSLETTER — SEPTEMBER 2007
5) FEDERAL COURT BLOCKS SHELLS ARCTIC DRILLING — 14.9.07
6) BANK PULLS SAKHALIN‑2 FUNDING — 15.8.07
7) “FLOOD SUMMIT” AT AIRPORT — 3.9.07 DONCASTER, YORKS.
8) COAL ACTIONS IN AUSTRALIA — 2/3.9.07
9) GLOBAL ACTIONS AGAINST HEAVY INDUSTRY — 12.9.07
10) GREEK DIRECT ACTION — SEPTEMBER 2007
11) CRITICAL MASS AND CARFREE DAY IN BRUSSELS — 24.9.07
12) ART NOT OIL 2007 GALLERY HITS 50

———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) NATIONAL DAY OF LOCAL ACTION AGAINST ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND — 15.10.07
RBS, the self-described ‘Oil and Gas Bank’ and sec­ond-largest bank in
Europe is the lead­ing financier of cli­mate change. From West Africa to the
Ecuado­ri­an rain­for­est, from the North Sea to the Mid­dle East, RBS loans
play a key role in forc­ing open the new car­bon fron­tier. The thir­ty oil
and gas finance deals RBS signed between 2001 and 2006 locked us all into
655 mil­lion tonnes of emis­sions over the next 15 years — more than the
UK’s cur­rent annu­al emis­sions total!
On 15th Octo­ber, get togeth­er with your local group, build on con­nec­tions
made at the Camp, reach out to oth­ers in your area and con­front RBS with
your own cho­sen style of cre­ative direct action.

To find your near­est RBS branch or office:
www.rbs.co.uk/microsites/general/branch_locator/step1.asp
Down­load Plat­for­m’s report ‘The Oil and Gas Bank’:
www.carbonweb.org/documents/Oil_&_Gas_Bank.pdf
For help with plan­ning effec­tive actions: www.networkforclimateaction.org.uk

One such action is being planned in con­junc­tion with West Corn­wall Friends
of the Earth; Out­side Roy­al Bank of Scot­land, Green St (off Lemon Quay),
Truro,
12 noon, Mon 15th Oct. Con­tact RTUK for oth­ers.

2) SAVE SWALLOWS WOOD — OCTOBER 2007 UPDATE
A lot has been hap­pen­ing in the last few weeks, includ­ing the inau­gur­al
Glos­sop Crit­i­cal Mass. Also, there are two URGENT let­ter actions that they
need your help with. They should only take a few min­utes of your time.
www.saveswallowswood.org.uk

3) NATIONAL CLIMATE CAMP ACTION PLANNING MEETING — 3–4.11.07 OXFORD
The Cli­mate Camp did­n’t stop cli­mate change — but it’s part of a grow­ing
social move­ment that can! Come and take the next steps for­ward at the
upcom­ing UK-wide meet­ing on Nov 3–4 in Oxford. Every­one is wel­come,
whether you came to the camp, or were sim­ply inspired by it.
www.climatecamp.org.uk

4) CLIMATE CAMPS — 2008 GERMANY AND WORLDWIDE!
Fol­low­ing the mod­el estab­lished by the Camp for Cli­mate Action in the UK,
plans are afoot for a Cli­mate-Action Camp in Ger­many in 2008. This will
include knowl­edge exchange (in work­shops), self-organ­ised liv­ing that
min­imis­es the eco­log­i­cal foot­print, net­work­ing and direct action. There
are plans for sim­i­lar camps to be set up next year in sev­er­al coun­tries.
watch this space…
www.climatecamp.org.uk

http://www.klimacamp.org/

5) TARA UPDATE — 22.9.07 IRELAND
They are des­per­ate for more peo­ple and sup­plies on site. There are
cur­rent­ly just 20 peo­ple try­ing to stop work all over the Tara Skryne
val­ley.
www.tarapixie.net
www.savetara.com
www.circlecommunity.org
For recent videos & pho­tos of protests see;
http://livevideo.com/tarapixie

6) CRITICAL MASS UPDATES — NATIONWIDE
For info. and updates check;
http://www.urban75.com/Action/critical.html

7) PLYMOUTH ENVIRONMENT CENTRE FILM NIGHTS — AUTUMN 2007
Includ­ing “Reclaim Pow­er” 19.10.07 at 7pm fol­lowed by dis­cus­sion with
Ris­ing Tide rep­re­sen­ta­tive.

http://plymouthenvironmentcentre.org.uk/events.php#film-nights

8) TEMPORARY AUTONOMOUS ART SHOWS — OCTOBER 2007 EDINBURGH & MANCHESTER
Edin­burgh 10th-14th Octo­ber
Man­ches­ter 24th-28th Octo­ber
For fur­ther info. check;
http://www.randomartists.org/

9) WRITE IN DEFENCE OF ISOLATED PERUVIAN TRIBES — 17.9.07
Two com­pa­nies plan­ning to explore for oil in Peru­vian rain­for­est have
revealed their sen­si­tive plans to ‘com­mu­ni­cate’ with the pre­vi­ous­ly
uncon­tact­ed inhab­i­tants using mega­phones! In the past, oil com­pa­ny work­ers
in the Ama­zon region have been killed by iso­lat­ed Indi­ans. Despite this
risk to their own work­ers, and the equal dan­ger of spread­ing fatal
dis­eases to the Indi­ans, the com­pa­nies — Bar­rett Resources of the US and
Rep­sol YPF of Spain — have refused to sus­pend their plans.
http://www.survival-international.org/news/2502
You can help by writ­ing a let­ter;
http://www.survival-international.org/actnow/letters/isolatedindians

10) STUDENT CLIMATE PROJECT LAUNCH GATHERING – OXFORD, 30.11–2.12.07

‘The Stu­dent Cli­mate Project came out of dis­cus­sions at the 2007 Cli­mate
Camp, and
seeks bring togeth­er stu­dents to take col­lec­tive action against the root
caus­es of
Cli­mate Change. It will also devel­op ways to build the stu­dent move­ment
and deal
with Cli­mate Change issues in the edu­ca­tion sys­tem. The project is
non-hier­ar­chi­cal
and based on con­sen­sus deci­sion mak­ing, and the Launch Gath­er­ing is the
per­fect
oppor­tu­ni­ty to get involved, share your ideas and plan for action. See
www.studentclimateproject.org.uk’

———————————————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
———————————————-

1) ROSSPORT SOLIDARITY DEMOS — 14.9.07 LEEDS, LONDON, BRISTOL, READING,
MADRID & IRELAND
There were a series of demon­stra­tions held in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the day of
action against Shel­l’s plans for a gas pipeline & refin­ery in Mayo,
Ire­land.
In Ross­port itself over 150 peo­ple occu­pied the refin­ery site.
Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide held a sol­i­dar­i­ty demo at a Shell Garage in East­ville,
Bris­tol with leaflets and ban­ners.
For more details about the var­i­ous actions check;
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/5090
http://www.corribsos.com/index.php?id=1&type=page

2) DIRECT ACTION IN BRISTOL — AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2007
Activists in Bris­tol have been busy. Parts of three golf cours­es have been
dug up and the mes­sage “deca­dent waste of water” sprayed near a club
house. A mobile phone mast has been sab­o­taged. A non-pas­sen­ger line which
trans­ports cars and fos­sil fuel to the Mid­lands was cut three quar­ters of
the way through in two places and marked with high vis­i­bil­i­ty paint. A
warn­ing ban­ner read­ing: “Stop: Trees on line” was fixed across the line
sev­er­al hun­dred yards in front of this.
Also, with­in the last 6 months, the front tyres of forty 4x4s have been
punc­tured in and around Bris­tol.
Final­ly, a “cor­po­rate enter­tain­ment” com­pa­ny called 4‑Play, which pro­vides
off road dri­ving for 4x4s in the south west, has had vehi­cles spray
paint­ed with

“4‑play — blow-job the plan­et”.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/5050

3) WHY CARBON TRADING ISN’T WORKING — ARTICLES 2006/7
An excel­lent series of arti­cles on why the neolib­er­al approach to cli­mate
change isn’t work­ing can be found at;
http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/subject/climate/

4) GAGGED! ANARCHIST NEWSLETTER – SOUTH WALES, SEPT 2007
Down­load the PDF here;
https://lists.riseup.net/www/d_read/gagged/gagged19.pdf
Alter­na­tive­ly you can read it here;
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/5052

5) FEDERAL COURT BLOCKS SHELLS ARCTIC DRILLING — 14.9.07
A fed­er­al court has denied Shel­l’s lat­est request to lift an order
block­ing the com­pa­ny’s Arc­tic Ocean drilling. This rul­ing like­ly dooms the
Dutch oil giant’s drilling plans, at least for this year.
http://www.pacificenvironment.org/

6) BANK PULLS SAKHALIN‑2 FUNDING — 15.8.07
The Euro­pean Bank of Recon­struc­tion and Devel­op­ment has decid­ed to pull
its fund­ing for the $20-plus bil­lion Sakhalin‑2 liq­ue­fied nat­ur­al gas
project, locat­ed in Rus­si­a’s Far East.
Since Jan­u­ary, EBRD and the Sakhalin Ener­gy share­hold­ers (Gazprom, Roy­al
Dutch Shell, Mit­sui and Mit­subishi) have held talks over the pro­jec­t’s
finance. EBRD cut off dis­cus­sions in favour of financ­ing oth­er projects,
such as those that pro­mote sus­tain­able ener­gy.
http://www.pacificenvironment.org/

7) PROTEST AS RDA HOLDS “FLOOD SUMMIT” AT AIRPORT — 3.9.07 DONCASTER, YORKS.
York­shire For­ward (Region­al Devel­op­ment Agency) held an out­ra­geous “Flood
Sum­mit” at Finning­ley air­port. Local peo­ple vis­it­ed with pop-up tents and
ban­ners to leaflet the con­fer­ence’s par­tic­i­pants and hold alter­na­tive
work­shops high­light­ing the link between avi­a­tion growth and wors­en­ing
cli­mate change.
The con­fer­ence was intend­ed to con­grat­u­late the RDA on their response to
the recent floods. The choice of venue shows just how out of touch with
real­i­ty these half-wits are.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/5021

8) COAL ACTIONS IN AUSTRALIA — 2/3.9.07
On the 2nd Sep­tem­ber, twelve Green­peace activists were arrest­ed at the
world’s biggest coal port at New­cas­tle, 160km north of Syd­ney, after
paint­ing the mes­sage “Aus­tralia Push­ing Export Coal” on the side of a coal
ship and unfurl­ing a large ban­ner in Chi­nese call­ing on Chi­na to be
cau­tious of John Howard and George Bush’s attempts to sab­o­tage Kyoto. The
protest comes at the start of the 2007 APEC (Asia Pacif­ic Eco­nom­ic
Coop­er­a­tion) forum meet­ing being host­ed by Aus­tralia.
http://www.greenpeace.org/australia/news-and-events/media/releases/climate-change/apec-coal-protest
The fol­low­ing day activists locked them­selves on to a coal con­vey­or belt,
forc­ing the shut-down of a gen­er­a­tor and halv­ing pro­duc­tion from
Vic­to­ri­a’s biggest coal fired pow­er sta­tion.
http://www.realactiononclimatechange.blogspot.com/

9) GLOBAL ACTIONS AGAINST HEAVY INDUSTRY — 12.9.07
Peo­ple in South Africa, Ice­land, Trinidad, Den­mark and Amer­i­ca held a
series of coor­di­nat­ed protests against heavy indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion. This is
the first event of a new and grow­ing glob­al move­ment that began at the
2007 Sav­ing Ice­land protest camp in Ölfus, Ice­land.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/5067

10) GREEK DIRECT ACTION — SEPTEMBER 2007
For direct action news from Greece, check;
http://directactiongr.blogspot.com/

11) CRITICAL MASS AND CARFREE DAY IN BRUSSELS — 24.9.07
For details and some great pics see;
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/09/381930.html

12) ART NOT OIL 2007 GALLERY HITS 50

and over 1500 hits. Take a look and send in your own work:
www.artnotoil.org.uk

Shell to Sea Two and half years later and still going strong! October 12th day of action

In 2005 small west of Ire­land com­mu­ni­ty became the focus of atten­tion of the peo­ple in Ire­land. Five small farm­ers in Ross­port Co Mayo (one the most remote and iso­lat­ed places in North­west Europe) had stood up to a multi­na­tion­al con­glom­er­a­tion of Shell, Sta­toil and Marathon in fear they would die if Shell built their unprece­dent­ed on shore refin­ery.

In 2005 small west of Ire­land com­mu­ni­ty became the focus of atten­tion of the peo­ple in Ire­land. Five small farm­ers in Ross­port Co Mayo (one the most remote and iso­lat­ed places in North­west Europe) had stood up to a multi­na­tion­al con­glom­er­a­tion of Shell, Sta­toil and Marathon in fear they would die if Shell built their unprece­dent­ed on shore refin­ery.

The Irish State’s reac­tion to this was to inde­fi­nate­ly imprison them. This tran­spired to be 94 days at which point Shell decid­ed it was doing more harm than good by impris­on­ing as there was a series of direct actions and mass demon­stra­tion in their defence http://www.indymedia.ie/article/71388. In the weeks run­ning up to this some activists made con­tact with com­mu­ni­ty activists and start­ed a nation­al Shell to sea cam­paign. The unbe­liev­able sto­ry of what was going on in the west of Ire­land was spread through Europe through the meet­ing of activists at the G8 in Ster­ling in July 2008.

The sto­ry is quite unbe­liev­able. Shell and their part­ners are attempt­ing to destroy an unspoilt part of the west Ire­land, by run­ning a dan­ger­ous pipeline through the vil­lage of Ross­port to an inland refin­ery that will spew hun­dreds of thou­sands of tonnes of methane each year in the local envi­ron­ment. On top of this they are effec­tive­ly rob­bing the peo­ple in Ire­land of €51 bil­lion of Irish gas through a dodgy deal cut with cor­rupt politi­cians that at the time was called “eco­nom­ic trea­son”.

But lots of things are wrong and why should peo­ple all across the world we focus on this? Well its sim­ple- we can win and if we do the effects will be immense as a prece­dent will have been set that will not only effect Ire­land but Europe and beyond.

So what hap­pened since 2005 and where are we now?

Tra­di­tion­al sec­tar­i­an­ism was put aside and activists of dif­fer­ent back­grounds worked togeth­er form­ing what the media would lat­er bill “the looney alliance of anar­chists and repub­li­cans”. Through­out the sum­mer of 2005 and until the late sum­mer of 2006 things worked very well as con­stant pick­ets shut down Shel­l’s oper­a­tion in Mayo and pres­sure mount­ed on Shell and the Irish State.

Then at the end of Sep­tem­ber 2006 the State and Shell made their move. Over 200 gar­dai (Irish police) were bil­let­ed to Mayo. The top cop said he would have the protests fin­ished in 48hours. The com­mu­ni­ty and nation­al cam­paigns response was immense. Pick­et­ing went on through the night incase the Gar­dai tried
to cor­don activists away from the site. On the night of the sec­ond of Octo­ber the cops even­tu­al­ly turned out in force. In an effort to main­tain the year and half long pick­et cars were parked block­ing the refin­ery and behind them the com­mu­ni­ty sat in front of the gates. In area with low­est crime rate in Ire­land 200 Gar­dai pulled and dragged com­mu­ni­ty res­i­dents from the gates hos­pi­tal­is­ing two.

This lead to a surge in activ­i­ty with much cam­paign activ­i­ty around the coun­try and inter­na­tion­al­ly, focused on days of action in Ross­port. The Gar­da reac­tion to these days of Action was vio­lent cul­mi­nat­ing in a baton charge on Novem­ber the tenth. The cam­paign then in the face of what seemed like more vio­lence can­celled a pro­posed day of action on the 24th of Novem­ber 2006. Many saw this as deci­sive moment for the cam­paign as momen­tum passed out of our hands. Every­one realised the fol­ly of
it, but as with a lot of things in Shell to Sea it is a learn­ing process. Now it seems it was not as deci­sive as it seemed as things build again.

This sum­mer the cam­paign burst back to life by vic­to­ri­ous­ly oppos­ing shel­l’s attempt to install cab­ins for works in the bay — read more. This was fol­lowed with a very intense week which saw three fish­er­men includ­ing Pat “the chief” O Don­nell and his son and a friend impris­oned, the site was shut down for a day. On the fish­er­men’s release
an inva­sion of the con­struc­tion site took place. Over Sep­tem­ber there have been three site inva­sions and two days with numer­ous peo­ple blockad­ing traf­fic attempt­ing to access the site — read more.

All this occurred in the run up to the day of action on Sep­tem­ber 14th unique in that it had a pre-announced plan. The plan was sim­ple — go there and sit on the road and no vehi­cles get on site. The run-up to the day was ner­vous. The big ques­tion was- could Shell to Sea with its nation­al sup­port in town (or coun­try­side rather) reassert the right of ordi­nary peo­ple over multi­na­tion­als in Erris and real­ly push for­ward the already build­ing momen­tum behind the cam­paign. The con­di­tions were cer­tain­ly right- Shell were and still are run­ning into enor­mous prob­lems as build­ing has vir­tu­al­ly come to a stand­still due to poor qual­i­ty con­crete, con­stant protest and the lack of a pipeline route. On Fri­day the 14th about 150 — 200 peo­ple turned from around the coun­try and this was matched by a size­able mayo turnout.

The total pro­tes­tor turnout was matched by a size­able Gar­da pres­ence. As the pro­tes­tors shut down the main entrance to the site with the sit down the Gar­dai thought they would be clever and direct traf­fic around the sit down and bore us to tears. After this long you would imag­ine the cops would realise Shell to Sea is a lit­tle more on the ball than this. In the lack of the any trucks to meet pro­tes­tors we decid­ed to go and take a look and shut the site down. So it was up, over, under and through the gate as the protest made lit­tle a sec­ondary gate as well (espe­cial­ly con­struct­ed for the day) — read more. The Gar­dai respond­ed with their usu­al heavy hand­ed tac­tics. Regard­less of Shel­l’s rub­bish spin, RTE’s (Ire­lands state broad­cast­er) des­per­ate attempts to pla­cate Shell and and the gar­dai’s offi­cial line it was plain to see who had won the day and that the train is firm­ly back on the tracks.

It’s undoubt­ed that Shell to Sea is not yet at the dizzy­ing heights it was at 12 or 24 months ago. How­ev­er things are mov­ing in a sim­i­lar direc­tion at the moment. We have learned the mis­takes of plac­ing too much faith in politi­cians to pull a deal out the hat. With this knowl­edge it could just be third time lucky for Shell to Sea.

Through­out this peri­od the impact on sol­i­dar­i­ty from the Eng­land Scot­land and Wales has had an enor­mous effect. It has been instru­men­tal in keep­ing the sol­i­dar­i­ty camp con­tin­u­ing through peo­ple com­ing stay­ing a week or a year, fundrais­ing and dona­tions have also allowed the camp to expand. Hos­pi­tal­i­ty to cam­paign speak­ers was always sec­ond to none. Above all the impact that peo­ple com­ing has had a pro­found impact on the moral of peo­ple in Ross­port. They launched their oppo­si­tion in 1999 and it took six years to get Nation­al atten­tion and then imme­di­ate­ly peo­ple in the UK, once they heard, took up the chal­lenge. There is still more peo­ple from the UK have to offer this strug­gle.

Anoth­er day of Action has been called for Octo­ber the 12th as the sit­u­a­tion is heat­ing up as the pres­sure mounts up on Shell and polit­i­cal pres­sure on the greens. These days of Action will not work
on there own — if you cant trav­el we all need to be active in our com­mu­ni­ties organ­is­ing meet­ings, pos­ter­ing and rais­ing the issue where pos­si­ble. These days are how­ev­er cru­cial to pile on the pres­sure -
show­ing in a vis­i­ble robust way the lev­el of oppo­si­tion to this project and high­light­ing the bru­tal­i­ty of what is an every­day occur­rence in Ross­port.

At this stage many of us are scratch­ing our heads as to why mayo peo­ple can’t do this at the height of sum­mer but then again what else would you be doing on windy Fri­day morn­ing in Octo­ber? Ok fair enough we all do but it will cer­tain­ly be worth it to force this to its log­i­cal con­clu­sion after 8 years. For us it’s a few days of a trip to Ross­port for oth­ers it’s the high­light and morale boost­er in a 8 year strug­gle that must and will end soon When peo­ple arrive its intense­ly appre­ci­at­ed as it shows they are not strug­gling on their won and peo­ple care. What are you doing on Octo­ber the 12th? Organ­ise a pick­et at the Irish embassy or a Shell fill­ing Sta­tion or their head­quar­ters. Or if pos­si­ble trav­el to Ross­port. Trav­el to Dublin for Thurs­day at six and book a tick­et on the Dublin bus­es. Book ear­ly though. Come you need a hol­i­day!
(for tick­ets phone or text 0851609850 in Dublin) Cork — corkshelltosea@gmail.com or call 0851141170 for gen­er­al info.

www.rossportsolidaritycamp.com, www.shelltosea.com www.indymedia.ie/mayo

Demo — in Solidarity with Miriam Rose and Persecuted Saving Iceland Activists

1PM Tues­day 2nd Octo­ber, Ice­landic Embassy meet at Sloane Square
Come and show Sol­i­dar­i­ty with Miri­am Rose, a Sav­ing Ice­land activist from the UK fac­ing depor­ta­tion from Ice­land where she lives for being: “a threat to pub­lic order and secu­ri­ty and fun­da­men­tal soci­etal val­ues” also to show sol­i­dar­i­ty with Ola­fur Pall Sig­gurd­son an Ice­landic activist being framed for “Obstruct­ing a Police Vehi­cle” fol­low­ing an attempt to run him over by a senior police­man.

1PM Tues­day 2nd Octo­ber, Ice­landic Embassy meet at Sloane Square
Come and show Sol­i­dar­i­ty with Miri­am Rose, a Sav­ing Ice­land activist from the UK fac­ing depor­ta­tion from Ice­land where she lives for being: “a threat to pub­lic order and secu­ri­ty and fun­da­men­tal soci­etal val­ues” also to show sol­i­dar­i­ty with Ola­fur Pall Sig­gurd­son an Ice­landic activist being framed for “Obstruct­ing a Police Vehi­cle” fol­low­ing an attempt to run him over by a senior police­man.

Full arti­cle about Miri­am’s Depor­ta­tion: http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/09/382239.html

Deportation Alert! Icelandic State Cracks Down on Saving Iceland Activists

The Ice­landic State has hound­ed and harassed Sav­ing Ice­land activists since the net­work was formed in 2004. In the lat­est episode of this sor­did saga; Miri­am Rose, an activist from the UK who lives in Ice­land is threat­ened with depor­ta­tion for being: “a threat to ‘pub­lic order and secu­ri­ty’ and ‘fun­da­men­tal soci­etal val­ues’. She has only ever been con­vict­ed of ‘Dis­obey­ing Police Orders’ con­trary to the dra­con­ian ‘Police Acts’ for which she has served a short prison sen­tence; in soli­tary con­fine­ment in a men’s prison.

The Ice­landic State has hound­ed and harassed Sav­ing Ice­land activists since the net­work was formed in 2004. In the lat­est episode of this sor­did saga; Miri­am Rose, an activist from the UK who lives in Ice­land is threat­ened with depor­ta­tion for being: “a threat to ‘pub­lic order and secu­ri­ty’ and ‘fun­da­men­tal soci­etal val­ues’. She has only ever been con­vict­ed of ‘Dis­obey­ing Police Orders’ con­trary to the dra­con­ian ‘Police Acts’ for which she has served a short prison sen­tence; in soli­tary con­fine­ment in a men’s prison.

On Fri­day 21st Sep­tem­ber, Sav­ing Ice­land activist Miri­am Rose was pre­sent­ed with a let­ter from the Ice­landic Direc­torate of Immi­gra­tion threat­en­ing her with pos­si­ble expul­sion from Ice­land. The let­ter claims that due to her par­tic­i­pa­tion in two actions at smelter sites she may be con­sid­ered a threat to ‘pub­lic order and secu­ri­ty’ and ‘fun­da­men­tal soci­etal val­ues’. The let­ter also claims that Sav­ing Ice­land pays activists for being arrest­ed, a claim repeat­ed­ly denied and proven to be false.

Sav­ing Ice­land is an inter­na­tion­al grass roots net­work that uses direct action to con­front the Ice­landic gov­ern­men­t’s Heavy Indus­try Pol­i­cy. The gov­ern­ment are intent on build­ing alu­mini­um smelters to exploit the coun­try’s geot­her­mal and hydro-elec­tric poten­tial, an eco­log­i­cal and envi­ron­men­tal cat­a­stro­phe sold as ‘green ener­gy’. Sav­ing Ice­land also pro­motes and prac­tices sol­i­dar­i­ty with strug­gles against the alu­mini­um indus­try world­wide, such as in Trinidad, South Africa and India.

Miri­am has already served 8 days in prison for protest­ing against the destruc­tion of Ice­landic wilder­ness, for which the UK Green Par­ty Prin­ci­pal Speak­er Dr Derek Wall accused the Ice­landic gov­ern­ment of polit­i­cal harass­ment and demand­ed her imme­di­ate release. In Radio 1 Ice­landic news pro­gram Spegillinn yes­ter­day, the police admit­ted that this was to be the first of many attempt­ed depor­ta­tions of activists.

Miri­am is now wait­ing for a deci­sion by the Direc­torate of Immi­gra­tion, hav­ing sub­mit­ted her objec­tion to depor­ta­tion. ‘I am very shocked that the Ice­landic gov­ern­ment con­tin­ue to pun­ish me, after already pay­ing so heav­i­ly for my actions and ideals. This seems to be an attempt to scare peo­ple from protest­ing here, and I find such treat­ment sur­pris­ing in a sup­pos­ed­ly devel­oped democ­ra­cy like Ice­land. I am a peace­ful and edu­cat­ed per­son and have nev­er posed a threat to the police or any oth­er per­son dur­ing my time here. I was intend­ing to set­tle in Ice­land, and have been mak­ing moves to learn Ice­landic and con­tribute to this soci­ety.’

In 2005 the Ice­landic Direc­torate of Immi­gra­tion attempt­ed to deport 21 Sav­ing Ice­land activists. Activists were snatched off the streets of Reyk­javik by plain clothes police, held overnight with no food, water or even pre­tense of a legal process. An elder­ly aca­d­e­m­ic with no con­nec­tion to Sav­ing Ice­land was hos­pi­talised with seri­ous head injuries after he wit­nessed activists being bun­dled into an unmarked car. Plain clothes police also broke into build­ings in an attempt to get to activists on the ‘black­list’. The Direc­torate of Immi­gra­tion, denied that there was such a list in an inter­view with tabloid paper DV, for­tu­nate­ly Sav­ing Ice­land was able to sup­ply them with a copy com­plete with the Direc­torate’s seal and Hildur Dun­gal’s (the Direc­tor’s) sig­na­ture. Even­tu­al­ly the Direc­torate of Immi­gra­tion admit­ted it had no legal right to deport any­one on the list.

In 2006 14 activists were tried and con­vict­ed for ‘Dis­obey­ing Police Orders’ and received prison sen­tences of up to 18 days a small group was also con­vict­ed of ‘Repres­sion of Lib­er­ty’ and sen­tenced to 2 months sus­pend­ed for 3 years on the false wit­ness of a man­ag­er at engi­neer­ing firm Hon­nen where they had attempt­ed to occu­py offices, the same man­ag­er punched and kicked pro­test­ers and slammed a door on some­one’s head.

Ear­li­er this year after Reyk­javik’s first Reclaim the Streets the Ice­landic police began to con­fis­cate pass­port of for­eign activists, some­thing they have no legal author­i­ty to do. The Ice­landic State have also had a long his­to­ry of harass­ing Ice­landic activists, in one case they have alleged­ly made false reports to Inter­pol accus­ing a Sav­ing Ice­land activist of trav­el­ing on a forged pass­port and attempt­ed to strip the activists Ice­landic Cit­i­zen­ship.

If the Ice­landic Police and Immi­gra­tion Direc­torate can get away with deport­ing Miri­am, then they will use depor­ta­tions more fre­quent­ly to silence dis­sent and under­mine sol­i­dar­i­ty with Ice­landic envi­ron­men­tal­ists. They must be stopped!

The web­site of the Direc­torate of Immi­gra­tion is http://www.utl.is/english

The direc­tor’s name is Hildur Dun­gal: hildur@utl.is

See also:
Report on Miri­am’s depor­ta­tion and state­ment from Sav­ing Ice­land:
http://www.savingiceland.org/node/983

Report on Miri­am’s Incar­cer­a­tion in Soli­tary Con­fine­ment in a Men’s Prison:
http://www.savingiceland.org/node/892

State­ment of Sup­port from UK Green Par­ty:
http://www.savingiceland.org/node/985 and @ http://www.greenparty.org.uk/news/3171

Report on Sav­ing Ice­land’s fund­ing:
http://www.savingiceland.org/node/846

Report of Pre­vi­ous attempts to Deport Sav­ing Ice­land activists:
http://www.savingiceland.org/node/144

Report on how the Ice­landic Immi­gra­tion Direc­torate can behave quite dif­fer­ent­ly if you are pals with a Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter:
http://www.savingiceland.org/node/759Police Brutakity at Reykjavik's first RTS this summerPolice Brutakity at Reykjavik's first RTS this summer

Critical Mass to oppose Mottram — Tintwistle bypass

Last Fri­day saw a dozen peo­ple attend for the inau­gur­al Glos­sop Crit­i­cal Mass. Glos­sop had seen noth­ing like it — all kinds of cyclists, includ­ing a mobile sound sys­tem, with peo­ple com­ing from as far afield as Man­ches­ter and Traf­ford (cycling all the way to Glos­sop and back from it!) to attend. Plus some friends from Glos­sop Kinder Velo.

1st Glossop Critical MassLast Fri­day saw a dozen peo­ple attend for the inau­gur­al Glos­sop Crit­i­cal Mass. Glos­sop had seen noth­ing like it — all kinds of cyclists, includ­ing a mobile sound sys­tem, with peo­ple com­ing from as far afield as Man­ches­ter and Traf­ford (cycling all the way to Glos­sop and back from it!) to attend. Plus some friends from Glos­sop Kinder Velo.

We cer­tain­ly attract­ed a lot of atten­tion — along with a van load of police and a motor­cy­cle police­man. We’re clear­ly doing some­thing right.

And the press atten­tion has fol­lowed in its wake — today’s Man­ches­ter Evening News gave away a half page arti­cle and pho­to, along with a page on their web­site. The lat­ter is attract­ing a fair amount of debate (with pre­dictable com­ments from petrol­heads), so please feel free to join in.

The organ­is­ers, Road Alert Glos­sop, are keen to repeat the event in the not too dis­tant future, although next mon­th’s clock changes mean Fri­day evenings will be out until 2008.

We are told that video-pix­ies were present to film some of the pro­ceed­ings, and that a film will fol­low soon…

———————————

PROTESTORS got on their bikes dur­ing the rush hour to cam­paign against the con­tro­ver­sial Mot­tram – Tin­twistle bypass.

They set off from Glos­sop rail­way sta­tion to cycle to Tin­twistle at Fri­day teatime on a four-mile route organ­ised by the Road Alert Glos­sop group.

The stunt was intend­ed to high­light the fact that bikes and peo­ple should be catered for on roads, not just cars and traf­fic, and raise aware­ness of Swal­lows Wood, which is threat­ened by the pro­posed 3.5‑mile bypass.
Adver­tise­ment

“It went real­ly well,” said organ­is­er Jonathan Atkin­son.

“We got about 20 peo­ple out. One guy brought a sound sys­tem on a lit­tle trail­er with him! We had peo­ple from Glos­sop Cycling club and peo­ple from Staly­bridge and Man­ches­ter as well.

“There was a five year old on the back of a bike and the old­est per­son there was in his 70s I’d say.”

Cars beeped their horns in sup­port of the cyclists and the cam­paign­ers end­ed their wheeled protest with a well-deserved drink at Tintwistle’s Bulls Head pub.

Jonathan added: “We had a police escort, as well, which real­ly helped us.

“There was an arti­cle in the Guardian say­ing more mon­ey should be spent on cycle lanes to save the gov­ern­ment thou­sands in health care and con­ges­tion costs, so we real­ly do need to do some­thing.”

The pub­lic inquiry into the bypass was set to resume yes­ter­day (Wednes­day) after it was dra­mat­i­cal­ly halt­ed when the High­ways Agency admit­ted it had got its fig­ures wrong.

For more infor­ma­tion on the group you can vis­it http://www.myspace.com/roadalert

(from the Glos­sop Adver­tis­er)