Category: London

Lon­don

Xstrata mining stormed by Occupy London protestors + global anti-Xstrata protests

30.11.11

30.11.11

An action took place in Lon­don against a union-bust­ing earth-trash­ing Swiss/British coal and met­al min­ing com­pa­ny — for a selec­tion of the glob­al protests against them, see below the main arti­cle.  There’s var­i­ous footage: 1 | 2 | 3  | 4 | 5. Part of the N30 mass strike (time­line). 

#Occu­pyL­SX had announced an action at 3pm at Pic­cadil­ly Cir­cus. They set off with the sam­ba band and min­utes lat­er a flare was set off inside Pan­ton House, Hay­mar­ket, whilst a ban­ner was hung from the roof. Out­side pro­tes­tors chal­lenged some plain­clothes cops in the crowd, after which a ‘bub­ble’ or ket­tle was set up, appar­ent­ly with more plain clothes cops trapped inside it.

Occu­py Lon­don – part of the glob­al move­ment for social and eco­nom­ic jus­tice – today high­light­ed the cor­po­rate greed endem­ic in the UK and called for a change with­in soci­ety.

About 60 pro­tes­tors gained entry into the offices of min­ing com­pa­ny Xstra­ta, a ‘lead­ing light’ of the FTSE 100 and British indus­try to high­light the fact that CEO Mick Davies was the high­est com­pen­sat­ed CEO of all the FTSE 100 com­pa­nies in the last year, when his com­pa­nies had loss­es and the econ­o­my col­lapsed. He received £18,426,105 for his efforts. [1]

This comes in a year when the aver­age pay rise of exec­u­tives across FTSE 100 com­pa­nies was 43%, with ‘top’ direc­tors at 49%. [2]

Led by a sam­ba band to the build­ing from Pic­cadil­ly Cir­cus, the pro­test­ers entered the HQ at 25–7 Hay­mar­ket, Lon­don, with the pro­test­ers chant­i­ng against the cor­po­rate greed of Mick and oth­er exec­u­tives, in sup­port of all those strik­ing for fair pen­sions for all today. The pro­tes­tors also unfurled a ban­ner say­ing “All pow­er to the 99%” from the roof top.

There are cur­rent­ly about 20 pro­test­ers inside – being held down on knees, of which many are women. There are a few hun­dred peo­ple ket­tled out­side.

The pro­test­ers today are mak­ing the con­nec­tion between the slash­ing of pri­vate and pub­lic sec­tor pen­sions, while sup­posed ‘top’ exec­u­tives cash in by increas­ing their own pay lev­els, leav­ing many with­out pen­sions. These CEOs like Mick Davies lav­ish­ly secure their own futures while ignor­ing the secu­ri­ty and well­be­ing of their own work­ers.

Mines have closed in Aus­tralia, South Africa and Spain with­in the last decade result­ing in hun­dreds of work­ers in the last decade being laid off.

Karen Lin­coln, sup­port­er of Occu­py Lon­don said: “Mick Davies is a prime exam­ple of the greedy 1 per cent, lin­ing their own pock­ets while deny­ing work­ers pen­sions. In this time when the gov­ern­ment enforces aus­ter­i­ty on the 99 per cent, these exec­u­tives are prof­it­ing. The rest of us are hav­ing our pen­sions cuts, health ser­vice torn apart and youth cen­tres shut down.

“We refuse to stand by and let this hap­pen. We call on oth­ers to join us in the fight for a more just soci­ety. Today we have tak­en this to one of the offices of the 1 per cent. This is only the begin­ning. Come and join us on 15th Decem­ber for Occu­py Every­where.”

Occu­py Lon­don will unveil details of Occu­py Every­where soon. Be ready.

Notes

[1] Accord­ing to the Income Data Ser­vices, Mick Davies from Xstra­ta (min­ing com­pa­ny) was the high­est paid exec­u­tive in the FTSE 100. His com­pa­ny has recent­ly tak­en severe hits as FTSE 100 com­pa­nies face drop in val­ue (£104 bil­lion off FTSE 100 com­pa­nies). He was paid £18,426,105. LONDON OFFICE: Reg­is­tered Office, 4th Floor 25/27 Hay­mar­ket, Lon­don SW1Y 4EN

High­est paid exec­u­tives in the FTSE 100:

1. Mick Davies, Xstra­ta, £18,426,105

2. Bart Becht, Reckitt Benkiser, £17,879,000

3. Michael Spencer, ICAP £13,419,619

4. Sir Ter­ry Leahy, Tesco £12,038,303

5. Tom Albanese, Rio Tin­to £11,623,162

6. Sir Mar­tin Sor­rell, WPP Group £8,949,985

7. Todd Kozel, Gulf Key­stone Petro­le­um £8,913,223

8. Don Robert, Exper­ian £8,601,984

9. Edward Bon­ham Carter, Jupiter Fund Man­age­ment £8,003,641

10. Dame Mar­jorie Scardi­no, Pear­son £8,003,641

[2]  http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/business-as-usual-top-directors-get-49-per-cent-pay-rise-2376929.html

[3] Face­book page for Occu­py London’s Stock Exchange site just by St Paul’s (Occu­pyL­SX) is  https://www.facebook.com/occupylondon. Over­all Occu­py Lon­don twit­ter Occu­py Lon­don­hastag is #occu­py­lon­don. Occu­pyL­SX Twit­ter is  https://twitter.com/#!/OccupyLSX ; hashtag#occupylsx. Twit­ter for the new Fins­bury Square site is  https://twitter.com/#!/OccupyFS; hastag #occu­pyfs. Twit­ter for Bank of Ideas is  http://twitter.com/bankofideas and face­book is  http://facebook.com/bankofideaslondon

——

What hap­pened next (& pho­tos) — ejec­tion, ket­tling (with new added ‘info screens’), arrests and arrestee-coach block­ing. 

——-

Oct.’07: Xstra­ta, crit­i­cized heav­i­ly by a grow­ing num­ber of Chileans oppos­ing the Swiss min­ing company’s plan to build a large hydro­elec­tric dam in north­ern Patag­o­nia (Region XI), is no stranger to con­tro­ver­sy – espe­cial­ly when it comes to rivers.  More

Oct.’06: THE tra­di­tion­al Abo­rig­i­nal own­ers of land near the Gulf of Car­pen­taria are trav­el­ling to Dar­win to protest against the min­ing com­pa­ny Xstrata’s deci­sion to expand a zinc and lead mine by divert­ing the McArthur Riv­er. More

Jan.’08: Com­mu­nist rebels have attacked a $2 bil­lion cop­per and gold mine owned by Xstra­ta in the Philip­pines. More

May ’11: Peru — Xstra­ta halts activ­i­ties at Las Bam­bas due to protests  More

Nov.’11: Work­ers of the min­ing group Xstra­ta are to demon­strate in Johan­nes­burg on Tues­day to demand the right to take part in indus­tri­al action.…“This march will be tak­ing place amid the impromp­tu arrest of Num­sa mem­bers by [the] SA Police Ser­vice under the instruc­tion of one of Xstrata’s key exec­u­tives.” More

Nov.’11: Vehi­cles torched in job protest at Xstra­ta mine More

 

Ministry blocks anti-tar sands law, so we block ministry’s front door

28.11.11

28.11.11

This morn­ing, 50 activists block­ad­ed the Depart­ment for Trans­port with two immo­bilised cars parked in front of the entrance. Why? Because our gov­ern­ment is try­ing to scup­per EU leg­is­la­tion that will block tar sands oil — the dirt­i­est, most pol­lut­ing form of oil there is — from being sold at UK petrol pumps.

Min­ing for tar sands is wreck­ing the Cana­di­an bore­al for­est, destroy­ing the home­lands of indige­nous peo­ple, and accel­er­at­ing dan­ger­ous cli­mate change.

So why then is the Depart­ment for Trans­port try­ing to sab­o­tage leg­is­la­tion that would block tar sands oil from Euro­pean petrol pumps? Looks like they’ve been lob­bied hard by the Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment and big oil.

 

anti-shell protest at awards

9.11.11

9.11.11

tomor­row marks the six­teenth anniver­sary of the killing of ken saro-wiwa and eight oth­er activists in nige­ria. today, shell, com­plic­it in their exe­cu­tion, was pol­ish­ing its image by spon­sor­ing an awards event for young entre­peneurs at the cen­tre­point build­ing in cen­tral lon­don. ris­ing tide organ­ised a reminder of shel­l’s bloody his­to­ry out­side the event, involv­ing grim reapers, som­bre drums, and hun­dreds of leaflets.

after meet­ing and dress­ing just round the cor­ner, a dozen or so activists arrived out­side the cen­tre­point build­ing, cre­at­ing quite a stir with a mor­bid beat from two huge sur­do drums, sev­er­al ghost­ly shell logo skull-faced grim reapers, and an excel­lent ban­ner using the shell and livewire logos and the slo­gans “shell livewire — sup­port­ing bright young busi­ness, shell deathrope — hang­ing out­spo­ken young nige­ri­ans”.

cen­tre­point secu­ri­ty at first over­stepped the mark, push­ing peo­ple and try­ing to snatch the ban­ner, but they retreat­ed indoors and closed off the entrance when they realised they were being filmed, allow­ing the protest to con­tin­ue right out­side.

hun­dreds of leaflets were hand­ed out to inter­est­ed passers-by, and police, who arrived after around 40 min­utes, wait­ed for instruc­tion up the com­mand chain before decid­ing to leave the protest alone.

after about 90 min­utes, with leaflets run­ning out, and the young entre­peneurs appar­ent­ly led out of the build­ing via an under­ground car park, it was off to the pub for a well-deserved drink for the activists.

it was on the 10th novem­ber in 1995 that the niger­ian gov­ern­ment hanged ken saro-wiwa and eight oth­er young activists who were cam­paign­ers against the dev­as­ta­tion caused by shell and oth­er oil exploiters in their home­lands. shell was lat­er shown to have been com­plic­it in the mur­ders. to this day, shell still attacks com­mu­ni­ties (like ross­port in north­ern ire­land, as well as con­tin­u­ing abus­es in the niger delta) and destroys the plan­et through oil extrac­tion, and to off­set their destruc­tive image they put tiny amounts of their prof­its into high pro­file spon­sor­ship events like ‘livewire’, a youth busi­ness enter­prise.
 

VIDEO
Thanks too to ‘You and I Films’ for pro­duc­ing a video of our (S)Hell DeathROPE action, and to Kevin Smith of Plat­form for the infor­ma­tive interview/voiceover, which you can watch online at:

• ‘Shell Death Rope — In Mem­o­ry of Ken Saro-Wiwa’, at vimeo
» video, 2:29 – http://vimeo.com/31879898

BLOGS
Thanks to Ben Amunwa at Plat­form, there are also two blog post­ings about our (S)Hell DeathROPE action:

• ‘Protest Expos­es Shell’s Grim Record on Human Rights’
» http://blog.platformlondon.org/2011/11/10/protest-exposes-shells-grim-record-on-human-rights/
» http://remembersarowiwa.com/protest-exposes-shells-grim-record-on-human-rights/

FUTURE ACTIONS
If you are also inclined to acknowl­edg­ing that the cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate chaos caused by anthro­pogenic glob­al warm­ing is the most seri­ous social/economic/political issue humankind has ever faced, and want to join in tak­ing grass­roots direct action to influ­ence our civil­i­sa­tion toward cli­mate jus­tice, then do please con­sid­er join­ing Lon­don Ris­ing Tide (or your local Ris­ing Tide group).

• Ris­ing Tide, Lon­don
» http://www.londonrisingtide.org.uk
• Next action plan­ning gath­er­ing: Thu 17 Nov 2011, 19:30–21:00 (and after­wards (option­al­ly) down t’pub), at the Lon­don Action Resource Cen­tre, 62 Fieldgate Street, Whiechapel, Lon­don E1 1ES
» LARC – http://www.londonarc.org

• Ris­ing Tide, UK and around the world
» http://risingtide.org.uk
• see left hand col­umn for links to Ris­ing Tide groups all around the world

Earth First! Winter Moot 2012 — 24–26th February 2012. Updated: location & what to expect

A week­end of dis­cus­sion and net­work­ing for those tak­ing direct action against eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion. 

Please note date & loca­tion change (due to date clash & venue prob­lems):

24–26th Feb­ru­ary 2012, near Glas­gow

Near­est train sta­tion: Lanark.

A week­end of dis­cus­sion and net­work­ing for those tak­ing direct action against eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion. 

Please note date & loca­tion change (due to date clash & venue prob­lems):

24–26th Feb­ru­ary 2012, near Glas­gow

Near­est train sta­tion: Lanark.

See earthfirstgathering.org.uk for fur­ther infor­ma­tion about loca­tion,  pro­gramme and con­tact details

Update:

Where — this years Earth First Win­ter Moot will take place in Gle­spin Vil­lage Hall, South Lanark­shire. Gle­spin is a small vil­lage about 14 miles south of Lanark, and 35 miles south of Glas­gow. South Lanark­shire also has many beau­ti­ful areas with rivers, hills, forests and peat bogs.  Full direc­tions

What to expect — this years Earth First! Win­ter Moot takes place in South Lanark­shire, Scot­land. In a months time envi­ron­men­tal­ists from across the UK and beyond will con­verge to dis­cuss and debate. Below is an update from the organ­is­ing col­lec­tive who are work­ing on the pro­gram.

The Moot 2012 col­lec­tive has felt that at pre­vi­ous EF! Gath­er­ings groups have pri­mar­i­ly attend­ed to recruit for their respec­tive cam­paigns. Yet those who attend EF! Gath­er­ings are pre­dom­i­nant­ly already active, mak­ing them good places for net­work­ing, but not nec­es­sar­i­ly for out­right recruit­ment. We recog­nise the effort gath­er­ing organ­is­ers put into plan­ning agen­das but often the more dis­cur­sive aspects of the gath­er­ings focus on larg­er,  abstract ques­tions and debates have often been framed by self-appoint­ed experts. We feel that these dis­cus­sions inef­fec­tive­ly attempt to find answers or reach con­sen­sus where this is inap­pro­pri­ate.

For exam­ple at the first EF! Gath­er­ing 20 years ago the ques­tion was asked: ‘What is EF!?’ 20 years lat­er in 2011 at the last Moot the same ques­tion was still being asked …

The answer is EF! is what we make it, and this year we are going to make it a space in which we can approach our cam­paigns both crit­i­cal­ly and ana­lyt­i­cal­ly by ask­ing more spe­cif­ic and prac­ti­cal ques­tions. Our activism should be con­stant­ly evolv­ing not stuck in a rut ask­ing the same ques­tions again and again.

The agen­da will be designed to ask ques­tions around four key issues: the tac­tics we use; the strate­gies that we employ in our cam­paigns; com­mu­ni­ty sol­i­dar­i­ty; and sus­tain­able activism. There will be no attempt to reach con­clu­sions or con­sen­sus espe­cial­ly about what EF! is. Instead we want to have dis­cus­sions that lead to new ideas that could evolve ongo­ing cam­paigns or give cre­ative inspi­ra­tion to ones that are just get­ting start­ed.

A free space will be pro­vid­ed in which cam­paigns will be able to hold meet­ings and have fur­ther dis­cus­sions if they wish, and there will also be some space giv­en for cam­paign updates with an empha­sis on hon­est analy­sis rather than pro­mo­tion.

For updates and more info check the web­site or email us.

efwintermoot@noflag.org.uk

Frack Mob at Industry Greenwash Conference

Action: Frack Mob
Tar­get: Indus­try green­wash­ing con­fer­ence
Date: Weds 2nd Novem­ber
Time: 3–6pm
Loca­tion: Copthorne Tara Hotel, Scars­dale Place, Kens­ing­ton, Lon­don

Action: Frack Mob
Tar­get: Indus­try green­wash­ing con­fer­ence
Date: Weds 2nd Novem­ber
Time: 3–6pm
Loca­tion: Copthorne Tara Hotel, Scars­dale Place, Kens­ing­ton, Lon­don

Be part of the UK’s first mass-action against frack­ing.

Do you care about where you live, your health and the plan­et?

Then Join us on the 2nd of Novem­ber for a mas­sive ‘frack mob’. This will be the UK’s first mass-action against frack­ing, and what bet­ter tar­get than an indus­try green­wash love-in?

Frack­ing is in it’s infan­cy in this coun­try, if we are going to kill this thing it has to be now.

This con­fer­ence is all about large com­pa­nies shaft­ing the plan­et in the name of prof­it. We still have time to cut through the bull­shit, scare the investors and tell the com­pa­nies to FRACK OFF!

Lets expose this Green­wash. Bring:

-Gas masks
-Fracked water ( http://www.flickr.com/photos/54095609@N00/sets/72157627591245355/with/6166727923/)
-Any­thing that makes a loud noise
-Green body/face paint
-Chalk/giant chalk ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npcInClZKUI)
-A desire to have FUN

Frack­ing com­pa­nies drill for gas by blast­ing water, sand and cor­ro­sive chem­i­cals deep into the ground to crack the bedrock. Frack­ing poi­sons tap­wa­ter, caus­es earth­quakes and releas­es more green­house gas­es than coal.

Invite your friends and get informed:
- Fol­low @Frack_off on twit­ter
- Go to www.frack-off.org

See you on the streets (near­est tube Kens­ing­ton High St).

info@frack-off.org

BHP Billiton — Dirty Energy protests

Cam­paign­ers from Lon­don Min­ing Net­work, Kick Nuclear, Colom­bia Sol­i­dar­i­ty Cam­paign, Lon­don Ris­ing Tide, Occu­py Lon­don and oth­er groups gath­ered out­side and inside Anglo-Aus­tralian min­ing giant BHP Bil­li­ton’s cen­tral Lon­don AGM to protest the com­pa­ny’s record of envi­ron­men­tal dam­age and forced dis­place­ment of indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties in Colom­bia, Aus­tralia, Indone­sian Bor­neo and else­where, due to its extrac­tion of dirty fuels, includ­ing coal and ura­ni­um.

Some of the group lat­er vis­it­ed the Aus­tralian High Com­mis­sion, demand­ing to speak to an offi­cial about BHP’s ura­ni­um min­ing activ­i­ties and explo­ration on abo­rig­i­nal lands in South and West­ern Aus­tralia. The ‘diplo­mat­ic pro­tec­tion’ police were called by the High Com­mis­sion. When the police arrived, the pro­test­ers were ordered to leave the build­ing.

See also the fol­low­ing reports on the AGM and demo here and here.

 

London September critical mass — pics and short report

sept 30 crit­i­cal mass. police allow motorist to leave the scene of an assault and refuse to take details despite wit­ness­es. did you wit­ness the assault?

the balmy indi­an sum­mer weath­er ensured a good turn-out for the crit­i­cal mass bike ride last fri­day evening, and hun­dreds of cyclists enjoyed a joy­ous ride round lon­don despite the occa­sion­al psy­cho­path­ic motorist and a cou­ple of crazy cops. the crit­i­cal mass bicy­cle ride, now in in its 17th year, takes place on the last fri­day of each month through­out the year.

sept 30 crit­i­cal mass. police allow motorist to leave the scene of an assault and refuse to take details despite wit­ness­es. did you wit­ness the assault?

the balmy indi­an sum­mer weath­er ensured a good turn-out for the crit­i­cal mass bike ride last fri­day evening, and hun­dreds of cyclists enjoyed a joy­ous ride round lon­don despite the occa­sion­al psy­cho­path­ic motorist and a cou­ple of crazy cops. the crit­i­cal mass bicy­cle ride, now in in its 17th year, takes place on the last fri­day of each month through­out the year.

the crit­i­cal mass bicy­cle ride, now in in its 17th year, takes place on the last fri­day of each month through­out the year. cyclists meet from about 6pm on the south bank under water­loo bridge near the nation­al film the­atre, and nor­mal­ly set off on a ride by about 7.

the ride has no offi­cial organ­is­ers, and the route is nev­er agreed in advance, rely­ing instead on a ‘crit­i­cal mass’ of front run­ners per­suad­ing the rest of the crowd to fol­low in any par­tic­u­lar direc­tion.

on fri­day, the con­voy of four or five hun­dred cyclists (also includ­ing an increas­ing con­tin­gent of skate­board­ers) head­ed north over the bridge, and unusu­al­ly took the under­pass into kingsway before head­ing west and on to oxford street.

as the main pur­pose of the mass is to cel­e­brate human propul­sion over car­bon, reclaim the streets, and show that cyclists have as many rights as dri­vers, it is some­times a lit­tle con­tentious when the route includes oxford street so ear­ly in the evening, as it most­ly dis­rupts pub­lic trans­port rather than gen­er­al traf­fic (which isn’t allowed onto oxford street until lat­er in the evening). how­ev­er, the mass kept up the pace and only stopped briefly at oxford cir­cus before head­ing to mar­ble arch and down park lane.

by this time, cyclists had spread out a lit­tle and so it was hard­er to take all four lanes of the road. so despite the neon sign at the start of park lane warn­ing motorists ‘delays pos­si­ble’, some of them were frus­trat­ed to find cyclists in their path (even though they were quite like­ly to get held up again at a traf­fic jam at the south end of the high­way), and among these motorists there was a police car, whose dri­ver reck­less­ly kept chang­ing lanes with­out sig­nalling, and delib­er­ate­ly cut across cyclists forc­ing them to veer to the left, and seri­ous­ly risk­ing injury.

fur­ther down park lane, there had been some sort of alter­ca­tion, and a woman claimed she had been assault­ed and pushed over by a motorist. the police car had stopped and the offi­cers got out, but instead of inves­ti­gat­ing the assault, one of them was mak­ing com­ments loud­ly that “you cyclists are pests”. the young woman, along with wit­ness­es to the assault, kept telling the police that she want­ed to make a com­plaint and press charges, but the cops just ignored her, return­ing to their vehi­cle and wind­ing their win­dows up. they also for a while refused to give any of their own details until sev­er­al cyclists sur­round­ing the car kept ask­ing for their badge num­bers, with which they even­tu­al­ly com­plied. they how­ev­er refused to take any details of the alleged inci­dent. the young woman is con­sid­er­ing an offi­cial police com­plaint. if any­one wit­nessed the assault or took pics/video, please con­tact me and i’ll put you in touch. i only have the clip of the police ignor­ing her requests.

some­times after an inci­dent like this, the mass gets stretched out or split, but this time, the front run­ners were cycling round and round the duke of welling­ton arch at hyde park cor­ner, so every­one recon­vened and hun­dreds of bicy­cles once again rode togeth­er east along pic­cadil­ly, com­plete­ly trap­ping a red diplo­mat­ic police car at one point, and on into pic­cadil­ly cir­cus, trafal­gar square (where a cou­ple of cyclists jumped into the foun­tains to cool off), and down white­hall to par­lia­ment square. there, one rid­er briefly hitched a lift on the back of a lor­ry before we all head­ed up to buck­ing­ham palace, back to hyde park cor­ner and then down to sloane square.

two hours in, and although num­bers were begin­ning to lessen, when i left the ride there were still at least a hun­dred rid­ers head­ing west down the king’s road.

the next ride will be 28th octo­ber.

http://www.criticalmasslondon.org.uk/main.html
More pic­tures and videos at http://london.indymedia.org/articles/10323

Check out if there’s a Crit­i­cal Mass in your town — or start one

new EF! Action Update

In an end of the sum­mer com­pact EF!AU, find news about kick­ing shell in the teeth in Ross­port again and then some more, sol­i­dar­i­ty with the com­mu­ni­ty at Dale Farm, and anti-GM resis­tance — Spuds you Don’t Like demo in Eng­land, sab­o­tage in Ger­many, France and Scot­land.

In an end of the sum­mer com­pact EF!AU, find news about kick­ing shell in the teeth in Ross­port again and then some more, sol­i­dar­i­ty with the com­mu­ni­ty at Dale Farm, and anti-GM resis­tance — Spuds you Don’t Like demo in Eng­land, sab­o­tage in Ger­many, France and Scot­land.

On top of the usu­al con­tacts and dates, read about sol­i­dar­i­ty with jailed Swiss nan­otech activists, resis­tance against steel plants, mobile phone masts, min­ing and ener­gy projects here & across the world — stay angry and don’t car­ry on as usu­al!

The quar­ter­ly EF!AU, August 2011

Get ready for Hinkley blockade — 5th Stop New Nuclear newsletter

Wel­come to our fifth Stop New Nuclear newslet­ter. With lit­tle more than two weeks to go, we need to make a last effort to mobilise even more peo­ple to the block­ade of Hink­ley Point on 3 Octo­ber.

Wel­come to our fifth Stop New Nuclear newslet­ter. With lit­tle more than two weeks to go, we need to make a last effort to mobilise even more peo­ple to the block­ade of Hink­ley Point on 3 Octo­ber. More than 100 peo­ple have pledged to block­ade, and 150 to sup­port — can we reach the total of 300 pledgers with­in the next two weeks? Or even 400? Please help us to spread the infor­ma­tion, and ask your friends, fam­i­ly, col­leagues, … to pledge.

Since our last newslet­ter, we were able to wel­come CND Cym­ru as a new mem­ber of the Stop New Nuclear alliance, and we also received more organ­i­sa­tion­al pledges, among them Cum­bria and Lan­cashire CND, No Need for Nuclear, Stop Old­bury, and the French Sor­tir du Nucle­aire. This broad sup­port is impor­tant, as it shows the strength of our resis­tance against new nuclear pow­er sta­tions in Britain.

News about Hink­ley Point

We have been told that West Som­er­set Coun­cil and Elec­tricite de France (EDF) have now reached an agree­ment about the mon­ey to be paid by EDF (sec­tion 106 agreement),and this agree­ment will prob­a­bly go through the Coun­cil’s plan­ning com­mit­tee on 29 Sep­tem­ber. Once that hap­pened, EDF will have a green light to start with the pre­lim­i­nary works for Hink­ley Point C, even though it has not even applied to the Infra­struc­ture Plan­ning Com­mis­sion for the reac­tors them­selves.

How­ev­er, EDF is already late with the removal of asbestos from the site, which has been left over from the con­struc­tion of Hink­ley Point A. Accord­ing to the plan­ning con­di­tions, work should have been com­plet­ed by 31 August, but it is still con­tin­u­ing, and EDF is now apply­ing for an exten­sion until Feb­ru­ary 2012. Although EDF is in breach of the con­di­tions attached to its plan­ning per­mis­sion, Coun­ty Coun­cil plan­ners have decid­ed not to take any action. The Coun­cil is concerned,however, that if the work con­tin­ues into the win­ter months it could dis­turb migra­to­ry birds which fly along the coast past Hink­ley Point (see Stop Hink­ley press release, 14 Sep­tem­ber 2011).

The Envi­ron­ment Agency is present­ly con­sult­ing on two envi­ron­men­tal per­mit appli­ca­tions in rela­tion to Hink­ley Point C: make dis­pos­als and dis­charges of radioac­tive wastes oper­ate com­bus­tion process­es (stand­by gen­er­a­tors).

Objec­tions to both appli­ca­tions need to be in by 6 Octo­ber 2011.

More infor­ma­tion is avail­able on the web­site of the Envi­ron­ment Agency at http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/homeandleisure/132474.aspx.

The Mar­coule nuclear plant in the south of France on Mon­day 12 Sep­tem­ber which killed one work­er and injured four oth­ers, high­light­ed again the dan­gers of nuclear pow­er. The plant, which is part­ly run by a sub­sidiary of EDF, stores large quan­ti­ties of radioac­tive waste and pro­duces mixed oxide (MOX) reac­tor fuel con­tain­ing plu­to­ni­um. There are also a num­ber of decom­mis­sioned reac­tors from the ear­ly years of the French nuclear pro­gramme.

Stop Hink­ley respond­ed with the fol­low­ing state­ment:

“The acci­dent in France is a sober­ing reminder of what can go wrong when a coun­try com­mits itself so heav­i­ly to nuclear pow­er, includ­ing all the prob­lems asso­ci­at­ed with han­dling radioac­tive waste. Yet we are now propos­ing to import French tech­nol­o­gy to Hink­ley Point and store waste there for 100 years or more. After Fukushi­ma in Japan this acci­dent serves as yet anoth­er trag­ic reminder of the dan­gers of nuclear pow­er and the urgent need for the UK gov­ern­ment to fol­low the lead tak­en by Ger­many in phas­ing it out.” (see http://stophinkley.org/Health/ExplosionSept2011.htm)

Train­ing

Sev­er­al Stop New Nuclear train­ings for the block­ade of Hink­ley Point took place in recent weeks — in Bris­tol, Swansea, Glas­ton­bury, Bridg­wa­ter, Comp­ton Dun­don, and today in Lon­don. Two more train­ings will take place:

Exeter, Sun­day, 25 Sep­tem­ber
A non-vio­lence train­ing for peo­ple from Exeter inter­est­ed in par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Stop New Nuclear block­ade of Hink­ley Point on 3 Octo­ber will take place on Sun­day, 25 Sep­tem­ber 2011 from 1pm to 5.00pm.
Place: Uni­ver­si­ty of Exeter, Streatham Cam­pus, Amory Build­ing, Room 105
Con­tact: exeter [at] stopnewnuclear.org.uk

Leeds, Sun­day, 25 Sep­tem­ber
A non-vio­lence train­ing for peo­ple from York­shire inter­est­ed in
par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Stop New Nuclear block­ade of Hink­ley Point on 3 Octo­ber will take place on Sun­day, 25 Sep­tem­ber 2011 from 2.00pm to 6.00pm.
Place: Leeds Met­ro­pol­i­tan Uni­ver­si­ty — City Cam­pus, LS1 3HE, Calev­er­ley Build­ing, Room CL 309
Con­tact: York­shire CND, phone 01274 730 795, Email dominic [at] yorkshirecnd.org.uk

We will not able to organ­ise more train­ings in the two weeks before the block­ade, but for every­one who still wants to par­tic­i­pate in a train­ing, there will be sev­er­al train­ing ses­sions in the camp on the week­end before the block­ade:

Sat­ur­day, 1 Octo­ber, 7.30–10.30pm
Sun­day, 2 Octo­ber, 8.00–11.00am and 2.00–5.00pm

Legal observer/legal sup­port work­shop Sun­day 3.00–5.00pm

Please reg­is­ter if you want to take part in any of these work­shops at train­ing [at]stopnewnuclear.org.uk, espe­cial­ly if you do not want to stay in the camp. You can also reg­is­ter by call­ing our info num­ber 0845–2872381.

Reg­is­ter for the Stop New Nuclear camp!

We already have more than 45 peo­ple reg­is­tered for the Stop New Nuclear camp, which is about 4 miles from Hink­ley Point. The camp will be a space to pre­pare for the action (non-vio­lence train­ing and legal observ­er train­ing work­shops will take place in the camp on Sat­ur­day evening and Sun­day dur­ing the day), but also a place to meet oth­er activists, to share expe­ri­ence, and to make plans for the future.

Please note that the camp will be alco­hol and drug free, and that dogs are not allowed, as there are sheep near­by.

It is impor­tant that you reg­is­ter for the camp, so that we can plan food, but also so that we can send you the exact loca­tion and direc­tions how to get to the camp. Your can reg­is­ter on our web­site at http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/register.

Demon­stra­tion in Bridg­wa­ter, 1 Octo­ber

Our week­end of actions will kick off with a demon­stra­tion in Bridg­wa­ter on 1 Octo­ber. We will have sev­er­al speak­ers, music, and pos­si­bly oth­er per­for­mances.

Assem­bly is from 1pm on at Kings Square in Bridg­wa­ter, next to the EDF offices. From there we will walk about 20–30 min­utes through Bridg­wa­ter and end the demon­stra­tion with a ral­ly at Corn­hill.

After the demon­stra­tion, a shut­tle ser­vice will be organ­ised to the Stop New Nuclear camp. There is also a local bus, and we will end in time for peo­ple to catch the local bus.

A map mark­ing the assem­bly point and the loca­tion of the ral­ly is
avail­able at http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/node/48.

Trans­port and park­ing

On 3 Octo­ber, we will organ­ise trans­port from the camp to the block­ade, and back to the camp. But we will need your help! Let us know if you have spare seats in your car, or if you are will­ing to dri­ve a car/minibus. We still need dri­vers! Please con­tact us urgent­ly on cam­paign [at] stopnewnuclear.org.uk.

Trans­port is also being organ­ised from Glas­ton­bury (a coach will be leav­ing at 9am,to arrive at 10am), Bris­tol, and pos­si­bly from oth­er places. Please check out our trans­port sec­tion at http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/transport, and use our trav­el forum to ask for and offer trans­port.

Park­ing will be avail­able about 200–300m from the main gate on Wicks Moor Drove, the main and only access road to Hink­ley Point. How­ev­er, this park­ing is not suit­able for coach­es. Coach­es will need to drop off their pas­sen­gers and park else­where.

We need your help

We need a lot of help to make the cam­paign a suc­cess. We need:
Dri­vers (30 Sep­tem­ber — 4 Octo­ber, trans­port to and from the camp, to and from the block­ade, and from police sta­tions).
1st aiders (for the camp and the block­ade)
mar­quees of any size — from 10–100 per­sons

Please con­tact us at cam­paign [at] stopnewnuclear.org.uk if you can help, or have any ques­tions.

Mobilise!

Two weeks to go. Two weeks to make this cam­paign and the block­ade a suc­cess. Please help us mobilise for the cam­paign. If you need fliers (see http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/node/10), please let us know, and we will send you some as long as stock lasts. And talk to your friends, neigh­bours, col­leagues and any­one you can think of to join you at the block­ade. We need to send a strong mes­sage to EDF and gov­ern­ment that we will resist nuclear new built in Britain, not only at Hink­ley, but every­where.

Donate

Stop New Nuclear is being organ­ised on a shoe string bud­get, and we need your dona­tions to make the block­ade a suc­cess. We need to hire minibus­es and oth­er trans­port for the block­ade, we need to set up infra­struc­ture for train­ings and work­shops in the camp, we need to print more fliers, and and and. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, all this costs mon­ey.

Accord­ing to our present cal­cu­la­tions, we will be about £1,300 short! Please help us to close this fund­ing short­fall urgent­ly.

Please give gen­er­ous­ly. You can donate online at
http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/donate, or you can send a cheque made payable to Stop­New Nuclear to:
Stop New Nuclear
c/o 5 Cale­don­ian Road
Lon­don N1 9DX
Thank you!

Stop New Nuclear
Stop New Nuclear is a cam­paign to stop new nuclear pow­er sta­tions and is an alliance of Cam­paign for Nuclear Dis­ar­ma­ment, Stop Nuclear Pow­er Net­work UK, Kick Nuclear, South West Against Nuclear, Shut­down Sizewell, Sizewell Block­aders, Tri­dent Ploughshares, and Stop Hink­ley

Email: campaign@stopnewnuclear.org.uk
Web: http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk

Actions against this year’s 6th biennial DSEi Arms Fair

Actions against this year’s 6th bien­ni­al DSEi Arms Fair at the ExCel Cen­tre in Lon­don’s Dock­lands kicked off last week in the run up to the event. This week’s resis­tance began with a can­dlelit vig­il on Mon­day night fol­lowed by a day of action of Tues­day, dawn­ing to reveal a sub­ver­tised bill­board as well as a huge ‘Destroy DSEi’ ban­ner hung between cranes.

Actions against this year’s 6th bien­ni­al DSEi Arms Fair at the ExCel Cen­tre in Lon­don’s Dock­lands kicked off last week in the run up to the event. This week’s resis­tance began with a can­dlelit vig­il on Mon­day night fol­lowed by a day of action of Tues­day, dawn­ing to reveal a sub­ver­tised bill­board as well as a huge ‘Destroy DSEi’ ban­ner hung between cranes.

A crit­i­cal mass of cyclists was out and about all day with explo­sive sounds and var­i­ous groups block­ad­ed entrances to the arms fair and death deal­ing com­pa­nies such as Aero­space Defence & Secu­ri­ty Group. There were die-ins all over the place, includ­ing out­side the BAe Sys­tems build­ing and at the Nation­al Gallery, where the offi­cial arms fair recep­tion was held on Tues­day evening, guests being greet­ed with chants of “Scum!”

Actions in West­min­ster dur­ing the day includ­ed a CAAT ‘super­mar­ket shop­ping’ event and a Chris­t­ian demon­stra­tion against drones with street the­atre. This lat­er moved on to Gen­er­al Atom­ics, which makes the British Reaper drone. A priest from Brad­ford was allowed to reach the main DSEi entrance after announc­ing that he’d come to per­form the offi­cial exor­cism. Many oth­er actions and visu­al events took place in and around Dock­lands. FIT were all over the place, some thin­ly dis­guised as ordi­nary cops, with FIT­watch­ers keep­ing a close eye on them. Two arrests were report­ed dur­ing the day, one for spray paint­ing anti- arms fair slo­gans and one for fence climb­ing. Sev­er­al more arrests were report­ed out­side the Nation­al Gallery in the evening. [More]

On Wednes­day, around 15 peo­ple marched from cen­tral Lon­don to the Excel cen­tre. Despite a blan­ket 30-day ban on march­es still in place in the City of Lon­don and the bor­ough of Tow­er Ham­lets, there was no police harass­ment.