No Borders Network Gathering 8 & 9 November — update

No Bor­ders Net­work Gath­er­ing
8 & 9 Novem­ber 2008
New­cas­tle upon Tyne

No Bor­ders is a net­work of grass-roots organ­i­sa­tions that sup­port free­dom of move­ment and the abol­ish­ment of bor­ders. The No Bor­ders Gath­er­ing will bring togeth­er groups and indi­vid­u­als from across the UK to dis­cuss, net­work and plan togeth­er.

No Bor­ders Net­work Gath­er­ing
8 & 9 Novem­ber 2008
New­cas­tle upon Tyne

No Bor­ders is a net­work of grass-roots organ­i­sa­tions that sup­port free­dom of move­ment and the abol­ish­ment of bor­ders. The No Bor­ders Gath­er­ing will bring togeth­er groups and indi­vid­u­als from across the UK to dis­cuss, net­work and plan togeth­er.

Work­shops and dis­cus­sions sug­gest­ed include No Bor­ders and workplace/community sol­i­dar­i­ty, anti-depor­ta­tion cam­paigns and wider strug­gles, ID cards plus loads more.

You can con­tact us at whydontyou@post.com or on 07523900260 (text/voicemail) if you’d like more info, would like to sug­gest items for dis­cus­sion at the Gath­er­ing or would like to get involved.

Accom­mo­da­tion will be avail­able, and direc­tions to the venue will be pro­vid­ed near­er the time. Sug­gest­ed dona­tion, to cov­er the costs of the Gath­er­ing, is £10 but no one will be turned away through lack of funds. No Bor­ders t shirts will be avail­able, along with var­i­ous dvds and oth­er infor­ma­tion.

If you are plan­ning to come, please con­tact us to let us know if you would like accom­mo­da­tion, when you will be arriv­ing, and any require­ments, thanks!

No Bor­ders is a net­work of groups strug­gling for the free­dom of move­ment for all and an end to all migra­tion con­trols. We call for a rad­i­cal move­ment against the sys­tem of con­trol, divid­ing us into cit­i­zens and non-cit­i­zens. We demand the end of the bor­der regime for every­one, includ­ing our­selves, to enable us to live anoth­er way, with­out fear, racism and nation­al­ism.
www.noborders.org.uk

World Food Day

Octo­ber 16th, World Food Day is also the 23rd Inter­na­tion­al Day of Action Against McDon­alds, once again to be marked by Veg­gies in Not­ting­ham, this year with a Veg­an Free Food Give­away at Exchange Walk, and in Lon­don by Veg­an Cam­paigns with a protest at Regents Street.

Rich pig eats poorOcto­ber 16th, World Food Day is also the 23rd Inter­na­tion­al Day of Action Against McDon­alds, once again to be marked by Veg­gies in Not­ting­ham, this year with a Veg­an Free Food Give­away at Exchange Walk, and in Lon­don by Veg­an Cam­paigns with a protest at Regents Street.

On 7–8 Octo­ber 2008, the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion, the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment and the Unit­ed Nations marked the anniver­sary of the Dec­la­ra­tion of Human Rights which assures every­one’s enti­tle­ment ‘to a stan­dard of liv­ing ade­quate for the health and well-being of him­self and of his fam­i­ly, includ­ing food’.

Six­ty years after sign­ing that dec­la­ra­tion of good will, the Food and Agri­cul­tur­al Orga­ni­za­tion (FAO) is plan­ning the cel­e­bra­tion of World Food Day 2008 to ‘high­light the plight of 923 mil­lion under­nour­ished peo­ple in the world’.

What went wrong?

Why are almost one bil­lion peo­ple still exclud­ed from the most basic of Human Rights in the 21st cen­tu­ry?

“Every child who dies of hunger in today’s world has been mur­dered,” accused Jean Ziegler, for­mer Unit­ed Nations Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on the Right to Food. Indeed, how can any soci­ety call­ing itself civ­i­lized accept that while world­wide every five sec­onds a child dies because she or he is hun­gry, around 1.5 bil­lion cows and bulls and an astro­nom­i­cal num­ber of oth­er farm ani­mals are being fed with a huge share of avail­able crops?

More than the pop­u­la­tions of USA, Cana­da and the EU do not have enough to eat

Nation­al and inter­na­tion­al deci­sion mak­ers have ini­ti­at­ed a mul­ti­tude of projects and cam­paigns in their fight against hunger; unfor­tu­nate­ly, noth­ing has improved the sit­u­a­tion. The non-stop mis­ery caused by hunger calls urgent­ly for fresh strate­gies, of which veg­e­tar­i­an­ism must be one!

In the inter­est of jus­tice and human­i­ty the present wast­ing of 7–16 kg of grain or soy beans, up to 15,500 litres of water, and 323 m² of graz­ing land that yields just one kilo of beef can­not be allowed to con­tin­ue.

23 Sep­tem­ber 2008 was ‘Over­shoot Day’ — mile­stone when human­i­ty will have used all the resources nature will gen­er­ate this year: http://www.footprintnetwork.org/gfn_sub.php?content=overshoot

Con­sid­er­ing that glob­al­ly, we now require the equiv­a­lent of 1.4 plan­ets to sup­port our lifestyles, ‘Over­shoot Day’ should be a wake-up call for politi­cians and indi­vid­u­als alike.

With the aim of help­ing peo­ple in need, sav­ing the envi­ron­ment and boost­ing pub­lic health, the reduc­tion or the end of eat­ing meat is the eas­i­est and most ben­e­fi­cial way ahead.

The fact that we do have more than enough resources to feed every­one must no longer be com­pro­mised by the greed for meat.

For ref­er­ences see http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/sep/07/food.beef and http://www.evana.org/index.php?id=38147

Inter­na­tion­al Day of Action Against McDon­alds: http://www.veggies.org.uk/event.php?ref=50

Veg­an Cam­paigns (Lon­don): http:www.vegancampaigns.org.uk

Not­ting­ham Veg­an Free Food Give-Aways: http://www.veggies.org.uk/event.php?ref=1400

Past events have includ­ed:

July 31st & August 21st out­side McNasty — http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/nottinghamshire/2008/08/405531.html

July 4th, in advance of Viva!’s Incred­i­ble Veg­gie Road­show — http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/nottinghamshire/2008/07/402884.html

June 3rd: Day of Action on Food and Cli­mate Change — http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/nottinghamshire/2008/06/400106.html

May 15th: McLi­bel Human Rights Anniver­sary — http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/nottinghamshire/2008/05/399158.html

info@veggies.org.uk
http://wwwveggies.org.uk/nvvs

Climate Rush Parliament

13.10.2008

Climate rush 1Climate rush 2
Climate rush 3
13.10.2008
A powe­ful and mov­ing demo at par­lia­ment saw over five hun­dred peo­ple push­ing through police and reach­ing the (locked) doors of par­lia­ment.

After frocks and cake on par­lia­ment square things turned a lit­tle less peace­full as the mass rushed accross the road and reached the doors of par­lia­ment.

Police have been forced to close the main pub­lic entrance to Par­lia­ment after envi­ron­men­tal pro­test­ers attempt­ed to force their way in.

Organ­ised by the Cli­mate Rush group, the aim was to emu­late the attempt by the Suf­fragette move­ment to storm Par­lia­ment 100 years ago.

At about 1830 BST, demon­stra­tors marched to Par­lia­ment where they were stopped by police at the St Stephen’s entrance.

Five peo­ple have been arrest­ed for breach of the peace and a 23-year-old woman has been held for breach of bail, a Met­ro­pol­i­tan Police spokesman said.

Doors at the main St Stephen’s Gate entrance were closed and secured with two large met­al bars. Pro­test­ers strik­ing the doors were clear­ly audi­ble from the inside.

BBC film footage
more pho­tos

Dongria Kondh Road Block — Tribe vows to fight mine with axes and arrows

Tribe vows to fight mine with axes and arrows

One of India’s most iso­lat­ed tribes, the Don­gria Kondh, is prepar­ing to stop British FTSE 100 com­pa­ny Vedan­ta from min­ing alu­mini­um ore on their sacred moun­tain, after police and hired thugs forced pro­tes­tors to dis­man­tle a bar­ri­cade over the week­end.

Tribe vows to fight mine with axes and arrows

One of India’s most iso­lat­ed tribes, the Don­gria Kondh, is prepar­ing to stop British FTSE 100 com­pa­ny Vedan­ta from min­ing alu­mini­um ore on their sacred moun­tain, after police and hired thugs forced pro­tes­tors to dis­man­tle a bar­ri­cade over the week­end.

About 150 peo­ple had blocked the road in Oris­sa state on Wednes­day after hear­ing that Vedan­ta intend­ed to start sur­vey work for a planned alu­mini­um mine which would destroy an eco­log­i­cal­ly vital hill, and the Don­gria Kondh’s most sacred site. Vedan­ta employ­ees vis­it­ed the block­ade repeat­ed­ly, threat­en­ing the pro­tes­tors. On Fri­day the vil­lagers gave in and took down the bar­ri­cade, but about 100 are still at the side of the road, block­ing traf­fic when Vedan­ta vehi­cles approach.

Vedan­ta is major­i­ty owned by Lon­don-based Indi­an bil­lion­aire Anil Agar­w­al.

Today, Don­gria Kondh from all over Niyam­giri, the hill range that would be dec­i­mat­ed by Vedanta’s mine, are mak­ing arrows and prepar­ing their axes to stop Vedan­ta reach­ing their sacred moun­tain. One Don­gria man said today ‘Now our peo­ple are very angry. We have to show the Don­gria Kondh pow­er to Vedan­ta.’

When India’s Supreme Court gave Vedan­ta the green light in August to mine on Don­gria land, around 40 Don­grias used tree trunks to block a road lead­ing into their hills, and held ban­ners read­ing, ‘We are Don­gria Kondh. Vedan­ta can not take our moun­tain.’ [pho­tos avail­able]

The moun­tain that Vedan­ta wants to mine is not only the Don­gria Kondh’s most sacred site, it is also inte­gral to the entire ecosys­tem of the hills, enabling the numer­ous streams and lush forests which sus­tain the Don­grias to con­tin­ue to thrive.

Survival’s direc­tor, Stephen Cor­ry, said today ‘The Don­gria Kondh are pro­tect­ing their land from invaders, who are only inter­est­ed in plun­der­ing the moun­tain for their own gain. The Don­grias will get noth­ing from the mine, except des­ti­tu­tion and ruin, and Sur­vival will con­tin­ue to sup­port their resis­tance to Vedan­ta.’

For more infor­ma­tion please con­tact Miri­am Ross at Sur­vival Inter­na­tion­al (+44) (0)20 7687 8734 or (+44) (0)7504 543 367 or email mr@survival-international.org

Anti-RBS Action, London — Fri 10 Oct 08

What do a Dis­traught Ben­gal Tiger, a Sacked Finan­cial Ana­lyst, a Home­less Polar Bear, and a Job­less Banker all have in com­mon?

RBS recruitment demo 1What do a Dis­traught Ben­gal Tiger, a Sacked Finan­cial Ana­lyst, a Home­less Polar Bear, and a Job­less Banker all have in com­mon? Why they’re all vic­tims of the Car­bon Crunch — the con­fla­tion of Cap­i­tal’s tox­ic Car­bon Addic­tion and it’s self-made Cred­it Crunch. Oh, and they’re also all char­ac­ters in a protest dra­ma played out at the Olympia Exhi­bi­tion Cen­tre between some rad­i­cal smart cook­ies from…
• Peo­ple & Plan­et — http://peopleandplanet.org
• PLATFORM — http://www.platformlondon.org
• Ris­ing Tide — http://risingtide.org.uk & http://londonrisingtide.org.uk
…and some shit­ty-brown suit­ed secu­ri­ty drones.

You know how Finance Cap­i­tal oils the wheels of indus­try? [1] Well one UK bank excels above all oth­ers at oil­ing the wheels and greas­ing the axles of the Cli­mate Crim­i­nal’s Jug­ger­naut — and my, how proud they used to be about doing so. Once upon a time, there was a web­site called www.theoilandgasbank.com — a prod­uct of the Oil Bank of Scot­land (who pre­fer “Roy­al Bank of Scot­land”) — but in Jun 06, RBS took it down and stopped using this title pub­li­cal­ly. But why? This was the first major vic­to­ry in a cam­paign waged since ear­ly 06 by a coali­tion of envi­ron­men­tal NGOs (includ­ing Friends of the Earth Scot­land, Peo­ple & Plan­et and PLATFORM) to wean RBS of its tox­ic addic­tion to financ­ing the cli­mate crim­i­nals of the fos­sil fuel indus­tries, and set it on a healthy diet of financ­ing renew­able ener­gy ini­tia­tives: The Oyal Bank of Scot­land Cam­pain. [2]

THE OIL BANK OF SCOTLAND

“In 2007 RBS sup­port­ed the fos­sil fuel indus­try with over $7 bil­lion, while the bank’s embed­ded emis­sions passed 50 mil­lion tonnes of CO2 – more than Scot­land.”
PLATFORM, in ‘NGOs slam RBS for fos­sil fuel financ­ing on the eve of delayed Cor­po­rate Respon­si­bil­i­ty Report launch’, 10 Jul 08 -
http://www.carbonweb.org/showitem.asp?article=330

Yes, you did read that right — one bank in Edin­burgh is com­plict in MORE cli­mate pol­lu­tion than the ENTIRE NATION of Scot­land!

“RBS-NatWest is dri­ving cli­mate change and feed­ing car­bon addic­tion faster than any oth­er British bank. Pour­ing bil­lions into fos­sil fuels and work­ing inti­mate­ly with oil cor­po­ra­tions, the bank is lock­ing huge emis­sions into our future. Peo­ple & Plan­et and PLATFORM are cam­paign­ing for RBS to recog­nise its cli­mate respon­si­bil­i­ties and move its mon­ey from the dirt­i­est fos­sil fuels into sus­tain­able ener­gy.

OUR DEMANDS
We are call­ing on RBS-NatWest to:
• Accept respon­si­bil­i­ty for the cli­mate impacts of its lend­ing. Cal­cu­late and pub­lish the embed­ded emis­sions result­ing from loans to oil and gas projects.
• Adopt a com­pre­hen­sive cli­mate change pol­i­cy, includ­ing a tar­get for annu­al reduc­tions and the strat­e­gy to achieve this.
• Rebal­ance its lend­ing port­fo­lio away from fos­sil fuels and towards renew­able ener­gy. Imme­di­ate halt on all loans to coal and tar sands.”
Oyal Bank of Scot­land Cam­paign — http://oyalbankofscotland.com

WANNA WORK FOR CLIMATE CRIMINALS?

The Oil Bank of Scot­land is proud of it’s score of grad­u­ate recruit­ment pro­grammes and sports a flashy ani­mat­ed Flash microsite to snap up the bright young things fresh from uni­ver­si­ty — http://www.makeitrbs.com (although it’s foun­da­tions are as dodgy as its fos­sil fuel addic­tion — click­ing any ‘pro­grammes’ link on the ‘Pro­gramme Selec­tor’ pro­duces: “Page not found!”)

We thought we’d bet­ter alert atten­dees at the Nation­al Grad­u­ate Recruit­ment Exhi­bi­tion at Olympia 2 that the recruiters on the RBS stand were con­seal­ing the fact that their hands were cov­ered in oil. But with one recon­nais­sance pho­to tak­en and a few leaflets hand­ed out, we were escort­ed from the Exhi­bi­tion Hall by shit­ty-brown suit­ed secu­ri­ty drones. Unveil­ing our ban­ner out­side led to some very sil­ly cat-&-mouse antics, with one of said drones try­ing to stop two snap­pers shoot­ing his fel­low drones attempts to cen­sor a peace­ful pave­ment protest!

Seems the cops had tipped of their Secu­ri­ty Head Hon­cho (one v v unhhap­py bun­ny) to our arrival, so he’d had con­struct­ed a three-crash-bar­ri­er cage to try (in vain) to con­tain us. Per­haps by stu­pid­i­ty (or maybe as a secret expres­sion of sym­pa­thy? tee­hee 😉 our cage pro­vid­ed per­fect ban­ner mount­ing facil­i­ties, and was per­fect­ly posi­tioned to engage the cap­tive audi­ence of career seek­ers queue­ing up to get in.

While recon­noi­ter­ing the RBS stand, I picked up two toys for my nephews, arche­types of cor­po­rate brad­ing arro­gance — wind-up squishy walk­ing globes of plan­et Earth embla­zoned with the RBS logo. This was on Black Fri­day, the last work­ing day of a week that saw RBS shares have 40% of their val­ue wiped out in Cred­it Crunch recrim­i­na­tions. Here’s hop­ing the sham­bol­ic rout of Finance Cap­tal will refo­cus the minds of the RBS Fat Cats on bequeath­ing to their own young rel­a­tives a bioshere still rich in bio­di­ver­si­ty, and stll fit enough to sus­tain human­i­ty’s urgent­ly required low car­bon econ­o­my.

ALSO AVAILABLE: PIX, REPORT, & CALL TO TAKE ACTION

You can also read about our action in an illus­trat­ed report by Peo­ple & Plan­et media and com­mu­ni­ca­tions vol­un­teer, and mem­ber of West­min­ster Uni P&P, Amani Ashraf — http://peopleandplanet.org/navid6525

Mean­while, YOU TOO can help to shape our ener­gy future — by telling RBS to stop fuelling car­bon addic­tion:
• Take Action on RBS: The Oil Bank of Scot­land — http://www.oyalbankofscotland.com/action.htm
• Take Action to Ditch Dirty Devel­op­ment, Tar­get #1: RBS-NatWest — http://peopleandplanet.org/ditchdirtydevelopment/action

Nei­ther the Inter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice nor any oth­er bour­geois court will put huge dirty cor­po­rate Finace Cap­i­tal bod­ies like RBS in the dock for aid­ing and abet­ting the Cli­mate Crim­i­nals in the fos­sil fuel indus­tries. So its down to us to band togeth­er and force RBS OUT of fos­sil fuel financ­ing and IN to sus­tain­able renew­able ener­gy devel­op­ment — join us, and take pos­i­tive actions to safe­guard our plan­e­tary future.

Tim Dalin­ian Jones

[1] Finance Cap­i­tal oils the wheels of indus­try — at least it did until Cap­i­tal’s his­tor­i­cal Cri­sis of Over­pro­duc­tion [3] found expres­sion in the Cred­it Crunch, top­pling the huge Wall Street domi­no Lehman Broth­ers on 15 Sep 08, since when Finance Cap­i­tal’s lubri­ca­tion ser­vices have all but ceased in a parox­ysms of fear and recrim­i­na­tions.

[2] The Oyal Bank of Scot­land Cam­paign — http://www.oyalbankofscotland.com is the suc­cess­ful cam­paign­ing web­site of the anti-RBS coali­tion of envi­ron­men­tal NGOs, includ­ing:
• Peo­ple & Plan­et — http://peopleandplanet.org
• PLATFORM — http://www.platformlondon.org
• Friends of the Earth Scot­land — http://www.foe-scotland.org.uk/

[3] Cap­i­tal’s his­tor­i­cal Cri­sis of Over­pro­duc­tion: “what char­ac­teris­es the 20th and 21st cen­turies is that the ten­den­cy towards over­pro­duc­tion — which in the 19th cen­tu­ry was tem­po­rary and could eas­i­ly be over­come — has become chron­ic, sub­ject­ing the world econ­o­my to a semi-per­ma­nent risk of insta­bil­i­ty and destruc­tion. Mean­while com­pe­ti­tion — a con­gen­i­tal trait of cap­i­tal­ism — became extreme and, crash­ing up against the lim­its of a world mar­ket which con­stant­ly verged on sat­u­ra­tion, lost its role as a stim­u­lant for the expan­sion of the sys­tem, so that its neg­a­tive side as a fac­tor of chaos and con­flict came to the fore.” ~ ICC, in ‘Cap­i­tal­ist Econ­o­my: Is there a way out of the cri­sis?’, trans­lat­ed from Accion Pro­le­taria 199, the ICC’s pub­li­ca­tion in Spain, Jan-Mar 08 — http://en.internationalism.org/wr/315/crisis-01

Spirit of Freedom (October 2008) — support the eco-prisoners

Pro­duced by EARTH LIBERATION PRISONERS SUPPORT NETWORK

“The whole expe­ri­ence has been tough, but all the kind and strength­en­ing words and wise thoughts from strangers made it much eas­i­er!” (For­mer Swedish Ani­mal Rights Pris­on­er)

Pro­duced by EARTH LIBERATION PRISONERS SUPPORT NETWORK

“The whole expe­ri­ence has been tough, but all the kind and strength­en­ing words and wise thoughts from strangers made it much eas­i­er!” (For­mer Swedish Ani­mal Rights Pris­on­er)

Wel­come to the Octo­ber 2008 edi­tion of Spir­it of Free­dom. The last month has been a month of mixed emo­tions for ELP. On the one hand we heard the bril­liant news that the Dutch ani­mal rights activist, Ger­ben Jan, was found not guilty of assault­ing a police offi­cer, caus­ing the offi­cer to break his leg, dur­ing an ani­mal rights demo in Swe­den. Instead Ger­ban was found guilty of resist­ing arrest for which he was fined and deport­ed. Also in an unex­pect­ed move, all the Aus­tri­an Ani­mal Rights pris­on­ers were released from prison pend­ing their tri­al! Plus, the Amer­i­can veg­an, Nathan Kno­erl, was grant­ed bail in his case where he is accused of involve­ment in an anti-vivi­sec­tion protest. Fol­low­ing Nathans release a sup­port cam­paign has been set up to try and help raise mon­ey for Nathan’s forth­com­ing legal case. For more info please e‑mail supportnathan@gmail.com. How­ev­er, just as ELP start­ed to think our pris­on­er lists might start to go down, we received news of fur­ther police raids in Aus­tria. ELP also learnt that, due to Frank Ambrose, grass­ing every­one up, the Amer­i­can’s Marie Mason, Stephanie Lynne Fultz, and Aren Burth­wick, have all had to enter Plea Bar­gains and admit some of the charges set against them. In Marie’s case she has admit­ted her direct role in an ELF arson on a Uni­ver­si­ty build­ing involved with GM crop tests, whilst Stephanie and Aren have admit­ted not report­ing a fire (Stephanie has admit­ted cut­ting Marie’s hair which was burnt fol­low­ing the arson). We don’t know what sen­tences Stephanie and Aren are like­ly to receive, but Marie is look­ing at 15 to 20 years and has been remand­ed into cus­tody. This is real­ly bad news, espe­cial­ly as it was hoped Marie might remain free until her sen­tenc­ing ear­ly next year. Around the world, peo­ple are being impris­oned for stand­ing up for what they believe in and try­ing to
help the ani­mals and the earth. So please, no mat­ter where you are in the world, sup­port the eco-pris­on­ers. And no com­pro­mise in defence of Moth­er Earth.

ECO-DEFENCE PRISONERS

Tre Arrow, #70936–065, (in tran­sit), USA. Serv­ing 78 months for his involve­ment in two ELF arsons. 1) an arson on log­ging trucks 2) an arson on vehi­cles owned by a sand & grav­el com­pa­ny. (Tre is a raw ener­gy veg­an — He has asked that his let­ters of sup­port are writ­ten on scrap paper or tree-free paper).

Grant Barnes #137563, San Car­los Cor­rec­tion­al Facil­i­ty, PO Box 3, Pueblo, CO 81002, USA. Serv­ing 12 years for set­ting fire to a num­ber of SUV vehi­cles. The let­ters ELF were spray paint­ed onto all of the vehi­cles. (Grant is a veg­an).

Nathan Block, #36359–086, FCI Lom­poc, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, 3600 Guard Road, Lom­poc, CA 93436, USA. Serv­ing 7 years & 8 months for an ELF arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against an SUV deal­er­ship. Also admit­ted his role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy. (Diet unknown).

Mar­co Camenisch, Post­fach 3143, CH-8105 Regens­dorf, Switzer­land. Serv­ing 18 years. 1) Ten years for using explo­sives to destroy elec­tric­i­ty pylons lead­ing from nuclear pow­er sta­tions. 2) Eight years for the mur­der of a Swiss Bor­der Guard whilst on the run. In ’02 Mar­co com­plet­ed a 12-year sen­tence in Italy for destroy­ing elec­tric­i­ty pylons in Italy. (Mar­co is a meat eater who encour­ages organ­ic liv­ing).

Daniele Casali­ni, Casa Cir­con­dar­i­ale, Via Burla 59, 43100 Par­ma, Italy. Il Sil­vestre activist await­ing tri­al accused of using explo­sives to dam­age an elec­tric­i­ty pylon in protest at nuclear ener­gy. (Daniele is a veg­an).

Rod­ney Coro­n­a­do #03895–000, FCI El Reno, PO Box 1500, El Reno, OK 73036, USA. Serv­ing one-year impris­on­ment after he informed peo­ple how to make an incen­di­ary device dur­ing a speech at an ani­mal rights gath­er­ing. (Meat eater).

Francesco Gioia, C.C. Sol­lic­ciano, Via Giro­lamo Min­ervi­ni 2/R, 50142 Firen­ze Sol­lic­ciano (FI), Italy. Il Sil­vestre activist await­ing tri­al accused of using explo­sives to dam­age an elec­tric­i­ty pylon in protest at nuclear ener­gy. (Francesco is a veg­e­tar­i­an and Straight Edge).

Pao­la Gori, Via delle Mac­chie 9, 57124 Livorno, Italy. Il Sil­vestre activist await­ing tri­al accused of allow­ing her house to be used to plan ille­gal activ­i­ty. (Pao­la is a veg­an).

Bryan Lefey #38664–086, FDC SeaT­ac, Fed­er­al Deten­tion Cen­ter, P.O. Box 13900, Seat­tle, WA 98198, USA. On remand accused of an ELF action that saw the dam­ag­ing of GM trees and the dam­ag­ing of US Forestry Ser­vice vehi­cles. (Diet unknown).

Jef­frey Luers, # 13797671, CRCI, 9111 NE Sun­der­land Ave, Port­land, OR 97211–1708, USA. Serv­ing 10 years for arson on a SUV deal­er­ship & the attempt­ed arson of an oil truck. The orig­i­nal sen­tence was 22 years & 8 months, but was reduced on appeal. (Diet unknown).

Marie Jeanette Mason, Neway­go Coun­ty Jail, PO Box 845, White Cloud, MI 49349, USA. Await­ing sen­tenc­ing hav­ing plead­ed guilty to involve­ment in ELF arson against a Uni­ver­si­ty build­ing car­ry­ing out Genet­i­cal­ly Mod­i­fied crop tests. Marie also plead­ed guilty to con­spir­ing to car­ry out ELF actions and also admit­ted involve­ment in 12 oth­er ELF actions. Marie is expect­ed to receive a sen­tence of between 15–20 years. (Marie is a veg­an).

Eric McDavid, 16209–097. FCI Vic­torville Medi­um II, PO BOX 5700, Ade­lan­to, CA 92301, USA. Serv­ing 19 years & 7 months for plan­ning to destroy the prop­er­ty of the U.S. Forestry Ser­vice, mobile phone masts and pow­er plants. At the point of his arrest no crim­i­nal dam­age has actu­al­ly occurred. (Eric is a veg­an).

Daniel McGowan, #63794–053, USP Mar­i­on, US Pen­i­ten­tiary, PO Box 1000, Mar­i­on, IL 62959, USA. Serv­ing 7 years for an ELF arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against an old growth log­ging cor­po­ra­tion. Also admit­ted his role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy. (Daniel is a veg­e­tar­i­an).

Jonathan Paul — See details in Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers List.

Bri­ana Waters 36432–086, FCI Dan­bury, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, Route 37, Dan­bury, CT 06811, USA. Serv­ing six years for involve­ment in an ELF arson on a Uni­ver­si­ty. (Diet unknown).

Joy­an­na Zach­er, #36360–086, FCI Dublin, 5700 8th St.- Camp Parks- Unit F, Dublin, CA 94568, USA. Serv­ing 7 years & 8 months for an ELF arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against an SUV deal­er­ship. Also admit­ted her role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy. (Diet unknown).

ANIMAL LIBERATION PRISONERS
(All Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers fol­low a min­i­mum veg­e­tar­i­an diet and most are veg­an).

Jon Able­white TB4885, HMP Lowd­ham Grange, Lowd­ham, Not­ting­ham, NG14 7DA, Eng­land. Serv­ing 12 years for attempt­ing to black­mail a farmer who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion. (Jon is a veg­an).

Dan Amos VN7818, HMP Win­ches­ter, Rom­sey Road, Win­ches­ter SO22 5DF, Eng­land.
On remand hav­ing plead­ed guilty to con­spir­a­cy to black­mail Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences. (Dan is a veg­an)

Gregg Avery TA7450, HMP Win­ches­ter, Rom­sey Road, Win­ches­ter, SO22 5DF, Eng­land. On remand hav­ing plead­ed guilty to con­spir­a­cy to black­mail Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences. (Gregg is a veg­an).

Natasha Avery NR8987, HMP Bronze­field, Woodthor­pe Road, Ash­ford, Mid­dx. TW15 3JZ, Eng­land. On remand hav­ing plead­ed guilty to con­spir­a­cy to black­mail Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences. (Nat is a veg­an).

Mel Broughton TN9138, HMP Wood­hill, Tat­ten­hoe Street, Mil­ton Keynes, Bucks MK4 4DA, Eng­land. On remand accused of involve­ment with an arson and black­mail cam­paign against an Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty vivi­sec­tion estab­lish­ment.
(Mel is a veg­an).

Jacob Con­roy #93501–011, FCI Vic­torville Medi­um I Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, P.O. Box 5300, Ade­lan­to, CA 92301, USA. Serv­ing 48 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign. (Jake is a veg­an).

Don­ald Cur­rie A3660AA, HMP Parkhurst, New­port, Isle of Wight, PO30 5NX, Eng­land. Serv­ing an Inde­ter­mi­nate Sen­tence, of not less than six actu­al years, for car­ry­ing out arsons against tar­gets asso­ci­at­ed the vivi­sec­tion indus­try includ­ing HLS. (Don is a veg­an).

Lau­ren Gaz­zo­la #93497–011, FCI Dan­bury, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, Route #37Danbury, CT 06811, USA. Serv­ing 54 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign. (Lau­ren is a veg­an).

Joshua Harp­er #29429–086, FCI Sheri­dan Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, P.O. Box 5000, Sheri­dan, OR 97378 USA. Serv­ing 36 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign. (Josh is a veg­an).

Sean Kirt­ley WC 6977, HMP Stafford, 54 Gaol Road, Stafford, ST16 3AW, Eng­land. Serv­ing four and a half years for run­ning an anti-vivi­sec­tion cam­paign web­site. (Sean is a veg­an).

Kevin Kjon­aas #93502–011, FCI Sand­stone, PO Box 1000, Sand­stone, MN 55072 USA. Serv­ing 72 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign. (Kevin is a veg­an).

Daniel McGowan — See details in Eco Defence Pris­on­ers List.

Heather Nichol­son VM4859, HMP Bronze­field, Woodthor­pe Road, Ash­ford, Mid­dx. TW15 3JZ, Eng­land. On remand accused of con­spir­a­cy to black­mail, in rela­tion to her involve­ment with the SHAC cam­paign. (Heather is a veg­an).

Jonathan Paul, #07167–085, FCI Phoenix, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, 37910 N 45th Ave., Phoenix, AZ 85086, USA. Sen­tenced to 51 months for an ALF arson on a horse meat plant. Also admit­ted his role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy. (Jonathan is a veg­an).

John Smith, TB4887, HMP Lind­holme, Bawtry Road, Hat­field Wood­house, Don­cast­er, DN7 6EE, Eng­land. Serv­ing 12 years for attempt­ing to black­mail a farmer who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion. (John is a veg­an).

Andrew Stepan­ian #26399–050, USP Mar­i­on, P.O. Box 1000 Mar­i­on, IL 62959, USA. Serv­ing 36 months for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign. (Andrew is a veg­an).

Ker­ry Whit­burn TB4886, HMP Lowd­ham Grange, Lowd­ham, Not­ting­ham, NG14 7DA, Eng­land. Serv­ing 12 years for attempt­ing to black­mail a farmer who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion. (Ker­ry is a veg­an).

Sarah White­head, VM7684, HMP Bronze­field, Woodthor­pe Road, Ash­ford, Mid­dx, TW15 3JZ, Eng­land. Serv­ing two years for: 1) res­cu­ing a pup­py from hor­rif­ic con­di­tions. 2) res­cu­ing over 100 ani­mals from a pet breed­er who was lat­er pros­e­cut­ed for ani­mal abuse. Also await­ing tri­al for SHAC activ­i­ty. (Sarah is a veg­an)

PLOUGHSHARES PRISONERS

Helen Wood­son, 03231–045, FMC Car­swell — Admin. Max. Unit, POB 27137, Ft. Worth, TX 76127, USA. Serv­ing 8 years 10 months for actions that focused on the inter­re­la­tion­ship of war & the destruc­tion of the nat­ur­al world. The actions includ­ed pour­ing red paint over the secu­ri­ty desk of a fed­er­al court and mak­ing threat­en­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tions. Pre­vi­ous­ly Helen had served 20½ years for: 1) Using a ham­mer to dis­arm a nuclear mis­sile silo. 2) Burn­ing $25,000 on the floor of a bank whilst denounc­ing war, envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion & eco­nom­ic injus­tice. 3) Mail­ing warn­ing let­ters with bul­lets attached to Gov­ern­ment & cor­po­rate offi­cials. (Diet unknown).

THE LECCE DEFENDANTS
The Lec­ce Defen­dants have been charged with “sub­ver­sive asso­ci­a­tion” accused of dam­ag­ing Esso petrol pumps to oppose the War on Iraq; sab­o­tag­ing the cash machines of a bank which funds an immi­gra­tion cen­tre; and tar­get­ing the multi­na­tion­al com­pa­ny Benet­ton in sup­port of Mapuche land rights activists in Chile. All of the defen­dants are cur­rent­ly either under house arrest or released on bail.

ANTIFA PRISONERS

Vah­tang Devitlidze, ul. Libbedo­va 42, UO 68/2, otryad 14, briga­da 142, g. Hagyshen­sk, Krasnodarskiy Kray, 352680 Rus­sia. Serv­ing 2½ years for stab­bing a neo-nazi in the leg whilst defend­ing him­self from attack. (Diet unknown).

Fabio Milan, C.C. via Pianez­za 300, 10151 Tori­no, Italy. On remand accused of fight­ing with the police after an anti-fas­cist protest. (Diet unknown).

Andrea Neff, Bnr: 746/07/2, Jus­tizvol­lzugsanstalt fur Frauen in Berlin, Arkonas­trasse 56, 13189 Berlin, Ger­many. Serv­ing 14 months for anti-fas­cist activ­i­ty. (Diet unknown).

Chris­t­ian Süm­mer­mann, Bnr: 441/08/5, JVA Plötzensee, Lehrter­str. 61, 10557
Berlin, Ger­many. Serv­ing 40 months for breach­ing the peace whilst serv­ing a sus­pend­ed sen­tence issued for anti-fas­cist activ­i­ties. (Diet unknown).

Tomasz Wiloszews­ki, Zak­lad Karny, Orze­chowa 5, 98–200 Sier­adz, Poland.
Serv­ing 15 years for acci­den­tal­ly killing a neo-nazi whilst defend­ing him­self. (Tomasz is a veg­e­tar­i­an).

Yuri Yure­vich Milevskiy, SIZO #7 kam­era 38, g. Brest, ul. Kar­la Mark­sa 86, 224000 Belarus. On remand for fight­ing with neo-nazis. (Diet unknown).

OTHER PRISONERS

Olga Alek­san­drov­na Nevskaya, UU163/5, 7 Otryad, pos. Dzerzhin­skiy, Mozhaysk 140090 Moskovskaya oblast, Rus­sia. Eco-activist serv­ing 6 years for arson, crim­i­nal dam­age and caus­ing explo­sions in protest at the war in Chech­nya. Due for release in 2009. (Diet unknown).

Vagge­lis Botzatzis, Komo­ti­ni Juridi­cal Prison (“Dikastikes Fylakes Komo­ti­nis”), T.K. 69100, Greece. On remand accused of set­ting fire to two com­pa­ny cars owned by a energy/power com­pa­ny. It is believed that the per­son or per­sons unknown who car­ried out the arson did so in protest at the destruc­tion of the nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment and in sup­port of two work­ers who died at the pow­er plant. Vagge­lis is also accused of set­ting fire to a bank and start­ing a fire inside a car yard. (Meat Eater).

Richard Sills (Address Unknown, USA). Serv­ing 15 months for bomb hoax­ing a Uni­ver­si­ty say­ing they would be tar­get­ed by the ALF if they didn’t stop their ani­mal exper­i­ments. (Diet unknown).

Michael W. Sykes, 696693, 3855 Coop­er St, Jack­son, MI 49201, USA. Youth held on remand accused of anti-sprawl arsons, crim­i­nal dam­age, spray-paint­ing an anar­chist sign and burn­ing the Amer­i­can flag. (Diet unknown)

Fran Thomp­son, #1090915 HU 1C, WERDCC, PO Box 300, Van­dalia, MO 63382, USA. Serv­ing Life for killing, in self-defence, a stalk­er who had bro­ken into her home. Before her impris­on­ment Fran was an eco, ani­mal & anti-nuke cam­paign­er. (Fran is a veg­an).

MOVE

MOVE is an eco-rev­o­lu­tion­ary group who car­ried out protests in defence of all life. All move pris­on­ers describe them­selves as veg­e­tar­i­ans. There are cur­rent­ly eight MOVE activists in prison each serv­ing 100 years after been framed for the mur­der of a cop in 1979. 9th defen­dant, Mer­le Africa, died in prison in 1998.

Deb­bie Simms Africa (006307), Janet Hol­loway Africa (006308) and Janine Philips Africa (006309) all at: SCI Cam­bridge Springs, 451 Fuller­ton Ave, Cam­bridge Springs, PA 16403–1238, USA.

Michael Davis Africa (AM4973) and Charles Simms Africa (AM4975) both at SCI Grater­ford, PO Box 244, Grater­ford, PA 19426–0244, USA.

Edward Good­man Africa (AM4974), SCI Mahanoy, 301 Morea Rd, Frackville, PA 17932, USA.

William Philips Africa (AM4984) and Del­bert Orr Africa (AM4985) both at SCI Dal­las Draw­er K, Dal­las, PA 18612, USA.

Mumia Abu Jamal, (AM8335), SCI Greene, 175 Progress Dri­ve, Way­nes­burg PA 15370, USA. In 1981 Mumia, for­mer Black Pan­ther and vocal sup­port­er of MOVE, was framed for the mur­der of a cop. He was orig­i­nal­ly sen­tenced to death but is cur­rent­ly await­ing re-sen­tenc­ing fol­low­ing a court hear­ing in 2001.

STATEMENT ON VIOLENCE
Some peo­ple list­ed in this newslet­ter have car­ried out vio­lent actions. ‘Spir­it of Free­dom’ does not con­done vio­lence. But we are also against cen­sor­ship & believe peo­ple can decide for them­selves who they wish to sup­port.

ABOUT E.L.P. SUPPORT NETWORK
ELP is an inter­na­tion­al eco-pris­on­er sup­port net­work found­ed, in Britain, in 1993 to sup­port jailed eco-activists. We sup­port the pris­on­ers by pro­duc­ing var­i­ous reg­u­lar pris­on­er lists:

Spir­it of Free­dom is ELP’s inter­na­tion­al month­ly pris­on­er list­ing which is cir­cu­lat­ed by e‑mail.

Urgent ELP! Bul­letin is an e‑mail ser­vice that dis­trib­utes the names of any new eco-pris­on­er as soon as ELP gets their details. For more info e‑mail ELP4321@hotmail.com

On-Line Newslet­ters — ELP has a num­ber of web­sites that pro­vide news, pris­on­er lists and addi­tion­al info about ELP & the pris­on­ers.

Eng­lish lan­guage ELP Web­site
www.spiritoffreedom.org.uk

Greek lan­guage ELP Web­site
http://greekelp.blogspot.com

North Amer­i­can ELP Web­site
www.ecoprisoners.org

Turk­ish lan­guage ELP Web­site
www.geocities.com/yesilanarsi/elp.htm

ELP Extra is an e‑mail group that cir­cu­lates the details of polit­i­cal pris­on­ers, ELP learns about, who do not fall with­in the remit for sup­port by ELP. To sub­scribe to the list e‑mail ELP4321@Hotmail.com

Aus­tralian ELP.SN is our Aus­tralian con­tact. For more info e‑mail elp4321@hotmail.com

Bel­gium ELP.SN is our Bel­gium con­tact. For more info e‑mail elp_bel@hotmail.com

Ger­man ELP.SN is a pris­on­er led ini­tia­tive run by eco-pris­on­er Mar­co Camenisch. For more info con­tact Mar­co Camenisch, Post­fach 3143, CH-8105 Regens­dorf, Switzer­land.

Greek ELP.SN is our Greek con­tact. For more info e‑mail greekelp@yahoo.gr

North Amer­i­can ELP is our North Amer­i­can con­tact. For more infor­ma­tion e‑mail naelpsn@mutualaid.org

Turkey ELP.SN is our Turk­ish con­tact. For more info e‑mail
yesilanarsi@yahoo.com

Earth Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers Sup­port Net­work
elp4321@hotmail.com
http://spiritoffreedom.org.uk

UK No Borders Gathering 8–9 November

Just over a month till the next net­work-wide No Bor­ders Gath­er­ing, to be held in New­cas­tle on 8 & 9 Novem­ber.

The Gath­er­ing will be a chance to dis­cuss, net­work and plan, and to build on the dis­cus­sions held at the last net­work-wide Gath­er­ing ear­li­er this year.

Just over a month till the next net­work-wide No Bor­ders Gath­er­ing, to be held in New­cas­tle on 8 & 9 Novem­ber.

The Gath­er­ing will be a chance to dis­cuss, net­work and plan, and to build on the dis­cus­sions held at the last net­work-wide Gath­er­ing ear­li­er this year.

The Gath­er­ing is a col­lec­tive­ly organ­ised event with shared respon­si­bil­i­ty for con­tent and organ­i­sa­tion, being co-ordi­nat­ed this time by peo­ple in New­cas­tle. It will take place on Sat­ur­day 8th and Sun­day 9th Novem­ber, start­ing 9am for break­fast for a 10am start each day, end­ing at 6pm on the Sat­ur­day and 2pm on the Sun­day. Venue details and direc­tions will be post­ed near­er the time. Accom­mo­da­tion will be avail­able on request.

You can con­tact us at whydontyou@post.com if you’d like more info, would like to sug­gest items for dis­cus­sion at the Gath­er­ing or would like to get involved.

No Bor­ders is a net­work of groups strug­gling for the free­dom of move­ment for all and an end to all migra­tion con­trols. We call for a rad­i­cal move­ment against the sys­tem of con­trol, divid­ing us into cit­i­zens and non-cit­i­zens.
We demand the end of the bor­der regime for every­one, includ­ing our­selves, to enable us to live anoth­er way, with­out fear, racism and nation­al­ism.
Vis­it the web­site www.noborders.org.uk

new­cas­tle plan­ning group
whydontyou@post.com

New social centre in camberwell, london

26.9.2008
About a year after the evic­tion of the for­mer New Cam­ber­well Cen­tre, a new social cen­tre has been opened in Cam­ber­well, not far away from where the pre­vi­ous one stood.

The build­ing where the Cam­ber­well Cen­tre stood has been left emp­ty for this entire year, and only last week the boards that were placed out­side were seen with a gap to allow phys­i­cal access through the door.

26.9.2008
About a year after the evic­tion of the for­mer New Cam­ber­well Cen­tre, a new social cen­tre has been opened in Cam­ber­well, not far away from where the pre­vi­ous one stood.

The build­ing where the Cam­ber­well Cen­tre stood has been left emp­ty for this entire year, and only last week the boards that were placed out­side were seen with a gap to allow phys­i­cal access through the door.

Any­way — we have a new social cen­tre! — address is 52 Knatch­bull Road, although the entrance is through the gate on Bur­ton rd, and the build­ing is right behind Minet Library.

Meet­ings are hap­pen­ing week­ly already. Elec­tric­i­ty needs sort­ing out (hence call to all autonomous ener­gy gen­er­a­tor sys­tems) and gar­den needs clear­ing. All wel­come to help, get involved …

The next meet­ing is on Tues­day 30th Sep­tem­ber at 7pm

Open­ing Event in New Autonomous Space Cam­ber­well: THE LIBRARY HOUSE

CALLING OUT TO ALL AND EVERYONE A NEW SPACE HAS BEEN OPENED:

THE LIBRARY HOUSE.
52 KNATCHBULL ROAD (behind library, junc­tion with Bur­ton rd)
SE5 9QY
CAMBERWELL

WE ALL HAVE A NEW AUTONOMOUS SPACE IN SOUTH LONDON TO PLAY IN. TOGETHER WITH ALL OUR ENERGY AND IDEAS WE CAN CREATE A NEW AND INSPIRING PLACE EVERYBODY TO EXPERIMENT IN AND ENJOY.

OPENING EVENT
Sat­ur­day 4th of Octo­ber, 3pm onwards, will be our first open day. Food, music, gar­den­ing, work­shops, DIY…

LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING YOUR KNOWN FACES WITH NEW ONES.

THE LIBRARY HOUSE.

Police attack on London Critical Mass & I Bike MCR Mini Festival & South London CM reminder & Liverpool report

While there was a notable absence of police on the Sep­tem­ber Crit­i­cal Mass ride in Lon­don, we did have one unpleas­ant encounter with a very aggres­sive group of offi­cers from the TSG unit.

While there was a notable absence of police on the Sep­tem­ber Crit­i­cal Mass ride in Lon­don, we did have one unpleas­ant encounter with a very aggres­sive group of offi­cers from the TSG unit.

Trav­el­ling between Vic­to­ria Street and Buck­ing­ham Palace Road on Fri­day night, we ran into a van load of police dressed in over­alls, fleeces and base­ball caps. Their van was an odd sil­ver grey colour and appar­ent­ly was not equipped with a siren or flash­ing lights.

To com­pen­sate for their lack of ade­quate appa­ra­tus the offi­cers, led by # SX 836, attempt­ed to force their way through the mass by knock­ing rid­ers to the ground, and drag­ging oth­ers to the side of the road and dump­ing them on the pave­ment.

At one point SX 836 encour­aged dri­vers of oth­er vehi­cles to ram the mass, telling them “Just dri­ve at them, they’ll get out of the way!” despite the fact that we were all in the mid­dle of a traf­fic jam at the time. Anoth­er offi­cer involved whose num­ber I man­aged to note down was QA 232.

Pho­tos::
http://18hz.deid.net/2008/septembermass/vikings03im.jpg
http://18hz.deid.net/2008/septembermass/vikings01im.jpg

High­er res­o­lu­tion ver­sions of my pho­tos can be fund at

http://www.flickr.com/photos/29703759@N08/sets/72157607617808713/

One hel­l­l­l­ll of a mass (lon­don)

crit­i­cal mass lon­don | 01.10.2008 23:33 | Cli­mate Chaos | Lon­don
And there’s plen­ty more dra­ma to come …

I got out of work at about half past five, so i came down to the south bank ear­ly; the tide was out, so i spent a while strolling on the beach of the Thames. It’s an amaz­ing place — a beach in the mid­dle of a city of sev­en mil­lion peo­ple, and desert­ed except for me and two or three oth­ers. Like a rub­bly, silty secret gar­den.

Back up on ground lev­el, we once again set off a good few ticks after sev­en. Boo hiss. But at least we went through the Kingsway under­pass!

But — shock hor­ror! — with no cops. I did­n’t see a sin­gle poli­ceper­son accom­pa­ny­ing the ride — did my eyes deceive me? How could this be? Any­body know? We did have the cycling ambu­lance­man with us, though.

I’m very pleased to say that, as far as i could tell, the mass ran like clock­work. We kept togeth­er (most­ly — we split into a fast and a slow pack after Buck­ing­ham Palace, and i bounced between the two for a bit), we corked — we even let pedes­tri­ans through! Bril­liant! Pats on backs all round!

Although one thing that was evi­dent was much more aggres­sion from dri­vers, par­tic­u­lar­ly black cab dri­vers. Recent­ly, we’ve always had cop­pers around, and cab­bies have behaved them­selves. Tonight, though, their basic feroc­i­ty was ful­ly in evi­dence. There were two main instances of this that i saw.

The first was on High Hol­born, at the junc­tion where i spoke to the ambu­lance­man — this was why i was stopped. The mass was com­ing along from the east; i think the advance bulk had passed through, and then was a thin­ner stream of us com­ing along behind. A black cab was sat in Grape Street (i think — i’m look­ing at a map here; one of the side streets off on the north, just before the junc­tion), and i imag­ine had been wait­ing a while for the mass to pass. When it thinned out, he took his chance (we had­n’t corked him), and came out onto High Hol­born, turn­ing right, and stay­ing in the right­mos lane. Fifty metres ahead of him was a red light at the junc­tion. Less than fifty metres ahead of him was a mass­er, rid­ing slow­ly. The cab dri­ver drove less slow­ly — he drove right up to with­in inch­es of the mass­er, tail­gat­ed him for ten metres or so, and then quite delib­er­ate­ly drove straight into the back of him. The guy went down, the cab stopped, and a crowd of us clot­ted around the scene. Luck­i­ly, the guy was­n’t hurt.

I was to the left of this, in the sec­ond or third lane over, and a lit­tle way behind the cab; i saw every­thing hap­pen right in front of me. It was quite obvi­ous that the cab dri­ver did it delib­er­ate­ly: the mass­er was rid­ing at a con­stant speed, and the dri­ver accel­er­at­ed, hit­ting him. he had dri­ven to with­in inch­es of him, which is sim­ply not a safe way to dri­ve.

So, we made sure the taxi was­n’t going any­where, took pho­tos of the scene, reg­is­tra­tion plate, dri­ver, etc, and some of us who had seen it gave the guy our details. The cab­bie was­n’t giv­ing his details, though. Some­one called the police, and after a while our friends in blue duly turned up and did their best to work every­one up into a froth­ing rage. Do cops get train­ing in deal­ing with angry pun­ters (oth­er than with a trun­cheon)? Because these guys were to defus­ing con­fronta­tions as Guy Fawkes was to the bomb squad. Any­way, even­tu­al­ly, ques­tions were asked, details were record­ed and exchanged, and the lead cop­per declared that he was record­ing this as a no-injury col­li­sion, and they weren’t going to fol­low it up. Appar­ent­ly delib­er­ate­ly dri­ving into a cyclist does­n’t count as care­less dri­ving or any­thing. He came out with, essen­tial­ly, the usu­al crap about ‘our word against his’. Dur­ing this i had a long chat with the oth­er cop­per, who seemed very nice when he was­n’t try­ing to start a fight, but com­plete­ly clue­less about cycling, and indeed road safe­ty gen­er­al­ly. Still, i’m sure if i want­ed an elec­tri­cian shot dead, he’d be just my man.

I also talked to the mass­er who was hit, his two friends, and a couri­er­ish guy who also stopped. I did­n’t quite get the vic­tim’s name. Nice lad. As i said, he was­n’t hurt, but his back wheel went under the cab’s, and was pret­ty bent. I had a look at it: the hub looked like it should be okay, and the tyre and tube should be fine, but he’s going to need a new rim, (it was a Bon­trager, the poor thing!) spokes, and brake disc. Basi­cal­ly, he’s going to need a new wheel. I could­n’t see any dam­age to the stays, mech, etc, but he needs to take it to a bike shop to get it checked out. He’s got the cab­bie’s insur­ance details; he did­n’t real­ly seem to under­stand about how insur­ance works, but i’m sure he knows some­one who does.

I sug­gest­ed we bend the wheel back into shape so he could at least roll the bike home, so we found a fence and did a bit of ghet­to tru­ing — an essen­tial urban cycling skill, and the sec­ond time i’ve had to do it on a mass! He and a friend set off walk­ing for King’s Cross to catch a train home. I sin­cere­ly hope he did­n’t decide to try and ride — he had rather a touch of teenage invin­ci­bil­i­ty, so i wor­ry he might have.

Any­way, one of his friends had received a sig­nal that the rest of the mass was at Buck­ing­ham palace, so he, the couri­er­ish guy and i set off. We got there a few min­utes before the mass set off again — i just had time to wish Des Kay well with the Lords and ride a lap round the top of the Vic­to­ria Memo­r­i­al.

After that, we start­ed to get spread out, between the main body at the front and a long tail of slow rid­ers. I’m a speed­ster myself, so i was half tempt­ed to go a bit sheep­dog on them and get them mov­ing, but i end­ed up bounc­ing back and forth — going for­ward, help­ing cork or just wait­ing, and being caught up.

Taxi inci­dent num­ber two came as we rode down Theobald’s road. A stream of traf­fic was try­ing to come in from the right, i think from Red Lion Street (again, i’m look­ing at a map and guess­ing), and had been corked. There were only a few peo­ple there, so i looped back and joined them.

At the front of the queue was a taxi dri­ver. He was­n’t very hap­py about being stopped, and insist­ed we move. We did­n’t, of course — the mass was still pass­ing. He got rather upset, and start­ed shout­ing. He then start­ed edg­ing his taxi for­ward — he went from being a foot away from us to actu­al­ly press­ing his right fend­er into my leg and start­ing to push me over; there was anoth­er guy beside me, and a few peo­ple around us, and we made it clear we weren’t going any­where until the mass had passed. It did, and i was set to go — but he was still press­ing into my leg, which meant i actu­al­ly could­n’t get on my bike and move off. If i had, and he’d edged for­ward any fur­ther, i would have gone straight under him. Bit of an impasse, cue much shout­ing.

Even­tu­al­ly, he stopped his engine, got out of his cab, and came up to me and tried to shove my bike out of the way. Because he’d stopped, i was actu­al­ly able to move, and was quite hap­py to do so, so in a way, his move was quite suc­cess­ful! There was a bit more shout­ing, with nei­ther side real­ly want­i­ng to let the oth­er have the last word (although i was silent — i just want­ed to get home and have my din­ner), and a dis­gust­ing drunk old fat man walked over and start­ed shout­ing and shov­ing a lady mass­er about, but even­tu­al­ly we dis­en­tan­gled our­selves and rode on.

By this point, i was get­ting tired and hun­gry, our num­bers were down, and i decid­ed to call it a night. We hit the junc­tion with Rose­bery Avenue, where i turn left. The mass default­ed to head­ing straight on, but a few peo­ple were shout­ing to go left: i men­tioned that i was in favour of that because i want­ed to go home; the girl beside me said she want­ed to go left because she want­ed some dori­tos, which i found quite puz­zling.

It was only after i’d sped away into the night that i realised she’d said ‘bur­ri­tos’, and must have been refer­ring to the real­ly good lit­tle bur­ri­to place at Angel. I could have kicked myself, because i could real­ly have gone for a bur­ri­to right then.

And that, as they say, is that.

http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/cm-london
http://www.criticalmasslondon.org.uk/

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

I Bike MCR presents a week long series of cycling events and activ­i­ties to cel­e­brate the bicy­cle from 6th-12th Octo­ber 2008

I Bike MCR is a grass­roots vol­un­tary group where every­one gives their time and skills for free. We organ­ise events that aim to pro­mote cycling and to build a strong sup­port­ive cycling com­mi­u­ni­ty in MCR. We do this in our own spare time because we believe that giv­ing our time to make a change will be worth it.

It will be a free fes­ti­val in order to make it acces­si­ble to every­one no mat­ter their eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion. We will, how­ev­er, ask for dona­tions to go to help­ing the I Bike MCR cycle cam­paign, you can give mon­ey or time please look here for info:
http://www.ibikemcr.org.uk/minihelp.htm

MINI FESTIVAL TIMETABLE
Every week-day morn­ing we will be hav­ing a group ride from Owen’s Park in Fal­low­field down Oxford Road to the Uni­ver­si­ties so that stu­dents can meet each oth­er and gain con­fi­dence by cycling in togeth­er as a group.

Meet in the carpark area of Owens Park (map)
8.15am, we’ll leave at 8.30am PROMPT to get into uni at 8.45am
We hope this will con­tin­ue after the week fes­ti­val is over.

Mon­day 6th Octo­ber
7.30pm Coun­cil Cham­bers Man­ches­ter Uni­ver­si­ty
Bicy­cle Film Night

Tues­day 7th Octo­ber
Meet 6pm Out­side Man­ches­ter Uni­ver­si­ty refec­to­ry
A bicy­cle tour around our city, tak­ing you to the nicest parks, the best bike shops, cool places to hang out, the best cycle routes, nice land­marks and nice pubs.

Wednes­day 8th Octo­ber
2pm — 5pm Email info@ibikemcr.org.uk to book a place
FREE Bicy­cle Con­fi­dence lessons. Book asap to reserve a place.
No mat­ter whether you need some tips on how to deal with a par­tic­u­lar junc­tion or how to ride one hand­ed you can ben­e­fit from a bike con­fi­dence class with a qual­i­fied cycling instruc­tor.

7pm Bas­ket­ball courts in Platt Fields Park
The Spokes Bicy­cle Dance Troupe,
The all woman Spokes bike dance troupe have an open prac­tice to encour­age more bike lov­ing women to get involved and join them in danc­ing with their bikes to encour­age more women and girls to cycle.

Thurs­day 9th Octo­ber
6pm Whit­worth Park, Den­mark Road
Bicy­cle Polo Prac­tice. We will teach new­com­ers how to play this exhil­a­rat­ing and fun sport.

Fri­day 10th Octo­ber
Reg­is­ter at 6pm, Ride at 7pm…
Meet in the carpark behind the Sand­bar, Grosvenor Street (map)
I Bike MCR Super­heroes Trea­sure­cat.
No mat­ter what bike you’re on or how well you know the city you can take part (and have a chance to win!) in this trea­sure hunt on bicy­cles.

* Dress as a super­hero for more points..go all out!
* Ride as a dynam­ic duo, both peo­ple must be present at each check­point but only one needs to do the task (if you can’t find a part­ner before­hand, don’t wor­ry you’re sure to find one on the night)
* With a final sprint to see which out of your pair is the super­hero and which is the side­kick
* If the phone rings answer it. You may get a secret mis­sion to win more points, then choose if you want to go for fastest time or most points
* Prizes for a wide vari­ety of things NOT JUST FASTEST. inc.Team back at any time with the most points, Win­ner of the final sprint, Best cos­tume and loads more…So it’s open for any­one to win a prize no mat­ter how lit­tle you know the city or how fast you can ride

Amaz­ing prizes from:
Cant­goslo
Baga­boo
Seag­ull Bags
HK Fixed
Knog
Edin­burgh Bicy­cle Co-oper­a­tive
Bicy­cle Bou­tique

Sat­ur­day 11th Octo­ber
Noon at Pic­cadil­ly train sta­tion
or 1.30pm at Delamere For­est Infor­ma­tion Cen­tre
Moun­tain bik­ing in Delamere For­est
(you can hire moun­tain bikes there)

8pm The Sand­bar Grosvenor Street (map)
Moon­light Ride: a 3 hour cir­cu­lar ride into the night with a pub stop.

Sun­day 12th Octo­ber
Noon Meet Sains­bury’s Carpark, off Wilm­slow Road, Fal­low­field
A ride along one of Man­ches­ter’s nicest off road cycle routes, the Fal­low­field Loop, where we will stop off to help cre­ate a mur­al depict­ing the cel­e­bra­tion of the bicy­cle. Every­one wel­come to get involved mak­ing the Fal­low­field Loop brighter and fun. Bring brush­es, tat­ty clothes, paints and lots of enthu­si­asm (don’t wor­ry if you not that artis­tic we’ll find some way for you to help!)

info@ibikemcr.org.uk
http://ibikemcr.org.uk/

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

The 4th South Lon­don crit­i­cal mass bike ride is this fri­day and every first fri­day of the month.

Come and lib­er­ate the streets of south lon­don, tak­ing the mass to the mass­es not just to shoppers,tourists and irate cab­bies. Meet 6.30pm out­side Peck­ham Library,off Peck­ham High Street.

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

Big Turnout for Liv­er­pool Crit­i­cal Mass

This mon­th’s crit­i­cal mass was big­ger than ever. The ride end­ed at Next To Nowhere (social cen­tre) where the rid­ers got free refresh­ments and saw a film.

Dozens of cyclists of all ages and back­grounds, from stu­dents to social work­ers, turned out. They includ­ed a vis­i­tor who has recent­ly come from New Zealand and took part in crit­i­cal mass rides there.

After doing a tour around the city cen­tre they stopped at the social cen­tre, where they were giv­en free soup and cakes, and watched a film show­ing the his­to­ry of how the Crit­i­cal Mass rides start­ed in San Fran­cis­co in 1993. The rides in that city grew to thou­sands-strong, and worked beau­ti­ful­ly through col­lec­tive organ­i­sa­tion, with­out com­mit­tees or lead­ers. They had the effect of caus­ing more peo­ple to com­mute by bicy­cle instead of car, and to use the bicy­cle as their nor­mal trans­port. This was dis­rupt­ed when the San Fran­cis­co police decid­ed the cyclists need­ed to be “organ­ised” and made to fol­low offi­cial­ly des­ig­nat­ed routes. Ulti­mate­ly, how­ev­er, the cyclists decid­ed they did­n’t want or need to be organ­ised.

Liv­er­pool Crit­i­cal Mass has not so far had any police inter­fer­ence, and is suc­cess­ful­ly enabling cyclists to use the roads safe­ly, and assert their right to be recog­nised as road users. But as one cyclist said, “If the police want­ed to organ­ise us — how? There are no lead­ers and no-one’s in charge. There’s just a bunch of cyclists who hap­pen coin­ci­den­tal­ly to turn up at the Chi­nese arch on the sec­ond Fri­day of the month, and go for a ride togeth­er.”

A bunch of cyclists may, coin­ci­den­tal­ly, be at the Chi­nese arch on Nel­son Street at 6pm on 12th Novem­ber and 15th Decem­ber. They would wel­come any-one who wants to turn up and ride along with them.

rossport solidarity action at irish consulate in cardiff & Shell in London

Whilst the soli­taire is in for repairs, we’d thought we’d remind the gov­ern­ment that activists haven’t tak­en their eye off the ball. We also thought we would ded­i­cate this action to Mau­ra.

Cardiff Rossport solidarityWhilst the soli­taire is in for repairs, we’d thought we’d remind the gov­ern­ment that activists haven’t tak­en their eye off the ball. We also thought we would ded­i­cate this action to Mau­ra.

About 12 cli­mate activists from the West­side (thats south wales, bris­tol & bath) occu­pied the irish con­sulate in cardiff for an hour or two today (wednes­day 24th sept). About 5 got into the recep­tion and altered the dec­o­ra­tions, and demand­ed to see the con­sul, who was­n’t at home (to us any­way). Mean­while, out­side a ban­ner pre­vi­ous­ly used on the welsh pipeline cam­paign was held on the steps of the con­sulate, ignor­ing the ridicu­lous­ly irate secu­ri­ty chief :“calm down mate, we are only hold­ing a ban­ner”. Most staff from the build­ing hap­pi­ly took leaflets.

—-

Ban­ner Dropped in Sol­i­dar­i­ty with Ross­port & Mau­ra

On Wednes­day evening a women’s col­lec­tive climbed 2 lamp­posts direct­ly out­side of Shell’s head­quar­ters in Lon­don. After unfurl­ing the ban­ner the police came in large num­bers and harassed the sup­port­ers on the ground. A live­ly protest ensued for about 20 min­utes whilst the climbers stayed up and peo­ple on the ground chant­ed. Infor­ma­tion was giv­en to the folks walk­ing near the area about Ross­port & Shell’s cam­paign of destruc­tion in Coun­ty Mayo.

The police even­tu­al­ly man­aged to cut the ban­ner down. The climbers were arrest­ed and lat­er released with­out charge.

We did this action to show sup­port for the ongo­ing strug­gle of res­i­dents and sup­port­ers in Mayo to send Shell to Hell (or to Sea, depend­ing on when and who). Since late 2000 there has been an on-going attempt by mul­ti-nation­als and the Irish state to destroy a beau­ti­ful remote coastal area in the coun­ty Mayo with a tox­ic refin­ery and high pres­sure pro­duc­tion gas pipeline. The local res­i­dents and sup­port­ers have lead an inspir­ing and sus­tained cam­paign against this con­struc­tion. In the last few weeks there has been a wave of action to stop the pipe-lay­ing ship, the soli­taire, from build­ing. Includ­ed in this was the inspir­ing hunger strike of local school teacher Mau­ra Har­ring­ton.

At the end of last week the soli­taire left the bay for ‘essen­tial repairs.’ Mau­ra came off hunger strike and the cam­paign is work­ing on ensur­ing that it does not come back. For more infor­ma­tion see:
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/09/409002.html
http://struggle.ws/rsc/