Category: Rest of Europe

Rest of Europe

Spirit of Freedom (May 2008)

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)

Prisoner Solidarity 11Pro­duced 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 May 2008 edi­tion of Spir­it of Free­dom. As we go to print we await the sen­tenc­ing of Amer­i­can veg­an eco-activist, Eric McDavid, who has been con­vict­ed of thought crimes (he has been con­vict­ed of con­spir­ing to car­ry out ELF actions, although at the time of his arrest no crimes had actu­al­ly been com­mit­ted). Eric’s sen­tenc­ing has been put back on numer­ous occa­sions, so we would­n’t like to say when the sen­tenc­ing might actu­al­ly take place. But as soon as Eric has been sen­tenced we will be cir­cu­lat­ing his details and encour­ag­ing every­one to sup­port him. [for update on his sen­tence, see very bot­tom of post]

ELP is also watch­ing, with con­cern, the devel­op­ments in the case of Amer­i­can veg­an eco-activist Marie Mason. Her co-defen­dant, Frank Ambrose, is a police infor­mant and it is believed that Ambrose has giv­en the FBI the names of fif­teen oth­er peo­ple who Ambrose claims have been involved with both ALF and ELF activ­i­ty over a num­ber of years. ELP will of course bring you all the news as we receive it. In the mean time we ask that every­one sup­port Marie and the oth­er tar­gets to Ambrose’s lies.

But as well as these high pro­file activists, we ask you not to for­get all the oth­er pris­on­ers, some of whom are less well known. Regard­less of how long a pris­on­er serves, or how well known they are, its impor­tant we sup­port all the eco-pris­on­ers equal­ly. 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, SWIS #640393, Mult­nom­ah Coun­ty Deten­tion Cen­ter, 1120 S.W. 3rd Avenue, Port­land, Ore­gon 97206, USA. On remand accused of involve­ment with an arson on log­ging trucks and 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 Board­er 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).

Rod Coro­n­a­do — See details in Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers List.

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).

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).

Eric McDavid X‑2972521 7E128, Sacra­men­to Coun­ty Main Jail, 651 “I” Street, Sacra­men­to, CA 95814, USA. Await­ing sen­tenc­ing hav­ing been found guilty of plan­ning to destroy the prop­er­ty of the U.S. Forestry Ser­vice, mobile phone masts and pow­er plants. (Eric is a veg­an).

Daniel McGowan #63794–053, Unit I, FCI Sand­stone, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, PO Box 1000, Sand­stone, MN 55072, 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, FDC — Seat­ac, Fed­er­al Deten­tion Cen­ter, P.O. Box 13900, Seat­tle, WA 98198, USA. Await­ing sen­tenc­ing hav­ing been found guilty of 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).

Gregg Avery TA7450, HMP Win­ches­ter, Rom­sey Road, Win­ches­ter, SO22 5DF, Eng­land. On remand accused of con­spir­a­cy to black­mail, in rela­tion to his involve­ment with the SHAC cam­paign. (Gregg is a veg­an).

Natasha Avery NR8987, HMP Bronze­field, Woodthor­pe Road, Ash­ford, Mid­dx. TW15 3JZ, Eng­land. Jailed for breach­ing her parole con­di­tions imposed on her for telling a fox hunt­ing mur­der­ing scum what she thought of them. Also await­ing tri­al accused of con­spir­a­cy to black­mail, in rela­tion to her involve­ment with the SHAC cam­paign. (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).

Rod Coro­n­a­do, Voice of the Earth, PO Box 732, Tuc­son, AZ 85702, USA. Due to be sen­tenced to one-year impris­on­ment after Rod informed peo­ple how to make an incen­di­ary device dur­ing a speech at an ani­mal rights gath­er­ing. (Rod is a veg­e­tar­i­an).

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).

Sarah Gis­borne, LT5393, HMP Down­view, Sut­ton Lane, Sut­ton, Sur­rey, SM2 5PD, Eng­land. Serv­ing 5½ years for con­spir­a­cy to cause crim­i­nal dam­age fol­low­ing the dam­ag­ing of 8 vehi­cles owned by peo­ple linked to Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ence. (Sarah 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).

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).

Andrew Stepan­ian #26399–050, FCI But­ner Medi­um II Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, PO Box 1500, But­ner, NC 27509 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).

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 FIVE
The Lec­ce Five 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).

Augustin Kraus, Vazeb­ni veznice, PP‑1, Lit­o­merice, 41 201, Czech Repub­lic.
Serv­ing 14 months for his par­tic­i­pa­tion in attacks against local neo-nazis. His charge was “bod­i­ly harm”. He speaks Czech, Slo­vak and Pol­ish. You can also write him short post­cards in Eng­lish. (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. (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).

Michael W. Sykes, 100 East 2nd St, Mon­roe, Michi­gan 48161, 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

——-

Urgent ELP! Bul­letin (9th of May 2008)

Dear friends

Today the Amer­i­can veg­an eco-defence activist, Eric McDavid, was sen­tenced to an out­ra­geous 19 years and 7 months impris­on­ment hav­ing been found guilty of con­spir­ing to destroy the prop­er­ty of the forestry ser­vice, mobile phone masts and pow­er plants. At the point of his arrest he had­n’t actu­al­ly dam­aged any­thing and was mere­ly, alleged­ly, think­ing about car­ry­ing out these actions.

Sen­tenc­ing a man to just under 20 years impris­on­ment for a thought crime is a total out­rage and we encour­age every­one to sup­port Eric by send­ing him urgent let­ters of sup­port.

McDavid, Eric x‑2972521 7E128
Sacra­men­to Coun­ty Main Jail
651 “I” St.
Sacra­men­to, CA 95814
USA

For more infor­ma­tion on Eric check out his web­site http://www.supporteric.org/

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

People Against Climate Change Deliver a Tonne of Coal, Ireland

Yes­ter­day morn­ing, Thus­day 08/05/08 PACC — Peo­ple Against Cli­mate Change — deliv­ered a tonne of coal to the Min­is­ter for Finance on his first day in office.

People Against Climate Change logoYes­ter­day morn­ing, Thus­day 08/05/08 PACC — Peo­ple Against Cli­mate Change — deliv­ered a tonne of coal to the Min­is­ter for Finance on his first day in office.

Press Release for this event is avail­able here:
http://www.pacc.ie/?p=6

Peo­ple Against Cli­mate Change
http://www.pacc.ie

Stuck for something to do!? Uninspired & lacklustre..? The all new singing dancing EF!AU is here to lift your spirits

As if putting the boot into the genet­ics indus­try, fill­ing emp­ty spaces with joy & cre­ativ­i­ty, and fool­ing the fos­sil-heads was­n’t enough, peo­ple have been busy wash­ing lumps of coal and cov­er­ing them­selves with paint…we kid you not…all in aid of halt­ing the trash­ing of the plan­et!

Par­lia­ments have been climbed, air­port ter­mi­nals flash(mobb)ed, fields & var­i­ous oth­er sites occu­pied, build­ing stormed & block­ad­ed, pipelines block­ad­ed & destroyed…

EF! crossed tools 1As if putting the boot into the genet­ics indus­try, fill­ing emp­ty spaces with joy & cre­ativ­i­ty, and fool­ing the fos­sil-heads was­n’t enough, peo­ple have been busy wash­ing lumps of coal and cov­er­ing them­selves with paint…we kid you not…all in aid of halt­ing the trash­ing of the plan­et!

Par­lia­ments have been climbed, air­port ter­mi­nals flash(mobb)ed, fields & var­i­ous oth­er sites occu­pied, build­ing stormed & block­ad­ed, pipelines block­ad­ed & destroyed…

Throw into the mix ye oldie Reclaim the Streets, the tried and test­ed eeeeevil Mr/Ms Sab­o­tage, the launch of a new cam­paign ‘Leave it in the Ground’, plus a sum­mer-full of dates, new con­tacts list, it’s a won­der we’ve fit­ted in a brand new sexy EF! sum­mer gath­er­ing poster (front & back). Down­load the lat­est EF!AU to share with oth­ers, sub­scribe or check out some past issues. The next issue will come out at the begin­ning of August.

And of course, this year’s EF! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing (or fol­low the link to the left) is from Wednes­day 27th August to Mon­day 1st Sep­tem­ber 2008, if you want to plot & plan, and laugh & chat with old friends & new.

Phew, what a scorcher!

Local residents protest blocking power plant supply (Kozani, Greece, 9/5/2008)

After a deci­sion of the Envi­ron­ment and Unem­ploy­ment Asso­ci­a­tion of Akri­ni, Kozani, dozens of res­i­dents occu­pied since 10 in the morn­ing, the north­ern gate of the Agios Dim­itrios Pow­er Plant, cut­ting the cin­der sup­ply of the belt-con­vey­er.

Kozani power plant blockadeAfter a deci­sion of the Envi­ron­ment and Unem­ploy­ment Asso­ci­a­tion of Akri­ni, Kozani, dozens of res­i­dents occu­pied since 10 in the morn­ing, the north­ern gate of the Agios Dim­itrios Pow­er Plant, cut­ting the cin­der sup­ply of the belt-con­vey­er. They protest against envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion and unem­ploy­ment, and for the translo­ca­tion of their vil­lage out­side the plan­t’s pol­lut­ed area. “Spar­takos” a Pub­lic Pow­er Com­pa­ny’s work­ers asso­ci­a­tion announced they sup­ports the protest.

Source:
http://www.prlogos.gr/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3651&Itemid=27

Tara Vigil Camp Being Evicted

May 08, 2008; 10:30 am
HELP NEEDED NOW

About a half an hour ago 20 Gar­dai, 20 OPW and 10–15 MD Secu­ri­ty descend­ed on the Hill to evict the Vig­il Camp.

May 08, 2008; 10:30 am
HELP NEEDED NOW

About a half an hour ago 20 Gar­dai, 20 OPW and 10–15 MD Secu­ri­ty descend­ed on the Hill to evict the Vig­il Camp.

2 Loader lor­ries and 12 oth­er vehi­cles are cur­rent­ly there . The Tem­ple struc­ture has been dis­man­tled, chopped into pieces and removed. They are now dis­man­tling the A Chairde hut and the Tipi. The sev­en Vig­il Keep­ers on site were not giv­en time to remove their per­son­al items and there is no chan­nel of com­mu­ni­ca­tion open as the work­ers turn their backs. There is no nego­ti­a­tion.

The OPW Archae­ol­o­gist said that she would PERSONALLY put out the fire. She is refer­ring to the Vig­il Fire that has been burn­ing for the Val­ley since Sum­mer Sol­stice June 06.

URGENT

Phone cred­it is urgent­ly need­ed on the Vig­il phone. Also urgent is the need for cam­eras and wit­ness­es to doc­u­ment this. Please do what­ev­er you can NOW. Send cred­it, bring help.

VIGIL PH: 086 1758557
Relat­ed Link: http://www.tarapixie.net

—

Vig­il keeps have man­aged to get some time.

The Gar­dai were not able to quote specif­i­cal­ly any law that would allow them to estin­guish the sacred fire, they have giv­en them a days grace to cer­e­mo­nous­ly remove the fire, but as it is specif­i­cal­ly the Hill of Tara sacred fire, it would have to be moved to anoth­er site on Tara!!!!! This in itself cre­ates a conun­drum.

No method state­ment has been pro­vid­ed.
Peo­ple are now allowed to remove per­son­al pos­ses­sions.
A recog­nised Fer­rovial employ­ee was assist­ing, but was wear­ing MD Secu­ri­ty cloth­ing. THIS IT OBVIOUSLY OUTRAGIOUS.

There is approx 20 vig­il keep­ers suround­ing the Tem­ple Ti-Pi/­Fire adamant that they have the right to con­tin­ue hold­ing the Vig­il.
There is a good atmos­phere, music + drums, kids and laugh­ter.
Ener­gy is high and spir­its are pos­i­tive.

—

3pm update:

The OPW did not pro­duce any paper­work for this evic­tion. Noth­ing signed and dat­ed by a Judge.

The Pro­tec­tors are cur­rent­ly blockad­ing their vehi­cles and not allow­ing them to LEAVE the site. Short­ly after this hap­pened, the OPW agreed to nego­ti­a­tions and are now at a meet­ing with mem­bers of the Vig­il.

—

Vig­il Press Release

Press Release on behalf of the Tara Sol­i­dar­i­ty Vig­il Camp
8th May 2008
At approx 10:30 this morn­ing, the Office of Pub­lic Works launched an evic­tion attempt on the Tara Sol­i­dar­i­ty Vig­il Camp, which is in situ on pub­lic land.

The Vig­il is “a non-hier­ar­chi­cal peo­ples’ sol­i­dar­i­ty vig­il, here in sup­port of local peo­ple and all indi­vid­u­als and groups in the cam­paigns to Save Tara. We are adamant in our non-affil­i­a­tion with any par­tic­u­lar polit­i­cal or reli­gious par­ties but wel­come any friends of Tara to the sacred Vig­il Fire, which has been burn­ing con­tin­u­ous­ly since the Sum­mer Sol­stice, 21st of June 2006”.

This morn­ing, 20 OPW employ­ees, up to 15 MD Secu­ri­ty Work­ers and 20 Gar­daí entered the camp and began to dis­man­tle tem­po­rary struc­tures which are used dai­ly by the Vig­il Keep­ers. The struc­tures include a Tem­ple, sev­er­al dwellings and meet­ing huts. The Tem­ple, which was made of wood, was des­e­crat­ed by chain­saw as the Keep­ers looked on in shock. Their pri­or­i­ty was to hold their ground pro­tect­ing the sacred flame with­in the Vig­il TiPi. To add insult to injury, hid­den with­in the group of MD Secu­ri­ty work­ers, wear­ing their logo was a known Fer­rovial employ­ee.

Fer­rovial Agro­man, a Span­ish com­pa­ny, are one of the com­pa­nies, in con­junc­tion with SIAC, who are con­tract­ed to build the con­tro­ver­sial M3 motor­way. This begs to fur­ther ques­tion the repeat­ed coop­er­a­tion between the Gar­daí and pri­vate secu­ri­ty for SIAC/ Fer­rovial Agro­man, on the back of the demo­li­tion of the Direct Action Protest Camp at Rath Lugh on 17th Apr2008.

The OPW Archae­ol­o­gist onsite stat­ed, and has been record­ed that she would “per­son­al­ly put out the fire”. Both the OPW onsite and the Gar­daí were ini­tial­ly refus­ing to acknowl­edge the sacred­ness of the fire and in doing so are not uphold­ing an individual’s right to reli­gious worship/practice. The OPW have also admit­ted on cam­era that this was not an offi­cial evic­tion, and that they didn’t even have the offi­cial doc­u­men­ta­tion or method state­ment to car­ry out the activ­i­ty.

When nego­ti­a­tions were final­ly pos­si­ble, the Gar­daí were not able to quote specif­i­cal­ly any law that would allow them to extin­guish this sacred fire. Talks since have pro­duce a guar­an­tee from Ms Fion­nu­la Par­nell, Archae­ol­o­gist from the Nation­al Mon­u­ments Depart­ment OPW, in the pres­ence of a Gar­dai, that no attempt to remove the fire, or the TiPi hous­ing it until the out­come of an agreed meet­ing on 19th May 2007. There are approx 30 vig­il keep­ers sur­round­ing the TiPi hous­ing the fire adamant that they have the right to con­tin­ue hold­ing the Vig­il and prac­tice their indi­vid­ual and col­lec­tive beliefs. Sev­er­al of these peo­ple were assault­ed by the pri­vate­ly hired secu­ri­ty com­pa­ny in the pres­ence of Gar­dai, and will be fil­ing charges. Oth­er­wise, there is a great atmos­phere, music + drums, children’s laugh­ter in the air. Ener­gy is pos­i­tive and spir­its are high in the Sum­mer sun. This is why the Vig­il has attract­ed vis­i­tors from the 4 cor­ners of the world in the 23months of it’s exis­tence.

Ex-Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has in the past fore­warned of dan­ger­ous trends in mod­ern soci­ety “So much of what is hap­pen­ing with­in our soci­ety and in the wider world is bound up with ques­tions of reli­gion, reli­gious iden­ti­ty and reli­gious belief,” he said, “that gov­ern­ments which refuse or fail to engage with reli­gious com­mu­ni­ties and reli­gious iden­ti­ties risk fail­ing in their fun­da­men­tal duties to their cit­i­zens.” The Irish Con­sti­tu­tion (Arti­cle 8) recog­nis­es that cit­i­zens have a right to “Free­dom of con­science and the free pro­fes­sion and prac­tice of reli­gion are, sub­ject to pub­lic order and moral­i­ty, guar­an­teed to every cit­i­zen, and no law may be made either direct­ly or indi­rect­ly to endow any reli­gion or pro­hib­it or restrict the free exer­cise there­of or give any pref­er­ence, or impose any dis­abil­i­ty on account of reli­gious belief or reli­gious sta­tus”. The Euro­pean Con­sti­tu­tion (Part II — The Char­ter of Fun­da­men­tal Rights of the Union) Arti­cle II-70 recog­nis­es ”Free­dom of thought, con­science and reli­gion: 1) Every­one has the right to free­dom of thought, con­science and reli­gion. This right includes free­dom to change reli­gion or belief and free­dom, either alone or in com­mu­ni­ty with oth­ers and in pub­lic or in pri­vate, to man­i­fest reli­gion or belief, in wor­ship, teach­ing, prac­tice and obser­vance”.

We, the Vig­il Keep­ers, call on Min­is­ter John Gorm­ley, as Min­is­ter of the Depart­ment of the Envi­ron­ment, Her­itage and Local Gov­ern­ment respon­si­ble for State Man­aged Vis­i­tor Ser­vices, to offi­cial­ly acknowl­edge the sacred Vig­il Fire on the Hill of Tara.

For ver­i­fi­ca­tion call Deb­bie Reil­ly on 086 175 8557

Issued on behalf of the Tara Sol­i­dar­i­ty Vig­il
Joanne Cor­bett 086 6030389 www.savetara.com

CLIMATE ACTION NEWS SHEET 79, MAY 2008

CONTENTS:

———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) CLIMATE CAMP NATIONAL GATHERING — LONDON, 10–11.5.08
2) SAVING ICELAND IN WALES AND SCOTLAND — 7th & 9th MAY ‘08
3) TURNING UP THE HEAT — LONDON, CARDIFF, MANCHESTER & ONLINE, 8/10/13.5.08
4) BIG BLETHER 6 — GLASGOW, 9–11.5.08

CONTENTS:

———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) CLIMATE CAMP NATIONAL GATHERING — LONDON, 10–11.5.08
2) SAVING ICELAND IN WALES AND SCOTLAND — 7th & 9th MAY ‘08
3) TURNING UP THE HEAT — LONDON, CARDIFF, MANCHESTER & ONLINE, 8/10/13.5.08
4) BIG BLETHER 6 — GLASGOW, 9–11.5.08
5) CLIMATE CAMP SPEAKERS’ TRAINING — MANCHESTER, 17.5.08
6) MAKE A NOISE! — LONDON, 31.5.08
7) CLIMATE ACTION WITH A BITE! — NATIONAL, 3.6.08

———————————————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
———————————————-
1) ‘MAYDAY! MAYDAY! INVASION OF THE CLIMATE SNATCHERS’ — INTERNATIONAL, 1.5.08
2) M1 PUBLIC NUISANCE CASE DISMISSED — SHEFFIELD, 1.5.08
3) BANK OF AMERICA, DIRTY COAL PROTEST – CHARLOTTE (USA), 23.4.08
4) GREENWASH GUERILLAS PIE FRIEDMAN — NEW YORK, 21.4.08
5) ECO-RELATED ARSON IN GREECE — 21.4.08
6) KOORAGANG COMMUNITY WALK-IN — AUSTRALIA, 19.4.08
7) BELGIAN AGRO-GIANT BLOCKADE — 17.4.08
8) TARA UPDATES — IRELAND, APRIL 08
9) BIOFOOLS DAY — NATIONWIDE, 15.4.08
10) PLANE STUPID TAKE TO THE ROOF — EDINBURGH, 14.4.08
11) BURN THE MIDNIGHT OIL! — TASMANIA, 14.4.08
12) COLLEGE GROVE UPDATES — AUSTRALIA, APRIL ‘08
13) CHEVRON TOXICO GOLDMAN AWARD — SAN FRANCISCO, 13.4.08
14) SUBVERTISING — NEW GROUP, APRIL ‘08
15) CARBON DETOX — NEW BOOK, APRIL ‘08
16) BRING CLIMATE CRIMINALS TO JUSTICE — WEBSITE, APRIL ‘08
17) PROTEST WATCH — WEBSITE, APRIL ‘08
18) AIRPORTWATCH BULLETIN — APRIL ‘08
19) THE BATH BOMB — APRIL ‘08
20) LONDON CRITICAL MASS, 14TH ANNIVERSARY — APRIL 08

———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) CLIMATE CAMP NATIONAL GATHERING — LONDON, 10–11.5.08
Green­peace HQ, Canon­bury Vil­las, Lon­don, N1 2PN. 10am-6pm.
This sum­mer the Camp for Cli­mate Action will pitch its tents out­side Kingsnorth coal-fired pow­er sta­tion in Kent for a week of edu­ca­tion, sus­tain­able liv­ing and direct action. Every­one is invit­ed to the camp, which is now part of an inter­na­tion­al move­ment, with eight cli­mate camps on four con­ti­nents planned for this sum­mer. Togeth­er, we will show that the blind pur­suit of eco­nom­ic growth at any cost is sim­ply insane, and is
to blame for the CO2 emis­sions and ecosys­tem destruc­tion that are caus­ing cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate change. Come to the gath­er­ing and get involved!
www.climatecamp.org.uk

2) SAVING ICELAND IN WALES AND SCOTLAND — 7th & 9th MAY 08
Alu­mini­um smelt­ing, even when pow­ered by geot­her­mal ener­gy, emits so much green­house gas emis­sions that Ice­land now pro­duces 18 tons of CO2 equiv­a­lent per capi­ta, com­pared to the Euro­pean aver­age of 11. May 7th at 8pm — Sav­ing Ice­land will give a pre­sen­ta­tion of these issues at The Tree­house, Bak­er St. Aberys­t­wyth, and will describe the inter­na­tion­al direct action cam­paign and plans for this sum­mer’s camp in July. (There will be a num­ber of vehi­cles going from the UK to the camp.) Come and see some of the most stun­ning places of beau­ty on earth, and help pro­tect them with direct action!
May 9th — Veg­an ban­quet with live music, bar and raf­fle! The Ban­quet starts at 7pm at Old St Pauls Hall, Edin­burgh. £5 (unwaged / low income) and £7 (waged). All prof­it will go to fund­ing the Scot­tish Sav­ing Ice­land Col­lec­tive.
Email; savingicelandscotland@riseup.net to reserve your tick­ets!
More info; http://www.savingiceland.org.

3) TURNING UP THE HEAT — LONDON, CARDIFF, MANCHESTER and ONLINE, 8/10/13.5.08
Can big busi­ness save the plan­et? A series of inter­ac­tive debates on cli­mate change and cor­po­rate pow­er. Attend the live events or watch online!
Thurs­day 8 May — Can the free mar­ket stop cli­mate change? 7:30–9:30pm at Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al Human Rights Action Cen­tre 17–25 New Inn Yard Lon­don EC2A 3EA.
10.5.08 – ‘Will bio­fu­els help com­bat cli­mate change?’ 2:30–4:30pm Cardiff Uni­ver­si­ty, Main Build­ing, Shan­don The­atre, Park Place CF10 3AT.
13.5.08 – ‘Does cli­mate change mean we should restrict avi­a­tion & tourism?’ 7:30–9:30pm, Man­ches­ter Con­ven­tion Cen­tre, Cock­croft The­atre, Sackville Street M1 3BB.
To book your free place and to reg­is­ter to watch online please go to http://www.wdm.org.uk/heat or call 020 7820 4900 for more infor­ma­tion.

4) BIG BLETHER 6 — GLASGOW, 9–11.5.08
Talamh Life Cen­tre, Near Glas­gow.
BB is a meet­ing place for activists to bring and share ideas, infor­ma­tion and enthu­si­asm and to cre­ate action out of inspi­ra­tion. Every­one is wel­come to par­tic­i­pate and con­tribute — big or small. There will be work­shops on Sat­ur­day and Sun­day, includ­ing every­thing from cli­mate change issues, cre­ative cam­paign­ing and tran­si­tion towns to nuclear resis­tance, yoga and wood­land crafts. BB is a non-prof­it organ­i­sa­tion and entrance will be by dona­tion. www.bigblether.org.uk

5) CLIMATE CAMP SPEAKERS’ TRAINING — MANCHESTER, 17.5.08
If you would like to talk to peo­ple about the Cli­mate Camp and help inspire hun­dreds of peo­ple to come this year, then this train­ing is for you. The net­work­ing team in con­junc­tion with COIN (http://coinet.org.uk/) and TRAPESE (http://trapese.clearerchannel.org/) have designed a short presentation/ work­shop that any­one can give to groups inter­est­ed in com­ing to the camp.
10:30 till 5:30pm.
Con­tact; speakers@climatecamp.org.uk to book your place.

6) MAKE A NOISE! — LONDON, 31.5.08
An agen­da for colos­sal air­port expan­sion and colos­sal cli­mate change demands a colos­sal response. You’re invit­ed to a car­ni­val on Sat­ur­day 31st May, which will make its way from Hat­ton Cross Tube Sta­tion (Pic­cadil­ly Line, 12pm) to Sip­son, the vil­lage that will be wiped out if Heathrow expan­sion goes ahead. At the end, you’ll have the chance to help form a great big NO! spelt out by human bod­ies. Organ­is­ers hope to set a new world record for the biggest and loud­est NO! in the world.
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/climate/make-a-noise-20080408

7) CLIMATE ACTION WITH A BITE! — NATIONAL, 3.6.08
The food we eat con­tributes up to a third of the emis­sions poi­son­ing the plan­et. It’s time for a detox! Cli­mate action starts on your din­ner plate, at the super­mar­ket, on your allot­ment and in your back yard, at the food dis­tri­b­u­tion cen­tres, down on the farm, in your high street, at the air­port and the lor­ry park. What­ev­er your tastes, there’s some­thing for every­one on this action menu! Local food mar­kets, free food stalls, work­shops and film show­ings, street the­atre, info stalls, protests and direct action, cook­ing demon­stra­tions, allot­ment shows. Get cre­ative and get involved!
This Day of Action on Cli­mate Change has been called by the Net­work for Cli­mate Action in co-oper­a­tion with the Ris­ing Tide Net­work and the Camp for Cli­mate Action. It has been planned to coin­cide with The UN Con­fer­ence on World Food Secu­ri­ty and Cli­mate Change, which runs from 3rd to 5th June.
Please email; foodNO@SPAMdaysofclimateaction.org.uk for fur­ther info.

———————————————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
———————————————-
1) ‘MAYDAY! MAYDAY! INVASION OF THE CLIMATE SNATCHERS’ — INTERNATIONAL,
1.5.08
This day of action tar­get­ed false cap­i­tal­ist solu­tions to cli­mate chaos.
There were actions in Europe and Cana­da:
Leam­ing­ton Ris­ing Tide vis­it­ed the E.on head­quar­ters in Coven­try to expose the truth behind its green­wash and show that car­bon cap­ture is a false solu­tion to the prob­lem of cli­mate change. Peo­ple arrived at 8am to hand fliers to the work­ers, while one pro­test­er occu­pied the roof of the build­ing. The day was a great suc­cess with a fes­tive vibe and no arrests. Nor­wich Ris­ing Tide got togeth­er with Earth First for a Crit­i­cal Mass to Sizewell nuclear pow­er sta­tion to high­light that nuclear is not a solu­tion to cli­mate change. In Lon­don, The Coal Clean­ing Com­pa­ny launched their enter­prise with E.on; accord­ing to the chat­ty clean­ers, “There’s no mess too big! We make coal Fos­sil Fuel Fresh!” In York peo­ple from groups across the city and both Uni­ver­si­ties took part in a ban­ner protest out­side Roy­al Bank of Scot­land’s cen­tral branch in the city. Leaflets were hand­ed out sum­maris­ing RBS’s cli­mate crimes. Mean­while, mem­bers of the Earth Lib­er­a­tion Front and Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Front joined forces to car­ry out an action against unnec­es­sary urban devel­op­ment in the south-west. A JCB and oth­er vehi­cles were dam­aged on a road con­struc­tion site.
Green­wash fly­ers were hand­ed out at the Green Liv­ing Show in Toron­to Cana­da, while in Paris “Biofuel=Danger” was chalked on the side of the French Agri­cul­tur­al Research insti­tute.
http://www.daysofclimateaction.org.uk/
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/276

2) M1 PUBLIC NUISANCE CASE DISMISSED — SHEFFIELD, 1.5.08
Sev­en cli­mate camp activists opposed to the widen­ing of the M1 had the case against them dis­missed from Sheffield Crown Court. The Judge resound­ing­ly reject­ed the pros­e­cu­tion’s argu­ment that the hang­ing of ban­ners over the motor­way could con­sti­tute a pub­lic nui­sance.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20611

3) BANK OF AMERICA, DIRTY COAL PROTEST – CHARLOTTE (USA), 23.4.08
Activists with Asheville Ris­ing Tide, Rain­for­est Action Net­work, and Croatan Earth First! hit the streets of Char­lotte to protest at Bank of America’s annu­al share­hold­ers meet­ing. Bank of Amer­i­ca has seen an esca­lat­ing lev­el of protest in the past year for its fund­ing of the coal indus­try.
http://www.risingtidenorthamerica.org/wordpress/2008/04/23/asheville-rising-tide-confronts-bank-of-america-shareholders/

4) GREENWASH GUERILLAS PIE FRIEDMAN — NEW YORK, 21.4.08
Thomas Fried­man, the author and NY Times colum­nist, was invit­ed to Brown Uni­ver­si­ty to give a keynote speech on Earth Day, before a packed audi­to­ri­um. His talk about how cor­po­rate envi­ron­men­tal­ism can restore Amer­i­ca to its “nat­ur­al place in the glob­al order” was inter­rupt­ed with a sur­prise vis­it from the Green­wash Guer­ril­las. After splat­ter­ing him with two green cream pies they threw leaflets to the crowd explain­ing their action.
http://greenwashguerrillas.wordpress.com/
http://www.risingtidenorthamerica.org/wordpress/2008/04/22/greenwash-guerrillas-pie-thomas-friedman-on-earth-day/

5) ECO-RELATED ARSON IN GREECE — 21.4.08
Eco-relat­ed arson against the min­istry of devel­op­ment offices in Athens was car­ried out in protest against the plans to build new pow­er plants using coal. “When cap­i­tal­ism is self-declared envi­ron­ment friend­ly, it is only to mea­sure and man­age the symp­toms of the cri­sis it pro­duced itself.”
http://directactiongr.blogspot.com/

6) KOORAGANG COMMUNITY WALK-IN — AUSTRALIA, 19.4.08
A crowd of around 50 pro­test­ers walked onto the con­struc­tion site for a new coal ter­mi­nal on Koor­a­gang Island in New­cas­tle. They stopped work at the site in protest against the expan­sion of the coal indus­try and its con­tri­bu­tion to cli­mate change. Georgina Woods, spokesper­son for Ris­ing Tide New­cas­tle said, “His­tor­i­cal­ly, ordi­nary peo­ple have achieved extra­or­di­nary things by tak­ing direct action to pre­vent immoral or
unsup­port­able actions…Many of us here today have nev­er done any­thing like this before, but we are doing it now, because we may not get anoth­er chance.” 16 of the pro­test­ers were arrest­ed and charged with tres­pass. More com­mu­ni­ty direct action against coal exports will take place in July this year.
http://www.risingtide.org.au/communitywalkin

7) BELGIAN AGRO-GIANT BLOCKADE — 17.4.08
In Bel­guim thir­ty activists blocked the gates of the Cargill fac­to­ry in Ghent.
This action was tak­en to high­light the agro-giant’s involve­ment in every­thing from bio­fu­els to soy mono­cul­ture, GMO to pesticides…The action began at around 6h30 in the morn­ing and last­ed until after 5 p.m. Dur­ing all that time, not one truck with soy could enter or leave the firm.
http://www.aseed.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=552&Itemid=211

8) TARA UPDATES — IRELAND, APRIL 08
On Thurs­day 17th April there was a peace­ful evic­tion of the Rath Lugh Camp. Four Pro­tec­tors who were on site were told by Gar­dai that they had to gath­er up their belong­ings and leave. This was not done in an aggres­sive man­ner and was com­plied with by the Pro­tec­tors.
http://www.tarapixie.net/
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20557
Tara trip report — A group from Brighton went over to Ire­land recent­ly to sup­port the Irish pro­test­ers attempts to halt the work on the M3 Motor­way.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20502

9) BIOFOOLS DAY — NATIONWIDE, 15.4.08
From April 15th, all petrol fore­courts will be required by law to sell only fuel which is blend­ed with 2.5% agro­fu­el. Cor­po­ra­tions like Tesco are already jump­ing on the new “green” band­wag­on, speak­ing lit­tle of the greater emis­sions, dis­place­ment, pover­ty and hunger that will be left in its path. The only answer to the ener­gy cri­sis is a big shift in the way in which we live, trav­el and eat.
Nation­wide protest includ­ed; Aberdeen, Bolton, Chel­tenham, Leeds, Man­ches­ter, Not­ting­ham, Nor­wich and hun­dreds out­side Down­ing Street in Lon­don.
Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide and Espa­cio Bris­tol-Colom­bia were joined by oth­ers to inform the pub­lic about this issue at Tesco in East­ville, Bris­tol. A group of bio­fu­el activists made a colour­ful ban­ner and fly­er tour of Brighton city cen­tre and Sus­sex Uni­ver­si­ty. Agro-fuels pro­test­ers dis­abled the fuel pumps of two BP fill­ing sta­tions in Edin­burgh. Also in Scot­land, five mem­bers of the Edin­burgh Clown Army were detained for ques­tion­ing at a peace­ful and enter­tain­ing bio­fu­els protest in Brunts­field, and in Glas­gow a bio­fool ban­ner was hung.
http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20546

10) PLANE STUPID TAKES TO THE ROOF — EDINBURGH, 14.4.08
Two envi­ron­men­tal activists from the cli­mate action group, Plane Stu­pid Scot­land, climbed onto the roof of the Scot­tish Par­lia­ment in Edin­burgh to protest against plans for expan­sion of Scot­tish air­ports. They unfurled a large ban­ner which car­ried a par­o­dy of the Trainspot­ting design, “Choose Life.” The ban­ner read, “Plane Stop­ping: Choose the future. Say no to air­port expan­sion.”
http://www.planestupid.com/?q=content/plane-stupid-scotland-occupy-roof-scottish-parliament

11) BURN THE MIDNIGHT OIL! — TASMANIA, 14.4.08
Activists from Still Wild Still Threat­ened have wel­comed a 6 metre tall Peter Gar­rett (MP and singer from Mid­night Oil) to the Upper Flo­ren­tine Val­ley. Activists took the ‘giant Gar­rett’ on a tour of coupe FO42F which is due to be burnt in the imme­di­ate future to high­light their con­cerns about the con­tin­ued log­ging and burn­ing of some of Tasmania’s most car­bon dense forests.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20536

12) COLLEGE GROVE UPDATES — AUSTRALIA, APRIL 08
29 April 2008 — Activists have set up a new camp in the Col­lege Grove for­est area that is due to be destroyed in the next stage of devel­op­ment.
http://www.globalwarmingfg.com/
14 April 2008 — Col­lege Grove pro­test­ers stop machines for the day:
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20535
10 April — Police Vio­lence at treesit action in Col­lege Grove, Bun­bury, Aus­tralia. Two activists were arrest­ed with one tak­en to hos­pi­tal after a force­ful and vio­lent push by WA Police. A spokes for the Com­mu­ni­ty Inde­pen­dent Activists (CIA) group says it was the “most vio­lent dis­play by police in 15 years of for­est activism.”
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20531

13) CHEVRON TOXICO GOLDMAN AWARD — SAN FRANCISCO, 13.4.08
Two cam­paign­ers who have spear­head­ed a land­mark class-action law­suit against Chevron in Ecuador have been award­ed the Gold­man Prize, the world’s most pres­ti­gious envi­ron­men­tal hon­or, for their efforts to make the com­pa­ny clean up what experts believe is the world’s worst oil-relat­ed dis­as­ter. The Gold­man Prize Comes two weeks after these dam­ages were esti­mat­ed at up to $16 Bil­lion. Chevron Tox­i­co is the inter­na­tion­al cam­paign to hold Chevron­Tex­a­co account­able for its tox­ic con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of the Ecuado­ri­an Ama­zon.
http://www.amazonwatch.org/

14) SUBVERTISING — NEW GROUP, APRIL ‘08
A new group want to set up a cli­mate-focused nation­al sub­ver­tis­ing net­work where every­one has a role and where peo­ple are well sup­port­ed. If you would like to get involved, see http://www.myspace.com/subvertising

15) CARBON DETOX — NEW BOOK, APRIL ‘08
A new book by George Mar­shall of COIN. Mark Lynas,author of Six Degrees, says:
“Buy this book and thrust it into the hands of some­one who still does­n’t believe in the cli­mate cri­sis. No oth­er book goes fur­ther in address­ing peo­ple’s denial and their resis­tance to change.”
http://www.carbondetox.org/

16) BRING CLIMATE CRIMINALS TO JUSTICE — WEBSITE, APRIL ‘08
A cam­paign to estab­lish a legal process in the UK and abroad to facil­i­tate the crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion of Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ters and key busi­ness lead­ers whose poli­cies and activ­i­ties con­tribute to the mass loss of life which cli­mate change is cer­tain to now cause.
www.climatecriminals.co.uk

17) PROTEST WATCH — WEBSITE, APRIL ‘08
A new site which aims to become a com­pre­hen­sive resource for any­body inter­est­ed in active­ly protest­ing in the UK.
http://www.protestwatch.org.uk/

18) AIRPORTWATCH BULLETIN — APRIL ‘08
Air­port­Watch updates for April. See;
http://www.aef.org.uk/downloads//AirportWatch_bulletin_April2008.pdf

19) ‘THE BATH BOMB’ — APRIL 08
Anti-copy­right: copy and dis­trib­ute! Issue #9 free/donation. See;
http://www.myspace.com/bathbomb

20) LONDON CRITICAL MASS, 14TH ANNIVERSARY — APRIL ‘08
For ride reports/info. see;
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20584
http://www.criticalmasslondon.org.uk/main.html

———-

Please send any­thing you’d like includ­ed in this news sheet to:
newssheet@risingtide.org.uk

To view pre­vi­ous edi­tions of the Ris­ing Tide News Sheet, vis­it the News Sheet Archive at http://risingtide.org.uk/newssheet

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

For more infor­ma­tion…
email: info@risingtide.org.uk
Phone: +44 (0)845 458 8923 / +44 (0)7708 794665
Address: 62 Fieldgate St, Lon­don, E1 1ES
Web site: http://risingtide.org.uk

PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO A FRIEND AND INVITE THEM TO JOIN THE LIST

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

To sub­scribe or unsub­scribe vis­it:
http://risingtide.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/rt-news

Mayday Mayday: Invasion of the climate snatchers…: day of climate action [updated again; video added]

1.5.2008
Lon­don: at 07.45 this morn­ing E.ON offices on Pall Mall were tar­get­ed by the new upstart Coal Clean­ing Com­pa­ny as part of a nation­al­ly co-ordi­nat­ed Day of Cli­mate Action against False Cap­i­tal­ist Solu­tions.

Eon coal cleaning protest1.5.2008
Lon­don: at 07.45 this morn­ing E.ON offices on Pall Mall were tar­get­ed by the new upstart Coal Clean­ing Com­pa­ny as part of a nation­al­ly co-ordi­nat­ed Day of Cli­mate Action against False Cap­i­tal­ist Solu­tions.

***FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE***

FOR ONSITE INTERVIEWS AND UPDATES CONTACT : 07790 430 620

The Coal Clean­ing Com­pa­ny launched their enter­prise with E.ON as their first cus­tomer. Accord­ing to the chat­ty clean­ers, “There’s no mess too big! We make coal Fos­sil Fuel Fresh ™”.

The cli­mate activists tar­get­ed E.ON for their pro­mo­tion of ‘false cap­i­tal­ist solu­tions’ to cli­mate change. E.ON is exploit­ing the idea of a future Car­bon Cap­ture and Stor­age sys­tem to jus­ti­fy build­ing a new coal fired pow­er sta­tion at Kingsnorth — where the utopia of low-impact liv­ing // edu­ca­tion // high-impact direct action that is the Cli­mate Camp will spring up this August.

CCS requires up to 40% more coal per unit of elec­tric­i­ty than coal gen­er­a­tion with­out CCS. So more coal needs to be burnt; increas­ing the over­all pol­lu­tion caused. It also neglects to address the wider prob­lems of over con­sump­tion or deal with coal’s oth­er social and envi­ron­men­tal impacts.

The Coal Clean­ing Com­pa­ny can be con­tact­ed on 07790 430 620 for onsite inter­views and updates.

www.daysofclimateaction.org.uk 07880 937511 for nation­al updates

www.climatecamp.org.uk

Video: Coal Clean­ers at E.ON — video/mp4 29M
=========

RBS Ban­ner Protest in York

Peo­ple from groups across the city and both Uni­ver­si­ties took part in a ban­ner protest out­side Roy­al Bank of Scot­land’s cen­tral branch in the city. Leaflets were hand­ed out sumaris­ing RBS’s cli­mate crimes.

If the action was unim­pres­sive in and of itself, then the fact we’ve final­ly bro­ken the iner­tia around actions in York was prob­a­bly a suc­cess in itself. The rain man­aged to hold off (only just) and even the pass­ing cops had noth­ing what­so­ev­er to say on the mat­ter.

The action was held today because, well, its May­day and its the day of action against False Cap­i­tal­ist Solu­tions, of which invest­ment in new oil is per­haps the dimmest idea of the lot!

=========
Canada greenwash flier
Green Liv­ing show Inspect­ed in Cana­da

Green Liv­ing show inspect­ed and green­wash fly­ers hand­ed out yes­ter­day in Toron­to Cana­da.

For pic­tures of the stalls on dis­play with green­wash stick­ers, vis­it here

=========

Urban devel­op­ment sab­o­taged

The Earth and its inhab­i­tants are being raped of their nat­ur­al resources by the Cor­po­rate-State Com­plex. This is why for the Day of Cli­mate Action we sab­o­taged this smooth oper­a­tion in the ear­ly hours of April XX

Mem­bers of the Earth Lib­er­a­tion Front and Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Front joined forces to car­ry out an action against unnec­es­sary urban devel­op­ment in the south-west. Eco­teurs broke into the con­struc­tion site that is build­ing yet anoth­er bridge for the trans­port of motor­ized vehi­cles. A 4x4 was found, paintstripped, all sides com­plete­ly scarred, tyres dam­aged, whilst a truck and JCB had logos removed and sides stripped. The flawed con­cept of “build­ing our way out of con­ges­tion” will no longer be tol­er­at­ed at the expense of the rivers wildlife and £8 mil­lion of tax pay­ers mon­ey spent on this project.

No Com­pro­mise in Defence of Moth­er Earth.

=========

INRA — French agri­cul­tur­al research — chalked about bio­fu­els

The words AGRO-CARBURANTS = DANGER were chalked on the side of the French Agri­cul­tur­al Research insti­tute, as were var­i­ous cars through­out Paris.

=========

Sizewell May­day Crit­i­cal Mass

In sup­port of the May­day Cli­mate Action Day, some peo­ple from Ris­ing Tide and Earth First got togeth­er this Sat­ur­day for a Crit­i­cal Mass to Sizewell nuclear pow­er sta­tion to high­light that nuclear is not a solu­tion to cli­mate change.

We turned up at the meet­ing point – a train sta­tion in the tiny Suf­folk vil­lage of Sax­mund­ham – to be greet­ed by 15 police offi­cers includ­ing some FIT from Lon­don. As we set out on a love­ly sun­ny ride through the coun­try­side, the extent of the over-the-top police oper­a­tion became clear as we passed sev­er­al unmarked cars full of FIT pho­tog­ra­phers, the entrance to Sizewell guard­ed by anoth­er twen­ty cops, and a fur­ther ten con­gre­gat­ed at our end-point on Sizewell beach. All told we reck­on there were fifty cops on hand to police our fun fam­i­ly day out to Sizewell. It was a great crit­i­cal mass, a good time was had by all, and the local press seemed as bemused as we were by the ridicu­lous­ness of the police oper­a­tion. Won­der if there are any red faces in police intel­li­gence this week­end?

Why Sizewell on May­day week­end?
This demo was part of a nation­al week­end of action against false solu­tions to cli­mate change. As cli­mate change ris­es up the polit­i­cal agen­da, a huge num­ber of tech­no-fix­es are form­ing a new eco­nom­ic sec­tor: from bio­fu­els to nuclear pow­er, car­bon-trad­ing to hydro­gen fuel cells, dump­ing urine in the ocean to car­bon cap­ture and stor­age. Every­where cor­po­ra­tions are seek­ing the elu­sive elixir which allows us to con­tin­ue busi­ness as usu­al. All of these tech­nolo­gies are a dis­trac­tion from the real solu­tions: a mas­sive reduc­tion in our con­sump­tion and the end to eco­nom­ic growth.

Let’s chal­lenge these false solu­tions to cli­mate chaos and show the real solu­tion: far-reach­ing social change.

http://www.networkforclimateaction.org.uk

=========
E-on Coventry protest
On May 1st, Leam­ing­ton Ris­ing Tide vis­it­ed the E.on head­quar­ters at West­wood Busi­ness Park in Coven­try to expose the truth behind E.on’s green­wash and show that car­bon cap­ture is a false solu­tion to the prob­lem of cli­mate change.

E.on are plan­ning to build a £1.5 bn exten­sion to their coal fired plant in Kingsnorth. They jus­ti­fy this on the grounds that it will be ‘car­bon cap­ture ready’ even though the tech­nol­o­gy for car­bon cap­ture has yet to be invent­ed and even when it does exist it will emit more pol­lu­tants try­ing to cap­ture and store the car­bon than if they just left the emis­sions unchecked. To protest against this, Leam­ing­ton Ris­ing Tide arrived at 8am to hand fliers to the work­ers.

Ban­ners were erect­ed read­ing “POLLUTE.ON NO MORE GREEN WASH”. There was jug­gling and a pic­nic out­side the doors of the build­ing as the pro­tes­tors wait­ed for a march of stu­dents from War­wick Uni­ver­si­ty Peo­ple and Plan­et to arrive at 1.30. The marchers came with a repli­ca mod­el of the coal pow­er sta­tion and a game of ‘catch the car­bon’ with bal­loons and nets. The pro­test­ers gath­ered out­side the build­ing and then the sign out­side was paint­ed green to sym­bol­ise the e.ons green­wash and one pro­test­er occu­pied the roof of the build­ing. The day was a great suc­cess with a pos­i­tive, fes­tive vibe and no arrests.

Another Franco-German nuclear waste transport this autumn

Ger­man author­i­ties have allowed anoth­er trans­port of high­ly active nuclear waste from France to the north Ger­man vil­lage of Gor­leben this year.

It will be the first since 2006 and as usu­al is expect­ed in autumn on dates not yet revealed.

Ger­man author­i­ties have allowed anoth­er trans­port of high­ly active nuclear waste from France to the north Ger­man vil­lage of Gor­leben this year.

It will be the first since 2006 and as usu­al is expect­ed in autumn on dates not yet revealed.

Each trans­port by train and trucks usu­al­ly costs about 30 mil­lion euros to police as thou­sands of demon­stra­tors from all over Ger­many con­verge on Gor­leben, rough­ly equidis­tant between Ham­burg and Hanover.

About 20,000 police drawn from all over Ger­many are usu­al­ly mar­shalled into the area to assure pas­sage on the last 20 kilo­me­tres of the jour­ney by heavy-duty, low-loader trucks from a rail­head at Dan­nen­berg to the pre­fab­ri­cat­ed stor­age hall at Gor­leben.

On past occa­sions both police and demon­stra­tors have been injured in clash­es. Police have been chas­tised many times by the country’s supreme court for ille­gal actions against pro­test­ers.

A new French type of cas­ket claimed to with­stand greater radi­a­tion heat will be used this year while devel­op­ment of a new Ger­man type has been held up.
This delay has caused French and Ger­man author­i­ties to call off the trans­port planned for next year.

The local group resist­ing waste dump­ing in Gor­leben demands from the licens­ing author­i­ty, the Fed­er­al Agency for Radi­a­tion Pro­tec­tion (MfS), total dis­clo­sure of per­mit doc­u­men­ta­tion for the 11 socalled Cas­tor cas­kets to roll this year.

“It can­not be allowed that the pop­u­la­tion is exposed to great dan­gers while secu­ri­ty doc­u­men­ta­tion is kept secret,” said a media spokesman for the Lüchow Dan­nen­berg Cit­i­zens Envi­ron­ment Ini­tia­tive (BI), Fran­cis Althoff.

“After it’s become known that the books were cooked in regard to the safe­ty of the new­ly devel­oped Ger­man Cas­tor HAW 28 M, now all the facts about the just per­mit­ted French mod­el TN 85 need to be put on the table in a pub­licly under­stand­able form.

“Specif­i­cal­ly we want to know whether drop-crash or fire tests were made, or whether again only ques­tion­able math­e­mat­i­cal mod­els were the foun­da­tion for the per­mit,” Althoff wrote in a media release.

“The secre­cy hand­i­caps our rights to lit­i­gate. The trans­ports have to be stopped imme­di­ate­ly.”

The waste orig­i­nat­ed in Ger­man pow­er sta­tions and was trans­port­ed to La Hague in north­ern France for pro­cess­ing in a plu­to­ni­um fac­to­ry there. Ger­many is con­trac­tu­al­ly oblig­ed to take the unus­able rem­nants back.

The last trans­ports from La Hague to Gor­leben, with 11 cas­kets each, are planned for 2010 and 2011.

The gov­ern­ment of Low­er Sax­ony state, where Gor­leben is locat­ed, says the stor­age hall there now holds 80 Cas­tor cas­kets and 33 more are due from France.

Local activists, who include sci­en­tists, claim that every Cas­tor cas­ket con­tains the equiv­a­lent of about two fifths of the radi­a­tion released by the Cher­nobyl melt­down in 1986 or the Hiroshi­ma bomb.

The oppo­nents argue that every new ship­ment makes it more like­ly that a salt mine built at vast cost in Gor­leben to explore its suit­abil­i­ty will become the per­ma­nent repos­i­to­ry for high­ly radioac­tive waste.

Waste in a sim­i­lar nuclear dump, the ‘Asse’ tri­al salt mine near Wolfen­büt­tel, about 80 kilo­me­tres east of Hanover, is flood­ing and the radi­a­tion is threat­en­ing to con­t­a­m­i­nate the bios­phere. The Gor­leben pit was con­struct­ed using the same sci­ence as Asse.

As pres­sure grows to solve the waste issue and the Euro­pean Union dou­bles spend­ing to pro­mote nuclear pow­er, the Gor­leben pit looks more and more like­ly to become Germany’s – if not Europe’s – final dump.

This although the pit has con­tact with ground water and aquifers which, if breached, would con­t­a­m­i­nate drink­ing water sup­plies in a radius of hun­dreds of kilo­me­tres.
Gor­leben activists argue that there has been sci­en­tif­ic proof since the ear­ly 80s that the Gor­leben salt dome can­not pre­vent atom­ic waste from enter­ing the bios­phere because it lacks a seal­ing rock cov­er.

They demand that Gor­leben be giv­en up as a dump site and argue that the only way to solve the waste issue is to stop nuclear pow­er pro­duc­tion.

Vegan Banquet for Saving Iceland — May 9, Edinburgh

On Fri­day 9th May we are hold­ing a veg­an ban­quet with live music, bar and raf­fle! The tick­et will include all the veg­an food you can eat (includ­ing desert), all the live music you can hear and all the ban­quet­ing atmos­phere you can take! The Ban­quet starts at 7pm at Old St Pauls Hall, Edin­burgh.
Tick­ets are £5 (unwaged / low income) and £7 (waged). All prof­it will go to fund­ing the Scot­tish Sav­ing Ice­land Col­lec­tive.

On Fri­day 9th May we are hold­ing a veg­an ban­quet with live music, bar and raf­fle! The tick­et will include all the veg­an food you can eat (includ­ing desert), all the live music you can hear and all the ban­quet­ing atmos­phere you can take! The Ban­quet starts at 7pm at Old St Pauls Hall, Edin­burgh.
Tick­ets are £5 (unwaged / low income) and £7 (waged). All prof­it will go to fund­ing the Scot­tish Sav­ing Ice­land Col­lec­tive.

Loca­tion:
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&safe=off&:official&hs=h5k&q=EH1%201DH

There are two ways to get your tick­et:
1) If you know some­one from the Scot­tish Sav­ing Ice­land Col­lec­tive, get
one from them!
2) Email us at savingicelandscotland@riseup.net to reserve yours!

If we have not sold out, there will be a lim­it­ed amount of tick­ets
avail­able on the door.

If you want to arrive for the enter­tain­ment after­wards then we will be
let­ting peo­ple in after 9.30 for a dis­count­ed price.

Larissa, Central Greece: IKA squat evicted and demolished

26.04.2008
Heavy police forces raid­ed the recent­ly squat­ted build­ing of IKA on Wednes­day morn­ing; 7 peo­ple were brought in front of the Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tor, while part of the build­ing has already been demol­ished.

IKA squat half demolished26.04.2008
Heavy police forces raid­ed the recent­ly squat­ted build­ing of IKA on Wednes­day morn­ing; 7 peo­ple were brought in front of the Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tor, while part of the build­ing has already been demol­ished.

On Wednes­day morn­ing (23/4), IKA squat in Laris­sa was evict­ed and par­tial­ly demol­ished. At 6am the crim­i­nal­i­ty sup­pre­sion police raid­ed the build­ing and attacked those who were inside. They were vio­lent­ly tak­en to the police depart­ment. Part of the build­ing was demol­ished [Pho­tos: http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=859565#859641].

Lat­er on, the detainees were brought in front of the Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tor. They were trans­ferred in ter­ror, hand­cuffed, sur­round­ed by cops and under­cov­ered police­men. They were arrest­ed as sus­pects for dis­turb­ing the social peace and the oper­a­tion of a pub­lic ser­vice. The cops had been based on a com­plaint lodged by the head­mas­ter of the Social Insur­ance Insti­tu­tion (the build­ing own­er), but the com­plaint was pulled after the evic­tion.

Sev­en peo­ple were detained until 4pm and peo­ple were gath­ered out­side the court, in sol­i­dar­i­ty. A sol­i­dar­i­ty demon­stra­tion, with 200 par­tic­i­pants, took place in Laris­sa on Thurs­day. They marched in front of the par­tial­ly demol­ished squat, the Pre­fec­ture Admin­is­tra­tion and sev­er­al offi­cial build­ings. Paint and stones were thrown towards the police depart­ment and the City Hall. A con­cert fol­lowed.

The build­ing had been squat­ted since 8th of March 2008, after hav­ing been com­plete­ly aban­doned for more than 5 years. [Pho­tos: http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=en&article_id=839341 ] Sev­er­al squats and autonomous space in Greece have recent­ly been under seri­ous threat.