Category: Rest of Europe

Rest of Europe

Earth First! summer gathering date change & contact details

The dates of the EF! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing have been changed, to work bet­ter with oth­er events hap­pen­ing over the sum­mer such as the Sav­ing Ice­land protest camp and the Camp for Cli­mate Action.

The new dates are Wednes­day 27th August to Mon­day 1st Sep­tem­ber 2008.

This should give us all the space to recov­er & reflect, and to plot & plan onwards and upwards.

Rabbit with spanner & Earth First!The dates of the EF! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing have been changed, to work bet­ter with oth­er events hap­pen­ing over the sum­mer such as the Sav­ing Ice­land protest camp and the Camp for Cli­mate Action.

The new dates are Wednes­day 27th August to Mon­day 1st Sep­tem­ber 2008.

This should give us all the space to recov­er & reflect, and to plot & plan onwards and upwards.

The new con­tact details for the EF!SG col­lec­tive is summergathering@earthfirst.org.uk

You can down­load pub­lic­i­ty — 2 posters & leaflet all in one: (front & back)

Watch this space for more info near­er the time.

Building Works near Tara Threaten Irish National Monument — protest tunneling

These are two state­ments released by the Save Tara Cam­paign on behalf of the Rath Lugh Direct Action Camp out­lin­ing the emer­gency sit­u­a­tion at the Rath Lugh Nation­al Mon­u­ment near the Hill of Tara:

State­ment on behalf of the Rath Lugh Direct Action Camp: 7th March 2008

Tara campaign - give a damnThese are two state­ments released by the Save Tara Cam­paign on behalf of the Rath Lugh Direct Action Camp out­lin­ing the emer­gency sit­u­a­tion at the Rath Lugh Nation­al Mon­u­ment near the Hill of Tara:

State­ment on behalf of the Rath Lugh Direct Action Camp: 7th March 2008
(For direct con­tacts see phone num­bers below)

Rath Lugh Mon­u­ment near the Hill of Tara under direct threat from M3 Motor­way build­ing works.

“The Pro­tec­tors at Rath Lugh have planned a Direct Action method used for the first time on protest sites in Ire­land. They have dug a tun­nel under the route of the M3 direct­ly in front of the Rath Lugh promon­to­ry fort in the Gabhra Val­ley, Co Meath in Ire­land.

The Pro­tec­tors intend to occu­py this tun­nel and seal them­selves inside indef­i­nite­ly to pre­vent con­struc­tion traf­fic from pass­ing over­head.

They are lay­ing their very lives on the line to pro­tect and pre­serve Tara’s land­scape from the destruc­tion wrought by their own Gov­ern­ment.

The Pro­tec­tors said: “We want to draw atten­tion to the con­tin­ued ero­sion of the esker by pass­ing con­struc­tion traf­fic, hence dam­ag­ing the base and foun­da­tion of the Rath.”

This is a con­tin­u­a­tion of their non-vio­lent direct action. The tun­nel acts like a souter­rain giv­ing the occu­pant pro­tec­tion and mak­ing it very dif­fi­cult for the ene­my to enter.”

Rath Lugh Direct Action Camp
For fur­ther infor­ma­tion ring Derek on +353 86–845 9279 or Lou on 086-
3600478

http://www.tarapixie.net

Link to the video of events 5–6 March at Rath Lugh, Lis­mullin, Co
Meath

http://www.livevideo.com/video/4819A5371FDA46BAB4A42CA1D60B2A1F/rathlugh-down-under. aspx?m_tkc=11224420

Update: Press Release — Save Tara cam­paign: 09 Mar 2008

M3 Pro­test­ers warn Gar­dai tun­nel ‘Will Col­lapse’

“A young woman has vowed to seal her­self into the tun­nel under the pro­posed route of the M3 near the Hill of Tara in Co. Meath.

Pro­test­ers were today fran­ti­cal­ly try­ing to com­mu­ni­cate to the Gar­dai, the frag­ile nature of the soil in the Rath Lugh area, and that any move­ment of heavy machin­ery in the vicin­i­ty of the Rath will col­lapse the tun­nel, with pos­si­ble fatal con­se­quences.

Min­is­ter Gorm­ley issued a per­ma­nent pro­tec­tion order on the Mon­u­ment last week. How­ev­er, nei­ther the Depart­ment of the Envi­ron­ment nor the Land Reg­istry have been able to sup­ply detailed maps of the pro­tect­ed zone. Pro­test­ers claim that the ongo­ing site works asso­ci­at­ed with con­struc­tion of the M3 Motor­way are endan­ger­ing the sta­bil­i­ty of the esker upon which Rath Lugh is built.

The Gar­dai were today asked by senior fig­ures in the Save Tara cam­paign, to do all they could to pro­tect the wel­fare of the young female pro­test­er, and in no cir­cum­stances allow the NRA or any of their con­trac­tors move heavy machin­ery in the vicin­i­ty.

‘Any evic­tion attempt by unqual­i­fied and inex­pe­ri­enced per­son­nel is like­ly to end in fail­ure, with pos­si­ble cat­a­stroph­ic con­se­quences. There are spe­cial­ist tun­nel res­cue crews that need to be con­sult­ed before any attempt is made to end this protest.’ Claimed Michael Can­ney today.”

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion please con­tact; Dr. Muire­ann Ni Bhrol­chain of the Save Tara Cam­paign: +353 87–9249510

From the Rath Lugh Camp Web­site: http://www.tarapixie.net/

“The Rath Lugh Direct Action Camp is sit­u­at­ed two and a half kilo­me­tres from the Hill of Tara, on the Front Line of the pro­posed M3 between Lis­mullen and Baron­stown. We are a diverse and inter­na­tion­al group of activists work­ing togeth­er in a non-hier­ar­chal way with the aim of putting a stop to the pro­posed M3. Cur­rent­ly we are hop­ing to obtain Gaeltacht Sta­tus, as Irish is spo­ken and taught in the camp on a dai­ly basis.…..

…We par­tic­i­pate in Non Vio­lent Direct Action tac­tics in order to halt the ongo­ing destruc­tion of the Tara com­plex. The camp works with an empha­sis on the preser­va­tion of our her­itage and our cul­ture pre­dat­ing Chris­tian­i­ty for future gen­er­a­tions to appre­ci­ate and learn from. This involves blockad­ing the key routes, hence stop­ping as much machin­ery and con­struc­tion as pos­si­ble on the sites…

…Rath Lugh Direct Action Camp wel­comes all friends of Tara. We need peo­ple urgent­ly to halt the Val­ley’s destruc­tion. Every­one has a skill or tal­ent they can lend to this protest. Bring wellies, raingear, sleep­ing bags, torch, lighter, plen­ty of warm cloth­ing, and good spir­its. The protest is only going to get stronger, we will con­tin­ue to oppose the motor­way until it is moved, so come to Rath Lugh as quick­ly as you can. WE NEED YOU ALL NOW BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE. Tara is call­ing, don’t ignore the call.”

On March 1st, Dr Jonathan Foyle, British chief exec­u­tive of the World Mon­u­ments Fund, which placed Tara on its endan­gered sites list last year, likened the M3 motor­way near the Hill of Tara to the destruc­tion by Afghanistan’s Tal­iban regime in 2001 of the Bamiyan Bud­dhas.

Sources: Rath Lugh Direct Action Camp Web­site:
http://www.tarapixie.net/

Save Tara: http://www.savetara.com/
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/frontpage/2008/0301/1204240357176.html

With Thanks to the Rath Lugh Direct Action Camp and the Save Tara Cam­paign.

The Tara Foun­da­tion:
http://www.tara-foundation.org
mail@tara-foundation.org

International Anti Nuclear Festival

Invi­ta­tion to join Inter­na­tion­al Anti Nuclear Fes­ti­val –
– FINLAND — Mid­sum­mer — June 2008 -

Due to the increas­ing nuclear threat devel­op­ing in Fin­land and indeed glob­al­ly, a coali­tion has formed to pro­mote dis­cus­sion, net­work­ing, edu­ca­tion, skill devel­op­ment, and action for inter­na­tion­al civ­il soci­ety to oppose and resist nuclear pow­er devel­op­ments.

Invi­ta­tion to join Inter­na­tion­al Anti Nuclear Fes­ti­val –
– FINLAND — Mid­sum­mer — June 2008 -

Due to the increas­ing nuclear threat devel­op­ing in Fin­land and indeed glob­al­ly, a coali­tion has formed to pro­mote dis­cus­sion, net­work­ing, edu­ca­tion, skill devel­op­ment, and action for inter­na­tion­al civ­il soci­ety to oppose and resist nuclear pow­er devel­op­ments.

We are in the ini­tial stages of plan­ning the first Finnish Inter­na­tion­al Anti Nuclear Fes­ti­val, to be held dur­ing Mid­sum­mer (mid to late June) 2008, in the vicin­i­ty of Olk­ilu­o­to, con­struc­tion site of the world’s largest nuclear reac­tor.

Fin­land is cur­rent­ly set­ting a pres­i­dent for Europe and the world. After years of denial and inac­tion on cli­mate change, gov­ern­ments and indus­try are now pro­mot­ing nuclear pow­er as the solu­tion to ‘clean’ ener­gy pro­duc­tion and the reduc­tion of green­house gas emis­sions. We believe civ­il soci­ety must also set a pres­i­dent by oppos­ing the con­struc­tion of this pro­to­type reac­tor, thus send a mes­sage to pol­i­cy mak­ers that we will not allow our world and our future to be con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed by a dan­ger­ous
radioac­tive lega­cy.

Our objec­tives are numer­ous. We wish to bring peo­ple togeth­er to speak, learn and act about prob­lems asso­ci­at­ed with the nuclear pow­er process — from min­ing on indige­nous peo­ple’s lands, to ore pro­cess­ing and its use in reac­tors, to waste dis­pos­al and mil­i­tary appli­ca­tions. We seek to learn of oth­er peo­ple’s strug­gles, vic­to­ries and set­backs.

We also seek to devel­op a coor­di­nat­ed inter­na­tion­al strat­e­gy. Increase skills; in civ­il democ­ra­cy / con­sen­sus deci­sion mak­ing, research, media, fundrais­ing, sus­tain­able liv­ing, non-vio­lent com­mu­ni­ca­tion, action and civ­il dis­obe­di­ence. We hope to involve our­selves in the deci­sions which affect our lives and those of future gen­er­a­tions, from con­sumer choice to cli­mate change, Cher­nobyl to Hiroshi­ma.

Most of all, we want to invite you to a fes­ti­val to cel­e­brate the beau­ti­ful pos­si­bil­i­ties of life, to dance, sing and share…and to make it very, very dif­fi­cult for them to keep build­ing nuclear death machines. We would hope that any­body pos­si­bly affect­ed by the grow­ing nuclear threat would feel inspired to par­tic­i­pate, indeed help organ­ise this fes­ti­val.

We are invit­ing speak­ers, train­ers, logis­ti­cal and mon­e­tary sup­port, musi­cians, medics, clowns and oth­ers.

More infor­ma­tion at www.olkiluoto.info and www.nuclearmadness.info

if you would like to get involved, have ideas or want to be updat­ed, e‑mail camp@olkiluoto.info or jsun@rbgi.net

Fossil Fools Day — 1 Month to Go!

Whether you’ve been plot­ting for months or have just been inspired, there’s plen­ty of time left to plan your action. Read on for loads of resources and sup­port…

FFD frontWhether you’ve been plot­ting for months or have just been inspired, there’s plen­ty of time left to plan your action. Read on for loads of resources and sup­port…

With one month to go until April 1st, actions are being plot­ted up and down the coun­try and around the world, rang­ing from street the­atre and town cen­tre demon­stra­tions to high pro­file direct actions tar­get­ing indus­try oper­a­tions and head­quar­ters. Net­works from Earth First! to Peo­ple and Plan­et have got on board in help­ing to spread the word. Nation­al press have been in touch and are plan­ning to cov­er the day. Peo­ple are email­ing from around the coun­try ask­ing for more info on plan­ning their prank, and look­ing for local actions to get involved in.

We are in the mid­dle of an unstop­pable rise of cre­ative, rad­i­cal, nec­es­sary direct action against cli­mate change… be part of it, on Fos­sil Fools Day and beyond.

Whether you’ve been plot­ting for months or have just been inspired, there’s plen­ty of time left to plan your action. Read on for loads of resources and sup­port… and what­ev­er you do, make sure to call or email us on the day so we can add your action to our end-of-day round up, and show the world what grass­roots action against the fos­sil fuel indus­try can achieve.

Hap­py Fos­sil Fools Day every­one!

CONTACTS
www.risingtide.org.uk/fossilfoolsday
info@risingtide.org.uk
0796 191 7535

RESOURCES AND SUPPORT

Resources avail­able at www.risingtide.org.uk/fossilfoolsday (get in touch if you’d like any­thing mailed to you in hard copy):
‑actions book­let with 15 ideas for action against the fos­sil fuel indus­try, includ­ing plan­ning tips, tar­get loca­tions, exam­ples of suc­cess­ful actions and more
‑posters, leaflets and graph­ics to make your own mate­ri­als
‑com­ing soon: a gener­ic leaflet you can adapt to hand out on the day and a Q&A sheet for answer­ing media ques­tions

Want to find an action to get involved in?
If you’re look­ing to get involved where you live, get in touch and we may be able to link you up with some­thing in your local area… or give you advice on get­ting your own action off the ground… or put you in touch with a local group for future actions!

Pub­lic­i­ty
If you’re plan­ning a pub­licly announced action, let us know ASAP and we can help spread the word.

Media
We’ll be send­ing out a nation­al press release and may be able to direct jour­nal­ists to you on the day if you wish, so any info you can let us know in advance will be real­ly help­ful – and/or a phone num­ber to con­tact you on the day if that’s pos­si­ble. And call or email us as soon as your action’s hap­pened so we can include it in the end-of-day actions round-up, which we’ll be press releas­ing as well. Get in touch if you’d like help writ­ing and/or send­ing your own press release — there’s a great guide here:
http://www.networkforclimateaction.org.uk/toolkit/press_and_media/guides_for_using_the_mainstream_media/short_guide_to_the_media.pdf

And if your action’s all sort­ed and you just can’t get enough of FFD… Help spread the word!
• Send an email or let­ter to every­one who might be inter­est­ed, or who sup­ports your group, let­ting them know about Fos­sil Fools Day and where to find out more.
• Post a Fos­sil Fools Day link or event descrip­tion on your web­site, or to any oth­er lists, blogs or web­sites you can think of.
• Dis­trib­ute Fos­sil Fools Day leaflets and put up posters wher­ev­er you can — mailed to your local groups, in your com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre, office, pubs, book­shops, cafes, library, wher­ev­er you can think of. Just let us know how many you need and we’ll send them out to you!

And one last time… the call-out:

FOSSIL FOOLS DAY, April 1st 2008
Pull a prank that packs a punch.

Roll up, roll up! The cli­mate cir­cus is in town. Cli­mate change threat­ens our very sur­vival, but the fools at the head of the fos­sil fuel empire con­tin­ue to plun­der the earth, with gov­ern­ments the will­ing court jesters at their side.

They would have us believe that we can escape cli­mate change with tech­no-fix­es, mar­ket mech­a­nisms and off­set schemes – all tech­no­crat­ic acro­bat­ics that dis­tract us from the truth: the only real solu­tion to cli­mate change is to keep fos­sil fuels in the ground.

For over a cen­tu­ry the fos­sil fuel indus­try has been fool­ing with our lives. From extrac­tion to com­bus­tion they have poi­soned our air, pol­lut­ed our water and ruined our cli­mate. On April 1st, 2008, we’re going to turn the tables and show them who the real fools are.

Find a local fos­sil fool – the coal-min­ing clown, the off­set con­tor­tion­ist, the avi­a­tor trip­ping on the high wire, the super­mar­ket food mile freak show, the oily strong man, or any oth­er fool that deserves your atten­tion – and take direct action to end the fos­sil fuel empire.

On Fos­sil Fools Day, bring the spir­it of car­ni­val and mis­chief to the fight for cli­mate jus­tice.

PS. Don’t for­get, Fos­sil Fools Day kicks off a sea­son of action…
3 MONTHS, 3 DAYS OF ACTION
April 1st: Fos­sil Fuels
May 1st: False Cap­i­tal­ist Solu­tions
June 3rd: Food and Cli­mate Change
www.networkforclimateaction.org.uk
www.daysofclimateaction.org.uk

and…
August 4–11: Camp for Cli­mate Action 2008
www.climatecamp.org.uk

CLIMATE ACTION NEWS SHEET 77, MARCH 2008

CONTENTS:
———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY — INTERNATIONAL, 1.4.08
2) MAYDAY! MAYDAY! INVASION OF THE CLIMATE SNATCHERS – INT’L, 1.5.08

CONTENTS:
———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY — INTERNATIONAL, 1.4.08
2) MAYDAY! MAYDAY! INVASION OF THE CLIMATE SNATCHERS – INT’L, 1.5.08
3) CLIMATE ACTION WITH A BITE! — INTERNATIONAL, 3.6.08
4) “PEOPLE ARE STILL THE SAME” — BRECON, 8.3.08
5) PADDY’S DAY OF ACTION AGAINST SHELL — IRELAND AND BEYOND, 17.3.08
6) BIKES NOT BOMBS TOUR — LONDON TO ALDERMASTON, 22–24.3.08
7) TERMINAL 5 FLASHMOB — HEATHROW, 27.3.08
8) CLIMATE BILL PUBLIC MEETING — LONDON, 22.4.08
9) COIN WORKSHOPS — NATIONAL, MARCH-APRIL 2008
10) NATIONAL CLIMATE FORUM — LONDON, 14–15.6.08
11) EARTH ACTIVIST TRAINING — GLOUCESTERSHIRE, 12–26.7.08
12) ENVIRONMENT CAMPAIGNER AWARD – 2008
13) LILI COURSES IN APRIL — BUCKS/LONDON/SHEFFIELD

———————————————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
———————————————-
1) CLIMATE EMERGENCY AT HEATHROW, THEN WESTMINSTER — 25.2.08 / 27.2.08
2) RATCLIFFE ACTION VERDICT — NOTTINGHAM, 25.2.08
3) BP AMERICA, EXXON MOBIL AND CO. IN THE DOCK — ALASKA, 27.2.08
4) HANDS OFF IRAQI OIL! ACTIONS — UK AND NETHERLANDS, 23.2.08
5) EARTH FIRST! BLOCKADES POWER PLANT CONSTRUCTION — FLORIDA, 18.2.08
6) RTNA/EARTHFIRST! PIPELINE ACTION — PORTLAND, U.S. 23.1.08
7) SABOTAGE AT GLENSANDA — YORKSHIRE, FEBRUARY 2008
8) PLANKTOS DUMPING SCHEME DEFEATED BY ANTI-WHALERS — MADEIRA, 14.2.08
9) COMMUNITY HALTS SHELL — IRELAND, 12.2.08
10) CRITICAL MASS HERO CLEARED — BRISTOL, 7.2.08
11) KLIMAX SURGE ON! — SWEDEN, JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2008
12) TARA CAMPAIGN UPDATE — FEBRUARY 2008
13) 15 ACTIONS TO TOPPLE THE FOSSIL FUEL EMPIRE — FEBRUARY 2008
14) RISING TIDE POP-ED RESOURCE PACK — FEBRUARY 2008
15) “RISING TO THE CLIMATE CHALLENGE” BOOKLET — FEBRUARY 2008
16) “BURNING CAPITAL” — FEBRUARY 2008
17) SPIRIT OF FREEDOM — FEBRUARY 2008
18) CLIMATE CHANGE SOLUTIONS CENTRE — FEBRUARY UPDATE 2008
19) “THE AGE OF STUPID” — FEBRUARY 2008
20) AIRPORT WATCH BULLETIN — FEBRUARY 2008
21) CAUSE CLIMATE CHANGE — WEBSITE 2008

———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY — INTERNATIONAL, 1.4.08
Roll up, roll up…the cir­cus is com­ing to town, and it’s going to be big!
For over a cen­tu­ry the fos­sil fuel indus­try has been fool­ing with our lives. From extrac­tion to com­bus­tion they have poi­soned our air, pol­lut­ed
our water and ruined our cli­mate. On April 1st, we’re going to turn the
tables and show them who the real fools are. Ris­ing Tide’s call has been
backed by Net­work for Cli­mate Action, Glob­al Exchange and Rain­for­est
Action Net­work. There are actions planned across the coun­try and around
the world — let us know what you get up to! (Or tell us in advance if you
can and we’ll help spread the word, get media atten­tion, etc.) Con­tact
local groups or just do it your­self. Show the fos­sil fool clowns what you
think of their freak­show — It’s time to Pull a Prank that Packs a Punch!
Resources and ideas are avail­able from;
http://risingtide.org.uk/fossilfoolsday/resources
http://www.networkforclimateaction.org.uk/
Also see; http://www.fossilfoolsday.org/
and; http://risingtide.org.uk/node/241
Con­tact no: 07961 917 535

2) MAYDAY! MAYDAY! INVASION OF THE CLIMATE SNATCHERS — INTERNATIONAL, 1.5.08
From bio­fu­els to nuclear pow­er, car­bon-trad­ing to hydro­gen fuel cells,
dump­ing urine in the ocean to car­bon cap­ture — every­where cor­po­ra­tions are
seek­ing the elu­sive elixir which allows them to con­tin­ue with busi­ness as
usu­al. All these tech­nolo­gies are a dis­trac­tion from the real solu­tions -
a mas­sive reduc­tion in our con­sump­tion and far-reach­ing social change. On
May 1st, Inter­na­tion­al Work­ers Day, we will chal­lenge these false
solu­tions to cli­mate chaos.
http://networkforclimateaction.org.uk

3) CLIMATE ACTION WITH A BITE! — INTERNATIONAL, 3.6.08
Cli­mate action starts on your din­ner plate, in the super­mar­ket, at the
food pro­cess­ing and dis­tri­b­u­tion cen­tres, on the farm, in your allot­ment
or your back yard. The foods we eat are respon­si­ble for about a third of
our green­house emis­sions. It’s time for us to switch to plant-based,
organ­ic, sea­son­al and local­ly pro­duced food. Whether you’re into local
food, per­ma­cul­ture, ani­mal rights, allot­ments, human­i­tar­i­an issues, food
pol­i­tics or trans­port cam­paign­ing, make the links and take action to
high­light the role of the food indus­try in cli­mate chaos.
http://networkforclimateaction.org.uk

4) “PEOPLE ARE STILL THE SAME” — BRECON, 8.3.08
A one-day event show­cas­ing art­works cre­at­ed in response to inter­views,
dia­logues and doc­u­men­ta­tion of the con­struc­tion of the South Wales gas
pipeline.
From 3pm till dusk: Cur­rent State Dystopia — a video pro­jec­tion in the
tun­nel under­neath the A40 road and: Books — a sound and slide instal­la­tion
in Din­gle Wood. 6pm: Going Home — pro­jec­tion and music in Pen­pont Church.
RSVP morag@cooptel.net or tele­phone 01874 636269 www.penpont.com

5) PADDY’S DAY OF ACTION AGAINST SHELL — IRELAND AND BEYOND, 17.3.08
This year´s St Paddy´s day, 17th March, has been called as an
Inter­na­tion­al day of action against shell, in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the peo­ple
of Ross­port. Peo­ple from all over Ire­land are set to join forces and show
their unit­ed strength by going all the way to Lon­don to demon­strate on
Shell´s front door step.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20124
http://gluaiseacht.nologic.org/wordpress

6) BIKES NOT BOMBS TOUR — LONDON TO ALDERMASTON, 22–24.3.08
Bikes not bombs are plan­ning a bicy­col­o­gy bike tour from Lon­don to
Alder­mas­ton Atom­ic Weapons Estab­lish­ment to mark the 50th anniver­sary of
the Alder­mas­ton Peace March. The ride is expect­ed to take 3 days
(22nd-24th March). More than 5000 peo­ple are expect­ed to attend the
“Sur­round The Base” event at Alder­mas­ton on the 24th. If you are
inter­est­ed please email; info@bikesnotbombs.org.uk
Also see www.cnduk.org/aldermaston

7) TERMINAL 5 FLASHMOB — HEATHROW, 27.3.08
Be at T5 Inter­na­tion­al Arrivals at 11am to put on (or strip to reveal)
your bright­ly coloured “Stop Air­port Expan­sion” t‑shirt: a vis­i­ble
pres­ence of pub­lic oppo­si­tion to the mad­ness of air­port expan­sion. Wan­der
round for a bit, have a cof­fee, leave when you like. Wear­ing a t‑shirt is
not (yet) a crime!
Order your free T‑shirt today: stopairportexpansion@gmail.com or 0845 458
2564.
The Government/BAA see the open­ing day of Ter­mi­nal Five (the biggest
ter­mi­nal ever built in the UK, and the sub­ject of the longest Pub­lic
Inquiry in British his­to­ry) as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to put the case for fur­ther
air­port expan­sion. Join the flash mob to high­light the real prob­lems that
air­port expan­sion caus­es: cli­mate change, noise, air pol­lu­tion and
com­mu­ni­ty destruc­tion.
http://www.t5flashmob.com/

8) CLIMATE BILL PUBLIC MEETING — LONDON, 22.4.08
Friends Meet­ing House, Euston, Lon­don, 7.30pm. A chance to attend a pub­lic
meet­ing with Hilary Benn MP (Envi­ron­ment Sec­re­tary) and Peter Ainsworth
(Shad­ow Envi­ron­ment Sec­re­tary) and join the calls for a strong cli­mate
change law.
More info: howard.whitehead@foe.co.uk

9) COIN WORKSHOPS — NATIONAL, MARCH-APRIL 2008
(a) Cli­mate Change Con­densed will be hap­pen­ing in Chel­tenham on the 6th
March.
(b) Cli­mate Action Groups match­mak­er evening, Tue 11th March 4:30 -
7:30pm, The Envi­ron­ment Coun­cil, Lon­don. Any­one who has attend­ed any of
the COIN/TEC series of train­ings can attend this for free.
© Do you work for the NHS? COIN is offer­ing a tai­lored Cli­mate Change
Speak­er Train­ing in Lon­don on March 14th. See;
www.healthandsustainability.net
(d) Com­mu­ni­cat­ing Cli­mate Change, a one-day work­shop, in part­ner­ship with
Vale
Roy­al Bor­ough Coun­cil on Fri­day, April 11th.
Fur­ther train­ings com­ing soon in Birm­ing­ham, Man­ches­ter and Scot­land.
Would you like COIN to run train­ings in your local area? — give Mim a call
on 01865 727911 or email mim@coinet.org.uk
See the COIN web­site for details on all the above; www.coinet.org.uk

10) NATIONAL CLIMATE FORUM — LONDON, 14–15.6.08
This event offers a wide range of work­shops and sem­i­nars all deal­ing with
dif­fer­ent aspects of the cli­mate change cri­sis, prob­a­ble solu­tions and
future devel­op­ments in nation­al and inter­na­tion­al cli­mate poli­cies. Venue;
South Cam­den Com­mu­ni­ty School, Lon­don. Fol­low the link below to look at
the pro­gram and speak­ers from last year cli­mate con­fer­ence.
http://www.campaigncc.org/conference.shtml

11) EARTH ACTIVIST TRAINING — GLOUCESTERSHIRE, 12–26.7.08
A per­ma­cul­ture design course and more for activists! Learn the skills to
trans­form a piece of land, a com­mu­ni­ty, and our polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic
sys­tems.
COSTS: (Includ­ing tuition, two weeks accom­mo­da­tion and all meals) £150 -
£500 slid­ing scale accord­ing to income. If you are inter­est­ed in tak­ing
part in the course, down­load an appli­ca­tion form from:
http://www.earthactivisttraining.org/
Or write to: Earth Activist Train­ing, c/o 59 Chelsea Park, Bris­tol, BS5 6AH.

12) ENVIRONMENT CAMPAIGNER AWARD
The Envi­ron­ment Awards (organ­ised by the Sheila McK­ech­nie Foun­da­tion) are
an oppor­tu­ni­ty for grass­roots cam­paign­ers to receive a bespoke pro­gramme
of sup­port and skills devel­op­ment designed to help them take their
cam­paign to the next lev­el. See www.sheilamckechnie.org.uk for details of
how to apply.

13) LILI COURSES IN APRIL — BUCKS/LONDON/SHEFFIELD
Low-Impact Liv­ing Ini­tia­tive: (01296) 714184 www.lowimpact.org

———————————————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
———————————————-
1) CLIMATE EMERGENCY AT HEATHROW, AND THEN WESTMINSTER — 25.2.08 / 27.2.08
On the 27th, cam­paign­ers opposed to Heathrow expan­sion scaled the roof of
the Hous­es of Par­lia­ment and hung protest ban­ners from the build­ing. The
pro­test­ers also made paper aero­planes out of con­fi­den­tial White­hall
doc­u­ments and flew them into the MPs’ car park below! The doc­u­ments –
obtained under the Free­dom of Infor­ma­tion Act — prove that air­port
oper­a­tor BAA wrote parts of the con­sul­ta­tion doc­u­ment and that the
gov­ern­ment has already decid­ed to build a 3rd run­way and 6th ter­mi­nal at
the world’s biggest inter­na­tion­al air­port.
http://www.planestupid.com/?q=content/plane-stupid-scales-parliament
Two days ear­li­er Green­peace cam­paign­ers had climbed on to one of
Heathrow’s short-haul flights and cov­ered the tail­fin of the plane with a
huge protest ban­ner that read “CLIMATE EMERGENCY – NO 3rd RUNWAY”.
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/climate/climate-campaigners-bring-peaceful-protest-to-heathrow-20080225
Also on the 25th, the Heathrow end-of-con­sul­ta­tion ral­ly at West­min­ster
was a packed-out suc­cess, with thou­sands of res­i­dents, politi­cians and
envi­ron­men­tal cam­paign­ers pledg­ing to resist plans to extend Heathrow -
http://www.airportwatch.org.uk/
The dis­tri­b­u­tion of 50,000 leaflets and the actions of anar­chist art troop
Weird Load helped make the ral­ly such a suc­cess:
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20050

2) RATCLIFFE ACTION VERDICT — NOTTINGHAM, 25.2.08
Fol­low­ing their attempts to halt oper­a­tions and thus dimin­ish CO2
emis­sions at the Rat­cliffe-on-Soar pow­er sta­tion last April, 10 activists
were recent­ly back in court. Unfor­tu­nate­ly the defen­dants’ defence of
envi­ron­men­tal neces­si­ty was reject­ed and they were found guilty. The judge
had ear­li­er said that he wished to com­pli­ment all the defen­dants on the
pre­sen­ta­tion of their case.
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/02/392323.html

3) BP AMERICA, EXXON MOBIL AND CO. IN THE DOCK — ALASKA, 27.2.08
Mean­while, in Alas­ka, lawyers for the native coastal vil­lage of Kivali­na
have filed a suit argu­ing that 5 oil com­pa­nies, 14 elec­tric util­i­ties and
the coun­try’s largest coal com­pa­ny were respon­si­ble for the relo­ca­tion of
vil­lagers because of flood­ing caused by the chang­ing Arc­tic cli­mate.
“There has been a long cam­paign by pow­er, coal and oil com­pa­nies to
mis­lead the pub­lic about the sci­ence of glob­al warm­ing,” the suit says.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/27/us/27alaska.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=Flooded+Village+Files+Suit%2C+Citing+Corporate+Link+to+Climate+Change+&st=nyt&oref=slogin

4) HANDS OFF IRAQI OIL! ACTIONS — UK AND NETHERLANDS, 23.2.08
In sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Iraqi peo­ples’ strug­gle against the plun­der of
their oil reserves, there were actions in Birm­ing­ham, Lon­don, Liv­er­pool,
Wrex­ham, Coven­try and Ams­ter­dam.
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/02/392315.html

5) EARTH FIRST! BLOCKADES POWER PLANT CONSTRUCTION — FLORIDA, 18.2.08
Dozens of con­cerned com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers from Palm Beach Coun­ty and across
the States put their bod­ies on the line to halt con­struc­tion of a mas­sive
gas-fired pow­er plant. A dozen activists locked them­selves togeth­er
through met­al pipes as 200 sup­port­ers ral­lied around them. The block­ade
stopped work on the con­struc­tion site for six hours before a total of 27
peo­ple were arrest­ed.
http://www.risingtidenorthamerica.org/wordpress/2008/02/19/blockade-shuts-down-south-florida-power-plant-construction-27-arrested/
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20038

6) RTNA/EARTHFIRST! PIPELINE ACTION — PORTLAND, U.S. 23.1.08
The above block­ade fol­lowed anoth­er com­bined action where Cas­ca­dia Ris­ing
Tide joined forces with Stump­town Earth First! to hold an action and ral­ly
at the Port­land office of NW Nat­ur­al in protest at their involve­ment in
Liq­ue­fied Nat­ur­al Gas pipelines, which threat­en to clear-cut strips of
for­est through­out Ore­gon for new fos­sil fuel infra­struc­ture. Activists
piled trees around the office entrance and hung a large ban­ner which read
— “There’s noth­ing Green about Clear-cuts, No new pipelines”.
http://www.risingtidenorthamerica.org/wordpress/2008/01/23/cascadia-rt-organizes-anti-lng-action-at-nw-natural/

7) SABOTAGE AT GLENSANDA — YORKSHIRE, FEBRUARY 2008
An aggre­gates pro­cess­ing plant on the edge of the York­shire Dales Nation­al
Park has been sab­o­taged. 20% of the stone extract­ed will go to major road
net­work con­struc­tion across Europe. The plant in York­shire was entered and
vehi­cles, includ­ing all bull­doz­ers, had holes drilled in vital parts of
their engines and their tires. Both con­trol rooms were bro­ken into and all
com­put­ers and instru­ment pan­els were smashed. Keys to all build­ings and
machin­ery were removed from the site. The mes­sage “Stop Glen­san­da” was
left.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20043

8) PLANKTOS DUMPING SCHEME DEFEATED BY ANTI-WHALERS — MADEIRA, 14.2.08
Plank­tos, the Cal­i­for­nia com­pa­ny try­ing to turn a prof­it by fer­til­iz­ing
the ocean with iron dust, has pulled the plug on planned field tests. On
the com­pa­ny’s web-site, a sim­ple notice blamed the shut­down on a “high­ly
effec­tive dis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paign waged by anti-off­set cru­saders.” In
Novem­ber 2007, the anti-whal­ing ship Sea Shep­herd con­front­ed the Plank­tos
ves­sel and forced it to move onto Madeira. And there it stayed until its
recall last month.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19989

9) COMMUNITY HALTS SHELL — IRELAND, 12.2.08
The Erris com­mu­ni­ty con­tin­ues to pro­tect the land — sur­vey work was
stopped and trucks were blocked. Local peo­ple pre­vent­ed Shell from ille­gal
work for 4 hours until Gar­dai forced through work­ers, injur­ing pro­test­ers.
http://www.corribsos.com/index.php?id=1686
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19977

10) CRITICAL MASS HERO CLEARED — BRISTOL, 7.2.08
In May last year, some­one stood in the road and tried to stop a car that
had hit a Crit­i­cal Mass cyclist, from dri­ving away. For that he was
arrest­ed for obstruct­ing the high­way, thrown to the floor by his neck
whilst hand­cuffed, and then — sur­prise sur­prise — also arrest­ed for
assault­ing a police offi­cer.
After 9 months of ner­vous wait­ing, he was final­ly cleared of all charges,
as Bris­tol Mag­is­trates Court accept­ed a sub­mis­sion that the police
evi­dence was at best ‘severe­ly flawed’ and at worst, fab­ri­cat­ed, and the
tri­al was stopped.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19971

11) KLIMAX SURGE ON! — SWEDEN, JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2008
Groups of activists con­nect­ed to Kli­max, Sweden’s direct action move­ment
against the root caus­es of cli­mate change, struck repeat­ed­ly last month.
At Malmö Air­port, sev­en activists were appre­hend­ed when try­ing to break
into the run­way, some of them dressed as polar bears. Some 30 activists
put up a block­ade in the mid­dle of the high­way run­ning through Umeå, the
largest city in north­ern Swe­den.
A sim­i­lar num­ber staged a protest out­side the office of Swedish Meat, a
major meat cor­po­ra­tion, to high­light the severe effects the indus­try is
hav­ing on our cli­mate. Anoth­er 50 activists marched into the traf­fic on
one of the major streets in inner city Stock­holm, seiz­ing it for 15
min­utes. The action was direct­ed against a planned mega-high­way, to be
built in the west­ern parts of the cap­i­tal.
http://klimatet.org/2008/02/17/action-report/
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20019
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20035

12) TARA CAMPAIGN UPDATE — FEBRUARY 2008
Lock-ons and dig­ger-div­ing, plus protest camp con­tact.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19996
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20126

13) 15 ACTIONS TO TOPPLE THE FOSSIL FUEL EMPIRE — FEBRUARY 2008
Ris­ing Tide’s newest resource, on why and how to take direct action
against the fos­sil fuel indus­try… includ­ing plan­ning tips, tar­get
loca­tions, exam­ples of suc­cess­ful actions and more. Email us for a hard
copy or down­load it here:
http://risingtide.org.uk/resources/other

14) RISING TIDE POP-ED RESOURCE PACK — FEBRUARY 2008
A pop­u­lar edu­ca­tion resource packed with tools to help you run engag­ing,
inter­ac­tive work­shops on all aspects of cli­mate change for a wide range of
peo­ple. Down­load it here: http://risingtide.org.uk/resources/other

15) “RISING TO THE CLIMATE CHALLENGE” BOOKLET — FEBRUARY 2008
Cli­mate change myth-bust­ing book­let designed to help peo­ple cut through
the fog of con­fu­sion and mixed mes­sages about cli­mate change and to be a
use­ful resource for com­mu­ni­ty groups and indi­vid­u­als all over Scot­land.
Down­load from the web­site at www.sead.org.uk

16) “BURNING CAPITAL” — FEBRUARY 2008
This com­pelling series of short films explores the role of Britain’s
largest cor­po­ra­tion in the grow­ing cli­mate cri­sis. Burn­ing Cap­i­tal is a
video voy­age through the murky world of oil giant BP, who kind­ly deliv­ered
1.3 bil­lion tonnes of car­bon diox­ide to the atmos­phere last year.
Watch the films now at; http://www.platformlondon.org/burning

17) SPIRIT OF FREEDOM — FEBRUARY 2008
Earth Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers Sup­port Net­work newslet­ter. They’re in there
for us out here — Please write!
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19960

18) CLIMATE CHANGE SOLUTIONS CENTRE — FEBRUARY UPDATE 2008
A group of envi­ron­men­tal and com­mu­ni­ty-based organ­i­sa­tions in the South
West have made a bid to found an inde­pen­dent, inter-dis­ci­pli­nary ‘Cli­mate
Change Solu­tions Cen­tre’, on the site of an ex-agri­cul­tur­al col­lege
cur­rent­ly owned by Ply­mouth Uni­ver­si­ty. For more details, and infor­ma­tion
on how to sup­port the plans, please see; www.climatechangecentre.co.uk

19) “THE AGE OF STUPID” — FEBRUARY 2008
A cli­mate change doc­u­men­tary for the big screen from Fran­ny Arm­strong
(McLi­bel) and John Battsek (One Day In Sep­tem­ber). Mix­ing doc­u­men­tary
footage, dra­ma and cut­ting-edge ani­ma­tion, and star­ring Pete Postleth­waite
as an old man liv­ing in the dev­as­tat­ed world of 2055. As he watch­es
‘archive’ footage from 2007, he asks him­self: Why did­n’t we stop cli­mate
change when we had the chance? http://www.ageofstupid.net

20) AIRPORT WATCH BULLETIN — FEBRUARY 2008
For infor­ma­tion about the cam­paigns against sui­ci­dal expan­sion at
Heathrow, Bris­tol, Lon­don City, Lydd, Carlisle, Newquay and oth­er air­ports
see; www.airportwatch.org.uk

21) ‘CAUSES CLIMATE CHANGE’ WEBSITE
Sub­ver­tis­ing ideas and resources.
http://www.causesclimatechange.blogspot.com/

———-

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

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http://risingtide.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/rt-news

Limagrain Moves GM Tests To The US due to French ban & decontaminations

FRANCE: Feb­ru­ary 29, 2008
PARIS — Europe’s largest seed coop­er­a­tive Lima­grain said on Thurs­day it had moved its research tests into genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied (GM) crops to the Unit­ed States, put off by France’s hos­til­i­ty to GMs and the destruc­tion of test fields.

FRANCE: Feb­ru­ary 29, 2008
PARIS — Europe’s largest seed coop­er­a­tive Lima­grain said on Thurs­day it had moved its research tests into genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied (GM) crops to the Unit­ed States, put off by France’s hos­til­i­ty to GMs and the destruc­tion of test fields.

Chair­man Pierre Pagesse said Bio­gem­ma, Lima­grain’s grain and oilseed research unit, would car­ry around 1,000 tests on GM crops this year in Illi­nois, in the US corn belt.

Lima­grain has a 70 per­cent stake in the world’s fourth-largest seed mak­er Vil­morin.

“We have decid­ed to trans­fer our tests to the Unit­ed States this year,” Pagesse told Reuters in an inter­view at the Paris farm show.

“It is with a heavy heart,” he added. “For the first time we will move out­side France and even out­side the Euro­pean Union to car­ry out our tests and this due to the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion in our coun­try,” Pagesse said.

While GM crops are com­mon in the Unit­ed States, France and oth­er Euro­pean coun­tries are dubi­ous about using the new genet­ic tech­nol­o­gy in agri­cul­ture.

France decid­ed in Decem­ber to sus­pend the cul­ti­va­tion of the sole GM crop grown in the Euro­pean Union, a maize devel­oped by US biotech giant Mon­san­to, and noti­fied the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion ear­li­er this month that it was extend­ing the ban.

Pagesse said the expa­tri­a­tion of the GM tests to the Unit­ed States, was also prompt­ed by the repet­i­tive attacks car­ried out by anti-GM activists on Bio­gem­ma’s test fields.

CONTRADICTION

The deci­sion, although not irre­versible, will inevitably affect the work­ing of Lima­grain, which owns 55 per­cent of Bio­gem­ma and total­ly relies on the com­pa­ny for its GM research, he said.

“I know that to move the intel­lec­tu­al part of the group is to move the group’s epi­cen­tre in time,” he said, stress­ing that the com­pa­ny had prob­a­bly wait­ed too long to make the move.

Lima­grain would keep doing non-GM tests in France but all biotech research, car­ried out through Bio­gem­ma, would be done in the Unit­ed States, which in the end could penalise Europe as seeds may not be adapt­ed to Euro­pean soil and pests, he said.

“The com­pa­ny keeps its knowl­edge but it’s the French peas­ants who are going to lose out,” he said.

Pagesse argued there was a con­tra­dic­tion between the French ban on the grow­ing of GM maize and mas­sive­ly import­ing genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied ani­mal feed.

“Either it is bad and we should hur­ry ban­ning imports or we con­sid­er that it’s good for con­sumers, includ­ing through ani­mal feed, then we should let French farm­ers use the tech­nolo­gies that we think are bet­ter adapt­ed,” he said.

A gov­ern­ment-appoint­ed com­mit­tee of sci­en­tists, farm­ers, politi­cians and non-gov­ern­men­tal organ­i­sa­tions said in Jan­u­ary “seri­ous doubts” remained over whether the MON 810 was safe.

The main wor­ry men­tioned in the report, which trig­gered the gov­ern­men­t’s deci­sion on the ban, con­cerned dis­sem­i­na­tion to oth­er crops and bio­di­ver­si­ty, not human health.

On site reports from the trenches at Rath Lugh

Mon­day 25th Feb­ru­ary:
There are fences across the pro­posed route each side of the Rath Lugh woods. At around 8am this morn­ing a mem­ber of the Rath Lugh camp heard machin­ery pass­ing by the rath. 6 of us went out and saw 2 dump trucks and 2 dig­gers out­side the fence, com­ing from the Baron­stown direc­tion. Each dig­ger was 40 tonnes, and want­ed to dri­ve though at the same time! A large crowd of SIAC, Fer­rovial and Wills Bros work­ers were present, 2 mem­bers of the Gar­da Siochana were also present, both in incom­plete uni­forms; they did­n’t wear hats, one of them was­n’t dis­play­ing his ID num­ber on his shoul­der. We explained no machin­ery would be pass­ing by Rath Lugh, that the area is pre­served and it is a crim­i­nal offence to inter­fere with or dam­age a nation­al mon­u­ment. The weight and vibra­tions of the machin­ery will affect the mon­u­ment on the esker, and so endan­ger all of Rath Lugh. The work­ers took absolute­ly no heed of any­thing we told them.

Rath Lugh destructionMon­day 25th Feb­ru­ary:
There are fences across the pro­posed route each side of the Rath Lugh woods. At around 8am this morn­ing a mem­ber of the Rath Lugh camp heard machin­ery pass­ing by the rath. 6 of us went out and saw 2 dump trucks and 2 dig­gers out­side the fence, com­ing from the Baron­stown direc­tion. Each dig­ger was 40 tonnes, and want­ed to dri­ve though at the same time! A large crowd of SIAC, Fer­rovial and Wills Bros work­ers were present, 2 mem­bers of the Gar­da Siochana were also present, both in incom­plete uni­forms; they did­n’t wear hats, one of them was­n’t dis­play­ing his ID num­ber on his shoul­der. We explained no machin­ery would be pass­ing by Rath Lugh, that the area is pre­served and it is a crim­i­nal offence to inter­fere with or dam­age a nation­al mon­u­ment. The weight and vibra­tions of the machin­ery will affect the mon­u­ment on the esker, and so endan­ger all of Rath Lugh. The work­ers took absolute­ly no heed of any­thing we told them.

Pro­test­ers climbed onto the machin­ery to peace­ful­ly block­ade their path. The rest of us stood in front of the machines. The Gar­dai took our names and address­es. acThe pro­test­ers on the machin­ery climbed off the machines, because one con­struc­tion work­er tried to for­ca­bly pull a male pro­test­er off the dig­ger. The female pro­test­er was walk­ing towards the Rath, when she was man­han­dled by the Gar­da with no hat, car or ID num­ber on his shoul­der. The Gar­dai did­n’t give her a cau­tion but arrest­ed her straight away. He hand­cuffed her and when we ques­tioned him, he men­tioned OPERATION BEDROCK. He then attempt­ed to drag her to Mark Cleary’s jeep, as there was no squad car to be seen. We imme­di­ate­ly object­ed to this ille­gal arrest, but the Gar­dai kept pulling her, even through she was vis­i­bly upset. There were no female Gar­dai present, we expressed our con­cerns about a young female being tak­en off site by 2 extreme­ly unpro­fes­sion­al Gar­dai and dri­ven off in a vio­lent man’s jeep (Mark Cleary’s. Pho­tos of this man can be seen on this site, or Indymedia.ie, his dri­ves a white jeep and his reg­is­tra­tion plate is 07 D 60531).

The Gar­dai final­ly seemed to under­stand our wor­ries about this ille­gal arrest, and decid­ed to walk her off the site and take her to Navan Gar­da Sta­tion in their squad car, which for some unknown rea­son was parked down the route near Baron­stown. I walked with the female pro­test­er and the 2 Gar­dai towards Baron­stown. She was hand­cuffed behind her back, and when the wind was blow­ing dust in her eyes, they would­n’t free her so she could wipe the dust out. It’s worth not­ing that this site has had its top­soil removed and is com­pact­ed earth with lime to dry out the ground. They joked rather insen­si­tive­ly I should wipe her eyes instead! When I asked the Gar­da with no ID why he men­tioned OPERATION BEDROCK, he refused to com­ment. Final­ly we arrived at their squad car, but a Pad­dy Wag­on was there, and around 8 men in plain clothes wear­ing Gar­da Siochana wind cheater jack­ets. When I asked them why they weren’t in full uni­form they explained they were plain clothes Gar­dai. I again expressed my con­cerns about this dodgy crowd tak­ing one of our young female pro­test­ers away, and request­ed I come with her, for her own health and safe­ty. They refused imme­di­ate­ly, one Bean Gar­da was extreme­ly snap­py, explain­ing the female pro­test­er would be safe with her. I said this was exact­ly what I was wor­ried about and asked would they hand­cuff me so I could accom­pa­ny my col­leage. The same Bean Gar­da said I have often made my own way to Navan in the past when need­ed be. The Gar­da did­n’t uncuff my col­leage in the back of the car, so when they braked sud­den­ly she hurt her back and now needs med­ical atten­tion.

We made our way back to the front line at Rath Lugh and were about to head into the Gar­da Sta­tion in Navan when we got an urgent phone call from the front line. A doz­er was at the left fence, com­ing from Baron­stown direc­tion. A small­er dig­ger was work­ing on a spoil heap a few feet away from the esker. We imme­di­ate­ly block­ad­ed the machin­ery peace­ful­ly to pre­vent them work­ing. All of the SIAC, Fer­rovial and Wills Bros were sit­ting in their jeeps as it was hail­ston­ing and extreme­ly windy. A Gar­da jeep approached from Lis­mullen, with the same 2 Gar­dai who arrest­ed my col­leage an hour ear­li­er. The bald Gar­da with­out his ID num­ber ear­li­er now had his ID dis­played, obvi­ous­ly he realised he made an ille­gal arrest ear­li­er. We hand­ed them the Rath Lugh Preser­va­tion Order, which they accept­ed. The Gar­da who dis­played his ID num­ber explained the doz­er would be pass­ing throught to Lis­mullen, but he was stop­ping the dig­ger from work­ing until the mat­ter of the Preser­va­tion Order is clear­er. We blocked the esker from being harmed as the doz­er passed by s to the Lis­mullen site. When asked about the plain clothes Gar­dai, the Gar­da denied their exis­tence. When I remind­ed hiym I spoke to the plain clothes Gar­dai myself, he cor­rect­ed him­self. He said they were on stand­by. On stand­by for what we asked, explain­ing our own health and safe­ty is of para­mount impor­tance. He refused to com­ment fur­ther.

6 con­struc­tion work­ers approached the front line ben­der, took mea­sure­ments around the perime­ter fence of the ben­der, using sur­vey­ing equip­ment. Con­struc­tion work­ers in jeeps attempt­ed to dri­ve past Rath Lugh again from Baron­stown to Lis­mullen, but the Gar­dai refused them per­mis­sion, until the Preser­va­tion Order mat­ter is clear­er.

I am now on going to bring the female pro­test­er who got released to hos­pi­tal for med­ical atten­tion.

————-

Update lunchtime:

Sit­u­a­tion Crit­i­cal as more machin­ery is arriv­ing. 4 machines were allowed pass Rath Lugh in sin­gle file ear­li­er en route to Lis­mullin. They have cho­sen this route to enter onto the Henge. Now 3 machines are sta­tioned at Rath Lugh threat­en­ing to begin work in that area. There has been no reply from Gorm­ley’s office despite sev­er­al requests this morn­ing in regard to the Tem­po­rary Preser­va­tion Order and for con­fir­ma­tion of the bound­aries of same ‚which seem now to be unclear.

Please sup­port , BE PRESENT, con­tact all inter­est­ed bod­ies, make com­plaints, spread the word, do what you can but do it Now!

The female Pro­tec­tor has been released. No details of charges yet.

Rath Lugh Camp Phone : 0861537146

Vig­il Camp Phone: 0861758557

————-

Video of Stand­off at Rath­lugh today and the arrest of a pro­tes­tor.

Paddy´s Day of Action Against Shell

This year´s St Paddy´s day, 17th March, has been called as an Inter­na­tion­al day of action against shell, in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the peo­ple of Ross­port.

Peo­ple from all over Ire­land are set to join forces and show their unit­ed strength by going all the way to Lon­don to demon­strate on shell´s front door step.

This year´s St Paddy´s day, 17th March, has been called as an Inter­na­tion­al day of action against shell, in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the peo­ple of Ross­port.

Peo­ple from all over Ire­land are set to join forces and show their unit­ed strength by going all the way to Lon­don to demon­strate on shell´s front door step.

Glu­aiseacht, the Irish envi­ron­men­tal net­work organ­is­ing the trip, are call­ing for peo­ple to join them at the shell head office in Lon­don, or there is also a call out to take sol­i­dar­i­ty actions at shell garages and offices, St Paddy´s day parades and Irish embassies all over the world to coin­cide with the vis­it from 15th-17th March.

The shell cen­tre is locat­ed on the South Bank in front of Jubilee Gar­dens (SE1)
right next to Water­loo train sta­tion and across from the Lon­don Eye.

What´s Wrong With shell? — The Cor­rib Pipeline Project

Since 2000 the small rur­al com­mu­ni­ty of Ross­port, Coun­ty Mayo, Ire­land have been engaged in an epic bat­tle try­ing to pre­vent Shell, Sta­toil, and Marathon from build­ing a poten­tial­ly dev­as­tat­ing tox­ic onshore gas refin­ery and high pres­sure pipeline in their remote and envi­ron­men­tal­ly sen­si­tive region.

Shell are the biggest stake­hold­er and ben­e­fi­cia­ry of the project, so have there­fore been the main tar­get of protest.

Com­mu­ni­ty Strength

From the sum­mer of 2005 mass pick­ets shut down the refin­ery con­struc­tion site after five Ross­port res­i­dents were impris­oned for refus­ing to allow Shell’s
sub-con­trac­tors access to their and their neigh­bours’ small farms which the pipeline is to go through. But in Octo­ber 2006 the Irish state came to the aid of shell by bring­ing in a mas­sive two hun­dred strong police unit to phys­i­cal­ly force a path for Shell to com­mence work. A large police pres­ence, con­sist­ing of Gar­dai (Irish police) from all over Ire­land, has stayed at the site to aid the work to con­tin­ue undis­rupt­ed.

The costs to the Envi­ron­ment, Com­mu­ni­ty & Health

Since shell start­ed build­ing the refin­ery, Car­row­more Lake, which is a Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion as well as the local water sup­ply to 10,000 peo­ple, has been pol­lut­ed with dan­ger­ous­ly high lev­els of alu­mini­um com­ing from the build­ing site.

The gas pipeline is to oper­ate at such high pres­sure that accord­ing to the
government’s safe­ty study if rup­tured could poten­tial­ly kill peo­ple and destroy build­ings for hun­dreds of metres around.

The waste from the refin­ery is to be dumped into Broad­haven bay, where 220 sight­ings of sev­en whale and dol­phin species, plus sight­ings of two seal species have been record­ed.

This is all not to men­tion the irrepara­ble dam­age fos­sil fuels, like gas, are hav­ing on desta­bil­is­ing the glob­al cli­mate.

Although the resis­tance to shell in Coun­ty Mayo is strong, the Irish state & shell´s tac­tics of bru­tal­i­ty, repres­sion and intim­i­da­tion has paid a price on the peo­ple fight­ing the pipeline project.

So mark St Paddy´s day by show­ing sol­i­dar­i­ty with their fight!

For more info:

http://www.indymedia.ie/mayo — Reports of news and actions about the pipeline
http://www.struggle.ws/rsc — Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp set­up to aid the cam­paign against shell
http://www.corribsos.com — Cam­paign group Shell to Sea

http://gluaiseacht.nologic.org/wordpress — Glu­aiseacht web­site

Swedish climate action update

Cli­mate activists in deten­tion after try­ing to break into air­port

On Fri­day, groups of activists con­nect­ed to Kli­max, Sweden’s direct action move­ment against the root caus­es of cli­mate change, struck against the country’s domes­tic avi­a­tion indus­try. At Malmö Air­port, sev­en activists were appre­hend­ed when try­ing to brake into the run­way, some of them dressed as polar bears. They were trans­ferred to a deten­tion cen­tre in anoth­er city in south­ern Swe­den and kept in soli­tary con­fine­ment for more than 60 hours. The sev­en activists were inter­ro­gat­ed through­out the days, charged with “intent to sab­o­tage air traf­fic” and threat­ened with four years in prison if con­vict­ed.

Cli­mate activists in deten­tion after try­ing to break into air­port

On Fri­day, groups of activists con­nect­ed to Kli­max, Sweden’s direct action move­ment against the root caus­es of cli­mate change, struck against the country’s domes­tic avi­a­tion indus­try. At Malmö Air­port, sev­en activists were appre­hend­ed when try­ing to brake into the run­way, some of them dressed as polar bears. They were trans­ferred to a deten­tion cen­tre in anoth­er city in south­ern Swe­den and kept in soli­tary con­fine­ment for more than 60 hours. The sev­en activists were inter­ro­gat­ed through­out the days, charged with “intent to sab­o­tage air traf­fic” and threat­ened with four years in prison if con­vict­ed.

– It’s total­ly absurd to place peo­ple in soli­tary con­fine­ment for more than two days when they’ve done noth­ing but attempt­ing to cross a fence, in a peace­ful, sym­bol­ic action. The activists did what every­one should do: they tried to stop cli­mate change from accel­er­at­ing. With their heavy-hand­ed repres­sion, the police are try­ing to deter us from fur­ther direct action, but we vow to step up our strug­gle. Since the police suc­ceed­ed in nab­bing the activists in Malmö this time, we will have to be more cre­ative when plan­ning our next actions, says Sho­ra Esmail­ian, media spokesper­son for Kli­max.

Also on Fri­day, scores of activists entered the ter­mi­nals at Brom­ma Air­port in Stock­holm and Land­vet­ter Air­port out­side of Gothen­burg. Many were dressed as polar bears and pen­guins. The demon­stra­tions were fol­lowed by die-ins in front of queu­ing pas­sen­gers. In Upp­sala, a city north of Stock­holm, yet anoth­er Kli­max group staged a protest against a planned local air­port. Pic­tures from the actions can be found at this web­site.

On Sat­ur­day, activists in Stock­holm broke into a police sta­tion to demand the imme­di­ate release of their com­rades in Malmö, and a sol­i­dar­i­ty man­i­fes­ta­tion was held in Gothen­burg. All in all, more than a hun­dred activists were involved in the coor­di­nat­ed activ­i­ties over the week­end.

On late Sun­day, the last remain­ing Malmö-activist was released from the deten­tion cen­tre. All sev­en activists will face tri­al, as will anoth­er group of activists who suc­cess­ful­ly seized the run­way at Brom­ma Air­port in April last year.

Kli­max is a rapid­ly grow­ing move­ment in Swe­den. In Stock­holm, the group has focused on an upcom­ing deci­sion to extend the premis­es of Brom­ma Air­port to the year 2038, allow­ing it to increase traf­fic with at least 20 per­cent. The con­tract, due for final approval in March, will be impos­si­ble to abro­gate if politi­cians elect­ed in Stock­holm in the com­ing decades wish to do so: it can only be annulled by the nation­al gov­ern­ment. This is con­sid­ered deeply unde­mo­c­ra­t­ic by Kli­max, but even worse, Brom­ma Air­port is now poised to con­tin­ue pro­pelling domes­tic flights to Gothen­burg, Malmö and oth­er des­ti­na­tions well cov­ered by rail­way con­nec­tions, thus increas­ing unnec­es­sary car­bon emis­sions at a time when they have to be slashed. Already at this date, the avi­a­tion indus­try accounts for at least 10 per­cent of Sweden’s car­bon emis­sions, accord­ing to esti­mates from the Roy­al Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy, and the share is grow­ing. Kli­max is deter­mined to fight this whol­ly irra­tional devel­op­ment until Sweden’s domes­tic avi­a­tion is abol­ished in its entire­ty, as a first nec­es­sary step to a fos­sil-free soci­ety

Stop the Swedish “Triangle of Death” Seven polar bears held for attempted air travel

Cli­mate activist group Kli­max in Swe­den are tired of unnec­es­sary short haul and nation­al flights. Espe­cial­ly between the major cities of Gothen­burg, Stock­holm and Malmo/Copenhagen, all direct­ly cou­pled by the near­est thing Swe­den has to a high speed train. That’s why that on Fri­day the 15th of Feb­ru­ary strange things start­ed hap­pen­ing at air­ports around Swe­den.

Gothenburg airport action 1
Stockholm airport action 2
Cli­mate activist group Kli­max in Swe­den are tired of unnec­es­sary short haul and nation­al flights. Espe­cial­ly between the major cities of Gothen­burg, Stock­holm and Malmo/Copenhagen, all direct­ly cou­pled by the near­est thing Swe­den has to a high speed train. That’s why that on Fri­day the 15th of Feb­ru­ary strange things start­ed hap­pen­ing at air­ports around Swe­den.

Time might be mon­ey but how much cli­mate change is ten min­utes worth? If you don’t have any lug­gage and check in on-line that’s about how much time you can save by fly­ing between Swe­den’s major cities. Con­sid­er­ing that the Swedish trains run on renew­able elec­tric ener­gy, that’s a hell of a lot of cli­mate change for ten min­utes. Ok, it’s not that sim­ple. Why would any sane per­son with­out a cli­mate con­science or a fat wal­let take the train when it’s cheap­er to fly? A rail­way sys­tem that makes the UK’s look mod­ern could also help weigh the bal­ance when it comes to choos­ing how to get there.

Here’s a round up of the dif­fer­ent actions around the coun­try:

Mal­mo http://svt.se/svt/play/video.jsp?a=1057410
At the time of writ­ing sev­en activists are being held in cus­tody. It seems that the crime of run­ning about the coun­try­side dressed as a polar bear is frowned upon in the south of Swe­den. The sev­en were arrest­ed run­ning towards the perime­ter fence of Stu­rup air­port out­side of Mal­mo by the large police pres­ence. It seems that the boys in blue were out on a mass train­ing exer­cise at the time. The police should be hap­py to get a bit of real life train­ing. Attempt­ing to get onto run­ways whilst dressed as a polar bear is def­i­nite­ly one of the fastest going crimes of our time. An inter­est­ing high pub­lic­i­ty court case seems to be in the pipe line. At least one sol­i­dar­i­ty demon­stra­tion (Gothen­burg 2pm Gustaf Adolfs Torg) is planned on Sat­ur­day in Swe­den to demand the release of the Mal­mo sev­en.
Stockholm airport action
Stock­holm
The polar bears of Stock­holm were treat­ed to ice cream by the air­port author­i­ties at Brom­ma. A pleas­ant ges­ture but hard­ly mak­ing up for help­ing to destroy the bears norther­ly habi­tat. Sor­ry you fam­i­ly drowned but here’s a rasp­ber­ry rip­ple to make up for it,sort of thing. A die in was staged as oth­er peace­ful pro­test­ers with ban­ners and fly­ers roamed the ter­mi­nal rais­ing aware­ness of the envi­ron­men­tal harm caused by air trav­el. There are present­ly plans to enlarge Brom­ma air­port in Stock­holm. The ques­tion is what are the politi­cians and plan­ners think­ing. In a time and a coun­try where every nine year old knows about glob­al warm­ing and its caus­es, the author­i­ties get the idea of expand­ing air­ports. It might be time to let the kids take over the pow­er. They could hard­ly do a worse job than the cli­mate crim­i­nals doing the job now. But then the kids are self­ish­ly more wor­ried about their future than in the hon­est busi­ness of mak­ing short term finan­cial gains.

Gothen­burg
A die in was staged in front of the secu­ri­ty gate at Land­vet­ter air­port out­side of Gothen­burg. Twen­ty activists arrived at the air­port to stage the protest on Fri­day evening. The die in was for the ben­e­fit of pas­sen­gers on their way to emit the largest pos­si­ble amount of green­house gas­es whilst cov­er­ing the 300 or so miles to Stock­holm. After mirac­u­lous­ly reviv­ing them­selves the activists formed a ban­ner wall to wel­come three plane loads of arrivals from the cap­i­tal. The whole thing went down peace­ful­ly with the mas­sive police pres­ence (at least three cop­pers for every cli­mate cru­sad­er) stand­ing around look­ing bored.
Uppsala airport action
Upp­sala
The uni­ver­si­ty town of Upp­sala north of Stock­holm does­n’t have a nice warm pas­sen­ger air­port to stage an action in. The com­pa­ny Upp­sala Air is doing its best to change this. They want to pro­vide a pleas­ant pas­sen­ger ter­mi­nal so that local cli­mate activists would have some­where warm to stage protests. In the best “make do with what you’ve got spir­it“, the Upp­sala activist cre­at­ed their own run­way in the city cen­ter to illus­trate how pleas­ant­ly an air­port can con­vert a bor­ing piece of coun­try­side into noisy pol­lut­ing cli­mate chal­leng­ing strip of asfalt.

This is just the start of the Swedish resis­tance against cli­mate crim­i­nal­i­ty. Watch this space for the next move. We think cars are also plane stu­pid. Hon­est!

http://klimatet.org/